A/N: So, muse of mine is doing post eps for those episodes long gone by, yet again. Could count for "Untethered" if you so wish. I own nothing.
He's tempted to leave her a note when the news comes down that he's being suspended, but something keeps him from doing it.
There is no one sitting there at her desk when he returns to the squad room. Everything is still there; giving the impression that someone is coming back at some point in time. The funny thing about it is that there are still things there on his desk, too. But he doesn't yet know how that part of things is going to go, and he isn't sure if he even wants to.
The only reason he even wandered back on down from where he was informed that he was being placed on suspension is to grab a few things out of his desk, and then to leave.
So that's exactly what he does.
And he doesn't see her coming out of the break room, turning to stare at his back as he walks away.
The only thing left to do is wander, and so he does that, too.
Where he ends up is all the way on the other side of the city, at some hole-in-the-wall place in the Bronx near the border into Westchester County. It is a long way from where he was standing in the midst of a sea of people in Times Square, but somehow, it is exactly what he needs…to be away from everyone and everything.
This, says a voice in the back of his mind, includes her, but something else begs to differ.
And so he remains where he is, knowing that to go back won't do any good, but to stay here might hurt a little less than anything else he might do.
The hand that refills the coffee cup sitting in front of him goes unnoticed. After a moment, he takes a sip from it and continues to sit, almost not daring to move.
Indefinite is a strange word, he muses. It could mean five minutes, it could mean five years…it could actually mean forever.
This time, there aren't any easy answers.
And even if there were, he doubts that he'd be able to find them.
Once again, he's managed to make it so complicated that it's going to be really hard to find his own way out of it. It's his own fault, really, and he knows it, on some level. If he'd left well enough alone, like he was supposed to have done, none of this would be happening now, but he's never been one to leave well enough alone. Especially not when there are questions to be answered.
So, now there's one detective suspended, one inmate missing, one relationship completely shot to hell and another one getting to that point.
The count this time is against him and rising fast. Tomorrow morning, there will be the alarm clock, the bleary-eyed stumbling into the shower where he'll stay until he's awake. There will be the momentary debate over what he's going to wear and the cup of coffee even though he knows he's going to stop and grab two more anyway, one for him and one for his partner.
It won't hit him until he's halfway out the door that he can't go back to the work because the Chief of D's is pissed and there's a mark in the captain's file and one on Eames', too, and yet another comment on his.
It isn't the comment on his that bothers him as much as the mark on his partner's.
Part of him regrets having even dragged her into this mess in the first place, but he couldn't have helped it: one of the rules he learned back in Narcotics with everyone else that he still talks to is that you don't go undercover without someone knowing where you are.
So he'd told her and hoped for the best, even though he knew that playing the role of someone everyone already thinks he's becoming was only going to blow up in their faces.
Sure enough, that's exactly what it does.
And so he downs the rest of his coffee and waits, knowing that he'll never be able to sleep now, and also knowing that it's better than getting drunk.
As he does it, he continues to mull over the current situation and the hand appears again to refill the coffee mug, but he doesn't notice it this time, either.
As this happens, across the city from where Bobby Goren finds himself, Alex Eames stares at the desk across from hers and then glares towards the captain's office.
There is no note from her partner. She can't say that she particularly expected him to leave one, because in all honesty, she didn't, but it might have helped. She hasn't been able to get a hold of him for the past little while, and it hits her as she thinks about it that the ringing sound she's been hearing is a lot closer than she'd like it to be.
So she gets up, walks around to his side of their desks, and yanks open one of the drawers, holding her cell phone, currently dialing the number to his.
Just as she'd suspected, his phone is sitting right there, on top of a few empty manila folders. Swearing under her breath, she flips her own phone shut and wanders back around to her desk.
The door to the captain's office remains closed, which she's grateful for, because she wouldn't swear at Deakins, but Ross is still fair game, and maybe if he'd been willing to look the other way in the first place, this might not have happened.
You're only fooling with that one, says the voice in the back of her head at this. Odds are it probably would have happened, anyway.
Before she can come up with something to tell this annoying little voice, something else from inside of her tells it to shut up, and luckily it does.
However, the problem is that Alex doesn't know how long it's going to stay silent. Even so, she'll take what she can get and right now what she can get is the bag of Skittles sitting right there on her desk. She tears it open, pours a few of the brightly colored candies into her hand, and in a moment of sheer forgetfulness looks across the desks, opening her mouth to ask her partner if he wants any.
The question is halfway out before she cuts herself off, abruptly, struck by the sudden empty feeling that seems so common lately. She doesn't miss the halfway-sympathetic look that comes from the other members of the squad.
It makes her want to smack them, because she knows damn well that they don't actually mean it and that somewhere in their minds, they're glad to see him gone.
The only one who actually means it is Logan, so when he tells her that if she wants him to look for some kind of loophole, he'll do it, she doesn't tell him to shove off.
It hits her after a while that besides herself right now, Logan is the only one left from three years ago. Barek is gone, to heaven only knows where, Carver left the DA's office for the other side of the aisle (heaven only knows why)…and Deakins "retired".
She doesn't dare to leave Major Case because she doesn't dare to leave Bobby behind, and because she is almost afraid of what will happen if she does.
The stupid thing about is that a few weeks ago, she was telling her partner, this partner that she's stuck with for longer than anyone else, that it was too late to do anything about the situation they were in. Too late to turn back time and hand in that letter that would have gotten them split up, too late to worry about what effect he's had on her career.
In other words, too late to change her mind, which is what she knows he got out of her remark.
The other stupid thing about it is that things haven't yet slowed down enough for her to tell him that even if she had the chance, she wouldn't.
If things were complicated before, they're even more so now.
She remembers the days where the most complicated thing she had to deal with was figuring out where he was going with something, because it all connected in his head, but not necessarily in hers.
Sitting in the coffee shop in the Bronx, Bobby thinks back on the first days after he and Alex met and wishes that they could go back to the way that things used to be.
In the squad room, she downs another handful of Skittles and throws a few more of them at his desk chair, one by one, echoing something he did when she was on maternity leave.
Both of them come to the conclusion that maybe this break is what they need to fix things between them at the exact same moment. At the same time, Bobby reaches for the cell phone that isn't there and Alex flips hers open intending to call him.
They're halfway there before remembering that his cell phone is in the desk drawer that she slammed shut mere moments ago.
My partner is not crazy, Alex thinks, stubbornly, when she notices Ross looking out at her from the office.
My partner is a saint for sticking with me, Bobby thinks, when he opens his wallet and sees the picture of them that he took five years ago and hid from her because he didn't want her to know he had it.
Somewhere along the lines, there developed a tie that pulled them so close together that it bothers her to let him alone when she knows something's wrong, and it bothers him that she can tell.
Somewhere along the line, he figured out that he might just be in love with her and it scares him enough that he wants to stay away, even though he knows he probably shouldn't.
And somewhere along the line, despite her own losses, she figured out that things just aren't the same without him, and if he leaves her now, she might just fall apart.
What he wants, right now, is a place inside her heart. And what she wants, right now, is a place inside of his.
What neither of them know is that the respective places are already there.