Mid/Post-ep for Magnificat. Please R&R. It's been a long time since I've done this. I appreciate your feedback.
"Mister Carver!" Bobby grabbed the criminal procedure law book and shook it at Carver. "Isn't there something in this book that can make him take responsibility for that?"
The softness of his consonants didn't escape Eames. For a brief, almost imperceptible moment, Bobby was not Detective Goren. He was Bobby Goren, and he wanted to know, once and for all, if there was anything in the law he fought to uphold every day that would make a son of a bitch like the one sitting on the other side of the glass take responsibility for his wife and children.
"There wasn't when I checked this morning." Carver said quietly. "I'm sorry, Detective." He squared his shoulders and turned to Eames. "Please send Mr. Whitlock home."
Eames dug into the skin under her thumbnail with her ring finger, then, at the sharp sting of pain, put her hand up to her brow for a moment, as if trying to steady her thoughts. "Home. So he can start designing his son's new life." She turned and left, leaving Bobby to face the man in the interview room.
He paused for only a moment to contemplate the man who sat alone in that room, then he too walked out, letting the door slam behind him. When he grabbed his coat, he saw that Eames was already gone. Deakins nodded stiffly as he walked out, portfolio in hand. He gripped it tighter when he remembered the little boy's drawing still tucked safely inside it.
When he caught up to her, she was already at the bar. She was contemplating a gin and tonic, sliding the lime slowly around the rim of her glass. Bobby wanted to break something. Instead, he turned the tall chair next to her backwards, and sat down so that he was leaned towards her, angled to face her. He folded his arms across the back of the chair, and stared hard at her drink.
"I ordered you whiskey on the rocks." She said.
As if on cue, the bartender slid the glass towards him. He didn't shift his gaze, but thoughtfully twisted it in slow half-circles.
"It's like," he put his hands out carefully, as if holding something. "We hold all the cards, and we make the rules to the game." He clenched his teeth, letting his hands fall, and the invisible cards with them. He picked up his drink and took a long swallow.
The jukebox started up with the pop and hiss of an old record playing. An old guitar riff played the familiar start to a blues song. "I went to the crossroads, fell down on my knees." Robert Johnson's voice began to crackle out of the old speakers. "Asked the Lord above, have mercy now, save poor Bob if you please,"
"I don't know why they keep dumping money in that thing. We haven't had new music in there since what, 1932?" The bartender told Alex with a shake of his head. She smiled noncommittally. He ducked his head and found his way to the other side of the bar.
"I just keep thinking about that little boy." Alex rubbed her temples. Bobby looked up.
"I think I might actually have an idea about that," he said after a minute. "Hold on." He stood up abruptly and stepped toward the quieter alcove reserved for restrooms and an old payphone. She looked over her shoulder to see him dialing a number on his cell phone, then pacing as he bent his head to hear. When he returned, he smiled.
"I have a friend - a family court lawyer. He's very, very good."
"How good?"
"Good enough that, with Carver's help, I have no doubt he can get custody for the grand mother."
Alex pressed her lips hard together and nodded. "Good. That's good." She sighed, and finished her drink, nodding to the bartender for another.
They sat, silence spreading between them. Alex absentmindedly fraying her bar napkin, and gratefully accepted her refill. Bobby stared intently at his clenched hands. The old wound that had cruelly been opened seemed unwilling to bleed, but equally unwilling to close. A hard knot twisted in Alex's stomach. Her nephew couldn't ease this pain, like he could so many others. Now, she ached to hold and comfort the man sitting next to her. She blinked hard, and took a swallow of her drink.
Bobby replayed the confrontation over in his head. "Now that? That's affect." He had spit the words into the man's shaking face. But the rage the man had felt was indignation, not anger or sorrow over his children. He felt indignation that he might be responsible for his wife's misdeeds. Indignation to be accused. It wasn't enough. It wasn't. He needed ... he wanted to show this man what he had done. It was a desperate desire to share pain. To procure remorse. Like a skillful gardner, tending a forest of melancholy trees until their branches were laden with heavy fruits, ripe and weeping. He would sow each seed with pain and sorrow.
When it was last call, the partners who had barely spoken to each other, just drank in companionable silence, walked out of the bar together. The space between them was insurmountably great. The woman who yearned to reach out and comfort a man who could no longer be comforted over a wound too deep and too old to heal. A man who needed not to be soothed, but to show the butchers their true faces, and force them to acknowledge their role.
One little boy might have a better life, if Goren's friend had anything to do with it, but it seemed empty. Too little too late. Goren walked Eames home, and they said goodnight. Eames' face remained hardened and set, but as soon as her door had shut and been bolted, it softened, and she slid to the floor, hugging her knees as she sobbed. She angrily wiped her eyes with her wrist, but the tears didn't stop for a long time.