A/N: Apparently, muse didn't want to stay away from a 'Purgatory' post-ep any longer, so here you have it. CI is not mine.
All of your wounds are self-inflicted.
Days after she says this to him, he is still thinking about it.
The stupid thing about it is that it's actually been longer than just a few days since she said it, but every now and then, it comes. It's usually when he least wants to think about it, but every time that feeling comes along, there it is, right in the back of his head. It's like a cold case that sticks with him because no matter what anyone else says, he can never really let it go. Then again, he's never been particularly good at letting things go in the first place, so the fact that he can't let this go isn't really surprising.
What does surprise him, however, is the fact that this time, it almost doesn't hurt.
It's not like the letter.
There is something distinctly different this time around, and he has the feeling that he knows exactly what it is. When she read the letter aloud in open court, those were the opinions that she'd thought years ago, before she really got to know him. These things she'd said to him standing there in the observation room are those things that she thinks now, now that she knows him and has known him for years. He almost wonders what she would have done if she hadn't chosen to voice these things, but at the same time, he doesn't. His partner has never been one to mince words, to sugarcoat things when she didn't have to, and that had been one of those times.
I get it. You're the genius, and I just carry your water.
But it isn't that way at all.
Summer has fallen over New York City and it's as hot as hell outside, but inside the squad room, it is like ice. Ross notices, mostly because it was partly his fault in the first place: the order not to say anything about being undercover had come from him. Logan notices, mostly because he has been in Major Case long enough now to know when something's off. And Wheeler, finally back from Europe, and happily engaged seems cheerfully clueless about everything, which would be amusing if things were not so serious.
Then again, things are probably only that serious to him, because even now, days later, it still doesn't look like Eames really gives a damn if he stays or leaves.
So he watches her, quietly, from his side of their desks, and doesn't dare to say anything.
He wants things to be normal again.
But they can't be, and what makes him want to laugh is the fact that things weren't normal by any means in the first place. He'd worked Narcotics, she'd worked Vice; their paths had crossed before Major Case, but neither of them had put much thought into it. She knew that he wasn't afraid to cross the lines for the truth, and he knew, and still knows, that she's damn good at her job, and anyone who says she isn't is in for it. He has never once said that she isn't, but the fact remains (and here, he looks down at his desk when he notices her looking back at him with that glare) that in not telling her that he was undercover implied as much.
It wasn't what he meant to do. He is supposed to trust her, and does…but gave the impression that he didn't.
And all for the sake of finally getting his shield back, too.
She'd asked him, in front of that diner, why he hadn't answered her calls.
And Bobby, being himself, had tried to find a way out of actually answering the question with the real, honest truth, because the real, honest truth hurt too much, and he was damn tired of hurting already. Of course, this had come across as him just not wanting to talk to her in general, and it couldn't have been more wrong, because seeing her there after having not seen her for so long…She was a sight for sore eyes. But by then, he was already so used to being without her that all he'd told her was that he'd been busy, and then he'd walked off, just like that. He can remember clearly the last time he'd done this, the time he'd told Ross that he didn't really give a damn if he got fired, and told Eames to back off when she was only trying to help.
He'd thought, then, that something else like that would make her want to leave, but had pushed the thought to the back of his head, unwilling to believe it.
In all honesty, now, it would not surprise him if he went in one day and she wasn't there.
Is that all you have to say?
No, I understand, Detective.
The problem with getting used to being without someone is that once you do, you no longer realize what you had while you had it.
This is what he has done. He has let himself get so used to being without her, without everyone else, that when he thinks about it, it hits him that it isn't so much that he's cold as it is that he's numb. He isn't particularly sure which one hurts more, because at least when it was just that cold feeling inside of him, there was something, but now there is nothing. She calls him 'Detective' now, and sometimes doesn't even look him in the eye when she says it. And as for him, well…the half-hearted apology in the observation room still bothers him because he knows that she deserved so much better than that, and yet, he'd frozen, anyway.
And because of that, they were here, now, stuck in this place where neither of them knew where it was going.
A line from a movie surfaces somewhere in his thoughts.
Don't ever let yourself get used to missing someone.
But he has done this, and more. He has let himself get used to missing her, to missing the job, to missing everything that somewhere along the line, he disappeared, and when he resurfaced again, things were only worse than the way they had been.
Another thought hits him, then, hard enough to make him lean back in his chair.
Maybe it is self-inflicted.