Disclaimer: Most of what I own is within 10 feet of me. I am in Boston. CI is not. Therefore, it is a tautological conclusion that I do not own anything associated with Law and Order: Criminal Intent.
Author's Note: So sick I didn't go to
school today (and that's sick) I, in my sleepless haze, poked around in the
Criminal Intent section at Fanfiction.net, and was pleasantly surprised. Dazed and confused, I was motivated to write
my own fic, to say thank you to all out there who
make my day better.
~ * ~ * ~ *
She had always assumed it would be a case that would finally crack him.
A pile of dead bodies, as vulnerable after death as they had been in it, and no one in jail paying for the loss. A question mark hanging over a file which hours of labor had failed to grant illumination. A perp a little bit too slimy, too deranged, a killer with a mental flow Bobby could understand too deeply. It would all go as it had gone before, except he would slip, and this time he would not be able to catch himself, she would not be able to bring him back with a word and a touch, and whether that was the last act or he had many left to go, that would be that for Bobby Goren, detective –and partner- extraordinaire.
It was one of those expectations that are latent, hidden so deeply within the process of living one unremarkable day after another that she wouldn't even have been indignant at the suggestion; only surprised. The day to day is run by routine, and over the years it had almost become routine for Bobby to occasionally come close to the edge, but never to fall.
At last, it wasn't a case that did it. Granted, the stack of unsolved and failed prosecutions they had garnered over the years collected like the season's first snow on his shoulders, peered out at her from exhausted eyes while his voice told her that he was fine, sleep being all that was necessary until he was good as new. Made it that much more difficult for him to shake himself free and continue on.
Eames often thought of what a new Bobby would have been like, fresh from the box and plastic, free of the cares and worries that hadn't even waited until he was an adult to seek him out.
She knew she had been expecting him to eventually fail in his struggle with sanity because when he did, it wasn't the what, but the why that surprised her the most.
Sometimes, when it was late at night, and her mind was so fatigued that she forgave it any indiscretion, she tried to picture a new Bobby meeting a new Alex, ties to the real world not broken, but never formed. Thought about what they might say when there were no words and no history, only the two of them, sharing the wonder of being alive in a promising new world.
In waking hours, they were who they had always been. Two four dimensional creatures, side by side with the rest of the police force for a small distance at least. Closer, yes, paths intertwined, perhaps, but no more than a small knot after miles of independent histories.
Conceited, to think of herself as the knot that he couldn't quickly untangle and be done with. To be the one –yes, she could allow that there were others- that came at the wrong time, when he was strong enough to try but too weak to succeed.
As his partner, it was more than her job, it was her duty to help him pick himself up. As his friend, whenever she saw him hurt, all she wanted was to fix him.
And now it was her fault that he was broken.
So many years, and she thought she knew it all. She committed the cardinal sin of detective work and assumed that similar situations would produce a similar result. It was happily oblivious under this false estimation that she took his silence to be his usual silence, and overlooked the way his hands wouldn't stop playing with each other.
She did know he would be upset. They had finally caught a man whose mentally ill wife was unable to protect her young son, much less do anything for the drifters he would drag home and slowly burn, limb by limb, until they died.
Alex did not know what Bobby's childhood had been like. She did know that he would see a part of his self in that boy. Did know that she needed to take him home, needed to let him be quite, and needed to listen not to what he would say, but to what his eyes told her when she would ask if he wanted her to stay with him.
She knew these things because this is what had happened before. Years of knowing him had reduced her to a stock of responses, when she no longer studied him to try and locate what had struck him and how and why.
As the police had taken away the mother, gently but taking no risks as they removed her to the hospital she had been in need of for so long, Alex had seen the pale thin hand reach out. Had seen the panicked eyes searching for her little boy, and seen the boy react, running to his mother and grabbing her hand, pressing it to his tearstained face even as the officers around him wondered if perhaps he was in danger. Had seen the police finally relent, and allow the boy to accompany his mother until child protective services would intervene. Had seen the back doors close and the ambulance drive off, leaving a crime scene and those who would be working it.
Had noticed Bobby as he witnessed the same scene. But had not thought of what he would see.
She pulled into the lot behind his building, still thinking she had all the answers.
"Bobby?" A gentle voice in his ear, an equally gentle hand on his arm were apologetic reminders of the real world.
"Yeah? Oh, thanks." His aimless glance was orienting, and he opened the door as if to get out. Instead, he fell back, the car rocking from his weight landing back on the passenger seat. His hands rose to cover his face, and with elbows in he was as curled up as over 200 pounds of muscle can curl.
It would only be a minute before he collected himself. Out of habit Eames would be there for him. She opened her own door and crossed around the front, kneeling quietly before him until his hands came down.
"Do you want me to stay?" The familiar question. Once innocent, now she hoped he would say no.
"Alex-" He was tall. So much taller than her when he was standing. And they were very close now. And she wasn't looking at him, wasn't paying enough attention to see that when he reached for her, he wasn't seeing Alex, the woman he maybe might be something in the realm of in love with, but Alex, the friend he needed comfort from, right then.
No, she had thought it was all about her, making it all about her when it should have been about him.
"-Bobby- no. I- we can't." She had stepped back from his embrace, holding up a hand between them as if to ward him off. It was then she saw her mistake.
"What? I don't know..." He stepped away as well, responding to her rejection even as he didn't understand why. He hit the side of her car, bringing a hand to his temple as if that would help him understand what was going on.
Then she saw that he was not thinking of their 'almost' kiss, but of his constantly buried need for the safety a family can provide. That he was not even thinking of her, but has become lost, for a moment, in the pain of the past, and the desire that his mother would extend her hand to him, from the depths of her own personal hell.
As soon as she saw this she tried to go to him, but already he had moved past it, pushing it back into wherever he stored hurtful thoughts and memories.
It was a familiar transition, from his private world to the world she inhabited with him. But when she had pushed him away he slipped, and it was with an unfamiliar expression in his eye that he turned again to face her.
"You 'can't' huh? Who'd it make jealous?" This was him drunk. This was him more than drunk, worse, but he hadn't had a drop.
"Bobby-" They were both overtired. She tried to take his arm, even to put her hand on his cheek. A plea to ignore everything she had said, if only he would calm down, let her take him home.
"No!" He was shaking. He used one hand against the car to steady himself, to push off enough to remain standing. "Or is it just me? Huh? It's just me, isn't it, that you 'can't'?"
Unsteady as he was, he hung over her. There were times Alex had been afraid for Bobby; times she'd been afraid with him, or in spite of him. This was the first time she had been afraid of him.
"What? C-c-c-cat got your tongue?" He used the ridiculous mocking stutter that should only have been directed at criminals, never his partner.
He was treating her like scum, and he was laughing, and this wasn't the Bobby she knew so she didn't know what he was capable of. She stopped herself from shrinking away from him, hoping that he could hear her.
"Bobby, I want to help you." She focused on his eyes, wanting to understand. Against better judgment, her hand crept out to take his, hating the tremors that hit him because she knew how it would upset him to show this sign of weakness, even to her.
He used none of the power he was capable of when he knocked her hands away. Still, she pulled her hand back and shrunk away like he had slapped her. He watched all of this and she knew he understood, but instead of apologizing he was laughing, and his laugh did nothing to reassure her. "Want to help me? With what? With this?" He was getting in her face, trying to disconcert her, and even though she had committed no crime against the law, she was frightened. It was with new panic that she watched his arm move as if to grab his crotch suggestively. It was then with relief and new concern that she followed his hand up until it gesturing to the air around them.
"Now you're saying," He pushed her away by dropping back in the fashion the old Bobby would, making the show without hurting her. "that you want to help me, with what? With all this? With this?" His hand touched his chest, right over his heart, and he was pleading with her for one moment until he was angry again. "What?"
"-Bobby?" One of her classes had been on how to talk to the mentally ill. But this was her partner.
"So you want to help me, but, oh, what's that? You just said you can't. Why can't you?" He was pacing and shouting and she was crying not because her Bobby was gone, but because this was her Bobby, mutated and degraded and faded, yet the same man.
"Why can't you? Because, of, of who it might jealous? Or maybe because we're partners. Right? Is that it? I'll bet it is because that's a pretty good reason. Leaves things open to interpretation, calling on a form of honor, not offensive to me… Or maybe you value our friendship too much to jeopardize it, right?" In the interrogation room, she watched him pull these tricks on numbers of suspects. Knowing what was coming didn't help lessen the shock as his voice played down into a calm agreeable tone, before flying off again into a shout. "NO. You can't why? You can't, with me. That's right, isn't it? You can't because it's me."
Just as quickly, he was near tears and she didn't know what to say.
"Why not me? Huh, why not-?" The sound of his name broke through the anger of his latest tirade. "Why? Seriously, Alex. Because we're partners?" He was nodding so complacently that she was nodding along before he shouted again. "No! If we weren't partners, you still wouldn't. It's because of, of me, of who I am… Because of what's here, right, what's going to happen?"
He was pointing to his head and they were both crying. Both knew he was nearing the end of his strength.
"Bobby!-" She was reaching out to him again but this time he shrank from her touch.
"No!" Still moving away, but his joints were too weak, he couldn't help it, and the next minute he was unconscious.
Alex rushed to him, cradled his head and wondered what to do. For the longest time she sat there, holding him, unable to call the police.