Title: How I Forgave Him (...and He Forgave Me)

Author: Auntie Shred

Summary: Alex Eames's thoughts during Betrayed

Disclaimer: The Law & Order characters are owned by Dick Wolf. No infringement of rights is intended. This story is written for entertainment purposes only.

I knew I had to forgive Bobby, but I was enjoying my grudge. It's embarrassing to admit, but I felt a perverse pleasure in ignoring his attempts to make eye contact, or abruptly walking away as he was speaking, or glaring at him for no other purpose than to make him stutter and second-guess himself. He tried all the peace offerings that had worked in the past, but I wouldn't cooperate. I folded my arms tightly across my chest and frowned. I wanted him to suffer because I had suffered on his behalf. I'd been cut off from him, and now I kept him cut off from me. Childish? Misdirected? Yes and yes. But I did it anyway.

When I was honest with myself (which I avoided as much as possible; I'd only face the truth while curled up in my bed late at night) I knew the undercover fiasco with Stoat and the horror of Tates Correctional weren't fully Bobby's fault. In my sleepless midnight sessions I mentally charted it all out, just as we'd often diagrammed the history of an investigation. If I'd had a whiteboard in my bedroom I could have drawn it neatly: it was Captain Ross who set off the whole catastrophe.

Ross came into the Major Case Squad with a prejudice against Bobby. He'd obviously gotten all his information from Chief Moran; I wonder if he ever spoke to Captain Deakins. It didn't help that our first case under Ross was the Jo Gage murders, because he had an even worse opinion of Declan Gage, and his distrust of Bobby went off the charts when he learned of their connection.

I know I was no angel. Ross kept forcing me to be the mediator between him and Bobby, which annoyed me no end - did he see me as the big sister who was supposed to keep her mischievous brother out of trouble? We had a great solve record - why didn't he just let us do our job? I couldn't vent my frustration on the captain, so poor Bobby usually caught the worst of my temper on top of his own conflicts with Ross, not to mention the mounting problems with his family.

We'd been gradually inching toward some kind of semi-peaceful coexistence, but the moment that pointed us directly toward the cliff was when Captain Ross let Bobby's nephew Donny be sent back to Tates, instead of keeping him at Rikers or the holding cell at One PP - without even the courtesy of notifying Bobby. Did Ross imagine that Bobby wouldn't notice? Or that he'd just shrug and go back to what he'd been doing? On top of that insult, he ordered Bobby out on a week of sick leave. I honestly wanted to punch the man in the head for such an incredibly stupid stunt. Of course he did it just to prove he was the boss, and to rub Bobby's nose in it.

I've done plenty of second-guessing about the plan Bobby and I worked out for his investigation into Tates, but Ross also has to bear a big part of the blame. There's no way he couldn't have held Donny long enough to set up a real investigation. No one reaches captain's rank without knowing his way around the system. I could probably have arranged it myself if I'd had his support. I have a sneaking suspicion he didn't want to call in a favor - to waste it - on Bobby.

And then Bobby almost died in Tates, and then Moran punished Bobby for being right without going through the proper buddy-boy channels, and then Moran wouldn't let Bobby back from suspension, and then Bobby almost died again - at the point of my gun! So much disaster came out of one thick-headed, stubborn action.

All I ever wanted, and all Bobby ever wanted, was to do our job: protect the innocent, catch the criminals, and provide the District Attorney's office with solid, untainted evidence and confessions. Yes, I understand that we have to deal with a certain amount of politics - that goes with nearly every job in the world - but is it too much to ask that we have the support of our own captain? To Ross's credit, he did try to make up for it by coming with me to Tates to rescue Bobby, but by then it cost him and me both a mark in our service jackets.

So anyway, that's what cycled endlessly through my mind all those nights I couldn't sleep. It didn't make sense to be angry at Bobby, but every morning when I walked into the squad room all my logic went out the window again, and I treated him like the enemy. I could see how deeply I cut him, but I couldn't make myself stop, and I knew he felt too guilty and worn down to tell me what a jerk I was.

I guess it's fitting that one silly word finally made me decide to put aside my grudge. It came during our investigation of the disappearance of Kathy Jarrow's husband, when we were interviewing Trina, Roy Hubert's former wife (and current girlfriend (a situation too creepy to contemplate)). Trina kept throwing their sex life in our faces. Bobby had moved back to his usual spot in the corner, where he liked to observe and analyze, but she wasn't letting either of us escape from the raunchy details.

Here's what did it: she called him Bullwinkle! Of all the goofy cartoon characters, how did she come up with that name for Bobby? I pulled her back on topic, and we finished the interview, but it kept rolling around my mind. She obviously meant it as an insult (did that make me Rocky the Flying Squirrel?). The more I thought, the more annoyed I was with her. That bizarre woman had no right to mock him.

Once I made the mental shift onto Bobby's side, I became very aware of Captain Ross's treatment of Bobby and me throughout this case. He was obviously trying to give his friend Kathy the benefit of the doubt, and I couldn't blame him for the impulse. However, when either of us pointed out any fact that cast suspicion on her, he invariably got angry at Bobby. Ross does that a lot. Anything unpleasant or offensive has to be Goren's fault. Eames? She's just the unfortunate bystander partner. Maybe I should have directed my "water carrier" ream-out at the captain instead of Bobby. (Of course if I'd done that, my suspension would have started the same day Bobby's ended.)

Then it hit me that for all the complaints I had against Ross or Trina, I'd been much, much harder on Bobby than either of them. If the worst thing I'd done was to call him a dumb name like Bullwinkle, he'd have accepted it with a smile and engraved it on a name plate for his desk. Suddenly it didn't matter that my imagined flow chart proved that Captain Ross had made the initial mistake, or even that he was behaving like an insecure eighth-grader. It was past time for me to start acting like the friend and partner I claimed to be. I couldn't punish my captain (best not to think too far in that direction), but I could certainly stop punishing my partner.

With all these thoughts bouncing guiltily around my mind, I needed to avoid Bobby for a while after our interview with Trina, but near the end of the day we sat down in the conference room to sort out the latest information and plan our next steps. When I looked Bobby in the eye - without hostility - I could tell he wasn't sure how to respond. When I asked his opinion on my idea to confront Kathy at the chop-shop lot in the Bronx, he hesitated as though he expected me to pounce. I had to insist I meant it, and it shamed me to see his huge relief once he believed me. He quickly thought of bringing in Ross and the Medical Examiner's van, a clever trick that would likely make our case even stronger. When I paused at the door on the way out, he actually bumped into me in his eagerness to open it for me, and then apologized in a gush. I bumped right back against him and rolled my eyes as I headed toward the captain's office.

If a friend had treated me as harshly as I'd treated Bobby, would I have been so willing to forgive and move on? I doubt it, but God bless him, he didn't throw my meanness back in my face. He was obviously curious, but I could tell he wasn't sure enough of me to ask anything yet. We made the arrangements for the next day, and his "See you in the morning" was more cheerful than it had been in months.

~-~ ~-~ ~-~ ~-~ ~-~ ~-~

Bobby's questions finally reached the surface the next morning as we were driving out to the Hunt's Point lot. He was quiet for most of the ride, fidgeting and gazing out the window in his usual inner-focused way. Suddenly I felt his eyes on me.

I briefly glanced over. "What?" I said, knowing.

"So," he said quietly, "you're not, um, you're not angry at me any more?"

"No, not any more."

"Good." A long pause. "We're okay, then?"

"Okay would be a vast overstatement." I kept my eyes on the road, but I could tell he'd stopped moving altogether and was listening intently. "Look Bobby," I continued, "I want us to be okay - I need us to be okay - but we have to clear up a lot of stuff between us."

"Yeah. Eames, I-"

"But now's not the best time to start," I said, and pointed ahead. "Look, we're almost there. And this interview with Kathy's not going to be pleasant."

Bobby puffed out a breath, and nodded. "All right - but soon."

"Yep." I gave him a quick smile as we pulled into the lot. "Let's do this." It was amazing how much better I felt than just one day ago. I was so much lighter on the inside. From the look on his face, I knew Bobby felt the same.

We played Kathy well. For Ross's sake I hid it, but I really enjoyed watching Bobby taunt her. She probably thought he was a bumbling Bullwinkle, too - but in the end she was the one who looked like a second-rate hack. So much for her clever detective skills.

Afterward, when Kathy had been led away by the officers, and Ross snapped at Bobby to be quiet, I gently grasped his sleeve and led him back to our car. I leaned against the door, pleasantly warm in the sunshine.

Bobby looked at me pleadingly. "I wasn't going to say, 'I told you so.'"

"I know," I said. "He just needs a little time. Kathy pulled the rug out from under him when he thought he could trust her. That's got to hurt."

Bobby began his peculiar, shuffling, uneven kind of pacing. I gave him half a minute, then reached out and touched his arm to stop him. "Hey," I said, "don't read us into this." He blinked and his mouth fell open – I'd hit exactly on what he was thinking.

"But that's what I did to you," he said, shaking his head. "You trusted me, and I-"

I held up my hand to interrupt. "I'm pretty sure you didn't murder three people - did you?"

"Eames, it's not –"

"No, I didn't think so," I continued, ignoring his response. "I do see one similarity: I pretty much told you to go to hell - often, and in front of lots of people. That was way out of line. No matter what happened to make me angry, I was wrong. Bobby..." I leaned forward and waited until he looked me full in the face. "I'm sorry for the way I treated you. Please forgive me."

"You – you don't... No, I'm the one who needs to apologize! After everything I put you through, the fact that you're even talking to me..." He clutched at his heart, and I felt my throat close up suddenly at his sweet earnestness. The instant rush of emotion caught me completely by surprise.

Deep breath. We couldn't start crying in a junk lot in the Bronx, in front of our captain and the ME van crew and the whole world. I looked up at the sky for a few moments; when I tried to grin at him I still felt the danger of tears.

"Oh great, just look at us," I said shakily.

He turned away, but held his hand out toward me sideways. I grabbed it, gave it a quick squeeze, and released it.

I finally got control of my voice. "I accept your apology, but you didn't say if you forgive me."

"Yes, of course I do." His voice sounded pretty unsteady, too. His eyes were clear, though, and his smile genuine. "You know I do."

I took another deep breath and fished the car keys out of my pocket. "Good, and you can prove it by letting me buy lunch."

"It's a little early for lunch, don't you think?"

I checked the time. "Well I need coffee. That fantastic bakery on Arthur Avenue is on our way back, then booking and paperwork, then lunch. Real lunch - not at our desks. We still have a lot to talk about."

"Can we get cannoli?"

I let my shoulder brush against his arm as I walked around to the driver's side. "You always did know how to sweet-talk me."

THE END