"A mile in my shoes"
Eames knows what Goren's going through; with references to Blind Spot and Season 10. This is a partnership story with hints of "strong feelings". I haven't written much of anything in ages. I haven't written Goren and Eames in just as long. I may have forgotten how. I hope you'll make allowances.
Of course these characters belong to Dick Wolf and others; even if from now on they only live in my mind. – Dix.
Eames watched as Goren waited for a break in the traffic and then crossed the street at a trot. After she was kidnapped, there were department mandated sessions with a shrink on NYPD's payroll. She knows what he's going through. He's got the weight of the world on his shoulders. He's trying to prove his worth at work and prove his sanity to someone paid to spot dissembling.
She remembers the relentless questions about unrelated events. She recalls her own long silences and the overwhelming desire to get it over with or just get out. She remembers the urge to swear, turn over the chair she's perched on and run from the shrink's office.
She wonders if Bobby is doing any better keeping it together. At least she didn't have to convince anybody that she was saner than she felt or happier. The shrink craved her anger and her fear.
And after every session, she showered and changed her clothes because the questions tangled in her hair and the answers left her slick with sweat. And each week, she'd spend an hour at the gun range peppering paper targets with her frustrations.
The shrink seemed focused on connecting all the parts of her life, her family, her work, her love life to the horror of the kidnapping. For once she was glad that she wasn't "in a relationship" as the shrink put it. Instead she was grateful for the anonymity of the bar and a dark stranger's fierce kisses on her neck and his hand under her shirt. But her mind cleared suddenly and fear underpinned her willpower. When she realized that this was as dangerous as the kidnapping, she broke away from his street corner grasp, hailed a cab and muttered the only address she remembered.
The tables were turned then. She leaned on Bobby's buzzer after midnight reeking of drink. She was too lonely and too afraid to go home. He let her in without a word and poured her a drink so she wouldn't leave. He put bourbon and two ice cubes into a glass. It's all he had in the house and besides he didn't know everything about her past. She took tiny sips. She didn't want to leave. He didn't ask her why she's there. He didn't harry her with inane questions. Instead, he sat beside her and showed her large colour photographs in an album sized book. For some reason, he was fixated on an island chain near Tonga and there's actually a book about it; which means that someone else was obsessed too. She didn't say much, but after a few minutes of listening to his voice, her eyelids began to flutter. He put the book down and stood up. He took the glass and reached for the blanket on the back of the couch. He pulled it across her body, now prone, and rested a hand on her shoulder, like a blessing.
Other nights she arrived in a rage, drunk and weaving in his doorway. She railed against the fates and one particularly bad night pounded her fists against his chest and swore. He held her and whispered into her hair "Sorry, sorry" over and over.
And then there were months when she didn't come, months when nothing happened and then for a week or nearly two she came every night. The first time was prearranged. She brought food and a bottle of wine and left before ten. The next night, just before ten, she arrived with the wine and enough drinks in her to make her bold. He put her in a cab before eleven. Finally she went back to the old pattern, arriving after midnight drunk and shattered, but only once in a while.
And it's in this way that she survived the kidnapping and returned to work. They never talked about these visits in the light of day. He never told her not to come or to get her shit together. She thinks it's because he feels guilty and he did feel guilty. She thinks it might be because he felt sorry for her and he does feel sorry. She never guessed what his shrink has already figured out. She never guessed that one of the secrets he hides beneath the thin veneer of his anger is a keen tenderness for her. It is so poorly concealed that Dr. Gyson finds it almost immediately and calls it love, but Eames is blind to it.
Alex only knows for sure that Bobby Goren's steadfast friendship was the reason she got past the kidnapping and fought through the post-traumatic stress and why most nights she sleeps and why she's still his partner. Not through some interminable discussion with her shrink about all the ways her parents failed her in childhood, but through Bobby's kindness and his willingness to catch her when she fell. She only hopes she can be there for him - keep being there for him.
When she sees the door to the office across the street open and sees his face, he doesn't need to tell her that this session went badly. He doesn't need to say why he left while there was still time on the clock. She doesn't look at him when he gets in the truck. She can hear the fire in his breathing and feel the tension radiate as he snaps the seatbelt buckle into place. He rubs a hand across the back of his neck and stares out his window. She puts the truck in gear and pulls out of the parking spot, but she doesn't say a word
Finally a couple of blocks later, when he seems able to bear it, she says, "We should grab lunch before we go back to work," she doesn't expect a response. "I'm thinking pizza." She puts on the turn signal and slows to take the corner. "There's a place right around here."
They travel in silence three more blocks and she takes a left and eases into a parking spot. "Over there," she points when the truck stops. Bobby follows her gesture with his eyes, he's finally back in the moment.
It's not a lot Alex knows, but it's all she's got to offer him. It's what she's offered all along. She calls it friendship. Dr. Gyson calls it love. Whatever it is, Eames hopes and prays it will be enough to get him through, not just for his own sake, but because she can't bear the weight of her own world without him in it.
Thanks for reading. – Dix.