My muse really needs to learn to pick her moments. I was in a meeting the other day when she hit me with this story. I give it now to you with the disclaimer that it's my first time writing from Bobby's point of view (and a practice exercise for another fic I'm working on) and has no real plot to speak of, so it may not be any good. I also need to add that I don't own any of these characters – in fact, when I write about them, they own me. Enjoy…

He gets home in time to flick on the TV and catch a few snippets of the 11:00 news – which would be a great way to forget all about his day if the lead story didn't feature the details of the homicide case he'd just wrapped that afternoon, complete with a bustling courthouse shot of he and his partner hurrying down the stairs through a sea of reporters and flashbulbs.

Wherever you go, there you are, he thinks ruefully, granting the flickering images only a passing glance. The TV provides the only illumination for the room because he hasn't bothered to turn any lights on in the apartment. In fact, he hasn't even hung up his overcoat, which lays draped over his right arm, or put down his keys, which remain in his hand. The only visible sign that he's come home and taken himself off-duty is the badge that lays discarded on the kitchen counter where he tossed it as he passed through the door.

The reporter moves onto another story and with a sigh, Detective Bobby Goren drops the coat onto a nearby chair and reaches up to pull the tie from around his neck, the process aided by the fact that its knot was loosened considerably before he ever left the station and the top button of his collar already unfastened. It's a habit he's had ever since he can remember – or at least since he started wearing ties - that when he's working a difficult case (which is most of the time), he can't concentrate unless his tie is unknotted. Once his brain starts cycling through it's encyclopedia-like stores of information for clues and helpful bits of trivia, the tie has to go otherwise he feels like he's choking on his own thoughts, like they're being cut off before he can give them the proper amount of attention.

Today was a particularly difficult day. Though he and his partner Alex Eames wrapped one case – the one that was just on the news – they started a new one that morning before their court appearance.

The bastardized circle of life, he frowns bitterly as he makes his way to the kitchen, tossing the tie and his suit jacket onto another chair and rolling his sleeves up to the elbow as he goes. One murder solved and another committed.

He makes his way through the dark, still not bothering to turn on any lights and instead using memory to negotiate his way around furniture and the stacks of books and magazines that populate the floor, shelves, nooks, and crannies of his home. Some people have pets but Bobby prefers his books for company. They eat less, anyway.

Peering into the fridge and squinting a bit at the harsh light it emanates, he reaches around leftover Chinese food and a half-eaten pizza from (he thinks) last Thursday to grab a carton of milk. The rest of the contents of his refrigerator are a box of baking soda, three bottles of beer, a jar of Miracle Whip, and a bottle of ketchup. Upon observing this, he makes a mental note to make time over the weekend to do some serious grocery shopping and follow it up with some actual cooking, both of which he has been too busy to do of late. Something about winter in New York City creates an abundance of homicides and increases his workload and he wonders momentarily if it doesn't have something to do with the fact that cold weather forces people inside and the close quarters finally drives them to exasperation and murder in order to gain some peace and quiet.

Peace and quiet – that would be nice. Bobby's had very little of that lately; his brains has been constantly whirring in an attempt to efficiently process and analyze all of the data he uses to do his job and he hasn't had time between cases to downshift. Lately he feels like he's been trapped up there – a prisoner in his own mind – and all he wants tonight is a few hours of sleep that aren't interrupted by sudden subconscious connections, the kind that cause him to sit up in bed, turn on the light, and scribble his thoughts into the notebook he keeps by the bed for just such a purpose. Those are the kind of thing that bring his brain back to full-speed and make sleep impossible, no matter how tired he is.

Musing, he pours the last of the milk into a glass he has pulled from the nearby dish drainer. He isn't hungry despite the lateness of the hour – he and Eames ate cold Chinese food at their desks while they pored over the evidence gathered at the newest crime scene that morning. To an outsider, it might have seemed impossible and even callous to eat while viewing such gruesome images, but the two possessed stomachs hardened to the consistency of granite from their years on the job so that the food went down easily, if tastelessly.

No, food isn't what Bobby needs right now – it's sleep, and about ten years of it if his calculations are correct. He puts the milk in the microwave, hoping that, once heated to a soothing temperature, it will settle him (and his overwrought brain) so that he can catch just enough hours to get him through the next day. Well, sleep and coffee will get him through the day – sleep and coffee and Eames.

She's a saint in cop's clothing, he thinks – after all, she puts up with him all day and, like tonight, even into the late evening hours. What's more, she never complains, just reins him in when necessary and backs him up in a pinch. She worries about him too, like a big sister or a parent – or a best friend. In fact, a few hours before she left the office with the parting words: "Get home by 9:00 and get some sleep, will you Bobby?"

At least, he thinks that's what she said. His brain had taken full control of his body and all of his senses at that point and he was absorbed in the information spread before him on the desk. The thoughts raced through his mind like a video tape on fast-forward: the direction of the blood trail, the caliber of the gun, ballistics, velocity, room temperature, angle of the gun when it was fired, relative position of the shooter, height of the victim, approximate height of the shooter, and much more that he couldn't even begin to articulate. Her words filled the background and his mind only acknowledged that she had said something while missing what precisely it was, so his answer was an extremely intelligent: "Mm."

Never one to let him get away with such behavior, she tried again with more conviction: "Bobby, look at me please."

The facts were beginning to put themselves in some semblance of order in his mind then, albeit loosely – judging from the positioning of the entry wound and angle of trajectory, the shooter would have had to have been approximately five foot six which meant that both the victim's girlfriend and sister were prime suspects, as both were exactly that height and neither had given he and Eames a convincing alibi upon questioning. Further, the caliber of gun was small enough that it would favor a woman over a man. Bobby's mind tugged at him, wanting to delve deeper into those preliminary ideas and it was a struggle for him to pull himself away and look to her. He had to, though - she wouldn't wait much longer before resorting to physical violence to gain his attention - so he fought his brain, wrestled it into submission, and managed to commit his train of thought to memory, effectively pushing an internal pause button, long enough to give her what she had asked.

Eames wasn't feeling very patient, however, and had repeated herself for emphasis before he could move: "Bobby!"

He picked his head up from where it was resting on his right hand. His eyes, previously shielded from the harsh office lights, took a moment to adjust as he looked up to meet hers. She was giving him a half-smile, the one she reserved for the times he annoyed her but she didn't want to hurt his feelings.

"Go home," she said pointedly. "Get some sleep. We can start again in the morning."

There was no easy way to tell her that she was asking for the impossible. He'd been able to stop the processing motions of his brain only long enough to acknowledge Eames's words, but even as he looked at her the thoughts were already straining against his hold on them and he knew he couldn't hold them back much longer. Yet he needed to grant them permission to run; it was the only way he would ever solve the case – it was the only way he knew to do his job – and he wasn't sure how to put that into words. Further, he knew that his partner's protective streak wouldn't leave room for tiptoeing around his delicate thought processes and she'd put up a fight to get him to leave his work.

In a placating tone, he said, "I will."

She gave a disbelieving snort and he realized she knew him better than he thought. Fumbling, he tried again to convince her. "I'm almost done here. Don't worry."

"I'll get the coffee tomorrow," she shook her head and waved him off with her hand. "I think I'd better make yours a double."

Bobby had smiled then, realizing that he hadn't given her enough credit for understanding his interworkings, and said, "Good night."

"Good night," she'd given that rueful half-smile again and headed out the door.

It wasn't until 10:30 that the clamoring thoughts quelled to a slight din and he was able to depart the office. Now here he is, home at last, exhausted beyond words, and taking his glass of warm milk over to the couch to stretch out his long legs and rest his weary frame.

His hands shake slightly, he notices as he brings the glass to his lips – not a visible shaking that is discernable to the naked eye, but rather an internal quivering that seems to reflect outwardly the coursing of the tumbling thoughts that fill his veins like electric flotsam and jetsam. Usually the milk soothes it and Bobby senses tonight will be no different. Already his limbs are starting to relax and he kicks his shoes off, swinging his feet onto the couch and leaning his head back onto the arm – only to have it meet with a small stack of magazines, which he quickly moves in order to recline fully. His left arm comes to rest over his eyes and his right hand, which holds the glass of milk, comes to rest on the floor.

His arm is blocking out the hazy light emitted by the television screen in the otherwise pitch-black room and he hears the weatherman predict "cold, cold, and a chance of snow" for the next day and the rest of the week. The next day is fast approaching now – sunset was at 5:31 that evening so that means that sunrise will come exactly…

Shut your brain off, Goren, he thinks ruefully. The sunrise is inevitable, does it really matter what time it happens? You already know it's going to be too soon.

He gives a small smile at his own internal conversation and drains the rest of the milk in one gulp. Not bothering to lift his arm from its position over his eyes, he sets the empty glass on the coffee table beside him, then fumbles around for the remote control. It would take too much energy to lift his lanky frame from the couch at this point and he plans to rise at his customary hour of 5:00 anyway – if he can find the remote and set the TV to turn on at that hour in lieu of his bedroom alarm clock. A few more feeble attempts and his fingers seize it, then he lifts his left arm long enough to squint at the screen as he pushes the necessary buttons to set the alarm, then shuts it off, bathing the entire apartment in darkness.

Peace. Quiet. They're coming closer now. His mind is slowing at last, the facts and figures reluctantly filing away to their compartments for the night, leaving him to count his breaths as they flow drowsily in and out of his chest.

Sleep will come soon and in a few hours he'll rise and start all over. Eames will bring coffee – a double, like she promised – and they'll go over the case file. He'll share what he came up with during his late-night ruminating and she'll quirk an eyebrow in his direction, impressed but not surprised and ready to take the next step in the investigation. It's a cycle he's familiar with, a routine he's settled into and what's more, it's his life.

But that will be tomorrow. Right now, Bobby has managed to pull the plug on his brain and, for a few hours, he will be free of its hold on him.

He sleeps.