A/N. The beginnings of what will probably be a posting deluge, in an effort to clear off some of the things I've had on my computer for months. As always: T for language, I don't own them so don't sue me, eventual BA, etc.

PART ONE

His current computer wallpaper is Stonehenge. Thick slabs of rock imposed on the sky in a pattern that's infuriated and obsessed historians for decades. The beauty of it. All the possibilities.

It could mean anything.

But despite the supposition it's remained a mystery.

He stares at it, sometimes, when he's trying to give his mind a chance to relax and catch up (or when he just wants to ignore Ross). He thinks about what it could have been and what it might be, eventually. It's Stonehenge, after all. The unknown. The tantalizing answers held so very far out of reach.

He supposes he'll never know.

***

"No." Eames, shaking her head and bitterly refusing to look at him. "I can handle it on my own, thank you."

God even though it slices right through his bones organs endocrine system he loves how she can say "thank you" like "fuck you" with easy utter disdain because it's so her, it's so Eames, and this is so stupid all he offered to do was finish up her paperwork so she could go home because he just wants to make it up to her stupid stupid stupid not to tell her he was going undercover because fuck everyone else, it's her he wants and needs and can't have.

She's really angry this time.

Angry.

And she has every right to be.

He realizes he's been standing staring at her for far too long. She's already icily seated at her desk, ignoring him and roughly flipping through the stack of files, each page slapping the next like a decisive judgmental refrain—idiot idiot idiot idiot idiot—that echoes in the noise of all their silence.

They finish their paperwork at exactly the same time. They didn't used to, but over the years they fell in synch and it worked out that way; they'd file their reports together and then go out for midnight breakfast or to a bar, and it became their tradition.

Not tonight.

A long, tense elevator ride before they spill out in the twilit parking lot, gasping from the relief of being free from eleven floors of uneasiness.

"See you tomorrow," Eames mutters. And then she's gone, disappearing into her car and burying her face in her hands for a second before sitting back and starting up the engine.

I've really screwed this up, he thinks blindly. They've had some rocky patches before, but this? This is becoming as hard and as immobile as Stonehenge itself.

He's almost too depressed to continue on to his car. All that's ahead tonight is silence, anyway. A cold, unfeeling apartment he hasn't had the energy to clean lately, so there are books and clothes and dust everywhere.

But he can't stay here all night.

He has to go home.

Eyes to the ground, fumbling in his pocket for his keys.

And then he looks up.

His car is destroyed.

Stones through every window, tires slashed, fender ripped off, baseball bat-sized dents on the doors and hood, seats ripped out, engine leaking steam into the air, steering wheel hanging on by three wires and the word RAT spray-painted in blood red hundreds of times over every fucking available surface.

Oh.

Okay then.

Somehow he's on the ground, leaning back against his mutilated car and closing his eyes.

So it's come to this. He supposes he should be grateful they didn't jump him when he came out; that they didn't make him fight in front of Eames.

He stares out at the white painted parking lines on the blacktop. Thinks about how he just dropped comprehensive insurance last week to save some money. That makes his brain hurt even more so he just sits there, blank, numb, tired. Tired of fighting with Eames. Tired of trying convince everyone that he's sane, thankyouverymuch; tired of the looks the other detectives give him and the way Ross views him with suspect and how much he thinks about his family now, all of them, every last bloody member. Tired of how much he worries and recalls things he doesn't want to recall and dreams things he'd really rather not dream.

A horn blasts in front of him (they're back)and after a second he opens his eyes, beginning to drag himself up off the ground ready for Round Two (in which our detective superhero gets his ass kicked for betraying the fellow blue).

Eames is leaning on the horn, mouth agape, alternately between staring at him and his car. "What the fuck happened?"

He jerks his thumb at his car, pointlessly. "Apparently I'm not very well liked at the moment."

"I'll say," she says, her voice slow with disbelief. "So you didn't see anyone doing this?"

He shakes his head no no no. "What are you doing back here, anyway?"

She withdraws, tightens up her muscles and becomes even more compact before his eyes. "I was just about to pull out when I saw you sitting down. I figured…I'd better check on you."

"You wouldn't have had to do that," he says blankly.

"I'm used to it." The pointed sharpness of her words wrapped in the sweetness of her voice is like razors hidden in apples, because no matter what words she throws at him he'll always, always love the sound of her speaking, her clipped articulation and pauses before certain words and her distinctive tone.

He draws his knees up and rests his head on them.

"Goren."

Goren. Not Bobby. Maybe not Bobby ever again.

Eames sighs. "Get in. I'll take you home."

He lifts his head but doesn't try to stand up. "I'm fine. Thanks for checking on me, Eames. You don't have to stay."

"I don't intend to." Cyanide in caramel. "But you're coming with me."

"I don't want to have to drag you into this, too."

"When exactly have you dragged me into anything before?" she snaps. Arsenic in cola. "That's what this is all about, Goren. You don't let me in. You don't—" she breaks off and looks away, her mouth a stony unmerciful line. "No. I don't care." White oleander in strawberries liquid heroin in Skittles plunge off the Brooklyn in dreamless sleep. "You can't stay here with your car. Get in and you can call for a tow."

"I think it's beyond repair." Emotionless—it's just junk, after all, just a chassis and cloth seats wrapped in metal.

Hell, it's not like it's his relationship with Eames.

Which might also be beyond repair.

She gets out and walks around his car, slowly, tracing her fingers over the word RAT. Looks up at him and her mouth softens maybe a millimeter. "Not everything is completely destroyed, Goren."

It's a start.

***

The tow truck driver tries for five minutes to start his car before giving up and pushing it on to the flatbed manually. "You want me to take her to a garage or the dump?"

He stuffs his hands in the pockets of his jacket, needing to feel something tangible because none of this seems real, anymore; it's all spinning out of his control. "Junk it."

"You're giving up on it?" Eames asks, standing maybe two feet away from him but at least not glaring anymore.

"I wouldn't, but…" he shrugs. "It's going to cost more than the car's worth to fix it."

"Pessimist."

He glances over at her quickly, because for just that one word she sounded like herself again, but maybe it was just in his head because she looks the same way she's looked for the past month: tired, and wary.

"I'll take you home."

She barely waits until he's in the seat before taking off, driving much faster than she usually does.

In the parking lot of his apartment building he's just bending down to say thanks for the ride when she drives off again.

He betrays her, and she becomes a speed demon.

It's still a start.

A rocky start.

***

At midnight, on his third Scotch on the rocks he wonders if maybe he should slow down, but then the forth begins to ease his doubts while the fifth makes everything ice, baby, and the sixth takes away that particular question and the seventh makes everything bearable enough that he can fall into a noisy, restless sleep on his couch.

He dreams hazy, alcohol induced dreams full of rats and Eames and spilled blood and restraints (subtlety is clearly lost in his dreams) and he wakes up the next morning two hours late, sweaty and shaking and still drunk.

By the time he flies into the office Ross is sitting on the edge of his desk, talking to Eames and glaring at him.

"I, uh, don't have a car anymore, and I got the subway times mixed up, and then I had to wait…" It all sounds like chopped up bits of random excuses thrown together to avoid the real excuse (that everything's so fucked up right now).

Alex is watching him as he blandly explains all this to Ross. Not listening—she has her one earbud in and he can hear the faint strains of Staind echoing out.

Just watching.

"Don't let it happen again," Ross snaps, and walks away.

He puts his hungover head down and gets to work.

At lunchtime they're in Brooklyn, interviewing a potential suspect's girlfriend. Eames is hungry so they stop at a diner on a slow business decline—noon and there's only two other customers there. But his head is aching and it's quiet, so while Eames eats he half-heartedly downs two glasses of water and then puts his head against the window and goes to sleep.

Sometime later he wakes up to the firm pressure of Eames' hand on his shoulder.

"We have to go."

He's disoriented, hazy and nauseous and tilting. It seems only natural for him to put his hand over Eames' to try and steady himself.

She bends over at the hip (leaving her hand under his, he notices blearily). "Jesus, Bobby. What's wrong?"

Bobby.

Nothing's wrong, now.

But it is, oh, it is, because as he rubs his thumb over her fingers she pulls away and composes herself back into icy indifference. "You should get more sleep," she says neutrally. "You look like shit."

She turns, her coat flaring out behind her, and he follows her out of the diner, privately resolving to cut back on the drinking.

***

He'd like to take a rock to that sign language interpreter's head. Watching Eames as he did, pretending to have morals and dignity and smiling that ooh-I'm-such-a-nice-guy smile and being so cutely tormented by his ethics and reconciling the pathos of his past with his desire to, gosh, help and everything, and it's just so sickening. He noticed their fling when it began last year, of course (how could he miss it), but then after they solved the case he never saw the guy again. He assumed, from the little Eames said, that he (Peter?) wasn't in the picture anymore, but then he came into work today and saw the flowers on her desk and (guilty) read the card. Amazing night. Great to reconnect. I missed you. Peter.

He doesn't leave his desk for the rest of the morning, just sits and stares at the flowers and waits for Eames to come in so he can see her reaction. She always said she hated getting flowers, after all, all that work and money and then they die in three days anyway.

But she seems pretty damn happy when she comes in at 9:30 and sees them on her desk. She reads the card and smiles, secretly, to herself before sticking the vase under her desk so no one but her can see them (too late), and he's not allowed in this part of Eames' life and she's still mad and there's an icy rock of dread and jealousy forming in his throat and so this is how this is going to be from now on, this is what her answer is.

Eames leaves work early, clutching her flowers and murmuring something about not feeling well when Ross blandly asks her where she's going.

She leaves. He is alone with the rest of the detectives, seeing them glance at the clock and feeling them wish for the weekend and hearing them talk about their plans and what they want to do when all he's capable of is this spreading blank numbness that means Eames, finally, is gone. Maybe they'll still be partners, but nothing more, nevermore.

"What about you, Detective? Any plans?" He hears the strain of forced politeness in Ross' voice and he mutters something and leaves, tossing his coat over his arm and jamming his portfolio in his desk and storming off for the elevator, feeling ridiculous that he's so upset because it's not like anything's ever been set in stone for them; hell, the couple of times they've even gotten close to admitting—anything—one of them always held up hands and backed off and let it fade away.

Stupid.

So stupid.

And now she's with another and it's too late.

***

He's stone cold sober but weaving unsteadily as he walks, head down hands in pockets, the familiar roads to Eames' house. On her porch he pauses. Laughter comes out of the house, attacking him, making him want to reconsider.

He doesn't.

He knocks on her door, hands clammy but heart steady because it's not even a question of being nervous anymore, it's more he has to do this.

Seconds later Eames pulls open the door. Her hair is mussed and she's dressed in sweatpants and a tank top and her face is flushed. Her eyes are wide.

"Bobby?"

He goes forward and takes her hands and she doesn't pull away.

"What's wrong?" She's staring at him uneasily, her eyes probing his.

"I have to talk to you. I…we need to talk. About…things."

"So you're really going to do this now," she murmurs. "Your timing is impeccable, Goren."

"I know." His swallow can probably be heard several counties over. "Is Peter here?"

She pulls her hands free but holds the door open for him. "He cancelled on me. He's sick from last night's shellfish."

"Oh. Good."

"Good that he has food poisoning?" Eames snorts.

Well…

"No—no, that's he's not here. Easier. You know."

She sighs and leads him inside.

***

He starts off slowly, fumbling his way through prepositions and clauses and gerunds like never before because his mind is such a jumble and he feels this deep frantic need to spit all the words out at the same time, because if he doesn't Eames might turn silent and cold and stony again, and Peter might recover from his food poisoning, and the Apocalypse might rock the world before he gets the words out and makes this right.

Eames is seated on the couch with all that lovely open space right beside her, and he can't stop thinking about sliding up beside her—resting his hand on her knee and feeling her arm nestled against his.

But he can't sit. So he paces ridiculously fast in front of her—so fast he's practically running, whipping around so he's a blur against her fireplace and the floorboards are creaking under his pounding feet and the words are spilling out of him in a rough ragged jag of a shaking voice.

"And it seems like—I don't know, that I'm so dependent on you for everything, usually—not, not that I don't mind being dependent on you, not that I don't think you can't handle it, it's just that I don't want to be a burden on you and I know that I am, usually, sometimes, and I feel bad about it, and I just thought that maybe, I don't know, I'd leave you out of this one and deal with it myself and not worry you because you—you shouldn't have to worry about me, you don't deserve all the—fear—not fear, because I'm not saying that you care that much, enough to fear, although maybe you d—I don't know, but I shouldn't be your burden is what I'm trying to say, and I just wanted my badge back so much and I missed you so fucking much and I had to do what I could to get back to the job and back to you and I'm sorry, Eames, I'm sorry, I hate this so much—I hate this so much because I screwed up and I know it and I don't know what to do anymore, I don't know how to fix it, and I don't know what you want and now—"

He runs out of oxygen so he breaks off. Keeps pacing. He can't stop and look at her because if he sees her still so tense and angry he's going to collapse; he's going to deflate away into nothing and become this ghost of a man who has his partner no longer.

"Stop it."

Her voice is sharp.

She's still mad, and there are no more words.

Hello ghost town, regions of the underworld—I'll bring the ghost punch if you bring the ghost cookies and we'll have a ghost party to celebrate this ghost fucking lifestyle, this shadowy impersonation of functioning detectives who once had perfect amazing real partners and now have Halloween and dull movies with Demi Moore and children's fear in the night.

"Stop pacing like that, Bobby. You're making me nauseous."

"Nauseous and angry, Detective; what a shitty combination." His voice is bitter—aren't ghosts supposed to be bitter, walking the remains of the earth searching for what they've never found?

"You're an asshole."

Tears prick (he is a prick) his eyes and he has to leave, because ghosts don't let real people see their ghost tears.

"I'm sorry for bothering you."

He turns to go but she is right in front of him, pushing on his chest with her hand and her eyes are snapping and her hair is sticking up and she's so surreally beautiful but he's not going to get to see her anymore like this because, no matter how surreal, ghosts don't interact with the actually real.

"Move, Eames." Eames Eames Eames Eames Eames Eames Eames Eames goodbye oh Eames.

"No," she snaps. "You don't get to come over here and say all that and then just walk away. That's not how it works, Bobby."

Her hand flashes up and for a second he thinks she's going to hit him, but then he feels her hand gently on his cheek.

"I listened to your spiel; now you listen to mine."

He nods, defeated, and her fingers tighten against his face, her nails digging just slightly into his skin.

"I might be nauseous—I had some of Peter's shellfish—but I'm not angry anymore."

He looks at her pale face in disbelief.

"Okay, so I might be a little angry yet." She sighs, and the hand not on his face goes to her stomach as she bends forward a little, wincing. "Let's sit down."

His hands snap around her waist to hold her up, if she were to collapse, but of course she won't because she's Eames.

She doesn't let go of him as they fall on to the couch but he lets go of her, because that's what he always does.

"This isn't the end of the world, Bobby."

"It feels like it," he murmurs before he can stop himself, and her nails dig even more into his skin.

"It's not. It's…" she sighs again. "You screwed up. You really screwed up."

"I know."

She surveys him, and he suddenly realizes how close they are, how he's occupying that space beside Eames again and his hand is on her knee and her arm is resting on his chest because she's still clutching his face.

"But I know that you, in your own way, are trying to make it up to me. I guess."

He nods so that she almost pokes him in the eye. "I am. I just don't know what to do."

She lets go of him, sits back. "It's not like there's any magical cure, Goren. You—you hurt me. You didn't trust me. You can't wave your wand and have six months of abandonment absolved in a one shot."

"You think I abandoned you?" he croaks.

"In half a year—after eight years of partnership—I saw you four times, and all on my own initiative. I'd say that counts as abandonment, yeah."

"I was trying to protect you."

"No." Her voice is steely, and he recoils. "I don't want to get into that again. We are partners. Equals. You don't have to protect me, and I don't have to protect you. We work together." She winces, her hand straying to her stomach again. "Give me a minute, okay?"

He nods and she gets up and walks off.

He waits until he hears a door click shut and then he leaves.

A/N. 90's (80's?) Footnote: Demi Moore was in the movie Ghost with Patrick Swazye. 'Twas about a ghost. Sort of. All I remember is Demi's drastically bobbed hair, Whoopi Goldberg as a séance leader, and some interminable scene of everyone running through a building (I was about six when I saw it on cable, okay). Anyway, I thought it might make more sense to clarify the "dull movies with Demi Moore" bit.

Also, I have no idea if steering wheels are attached by wires. I'm assuming they are, but I also imagine that it could be some sort of wild magnetic system. Or tiny parasites activated by touch running around on the inside like hamsters on a wheel turning it in synch with the driver. Or an entirely new gravity, a specific car-based gravity, that exudes from the dashboard out and encompasses only the steering wheel so it floats perfectly stable and manipulative in this carefully guarded secret of a polarized field of gravity that defies Newton in his grave.

I, uh, I'll stop now. Now I'm curious, and I have to go look that up--and it's probably boring, probably wires or a lever system or something.

This has nothing to do with CI.

On to part two (where there will be far less rambling)!