Hello. Well...I was bored and so here I am, trying my hand at this. This is just another take on events which transpired during Loyalty and Alex's thoughts on the matter. I do plan on writing one more chapter with Alex visiting Bobby, probably no more than that, however, since I'm just dipping my toe in! So I will be brave! Love or hate this, your call! Just please be kind is all I ask. Read on!
It was over.
That was all that kept running through Alexandra Eames' brain as she watched her partner - no, her ex-partner and other numerous labels best kept from being too-closely analyzed - walk out of One Police Plaza for the last time. Gone by her directive. Her first job as captain of the Major Case Squad.
Alex thought of the weight put on her, the first assignment given, to rid NYPD of its most cumbersome "liability", or so Moran would voice it, and while she resented the Catch-22, while the very thought of being the one to deliver another blow to Bobby Goren's life was something she fought against, she also knew in the end that it was going to be her or someone who didn't give a damn for Bobby Goren, someone who wouldn't weigh his outrageous methods and faults against his damned good clearance rate. Their clearance rate and successes, all of which cast a golden glow on the NYPD and made it look good while all the while rolling its collective eye and radiating disapproval at the eccentric, flawed, brilliant detective that served them all their glories on a silver platter to present to the mayor, no doubt in a hail of back slapping and tuxedo-ed parties by the higher-ups.
The thought left an acidic taste in Alex's mouth. As a woman in the testosterone-laden world of the NYPD, she had often fought tooth and nail to show the good ol' boys that she was a chip off of Johnny Eames' block (all while hoping her father's faux pas with city double dipping was but a footnote in his otherwise illustrious career and soon forgotten), that she was a capable, smart, and driven detective who could go toe to toe with the big boys.
Well, here you are!, her inner voice mocked. High atop the lofty perch. A leader. How does it feel? Was it worth it?
Her head was vaguely starting to ache. No doubt a consequence of trying - and basically failing - not to cry as she dealt Bobby the sucker punch. Her eyes still felt hot and moist. And her cheek. Her cheek still tingled where Bobby, in a rare display of overt feeling, had kissed her before his departure. And the hug...
Alex still couldn't understand how Bobby didn't hate her for this. If the tables were turned (and thinking of Bobby in a position of power made Alex give a rueful semi-bitter laugh. He'd hate the responsibility and never sought out any glory!), Alex wondered if she would handle the situation with half the grace Bobby did. She wasn't sure.
She looked around the very building she had spent nine years - nine years of theories, scrapes with Carver, nine years of Bobby and his binder and tidbits of the most obscure pearls of wisdom all designed to disarm and catch the perps, nine years of Bobby going from cocky, manic, man-child in this three-piece suits and searing wit to watching as he helplessly fell down his own personal rabbit hole of despair, anger, and self-loathing following the death of his mentally-ill mother and then losing Frank a mere year later. Alex bit her lip as she guiltily thought that, family or not, Bobby was well rid of both. His mother no doubt holding his very existence against him even as she was the one who slept with a monster named Mark Ford Brady and bore his son. She had a son who only wanted her love, her affection, yet because of a quirk of corrupted genetics (in Frances Goren's warped view), she chose Frank.
Frank. Frank Goren the big brother turned drug-addict user. Of course, Alex was only privy to bits from the outside. She was always left out of the loop until circumstances would force them to be lain at her door in the guise of the cases so tenuously connected to pieces of Bobby's life: The discovery of Brady, Frank being murdered. Then and only then was she let in, allowed to truly grasp the complexity and the loneliness that made up one Detective Robert Goren. She understood it, yet it stung.
Well, you stung back tonight... her psyche mocked. Was it about subconsciously wanting to hurt him back for the times Bobby could be so careless? Did she want to hurt him?
No.
She was just being the good soldier, taking orders and doing what needed doing. Or so she rationalized. But she had miscalculated. She thought making captain would be the sum of her hard work and personal sacrifice and a reward for a job well done.
Instead, she was alone. Not just alone. Lonely.
Even in all of the drama, all of the desk tossing and snubs to authority and all of the politics, she was never lonely with Bobby around. She was energized. She felt invincible.
That feeling evaporated the minute Bobby walked out. And she was left with her own self-recrimination and anger topped with a sprinkle of despair. If this is what it meant to be queen, so to speak, she wanted no part of it. She and Bobby were always different in style, but one of the important things that bound them together was disdain for artifice, for the political games played as everyone else worked their asses off. She'd never really thought about how that would affect her if and when she reached the top.
But now she knew. She wasn't cut out to pucker up and kiss ass. She wasn't meant to be here anymore. Not without her partner. Not without Bobby.
She was meant to be a cop. Not a political shill. Alex cast a weary glance down at the shield gripped in her hand, a symbol of power, of hard work and sweat and frustration and triumph, as it gleamed from the harsh lights overhead. She knew what she had to do now.
And then...then she knew who she had to see next. And she both welcomed and feared it. Raising her chin, Alex squeezed that shield, feeling it warm from her heat, her palm vaguely sweaty, and surrendered it freely. No longer encumbered by rules, regulations, and appearance.
In due course, one weight was off. Now came the hard part: Facing a certain ex-partner, friend, (and so many other descriptors) once she dropped her bomb.
And, like Bobby Goren not long before, Alex Eames walked out of One Police Plaza for the last time as the walls containing myriad memories were left in her wake.