Disclaimer: No own; no profit; no sue.

A/N: And now for something completely different…

Initially I was going to incorporate this idea into my Madison stories, but it seemed to work better in a completely different verse. This picks up three months after the end of season six…I guess you could say it's my pitch for what I would do in season seven only with a GE ship, of course. I'm keeping the rating high just because of possible (how do they say on TV) sensitive subject matter. And there will be angst…oh yes…there will be angst. Please let me know what you think.

Chapter 1

She liked waking up beside him; liked being overwhelmed with his scent and the subtle pressure of his fingers messaging her scalp. She hadn't felt this vulnerable with anyone since her husband, though she wasn't particularly ready to admit that to him and he still had too much he was dealing with to be able to focus on a real relationship.

For the last three months, she had been spending most nights at his apartment, which she was quietly happy for, since she still was not completely comfortable in her house, but she wasn't about to admit that either.

Their relationship stumbled into intimacy a couple weeks after his mother's funeral. She, and no one else for that matter, had been able to get a hold of him since he had left the cemetery and after a frantic call from his friend Lewis, she went to his apartment to check on him.

She didn't exactly plan on beginning an undefined relationship with her troubled partner that night, but it was oddly natural; maybe inevitable.

It happened while she stood in front of him in his kitchen. He was worn and seemed so far away. She was telling him to call if he needed anything and was reluctantly beginning to leave when he impulsively took her face in his palms and kissed her.

The kiss was soft, tentative, but held within it all the fear and sadness they both had been carrying over the past year.

"I'm sorry," Goren said as he pulled away from her. "I…I shouldn't have done that."

They both knew he was right and that he was too emotionally raw to completely be in control of what he was doing or thinking.

"Bobby," she placed a hand on his shoulder, urging him to turn back around. "Please look at me."

Eames didn't know why she did this. She could have walked out his door and once he came back to work they both would have agreed to have forgotten it, but it was too wide a crack in a door she couldn't fight wanting to open.

"Thanks for…coming to the funeral," he said turning back to her. "But…you…you really should leave."

"I know" she said, but stepped closer to him.

She pulled him back down to her and into a more demanding kiss. He couldn't fight clamping his hands to her waist and pulling her against him.

She didn't leave his apartment until the next night.

Over the first few weeks he opened up about his mom and gave up little details from his childhood, like the few lucid moments he could remember sharing with his mom, but then being woken up in the middle of night to hide in a musty closet so they wouldn't find him. There was tension in his voice when he talked about his father that Eames couldn't place, but she knew better than to push him.

He softly coaxed her into talking about the Gages and she got through most of it with only a slight mental flinch. She gave insights on her surrogacy and her life with Joe, but only after subtle tactics on his part to pull information from her. He reluctantly admitted to wanting to know more about both events for a long time, but hadn't felt it was his place.

Many of the things they talked about late at night were things they had already glossed over as partners, but now these events that made them had emotion and depth.

There was so much they had done and said to each other over the nine months before his mother's death and both wanted a clean slate to pursue whatever it was that they were becoming.

He did, however, refuse to talk about what happened between him and Brady, and what his mother later revealed to him that night.

"Just…please," he had said softly to her one night as they lay tangled together. "I'm not ready to talk about that."

It continued to gnaw at the back of her mind, but she let it go because there were still things that she wasn't ready to reveal to him either.

She forced him into taking better care of himself and was still in the middle of a losing battle in getting him to sleep more. He was always awake before her and she quickly discovered he liked to watch her sleep, which seemed to be enough to at least get him to stay in bed and doze until she woke up.

"How long have you been awake?" she asked.

"Just a few minutes," Goren said.

"Is that a few minutes in real time or a few minutes in Goren time?"

"Believe it or not real time," he said with a quiet chuckle. "You can go back to sleep…we don't have to be up for another hour."

She leaned up and fitted her mouth to his.

"Or we could do…other things," Goren mumbled against her lips.

She smiled as he rolled them over and his hand ventured down to settle on her hip, drawing small circles with his thumb. Her hands linked around his neck and felt short hairs graze between her fingers.

His mouth sought out her neck and she arched, granting him access as she reveled in the warmth of his lips and tongue. It didn't take her long in their relationship to discover the many other talents that mouth had beyond charm and manipulation; not to mention, how erotic one's last name could sound from said mouth when spoken in the right context.

He began to travel further, finding her collar bone, and then a cell phone started to ring.

Goren grunted his frustration and rested his head in the crook of her neck.

"Whose is it?" he asked.

"I don't care."

He softly kissed her lips. "Yes you do."

"It sounds like yours."

Goren rolled over toward the nightstand and fished for his phone.

"It's Ross."

"Sounds like the right mood killer," Eames muttered.

"Goren…uh…yeah, yeah we did." He sat up more fully, his interest peaked and intriguing Eames. "When? Yeah…okay…n-no, I can call her. Okay."

He snapped the phone shut and stared off for a moment, while she sat up and placed a hand on his shoulder.

"What's wrong?"

"Uh…M-Maggie Colter's missing."