-1The Twelve Step Programme. Part Two.
Title: The Twelve Step Programme Part Two.
Fandom: Law and Order: Criminal Intent
Characters: The Genius and her Water carrier
Rating: PG-13 (I think)
Summary: There is rhythm in everyone's life. When it gets interrupted, people suffer.
Disclaimer: I do not own these characters, but bloody hell, do they own me.
She bows her head
slightly and rests her forehead against his. It's about the exact
point where her bullet would have entered his skull. "I
almost shot you," she whispers. "I almost fucking shot
you."
Their noses are actually touching. It ... tickles. All it would take is one slight adjustment to the angle, she thinks, he thinks, and then I would be able to kiss him, to kiss her. Just one extra degree of tilt, one way or the other.
Eames confronts this desire bleakly, ordering it back to wherever it came from. Goren on the other hand is unnerved, having spent years avoiding this kind of inappropriate intimacy with his fellow officer. He backs up suddenly, almost loses his footing, then throws himself forwards and up. A surge of adrenalin - fear? Lust? What? What?! pushes him onwards. Now it is his turn to steam up the stairs two at a time, leaving Eames behind like the memory of a dream.
"Hey!" she yells. "Dammit Goren, quit running away all the time!" - and she sets off after him.
She finds her partner at the top of the stairs, outside the apartment they are supposed to be visiting. He's bent over, his hands braced above his knees in an attitude of a defeated athlete.
"What exactly are you trying to prove? Or are you in training for something?"
No reply. They both stop for a moment, each concentrating on their own laboured breathing. The sound echoes dully around the concrete walls, which are garlanded with nameless stains and dressed with odours that even Goren doesn't want to identify. Eames pushes past her stricken partner and raps her knuckles hard on the apartment door.
No one home, it seems. She tries again. She takes out her phone and calls a number. They can hear it ringing inside the apartment, and after a long while, an answer phone picks up. The witness-bird has flown her nest.
Eames is one step behind disgusted. "This never happens on TV, " she says. "Now what?"
Goren is still deep-breathing.
"We'll wait," she says, looking at him, a little kindness seeping into the corners of her voice.
Regardless of the dirt, Goren eases himself down onto the top step. Its either that or fall downstairs. He's not feeling at all good. Eames joins him, making a note of the time, thinking about calling it in to the dispatcher and then deciding not to bother.
"And another thing - " he says suddenly, as though there had been no interruption to their conversation whatsoever. He points a finger authoritatively, daring her to even think of interrupting him. "In those five months when I was at home, you made nineteen arrests, Eames. Nineteen. On your own, or with some nameless rookie in tow. Without a partner. Without ... me."
"How in the hell do you know that?"
"What, you think Ross is the only one knows how to use a data base? My mother was a librarian - go figure. So that crack about my being the genius and you only carrying my water is also a crock of shit."
She looks at him, shocked to hear him swear. He doesn't, very often. But she regroups quickly and snarls, "Oh, how refreshing, to have you back on my case."
"No. I'm just setting the record to rights. You were mad when you said those things to me. Not thinking straight."
And she is mad again, Goren. Her eyes widen, her lips purse. Watch it buddy; you are about to get your ears boxed. Breathe!
He carries on talking quickly, wanting to get it all over and done with. Words tumble out of him in fits and starts, like little waves breaking on a shore in the wake of a passing ship.
"Sure ... sure I would have liked to have been reinstated in a more ... conventional manner. I'd of loved to have marched in one Monday morning with a big grin and an even bigger box of bakery saying, 'Didja miss me? Didja?' . But that was never going to happen Eames. And I was getting desperate."
Eames maintains her silence, with difficulty, for a little while longer. She uses the time to try and imagine what it must be like to be Bobby Goren, and 'desperate'. It isn't a pretty thought. In fact, it kind of scares her. In spite of his reassuring bulk, he looks small and rather vulnerable to her suddenly, and she wonders if she is gaining the high ground again.
He asks, "Why did you say all my wounds are self inflicted?"
"Did you have a tape recorder running in there or something?"
He just looks at her, frowning slightly. She must realise that he heard every single word she said and considered it important enough to remember verbatim. Mustn't she?
"You ... I meant that you allowed your family problems to impact on your work. And therefore, mine. Too much."
Goren nods, gazing at an imaginary spot in the middle distance. "So ... What would you have done in my situation, do you think?" he asks.
Eames engages in what Goren recognises as classic distraction activity - she begins fussing and picking at an imaginary blemish on her jeans. She doesn't want to answer that question, and her body language is shouting about it from the rooftops. He waits. And waits. He wants to still her restless fingers, cover them with his own, get her to focus. But if he touches her again, will it not simply distract her?
She looks very small and rather vulnerable to him suddenly, and he wonders if he is gaining the high ground again.
Eventually Eames knows she has to answer. They are both under orders to work this out, after all. If what she says makes things worse, she can always adjust her internal blame system to fire its missiles at Ross.
"I never even knew what your situation WAS," she says quietly. "You would never tell me."
"There are good reasons for that."
"Oh, for sure." She is exasperated again. It feels good. It feels familiar. It is so easy for her to reduce Goren's behaviour to a cliché, a parody of himself.
"Eames, I'm serious." It's Goren's turn to look uncomfortable. He just hates talking like this with Eames. Just because she is female - 'sensitive, approachable, a good listener' - doesn't mean she needs to be burdened with the details of his family's dysfunction. Guys don't talk to each other about stuff like that. Why should he talk to her about it? Just because she is a woman?
O-ho, nice of you to notice that, Goren. Now shuddup about your sick mom and your sicker brother already.
"Bobby, you kept on working and working and working when really, you should eased up for a while. Taken vacation time, call it what you like."
"But I like working. It defines me."
"No, see - your reasons for not working are what define you now, can't you get that?"
Goren shifts uncomfortably. The cold of the concrete step beginning to seep into his buttocks, just as the coldness of Eames's judgement curls its fingers around his stomach.
Something occurs to him.
"Do you remember how you felt in the last few days before you gave birth?"
"Yes, I remember."
"What was it like?"
A big sigh. Oh, a very big sigh.
"Well, I could hardly move off the couch. I had to pee at least once every forty minutes. I had heartburn every waking moment. I found it hard to breathe. I couldn't sleep lying down, I could only cat nap in a chair. Couldn't drive anywhere because of it."
"You never told me any of this. Did you feel scared?"
"Of what?"
"The birth."
"Well - "
"Be honest."
"Yes, I was scared. I guess. It was the not knowing that was getting to me. Not knowing when it would start or how long it would last or how much it would hurt or would it all be OK ... "
Goren nods sagely. He understands this bit. He says, "So if you had gone past the time when the baby was due - how would that have felt?"
"I think I'd a gone nuts. I was climbing the walls. I had an induction date booked and everything."
"Induction? You mean, where they use medical intervention to help you get the baby born?"
"Yeah. Basically."
"And if it had come to that, would you have taken your paediatrician's advice without question?"
She looks at him directly for the first time. His face is an open book. She sees exactly where he is going with this. Damn. Damn.
"I see what you're suggesting," she says slowly. "You're comparing what happened to you ... to a pregnant woman going over term and having an induction."
"Imagine those last seven days of your pregnancy again, Eames. Think about how you felt, what it was like. Now stretch those seven days into five months. Then you will get an idea of what the suspension was like for me."
"My God," says Eames in awe. "Ross was your midwife!"
Goren laughs at this in spite of himself. He gives her a little frown, shakes his head admonishingly, says, "Eww."
Then he's serious again. "I'm sorry I couldn't tell you what was going on with me. I was following the doctor's orders."
"I guess I know that. But it ... it felt like you didn't consider me your partner any more."
He waits, thinking she is going to say more. Nothing comes. He bends and twists awkwardly so as to see her face. Her brows have drawn together in two lines like fresh dug graves, side by side.
"Eames..?"
His actual thoughts are: 'To hell with it. This isn't exactly throwing my car keys in a salad bowl. I've known this woman seven years.' And, with more gentleness that she ever would have credited him with he pulls her head up, kisses her gently, right between the eyes.
It's about the exact point where his bullet would have entered her skull.
Fin.
