Author's Note: Don't own Law and Order: Criminal Intent. Wish I did. The residuals alone would pay off all my college loans. They're property of Dick Wolf and NBC, all I'm doing is playing with their characters... Some of the dialogue is snipped from the LO:CI episode "Anti-Thesis", so I don't own it, I just couldn't resist using it.
Warnings: AU, zomg AU. Adult subjects, child abuse, angst, and unpopular pairings ahoy.
Five Years Earlier...
She'd been sitting on one of the benches in the quad, enjoying the last of the fall sunlight as she ate her lunch, when she met him.
She'd already seen him, long before he approached her. He wasn't exactly hard to miss. At six foot four and wearing a suit he stood out amongst the sloppily dressed students. Italian descent, late thirties, going gray at his temples… not conventionally handsome, but attractive enough she supposed. That was all the attention she paid him, going back to her novel…
"A-are you a student here?"
He's standing right in front of her, head cocked to the side to make eye contact, and a boyish grin on his face. At her skeptically raised eyebrow he bit back a chuckle and then had the audacity to sit down beside her. Americans, she thought, not bothering to hide the roll of her eyes.
"Tell me, does that line ever work, Mr. --"
"Bobby. Bobby Goren. You're--you're from Australia… but you've spent time in Oxford…"
She represses the urge to blink at "Bobby's" sudden pronouncement. He doesn't look like the sort that would hang around Bernard, and she hasn't done anything to attract police attention. Something about him isn't quite right though…
"How did you know that," She replies with a flirtatious grin.
"I spent a couple weekends there in the Army, chasing co-eds." The roguish grin he sends her almost distracts.
"And it took you all this time to finally catch one, my my…" He laughs at that, and unwillingly she finds herself smiling.
"W-well… not exactly. Your-your clothes? They're too nice for a student… you're polished -- professional." He beams at her like a puppy who thinks it deserves a treat.
"What brings you to Hudson, Bobby? Besides trawling for young co-eds…" He smiles again, not looking the least insulted… it's almost exasperating if it weren't amusing.
"I'm giving a guest lecture on criminal -- profiling for a friend of mine in the psychology department," He shrugs nonchalantly. "You never told me what you taught--or your name."
That sets off all sorts of warning bells… she'd covered her tracks very well when she went from Nicole Wallace to Elizabeth Hitchens, but if they had found something, if they suspected… He might be trying to feel her out.
"You're very persistent, aren't you, Bobby?" She keeps her manner coy, elusive, which gets men like him panting.
"Well, you know us Americans, we never know when to quit…" That grin again… she'd have to be careful about that grin, she had a feeling it had led plenty of women to places they hadn't intended to go.
"Why don't you give me your card, and if I call, you'll know your charming act worked?"
She's faintly surprised when he opens up a leather binder and pulls out a business card. He hadn't even protested when she called it an act. He played the game almost as well as she did…
She reaches out to take it, only for him to pull it away at the last second.
"A-a name. You have to at least tell me your name, otherwise I won't know it's you when you call…"
"You get a lot of calls from Australian women who studied at Oxford, then?"
"Maybe… A first name, a-at least…" There's a faint pout to his lips and she curses as she realize that part of her really wants to tell him.
"Elizabeth," she snaps as she grabs the card from his fingers, using it as a bookmark in her novel, before she retreats.
"Nice to meet you Elizabeth, from A-American Literature…" He calls out after her. She has to stop and turn.
"How did you know?"
He points to the book in her hand.
"Mo-moby Dick. No one -- reads Moby Dick for fun."
She's appalled when a laugh slips out, and quickly heads back to her office.
The wealth of information you can find out about a person on the internet has always slightly amazed her.
He isn't a cop. Robert "Bobby" Goren, she finds, really is a history teacher with New York City public schools just like his card says. She doubts that they'd go to such an extent to fabricate a backlog of web pages to catch Elizabeth Hitchens, and there shouldn't be enough evidence to arrest Nicole Wallace…
Further digging reveals that while he isn't a cop now, he used to be a Special Agent with Army Criminal Investigations Division. His father is dead, some years after he divorced his mother. He has an older brother who has been in some minor scrapes with the law.
Then there's his mother… his dear sweet crazy mother locked away in an institution upstate.
She had planned to get her graduate student to kill Winthrop and throw enough suspicion onto Sanders to ensure she'd get to keep her position and become eligible for U.S. citizenship. Bayley was a liability, and while she had no problem killing the little worm off, it was becoming quite the complicated plan; and the more complicated the plan, the more likely one was to get caught.
Then fate had dropped this upstanding man into her lap… even if Sanders did manage to get her fired, there was another way to make her stay in the U.S. legal…
And wouldn't a history teacher be ever so helpful to pass the citizenship exam…
