Disclaimers: The brilliance of Law&Order: Criminal Intent, and all its characters belong to Dick Wolf and NBC. I own none of that and never will.

First off, thank you to all of you who've read and reviewed. Sorry about the weird posting problems with this story. I still don't know why it kept vanishing. The problem seems to be fixed though.

Also, I just thought I'd give a special thanks to HX9 for helping me with a few questions when I was still working on writing this story.

Hannah started making dinner and wondered what detective Goren liked during his meals. Her mind wandered back to him all day. The man seemed to fidget a lot but somehow it was attractive. It wasn't like he had strange ticks in anyway, but the mannerisms were just…appealing. He looked especially cute when he tilted his head or the way he smiled.

She felt butterflies in her stomach and her body melt at the same time. She smiled to herself, unaware that she was blushing, while she dropped the pieces of beef into the large pot to let it cook.

Her son Max, who had shaggy dark brown hair and square wire framed glasses, came into the room. "Why are you humming?"

"Hmm?" she looked at him surprised. "Humming?" she asked confused.

"Yeah you're humming. You never hum."

"Uh…" she wasn't aware of any humming. "I do too."

"No you don't." He walked over to the fridge and grabbed a pizza pocket from it.

Hannah snatched it from him. "No you don't...dinner will be ready soon."

"You're making stew…that's 5 minutes for that…30 minutes for water and spices to cook…and another 25 for the gravy broth and tomato paste to cook."

"So? For the next hour you starve." She turned him around. "Homework."

"Done."

"Then go watch something fun on tv."

He shrugged and did just that. For a kid of 14, Max was far beyond his years. He had already skipped 3 grades and could have gone further, but his social life which was bad to start with really had trouble. Kids at school always had ridiculed him and some beat him up. Hannah didn't want to add to those problems.

About twenty minutes later the doorbell rang.

Hannah stirred the broth then answered the door, not realizing her hair was now up and messy, in her clip. She hid her pleasure the best she could when she realized it was detective Goren again. It came out in a small smile. "Detectives."

"We were in the neighbourhood." Eames smiled.

Goren took a step forward. Hannah stepped aside to let them in. "Please, come in."

He turned around and smiled at her. "Oh boy, something smells great." He wandered into the kitchen. It was an open-concept connected to the living room. He stirred the pot and waved the steam upwards to smell it better.

Max came from the living room, with a hooded zip up sweater in his hands. "What are you doing?" he asked suspiciously. He'd never seen this guy before and here he was on the verge of giving their meal a taste test.

Goren looked at him surprised, then back at Hannah, then back at him again. Hannah was only thirty but she had a 14 year old. It didn't take a genius to figure out what had happened there. He smiled, pointing at Max. "You must be Hannah's brother?" he grinned at Hannah.

She couldn't help but smile. She glanced down sheepishly, beaming, lifting her eyes first before the rest of her followed. Flirting wasn't something foreign to her. Men flirted a lot with her but Goren's flirting affected her differently. She actually wanted his advances.

Goren stared at her for a second. Not only was he glad that she liked the compliment but her reaction…it took his breath away. She had an incredible smile. It made him light headed and he couldn't think.

Max narrowed his eyes at Goren.

"This is my son Max…Max these are detectives Goren….and Eames."

He pulled on his sweater over the Simple Plan t-shirt he already wore. "'Cause of the judge?"

Goren blinked. "Yeah." He left the kitchen. "Simple Plan?" he pointed to his shirt. "Does t-that mean anything?"

"They're a band." He said like it was obvious.

"If we could talk to your kids separately…" Eames told her. It wasn't an interrogation and they weren't exactly suspects so Hannah didn't see what was wrong with it.

Hannah nodded. "Noah's not feeling well today though." She led Eames upstairs.

Goren wandered over to the fireplace. "You have a nice house…I like it…it's…colourful and…warm." He pointed to the 8x10 picture framed and sitting on the middle of the mantle. "This was recent? At Christmas." He could see a blurred image of Christmas lights over Hannah's shoulder in the picture. It was of her and the boys. They were sitting in front and she had her arms around them.

Goren felt a pang of envy…and grief. His Christmas was spent watching over his mom. Due to the radiation therapy, that completely wiped her out, she had slept for 22 of the 24 hours. The other two hours had been alright but he had been very lonely…something not uncommon for him.

"Yeah."

Goren glanced briefly at a couple of the other pictures then gravitated to the bookshelf to look at some there, and some of the book titles. "Monday night, what time did you go to bed?"

"You think I did it?" he bit.

Goren turned to him surprised. "No…" The kid was definitely threatened by him alright, and he was angry.

He took a deep breath. "Went up to my room at ten it was about midnight when I passed out."

"And your mom…?"

"Mondays…she doesn't normally get to sleep until two."

"Why's that?" he asked interested.

"After she gets home from work she does chores."

"Don't you help her?"

"Of course I do. Laundry, wash the dishes, and cooking sometimes…and she makes me clean my room once a week." He spat, insulted that it had been implied that he didn't do anything to help his mom.

Goren held up his hands in surrender, not liking the fact the boy was so pissed off at him.

Max went to the stove and stirred the pot a little.

"This yours?" Goren asked, taking the clay disk which stood up on a little stand, with the hand imprint off the shelf.

"Yeah, when I was 2."

"Does your brother have one?"

"It broke. We'll make another eventually."

He smiled and pointed out the fat pink, squatting flamingo statue on the shelf. It had bulging eyes and bucked teeth. It was real goofy looking. He chuckled. "I like that."

Max's voice relaxed for a moment, trying to figure the detective out. "It's a flamingo…a bank."

"Yours?"

"I don't 'do' pink."

"Your mother's?"

"Yeah but technically it's the family's…she bought it though."

Goren went up to a picture on the table by the window ledge. It was of Max, a couple years younger, holding Noah who was barely a year old. They were next to a man who had his hand on Max's shoulder. He grabbed the picture. "This your dad?"

"Yeah…are you always so nosy?"

"Sorry…habit." He studied the picture. "He has blue eyes…are they contacts?"

"No he just has blue eyes and before you start, he is my dad. His parents had brown eyes and my mom's dad did too. The gene for brown eyes was dormant in my parents but it's there...and we've got DNA tests to prove it." Unfortunately Hannah's ex had ordered paternity tests during the divorce as a way to try to squirm his way out of paying any child support at all. He lost and the kids were his.

Goren blinked. "Uh…well…okay…you get that a lot?"

He shrugged, going back into the kitchen to pretend he wasn't nervous by Goren's presence.

"Who's the musician?" Goren asked, pointing to the violin on the stand in the corner.

"Mom."

"She plays the violin?"

Max turned around, his hair fell in front of his eyes. He crossed his arms. "She used to."

"And the piano books?"

"I took lessons, now I don't."

"It's just these two floors?" Eames asked curiously as she and Hannah started down the stairs.

"The top two were converted into another apartment and so was the basement."

Goren put one of the books he was looking at down, the question he had about it fading away. He watched Hannah reach the bottom of the steps, his eyes studying her profile. "I think we're done here for now." Eames stated.

Goren gravitated towards the door and they said goodbye once more. Hannah shut the door behind them. Goren glanced at her as she did so, sharing a serious look. He didn't want to leave so soon. 'At least I know where she lives and works. I could always get a hold of her later.'

Hannah pushed the little curtain on the window in the door aside, standing on her tip toes to see out. She watched the tall detective leave, and wondered if their short encounters had any effect on him at all or if he was just a flirt. Once they reached the car, Hannah lowered herself onto the flats of her feet and pushed the curtain back. She would hate for him to see her staring at him. It was a little embarrassing. She never felt like this for anyone. She locked the door and punched in the security code on the alarm.

She turned around and nearly jumped at the sight of Max standing there. "You like him."

"What-"

"Don't deny it I saw the way you were looking at him."

"So? He's still investigating…even if I wanted to he probably isn't allowed to date me yet."

"Mom." He said seriously. "Of the three guys you dated since dad, all of them were complete assholes. This guy is too. The way he flirted with you. He's a player."

She rolled her eyes, sighing. "Max, this is my business, not yours. Don't worry about me. I ended things before I got really hurt the last few times and I can do it again. End of discussion." She left him standing in the room, angry but then, that wasn't anything new.

Goren put the picture of his mom down, sighing, and went over to the big dark brown leather chair. He put the monthly subscriptions onto the coffee table and went into the kitchen for a drink. He brought the glass of scotch with him to the living room, sat down and started going through his magazines.

After reading the Smithsonian, he took the thin black covered magazine the All-Seeing Eye and opened it up. It was an obscure magazine with mostly satires and artsy stories and pictures in it. He discovered it last year, and was grateful for it. This past year was extremely hard for him, and reading this magazine was one of the only things he looked forward to at the end of the day.

Of course, he was certain that could change if he was able to see Hannah again. He thought about calling her, or maybe just showing up on her front door. It wasn't appropriate though.

He closed his eyes and her image easily floated into his mind. He compiled a list of everything he knew about her so far and it only intrigued him more. She didn't have a wedding band or engagement ring on, and there were no pictures of her with another man around so odds were that she was single. A single mother with two boys. Hannah also wasn't afraid of being silly, hence the ridiculous; yet brilliant, flamingo bank. She knew how to play a difficult musical instrument such as the violin, and considering her numerous appeals in court she was most definitely a fighter. Judging from the smell of the food that was cooking, she was a good cook and overall, she was warm. She was polite to the detectives, the house was decorated warm and cozy, and her smile itself could melt an iceberg.

Goren tended to date career women but that had more to do with his opportunities to meet women more than anything. He wondered what it would be like going out with Hannah.

He opened his eyes and sighed, mentally telling himself he shouldn't waste his time thinking about her until it was actually possible for him to make a move. He started going through the magazine. Every so often his mind would wander back to Hannah.

There was one writer in the magazine that Goren particularly loved named Shawn Trainhen. His work alternated between deep, emotional writing that could move one to tears, and intelligent satires that could only make one laugh. He was an amazing writer and his stories always distracted Goren from his troubles.

After reading Shawn's current short story, twice, Goren moved onto the National Geographic. Two pages into it his phone rang.