A/N: Okay, my bad. Originally, I had this story set between Endgame and Untethered, around the time of Self-Made. Unfortunately, I forgot Wheeler was in Europe at that time and Logan was partnered with Falacci. So, what to do. Here is my dilemma: I wanted the story set before Untethered because afterward, Bobby was estranged from Frank. I can't put it in Season 6 because I need the MFB angle established in Endgame. I can't put it in Season 8 because I need Frank alive. I don't want to use Falacci for this because I wanted a sensitive person in the opening chapter. Wheeler is sensitive; Falacci is not. I just can't see Falacci being as empathetic as Wheeler was in the morgue scene. So, I am going to invoke my writer's prerogative and delay Wheeler's departure for Europe until after this case. That little tweak is a lot easier than re-writing that scene with Falacci. She may be a mother, but that woman does not do warm and fuzzy. Goren certainly didn't need her to stand there accusing him of abandoning his pregnant girlfriend or knowingly denying his child's paternity. Eames and Logan would never have stood for that, and...there might have been bloodshed. That would have been so messy. So, dear readers, with that caveat, we shall move onward!

Eames caught up to Goren as the elevator opened, and she followed him into the car. He opened the file and stared at the report inside, hoping to discourage conversation. Eames recognized the tactic and she respected it, remaining silent but moving closer to him when the elevator stopped on the first floor. Two civilian staff members and a uniformed patrolman stepped into the car. As they ascended to the eleventh floor, people came and went, and the two detectives were not alone in the elevator again.

When they stepped out on the eleventh floor, Eames followed her partner to their desks. He shifted restlessly in front of his desk. "Bobby..." she began.

He shook his head, cutting her off. "Not now, Eames."

She watched him gather his things before he looked at her and said, "I..have some thinking to do. I'll call you later."

"Bobby..."

"Later," he insisted. "I promise."

She watched him leave, uncertain. She wanted to go with him, but he obviously wanted to be alone. She wasn't sure how healthy that was, leaving him alone when he was clearly distressed. He'd floundered after his mother's death until Kevin Quinn was murdered and he had a case to divert his attention from his grief. She sighed softly and wondered if their current caseload was convoluted enough to engage him in the face of the news he had just received.

Opening her laptop, she began to search the birth records for the state of New York. She narrowed down her search with a couple of criteria. Date of birth: 1978 – 1983. Gender: female. Father: William Goren. Nothing. So she broadened her search to surrounding states and she went on from there.

Goren decided against driving home. He was too distracted to drive safely. Besides, walking always helped him to clear his mind. He left the headquarters building, headed north and kept walking. His mind spun in multiple directions as he tried to figure out how that girl in the morgue could be related to him. He would have questioned the DNA results if anyone but Rodgers had run them, and since she'd run the samples more than once, he had to accept the results as accurate. He could not, however, wrap his mind around the implications. What the hell could it mean? What sort of obligation did it place on him?

When he became aware of his surroundings again, it was getting dark. He walked to the nearest intersection. 6th Avenue and Waverly Place. Greenwich Village. His head was aching. He found the closest bar and went inside.

He was working on his second drink when his phone vibrated against his thigh in his pocket. Pulling it out, he looked at the caller ID. Logan. Flipping it open, he answered, "Goren."

"It's about damn time. Where are you?"

"What do you mean, it's about damn time?"

"I've been calling you all afternoon."

"Oh. I...uh, why?"

"Why have I been calling? I'm worried about you, and so is your partner. You promised her you'd call later. Well, it's later and she hasn't heard from you."

"It's not later enough."

"Okay, whatever. Back to my first question. Where are you?"

"In the Village."

"Can you be a little more specific? I'm not going to drive all over the Village yelling your name out the damn window."

"You would, too, wouldn't you?"

"Damn right I would."

"Hold on."

He motioned to the bartender and asked for the address of the place, which he relayed to Logan. "Happy?"

"Oh, yeah. Ecstatic. I'll see you in twenty."

Goren closed his phone and checked his alerts. Nine missed calls. Five from Logan and four from Eames. Great. Slipping the phone into his pocket, he motioned for another drink.

Logan arrived as promised, but he wasn't alone. He slid onto the stool at Goren's right, and Eames slid onto the stool at his left, after she nudged him hard with her shoulder. "Thanks for the call."

"I was gonna call you."

"Middle-of-the-night, drunken, can-you-come-get-me calls don't count. I thought you learned that lesson already."

"You always come to get me"

"Yes, and then you pass out in my car and I have to take you to my place and park you on the couch."

"You don't have to."

"The hell I don't. The distance from my car to my couch is a fraction of the distance from wherever I can find a place to park to your place. You don't have a driveway, remember? And just so you know, I do not appreciate you ignoring my calls. That lesson you never seem to learn."

She ordered a vodka martini and Logan ordered a scotch. Eames leaned back, looking at Logan behind Goren's back. When he didn't look at her, she threw a peanut at him. "Hey," he protested.

She glared at him and he let out an exaggerated sigh. Pulling out his car keys, he tossed them to her. "Happy, mother?"

"I learn my lessons," she shot back. "The last time I was out with the two of you, we damn near got arrested, and you clowns did not help that situation at all. That is not going to happen a second time."

"Suppose I promise to be good?"

"Do you even know how to be good, Logan?"

He shrugged, picking up his drink from the bar and taking a sip. "I tried it. It's overrated."

Eames shook her head and took a drink of her martini. She returned her attention to her partner. "So what's going on?" she said sympathetically.

"Nothing much. I spent the afternoon walking and thinking. You know how I get lost in my head sometimes. I honestly didn't mean to ignore your calls."

"Have you come to terms with anything?"

"No."

She nodded slowly. "Okay, then...let's take this party home and see if we can help you sort through this."

"Eames..."

"It's Friday night. Logan can crash on your couch and I'll take a cab home, if I have to. If you argue with me, I'll stick to you like glue until you talk to me. So unless you really do want to be joined at the hip, you'll accept my offer."

Logan nudged him. "Who can refuse a threat, I mean offer, like that."

Eames glared at him and he laughed. Even Goren smiled. They finished their drinks and left the bar.

An hour later, they were gathered in Goren's living room. They'd ordered pizza and raided the beer in the fridge. "While you were out wandering, I did some checking," Eames said. "I searched the birth records for a female child born between 1978 and 1983 to William Goren, and I came up empty in the state of New York. I remember you saying something about your mom complaining he was often gone, so I expanded the search to include New Jersey, Connecticut and Pennsylvania. Again, nothing. So then I gave the time frame plus-or-minus two years. Apparently, even though he was a longtime player, William Goren was a very careful man, at least he was between 1976 and 1985. Just for kicks, I repeated the same search with your name, even though you were in Germany. You'll be happy to know that also turned up no results. Then I ran it with Frank as the father. Again, nothing. After that, I ran out of parameters. Could you have fathered a child in Germany?"

"Anything is possible, I suppose, but...you know me, Eames. I-I'm careful. I guess you could say I sowed my fair share of wild oats, but I was still careful. I-I guess I can look up my old girlfriends, just in case, but like I said...the women I was with during that time...they would have welcomed a legitimate opportunity to stay, uh, connected to me."

She knew he spoke the truth. Goren rarely left anything to chance and she trusted that he was consistent with his use of protection during sex. "So what do you suggest?"

He was quiet for a long time, pondering his answer as he calculated the reaction Eames and Logan might have to the truth he was trying to keep hidden. Finally, he said, "I'm afraid you wasted your afternoon. If-If the man I called my father had another child with any woman other than my mother...I...I wouldn't have any genetic relationship with that child."

"What are you talking about?"

He stared at the folder resting in his binder. "I, uhm, I recently found out...he, he was not...not my biological father."

Logan looked interested. "No kidding? Do you know who your father is?"

"Yeah, I know." He got up from the easy chair in the corner and walked to his desk. "My mother had an affair early in her marriage to my father. It lasted until I was about four, according to my brother. She told me she never knew which man fathered me." He pulled an envelope from his desk drawer and turned it over in his hands. Once the envelope left his hands, there would be no taking it back. Whatever was changed by the information within it would be changed forever. He held out the envelope without looking at either of them.

Logan and Eames exchanged a look before Logan got up and took the envelope. He hesitated, seeing how reluctant Goren was to share whatever information it held. "Go ahead," Goren said. "Look at it."

One way or another, he would find out what kind of friends he had in the two people in his living room. Now that his mother was gone, Eames and Logan were about the only people left in the world about whom he truly cared. He closed his eyes, waiting for the storm that was sure to come.

Slowly, Logan opened the envelope and slid out the single folded piece of paper it held. He unfolded it and read the report. He had difficulty hiding his reaction before he handed it off to Eames.

She unfolded the paper, recognizing the form as one from the medical examiner's lab, a DNA test, like the one he had in his binder from the Jane Doe. She looked at her partner one more time before she read on.

Subject # 1: Goren, Robert O.

Subject # 2: Brady, Mark F.

Genetic probability for paternity: 99.7%

She stared at the paper, uncomprehending. Genetic probability for paternity: 99.7%. She read that line over and over. Then she looked at Goren. She opened her mouth, but no words came out, so she closed it. She continued to look at him until she found a couple of words. "Mark Ford Brady? Mark Ford Brady is your...your..."

He nodded. "My father. He was on leave, uh, in-in November of 1960, when I...when I would have been conceived. I started to put the pieces together after I saw this." He withdrew something else from the same drawer, a picture, which he handed to Logan, who passed it on to Eames. She recognized it as one of Brady's pictures, only it hadn't been damaged by the elements. "Th-That's my mother. I-I confronted her about it, right before she died. As you know, sometimes my timing really sucks. Since she didn't know which man was my father, I-I had to know, so I asked Rodgers if she would do the test. She didn't want to, but she did it...as a favor to me. Brady...He wasn't trying to clear his conscience before he died, even if he was trying to extend his sentence by sending us on a chase for those scrapbooks he hid. But I think he'd already made peace with his fate. He-He wanted to...to do one last thing before he died. He wanted to make some kind of connection with his son, with me...to send me a message so that I would know the role he played in my life."

Eames sat heavily, looking back and forth between the photo and the paternity test results. It was almost too much to take in...almost. I had to know. Of course he did. He always had to know. He was not a man who could ever just leave well enough alone. He could not leave questions unanswered. Finally, she placed the photo with the test results and set both on the coffee table. Then she looked up at him. "It doesn't mean anything, Bobby."

Logan nodded in agreement. "She's right. It doesn't matter."

He stared at them. "Doesn't mean anything? It means I'm the son of a serial killer and rapist, Eames." His eyes darted to Logan. "How does that not matter?"

"Come on, Bobby," Logan said reasonably. "Finding out who your father really is forty-five years after the fact doesn't change who you are."

"Exactly," Eames agreed. "You can't beat yourself up over something you had nothing to do with. We don't choose our parents. This doesn't do anything to change the man you are, and it certainly doesn't change the way I feel about you. It's nothing. You became the good man you are despite your upbringing—and your paternity—so don't go off the deep end over this."

"Don't you think this explains how I can get into their heads so well?"

"Maybe it does and maybe it doesn't. We'll never know. Maybe it also explains why you're not a junkie and a gambler like your brother. Like Mike said, it doesn't matter. Whatever it took to make you the man you are is fine by me."

That was definitely not the reaction he'd expected. He'd been looking for anger and revulsion, the kind of reaction he'd had, not acceptance. He had no idea what to say, so he just stood there and stared at them before he returned to his chair and sat down.

She picked up the test results and the photo and handed them to Logan, who slid them back into the drawer Goren had gotten them from. She picked up her beer and took a drink. "So tomorrow I'll take a look and see if Brady is listed as the father in any of the birth records during that time. Of course, that doesn't rule him out. I don't know many women who would list their rapist as the father of their child, if they even knew he was."

She succeeded in refocusing him and he snapped out of his funk. "I...I, uhm, it's possible, but...this woman is not his daughter. He would have popped on the DNA comparison if she was. Rodgers...uh, she already thought of that."

"Rodgers is good that way," Logan admitted.

"How long did you say the affair lasted?" Eames asked.

"It ended in 1965, when I was four, after he..." He almost choked on the word. "Uh, after he...raped and beat her. Frank and I were told it was a car accident. They, uhm, my grandparents, that is, they closed ranks around her when it happened."

"Okay, so then, what do you want to do?"

He rubbed his eyes. "I want to go to bed so I can wake up from this nightmare."

Logan sat on the couch at the end opposite Eames and tossed out the scenario no one had brought up though they were all thinking it. "So if she isn't Brady's daughter, and you're sure you didn't father a child..."

Goren waved his hand, silencing him. He didn't want to think about it, but he had no choice—and they were thinking along the same lines he was. He shook his head. "Someone would have contacted me," he muttered, desperately wanting to believe what he said.

"Are you sure about that?" Eames asked.

He closed his eyes and ran a hand through his hair. Finally, he shook his head. "No. I'm not. But...why wouldn't she want me to know?"

Silence filled the room following his question. Eames finally responded, "You were just starting your life, Bobby. Maybe she didn't want to interfere with that."

"Or maybe she didn't want me to interfere with her decision."

"Would your brother know?" Logan asked.

"Maybe. I'll have to call him and find out what he knew. He was supposed to be watching out for her while I was gone. That was why I had to get out of the army and come home, because he did such a bang-up job of it. If she had taken her medicine for the twelve years I was gone, maybe I wouldn't have had to come home, maybe I wouldn't have had to put her in Carmel Ridge."

"There's no way to know, is there?" she quietly asked.

"No. The disease progresses differently for different people. Some respond to medication, some don't. Some do better over time, some never do, even with meds. But the longer the disease goes without proper treatment, the more severe it tends to be later on. I think that was what happened with my mother. If she had a child...after she was diagnosed...it could have made things a lot worse."

"Have you ever donated sperm?" Logan asked.

"What?"

Eames nodded, following Logan's suggestion. "If you donated sperm, then she could be your biological child."

"And the father would be listed as Donor # 58903," Logan added.

Goren rubbed the back of his neck. "No. I never donated sperm. I didn't want the specter of that hanging over my head."

"The specter of what? I think your children would be adorable," she asserted, glaring at Logan when he laughed.

"The specter of unknowingly fathering a child, of possibly passing on schizophrenia to an unsuspecting family. I would never do that. They would be adorable ticking time bombs."

His response did not surprise her. "Then call Frank," she said. "Find out if he knows what happened. Bobby, that girl came from somewhere, and somehow, she is related to you."

He remained where he was for a few minutes, his hand clamped against his neck. Finally, he stood, walked to the counter and picked up his cell phone.