Look the bunny bit me again. (Need to check it for rabies...do bunnies get rabies?)
Anyway next chapter hopefully will be done before Monday, not making any promises.
Enjoy...
'Will you let go of your present and fix your pasts? Fix your pasts…pasts?'
"Ugh, doc whatever was in that water needs to be sanitized. My head feels like its gonna burst apart."
"Are you ok Miss?"
The room was flooded with light and Alex found herself facing a short elderly man in a janitor's uniform, rather than the doctor she'd just been talking to. The man helped her up and she grabbed onto him as she swayed. "Are you hurt miss, is there anybody I can call for you? Do you live around here?"
Alex held onto the man and looked around the room in confusion. "Where's Doctor Gyson?"
"Dr who?" he asked.
"Dr. Paula Gyson. She's a psychiatrist. She was here a few minutes ago and she…and I were…talking."
The man gingerly let her go and pulled a cell phone from his pocket. "I'll get you the help you need miss," he said it quietly so as to not confuse or startle her.
"I don't need help. I just need to know where the doctor is and why do you keep calling me miss?"
The man ignored her as he was giving the 911 operator details about Alex and what he supposed was her condition. "Yes I need an ambulance at 243 Rochelle."
"I need a bathroom." She said to the man who pointed her towards another broken doorway. She walked unsteadily to it all the while examining the room as she went.
Gone was the white sofa and beautiful vases. The side tables with their elegant arrangement of flowers nowhere to be found and everywhere she looked were signs that the building had not been in use for some time.
There were boards on the windows that weren't broken and the floor was caked with dust, wallpaper was peeling in long strips down the wall so that they resembled curled fingers.
Alex reached the bathroom and went straight to the sink. Feeling queasy she leaned her face over the dirty basin and let the water run until it was relatively clear. She splashed cold water on her face and wiped it dry with sleeve of her black jacket.
She looked up at the cracked mirror and fell backwards against the door. She waved her hand back and forth and the woman in the reflection waved it too. For a moment Alex had been tempted to turn around and see if the woman was just someone standing behind her but the face was unmistakable; the blond looking back at her was indeed her reflection.
The mirror showed a petite blond wearing a black turtleneck, a modest jacket and a short sensible haircut. She wore no makeup or jewelry of any kind and was ten years younger.
'Would you go back…back…back?' Paula Gyson's voice echoed in Alex's mind and before she could pass out a second time she got a glimpse of a tall dark haired Robert Goren in the mirror.
"Bobby?" she asked then stumbled into his arms and promptly crumpled.
"You know her?" the man asked watching the big detective cradle the small woman.
"She's my partner. How long has she been here?"
The man looked at his watch. "I checked these rooms two hours ago. She wasn't here then."
"Thank you." Goren replied and looked down at the woman.
The medics came in a few moments later and took her from his arms. He was told where they were taking her and he followed behind the ambulance. He had been told he could ride with them but Robert had only been partnered up with Eames for two months and he was still doubtful she was going to stick around.
He'd seen the look on her face when he questioned Jacob Nathan about Carl and Gia's relationship. Like all the others, she thought he was weird and her comment about diamonds vs men only helped cement to him that men were low on her list of favorite things.
The only reason he was here now was because a) she was his partner and b) because Deakins and her old man had been tight back in the day and she was like a daughter to him.
When Robert got to the hospital he was given paperwork to fill out.
"Nurse?"
"They're simple forms. I know you're worried about your wife but she's in good hands."
"She's my partner not my wife." He tried to clarify but the woman shushed him.
"Tomatoes, tomatos…though I wouldn't let her hear that if I was you." She said again giving him the clipboard full of paper.
He sighed but didn't bother to argue further. He genuinely attempted to fill out her form but he knew next to nothing about her but did manage to put down her name and employer though everything else remained blank. Thankfully Robert saw a uniform come in with another patient and he briefly explained his situation. The officer went and talked to the nurse and he returned with a room number and a lecture on showing his badge next time, courtesy of the night nurse.
Robert smiled sheepishly and the nurse shook her head but smiled and told him to come to her himself next time. He thanked her and followed the uniform to the examination room.
He came in time to catch the tail end of the lecture the doctor was giving her.
"You've had a very nasty bump to the head and should get checked. You're disorientated and were found in an abandoned building. I cannot let you be discharged to your own reconnaissance, it would be against hospital policy."
"I already told you it was not abandoned, how many times do I have to say that! It's the office of Dr. Paula Gyson. I had an appointment with her this afternoon. I'm sure if you look her up, we can clear up this misunderstanding and I can go home."
"We've already checked and the only psychiatrist with that name lives in Queens and she had no record of you as her patient."
"Of course I'm not in her list. I am not her patient, I can prove it."
"Be that as it may until we have you evaluated, I cannot let you leave."
"Look, My name is Alexandra Eames. I am a detective in Major Case at 1 Police Plaza. My partner is Detective Robert Goren. I wasn't on her list because my partner is her patient and I was there for him." She took a deep breath and continued in a calmer voice, "if you just let me call him, we can sort out this mess."
"I can definitely call your partner and then maybe we'll let you…can I help you?" the doctor asked the man in the doorway, who Eames had just noticed.
Robert pulled out his badge, "Detective Robert Goren. This is my partner, Alexandra Eames and I'm here to sign her out."
Many instructions later Eames was finally allowed out of the hospital but only because her partner had been browbeaten into taking care of her until the threat of a concussion was gone.
They passed the night nurse who raised her eyebrow at Alex and the smaller detective realized that she was gripping Bobby's arm in a very proprietary way. Embarrassed she let go but Bobby didn't comment, though he did put a little more distance between them.
The squad car was parked not more than a few feet from the curb and she didn't bother to ask for the keys since given what the doctor had said, there was no way he was going to let her drive.
Bobby has always been her knight in shinning armor and though she hated playing damsel in distress, she couldn't help but rely on him now even if he was uncomfortable. Given how young he looked and what she glimpsed in the mirror of herself back in the building, she was estimating that they had been partners for no more than two months.
No wonder he was being skittish.
Physical contact between them had been limited to say the least. Most of the time it was just he invading her space with his height and the occasional hand gripping to reassure each other. She also knew from his limited sharing of family history that his upbringing had included more hits than hugs.
As she looked over his handsome profile calmly driving her home, she wondered how she was going to change her behavior without being obvious, because as much as Alex wanted to believe in the impossible, she wasn't totally sure that this wasn't a dream.
"Thank you, Bobby for taking me out of there."
He flinched at the use of his given name and Alex mentally smacked herself. "Um…sure."
She kept her mouth closed the rest of the way after that; there was no need to stick her size 7 foot further into it. She also resolved that if this was a long-winded delusion that she was going to make sure that Bobby got the affection he needed and, if Alex was honest with herself, had longed to give him.
He dropped her off at home but her rest was short lived as in the morning they got a call about a pricy art lover's quarrel gone wrong. He called her and apologized for bringing her in given her accident but she assured him that working would make her feel better.
He showed up at the curb just as she was stepping out her home. "Do you feel up to driving? Or do you want me to?" he asked opening the door for her.
She looked at him. "You opening the passenger door for me doesn't seem like a choice."
He stood there for a moment just staring at her then she nodded and got in. Alex put on her seat belt and waited as he got in. He started the car and soon they were enveloped in a cozy combination of heater and steaming coffee.
"I stopped and got us some coffee on the way. Hope you don't mind. Yours is black with two sugars. I got some creamer since I didn't know how you take it."
She inhaled the heavenly aroma of expensive coffee and took a delicate sip. "It's perfect like this. Thanks."
He seemed pleased by her announcement and she was struck again at how simple it was to fall back into rhythm with him even in this time. Not that she really believed in such things but it was hard to dispute a time shift when you were looking at a ten years younger version of the man, you'd fallen in love with, and had seen go through more heartbreak than one person should.
The deceased was an art appraiser named Bernard Jackson and a young unknown woman, who'd been strung up on his ceiling pipes. While Bobby disputed the validity of the murder-suicide scenario, Eames looked around.
She remembered this crime scene. Bobby went around noted things while Alex watched him.
He looked up in question when he caught her but she turned away before he could ask anything. She busied herself the rest of the time, directing the crime photographer's to the multiple glass rings on the coffee tables and taking pictures of both Jackson and the young woman.
If she wasn't careful he'd see the emotion in her eyes and he would ask questions she had no way of answering. She hadn't know how much she had missed this Bobby until she saw him in the flesh doing what he was so brilliantly good at.
She almost began to wish that this were a dream.
It was too cruel to contemplate the possibility of getting him to trust her like he used to, to trust himself like he had before Deakins' leaving and Danny Ross' death and before the evil of Nicole Wallace.
The next few days blurred as they followed leads and suspects. The obviousness of the culprit was frustrating Alex but since she had no way to back up her knowledge, she went with the flow. They were currently at Annie's place of employment, waiting for the murdered woman's boss to come talk to them about the supposed lighting issue that had driven Annie to New York.
"It's beautiful," she said admiring the Monet beautifully displayed on the wall.
"Impressionists are too pretty." He said dismissively and turned his back to the painting.
"You like the Lucien Freud in the next room." She said it without thinking and the proud expression that crossed his face at her knowing the name nearly overwhelmed her but she recovered quickly and that moment helped her remember their original conversation. "Would you put something like that in your home? Would you want to live with it?"
"I'm not interested in living with it-"he began.
"You're interested in thinking about it." She finished.
"Yes. Art should invoke a wish to know yourself further by what you perceive on the canvas."
"What do you perceive when you look at the Freud?" she asked.
"I see two people who are entwined but apart and are struggling to be one or the other."
Just then the owner of the museum introduced herself and Alex was left not further openings into his mind and as they received more leads Alex began to see the scope of what she was up against.
Especially after Sylvia Moon and Rudy Langer were captured and he cornered her outside the break room. "What happened to you? And why were you in that building?"
"Why do you want to know?"
He tilted his head and she tried not to squirm but his eyes were searching hers in a way they'd never had before. "You seem different, like you've known me far longer than a few months."
"Maybe I do," she replied and escaped to the bullpen. 'He's definitely onto me.'
