CHAPTER THREE

It may not have been normal, but Alex's life became more routine. She went to work, she saw her family, she refused to go on dates. She spent one afternoon answering Nate's questions about Bobby as best as she could. The boy's questions didn't bother her as much as that she didn't know their answers. The FBI wasn't particularly forthcoming about what happened beyond saying Robert Goren was a hero. His name would eventually be added to the memorial to fallen agents. But Alex's meetings with those who had worked with Bobby were postponed week after week. It was mysterious and frustrating to Alex, especially as she couldn't rid herself of the haunting sensation Bobby was still alive.

Many things about Bobby"s death puzzled Nate. This didn't surprise Alex. Bobby was the first person in Nate's young life who had died.

"Bobby is in heaven?" Nate asked one day as they shared ice cream.

"Yes." Alex though that if ever a man was good enough and had suffered enough to get into heaven, it was Bobby Goren.

Nate went to the memorial service. "Is it wrong," he asked Alex as he watched and listened to the crowd. "To be having a good time at a funeral?"

"It's fine," Alex said. "We're sad because we're not going to see Bobby any more, but this is a celebration of Bobby's life as much as it's a way to say goodbye to him."

She could talk to Nate about Bobby. Nate had always accepted Bobby. Bobby was part of his life, a good and welcome one. The rest of her family, as it always had been when it came to Bobby, was puzzled. Puzzled that Alex was the executor and beneficiary of Bobby's will (she placed all of the money and bonds in a trust fund for Nate after giving some to groups she thought would please Bobby). Puzzled by her lack of emotion, and also by what they saw as her refusal to move on. Alex couldn't blame them. She didn't understand her feelings either.

"Maybe it's because you really didn't get to say goodbye to him?" Liz Rodgers suggested during one of their margarita sessions. "I mean...with Danny...I couldn't deny his death..."

"I don't know," Alex said. "Maybe...I just don't know."

"I can't imagine you being afraid of anything, Alex," Jimmy Deakins said to her over lunch one day. "But you think you might not want to face the future?"

Alex took a long drink of tea. "I've wondered about that. I don't think so. I mean, I'm going to work. I'm seeing people. I don't think I'm hiding from things. I just can't believe Bobby's dead."

"I know," Deakins said. "If anything, it seems to me that you're running towards things, not away from them."

She continued to press the FBI. Her contacts appeared to be telling her everything they could. She appealed to a few of Bobby's contacts in the intelligence world, but they couldn't offer any additional information.

"I can't tell you anything," one told her.

"Can't or won't?" Alex said.

The man smiled sadly. "In this case, can't. There's just no information. I don't think it's even a case of secrecy. There's just nothing there."

Alex resigned herself to asking questions when she could and accepting what answers she got. But the FBI's reluctance to help troubled her, as did her memory of Agent McAllister's behavior when he appeared to inform her of Bobby's death.

"Something's going on," Alex thought. "But do I even want to know?" She lay in her bed and stared at the ceiling. "Oh, Bobby. So much I wish I would've told you. I wish I would've done. But I have to let you go. I have to."

She hadn't slept well since the news of Bobby's death, not that she'd slept that well in the weeks before his death. She drifted in and out of a troubled sleep punctuated by dreams and memories of Bobby. She thought she heard the faint click of her front door, but she knew she'd locked all of them. The habit became implanted after Jo Gage's attack on her, and the only keys were in her hands, her fathers', and …

Bobby.

She shot up in bed just as her bedroom door opened slowly. She started to grab the gun under the bed when a streak of light from her windows fell on the face of the large figure standing in the doorway. Dark eyes stared out at her from a pale face surrounded by graying curls.

Her heart raced. She couldn't breath, and her body froze. Fear and hope seized her. "Bobby," she squeaked."

END Chapter Three