The doorbell woke Goren from a restless sleep. He rolled off the couch and ran a hand through his hair as he answered the door. Ellie studied him. "Did I say ten? I thought I said nine, but my memory isn't what it once was."

He shook his head. "No, no, you said nine. I just overslept. Come on in while I get ready."

Grabbing his bag, he disappeared into the bathroom, where he ran a comb through his hair, brushed his teeth and changed into a pair of clean jeans and a dark blue NYPD t-shirt. Back in the living room, he stepped into his sneakers and tied them. "Ready?"

"No breakfast?"

"I don't usually eat breakfast."

"Suppose we stop for coffee?"

He nodded. "That sounds like a plan. Where are we going?"

"To Lake Giallard. I go up there every weekend. It's peaceful."

He locked the door and followed her to her car. "If you go away for peace and quiet, why do you want me with you?"

She started the car and pulled away from the curb. "I get the feeling you could use some peace and quiet, too. Since I need to have someone with me when I leave town, I thought we could both benefit from a day at the lake."

"Why do you need someone with you?"

She shook her head. "That's not important right now. Just try to relax and enjoy the day. I brought lunch along, and we can go out to the island to eat."

"Out to the island?"

"The island in the middle of the lake." She smiled when he arched an eyebrow at her. "Don't worry. I have access to a boat. Can you row?"

His mouth twitched but a smile didn't form. His tone, however, was light. "I can row."

"And since you can walk, I assume you can hike."

An expression akin to amusement settled across his features. "Yes. I can hike. And I swim, too, but not in jeans."

"Do you like the outdoors?"

"Yes."

She pulled into a small parking lot outside a local deli and they got coffee. She also got a buttered roll for each of them. After turning out of the parking lot, she asked, "Did your parents ever take you camping when you were a kid?"

"Uh, no. There was never...time for that."

"You have to make time for what is important."

"They did." He was just never included on the 'important' list.

She sensed the darkening of his mood. Perhaps his childhood had not been a happy one like hers. She let the subject drop. "So do you do much camping or hiking now?"

"No. Work takes up most of my time."

"Robert..."

He waved his hand. "Please don't tell me I shouldn't work so hard. It's all I really have that gives my life any meaning." He shifted in his seat, restless. "And, uh, you can call me Bobby."

She smiled. "Bobby. All right. And you can tell me about work, if that's what makes you happy."

Happy. He wasn't sure what that meant. Not really. There had been times in his life when he was content, but in his memory, the closest he'd ever been to being happy was when Eames returned from maternity leave. God, that was four years ago. He turned away from his thoughts, which were certain to turn to darker times if he didn't change the subject. "Didn't you tell me that you're a teacher?"

"Yes. First and second grade."

"In Buffalo?"

"Just outside Buffalo, yes. A small Catholic school called Our Lady of Mercy."

"When are you supposed to go back?"

She smiled. "Trying to get rid of me already?"

"No. Just curious. It's what I do."

"You question everything."

She said it as a statement of fact and hit the nail squarely on the head. "Yes, I do."

"So, what about faith? Where does faith fit in to the scheme of your life?"

He frowned darkly. "Faith? Just what is faith, Ellie? Faith has done nothing for me. I lost it a long time ago."

"I'm sorry to hear that."

"Don't be. I never saw it as a major loss. My life was no better with it and no worse without it."

She didn't reply immediately, and he didn't see any reason to break the silence. He preferred silence, unless he was working a case. When there was silence, there was no pressure on him. He didn't have to guard his words, although he hadn't been doing such a good job of that lately, not with Eames. He didn't want to admit that his partner had found a chink in his armor. He had no idea what would happen if she broke through his barriers into the unprotected core of who he was. And the idea of it terrified him.

Ellie's voice broke into his thoughts. "What happened to cost you your faith, Bobby?"

"Life," he answered. "Life happened." But he did not offer details and, to his relief, Ellie didn't immediately seek any. But something told him they were going to revisit that topic in the near future.

It didn't take long to get to the lake. After parking the car, Ellie opened the trunk and closed her hand over the straps of a green backpack. Bobby's larger hand closed over hers and she slid her hand away, allowing him to take the backpack, which he swung easily to his back and slipped on.

With a smile, she started away from the car. "This way," she said brightly.

He watched her for a moment before his face relaxed into a soft smile and he followed her.

It didn't take long for Bobby to realize that Ellie's personality was strongly the opposite of his own. She was bright and cheerful with an optimism that was almost contagious. She enjoyed talking, but she wasn't the type who chattered on about nothing just to hear her own voice. She talked about the history of the area and the highlights of the lake itself. She pointed out every animal and bird that crossed their paths. She missed nothing.

He was fascinated by her knowledge and her energy. She seemed to sense the presence of life around her and he found that intriguing. This woman was a rare soul and she seemed to draw him into the halo of life that surrounded her. As the morning progressed, he felt more relaxed than he could remember feeling in a long time.

They walked part of the way around the lake, stopping often. Ellie was someone who understood the meaning behind the cliché Stop and smell the roses. No opportunity to see a flower or an animal was wasted.

She led him to a small dock. Two rowboats were tied to it, and an envelope was taped to a seat in one boat. When she faltered as she started to step into the boat, he grabbed her arm to steady her and helped her down into the hold of the boat. As she opened the envelope, he dropped the backpack into the boat and stepped down into it. Ellie held up the letter. "My friend Andy owns this boat. We've been friends since we were four. He said to have fun."

After reaching out to untie the line, Bobby settled the oars in the oarlocks and pushed away from the dock. Ellie wrapped her arms around her legs and turned her face toward the sky, eyes closed. He watched her as he rowed toward the island and wondered what she was thinking. His attention shifted to her pale skin from her throat, down to the neckline of her shirt, across to her shoulders. She was much paler than Eames, not nearly as muscular. Tanned and toned, Eames had beautiful skin. It was something he noticed every day, something burned into his memory. By day, he watched her, silently appreciating every move she made. By night, he had her in his dreams, closer than she would ever be in the reality of daylight.

"Bobby?"

Snapping himself from his thoughts, he focused again on Ellie. He'd stopped rowing and she watched him with a mixture of curiosity and concern. "Sorry," he muttered, resuming their journey to the island.

"What were you thinking about?" Ellie asked. "You were very far away."

Often, he relished the fact that most people ignored him. He never had to explain where his mind went. Only Eames ever cared enough to ask, to seek him when he went away. This was unusual for him. "I, uh, I was just thinking about someone. Sorry."

"Never apologize for thinking about someone you love."

He stared at her, again pausing in his rowing. Love? "I-It's not what you think. I mean, I..." He trailed off, frowning.

"It's not what I think," she repeated back to him. "What isn't what I think?"

He wasn't used to being challenged; his mind tripped a few times and his tongue stalled. Without replying, he gripped the oars tightly and continued to row with strong, angry strokes.

Ellie watched the anger and embarrassment rise in him. We hit some kind of chord in him. Perhaps love is part of his problem. She glanced toward the deep blue sky and implored, Guide me, please.

Her inner self felt it was all right to push a little. After all, how far could he go in a rowboat? "Who is she?"

"S-She?"

Ellie smiled, a knowing smile. "Yes. She. As in the woman responsible for that tender look on your face. The one who leads your mind off on tangents that seem to relax you and make you tense at the same time."

This woman was too perceptive. He wasn't inclined to admit anything, so he slyly shifted tactics. "Suppose it's you?"

She laughed, a light, musical sound of genuine mirth. "That's ridiculous."

He set the oars in the boat, casting them adrift, at the mercy of the lake currents and eddies. "Why?" he challenged. "Because we just met?"

"No. Because it's impossible."

He frowned. "Impossible to love you?"

"In the way you mean, yes."

"Why?"

She was encouraged by the genuine curiosity and interest on his face as he leaned forward. She leaned in closer as well. "Because I am not at liberty to be in love, and even if I was, now is the worst possible time for it to happen. And besides, your heart belongs to someone else."

"No, it doesn't," he denied.

She continued to study his face. "Love is the most powerful of all emotions. It is wondrous and frightening, but once you accept it and give yourself over to it, it is sustaining and comforting. Everyone should feel loved by someone. But you...you are afraid to love."

"I...I don't know how to let anyone be that close," he said before he could stop himself.

She didn't believe that, but she was convinced that he did. "What about her?" she pressed.

"She..." Eames' words once more brushed gently past his ear on the breeze: I care about you, because I love you. I love you. He looked down into the boat. "She deserves better."

Ellie needed no sixth sense to feel his despair. "Why would you say that?"

His head snapped up and his eyes blazed. "Because it's the truth."

Baby steps, her inner voice cautioned. Don't push too hard just yet. "In whose eyes?" she asked softly.

He chewed his lower lip and answered, "She lost the love of her life more than ten years ago in a line-of-duty shooting. She's not interested in finding another one. Love," he said the word with bitterness. "Love has never been part of my destiny."

"So change your destiny."

He began to laugh and set the oars back in the water. "Right. Destiny is immutable."

She snorted. "I don't believe that."

"So why isn't it in your future to find love?"

"That's not destiny. I made that choice a long time ago and I'm not inclined to change it. It was the right choice for me. But it doesn't sound like it's been a choice for you, at least not completely. Would you really chase it away if love came knocking on your heart?"

He didn't answer, relieved when he had to maneuver into the island dock. Would he chase it away? Not necessarily. But would love really come knocking on a heart that bore a 'no vacancy' sign? Did he have it in him to let anyone in?

He tossed the line up onto the dock and climbed out of the boat, tying it securely to the dock. Ellie handed the back pack up to him. He set it on the dock and reached a hand down to help her out of the boat. As she stood up on the dock, a wave of nausea and dizziness overcame her and she began to topple backwards. He grabbed her and pulled her toward him. Her body fell into his and he held her as she recovered, eyes closed. Her hands fisted into his shirt and she didn't move.

Silently, he stroked her auburn hair. "Ellie?" he finally whispered.

Her hands relaxed and she released his shirt, stepping away from him at the same time. "Forgive me," she said. "That happens at the most inconvenient times."

"It's happened before?"

She looked across the lake silently before reaching out to lay a hand on his chest. She was quiet for another moment. "Never mind. It's passed. I just need something to eat."

He leaned over to catch her eyes, which she let him do. She was struck by the intensity and concern in the deep brown of his eyes. "Really. I'm fine."

She stepped away from him and walked down the short dock. He grabbed the pack and followed her. "Ellie, please. Talk to me. Something is wrong with you. You've left your teaching job. You can't come out here alone. You refuse to consider love..."

She raised a hand, objecting. "No, that has nothing to do with my health. That was a lifestyle choice for me. The love you mean has never been part of my life, never will be."

He would not allow her to change topics. "Have you always been so pale?"

She laughed lightly. "I'm Scottish and Irish, Bobby. Of course I've always been pale."

He was not amused. "Ellie..."

She stopped and turned to face him. "Let it go, please."

It was not in his nature to let anything go, but he felt compelled to let her have her way...just the way he did with Eames. He looked away, conceding to her, at least for the moment. He planned to revisit the subject soon. "Thank you," she said quietly, turning to continue down the path.

He hesitated for a moment before following her. When he caught up to her, he unconsciously adjusted his stride to accommodate her much smaller one. It was second nature to him. The women most important to him were small women. Now that his mother was gone, there was only Eames.

"What's her name?" Ellie asked, out of the blue.

"Who?" he answered.

"The woman you claim not to love."

"I never said I didn't love her," he protested.

"Well, she does have a name, doesn't she?"

With a sigh, he nodded. "Eames...uhm, Alex. Her name is Alex."

"And how do you know her?"

"She's my partner."

"Oh...that must make things uncomfortable."

"Not at all. I am comfortable with her. We've been partners for a long time."

"Does she know how you feel?"

He laughed, a bitter sound. "No. She doesn't."

"Why not?"

"Because I've chosen not to tell her. She doesn't need to know. Some things are best left alone." He stared at the ground as he walked beside her. "I am lucky she tolerates me the way she does. I won't push it by asking for more."

"I think you underestimate yourself. Bobby, you are worth loving, if you just let yourself be loved."

"I told you before, she isn't looking for anything I might have to offer, if I had anything to offer."

"You cannot speak for her," she said gently. "You have to step forward and take the risk."

He couldn't stop the panic that tightened his gut, and his reply was adamant. "No. It's not worth it. I can't take that risk. Ellie, you don't understand. If I lose her...I lose everything. My life..." He paused to take several deep breaths and calm himself. When he felt composed, in control, he continued, "My life can't take another loss. She...she is all I have left."

She was genuinely curious and she felt they were making progress. "What have you lost?"

"Everything. My mother, my brother, my job...I lost everything I had that meant anything to me." He paused, then added, "I got my job back, but...it cost me. Things weren't the same. Everything became... difficult."

"What happened with your mother and your brother?"

Vaguely, he murmured, "They died, a year apart from one another. She had cancer; he was a junkie. But they were the only family I had."

She didn't miss his tension or his reluctance to talk, and she decided not to push it. Her sixth sense told her it wouldn't be worth it. Not yet. She touched his hand and pointed. "Over here. This is the best place on the island to enjoy lunch."

He helped her spread a tablecloth on the ground in the shade of a large Japanese Maple tree. As she settled on the ground beside the backpack, he did not miss a grimace that she tried to hide. He dropped down beside her. "Ellie, what can I do to help you?"

"You can do exactly what you have been doing. Don't treat me like my mother does. I am not a fragile flower."

He stretched out onto his side, propped on his elbow. "Okay, so maybe you aren't fragile, but any beautiful flower should be cherished."

She graced him with a warm smile. "Thank you, Bobby, but believe me, I lack for nothing. My life is very fulfilling. I want for nothing, except time."

"Time?"

She handed him a sandwich. "Realistically, does anyone ever believe they have enough time?"

Once again, she was sidestepping the real subject. He watched her nestle against the tree, and he was amazed by her. This was a woman who was full of love for all life on the planet.

He moved closer to her. "Who are you?"

She studied his face intently, not misunderstanding his question. "Believe me, I am nobody important, but to each person who knows me, I am what I need to be. I'm a daughter. I'm a teacher. I'm a friend in need."

He cocked his head to one side. "Why would a woman like you reject love?"

"Reject it? Bobby, I have embraced it."

His brow furrowed. "But you said..."

She smiled again. He was interested and animated. This, she imagined, was the Bobby that his Alex saw most frequently, a man on the hunt, in search of the answers to a puzzle he knows he can solve. "I said, I will never know the kind of love you refer to, physical love between a man and a woman. But that's only the surface of the barrel. Love is an amazing thing, if you open yourself to it, which you seem to have a lot of trouble doing."

"What do you know about it?" he challenged.

"I know all about love at its purest, love for life in all its forms." She touched a root beside her and caressed it. His eyes followed her hand as it left the root and made a sweeping motion toward the world around them. "There is love all around if you look for it."

"Suppose I don't want to find it."

"I don't believe that for a second. I sense a lot of passion in you, and a lot of love. But it's trapped with no way out until you release it."

He looked down at the grass, finding a beetle and watching its progress along the ground. Ellie moved to his side, looking down at the beetle as it scurried along. Kneeling beside him, she quietly said, "I made a promise, to God, when I was 22 years old. I promised to be faithful, to love and cherish Him and to do His work, until the day I die. I am not free to make the same commitment to a man. I have a greater purpose to fulfill."

He looked at her and arched an eyebrow. "A greater purpose than love?"

She laughed. "You are very good. You manipulate words to get people to say what you want them to say. My greater purpose is love, love for all mankind, not just a select few."

"I made a promise, too, seventeen years ago...a promise to serve and protect, at the cost of my own life, if necessary. But you...your promise was to serve and to love, to give your life to others."

Her face remained bright. "You will give your life for another. I will give my life for God."

His mind hummed, processing her words, reading into them the meanings she wanted to convey and pulling out what she hadn't yet told him. "Your students...they call you Sister, don't they?"

"Yes, they do. But here at home, I'm just Ellie."

"You left your order?"

"No. I'm considered on sabbatical. What happens next, and when it happens, is up to God."

A silence fell between them as he considered her words, once more searching for the meaning she left hidden in them. She leaned over to look into his face, which was cast toward the ground. "Tell me what happened that cost you your faith, Bobby."

He shifted uncomfortably. He hated being involved in any conversation that probed beneath the surface of who he was. He didn't like for anyone to try to penetrate his outer walls. His answer to her was vague. "When I was a kid, I had the faith of a child. I believed there was a much greater entity than myself because everyone around me was a greater entity than me. It was easy to believe."

"And then?"

"And then my life came crashing down around me."

She realized that he wasn't inclined to give her, or anyone else, details of his life. So she offered a suggestion that was just as vague and yet, not vague at all. "You turned from God. But consider this: when the carpet got pulled from beneath you, you survived because He was still there with you."

"I survived," he corrected. "Because there were no other options open to me. I had no alternative. Sometimes, the best we can do is survive, and that's what I have done. For whatever it's worth I have survived, and that just sets me up for more of whatever life has to dish out. God has nothing to do with my life or how it turned out."

"I have to disagree with you there."

His voice turned bitter. "Of course you do. That's part of your job. I've read the Bible. I know all the stock answers. You have nothing new to offer me, Sister."

She felt the rise of his anger and bitterness toward a universe that had not treated him kindly. "Are you sure about that, detective?"

He lurched to his feet and walked away, but Ellie was not inclined to let him retreat. She followed him. "How old were you when you came to think God left you?"

He shoved his hands into his pockets and leaned against a tree, looking out across the lake. He shrugged a shoulder. "It didn't happen all at once. I was an altar boy until I was twelve. It hurt my mother when I stopped going to church, but I couldn't put on airs like my brother did. He kept going to make her happy but there was no sincerity in what he did. I couldn't keep lying to myself or to her. So I stopped going."

"Did your father have anything to say about it?"

"I never knew my father, but the man who raised me didn't care about anything that didn't directly impact him. He certainly didn't care about me or what I did unless it upset my mother too much."

She leaned her back against a nearby tree. "He cared about your mother..."

He waved his hand, shaking his head. "Don't misunderstand me. He left when I was 11 because my mother was sick and he couldn't take it any more. If I got her upset and she had to go into the hospital, then he was stuck dealing with me, and that was a major inconvenience to him. He was nobody's hero, least of all mine."

"Was it the same cancer that killed her?"

"What? Her illness? No. My mother was schizophrenic. She developed symptoms when I was seven, and for years she was non-compliant with medications, until I finally had to hospitalize her." He tossed his hands in the air. "So there you have it, Ellie. That's why I lost my faith. All I ever wanted was for my mother to be well, but that was too much to ask, so I stopped asking for anything at all. If God couldn't bother with me, I had no reason to bother with Him."

He walked down to the water's edge, and again she followed him. Anger got him talking, and she didn't want to lose the edge she had with him. "You resent the trials of your life," she said without malice. It was a gentle accusation with the ring of truth to it.

"I don't know," he answered. "The trials of my life brought me to where I am. I really don't know if it's where I want to be or not, but it's what I have. Resentment doesn't do me any good."

She grabbed his arm and he spun toward her, his face dark and stormy. But, like Eames, she stood her ground, not allowing him to intimidate her. "You don't want to be alone."

Her voice carried the conviction of knowing she was right. He didn't pull away from her, but the anger slipped from his face and some of the fight went out of him. She saw the slight relaxation in his shoulders, and she pressed on. "Talk to her," she urged. "Tell her how you feel. The worst thing you could do is let her go."

"Let her go..." he huffed in frustration. "I have no right to keep her."

"Let her make that decision."

"And when she decides to walk away? When she realizes I'm too much trouble and not worth the effort she has made to get close to me?"

Ellie raised a finger, triumph in her eyes. "She has made an effort to get close, but you have pushed her away. Stop pushing, Bobby. Let her have her way this time. Let her get close."

He stared at her for a moment. "Touche, Sister," he finally said, still bitter. "But words are easily spoken, much more easily than the actions they suggest. Come on. I'll take you home."

"How can you be so stubborn?" she blurted out, exasperated.

"You're a fine one to talk. It's my life; I'll manage it."

"Well, since you've done such a bang-up job to this point, I can see why you don't want any help."

His temper flared again. "I don't want any help. I never asked for any help. I didn't welcome your prying. Now back off!"

"You just want to be miserable and alone," she snapped back.

"Maybe I do."

Her eyes narrowed. "You're a poor liar."

"Not really. Look, Ellie, I have pushed Alex away enough that she no longer looks for a way to get in. She knows I don't have anything to offer her so she has stopped pretending that I do."

"You are a smart man, but you're a stupid one, too."

He dropped to the grass beside the tablecloth and stretched out on his back. He was done discussing the remnants of his life and he refused to accept her solution for pulling it back together. Eames was not the answer to his problems and neither was Gage. There was no answer to them, and he'd come to accept that. His life was what it was, and he wasn't looking to change it. Change only made things worse. He was the son of a schizophrenic and a serial killer. He had nothing to offer any woman, and Eames had seen him at his worst. There was no hope for anything outside their work relationship, for those reasons and a hundred others, although Ellie couldn't know any of that. Right now, his life was as good as it was going to get.

Ellie sat down on the cloth, crossed her legs and watched him. He had shut down completely on her. Stubbornly, she continued to reach out to him. "Too bad I'm not the interfering type, or I'd talk to her myself."

His eyes shifted toward her. "Why would you do that?"

"You mean aside from the fact that I think she needs to know?"

He looked away again. "She knows," he said finally. "And it's not something she has ever chosen to pursue."

"Because you have never invited her in. You said she's tried to get close to you. What more do you expect from her?"

"I don't know how to let her in!" He closed his eyes, angry with himself for losing his temper again. "I'm sorry. I shouldn't have yelled."

He opened his eyes, startled, when she touched him. Resting the flat of her palm on his chest, she said, "It's not as difficult as you think. All you have to do is try. She'll do the rest, as long as you are willing."

"You intentionally brought me out here because you knew I couldn't run away."

She smiled. "No, I really do come out here every week. Keeping you from taking off was just a fringe benefit."

He laughed, the first genuine laugh she'd heard from him. "You're a piece of work, do you know that?" he asked lightly.

"I've been told that more than once, yes. Father Charles says I'm like the sun—a ray of light that can't be extinguished."

He nodded. "I can see why he says that."

"Will you talk to her?"

He sighed. God, she was persistent. "Maybe. I'll think about it. But I don't believe in miracles."

"You don't have to believe. I have enough faith for us both."

"I honestly believe that you do," he answered, reaching out to grasp her hand and give it a squeeze. She smiled, and he saw the sun in her face. Father Charles was right.