Disclaimer: I don't own anything connected to Law & Order: Criminal Intent but if Dick Wolf is feeling generous I'm always willing to take delivery. No financial gain involved in writing this story, so please don't sue.

Summary: Definitely B/A - but if you've read any of my other stuff you could have guessed that ;o) I've been rewatching my Season 1 DVDs and this is what happened in my head after some of the episodes. Hope you enjoy.

A/N: For Fanmlz – A short foray into 'The Pardoner's Tale' because after what just happened, Lewis's comment would be bound to get them both thinking – just a quick stop off before we get the 'The Third Horseman'. This is actually quite angsty compared to my usual writing – so I'm sorry – it's just how this scene played itself out when I rewatched the episode again after I'd finished writing the first part of this story.

Bobby's POV

I'm standing behind my buddy Lewis and Alex as they look at the engine he's working on. I hear her comment about the engine and ask him who he's trying to outrun and smile to myself, for some reason proud that my partner has this unexpected knowledge of cars.

I have to keep reminding myself to think of her only as Eames, my partner; not to think of Alex, whose body is nothing short of a work of art and who, almost a month ago now, put an end to any possibility of me ever being satisfied with any other woman. We still manage to work together seamlessly but we're careful now not to end up at each other's home after-hours. If we need to do extra work on a case we order takeout to be delivered to the squad room and eat there while we go over files and discuss strategies. I'm extra vigilant about whether I touch Eames, not that I've ever been exactly tactile with my partner but now, knowing what her skin feels like, how intoxicating its silky heat really is, I keep myself under tight control. I cannot risk touching Eames and finding Alex responding to my touch, I know I could not maintain my own tightly-strung control were that to happen.

Lewis's response, as Eames straightens and walks away from the car, brings my heart to my throat. "Whoa, I think I'm in love."

I don't say anything, I'm pretty sure I even manage to keep the slight smile I'm wearing in place, as my mind screams. 'Too late, she's mine. I want her and I need her and I love her and, at some point, somehow, I will find a way to convince her that this can work.'

I know Eames hears him, Eames hears everything that's said around her. Her eyes flicker to mine and it isn't my partner's cool, professional eyes I'm looking into; these are Alex's eyes, they're stormy with passion and love, and she's letting me see, just for a moment, that not saying anything isn't changing anything for her either.

Then a flash of amusement at Lewis's comment covers the maelstrom of other emotions that the same comment provoked and Eames is back. I guess that means I have to go back to being Goren, because right now if I was Bobby, I'd show Lewis exactly what he was missing by taking Alex in my arms and kissing her utterly senseless.

Alex's POV

I can feel Bobby's eyes on me as I lean over the engine with Lewis and I allow myself to enjoy his attention. Knowing I shouldn't be enjoying the sensation of his eyes on my body as he watches me only adds to the tightening in the pit of my stomach.

"… Who you tryin' to outrun?" I decide, as teasing Bobby at the moment is too dangerous, I'll tease his buddy instead.

"Whoa, I think I'm in love." Lewis's six word, off the cuff comment, as I step away from him and the car he's working on, throws my carefully held control into a tailspin.

On reflex my eyes seek those of my lover; who isn't really my lover but my partner, with whom I have been carefully maintaining an illusion for the last few weeks to cover up 'the incident'. The illusion is carefully woven and its edges are tightly laced together and it hides the fact that I have, somehow, managed to fall completely in love with this man and that when we made love it was unlike anything I had ever experienced in my life. I am the one who insisted on the illusion, which I know causes him as much pain as it does me because I know he loves me just as intensely as I love him, even if we did manage not to say the words.

The illusion has been very convincing. It has nothing to do with how we work together, or maybe it does, because since we've been weaving its cloak around us we have, if anything, worked even better together. In fact, we're working together so well that Deakins asked me, about two weeks ago, whether I could actually read Goren's mind. That neither 'the incident' nor the illusion that it hides has impacted on our ability to work as a team doesn't really help me, when I was the one to insist that what happened between us almost four weeks ago now must remain hidden; that we must not acknowledge the emotions that Lewis's innocent comment has sent reeling, at least within me. Yet at a moment like this, when another man attempts to intrude onto 'his territory', despite insisting on the illusion, I find myself unable to maintain its boundaries, I can't help but think that Bobby must surely feel something.

As soon as my eyes meet his I feel the heat flare between us and for a moment the illusion is gone. My love for him, my need, my passion, my hunger, I let them all flood from my eyes to his. I can't help myself because I can see the possessive hunger in his own eyes, even as his lips curve in a mild smile of amusement. Then I pull the edges of the illusion back together, masking myself in amusement and hoping that Goren will let the moment pass, because I'm pretty sure of what I just read in Bobby's mind and we shouldn't, we really shouldn't let anything like that happen again.

A/N: And poor Lewis has no idea of what just went on behind his back – bless him ;o) Now I'm going to finish writing the first part of the Post-Ep for 'The Third Horseman'.