A/N: Wow. Haven't updated this in a while. I still own nothing, and this follows Goren and Eames from Blind Spot to Endgame, if you care to know.
The house is somehow bigger than she remembers it being.
"You sure this is the right place?" she asks, turning to look at her partner, who is standing right behind her, as he has been ever since she was found a couple of days ago, and sure enough, Bobby nods.
"Yeah, it's the right place," he says, and then, "You know, if you want me to take you to your parents' instead…"
But Alex shakes her head. "Nah," she says, trying and failing to sound like she doesn't really care about being here alone. "It's fine, I'll just stay here."
"Are you sure?" Bobby asks, just like she figured he would, and she nods.
"Yeah, I'm sure," she says, and then, wryly, "Wouldn't do to tell the shrink I'm staying at my parents' place because I'm afraid of my own, would it?"
He doesn't know whether to laugh at this or not, and so he settles with just looking at her, and after a moment, she turns and leans against him, hiding her face in the fabric of his shirt.
"Stay with me?" she asks, and he nods, even though he knows that she can't see him.
Somehow, knowing he's there is enough for her.
Things are back to normal, but they aren't. Ross gives her some line about returning to duty and is she sure that she's ready, and she tells him that all she needs is to do her job.
Apparently, things have changed more than she thought they did.
"You never told me your mother had cancer," she remarks, on the way back to the city, and Bobby glances at her, a slightly guilty look crossing his face so quickly that she doubts it was even there later on.
"Didn't want to burden you," he says, clearly enough that she understands him, but quietly enough that she can barely hear him. She sighs.
"You're not a burden," she tells him. "That wouldn't have been, either."
At least they're talking, Alex thinks, then. It was better than Thanksgiving where all he could do was tell her to back off and then walk away. She wants to push him for more information, to know what it is that he's feeling, but she knows better.
"If I were to tell you at some point that I didn't know what I was going to do about something, would you laugh?" he asks, after a moment.
She looks at him as if she wants to, but doesn't. "No," she replies, and means it. "I wouldn't. Why?"
Bobby gives her a sideways look and sighs. "Because I'm not sure what I'm going to do about it," he says.
For some reason, though she doesn't laugh, the admission renders her speechless.
"Do you consider yourself one of those people who thrives under pressure?" he asks, the day after they've closed the Copeland case, and she looks up at him, startled.
"Yes," she replied, after a few seconds, and nods towards the office. "There's pressure in a nutshell."
At this, Bobby has to bite back the desire to laugh, but manages to do so and hands her the cup of coffee he's holding.
"That's not exactly what I meant," he remarks, and Alex smirks.
"I know it," she says, and then, "But I still think I could. Mind, I wouldn't be causing the chaos resulting in the pressure, but I could do it."
"Sometimes I think that's a good trait for cops to have."
"Yeah, you're probably right. If we couldn't thrive, we couldn't be here. But I couldn't see killing you just to end up with someone else."
"I hope not."
Alex rolls her eyes and pushes at his feet under the desk. "Of course not," she says, and they leave it at that.
"Why would you confess to something that you hadn't even done?"
"Because you have nothing better to do."
To any outsider, it would seem as if the question had come out of nowhere, but both Alex and Bobby know better, because the Harner case is closed now, and so they can talk. Things have been somewhat awkward between the two of them lately, but not enough that they don't know how to work a case together….and manage to present some front of normalcy.
"It doesn't make sense," said Bobby. "Most people want to stay out of trouble, so why would he confess to something that he hadn't even done if he knows that all it's going to do is get him in trouble?"
"Maybe he was just looking for the attention," Alex remarks. "Lot of people do that nowadays. It's an easy way to have everyone's eyes on you. Fifteen minutes of fame, y'know?"
Bobby shakes his head. "Fifteen minutes of fame," he repeats, and then, "You know, there are better ways to get famous."
"Or infamous," Alex says, wryly. "You could always partner off with someone who no one can deal with and see your solve rate skyrocket."
The comment is sarcastic enough that it makes Bobby laugh, because he knows exactly what she means.
"True," he says, and then, "Could always have your face plastered across the news and newspapers for solving said case."
Alex rolls her eyes. "Don't remind me," she says, though there is an amused note in her voice that she doesn't miss. "Come on. I could use a drink."
"You don't care?" she demands, angrily, storming out of the squad room after him and following him down to the parking garage. "Is that all you can say? You don't care?"
He'd told her to back off earlier, but no more. If this is the line he's determined to take, then she is determined not to watch him fall, and so help her if he does and she can't stop it…
"If they think I'm so incapable of doing my job, then by all means," he replies, bluntly. "I'm not going to work for people who don't trust me!"
"Since when does their opinion matter? Screw them! Let them talk, Bobby, but for heaven's sake…" She trails off when she feels that familiar constriction in her throat that means she's this close to crying, and then goes on any way, stubbornly. "Talk to me."
"I can't."
"Why the hell not?"
"Because it's not that easy."
It never is, she thinks, bitterly, moments later, as she watches him leave. It never was, and it's never going to be, but ever since the shakeup at the end of the fifth year, it's gotten worse, and she doesn't know what to do anymore.
The letter she wrote to Deakins five years ago is still saved on her computer, which she knows, but until now, had no idea why it was there.
The words seem to float across the screen, but they won't go away until she hits the delete key. Before she can stop herself, she's changed the name of the commanding officer and the date.
After she realizes what she's done, she hits delete.
Sometimes she thinks that the weight of the world might be resting right there on her partner's shoulders.
Other times, she thinks it's on her own.
Thanksgiving came and went, and so did Christmas, and the two of them are on shakier ground than they were before, but neither one of them is willing to admit it.
The problem with this is that they still need to work together.
"You did good work back there," she remarks, as they drive back to the city. Bobby doesn't turn away from the window to look at her, but he replies.
"You know, I really hate having to do that," he says. "Split a family into two different sides just to get an answer."
"Isabel Harrington deserved justice."
"What exactly is justice?"
"Finding truth and getting answers for an innocent victim who shouldn't have been hurt in the first place."
"But at what cost?"
And here, Alex hesitates, and because they are in a place where she can pull over, she does, and shuts the car off.
"I don't know," she replies, softly. "You tell me."
"If she stays in it, she must get something out of it."
"Yeah, but what?"
Maureen Pagolis spoke at Alex's graduation ceremony from the police academy, and now she finds herself investigating this woman whom much of New York City looks up to, along with a partner with whom she isn't sure where she stands.
"Security, maybe," Bobby remarks, thoughtfully, almost. "Knowing that no matter what, there'll be someone for her to come home to?"
Alex gives a derisive snort. "She could make it on her own if she wanted to," she says, and Bobby nods.
"I'm not denying that, I'm just saying that there's a reason why she stays," he replies. "Even if he's not there when she gets home at night, the idea is that at some point, he will be."
"Too bad someone wanted him dead, right?" Alex asks, half-sarcastically, and then, "You don't think…"
"Maybe," says Bobby, because he knows the story of her academy graduation and doesn't want to jump to conclusions. "We should take a look."
They do.
And at the end of it, when she's feeling disillusioned and doesn't want anything else to do with work at the moment, a cup of coffee and a bag of Skittles appear on her desk when she isn't looking.
"So that was your brother, huh?" she asks, and is careful to keep her voice neutral. Bobby gives her a sideways look and sighs.
"Yeah, that was him," he says, and then, "Wish I could have done more than I did. Somehow it never seems like enough."
Alex glances over at him. "You know, you can't save the world on your own," she remarks. A faint smile crosses his face at this.
"No harm in trying," he replies. "Wouldn't you say?"
She nods, and thinks back on the days when they used to not be so awkward with each other and the days when they used to think that they could save the world, because it was them, and Deakins and Carver, and hey, they were the Major Case Squad. They could do anything.
They still are and they still can, but the lineup has changed, and along with it, everything else.
"Hey, y'know, if you wanna talk about it…" Alex starts, awkwardly, but Bobby shakes his head in that way he's got that isn't rude but isn't exactly inviting, either.
"I'd rather not, honestly," he says. "There are other things that need worrying about."
But later on, he gets called to the morgue, and there waiting is a body wearing his coat, from what he can tell by looking towards the lower half, where a tag is on the person's toe.
Pulling back the sheet, he swallows back his fears, and relief washes over him when he realizes that it isn't his brother.
It hits him then that he wishes she'd been there.
The silence says everything.
They haven't been together outside of work for a long while, and she really doubts it'll happen again anytime soon, but they're here and this is now, and it's all she can think about.
The case they've just finished was about silence, she muses, about how for some people, that was all there was. They were capable of living normal lives, of course, but they could not hear anything.
She, on the other hand, can. She can hear her partner thinking, and it's almost bothering her because she wants to know what's on his mind, but she knows that he won't tell her.
On the other side of things, he can hear her breathing.
He almost wishes that she would say something, because he wants to know what's on her mind, too, but at the same time, he knows that it goes both ways. He's half-tempted to think that maybe she's asleep, but he knows on some level that she's not.
Once upon a time, there had been a point where he didn't think that he'd ever worry about her and some other guy, but that point had disappeared two years ago. Now, it's not worry as much as it is some kind of jealousy, and he'd be lying if he said he wouldn't mind seeing that other cop around again.
But he's not going to tell her that.
So they lie there side by side in silence, until the phone rings, and because it's her place, she answers the call, tells Ross that she'll call her partner, hangs up and turns to look at him, breaking their silence.
"Hey. We've got another case."
In the fast-paced world that seems to be New York City, there is no time to slow down, because the minute you do, something else happens, and then you're a lot farther behind than you thought you were.
"Why is it that when people say 'discreet' nowadays, they usually mean right out there in the open?" she asks, as she thinks over her decision to become a cop, again, for what seems like the millionth time.
"Between video blogs and online journals, the world is only a click away," Bobby replies, absently. "Never mind the webcams and cell phone cameras. You can look in on anyone and anything at any time and usually, there's no way to stop it."
Alex shakes her head. "Don't tell me that," she says. "I get enough coverage on the news, last thing I need is to know someone can click on some link and watch me get dressed in the morning."
Bobby laughs. "I really don't think anyone would dare," he says. Alex smirks at him.
"You're right, they wouldn't," she says, and then, "Who'd have thought astronauts could get into this sort of thing, anyway?"
Bobby shrugs. "Everyone's capable of getting involved in one scandal or another, even if they haven't done anything wrong," he remarks. "It's just the way the world works."
Alex rolls her eyes. "Are you sure it's working?"
What he wants is a way out.
Not out of any situation, but rather out of his own mind. Sitting in the shadows at Carmel Ridge isn't doing him any good, and he knows that he should leave, but for some reason, he can't make himself do it.
The case got to him more than he thought it did, and maybe, just maybe, if he were one of those cops that didn't pay too much attention to detail, or at least, not any more attention that was needed, he wouldn't be here, now.
Stuck in his own thoughts, that is. Not at Carmel Ridge, because the truth is, he would have come regardless, because he always comes, and would, still, if there was anything to do so for.
The nurses told him a while ago that visiting hours were over, but he still hasn't moved, and he knows that none of them are going to come and make him.
Even so, he can't help but want to.
When he feels the hand on his shoulder, he jumps, not having expected anyone to come in, and there is Alex, standing in the shadows cast by the fact that all the lights are off, and he didn't bother to turn any of them on.
She says nothing, instead, choosing to wait, because if there's one thing she's learned about her partner, it's that he'll move when he wants to, and not before.
To her surprise, though, when she reaches for his hand to draw him to his feet, he lets her, and follows quietly after her, through the abandoned halls, and outside.