"You asked me how long it's been. Well, the last time I had sex was dated on the papers you burned."

This was her belated admission of what they both already knew. She had been William Gatehouse's client. He didn't feel a victory at being right. He badly wanted to know what had brought her to the point of taking such a step, even though he had no real right that information. More important to him than his curiosity, was figuring out what needed him to say to make her feel secure. His reaction and words could make or break their future. He knew he couldn't get her to reveal more immediately, so he skirted around it. She was going to need to talk about this.

"But what about that Terry guy you dated, or Peter?"

"No, and no."

"No?" he said with a touch of surprise. He had convinced himself that she and Terry had had some sort of short-lived relationship.

"No!" she asserted firmly.

More silence surrounded them before she spoke again.

"So profile that Goren. It's just been… William- Billy. He's the only man since Joe died, and it doesn't count. Like your stripper, it was just…a lapse in judgment, a moment of weakness."

Goren pondered his next words carefully. He felt uncomfortable about this subject, and didn't quite know how to broach it. Eames' situation was very different from that of his father, or Emaline Moses. They had both been married, albeit unhappily, when they sought out others.

"I can't even begin to comprehend what you went through after Joe died. I've never been married. Hell, I've never been in a relationship that lasted more than ten months."

Except with you, his brain added.

"Maybe you don't know what marriage is Goren, but grief. You get what grief is. I know you do. You know how consuming and destructive it can be. I missed him; 'miss' isn't even a strong enough verb somehow because it doesn't describe the despair, the dejection, and the desolation. I was ill, sick with grief and anguish and misery."

Suddenly her damn burst and her words came out in a flurry of emotion and desperation. It took all his will to stay in his chair and listen to it without offering comfort. Her syllables seemed to pelt down on him as he tried to piece them all together. She loved Joe. Joe had been there one day, and gone the next. Much later, she had tried to date other men. She couldn't sleep with them. Her friends had encouraged her to consider a dating service. She couldn't do it because it felt pathetic. She couldn't risk her emotions like that. She was worried that she had some kind of sexual dysfunction.

"So I joined a bereavement group for people whose spouses had been taken away suddenly. Some of the men and women had lost their wives and husbands in the attacks, others in car accidents. We discussed mourning, the loss of intimacy, the difficulty of moving on. I didn't talk much; I mainly listened. There was a widow in the group. Her name was Shelley, and she had lost her husband almost two years prior. We went out for coffee after the meeting, and she told me about Billy. She gave me his card. I took it out of politeness, and didn't tell her that this was the kind of guy I might have busted when I was in Vice. Then I started listening, Shelley told me that he was kind and gentle. She explained that Billy had helped her to move on with her life, and get back in touch with her sexuality. She insisted that it wasn't sordid or anything to be ashamed of. It was just another form of therapy and it was discreet. She said that she had been on real dates after that."

Bobby knew it was true. Sex therapy was acceptable in many medical circles, particularly for people undergoing recovery or rehabilitation of some sort. It was, in some countries, even government funded.

"For some reason, I didn't throw away that card. I carried it a month or two Bobby, but I never seriously considered calling and then..."

"And then?" he urged.

She was going to tell him what had spurred her call, but she held back from it. Instead she told him about the first time Billy had come to her apartment, and her bed. It had been strange, but not terrible. It gave her a physical release and she cried afterwards. The second time she pretended he was Joe, and that had been destructive. The two times after that, she enjoyed the tender touching and the sex she needed without the risk of emotional connection. She made a one last appointment, and she knew her body was capable of having sexual relations again. But that last time, the whole experience started to feel empty. Her experiment had come to its natural conclusion. Unlike Shelley, she hadn't been able to date other men to the point of intimacy.

After this part of her story was told. She was silent. He sensed she was fearfully waiting for his reaction, either his condemnation or acceptance.

"Eames?"

"Yeah?"

He stood up and walked around to her chair and offered his hand. "Will you sit on the couch with me?" She nodded, and he pulled her up, leading her over there. She seemed battered and bruised as he sat her down. He stroked her face, trailing the tracks of tears with is thumb. He reached for a tissue from the coffee table, and gave it to her. He retrieved a glass of water for her from the kitchen. She looked at him while she sipped. His comforting acts seemed to calm her a little.

"Bobby, I'm sorry for not telling you earlier, and for what happened in the interrogation room. I was already upset at seeing Billy's body at the crime scene. I didn't recognize him right away. He was puffy and red. Then I saw him again all carved up on the autopsy table. It was too much, and I ran from there. I didn't even make it to the bathroom before I threw up. I was desperate by the time I saw that planner on your desk because I didn't want anyone to find out, especially not you. I'm your senior partner. I'm a professional detective to everyone in Major Case, including you. I felt threatened by your discovery. I got angry. When you pry into my personal life, it just pushes my buttons in ways I can't even comprehend."

"Why does that push your buttons so much?"

"Because I don't even have a personal life, and because it's you. You have to know everything. I didn't want you profiling me. I didn't want you to think I was one of Zachary Pentoff's 'untouchables'.

"What? You're smart and beautiful. Any man would be lucky to have you." He tried desperately to show how much he wanted her to believe that. "Eames, let's just forget about what happened in the interrogation room. I shut you down time and time again. Every time you asked about anything personal about my mother, my brother or Brady, I wouldn't talk." He took a breath. "I don't know why we're like that with each other when it come to the personal. It's what we've always done I guess – a pattern. And it's hard to change a familiar pattern like that without tremendous risk."

He found himself once again being unable to meet her gaze. He'd thought about their negative patterns a great deal lately, and he wanted to change them. "Shit I almost died the other day Alex, and I don't mean in the hospital. I mean in the interrogation room when I thought I'd lost you as my friend."

She blinked. "So we are friends then? We don't act like it, huh?"

He shook his head in self-admonishment. "That's because I'm a bad friend to you Eames. I'm sometimes no better than people like Dryden or Jo Gage. Their needs are so intense, that they can hurt others when they try to get them met."

"You're nothing like them Bobby. How can you even think that?" She reached up to stroke the hair on his head, and he flinched involuntarily.

"I don't want hurt you, so I keep a distance. It's when I try to get what I really need that I most hurt you. Like when I needed to get back to being your partner, I hurt you by lying to you. Like when I needed to know the truth about your husband's murder, I hurt you bad." He put his head in his hands then, punishing himself for his deeds.

She was concerned that he was taking too much on. "Well I hurt you too when I froze you out after your reinstatement. I let that go on for far too long Bobby." She sighed, "We're both flawed and proud and stubborn. It's a two-way street. If we could just be honest, like we are tonight…"

He looked at her again and something stirred inside him. He had to ask what he'd been wondering since he'd found the pages in that 2002 planner. He knew he shouldn't, but her couldn't help himself.

"Why did you go to William Gatehouse all those years ago. Why didn't you come to me?" It almost sounded like an accusation. Maybe it was. He could see that his question riled her

"Come to you? What, so you could give your sad widowed partner a pity fuck?"

"A pity fuck? I was in love with you back then."

"What?" She looked genuinely shocked.

He was on a tirade now, and his brain couldn't stop his mouth. It's as though he'd popped a top that had been threatening to blow for nigh on decade, and the steam was shooting out in all directions, releasing the pressure. He looked right into her startled pupils.

"If it's honesty you want, I still love you. You should have come to me – not him!" He couldn't hide the jealousy in his voice.

She looked bewildered at his revelation and couldn't seem to formulate a response. He saved her the effort.

"Oh c'mon Eames, don't patronize me by acting like you didn't know, like you haven't always known deep down for all these years. You heard what Dryden said in the interrogation room. He yelled it all over the office."

She sighed, and he hated to hear it. He had embarrassed himself, and her, with his words. At least she would be kind enough to let him down easy. This wasn't going to break her anyway.

"Maybe I suspected at times Bobby, especially lately. But I never really believed that you truly felt that way about me. I thought you just needed somebody to love you, and I was the closest person to you."

"What, you think I think of you as a convenience?"

"That's not what I meant." She sighed again. "Why didn't you tell me before if you felt this way? Why wait all these years?" She seemed to be getting exasperated now. She was wide awake and meeting his heightened emotions foot for foot.

"Like Dryden said, I didn't want to be rejected. Who does? I had hopes the first year or two that you could have felt something for me, but we never did get together. So I had to admit to myself that you weren't feeling it. The very idea that a man would endlessly circle a woman for years begging for a romantic dance is just wrong. It's not fun for either party. We had to become lovers, or become friends. We became friends, and damn fine partners too. I accepted that as a compromise. I was lucky. I still got to know you, have you in my life, and spend my days with you. So I killed my romantic notions for you every way I could." He had been good at that. He'd done the opposite of what his heart demanded in every instance.

"Oh the feelings would resurface from time to time, like when you were away on leave, or when you were kidnapped, but I'd beat them back into submission. I'm a big boy. I could handle it as long as you were my partner. It was only when I was suspended, and I lost you as a friend, that the feelings started to re-emerge with a vengeance. I seem to need your friendship to survive. I spiraled downwards without it. It's not your fault though," he added. "All my wounds were self-inflicted."

He saw her flinch at that. He didn't want to hurt her or make her feel guilty. It really wasn't her fault that she had become the receptacle for his neediness. Bobby got the feeling that this was the longest soliloquy he had given her in all the time he'd known her. He was fucking Hamlet tonight. He could hear rain starting to pour down and hit the glass of the windows. The heavens were weeping for his broken fucking heart and lost dignity. She rested her hand chastely on his arm. She seemed to recognize how hard it was for him. She wasn't going to treat him like a freak for feeling what he did.

"You could never lose me as a friend Bobby, and you deserve to be loved."

But not by you, he thought bitterly. His heart was shrinking and calcifying now, as it braced itself for her rebuff..

She continued her speech. "And your love is, if I'm going to be honest with you too, not…entirely unrequited."

Then, almost in slow motion, both her hands reached for his. Their combined four hands, sixteen fingers, and four thumbs were perspiring as they grasped at each other for maximum contact. She looked up at him coyly. He simply stopped breathing. He needed all his resources for his ears to hear what she said next. He was metaphorically on his knees before her altar.

"You always want the truth Bobby, so the truth is that I have loved you. Not just as a friend, or as a brother, or a partner, but something else indefinable too. I have loved you in one form or another for all of these years."

He wanted to know what kind of love it was she felt, but he sensed that it was not quite the form he dared hope for.

"It's strange that you mentioned the first two years of our partnership. I had romantic feelings for you then too. In fact, I still have an image of you from back then that I can't get out of my head. You're standing there in all your Armani-suited glory, in front of that well-lit purple fake Monet painting, telling me of the naked art you like to think about. You were more beautiful, and more real, than any work of art in the gallery that day. As I looked at you, I was certain that my partner Goren would never see me in that light. I observed the way female suspects and witnesses responded to you, your words, your touch, and your attentiveness. I still see it. I saw it yesterday with Melissa. You flirted with them in a way that you never did with me. You were a brilliant, sexy, kind, gentle man who probably bedded every woman in New York but me. I was your tough, sarcastic, widowed partner, whom you had the utmost respect for. Are you telling me that my memory is flawed?"

He shook his head in protest and released his hands from hers, erratically moving them around in the air. "OK, I was sleeping around at that time, but only to get you out of my system. It was hard working with you all day sometimes. You were so cute, and smart and capable. I couldn't hit on you or flirt with you. It's called sexual harassment. You were my senior partner! Damnit Eames! If I had even the slightest inkling, I would've… God, couldn't you tell? When we did those little undercover role-plays, I was in my element. It was the only chance I got to touch you and flirt with you. "

"Well I guess I've always been pretty good at hiding my feelings."

Goren was truly floored by this knowledge. He could have had her! But it was not lost on him that all her verbs were in the past tense. I had sexual feelings; you werebrilliant and sexy. He knew he was no longer that man who had stood in front of the Monet. He was now an impressionist version of that Goren.

She interrupted his thoughts. "Well it was hard for me too, working with you. I never thought I'd seriously proposition you, though I had my fantasies. You were the best partner I'd ever had; I didn't want to screw it up because I had the hots for you. I was afraid of taking such as risky step."

These revelations were almost too much for him to process. He had to know more. He asked her another question, though he was scared to do it. "So you called…Billy instead, why Eames?" He couldn't really understand it fully yet.

"That's a fair question. It was around the time of the Maggie Colter case, you remember?"

He nodded. It was not something Goren was likely ever to forget. Maggie was barely a teen when she had been kidnapped and raped by a Serbian hitman.

"Well you remember you told her that she was not weak, that she was strong because she lived through it."

"Yeah, I remember," he said as his mind drifted back to that day.

"And you also remember that I shot and killed one of the kidnappers."

It did not escape his notice that she didn't call the kidnapper by name. Taking a man's life, even an evil man, was very personal.

"I guess you could say that his death, and Maggie's survival, sparked a…I don't know, an existential dilemma in me. I remember wishing, hoping that Maggie could still lead a normal existence after that. That she wouldn't let it paralyze the rest or her life, or let it stop her from having a first kiss from a first boyfriend."

Goren had always wondered how life would pan out for Maggie too. He wasn't confident of her family's ability to get her through it, but he had been impressed with the girl's strength of character.

Alex continued, "Then I realized that I had let my bereavement paralyze my life. The loss hurt so profoundly that I disconnected from certain parts of myself, my ability to be open to love, to let someone make me smile, to feel vulnerable to someone, and to acknowledge my sexuality. I shut off any chance of intimate relationships. I had become more defensive, more sarcastic with the world. I had tried and failed to start a relationship with him." They both knew she meant Kevin Mulrooney.

" I couldn't risk failing with you too. My job was all I had. I knew that Maggie was just a little girl. I had to believe there was a chance for her. What chance did she have at a normal life, if I, a grown woman, couldn't manage it? I was tired of being strong enough to kill somebody, yet not strong enough to love somebody."

Goren wanted to interject, to reassure her. He wanted to apologize for not picking up on her crisis at that time. She was always so stoic and standoffish. Why hadn't he known she was going through this at the time? Couldn't she see that he would have understood and that he lived with similar fears? Then he realized that this situation, for once, was not all about him. So again, he held his tongue.

"So I got out the card, and I called Billy. He was a kind man, and I'm sorry he died in such a horrible way. He wasn't anything like his friend Pentoff. I thought if Billy could just help me to get back in touch with my sexuality, without the emotional risk, then I'd be healed. It was a stepping-stone."

He nodded to show that he finally understood why she needed William Gatehouse.

"I still wish Eames, that you would have come to me, so I could have done the same for you. God Eames, I did desire you back then. Those women, and there weren't as many as you think, were just a distraction. The job was my focus, and my mother. If I had ever even had the notion that you wanted me in that way too…" His head bent in anguish.

"It's OK Bobby. I was too afraid of risking my heart back then anyway. I got over you in time. I had the baby, and I had the job. I was smooth and in control. But then things started to go wrong for you, and you wouldn't let me care for you. I was so angry when you rejected my friendship again and again, and wouldn't take me into your confidence. You concealed, and you pushed me away; you didn't call me for months when you were suspended! So when you came back, I froze you out to protect myself. I've tried my best to keep my distance all year. But when you were poisoned," she choked up." I realized that I don't want to let you out of my life. That's why I came here tonight. I need you in my life. No matter what you put me through. I'm here come hell or high water!"

"Eames, I never meant to.."

"Shhh! We don't have to open any more wounds tonight." She placed a finger on his lips to smother his protests.

He felt completely raw and exposed as she touched his lips with her finger, and then her thumb. A wave of emotional, yet somehow erotic release pumped through him at the contact. He moaned lightly, and couldn't stifle the sound. He was starting to feel those breeding molecules of hope coming to the fore. And hope was dangerous. Hope and her touch, and maybe the bourbon, were responsible for the heated look that was in his eyes right now. He bent his head down closer to hers as he penetrated his dark gaze into her eyes. She shouldn't have touched him in that way. His body and heart couldn't bear it. The electricity in the air was palpable, and a clap of thunder sounded outside. At that, she drew back her head a little and withdrew her finger, and rested her hands safely back on her lap.

Bobby cursed the God of thunder for interrupting their near-kiss.

"See, our timing is always off Bobby, that's all. We weren't ready for each other then, and I'm honestly not sure that we'll ever be ready for each other." Although she was addressing her own lap, not him, he knew she was likely right. With all they had been through, especially over the last few years, they never would have lasted as a couple. It was only in recent years that they had truly come to depend on each other, but it wasn't in a healthy way; and they had both willfully resented this mutual dependence.

Goren's hope met his self-destructiveness head-on in a battle of wills. Part of him almost craved a more definite rejection than she had given him, and part of him was imagining more dreamily than John Lennon himself of a utopian future with this woman. He at least had to try to win. She was worth the risk. He played another chess piece, leaving his king exposed, and an easy target for assassination.

"You say you're not sure if we'll ever be ready for each other. But Eames, I think I might be ready for you now." He put his hand to her chin and pulled her face towards his. He worshipped her with admiring eyes, and his long fingers caressed her face from her temple to her chin. This time she moaned. She closed her eyes. He could feel magic and tingling in his body, and in the room around him. He leaned down to brush his lips against hers. He closed his eyelids as he focused on his sense of touch, trusting it. As his lips made contact with her warm, soft mouth, he pressed in a little more firmly. He didn't want to sexualize or control this kiss. He wanted his lips to be a medium for the love rapture in his soul. He felt, rather than saw, her lips start to move with his; she drew them away only slightly, and then moved forward to kiss first his bottom, then his top lip. He felt one of her hands stroke the back of his neck and tousle his hair. He held her whole head between his large hands as he kissed her bottom and top lips with a burning reverence. She pulled away first, and opened her eyes. Her face was still in his hands, and he took a breath to drink her in. He looked eagerly into her dark eyes, seeking out her feelings. She pulled away from his hands and cast her eyes and lashes down, but it was too late, he had seen it there. Acceptance.

It was, without a doubt, the most sublime sixteen seconds of his life. He knew that he was conceived for the sole purpose of experiencing those sixteen seconds. The memory of them would keep him going longer than any mortal man could ever live. If the universe imploded at that moment, he would die fulfilled. He had probably even found the meaning of life. They were in a blissful plane protected by a dome whose surface could not be penetrated by any earthly or extra-terrestrial means. He wanted kiss her again without delay, but he knew the rules of chess. The next move had to be hers. He looked down at her and dismay quickly filled his heart, overriding the joy. She was crying. Perhaps worlds hadn't collided for her, as they had for him.

"Are you OK Eames?" He put his hand on her knee and rubbed. "Hey, it's OK. I won't do it ever again if you don't want me to." She kept her head down, and wiped her eyes with her hands. "C'mon Eames, don't cry!" He didn't know what to do with a crying Eames. Should he hold her? Did she want him to?

The geeky part of Bobby Goren surfaced in an attempt to help. "You know Eames, kissing is merely a mode of human communication that involves joining lips in order to express positive emotions such as affection, respect, greeting, farewell or good luck. If you don't feel romantic affection or desire for me, I'll understand."

She almost laughed then, and looked up at him. "God Bobby, it's just so difficult for me. I haven't felt anything resembling this for so long."

The dismay subsided, and his heart filled with tenderness. "Eames, can I hold you now? Just a little?"

She nodded, and he put his arms around her and held her as strongly as he could without squashing her. He stroked her hair and smelled the vanilla and cinnamon fragrance, and kissed her on the top of her head. He then was rewarded with the pleasant sensation of her left arm sliding around his waist, and her right arm curling around his shoulder until her hand rested on his neck. Her breasts were pressed against him, and her face was buried in his chest. He felt her inhale too, and then exhale with contentment. He had never felt so close to her. He was starved for this kind of intimacy from her. He clung her with as much adoration as he could. How could he ever release her? She stopped shaking and crying, and was soon calm. He liked feeling the wetness of her tears on his shirt. It was something a husband might have a right to feel. After some time has passed, she started to speak.

"I've been a bad friend to you too Bobby Goren." He disagreed, but let her go on, releasing his grip on her.

"I've hurt you too. My sorrow, my fear, this protracted grief for Joe has hurt you." He stroked her hair and just listened.

"In the bereavement group, the counselor told us that after the loss a spouse, the survivor's pain of loss can be so great, that they never want to experience it again."

He held her more tightly then, wanting to soothe her pain.

"So what happens is that they shut down, and refuse to consider in any future relationship. But when they close off their heart, they deny themselves any possibility of further happiness."

Her head moved from his chest, and she sat up and now cupped his face with her palms and looked at him with her sad eyes. He couldn't believe that she was touching him, and communicating with him so intimately. He felt so human.

"It's worse than that because it means that someone else loses a chance to be loved. There's not only me to think about Bobby, there's you. To think I could have helped end all the loneliness and pain you've been feeling, and didn't have the courage to try."

"But you did ease it Eames. I only made it this far because of you. God knows I pushed you away often enough, but you always came back to me. It's not too late for us."

She nodded at his words, and this time she leaned in to kiss him, first on the nose, then on the lips. Her kisses were quick and chaste, but they were designed just for him. She nestled back into his chest.

He couldn't deny that he wanted to take her to his bed now, kiss her slowly, caress her, and move in and out of her body all night long. He imagined her calling his name as he caressed her knees with her legs wrapped around him. When she climaxed, would she cry out 'Bobby' or 'Goren'?

He wasn't honestly sure if she would welcome such an advance just yet, or if she ever would. She had admitted she loved him in a roundabout way, and she had kissed him of her own volition. She had also acknowledged with words that he was an attractive man, but he could tell that she didn't seem to be quite certain of her sexual desire for him, or of sexual intimacy in general.

He would give her time to make up her mind before he started thinking about her body. It was difficult not to think about it. After all, he'd waited almost ten years for her. Even right now his groin area was reminding him of its existence and neglect. He would have to bide his time. The art of seduction was something he hadn't practiced in a while, and it would be something to look forward to; his mind starting spinning with the possibilities. Didn't fortune favor the bold? It had certainly been proved true tonight.

For now he was more than fulfilled just holding her, and being able to talk to her without those invisible barriers between them. With such heavy rain outside, she wasn't going anywhere. They had both taken a giant leap of faith tonight. It was natural that they would need time to reflect, before deciding what the next step would be.

He held the woman he loved with the utmost contentment and gratitude. This moment had finally come to him, and he couldn't quite comprehend it. It felt all the more extraordinary because it had been denied for so long.

The two-headed albino elephant faded and disappeared from his living room.