Characters are the property of Dick Wolf and others. No harm intended, no profit gained.
Adult language, mature themes.
It was his idea.
He said, because neither of them had to be at work until noon the next day, and because the case was getting to him. He said, because he really felt like a drink.
So they were drinking . Tequila, to be exact - golden, piquant tequila, served with dusky limes cut in strips. No salt, just the drink and the fruit. A little too much drink. And he was keeping up.
And being an insufferable know-it-all, again.
" … the Spanish distilled pulque, which is a drink the Mesoamericans made from the blue agave cactus, and voila! Liquid gold."
"A new kind of gold for the Conquistadores to kill over." Eames quipped, and Goren smiled.
"Drinking uh, just a little too much is how a lot of people get to know each other. The alcohol lowers our inhibitions, and …"
"And here I thought it was because catching bad guys is a shit job."
His chuckle brought gooseflesh up on her arm.
"You'd be doing anything else?" he asked.
"Hell no." She flicked a chewed lime rind into the little dish they'd been given.
"I'll drink to that."
And so they did.
Pubs look the same everywhere you go. Dublin, Detroit, Dubai - doesn't matter. There is a stale smell of beer and tobacco smoke, there is a bar, there are little tables and chairs. There is often a juke box. Nicer pubs might have a pool table, or private little booths against the walls.
This pub wasn't a nicer pub, and it didn't have little booths, just tables. Dirty tables, and off duty cops.
They sat at the bar.
Eames wondered what the hell he had planned, because she could tell he had some agenda. He'd been giving her a spectre of a look, something indefinable that she frankly didn't care for. Something was stuck in his craw, and he'd brought her to a bar for a drink or three and a chance to spit it out.
Eames was waiting for a new new partner. She decided since she had nothing to lose, to find out what little bone he was choking on.
So she popped another wedge of lime into her mouth and waited for him to get to the point.
"Sometimes it - uh, the 'shit job', that is - can get a little too close to home. It brings up things from our own lives. Personal things."
Ahhhh.
"Like your mom?"
"Like my mother, yes. She is … ill. With schizophrenia. So, I have some uh, experience … well, I have quite a lot of experience, dealing with people in delusional states."
She had noticed right away that 'mom' was not a funny subject for Goren. No sense of humour that she could detect in there. On the contrary, he got this pall around him, as though someone had just died. He tried his hardest to keep it off his face, as hard as he was trying to keep his neighbourhood out of his voice.
"So, what? Are you here to feed me alcohol and ask me about my personal life, Goren? You sure know how to show a girl a good time."
He looked surprised, glanced around at their surroundings, then stammered, "If we were … . If I was …, you … . Uh, no, it's not a very nice place, is it? Listen, I've had every bit as much to drink as you have, I promise." He held up his hands in what she was recognizing as his characteristic gesture of mocking defeat, some disarming self-deprecation. And he laughed again, but this one a short bark.
"You're roughly twice my size, so I don't think that counts for much."
"Well, maybe, but I suspect that you're better at drinking this stuff than I am. Look, we're working together, that's all. I didn't mean to be disrespectful or intrude, I just, I uh … I could see that you were … "
"Maybe I might have a personal stake in some issues, myself." she interrupted him to concede, relaxing a few degrees.
The door burst open just then, the wintry wind blowing some more thirsty off-duty cops, some brown leaves and paper garbage in from the street. It gave them a chance to lean back, regard each other.
Either one could have called it a night right there. They both thought about it, just saying something about morning coming early, about the long trip home …
"I have an idea," she said. "We could play a little 'getting to know you' game. Tit for tat."
"What, like 'truth or dare'?"
"No, no dares. That's too easy. I mean more like 'I show you mine, you show me yours.'"
"Sounds … interesting. Maybe … a little … dangerous. What's, um, what's 'off-limits'?"
She looked at him long enough to make him feel a little bit uncomfortable before she finally said,
"Nothing."
"So, it's like 'Truth' is the dare?"
"I guess you could say that."
She arched a fine eyebrow at him, and he offered an intense look as response.
"Are you drunk? Because I think I am."
"You scared?"
"Of the truth? No, never. Okay. I'll play. But I already showed you mine. My, my mother is, … has schizophrenia. That's … that's my big one. So, is it my turn?"
"Sure, go for it."
Like everything else about him, getting to know him turned out to be a surprising amount of fun. His questions were unexpected, irreverent, compelling. His answers even more.
"What was your favourite course in college?"
and "The New York Public Library."
"Have you ever eaten an entire pomegranate in one sitting?"
and "Van Gogh's ear."
"Where in Brooklyn?" she asked.
He wagged a long finger at her, smirking. "C'mon Eames, 'Brooklyn' is too obvious. That's a gift. Get closer yourself, and I'll tell you if you're hot or cold."
She slammed another shot back, smacked her lips loudly and rubbed imaginary salt off her hands, a big show of preparation for her guess. She gave him a long, slow once-over appraisal then said,
"Canarsie."
"So hot you're smokin' " he smiled at her, and she gave him a fleeting grin in return. "You - you've got some Boston in you."
"Very good, very good, Detective Goren. Yes, my mom's family comes from there."
They played, and laughed. And got steadily more drunk.
The hour got later. Neither of them felt much like leaving.
"Hydrogen, helium, lithium, beryllium, boron, carbon, nitrogen, oxygen, fluorine, neon …"
"Okay, stop! I believe you!"
"Blue. You prefer …?"
"Blue."
"'Kind of Blue'?"
"'Blue in Green'."
"Ahhhh … nice choice."
The tequila was heady, the limes were tart. The pub was warm, discreet.
"Rimsky-Korsakov. That one, you know 'The Flight of the Bumblebee'?"
"Oh my God, you're joking?! Did you get caught?"
Their laughter drew attention from the few people still sharing the pub.
"I don't know anyone who voted for him, either."
"Sergeant."
"1984."
"Who is your favourite superhero?"
"You have to ask?"
"My least favourite vegetable would have to be Brussels sprouts.
"Basketball, but baseball is a close second."
"What's wrong with curling? It's an Olympic event."
"See, just there, you said 'event'. Not 'sport'."
There were differences, and similarities.
"Twelve."
"Eighteen."
"Lake George, or Boston. To see mom's folks."
"No, just to the beach. Mom loved, uh, loves the beach."
"It was a Ford Galaxie 500."
"Sharkskin."
"Physics."
"'Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats'."
"I wouldn't have guessed that. The musical, too? No … okay, not the musical."
"No way!! Me too!"
"Harriet Tubman."
"Hmm. Good answer. My turn. Why do you keep trying to hide your smoking from me?"
"Because your opinion is important. To me. I don't want you to think badly of me."
This last, plopped between them like a stone dropped into a deep well, brought quick lucidity and some sobriety. There was a little silence, then Eames said,
"Like smoking is somehow worse than being … disingenuous?"
"That's a very good point, Detective Eames." He was studying the surface of the bar, just glanced up at her quickly from under his brows, smiled very wickedly, said, "Hi, I'm Bobby and I'm a tobacco addict. And you just used 'disingenuous' in a sentence."
"Oh, sorry," she teased. "I'll try to stick to one-syllable words from now on. I don't want to come off like a fake."
He put his head back and laughed, and she laughed too, and it cleared the awkwardness.
Since he was pretty sure they weren't going to work together for much longer, he figured he had little to lose.
He decided.
"So uh, how old were you? When the uh, the abuse started?"
//
An estimated one in three American girls will be the victim of unwanted sexual contact, most before their eighteenth birthday, most at the hands of a trusted older male - usually a relative.
This number is fairly constant across all other socio-cultural boundaries, so the daughters of lawyers, doctors, Supreme Court Justices are every bit as vulnerable as the daughters of brick layers and auto mechanics and unemployed immigrants.
While it seems that the daughters of alcoholics are abused by their male relatives with a significantly higher rate of predictability than the daughters of non-alcoholics, really, the one thing victims of these crimes have in common is that most never tell anyone what has happened to them.
Ever.
//
And so, he had started to think she wasn't going to answer him. And, he felt badly about having brought it up, especially about the way her face had changed, the way her eyes had suddenly become somehow more round and her upper lip was stiff and pinched but her bottom lip had suddenly become soft and shiny, and her cheeks had suddenly become pink, even though her face was pale. Pale. Pale. He could see exactly what she had looked like as a small child, which somehow hurt, and he was frantically fishing around in his alcohol-muddied mind, was preparing an apology, trying to find some words to say how he felt about always being too nosy when she finally said,
"So that's what you're after. No … You're good, I'll give you that. But, I think we've had too much to drink for this, Goren. Or you wouldn't have just asked that. And I'd have probably punched you in the head by now." She looked up at him, open faced. "No-one's ever asked me that before. And I … don't know why I'm even answering you now."
And he was quiet, giving her all of his attention and then a little more, leaning forward but not very much. Then watched her eyes lose focus, flick around the tabletop, from the rings of condensation and lime rinds to the empty shot glasses and anywhere but at him. Then because she is brave, she looked right at him again, searched his face for something and maybe found it there because she took a deep breath and said,
"I think I was about five, maybe six."
She could see what he was thinking, hastened to clear that up.
"No, my dad is a decent man. He'd never …"
Goren nodded. Silence was easy, and he let it stretch between them. She was lost somewhere in memory.
Nicer pubs have juke boxes, but this was not a nicer pub. The top forty countdown played on the tv over the bar, and one of those beige country singer with squinty eyes and a huge Stetson hat twanged on about how great his life was.
"God, I hate this fucking song." she said, ran a hand tiredly over her face.
Bobby signaled the bartender, "Two coffees, please? (to her) Water? And some water, as well."
Then using his quietest voice, he took the next half hour, told her all about life with Frances. Brought them gently back to Earth. Anchored them there.
" … since I was only about seven. I wasn't ready to be … ." He rubbed his chin thoughtfully.
And she ached for him, the little boy he was, at the mercy of a violent, out-of-control, insane woman. A brilliant, charming, charismatic woman who was clearly adored by her son, a little boy who could do nothing but watch her slide away into madness. It was awful. Awful.
He said, "Child abuse … can leave the victims feeling … angry. Abandoned. And victims have every right to feel like that. Let down. Like, like uh, the people who were supposed to be there didn't take care of them … but then it becomes up to us, you know, to find something useful in the experience, and you know that one about what doesn't kill me … "
She interrupted him with a noise of impatience.
"Ah god, I hate that crap. You don't really think that, do you? No, I didn't think so, just … what? Too much time in Germany? You know, I'd like to dig Nietzsche up and kick him in the nuts. It's all you hear, when you're a female and you've been victimized. Everyone wants you to deal with your feelings, to talk about your feelings. Get you to say it wasn't that bad, and it makes me stronger. What a load of shit. Nobody gets stronger from being abused or raped. And I don't want to talk about my feelings. Can we talk about what happened? Can we talk about that? No, of course not. So you're stuck. Not a 'girl' anymore. Not ready to be a woman. With this experience and knowledge that makes you different forever. At least you feel like it does. There's a line through your life, there's a before and an after. But you can't talk about it. You aren't allowed to say what actually happened. That isn't polite. It might make someone uncomfortable. Can you imagine telling any other kind of crime victim, 'don't tell anyone what happened to you, but it makes you stronger'?"
"I'm sorry."
She made her noise of dismissal - a short series of effs punctuated with a tee.
"Why are you sorry? It isn't your fault."
"No. I know that. But, … I'm a man. I feel … I am aware of. I think sometimes that it's harder to be a female."
"Well, I don't know about that. I believe that life is what you make it. None of us gets to pick and choose the things we have to deal with. We - if we're lucky - we only get to decide how." Her eyes were flashing with a breathtaking light from inside, her distress as evident as the power of her resolve. "And I decided that I'm never going to feel that way again."
"Eames," he said. "What would have been better?"
"The truth." She sipped her coffee. "Just the truth."
"And now?"
"If I'm lucky, maybe make it right for someone else."
Bobby studied his hands around his coffee cup, then nodded once, and after a pause, he nodded again. Then looked at her, met her eyes. Drunk but getting sober, open (for now) with nothing but their clothing and some airspace between them, together in some magic bubble, a temporal distortion in which only honesty was possible, she was sure that she hadn't felt like this since Joe died.
Safe.
//
One hellish week later, they were in a hurry, there wasn't much time, and they were just outside young Maggie Coulter's bedroom door. He caught her gaze with his, touched her elbow, said so only she could hear, "Bad cop."
Then handed her the packet in his hand - some ID photographs from Immigration, and an index card of things to say to provoke this witness. Things from their personal lives.
It was much, much more than a little too close to home.
Eames is a consummate professional, so as incredulous as she was, it didn't show.
Even as a white-hot rage coursed through her and thoughts like 'you fucking asshole, you arrogant fucking prick' and 'I hate you' flowed over and around her, she kept it together. She nodded, took the cards.
Even though her heart felt like it was actually on fire, and she could feel her face stiffening into an ugly, cold mask, she did what he wanted.
Did what she needed to do.
Did her job.
He hovered near the door, vibrating. She took the small chair from its place near the wall, moved it closer to the bed. Sat down.
"I'm Alex," she told the girl.
//
Eames is a disciplined person. She can (does) decide what she will think about, and for how long. She doesn't like to dwell. She doesn't see the point in that.
But over the years, she would have many occasions to wonder at herself. Wonder why she let him take the lead on that, wonder what mysterious instinct for self-preservation and survival overrode her desire to pull rank, be the senior partner, tell him to fuck himself and run the interview her way. Why she chose his instincts over her own.
Maybe it was the leftovers of that tequila-inspired raw honesty, a residual feeling of the safety that had mostly vanished the moment she squeezed her right index finger on the trigger on her weapon and saw a man die in the street like a dog, and was evermore a killer.
Maybe it was just because of the day.
But she'd wonder why, and she would tentatively touch her chest over her heart, recalling the miracle. Eames would touch the spot on her chest right over her heart and remember that moment, when her heart had broken into millions of tiny fragments and shards. And that when it happened - and there had been an actual sensation, like a pressure that built and built, and then a little pop - that the fragments hadn't shredded her insides or torn open fresh wounds as she expected they would, but had become like a rare and perfect liquid, had poured through her with something else, something totally new.
That moment, when she saw Bobby Goren rescue an innocent child, and was herself reborn.
//
What she did do as soon as they got back to the eleventh floor of One Police Plaza, even before she took her coat off, was head directly to Deakins' office.
"Hell no, it's no trouble at all, Alex. Consider it forgotten," her captain beamed at her. "Suits me fine. Less paperwork. Now, I've got cases stacking up like Christmas coming, so you and your partner get back to work. And Alex," she paused with her hand on the doorknob, and he smiled at her again, "for what it's worth, it's the right choice. I know it."
//
Up to and including that morning she found herself naked and bleeding and in her partner's arms on her bathroom floor, she remained enormously grateful for two things:
He never apologized for what he'd done with the Coulter case.
And he never asked her when the abuse stopped.
A/N: Male child sexual abuse occurs across all socio-cultural boundaries, as well.
The uniform secrecy around this crime is so severe, we have very little idea of 'real' numbers.
As it stands right now, I think 'one is seven' is the accepted 'official' estimate in most first world countries.