A/N: Thank you so much for all your reviews. It really gets me into the Christmas spirit, you know? Anyways, this chapter was excedingly difficult to write because of the changed Goren/Eames dynamic. Oh, also, I stole a line in this from a Nero Wolfe novel. Forgive me.
//
They are alone. The sterile hospital room seems echoingly empy. Bobby is looking at her with such intensity that Eames feels her cheeks flushing. The look is shot through with aching desire, loss, and desperation. He looks so…lost. She watches as his eyes slowly mist over with tears that he's obviously fighting against. She can tell, she knows that it's only the strong force of personal will that's keeping him from falling completely apart. He opens his mouth, and then closes it again.
"Bobby," she says, reaching out a hand towards him, and then stopping, abruptly, when he flinches away from her. She feels her own tears welling up. Bobby keeps staring at her with that look. Oh god, he thinks. What's wrong with me? This is Eames. It's Alex. It's the woman that I love. He knows that it's only Post Traumatic Stress, that his body is instinctively reacting with fear and anxiety, his feelings of hypervigilance and severe stress would last. There would be flashbacks, night terrors—he would re-live the scene over and over in his mind. He remembers Claire's touch. The feeling of her friction against him. His helplessness in the face of her advances. Shame. He feels it course through him, and he drops his gaze down, staring at his one useful hand, twisting the sheets restlessly. He can't look at Eames. He's sure she can tell. She's always been the best at seeing through him, grounding him when his mind flies a little too high and wide. He still can't bring himself to look at her. He aches so much inside. He feels broken, afraid, and still painfully aware that the woman that his heart belongs to is sitting beside him, imploring him to talk to her. Talk to her. Talk to her.
"Alex," he says, his voice dry and cracked. The tears in her eyes spill hotly down her face, and he feels the tears welling in his own eyes to match. "You're here," he says, not knowing what else to say. And then… "You're..alive." Then his tears fall, too, and he cant keep her from seeing him fall apart. The tears turn into a slight shaking. His thoughts start racing. He can't move his left side. He's parilyzed, he can't move. He's a prisoner. He's always been a prisoner. To his past, to his mind, to his family. His breath hitches, and catches in his throat. He can't breathe. He feels his heart racing, a heady ponding in his temples. He faintly hears Alex worriedly calling his name, and then a nurse coming in. Then, nothing.
//
Alex stops breathing when Bobby finally looks up at her again. She looks deeply into his eyes, and sees a thousand emotions, each taking him farther and farther away from her, as his sobbing increases and he starts to hyperventillate. Panic flares in her stomach as his eyes roll back in his head, the whites showing, his heart pumping blood, fast, into his head. She cries his name, and a nurse runs in, looking flustered.
"Don't worry, miss," the nurse says. "He's having a panic attack." Another nurse hurries in. "10 milligrams, ativan, stat," says the first nurse, and then, to Alex, "We're going to give him a sedative and it will calm him down. He'll probably sleep for a few hours." The nurse injects him, and his frantic spasms calm down, until his head lolls back.
"Do you want to stay here?" The nurse asks, knowing full well what the answer is. She's seen the petite female detective every day for three weeks, and she hasn't budged from the seat next to her partner more than a few times.
"I'll stay," says Eames shortly, and as soon as the nurse is gone, she reaches out for her partner's hand. He's so cold. Tears start again in her eyes. Why can't anything be easy for us?
//
Bobby wakes up a few hours later, and gropes around for a minute, not knowing where he is. Then he feels a warm hand closing over his, and he is calmed, the cold sweat that had popped up on his forehead is drying in the warm hospital air. Alex is here. His eyes slowly focus on her. She is gazing up at him. His brain feels like mush from the tranquilizers, and he struggles to process a thought. He can't remember the last time his brain worked properly. Before the kidnapping, maybe? That night when he kissed her…that had been both a good decision and a bad one. He loved her. With all of his soul, he ached to be with her, but…there is always a but. His work. He loves his work, it is his life and he doesn't know if he can keep an inter-ofice relationship secret. He can just imagine pushing Alex against the wall after-hours. Kissing and biting the soft skin of her neck while she cries out his name…
"Bobby?" Alex's worried voice startles him out of his thoughts. "Are you ok? Can you hear me?" His eyes clear a little.
"Hi," he says, and he sees a wide, genuine smile spread across her face as she looks at him with deep affection.
"Hi yourself," she says, grasping his hand tighter. The smile fades a little, and he can see the worry through it. "I missed you," she says quietly.
Oh god, what should he say? That he cried out for her during the long, hazy nights of his abduction? That the news of her death struck him so deeply that he felt like he was bleeding inside? Like his whole body was a raw, open wound? That finding her alive left him breathless, unsure, and apprehensive all at the same time? That he wanted to grap hold of her and never let her go?
"I missed you too," he says, stroking her hand lightly with his thumb. Her skin is so soft… :"I…Claire told you were, uh, that you were dead," he says, against his own will. He has to make her know, somehow, why he is behaving the way he is. "I..you know, I thought she had killed you." He feels a stinging in his eyes, as he fights back more tears. No more, he thinks. I've cried enough over this. It's over. Inside, however, he knows that it's not over. That it won't be over until he confronts his rage, his sense of violation, his feelings. Alex is looking at him at first with shock, then with a dawning sympathy.
"Oh, god, Bobby. I'm sorry," she says. And he shakes his head.
"Not your fault," he mumbles.
"But still," she says, "I know how that feels." Her voice drops off. He shifts his eyes away from her, looking up at the ceiling.
"No," he says, "I don't think that you do." His voice sounds so hollow that Eames takes a breath. She knows that he's hurting, but she didn't know that so much of it was over her. She stuggles with her beating heart. She is sure he can hear it in the sudden silence of the room. The heart monitor beeps with monotonous regularity. She swallows. She is beginning to ger irrationally annoyed. Her conflicted feelings are giving her a headache. She loves Bobby. She can't imagine not spending every minute of her day with him. She wants him to take her in his arms. She wants to shake him for not trusting how she feels about him.
"Of course I do, Bobby," she says, and he notices the tightening in her voice. "For awhile when I was in the hospital, I thought you were dead." Her voice tightens even more now, as she's clearly on the verge of tears again. God, he doesn't want her to cry anymore on his behalf. "And afterwards, I didn't know if you were dead or alive. I didn't know where you were…" her voice breaks and she suddenly pounds on the bed, next to him. "So don't you dare say that I don't know what it feels like!" She shouts, suddenly, and then just as suddenly stops pounding and suddenly seems exhausted, resting her head on her hands, next to him. "I died inside, Bobby," she says, her voice muffled.
Bobby looks down at her. God, what a mess. What a mess his life is. He fights to control himself as he reaches a hand down, and gently strokes her hair. She makes a small sound, and turns her head towards him. He cups her face, gently, and she sits up, leans over him, and presses her lips over his, gently, chastely. His hands come up, bury in her hair, and then slide down to stroke her neck. He breaks the kiss, and she rests her forhead on his, as they lie there, inches away, in as much of a loss for words as either of them has ever been.
//
A/N: Merry Christmas everybody!