Time continued to pass very slowly. The more time that passed without any word, the more convinced Eames became that she was going to have to break her daughter's heart. And she had no idea how to do that. During the day, she was ok, taking care of her dad and playing with her children, but at night she was utterly alone. Even when Maggie crawled into her bed during the night, suffering from nightmares and wanting her daddy, she was alone. Sometimes she would wander around the house, almost able to pretend he was simply unable to sleep and he didn't want to keep her up. But as more time passed, she became less and less able to pretend. It was beginning to look like Bobby was never coming home.

Whenever she tucked her sleeping baby into his crib, she would stand there for a long time, watching him sleep. He had his father's features but, unlike his father, his sleep was peaceful. Tom had no demons to disturb his slumber. And it broke her heart to watch Maggie sleep, clutching that picture of her father and taking comfort from the fact that Uncle Mike had taken it just for her. She didn't understand that it had been taken before she was born, and it didn't matter. It kept her connected to her two best guys. As for her...she drifted off to sleep every night looking at the picture on the nightstand beside her bed--a picture of Bobby, Maggie and her. Another Logan candid, it had been taken on the back deck at her dad's. He was straddling the picnic table bench with Maggie facing him and her behind him, kneeling and watching Maggie over his shoulder with her hands resting on his back. Maggie was about two, looking at him with a huge smile and adoring eyes. Most of all, she treasured the rare look of utter contentment on his smiling face. All she knew was life didn't get much better than that...and it didn't get much worse than this.

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He groaned and forced himself to take a deep breath. Coughing, he bit back another groan of pain. His eyelids fluttered but he couldn't open them; they were still too heavy. He shifted his hips and coughed again, this time unable to stifle the groan. Tossing his head from side to side, he fought the encroaching darkness. "Alex..." he whispered. "I-I'm sorry..."

He felt something cool against his face, caressing...that felt good...and he had to fight harder not to succumb to the darkness that beckoned to him. With great difficulty, he forced his eyes open and struggled to focus on the person standing at his bedside. So familiar... "Alex?" he coughed again, fighting to keep the darkness from overwhelming him.

"Hey, you," she said softly. She gently brushed his hair back from his forehead. "Take it easy."

"Oh, God...Alex...I am so sorry..." She wiped the tears from his face, ignoring the ones trailing down her own cheeks. "I...you must have...worried..."

She leaned down and pressed her lips tightly to his. His hand caressed her moist cheek, sliding down her neck to her shoulder where he traced her collarbone. She pulled back a little. "You stupid ass," she whispered through her tears. "I love you so damn much."

"I...love you, too..." He shifted again, looking for a position that didn't hurt quite so much but focusing on the pain to stay awake, to stay with her. "Uh, but...I'm gonna...really get it, huh?"

"As soon as you're well enough to get out of this damn bed."

He nodded, trying to moisten his lips. "That's fair." He slowly took a few deep breaths, still focusing on the pain. "M-maggie?"

"She has been so lost. She really doesn't know what to do without you. Bobby, you have no idea how hard this has been. I was..." She choked down more tears. "I was trying to figure out... how to..." She swallowed another lump. "How to tell Maggie her daddy was never coming home. It would have...destroyed her world, Bobby." Her voice was starting to break, which annoyed her. "Like it destroyed mine."

"I...I...am sorry..."

He averted his eyes. She touched his cheek, letting her fingers caress his skin, coaxing him to look back at her. "Goren, you are in so much trouble with me...and all I can think to do is hug you and never let you go." She knew he would be much harder on himself than she would ever be on him.

"I'm all...all for that..." he said with a weak smile. "Um, Tom?"

"He's fine. Growing like a weed and eating like a pig."

He smiled and nodded, placing his hand over hers and closing his fingers around it. The effort to speak and hold his emotions in check was taking its toll, and his eyes slid closed. She just stood beside his bed--where she'd been since arriving in Dallas last night--held his hand, and watched him sleep. Resting her head against his shoulder, overwhelmed by relief, anger and worry, she cried.

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Logan looked up from his breakfast and stopped eating. He grinned sheepishly at the woman who stood in the doorway of his hospital room, frowning with her arms folded across her chest. "Hi, partner."

She shook her head and walked to his bedside. Pushing the tray table out of the way, she wrapped her arms around him and held him tight. Stepping back, she asked, "How're you feeling?"

"Pretty good."

"You're head's ok?"

He nodded. "Yeah."

She slapped the back of his head. "You idiot."

"Ow! Hey, have some respect for the recently injured."

"I can't believe the two of you."

"Yeah, well...we weren't about to just sit on our asses waiting to get shot, Barek. Um, how is Bobby?"

"Still in a coma. Alex is down there with him."

"I guess she's not really happy with us, either, is she?"

"Neither of us is happy, Mike. And you know what?"

"What?"

"There's a little girl back in New York that neither of you stopped to give any thought to..."

"Now wait just one damn minute there...Do not tell us we weren't thinking of Maggie. Maybe what we did wasn't the brightest move, in hindsight, but at the time it made more sense to take the offensive and move toward the threat than to wait for it to come and find us. We hadn't planned on flipping the car. I really am not trying to kill Bobby."

"Deakins said the accident happened early the morning of the 29th."

"Yeah."

"Who was driving?"

"I was."

"Fall asleep at the wheel?"

"What? No! We were forced off the road by another car."

"Why?"

"Because Goren's not the only smart cop in the country. Somebody was able to piece together what we were doing, and they found us."

"Who found you, Mike?"

"Crosby said they were FBI."

"Crosby?"

"Bobby's friend from Denver. We were heading for Austin to talk to an agent named Hammond."

She sighed. "Well, for the time being, you are both in federal custody and Deakins is busting his ass to straighten the whole thing out."

"None of this would have happened if the damn feds weren't so secretive."

She sat down. "Ok, Logan, explain."

He sighed, any appetite for breakfast now gone, and laid it all out for his partner. When he finished his explanation, she just stared at him. Defensively, he said, "What? I'm not making this shit up, Barek. Really. I don't have that kind of imagination."

"Waters was CIA? For real?"

"Yep."

She rubbed her forehead. "Your story explains a lot. Where's this Crosby guy?"

"I don't know. He was in the car with us."

"Ok, I'll convey this to Deakins, unless you want to talk to him..."

"Oh, no, that's quite all right. I can wait for that conversation."

"How are you feeling, Mike?"

"Sore. But I'm ok. Uh, is Maggie ok?"

"She's fine...just really lonely. For some reason she misses the two of you, a lot."

"And the little guy?"

"He's great. I wish you were that good." She smiled and tapped her hand on his cheek, leaning forward to give him a quick kiss. "I'm going to go and call the captain. I'll be back."

"Would you check on Bobby for me?"

"Sure. Finish your breakfast."

She left the room as he pulled the tray table closer, but he wasn't hungry any more.