When Alex got to her sister's after her confrontation with Ross, Reggie asked if the kids could spend the night. After allowing the children and Jake to convince her that it was a good idea for them to stay, she kissed them all good night. Maggie hugged her neck for a few extra seconds, long enough to whisper in her ear, "You an' Daddy need some 'lone time. Kiss him good night for me."

Swallowing the lump in her throat, she kissed her oldest child, "I will. Good night, baby."

"Don' worry, Mommy. I'll take care-a Harry an' my babies."

"I know you will."

After leaving her sister's home, Alex started toward Ozone Park, but she suddenly changed her mind and drove toward Brooklyn. Thirty minutes later, she was knocking on Mike and Carolyn's door. Carolyn answered, delighted to see Alex. After a hug, Carolyn said, "I'll get Mike."

"I didn't come to see Mike. I see him every day. I came to see you."

Carolyn paused for a moment, then said, "How about we go out for a couple of drinks?"

"I think that's just what I need."

"Come on in and give me five minutes to get ready."

Ten minutes later they left the apartment building and within a half hour, they were seated in a fairly quiet corner of a south Manhattan pub. After ordering two vodka gimlets, Carolyn said, "So, what's this I hear about you guys adopting a drug dealer's son?"

"That's right. His name is Harry and he's five. He's very shy and very sweet."

"Was this one of Bobby's ideas?"

"Actually, it was Maggie's."

Alex took her time explaining the events that had transpired while Carolyn was gone. Two drinks became four and then six, and they lost track of time.

It was close to midnight when Alex climbed out of the cab and weaved her way to the front door, carrying her shoes. Once she was in the house, the cabbie drove away. The house was dark—and empty. Bobby wasn't home, which surprised her. He hadn't said anything about going out, and there were no messages for her, digital or written. She couldn't get too upset, though, because she hadn't left him notice of her late night, either.

She debated calling him to find out where he was, weighing her concern for him against his need for space to work out whatever demons he was grappling with. Sometimes it was too easy for him to fall back on old patterns, and that troubled her. Ultimately, though, she realized she wasn't in any condition to confront him and decided to let him be and see if he would come to her on his own.

She went to bed alone and fell asleep waiting for her wayward husband to come home.

Her sleep was fitful, so when he came in at quarter to four, trying to be quiet, she stirred. When he knocked over the lamp on the nightstand and swore at it, she opened her eyes and watched him undress in the dim light cast by the streetlight outside the windows. His movements were slow and deliberate, and she knew he'd been drinking, which was no surprise to her. The fact that he'd been alone, that he hadn't called Mike, made her gut clench.

He sat down on the bed and laid back, trying to take care not to waken her. He smelled of whiskey and cigarettes, but nothing more, then she mentally kicked herself for thinking there might be. Just a few short years ago, there would have been, but things had changed. He had changed. Even so, the fact that he was out alone, drinking whiskey, meant he was deeply troubled.

In the past, she had confronted him with anger, learning the hard way that that was not the best way to deal with him. Her anger made him defensive and they got nowhere fast. So she focused on finding a different way. Sliding closer to him, she laid her hand on his chest. With a soft grunt, he slipped his arm around her, and she rested her head against his shoulder. Softly, she said, "A call would have been nice."

"I'm sorry," he answered. "The time got away from me."

"What's bothering you?"

He shook his head slowly. "I had a bad day."

"Is Mike downstairs?"

He furrowed his brow, confused. "Why would he be downstairs?"

"Wasn't he with you?" she asked, though she knew he hadn't been.

"No."

"So you were alone?"

His answers were slow in coming, his speech deliberate, and as well as she knew him, she was having trouble determining just how drunk he was. He did not, however, answer her last question. She lifted her head. "Bobby?"

"Uh, no. I wasn't alone."

"No? So who were you with?"

"Does it matter so much, Alex? I had a really bad day and I don't want to get into it with you."

"Why would you be worried about that?"

He sighed heavily. "I was with Denise."

She tensed and he moved his arm from around her, expecting her to move away from him. When she didn't move, he looked at her. She said, "Drinking while pregnant? That doesn't sound like her."

"She was drinking ginger ale. She drove me home."

Not fully sober, she reacted strongly to his confession. "Why were you with her?"

"I ran into her at 1PP and she wanted to talk to me."

"So then you know I talked to her today."

Since she had not chosen to move away, he curled his arm back around her, resting his hand on her hip. "No. She didn't mention that."

She could not figure that woman out. Was she really that good at keeping confidences, whether she was asked to keep them or not? But first things first. "Why were you at 1PP?"

He moved his hand onto her side, just beneath the hem of her shirt, and lightly caressed her skin. The contact helped to calm him. "One of my students was injured today and I spent a good part of the day at the hospital with him. After I left the hospital, I stopped in at the squad room to see you, but you weren't there."

His light stroking was distracting, and it felt good, but his words penetrated the gimlet fog that still clouded her mind. She struggled to make out the details of his face in the dim light. "What time did you stop by the squad?"

He shrugged. "End of the day. Five-thirty, maybe." His brow furrowed. "You've been drinking."

"So have you."

"Uh, yeah, well..." Maybe she had a bad day, too. "Why?"

"Do I need a reason?"

"Apparently, I do."

He had a point. "No real reason. Reggie asked if the kids could stay the night, and they wanted to, so I went to visit Carolyn. We went out for a few drinks." Her mind still blurry, she was uncertain where to direct the conversation. It was rare for them to try to talk seriously when neither was sober, so it could easily go either way. Not wanting to fight with him, she chose the safest subject. "How was your student hurt?"

"Argument during a basketball game at lunchtime. He was, uh, shot by another student. Kids shouldn't carry guns."

"No, they shouldn't. Will he be okay?"

He paused, choosing his words carefully before he spoke them. "I'm not sure either of them will. These are good kids, not troublemakers. Some of those kids have access to guns, and they carry them, at least outside of school. These two are not those kind of kids. They're good students, bright and eager. Neither of them ever had so much as a detention. The kid who did the shooting is in shock. Do you know what he told me?"

"What?"

"'It's nothing like they show on TV.'" He made a noise that could have been a laugh but definitely was not. "It's never like it is on television."

He had not been lying when he said he'd had a bad day. "Did he say where he got the gun?"

"It was his father's, legally registered. He stole his father's key and took it from its locked box in his parents' closet. He told me that he had it because he was being bullied. Dr. Ovilla will be looking into that next week, and I might give him a hand. The gun is in evidence now. This isn't going to go well for either boy." He paused, still caressing her side. Softly, he asked, "When did you find out that Deakins is retiring?"

The sudden change of subject caught her off guard, and it took her a moment to figure out how he knew. Damn. The one time he goes to Major Case and actually talks to someone... "Very smooth, the way you slipped that in there like that," she said.

"Do you have an answer?"

"Of course. He told me this afternoon," she answered. "Who did you talk to in the squadroom?"

"Michaels."

It figured Michaels would be there. He was one of the few detectives in the squad who genuinely liked Bobby. "Deakins wanted me to tell you, and I would have in the morning."

"I also talked to Michaels about the rumors."

Of course he did. "Did he know anything?"

"No. He said he went off on the person he heard them from. But he also gave me a lead on tracking the source."

"Who?"

"Someone in the secretarial pool. I already talked to Logan. He's going to talk to her on Monday."

"When did you talk to Logan?"

"I called him from the bar."

"And did he know where you were?"

"I guess he could figure it out from the background noise."

"Did he ask?"

"No, and I didn't tell."

That was getting her nowhere. "Do you know the woman Michaels directed you to?"

"Pretty well, yes. I used to anyway."

Alex sighed. "Honestly, Bobby, I wish you guys would let it go. They're just rumors. Saying doesn't make it so."

"No one attacks my family without standing accountable."

His tone left no room for argument. He was going to see this through to its conclusion and Mike would be with him every step of the way. There would be no talking him out of it. Even if she could get him to promise to let it go, she had no leverage over Mike. No one did, not even Carolyn. As with every investigation, this one was going to go where the evidence led, and she couldn't explain why that made her nervous.

"It really doesn't matter to me," she insisted. "There are still rumors about me because of my dad. I ignore them."

"It matters to me, and I won't ignore them. This is an assault on your character."

She wasn't surprised by his stubborn refusal to let it go, but if she continued to debate with him, there was going to be an argument, so she changed the subject. Unfortunately, the subject to which she chose to return, a subject she would never have chosen had she been fully sober, was even more volatile to him. "Why did Denise want to talk to you?"

He stiffened, but he didn't withdraw, which was an improvement. "Why did you go to see her?" he asked gruffly, redirecting the conversation.

She hesitated before deciding to let him get away with it for the moment. "Because she was the one who told you about the rumors and I was angry. I wanted to know why she went to Logan instead of talking to me."

He made a soft noise of regret. "She didn't do anything wrong. Her boyfriend brought it up and I got her to tell me what was going on. I guess she went to Logan because she knows him pretty well, and she's never been on your favorite person list."

His immediate defense of Denise annoyed her. "Yeah, that's pretty much what she told me. How did you get her to tell you what was going on?"

"I insisted."

"And she caved, just like that?"

"Not quite just like that, but she told me what I wanted to know."

"Did you intimidate her?"

He laughed briefly. "Sure—the same way I intimidate you. She knows me too well. I could never intimidate her, even when I tried."

"Did you know you hurt her?"

His reaction was immediate, and she knew that Denise had not said anything to him. "I never hurt her," he insisted, adding, "Never physically, never intentionally."

"Something I want to know?"

He looked toward the ceiling. "Nothing about my relationship with her is anything you want to know. How did she say I hurt her?"

"She didn't say anything except to defend you. She showed me her wrist; it was all bruised."

He was confused. "I...I couldn't have done that...I didn't..."

"She told me she bruises very easily these days because of the pregnancy, which is something else you kind of failed to mention to me."

His mind began to race. "Uh, there was no reason for me to tell you she was pregnant," he said absently, his mind already past that. "Easy bruising—I don't remember reading anything about that when you were pregnant. I...I never bruised you like that, did I?"

"No, you never bruised me. Pregnancy doesn't normally cause that unless something is wrong. Is Denise normally an easy bruiser?"

Distracted, he shook his head. "No."

She couldn't stop asking the next question that came to her. "Is that why you said you wanted to get me pregnant again? Because she is?"

He became very still. Her question caught him off guard and sent his mind spinning. Softly, after a prolonged silence driven by guilt, he said, "Seeing her reminded me how much I loved watching you during your pregnancies, especially with Tom and Molly, because I knew they were mine. But that doesn't mean I loved watching you any less when you had Maggie and Jake."

"Even Jake?"

"Yes," he admitted. "You are always beautiful but pregnancy made you...I don't know, a different kind of beautiful. I think that during your pregnancies was the only time I've ever thought of you as a fragile beauty. I know you weren't, but..." He shrugged. "Maybe I just wanted you to be...to, uh, to need me, for once."

Alex let his words sink in, and she nestled her head against his shoulder. He grunted softly and kissed her head. Gently, she asked, "Do you think for a moment that I don't need you?"

"Not that way, you don't. Maybe it's stupid, but...part of me just wants to...to take care of you, to be needed—really needed, for more than just sex."

"Bobby..."

"Please, Alex. I know it's true. Aside from sex, you don't really need me for much else. I get in trouble when I do anything to protect you or when I dare to try to take care of you. It's...frustrating."

She didn't answer right away. "You want me to be a damsel in distress?"

"No." He laughed softly, but she could find no amusement in the sound. "I can't even imagine you as a damsel in distress. Besides, God knows I am no one's knight in shining armor. But I am a man, and sometimes I need to be..."

He trailed off, searching his weary mind for the right word. Alex lifted her head to look at him. "Macho?"

He smiled sadly and shook his head. "Worth something." He paused. "It's stupid. Forget I ever said anything."

"First of all, you are worth everything to me, so stop trying to convince yourself that you aren't. And how you feel is not stupid. Bobby, you may think you want a woman to take care of, but you need a woman like me who can handle you."

"Handle me? What do you mean by that?"

"Exactly what I said. You are a sweet, loving, kind man, and I love you deeply. But a weak woman would cave under the stress of being married to you. The darkness inside you is not something a faint-hearted woman could handle. The worst thing you could have done would have been to marry a woman who needed you to take care of her."

He rolled toward her and placed a kiss on her chin. Then he rested his head on her chest. "And the best thing I ever did was to marry you. I'm sorry. I shouldn't have said anything."

She twirled his hair around her finger and replied, "Don't apologize. You're doing what I have always wanted you to do. You're letting me in, telling me how you feel and what you think. Contrary to popular opinion, I can't read your mind. You have to tell me what's going on in there." She ran gentle fingers across his temple. "I can understand that you want to take care of me, but I don't know how to be that kind of woman. I have always relied on my own strength. Needing a man the way you want to be needed has never been part of who I am. But I'm your wife, and I made a vow to meet all your needs, no matter how...I mean, what they are."

"You were going to say no matter how stupid they are, weren't you?"

"No, I wasn't. And I wasn't thinking unreasonable either. I was going to say 'no matter how male they are."

He chuckled quietly. "It's okay. I knew you weren't that kind of woman when I married you."

"And I can't be that kind of woman."

"I know. I don't know why I said anything. I should have..."

She silenced him by placing two fingers over his mouth. "You did exactly what you should have done. You're letting me in on the workings of your mind. It's not easy for you to do and it's not easy for me to understand, but that is what I have been wanting from you." She brushed her lips through his hair. "I can't be a damsel in distress. I was raised to be self-sufficient, never to need anything from anyone."

He nuzzled her chest, but his mind was elsewhere, in the past, remembering hard-learned lessons, taught by fist and belt. "My mother taught me to be a gentleman and it grates on me that my wife won't let me be one."

"You mean like holding open doors and laying your coat over mud puddles."

"Something like that. I can't explain it. Well, I guess I can, but you'd be bored and give me one of those looks." He sighed. "It's always been enough for me to be with you. I don't have a problem with things being your way. I never have because I love you and it still boggles my mind that you said yes to me. I know that I'm no prize and I come with a whole truckful of baggage, but I try to make it worth your while to be with me. I shouldn't have said anything. I know you aren't the kind of woman who'll put up with being taken care of by anyone. I'm sorry."

She wasn't sure exactly how to respond to that. She wanted candor from him and he was certainly giving her that. She continued to play with his hair as she said, "You're right that I can take care of myself and I don't like the idea of needing anyone. But you're wrong about everything else. Okay, well, maybe you do come with some baggage, but don't we all? I've never had a problem with your past or with your struggles. Okay, so you aren't normal in the strictest sense of the word. I have no problem with that, either. In fact, your quirkiness is endearing. Normal is overrated. You bring a kind of exotic spice to my life that I never knew was missing and now don't ever want to be without." She caressed the side of his face. "Everything doesn't have to be my way. I'm not going to throw a tantrum and take my ball home if I don't get my way. A marriage is give and take. Sometimes you give a little more, sometimes you take a little more. I don't want you to have to give all the time without getting any of the take."

"I've taken my share," he protested. "You let me stay friends with Denise."

It was telling that he felt that the only thing he asked—to remain friends with Denise—was all the take he wanted from her. "Suppose I had a problem with that?" she asked.

"You do have a problem with it, which is why I've limited the time I've spent with her. It's also why I've always had the kids along. I never wanted you to have any reason to doubt my fidelity."

"The kids weren't with you tonight."

"And you think something happened," he said sadly.

"No, I don't. I trust you."

"Normally, you do, but you don't trust me with her. Alex, she knows how much you mean to me. Hell, the only one who doesn't seem to know that is you. She would never put me in a situation that could jeopardize my marriage."

"Maybe my problem is with the past you have with her. No one else in your life has that kind of long-term, intimate past with you."

"But she would never interfere with my relationship with you. She never has. She cares too much to do that."

"Maybe that's part of my problem."

He frowned. "That she cares?"

"She cares too much. She is still in love with you."

"That's ridiculous. We moved past that."

"You did, maybe. But I can still see it in her. She loved you enough to let you go, knowing you would never come back. People don't have on and off switches, and sometimes, there is no way to turn off your heart. You just learn to live with the pain. You, of all people, should understand that. But I think that you have always denied what she felt because you couldn't put your whole heart into loving her back."

"I suppose there may be some truth to that, but I never lied to her or led her on."

"Bobby, you proposed to her."

He rolled off her and sat up, slowly turning to face her. The pain in his expression stunned her. "I did, and, if you'll remember, she said no."

"But suppose she hadn't? Suppose you had been married to her when I left Ricky?"

He recalled a similar conversation with Mike and the anger it generated. He steered his wife in a different direction, hoping for a different result. "Alex, if I had gotten married, Ricky would have backed off."

Alex frowned. "You think so?"

"Yes, I do. Married, I would be less of a threat to him. If I had a wife of my own, there would be no reason for me to try stealing his."

"His problem wasn't your marital status. His problem was that you were in love with me and he knew it. I didn't matter to him that you never acted on it."

"That's not true. We have Maggie and Tom. That's twice I acted on it. I just...I think that if I'd gotten married, you might have been able to be happy with him."

"So that's why you asked Denise to marry you?"

He shook his head adamantly. "No, it wasn't. I was tired of being alone, tired of one night stands with women whose names I didn't even know. I knew I could make her happy...and I wanted to do that."

"What about you? What about your happiness?"

He shrugged. "That was never a consideration."

She let out her breath in a frustrated huff. "Why didn't you argue with her when she said no?"

"Why would I do that?"

"Maybe if you'd pushed the issue..."

"Alex, I don't look for arguments."

She pulled her knees up and hugged them. "You let her have her way, the same way you do with me."

He was beginning to get angry. "Why is that a problem?"

She shifted closer, hoping to soothe his anger before it got out of hand. "Because you have a heart, too. You have an opinion and you have wants and needs. It's not fair for you to shove all those under the carpet for any woman. Don't you understand? Expressing your desires and needs to someone else is important. It's part of being in a relationship."

"Not for me. I...It's never been an issue."

"Only because you've been with selfish women. Until Denise and me, no one has ever taken you into consideration, and that hasn't been fair to you. Look, I realize it's hard for you to change. But I want you to try to remember something. I love you and I want this marriage to be fair, like it should be. If you need something, let me know. As for your damsel in distress dilemma, I'll try not to get irritated when you feel the need to protect me or take care of me."

"I'll do my best. Are you still okay with my being friends with Denise?"

She reached out and grasped his shoulder, gently coaxing him back to her. He settled beside her, folding his arm over her without thinking about it. She stroked his hair. "Denise has been in your life a lot longer than I have. I know how precious and few your real friendships are, and I don't have the heart to make you step away from even one of them. Just be aware of how she feels about you."

"I still think she's over me. She's with someone else now and she seems happy."

"It's not that simple. Bobby, for someone who understands the human psyche so well, you have a couple of big blind spots. You understand the dark side of emotion but the bright side escapes you. Once or twice in a life, if we're lucky, we find a person we just can't let go, a person who finds a special place deep in the heart and soul of us that is open to no one else. For me that has always been you and Joe. For you, it's always been me. And for Denise, that person is you."

That was something he didn't want to hear, something he wanted to deny, but couldn't. "I never wanted to hurt her. I should have walked away before it was too late."

"Bobby, it's been too late for years."

"I never...dammit...I never meant to use her..."

"Do you think if I asked her, she would feel used by you?"

"Whether she acknowledges it or not, I did. Look up the definition, and you'll find a description of my relationship with her."

She wasn't comfortable with the discussion because she'd always envied Denise for what she had with him. Even now, he had a connection to her that none of them understood, one he was unwilling to terminate. But this was one of those needs he often buried, and despite her discomfort, she was going to help him find his way through this. "Because she loved you doesn't mean the relationship was toxic. She got something out of it or she would never have stayed in it."

He was also becoming uncomfortable with the conversation, though for different reasons. "Like battered women stay in it for the abuse?"

"Dammit, Bobby—we're talking about a woman who fell in love with you. I would be willing to bet my life that you never mistreated her. For you, love is this fragile, tender thing that needs to be protected, like a precious, thin-shelled egg. One misstep and it will shatter and be lost forever. That's not the way it is. Love is resilient and powerful. It's brought kings to their knees and destroyed empires. There is nothing fragile about love."

He gave that some thought before he said, "I'm not a king and I have no empire. In my life, love has never been that grand thing you describe. It's always been like a butterfly. Beautiful but elusive, something to treasure once it chooses to settle on you. But there's always that moment when it chooses to flit away to find a more suitable place to settle. At least, that's the way it always was. The butterfly never stayed until..."

"Until Denise, and then Maggie and me..."

"I never wanted Denise to love me. The first time she said it...I left her."

She stared at him in the dim light. "You what?"

"Alex, I couldn't love her, not the way she needed me to."

"That's crap. You just wouldn't let yourself love her."

"I was in love with you. I couldn't find that same passion for more than one woman."

"I think you do love her, that you always have. You just found a way to bury it so deep no one could find it, not even you."

"Why are you doing this? I fell in love with you and I married you. Every day I fall deeper, and you say it's not a bad thing. What I once had with Denise is dead and buried, so why are you resurrecting it?"

"Because it's not as dead and buried as you think it is. It's something you need to acknowledge and work through or it will come around to bite you, and nothing good can come of that."

"I was never in love with her."

"And that's a bunch of crap. I was there, Bobby. I saw you with her, and I was insanely jealous because she had you and I didn't. I saw the way you were with her and the way you looked at her when you thought no one was watching. You let her be around Maggie. I saw a lot more than you realize. I saw everything you tried to hide, everything you tried to deny. I saw your pain when she said no to your proposal, remember? You have no idea how much I wanted to take that pain away from you, but you found some way to deal with it."

"Not a good way, but yeah."

"Very few of your coping mechanisms are good ones."

"That's the arsenal my mother left me. I could have turned out like Frank. I should have. But sometimes circumstances change the course of our lives, and the Army did that for me. Declan Gage did that for me. But no one ever taught me the right way to deal with life's problems, so I always turned to what I knew."

She kissed his forehead. "So what brought you to terms with your life then?"

He shrugged, absently rubbing his shoulder. "I never knew her name, but something about her snapped something inside me, and I stopped caring about anyone in my life, except Maggie—at least for awhile I did. But it was long enough, and love didn't destroy me. Apathy kept me sane until I worked things out in my own way."

"You chose apathy over love?"

"Yes, I did, and for the first time in years, I felt free. When I let love back in, I could handle it. I had a different perspective."

She hesitated before asking her next question, finally deciding she needed to know the answer. "Did drugs or alcohol play any role in your epiphany?"

"Yes."

She was quiet for a long time. She had one more nagging concern, one very much related to Denise and the unresolved issues between her and Bobby, the unresolved emotions he struggled to hide by pretending they didn't exist. Finally, she said, "I only have one more question, and I don't want you to freak out over it. But I do want an honest answer. You have a reason for everything you do. You avoided telling me she was pregnant. Is her baby yours?"

Once again he went very still, and she knew immediately that asking that question had been a huge mistake. She already knew the answer, but she couldn't control the overwhelming need she had to hear it from him. Had she been fully sober, she would never have asked.

When he slid out of the bed, she made no move to stop him. He grabbed his t-shirt and stopped at the door, turning to look back at her. For once she was glad she couldn't see his face. "I never cheated on you," he said in an even tone. "Not once. All during your marriage, I could have had you any time, but I wouldn't do that. The one time I did, the one time I remember, I've always regretted because you were married and I wasn't strong enough to turn you away. But you are the only woman who ever had that much power over me. No, Eames. Her baby is not mine."

When he left the room, he didn't slam the door, and she knew he wasn't angry. She could handle his anger with ease, but in all the years she'd known him, she never learned how to handle his pain.