Bright and early the next morning, nursing very large coffees Goren and Eames rolled up the I278, enroute to visit the talented Mr. Mayford on Rikers Island. Eames had called him that once and they'd both laughed, this case had that same feeling of boundaryless, conscienceless, wealth. But now, steeling herself to sit with him again she was thinking he didn't deserve the moniker.

Scum. Alex thought. That fit perfectly.

If only everything about her life were that clear. Bobby was right here beside her and yet completely untouchable. They were getting along. In fact they were clicking better then they had in a long time. They were teasing each other, smiling, laughing more then they had in a years so that wasn't the issue. He hadn't called her, hadn't come over, and there hadn't been any encore performances (of a sexual kind) and it had been three days. She wasn't quite sure what to make of the little exchange that Hannah (AKA cock block) had interrupted yesterday, but her pride wouldn't let her ask. And in retrospect maybe it was best they had been distracted from the plan to have more inappropriate sex. It was too much like Goren and Eames tough as nails cops banging it out, not enough Bobby and Alex bona fide couple desiring and respecting each other. She worried that maybe this exhibitionist fucking was all he wanted her for. She worried that he thought she wasn't girlfriend material, that she didn't have the softness a man needed in a woman.

Or maybe, she thought gripping the wheel, she was out of his system. Imagine if they'd waited this long and once was enough. A rueful smile played on her lips. Then in the next moment that smile dried and crumbled. She wanted him again. She wanted him now. She wanted him forever. She admitted that inside where no one would know. She was 1000% in love with Robert Goren. In love with a cop. Again. Suddenly it wasn't just something she said. Suddenly it wasn't just devotion and care she'd felt for years. It was real. So mature. So passionate. So sweet. So terrifying. Her eyes shut briefly as she let the feeling course through her, the love she only now saw as whole.

"Hey. Open your eyes when you're driving." she heard a hint of laughter in his admonishment. And knowing that he was happy made her happy.

"Sorry. Just thinking."

"Yeah, back in the cage with Mayford." He nodded. And all the good will evaporated. She almost tore him a new one. Mayford! Was he serious? This was a job. Didn't he know her at all? Didn't he have a clue about who and what she'd been obsessing over about day and night for the last 3 days? Fine. If he wanted to pretend that nothing had changed and that they were just an apathetic crime fighting duo, if that's what got him through the day, then fine. Just step over the bloody puddle from my broken heart. Mind you don't slip.

"My maniac admirer." she offered blandly, going along with the path he'd set them on.

"Don't let him touch you." he expelled suddenly as if he couldn't keep it in.

"It's not like I enjoy it Bobby."

"Just don't." he pled a little.

"I'll do what I need to do." Mayford was nothing. He was trying to play her and Alex only felt revulsion. She looked down on him with absolute clarity. And she wasn't even his type. Now that he was locked up she was certain the flirtation would end.

"If you encourage that personality type it doesn't end well."

"You would know." she muttered.

"This again, really?"

"You were in love with a serial killer." She dug trying to share her pain.

Along with his white whale Wallace there had been Nelda Carlson, Leslie LeZard all murderesses all casting their deranged spell on him. Their images were etched on her mind. She'd had to stand by and watch his self-destructive train wreck of a personality over and over again. But Nicole, well she was in a class all her own. It had taken a long time for Alex to realize she was jealous. Jealous (even now) that Bobby had been nicer to - more engaged by - a filicidal nut job then he was her. And it didn't help that whenever Alex had gotten into the interrogation room with that she-devil she'd always lost her way. She'd always ended up feeling out-witted and as unremarkable as grey wallpaper.

"Where in the hell is your filter?" he was furious. Bobby felt like a spectator hit in the head by a fly ball. She kept assaulting him with his old mistakes using these guerilla tactics. He genuinely didn't know why. He couldn't read her, if he could, he'd have known that Alex felt like they'd had an unwritten appointment with conversation for years and now that she'd been with him (in the biblical sense), now that he was worried about Mayford, it was a cosmic message to go for the jugular.

"Turned off." She was tired of wearing kid gloves. She was tired of asking him questions and accepting no answer. She wanted to know. She had a right to know. "Did you cry for Nicole when she died?"

"I didn't love Nicole and no I didn't cry."

"I'm surprised, at both."

"You blindside me now? It's been years."

"She really is gone." They'd thought for at least 2 years (even with the heart) that she might just reappear but she never had.

"Yeah so drop it."

"No." she snapped. She was feeling scrappy.

"No?"

"You heard me I said no. I have a few questions about her."

"Why?" He sounded tired.

"Slots right in" She elaborated "To this case. The things we do to close them" She knew Bobby'd had flings, dalliances, since Nicole but she'd been the last to 'butter his parsnips'.

"Things." he looked at her, wondering what stupid reckless thing she had in mind, worrying about Tyler Mayford.

"Yes. Things."

"Fine." he said on a sigh. "What do you want to know?"

"Who do you miss more Nicole or Frank?"

Hearing her quote Declan made the hair stand up on the back of his neck. "Are you trying to be a cruel?"

A little. "No." she said "I'm trying to understand you, it feels overdue." Considering what we did together.

"I don't miss either of them." he said quickly and without consideration.

"Want to take a second." Her voice oozed with sarcasm.

"No. Not really." That question had plagued him for years. He'd given up days to it. "Frank was an idea and Nicole was a labyrinth." He said softly poetically.

"What?"

"Can we drop this." Suddenly it all felt like too much.

"I want to know what you mean." she held her ground.

"okay. Okay!" He gave in angrily. But even annoyed he knew this was momentous he was going to try and let her in. "When I was a boy I read a lot." He said looking at the roof of the car "My favourite books were always the ones about family. You know, that special bond between siblings. I loved The Hardy Boys, the Pevensies' adventures in Narnia, The Outsiders. I was always working on a story. I - I guess I knew that my family was different. I just - I just wanted to know what it was supposed to look like. Supposed to feel like."

Bobby looked at his clasped hands and imagined it was a session. He tried to imagine Eames the way he did Gyson. His gut rolled with anxiety because Eames wasn't obligated to be impartial or reserve judgement. But this was a test. Could he be honest with a normal person, who had normal expectations? Could he risk something?

"When I pulled my nose out of the books there was reality. Frank was hardly ever home. H- he could be mean. Mean like our dad, his dad. He took my things, things I treasured and broke them or sold them. I knew what love looked like in books so I pretended. I pretended for as long as I could that Frank cared. That we could be a team." he laughed a little on the word.

A lump the size of a fist lodged in her throat. She didn't want to know this. Or maybe she did, in exactly the way you wanted to see the body of a loved one. The way you wanted to know what had stopped highway traffic on a rainy evening. But he talked on like a robot, like this had been fighting to get past his lips for a long long time.

"Frank left for good when I was 14. In 33 years I heard from him maybe 5 times. When I confronted him after D.. Donny he was already dead." he turned and looked at her for a moment "The place was disgusting... and he.. he was starting to decay. His teeth, his mind..." he stopped and sucked in a breath.

"That life... His life...Frank couldn't care about anyone including himself. I miss the idea of a brother. I don't miss Frank." he said pressed his forehead to the cool window and let out a long shaky breath. He had grown comfortable with that answer. He was silent for so long that Alex thought the conversation was over. And she wished desperately he'd say more. The topic was horrible but she could remember a time when he'd have met her questions with silence.

"Nicole did something to me." he unknowingly answered her plea.

"What?" she was almost afraid to ask.

"I don't know. My blood was hot, my synapses were firing, running to keep up, puzzling it out. I get hard just thinking about it." his eyes quickly darted to her "That was a figure of speech, I didn't… I never… She was evil, she was a murderer, she disgusted me."

Something in Alex died a little. What a figure of speech to choose. Imagine holding that many powerful conflicting emotions about someone. And she knew he would never ever feel that passionately about her.

"Did you sleep with her?" She didn't know where this boldness was coming from, but she had a right to know his sexual history. In the back of her mind came the droning advice of a generation, a PSA she knew better then her own address: 'when you have sex you're sleeping with every partner your partner has ever slept with.' Who'd written that? It was like they talking directly to her.

There was a long pause, then "No."

Was he lying?

"Did you have to think about that?" she reached for her sunglasses because she didn't want him to see her eyes during this conversation.

"I was trying to decide if it was any of your business." his voice was flat and wintery and in that moment she remembered how mean he could be. It stung. In the wake of his admissions about Nicole his sharp comment hurt more then it should have. She felt that telltale tightening in her chest. She was a total wimp when it came to this man. "Is that all you got?" he challenged oblivious to the fact that she had weakened.

"Yeah, that's all." she manage to say, just above a whisper.

"Really? Why stop there. Forget Nicole, ask me about an actual lay? Sarah? Lily?"

Her gut jumped in pain. But she stayed silent.

He knew he'd gone to far.

"I'm sorry."

Nothing. Her aviatored gaze straight ahead. Her posture rigid. But not a sound.

"Eames. Eames I'm sorry. That was uncalled for."

She ignored him.

"I'm not good for you Eames. I hurt you." he reached over and rubbed her thigh and a muscle twitched beneath his hand "I'm sorry." he repeated.

"Oh don't be. I'm just one of the guys."