A/N: Sorry for the wait, I'm travelling. This is the longest I hope to go without an update. As recompense this is a bit fluffy. Thank you reviewers (especially the consistent ones). Valentine51 I appreciated your broader grasp of the psychology of the character I am presenting in Alexandra Eames. My understanding of Eames, as presented by canon, is that she has met her soulmate - and it's her job. Therefore her conflict here runs deep. It's strange to write about a woman that doesn't want the 'bliss' of family. And yet also wants it desperately. This is the line I'm trying to straddle.
Bobby however, is another story...
What a difference a year makes.
He was standing inside FAO Schwarz with all of the other suckers. And the chaos was overwhelming. People. Writhing masses of people. People above, people below. People making a slow vertical ascent up Everest (if Everest were equipped with an escalator, and if awaiting you at the peak were a multicoloured, children's wonderland). Manufacturer's names proudly crowned stacks and stacks of this season's must-have boxes. And humanity clamoured (by some machiavellian design) to bring home those special gizmos. All this buzz. All this chaos. All of it created by some 'mad man' on 6th avenue.
And Bobby? He shouldn't have been here. This wasn't his scene. Bobby was a man who had opinions. He had actually uttered the words 'Bah Humbug' last year, aloud, in a fairly crowded diner, and completely without irony. And that same surly Bobby from 365 days ago had slandered 1PP's glamorous seasonal party, had lashed out at monkey suits and trash talked the office Christmas tree (that joyful, twinkling, martyr) calling it a 'Rockefeller wannabe'.
"Keep to the left people! Keep to the left!" A girl with thick dark rimmed glasses, wearing a Santa hat stood on stool and bellowed. She was waving her thin, red and white, candy cane arms like an air traffic controller. The walky talky on her hip beeped and pulsed with life. And like a good little serf Bobby and about a hundred others moved infinitesimally left, to please her.
No, last year's Bobby wouldn't recognize this guy.
But suddenly all the old versions of himself were irrelevant. Suddenly, having a 'baby's first' engraved Christmas tree ornament, from this massive toy-flogging icon seemed like a necessity. Because...
Jude. Yes! Jude.
He had been right. Alex had caved. And now they had Judah Jonathan Eames Goren. A mouthful to be sure, but packed with every ounce of goodness that they both brought to the table. Bobby's choice, followed by Alex's guiding light (her father), then her maiden name, butted up against his more prominent surname (a little like real life). Bobby had savoured the black block font on the birth certificate. Then memorized the motto and sweep of the state seal. EXCELSIOR! How apt. He felt like he was soaring. He'd run his thumb over the simple piece of paper so many times, he was surprised it hadn't grown soft and worn, or reverted to the pulp from whence it came.
He was ebullient. Not just because Jude was real, but also because he and Alex were immortalized on paper. A pile of bureaucrats had unknowingly paid homage to their duo.
Eames and Goren, right there pressed up against each other for eternity.
Eames and Goren the best cops in New York.
Eames and Goren the parents of the best little boy in New York.
Ebullient most of the time anyway. Reality still occasionally had it's way with him. Right now his arms were burning. Even ten ounces can seem like 10 tonnes when the whole flippin' staff is new and every idiot here spoiling their children. Ah, so there was a little Ebenezer in there after all. Bobby felt almost relieved that he wasn't losing his edge. So uncommonly happy was he. New Bobby's predicaments only seemed to be too much spirit, not enough stamina. New Bobby was standing in line at the checkout holding: the personalized ornament, a stuffed blue bear (bigger then Jude in actual dimension), a red plastic dump truck (possibly better suited to a toddler) and a couple of boxes of sweets from the Schweetz shop. Together it was an arm breaking (bank account breaking) act of pure indulgence. New Bobby had a fresh fir tree strapped to the hood of his 'stang, sitting in an overpriced parking lot 4 blocks away. Yes, a tree! He'd bought it from an emo looking kid (complete with moody mouth, a black coat, a black voluminous scarf and black pants that tapered into retro adidas runners) on the bustling Upper East Side. And, rather then silently mock him, new Bobby had wished him a 'Merry Christmas'. And as he pulled away from the curb new Bobby had thought how much he loved this city, where a forest could sit nestled between T-Mobile and a Dunkin' Donuts.
And that wasn't all. No. Hell no. New Bobby also had a trunkful of other festive knick knacks, garlands and balls and bows, some just purchased, others from Christmases past. He and Alex were going to do this up. Her list was in his pocket. And deep in her purse sat a shorter complimentary version. He was doing the lion's share because she had Jude in a sling against her chest. They were both bravely braving the city 3 days before Christmas.
And...
And there was something else.
Something else bank breaking that he'd bought.
Something nestled into the insulation of his wool coat, a small bulge trapped somewhere at the hem. Bobby'd worked his index finger at the silk seam inside his pocket, and pried a hole big enough to drop a velvet jewellers box through. He'd released a contented sigh when it had fallen down into the no man's land that lay beyond. The cop in him couldn't put something so valuable in an outside pocket, not during the busiest time of year, not on the pick-pocket rich streets of midtown Manhattan. And the boyfriend in him felt (quite strangely) that there wasn't a secret he could manage to keep. Not from Alexandra Eames. Not from his sixth sense wielding girlfriend. A box in his pocket? Pffft. She would find her psychic little digits around it before he was ten minutes in the door.
No. This had to be perfectly timed.
Perfectly.
At that moment he felt a not-so-accidental nudge from behind. The cashier glowered his way. "Neeeeeeext!"
Almost by kismet, Bobby and Alex stepped off the elevators simultaneously and reunited in the corridor outside her apartment. Both with glazed weary eyes and both with stooped shoulders and lacerated palms from all of their plastic bags.
"Did you get everything?" Alex asked kicking open the door, keys in teeth. The apartment felt so warm and cozy after being out in the world.
"And then some." There was a hint of the old cynic there in the twist of his lips. He closed the front door, his hair and shoulders glistening from freak flurries.
"Good. I got it all too."
"Say we never have to go back out there ever again." He ruffled manic fingers through his wet hair.
"I know. I've seen things." Her eyes were haunted. "Two women in the grocery store got into a fight over cranberry sauce. Apparently there's a 2 can limit. The bigger question is why did one of them need 40? Some cranberry terrorist plot?"
"I can beat that." He shot out. "I saw a grown man cry because the Bratz Doll he wanted didn't get put on hold."
Their eyes met dramatically across the room.
"We're soooo glad to be home aren't we." Alex falsettoed toward the little bundle, mummy-wrapped to her chest by a length of stylish 'bandages.'. "And we're soooo glad you're here daddy." She carefully began to unwind them, "We have a ice cream melting on the counter don't we Juju"
"Juju?" He made a face.
"Sure," She kissed the small boy's clear soft cheek, "Jude is juju, my little magic charm."
"Sacrilege." Bobby muttered. It hadn't taken long for her to twist his Christian offering into a voodoo thing.
"I told you I don't do religion."
"Fine. Seems a bit wrong on Christmas, but whatever." Honestly he was more worried that by the end of the day he'd be saying 'juju' too. It had a certain ring.
Without ceremony she plonked the baby into his arms "Here you go." And headed for the kitchen.
"You want to set up the tree?" She called some time later.
"Maybe after he goes down." Bobby held Jude easily. He was now hip to all the schedules and spewing all the baby lingo. And Jude was no longer lazy and boob drunk. Only one month on and his frenetic jerky limbs had smoothed out some, and his chestnut eyes were interested and bright.
"He can watch. Just stick him in the swing." Alex called irreverently from inside the refrigerator. She was hefting an absurdly large bird into the freezer. For a party of two, this particular turkey would be a tryptophanyl nightmare of sandwiches, stew, wraps and casseroles ad infinitum. But she didn't care, Alex was feeling extremely taken with the spirit this year. She was feeling... She was feeling... blessed. It was scary actually, the perfection of the moments stacking up upon one another this last 32 days. Each interval of emotional bliss, following on perfectly from the last.
Bobby had gone and wrapped up his last Bishop case in a timely 14 days (he was incentivised). And as it happened, he had gotten his vacation days, and they would have the season together. All of it. From now - the eve, of the eve of Christmas Eve - straight through to the ball dropping and bubbly on New Year's Eve, up until until the 4th of January when they would both return together. It was unheard of in their world. It was as if something greater than both of them had reached a broad hand down and swept clear a path for them, through all of the scribbled schedules and inconsequential obstacles of men.
"Uh okay." He called. "It will be kinda nice to have him watch us." Then looking down at the little eyes now slits and amended. "or snore. Maybe he'll just snore."
"Ha. Can you bring the tree up solo?"
"Yeah but I think I might have gone overboard."
Alex poked her head around the skinny partition wall. "What do you mean?"
"It's 8 feet."
"Bobby the ceilings are 8 feet. We agreed 6 would be plenty."
He shrugged.
She rolled her eyes.
"You're paying back my safety deposit when you punch a hole in the plaster."
"I'll cut it down a few inches."
"They couldn't do that at the lot? There are going to be pine needles everywhere."
"I'll clean that up too." He placated. Truth was he'd spent so much time wandering the 18 by 25 foot lot searching for the perfect specimen that he'd felt too ridiculous to do anything but grab it and run.
"You bet you will."
"I'm not the only one that has size issues. What was that? A 20lb turkey I watched you haul in here? We expecting a football team? Maybe a small choir?"
"Funny. You should take that show on the road." And so it went. They beat words back and forth like a ping pong ball. They'd always had good timing but now it had morphed from a gumshoe detective film, to Lucy and Desi.
"Why? There's so much quality material right here."
She let him have the last word. Alex was preoccupied with Christmas. She wanted it to feel like noel, she wanted it to taste like noel, she wanted it to smell like noel. She'd read somewhere that cloves stuck in an orange would waft a sweet spicy smell around your home. Crafty she wasn't, but how could anyone manage to screw that up. Now in every room there were cloranges (cloved oranges - her own word - when pommander seemed too highfalutin). There was something lush and maternal coursing though her, she was feathering their modest nest.
In the living room Bobby was contemplating the spirit as well. It felt like Christmas in her small apartment, in a way his never had or would. Alex had a floating shelf a - simple piece of lacquered crown moulding - that she used for knick knacks and photos and they had discovered that it affected the perfect mantel. So, one snowy length of faux bough later (combined with a host of lit tealights and a sprinkling of golden balls) and there was a pleasant soothing twinkle. Also the furniture in this room had been pushed into a new configuration. Her sofa and armchairs forming a tight L to the corner. The open side of the rectangle encompassed the 'mantel,' above which sat a smallish flat television, and in pride of place in the corner was the bare, hunter green, Douglas fir, that he had wrestled into position after snapping 6 inches off the crown. To Bobby the tiny room was near nirvana.
"I have stockings." Alex announced later. He raised his eyebrows, stockings hadn't been on the list. It would seem that today they had wandered the city separately but on a very similar trajectory. Him producing a Jude ornament. Her producing a Jude stocking. Both of them laughing at the emergence of these new sentimental fools. Then she unrolled a couple more, both obviously aged. One had a stain on the toe. Both of these two older stockings were obviously hand stitched (and then darned and re-darned). The first one, from fat quarters of festive motif, the second was beige and the front beautifully finished with a redwork angel Gabriel. Both were sturdy lined things.
"This one," Alex held up the patchy one "is mine. My mother loved to quilt. She made one of these for all of us. And anyone else that requested one." Alex looked sweetly nostalgic. And so intertwined was Bobby's heart with hers, that he ached a little for her. But she wasn't done. "And this one is my mom's. I won it in the posthumus lottery. I want you to have it."
"What!? No Alex. Shouldn't it stay with your dad. Doesn't he want it for…"
She cut him off. "Dad isn't who he used to be. He can't really be in the house at Christmas. All of the holiday stuff is in the attic. And we kind of pass him around." Bobby realized then, that since her mom had died he'd been her shoulder, he'd joined her in melancholia, he'd made her laugh, he'd tried to be her family, but they hadn't talked. Not really. Not about her transition from mothered motherless. Not since that night in the bunks at 1PP. Not since before she'd been his. He hoped he'd done enough.
"It would make me really happy if someone I loved was using it again." As she said it, she examined the fine red stitchwork on the cuff. And though he didn't gasp aloud, his body moved as though he had. They were really doing this. They were so real, here in this apartment, with their baby and their core shaking honesty.
"Okay. Okay sure." He said and then turned and cupped her cheeks and planted a long soft kiss on her brow. Alex leaned in weak and limp for several heartbeats. Then pulled back and kept on as though the brief interlude hadn't happened.
"I'll tack them to the front here." She showed him. And the finished product? A cursory glance would never detect that this apartment didn't have a wood burning Santa portal.
"Tree time!" Bobby bellowed an octave deeper clapping his hands.
She dropped to her haunches to gather up her small person. "I'll give him a final feed first."
"I'll get started then." Bobby sank, elbow deep, into the box of baubles. And as he began to remove them it became quite clear that Alex had very fixed ideas about the sequence and ritual of tree decoration. She was a lactating Pol Pot.
"No not there, to the left." or "You can't do garlands first." or "Really? Every colour? are we going for gaudy or classic?"
He stopped gesturing with a fist full of tinsel. "Please master. Show me how it's done."
"First off put down the tinsel. Friends don't let friends use tinsel. I thought they stopped selling that stuff." She shook her head theatrically. "I'd swear you never had a tree."
Now it was his turn for honesty. "I didn't."
She went white. "Oh God Bobby. I'm sorry."
"No, no. Don't cry for me." He really hadn't suffered, he'd scarcely known different. They had lived such a modest working class life, that he wouldn't have gotten much more than a pittance for Christmas anyway. He'd never expected more then some clementines or a comic book or a bag of bargain brand underwear. When Christmas had tapered off completely he'd hardly noticed.
While roping the lights around their tree he spoke to her. "Sometime after my 8th birthday my mother stopped acknowledging the holidays. I can guess why, but I don't remember her reason. Her reasons for everything were distorted. We were all a little afraid of her. I got to celebrate at school and Frank and Dad tried a little, but it wasn't the same." Over Jude he could see that her eyes were round and glossy. He rushed to assure her "It was actually a relief to let mom have her way. It was peaceful."
Then she was on her feet, and then a dosey package was offloaded, and then she turned him, and then she was up on her tippy toes, and then length of her sympathetic form was pressed against him, and then her arms were twined around his neck, and then her soft moist lips were on his. It took but a wink for him to engage. For him to meet her ardency with his own.
"Why..." He murmured, sexually ambushed. And as she pressed, her t-shirt crumpled and the soft exposed skin of her tummy massaged his distended fly. She burrowed her thumbs into the soft hair over his ears. And her lips left damp trails all over his mouth and chin.
"It hurts me, that you hurt." And she was crying a little at the corners.
He murmured things like, "It's okay baby." And "It was nothing." And "I wouldn't trade a second." He really wouldn't, not now. Now he could see how every moment had dovetailed so neatly to bring him to his real family. She took his hands to lead him to her bed. But as she pulled he opposed her.
"Here?"
"Here." He wanted to have her in the clearing of boxes and bags, under a half lit tree, and near their sleeping infant. "You're ready?" They hadn't been together postpartum. His hand slipped low between her thighs and cupped her through her jeans. As though a clairtangent, trying to suss out her vulnerabilities (any half healed tears, any deep tissue bruising).
"I'm ready." She moved against his palm.
And so she raised her arms and he tugged off that thin shirt. And then his sweater. And then her bra. And he sighed when he felt her swing free against his bare flesh. Her breasts were damp (from spent milk) and heavy (with the potential for more). He pulled away from her, and began throwing loose couch cushions to the floor. And then he did the same with her small body, only her landing was softened by restraint and love. He crawled up between her legs.
"Can I taste it?" He asked.
"What?" Alex lay spread and meditatively blank, simply enjoying the weight of him.
"Your milk."
She squirmed. "I just… I just fed…" She didn't know what having his mouth on her would yield.
"Good. Just a few drops."
His face was there in short order. Kneading and lapping until she felt that familiar tissue tingle (in more ways then one). "Oh god!" To orgasm and to let down simultaneously. It was an amalgam of the woman she had become, both lover and mother. And Bobby may have gotten more then he bargained for. In passion her nipples became spigots. He scrambled for her shirt to stem the short bursts of pearlescent liquid. And they laughed the laugh of the artless.
"Imagine if you hadn't fed." He cawed.
"A firehose." She burst.
He pressed his forehead to hers. "It's nice." He whispered, "Sweet. Mild."
"Glad you enjoyed it."
"I enjoy you." He looked into her so deeply that she shuddered. "I love you." And it was fierce, and so was his mouth on hers forcing out the blood, and his hands, ripping away the barriers. And when, at last, his big body forced her bare thighs apart, it put her in mind of a stallion down there, so hard and wild, and she had a moment of fear.
"Careful... Bobby... Don't hurt me."
He froze. Steady on. He took a deep breath. He pressed his hands flat to the floor to quell the tremors of urgency. He grabbed another pillow and slipped it beneath her hips to raise them. When he finally nudged back her folds, it was perhaps the most erotic tender moment of her life. So considerate, so measured, inch by inch, honouring any tension, panning her face for discomfort, but there wasn't any, only the delicious anguish of coupling. She wrapped around him, the serpent to his rod. The flat of her soles contoured to his calves, her arms snug at his middle. And there was so much of him above her, and so much below. But she hung on tight. And she was strong. Anchoring his body to her, suctioning to his pelvis, with a demented desperation that he liked. No loved. He loved how she perverted their union with her maniacal grip. It made him harder. And Bobby didn't need but a few inches to wobble back and forth in her. Combined with pressure, and the gurgle of her wetness, and soon he clenched his buttocks, bowed his back and pledged everything.
It was damp and glowy and romantic in the aftermath. Two candlelit bodies curled into one another. A nearly naked tree officiated. And a baby swayed on an invisible breeze. And Bobby knew that this was it. This felt like the perfection he sought.
"Alex?"
"Hmmm?"
"I love you."
"Love you too." She garbled and tucked in more.
Should he spring up and get it? Or should he let their limp locked bodies be symbol enough?
"I want us to stay together always."
"Me too." She was dosey.
Don't fuck this up Goren. Don't spit it out halfway. Don't mumble…
He didn't.
"Then… Then will you marry me?"
