"Last One," Goren communicated with the bartender who gave him an eyebrow of concern.

Goren stretches his good hand out and gesticulates that he need not be concerned. "Don't worry. I have a ride." Goren then gave him a small smile and the bartender fetched his drink.

"I hope she takes care of you, you don't look like you are in great shape, buddy."

"Oh she, uh, has had her fair share of rescuing me from myself. She's my partner."

The bartender nods, "She's got quite the job cut out for her. You look like shit, no disrespect."

"None taken." Goren fiddles with his empty glass before the bartender makes an attempt to remove it from his hand .Goren clumsily shifts his weight around and reluctantly surrenders the glass and turns his eyes to inspect his hands.

He checked the bandage and noticed some blood was starting to seep through again. He needed to change the dressing. He bit his lip and tried to come up with what he would say once he saw Eames and once she took notice of his hand.

He felt a buzz in his pocket. "Hello."

"I'm here," she waved at him from outside her car. "How bad of shape are you in?"

He hung up the phone and walked to her car opening the passenger side. She entered and turned to face him. He put out his hand for her to see. There was no use in hiding it since she would see it anyway. He shamefully avoided her eyes at first.

"Dammit Goren, what did you do?"

He brought his eyes up to her and pleaded that it wasn't a big deal. "It's not as bad as it looks."

She gently grabbed his hand and softly brushed the tips of his fingers as she peeked underneath the bandages. She could tell he wrapped it quickly and with his non-dominant hand. "This is a mess. C'mon lets get you home so I can do a proper job at this." She let go of his hand and grabbed the steering wheel.

He sunk in his chair with his head back and his eyes closed.

She periodically glanced at him and could tell that he was drifting into sleep. He must have not had much sleep, lately. She noted the smell of alcohol and cigarettes. Self medicating and numbing. Her non-driving hand would occasionally brush against his. Contact. She missed it. She needed it. His hand curled slightly to grab onto hers without waking from his clunky bandaging only allowing the top tips of his finger to connect with hers. They held hands but not interlaced.

Several minutes passed and she could hear very audible snoring. She smiled. What am i going to do with you? A snoring Goren was actually a peaceful, at ease Goren. It meant the storm had taken a pause and it usually occurred when he was in her presence.

They pulled up to her house. She already knew what would be waiting at his apartment as she called him from his place earlier. She knew it would probably be healthier to have him here where she could watch over him than surrounded by his chaos and self loathing.

She squeezed his thigh and shook him gently. "Hey. We're here."

He stirred and rubbed the sleep out of his eyes and bolted up in his seat.

She unlocked the door as Goren trailed behind.

She quickly fetched her first aid supplies. Goren settled into her couch fiddling with his bandages.

"Goren, I love you but if you get blood onto my couch, you will have hell to pay."

"Where do you want me?" It was quite the loaded question as he knew he had some work to do to get back on her good side and innuendo was thrown in under the radar.

"C'mere" she motioned with her finger. She sat him on one of her dining chairs as she laid out some napkins and the first aid supplies into the table. She grabbed his hand a little less gentle than in the car.

"Ow, geez, Eames. I don't think my hand needs to be ripped apart anymore."

She "Maybe you should have thought of that before you went all by Mike Tyson on your apartment."

He glanced upwards, mouth open.

"Uh huh, I saw."

Her eyes caught his. There wasn't anger but shame and sorrow. His eyes reflected a softness, an almost childlike quality of being caught doing something he wasn't supposed to do.

"I do dumb things when I don't have you to stop me."

"Whose fault is that?"

"All mine."

"You got that right." She took her tweezers and worked on getting the tiny shards out so she could disinfect the wound. The metal jammed into the side of his wound as she maneuvered the tweezers to pick at a wedged little shard stubbornly embedded into his skin. The result of his rush job.

"Son of a bitch, that hurts."

"Good, it should hurt." She took his chin and cheek with her other hand to lift his face and softly spoke,"to teach you not to do it again."

As the glass was removed from his hand, blood began to pool again. She wadded up some gauze and put pressure on his hand to stop the bleeding.

"We need to get you stitched up. I'm going to have to take you to a hospital."

"No, this isn't that bad. We don't need a hospital."

"Bobby, this is gonna keep bleeding. Gauze is not enough."

"I know but it's easy enough to stitch up here. We used to do this kind of suture all the time in the Army."

"It's your dominant hand. I saw your sloppy gauze dressing. I doubt your needle work will be much better with your right hand. You sure you don't just want to get a professional to do this for you?"

"I'm not going to do it. You are."

"No. This is definitely not a good idea."

"It's simple."

"Out of all the crazy ideas you've come up with, this one takes the cake."

"I'll walk you through it. You can do it."

"Get me a needle. Not a taper needle. It actually makes a difference. You need to be able to penetrate through the skin. Get some thread and water."

"Bobby, I can't believe you really have me doing this." She fetched the supplies and gave him a look, like where do I get started?

He gave her a small smile. "I'm the one that has to have his hand poked at like a pin cushion. What are you so worried about?"

She returned his smile and waited for his instructions.

"You've already disinfected and cleaned the outside. So just take the water and use it to flush out my wound."

"Okay that was the easy part." He brought her hand close. "Now, I need you to take a breath."

She inhaled. Eames wasn't particularly squeamish given the nature of their job. However, the idea of piercing his skin with a sharp object was not high on her to do list and it made her stomach do a couple flips.

"Hold the needle at a downward angle and begin at the far end of the incision and sew towards yourself."

"I don't hear you screaming about how it hurts now."

"This, I can handle. All that digging around and tearing my flesh was torture but I guess I deserve it." He winced a bit but no audible escaped his mouth.

"You okay? Am I hurting you?"

"You are doing fine. Just make sure you don't make your stitches too tight but you don't want them too loose either cause that won't help."

"Like this?" She was able to execute a perfect starting stitch.

"Yeah, that one is good. Okay, now you have a V shape in your suture, insert the long end of the needle into the V and wrap the long end of thread around the needle and pull the short end to close the stitch." He pointed with his other hand indicating how she should execute the next step. "You want to make sure as you pull the short end that it doesn't bunch up and it lies flat.

"I guess the Army did its job well." She smiled, impressed at yet another thing she didn't know about Goren. They both knew basic first aid basically making sure someone doesn't bleed out before the ambulance came and how to clean out small wounds and such but this wasn't something the PD would focus on.

"They had some useful lessons. So to end the suture, you want to insert back into the V here, and wrap the long end once to the short end and pull it to the opposite side. Make sure the knot finishes square."

"I'm surprised, with all your stories about chasing the local girls, that you actually paid attention." He smiled at her.

"Well, this felt like something I should pay attention to.."

"Given your propensity for doing stupid things."

"Exactly. "

"You want to explain why you hurt yourself like this, Bobby?" She softly touched a bruise appearing on his forehead and grabbed his right hand noting his bruised knuckles where she placed a tender kiss. "You know, I can't have my partner looking like Frankenstein and messing up that handsome face and those beautiful, long fingers of yours."

"Frankenstein's monster."

"What?"

"Frankenstein is the scientist. I think you meant Frankenstein's monster."

Eames rolled her eyes. She grabbed both of his cheeks and kissed him. "See, I need you to point all these things to me. I'm lost without you," she laughed.

"No. You would get by just fine, Alex. It is me who is lost without you."

"I see the sucking up part is starting."

"I mean it."

"I know." She smiled. "So are you going to talk to me or do I have to torture you to get you to open up." She waved the tweezers in front of his face.

"I guess I have some, uh, issues, I'm still working through."

"Yeah, no shit. Care to explain what those issues are that you are currently working through that inspired you to use your fists as a cutting board?"

"Alex, you know know this isn't easy for me."

"Nothing with you is but it is always worth it in the end."

"Brady."

"Yeah, that'll do it."

"Uh Bambi…"

"The one you thought was your mother."

"It was."

"Well you said they dated, right? We can't fault her judgment. She didn't know what a creep he'd turn out to be."

"She did."

"What are you saying?"

"I'm saying she wasn't in there cause they dated." He paused to look at her eyes to communicate his affect.

"She wasn't? She confirmed this?"

"Not directly but yes she told me the day she died. Look he was angry with her for choosing my dad over him. It's all about control. He didn't have it over her so he had to exert it the way he knew how. Frank got it wrong. She wasn't in an accident. Those bruises were from Brady. He, uh ra-" his voice began breaking and tears returned to his eyes "he raped her. He ruined her. She was never the same. I was right."

"'I'm so sorry, Bobby this was the one time I would have really liked you to be wrong." She pulled him into her arms and rubbed his back. She laid her head gently on top of his from her standing position and then she brought his head up as she looked him in the eyes. I got you. She softly kissed his lips.

He felt the alcohol begin to wear off, the pain of his wounds causing him to ache but the gentleness of her lips on his made him feel safe and loved. All of that other stuff didn't matter at the moment. It was like a hit of very addicting drug. It felt wonderful but the dependency scared him to death. He craved it and he wasn't sure how he could survive without it. That thought, made him want to bolt. Being dependent on someone was never a wise choice. Something he learned the hard way.

He stopped the kiss and glanced at her with uncertainty.


Notes: The stitching scene info was actually adapted from an Army how-to video on sutures