Disclaimer: In my last disclaimer, the first premise was false, and the conclusion was not a logical consequence. It was, however a correct conclusion, and it stands.
Author's Notes: Eh, what do I need to say here? Firstly, many thanks to everyone who reviewed the first bit. The amount of support was really unexpected and much nicer than I deserve ; BTW, it's also nice to hear that they were decently in character – thank yourselves and the other writers out there! I haven't watched the show in a long while, anything I do know basically comes from others' portrayals.
Secondly – I do have doubts about this chapter. I think it needs serious rewriting, but I don't currently know how to fix it so… Well, up it goes, with my hopes that it's at least readable.
Happy turkey day ~*+!
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A month earlier.
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And like is almost always the case, it was a perfectly ordinary day which was to end in interpersonal disaster. In a similar fashion, each child is born equal, unknowing of what future pain fate may have in store for him.
As reliable as the sun the new assignments were doled out. This file saw them clear out of town, to a suburban ranch which was showing all of New York that Gary Springfield was a real solid down to earth guy who would do a pluck up job for the people as Senate Representative.
From early polls the ten million dollar property was pulling its weight, even in a time of agricultural subsidies. Only two things could mess this up for him: American Mad Cow Disease, or a scandal. As of sunrise that morning, he had caught a case of the latter. Symptoms? Much misdirected and misguided shouting at every official or officer a mayor has the clout shout at.
Deakins was out there now, sneezing and getting the wrong end of the deal from nature and politics. Being a detective, then, had fringe benefits, and Eames and Goren were free to run the crime scene, and ignore the disturbance outside.
"Do you see this?" Goren pointed up with his pen, apparently indicating some point on the body of the 15 year old Caucasian male whose bare feet were still swinging slightly some ten feet above their heads.
"What?" Eames crossed next to him, in order to see where he was pointing. She had been at the other side of the barn, ostensibly searching the packed earth for footprints, but his call did not catch her unawares. Her own survey of the scene had been concluded several minutes before; the time since having been filled in watching Goren. By carefully watching him, one could read what he was seeing.
A minute before, he had been looking upwards, slowly rotating. He would periodically stop, then start but this time as he looked his head suddenly jerked around, a small, habitual rotation that meant a clue. Many would have hailed the discovery then. Not Goren. Instead he spent a full minute re-covering the interior of the barn with his gaze, reordering his thoughts to include the new data and checking for consistency and plausibility before he would subject his theory to her ears.
"His hands." His voice was too high, too soft for a man his size. Maybe it was this initial shock that started to lull suspects under his spell, to charm everyone else as soon as he put some thought to the matter.
Eames looked up, and the first thing she noticed was how small the boy's hands were, how vulnerable the slight curve of the fingers around empty air, and the cuts on his wrists, caused by the handcuffs that prevented him from trying to save himself as he fell downward, the slack in the rope running out.
"Are those scratches?" What she had first seen as shadows in his palm had changed shape and character as she squinted.
"Cut him down!" The officers in the loft above moved into action with relief. They didn't have to watch the body from their position, but seeing the slight sway of a rope, and knowing what is on the other end, somewhere below your feet, brings the shadow of nightmare into the daylight hours.
"You think rope burn?" As they cleared the area for the body's descent, Eames put some conclusions together, twisting to gauge her partner's reaction to her hinted suggestion.
"It might be. Wait until we can check him up close to be sure." But he was pleased that she had seen what he had seen, and that her mind was exploring down the same path as his.
Before the body was resting on the ground Goren was beside it, running a gloved finger carefully over the welts on the boy's arms. He looked up and there was pain in his eyes, the same pain, the old pain that was reborn like a phoenix from the ash of each dead, flying straight into the detective's heart until he solved the mystery and gave the soul some peace.
"It wasn't suicide."
Long ago they had each convinced themselves that this pain Bobby expressed was empathy, that it honed his abilities and drove his success. Sometimes, Alex thought that she was the only of them who would admit that perhaps it was hurting him more than he showed.
It wasn't suicide, and while tragic, it was also straightforward. Politics kept them at the scene, but by nightfall there was nothing left to do, no one else left to even pretend to be doing it.
She had stayed, that last hour, because he stayed. In a bout of good humor she considered quipping that she had stayed only because he was sitting on the front of her car, and so long as he weighted it down, she could not move. But it was too dark, too quiet, and he blended too well into the somber picture for her jokes.
"Ready to head back there partner?" She settled for gentle levity, settling next to him against her hood.
"It's really a beautiful night. We're not even that far from the city lights but look-" He was looking upwards, and at his nod she did likewise.
"It's gorgeous." And it really was. Stars were still but a sprinkle across the sky, but the added twinkle of even the extra few dozen felt like a gift from nature.
She leaned back farther, until her head rested against the cool metal. In high school, she would often drive out with friends, and they would sit on the hoods like this and talk for hours. Of school, life, their dreams…
Her legs weren't long enough to touch the ground, toes barely in contact with damp grass all that prevented her from slipping. It was in pulling her feet up to rest on her bumper instead that she did slip, sliding a few inches before she could stop herself. Stopped, in fact, as her thigh hit his.
"Sorry." Was her automatic response, but she quelled the urge to pull away. He was big, and he was warm, and she hadn't realized how cool and empty the air around her was. Which was her excuse for not moving, rather enjoying the sensation and awaiting his response.
One didn't come and she wondered if he even knew she was beside him. Touching him. And while he wasn't phobic about contact, he was reserved, and should have scooted over, giving them both a thin layer of personal space. But he wasn't moving and though Eames now couldn't move without attracting suspicion, she was starting to become uncomfortable. He was warm and he was real and while she knew that he didn't want her and she didn't want him and there was no way in hell they would, could, or should become more to each other than partners and friends, she also knew that friends could share a moment together, watching the stars, and it had been too long since she'd shared something like this.
"Lean back." Turning on her side she used her free hand to tug at Bobby's sleeve. Despite the breeze he had taken off his jacket long before, and through the thinner material of his dress shirt she could feel the hairs standing up on his arm. And like those nights back in high school she let the hormones move before her brain and during the infinite pause before he turned his head she ran her fingers up his sleeve, a light touch that would tickle his arm as the weave tickled her fingertips.
It was in his eyes. 'Don't'. A plea, but it was quiet and she felt alive and daring and wanted to know his secrets.
"You're going to get a crick in your neck sitting like that." Again, gentle pressure, forget there was any other kind of touch.
Obediently, he lay back, arms crossed over a ribcage nearly as high as she was wide. Now that he could see the stars in front of him his eyes were closed. For the span of five breaths she watched him, before lying back down herself. They were no longer touching, and for several minutes they remained like that, each alone on the hood of a car, within a wash of darkness and crickets.
The crickets were loud in her ear when he spoke: his voice, even as whisper, drowning out even those millions tiny violinists. "Yeah, it is." They were looking at each other now, his voice having naturally drawn their attentions away from inner reflection.
"What?" Knowing what he meant, but challenging him to mean more, to get the hell up, to start talking on like usual and forestall the moment they might have coming.
"Beautiful." A voice so near a sigh that her stomach fainted, before coming to and clenching around the sudden hard panic that she may have incited something she didn't want and shouldn't have gotten. This desire to stop it, to get up and break the mood that they could be settling into, would have won but that his eyes had met hers and her body had stopped obeying merely the mentally shouted bid of her conscious brain.
"Really?" If she had to lie there, was that really the best she could come up with?
"Yea."
"Articulate tonight, aren't we?" And experience knocks one out of the field.
"I thought you wanted to-" Words cut off as she stopped his gesturing by taking his hand, taking them down between their bodies until their knuckles brushed each other's thighs.
His breath had become a bit uneven and she thought 'who did he hug?' And then deliberately tortured him by running her thumb over his fingers. Who did he hug? She hugged her extensive family, the friends she didn't see often enough but were always leaving messages on her machine letting her know how loved she was.
"Who do you hug?" Out loud. Spur of the moment, she wanted to know if her guess was right, wanted to see how he would answer, wanted to goad him into pushing her away for something so trivial so she could follow him.
"What?" He was listening to her, and though his eyes were now open, she knew all his attention was on her.
"Who do you hug?" She wondered if he hugged his mom. Then she wondered if his mom hugged him back.
She turned into his silence and it hit her. Familiar people and things make their own representation in the mind. Watching him next to her this was stripped and she wasn't looking at Goren, her partner, or Bobby, her friend, but a man she really knew almost nothing about, aside from his talent, his gentleness…
His personal neatness, and how solid he always felt. Close as he was his aftershave, cologne?- was closer, describing to her nose the outline of his body, the clean lines of muscle and bone, nourished and connected by circulating blood that would return to a living heart, pulsing next through the soft part of his neck where the added heat would send more scent her way before feeding his brain- the one organ she couldn't understand, even with all her training and experience.
He had emotions, and this frightened her. Emotions deeper and more real than any he would show in the interrogation room, more permanent than the smile he would give her when they were both in good moods. He was human, so they would be there, but these probable emotions frightened her as the monster under the bed frightens a child. When it's dark and you can't see, anything could be there.
Large and powerful, and he was stretched out, vulnerable to her. She sat up, the better to observe him, but the motion gave him excuse to leave, gently extricating his hand from hers before getting to his feet.
"It's getting late – we should head back. Do you want me to drive?" Ever the gentleman, but he wouldn't look at her.
"No, I'm fine." They were in the car, not talking, not moving. The radio might have broken the uncomfortable silence but the motion to switch it on would have forced them to acknowledge what for now could be ignored.
She pulled up next to his car and they would have to say goodbye.
"Bobby?" She thought again, who does he hug?
"Yea?" She could see that he wanted to get out, but wouldn't move until she was done.
"We're friends, you know. You can talk to me." Again she took his hand, a substitute for a hug.
An incline of the head, to indicate he had heard. "Thanks" because he couldn't leave without saying something, and she would have let it go at that except that he gave her hand a squeeze before pulling away.
"Bobby."
He turned, a question in his eyes while he waited for her to walk around the car.
"Give me a hug." How can a gentleman refuse? As soon as she had him she hung on, cheek in his shoulder, and after a minute he relaxed. Their bodies tilted as he leaned back against the car door, and she smiled when she felt his chin come down to lightly rest on top of her head.
The hug had become an embrace, and she twisted herself until her hip rested against his thigh, and the lengths of their bodies were touching. Then she looked up and the night was ruined because she was foolish and her eyes were talking poetry. His responded in kind and this was the worst because while she could allow herself a moment of weakness, the last thing Bobby ever wanted to do was to lose control.
Two trajectories were going to collide, unless one stopped. It wouldn't be her.
His forehead dropped down, resting on hers in an apology rather than rejection. His chest rose with one ragged breath and her body responded with a pull of arousal.
She expected him to leave her then. To her surprise he gave her another hug, with shaky arms and a whispered "thank you" with ambiguous meaning but transparent emotion.
Her eyes sought him once before she pulled out but he wasn't looking at her so she let it go, already upset with herself for letting her take a spur of the moment desire so far with someone she had to work with each day.
Mad that she had apparently let her recent lack of a personal life had led her to tease her poor partner, who was never anything but sweet to her and a good friend. Angry that she may have ruined their friendship, but smiling too, because he had held her like a lifeline, and had kissed her with her eyes before stopping himself.
Goren pulled out of the parking lot ten minutes later, upset with himself for many of the same reasons, but still feeling her pressed close.