Author's note: I admit to being a recent "CI" convert and I'm completely hooked. I have to admit, though, I'm not real fond of Eames' temporary replacement - and the fact that I don't think Eames is either was a fanfic opportunity that called my name. I'm setting this story in last Sunday's episode (11/16/03) and borrowing snippets from here and there. (Gold stars for everyone who catches one trivial reference of my own.) Feel like reviewing? Go for it. Just remember that I don't own these people – just their first season on DVD.

She's doing it again.

She's staring at Bobby with big admiring eyes, like a sixth-grader who has just walked into class on the first day of school and realized that her new teacher is not only male, but "a major babe." I swear, if she starts humping his leg I'm out of here. She's only been paired with him three weeks and has been looking at him like that since Day One. He, of course, has no idea that she behaves in this manner - which is typical Bobby. Once he's on a case, his mind doesn't wander far from the path he takes to solve it. For instance, right now while she's drooling on my desk, he's listening to a taped 911call and contorting his face and body as though the act is agony, his head propped up on his right hand while the fingers pinch the bridge of his nose. Meanwhile, he slams his left hand down open-palmed on the corner of his desk to emphasize a connection that only he can hear. If he starts doing that head-weaving thing he does whenever he's particularly agitated by a thought, I'm going to have to give him a time-out.

"Want me to stick a dart in him?" I ask her dryly.

It's meant to be a joke, but she looks at me as though I've just suggested taking a Sharpie to the Mona Lisa. "No! He's listening to the tape of the 911 call the kids made from the boat."

Thanks. I hadn't noticed when he sat down in front of me with the headphones and a map of the island sound. I try not to look at her as though she has just landed from Mars but it's difficult. I mean, it's just Bobby we're talking about here, right? Weird Bobby Goren, my partner in crime solving who is currently only her partner because I'm preparing for maternity leave. But I shouldn't let it get to me - once I'm back she'll return to Mars – or wherever it is she came from.

Jealous, Eames?

I ask myself the question, then look down at my desk quickly and answer internally in the negative. I mean, come on – what do I have to be jealous of? I'm certainly not jealous that I'm chained to a desk (and an ever-increasing belly) while she gets to flit around to crime scenes with him. Honestly, murder victims and morning sickness didn't mix early on in my pregnancy and frankly, any break from that routine is a welcome one. And I'm not jealous of the fact that she seems to be taking my place with Bobby more than adequately – he's a good detective and he can make anyone working with him look good. I'm not even jealous that she looks rather like me – similar hair cut, a few similar mannerisms, similar figure (at least, when I had one) – and that Bobby doesn't seem to have noticed. (Some detective!)

Nope, none of those things bother me. Ultimately, if I am jealous (a feeling about which the jury is still out), I'd have to say that it's because I don't see the same thing she does when she looks at him. In fact, I haven't seen it in a long time and I think I'm only now beginning to realize it.

Certainly I remember the feeling of amazement I used to get when I watched Bobby work on a case. I used to marvel at the way his mind could shape thoughts that never would have occurred to me – or a lot of other detectives – and then call my dad to say, "You'll never guess what he did today!" In those early days, I would wait anxiously for him to finish poring over a file just because I had no idea what he would have to say about it, only that it would astound me. Ultimately, I realized that he's a genius, pure and simple and somewhere along the line, I guess I started to take that for granted so that the magic disappeared altogether – magic that obviously isn't lost on the young woman standing beside my chair.

Like now, for instance? Watching her, I know she sees what she has deemed as the Oracle before her, ready to spout prophecy the moment he removes his headphones. And me? I see a man who dresses himself with more attention to detail than a lot of women I know (myself included), a man who is so fastidious about his work that literally no stone goes unturned when he's on a case ("Come on Eames – we're dumpster diving today!"), and yet this is the very same man who can't seem to ever show up to work having shaved yesterday's stubble from his face!

(To be fair, though, at this point, I think if Bobby actually did shave, I probably wouldn't recognize him. He'd walk in and I'd have to ask, "Who are you and what have you done with my partner?" It would kind of like Men In Black where the bug goes around wearing an "Edgar suit" – he'd be Bobby, but not really.)

You're off topic, Eames.

I yield to my own internal monologue and, with a silent sigh, look back over at my partner and try to be objective, try to see what the woman beside me does – only to discover that it's impossible. There's way too much history there and I know too many things about Bobby after all these years of working together to ever be objective again. And you know what the funny part is? That's okay. Despite the things he does that annoy me (like hitting the desk – do it one more time, Buster, and I'll break your hand), I wouldn't trade any of what I feel right now for even an ounce of Miss Love-Struck's wonder. I've been there and done that already – I even have the T-shirt.

The relationship I have with Bobby is the sort of comfortable intimacy that you usually find in couples who have been married twelve years and have two point three kids and a dog. In any given situation, I can pretty well predict what he's going to do and how he's going to need me to react. I know when to play Bad Cop to his Good Cop, when to back off so he can have space to think, and when to get in his face about something. I know that when he tilts his head to the right while interrogating a suspect, he's hoping to find the truth simply by changing his perspective and that if he finds an interesting speck of something on the ground, chances are he won't just smell it, but taste it as well. I also happen to know that, regardless of his excuses, he actually enjoys reading Smithsonian Magazine from cover to cover. "The magazine's the perfect size for my treadmill," my ass, Goren.

But deep down, there's more to our relationship than that. I'm one of only a minute number of people who know that Bobby worries about one day going so far over the brink that he can't return. I also know that all the solved cases in the world and all of the accolades for his genius will never fill the void in him that he wishes were filled with a loving family. And what's more, I know that, though he'll probably never admit it out loud, he needs me to keep the world from spinning out of control around him. But I guess that's something you also find in good marriages – a wordless realization that both partners have weaknesses but that somehow the other person's presence alone is enough to make those weaknesses insignificant.

So let this rather annoying girl have her moment with Bobby. Let her radiate schoolgirl affection and admiration as she trails him out the door to have a look at the boat in question. I'll have him back soon enough.

And maybe one of these days I'll convince him to shave…