Disclaimer: I don't own Goren or Eames, and will not in the foreseeable future.

Thanks: Major thanks to those who reviewed chapter 3! Wonderfully kind! THANKS again to Brandy, I would be lost without your help! ;)  - Chloe

Please Read & Review!!!

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She eased from the bench at his query.

"Alex, this wouldn't work."

"This?"

He looked at her, his auburn eyes intense with frustration. He searched for the words, but they left him. His sentences where no longer concise, more strained words connected only by the spaces that separated them.

"You and I…last night. That couldn't go on. Alex, my life, my life at the moment is. It's messy, it's a web of confusion and its only going to get more complicated…" He realised the selfishness of his statement and he hated himself for it. "I care for you, I don't want to put you through it." He searched for her gaze as she hid her eyes from him. His head cocked back and forth, and his arm nestled on her shoulder. "You mean." He sighed, deepening his eyes into hers and searching for the words. Mandatory pauses stagnated the mood. "You mean too much too me. We can't risk the friendship, our partnership." His heart was pulling at his throat.

She looked at him, eyes intensifying under his gaze of feeling. "Guess what?" She paused. "You just did." And she slipped past him and down the hall.

"Where are you going?"

"I'm out of milk." She retorted, her voice a calculated mix of frustration, anger, disappointment and sadness.

"It's raining."

"Indeed, it is."

"Alex, don't be stupid." He said in desperation, his eyes shut in finality as the door did the same. It was 11:00 am, he had just slept with his partner, his car was stolen, he was alone in her apartment and had just  driven her away. He collapsed into a chair, resting his head in his hands, contemplating what he had done. He wasn't drunk, he definitely wasn't tired. Then why did all this happen? There seemed no justifiable reasoning. Why did he smile and agree, he knew the consequences. They stood clear in front of him. Crystal clear. He could have stopped it, but he didn't. Had it reached such a point that everything of the past year had compounded into one night. He knew he loved her, he had know it for a while. But what he felt for Alex was futile. Bobby had regarded it as an intangible ideal. It was acceptable for him to feel for her with the intensity of a love, but circumstance disabled it as a fathomable possibility. But maybe if you run from something ceaselessly you hinder your chance to avoid it. He looked out the window, the rain no longer pelted from the gods. All that remained were the few immortal droplets framing the glass, until they disappeared into the atmosphere. Surviving one fate only to be collected by the next. Ironic. He wanted to run after her, but how could he? He lowered himself onto the couch, the smooth leather comforting his throbbing head as he shut his eyes and drifted into sleep.

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Alex paced furiously through the park, her brown boots demolishing the tranquility of any puddles in their path. She didn't want to go home, but what option did she have. An anvil of clouds gathered overhead, sounding ominous warnings of their presence. The tenderness of last night was over whelmed by the hostilities of the morning. Still the images still remained vivid in her mind. His fingers brushing back her hair as she pretended to sleep. Protecting her from an invisible enemy as her held her in his arms, caressing his lips across her forehead. His ability to entrench himself in the emotions astounded her, but he could also camouflage his heart. She sometimes forgot Bobby had just lost his father. He had hidden every ounce of despair and buried it deep past any perceivable level. But it had compounded, a black hole that overflowed with emotions it could no longer hold. Feelings for his mother, for victims, fear for himself and his confusions of her. And his fathers passing, though he resented him for the tribulations of his childhood and the abandonment of his mother, Bobby still felt love for him. 'I don't get it Alex. Why is all forgiven in death?' 'Maybe it's an admission that nobody is perfect, that we all claim the same fate, that were all equals. That's probably the most substantial proof that life is unfair, that nobody wins.'   She frowned at this thought. Maybe it was a fear of being happy, of winning, that scared him the most. The fear that if it were ever achieved, it could, it would never be sustained.

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Alex opens the door, a stranger in her own home it seems. Her keys hitting the bench wake Bobby up from his daze, but he says nothing.

"Bobby, are you here?" she inquires. Pulling of her boots and tying her hair back in a messy pony.

He has to say something. "Uh, yes. I'm sorry. I just wanted to see you come back." He sits up, indicating his presence, his position, and his expression. It's without distinction, a mix of solace and suppressed mental tribulations. "I better be going anyway." He looked out the window, straining his mind through a continual stream of thoughts.

She walked over to him and sat down, her warmth instantaneously gracing the air. He looked at her for a second then flicked his head back to the window. Eventually the silence was too intense. The feelings painted the mood, and it was almost too concise for opportunity. "The rain has stopped." His voice was coarse.

She nodded.

He gestured at the sinister skyward scape. "But the clouds, the bigger ones, anvil shaped, their heavy. Probably be thunder storming again soon. People usual feel happier after a thunderstorm, the neutralization of the air by the static electricity is the theory."

Alex looked at him, her auburn eyes showing signs of emotional fatigue.

"Alex, I'm sorry. I'm sorry all this happened and I'm sorry I didn't stop it." He rubbed a large hand through his hair. "It's like time and space are conspiring to force me to face things I never imagined possible."

"What was so impossible about last night?" She said, looking at the floor, wanting to hide from him. She didn't want to question him. Her head was compelling her mouth to jam closed, but it wouldn't.

His head raised, his gaze traveling throughout the room, avoiding her. He knew he couldn't answer that question, he had gone into damage control.  "You don't want to love me Alex."

And there it went again. Either disguising his emotions or denying them. Covering them with a noble paragon of righteousness. Camouflaging his feelings or ignoring them so no one has to suffer or bear his load. He feels a duty to protect her from what he has faced in the past and what he deals with in the present. So he continues to bury the possibilities and tells himself he's doing the right thing. The truth is that if anyone has scratched the surface of his emotional abyss its her, and the fact she still cares for him as an equal disarms him. The fact she knows his history, his indiscretions and still remains his closest friend monopolizes his fear of losing her. And he realises he isn't the only one whose childhood defied 'happy days', that Alex survived a less than nuclear existence with the wit and determination that defined her, but its not the same.

She looked at him, her eyes chasms of emotion.  "What if I already do?"

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