Some Days Groping Blindly
by Nicole Clevenger (c)January 2004
Written for a thursday100 challenge on LiveJournal.
*
Alex doesn't even look up from her glass. "Oh goody. You found me."
"Well you didn't make it hard," Bobby says, taking the stool beside her. It drags audibly across the floor as he pulls it out far enough for him to be able to sit. "This is the closest bar to your apartment."
"I didn't realize I had to evade a police search," she says, taking a drink.
She's changed into faded jeans and a beat up leather jacket since he last saw her. Bobby's mind reflexively counts the number of hours it's been since then, calculating the number of beers she could've had in that time. Weighs in the forward slouch and the beginnings of a slur. She still hasn't glanced at him.
"You're drunk."
"Not yet. But buy the next round and I'll let you guess again."
He watches her, trying with his eyes to convince her to look up at him. It's worked on hundreds of suspects, the heaviness of that waiting gaze. But it doesn't work on her - she's seen his tricks all too often. After a moment, Bobby turns away to motion the bartender over.
Beers in front of them, they sit in side-by-side silence. Her hair slips to fall like a curtain over her profile; it bothers him that he can't see her eyes. She's drinking fast - a person determined - nearly halfway through the glass by the time he's taken only a couple of swallows.
Bobby loosens his tie, undoes the button at his collar. When it finally occurred to him that maybe he should go look for her, he hadn't bothered to go home first to change.
The cuffs of her jacket sleeves are too large, leaving only her fingers exposed. It makes her seem smaller than normal. More vulnerable. He wants to touch her, but everything about her body language promises that this is a bad idea. Instead he finds himself compulsively rubbing his palm against the leg of his suit pants in the shadows under the bar.
"Eames..." He takes a breath. "Alex."
She shakes her head, the angled line of her short hair moving almost as a single piece between them. "Don't."
He spends his days seeing through people, seeing into them. The fact that he can't pin down her distress to anything more than vague threads relating to the case they've just finished tastes to him far too much like failure.
She takes another drink, sets the glass down a little too hard. Her fingertips trace clumsy patterns in the condensation pooling on the surface of the bar. He suspects she's hoping he'll give up and go. He wonders if he should, but he can't imagine leaving her here like this.
"Why'd you come, Bobby?" She sounds annoyed, almost angry, but he still can't see her face.
His instincts quickly offer up several ways he can play this, a handful of directions in which his next move can go. It's a trick that serves him well most of the time, but in this instance he discards them all. "You seemed...upset...when you left," he answers honestly. "I was worried."
Her shoulders tense; for a moment he fears that this was somehow the wrong answer. Bobby licks his lips, willing her to look at him. He's paying attention to the way she's flattened her hands out on the bar, but he doesn't miss the way her body relaxes with a slow shudder of a breath. When she speaks, her words are quiet. Tired.
"You're not the only one who's allowed to have a bad day, you know."
Bobby doesn't have any idea what to do with that.
So he waits. Takes another drink. The bartender comes by, making a move toward her empty glass, but Alex waves him off. Time slows, dragging itself out to see what will happen next.
Finally she turns to him. Her eyes are somewhat unfocused as they slide across the lines of his face. He can't tell what it is she's looking for, but he's prepared in this moment to try and be whatever it is she needs.
Alex blinks first, pushing her hair behind her ear. She digs a few bills out of her pocket and tosses them on the bar, and when she gets off the stool she wavers on her feet. Not a lot, but enough that he automatically reaches out to steady her. He stops his hand before it actually makes contact.
Her accidental smile is only a fraction of what he knows it can be, and even that looks a little sad. For just a second he's seven years old again, trying to put shredded pieces back together without any glue.
She sighs; it's possible she's read a flicker of something like this in his expression. "C'mon," she says, taking a fairly steady step in the general direction of the door. "Why don't you walk me home."
end.