Author's Note/Clarification: The title of this story is taken from the William Faulkner novel Absalom, Absalom, not the biblical story of David's son Absalom (just so we're clear). The novel (at its basest level) deals with the concept of fate and the idea of leaving a legacy - the type of stuff we all like to ponder occasionally - so thing you're about to read has been ruminating for a while thanks to said pondering. And if you're so inclined, please review and let me know how I'm doing. And finally (now that my author's note has begun to read as though Faulkner himself wrote it), I don't own any of the characters from CI - they belong to Dick Wolf and I've promised to put them back when I'm done.
You get born and you try this and you don't know why only you keep on trying it and you are born at the same time with a lot of other people, all mixed up with them, like trying to, having to, move your arms and legs with strings only the same strings are hitched to all the other arms and legs and the others all trying and they don't know why either except that the strings are all in one another's way like five or six people all trying to make a rug on the same loom only each one wants to weave his own pattern into the rug; and it can't matter, you know that, ore the Ones that set up the loom would have arranged things a little better.
Absalom, Absalom - William Faulkner (1936)
***
Alex Eames is lying on a beach in the Bahamas, the sand warm beneath her and the sun shining down from above. Her skin tingles in the warm rays and, beneath the layers of dark created by her sunglasses and closed eyelids, the brightness of her surroundings is dulled to a warm reddish glow. She's completely relaxed for the first time in weeks and feels as though she couldn't move even if she wanted to - so she doesn't bother to try.
"Mai tai?" asks a male voice with a pronounced Spanish accent.
Turning her head only as far as she needs to, she opens her eyes and smiles into the warm face of Antonio Banderas. "Of course."
Antonio hands her the drink - complete with paper umbrella - and starts to say something else to her - something romantic, she's sure. The only problem is that every time he opens his mouth, all Alex can hear is a ringing phone.
I've heard of cultural differences, but this is ridiculous, she thinks - just before her subconscious mind plays the meanest trick of all and replaces Antonio's smiling face with that of her partner Bobby Goren, who appears on the beach in his most immaculate navy blue suit.
It's her cue to wake and she takes it, groggily rolling onto her stomach, the comforter still pulled over her head while she eases her right hand out of the cozy warmth of her covers to hunt haphazardly for the bedside phone. Her fingers skim lightly over the chilly wood of the nightstand and her rudely awakened brain protests the contrast of sleep-warmed skin against the cold, smooth surface. A few fumbles later, she manages to pull the icy receiver under the comforter with her.
Eyes still shut and sensing the hour to be much earlier than she planned to rise, Alex speaks one carefully chosen word into the phone: "No."
"Eames, we." Bobby's familiar voice fills her ears and sounds far too enthusiastic for first thing on a Saturday morning. Alex wonders for the thousandth time if the man ever sleeps.
Bobby pauses when her monosyllabic greeting registers and she hears him mentally regroup. "What did you say?"
"I said no, Bobby," she repeats, her voice still a bit ragged with sleep but gaining power. "Whatever it is, the answer is no. I don't care who died, who got robbed, who whatever - it's Saturday and it's early and I'm not moving from this bed until at least noon. Thanks for calling and have a great day."
His response is sympathetic but pointed. "Eames, someone killed Donald Markham's daughter last night."
Alex inhales sharply and reflexively props herself up her elbows, a movement that unfortunately permits a downdraft of cold air to slip under the comforter, awakening the parts of her body that were still dozing. "Doctor Donald Markham? The country's elite child psychologist? Author of dozens of bestsellers and the mayor's college roommate?"
"That's him," Bobby replies gravely. "And the mayor has already called Deakins this morning to make sure no stone goes unturned on this one."
She groans and rubs the last wisps of sleep from her eyes, the comforter still resting over her tousled hair. "I have to get up, don't I?"
"I've got green tea chai," he says by way of answer, his tone becoming slightly impatient. He's eager to get to the crime scene, she knows, before too many detectives comb it over and disturb evidence that's so small only he will notice it.
"Give me ten minutes," she says resignedly, though before hanging up she thinks to ask, "Hey Bobby?"
"Hmm?"
"What time is it anyway?"
A pause on his end - she can tell it isn't a question he expected. His mind is already on the case ahead. "About 7:30."
Another groan from her. "Better make that twenty minutes."
***
On the way to the crime scene, Alex ponders the question that has been circling round and round her conscious mind of late with increasing frequency and persistence. She doesn't know whether to attribute its appearance on this particular morning to general crabbiness or to the same factors that bring it about on a normal day - the long hours she works, the criminal minds she deals with, and (the icing on the cake) the middle age that is creeping up on her with all the stealth of a jungle cat with a bag of tin cans tied to its tail. All she knows is that the question lingers there and it's not leaving any room on her train of thought for other passengers at the moment, murder investigation or no murder investigation.
When did this become my life?
When did driving to a crime scene on a Saturday morning while the rest of the city slept or jogged or pored over the newspaper become normal? When did the colors of her wardrobe stop representing the rainbow and become awash in black and gray like the pants and blazer she now wears? And when did her job invade her life so fully that she often frightens herself by remembering more details of past cases than of family lore?
"We're here," says a male voice from the passenger seat beside her and she's able to partially answer her own question. Looking over at the tall man who has folded himself up to fit in the SUV but whose knees still rest on the glove compartment, Alex can pinpoint the moment her life began its journey into whatever "this" is.
It all started the day she partnered with Bobby Goren.
She had everything planned out when she was twelve - and then again at eighteen and twenty-five and subsequent years that have followed. She had a plan for her life and a firm idea of how she thought it would be. She wasn't asking for much - she wanted to be a cop, a wife, and a mother. So far, though, she only has one of them going for her. Granted, she was married once, in what now seems like another life, but now she isn't and has found that the particular why's and how's of that loss have become less important over time, so much so that she now refers to that part of her life as "BG" - Before Goren.
As for motherhood, the closest she has been was carrying her sister and brother-in-law's child for nine months. That leaves her one for three - and number one (her job) isn't leaving her much time to work on numbers two and three lately. It's undeniable that somehow - while she wasn't looking - her plan got away from her and now she isn't really sure how to get it back. The only thing she is sure of is that never - not in those lists she made when she was younger or in those late-night dreams - did she ever say, "I want to play partner, best friend, ally, confidant, second fiddle, mother, sister, wife and self-help guru to the city's brightest detective. That's the life for me."
Perhaps, she thinks wryly, it's her own fault. Maybe she should have been more specific in those prayers that requested a tall, dark, and handsome man to share her life with. After all, she did get what she wished for - sort of - and it's what's brought her here today. Yet if this is what she wanted, it's certainly taken her far from the course she charted.
Not that she resents Bobby or their partnership - quite the opposite, in fact. She knows full well that the relationship they have is unique and very special and she treasures it. Not many people can say that they have someone in their life with whom they can communicate completely without words, someone they trust one hundred percent with their life, and someone who makes them as good as they can be. Alex can, thanks to Bobby, and she knows it's a gift - albeit an unexpected one. She'd heard things about "crazy Bobby Goren from Narcotics" when she was still working Vice and received a lot of very strange - and sympathetic - looks when she moved up to Major Case and paired with him. She'd even thought she deserved the sympathy after their first meeting, a terse affair in which neither had really attempted to make the other feel welcome.
Yet the first case they'd worked together had proven her initial sense wrong when, in the midst of assembling information about a homicide, they had unconsciously begun finishing each other's sentences. When both had realized this, their eyes locked and she had a feeling that could only be described as an internal click, like a puzzle piece had snapped into place. She'd seen the feeling mirrored in his eyes too - as though they had wordlessly struck a balance - and then saw surprise wash over his face and knew that nothing like that had ever happened to him before. There had been the smallest of smiles exchanged then and they returned to the case at hand, each still feeling the other out but already beginning to trust one another. They've been together ever since and still finish each other's sentences, though now they talk more with their eyes than their mouths. In fact, their partnership has lasted longer than her marriage, an idea that doesn't always sit well with her.
Still, if you look at it that way, Alex has a pretty good thing going - so why is she questioning her life lately? Is it because the last few cases have been front-page news with Bobby's name prominently displayed and hers tucked in discreetly off to the side? Or maybe it's because giving up the baby she'd carried inside her for three-quarters of a year was harder than she'd thought it would be? Or is it that her apartment has seemed emptier lately, that she's suddenly realized how alone a person can feel in a large city where she's surrounded by millions?
These are questions she can't - and won't - answer right now as she and Bobby stand expectantly in the elevator, rising to the eleventh floor of Amy Markham's apartment building. When the doors open, they'll meet yellow tape and medical examiners and the victim's grieving family, as well as the deceased Amy Markham herself. The locations change but the scenes generally remain the same, Alex has noticed since she joined Major Case. The whole process has become the looped film reel of her life and she comforts herself by realizing that at least she knows exactly what to do and how to do it, thanks to her many chances to practice.
And practice does make perfect, Alex, she tells herself dryly as the elevator slides to a halt and deposits she and Bobby in the midst of the chaos she's become accustomed to.
Still, one of these days she's going to figure out how she got here in the first place.
Author's Note (again): Whew! Sorry if Alex comes across as depressed or whiny, but I'm driving at a point that I fully intend to get to (eventually) and then this will all make sense. Stay with me here, people - and read on.