Author's note: You've all been very lovely with reviews – thank you. Again, please, let me know of any factual errors (aside from the fact that it veers wildly from canon). Disclaimers etc – see chapter one.

Fourth day. A nice day – sunny, no wind.

Feeling too warm in her black jacket, Alex waits until she's in the interview room before she takes it off. Underneath, she's wearing a grey tank over black pants. Plain. She didn't want to look too nice.

Good of them, to give up an interview room. It's better than talking on phones behind plexiglass. Still, she doesn't sit on the metal chairs. Leaning against the wall with her arms crossed will do fine.

When the door cracks, she looks over eagerly, arms unfolding. She may not have dressed up, but she doesn't want him to think she hasn't been looking forward to seeing him.

But neither of them says a word until the guard finishes removing the cuffs and leaves the room.

"Hey."

Bobby is still rubbing his wrists, looking at her gingerly. For a second, she's frozen. He's wearing a clean white t-shirt under standard issue orange coveralls, and he looks rough. Tired. Unshaven. His eyes have dark circles around them. He's standing five feet away, staring at her, and she can't believe it's really him. She swallows thickly and stays where she is, insurance against doing something stupid, like running up and hugging him.

"Hey." She nods with her chin. "You working on a jailhouse beard?"

Bobby smiles – a little rueful, relaxing.

"They won't give me a razor." He pauses, gives her a look. "I think they're being…over-cautious."

It's enough. Yeah, that's him. Alex snorts.

"Tell me about it. I had to get special dispensation from Her Holiness DCI Lien just to see you." Her smile shifts - melancholy. "It's good to see you."

He sighs. He can be open now.

"You too." He smiles, kind of, then crooks an eyebrow at the small pile of stuff on the table in the centre of the room. Alex had been kept waiting for an hour while they examined it all. "And you bought presents… Who says you never give me anything?"

His voice is soft. She winces internally at the memory, extends a hand at the gifts.

"Be my guest."

Ever polite, he meets her eyes as he checks the book spines.

"Hm. A history of the Cultural Revolution…'Pollock – a Biography'…and…" He squints in recognition. "…Coetzee." He looks up at her, appreciative, half-surprised. "This is one of his best. Thank you."

"No problem."

She hadn't been sure about the Coetzee, but she knows he doesn't mind re-reading titles he's had before. Now she's fielding one of his best blank stares.

"No case files?"

She returns his look with interest.

"Funny. Anyway, I can't. Deakins put me on leave."

Bobby's face drops.

"Damn… Alex, I'm sorry about that."

She waves it off.

"Forget it. Not like any other investigation would have my complete attention anyway…"

The reminder makes him nod and look away. He pokes a finger down at the last of her 'presents', in their long, flat, red and white box.

"What's this?"

She blinks at him.

"You never seen a carton of Marlboros?"

He's amused. "Cigarettes?"

"Currency," she says, all seriousness.

"I'm not in general population, Eames."

A shrug. "Prisoners aren't the only ones who smoke."

"You think I can bribe my way out with a few packs of Marlboros?"

His face is sardonic, but there's a black thread to his tone. The underlying anger. Frustration. Alex takes a step towards him.

"Bobby…"

He runs a hand over his face, through his hair, and turns away. Hates the sympathy. She's not supposed to see him like this. And now he's taking it out on her. Shit.

"Sorry."

"S'okay."

She doesn't know what else to say. She's both surprised and then not, when he moves for the cigarettes, opens a pack, slides one out.

"Do you mind?"

"No – god, of course not." Does he have to ask? She reaches for the book of matches in her pants pocket. "Here. Keep 'em."

He lights up with a nod of thanks. His first draw is strong; there's a cough, which makes them both grin a little.

Alex is watching him. He takes a few steps away, towards the window grille. The dull light from outside throws his face into relief, the cigarette smoke curling up – very atmospheric.

This isn't working. She's come here hoping to push for answers, to put the puzzle pieces together, and most of all, for a renaissance – she wants to feel that connection again, that sense of understanding him. Poke a little at the ESP of their relationship, that easy back-and-forth they have when they're on a case…

But it's not working. She knows too much, and his self-control is too strong.

Damn you, Bobby. We don't have time for this.

She gets angry then, and it's anger that does the trick. She pulls out a chair, a harsh metallic grating, and plonks herself down.

"Okay. Fine. We've said our hellos, and you've had a smoke. So."

Bobby looks over. The gearshift has startled him, and now she's sitting down in parley-mode.

"Talk to me, Bobby."

Damn, but he'd forgotten how her lack of diplomacy is her best asset. Her no-nonsense expression almost makes him grin.

"How much do you know?"

Alex can see it now, in his face – mortar crumbling, walls coming down. Or wanting to. She pushes gently.

"Well, I grilled Lien for the official version – but now I want yours." He still looks tentative. "Come on, Detective. Spill."

He grins then, recognizing the tone. Remind me to tell her not to use that tactic in interrogations. But he scuffs out his smoke and sits opposite her. To be honest, it's a relief. He rubs his face again.

"I…"

Where to start? He closes his eyes for a lazy second, lets his mind spin, spiral back, twisting, travelling down, into the time that was. When he looks up, he's in another place, another when. Remembering.

That's it.

That…feeling.

His lips part, voice soft.

"I…liked Germany. Munich was vibrant. The people, the culture…everything. I'd been promoted – you know about that?"

Alex nods. It seems best to just shut up and listen. Watching Bobby's face open and shift with the memories is an epiphany.

"I was…very young. I was twenty-four. And I had this position I really enjoyed – the police liaison stuff. Lots of one-on-one with the Munich cops. Lots of paperwork. Anyway…"

He reaches for another cigarette almost without thinking. There's no cough this time.

"So. Things were going well. Everyone was happy with me, with my progress." He looks at his fingernails contemplatively. "My dad…my dad was happy with me."

He seems uncomfortable. Alex smoothes the road.

"You felt vindicated, " she says softly.

Bobby looks up, surprised.

"Yes. I felt…I felt like seventeen years old was a long way back in history."

The glimpse she catches then, of the teenager he'd been, is painful. Alex swallows and prods him over the guilt.

"What happened?"

He frowns. "A big case. A bad one. The rape and murder of a fourteen year old girl. It was linked back to one of the officers on the base."

"Mark Metcalfe was your immediate superior."

Alex's revelation flattens his expression.

"Yes. I was his protégé, I guess. I didn't want to believe it. And he had a solid alibi, over thin evidence. But when I went through the papers, the depositions…it just…smelled wrong. Something. Something just…"

Bobby shrugs. Alex almost breathes out her response.

"Something just didn't gel."

"Right," he nods. "I mean, Metcalfe had all the right answers – the sign-out private, his friends… It was all clean as clean. And he had another alibi. A German girlfriend. She said she was with him for the whole night in question."

There's a shiver in Alex's gut.

"Karen Belzen."

"Yes."

Bobby's hand holding the cigarette trembles a little. He's been asked a million questions over the past three days – and now the only person asking the right ones is the woman who is probably least credible for his defence. The prospect of Alex seeing the whole picture so clearly, and then being unable to help him, is making him a little dizzy.

Alex only sees him draw back. She pushes harder.

"Metcalfe's indictment was aborted. The evidence was too circumstantial." She's guessing, but Bobby's pallor tells her she's on the money. "Friends in high places."

He nods slowly.

"Better friends than I ever had."

"You were discharged. How long did they wait?"

"Oh, they were very patient. They let me dangle a full two months." He snorts, then waves it off. "It didn't matter. My tour was coming up – they just didn't recommend I be re-signed. I knew it was coming."

"So…tell me what happened."

She's ignoring the fact that she's asking the wrong question. The relevant one. But asking straight out if he killed Belzen would feel like a betrayal, and Bobby has already opened up so much, and she's telling herself that she doesn't believe he did it anyway. She sees him watching her face. She keeps her expression spare, neutral. The thought that he might recognize this expression from the interrogation room is discomforting.

Bobby looks away to his cigarette.

"Even if I tell you…you can't help, Eames."

A mixture of guilt and annoyance creeps into her tone.

"I don't care. Tell me anyway."

"I didn't kill her, Alex."

His soft voice drifts on the air like smoke. Alex blinks, tries not to shiver. Her own words come out thick and throaty.

"Tell me anyway."

Germany – Munich. 1984

This is like some kind of dream.

He's sitting in a hotel room off the Hauptbahnhof, looking at the phone, and the words just keep coming back to him.

I said that, didn't I?

Yeah, he said it. He remembers saying it, feeling the stupid smile on his face when the NCO drove him from the airport to the base – looking at the streets in winter, the lights on as dusk approached, people walking around in thick coats and hats and gloves, rugged up against the cold. The NCO had looked over at him with bemusement. Green kid. Young. Smart. (You don't know how smart.)

"Welcome to Munich."

And he was made to feel welcome. The base had felt like home, and he had his own office – well, kind of. His own desk, anyway, always spilling over with paperwork, a phone, a filing cabinet mashed up beside him, corralling him in, but it was interesting work and he wasn't complaining. His CO took him to the officer's club that first night, bought a round of drinks, he felt like he shook about a hundred people's hands, his natural reserve thawing in the general atmosphere of male army bonhomie.

This your new staffer, Metcalfe? Don't worry kid, he'll run you into the ground with reports, but at least he won't get you to make the coffee…

And he nodded, and smiled, and drank up – that night, other nights – and he had another name then, and no one knew he had a schizo mother, and a history of boosting cars, and it didn't matter anyway.

This is like some kind of dream.

The words flooding back again when he read through the papers – witness reports, affidavits, depositions, sign-out sheets, the testimony of the parents of the girl who was dead now. Photos of a blue-grey face with bruises, everything in the photos an ugly monochrome – grey face, silver-grey autopsy table, grey background. He remembers one detail in particular, the way her hair had waved out to one side in a long thin braid, sickly wisps of blonde bedraggled down around her head, not enough to obscure the mottled bruises around her throat…

Some of her hair had been pulled out at the roots, near the fringe – raw patches. She'd fought hard.

He'd stared at the photos again and again, kept going back to them, couldn't leave them alone, and when he read through the reports that said how Metcalfe had left the base at time X and arrived at Belzen's apartment at time Y, and how Duncan, the sign-out clerk, could vouch the times – swear on them, in fact – and how Belzen and Mark had eaten dinner at her place and he hadn't left her sight all night, so help her God…

He kept coming back to the photos. The coroner's report. The photos. The place, the time, the scene – and the photos.

Grey monochrome.

Hair ripped out, and vaginal trauma, and death by strangulation. Severe bruising to the face, neck, pelvis. No prints. Saliva, semen, blood type. Fingernail scrapings.

This is like some kind of dream.

Tables turned. People didn't want to shake his hand anymore. No one bought drinks. He used to sit on his neatly made bed at night with the table lamp on, looking through the paperwork, smoking and re-reading, looking for something concrete, anything, that would make him feel in his gut that he was wrong.

He kept coming back to the photos.

Should've left it alone, kid. Have a sense of loyalty, for Chrissakes.

And he did, a strong sense of loyalty, only it was to the wrong person.

A girl with a blonde braid, and bruises.

All of Munich had become a grey monochrome.

How had he gotten here? To this place?

Staring at the phone, wishing he'd never picked it up. Karen Belzen's voice in his ear - thick, maybe a little drunk. He's only seen her once before, when she gave testimony. She's a blonde too, he remembers.

It is this thought that gets him moving.

He's written down the name of the bar on the back of his plane ticket, so he copies it onto a scrap of paper before grabbing for his coat, gloves, scarf. It's cold out. Has the year passed so quickly?

Three blocks, and snow falls lightly on his shoulders. He looks at the flakes, frozen chaos theory melting on the wool over his palms.

The bar is gloomy but obviously popular. He finds her in a back booth, recognizes the flash of blonde, and after he orders and walks over, he speaks her name softly - she startles.

"Gott im Himmel, you frightened me. Sorry – sit, sit down."

This is enough to unnerve him. Does anybody else know she's here? Before he can still the second thoughts his coffee has arrived. Belzen takes the opportunity to request another beer; he's trying to assess how many she's already had. He watches her light a cigarette as she orders, and thinks I don't know this woman. I don't know her at all. He keeps his voice quiet.

"Can I ask you…how did you get my number?"

She nods at the question, cigarette a brusque counterpoint in her stiff fingers. Comforted by the fluidity of his language she launches into a smooth flow of unadulterated German.

"Don't worry, I was very discrete. Look, I know this is kind of late, they said you were leaving soon –"

"Tomorrow. I fly back tomorrow."

"Right." She gestures again with the cigarette. "So this is my last chance to tell you, I guess…"

He's still feeling unnerved by the whole situation. He sips his coffee.

"Last chance to tell me what?"

Belzen shrugs, eyes flicking around. Weird mannerisms, he thinks – coquettish and insecure by turns.

"About Mark. You know. My testimony. I mean, it's all over now, so it's kind of pointless, I guess…"

Her eyes flicking everywhere, and he doesn't have to hear her say it, he knows. How does he know? It doesn't matter. He knew when he picked up the phone, heard her voice – before that, even. Something inside him sinks, settles into a warm sighing river of understandings confirmed.

"You lied in your testimony," he says softly.

She jerks, her gaze meeting his all of a sudden. He keeps talking in the same quiet undertone.

"You gave Mark an alibi for the whole night. You said he was at your apartment by 8.30pm, and Duncan signed him out at 8.12. I'm just counting backwards…it isn't too hard to figure out, Karen."

She's blinking at him now, expressions turning over quickly. Her voice comes out belligerent.

"It wasn't just me, okay? If it had been just up to me, I would have said something. But I wasn't the only one. Mark said he just needed a few extra minutes up his sleeve, so don't go finger-pointing like I'm some kind of..of…"

Words fail her at this point. Murderer, is the word she doesn't want to say, he thinks. You're not a murderer, Karen – you're an accessory. But he doesn't want to inflame her further, he's trying to tease out the whole story. He prods gently.

"I'm not finger-pointing, Karen. I just want to understand what happened. How much time did you add?"

"Not much." She grinds out her smoke with stabbing motions, blows out near his face, looks away. "A little. Twenty minutes. He was only twenty minutes late. I..I didn't think anything of it, you know?"

He's counting backwards again. Eight-fifty. And witnesses saw something at 8.30. By 8.35 the girl was dead. Add on travel times. Metcalfe would have had to be off base before eight. Duncan, he breathes out silently.

Karen is looking at him. He takes a sip of coffee to clear his head and reassure her – still here, still cogitating.

"I'm listening, Karen. It wasn't just you. You said that."

"Yeah." She's trying to sound firm, but her voice is tremulous. "I wasn't… It wasn't just me. He said it would be okay. He said...there were other people to back him up."

And there were, of course. If there is one thing he knows about Metcalfe it's that the man has a gift for covering his ass. There's only one thing he's confused about now.

"Karen… why are you telling me this? I mean, why now?"

She shrugs again as she lights another cigarette, apparently noncommittal. He realizes that she's thought about this – she believes she's thought it through, but in fact she still doesn't have the foggiest idea.

"I just… I wanted to tell someone, you know? I saw you, at the hearing, and then I heard they kicked you out, and I just… I felt bad, you know?"

He stares at her. You felt bad about me. You felt bad. Your boyfriend rapes and murders a fourteen year old girl, and then comes and has dinner with you, and you know he did it, and then you felt bad. About me. He has to fight hard to keep the sudden wash of revulsion off his face. She continues blithely.

"…anyway, I know it doesn't matter now. I mean, you're leaving tomorrow. But I just… I don't know."

She's looking at her fingers holding the cigarette, and then, as if suddenly realizing something about herself, she makes a moue of distaste. Sips her beer. At that moment he wishes that he was a thousand miles away from this woman. Clears his throat to speak.

"Karen… Karen, I…" Stops himself. Redirects. "Thank you. For telling me. Really. It's…it's good to know."

She nods and smiles politely.

"No problem."

She's gathered her cigarettes and her bag. He puts a hand gently on her arm.

"Karen, I'm not sure what to do with this information."

She stops to stare.

"What do you mean 'what to do with it'? You can't do anything with it now. It's over. I mean –"

"Karen, I'm a civilian now. But I still have contacts with the Munich police. I'd really like to –"

"Wait. Wait just one damn minute." Her eyes are wide and her voice is rising steadily as she sinks back down. "You can't do anything. Nothing. I mean it. Jesus, the only reason I told you was –"

"Because you knew I was leaving. Yeah, I got that. But –"

"No 'buts' – what are you, crazy?"

Other people are starting to look their way. He glances around nervously, then makes a quick decision and throws some money on the table for their drinks, rises to put on his coat. He'd rather discuss this without an audience, and he knows she'll be compelled to follow him. She's still talking loud.

"Jesus, I spill my guts to you, and now you want to go to the cops? There's no fucking way I'm –"

"Do you mind if we continue this conversation outside?"

There's no room for her to object, he's already moving to the side exit and she scrambles for her things and trails a step behind. Three steps out into the side alley and his boots sink into snow, cold air blasts his face, and he turns to accept Karen's slap of words, her cheeks already pinking with the change of temperature.

"Don't do this! Don't you dare do this! If I'd wanted to go to the cops I would have done it myself…"

"Jesus, Karen…" He holds up his hands – fingertips chilling quickly, he's forgotten to put on his gloves. "What did you think I was gonna do? Fly back to the States and pretend this never happened?"

"Goddamnit, I don't believe this. I never would have called you if I'd known…"

He's taken a few steps up the alley, and now he turns, the dim illumination from the lights further up the street darkening his expression of disbelief.

"What the hell is wrong with you? He killed her, Karen. He raped her, then he killed her. And you helped him get away with it!" He's frozen in place, ice on his breath as he examines her face, trying to figure out where her humanity went. "Why on earth did you do that? I can't… I just can't understand… Did you think this was some kind of way to show him that you loved him?"

Or were you frightened he would leave? The thoughts are out before he can stop himself, and he realizes it's too close, too personal. Cut to the quick. Her face hardens into a snarl and she takes a step forward.

"If you go to the cops, I'll deny every damn thing I just said to you."

"And what did you say, sweetheart?"

The voice is soft and gravelly, but it carries. Karen's face registers shock, and she's staring at a point behind him, and he turns and feels the back of his neck prickle as Mark Metcalfe – tall, dark-haired, hands in black jacket pockets – steps away from the wall of the alley.

Frozen chaos theory.

Count backwards. Metcalfe, dumpster, himself, Karen, side door of the bar…

Metcalfe takes a step closer.

"What did you say, sweetheart?" he repeats.

Karen has paled dramatically, her mouth opens and closes, stammering, voice croaking.

"Nothing. I didn't say nothing, honey, I swear to god…"

Metcalfe just smiles pleasantly.

Gellen has turned side-on – right side to Metcalfe, left side to Belzen – trying to watch both ends of the interplay, so Karen's sudden movement catches him by surprise, when she stumbles towards him fists raised, face contorted with anger. Her hands flail at him, hard but ineffectual, and before logic kicks in all he can think is 'why is she taking it out on me?'.

"…bastard, you fucking shit, I never said anything! I never said nothing, you fuck –"

His turn towards her to still the blows is automatic. But he'll remember it later – it's something he'll always remember; that Metcalfe smiled, and he turned. He turned his back on him.

Never turn your back on a suspect.

"Karen – Karen, don't –"

"…you fuck, you goddamned stupid –"

"Karen –"

He's holding her at arm's length, hunched down a little to make eye contact, when the Noise happens, and the world stops turning, and he suddenly goes deaf.

He must be deaf. Her mouth is open but no sound emerges, no torrent of abuse. No sound at all. And he blinks at the neat round hole in her forehead for an entire second…

…before the world starts turning again, spinning, fast, too fast for Karen at any rate as her momentum reverses and she falls toward him, he gasps, she tumbles into his arms, tumbles further, he's not doing a very good job of catching her, and now he can hear the echo of the shot off the alley walls as Karen Belzen slides into a puddle of slush on the street.

His breathing is coming short and heavy, and he's on his knees, entangled in dead, eyes gasping wide around. He takes in Karen's blonde hair, the snow seeping red, the gutter's edge, and then over – Mark is looking at him, the gun is hanging at his side. Gloves, Gellen notes dully – he's wearing gloves.

Mark has a look on his face, a total lack of interest, and something else – a smudge of apology maybe, sorry kid, no hard feelings. No regret, no surprise.

Gellen's trying to think but there's still an echo bouncing around the inside of his brain, a resounding numbness afflicting every place it touches. He finds himself opening and closing his lips, soundless, like Karen. And there's no exchange of words, no shared moment of insight between murderer and witness, because the shot was LOUD, and Mark knows it. He shrugs, then turns away, begins trotting back down the alley. Gellen gets his mind and his voice back in one instant, watching his chance to relieve the overwhelming greyness of life retreating, and he struggles up.

"Metcalfe! Metcalfe! Shit…"

Torn for a second between giving chase and duty of care – he crouches for a brief moment to check on Karen, pulseless, lifeless.

The bar door opens.

A burly moustachioed man stands in the doorway, frozen in the act of wiping his hands on his black apron.

Gellen, distracted - one eye on Karen's body, one on the door, conscious of Metcalfe slipping away – barks an order quickly.

"Call the police. Call an ambulance."

And then there's movement, he's loping, then running after Metcalfe, his wet coat-tails slapping his legs, and the dark slim shape a half-street ahead. He runs hard, keeping up with corner-turns and direction-changes, until he can't feel his feet anymore, and he can't see Metcalfe's back for the flurries of snow, flakes drifting down silently, the only sound the gasping of his own breath, the thump of his heart…

He stops, leaned over his thighs, looking around. He's blocks from the hotel and Metcalfe is gone, swallowed whole.

Dammit.

Lost in the city. Gellen takes a last gulp of air and a squint down the backstreet, then straightens. Useless. It's an ennervating feeling – he feels wobbly, hollow. Disoriented and still shaking. Dammit.

He heads for the streetlamp, trying to get his bearings. There are no street signs, but he can see the lights of the bar district, and then suddenly his mouth is dry as dust.

He spots a handrail descending, and the universal symbol for 'Male' at the bottom of the steps, and he's never been so glad to find Munich public amenities. Grasping the handrail tight keeps his legs from falling as he makes his way down, pushing the door carefully, hoping to find himself alone. And he is.

The water from the faucet is freezing, makes him cough. He drinks as little as possible, then looks up into the mirror – cracked, graffitied – as he wipes his mouth.

Frozen chaos theory.

This is what it looks like. It never even occurred to him until then. Would he have chased Metcalfe if he'd known? It doesn't matter now.

There's blood on his face, in his hairline. Not streaks of the stuff, just little dribbles. A red splodge at his chin.

She fell forward, he remembers. He traces the motion of the bloodspatter with his finger.

Here, here, here. More significantly on his shirt – there, a long trailing stain. There, and there – his coat, his cuff. His cuff is sodden, he realizes. And he realizes something else.

This looks…very bad.

He thinks about the scenario, the witness. The bartender. Because suddenly Gellen himself is no longer the witness – the bartender is the witness.

I called for the police, for an ambulance.

Did the guy hear him? Probably yes. Then what –

I ran.

That's right – he ran. And he thinks of Metcalfe's gloves, and his apologetic shrug, and his stomach does a strong, slow twisting turn, as he thinks of what it will mean if he returns to the scene now, and he thinks very hard, and he doesn't throw up, not until much later, when he's back in his hotel room, changing his clothes and thrusting stuff into his duffel bag, and washing his face and hands and then, then he throws up –

Violent, hopeless, useless.