Title: Purple
Author: Tracy
Rating: PG
Category: Angst
Summary: He was the brilliant Robert Goren, genius extraordinaire of Major Case: a DA's wet dream, a criminal's nightmare. And he was wrong.
Notes: Ugh – this story has sat on my hard drive for longer than I care to remember. It has plagued me with its existence, taunted me with its determination to go its own way and ignore the path I tried to set for it. So I'm washing my hands of the whole thing. If this is how it wanted to be, then this is how it is. Goodbye and good riddance.
Thanks, flowers, and yes, Tim Tams too, have to go to Riverstar and Arissa for betaing.
XxX
He sat in the dark, staring at the outline of a phone he could barely see, and willed it to ring. It didn't, and he wondered if maybe this time he'd gone too far.
A miscalculation. That's all it was. He'd over thought or under thought or just plain ignored what the evidence had been telling them. Eames had got it though. She'd got it immediately. She'd tried to tell him, but he wouldn't listen. He'd been so sure. So sure that he was right, that she was mistaken and that all they had to do was to sit back and bide their time, and he'd be proven right.
He had it all planned: he would have smiled at her, told her it was okay, and that it was an easy conclusion to jump to, but that it been the wrong one. Not in a condescending way of course, because you didn't use that tone with Detective Eames, not if you wanted to keep your balls attached. But still, he would have made his point, she would have accepted it, and all would have been as it should. A bump in the road of life, so to speak.
It hadn't quite turned out the way he had planned. The little bump had turned into a huge gaping fissure and he'd fallen headfirst into a world of uncertainty and self doubt. Eames had been confident and steady, and for a heart beat, not understanding his own shakiness, part of him had resented her easiness. His resentment had passed quickly enough, but the anxiety had remained, clinging and smothering and squeezing him so tight that he could barely breathe.
He'd been wrong. So very, very wrong. The truth was, he'd not only wanted to be right, but he'd expected it. He was the brilliant Robert Goren, genius extraordinaire of Major Case: a DA's wet dream, a criminal's nightmare. He wasn't so egotistical to actually think of himself in this light, but he was conscious of the fact that it had made for some rather interesting water-cooler gossip. Eames had even suggested that he get cards made up, 'just so people know who they're talking to,' she'd quipped in that dry manner of hers.
He'd laughed and mumbled something self-depreciating, and then spent the rest of the day trying to forget the way her eyes lit up whenever she was feeling playful. Her eyes were beside the point though; the point was that he nearly always was right, but this time he'd taken the scant facts that they'd had and twisted them until the only possible outcome was the one he'd been predisposed to. Eames hadn't argued after that. She'd just listened quietly and nodded.
'Okay', she'd said. 'Maybe you're right.
And he'd breathed a sigh of relief that at last she was coming around.
'But what if you're not?' she'd asked. 'What then?'
And to that he'd had no answer.
She'd left him alone then. She'd had her say, and if he didn't want to hear it, well, it wouldn't be the first time that they'd interpreted things differently. But she'd watched him constantly, as if any second she'd expected him to come around to her side of the fence and apologise for being so obstinate. Her silent expectations had aggravated him, and he'd ignored both her and her crazy theory until the last possible minute. He was off balance and out of his comfort zone and he absolutely hated it.
It was while he'd been wallowing in this new and distasteful feeling that the universe kicked him in the gut.
Eames had been right. She'd stolen his smile and unspoken 'told ya so', and as she'd been waiting for his acceptance – and maybe something else – he'd done the unforgivable. He'd denied the facts again, watched as her face tightened and something very akin to hate flashed in her eyes, and then he'd pretended that he had to be somewhere and walked away.
XxX
'You're pathetic,' a voice inside his head chided.
'I know,' he agreed, because he did know. He knew only too well
'Go back and apologise.'
But he couldn't face her. Not after what he'd just done, ignored what he'd ignored, and left her standing there thinking what she was thinking.
'I can't.'
'Tell her you're sorry.'
Sorry? It wasn't going to be that easy. And besides, he doubted as if she would believe him.
'Tell her that leaving her standing there alone doesn't mean what she thinks it means.'
'How can I do that when I'm not even sure myself?'
'You're pathetic but you're not stupid. You know what she's thinking, and you know it's not true. Go back and tell her that you're sorry for being such an ass. Tell her that her theory scared the crap out of you and that you couldn't deal with it. Tell her why you reacted like you did, and why she shouldn't read into it too deeply. Tell her that it's not about her. Tell her your whole sorry story and let her know!'
'I can't,' he whispered. 'She wouldn't understand.'
'Bullshit! She's had your number since day one, and she's still around. Go back and tell her, before it's too late.'
But he couldn't. Because judging from the look on her face just before he'd walked away, it was already too late.
XxX
After he'd left her standing there, he'd driven home – stopping only to pick up something that would quieten his inner voice – and planned to get well and truly drunk.
'Another plan? Whatever happened to your last plan?' the voice mocked.
He hated the voice. It had to die. It had taken Eames' side when it clearly should have been on his.
'This isn't about sides, you egotistical moron. You were wrong. Deal with it and move on.'
Okay, so he'd been wrong. He'd also been stupid and arrogant. Because he hadn't listened to his partner, he was sitting in the dark waiting for a phone call that didn't come, trying to ignore the voice that had invaded his head, and was slowly drinking his way through a bottle of Jack Daniels.
He was stupid. Really stupid. Probably the most stupid man in the entire world, and why the hell wouldn't the phone ring?
'Why should she call you? She owes you nothing. After the way you behaved...'
It was persistent; he'd give it that. But it still had to die.
'Shut up.'
'... You'd be lucky if she ever spoke to you again.'
It was right. Maybe that was why he hated it so much. It was right, Eames was right, everyone in the whole damn world was right, and that was just wrong.
'I said shut up.'
He waited. Blessed silence. He took another long gulp, and went back to drowning it.
XxX
The whole mess was entirely his fault. He should have paid more attention. He should have listened to her. Not just listened what she was trying to tell him, but also to what she wasn't telling him – he should have paid attention to the subtext in her words. For someone normally so observant, he'd been monumentally obtuse. The fact that he'd also been terrified of the possibility that she was right was no excuse.
'You don't deserve her. You never deserved her. And now she knows it and she'll leave and you'll be alone and pathetic in your dark apartment with your dead phone and -'
'Leave me alone!' He hurled the bottle against the wall, and found a grim pleasure in the way that it smashed into pieces. Until the voice spoke again, and he realised what an ineffective action it had been.
'Alone.'
Thirteen days and two purple lines on a white plastic stick had turned him inside out. He knew that they needed to talk, but those thirteen days and two purple lines had created a chasm between them, and he didn't know if he could reach across to her.
So he sat in the dark, staring at the outline of a phone he could barely see and wondered how he could ever repair the damage he'd caused with his denial.
'Try.'
He thought about her eyes. The way they smiled at him. The way they softened when she looked at him. The way they told him, over and over, how she felt about him. He thought about his life before them, and he thought about what his life would be like without them. Then he thought about how they had looked just before he'd walked away. He had a lot of ground to make up, and while he wasn't sure that he ever could, he knew that he had to at least try.
He picked up the phone and dialled. "Alex?"
Silence.
"I. . .I can't even begin to . . .can I come over?"
She hadn't hung up. That was a good sign.
"We need to talk."
End.