How about if I broke the silence first, could I hear what you're thinking, in your head?
(Phone Call – The Faint)
"Hello?" Alex's voice was muffled, sleepy. Bobby felt frustration flood through him. He shouldn't have called. Who called in the middle of the night? Alex needed to sleep. They had a lot of work to do. They had criminals to chase, evidence to examine, reports to file. He could never stand filing reports. Alex always had to redo it for him anyway; he'd never been any good at filling out forms. "Hello? Who's this?"
"Eames?" Bobby heard his partner let out a long, slow sigh.
"Bobby, it's two o'clock in the morning." Her voice was sharpening with exasperation. "Couldn't whatever it was have waited until tomorrow?" Bobby paused. What was he supposed to say to that? He didn't even know what he needed to tell her. He just needed to speak to her, to hear her voice. He just needed to see the world solidify again. But how could he possibly explain that?
"I didn't – I didn't think that you'd be asleep." Bobby had heard plenty of terrible lies and excuses in his time; it came with the profession. He was well aware, however, that the sentence he had just said could very well be the worst. Alex sighed again.
"Right, because it's not normal to be asleep at two o'clock in the morning." Bobby could picture her wry grin perfectly. He loved it when she looked at him with that expression. It made him feel like they were sharing a secret together. "Bobby, do you ever sleep? I mean, you are human, aren't you?" Bobby would have laughed, but he couldn't quite manage it this time. Instead he just started pacing again, one hand clutching the cordless phone as he walked. "Bobby?" This time he sighed. "What is it?"
"I – I don't know." The words were building up within him like water pushing at the edges of a dam. He had so much to say, and so little time to say it in.
"Is everything all right?" Alex was polite, solicitous, concerned.
"Yes, yes it is." It was, wasn't it? There was nothing wrong. He was just imagining it. "Do you want to start working early?" He spoke without thinking. Of course she wouldn't want to start working at two o'clock in the morning. He did, though. At least at work he would know what he was supposed to think about. The extraneous thoughts would be gone, erased by the easy back-and-forth of the interrogation room.
"Bobby, are you all right?" Alex seemed more worried now.
"Yes, I'm fine."
"You just asked me whether I wanted to start working at two o'clock in the morning!"
"I know. I did. I – I didn't mean that, though. I meant something else. I don't really know what I meant." Great, now he was rambling. That was definitely going to reassure her, no doubt. "I just wanted to talk to you. I really wanted to talk to you. It's – it's as if I have to tell you something and for some reason I can't recollect what it is, but I still have to tell you."
"Bobby." There was a long pause. "Bear with me here. I just woke up. But what the heck are you talking about?" Bobby strode over to the window and slammed his fist down on the side of the table. It would be better if he just hung up before he said anything even stupider. There was no way she could understand, anyway; there was just no way he to articulate it.
"I'm not sure." Bobby frowned. Maybe she'd just go back to sleep and think that it was all a bad dream. Maybe she'd forget about it entirely. That would be nice. "I think I'm too awake. Is it possible to be too awake? Because I think that that's – that's what I am right now. Too awake."
"Too awake? Bobby, have you been sleeping lately? At all?"
"Yes. Sometimes. Not very much. I don't usually sleep very much but now I want to and I'm simply too awake, which – which doesn't – which doesn't seem to make any sense, logically, but – do you want to go somewhere?" There it was. Another completely random question. Where would they go, anyway? There was no place to go.
"Where do you want to go?" She was humoring him, wasn't she? She probably thought he'd gone off the deep end. That was just what he needed. Alex was the only partner he'd ever had that actually trusted him and now she was going to think he was crazy.
"I don't know. Anywhere. We could go driving. You could drive, that is. We could go on the freeway."
"All right." Alex's tone confused Bobby; he couldn't tell whether she was annoyed, anxious, or just plain tired. "Do you want me to pick you up?" Bobby could not have described the relief he felt at hearing her question. Alex always picked him up. It was familiar. It was the right thing to do. It was just like work.
"Yes." She'd be there soon; she wouldn't be more than five minutes. Bobby sat back down on the sofa and stretched. "Yes," he repeated. "that would be nice. Thank you."
"I'll be there soon." Never one to waste words, Alex slammed down the phone. Back in his apartment, Bobby rubbed his eyes and looked around again. The streets seemed safer already.