Summary: It looks like being a long and uncomfortable journey back to civilisation for Bobby Goren. (Bobby's POV.)
In the back of the Jeep, Bobby Goren tugged the blanket further over himself, stared out of the window and sighed. It promised to be a much longer journey back to the army base they'd started out from twelve hours ago than the three-hour trek out there. The storm had blown up again, with steady rain and a howling wind, making crawling along the single-track road at a safe pace the only sensible option. The driver and his companion, two morose-looking men who'd probably not enjoyed the experience of being woken up and dragged out along the miserable road to the surveillance building in the middle of a howling gale to drive three sweaty, worn-out individuals in grubby army fatigues back to the base, didn't seem inclined to talk, which was probably as well given the driving conditions. It was cold, and the Jeep's heater was faulty, so they'd simply thrown a blanket over their damp fatigues and dreamed of hot showers. The Jeep hit another pothole, and Goren swore mentally. This was NOT going to be a pleasant experience.
He glanced over the other occupants of the backseat. They'd ended up having to do some frantic rearranging of the transport to accommodate Smith and Shorokogat's son being kept in custody by the Army, and to transport Davenport and the injured passenger. Since Smith and Shorokogat's son had to be put in different vehicles, he, Whitefield and Sienna Tovitz had ended up back in one of the Jeeps, with two soldiers along to navigate and drive. The weather was so bad that having two sets of eyes on the road was a sensible precaution, not to mention the fact that if the Jeep got bogged down or they got a flat, both himself and Tovitz were too exhausted to help and Whitefield wasn't much better, having been up for as long as they had and spent several hours driving up and down the road from the listening post.
Thankfully, the base had insisted on sending along some junior Army officers to oversee the rescuing of the passengers. He and Whitefield had handed over Smith to them, with strict instructions not to take their eyes off him and to treat him as extremely dangerous. They'd had no handcuffs, but the Army medical vehicles had restraints. Smith had been strapped down and two soldiers with guns would be keeping watch. They were now following behind the vehicle with Smith, and he, Whitefield and the soldiers were all armed, just in case.
Frankly, Goren sincerely doubted Smith would be in any shape for making an escape, since he'd gone the colour of wet newspaper and started screaming shortly after being taken into custody. The medics thought that Goren had broken his arm in two places, and had given Smith morphine for the pain. Between that, the guards, the restraints and the broken arm, Smith would not be making an escape, and Goren would be entirely happy to put the CIA man out of his head, just as he always did when he and Eames had got a confession and handed over the perp to Carver and the rest of the machinery of justice. The whole thing was out of his hands now. He wasn't proud of having broken Smith's arm, but he wasn't ashamed of it either; he'd needed to defend himself, Sienna, Davenport and the others, and he'd done it.
Tim Whitefield, who was sat next to the other door at the opposite end of the back seat, was staring fixedly and silently out of the window. He was either asleep with his eyes open, or was mentally drafting his report on the surveillance operation. Goren did not envy him that task, since their real target had drowned. Admittedly, having saved Shorokogat's son's life might well get them some useful information to enable Interpol to go after the remnants of Shorokogat's business dealings, and they'd removed one bad apple from the CIA, hopefully others too once Smith was interrogated.
Goren almost regretted the fact that he wouldn't get to do that. Then again, it was never wise to be in charge of the interrogation if you had a personal stake in it, and he had to admit that his motivation for wanting to be the one who got to screw with Smith's head was less professional than personal. He mentally set that aside; he'd never be allowed near Smith, so it was pointless to speculate. The CIA had its own way of doing these things, and he'd just have to trust that Whitefield would see to it that the CIA man got the heaviest sentence that could be handed out.
He had no doubt that the Interpol man would do his utmost, and he trusted Whitefield, so that was another problem out of his hands.
The crashed aircraft's passengers were now the responsibility of the Army, and he'd already mentally gone over the events of the night, all of them, letting his brain process and file them away as memories the way he always did at the end of a case, refreshing his mind for the next challenge. It was a coping mechanism all cops learnt in the end, to file away memories of even the worst cases, so that they didn't float back to the surface of your mind and disturb you. For the first time ever, he was wishing that he wasn't quite so good at it, that he could keep his mind busy, distracted, for a bit longer. Guiltily, he glanced at the other occupant of the Jeep's back seat. Being the smallest, they'd put her in the middle between him and Whitefield. It had made sense at the time, but now… well, Goren thanked God that the darkness and the blanket over his lap was hiding his… problem.
Rationally, he could identify the main cause of the reason he was feeling horny and frustrated. He'd experienced it once or twice before, in the Army and later on in the NYPD, when he'd been shot at by a suspect… You were in a life-threatening situation, you survived by your own wits and courage and adrenalin, and then later you felt the urge to, well, if not actually create life, then at least affirm it by getting close to another human being.
And he was close to another human being at that particular moment, if not in the exact sense that his body would have preferred. Sienna Tovitz was at present snoring quietly on his shoulder, damp red hair straggling across the thick cloth of his army fatigues. Her warm, relaxed body was pressing against his, her head on his shoulder, her breasts against his arm… she'd fallen asleep almost as soon as they were in the Jeep and was now slumped against him in the dead sleep of the truly exhausted. A loud snore from the other side of the Jeep indicated that she wasn't the only one. Whitefield had fallen asleep too, eyes closed and head slumped against the Jeep's window. He obviously had the old soldier's knack of being able to take sleep where he could find it.
He envied them both. He couldn't remember the last time he'd been this tired. He worked out when he could, liking to keep himself healthy, physically strong, but he usually didn't risk tiring himself out too much, not being willing to jeopardise his performance whilst on the job by slowing himself down with tiredness. He was now exhausted after the events of the past eighteen hours, and wished sincerely that his body wasn't keeping him awake and that he could follow their example, simply fall asleep for the next few hours. A baser part of his mind wished he was female and could… take care… of his problem discreetly. Unfortunately, that wasn't a possibility, and Sienna's warm body against his really wasn't helping. It was oh so easy to imagine draping an arm across her shoulders, pulling her closer to him, his hands stroking her back, her legs, snuggling closer under the blanket, relaxing against her… oh, this was NOT a good train of thought, but so tempting…
Suddenly, she stirred against him, muttering incoherently, obviously in the grip of a nightmare, some recollected memory, probably their finding the dead bodies in the water. Her voice climbed higher, becoming more frantic, until her eyes sprang open. He gently tipped her head up to face him, making eye contact. Her green eyes were wide open, but she didn't focus on him… obviously, she was still in the grip of the nightmares, her brain still trying to process the horrors it had seen earlier that night. He put on his calmest, most reassuring voice, the one he used for nervous witnesses and children.
"Sienna, it's me, remember? You're having a nightmare. What you're seeing isn't real."
"Hunh?" Her voice was rough, dopey with sleep. He couldn't help wondering if she sounded like this whenever she'd just woken up.
"It's me… Goren? Bobby Goren? You're safe now." Elementary psychology, but it was what was needed.
"Safe? Okay." Her eyes half-closed. "I'm really hungry… that was a tiny bar of chocolate."
He couldn't resist smiling. It was flattering to realise that she'd been impressed by the old sleight-of-hand trick he'd done almost on impulse. Exactly what had been behind that impulse, he wondered suddenly? He could have just given it to her.
"We'll get you fed properly when we get back."
"You promise."
"Sure… I promise. Whatever you like."
"Uh-huh." She smiled sleepily. Then, before he realised what was happening, she stretched up against him and kissed his cheek, warm lips pressing against his stubble. "Said I'd kiss you for that…" And with that, she was gone again, relaxing into sleep against him. He glanced around frantically, but Whitefield was still asleep, and the driver and the other soldier had their eyes firmly fixed on the road. Involuntarily, he touched his cheek. Goren, you're NOT thinking that way about someone so much younger… except he WAS tempted, his body responding entirely too strongly for an innocent kiss.
He sighed again and stared out of the window. He'd never considered himself especially sophisticated when it came to relationships. Hell, by the standards of some of the people he'd encountered on the job, his tastes were positively vanilla, albeit inventive and imaginative vanilla, or so he liked to think. He just liked to be with an attractive woman, ideally someone who didn't mind his quirks, his devotion to his job… someone not entirely unlike his current partner, Alexandra Eames, it occurred to him. They'd established a rapport that he'd only just begun to realise that he was coming to depend on. He valued that too much to risk it, but at the same time, he realised, he was becoming attached to Eames in another sense, her unfailing ability to understand him, to act as buffer and interpreter as required, to enable him to free his mind and pursue the truth… Even now, he was mentally putting the past twelve hours' experience into words for her, seeing her sitting across from him with that wry smile in the Starbucks just down from One Police Plaza, leaning across the table, enjoying the tale he was weaving for her… The thought still didn't really distract him from his problem, the aching arousal that had flared up again at the press of Sienna's lips against his cheek. Glumly, he realised he was still avoiding his other problem….
No, he'd never considered himself particularly sophisticated… but he'd been around the block often enough to understand why he was responding like this. An attractive woman approaching you in a bar, at a party… that was one thing, and not something he'd ever been one to turn down, if he liked what was on offer. But an attractive woman who you knew you shouldn't touch, one who was so obviously attracted to you…
She'd done her best to hide it, but Bobby Goren did not need to exercise his detective skills much to pick up the way she kept looking at him. Well, that and the fact she'd obviously meant her comment about kissing him quite sincerely, and if he dwelled on that thought he'd only be making his problem a LOT worse. Someone who combined endearing youth and inexperience with intelligence and bravery… yes, THAT was a tempting combination, made all the more tempting by her physical attractiveness. It was very easy to picture those beautiful green eyes looking up at him, or maybe looking down at him, those curves out of the army fatigues she'd been sporting for the past day… easy, but not conducive to his comfort on this interminable journey.
He could see in her some of the same steel and intelligence that made Eames so formidable – still raw and unrefined, but just beginning to emerge. He could see her going to the top of her field, much as he was at the top of his, perhaps… and it was so very tempting, whilst she was still at this endearing stage of mixed inexperience, energy and determination, to respond to her unspoken offer, to smile at her, look into her eyes in that way that women always seemed to like, to see if she'd let him fully explore that warm, wonderful body that was currently asleep against his, to imagine how she might respond to his kisses, his hands, his mouth, his body….
… Tempting, but not wise. She might be casting glances at him out of the corner of her eyes, she might be flirting just ever-so-slightly (her warm body might be trustingly relaxed against his in a way that inspired decidedly improper thoughts) but he could not risk his career on such small signs. His instincts, both male and professional, shouted out that not only would she not be offended by his making a move, she'd welcome it, but his judgment, equally well developed, warned him that this was not a risk he wanted to take if he didn't want to risk losing his career on the wrong end of an accusation of sexual harassment. He sighed yet again, and closed his eyes. Perhaps if he managed to sleep, he might wake to find his problem had gone. Assuming his dreams let him rest.