Welcome Back

Note: Written for thursday100plus at LiveJournal.

She looks up just in time to see him come in, and her stomach does an unexpected little flip. It startles her for a moment, sets her to wondering if this is supposed to be her subconscious trying to tell her something. Something like maybe she's got a bit of a schoolgirl crush on her partner. Or something like maybe she's not completely comfortable being around him anymore.

Neither of these are good options. Neither of these can be true. She cuts off the wondering. End of story.

She doesn't get up from her desk to meet him. Doesn't wave. Doesn't call out. He hasn't left her thoughts much in the last two weeks, but, when he gets over here, she certainly won't try to hug him. You don't fall all over your partner when he comes back from vacation. You don't treat him any differently than how you did before.

And that's where he was, she reminds herself. Vacation.

She sure in the hell isn't going to be the one to poke holes in his cover story, even if she did have to hear the truth from Deakins instead of from him. Finding out after the whole thing was a done deal still didn't make it much of a shock - not after weeks of watching him slip away - but she wishes he'd thought to give her a call before he checked himself in, rather than leave her to figure it out through a conspicuously empty desk and a couple of pointed questions behind closed doors.

(A surge of remembered betrayal, quickly beaten down. In Deakins' office, she'd pretended she wasn't hurt that her partner had asked their captain to be the bearer of his news. And when her partner makes it to his desk, her plan is to keep right on pretending.)

No, she won't be the one to let the real story out. She's done her part, combating the rumor mill with the occasional well-placed gripe about being stuck behind with all the paperwork while Goren's off relaxing somewhere. Must be nice, she'd said. Payback for the maternity leave, she'd said. Rolling her eyes or pulling a put-upon face, and always a chuckle with just the right hint of bitterness.

Good old Eames, playing along to her partner's chosen tune.

She turns back to the form in front of her, pretending to work while keeping him in her peripheral vision. He hasn't moved, standing by the door with his coat over his arm like he intends to block the exit for the rest of the day. He's looking in her direction - though whether at her or past to Deakins' office, she isn't sure - and she wonders if this is a cue for her to somehow set things in motion. She doesn't look up to find out.

You don't treat your partner with kidd gloves because he came back from a vacation.

Washburn has to pass by Goren on his way out, and he stops for a quick hello. She imagines she sees Bobby flinch when the other detective drops a friendly hand on his shoulder. She watches the muted exchange of small talk, watches Goren nod and smile before the two men move apart. His smile looks a bit forced to her. But she's probably imagining that too.

Now he's on his way toward her, acknowledging scattered greetings and some stray teasing about finally breaking his long running working streak. He appears clean-shaven and showered - and, yes, rested - a vast improvement over the last time she saw him. He even remembered to put on a tie today, something he'd actually missed on a couple of those last erratic days. He looks better, no question. Enough like himself to overshadow the careful steps with which he makes his way across the room.

Enough, almost, to erase her snapshot memories of his downslide. The dark smudges under bloodshot eyes. The obvious inability to focus. The day he wandered in nearly four hours late without so much as an attempt at an explanation. The night she found him pacing in front of the whiteboard long after most everyone else had left, jotting down fits and starts of garbled sentences that tumbled incoherently over each other when he tried to explain them to her aloud. A couple of 2AM phone calls with nothing on the other end but heavy silence.

Standing helpless on the other side of the glass for an endless stretch of time, her exhausted partner slumped and motionless with his forehead pressed against the one-way mirror of an empty interrogation room.

So better, definitely. Maybe all he'd needed was "a little time," as Deakins put it. A break. Just because he'd felt the need to disappear in order to get it, to exclude her in order to get it... The important thing was that he'd gotten it. That he'd gotten help. This wasn't about her, and she knows it. Mostly.

She still thinks he should've called.

But she pushes the hurt and the unwanted memories down under a smile, looking up as he's draping his coat over the back of his chair. He hasn't glanced at her yet.

"Hey, partner. Long time no see," she says.

It doesn't come out sounding quite as casual as she meant it to, and for a second his hands freeze on cloth and worn padding. Her hand tightens convulsively around her pen as she watches him sit down, moving like the floor might drop out from under him without warning. He's straightening things on his desk, hesitant to look at her. This isn't how she meant for this to go at all.

She leans in closer, lowers her voice. "Bobby..." she tries.

His eyes flicker up to meet hers. Dart back down to the desk top. Up to her again. Away. He looks embarrassed. No - wary. As if he's completely unsure of what she's going to do.

"Deakins... He - he explained? What happened?" It's so much of a mumble that his lips are barely moving.

Both of them have their eyes on the shiny paperclip he's rolling between his fingers. "Yeah. I talked to him."

There may or may not be a slight emphasis on that last word.

"Eames, I -" He shakes his head. Rubs the back of his neck. "I didn't know how to... I couldn't..."

She sighs. "I know. And I'm just happy you did what you needed to do. But -"

He looks up, hand still on his neck. "But?"

"But I can't watch your back if you don't talk to me. So talk to me, okay?"

She's rewarded with one of her favorite Bobby Goren smiles, the one that lets her know she's surprised him. It might not be as bright as she's seen it, but it's there. "Okay," he says decisively. He even sounds like he means it.

"Good," she says, smiling back at him. She cheerfully hands him half of her paperwork. "Now -"

"Goren, Eames." Deakins' shout cuts her off. He waves a fax in their general direction. "Vacation's over. My office."

Goren's on his feet first, suddenly and totally reanimated at the prospect of a new case. When he turns to her now, he looks more like himself than ever.

He gestures toward the office. "Uh, shall we?"

"Oh goody," she says sarcastically, getting up from her chair. "I can't wait."

"Me too," he says, all sincerity.

Alex snorts. "Welcome back, Bobby."