A/N: Thank you so much to everyone who reviewed. I truly appreciated and you were all very enthusiastic. Thank you! This chapter is well... not that much is happening. Promise next chapter will be better, but this chapter had to be there. Also a question, I hope someone can answer it for me, it's a grammar question. Is it Alex's parents or Alex' parents without the 's'. I thought because Alex ends with an x the 's' there wasn't a 's', but I'm not sure. I know that when a word ends with an 's' there's just a ' and no s, but with an x I don't know. Hope someone can answer it.

Part two

Several hours later Bobby heard a knock on his door. Quickly he got up, hoping it would be Alex. Opening his door he found Lewis on the other end. Disappointed Bobby left the door open and walked back to his couch. Lewis could let himself in. A moment later Lewis joined him in the living room.

"I got a call from Alex." Lewis said, immediately getting Bobby's attention.

"She called you?"

"Yeah. She's worried about you and frankly, looking at you, so am I. What's going on?" Lewis walked to the kitchen, grabbed two beers and returned to the living room. Handing Bobby's his beer, Lewis sat down on a chair. He'd never seen Bobby in this state before. He looked as if he hadn't slept in days and there was a weariness in his eyes that shouldn't be there. That combined with Alex's call made him realize this was serious. "Wanna tell me about it?"

"Alex called you to check up on me?"

"Yeah."

Bobby swallowed some of his beer. Even now, when he'd made Alex leave him she was still concerned for his welfare. How could he have let her walk out of his life? "Do… do you know where she is?"

"No, I don't. Look, obviously something is going on. Talk to me." But Lewis already knew it was a lost cause. Bobby's mind was focused on Alex and Alex alone. He could not change that. So he simply drank his beer, waiting for more questions about Alex. Sometimes Bobby could be quite predictable.

"I chased her away, Lewis. I got so self involved that little by little I pushed her away until she saw only one solution. What have I done?" Bobby questioned, not really expecting an answer.

"More importantly, what made you do it? What made you chase her away?" Lewis doubted his questions were getting through to Bobby.

"How am I going to fix this? How am I going to get her back. I… I don't want to lose her."

Deciding to take another course of action, Lewis went with total honesty. "Maybe you're already too late. Maybe you've already lost her." That got him. Bobby's eyes were immediately on Lewis.

"Do…do you think..? No, that simply isn't an option."

"Then do something, Bobby. Talk to me or someone else. Just do something and try to fix this. Or you're going to lose the one person you've wanted most in life. Think about that." Standing up, Lewis emptied his drink, disposing of it in the kitchen. "Call me if you wanna talk." He called from the door before he closed it behind him.

Fix this, Lewis' words kept going through his head. How was he going to fix this? He knew he was a mess. To be honest he didn't know if he could deal with this alone. He didn't know if he was strong enough. He wanted Alex back, to draw strength from her quiet confidence in him. To see her reassuring brown eyes on his, to feel her presence, to know that with her it would be all right. With her he could lose himself, for she would bring him back. Now, maybe he would stay lost forever, because she wasn't there anymore to bring him back.

After leaving One Police Plaza, Alex had gone back to her apartment. She'd packed a bag and left for her parents place. She needed this break as much as Bobby did. She needed to get away. Going to her parents she could at least try to relax. If she was lucky she would also be able to spend some much needed quality time with her nephew. During her ride to her parents she called Lewis, asking him to check up on Bobby. She couldn't leave him behind without someone to check on him. She'd made Deakins promise that he wouldn't tell Bobby were she was. But Bobby was no fool and it wouldn't take him long to figure out she would be with her parents. Yet it would give her at least a day for herself, hopefully more.

Arriving at her parents she simply told them she needed some time away from work. They accepted her reason without questions and let her go upstairs to her old room. They both knew Alex would come to them whenever she was ready. After trying to get a couple of hours of sleep, Alex went downstairs. She poured herself a cup of coffee and went to sit outside on the porch. It was her father who joined her there with his own cup of coffee.

"I couldn't work with him anymore." She said to her father. There was no need for her to say this was about Bobby. They all knew her partner. "I just don't understand him anymore. I don't know what's going on inside his head. These last couple of months he seemed to become a total stranger to me. I just couldn't reach out to him anymore. We needed time away from each other, otherwise we would have ruined our partnership."

"Tell me about it."

And Alex did exactly that. She talked about Nelda, the way Bobby slowly started to drift away from her and of course the Tagman case. She talked about her own feelings and fears concerning Bobby. She talked about everything and her father simply listened. Sometimes he offered his opinion, but mostly he listened and that was exactly what she needed.

The rest of the evening went by relatively quietly. Alex was pleasantly surprised when she heard her nephew would be spending the next two days at his grandparents place. It was just the distraction she needed. Knowing she needed to get some much needed rest she went to bed early. Sleep didn't come to her easily, but after a few hours of tossing and turning she finally fell asleep.

TBC...