Author's Introduction:

While "Crazy" is my favorite S1 CI episode, when I fell asleep during the DVD containing "Jones" I woke up with this in my brain and couldn't get it out.

Until now.

I've Got a Theory

A Law & Order: Criminal Intent fic by Firestar9mm

"I have a theory on why certain men like petite women," he said, almost conversationally, to Talbott. "Want to hear it?"

The question was rhetorical. Goren never cared whether the suspects wanted to hear his theories or not. Half the time, he never even cared whether Deakins wanted to hear his theories or not. His mind was a coffee machine, constantly percolating, like the one in the break room that brewed motor oil. Whether anyone drank or not, it was a very important part of One Police Plaza, and so was Goren's brain.

But this time was different. It was more than a theory. It was a weapon. It was payback. Revenge.

Talbott's wife wasn't the only one witnessing atrocities behind the two-way mirror. While Denise Talbott had watched her husband ooze his "charm" all over Eames, fine tremors had shaken her entire body. Grief? Fear? Barely leashed fury?

Goren didn't know, didn't care—he had eyes only for the crime happening on the other side of the mirror. He figured he had felt the way Denise Talbott looked—rigid, barely able to contain the shivers of rage that were threatening to take over his body. He had wanted to grab Talbott by the collar, throw him through the two-way mirror. Jail was not a fit punishment for talking so familiarly to Eames, for assuming that she would want him to slobber all over her that way, not in Goren's eyes.

Now he was in the room, taking his revenge.

"Petite women are a…snug fit for small men," he said, lounging almost lazily against the wall. "I really think I'm on to something here. Makes 'em feel like the…Big Man on Campus." He laughed, the edge of hysteria that always lurked beneath his interrogation-voice audible amidst the mirth, but then his expression sobered. "I mean, that's how it felt…when you…made love to them." He couldn't bring himself to say "had sex with", not when he knew she was there, on the other side of the mirror.

"I like to watch," he'd joked once, eyes fixed on a security video that was evidence in one of their cases.

"I like to listen," she'd quipped right back. His favorite thing about her—and there were many things he enjoyed about her—was that she was the only person he knew who teased him back.

He propped his shoe on the table. "What size shoe do you wear? I wear a thirteen." That was pure ego. He wondered—a quick, fleeting thought that he immediately pushed to the back of his brain—if Eames was on the other side of that mirror, if she were watching—listening. She liked to listen…

"You look about a nine…or ten…"

Talbott swatted at Goren, an almost involuntary motion, the last action of a person who had nothing to say in their own defense. "Stop this—"

Goren chuckled wildly, nearly drumming his hands on the table in glee. "You have small hands, too!"

"No—" Talbott's voice was rising in panic.

Goren knew everyone on the other side of the mirror was just going to think it was good acting on his part—the Goren Show, as Deakins not-so-affectionately called it. But it wasn't acting. He was genuinely enjoying himself. This scumbag deserved it, deserved to be beaten down and belittled for the way he'd treated his wife, for the way he'd treated the murdered women.

For the way he'd treated Eames.

"That's it, isn't it?" Goren demanded, stabbing the air between him and the other man with a forefinger. "You feel inadequate! That's why you're always screwin' around!"

Talbott shot out of his chair like a geyser, his face so red it looked like the top of his head might erupt. Time to go for the knockout.

"All these women, they made you feel powerful. You could…dominate them…" Goren tried to ignore the words he was saying, tried not to let his baser instincts take over as he spoke of dominance and sex and killing and dying. But a small part of him knew it was already too late. He'd already given in to the reptilian part of his brain when he'd stalked into the room and asked Eames if she'd had enough. He couldn't be her knight in shining armor—so he was doing the best he could.

Kill the wolf at the door! Throw the body at her feet…

Protecting her from scum like Talbott was the least, and at the same time the very best, that he could do.

"Why don't you ask my wife?" Talbott spat, commanding Goren's attention once again.

He allowed some of his real self to spill into his eyes as he answered, "We did. She's been watching you through the glass ever since you came in with Detective Eames." It took all his strength not to glance at the glass himself as he said her name.

Talbott's face slid into an expression of panic, and he threw himself at the glass. "Denise? Denise…"

Goren would reflect later that it was machismo, and nothing else, that made him have the last word.

"You know what she told me? She takes drugs because you couldn't satisfy her. You never could get her over the…hump—"

It was completely unfair, as well as being unkind. Goren had already won. But she was on the other side of the mirror. Their suspect was a vicious, heartless bastard who couldn't satisfy a woman. He needed her to know that he, Bobby Goren, could. The level of testosterone in the room was tangible.

Talbott's head whipped back and forth between the glass and Goren, as if he weren't sure who he was angrier at, as if he couldn't decide who to go after first. Goren almost wished that Talbott would try to take a swing at him. It would almost be worth it to be able to hit back.

Instead, Talbott hurled the chair at the glass with an animal cry of rage, shattering it into pieces and revealing two wronged women on the other side.

After, in the shards that littered the floor, they faced each other. She tilted her head up toward him; he gazed down at her.

"Now she gets to go home and tell her kids," Eames said of Denise Talbott. She looked tired of trying to keep her small shoulders up under the weight of a long day.

Goren met those weary eyes and couldn't bring himself to care about the Talbotts anymore.

Now she gets to go home and tell her kids.

Now I get to go home, alone.

Now you get to go home…and do what?

Sometimes, looking into those eyes, he feared he'd never know.

Author's Notes:

I imagine that when I have these stories stirring my blood, finally succeeding in committing them to paper is akin to a good leeching. I'm so grateful not only to the USA network but also to the Bravo network for adding my Goren fix to my Grissom fix. I ought to be overdosed by now, but maybe you really can't have too much of a good thing.