Eames pulled up to the curb in front of Goren's apartment building. He came right out and slid into the passenger seat. "You sounded tired on the phone," she said.
"I had trouble sleeping last night. It was too quiet," he laughed softly. After a month in the hospital he was used to beeping alarms and middle of the night blood pressures. "How was your first day back?"
"It was all paperwork, Goren." She didn't look at him. "And you can stop smirking."
He turned to look out the window. "Sorry, Eames," he said, but his smile stayed.
She continued through the city streets and eased the black SUV onto the highway. He hadn't said anything more and he seemed tense. "What's wrong, Bobby?"
He looked at her surprised. "What?"
"You're nervous. What's up?" He sighed heavily but didn't answer right away. "Having second thoughts?"
He certainly was but he didn't want to tell her that. If she thought he was intense, what would she think of his mother? God, he hoped she was having a good day. "Goren, do you want me to pull over?"
"What? No…no…I just want you to…prepare yourself, Alex. Visiting my mother can be a difficult thing to do."
Eames knew that very well—she could always tell when he had a difficult visit. It tore him up. She was hoping that maybe she could help him through those times. Maybe no one could, but she felt a need to try. "Don't worry about it, Bobby. She's sick. You can't blame her when she has a bad day."
He knew that…but he did. He always had. Maybe if she'd sought help sooner, instead of trying to hide her illness…maybe if she had taken her meds regularly…There were those 'what ifs' and 'coulda beens' Alex had warned him about. Yes, his mother could have made better choices, but she hadn't. Now he had to bear the burden of those poor choices…but at least out at Carmel Ridge, she was safe. She could not harm herself, or others, at least not physically. "Just prepare yourself, Alex. And take anything she says with caution."
She reached toward him and rested a gentle hand on his arm. "It's ok, Bobby. I'm not here to judge you." If she could handle seeing him lying in a hospital bed with a machine breathing for him, visiting his mother was nothing. "It'll be alright."
He rested his hand on hers and gave it a squeeze. He sure hoped she was right.
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The corridor that stretched back to her unit seemed even longer today. The unit secretary at the nurses' station smiled at him. "Bobby! It's been awhile. Is everything ok?"
"Hi, Sylvia. Everything's fine. I was just in the hospital for a little while."
"Nothing serious, I hope."
He shook his head. "I'm fine now. How is my mother?"
"The last week was a little rough but she's doing well. So far she's having a very good day."
Eames saw him relax a little as he introduced her to Sylvia, adding, "Sylvia does most of the work around here."
Sylvia grinned at Eames. "It's nice to be appreciated."
Eames returned her smile. "Isn't it though?"
Goren sensed the start of a conversation that was going to embarrass him if he let it continue. "Come on, Alex. Thanks, Sylvia."
"It was nice to meet you," Eames managed before rushing to follow her partner down another corridor lined with doors. Most of them were closed, but in some of the rooms with open doors, she noticed bars or wire mesh on the windows…on the inside…not to keep people out, but to keep them in. Goren stopped at a door three-quarters of the way down the hall. "Last chance, Eames," he warned. "Are you sure about this?"
"Go in and say hi to your mom, Goren."
Smiling gratefully at her, he knocked on the closed door. She followed him into the room, wondering if she felt as nervous as her partner looked. It was a nice room, now glowing with the light of the setting sun that streamed in through the window. In the center of the room, was a hospital bed, flanked to the right by a bedside table with two drawers. A matching dresser was set against the opposite wall beside a small cart holding a nineteen-inch TV, which was off. Two chairs were on the far side of the room by the window. Eames noticed the pictures that adorned the dresser…nice, expensive frames but no glass. There was Bobby in his green Army uniform, and one of him in his police blues. Another one with two young boys, maybe five and ten years old, on the shore of a lake, holding up the fish they had caught. The fish Bobby held was half his size. As big as he was now, he had been a small boy. His eyes sparkled with the innocence of a childhood that had not yet been taken from him. She smiled at the boy who had become the man who was her partner. The last picture was a school picture of a teenaged Bobby, serious, haunted, much more like the Bobby she knew.
Goren crossed the room to his mother, whose face had lit up when she saw her youngest son. Her once dark hair was now silver and she was a much smaller woman than Eames had imagined she would be. "Bobby!" she exclaimed, sounding delighted.
He leaned over and kissed her. "Hi, Mom."
"You didn't come by on Wednesday."
"I'm sorry. I couldn't get away."
"I've missed your calls, too. Those damn nurses haven't let me talk to you!"
He dropped to a knee beside her chair. "Don't blame them. I haven't been able to call either."
"You work too hard, Robert."
"I have to. But I'll try not to miss any more calls and visits. Ok?"
Her face relaxed into a smile and she patted his cheek. "Ok, Bobby."
He stood up and said, "Mom, I brought someone along today for you to meet. This is my partner, Alex." He met Eames' eyes. "This is my mother."
Alex smiled and extended her hand. "It's a pleasure to meet you, Mrs. Goren."
Frances Goren studied her for a moment before her face relaxed into a smile and she accepted the offered hand. Alex thought she could hear her partner exhale. "Hello, Alex." Her hand was warm and soft. "Where are your manners, Bobby? Sit down, dear." She continued to hold Alex's hand until the younger woman was seated. Goren sat on the edge of the bed and watched in silence as the two women began to chat. He wasn't sure if this was a good thing or not, but he was relieved beyond words that his mother was having a good day.
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Goren shifted uncomfortably on the bed as his mother laughed with his partner over yet another story from his childhood. He was decidedly uncomfortable, and he got the impression Eames was enjoying his discomfort. His mother's face was bright and animated, devoid of the paranoid shadows that lurked there most of the time. She was being a mom, enjoying a talk about her favorite subject, her son. There was not a single mention of 'them.' He really was beginning to wish they would find another topic, though.
After nearly an hour of chatting and laughing with Eames about her son's boyhood, she turned her gray eyes toward him. "So, are you going to tell me why you have been gone, Bobby?"
"It was police business, Mom."
"Always saving the world."
"No, just my small corner of it."
"Did they hurt you?"
Oh, God… "I'm fine, Mom."
He wished to hell he knew who 'they' were. He saw the shadows beginning to settle in her eyes, and he knew what was coming. She looked around the room. "They are after me, and they try to get to me by hurting you…Be careful, Bobby."
"I'm always careful…no one is after you."
His test of her reality…if she argued about it, she was on her way down a slippery slope that always ended up with restraints and medication. "Are you contradicting me, Robert?"
"No, Mom." Eames could not miss the pain that flared into his eyes. She watched his mother get up from the chair and head toward the closet. She heard her partner swear softly. He stepped to her side and whispered in her ear, "Go out to the nurses' desk and tell them to get in here. Wait for me out there. I won't be long."
She met his eyes. Lightly touching his cheek, she got to her feet and left the room. His mother didn't even notice. She was searching the closet for any trace of 'them,' muttering in the midst of her paranoid delusion. Two doctors and two orderlies came hurrying into the room.
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Eames looked up when he approached her twenty minutes later. He seemed a little stiff, and she was afraid he'd gotten hurt. She stood up and waited for him to say something. "I…I'm sorry it had to end that way."
"Are you ok? You got hurt didn't you?"
"I'm fine. It was a really good visit until the end."
"How is she?"
He looked over his shoulder down the hall. He shrugged. "This is more normal than not for her. Come on, let's go."
She watched him as they walked toward the exit. "Bobby…"
"Now you know, Alex. You know…what she's like, and you see what I see, every week. If you decide it's too much, believe me, I understand."
She thought carefully about how to word what she was going to say, knowing he was a bit fragile right now. "I think she was sweet, Bobby. I enjoyed the visit very much. It's not her fault she's sick. If she had cancer, I wouldn't stop coming to see her, so there is no reason for me not to come to see her again." She stopped and turned to look at him. "And I think it's important for you to have someone to share this with. You need me to be here for you, and I am not going to let you down. I'm not uncomfortable with her, or her illness. Not like you thought I would be."
He studied her face, read her sincerity, and gathered her into his arms in a hug. "Thanks, Alex."
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Eames headed the SUV back toward the city. Goren leaned back in the passenger seat and fell asleep fairly quickly. The visit had wiped him out. When they got back to his apartment building, she parked, gently woke him and went upstairs with him.
He offered no resistance when she helped him slide off his shirt, but she caught her breath at the bruise that was purpling across his lower ribs on the left side of his chest. "What happened?" she asked quietly.
He just shrugged. "She gets combative, and I don't let her hit the doctors or orderlies when I'm there."
"Today you should have."
"I'm ok, Eames. It just feels like a bruise, nothing more."
"Get in bed. I'll get you something to drink. Where's your pain medicine?"
He shrugged. "I never got it filled."
She stared at him for a minute. "Where's the prescription?"
"On the dresser."
"I'll be back in a little while."
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When she returned, she boiled water and made two cups of tea. One she set on the coffee table, the other she took, with two of his pills, into the bedroom. He roused easily, took the medicine without making an issue of it, and went right back to sleep.
She watched him sleep for a few minutes, then lightly kissed his forehead and left the bedroom, closing the door behind her. She sat down on the couch, turned on the TV, and looked for a movie to watch.