Disclaimer: I don't own Law and Order: CI and I'm not making money off this story.

Schuldig

Chapter Four:

Julia Bauer

Winding Roads We Walk

I don't know what possessed me to take him up on his offer for drinks and possibly dinner. And yet, here I was, sitting at the Tribeca Hotel bar, counting down the minutes till he showed up. I sighed and rubbed my forehead in frustration. I knew why I was here waiting for him. I was hoping to get answers.

His behavior had me puzzled. He acted shocked and almost happy to have seen me yesterday. A man who leaves a woman he supposedly loves does not react the way that Robert had. I spent last night in a terrible state, trying to figure out what exactly had gone wrong between us. The only problem was how could I ask him why he never came back without revealing why I wasn't at the farm.

"Hey."

I turn my head to see Robert standing next to my barstool. I started to stand but he held his hand up and slid onto the stool next to me. He was dressed in a different suit and shirt but had left the tie at home. It was odd to see him dressed like that when I had become used to seeing him in jeans and flannel shirts.

"Hello, Robert." He gave me a slightly pained look, most likely due to the fact that I refused to call him "Bobby." He ordered a scotch for himself as I was already nursing a cosmopolitan. He took a sip of his drink but remained silent. Perhaps he was waiting for me to make the first move? Yet another behavior that didn't match up with a man who abandoned someone.

"I'm glad you came."

He gave me one of those half-smiles that he always used when he wasn't sure of a situation. I had seen it practically every day while we were partnered in Germany. He took another sip before setting the glass down and folding his long fingered hands on the shiny bar.

"So am I," he started. "I guess I should start with the basic questions. Are you married now?"

"No. Are you?"

He laughed slightly. "No. How are your parents?"

"My mother died two years ago but my father is still running the farm. And your family?"

He sighed deeply and reached for his scotch. "My mother is in a psychiatric home upstate. My father died a few years back and I don't know where my brother is at the moment."

I knew of his mother's condition and how his father's callous ways and abandonment of the family had affected him. I had witnessed it firsthand one rainy spring afternoon shortly after our relationship began.

I had searched the house for him that afternoon. We were suppose to discuss possible suspects and meeting places now that he had learned the area and locals but he was no where to be found. I found my father in the kitchen, pulling off his rain jacket and hanging it on a corner hook to drip dry.

"Have you seen Robert?"

The lines on my father's weathered face deepened as he nodded gravely. "He just received a letter from home. I don't think he wants to be disturbed right now."

"Where is he?"

My father sighed deeply, knowing my stubbornness was legendary in the farming community. "He's in the barn, just don't push him, Julia."

I nodded my agreement and headed out of the house. It wasn't until I was half way to the barn that I realized I had forgotten my rain jacket. I was soak to the bone with the chilly late-April rain by the time I had reached the barn. I didn't see him in the aisle way, sitting on the hay bales as he sometimes did. I checked the feed room and the tack room that held the saddles and bridles for the horses. That only left one place for him to have retreated to: the hayloft.

I climbed the wooden ladder up into the storage space, the heady scent of hay filling my nose. There was no lighting in the hayloft, other than the dismal natural light that filtered in from the double doors that were used to hoist the hay bales into the loft. I had to wait for my eyes to adjust to the dim light but once they did, he wasn't hard to find.

He was sitting on one of the many bales, head down with the letter in his hand. Whether he was reading it or just mulling it over I didn't know. I wrapped my arms around my body, trying to stop the shivering as I approached him. My father was in the house getting warm, he wouldn't come out to the barn anytime soon and my mother never came out to the barn. We were safe from the world for a little while at least.

"Bobby?"

Immediately the paper was folded and slipped into his shirt pocket. "Yeah?"

"I heard you received a letter from home today. Is everything okay?"

"Yeah, I guess as okay as things can get."

I sat down next to him on the hay bale, not exactly sure what kind of comfort he would accept from me. There was still a lot I needed to learn about him.

"Who was the letter from?"

He looked out the open doors at the downpour outside. "My mother."

I nodded, though he probably didn't notice. He had confided me just a couple days ago about his mother's condition. I had never known anyone with a metal illness so the burden he carried I couldn't help with, unless he told me how to help him. I had gone to the library the other day and brought home some psychological manuals without his knowing, trying to educate myself on the matter.

"The letter didn't make sense?" I asked tentatively.

He shook his head. "No, it didn't."

But there was something else that bothering him. This wasn't the first nonsense letter he had received, I was sure of it. As gently as I could, I laid my hand on his arm. He looked down at it but didn't say or do anything concerning its placement. I took some comfort in the face that he didn't remove himself from my touch.

"What," he started but stopped. He inhaled shakily before continuing. "What if I become like her?"

He looked up at me as if asking for some assurance that he would never suffer from the illness that took his mother away from him. I didn't know enough about the disease to tell him he would be fine or he wouldn't. What I had learned about him he was a very logical man and that was the only thing I could use to calm his mind.

"What is the chance that you will develop it?"

"There's a 13 chance."

I squeezed his arm gently. "I'd sooner put my faith in the 87 chance of not developing the illness than the 13."

"My mother was diagnosed when she was thirty-two. There's still time for me to develop it. You can't deny that I'm not totally normal mentally."

"Yes, as a matter fact I can deny that. You definitely have your own way of doing things but there's nothing unstable about your mental processes."

"I'm afraid I'm going to get you hurt."

I shifted closer to him. "You let me worry about that and in all honestly, Bobby, I'm not worried at all."

The relief in his eyes was evident but there still was a trace of grief left over. I had a feeling that grief could never be erased completely from his eyes. He laid his hand over mine and immediately noticed the chill to my skin.

"You're soaking wet!" He immediately took his coat off and wrapped it around my damp frame. His warmth that was stored in the coat warmed me up considerably. He wrapped both his arms around me and I dropped my head to his shoulder.

"I trust you completely, Bobby."

I felt his lips against my forehead and heard him whisper, "Thank you."

I blinked back to reality, the scent of hay, rain and Bobby fading like the memory. I turned to see him staring at me intently.

"What were you thinking about?"

It was an honest, curious question but I didn't know how to answer it. How could I tell him I remembered that afternoon in the hayloft when they had held each other and cried over past wounds and personal fears?

"I was just...remembering."

He nodded slowly. "Me too."

We were not going to reach a conclusion if both us refused to talk about what happened. The direct approach was the only one that ever worked with him. Whenever he suspected someone was beating around the issue he only helped them find more ways to beat around the bush. It was actually something that I found very amusing whenever we were interrogating suspects. But it still, I had broach a subject that would only open a fifteen-year-old wound that still hadn't healed.

"Why didn't you come back, Robert?"

His scotch glass stopped halfway to his mouth and he turned wide brown eyes to me. Shock and confusion were all over his face, in such intensity it was not faked.

"I did come back." He set the glass down with a bang. "I came back exactly when I told you I would and you weren't there."

"I was in Berlin. I didn't have a choice about being there. My parents were suppose to tell you." And then it hit me, something I should have realized years ago. I had put my trust and faith in the wrong person. I should have known. "My mother..."

"Your mother was the one I saw that morning."

Guilt and shame overwhelmed me. "What did she tell you?"

"She said that you had ran away, months ago and they didn't know where you were."

Rage was starting to overcome my shame. My hands were shaking so badly and I didn't know what to do with them. "She knew exactly where I was."

"She said that you didn't want to be found."

"I told her to tell you where I was." I fought back the furious tears that threatened to show. "I had my suitcase packed."

"Where were you?"

There was the question I was trying to avoid but I had to answer him. "I was in a hospital in Berlin."

"Why?" The concern in his voice touched me incredibly. I wonder if things would have turned out differently if he had found me. My hands were still shaking so I folded them in my lap and pressed them against my stomach.

"I, uh, had pneumonia."

His forehead was furrowed and his hands were over his mouth. "I called all the hospitals."

"You did?"

He nodded slowly. "Hospitals, friends, police departments. I looked everywhere I could think of and no one had seen you."

"I'm so sorry, Bobby. No one told me that you had come back."

He gave me a triumphant smile.

"What?" I questioned.

"You, uh, you just called me Bobby, not Robert."

"I though you abandoned me."

The smile disappeared completely. "You should have known me better than that."

"I know." He was right. After knowing his feelings towards his own father, I should have known better. I should have realized my mother's treachery sooner. Bobby cleared his throat.

"Tell you what, let's start over completely." He extended his hand to me. "Hi, I'm Robert Goren but you can call me Bobby, if you want."

I took his hand and gave it a firm shake, relishing the feeling of being in physical contact with him after so many years. He didn't abandon me. He did keep his promise. "My name is Julia Bauer, it's nice to meet you, Bobby."