A/N. So, if I didn't post this now, I'd probably have a spaz attack from holding back this chapter. I like this fic, rather a lot. I write how I talk when I'm monologuing for Goren or Eames. And it's ever so fun! Guess what? Shock of shocks, I still don't own CI. Surprised? You shouldn't be!
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Alexandra Eames
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I see him give me that look across our desks, the one that quietly questions. Then there's the other one, the one that he wears when he's frustrated. The one that says, "What the bloody fuck?"
It's hard for him. He's got a lot to live up to, I suppose. The Great Robert Goren, pride of Major Case, and all that. He's just confused, and messed up, because he can't figure it out. I'm not surprised. Though Bobby is somewhat of a ladies' man, he couldn't spot romance if it Riverdanced in front of him in a chicken suit singing 'I'm a Little Teapot'.
Oh, I know what this is. I am a detective, after all. And I'm a woman. But I understand his unawareness. I was certainly clueless for long enough. No, I get it now.
I'll catch him staring at me sometimes. It sounds weird and impossible, but it's like I can feel his eyes on me. I never lift my head, never let on that I know that he's watching me. I keep my eyes down and brush it off. I tell myself that it's nothing, but I know that I'm lying.
There are times when he seems so alone that it's almost heartbreaking. I think that he's been abandoned so many times that he has a hard time trusting anyone. When I first got assigned to him, he was wary, as was I. I had heard the rumors about Goren: good looking, 6,000 watt bright and idiosyncratic to the point of near insanity. Demanding. Pushy. Moody. Well, I think that I did what none of his earlier partners had done: I gave him a chance. I reserved judgment, set aside all previously heard whispers that he was "a man on the edge". The edge of what, I would find out from him.
And he appreciated that. He didn't fully trust me - he had been through too much to trust so easily – but I could tell that he was grateful.
But he still seems so alone sometimes. I know that he wants to reach out to me. Hell, I've felt like that often enough. The longing to just be close to another human being, to feel that skin-to-skin contact, even if it's just to touch a hand or a shoulder, an inconspicuous way to generate the warmth that keeps from freezing you in your own icy shell of an existence.
But Robert Goren is as polite as they come. His gentile ways keep him from making anything more of this. And, of course, being overly personal with your partner is a departmental no-no. But more than that, I think that he doesn't quite know what to do about this thing between us. It's been building for a while, now, and I'm surprised that we haven't imploded from the tension. Sometimes we'll be completely normal, and other times we'll realize that we're so close to each other that we can hear each other's heartbeats, and the thing that we want most to do is to just reach out and press our lips together and to hell with holding back, because who wants to do that when something feels this right? And sometimes I feel that if I could just… just tell him what this is, it would all work out.
Oh, I know what this is. This sneaking, creeping thing that insidiously worked its way into our partnership, this thing that sometimes causes my breath to hitch in my throat and my palms to sweat and my mind to swirl because he's so, so beautiful, if a man could ever be described as such, and I just want to reach out before it's too late and I fall off of this precipice and I want to tell him…
I think that I love you.
Because that's what it is. It's love.
God, help us. It's love.