Eames was staring out the window, trying to hide her turmoil from those around her. She could do this. She could be strong because she had to be strong. But inside, her gut was roiling and fear had an icy grip on her heart. Nicole Wallace...her vendetta against Bobby had gone too far now. Her father...critically injured protecting his grandchildren, who had now been taken by the evil monster who had been after her husband for years. Now...she had finally found a way to get to him. She'd seen the look of smug satisfaction on her face when she'd gotten him with Croyden. And she remembered what she'd said to him after leaving Gwen Chapel with her aunt: "This is one more thing you've taken from me."

And now...she had taken everything from him. She hated how she was feeling, hated that she felt like she did. She jumped when Barek's hand came to rest on her shoulder. "Are you okay, Alex?"

"As okay as I can be," she whispered.

"Bobby's here."

Eames turned. He and Logan had just come into the room and he was watching her. She knew that look. He was entirely uncertain and he would follow her lead. She wanted to go to him, to lose herself in his arms and forget any of this had happened, so she could wake up from this nightmare and hug her children. But she couldn't make her feet move. She just stood there, looking at him, her face blank. But his face was not blank. She could clearly read his pain. This was torture to him. No one could ever have hit him harder or hurt him worse than Wallace had by taking the children. He needed desperately for her to reassure him. But she couldn't. This was Wallace's vendetta against him, and it had crossed the boundaries to an extremely personal level. Wallace was intending to rip him apart, and she was succeeding.

He just watched her. Her face was a blank, but not her eyes. He saw it there. He was right. She did blame him...and that he couldn't take. When she failed to move after a few minutes, he turned away. Logan looked at Barek, who shrugged. Eames turned back to the window, and Logan swore softly to himself. He looked again at his partner, eyebrows raised. She nodded and turned to Eames, draping an arm across her shoulders. Logan went to sit beside Goren, who had buried his face in his hands on the far side of the room...about as far away from his wife as he could get.

"What's going on, Alex?" Barek asked softly. Eames drew an uneven breath, but did not answer. "You can't be blaming him. This isn't his fault."

"She's after him."

"Yes, she is. You can't think for a second he wanted this to happen. Alex, I know you love your kids. I know how this is tearing you up inside, because I feel it, too. But, for just a second, put yourself in his place."

She pressed her head against the glass, fighting hard to suppress the tears, to stay strong...

Logan nudged his arm. "She's hurting."

He let his hands drop and hang between his knees. "You think I don't know that? I'm not stupid, Logan. I don't need someone to point out the obvious to me."

"Don't snap at me, man. I'm on your side here."

He didn't look up. "I'm sorry." He sighed heavily. "I...I told you she would blame me."

"She'll get over it. It's the grief and the fear. Come on, you know all this. She's just lashing out at the safest target."

"But she's right. It is my fault."

"That's crap and you know it."

"Nicole is trying to hurt me...and she found the perfect way to do it...to tear me apart...to tear us apart..."

"So you're gonna give in? Let her win? Come on, man. In all the years I've known you, I've seen you go through a hell of a lot. But I've never seen you two turn on each other."

Logan heard her approach and looked up; the raw pain he saw in her eyes drove an ice pick into his heart. He nudged Goren hard enough to knock his elbow off his knee. The flash of anger in the big cop faded quickly when he looked up and saw her standing there. He stood up, fully expecting her to lash out...a slap, a punch, anything...and he made no move to protect himself. But she didn't hit him. She closed the distance between them and threw herself into his arms. And she lost her strength and her control. She buried herself as deeply into his embrace as she could and she cried. He folded his arms around her, rested his cheek against the top of her head and closed his eyes.

He sat on a padded bench against the far wall, his head resting back against the wall. She was resting against him, driven to sleep by exhaustion and grief. Her hand was balled into a fist against his shirt. Logan was pacing near the window; it seemed the right thing to do. He felt like a coiled spring and he had no idea what to do with the potential energy gnawing at his gut. How Goren dealt with it all the time, he had no idea. Barek was sitting quietly near the window, her mind reviewing everything she knew about Nicole Wallace, looking for a clue that would bring her down. Deakins came into the room, his eyes moving from one to the next, relieved to see Goren and Eames together. He had been afraid Goren would retreat from everyone, even Eames. That would have done no one any good at all.

Logan saw him first and approached him. "Any word?" Deakins asked.

"Not yet. You?"

"No, but I have the best people on it. The press has pictures of Nicole and both kids. We'll get her." He nodded toward Goren and Eames. "How are they?"

"Shaky. It's tearing them apart, and she places at least some of the blame on him."

"He doesn't need that."

"I know. He feels enough of the blame without getting from her, too. But she finally went to him and let him comfort her, so that's something."

"I'll talk to them."

He headed across the room. Goren lifted his head from the wall as the captain approached. He sat down beside him and lightly laid his hand over Eames' fist. "How is she?"

"Exhausted. She, uh...she cried herself to sleep. I...I don't know if I can take this."

"Sure you can. You're going to take whatever you have to to get your kids back." He rubbed his chin. "I remember once, when Emily was little, we took the kids to the mall and she disappeared. Two hours she was missing. I've been a cop for a long time, and I have never known fear like that, before or since. I can only imagine what you must be feeling." He leaned forward and propped his elbows on his knees, watching Goren's hand lightly caress his wife's arm. "You have to know that we feel something of what you do. We love your children, and we have a vested interest in their welfare. Especially Logan. He's a different guy around your daughter. She smooths out his rough edges."

"She does that to all of us."

Deakins smiled. "I know." He sighed. "You know that this is not your fault, don't you?"

"N-no, I don't."

"Come on...you can't control the universe. You're a cop, one of the best. There's always going to be someone out to get you somewhere. You never feared that. But you can't take the blame for someone else's actions, and if Eames is blaming you, too, then you are both wrong. You don't need that burden. What you do need is to figure out where the hell she went so we can get those kids back."

He nodded slowly. "Yeah, I know what I need to do."

Deakins was quiet for a few minutes. Finally, he asked, "Bobby, what will Maggie do if she gets a chance to get away?"

"She won't leave her baby."

"That fact aside, what would she do?"

"She'd call 911 and try to find me."

The captain nodded. "I'll have the word put out then, so that if she does make that call, the dispatch centers will know how to handle it."

He shook his head. "Nicole won't give her that opportunity."

Deakins settled a hand on his shoulder. "You've been saying for years that we should not underestimate Nicole. I'm telling you now, don't underestimate your daughter."

He got up and walked away, pulling out his phone to make a call.

Eames woke with a start, pulling herself away from him with great reluctance. She looked around the waiting room. "No word?"

Goren shook his head. "I would have woken you."

She rested her head against his shoulder. "I don't mean to make this worse for you. I'm sorry."

"Did it make you feel any better?"

"No. It made me feel worse, to be honest with you. I swore on the way over here that I wasn't going to blame you, and then I did."

"You still do."

"I'm trying not to."

He leaned forward so he could catch her eye. "My biggest fear used to be losing you, having you walk away from our partnership. Over time, though, that fear has gone away." He stopped for a moment, to gather himself. "It's back."

She had not expected that, but hearing him say it, she understood. She leaned closer to him and softly kissed him. When she started to pull back, he drew her back in. A desperate need for reassurance drove his kiss, and her deep understanding of how he worked let her give him what he needed. When he pulled back, his eyes glistened. "I need you, Alex."

"I know you do. I need you, too. We can deal with this together. If we fall apart, there will be no saving either of our kids."

He nodded. Logan's voice came to them from across the room. "Hey, guys..."

The surgeon approached them as Logan and Barek closed in behind him. "John Eames..."

"My father," she replied.

"He took a terrible beating, but he's going to recover. He was very fortunate that whoever did this avoided his head. His head injury is minimal. He has some fractures-his left leg, four ribs and his right shoulder-and some internal damage, but nothing permanent. He's in recovery and he's waking up. We'll transfer him to a room on the post-surgical floor within the hour. Someone will be in to let you know when and where he'll be going."

"Thank you, doctor."

Goren shifted uneasily. "She...she didn't intend to kill him. She expected me to...thank her...for not killing him."

Eames looked at him warily. "You didn't, did you?"

He looked wounded. "Of course not."

Deakins returned with a tray of coffee. He handed Logan a cup, then Barek. "That doctor..?"

Eames nodded as she took the coffee he held out to her. "Dad will be okay."

Goren had moved away from the group and was talking on the phone. Eames felt her gut clench and she hurried to his side, catching the tail end of his conversation. But her tension faded quickly. She could tell from his tone that he was talking with someone he liked. "We didn't want you to worry. That's the only reason we waited. Um, no..." He glanced at his wife, covering the phone with one hand and whispering, "Your sister."

She nodded, visibly relaxing, until she heard him say, "Uh, the same person who hurt your dad...t-took the kids." She could hear her sister's exclamation of shock. "We're doing everything we can to find them...yes, we, uh, we know who it was...ok...yes, St. Vincent's...see you soon...thanks."

He closed the phone and looked at her. "I, uh, I thought your brothers and sister ought to know."

"I forgot all about calling them. I...God, Bobby, what good am I going to be if I can't remember a simple thing like calling my sister?"

He pulled her into a hug. "You'll be fine, Alex. Reggie will call your brothers and drop Jake off with Aaron's mother. Then they'll be here." He leaned over and looked into her eyes. "When she gets here, Mike and I need to go."

Panic touched her eyes. "Go where?"

He kissed her lightly. "I need to talk to some buddies of mine. They can help. But I won't leave before Reggie gets here."

"The last time you and Mike partnered together on a case..."

"You are still my partner, and you always will be. I'm just taking him along so I don't lose my damn mind worrying."

Logan frowned. "I'm a distraction?"

Barek kept a straight face. "You're window dressing, Logan. Just another pretty face. I thought you knew that."

He frowned at her, but Goren gave him a light punch in the shoulder. "You know what I mean, Mike."

"You, I understand. Now Barek..."

With the barest hint of a smile, Goren said, "I don't think you want to finish that statement."

With a grumble, Logan moved away from the group and focused his attention, and his indecipherable ranting, on the fishtank. Eames grabbed Goren's arm. "I am not window dressing, Bobby."

"I never said you were."

"I am not going to sit by and twiddle my thumbs in this."

He shook his head. "That was never my intention, Alex. I want you here when your dad wakes up, so you can talk to him and be reassured that he will be okay. You need to find out from him exactly what happened. I need to be doing something in the meanwhile. The second we know what we need to do, or where we need to go, it's you and me. Mike and Carolyn can back us up." He touched his forehead to hers. "But it's you and me. I don't work so well with any other partner, and I need to be at my best. The only time I'm there is when I'm with you."

She sighed, mollified. "Okay."

She stepped into him as he straightened his back and he slipped his arms around her. His mind had settled and it was working again. He had to be sharp to match wits with Nicole, and right now, she had the advantage. But he wasn't going to allow her that for long. He was going to get his children back, and she was going to pay the price for what she had done.