Goren got into the car and he just sat there for a long time, trembling uncontrollably. He felt a strong sense of satisfaction for a job well done. He had succeeded in letting Wallace know, unequivocally, that he had won their war...and that Maggie had been the one to bring her down. But the effort it had taken to control himself, to not let her see when she got him-and she had gotten him several times-had taken its toll. He rested his head against the steering wheel as he was struck by the realization of how very close to disaster his life had come. He couldn't get a grip on himself. But he had to get away from the prison, away from her...so he started the car and he drove...and drove...
He had no memory of the time that passed, but when he finally regained control of himself, he was surprised to find that he was parked outside their apartment, and that nearly three hours had passed. Alex was going to have his head.
He slid the key into the lock and opened the door. The apartment was still dark. Alex wasn't home with the kids yet. Damn. He hated being home alone. The apartment was so empty without Alex, Maggie and Tom. He didn't even want to think about how pissed she was going to be. He took a shower and pulled on a pair of jeans and a t-shirt. The phone rang. "Hello?"
"What the hell happened to you today?" Logan asked.
He sat on the edge of the bed. "How pissed is she?"
"You don't want to know."
"Shit."
"You left at two, man. We expected you back by four at the latest."
"When did Alex leave?"
"Quarter after six or so. She's not home yet?"
"Not yet. She's probably eating dinner at her dad's. She always does when she's mad at me."
"What happened, Bobby?"
"Not now, Mike."
"Are you okay? You don't sound so good. She didn't do anything, did she?"
"No, she didn't do anything. I...I'll talk to you later. I just...I need to talk to Alex and I have to hug my kids."
"You sure you're okay?"
"Ask me tomorrow, after I've dealt with my wife."
Logan laughed. "I hear ya. You know the trial continues tomorrow morning. You going?"
"Hell, no. I'm done, man. So unless they want me back on the stand, no, I'm not going. Alex probably will, just to piss Nicole off."
"And you won't, just to piss Nicole off."
"Something like that. You can go for me."
"Ok, I will. Then Alex won't have to go alone."
Goren hesitated. He hadn't thought of it that way. Where the hell was his mind? "Thanks, Mike."
"What are friends for? I'll talk to you tomorrow. Get some rest, Bobby. You still sound like shit."
"I'll do what I can."
He set the phone in its cradle and laid back on the bed, just for a few minutes...he was so damn tired.
"Daddy?"
He forced his eyes open and slowly turned his head toward the voice. "Maggie?"
Her hand lightly touched his forehead. "Are you okay, Daddy?"
He smiled and pulled her up onto his chest, hugging her. "I'm fine, baby. I missed you today."
"I al'ays miss you when you're not aroun'," she said, hugging his neck and resting her head on his chest with a soft sigh. This had always been her favorite place to be, in her daddy's arms.
"Um, how is Mommy?"
"Mommy's good. But she won' talk about you."
"Great." He sighed and looked at the time. 9:38. "Isn't it about time you were in bed?"
"You didn' come with Mommy to get us an' I missed you. Are you sick, Daddy?"
"No, mouse. I'm not sick. I just had a bad day." He kissed her head. "But it's much better now. How about I tuck you in?"
"I was waitin' for you to do that," she answered, lifting her head to give him a big smile.
He laughed and swung his legs over the edge of the bed to sit up. Holding Maggie close, he got up and carried her to her room. He laid her in her bed with her bunny and tucked her in, leaning down to give her another kiss. "Sweet dreams, mouse."
She giggled. "I love you, Daddy."
"I love you, too."
He turned off the light and closed the door. He looked toward the living room, heard her moving around...but he wasn't quite ready to face her yet. He went into the baby's room. Looking into the crib, he was surprised to see Tommy sitting there with two vinyl blocks, banging them together. The baby turned his face up toward the figure by his bed and smiled. Even in the shadows, he knew his father's shape. "Dada!"
"Hi, Tom."
He held up the blocks. "Box!"
It was Tommy's favorite game, identifying things and naming them. "Yes. Those are blocks."
He set the blocks down and stood up, holding his arms out. "Uppy, peez!"
Smiling, he lifted his son from the crib and held him against his chest. Tommy hugged him back, resting his head on his father's shoulder. "Yub-u, Dada."
Goren smiled. "I love you, too, tiger."
He walked back and forth in the room, rubbing the baby's back and talking softly to him until he went back to sleep. Even then, he continued walking and holding his sleeping son. Gently kissing Tom's head, he laid the baby in his crib and covered him with his blanket. Standing beside the crib in silence for a few more minutes, he watched the baby's sleeping form. Then he left the room and headed into the living room.
Eames didn't look up from where she was sitting on the couch when he stopped at the end of the hallway. He leaned against the wall, trying to determine just how angry she was, but he wasn't having much success. She knew he was there, so he waited. When she finally looked up, he said softly, "You're angry."
"I don't know what I am. I called out to the prison. They said you signed out at 4:20. Where were you?"
"I, um, I don't know." He saw the shadow descend over her face, and he knew that wasn't good. "Really, I don't know." He crossed over to an easy chair and sat down, knowing from long experience that she would get up if he sat beside her on the couch. "By the time I got to the car, I couldn't stop shaking. I probably should have just sat there, but all I could think was I had to get away from there, away from her. So I left and I just...drove. I...I don't remember where I went. I remember getting in the car and leaving the prison, and then I was here. It was after seven, and I had finally calmed down. I took a shower an-and I fell asleep."
"Mike called me and told me you were home. Why didn't you call?"
"I...didn't think of it, honestly. I know I should have and I'm sorry. All I wanted to do was stop shaking and calm down. After I talked to Mike, I laid down, just for a few minutes. Then Maggie woke me up."
"Did she go in there? I told her to leave you alone."
"She was worried. It's okay." He smiled warmly. "She wanted me to tuck her in."
"Bobby..." She sighed. That was one argument she was never going to win. "Never mind."
"I didn't mean for you to worry. I am sorry."
She knew only too well how he got when something upset his carefully constructed equilibrium. "So what happened? Was this visit the train wreck I hoped it wouldn't be?"
"Actually, no. It wasn't. I mean, she got me, a couple of times, but she doesn't know she did. That's the difference, Alex. She doesn't know. I'm done with her, for good, and I left on my terms, not hers. She may have selected the course our relationship took, but I chose the time and the place to end it. And I had the last word."
Her voice was soft. "What was that word, Bobby?"
"Good-bye."
She smiled. She had been there from the very beginning. She had seen every drop of blood Wallace had drawn from his soul. She had picked up too many pieces after she'd shattered his emotional stability...taken him home from Delaney's too many times...soothed his wounded soul far too often...because of Nicole Wallace. And now...Wallace had struck her final blows and he was still standing, still in one piece, still alive.
"Come over here," she said gently. She turned on the couch to face him when he settled beside her. "How'd she get you?"
The victory had gone to him and, in his mind, that made it all worthwhile. Eames wasn't so sure about that but there was nothing she had ever been able to do about it. She had always seen her role as peripheral, supportive. The war itself was between Bobby and Nicole. Now it was over, and she had to help him get past those final blows.
He leaned forward and scrubbed his hands over his face. Start with the worst hit; it would only get easier after that. Softly, he said, "Do you know...how close we came..." His voice faltered and he stopped, struggling for a moment before he could continue. "...how close we came to losing...our kids?"
She watched him clench his hands into fists to try to still the tremor that returned with the realization of what those words truly meant. There was no doubt in her mind what Wallace had intended when she had taken Maggie and Tom. There was no blow she could ever have dealt to him that would have devastated him more than that. "Yes," she answered, her voice as soft as his. "I know."
She watched him, knowing enough to let him calm himself. If she reached out to him now, he was likely to withdraw out of long habit. By leaving him alone, she would let him be the one to reach out and it would save her a huge amount of effort in the long run.
"She said..." He stopped again, seeing her mocking face in his mind's eye. He drew a deep, steadying breath. "She said she would have gotten...great pleasure...out of taking..." Again he had to stop. "...taking their lives," he finished on a whisper.
He was all worked up again, trying to still the shaking and not having much success. Alex knew him well enough to let him work through it again. Only then could he really put it behind him. She was there for him and he knew it; that was enough. She closed her eyes. She hated seeing him like this more than he would ever know. But she knew as well as he did that in confiding in her like this, he would be able to excise these demons. It would be the last time he would have to relive this conversation, outside of his nightmares. Only time would take care of those, but it would, she was certain. Time, and a great deal of love and reassurance from her when those dreams and their attendant fears woke him in the night, sweat-drenched and trembling.
She wasn't surprised when he got up and began pacing, to burn off the energy built up by his agitation. He began talking, the animated, energetic talk she was so used to seeing when they were working a case. "It was Maggie...Maggie saved them by trying to find me, so we could go and get them. If she hadn't made that call..."
"But she did," she said quietly, steering him away from that tangent which would send him on a downward spiral she would be hard-pressed to stop. "She made the call and she hid herself and Tommy in the barn. She knew we were there, and she watched for one of us to come and get them. She knew we would come; she knew you would never let her down."
"But it was Mike..."
She recognized that he was on the edge of a very dangerous precipice and she had to talk him back carefully. "We diverted Wallace's attention long enough for Mike to get them to safety. We did what we had to do to save them. It was the four of us, not just Mike. We saved those kids. Now they are safe; she will never be able to harm them again, Bobby."
When she said his name, he leaned back against the wall, resting his head back, eyes closed, fists clenched. She waited patiently while he processed everything and found his center once again. It took longer than usual, but she understood that. He'd been knocked further off kilter than he usually was by the mere conscious realization of how close Wallace had come to dealing him a mortal blow by killing his children...their children. Mike had been right. Wallace had taken them to punish him for marrying her.
Slowly, his hands relaxed and his breathing returned to normal. He stepped away from the wall and returned to the couch. Without a word, he reached for her and she leaned into his embrace. Lightly, she caressed his hair. He gently kissed her neck...then her jaw...finding her mouth and pulling her close as he settled into a deep, prolonged kiss. When he drew back, she knew he was approaching his normal self again. She gently ran her fingers over his lips, grateful beyond words that he had been able to postpone his breakdown so that Wallace never saw it and never knew how hard she had really hit him. That was his real victory. She had hit him hard, but she never saw him fall. And when all was said and done, Bobby was back on his feet. She never hit him hard enough that he couldn't get back up, and he'd gotten stronger with every vicious encounter. He'd worked hard to defeat her-they had worked hard-yet his strongest ally had been a brave and stubborn four-year-old girl who simply wanted her daddy.
She remained silent, waiting for him to continue. When he was ready, he went on. "Nothing she said hit me harder than that. She tried to go down that 'you're going to become your father' path, but I wasn't going there."
"Good. I'm glad we really did eliminate that particular demon from your collection."
He turned his face toward her and he smiled. She relaxed. He was back. He slid his arm along the back of the couch toward her, running his fingers into her hair. "I don't know what I'd do...without you," he said softly.
"I never want you to have to find out," she answered.
He shuddered involuntarily and leaned toward her to kiss her again. No, that was definitely something he never wanted to find out. She gently touched his cheek and said, "Don't tell me that was all she hit you with," she said.
"No, of course not. She took me down the path of my own jealousy, reminding me about how...difficult it was for me, letting you go home to him every night. I had...a hard time with that...and she knew it. She saw me at the wedding...and she pointed out how my weekends always started at Delaney's...because the weekends really were...long and, uh, difficult."
He was unsettled, but not uncontrollably so. This was old territory they had covered before. He'd hit a downward slide she'd known nothing about the day she married Ricky, and it was Mike who'd been at his side through that time. Mike, whose friendship had become indispensable to him during her marriage and remained so...Mike, who was nearly as irreplaceable to him as she was...but not quite. What she didn't know, what neither man had ever told her, was just how far Bobby had fallen when she'd given herself to another man. It was something he had never wanted her to know.
"She, um, brought up your two pregnancies, with my children, not his. You know how she taunts, and she tried it with that. She pointed out how I knew what I was missing...and I did, eventually. It was hard; I won't deny it. But I tried not to dwell on it. And that brought her around to Maggie. She can't understand how I could love another man's child as much as I loved Maggie. But I did...I always loved her."
"Yes, you did."
He smiled again, a soft smile that thoughts of Maggie always brought forth. She let her fingers stray across his temple. Softly, she said, "Nicole can't understand loving any child, because it's not something she was ever able to do."
He nodded in agreement. "She reminded me that she hurt Maggie." His mouth twitched. "Then she asked if I was medicated because I didn't get upset."
Eames laughed. "Very good, Bobby. You didn't take her bait and I'm sure that got to her more than anything you could have said."
He shrugged. "I don't know. I got her good every time I told her that I love you, and only you, and there's nothing she can do to change that. She hates not being able to manipulate people, me in particular. And she sure didn't like the image of you sharing my bed every night, regardless of the path I took to finally get there." He closed his eyes as her fingers traced a path along the side of his face to his neck and back up around his ear. "Sh-she doesn't know me like she thought she did."
"And that pissed her off royally."
"Yes," he said quietly, glad to have the path of her fingers to focus on. "Yes, it did."
"What did she get wrong? She always seemed to have a pretty good handle on you."
He looked at her. "It was my relationship with you during your marriage to Ricky that she was most wrong about. She asked me how I could wait for you, but she doesn't understand that I wasn't waiting. Why would I? There was no reason for me to think anything was going to change. She wanted to know why I would settle for being your second choice when there were others who would have been glad to make me their first choice."
That was a painful fact she had to face, that it seemed like she fell back on him when all her other options were exhausted. But that wasn't the case. Not at all. She had always loved her partner; she had always relied on his friendship...and his love. It had been so easy to simply take him for granted, and she had without realizing that was what she had done. But he would never see it that way, never hold it against her. He never believed she had taken him for granted, not when he was the one who had offered his love and support, expecting nothing in return.
"She seemed surprised that I had dated during that time. I never sat around pining for you, like she seems to think. When Mike and I went out, he went looking for a good time and I...well, I have no idea what I was looking for. I just know I never found it, not where I was looking."
This was a subject she had never addressed with him before. "What if it had worked out with Ricky and me?"
"Then my life would have continued the way it was."
He hated to think of that, because he knew it wasn't going well. How many mornings had he woken in a strange bed, next to a woman he never remembered even meeting, with absolutely no recollection of how he'd gotten there? How many times had he gone home to shower and change, heading into work hungover and eternally grateful for his ability to function in spite of it? Logan knew; Eames did not. And it was something he never wanted her to find out. He really was heading to a very bad place back then. Logan had tried to help him, to put the brakes on that downward spiral he found himself caught in, but Mike had only been able to slow the slide. He wasn't sure that he had really wanted any help. He only wanted to stop hurting. His relationships with his dates back then had been physically satisfying, but he was emotionally bankrupt. No matter what he did, or who he did it with, he got no emotional satisfaction. Unknown to his partner, he was on a collision course with himself...until Maggie was born. That little girl had saved his life, of that he had no doubt.
"Would that have been a good thing, Bobby?"
No, it would have been a very bad thing. She seemed to be fishing for information about what he'd gone through, but that was something he really did not want her to know. "Why do you want to hear about this, Alex?"
"Because it's something you've never talked about with me before."
"When did I ever tell you about my dates? Why would that change?"
"Because I asked."
"There's nothing much to tell. I...got what I needed and went on. I had a string of one-night stands and casual relationships. I wasn't looking for anything, or anyone, permanent. I...I really don't want to talk about this, Alex."
Realization dawned on her as she put together pieces of a puzzle whose entire picture she had been subconsciously avoiding. "Tell me something. Those night I called you, when Maggie wouldn't settle down because she wanted you...were you alone?"
"Sometimes, no." Okay, so it was an exaggeration. It was more than sometimes, but she never needed to know that.
"Why didn't you tell me?"
"Why would I? You needed me; Maggie needed me. Anyone I was with at my place understood that. They knew that it was Maggie's crib in my bedroom, and they never minded taking a backseat to a baby. I...I never wanted you to feel bad about calling me when you needed me. And I really didn't mind. You and Maggie were always my first priority."
And that was the truth, from the very beginning of their partnership. More than one woman had left him because of his devotion to his partner, but that never bothered him. Once she had become part of his life, he found himself unable to put his heart into any other relationship. The brutal fact that she would never be his did not seem to make any difference to him. He was a gentle and skilled lover, but when a woman went looking for more from him, and they always did, he could never give them that, and they left. He got the most satisfaction from the casual relationships that demanded nothing from him emotionally.
"And the night I went into labor?"
He shrugged. "How could I let you go through that alone? Alex, you have always known that all you ever had to do was call me."
"And you would always drop everything to be there when I needed you."
"Of course."
"But when you needed someone, you turned to Mike."
He shifted on the couch beside her. "How could I call you? Do you think for a second I didn't want to call you? But your husband already thought I was sleeping with you. I couldn't make things worse for you by calling you in the middle of the night because..."
He stopped. How the hell had she gotten him on that topic? Sure he had needed her. But she was unavailable to him. And when she started making herself available, he found himself unable to reciprocate, because she was married. He refused to go there, even with her. Ok, he slipped a couple of times. She got to him, drew him in and refused to let him back out. But that had just made matters worse for him, because then he really did know what he was missing...and it had proven to be better than anything he had ever imagined. That had been torture for him.
It had been a very long and rocky road that finally led him into her arms. After she married Ricky, he began that descent into a darkness that drew him down and wouldn't let him surface. And he had no desire to stop the slide, in spite of Logan's desperate attempts including threats to tell Eames, which had been met by a deadly serious promise of bodily harm Logan was wise enough to take seriously. Then Maggie had come along.
When they had placed that newborn bundle, with her soft skin and dark curls, in his arms, his world had changed. Mike had been struggling to save him from himself, but Maggie managed it without ever trying. Her first smile had been for him. Her first steps had been to him. She had claimed his heart, totally and completely, and there was no one else in his life like her. With Maggie, he found purpose in his life outside the job. Not only had she thrown the brakes on his downward spiral, she had knocked it into reverse so he could back away from the bottom of the chasm he'd come far too close to hitting.
He found out with amusement that the women he'd dated from 1 PP thought his devotion to his partner's daughter was heartwarming. They knew that the crib in his bedroom was Maggie's, and from what he'd been able to gather, they all thought it was cute. There had been a collective feeling of disappointment when he had finally married Eames, but it was quickly replaced by a genuine sense of happiness that his restless soul, which none of them had been able to touch, was settled. They were relieved to finally see him truly happy.
When he remained silent, leaning forward and staring at his hands, she knew he was uncomfortable with the conversation. There were things about that time he never wanted her to know. At first, she had been very jealous of his friendship with Logan. But when she came to realize how vital that friendship was to him, she grew to appreciate it. She didn't want to think about what might have happened to him if Mike had not been there to try to pick up the pieces when her marriage had shattered his life. She still had no idea how badly shattered he had been. And she had no clue that it had been his daughter, and not his best friend, who had saved him.
She reached toward him and lightly fingered the graying curls at his temple. "I'm sorry."
He groaned softly. No...no...he didn't want that. He knew she felt badly about marrying Ricky, especially once she had a small clue about how he'd taken it, but he didn't want her feeling any worse than she already did. That was why he never wanted her to know just how difficult it had been. It had never been his place to tell her who to love or to pass judgment on the decisions she made about her personal life. He had no control over who she fell in love with, and he refused to punish her for following a path she thought her heart was leading her down. She had already punished herself plenty.
"Don't do that, Alex. Please don't apologize. Damn it, that was my problem, not yours. You had no hand in it. You had every right to live your life and I was glad you were doing what you thought would make you happy."
"Even if it made you miserable? I never wanted to hurt you."
"You think I don't know that? Of course you never wanted to hurt me."
"But I did."
"That's neither here nor there. If you had been happy, and everything had worked out for you..."
"Then those children would have been his. This life would have been his."
And his life, such that it was, would have been destroyed. He would have hit that bottom, hard, and that would have been it. But he would never tell her that. "As long as you were happy..."
"Oh, bullshit. I know you better than that, Goren."
"What do you want me to say? Do you want to know what it was like for me?" He caught himself, slowly shaking his head. "No...no, you don't."
He was getting worked up again, and she didn't want that. He was not going to sleep tonight as it was. So she shifted the course of the conversation a little. "You never called me Alex."
He turned his face toward her, confused. "W-what?"
"The entire time I was married...you never called me Alex."
"Oh. Uh, no, I didn't."
"That was deliberate?"
"I, uh, I always called you Eames."
"Sometimes you called me Alex. But after I got married you always called me Eames. Always."
He sighed. He could never bring himself to call her Alex. "It was...the right thing to do."
"According to...?"
"Me. I just...I couldn't call you Alex."
"Not even when we..."
"Please, let's not go there. I feel bad enough about it to begin with."
"You feel bad about loving me?"
"About...? No, of course not. But I do feel...guilty...and you know that. I should never have let you..." He sighed. But he did let her...because he wanted it, too. The guilt of it, however, weighed heavily on him for a long time. Had it been worth it? To this day he couldn't answer that. At the time, God, yes. But afterward, the guilt and the longing never went away. It wasn't so bad after she left Ricky and he knew, once the divorce was final, she would be his. But during the marriage...that was when it had troubled him deeply. Until the divorce became final, he had not been able to give her exactly what she'd wanted. Now, though...He smiled to himself, reaching a hand toward her and resting it on her leg. "I once asked Mike what he thought about me getting married, and he said it would never work, unless I was going to marry you."
"Was he right?"
"Yes, he was."
"Why were you talking about getting married?"
"It took Mike by surprise, too. He sent the cue ball flying off the table. It was just one of those random things that sometimes pop into my head. I was just...tired of being alone."
"And what was Mike's advice?"
"He said I should get a roommate or a puppy."
"That figures."
He tipped his head toward her and held her eyes with a gentle look and a tender smile. "It doesn't matter. It's all past and what's done is done. What matters most is what we have now. Forget about what was, Alex, and concentrate on what is, because I am happy now. I'm happier than I have ever been in my life, and that's what I care about...now. I have you and the kids, and my life is complete in a way I never thought it would be. So let the past go, and don't feel bad for me or for anything you did. I came to terms with it long ago. Let it rest in peace and just...just love me now, today...and tomorrow...That's all I need. You...and Maggie...and Tom. That's all."
She studied his eyes, and there was no doubt in her mind of his sincerity. She leaned into him and kissed him, pressing her body against his and forcing him back onto the couch. He groaned softly and slid his arms around her. He never understood her ability to so completely overwhelm him, but he never questioned it either. He simply enjoyed it because she was his and now he was free to love her without pain or guilt.