The key slid into the lock and she turned it. Pushing the door open, she entered his apartment with Logan behind her. She stopped in the middle of the living room and closed her eyes. She could still smell his cologne, and if she stood there long enough, she could almost imagine he was still alive. Almost.
Logan eased himself into the easy chair he had always favored here. He let his mind stray back to the times they'd spent in this apartment…the four of them…watching television, eating dinner—Goren had been a damn good cook, working cases, getting drunk… damn… he was going to miss the big cop who had come to be such a good friend. That was something he would never have predicted when he first met Goren, or even after he first came to Major Case. He kind of got dragged into it when Barek befriended Eames, and he was glad it had happened. He came to realize why Bobby had been such a tortured soul. He never developed that calloused attitude that helped deal with a past filled with abuse and move past it, like he had. Things always stuck with him and left him with a troubled heart. He had been so glad to see him with Eames. That haunted look vanished when he was with her, and he could almost find peace. Almost, but not quite.
She walked to the couch and slowly sat down, looking at Logan. His heart went out to her. She would never be the same without him. He watched the tears stream down her cheeks. He knew this would be incredibly hard for her, sorting through his stuff, but there was no one else to do it. And she wouldn't entrust it to anyone else. He had been her partner, her lover, her life…and the closest thing to family he had. His will had been simple. He left everything to her. "We don't have to do this now, Alex. We can wait."
"No," she said softly. "I…I can't keep putting it off."
He nodded. "What are you going to do with his books?"
"I'll keep some of them. The rest I'll donate to the library in his…his memory. They knew him there; they'll appreciate the thought." She looked around the room. She would keep some of his things, the things that meant something to her, things that would keep him close. Getting to her feet, she walked around the room, touching the binding of a book on the shelf, picking up the paperweight from his desk. It wouldn't take long to sort through his things; he wasn't big on possessions, so he didn't own much. She opened the cabinet where he kept his DVDs and scanned the movies. She pulled out a handful, ones that had meaning to her, to them. "You can go through the rest of these, Mike. I'm sure he'd want you to have whatever you want." She looked down the hall toward the bedroom. "I need to…to go into the bedroom. I…I don't know how long this is going to take."
"Take your time, Alex." He knew she needed time…time alone with her memories of him, of them.
She slowly opened the bedroom door and stepped inside. The door closed with a click behind her. She could feel his presence most strongly here. She sat down on his side of the bed, picking up his pillow and hugging it close, breathing in the scent of him that permeated it. "Oh, Bobby…" Lying down on her side, hugging the pillow, she cried.
When she'd cried out this wave of tears, she slowly, reluctantly, got up from the bed. She walked to the closet and pulled out his suitcase, laying it on the bed and opening it. Then she began the task of going through his clothes. There were some of his clothes she wanted to keep, just because they were his, and she had loved how he looked when he wore them. Then she set his dress blues in the suitcase, nametag and badge still in place. She ran her finger along his nametag. Goren. She closed her eyes and she could see him standing there, in the middle of the room, tying his tie and slipping the tie clip into place. He looked up at her and smiled that sleepy-eyed smile that never failed to touch her heart. She reached out her hand and she could almost touch him. Almost.
She felt a soft whisper of air brush across her cheek…a whisper of breath, like when he would come up behind her and lean close before he kissed her cheek, or her temple, or her neck… But when she opened her eyes, he wasn't there, of course, and she was left feeling even more alone than before. Sighing sadly and cursing her imagination, she turned her attention to the small collection of things on the dresser. Some things she already had at her place… his badge, his gun, his wallet, his watch…all the things they had given her at the hospital after he'd died…and his well-worn portfolio, which he'd left in the car when they took off after the suspect. He had little jewelry…his watch, a gold chain he wore occasionally, and his wedding band. Both the chain and the ring were on the dresser. She took both in her hand. The wedding band…she sat down on the bed and turned the smooth, simple band over in her fingers. It was the band he always wore when they went undercover as a married couple. Early on, it had been great fun to pretend to be married. Later on, they never had to pretend. Though they never took the traditional vows before a priest or magistrate, they had made vows to each other, deep in the night, when they had promised to take care of one another, and to love one another forever. The loving…that had always been easy. As frustrating as he could be at times, it had always been easy to love Bobby. His boyish charm, that impish grin that hid the realities of his past…no, she had never had any trouble with the loving.
Now taking care of Bobby had been a different matter entirely. He spent their entire partnership watching out for her, taking care of her, and he never gave her much of a chance to watch out for him. On the night he died, he'd been watching out for her. He kept his body between her and the suspect. His last act had been to eliminate the only threat to her that existed in that alley. And she had lost him, which had cost her dearly. There was more of Alex Eames in Bobby's grave than there was sitting here, on his bed, holding his ring and crying in a vain attempt to ease a pain that would never go away. She lay back on the bed, pulling the pillow into her arms and willing her heart to stop hurting.
When she could function once again, she slipped the ring onto the chain and placed it around her neck. She would never take it off again. Returning to the dresser, she took his bottle of cologne and tucked it into a pocket of the suitcase. She also took the only framed picture he had in the apartment, a picture of them, from the squad picnic last year. Logan had taken the picture. They had been playing ball, and Bobby had tackled her, bringing her down on top of him, laughing that rare, carefree laugh few people ever heard. They had forgotten themselves in that moment, forgotten where they were, who was around. Well, she had forgotten. Bobby never forgot where he was, who was around him. He had just decided that he no longer cared. He had kissed her…and ended years of speculation regarding the true nature of their relationship. Deakins had called them into his office Monday morning, wanting to know how long…and he warned them never to bring it into their work. That was it. He turned a blind eye to Bobby and Alex so he could keep Goren and Eames.
She kissed the picture of his smiling face, triggering a new wave of regret that she would never kiss him again. Setting the picture lovingly in among his shirts to protect it, she placed the pillow on top and closed the suitcase. It all boiled down to this one suitcase. Aside from the things she had at her apartment, her life with Bobby was in there. But the core of what he had been to her, the memories and the love, that she would carry with her always. She lifted the suitcase from the bed and set it by the door, before she turned and looked around the room. The window…which she loved to look out at night, to see the streetlights cast their glow along the streets of this quiet neighborhood, where he would come up behind her and hold her for as long as she wanted him to. Now she wished she had never let him stop. The bed…where they had first made love, and continued to for years afterwards. The bed…where she had cried in his arms when things overwhelmed her, when life got tough and crashed in around them and where, more rarely, he had cried in hers for the same reasons. The bed…where she had tried, but never succeeded, to chase away the demons that haunted his dreams.
Opening the door, she looked back one last time. She could almost see him lying on the bed, smiling at her. She could almost hear his warm, rich laugh when she found the one spot on his body, on his side below his ribs, that was ticklish. She could almost hear his soft voice, husky with emotion… "I do love you, Eames." Almost.