A/N: Yeah, so this was the Bobby chapter from yesterday. I figured it fits as well here as anywhere, because I don'thave nearly enough angst to actually fill up the six months that pass between the last chapter and this one.

Six months later . . .

Frances Goren's room at the Pine Brook Medical Center appeared homey today, with the daylight streaming through the open window and splashing across the pages of the book she was holding as she sat in her rocking chair. Her bed was made with real sheets and blankets, ones her son had gone out to buy the day she mentioned how thin and scratchy hospital sheets were, and she was dressed in street clothes rather than the shapeless sweats or hospital gowns many of her neighbors wore every day. And as if those things weren't enjoyable enough, her son had brought her non-hospital food - McDonalds, to be specific - for lunch today.

Yes, she was pleased to have these things, to not be stuck in an impersonal institution like so many she'd been in before, but what pleased Frances even more was that she was actually able to sit calmly and appreciate what she had. A clear mind had come to feel like a luxury to her - something that floated in every now and then, and soon enough floated away again no matter how hard she tried to hold onto it - and the fact that this state had persisted now for two months was almost beyond her comprehension. She didn't have any illusions about staying this way for any substantial amount of time -experience had taught her that she couldn't sustain her lucid state when left to her own devices - but she was thankful for the time she had now, today. The ability to sit and talk with one's child was not to be taken for granted.

And as she sat, alternately talking to him and inhaling a cheeseburger, she could see that he was unhappy. Bobby had trouble maintaining happiness the same way she had trouble maintaining mental clarity, and, as he did so often for her, she owed it to him now to sit, listen, and try to help. "Robert," she finally said, putting down the remnants of her lunch and reaching out to take his hand, "tell me, do you ever . . . go out? Do fun things? Have you made any friends here, since you left New York?"

He looked taken aback by the question for a moment, then quickly shifted his eyes away from her, looking out at the small garden visible through the window of her room. "Mom . . ." he said, shrugging. "We're here so you can get treatment, not so I can make friends."

"I'm schizophrenic, Bobby, not senile," she reminded him sharply. "I know avoidance when I hear it. Answer my question."

With a sigh, he looked back at her and shook his head. "I'm not interested in going out and doing things. I spend my free time here, with you, or working. I don't see a problem with that."

"Of course you don't. You also don't think you deserve to have anyone care about you. And you're wrong on both."

"It's not a matter of what I think I deserve," he protested. "It's just . . . the way the timing worked out. I have . . . more important concerns right now than making friends."

Her mind was still foggy in a lot of places, and she second-guessed her every thought for fear that the delusions might be creeping back, but she knew her son well enough to know she had seen something in his eyes when he responded to her question. "Do you ever speak to your friends in New York?" she pressed, searching for the sore spot she thought she'd hit. "Or to your old partner?"

Unprepared for that salvo, he jerked violently and dropped her hand. "I . . . no. We . . . we don't have that much in, uh, in common anymore."

"You may be across the country, but you're both police officers, Bobby. Things haven't changed that much. What's the real reason you don't talk to her?" She paused, trying to think. "It was a 'her,' right? Amy . . . Anne . . . something like that?"

"Alex," he supplied reluctantly. "She's sent you a couple cards, remember? And we just didn't part on . . . very good terms. Not the kind of thing that would keep the lines of communication open." Before she could comment on that, as he knew she would, he quickly stood up and added, "I've got to get going. I told my partner I'd only take an hour for lunch. I'm going to be cutting it close."

"Robert." She said his name in a tone he hadn't heard since childhood - a tone that warned him that he was pressing his luck and he'd better watch his step - and he was torn between the urge to smile at the reassertion of her old self or run from the sharp-witted woman who'd obviously heard more in his words than he'd wanted to let her hear.

"Yes, Mom?" he sighed, moving toward the door even as he said it.

"It's hard enough to make good friends the first time around. Don't push away the ones you've got." Her point made, she gave him a gentle smile. "Enjoy the rest of your day, sweetheart."

xxxx

His partner, Riley, wasn't at his desk when Bobby returned to the squad room that afternoon. Thankful for the respite - Riley was a nice guy and he tolerated Bobby's idiosyncrasies with little fuss, but he never stopped talking - Bobby sat down, stole a quick glance around the rest of the room to make sure no one was too close to him, and opened his portfolio.

Safely stowed in a clear plastic sleeve at the front of the binder was a picture of her. It was a few years old, from well before they'd been anything other than partners, and looking at it always made him think of the light-hearted sarcasm she had been so full of before . . . well, before things went wrong. It had been taken by her brother at some family dinner or another, and when he'd seen it after it was developed and asked her if he could have a copy, she'd told him he was welcome to it.

In it, Alex and her older sister were hanging upside-down by their knees from the monkey-bars at a playground near her parents' house. Both women were grinning like fools, not caring in that moment that they were both thirty years past monkey-bar age, or that all the blood was rushing to their faces, or that their hair was brushing the sawdust-covered ground.

By the time he'd kicked her out of his apartment six months ago, that playful, fearless Alex had gone into hiding.

"That your girlfriend?" asked a voice over his shoulder.

Startled, Bobby slammed the portfolio closed and looked up at his temporary partner, who held out a cup of coffee and looked pointedly at the portfolio. "Thank you," Bobby managed, accepting the coffee. "And no."

"I've been wondering what you keep in there," Riley commented as he circled around to his own desk. "You don't exactly hide it, but somehow you still keep people from seeing it. If it's full of pictures like that, I can see why. Don't want anyone poaching on girls that pretty."

"It's . . . not anyone important," Bobby said with a shake of his head. "Sorry about being late from lunch."

"Eh, no problem," Riley said, waving his hand dismissively. "Nothing good happens around here between twelve and one, anyway. Well, except the mail. And speaking of which, your mother got another card." Plucking a brightly-colored envelope out from under the stack of mail on his desk, he slid it across to Bobby. "I don't know what she's sick with, but whatever it is, if it gets her this many cards and letters, I want it too."

Bobby ignored that as he picked up the envelope and checked the address. It had been sent to Mrs. Frances Goren, c/o Robert Goren, from Ms. Alexandra Eames. In the months after he and his mother had moved, Alex had taken to sending Frances a card every week or two, even though he knew she knew that Frances probably didn't remember the single time they'd met. The cards never contained long messages - the last one had just said Hope things are going well - and they never, ever said a word about him except for using his name in the mailing address. This one was no different, he saw as he pulled out the card. A picture of an old man in a hospital gown on the front, a short inscription on the inside, this time a joke: I bet the hospital food is terrible, but where else are you going to get to see so many men's butts in one place? He choked on a laugh when he read it, wondering what his mother was going to make of the humor.

"Everything ok over there, Goren?" Riley said, looking up from his day planner to see why his partner was making strange noises. "And by the way, who is this 'Alexandra' who sends so many cards?"

"No one," Bobby snapped, shoving the card into his portfolio and making a mental note to deliver it to his mother that night. "Just a friend."

"Well, your mom's got a faithful friend," Riley said with a grin. "Got to hang onto those ones when you find them."

Bobby just grunted, wondering why his mother had picked today to interrogate him about his social life and why his temporary partner had had to phrase his comment just the right - well, wrong - way on the same day.

"You sure you don't want to tell me about the girls in that picture?" Riley pressed when he realized that Bobby was trying to ignore him. "Because I'll take whichever one you don't want."

"Her sister's married," he snapped without thinking.

Riley raised his eyebrows, looking intrigued now. "Who's the 'her,' and which one is she?"

"She . . . she's no one. Forget it." He dropped the portfolio into a drawer and slammed it shut.

Unfortunately for Bobby, verbosity and intelligence weren't mutually exclusive, and Riley was smart enough to connect the two "no one"s Bobby had mentioned. "Is she the 'no one' whose name is Alexandra, by any chance?"

He wished he hadn't already slammed the drawer, because he would have loved to slam it again, even harder this time.

"Hmm, 'Alexandra,'" Riley repeated to himself when Bobby's reaction clearly showed that he'd hit the nail on the head. "Sounds exotic. So, she's not married?"

"Drop it, Riley."

"You know," he went on, ignoring the warning implicit in Bobby's tone, "for a girl who's just a friend of your mom's, you certainly seem very . . . possessive of her. You sure she's not anything else to you?"

"I said drop it, Riley. Now, before I decide to make you drop it."

"Hey, ok," he replied placatingly. "I was just askin'. Go on and keep her a secret if it makes you happy; we got work to do this afternoon."

If it makes me happy? Bobby thought to himself ten minutes later as he divvied up a pile of phone dumps between Riley and himself. No, it damn well doesn't make me happy, but what else am I supposed to do? If she'd forgiven me, she'd have called . . . and she hasn't.

TBC . . .