title: of the midnight sun
author: midnightblue
rating: pg-13 to R
category: angst/drama
disclaimer: The characters aren't mine, I promise. Though I'd love to kidnap them.
summary: Goren and Eames casefile. How do you see in the dark?
"And your saintlike face and your ghostlike soul..."
i. The Confluence
Once, when he was a child, he wandered off alone just to see if he could make it. But the first time he tripped over a bump in the road, picking at the gravel littering the scrape on his knee, he started to wonder if it was the shorter journey, just to go home.
And it was quiet, that night, with just the leftover warmth of early evening's sun giving way to a premature autumn chill. Crickets chirped and randomly harmonized and in between the stings ("his mom's such a freak") and memories ("don't you hear the voices, too, Bobby?"), he tried to catch enough fireflies to see his way back home in the encroaching darkness.
He's always certain that it took him ten minutes to get lost and he didn't make it home for another three hours, sidestreets playing games with the virgin memory of a child. So that's where his story began: wandering lonely on empty streets that were all too easy to find; searching for light enough to ignite signs amidst the dark.
When he finally made it home that night, there were leaves in his hair and dirt stains on his blue-and-grey striped shirt. He was marked by things he didn't understand, and the fireflies cradled in his hand had died along the way.
His mother slept on the couch, her back to him. He stopped beside her, hoping she would sense his presence and awaken, hug him, wash his face, chide him with a smile, and tuck him in with a nightlight. But he was seven years old then and he was meant for places others dare not go. The kitchen light didn't come on when he flipped the switch.
It started; he was meant for darkness.
One firefly fluttered its wings a final time as he went to wash it from his hands. Briefly, he started at the idea that it might still be alive. But then it ceased its movement and the fire blew out and that's when he began to search--
for illumination.
To see what the dark looked like.
It goes like this, for her, because she doesn't believe in endings.
Some would blanch at this, and they have, because how can she do this and not see the finality in all the lives she's spoken for, and, subsequently, derailed (in the name of justice)? But those aren't endings, they're just transitions.
She never says that out loud, because it's maudlin and simplistic and it sounds like a euphemism, which is just the easy way out. So when they ask, she never answers. But she knows, she knows. Her entire life is a passage from memory to memory, like skipping on stones to cross an unending river.
Once, she was Alexandra; thirteen and perky. Then her dad was a dirty cop and she was Alex, because she had to change, she had to be what he had been, but beyond, and beyond. The makeup-laced slumber parties faded away, replaced with reruns of Dragnet and sitting beside her father's left knee (the easiest way to block out the sun). Alex would recite the opening mantra by heart and sometimes she'd call him 'Joe Friday' and on his last cigar once, before she went to bed (but not in front of her mother), she said, "Being a policeman is an endless, glamourless, thankless job that's gotta be done. I know it, too, and I'm damn glad to be one of them."
There was a tear in his eye when she left the room and he'd never been able to properly return the favor. But she knew, always knew, and it was his long silences and the way his bottom lip would quiver after he took a sip of Scotch, that prompted her to do it.
Then she was seventeen and prom queen, a strange transition, but even then, she could play the part. When she tells the story to people, years later, they form romantic visions of a glamorous Alex Eames in her pink lace dress, with her gallant date, arriving in a limo and finishing out the rest of her high school years in esteemed popularity. If they bothered to ask, they'd know that it never turned out that way, because a week after prom, her kid brother was in the living room with a ripped shirt and a broken nose and his tears were stinging the cuts that littered his face. So when she stepped further into the room and ran a hand quickly through his brown curls, she felt a stirring within her. It would be the first time, but never the last. It was a beginning, because she would do this for the rest of her life; Alex Eames, avenger of broken noses. And cuts. And everything wrong in the world that never should be. She finished out her last year of high school in relative solitude. But she came home one night and there was her brother, Patrick, in the chair at her desk. They hadn't spoken since she'd gone after his attackers and she'd assumed he was angry and embarrassed at her behavior. She was partially right. But then he laid an album on her bed and squeezed her to him so quickly, she couldn't reciprocate the hug. In his wake were strains of "Like a Rolling Stone" and her, smiling in the dark.
There was early adulthood, and alcohol and cigarettes, after the sex that meant the least. The men were young and she grew old, in spite of them. Some would whisper sweet promises against her skin and when she was all alone the next morning, she traced the outline of their lips where the sun ignited shadows.
The first time she believed in love, she slipped a gold band on her finger and made a promise and thought of which parent her children would take after more. But then, he was a cop, and when you're a cop, she knew, you sign an invisible contract with Death. Like most contracts, there's often an awful truth in the fine print. The day he died, she came home to an empty house and looked through her closet, uncertain; they were the clothes of a different woman, a married woman. It was his highlighted TV Guide that did her in.
When Josh died, it wasn't an ending, it was a 'moving on' and a 'moving beyond', because it doesn't hurt as much when the stark tan line, where her ring had once been, starts to disappear.
Once, she was so close to another living being that she could pat her stomach and feel it move and it was the most important thing she'd ever done. It couldn't be hers, though, because, she was made for carrying life and continuing it, but never holding it long enough to say she knew what purely unselfish love was. Then again, she didn't believe in purely unselfish love.
All love was, in its rawest form, about who you were, with a person. And who you couldn't be, without them.
Somewhere, in all of this, she met Bobby Goren, with his can you help me, I'm a little lost eyes and his you're going to love me smile. He moved across moments in time like he'd been given the code to all of humanity's secrets. It was a blessing, and a burden, and it wore him like a shadow.
There is a truth within.
She needs him, to forget ghosts.
ii. On Empty Rings Around the Sun
A sigh is customary, because these deaths are always painfully premature. This case, however, warrants a moan and resigned swipe at the eyes from Eames. It pulls a hand-over-the-mouth gesture from Goren.
Formaldeyhyde and death fight for olfactory dominance.
"She wasn't even on the job."
"She was...with someone."
Eames looks closer. Lip gloss. Then, another smell. Perfume.
"Someone special," she adds. "And possibly homicidal. Out of his mind, too, to murder a cop."
A cop. Inwardly, they both wince.
Bobby runs his gloved pointer finger through a few strands of hair, then tilts her head gently to look at the fatal wound at the base of her neck. Small, but deadly. It would've killed her instantly, but she wasn't taken by surprise. A quick glance at the hair again. Short and dirty blonde. Like Eames. He pulls back, to gaze at her face. Angular jaw, creamy skin, sturdy mouth, belying a warmth underneath (he suspects). Like Eames. His left hand comes to rest on the gurney. Petite, strong arms, seasoned and firm.
The room is silent, for only a moment, and then, she is Eames. The still, pale corpse. His right hand grips the gurney and he draws a prounounced breath.
"No defensive wounds," she breaks the horrifying silence. Bobby is still silent, and she finds herself in a rare position, taking the lead. It's both refreshing and unnerving. Leaning forward, she gets a closer whiff of the perfume. A few things start to click, though she questions their pertinence.
"She's like me."
Bobby's head shoots up. His mind is having fun, playing cruel tricks.
"Didn't get out much," she says with a sad smile. "Really cheap perfume; the only dress she owned was the one she died in."
He holds her gaze a minute longer than usual and feels confident in speaking once again.
"She was...relaxed, content. Her hair--she showered right before their date, but she was barefoot; they spent the night in. H-he cooked, they watched a movie, he rubbed some lotion on her shoulders, her neck..."
"The same neck he mutilated."
Bobby straightened and snapped his gloves off.
"We need to speak with her coworkers, her...partner."
Within him, an uneasy feeling starts to manifest.
The first thing he notices in her desk is a Bob Dylan CD. The jacket is fringed at the left corner and the CD itself is missing, but he smiles, in spite of himself.
"Good taste," remarks Eames. He raises a questioning eyebrow in her direction.
"I do listen to music," she says by way of explanation, and he drops the CD into an evidence bag, doubting it will provide any clues about the murder, or her murderer. But at least they have a clearer profile of her. And the more you know, the more human they become; the less they remain stiff bodies void of circulating blood and life-giving breath. The quicker they come alive again, for a short time.
He seems Eames pause in looking through Detective Fischer's files as she stands up to greet the stranger standing before them in a rumpled suit and sloppily looped tie. Even his hair is coming away from his scalp in pointy slants of wayward misdirection.
"I'm Detective Eames, this is Detective Goren."
Bobby nods to the man in acknowledgement, who continues to stand. He sticks his left hand in his pocket and begins to play with some loose change.
"Elyer. Paul Elyer. I'm--I was," around the catch of a breath, "Angie's partner."
Angie? Bobby mouths to Eames, and she shrugs.
"Detective Elyer, can you tell us about your recent cases?"
He sighs and tugs on his tie, ruining its alignment even further. This time, he sits in a chair with wheels and runs his left hand back and forth along the armrest.
"We'd just been undercover, less than a week ago. Uh, I mean, we'd just finished it. We suspected this organization of perpetrating a scam upon its clients and we--" he chuckles for a moment, remembering. "We had to go undercover--we were enmeshed for about two weeks. We were this dorky couple, with conspiracy theories and wild beliefs. It was fun, it was--"
His hand stills and falls into his lap, he sinks into the chair until his legs are sprawling in front of him and his neck is cradled upon stiff plastic. Silence finishes his thought.
Bobby waits a breath before questioning. "What was the organization?"
Elyer prolongs his stasis a moment longer before raising up and meeting Bobby's eyes.
"A group for people who believe they've been kidnapped by UFOs, or witnessed some sort of paranormal, or--or extraterrestrial occurrence. Like, The X-Files, you know? I was Mulder, she was Scully...well, reversed, actually. I'm the skeptic. She played the part very well. She always did, she was the best."
He shoots up from the chair now, pulling his tie fully out and tossing it on his desk, in front of Alex.
"You say you just left; no one was suspicious?"
"Well, we planned that. Provided we couldn't find anything substantial, we set it up so we were just in town, visiting, thinking of moving here, the usual. Those people will believe anything, really, it wasn't hard."
"Can you give us the name and contact information?"
"Sure, but--"
"We'll circumvent the real reason for questioning, for now, we just need to know what we're dealing with."
He writes the information hastily on a notecard, hands it to Alex, and walks to the coffee machine.
"I think that's all we'll get from him for now. Plus, he could use a pause," she says as they gather up their stuff.
"Angie?"
"They seem to have had a very friendly partnership."
She smirks as she says it, opening the door of the SUV and quickly climbing in, away from the cold.
He wants to say something, to reassure the doubt hiding behind her wit. Just because he doesn't use her first name doesn't mean--
"Eames."
"Hmm?" as she turns the key in the ignition.
"You are Alex...to me...I just--"
Care too much to use it, to open the door and cross the threshold and lay bare emotions which, until now, have been safely dormant and unobtrusive. If I say the name, it will mean everything it shouldn't, it can't.
"Bobby. Mulder and Scully didn't use first names, either," with a wink.
Files litter his desk, seeming to grow with each second, and yellow post-its with reminders and theories lay atop them, some even spreading across to Eames's desk, and burying the forever jovial smile plastered across their joint pencil holder, the Santa mug. He starts to bite at the pencil currently between his teeth and when an awful taste takes hold of his tongue, he pulls it away, wondering when this had become a nervous habit. Old bitemarks trail from the eraser up. Yesterday--he'd started yesterday. Suddenly, minute details are fleeing from his mind, making his jumbled thoughts as scattered as the post-its, and as tangible as the glue that holds them to surfaces.
His eyes rest upon one cradling the small space between the edges of their desks. "Trivia. 9 p.m. Murphy's."
Eames continues writing as she inches her eyes up to meet his question.
"Sean--those games he does at the bar. He invited me along tonight, for some reason. Must be desperate. Single men," she finishes with a shrug.
"Your little brother..."
"Remember that case--"
Bobby nods his head and a knowing look paints her face. Of course he does.
"You should come sometime, you'd probably show him up. Now that, I would like to see. He needs a little straight pin to the ego once in a while."
Bobby smiles. "Maybe. But this case is going to eat up all of our spare time."
"That's why I'm only stopping by to say hello and grab a quick drink. I promised him after this case was over that I'd really watch."
"Why don't you try it?"
She laughs and raises an eyebrow.
"Beauty and brains; in a partnership, each person has one or the other. In our case--"
"That's not true, you can have both."
"It might be true for me, but Bobby, you weren't made for lace."
Now there's an undercover job, he thinks, on the tip of a laugh. A semi-seriousness washes over him as he wonders whether Eames really believes that about herself. He hopes it isn't true, but there's little room to banter any longer, as crime scene photos revive themselves before him.
"Detective Fischer had just completed an undercover assignment with her partner," he begins.
"We'll know more when we talk to these people."
"Someone must've--must've suspected them. Depending on how paranoid some of these people are..."
"We need to interview her neighbor across the hall. He wasn't there when we were."
"What's his name?"
"Patrick McGann. Unemployed. The only thing the super could tell me was that he paints a lot and listens to folk music," she says the last part with raised interest.
"Bob Dylan," Bobby supplies as he holds up the CD.
"Highway 61...i-it's famous, it evokes..."
The brown curls are in disarray and when she turns, just a bit, she thinks he could be an adolescent, embellishing the burgeoning, testosterone-driven escapades of youth.
Then, "good...and evil..."
A self-proclaimed listener, her mind now wanders, until she's hearing merely fragments. Today, today, she likes to watch.
"Eames, it's beautiful, you know?"
And she does, but she pretends not to. She thinks she'd rather hear him go on describing it this way, because when he thinks she's unfamiliar with something, his explanations somehow grow and come alive until they're almost tangible. Not stories, anymore, but meanings.
His abrupt silence discomfits her. It's not intentional, rather, he seems suddenly distracted by something. In his lap, an evidence bag catches some light and dances it across the dashboard. He's reading the lyrics from the CD booklet they found in Detective Fischer's desk. In the margin, there were scribbled lines from other poets. Eliot and Yeats and Nick Drake (a singer-poet). And Bob Dylan.
She likes the parallel. One genius (who knows, who chases flickers of humanity to fill the all-too frequent voids where there is none) cradling the manipulated beauty (the words, always) of geniuses long behind him.
"Everybody is making love or else expecting rain," because it's always been one of her favorites, and when she says it, she is ready. For it all.
He knows.
It's why they've always worked.
TBC...