Disclaimer: None of it's mine.
A/N: Because I can. Review, and see author's note at the bottom.
Irene, Achilles, Kryptonite
"Can I get you something?" She shrugged her coat off carefully and turned to see him standing in her kitchen doorway uncomfortably. "Sit, Bobby." Obediently, he pulled a chair out from her table and dropped into it. "I'm going to make tea," she declared.
"Coffee?" His voice sounded thick, like molasses dripping from a spoon.
"Nope, decaf tea. You definitely need sleep right now, and tea will help you relax." Her tone warned him that no matter how much he protested he was not going to get coffee, so he dropped the subject.
"That's fine."
She filled a kettle and put it on the stove, then reached up into a cupboard for the teabags. Bad move. She was forced to pull her arm back down, cradling her ribs. "Damn it."
"Are you alright?" He leaned forward, reaching out one large hand to hover over her injured side. "I'm sorry to have pulled you in."
She batted at his hand. "Don't you dare talk like that, Bobby. If you're going to apologize, apologize for the thing that you should be apologizing for, not for something stupid like this."
"What should I be apologizing for?" He withdrew his hand and hunched his shoulders, a classic Bobby move that meant he was pulling his pain into himself and hiding it from her. For once, she was too pissed for the sight to make her want to hold him.
"You should be apologizing for risking yourself without me!"
"I just took an interrogation."
"It was more than that, Bobby, and you knew it when you went in there." She glared at him, only momentarily distracted by the whistling of the teakettle. Without a sound, he got up and took down the teabags she'd been reaching for earlier, then retreated back to his chair. She nodded her thanks, then continued her rant at him as she set the tea to steep.
"You took a chance with your sanity, Bobby. You knew how she'd affect you, you knew that she could get to you, and you didn't let me help you. You never stood a chance, and you had to have known you wouldn't. What were you thinking? Why did you do it?" She turned a pair of furiously hurt eyes on him, and he winced.
"I don't know, I-"
"Yes, you do. You know exactly why." She handed him the mug, which he wrapped his hands around, and then moved to sit on the opposite side of the table. "You did it because you didn't want anyone to think you depended on me to do your job. You did it because you couldn't let her get the better of you again. You did it because she's your Irene Adler, you Achilles' heel, your kryptonite." She snorted. "The only woman ever to get the better of you, the only weakness you have in yourself and the only thing that can break you. It's sad, really, that I can see it an you can't. You're the genius, you're the profiler. I'm just the detective whose only talent is understanding the way your mind works."
"That's not true." He came to her defense on automatic pilot, and it made her feel a little bit better.
"That's what they say about me, Bobby. And it's true, in a lot of ways. I'm a good cop, but you're great. The only reason I have managed to distinguish myself is that I'm your partner, and I make you better by explaining you to the people around us. They call us 'Goren and Eames', like we're one unit, but you're first. It's not a bad thing, Bobby, but you have to understand that I'm part of this team. I'm always going to be the Eames half of Goren and Eames." She leaned over the table slightly to take on of his hands. "You have to let me do my job and help you."
"I wanted to." He sounded so lost it made tears well up in her eyes.
"Why didn't you?"
"Because you were hurt. And we couldn't hold her for long enough for your ribs to be better."
"My side doesn't matter that much, Bobby. At worst, it takes an extra couple of days to heal because strain it too much. You are worth so, so much more."
His head dropped to the table, forehead resting gently on their clasped hands. "Thank you."
Her other hand tangled in his hair. "Anytime, Bobby. All you have to do is ask."
They stayed like that, just two people sitting at a battered wooden table. It was odd, she mused, because he was so much bigger than she was but looked just as fragile. When she realized he'd fallen asleep, she smiled a little and hunched over to rest her head next to his. Time enough to worry about it again when they woke up.
A/N: Ok, so here's my reasoning behind the comment, "she's your Irene Adler, your Achilles' heel, your kryptonite." Irene Adler was the woman who beat Sherlock Holmes. She was the case that haunted him forever as the one that got away. I figured that was appropriate. Achilles heel is a term for a weakness within a person. Nicole is Bobby's because she exploits every part of him, and he carries her around with him (pretty much torturing himself about it all the time). Kryptonite is the something that is not part of you but still can bring you down. Again, kinda a duh reason for it. Thanks for reading, please review.