Author's Note – Want to know my favorite thing about this story? I have no idea where it's headed; all I know is that it started somewhere in southern Ohio (I was riding in a car at the time, thankfully in possession of my laptop) and by the time we hit Toledo, it was already into two chapters without letting me know what it plans to do. So we're all going to be surprised when we get to the end. When that will be, I couldn't say. I'm just hoping that I'm not too off character in this one. That's up to you to decide.
What I do know is that the story was inspired by Dave Matthews and "When the World Ends." I also confess that I don't own the characters; Dick Wolf does. No infringement is intended (but if it happens, it's not my fault – my muse is behind the whole thing).
When the world ends
Collect your things
You're coming with me
"When the World Ends," Dave Matthews Band
If Detective Robert Goren's best investigative tool is his library card, then his best interrogation tactic has to be his uncanny ability to weasel his way under the skin of whomever he is questioning. He doesn't know whether to thank or blame his errant father for this learned skill, which he perfected during the teenage years that he spent simultaneously attempting to gain his father's approval and also get his ire up enough to reinforce the rebellion that foreshadows the average young male's transition to manhood. At any rate, it works for him, whether he is charming his way into the good graces of a suspect in order to gain his or her confidence or needling them to the point at which they're sure to break and reveal all just to get him to leave them alone. It's a skill that may not translate well onto a resume, but that makes him a valuable asset to the NYPD's Major Case Squad and irreplaceable (thereby negating the need for him to ever put it on a resume in the first place).
And yet for all of the use that he gets from his library card and his unorthodox investigative methods, Robert Goren's absolutely necessary accessory – and she would kill him for ever even thinking of her as anything akin to an accessory – is his partner, Alexandra Eames. (Make that, she would torture him six ways from Sunday, draw and quarter him, put his head on a pike for all to see, and then bless him with the mercy of a painful but quick death if he ever described her as an accessory.) She was a tough, no holds barred girl, his Alex.
His Alex.
Dangerous territory, that. Police officers, whether they be walking a beat or working undercover or investigating cases, are usually only as good as the partnerships they're able to forge with the cops they are assigned to work with. The strongest of partnerships work because the two people who make them up genuinely care for each other as friends and coworkers. Yet when those two partners are a man and a woman – particularly when they are a man and a woman who function as two separate halves of a very cohesive whole – the lines between friendship, partnership, and something more significant can smudge just enough to make the relationship something a little more.
For Robert Goren, those lines blurred about four years ago and he sometimes doesn't even catch himself when he thinks about Alex Eames as "his Alex" anymore. Usually such thoughts are fleeting enough that they skim across the surface of his overwrought brain with barely a ripple to mark their presence. By the time he realizes what, exactly, has just occurred, it's too late to reverse things so he has to let it go and remind himself to try not to let it happen again.
Yeah. Right. If only it were that easy.
And maybe it would be that easy if Robert Goren didn't know one thing about his partner that keeps him from keeping a firm barrier of professionalism between them at all times. Ignorance, in this case, would truly be bliss, for it would allow him to get through the day without a niggling sense of worry and responsibility and – well, it had to be said – love for the woman who works doggedly by his side with only occasional complaints and who never lets him go so far into his mind that he might lose his way.
But "ignorant" has never been a word that one could use to describe Robert Goren – or "Bobby" as his friends call him (Alex being very much counted as a friend). And so he knows the truth; he lives, eats, sleeps, and breathes the truth and some days it presses so close that it almost chokes him. Some days, like the old adage says, the truth hurts. And some days, it simply fills him with such a sense of wonder that he feels his heart fill to the brim and overflow. Truth is a fickle thing.
In Bobby Goren's case, the truth is this: Alex Eames is willing to lay her life down for him without a second thought – and the idea that she cares that much for him is almost too much to bear.
He can pinpoint the exact moment that he realized the truth; it stands out in his memory with stark clarity and he's even been jerked from a sound sleep as it's crawled through his unconscious thoughts, standing out in such stark silhouette against the dark backdrop of drowsiness that his heart leaps into his throat, his pulse pounding as he awakens in a sudden contraction of muscles and gasping lungs. Sleep hesitates to find him again after the memory invades his dreams – the reality that he carries the weight of her loyalty on his shoulders every day is too pressing to allow him the luxury of rest. On those nights, he usually rises and wiles away the hours until work by catching up on his reading or watching old movies – preferably reading, as old movies tend to remind him of Alex and her love of all things Cary Grant. And on the mornings that follow those nights, Alex seems to have a knack for knowing that he's been stricken by something – though Bobby doubts she knows precisely what – and takes extra care to keep him caffeinated and on an even keel.
His memory has distorted the day a bit by now – it happened two years into their partnership which seems like forever ago – but the facts are fairly simple: a suspect they were arresting in connection with a ring of art forgery and theft had barricaded himself inside his apartment, threatening to kill anyone who walked through the door. Not planning for such a dramatic turn to the case, neither Bobby nor Alex had donned a protective vest for the trip and so they made sure to stay well clear of the door while they awaited the arrival of the SWAT team. But Bobby had a sense that he could probably talk the guy out and so while they waited, he proceeded to charm, cajole, and coerce the suspect, attempting to use his much-lauded rhetorical skills in an effort to render a peaceful resolution to the situation. He was confident enough that it didn't occur to him that things could go bad as quickly as they did, nor did it occur to him how close he had somehow edged to the doorway; in fact, none of that information registered in his mind until the split second when he heard the click of the safety being taken off a sawed-off shotgun and felt the full weight of his petite partner slam into his side.
At six-foot four and solidly built, Bobby Goren had never been knocked over by anyone in his entire adult life – particularly not someone whose ear didn't even reach his shoulder and whose weight was less than half his own. But on that day two years into their partnership, Alex Eames became the first – and only – person to do so, the force of her impact hitting him as though she were a linebacker and propelling him clear of the doorway and onto the floor, his cheek grazing the rough carpet beneath as the blast sent two barrels worth of shells through the door and into the wall on the other side of where he had just been standing. And as soon as she knew he was safe, Alex had drawn her weapon, yelled for the suspect to drop his, and barreled through the now-demolished door with the air of a very POed mother bear.
The suspect (not surprisingly) surrendered rather rapidly after that and practically threw himself into SWAT custody upon seeing Alex's face. Bobby would have laughed at this on any other day, but Alex didn't give him a chance, for at her first opportunity to do so, she turned to her partner, cast her hands on her hips, and demanded to know, "Are you okay?"
The way she asked implied that if he said that he was, she would see to it that he soon wasn't, so he tactfully replied, "Y-yeah – are you?"
"That was a really stupid thing to do," she ignored his question, eyes flashing and chest rising and falling with agitation.
"I know," his tone was soft and he dropped his gaze with the air of a chastised child.
"You could have gotten us both killed, Bobby," she continued.
"I know," he repeated.
She turned to re-enter the apartment and help SWAT with the clean-up, then stopped to look back at him, a bit of humor returning to her gaze and her breathing gradually slowing to its normal rate: "Next time you plan to get us both killed, you mind giving me a warning first?"
"Sure," he said softly, surprised at the quick way she'd softened. It was as though the explosion had left only smoke in its wake.
"Good," she nodded, satisfied.
And when she'd turned away from him and gone inside, he'd realized that there was another emotion that he'd seen behind the anger in her eyes when she'd confronted him, an emotion that had caught him by total surprise and that dropped his stomach into his shoes with the grace of an elevator with a snapped cable: genuine caring and concern. Alex wasn't as much mad at him for nearly getting both of them killed, she was upset because she cared about him, cared enough to put his life ahead of hers. She was upset because she had feared that she would lose him.
No one – not coworkers, not partners, not family, not friends, and not even girlfriends – had ever looked at Bobby Goren that way. His own mother worried, of course, but her worry tended to be more focused on the imaginings of her schizophrenic mind than on concrete reality, causing her eyes to look at him in a glassy, fixed fashion. Alex was different. She cared selflessly and because of this, she had succeeded in knocking him over twice in one day, once literally and once in a more metaphysical manner.
She was amazing that way, his Alex.
And once he realized that she cared that much for him - that she would willingly throw herself in harm's way in order to protect him – he very quickly realized something else: he felt the same way about her. And that sort of mutual concern was love in its purest form. It wasn't "I love you, you're beautiful" love, nor was it "You had me at 'hello'" love. It went beyond all traditional forms and generally accepted definitions for the word and became something more akin to a joining of souls, a meeting of equals, and the sort of lifetime bond that couldn't be symbolized with a flimsygold band. It was the sort of love that Bobby didn't think that real people discovered – especially not people like him - and the weight of it had the power to both buoy him up to heights he hadn't imagined and knock him to his knees.
On the job, it mostly knocked him down.
Ever since that fateful day, Bobby Goren has spent each hour of his working life in a state of fervent prayer, hoping that nothing like it ever happens again, that the choices he makes on the job never put Alex in harm's way. His record of such instances isn't perfect - there have been a few incidents in the last couple of years that have certainly been a bit hairy - but he clings to the hope that she never has to prove her love by paying the ultimate price because he can't live with that. He isn't worth it and neither is their job.
And yet always in the back of his mind is the knowledge that what they do is too dangerous and his methods are too abrasive to let his prayers be answered. (He often wonders how effective the prayers of lapsed alter boys can be anyway.) So he has to admit that he was, in a way, expecting the turn of events that occurred – expecting and dreading it.
And yet he was still powerless to stop it.
TBC