When the world ends
You know that's what's happening now
I'm going to be there with you somehow
DMB
When two people have worked together and been friends long enough, they develop a sort of unspoken shorthand that negates unnecessary dialogue and conversation between them. Sentences finish themselves and some stories have been told so many times that they are lore that can be shared with simple the quirk of an eyebrow. A meeting of the eyes can share volumes in what to the uninformed observer might seem to be telepathy. Minds meet. Hearts unfurl. Yet no sounds are exchanged.
In the fraternity of police officers, such relationships abound – though it can certainly be argued that the signs for "Oh shit!" are universal and even two people who've just met stand a good chance of successfully exchanging that particular message. Still, when the two people are Goren and Eames (or, more accurately, GorenandEames), "Oh shit!" is just the beginning of a lightning fast conversation – a conversation with no sound.
In previous situations where the drawing of firearms has been necessary, Alex has proven herself consistently faster on the draw than her partner, thanks in part to her up close and personal contacts with suspects during her stint in Vice. Bobby Goren knows this and has no qualms about acknowledging it, though he mostly gives the credit to her ability to remain in the moment instead of lost in thought, a place where he finds himself much of the time. In a way, it's become their usual pattern for her to draw first and him to follow as back-up. But today, everything that is usual has vanished. Bobby is very much in the moment – head clear, senses honed in - and in his present state of clarity, he fears that the world appears to be ending right now.
Alex shows no sign of nervousness, though, and assumes her "don't mess with me" cop voice as she tells Morgan: "I'm afraid there is no other good time for us, Mr. Morgan. If you don't let us in, Detective Goren and I will have to let ourselves in and it won't be pretty. Now please open the door."
Bobby attempts to look as threatening as his bulky stature suggests, which is no easy feat as he simultaneously attempts to assess what sort of threat Morgan poses in exact terms. Through the miniscule gap in the door, he can't tell if there is a weapon present or not, though Morgan's eyes have begun to glance furtively behind him, causing Bobby to suspect that another person is present. By the sudden tilt of Alex's head in front of him, he understands that she has realized this too.
One way to find out, he thinks resignedly. His nerves are still very much in play, but curiosity as to how the situation will be resolved has begun to tug at his consciousness and take over his actions. He hates the unknown – mostly because, like everyone else, he fears it so completely – but unlike most people, he would rather dive in the water without testing it first (heedless of the fact that he might break his neck in the process).
In true Goren fashion, then, he asks bluntly, "Mr. Morgan, is someone else here with you?"
Morgan's eyes widen sharply and his nostrils flare, giving the two detectives a resounding "yes" before the man can even speak to deny it, even though his words offer an unconvincing, "No, it's just not a good time, all right? And unless you're going to arrest me, I'd prefer that you leave. Now."
Alex cocks her head back to look at her partner, her voice not indicating that there is any gravity in their present situation. "That sounds like a yes to me. Does it sound like a yes to you?"
Bobby nods, playing along even as his stomach begins to churn with adrenaline. "Oh, it's definitely a yes." He swings his gaze to meet Morgan's head-on, using the extra eight inches he has on the much shorter man to invoke serious intimidation: "Who's here with you, Mr. Morgan? A friend? A very close friend? A girlfriend, perhaps?"
And the moment the words leave his mouth, Bobby's constantly cycling brain feeds him the last piece of the puzzle that is the case and he wonders why he didn't see it before. The double dose of death that befell Walt Morgan's father. The shooter who, like Morgan, stood (as Alex said earlier) around five foot six inches. The person now hidden behind the door of Morgan's apartment – no, make that the accomplice and murderer hidden behind that door.
"It's your father's fiancée, Amy, isn't it?" Bobby hears the soft words emerge from his lips before he even thinks of speaking them aloud. In front of him, Alex's shoulders jerk in surprise as she too sees the full picture. "You two were having an affair behind his back and you both planned to kill him; you just didn't realize that you'd acted simultaneously. But that part didn't matter, because with your father out of the way, the business belongs to both of you. You're equal partners now."
As the final words hover in the air between them, Bobby Goren knows instinctively that this is it. The end of the world is upon them and its departure is marked by the resounding click of a safety being taken off an unseen gun – the same click he nearly missed on that long ago day that he still dreams about. The click manifests in his ears as a roar, the echo causing his heart to shudder with the realization of two things:
Alex is in front of him, a tiny human shield whose body will bear the brunt of the blast.
Alex will not move as long as Bobby is behind her. She will stay to protect him - a mother bear protecting its cub, a friend making the ultimate sacrifice for duty and love.
And in the millisecond that passes while the thoughts register in his cavernous mind, he sees images, stark and bright against the milling thoughts and reflections that race by at lightning speed – he sees Alex's eyes on the day they almost died: fearful, bright and worried. He sees the protectiveness ooze from her on the night Nicole Wallace returned to their lives and he confessed his father's sins to her. He saw the tears and the guilty apology they shared on the day she read aloud in court from a hasty letter she'd written that requested a new partner. He sees the eyes of a woman who loves him more than anyone should love another person and he understands that there is no other chance to tell her all that he feels now - that he isn't worth it, that she is the worthy one with her loyal heart and unflagging spirit. There is no other way to tell her that his world will end without her in it.
The only way he can tell her that he isn't worth it is to show her.
His left hand releases his gun from its holster on his hip as his feet push off from the ground and he uses his significantly larger body to push hers out of the way, knocking her sideways while making sure that he is between her and the imminent threat. As they crash to the hallway floor in what feels like slow motion, he hears Katherine Hepburn's voice ring in his ears as the bang of the still unseen gun shatters the silence and the door of the apartment. "Oh, Dexter, I'll be yar now; I promise to be yar!"
Please God let Alex be yar, just once, he thinks fleetingly before his hip and shoulder impact the floor. And she must be because she is with him – quick to the helm and allowing herself to be steered, her body cradled into the shelter of his and falling in silent unison as he moves to let his burly frame absorb the impact.
After the fall, before either can recover adequately enough to rediscover their speech capabilities, Walt Morgan bursts through the door, fleeing his unseen assailant, only to fall in another quick volley of gunfire, his body hitting the wall at the exact place where Alex would have fallen had Bobby not grabbed her. Red blood smears against crisp ecru paint and Bobby attempts to slow his own heart rate enough to be able to discern if Alex is breathing normally.
But Morgan's death means there isn't time to check each other over and both detectives move instantly in response:
"Drop your weapon!" Alex cries, her pistol in hand as she extricates herself from the tangle of Bobby's limbs and crouches low to the floor. Both detectives are out of the firing line, if only temporarily and she is once again shielding them both.
Bobby adds, "Come out with your hands up - now!" and hopes that words are enough. He moves to crouch beside his partner – her equal instead of her ward or her protector – and the two stand toe to toe with the end of the world, daring it to overwhelm them.
But when the shooter – a very angry and very well-armed Amy – emerges from the now destroyed door of the apartment, Bobby realizes the futility of speech. An enraged cry emerges from the recesses of Amy's throat, yet she advances only half a step before Bobby and Alex open fire, both bullets hitting their mark square in the chest and dropping her to the floor beside Morgan.
"You okay?" both speak in unison, glancing at each other with shining eyes. Instinct begs Bobby to grab his partner and pull her close but he makes do with a gentle cupping of her elbow, through which he can feel her pulse race.
"Fine," they both reply at the same time again and she jerks her elbow out of his grasp as she rises to her feet. In her eyes is something that Bobby can't identify and he worries that something is amiss between them. She looks more startled than usual at the turn of events and he intuits that it somehow has nothing to do with the gunfight they've survived.
"Check them for pulses, I'm calling it in." Alex has cell phone in hand and her voice is all business when next she speaks, her stance telling him clearly not to press the issue unless he wants her to call an ambulance for him while she's at it.
He makes no reply, just checks each body and confirms what he already knows: Amy and Walt are both long past saving, their eyes fixed and glassy.
"Gone," he shakes his head when Alex quirks a questioning eyebrow at him.
She relays the necessary information, then closes her clamshell phone and tells him: "The ambulance is coming anyway and IAB is going to want statements from us. Deakins is on his way too."
"Right," he nods softly, holstering his weapon for the time being and leaning his shoulders against the wall, hands behind his back. He glances down to the floor, then raises his gaze until it's just below hers and dares to ask, "You sure you're okay?"
Her eyes lock on his and her voice is flat. "We could have died, Bobby."
"Yeah." He doesn't know what else to do besides agree.
She doesn't speak again, but in her eyes he can see that his fear was founded: the world as they both knew it ended five minutes ago in a hail of gunfire. In the old world, he carried the weight of her loyalty to him alone; he feared the day that she might sacrifice herself for him. And yet now they are in a new world, a world where she knows the truth - that he too is willing to die for her without question. The revelation has shocked and overwhelmed her; it's evident in her stare. She obviously thought she was alone and now knows that they carry the burden together. And the truth shall set you free…
She blinks, then, and her inner thoughts are once again veiled to him while a parade of fellow officers, paramedics, and IAB personnel begin to file in and question the two Major Case detectives. Yet Bobby continues to watch her out of the corner of his eye, to monitor her every move as she performs the necessary tasks that arise whenever an officer involved shooting occurs. She's off-balance now – he can see it – and he can't help but wonder if the weight of it will finally tip her over when Deakins, in the midst of railing at them in true caring captain fashion, cries: "It's a wonder you two made it out alive! Do you have any idea how lucky you are that you managed to get each other clear of the door? If it were anyone but you two, I'd be here identifying the bodies!"
Bobby watches Alex swallow a lump in her throat when the captain's words sink in, as though his confirmation has made the truth absolutely irrefutable and real for her, no matter how much she might have denied it before.
If it were anyone but you two…
Do you have any idea how lucky you are?
The words circle their heads like birds of prey when they're finally able to leave the scene and return to One Police Plaza. Alex is so preoccupied with them while driving that Bobby actually has to utter the phrase, "Red light" as they approach an intersection. In response, he receives an icy glare and falls silent for the duration of the trip.
His track record with his partner has taught Bobby Goren that Alex has a process that she has to run through before she resolves any situation. First she obtains all of the facts. Then she ruminates on them until she is able to form a clear picture in her head. And only after those two steps are complete does she attach an emotional response to them and allow herself to open up. Today's emotional tag is anger and it emerges at the same instant that they exit the SUV and begin to make their way across the parking garage to the elevator.
He's two steps ahead of her when it happens.
"Why did you do it, Bobby?" she asks, tone hard-edged and leaving no wiggle room in the response.
She has stopped walking and is standing with her arms crossed in front of her – defiant – so he has to turn and walk back to her in order to reply.
"Do what?" he asks even though he already knows. He grips his leather portfolio tightly, bracing for her answer.
Her eyes flash. "You know what. You put yourself in the line of fire."
He shrugs, non-confrontational. "You'd have done the same for me."
"You could have died." She flings the words at him.
"We both would have died if we'd stayed there," he counters. "Did you have a better idea?"
She can't argue with that, so she responds in annoyed fashion: "Don't do it again, Goren."
Anger flashes in him then and heat flushes his face. "Don't do what? Save my partner's life? You did the same for me one time; I just thought I'd return the favor. Was I wrong?"
She shakes her head and starts to move past him, so he blocks her path, firing on all cylinders now. "Answer me, Eames – was I wrong? Am I not supposed to back you up when we're about to be fired on?"
"It's not that," she counters.
"Well what is it then?" he fires back.
"It's not worth it!" she retorts, not backing away from him, but instead filling up all of her personal space and spilling over into his, toe to toe and eye to eye.
"It isn't?" his voice raises an octave.
Everything that they aren't saying passes between them then, all of the words that, if spoken aloud, would jeopardize the work that they are so passionate about and the friendship that means so much to them. In one glance, they have a complete conversation and reach an understanding, all while the air shimmers between them with all that is unsaid.
Alex backs down first, averting her gaze and breaking the thread between them. "Let's go start the paperwork, Bobby. Forget I said anything."
Bobby Goren has reached his limit, though. For the angst he's endured all day (and for the last several years, come to think of it) and for the near-death experience they have just shared, he has reached his capacity to back down and absorb everything within, hiding his feelings away for a more convenient time and place. The bad dream that woke him up, the niggling fear that something was amiss all day, and the recent events at Walt Morgan's apartment have pushed his sense of duty and propriety into the background and when Alex moves to step past him again, he reaches out his arm and snags her around the shoulders, pulling her in close to his chest and cradling her there.
His muscles brace for a punch to the chest or a kick to the shins, but none comes. Instead, it is a shaking – and ultimately resolute – Alex Eames that he holds in his arms, an Alex Eames he has seen only on the rarest of occasions, an Alex Eames who clings to him as tightly as he is clinging to her.
Bobby doesn't know how long they've been standing there before the squeal of warm rubber on smooth asphalt announces the approach of a car and he releases her; all he knows is that the look they exchange upon parting tells him everything he needs to know:
The world as they knew it may have ended, but they're all right. They're still together. And the end of one thing is always the beginning of another.
Side by side, they walk to the elevator.
I'm going to love you
I'm going to love you
When the world ends
I'm going to hold you
When the world is over
We'll just be beginning...
DMB
Author's Note – I figured I'd put it at the end since everyone was so nervous from the last chapter that I was going to kill Alex. Come on, people – I may have killed Bobby once but I'm not cruel and heartless. Anyway, I hope you enjoyed this little mystery ride (which may have gone slightly OOC at the end); I know I did. Though next time, I hope my muse lets me in on the whole story from the get go. It's easier on my nerves – and yours.