When Eames got back to the hospital, she was surprised to find Goren asleep. Maggie ran over to Logan and he picked her up onto his bed, giving her a hug. She looked across the room. "Daddy's still sleeping? He never sleeps a lot."

"Yeah, well, Daddy's had some trouble lately, bunny. He'll be okay soon. Just be patient. In the meantime, you can play with me."

She perked up, hugging his neck again then settling down in his lap. "Okay, Uncle Mike!"

Eames was beside his bed now. He held his arms out for the baby. "He'll be waking up soon and you gotta talk to him. Dammit, Alex..." He shook his head, clearly annoyed. "You should never have done that."

"What happened?"

He pulled the tray table closer and gave Maggie the applesauce he'd saved for her from his lunch. Keeping his voice low, he said, "Did you happen to forget who he is? Oh, he got his mind wrapped around what you told him okay. And he got so damn agitated they had to sedate him. The next time you want to give him something to think about, give him a math problem or part of a case to work on. You know, something that's not going to send him into a friggin' meltdown. Now I'm gonna sit here with my bunny and this little monster and you're gonna sit over there and talk to him when he wakes up. Then he can play with his kids and cheer the hell up."

Eames was quiet for a moment before she sighed. "I'm sorry, Mike, but you have no idea what went on while you two were off playing secret agent."

"Playing? You think this was any fun for either of us?" Now he was getting angry. "We weren't off getting trashed and sleeping around, Eames! How long have you known him? Do you doubt for even one second that it was easy for him to be away from you?" He took a deep breath to settle himself down before he upset Maggie. He really wished Alex had waited before dumping this on Goren. His body was still having trouble handling his injuries, even though he was healing. "Go sit with him and then straighten all this out. I'll talk to you later."

She hesitated for a moment, but he turned his full attention to the two children. So she left his bedside and crossed the room to Bobby. Pulling the privacy curtain along the bedside, she sat on the side of his bed and waited.

She didn't have long to wait. His breathing changed first, and then he groaned softly. When his eyes fluttered open and he saw her, there was no mistaking the pain that filled them. "I...I should have...oh, God, Alex...I am so sorry...I know you don't want to hear that, but I am. I really am."

"I know that. But...Bobby, tell me what was going through your head. How could you have just...taken off like that?"

He pushed himself up in the bed and settled into the pillow. "After spending Christmas with you, I knew that I couldn't just sit there and wait for...well, whatever. I just...all I could think about was being home. I wanted to be with you, to play with Maggie..." His voice got softer. "I wanted to hold my son." He shifted restlessly and ran his hand over his hair in a gesture she knew well. "I didn't take off on a whim. I thought about it long and hard. I...tried to leave Mike behind, but he wouldn't stay. I felt bad for getting him in as deep as I did. But he felt it would be better if we stuck together. And...I nearly got him killed."

"Bobby..."

"No, Alex. You told me to think about this, so I did. You said I didn't do anything wrong...and then you pointed out that I did...so I'm not sure exactly where you stand on all this. But that isn't important right now." He sighed. "We didn't know about Waters until we got to Denver and found out the FBI were the ones who were after us. So one branch was protecting us while the other was trying to kill us. If we had stayed put, we would be dead."

"So you took of to meet the threat head on. I get that, Bobby. I even understand it, and that is not what I have a problem with." She sighed. "You just left. Not a word to anyone. And you vanished. That is what I have a problem with. Do you realize how many levels of wrong that was?"

He looked at his hands. "I...okay, I realize that now. But at the time...I just...I was terrified they were going to come after you if I had any contact with you. I couldn't be sure why they were targeting us, and if I called you and they dragged you into it, too...that would put the three of you in danger...and I couldn't risk that. I wouldn't risk it. I...I didn't expect..." He closed his eyes for a moment, struggling with several things at once. She touched his arm, but he pulled away and shook his head, so she let him be. Finally, he finished, "We went to Denver to get some answers and we got them. If we had made it to Austin, we would have been home in a few days. That was my plan."

She frowned. "If you had told me what you were doing we would have known where you were, dammit!"

"I had nothing to do with that accident."

His jaw was tight and he was very tense, defensive. He still refused to look up at her. She waited a moment before she said, "Look, I don't want to argue about something we can't change. I'm just trying to understand what you were thinking, why you did what you did...why you abandoned us..."

He jerked his head up at that. "Abandoned...?"

He stopped, an odd look on his face. Abandoned...walked out on...left...just like... He leaned his head back and stared at the ceiling, unwillingly reliving the moment he realized his own father was never coming back. To a young boy, who didn't really know any different, even a bad father was, well, a father, and walking out on him was still...rejection. It was years before he realized that William Goren was not a man, or a father, he should aspire to emulate. But it still hurt when he left...even more than the beatings he was subjected to. Physical injuries healed, but emotional ones...they stayed far longer, hurt much deeper and were easily reopened. "Do you really think that, Alex?"

"Do I think you abandoned us? No, Bobby, I don't think you walked out on us. I know better. But there are more ways to leave than walking away. You took off. You told no one. You never made contact with any of us for nearly a month. We were beginning to believe you were dead, and that is the abandonment I am talking about."

"Don't you think I would have if I could have?"

"Yes, I do. And that's why I was trying to prepare myself to tell your daughter you were never coming home. Do you know what that would have done to her? She would never have been the same."

He scrubbed his face and took a deep breath, flaring the pain in his chest to try to dull the other pain he was feeling. "And what about you?"

She looked surprised. "Me?"

"Yes, Alex. You. I know it wasn't easy for you."

She was quiet for a moment. Then a song popped into her mind, unbidden...

Without you,
There'd be no sun in my sky,
There would be no love in my life,
There'd be no world left for me.
And I,
Baby I don't know what I would do,
I'd be lost if I lost you,
If you ever leave,
Baby you would take away everything real in my life,

And tell me now,
How do I live without you?
I want to know,
How do I breathe without you?
If you ever go,
How do I ever, ever survive?
How do I, how do I, oh how do I live?

That song had been her undoing...and now it cut right through her anger and reminded her of what it had been like when he was gone. And now...now he was back. Maggie was back to her normal, happy self, bouncing through the house singing Der Frohlich Wandersmann, the German drinking song he'd taught her when she was two. And the dull ache that had been sitting inside her was gone, replaced first by relief and now by a sudden surge of overwhelming anger. She sighed deeply. "I was devastated, all right? I had no idea how I was going to go on without you, how I was going to look at those children and see you in them and ever be okay again. Is that what you want to hear, Bobby? How incredibly hard it was for me to try accepting the fact that you were dead?" He looked away and so did she...but she wasn't done yet. She was trembling; her emotions were running very high. "And what about your daughter?" she softly asked, fighting to keep her voice under control. "She wandered around the house...aimlessly. There was no joy in her for anything. She didn't laugh, didn't even smile. She cried herself to sleep every night, begging God to bring you and Mike home to her. And I knew no way to reassure her. What the hell was I supposed to tell her?" She hit his upper arm hard, no longer able to keep her tears from spilling over and running down her face. "You son of a bitch, what the hell was I supposed to do for either of us?"

She finally looked toward him. He wouldn't look at her, wouldn't answer her. She smacked him again. "Well? What was I supposed to do?"

He slid both hands up into his hair and looked toward the ceiling. "I don't know, Alex. Okay? I don't have the answers, and I don't know what to say." He clenched his jaw, still refusing to look at her. But she could see the tears that moistened his cheek. He shut his eyes and struggled with himself. He couldn't get past the pain he had caused the two people in the world he loved more than any others, his wife and his daughter. His breathing was ragged and he had no idea what to do with himself. If he hadn't been confined to the damn bed, he would work off his emotions with activity. Now all he could do was retreat into himself and try to control his raging emotions...how?

Part of her wanted to reach out to him, but it was battling with the part that was still angry and wanted him to hurt like she had hurt. If we had made it to Austin, we would have been home in a few days. That was my plan. He hadn't meant for any of this to happen...it wasn't entirely his fault. Was it fair of her to blame him like this? She knew how he was. She could only imagine how much like a caged animal he must have felt, cornered, helpless...

Her anger spent, she reached her hand toward him, touching his elbow and moving it slowly along his arm toward his shoulder. Without a word, he slid his hand around her forearm and pulled her into his chest, wrapping his arms around her and burying his face against her shoulder. She felt his body shudder and she turned her head to softly kiss his temple. But he didn't settle down. His chest was hurting badly but all he wanted to do was hold her. If he released her, she would see the pain and get the nurse...and they'd give him more damn medicine to knock him out. Fuck that. He wanted to feel this pain right now. It was nothing compared to what he'd put them through. He tightened his arms around her, pressing her more firmly against him. He heard her whisper into his ear, but he didn't register what she said. When she finally tried to pull back, he let her go, dropping back against the pillow. "Look at me, Bobby," she said softly.

When he wouldn't, she touched his chin and drew his face around toward her. Her fingers caressed his cheek and he leaned his head toward them. Finally, he found his voice and whispered, "What do you want me to do?"

"Just understand. That's all. I want you to know how your life affects ours, and how the decisions you make impact us. You aren't alone any more. If you're ever alone again, Bobby, it will be by your own choice. Right now, you're stuck with us. Okay? Try to remember that."

"You think I ever forgot it? What do you think this was all about, Alex? It was about making sure you were untouched by what Waters did. He could have brought you down, and I wasn't going to allow that. He's done enough to you."

"And now he nearly took you from me. Then he really would have gotten everything, you know."

"So, how do I make this right?"

She gently wiped the moisture from his cheeks. "You already did, baby," she whispered. "You lived."

He wiped his eyes impatiently and shifted restlessly in the bed, trying to make his pain manageable along with his out-of-control emotions. The word abandoned kept coming back to haunt him and he didn't know what to do with it. She leaned closer to him. "Settle down," she said softly, resting her hand on his chest. He wasn't sure he could settle down. She shifted closer to him, leaning her face toward his. His eyes locked on hers and she could feel the muscles under her hand start to relax. She gently kissed him. "I really didn't mean for you to have a meltdown, but I wanted you to know how much this escapade impacted the rest of us. I don't think Maggie would ever have recovered if she lost you. I know I wouldn't."

"So...we're okay?"

"Of course we are. We weren't ever not okay. I can be furious with you and still love you to death. You should know that by now."

"I guess so."

He was having trouble breathing but so far he was able to hide it from her. He knew it was from the pain, and it would pass eventually. She slipped her hand from his chest and rested it on his arm. "Oh, one thing I forgot."

"What?"

"Your mother..."

"What? Is she okay?"

"She is now."

"She had a break." It wasn't a question; he knew.

"Yes, she did...because you weren't around. She was convinced 'they' got you, and I helped 'them'."

"The staff took care of her?"

"And so did I."

He leaned his head to the left and frowned. "You?"

"They called me when she got bad. I know you always went out there to deal with her, and I didn't want to abandon her, so I went out."

"Maggie...?"

"Don't panic. I left the kids with Dad. The worst thing that happened was that I let Maggie talk to her before I realized she was slipping away. She upset her a little by telling her that 'they' were going to hurt you."

"What did Maggie do?"

"She sat on the bed and hugged your pillow. I let her sleep with me that night. She wasn't willing to give up your pillow."

He rubbed his temple. "Maggie..." he whispered.

"She's better now. She's smiling again...and singing that damn beer song you taught her."

He gave her a small smile. "Anything else you want to clobber me with?"

She gave it a moment's thought. "No...I'm good. But just wait until I get you home, Goren."

He raised his eyebrows. "Uh, is that good or bad?"

She lowered her head and turned her eyes up toward him with a mischievous smile. "I guess you'll just have to wait and see. Are you ready to see the kids? Maggie is quite annoyed that you keep sleeping."

That did make him laugh, followed by a deep groan and a muffled curse as he braced his arm against his ribs. "Bobby?"

He just waved a hand at her. It would pass...It would pass. He felt darkness encrouching again but he fought it hard. He heard her voice, but it was distant, and he wasn't quite able to answer her. Then next thing he was aware of was a warmth spreading through his chest and the pain retreated. The world began to spin around him. Gentle hands pressed him backwards and he felt himself continue to fall, but there was nothing he could do to stop it.

A/N: Once again, How Do I Live is by LeAnn Rimes.