A/N: I know the last few chapters have been shorter, but this one's longer.

"You don't have to stay, Fin," Wilma said as she sat with her son on her lap, dozing.

Fin shook his head, "I want to, Will. I was a few cars back when the accident happened. Jeremy waited with me while the bus was en route."

"Mommy?" Jeremy asked, his voice low and sweet, like she had remembered from when he was hers entirely … before he was yanked out of her arms.

"What is it, sweetie?" Wilma asked, gazing at her son's worried face.

"I'm hungry. Will you and Mr. Fin take me to go get food?"

Wilma smiled softly; of course Steven had forgotten to feed the boy. "Sure, Jeremy. What do you want to eat?"

He pretended to think about his answer before saying, "Alfredo!"

"You want to go see Mommy's new home, don't you?" Wilma asked, reading past her son's innocent look (a look that had become more and more familiar as she spent more time with Bobby).

Jeremy nodded, "Yes, I do. I gotta see where my Mommy lives!"

"Why?" Wilma asked as she carefully got up from her seat and started walking toward the door.

"'Cause it's my job," Jeremy told her as if it were obvious. He turned around and looked at Fin, who was not following him, "Mr. Fin! Come on!"

Wilma turned and looked at him as well, noticing the hesitant look in Fin's eyes she mimicked her son, "Yeah, Mr. Fin, let's go."

Fin's mouth quirked into a smile as he got up and followed the mother and son out of the hospital. They stopped at the receptionist desk where Wilma gave her cell phone number to the nurse on call with orders to call it if anything happened to Steven.

"Mommy?" Jeremy asked from the back seat of the car as Wilma drove toward her apartment building in the half-dark that was Manhattan's night.

"What?"

"Is Daddy going to die?"

Wilma took in a sharp breath, unsure where her son had heard such a possibility. She felt Fin's hand rest gently, comfortingly on her thigh as he responded to the boy's question, "No, Jeremy, he's not gonna die. He loves you too much."

"Then why'd he take me away from Mommy?"

"Where are all these questions coming from, sweetie?" Wilma asked, her hand coming down to rest atop Fin's. "Your Daddy loves you as much as I do. When he and Ms. Brittany got married and moved out here they did it because they love you. They thought it would be best if you were away from me."

"Why?" Jeremy still didn't understand why it would be best for anyone if he was away from his Mommy. He loved his Mommy, and he knew that she loved him, too.

Wilma took a deep breath as she pulled into the parking garage belonging to her building. When she turned the car off, she unbuckled her seat belt and turned to face her son in the glow of the security lights. "Sometimes, grownups do things that they think are best … but turn out to be really big mistakes, Jeremy. When your Daddy took you away from me, he thought it would be best for you not to have to see me or be near me … because of things my mommy did."

"Your mommy was mean to you?"

Wilma shook her head, trying to explain the tense relationship between her now dead mother and her. Finally she said, "My mommy was confused. She didn't know how to raise a baby … and she didn't want to learn. It's really complicated, baby. I'll explain it when you're older."

"How much older?" Jeremy asked, knowing it was unlikely that he'd be old enough any time in the near future. He was a very smart little boy.

"When you're old enough to drive," Wilma responded with a smile. The truth was, she knew that she'd have to tell Jeremy at least part of why she was so protective of him about the time he hit puberty. He'd need to know then …he'd need to know secrets she never wanted him to find out.

---

The next morning, Alex directly went in to talk to Deakins. "You're sure you want to remove the request?" Deakins asked, his heart hopeful while his mind was still dubious. Detective Eames had been very adamant about her desire for a new partner.

Alex nodded, "Yes, Captain. I've decided to give him another chance."

"May I ask why?" Deakins inquired. From what he'd heard about Goren from Lt. Ashley, the man just couldn't hold a partner for longer than two months. Eames had been with him for about two weeks and she already wanted out. Now she was changing her mind? Why?

Alex smiled slightly and her eyes flickered to her big partner who had walked in a few minutes before and was now studiously doing paperwork. "I met his sister last night, Captain. She showed me a whole other side to Goren that I hadn't bothered to look at before." Alex looked back at her boss with determination and humor in her eyes, "Not to mention he makes the best chocolate cake on the planet."

Deakins' mouth quirked into a smile as he mused over the information. "The best, you say?" he finally asked. At Eames' adamant nod Jimmy sighed in relief, "Well, whatever works, Detective. Dismissed."

Alex walked back out to her desk to find a Danish and coffee sitting on top of her papers. Those had definitely not been there when she had arrived ten minutes before. "Goren?" she asked inquisitively.

"I thought I told you to call me Bobby?" he said without glancing up at her. "And yes, Eames, they're for you. Coffee is a white chocolate mocha and the Danish is cream cheese with blueberry."

Alex smiled as she sat down, taking a drink of her mocha with a sigh of contentment. "You spoil me, Bobby."

Before he could respond, Deakins walked out of his office and over to their desks, "Jewel heist and three dead bodies. You two are on."

Alex nodded, picking up her Danish and coffee skillfully with one hand while she followed her big partner out of the squad room. Now, the moment of truth: Had Robert Goren found a steady partner in Alexandra Eames?

---

The suspect looked at the photos before him with a seemingly passive nature. "I can't see anything wrong with this," he finally told the two detectives before him.

Wilma cocked her head at him: it was her first day on the job and she had helped her new partner, Detective Rick Nolan, catch the man who murdered his wife and three children. "No," she replied, "You do see what's wrong with this picture, Angelo. Can't you see it on Jessica's face? Right around her cheek bone on the left side: the bruise just starting to form."

She leaned in, across the table, invading the suspect's personal space in a manner similar to her brother. With a glint of superiority in her eye that Angelo couldn't see, she whispered, "You just couldn't stop beating your wife and kids. She was too weak to handle it all. Isn't that right? She wasn't a good mother so you … beat it into her. Your sons were failing most of their classes … they just couldn't keep up with the demands of school and home. So, what? You beat submissiveness into them, too?"

"Don't forget his little girl," Rick said, his eyes cold with hate as he watched his new partner trample all over the murderer's motives and uncaring attitude. When he'd met the slender, tall detective he hadn't been sure what to think. Then she'd helped him catch this bastard on her first day and was now using her knowledge of the human mind to get a solid confession out of him. The idiot hadn't even called for a lawyer.

Wilma nodded once in acknowledgement of her partner's comment, her eyes never leaving Angelo's, "That's right. What'd your little girl do to deserve this?" She flung a picture of the mangled corpse of his seven-year-old daughter down on the table in front of him. "What? Did she forget to put away her toys? Did she burn the toast when she wanted to make breakfast for Daddy? What the hell did this little angel do to end up like that?" next to the picture of the corpse, Wilma flung down a picture of Angelo's daughter, Maria, taken at her first communion. Her smile was radiant and bright, a stark contrast to her dead mutilated body.

Tears fell down Angelo's face as he looked at the pictures of his daughter, wife and sons. "I-I didn't mean to," he finally whispered. "They weren't trying hard enough. I had to make them try."

Wilma watched the man closely as Rick got up and forced him to do the same, "Angelo Santinez, you are under arrest for the murders of Jessica Valdez, Stephen Santinez, Enrique Santinez and Maria Santinez. You have the right to remain silent; anything you say can and will be held against you in the court of law …"

As the man was lead out of the room, Lt. Van Buren walked in to give Wilma congratulations and gratitude for getting the man to confess. She had walked in with an older man, a few inches taller than Wilma. She recognized him as ADA Jack McCoy.

He held out his hand for her to shake, "Thank you for making my job easier," he said sincerely. Wilma nodded, her eyes sad with grief at what Angelo had done to his family.

"Don't thank me, Mr. McCoy," she finally said, her grief-stricken eyes meeting his. "I do my job so I can worry a little less about my own son. It has nothing to do with making your life easier." She removed her hand for his grasp and nodded again, "Now, if you'll excuse me, I have paperwork to do."

Van Buren and McCoy watched the newest addition to the 2-7 walk out of the interrogation room and toward her new desk and the stack of paperwork that waited on top of it. Nolan would do the booking and she'd do as much paperwork as she could to ease the load.

"Does she remind you of someone, Lieutenant?" Jack McCoy asked the shorter woman at his side.

"Detective Goren," Anita Van Buren said without hesitation. "She has the same commitment … some of the same interrogation techniques."

"She has his eyes," Jack noted, wondering what the connection between the two rather unconventional detectives was.

"Just so long as she doesn't go through as many partners."

A/N: I know this chapter was mostly Wilma, but please bear with me. More Bobby/Alex in the next part. Once again, any requests, comments or ideas may be submitted to me via the little button on the bottom left that says 'Submit Review'. Now, move your cursor over the button, click once and then write whatever it is you want to say in the window that will pop up.

Don't forget to press 'Submit' at the end!