A/N 1: Yes I know that Goren said he hated the beach. But there was something going on with Eames in that episode (Depths), so I've always suspected he was being less than truthful. You'll see…

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CHAPTER TWO: FOREVER FREE

I hate the beach, he remembered saying to a detective out under the pier at the beginning of the Agiza / Harper case. It wasn't true. That day was still so clear in his mind. Hotter than today. On call, at home. Sipping beer, doing crosswords. What a dummy! He hadn't even clued in to the fact until years later, that the reason he'd been so bent on distraction, so irritable, was because he'd known Eames had had a new man in her life. The second he'd set eyes on her, looking sleepy-eyed yet impatient, he'd felt ire and jealousy burn through him like fire. Only he couldn't let himself feel the latter, so it had come out as a kind of diffuse loathing towards the location. Tramping across the shifting sand in his too-hot suit, thinking and-yet-not about how cool and smooth her date must have been, to capture her attention so thoroughly.

Despite choosing to be here, and enjoying himself for the most part, he suddenly felt the same urge to move, to escape, to get the fuck outta here. He did NOT want to hear Eames's dream. Didn't want to be the cause of it.

And she clearly didn't want to tell him. Or did she?

As she stared at him, sucking her teeth and looking worried, the tips of her fingers looped in between her sandy toes, he took a mental step back. What had he been in therapy for? To gain control of himself in situations like this. To stop himself from escalating nothing into a disaster out of misplaced anxiety.

Eames. Alex. She'd been interested in his favourite book. Interested in him. Probably.

And, she'd had a bad dream, just last night. Yet here she was out with him today and moreover, she'd brought it up. She could have kept quiet but she mentioned it. How could she not want to talk about it?

And he was a grownup. Whatever she said wouldn't change his feelings for her, and if her feelings for him had changed because of that dream, well, maybe he could change them back.

But he couldn't fix what he didn't know, so…

"You wanna, tell me about it?" He put a tiny punch of humour and assertiveness into the question, and was instantly relieved.

For she looked down and away as she was wont to do, and smiled the way she had weeks ago when she'd answered his question about the dating service. "Yes and no," she said into her hair.

"Let's start with yes," he murmured, and only realised when he saw the startled fire in her eyes that he'd been flirting. She took a breath and seemed to brace herself.

"I dreamt that Nicole was alive. And bent on mayhem." He shuddered with disgust at the notion of Wallace invading his partner's slumber. "For some reason, you went to Gage to find out how to stop her. And he told you that the only way was to sacrifice yourself." She shook her head and glanced at him almost apologetically.

"Sounds like something he'd say," he told her. Now that she'd started talking, he was riveted. Hours, he thought, is how long it would take for him to dissect every iota of this narrative to unlock the hints about her psyche. Thinking from Alex's point of view, did what she'd dreamt about him sacrificing himself say more about her opinion of him, Bobby? Or about his mentor?

"Well, it gets weirder. He told you to go to a genie who sent you to this kind of… purgatory. You had to stay there by yourself forever." Her voice cracked a little on the last word. Forever.

"Then for some reason you got a wish… you know how dreams are, no logic to them. You could have anything you wanted, except to be set free." Again her voice got soft, cracked a little at the end. She closed her eyes as if she were afraid to look at him, and he knew what he'd wished for in her dream. And a frisson of energy lit up his spine and across his chest.

"I wished to see you."

She nodded. "Yep. For one day. You could have picked any time frame… forever, a week, a month, but you chose one day. Because you thought forever would be too long for me…" Now she was petulant, and she still wouldn't look at him.

"And a week or a month wouldn't be enough for me."

Alex nodded and finally looked up. Now he was beginning to understand, and it took everything he had not to jump up and pump the air. Precious and irresistible. She saw that he saw her that way. Amazing. He was so captivated by the thought that he missed what she said next.

When he asked her to repeat it, she scowled at him without heat and shook her head. "I was so mad at you for picking one day. Then I was so, so sad at the idea that you'd be alone forever more."

He asked her how they'd spent their one day together, but she got such a deer in the headlights look that he took pity on her. Later. He'd make her tell him later. "What about when you had to leave?"

"I couldn't think about anything else but getting back there. I tried everything. I even went to Gage… he laughed in my face of course. I prayed, I went to psychics, I made myself sick with it."

"And then?"

"Then, I woke up."

o.o.o.o.o

She loves me, he thought. His proud, refined, subtle partner had chosen this day, in this way, to tell him that she loved him.

And what was he going to do about it? Nothing, he thought ruefully. Still bound by fear, he would let her talk. Adopting a scholarly mien, he asked slyly, "What do you think it means?"

And was again rewarded. She smiled broadly – and with perhaps a little relief? – and said, "I was hoping you'd tell me. I'd imagine you've been getting lessons in dream interpretation from your doctor?" He might have been mistaken, but Bobby thought he detected a note of curiosity, maybe even anxiety.

He shook his head and grinned. "She doesn't tell me anything… she makes me figure it out for myself." She looked disappointed that he wasn't biting, but he… couldn't. He needed to hear her declaration. He could flirt and lead, but he needed her to say the words. She rolled her eyes at him, the same way perps did in interrogations when he made them spell things out. But then she softened, and he said quietly, huskily, "C'mon, let's hear it."

"Well… I think…" Her voice was tremulous. "…that the dream was telling me something about you, and about myself. I know – or at least I think I know – that a week or a month wouldn't be long enough for you. But I don't think you know that forever… wouldn't be too long for me."

o.o.o.o.o

Bobby closed his eyes, his heart both heavy and oh so light. A lifetime with just Alex. A life she'd chosen, even though his choice had been coerced. Forever wouldn't be too long for me, she said.

With some embarrassment, he felt an ill-timed pricking behind his eyelids. Wasn't that what they had now? Was that what Gyson had been trying to make him see?

Speak, Bobby. Now it's your turn to speak. "Alex… my, my therapist gives me the impression she's not sure I'm ready. To move on and have – what I want."

"Maybe she's just waiting for you to be sure."

He remembered Gage's hands on his face, his words. You're free. "I think I am."

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A/N 2: Aaah me. Hope you liked it! There will be more (probably not of this fic, but more from me). Hope everyone's doing well, and keeping the fic flag flyin'!

WORDS: 1381 UPLOADED Tuesday, January 24, 2012

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