A/N: Hmmm...let's see. What was I going to say here? Oh yeah - both POV's cover roughly the same time period, so when it switches to Bobby, it starts over again.
Alex POV
To say that I was in complete and utter shock would be a gross understatement. For a moment, I was literally struck mute.
I wanted desperately to turn and look at him. I wanted to see his face, to look into his eyes, to gage his feelings about his declaration.
But he had afforded me the luxury of confessing my sins under the cover of darkness, so to speak. I should give him the same respect.
But I really needed to see his face.
"Can I turn around?" I asked him.
"Why, so you can see if I have the face of a killer?"
"Bobby…"
"Turn around," he said on a sigh.
I turned around and sat on my knees on the couch, facing him, and gathered up enough nerve to put my hand on his cheek. That wonderfully scruffy cheek…I gently put pressure on his face until he turned to look me in the eye.
He was clearly ashamed. And he'd completely misread my reaction.
Because I wasn't shocked with what he said, only that he'd said it.
"Do you know how much it means to me that you told me about this?"
And now it was his turn to be surprised.
"Did you hear what I said?"
"I did."
"It doesn't bother you that I could be…could be…his…son?"
"No. It only bothers me that it bothers you."
Because it really didn't make any difference to me. And to be honest, I had already suspected as much. I'm a good detective. I can read between the lines with the best of them.
I knew something was going on with him during the Brady case. I knew it was personal, so I kept my distance.
I thought that if he wanted me to know, then he would come to me.
Right. Because Bobby was always so forthcoming, I thought sarcastically.
Of course, it wasn't like I shared much either.
I hadn't gone to him tonight when I needed to talk. If he hadn't shown up at my door, I'd be passed out cold by now.
Alone.
And tomorrow I would feel just as guilty and miserable as I felt today.
But now I felt different. And Bobby was different, too.
Because tonight hadn't been about him. He'd come to listen to my problems. He didn't have to share anything about himself.
So why did he? Did he want to put us on even ground? Did his uncertainty about his parentage compare to my hidden desire to divorce my husband prior to his death?
It didn't matter. It wasn't a competition. The thing was that he cared enough to share the personal aspects of his life.
And for me, just being able to tell him the truth about my marriage with Joe…my feelings of guilt were already starting to go away.
It didn't make me a bad person that I had been seeking a divorce. It didn't make me responsible for what had happened to him. It just meant that I was unhappy in my marriage and had been searching for a solution.
And keeping that a secret from the world, well…it didn't hurt anyone. No one needed to know the truth about Joe except for me. And Bobby.
Because it mattered to both of us.
I needed to quit feeling guilty and he needed to quit feeling as though he would never be good enough for me.
Because I realized now that he did have feelings for me, emotions that he was keeping a tight rein on.
The fact that he had kissed me – twice – prior to sharing his secret had not escaped me. It had sent a pleasant warmth throughout my body, a sensation of being cherished, of being treasured.
I hadn't felt like that in a long time.
"Do you want to find out?" I asked him calmly as I continued to stroke his cheek.
My revelation had given me a newfound courage.
He was here with me.
It was pushing four o'clock in the morning, and he was sitting with me just trying to make me feel better. He'd revealed a piece of himself that I was quite sure no one else alive was privy to.
"Yes," he replied. And then he tilted his head and looked at me quizzically. "You were really going to divorce Joe?"
"Yes."
"So you don't still love him. You weren't still in love with him then."
It was starting to sink in with him, and I felt even more confident about my theory that he did have feelings for me that he was simply holding back.
I smiled at him encouragingly.
"No," I told him. And then because I didn't want to lose sight of his concern, I added, "Do you think knowing will make a difference?"
"Why haven't you found someone else?" he asked me, ignoring my question. He moved his hand so that it now rested on my thigh. I could feel the heat through the cotton fabric.
"It's not like I haven't been looking."
"Have you? Been looking?"
"Okay, so not really. I wasn't sure if I deserved it," I admitted. "But I am happy with my life."
"You are? You wouldn't want anything to change?"
"We were talking about you."
"Do I think that knowing will make a difference? You tell me."
"I can understand that you would want to know. Now that you know it's a possibility, you'll keep thinking about it until you find out for sure. But will it make a difference? Not one damn bit. It won't change who you are and it sure as hell won't change how I feel about you."
He continued to stare at me long after I finished talking and I started to wonder if I had crossed the line.
The line.
Was there even still a line?
And if so, hadn't we crossed it already?
When we'd hugged?
When I'd kissed him?
When we'd sat so close together on the couch and bared our souls?
"How do you feel about me?" he asked.
This was it. This was what the whole night had boiled down to.
Bobby POV
After I said the words, I had a moment of fear.
I'd made my confession so that she didn't feel so alone, so exposed. I wanted her to know something of me that no one else knew, since now I knew something private about her.
I just wanted to make her feel better.
But would it backfire? What if it appalled her to think of the possibility that I had Brady's blood flowing through me? Hell, it appalled me. I didn't want it to be true. How could I expect her to accept it?
Of course, the man I knew to be my father, my mother's husband…having his blood in me wasn't much better, so I guess that bar was set pretty low already.
And then she asked me if she could turn around.
I appreciated the respect. I had allowed her to confess without looking at me, so she would offer me the same privilege if I chose.
I knew she wanted to get a read on me. Right? Or did she want to know if she could see him in my eyes?
I agreed to let her turn around. I would never deny her anything.
She sat on her knees beside me, her thigh once again pressing against mine. I kept my eyes focused downward, but then she put her hand on my cheek and guided my head up so that she could look me in the eye.
The feeling of her palm against my face was indescribable.
But would this be the first and only time? I prayed that it wouldn't, but I also didn't know what she was thinking. I didn't know what she would see when she looked at me with this new information.
"Do you know how much it means to me that you told me about this?" she said gently.
What? Did she not hear what I said? Fucking Mark Ford Brady.
Maybe she didn't hear me. Maybe I could pretend I never said it out loud.
But no. Then we'd be back to where we were before.
And I didn't want to go backwards.
I wanted to go forward.
"Did you hear what I said?"
"I did."
"It doesn't bother you that I could be…could be…his…son?"
How could she be so calm? How could she be so understanding? I was still working hard to come to terms with it myself, and yet she wasn't concerned about it at all.
"No. It only bothers me that it bothers you."
Her hand kept stroking my face and the sensations were causing me conflicting emotions.
We were having this very deep, very personal conversation. She was sitting so close, practically molded against my leg. She was caressing my face as though she were my lover.
Okay, so maybe I wasn't conflicted. Maybe I was just beginning to see the light.
I had made her happy simply by opening up to her.
Is that all I'd needed to do all these years? Talk to her?
See, I'd thought I was protecting her and protecting myself. If I shared my demons, then they became hers, too. And maybe then it would make her see me differently. It might make her think less of me. It was a risk that until now I'd been unwilling to take.
But what I'd failed to realize was that she had her own crosses to bear. And knowing her perceived shortcomings didn't make me think less of her. Because I loved her. So learning these details only made her more real. And it made me love her even more.
Is that what she was feeling? Maybe.
I wasn't sure just yet, but I was hopeful.
The fact that we were sitting here together at damn near dawn was a good sign. She hadn't kicked me out when I'd hugged her. Quite the contrary. She'd kissed me. I still wasn't over that. I would be replaying that memory for weeks.
Unless of course, she kissed me again.
Then I'd have two visions to shuffle between. Not to mention the fact that a second kiss would mean…something. It would mean that she'd liked the first one enough to want to do it again.
One time was a whim.
A second time would be a calculated risk.
And I wasn't sure, but the way she was looking at me made me feel like it wasn't that remote of a possibility.
She didn't care if Brady was my father.
And she'd wanted to divorce Joe.
Both of these facts were monumental.
"Do you want to find out?" she asked me. I could tell by the way she asked me that she already knew the answer. I did want to know. I was afraid to know, but at the same time I was afraid not to.
It's a pretty crappy feeling to be afraid of both options.
But it did ease my anxiety just knowing I could talk to her about it. I'd been shoving it down inside of me for only a few weeks and it was already eating me up. Letting it out was a relief.
"Yes," I told her.
But as important as discussing Brady was to me, I was still obsessing about her confession to me. I had to make sure that I wasn't crazy. I had to make sure that I had a firm grasp of the situation. "You were really going to divorce Joe?"
"Yes."
I felt even more hope surge through me, but I still had to push it. I needed more clarification. I need to be absolutely sure. Because if she was saying what I thought she was saying…well, it changed my whole perspective.
"So you don't still love him. You weren't still in love with him then."
She smiled at me and said that no, she wasn't in love with him by the end of their marriage.
And then she tried to turn it back to me. I should've known that she wouldn't let me off the hook about my own issues.
"Do you think knowing will make a difference?" she asked me.
But I wasn't ready to be dissuaded just yet.
"Why haven't you found someone else?" I asked. And then because I felt a rush of confidence, I took a chance. She would either slap me, or…not.
I moved my hand off of my own leg and settled it onto her thigh. Mid-way up on her thigh. It looked huge sitting there on her leg, and it made me wish irrationally that there wasn't a layer of fabric between us.
Settle down, Goren, I chastised myself. It wasn't like I was going to be seeing her naked.
Not tonight anyway, I amended with an internal grin. Was it possible that maybe someday I would?
Someday soon?
"It's not like I haven't been looking," she told me, bringing my thoughts back to reality.
I knew I'd interrupted some dates in the past, but not too many. And none recently.
She wasn't looking.
I called her out on it.
"Okay, so not really. I wasn't sure if I deserved it," she admitted.
She didn't deserve it? Please. She deserved to be treated like a queen. She deserved the best of everything. She deserved…better than me.
My mind flashed back to how sad and lonely she had seemed when I first came over, and then I realized that heartbreaking expression was gone.
I had made it go away.
Maybe I was good for her.
"But I am happy with my life," she added.
"You are? You wouldn't want anything to change?"
"We were talking about you," she reminded me, avoiding my question.
We were talking about me? Really?
I was having trouble focusing on anything but the feel of her thigh under my palm. And the feeling of her hand still on my face. I was tingling at both points of contact.
And I was probably going to have to start running through some more statistics pretty soon or I was going to embarrass myself.
Now what was the question again?
Oh yeah. Would knowing the truth make a difference? The most important thing to me was whether it would matter to her. So I asked her.
"I can understand that you would want to know. Now that you know it's a possibility, you'll keep thinking about it until you find out for sure. But will it make a difference? Not one damn bit. It won't change who you are and it sure as hell won't change how I feel about you."
How she feels about me? How is that? She's going to say something like that and then not elaborate?
I stared at her, waiting for her to say more. I was on edge.
This could be it. This was where we'd been heading all along.
And surprisingly, I wasn't scared.
This was Eames.
She was my best friend.
She'd stuck by me through some of the worst moments of my life, even sometimes when I'd tried to run her off just to save her from getting sucked down with me. She was steadfast. She was loyal.
She was who I dreamed about at night.
And sure, I could let her comment go. It was stated in such a fashion that I could either acknowledge it or not.
She was apprehensive. She was unsure about my feelings, so she'd thrown me a slow-pitch and now she was waiting to see if I'd take it or swing away.
I wasn't going to let this opportunity pass me by.
"How do you feel about me?"
I watched her face as she weighed her response. But the coloring of her cheeks and her quick breathing gave me my answer.
She loved me.
I left my one hand in its treasured spot on her leg, but I brought my other one up to her check. I rubbed my palm against her smooth skin and let my fingers mingle into her hair.
I let my eyes wander down to her mouth and then back up again. I wanted her to know my intention.
I leaned in slowly, giving her the chance to back away if she wanted to.
Instead, she met me in the middle.
Our second kiss.
The END
A/N: Well, that's it. If you liked it, thank Mitzvahgirl for giving me the required kick in the ass (she literally chastised me!).
If you didn't like it, blame her too. Oh, no wait...um, if you didn't like it...flame on!