Chapter 8: Grievances
Goren sat in a lonely corner booth at Ted's Pub. This place was quiet, familiar, and cozy, and out-of-the-way enough that no one was likely to find him there. He'd brought Eames to it a couple of times, but it was too far from the office to be a regular cop hangout.
His phone beeped. It was a text message from CJ. "Rumi recomends you gamble everything, but I know how much you love meanspirited roadhouses." It was exactly the kind of obscure allusion he and CJ communicated with. He recalled the poem she was quoting from: Gamble everything for love, if you're a true human being. If not, leave this gathering. Half-heartedness doesn't reach into majesty. You set out to find God, but then you keep stopping for long periods at meanspirited roadhouses. He wondered what CJ meant by it. It had to have something to do with Eames' visit.
He went up to the bartender. "A Sake Manhattan and another beer," he ordered.
His phone rang. It was Eames. He had no intention of answering it, but force of habit compelled him. "What?"
"I stopped by your place and you weren't there. Thanks to your friend, we have a break in the case. Where are you?"
"It doesn't matter."
"Don't you dare hang up!"
He wondered how she knew he was about to hang up. Now, even though his finger was on the 'end' button, he couldn't bring himself to press it. "I'm fine, okay?" he said.
"Just tell me where you are."
"Sake Manhattan!" yelled the bartender, Leo, in his heavy Brazilian accent.
"I need to be alone tonight," he said. "Please, Eames..."
"If it were me, would you accept that?"
"It's not you. It's me. I just...I can't talk to you. I need time to think."
"Right, and a bar is a perfect place to do that."
He flipped the phone shut, turned it off, then took his drinks to his table. He focused on his drink, and his thoughts. He didn't notice her walk in.
Eames' eyes sought her partner in the shadowy corners of the bar, and found his large form leaning over the table. He had shaved, and was wearing an outfit too dressy for the setting. She knew this stage; she'd hit it a couple of months after Joe's death - the point of trying to escape the grief any way you can think of. She'd bought a new dress and gone out on the town for an party that ended with the only one-night-stand of her life. She'd called in sick the next day - sick with self-loathing - and cried herself ragged. She didn't intend to let Bobby go through that.
She circled around so he wouldn't see her, then grabbed his bottle out of his hand as he was about to take another drink, and sat across the table from him. She relished his look of surprise and a long drink of his beer.
"How did you find me?" he asked, half-angry and half-impressed.
"I recognized Leo's voice over the phone."
He tried to grab his bottle back, but she jerked it away. "I liked your friend CJ. Why haven't you ever told me about her?" she teased.
"I have a lot of friends I don't tell you about," he said defensively. "It's not like I don't have a life outside the office."
"I never said you didn't."
"Isn't that what everyone thinks?" He didn't give her time to argue. "I don't know why I put up with this."
She looked him in the eye. Her voice managed to be both gentle and joking. "Why you put up with what?"
He stared at her, glared at her. "You."
It hurt like a slap, but she only smiled. "Some people ask me that same question about you."
"They don't understand." He rested his elbow on the table and ground his chin and mouth with his fist. "No one does. I'm good at my job, but I have...these incompetents in uniform, cowards in the DA's office, fools for bosses, useless partners... holding me back."
She didn't say anything. Maybe he momentarily believed he meant what he was saying, but he was really just trying to drive her away. And it wouldn't work.
"My life was good before you came along," he said, using the same tone he did when he tried to get to a suspect. "I had my friends, my work...I got the cases solved, and everyone knew who solved them. But now there's you, the...shining face of the Major Case Squad, and now when I solve a case, it's not me they see. They see us, like we're a team. Like you're not just a...tag-along, eye candy for the suspects I interrogate, the assistant, the...sidekick. You're the one who...follows the rules, plays it safe. People like you, your...good looks and your witty little remarks. You don't rub people the wrong way, so when we solve a case you get all the credit and none of the fall-out. You're a..." He stood up suddenly, and he would have knocked over the table if it wasn't bolted to the floor. He didn't look at her when he asked, "How did I get stuck with you?"
"You're just that lucky," she stated.
He was shocked to hear the smile in her voice, and he turned to stare at her. She drank some more beer, then held the bottle out, offering it back to him. He took it and sat back down. Amazed at her resilience, he searched her face, her eyes, and her posture for any sign of the hurt he assumed she must feel. He found it in her eyes, but it was buried beneath layers of patience, worry, and even a hint of amusement.
He stared at her reflection in the table top and took a drink. Even as he said the cruelest things he could think of to make her leave, he'd been gripped with panic that she actually would. Not just that she would leave him here at the bar tonight, but that she would leave their partnership. Why would he do that? He wondered. Why would he try to push away the most important person still in his life when he needed her most? His mother's death had hit him hard. It was a good thing that he was taking time off work; his emotions were volatile, his insights and observational skills were disrupted. Maybe he was trying to push Eames away because she was bringing work into his mourning, adding fuel to his emotional instability. Maybe he wanted to deal with his mother's death alone, to prove he was strong enough to get through the worst thing that ever happened to him. Did he resent her for thinking he needed her help? He doubted all of these hypotheses. In truth, he was grateful to her. She went out of her way several times over the past week to check on him, and when he was with her he thought that maybe, just maybe, he could get through this. So why? His mother was dead, the mother he'd taken care of for years. She was gone, torn from him, leaving a gaping hole in his heart, and leaving Eames the closest person to him. Someday, he could lose Eames too. He'd missed her so much when she was on maternity leave he didn't know how he could stand it. When she was abducted by Jo Gage, he'd been sure she was dead. He could lose her again. Or maybe she'd get promoted, or transfered, and he'd lose her as a partner. He didn't want to hurt like he did now when that happened, so that was why he was pouring as much bitterness as he could into his complicated feelings for her. But that wasn't all of it. Deep inside, he was hoping, yearning that she would stay. He was testing her. But there was something even deeper than that. He had the familiar, nagging feeling that he was missing something his subconscious had already noticed.
Gamble everything...
He pushed the poem from his mind. After the things he'd just said to her...
"Oh, God, Eames, I'm sorry."
He'd been quiet for so long, she jumped a little when he spoke so suddenly and forcefully.
"You know I didn't mean those things, right?" He looked up at her, pleading.
"I know." She kept her voice light, but he now sensed that underneath the levity of her tone was deep concern for him, that she was offering him something solid to hold on to, and that she'd been doing that the whole time.
"That's not the way I think about you. I could never think that about you. I..." he stopped suddenly, and in a second he wasn't sure what he'd intended to say. He couldn't believe those words had come from his mouth. He felt sick, and tainted. He wondered if he could convince her he'd had more to drink than he actually had, but he knew she was too sharp for that. "I don't know how I could say that. You're a better person than anyone else I know. I can't believe... If you left... I don't...know what I would do without you. I need you, Eames."
"I'm still here, aren't I?" she pointed out.
"But I...can't...figure out why." He sighed and buried his face in his hands and didn't speak for a minute. "You never told me...why you withdrew your request for a new partner." His hands dropped back to the table, but he didn't look at her. His chin almost touched his shoulder.
"You never asked."
"I never asked...because I was afraid. The thought of losing you...scares me...more than anything."
"Bobby," she reached out to take his hand, but he pulled it away like her touch burned, and she withdrew her own hands to her side of the table. "I couldn't sleep," she answered. "I thought about requesting a new partner for weeks before I wrote that letter. I'd heard about your reputation, about your...eccentricities, and I had no intention of being a martyr. But after I submitted the letter, I couldn't sleep. I realized I really wanted to learn from you, not just from your methods, but to learn how to work with a difficult partner. Leaving you would have been the worst mistake I ever made. And then I got used to you." That was an understatement, but now was not the time to explain how she really felt, and why. He had enough to deal with already; he didn't need to find out right now that she enjoyed spending time with him, that she had come to cherish his quirks, that her heart fluttered when she heard people praise her partner, that her fists clenched when she overheard people badmouth him, that she could picture his face perfectly when she closed her eyes, that she adored him. She didn't want him to associate her feelings for him with his mother's death.
He watched her expression as she decided against adding something, and since he couldn't think of anything to say, he took another drink. He tasted spearmint on the bottle's rim, where Eames drank from. She'd been chewing gum on the way over. He wondered if she knew about the ancient Roman practice of secret lovers drinking from the same cup at a banquet. It wasn't likely she did, but he couldn't shake the thought. He couldn't get her image out of his mind - her face in the orange glow of the city lights as she slept beside him the night after his mother died. He recalled the Croydon case, what Eames said after he told her how Nicole Wallace had gotten to him. Then let's get her back. The way they were reflected together in the mirrored window, the way she stayed by his side when everyone else was turning against him. She did so much for him. Friendship, he told himself forcefully. She did it out of friendship, nothing else. They were partners, first and foremost, and they were friends. She was an amazing woman: smart, witty, beautiful, the strongest person he knew; it was hard to know her well and not be enamored with her. More than once over the years they'd worked together, he'd been worried that he was falling for her. An affair was out of the question. It was more than he could hope for, and something he greatly feared. But she wasn't making it easy, the way she didn't take her eyes off him.
She noticed the questioning look he gave her. "Bobby," she said quietly, dropping the joking tone, "I can't stand to see you like this."
"I'm all right," he told her. "I'll be all right. I'm just...thinking."
"About what?"
"What would you be if you weren't a cop?" he asked.
"A ballerina." She said it with such a straight face that he had to laugh. "What about you?" she said quickly to cut off his chance to ask her if she was serious.
His smile vanished. "A librarian."
Eames lowered her eyes suddenly to keep him from seeing her reaction. He was actually considering quitting. That hurt and worried her more than the insults he'd thrown at her minutes before. "I'm sure you'd be the best librarian in the city," she said, not entirely succeeding in masking the sadness in her voice. "But you'd miss being the best detective in the city."
"The city would survive without me."
"Not all of it," she said. "Counting the future victims of the serial killers we've stopped, I figure we've saved over a hundred lives. That's over a hundred mothers, fathers, brothers, sisters, children, friends...hundreds of people who've been spared the pain of losing someone they care about to an early, horrible death. It would be a hard blow to the city if you left."
He didn't answer her, or even acknowledge what she said.
"I would miss you," she added quietly and sincerely.
He tilted his head up at an akward angle to look at her without showing her much of his face. "You would miss my...eccentricities?"
She lowered her head so she could look him in both eyes. "Every single one of them," she answered.
He straightened up and backed away from the table, trying not to believe her, resisting what she was trying to say. He was going to leave.
"He could always make me laugh," Eames said suddenly.
He turned back to her. She wasn't looking at him now, but staring at the window. He had to sit back down and listen to her, because she never talked about Joe.
She gulped down the last of his beer. "I'll be right back," she said.
He realized she was giving him an opportunity to leave. She was testing him, just like he'd tested her. And he knew he wouldn't leave, even if he wanted to. He wasn't sure if he did want to.
She returned with two new bottles and handed one to him. His fingers closed around hers as he took it from her, and she lingered a second longer than necessary before drawing away.
Her eyes wandered around the room, never resting on his face, as she finally opened up about her late husband. "On our wedding day, I could see him shaking from across the room. I'd never seen him nervous before. The night before, I'd asked him if he was sure he wanted to go through with it, and he told me he'd be crazy not to. The day I proposed to him...a foggy afternoon in November, we'd been dating for almost a year, and his partner let slip to me that he planned on proposing on our one-year anniversary, and I wanted to beat him to it. He could always make me laugh. No matter how bad my day was, no matter how bad his day was, he would always have some joke or story, even if it wasn't funny to start with he could make it funny. Sometimes when I got home late, he would have cookies waiting for me. He wasn't much of a cook, but he made the best chocolate chip cookies I've ever tasted. And sometimes when I got home before he did I would go out and buy cookies for him as a joke. Sometimes he would gaze at me with his bright blue eyes...and I would feel like the luckiest girl in the world. I loved him so much. When he died, I didn't know how I was going to get through it. I didn't know how I could go on." She finally looked at Goren again. "But here I am."
"There's something I can't figure out," he said after a moment, "I make a study of people, of how people...manipulate each other, but somehow you...can still manipulate me better than almost anyone."
"Your job is to know the suspects, to get into their heads. Mine is to know you and to get into your head. And let me tell you, that's a full-time job."
"Don't make a joke out of this," he begged her. "Don't sell yourself short. Not now."
She blinked. He was still worried she took his insults seriously. "Okay, Bobby. How about this," she leaned forward with a slight smile, "You might be better at figuring people out, but I'm better at handling them."
He nodded. There was a minute of awkward silence, then he asked, "Why did you keep doing this job, after your husband died?"
"The same reason you're going to keep doing this job: because I'm good at it."
"But living with the knowledge that every morning you step out of your house to go to the office...could be your last. That knowledge must have been driven home when your husband died in the line of duty, and when...when you were kidnapped."
"Yeah, well," she shrugged, and winced. "That's true for everyone. No one knows what day will be their last. Joe and I both accepted the hazards of being cops and being married to a cop. He was a hero, and I'm proud of him, and I know he'd be proud of me that I didn't let his death scare me out of serving my city. If I died tomorrow, my work would still be worth it."
"Please don't say that." He didn't want to imagine attending her funeral.
She didn't stop. "And every night I do make it home alive, I know I've made a difference. That's one reason I love my job." She paused. "Some things are worth the risks."
He had the feeling she wasn't just talking about work anymore. He tried to think of a way to ask her, but he couldn't.
"Why were you thinking of leaving the force?" Alex inquired.
"My mom...I'm just starting to...understand how short life is. Am I really doing what I want...with the little time I have?"
Alex searched his face with her eyes. She hoped that if she didn't say anything right now he might say more about his mother.
"I can't believe she's gone. That doesn't make sense, does it? I knew it was coming, I did everything I could think...to be ready. But I still feel...cheated. The years...I should have had with her...I want them back."
"She was your mother. All the things you're feeling are completely normal. Even the guilt."
He looked up at her. "What do you know about the guilt?"
"'I should have spent more time with him. If I'd done something different, maybe he'd still be alive. If only I'd told him I loved him that last morning. If I accept he's gone and let him go and move on with my life, does that make me a traitor?' Your mother loved you, Bobby; she'd want you to be happy. You still have a life to live."
When she said it, he felt like it might actually be true. "How did you move on? Did the pain ever go away?"
She thought for a moment, then stretched out her arm and pulled back her sleeve, revealing the long row of stitches that her first encounter with Carlos Lorenzi had left her with. Goren flinched when he saw how bad her injury really was. "It hurt a lot at first," she said. "Not at the very first, but after the adrenaline wore off. Getting the stitches in was probably the worst part. Now it just aches. Sometimes it throbs. In a few days I'll get the stitches out, and that will hurt too. But after a while, so gradually I won't even notice it, it will stop hurting. The pain might flare up for years, like when I move my arm the wrong way, or if it suddenly gets cold or hot, but it will fade. The scar will fade, too. It won't ever go away completely, but someday it will just be a part of me."
Goren gazed at her in admiration. How could she be so perfect? So subtle and so devastating? Slowly, he reached out and lightly brushed the stitches, careful not to hurt her. Then he noticed another stitch just above the collar of her shirt. He gently folded back her collar to examine the cut along her right collar bone. His stomach clenched as he considered that if that gash had been just a little higher and to the left it could have slit her jugular. He couldn't think of anything to say, but his expressive face said enough. It told Alex about Bobby's fear, anger, concern, and regret. It told her how much he cared about her. He had the most expressive face of anyone she had ever met, which, ironically, contributed to how hard he could be to understand. His face could convey a thousand subtle, complex emotions that were difficult if not impossible to put into words. People didn't know what to make of him; they found it disorienting. It could even be frightening. But not to her. Not anymore.
He swallowed, and he opened his mouth like he thought he was expected to say something. He wanted to find words to thank her, and to tell her how much she meant to him, but he couldn't. Then his eyes went from the stitches to her face, and his look of admiration transformed seamlessly into one of longing. His thumb grazed her neck, then his fingers slid to her hair. She caught her breath, and for a moment she couldn't move. She told herself to stop him, not because she didn't like this, but because she did. A lot. And if she didn't stop him now, she wouldn't have the willpower to do it in another minute. She grabbed his hand. "Don't..."
Her word broke the spell. Goren pulled his hand away. He looked dazed, and horrified at what he'd just done. "I'm sorry. I..." He stood up and practically ran to the bar to pay his tab so he could leave.
With a dismayed expression, Eames stood to follow him. "Bobby, wait! Let me explain!" She chased him out the door, into the chilly pouring rain. He waved down a taxi. She grabbed the door as he climbed in. "Bobby..."
He looked up at her, nearly crying. "Don't."
She released the door, and he slammed it shut. Her dejected eyes followed the taxi as it pulled away.
A/N: The Rumi poem comes from the book Birdsong, translated by Coleman Barks.