A/N: Tis the season...Happy Holidays. Here is the talk everyone has been waiting for. Many thanks to my dear friend, deliriousdancer, for her feedback! I hope this was worth the wait.

What do you want to know? How did she answer that? She thought she was prepared for anything he could tell her, but where to begin? As far back as he could remember. Understanding began at the start of it all.

"You were a happy little boy once," she answered. "I want to know what happened to you."

No, you don't, he thought. You really, really don't. But she thought she did and this was her show. He hoped she realized that once the words were spoken, there was no way to take them back and nothing was ever going to remove the images he was about to place in her mind. There were two things he hoped would not happen. He did not want to see any pity on her face; he couldn't take that, especially not from her. But even more than that, he could only hope that the things she was about to hear would not come between them and drive her—and his children—away from him. He couldn't change the past any more than he could let it go, but he had always managed to keep it inside, mostly. She was no longer going to allow him to do that, and he resented it. Swallowing the resentment so it would not show, he proceeded cautiously, doing his best to push aside the pain in his body and in his soul and to ignore the spins and dips his head was taking as he looked around the room, anywhere but at her.

"You've already heard some of it," he murmured, taking as deep a breath as his injured ribs would allow. "I was seven...when my mother had her first break. My father...my father was a drunk, a gambler, and a womanizer. My brother is a junkie and a gambler, a player, like Dad was. Both of them...handsome, charming...and unreliable. You know...my childhood was...difficult." He shifted uncomfortably and withdrew his hand from underneath hers. He remained removed from her, physically and emotionally, and she had the sense to let him be, to do what he needed to do to give her what she wanted. On one hand, he did not understand her need to know the intimate details of his difficult past. On the other, he did understand, and he hoped it would not be too much for her. "I learned to...read the signs, to know when she was heading for a break. Sometimes, I missed it, like I did this weekend, and I always paid for it. Always."

She reached toward him, but he pulled back, away from the motion, away from her. She withdrew her hand and waited.

He stared at the floor, looking for something to focus on, away from the words he was forming to try to describe something shapeless and indefinite to someone who could not see it, who never would. "She broke my collarbone when I was eight. Just before my tenth birthday, she threw me down the basement stairs to hide me from 'them' and broke my leg. I can't tell you how many times she locked me in a closet to 'protect' me from 'them'...until, one day, when I was eleven, I became 'them'. Her solution to dealing with my, uh, 'possession', was to beat the demons out of me. No matter how she chose to 'protect' me...I suffered for it." He found something...a small red ball Tom had left on the floor near the coffee table. "My...my father...was away a lot. She missed him, so she doted on Frank. He was her...emotional substitute. I was...her burden. Sometimes...she hit him...sometimes...she hurt him...but not like she hurt me."

Sweat beaded on his forehead. She wanted to know, so fine, he would tell her. And when the nightmares began for her...He bit his lip hard enough to draw blood and never felt it at all. It was the taste of the blood in his mouth that told him what he'd done. He ignored it, wiping the blood from his mouth with an annoyed swipe of his hand. "I was twelve...when she chased me out of the house with a baseball bat because I was the devil impersonating her son. Frank found me under the porch and handed me half a pack of cigarettes. He told me to get lost, that he would make sure Mom got to the hospital when the cops got there. I got Lewis and we went down to the river. Frank hadn't given me cigarettes. That was the first time I ever got stoned." He closed his eyes. That was one of the less painful memories...one of the scattered memories that he recalled almost with fondness. Most of his decent childhood memories involved Lewis or his grandparents, who died when he was still young. Some of them involved Frank and a few were of his mom. "About six months later, Dad took us both along with him to the bar down the street because Mom was in the hospital and Lewis was out of town with his family. He didn't want to hassle with the neighbors, trying to find someone to watch me, and he didn't trust me on my own. Frank got to join the game; I was the...the gopher. I spent the night running back and forth from the back room to the bar. And every time I brought a drink to one of them, they made me take a drink of it. I didn't like it at first...and then...well, the taste wasn't so bad. By the time Dad dragged us home the next morning, neither of us could walk. Dad thought it was funny as hell. I was sick for three days. He told Mom and the school I had the flu. It kind of went...south...from there. I got in trouble, a lot. I spent a lot of time with Lewis. We got drunk and stole a car when we were fifteen, just for fun. Lewis was almost sober enough to drive. Looking back, it was a good thing we didn't kill someone or wreck the car. But it was fun, until the cops brought me home. Dad beat the shit out of me for doing something that brought the cops to his place; Mom was in the hospital. I dated whatever girls wanted to go out with me, and I spent time with Frank, until he was a junior and began to run with a really rough crowd. That...uh, they were the ones...they got him hooked and he never came back. I was...smart enough, I guess, to never let them get to me. Sometimes...I, uh, I did use, with my brother...but never like he did. Never. I walked away from it when I watched him OD and almost die. He spent two weeks in the hospital and my mother blamed me for it. When he got out of the hospital, he went right back to using. I swore I would never be that way, and I never was. I never fell that far."

Alex watched his face, but there was no emotion there as he revisited the past, only pain. He was distancing himself from everything and using his physical pain to focus his mind away from his emotions. She was almost sorry she forced him into this, but not sorry enough to let him stop. When she reached toward him and he pulled away, she could feel his resentment and his anger, and she allowed him those, withdrawing and folding her hands in her lap, fisted together to prevent her from trying to reach out to him again. She felt her own level of pain and anger, neither directed toward him, and she realized there was no way she could ever comprehend what his young life had been like.

Her parents had been strict but loving. Her childhood traumas had been normal—dumped by a boyfriend, stupid brothers who embarrassed her, and one who pushed her out of a tree when she teased him. She got a cast on her arm and he got grounded for a month and was forced to wait on her until her cast came off. She'd liked that deal. But nothing in her experience, as a person or even as a cop, prepared her for the things she was hearing now. She knew that children were abused, even killed, on a daily basis, and she'd seen some terrible things, but, somehow, this was different. This was her husband, the father of her children. She knew he had overcome a difficult past. She had always admired him for the man he'd become, but she had no idea just what he had overcome, and it was staggering.

He ran a dry tongue over drier lips, and he did not react when she got off the couch. He heard her rummaging around in the kitchen, and he used the time to refocus. His mind slipped into the past, returning when she sat back beside him and lightly touched his arm. Jerked back to the present, he shifted away from her again, refusing to look at her. She held out a glass of water and his prescription bottle, bringing both into his line of vision. He accepted them, taking a drink of the water and setting both on the table. He needed his physical pain to get through this talk.

He leaned forward, braced his elbows on his knees and stared at nothing. "I was a little kid, size-wise, like Tommy will be. I was twelve when I got bigger than Mom and almost sixteen when I passed Frank and Dad. But I never thought to use my size against them. I was always the same little kid, getting beat for being bad, for being stupid, for being one of 'them'. Dad ridiculed me for never sticking up for myself, for never using my size to my advantage, even with him. Frank...never laid a hand on me, but every time he got me drunk, or high, or laid...he always went boasting to Dad that he was making a man out of me. Dad told him he was wasting his time. I tried to get Dad's attention, to make him proud, because he was my dad. As I got older, though, I learned to hate him, and I swore I would never, ever be like him. I always swore I would be better. I always tried to be, and somehow I always seemed to fall short of the mark. I was never good enough, until I became a cop. And that was one of the biggest disappointments to my mother, that I wasted my intelligence being a cop. She raised me to be better than that, to be intellectual, to be smart. I was always a disappointment to her..." He raised his head and looked toward the hallway. "Until they came along, until I married you. It was the only thing I ever got right in my life."

And now...now I'm going to lose it all, and my failure as a person will be complete.

He diverted his eyes again and she shifted her position, though she was careful to still give him his space, to offer no sign of anything he could misconstrue as pity. She did not pity him. It hurt her deep inside, in a place she never knew existed, that he had been so mistreated, more than she had ever realized, but the fruit born of that pain was not pity. It was respect. It was awe. It was love.

He snapped his head toward her suddenly, and when the room settled down, he did not see what he expected to see. He was puzzled. "Why...why aren't you angry?"

She was going to have to proceed cautiously. "Why would I be angry? Bobby, you were a victim, as much as any victim we have ever encountered. You are a survivor."

"Damaged goods," he murmured.

"Who isn't damaged in some way? Life is hard. Some suffer more than others, but everyone suffers." She watched the alarm in his face as he looked toward the hallway, and she understood. "Yes, even they have suffered, and they will. It's our job to make them strong so it doesn't tear them apart, so they can survive it, too. Suffering makes us stronger."

He let those words roll around in his head and he tucked them away to deal with later. He turned his face back toward her. "So now you know a little more about my fucked up start in life. Now you know the circumstances that led me toward being the man I am now. I can't tell you every detail because I don't remember a lot of them. And I won't sit here forever recounting every beating I took and every abuse they heaped on me. I think you get the idea, and the idea is bad enough."

She was willing to give him that, and she nodded. It was time to move on to more recent events. "The day I married Ricky, you told me you were okay."

He shrugged, almost relieved by the shift in topic, although that time in his life had its own difficulties. "I lied."

"Apparently, you lied to me a lot while I was married to him."

"The details of my life were on a need-to-know basis. You didn't need to know."

"And Mike did."

Irritation surged, but he quickly swallowed it by focusing on pain. His voice was calm but strained. "You would have preferred for me to have no one? How fair is that, Eames? You had the world by the balls, and I got kicked aside. I didn't matter. So why do you resent the one friend I did have, the one person I was able to turn to?"

"I never kicked you aside," she hissed. "I never turned you away. You were the one who turned from me."

"Because you were married! Dammit, that made you off limits to me!"

"Not as your friend."

He shook his head. "It wasn't the same. You were unavailable, and I wasn't going to call you away from your husband....for anything beyond work. That was never my place. When you got married... everything changed. Our relationship was irrevocably altered and there was nothing I could do about it."

"It changed because you let it."

He shook his head slowly. "No. It changed because it had to. I..." He closed his eyes. "I had to let you go, only...I couldn't. I tried, but I couldn't."

"What are you talking about?"

He was getting agitated. "Your wedding...was difficult for me."

"I know you had a hard time."

"You have no idea."

She tried to gauge if he was ready to be touched, but he was not giving her any clear signals. She kept their contact verbal. "So give me an idea."

He fisted his hands and stared at the floor. "I have been...in love with you...for a long time. F-For years. When you married Ricky...it was...painful...for me. It was a...loss...I had trouble recovering from. Mike...took me home that night...made sure I got home...and stayed with me. When I went out of town for the week...he...checked on me, every day...and drove up to spend the weekend with me. Mike..." He drew in an uneven breath. "He's been the best friend I've ever had, and he has never asked for a damn thing in return." Finally he looked at her, his eyes filled with pain. "And you resent him for that."

"No," she answered. "I love him for that. I resent the fact that he knows you better than I do, that you open up to him and close yourself off to me."

Again he averted his eyes. "I'm trying...to be more open. It's...not easy."

"Because you think you'll lose me if I know the truth."

She watched him close his eyes, not responding, and she knew that was a major reason for his fear and his withdrawal from her. She shifted closer to him on the couch, relieved that he did not move away, but she still refrained from touching him. "So it was Mike who got you through my marriage."

Slowly, Bobby shook his head. "No. He tried, but he couldn't do it. I was still...slipping away, I guess. I...tried to forget...to cope with the pain...by drinking...by...looking for some kind of...substitute, but nothing worked."

Alex frowned. "I don't understand. If it wasn't Mike...then it had to be...Denise..."

Again Bobby shook his head. "No. They both tried, but it wasn't them. It was Maggie."

"Maggie?" She sat back and gave that some thought. "Maggie...of course...No one has ever touched your heart the way she did."

"She saved me from myself just be being born. I found...an interest in life again...through her. I might have lost you, but with Maggie around, some of the pain slipped away. I can't...explain it. I just know...what she means to me."

"And the women you dated?"

"I didn't date many. There were a lot of...one night stands and women who refused to share me with you and Maggie. There were a couple who work at 1PP, and then there was Denise. After Maggie was born, it was mainly Denise, and then, it was only Denise, because she loves Maggie and she always understood me, somehow. She never asked me for more than I could give."

"Denise," she said softly, struggling with a mixture of jealousy, resentment and gratitude. "Did you...do you...love her?"

God, that was a complicated question, one he was not sure he had an answer for. He finished the water, but when he went to set it back on the table, he hit the edge of it and the glass fell from his grasp. Alex leaned over and picked it up, setting it in place. Then she sat back and watched him, waiting. He drew his lower lip in between his teeth and sighed. "I...could have...would have...if...if I had not been so in love with you. It was grossly unfair to her, but...she never stepped away, and I never asked her to. I...needed her, and she seemed to know that, but I was never able to sort through my feelings for her."

She watched him closely as she continued to pursue the subject. "What about now?"

He arched an eyebrow and looked at her. "I have never been unfaithful to you. I love you too much."

"I never thought you were, but I need to know exactly where she stands with you."

He sighed. "She is my friend, that's all. We...talked about it, after your divorce. She always knew that if you ever became available to me, you would be my first choice. You were always my first choice, my only choice in some ways, and she accepted that. It wasn't fair, to either of us, but that's the way it was."

She almost dreaded his answer to her next question. "If we didn't work out for some reason, would you go back to her?"

He studied her, unable to find any reason why that would matter. "Why do you want to know that?"

"Answer me and then I will tell you."

She wanted honesty, so he would give her what she wanted. "If she would have me, yes."

She reached out and touched his arm, and this time he did not pull away. "I have no intention of going anywhere," she assured him. "But I'd like to know you still had someone around who cares about you."

He frowned. "I would never ask her to wait for me. She's dating and if she decides to marry, I would never do anything to hold her back. If you ever left me...I would have to manage...on my own, and I would, as long as I have my children. If you ever took them away..."

She was shaking her head. "No. I would never do that. Never."

"Then there's no problem."

She sighed. "Tell me why you were always so available to me. Every time I called you, you dropped what you were doing, and who you were doing it with, to come to me."

"Why? I gave you my word that you could always depend on me, that's why. I try to never go back on my word. After Maggie was born, it was all about her." He looked at the table, at the empty glass. "You took advantage of that," he softly accused.

She opened her mouth to argue, but found no argument to use. He was right. "You let me," she answered, defensive.

"Yes, I did, but only because I loved you. I couldn't tell you that, but I did."

"I knew. So did Ricky. That was why he hated you so much." She hesitated. "And you did tell me, a few times. But never when you were in your right mind, not the way you meant it when you weren't."

He rubbed his forehead. "Your dad...told me I loved you too much."

"Do you think you did?"

"At first, no. Then later, maybe. But how could I change that? I couldn't. So I coped the best way I knew how, as messed up as it was. I was able to let you go some after Maggie was born, but I could never let go completely. Not enough to let me give myself to someone else. I didn't have anything to give."

She withdrew her hand from his arm. "I almost left Ricky, did you know that? Then I got pregnant, and I had to stay, to try to make it work. How ironic is that? The child that saved you also kept you from getting what you wanted."

He shrugged. "I wouldn't trade her for anything in the world."

Alex nodded. "I know. But you resented her before she was born. I saw that."

"All that changed when she was born. Then everything became her. Everything was her."

Alex was quite for a moment, her mind traveling into the very recent past. "When she nearly died...I saw a big part of you dying with her."

He closed his eyes, shuddering at the memory. "I...don't think I could have survived that," he said honestly.

She agreed. "I don't think so either."

He opened his eyes and looked at her. "I...don't know if I could handle losing you again much better than I did the last time, except for the kids."

She was very quiet before asking, "What did Mike say about it?"

It was his turn to be quiet. "He said if it's too late, I need to think about the kids and move on, to focus on them. I couldn't move on before; I'd have to now."

"And what do you think?"

He swallowed a surge of panic, not liking the turn the conversation had taken. "I think...he's right."

"So are we done or do we fix it?"

He couldn't look at her and he chewed on his lip, making it bleed again. "I thought you said some things couldn't be fixed."

"I told you not to take that the wrong way."

"So what's the right way, Alex? How am I supposed to interpret that if you don't tell me what you mean?"

"I meant what's done is done and there is no way to undo it. We can't fix the past. Now us...we can always fix our relationship as long as it's something we both want to work on. Once either one of us is done, then it's over."

"Are you done?"

"With you?" She moved closer and reached out to him, resting her hand lightly on his chest. He let her. "No, Bobby. I'm not done with you. Not by a long shot."

He met her eyes. "So we can...work this out? And not...not just for the kids, but for... for us?"

She nodded. "For us. If you're willing to do the work."

"Just...tell me...tell me what to do."

She gently wiped the blood from his lip with her thumb, which she then wiped on his jeans. He almost smiled. She let out a soft breath. "First, we are going to the funeral home tomorrow. Not you. Us. We will make the family decisions together. She was part of me, too, because she was part of you. Then we will take Maggie to the doctor. I want you to start thinking in terms of we and us, not you and me. It will take some time and effort, I know. But it's something I really do need you to do."

He nodded. "Do you want me to...stop...uh, to end my friendship with Denise?"

She watched him brace himself for the answer. Just that he was willing enough to do that for her was enough. "No, Bobby. I don't." She thought about how to explain herself. "Denise has been an important part of your life. When you needed her, she was there, in every way I couldn't be. And then when I became available, she had the courage to let you go and step back into a lesser role. I trust you. And I trust her."

"That's a lot of trust, Alex."

She nodded slowly. "You've earned it. If I can't trust you, then we don't have anything."

He held her gaze. "Thank you."

She picked up the prescription bottle and set it in his hand. "Take your medicine and get some rest." She leaned closer. "I'm worried about you."

He took the bottle and dumped a couple of the pills into his hand. She took the bottle from him and took the empty glass into the kitchen. Setting the bottle on the refrigerator, she refilled the glass with water and brought it to him. He swallowed the medicine, not sure if it was all right to feel relieved. He laid back, on the downside of the adrenaline rush from his panic. She sat beside him and laid her hand gently on his chest. "I just want a couple of promises."

"Like what?" he asked, his tone cautious.

"I don't expect perfection, but I want you to try. Stop hiding from me. I'm your wife. Trust me." She combed her fingers through his hair, relieved when he let her. "There is nothing you can tell me from your past that would change the way I feel. I'm sorry I used you like I did, and I will make that up to you. But please, stop running from me."

He sighed softly and nodded. "I'll try," he promised.

Slowly, he turned onto his side, into a position where the pain wasn't so bad. He draped his arm over her lap, and he let himself return to sleep.

Maggie was disappointed when she came out into the living room to find her father still sleeping. Alex easily read her disappointment. "Daddy needs sleep, Maggie. That's the best way for him to get better."

"Why was Daddy sad b'fore?"

Always this child could read her father's moods. "He was thinking about Gramma, that's all."

"Is you still mad at Daddy? That makes him sad, too."

"You're right. It does. And no, I'm not mad at him any more."

Maggie nodded as she hobbled to the couch and gently touched Bobby's cheek. She kissed him before making her way to the table for supper, satisfied that Daddy would be okay.