A/N: Thank you all for the reviews! I'm sorry for the extreme delay in updating. Believe me I'm trying to fit in the time to write between everything else.

Enjoy!

Bobby's Apartment

Alex unlocked the backdoor and pushed it open, walking immediately into the kitchen and spotting Robert standing at the stove cooking. She had made it a priority to remember to refer to him now as Robert until he grew more comfortable around her. It took some doing, but after last night it was easier to remind herself that as of right now, he wasn't the man she had fallen in love with. He was a stranger to her, to himself, and to his entire life.

She had no idea how or if they could get beyond this, but even though last night had ended badly in a way, there were good moments. There had been hope in his eyes in regaining his life back, and maybe the love they had for each other. Standing there now, in the kitchen, and watching him mindlessly prepare dinner she wasn't sure what she felt. It was so hard to not be overwhelmed still with the array of emotions from earlier that night. Her family now knew what was going on with their mom. They all felt the same way; they were all preparing for the worse, yet hoping for the best.

If Robert had noticed her there, he made no indication. She wouldn't be surprised to learn that he was so engrossed in what he was doing, and in his head, to notice. Alex slid off her coat and draped it over the back of the car and tossed her purse on the table.

The noise brought his head up and when their eyes met, she saw a slight smile before he was back to focusing on the food he was cooking. From the smell and sizzling, she knew it was steak.

"Need any help?" she asked as she walked over to the counter. She saw the wine she'd bought open on the counter along with a glass half full sitting next to it.

"It's almost done, but thanks anyway. Uh…" he gestured to the bottle and asked, "want a glass?"

"I think I need something stronger after the day I had, but sure, why not."

Robert gave her a concerned look, but he didn't ask. Bobby would've asked, and she felt the pang of hurt as she pulled down a wineglass and filled it. "Want me to top yours off?"

"Thanks," he softly said.

Alex topped his glass off before going over to the table to sit down. She felt out of place suddenly; thinking once again that maybe he wouldn't want her there. However, as it were, she had no place else to go. This was her home too. Sure, she was in the process of moving out, but so far all she had at her new apartment was a mattress on the floor and a box of dishes and appliances.

Robert made two plates and handed one to her before grabbing his glass and starting for the living room. She picked up her plate and glass to follow. As she entered the living room, she was surprised to see him keep walking toward the hallway.

Letting out a breath of air, she headed back into the kitchen. She didn't have much of an appetite but since he cooked, and remembered to cook for her as well, she ate most of the meal before finally giving up and tossing the rest. In the living room, she sat down on the couch with a cup of tea and decided to relax as she would like any other night. After staring mindlessly at a news program for half an hour, she realized she was having trouble dropping her guard. Her mind kept going back to last night, to everything that had happened in the past week, the past few months, as she tried to make sense of it all.

The door opened down the hall and she turned her head as Robert came back into the living room carrying his empty plate a glass. His focus was on the floor as he was lost in thought. Having enough of this no talking, Alex gathered her strength and courage as she got up and followed him into the kitchen.

Before she could say anything, he talked first.

"Did, uh…Detective Logan tell you that I was sorry?"

"Yeah, I got the message," she told him as she went over to the table.

He gave a nod as he sat his dishes in the sink. Then, turning to face her, he leaned against the counter as he told her, "I wanted to tell you myself but you weren't around after the interviews were over, and I didn't know how you would, uh, accept it…coming from me."

"Robert," she said as she sat down at the table, "I would rather accept it coming from you than someone else. But there's nothing for you to be sorry about. We were both at fault for what happened last night. And if anyone should be sorry, it should be me."

He gave her a confused look before asking, "Why would it be your fault?"

"Because you were right. You warned me that you were different, that you weren't the man I loved, and I wouldn't listen. I thought I understood, but I guess I was in denial about some things. I wanted you so much; at least I wanted the man that I know you once were…I lost my reasoning."

They were both quiet for a long moment. Robert was looking to the floor, thinking about it all before saying, "I guess love and desperation does that." He looked up at her and she saw the pain in his eyes. "I took advantage."

"No, you didn't."

"It felt like I did. I don't even know what happened. I had no control over myself."

Alex sucked in a deep breath as thoughts of last night filled her head. The way he got angry with her right before trying to leave. How she stopped him, kissed him, and then him going to leave again but then something happened. She saw a look cross his face, one she couldn't place and that slightly terrified her before he stepped into her and kissed her back.

"Do you regret it?"

She shook her head. "Do you? You left awfully fast."

A look of pain hit his face as he flinched. Shaking his head, he told her, "I only regret how I made you feel, and for leaving."

"How do you think you made me feel?" she asked; genuinely curious and confused.

He wouldn't look at her as he rubbed over his eyes and head. "Like….like you were being used."

She stared at him for a long moment before saying, "Well, it wouldn't have been the first time if I had been."

At that, his head snapped up as he stared over at her. The look in his eyes nearly did her in. He looked absolutely stunned and guilty at the same time. "What'd you mean?"

"I mean that I know how people just need somebody for sex, and it wouldn't be the first time that has happened between us. But, you're right, last night was different because for the first time I knew that there was no love involved."

His face dropped and so did his eyes; they were back on the floor and away from her as he softly told her, "I couldn't. I was afraid if…that if I had let myself feel anything, or if I had let you think that I was…I guess, making love to you, then you would think that I was uh, who I was before. I thought I was doing the right thing at the time…But, none of what happened was the right thing. I should have just left."

"Maybe so, but what happened, happened. Neither one of us can change that. And, despite what either one of us felt during or after, I think it was a good thing." He peered over at her and she saw the disbelief in his eyes before she continued, "It forced me to realize that I was in denial. It forced me to face the reality of this situation. You have no memory of us. You have no memory of your life. Therefore, you don't have none of your virtues, and none of your vices."

He gave a nod to that as he told her, "You finally realized that, huh?" The way he said that, and the slight smirk she saw, told her he was teasing her despite the fact that the humor never reached his eyes.

"Call me what you want, but I still had hope for us."

"Had?" he said as disappointment clouded his voice, "You don't think-"

"I don't know what to think anymore, Robert. The fact that I have to call you that instead of Bobby isn't giving me much to hope for."

"I'm more comfortable—"

"I know," she said, cutting him off again. "That's the point. You're more comfortable right now at keeping people who're your friends at a distance than you are at letting us in. You should want our help, but instead, you're pushing us away."

He sighed loudly as he shook his head a little at hearing that. The way his face twisted slightly, and his jaw twitched, she knew he was getting angry at that accusation. "It's hard."

"Don't you want to know?"

"I do know. At least I know part of it," he told her as he gestured toward the living room, waving his hand dismissively. "I found the case files that were in the closet."

Alex wondered when that would happen. Bobby had brought those files home and had been obsessively going over them because he had trouble remembering everything that had happened to him during his abduction. He had been in denial himself, and had repressed some of the most terrible things he'd been through in order to get over and past it all.

Knowing that she was going to sound like a shrink or something, she had to ask him anyway, "Are you okay? That stuff's not easy to look at, or to remember."

Shaking his head, he told her, "I'm fine. And uh, that's the thing. I am fine. Going through the files, I thought they would make me remember or at least make me feel…something. I didn't."

Wrinkling her head in confusion, she asked, "You didn't remember anything?"

"That, and…I didn't feel anything." He looked up at her and she was the worry in his eyes at that declaration. "I felt nothing. No pain, no anger…not even relief. It was like, I don't know…like I turned everything inside of me off when I looked at the pictures. I don't know what to think, Alex. I don't know if…if it's my minds way of telling me that I'm over it. Or, if it means that I'm never to regain my memories back…"

"Hey," she said as she got up and walked over to him. While he was talking, he started to shake a little and the anger was getting worse. "You will remember."

"What makes you so sure?" he asked as tensed slightly as she got closer to him. With a pain in his eyes that she'd barely seen in him before, he said, "I'm so scared that I'll never…" he trailed off as he closed his eyes to rub at the tears she'd seen well before he caught them.

Reaching out, Alex placed her hand on his chest, feeling the pounding of his heart and the trembling in his body. "You need to calm down."

"The more time that passes, and the less I remember, the angrier I feel. The more…apathetic I'm becoming. I just…I feel like giving up sometimes or that maybe it'll be easier if I just left."

Alex felt the sudden panic in her chest as he said that. The last thing she wanted was for him to suddenly leave, to disappear like he suggested. She couldn't even force out a protest as he suddenly reached out and grabbed her hand that was still resting on his chest. He looked at her hand and then into her eyes as he eased her hand off him.

"Being here," he softly told her, "Seeing everything that I have, everybody that I used to know, and not knowing them…not knowing what to do or when to do it…that's the most frustrating. Logan was here earlier, to drop off my car and things. He told me to take it one day at a time. That made everything so much worse. It's like I have no purpose anymore. What am I supposed to do? I can only look at so many pictures, Alex. I can only walk around these floors so many times, read over pages after pages of my life and still not remember a damn thing before I get so mad that all I want to do is either destroy it all or take off."

"Why can't you feel like rediscovering it all over again?" she asked. The small smile that briefly twitched his lips almost made her smile.

"I was wondering that myself. I had said that much last night, about rediscovering it over again…and at the time, I felt the anticipation…the thrill of it. But, then, what happened to us happened. Nothing's getting better. Believe me, I want nothing more than to discover as much about my life as possible, but I found that I do it better alone. When I'm around you, it gets complicated."

Alex sighed as she remembered everything they'd talked about last night. How it was hard for him to be around her; to see her and knowing she was waiting, and hoping, for him to suddenly turn into the man she loved. He had told her of a memory he had, but she realized it was during a time they weren't together; it had been when he was walking alone, down a street. Since then, he hadn't had any more memories. She wondered if it was due to the fact that since then he'd been around her more. There were so many things that she didn't understand about his amnesia, but she would think that being around her, and his things, his life, that it would help. But, for him, it seemed to have made it that much harder.

"If in order for you to get better, and to start remembering, you need to be away from me then I can just hurry up and move out," she said. "You can still stay here, in your house, but it'll be without me here too."

He didn't look too convinced, but he gave a slight nod as he went to step away from her.

"Besides, I thought you wanted to take Nicole Wallace down for what she did to you?"

At that, he stopped moving as he looked back at her; there was a look of resignation and defeat in his eyes as he said, "Quite frankly, Alex…I don't care anymore. What happened to my memory, I was told was my own damn fault. Nicole may have abducted me, along with Brenda, and she may have tried to frame me for murder, but it didn't work. So, right now I'm a free man with my name cleared. And, I know that I'm a cop. That I still think like a cop…but, truth is, I'm not a cop anymore. I don't have a badge and I don't have a job. You're the cop. Logan's a cop. As for me, right now, I'm just a man, Alex. And, Nicole, all she wants to do is help me, and if she contacts me again, you know what…I just might let her."

Alex was speechless. She didn't know what to say, or to do, as she watched as he turned and left the kitchen. Seconds later, a door shut and she still couldn't get herself to believe what she'd just heard.

Finally, after a couple of minutes, she pulled out her cell phone and called Logan. Since she couldn't watch the interview earlier that day she didn't know what had happened. After two rings, Logan answered.

"Logan."

"Hey, Logan."

"Eames! Just the person I was about to call."

Alex sat down at the table as she asked, "You were about to call me?"

"Yeah; look, I think you need to come into 1PP now. Since Goren was cleared, you can help with the case, and we did some further digging, literally, in the hospital room where Caleb was killed and at the warehouse, and we found a few things that were overlooked."

"Implicating what?"

"Motive," Logan told her. "And it's not what we think. Goren was right earlier when he said that Nicole wasn't done, that she's going to kill more and that she's trying to tell a story."

Alex shook her head in confusion, saying, "What are you talking about, Mike?"

He was quiet for a moment before saying, "Oh, right. You weren't here for the interview with Goren. You really need to get in here so I can fill you in."

"I'm on my way," she told him before flipping her cell shut. Without telling Robert that she was leaving, she grabbed her purse and coat and quickly left.

He paced around the floor, trying to think when he heard a door shut in the apartment. It wasn't from the hall so he knew Alex must have left. Sighing loudly, he hoped it hadn't been from something he'd done or said that made her leave. What he'd told her was the truth, if he was contacted again by Nicole Wallace, he would go along with her willingly. A part of it was to see what she had to offer him as far as helping him, but also to keep an eye on her.

Thinking of that made him once again go over their previous conversations. The notepad he'd been taking notes in was on the desk and he picked it up and flipped through his scribbling of the things Nicole had told him. If he was right and Nicole was telling a story, than that meant she had to have been dropping clues to him. He remembered thinking that she was speaking in some sort of code that he didn't quite understand. But, she knew he had no memory. So, she knew not to speak of anything that he would have known from their history together.

So, there had to be a source for him to turn to, a text as it were. It had to be something easily accessible. She had told him that she was his messenger. To him that felt like something more than just the general reference to a messenger relaying information, but more…omnipotent, divine in a way.

Stopping in his steps, he rubbed at his head as that thought took hold. He was in a motel room, with only his clothes and money…What was in every motel or hotel room? What could he look to for guidance?

He looked over at his bookshelves and saw it among the many assortments of books. Going over to the shelf, he pulled out his bible.

Sitting down at the desk, he stared at the book and the lettering of the King James Bible and realized he didn't know where to begin. Leaning back, he thought about waking up in the empty motel room, no memory of what had happened and all of his belongings missing…They had been taken by Nicole, used against him to help frame him.

Leaving the study, he went to the kitchen and pick up the package envelope Logan had given him that contain all of his belongings. He took it with him back to the study and dropped the contents onto the desk.

He first searched his wallet and found nothing of importance before picking up his cell phone. Going to the date he'd been abducted, he picked up a pen and wrote down the date and times of the last call and text on a blank sheet from the notepad.

February 19th, 11:26. The duration of that phone call made at that time was 3 minutes and 56 seconds.

February 19th, 12:48. That was the time that the text message was sent.

Tapping the pen on the pad, he rubbed at his jaw as he realized that the date didn't make any sense. The text was after midnight, but the date was still on the nineteenth. He picked up the phone and wondered if the date could be tampered with until he realized that the clock was on the 24-hour mode. Instead of reading 21:19, it read 9:19, which would make it AM instead of PM.

His clock had been tampered with so that the date wouldn't change from the 19th to the 20th. So, the 19th had to be important for him to know. Flipping the bible open, he flipped to the 19th book, the Book of Psalms, and to chapter 11. There was no verse 26, so he figured it meant lines 2 through 6.

"For, lo, the wicked bend their bow, they make ready their arrow upon the string, that they may privacy shoot at the upright in heart. If the foundations be destroyed, what can the righteous do? The Lord is in his holy temple, the Lord's throne is in heaven: his eyes behold, his eyelids try, the children of men. The Lord trieth the righteous: but the wicked and him that loveth violence his soul hateth. Upon the wicked he shall rain snares, fire and brimstone, and an horrible tempest: this shall be the portion of their cup."

Re-reading the lines, he underlined a few keys words and points that seemed to fit, like the line "if the foundations be destroyed, what can the righteous do?" It felt like his foundation had been destroyed without a memory. Even if Nicole hadn't planned on his amnesia, having no memory of what had happened during that period in the motel room would have still shaken his ground. There was also the line "the Lord trieth the righteous". This was a test, or at least it felt like he was being tested. Being tested by the Lord…who was the Lord in his case? Nicole? Was he a pawn in her game? The answer to that was yes, he was. Who else did the Lord test? Job.

Rubbing at his head, he felt a dull ache start to build. He didn't like where this was going. He flipped to the next chapter, and to the lines 4 through 8.

He read them over and all he got from them was that his Lord, if it were Nicole, was guiding him and telling him the truth. She was trying to help him find the truth; that was what she had told him. So, her words were pure. They weren't lies.

Sighing, he shook his head at the lengths Nicole was going through to get her point across to him. But, he had to admit, it was working. He was fully engaged now and eager to find out more. He wasn't sure if the duration of the call, the 3 minutes and 56 seconds was a part of the message. He also didn't know if it referred to Psalms 3:5-6, or if it meant the third book of the bible, chapter 5, verse 6.

He figured it wouldn't hurt to look at both. So he turned the pages back to the third chapter and read verses 5 through 6. What he read made his back stiffen.

"I laid me down and slept; I awaked, for the Lord sustained me. I will not be afraid of the ten thousands of people, that have set themselves against me…"

That was a near direct reflection of being in that motel room and awakening to being framed and accused of a crime, and having people turn against him. There was no reason to check out the third book, but he decided why not as he flipped from Psalms to the Book of Leviticus, chapter 5, verse 6.

"And he shall bring his trespass offering unto the Lord for his sin which he hath sinned, a female from the flock, a lamb or a kid…" he stopped reading as he felt his gut twist. "For a sin offering…make an atonement…"

He thought back to what he had said before, that this was a story. If that was the case, and if this verse was part of that story, than that meant that the offerings for his atonement for his sin was a woman and a kid.

The woman had to be Brenda, and the kid was Caleb.

He shut the bible as he picked up the phone Nicole had given him that day in the subway. It was time to confront her with all of this.

Flipping the phone open, he decided to contact her first.

TBC…