A.N: Could be a post ep for "Untethered" if you look hard enough. I own nothing.
She used to be afraid of the calls that come in the middle of the night.
Once upon a time, when she was a cop's wife, instead of a cop's widow (never mind being a cop herself), she'd sit up and wait. Sometimes, she'd fall asleep, but that was only if she hadn't had enough coffee. After the night that had changed everything, she had given it up. Or at least, she'd thought she had.
Seven years ago, she'd taken it up again, all because of one introduction made by her now "retired" captain.
"Alex Eames, meet Robert Goren. He's going to be your new partner."
Seven years later, she finds herself sitting at her kitchen table, staring at the phone and willing it to ring.
The Chief of Detectives is an idiot, she thinks. And he wonders why no one seems to like him. She almost pities those who have to work with him in close proximity, every day, and then figures that if they want to play political kiss-ass, that's on them, and not on her, and she doesn't really give a damn one way or another. They made their choice, and she made hers.
She's already been assigned a temporary partner, a guy whom she really can't stand, because he's annoying in that way of being annoying without actually knowing that he's annoying. It's starting to get on her nerves. She has the feeling that he might be a plant from Internal Affairs, and the way he's taken over Bobby's desk makes her want to smack him, but she doesn't dare.
Logan, on the other hand, had no problem "accidentally" upending a cup of still-warm coffee over the guy, and it amuses her greatly.
The phone still hasn't started to ring.
Part of her is extremely worried by this and the other part of her knows that if Bobby really needed her, he'd call. Even so, there's another part of her that wonders if he'll quit being stubborn long enough to actually pick up a phone, any phone, and do so. She's dealt with the stubborn side of her partner more times than she cares to think about, and isn't particularly keen on doing it again, especially not now. But she will if she has to.
At this point, Alex takes another sip of her coffee and continues to wait. The flavor of it hits her, suddenly, and she realizes that it isn't the kind she normally buys.
And then it occurs to her that the last time she actually needed to buy coffee (surprising, really, seeing as she usually has enough of the stuff lying around somewhere), Bobby had been with her.
It explains the change of flavor in a heartbeat.
That's the funny thing about their partnership, Alex muses now, those subtle changes in her life that she didn't even notice she was making until right that moment, and it's only because he's gone.
She's so used to him always being around in one way or another that the fact that he isn't, and won't be in the morning bothers the hell out of her. She doesn't look forward to going into a squad room where she knows the others (besides Logan, because he knows better) are talking, and a squad room where her temp keeps looking at her like he's sorry she's been stuck with Bobby all this time. She wants to ask him how long partners last in IAD before they leave because the pressures of investigating other cops get to them, and then she wants to tell him that her partner, her real partner, is the reason why she hasn't completely lost it yet.
He's always been there for her, and she wishes that he'd get over himself and let her be there for him, but she knows him too well.
The phone remains silent.
The clock strikes eleven.
One hour and then it all disappears, Cinderella, Alex thinks, amused by this, because she has no fairy godmother, and if she did, the only thing she'd want is to hear from her partner. She wonders for a brief moment if it's sad that she's so used to hearing his voice at least once a day that when she doesn't, everything goes upside down.
She thinks, then, of the word that was floating around the precincts concerning Benson and Stabler from SVU a few months ago, how they were 'mutually dependent' on each other, or something or other. It makes her laugh, which startles her, because she's the only one in this house of hers, and the sound echoes.
If the department thinks Benson and Stabler are 'mutually dependent', she muses, they haven't seen anything yet.
It hits her then that had he never come along, she wouldn't know some of the things she knows now.
Every so often, when they're on a case, Bobby will say something that seems so out of the blue and random that she wants to laugh, but she always waits, because he always has a point. And he always explains it to her when she doesn't get it, which is rare, because she's supposedly the only one that gets him, which is why Ross leaves her to deal with him half the time. It's not exactly the worst thing in the world to have to talk to him, she wants to say, every time this happens. If you'd give him a chance, maybe you'd see that.
The stupid thing about this is that the department sometimes defines certain people by the reputation they've gained, and Bobby is one of those people.
Alex knows damn well that her partner knows this, and can't help but think that maybe that's why he hasn't called, because he doesn't want to 'ruin' her any more than he has.
She'd tell him that the only thing he's ruined her for is any other guy, because she really doesn't think that they'd 'get' her as well as he does, if she didn't think he'd try to push her away even further. It almost hurts to realize this, but at the same time it doesn't, because she knows it's the way he is, and she also knows that sooner or later, she manages to get through to him.
The faint sounds of a car horn honking at something drift in through the open window along with the wind, and it occurs to her that she's kind of cold, but she doesn't want to move.
The window is in the living room and the phone is in the kitchen. It still hasn't rung.
She wants to be annoyed by this, but finds that she can't be.
Instead of letting herself get annoyed to the point of calling him and telling him off, she opens her laptop, pulls up one of those games she has on there and starts to play.
It is for this reason that she doesn't hear the front door opening, and even if she did, she'd have assumed it was one of her siblings and not pay attention to whatever it was that they were doing. As it is, however, all of her siblings are busy tonight, but this fact doesn't occur to her, because she's too busy playing this game to keep her mind off of things.
When the familiar Styrofoam cup of coffee appears in front of her, she jumps, and nearly knocks it over.
There behind her is the person she's been waiting for.
"You could have called, you know," she says, motioning to the phone hanging on the wall and the cell phone besides the computer.
"I didn't want to wake you up," comes the reply, and Alex bites back a smirk because it's just so typical that Bobby would assume she was asleep at this late hour, and honestly, she might have been, if not worrying after him.
"I had too much coffee," she says, finally, and doesn't miss the amused look that crosses his face.
"Maybe you should let me drink that, then."
"Ah…no. This one is mine. There's coffee in the pot if you really want some, and you know where the mugs are."
"How long have you been waiting for me?"
"Long enough to start worrying, which is why you now not only owe me more coffee, but Skittles."
He pulls out one of the bags that she uses to fill the jar in her desk that no one's supposed to know about but somehow he does, and she rolls her eyes.
"Damn. Here I was hoping you hadn't thought of that."
"You know me better than that."
He's right, she thinks, then. She really does. Closing the laptop, she gets up, takes the Skittles from him, and wanders into the living room, where she flips on the TV, which is (unsurprisingly) set on the Discovery Channel, which she never actually watches, but he does.
"You're taking over my house," she says, a mock complaint that he doesn't take seriously as he sits beside her.
"I could always go," he replies. She gives him a look.
"No, you can't," she says, decidedly. "I don't mind."
Later on, when they're sprawled out across her bed because they finally got tired of watching TV and they don't both fit on the couch, and he wouldn't let her give up her bed for his sake, she pokes at him.
"What?" he asks.
"Nothing," she replies. "I was just thinking."
"About what?"
"Work."
It's not exactly a lie. But somehow, he sees through what she's saying, and reaches out to put an arm around her.
"Next time, I'll call," he tells her, quietly. She pokes at him again.
"You'd better."