Roots and Seeds

a Law and Order: CI story

by RoadrunnerGER

Disclaimer: Dick Wolf still has not agreed to sell them, so they're not mine. This is just for fun and practice.

A/N: You liked the cliffhanger? Hehehe. I love my cliffhangers. Thanks for your reviews. Thanks as always to Bammi1 for beta-reading. Enjoy.

Chapter 20

Pain seemed to be all he was. His eyelids were heavy as if coal sacks were attached to them. For just a second he was blinded by bright light when he blinked before darkness tried to take him again.

"Bobby!" he heard a worried voice call out for him. He could not place it, but it sounded quite urgent. A high, female voice that demanded he obey.

"Detective Goren!"

That voice was female, too. So much was clear. Should he know it? He had a feeling that he should.

His head was bursting.

"Bobby?"

That was the second voice again. With enormous effort he opened his eyes, blinked. Everything blurred.

Someone was breathing very hard in short ragged gasps. Bobby did not realize that he heard himself fight for each breath. Why was he in so much pain?

"Bobby! Please wake up. I know you can do it. C'mon, love. Please wake up, Bobby."

Love? Now Bobby was thoroughly befuddled. Who would call me love?

Only slowly the black clouds before his eyes faded and his vision cleared.

"He's coming back," the darker female voice said. "The bus will be here in a moment. He should be alright."

A high pitched sob right above him irritated Bobby. Who? Then, finally, memory kicked in.

"Alex?" he croaked.

"Bobby!"

When he managed to look up he saw her angelic face framed by her blond hair. A small smile quirked his lips.

"What hap…" Coughs shook his body.

"Don't talk, Bobby," Alex said, lovingly caressing his temples. "You'll be okay. Just hang in there, okay."

Turning his gaze to the left where he saw a figure beside him he now recognized Elizabeth Rodgers who was tending to his wound.

"Am I dead?" he asked, confused.

Laughter reached his still slightly fuzzy mind.

"No, Detective. You're not dead," Rodgers told him. She was pressing a thick patch of gauze on the wound on his shoulder. "You were lucky. It's just a flesh wound. You'll go to hospital for a day or two and then you'll be as good as new."

"What happened?" he wanted to know.

"Do you remember that Gage attacked you?" Alex asked back.

"Yeah."

"We shot him. One bullet grazed your shoulder."

"Declan?"

"Sorry, Bobby. He's dead."

For a moment Bobby contemplated if he was sorry, too. Now his mind worked well enough again to remember everything, including Declan tricking Nicole into killing Frankie before he killed Nicole. He had serious trouble seeing his old friend and mentor anymore in the murderer he became.

"Bobby?" Alex said anxiously.

"Yeah?"

"You seemed to be so absent."

"Thinking."

From the elevators two paramedics came with a stretcher. Together with Rodgers they pushed Bobby on the gurney. They checked his vital functions and inserted an IV to supply him with fluids and painkillers before they raised the stretcher and rolled it out toward the elevator.

Alex followed right behind them and squeezed in with them for the ride down. She stayed as close to Bobby's side as possible on the drive to the hospital and only left him alone during the examination when he was admitted.

"Do you have any idea what I should do with Naomi?" she teased when she sat beside his bed later. "She won't stop screaming until you're back home."

"Well, you could bring her here," he chuckled.

"The hell I will. Any other bright ideas?"

"Nope."

"You're such a great help," she grumbled. "But it won't change the fact that she'll be screaming endlessly. I wonder if she really senses that you're her father, or rather if she notices that I'm not a blood relative."

"Alex, don't be silly." Bobby would have liked to laugh if he would have felt better and if the situation would not have been that serious. "You are her mother, Alex."

"I'm not."

Three words. They came short and calm and left Bobby more agitated than getting shot.

"We are a family, Alex. You and I and Ronny… and Naomi. You don't need to be related by blood to be a family. It's the most simple truth, Alex."

A single tear lurked in the corner of Alex's eye. She swallowed hard.

"I love you, Alex. The kids will love you, too." He smiled at her and reached out to caress her cheek. "For us you are Naomi's mother… and Naomi will know the same."

Leaning into Bobby's gentle touch Alex closed her eyes. She had to fight with her tears. Bobby's words warmed her heart, her whole being so much. Each time he expressed his love for her she wondered what she had done to deserve his trust and love.

When they had shot Declan Gage and she saw the blood splash from his wound she had thought that the profiler had succeeded in piercing Bobby's throat. She thought that the blood came gurgling out of his neck. Alex could not remember a more horrific moment. Joe's death? She had not been present when he died. His captain and the Chief of Detectives showing up on her doorstep had been quite unreal. Seeing Bobby's blood squirt from his wound had been real. It still upset her when she remembered it.

"Maybe…" she mumbled, taking his hand and squeezing it, "maybe I should… adopt her."

Stunned Bobby stared up at her, momentarily speechless. Then he reached out for her and pulled her down into a passionate kiss.

xXx

After Alex had picked up Ronny and Naomi and arrived at home in the Rockaways she was surprised to find Captain Daniel Ross on her doorstep.

"Excuse the brusque question, Captain, but what are you doing here?"

"I wanted to talk with you," he simply said. "May I come in?"

"Yeah. Sure."

Alex led the way inside and wanted to take the captain's coat, but he warded off and put it on the rack himself. Then he followed her inviting gesture and went into the living room.

"I'll bring the children upstairs," Alex told him. "I'll be right back."

"No problem," Ross agreed.

While she took care of the children he used the opportunity to examine the parlor. He believed to see elements of both his detectives in its interior. For him it was easy to imagine that the big, broad sofas and matching easy chairs were selected by Bobby while she certainly chose the practical coffee table with two table tops and a drawer. It was a perfect match, though, as were the cupboards and torchiere. However, the most remarkable pieces were a forty eight inch LCD television and DVD recorder. When Ross wandered over to check out the DVD collection in the rack beside the television he could not suppress a chuckle.

"Found Bobby's movies?" Alex asked when she came back through the kitchen. Her mood had lightened up a little. Bringing the kids to bed had been surprisingly easy, at least in Naomi's case. When Alex went back downstairs both children lay peacefully in their respective beds and were about to fall asleep.

"Oh, I would've thought that you collected the movies for the kids," Ross said, allowing himself a small smirk.

"Nope." Alex smirked, too. "He's a fanatic Disney fan. Actually he collects almost every animation movie he can get. He has some rare ones I've never heard about as well as the classics, even the old Mickey Mouse films. You know, when Mickey still was in black and white."

"Yeah, I know which films you mean. My boys loved Mickey Mouse."

"I think all kids love Mickey."

"Nahhh, I don't think so. Or maybe just our neighbor's son was the exception. When our sons started to watch classic cartoons he always found an excuse to vanish back home."

Alex laughed dutifully, but she quickly became serious again.

"I find our conversation quite entertaining, Captain, but you're not here to talk with me about cartoons, right?"

With a gesture she offered him to take a seat on the couch and he followed the invitation.

"Actually, no."

"Can I offer you something to drink? Coffee? Tea? Anything else?"

"A mineral water would be fully sufficient," Ross said. "Thank you, Eames."

Alex smirked to herself when she returned to the kitchen. Sometimes it was funny how the people referred to her. She chose to adopt Bobby's last name in addition to hers so she actually was Alexandra Goren Eames. Most people who did not know her either called her Mrs. Goren Eames or just Mrs. Goren. Her colleagues called her what they were used to, Eames. Rather rarely someone addressed her by her maiden name.

"Would you like a dash of lemon, Captain?" she asked through the open doorway.

"No, Eames, thank you!"

"We also have iced tea or maybe a spritzer with fruit juice? Blackcurrant?"

"The latter would be fine, thanks."

So she came back to the couch with two glasses of sparkling water mixed with blackcurrant juice and put both down on the coffee table. Ross smiled at her and tasted his drink. Then he nodded approvingly.

"Okay, Captain. Spit it out."

"I want to apologize to you," he said candidly.

"Maybe you should apologize to Bobby," Alex suggested, sipping at her drink in order not to say more than she already had.

"I come right from the hospital," Ross told her. "Your husband told me that you had just left when I arrived. We had a long and intensive conversation."

"Hope you didn't piss him off again."

"No, I didn't," Ross chuckled. If they would have been in his office he might have been offended by her remark, but he could bear her anger here on her territory. "Actually it was a very good talk. He told me that he understands my motives."

Bobby always understands, Alex thought. That's part of the problem. The question is if he'll forgive you.

"He also let me know that he is not ready to forgive yet, and I can understand that, Eames." Ross searched eye contact with her. "I know that I have no reason to apologize for my decision, you know that we had to rule him out, but I want to apologize for the way I used you and for not trusting Goren."

Alex scowled. She was not sure if she was ready to forgive but when she let his words sink in she realized that she could not remain angry with him.

"Okay," she agreed. "Apology accepted." Once more she drank some of her juice mix. "I know that we had to do it, but you're right. I was angry at you for questioning me about his relation to Mark Ford Brady and for using my ambitions to rule him out."

"That's why I asked you to work with Bishop."

"I know. Just… maybe it would've been better if she'd have done it on her own."

Slowly he nodded his agreement.

"I'll think of it next time."

That made Alex laugh humorlessly. "Let's hope that there won't be a next time."

"I'll drink to that," Ross said, an honest smile quirking his lips, and raising his glass to toast. "To a future without lunatics attacking Alexandra and Robert Goren."

"Cheers," Alex grumbled, but then she had to chuckle as they clanked their glasses.

They drank and then Ross asked, "Can we bury the hatchet now?"

Alex scowled.

"You should have stopped talking while you were still on my good side," she teased and raised her glass for another toast that Ross accepted readily.

tbc…