In the back
In the closets of your mind
That's where skeletons and dirty secrets hide
And I'll rip out my insides
And leave them on display for you tonight

Cause everybody wants to hide their secrets away
Nobody wants to stand up to the pain
But I will...

Stand up to the pain
Wake up and fight again

-"Secrets", Good Charlotte

The bed was narrow, making it hard not to cuddle without somebody falling off, but we managed. I wished I had a cigarette or a vicodin -- or both. I wasn't going to let things get out of hand this time between us. "So this roommate thing," I began, "I've heard it's a good idea to be honest about your likes and dislikes...."

He chuckled. "I certainly like this," he said as he ran his fingertips up and down my arm. "I'm also pretty neat and clean. Military and all of that."

"Did the military have any other effect on your personality?" I asked suspiciously. I didn't want to be surprised by anything in Bobby that might remind me of my "father."

He shook his head. "Not my personality. My intellect, sure. But the military was a gateway to intelligence. I wouldn't be where I am today without it. I was always intellectually curious. I just met people that molded me. Declan Gage foremost."

"But all the military bullshit, didn't it bother you to have to put up with all of it?"

"Not really. I knew what I was getting into and - as long as the people who were leading were qualified to do so - I took no issue with compliance. The military isn't the NYPD. Most people that are promoted to positions of leadership in the military are well qualified to lead. Though there's no denying the corruption. I guess that since I never had issues with my commanding officers, I never had a problem following their orders. The experience built my character. I loved it."

"How did it build your character precisely?" I'd never known anyone to use that formulation about themselves. It was hard for me to believe he was sincere.

"It was where I learned to use my intuition to my advantage, where I learned to read people. The experience sharpened the way I thought, the way I presented, the way I acted. I'm more precise in everything - including the way I think - because I possess a strong sense of self. I learned who I was in the military. I broadened my horizons. I'm better at everything I do because of the experience. It's not for everyone."

I snorted. "You've got that right." I let my hand rest on his stomach. "It's funny that you found in the military exactly what I found by staying out. By not letting my Dad define who I should be, I developed a strong sense of self. The more I developed my intellect, the more of a failure I became in his eyes, the more unsuitable as a potential Marine. I guess you could say the military had the same impact on me it did on you -- except in reverse and at once removed."

"I never really had a father as a child. I met him in the Army. He never found me unsuitable, though. He disappointed me, all the same." He cleared his throat.

"Good reason not to ever be a father. No need to pass on the disappointment." My leg was bothering me more every minute. "A cigarette would be great right around now," I hinted.

He got out of the bed, turned on a lamp and went to the window. After cracking it, he sat in the chair beside it and lit a cigarette. "Come on over," he said, gesturing to the chair beside him.

I hobbled over and gratefully took the chair and the cigarette. I inhaled and pondered the puzzle that was Bobby Goren. I leaned forward and blew the smoke out the window, passing the cigarette back to Bobby. I let my hand drop to rest on his leg as I asked the question that had intrigued me since our last real talk. "How did it change you -- finding out that your Dad was who he was -- and not who you thought he was?"

He took a drag off of the cigarette and held it in his hand, staring insecurely at a manufactured travesty of art on the wall over his bed. He thought intensely. I could see that the answer was difficult to pin down. "Certain types of upbringings breed serial killers. Did you know that?"

I shook my head. My reading on serial killers had been negligible. "Tell me about it," I encouraged him, taking the cigarette from his fingers.

He nodded, still staring at the painting. He put his fingers to his mouth, seeming to hold the words back. "Yeah," he said as he put his arm down on the armrest. "They come from broken homes. They have...absent fathers. They're very charming, very charismatic. Soon after I met Declan Gage, he profiled me. Told me that I could've gone either way. But that it was my passion for my mother, my determination to protect her, that hampered me. I had...have...a strong disgust for men who prey on vulnerable women. Men who...abandon wives...children. Serial killers and rapists...that's what they do. Overpower the weak. He was crazy, but Declan Gage was a genius." He took the cigarette from me and took another drag, handing it back. "I was devastated when I discovered Mark Ford Brady could've been my father. And not surprised when I understood that he was." He cleared his throat again. "He was part of what made me who I am. I inherited his charisma and charm. I inherited his passion. But I applied it to something else." He shook his head. "I could've gone either way."

I thought of how he'd seduced me. He was his father's son in that respect. It was easy to see how potentially lethal a man like Bobby Goren could be. Charisma and charm and passion -- I would have sworn I was invulnerable, particularly to a man. "How convinced are you that you'll never be lured to the Dark Side? Do you worry that something could still trigger you to go the other way?" I asked.

He pursed his lips and shook his head. "No. It was just devastating to know the truth in what Gage told me. To really understand why I'm a natural when it comes to profiling, to getting into the heads of these men." He looked over at me again. "My reality is more disturbing than I ever knew it was. I overcame that without really knowing how close I came to being a monster."

"What does she say to you? The Nicole Wallace who lives in your brain," I asked, abruptly changing the subject.

"About what?" he asked. "About how I'm just like she was?"

"Is that what she says?" It's what I would have guessed. Despite what Bobby had just told me, on some level he must be ashamed of his natural ability to think like these "monsters," as he'd called them. A monster by nature made human by nurture, not a comfortable self-image for an NYPD detective surrounded by the bodies of his fellow monsters' victims.

He nodded. "Yeah, she says that. It's not...true. But my rage...there's potential to make it true. I haven't fought that so hard in my life as in the past three years. But I wouldn't." He looked away and back quickly. "What about your mother? You haven't told me anything about her."

"My mother refuses to see what she doesn't want to see. She loves me. But she loved her husband more. In her world, there was nothing odd about playing the doting mother when her husband was away while supporting him in his opinions and disciplinary methods when he was around. Since in his opinion I was worthless, I never figured out how to reconcile the contradiction." I wasn't sure I'd ever stated the case against her out loud before, not even to my shrink.

"Did she support his methods while he was away?"

"She made excuses for him, told me everything that happened to me was my fault for not trying harder to meet his standards. No matter what he said or did, she insisted that he only treated me the way he did out of love. In fact, she'd still say that, even though he's dead and it's pointless to keep up the charade any longer."

He took the cigarette for another drag and handed it back over. "It's amazing the torture people inflict out of love."

"I wouldn't know. I'm sure the love my father is supposed to have had for me was entirely a figment of my mother's imagination. I'm sure it helped her sleep at night to believe in it, though."

He nodded slowly and paused. "And your mother? Does she love you?"

I shrugged. "I suppose." I took a last drag at the butt I held in my hand. It was dead but I rubbed it against the windowsill repeatedly. "Just not enough to matter."

He bit his lip and deliberated. "Did she witness the abuse first hand?"

I looked away and nodded. "A lot of it," I muttered.

"Any chance you'll tell me what he did to you?" he asked. "We'll go quid pro quo if you'd like. I'll tell you anything you want to know."

"He used to tell me to stop whining and take it like a man. Part of me thinks he was right, I guess." I waved towards the light. Better not to see his face if this went much further. Amazing how humiliation could last four decades.

"You wish you could've pleased him? Met his standards?" he asked, turning out the light.

"Hell, no. I thought his standards were petty, stupid, tyrannical. I still think so."

"But to have felt that he loved you, that his standards were reasonable, to have what all of the other kids had...did you long for that?"

"Did I want a real Dad? Absolutely. But, as my favorite philosopher once said, 'You can't always get what you want.'" I hated talking about my father.

He must've taken note of my tone and silence. "Want to shift the focus to me?"

"Yeah. Tell me about your mom. How did you two get along?"

He chuckled. "Not well. But it wasn't always that way. She was...moody." His chuckle grew slowly into laughter. "She called me the 'Prodigal Son' a few days before she died." He shook his head. "That wasn't me." He lowered his eyes again and stopped laughing. "It was Frank. But I...I have no idea what she was talking about. She never really noticed me. And was always...filled with disappointment."

"It would have been so much more convenient if he'd been the good son and you'd been the drug addict who neglected her -- under the circumstances."

He sounded bitter. "Instead, I was the nearly alcoholic son who spent his entire savings trying to keep her alive, who struggled to keep his mind and life together while enduring the torture of watching her die. Who nearly lost everything he would have left when she was gone - his job - in the interest of making sure she didn't die alone. And still she hated him. And only because he wasn't Frank." His breathing was audible in the silent darkness. "He could go for a drink right now," he added, sighing. "After all, that may actually be all that he has left. All of his abilities are in his mind. If he loses that..." He trailed off.

"A drink sounds very good right now," I admitted, grateful for the dark. "We're in the same boat in some ways. The only thing that has ever made any sense in my life is my ability to out-think everybody else. If I've lost my mind, then I've lost it all." And I probably had.

"If it's any consolation, Eames swears that it couldn't happen. But she's keeping the secret. She knows the reality of the situation. Each time I see her there's more worry in her eyes. If they knew I was here, the department would do away with me."

He sounded desperate. I understood the feeling. "I don't know what will happen when I'm released. My boss knows everything but I'm not sure whether that means it's already over or if there's a possibility of returning to my old job if the shrinks here give the O.K. But, so far, we're nowhere near that point."

"Stressful, waiting for a verdict, isn't it?" he asked unenthusiastically. I felt him looking at me. "Sleep?"

"Yeah. Worth a try," I agreed. As we climbed into our separate beds, I laughed at the realization of what I'd engineered. "You realize that we're either going to drive each other completely over the edge or we're going to cure each other?" I said by way of a goodnight.

"Either way works for me," he said as he turned over to signal the end of conversation for the night.