Disclaimer:All of the characters are the property of Dick Wolf. I thank him, the writers, the directors and all the great actors who brought them "to life" for our benefit. Any "liberties" I have taken with them stems from my fond admiration (and a few personal quirks I will seek "help" for).

AN: This story is not set within the accepted "canon" for the characters as it is only officially portrayed by the TV series. So I get to "fool around" with them in ways in which they've never been seen, stretching that to the limit and suspending the "reality" that is "fiction" to start with…now there's a contradiction in terms!!!

(And yeah Goren I know the proper word for that is oxymoron...Goren...?)

THE END

Eames took a deep breath and steeled herself to enter the morgue. Someone in the group of detectives waiting outside asked if she was sure she was up to this.

She wasn't. It was the last thing she wanted to do though she had long suspected that it was something she would end up doing one day. And she had to do it. She owed him that.

She pushed open the door and glanced at Liz Rogers. Who was wiping her eyes and sniffing as she signed some forms.

Alex could not help but think of the occasions she and Bobby had done this. He could be like a kid in a candy store during their visits to this place. Annoying Liz with the list of extra tests he wanted done to validate some insight or theory only he would have or think of. Or taking up instruments himself to explore the corpse before the doc snatched them away from him. And sometimes coming within an ace of "showing off" with all that obscure and bizarre medical and anatomical knowledge he'd acquired from who knew where.

That knowledge, combined with enthusiasm had Alex own rolling her eyes or stifling a yawn in equal measure at times. Along with another expression. A smile like that a proud parent might get when their precocious child came out of school bubbling with enthusiasm over his latest intellectual curiosity.

But what Liz was doing or how she was feeling, did not matter to Eames as she approached the central table with a huge hole in her own heart. He looked so peaceful, an expression she rarely saw before. He seemed so small, covered in that white sheet to his neck which disguised the marks of the PM incisions.

And by some miracle his face and head looked normal. Perhaps because of Rogers' skill or knowing Bobby, because he went about it in the least destructive way. But Eames knew that the back of his skull was blown away and that they'd had to scrape a considerable portion of that famous grey matter off the walls of his apartment.

Typical of Goren. He'd left a note on the kitchen table explaining just why he did it along with a neat array of all the other papers you needed to deal with the aftermath of someone's death. He'd even shaved a short time before. Eames resisted the temptation to reach out and touch a rarely smooth cheek and stopped herself thinking how he once told her it was myth hair and nails grew after death. And how many suicides prepare for the end by doing things like showering and shaving and putting on clean clothes.

Whether she could ever forgive him for doing this was something for the future. She was too stunned, too angry right now. But then she was not the one certain they were beginning to experience the auditory and visual hallucinations she knew were symptomatic of schizophrenia. Not the one who had lived with a slightly higher risk because of her genes.

How much that preyed on his mind, Eames was never sure and in the moments she was able to get by her own shock and sense of abandonment, she could begin to understand why he did it. Some might see it as an act of cowardice and avoidance but it was easy to criticise when you were not the one facing what Bobby believed he was facing.

The chemical cosh of drugs that would dull those centres of the brain which he had used to such good effect to solve crime. He'd written of that and of his distaste for the prospect of increasing dependency or the possibility of institutionalisation.

Eames sensed Liz at her shoulder.

"The tox screen came back clear Alex. No alcohol, no drugs legal or otherwise. I don't know if that helps"

"Helps me" she softly knowing her own feelings of guilt, that she should have known something was badly wrong, were lessened a little.

Bobby had told her in the letter not to feel that way but she had dreaded the possibility that he'd decided to kill himself in the midst of an alcohol fuelled depression.

"I guess we'll never know Liz. Whether he really was starting to experience the onset of schizophrenia"

"He would have had the symptoms Alex" said Rogers. "Because I found a deep brain tumour. Big one. Enough to account for what he described in his...in the note he left"

"Oh no" sighed Eames "So this...he might have..."

"No...no Alex" Liz reached out her hand to re-assure her. "The location, the size of what I found there was no chance of a successful cure. At best some treatment might have delayed the end. But that would have been...and before that he would have..."

Eames glanced at her "You mean if Bobby had known that...he might...we could still have been standing here?"

"Uhuh. I'll...um...let you...I'll be outside"

"Thanks"

Alex waited for the door to close.

"Funny thing Bobby" she said softly. "You left me speechless the day we first met and I guess you've done it again"

She looked at his face for a long moment before leaning over and kissing his brow softly.

"Goodbye Goren" she said wiping away a tear.

As she turned towards the door, it opened.

Danny Ross stood there along with the indistinct figure of a second person in the hall.

"Alex" he said gently "There's someone I'd like you meet"

She walked from the soft illumination of the morgue into the light outside.

"Nice one Catherine!" called a cheerful sounding corpse as she returned to the room.

"Thanks Vince"

'Goren' hopped off the table and reached for a pack of cigarettes.

"Glad it's over?" she asked.

"Uhuh. One more significant other in his life turning out to be inadequate or crazy or some long lost kid with mental problems pitching up and I would have shot myself. Did you get that contract clause you wanted for next season?"

"Not yet. But any more tops with short sleeves and low necklines when it's ten below outside and I'm outta here" 'Eames' snorted. "So what's on your agenda?"

"Dunno. Take a vacation for starters"

They walked outside towards their trailers.

"Read in Variety Sonnefeld thinks he's got Will and Tommy back on board. Would you be interested Vince?"

"Sure. An intergalactic cockroach has an excuse. That guy..." he gestured behind him "...was just being turned into more and more of a monster. Fun went out of it...oh does it matter? Got some beer in the trailer if you want?"

"Why not?"

THE END OF THE END

AN: This was written before the recent news...prophetic or what?