Chapter 15

Joyce let them in and led them to the study. She was weaker today, worried, and both detectives picked up on it right away. They stepped inside, and Bobby closed the door behind them.

Ray sat with his back to them, in his leather office chair. All they could see was the top of his head. "I know all about the indictment, detectives. It's a small town."

"Could you… turn around?" Bobby asked quietly.

Wiznesky spun the chair slowly, revealing that he held a gun in the soft tissue under his chin. His face was determined.

"Take it easy… Officer…" Eames said softly, not wanting to spook him.

"If I die before I'm charged, it's a full pension… for Emily."

Bobby closed his eyes a moment, trying to still the churning inside him. "Put the gun down, Ray," he said.

"What gun? They took my gun away from me. You made sure of that!" He leapt to his feet and turned the gun on the detectives. Bobby's body went completely cold.

"Ray-"

"Raines would be dead if it wasn't for you." Bobby took a step back, as if the extra foot of space would have any effect to slow a speeding bullet.

"Okay," Bobby said, putting his hands up. "It's on me." He looked over at Alex. Had he really just gotten her back only to lose her today? "It wasn't on her. You need to let my partner go—"

"Don't move!" Ray ordered.

The panic was starting to rise, and it came through in his voice. "You can see me, right? I'm right here! Nobody's gonna grab your gun this time." Bobby could see Alex's shoulders rising faster as the fear made her breathe more rapidly. "And I know that it wasn't your fault, 'cause I read the report. You were pulling…" he could hear her breathing fast, just like in the hospital, when they pulled the curtain back. Bobby swallowed hard and kept talking. "… a double shift. You had a new baby, you spent… a lot of nights without sleep. And this guy jumps off the bench, it happened in one, maybe two seconds…"

"I couldn't stop him."

"No one's blaming you," Eames chimed in, and Wiznesky pointed the gun at her.

Damn it, Eames! Bobby's heart was pounding.

"That court reporter? He shot her in the face, and I couldn't stop him."

Bobby struggled, trying to think what to say next, to get that damn gun off of Eames.

"Daddy?" Emily called from outside the door. Bobby turned his head a little, listening.

"It's all right, Baby," Ray called, a touch of a smile on his face for his daughter.

"What are you doing? Mom wants to know."

"Oh, yeah, just give us a minute," Ray called.

The thought flashed across his brain. His voice was quiet. "You gotta let my partner go," Bobby said. "and look after your daughter."

"Daddy?" Emily called again, as Eames frowned and shook her head.

She was aggravated that Bobby would do this. How could she have his back from the other side of the damn door? At the same time, she was relieved. She could feel the fear building, creeping up inside her, and she wasn't sure, really sure, if she could handle it. "Let me talk to her," Alex said.

"Daddy?" Emily called again, sounding worried.

"You gotta put the gun on me, and let my partner go look after your daughter," Bobby said, his voice firm but shaking.

Wiznesky thought a moment, then addressed Eames. "Put your piece on the desk. And your partner's."

Eames nodded and slipped her gun slowly out of the holster, then reached for Bobby's. He held his jacket up out of the way, so Wiznesky would know they weren't trying anything. Bobby's eyes met hers for a split second. The message there was clear: I love you.

"Daddy? I'm coming in!"

"Just give me a minute, Baby. Hold on a minute."

Alex gently placed both Glocks on the corner of the desk. Ray grabbed them and dropped them into the seat of the chair. He cocked the revolver in his hand. "Now turn around," he told Eames.

Bobby tried to look at her again, but he was afraid to. He was afraid to do anything that would make Wiznesky want to keep her in the room. He bit the inside of his cheek as Alex turned her back to the gunman and walked to the door with her hands up. As she opened the door, Bobby turned half-way, just to see her to safety. He stepped over, in between Wiznesky and the doorknob. He didn't even have time to breathe a sigh of relief.

Wiznesky moved closer, his jaw jutting out with determination as he held the weapon on Bobby.

"She's a good girl," Bobby said, unable to hide the worried look on his face. "Emily, she's—"

"Well I don't need you to tell me that."

"Oh, I know, it's just, she's precious, you know, she's…" Bobby thought a moment, what would get through to this guy?! Even as he felt the chills go through him again, he said, "She looks like her mother."

Ray was quiet a moment. "Joyce. Ashley was killing her. She abandons her sister, doesn't even take care of her own mother."

"Oh, well, you found Emily," Bobby said. "Y-she got home safe."

"Joyce was crying. She couldn't stop shaking."

"But you knew… that they were hurting. And… you had to protect them."

"Joyce didn't even get angry," Ray said, the astonishment still in his voice. "She was worried about Ashley after everything! Tell me, how is that possible?!"

Bobby shook his head. "I don't know," he breathed. He kept shaking his head, and he thought of Frank and his own mother's forgiveness. "It's mothers. You know?" Bobby stepped closer.

Ray jerked the gun at him. "Back off!"

Bobby stumbled back, visibly flinching. He thought of his mother again, the months ahead, the pain, the chemo, and her going through it alone because this bastard shot him dead. Bobby took a breath and tried to get control of his head. "You knew… what was going on with her. You knew what was inside her."

"The cancer cells, they feed on stress," Ray said. "Joyce was never gonna get better."

Bobby shook his head, "No, see, Ashley was toxic. She was toxic to Joyce," he said, trying to build that connection, to let Ray know he understood.

"I found her. I found her and I told her you need to stop what you're doing, and give your mother some peace. And she laughed at me!"

Bobby drew his worried face back and tilted his head, listening.

Ray continued. "And I slapped her! And she looked at me, spit in my face!" A thought flashed through the man's mind. "Joyce is never gonna forgive me!" He cried, jamming the barrel of the gun up under his chin again.

"Hey, she needs you!" Bobby shouted.

"How do you know, what because of your mother?! Some cop BS?"

"No," Bobby said sincerely. He nodded as he spoke. "My mother is ill. And I'm all she's got. And that's all Joyce has got, is you."

"Not anymore."

"Look, we can do something here," Bobby said, wracking his brain. "We can… help you out." He paused a moment, thinking. His nerves were shot. He couldn't breathe right, and he was shaking. "We'll hold the charges. You can spend time with Joyce, you can… stroke her hair… and hold her hand."

"Oh, you think I'm dumb? Some small town cop who'll roll over for NYPD?"

Bobby was terrified. He was losing the thin margin of progress he'd made. "I never said that!"

"We can work this out… let my partner go, Ray… crap? I let her go 'cause I don't want to kill her. I want to kill you…"

Bobby felt the bottom drop out. He scrambled, trying to think of something.

"… and then me."

Bobby shrugged. "Who's gonna clean up the mess?" he asked. He waited for the meaning to sink in. "Your daughter?" He waited again. He could see Ray knew this was an honest question. "Huh, her mother?" He prodded.

Ray tossed him a cell phone and Bobby snatched it out of the air with his left hand. "Here, call your Mom. Say goodbye."

An image of Frances flashed through his mind, her despair at his death. Fury worked its way to the surface. "Aw, come on, Ray!" Bobby cried, chucking the phone to the floor. For a moment, he waited for the bullet to hit him. He waited for the end he so surely had coming. When Wiznesky didn't move, Bobby knew he still had a chance. He did the only thing left that had come to his mind. He closed his eyes and called out for Wiznesky's little girl. "Emily?" Bobby called, his voice shaking.

"Shut up," Ray warned. He leveled the gun at Bobby.

Bobby threw caution to the wind. This guy would either kill him, or he wouldn't. He tossed all his eggs in one basket. "Emily, your father wants you to see something!" There was no reply. "Eames?!" Bobby shouted, and even she could hear the fear in his voice.

"She's on her way," Alex said, obviously only a few feet behind him.

"No," Wiznesky warned.

"Daddy?" Emily said.

"No, I said no! Back off out there!" He cried, and Bobby lunged for him, tucking Ray's shoulder under his armpit and trying to wrench the weapon out of his hand. He couldn't do it, so Bobby elbowed the man, hard. Both men grunted, and Bobby finally worked the weapon free. It landed with a heavy thud on the scarred wooden floor.

He could see Wiznesky was going to move for the Glocks. Bobby threw his hands forward and cried, his whole body shaking. "Just stop! Just stop! C'mon, Ray! She needs you!" Bobby paused, trying to breathe. "Okay?"

"Daddy!"

"She needs you," Bobby repeated. He nodded at the man, knowing Ray understood. He breathed a little, calming himself. "You got to let it go, okay?" He swallowed, and tried to get his breathing under control, waiting for Wiznesky's next move.

At last, the man held his hands out to Bobby. He took him in a firm grip and held switched his hands to a behind the back restraint. "Eames!" Bobby called. "I got him."

She came in and secured the weapons, then called out "Clear!" as the local cops came in and took over.

Bobby was beside himself. He marched out of the room and helped himself to a glass of water, drinking it so fast he nearly choked.

Alex followed him. He coughed, then drank the rest, then raised his eyes to hers. "You okay?" Bobby asked her, and she nodded. He put the glass down and walked out of the house.

It was not even ten minutes later. They were walking him to the car.

Alex was beside Bobby. "I'll file the paperwork," she said. "Take a drive upstate, visit your Mom," she told him. Just as Bobby was about to protest, they heard the shout, "Gun! He's got a gun!" Wiznesky shot himself and fell dead to the ground.

Emily and Joyce ran out of the house and clung to each other with grief.

Alex rubbed her face, trying to hide the tears that were threatening to fall. Bobby watched the mother trying to hide the child's eyes, and the girl fighting to see her father's broken body. He turned back to Eames once, but found himself looking back to Emily again.

Minutes later, they were in the car, having been called back immediately by Captain Ross. The details were left to the Water Haven cops. He was one of their own, after all.

Bobby only stared out the window of the car. He hardly moved, and he didn't make a sound.

Alex glanced over at him. "You all right?" she asked, and Bobby was unable to answer. Alex had to attend to the road, but she was more worried about him than she'd ever been.

He stared blankly out the window for the entire ride back to the city. He kept running the facts in his head; and like weeks before, all he could think was he should have seen it coming. He should have known, he should have taken precautions. He could have saved little Emily the horror she'd just seen. He could have kept Joyce from having to face the final curtain without her husband.

Alex spoke to him now and then, and truth be told, Bobby thought he'd answered her. But her words reached him like some kind of foggy cloud; phonemes strung together randomly with no clarity or definition.

By the time they reached the parking garage, he hadn't made a sound for more than 30 minutes. Alex had never seen him like this. She tried again to reach him. "Bobby."

He looked over at her again, but she could see from his expression that he was lost. She slid from the driver's seat and hurried around to open his door. Alex reached in, took his binder from his lap, and used her other hand to grip his. "We've got to go debrief with the Captain," she said.

He got to his feet and walked with her, guided more by the pressure of her hand than the visual stimuli he was taking in. After they got out of the elevators, he veered into the men's room.

Eames waited for him, more than ten minutes. When he emerged, he was more focused, but his eyes were still dark and he still wore that troubled expression.

"You okay?" she asked him again.

"Let's go," Bobby replied.

Ross intercepted them at their desks. He gave them both the once over, then asked Goren to go into his office. Bobby walked ahead, and as he turned back to look at Eames, he saw the Captain speaking with her at her desk.

Bobby folded himself into the guest chair in Ross' office, crossing his legs and resting an elbow on his knee. He set his chin on his hand.

"Goren," Ross announced as he came in and shut the door. "Thanks for waiting."

Bobby nodded, his face still pressed against the palm of his hand.

"I know the two of you had a bad time out there," he said. "I want your take on Eames. Is she all right? It hasn't been that long since her abduction…"

"She's good," Bobby said, and he didn't feel it was a lie. She'd been scared, sure, when Wiznesky's gun was on her, but she hadn't frozen or acted irrationally. She'd been a model officer under duress, and he wouldn't let anyone think otherwise.

"I'm thinking of insisting she take more time off."

Bobby nodded. "It wouldn't hurt," he said.

Ross nodded, too, his green eyes penetrating. "Now. What about you, detective? I hear you had some scary moments in there."

"I'm… I'm okay," Bobby said, but his body language betrayed him. He looked away, shifted, and folded his arms.

Ross stared him down for a couple of minutes. "I want you to take a few days. Do whatever you need to do to put this behind you."

Bobby ran his hand along his face, pressing his fingers against his eyes. At last, rather than protest, he nodded silently. He got up and headed back out to the desk. There was some wrapping up to do before they could get out of here.

They typed up their reports and Eames put her head in her hands. Bobby glanced over at her, alarmed, thinking for the first time that maybe it had been too much for her.

"Eames?" he asked.

She sighed. "I keep feeling like I… I should be more aware, like there's someone lurking around every corner."

He pressed his lips together and frowned.

She continued, "I guess I'm just tired."

"You're not," he said, "Just… tired."

Her eyes met his.

"It's the… natural… progression of things."

Alex folded her arms and tossed her hair. When she spoke, it was so quiet he barely heard her. "I don't want to go home."

Bobby's skin had been crawling ever since the confrontation. He had his own worries, but Alex's words crept through a crack in the walls he'd been building. "I'll go with you," he volunteered.

She considered his offer as she looked into his eyes. Finally, she nodded.

Alex hadn't lied. The crisis with Wiznesky had stirred up her post-traumatic stress receptors. She did feel like she was looking over her shoulder constantly, either to catch a creep in the shadows, or to see if her partner was still there. There was more to it than that, though. She was checking to see if Bobby was coping, and the overwhelming answer to that all evening was a resounding "no." From the moment Wiznesky shot himself, Bobby had retreated into his shell, and though he managed to get through the last of the paperwork without drawing much concern, she could see it. Alex could see the distant look in his eyes, the tenseness in his every muscle.

And so she'd tricked him. She'd used the only influence she had to get him to stay with her.

He was resistant, at least when she asked him to stay in the apartment. He refused to come to the bedroom with her, as they'd done in the early days after her release from the hospital.

So they'd snuggled together on the couch, instead. Bobby sat ramrod straight, his back against the cushions, and Alex had worked her way closer until her head was against his chest and his arm fell loosely over her back.

She'd told him what she was feeling, the truth of it all. Bobby had just sat silently, comforting her with his embrace, a slow hand rubbing circles on the skin of her lower back.

"What about you?" Alex asked quietly. "What's going on in there?" she added, putting her hand over his heart.

At the prompt, his heart rate jumped and he broke into a cold sweat. "I'm okay," he lied.

Alex drew back far enough to look him in the eye. "Bobby…" she said, and he knew she saw right through him.

Angrily, he turned his head. He hadn't invited her in! Bobby bit his lip and stared at the baseboard.

"Bobby, you've got to talk about it. You keep it bottled up like this and you're going to blow."

He glanced at her, then turned away again.

"Maybe it'll all come to head in a safe place, like here with me. But maybe you'll pop on the job. Or when you're with your Mom." This earned her an anguished look. "Talk, Bobby. Get it out."

He never broke the eye contact this time. Alex waited. His lips worked, forming words but not speaking them. At last, his voice shattered the silence. "I wasn't on my game."

She wanted to protest. He'd talked him down, after all, diffused a deadly situation with nothing but words. But Alex knew she had to let Bobby speak. Whatever he thought, he believed it, and he had to talk about it.

"I sh-should've warned them, the Water Haven guys. A-about the cuffs."

Ray Wiznesky had asked to be cuffed in front. He knew from experience how easily a cuffed man could draw and use an officer's weapon. He'd been the one to lose his weapon, once. And so Ray had used that same tactic to carry through with his plan and kill himself.

"I was… too wrapped up in you. Alex, it scared hell out of me. I couldn't bear the thought of losing you… of failing you… again."

She bit her lip to keep from speaking. He was so wrong, about all of it, but she had to let him continue. This was his reality, and he had to work through it. When she raised up to glance at him again, she was surprised to find his eyes filled with tears. She watched as one drop rolled down his cheek.

"I know now… I could have caught Jo sooner. Alex, all the clues were there! Even Dec put it together before I did." He closed his eyes and more tears fell. "I couldn't think straight. My head…was a jumble of… and today, the same thing…"

"You can't blame yourself for having feelings, Bobby. You're not some kind of robot. I could have warned them about the cuffs, too. Maybe I should be beating myself up over it?"

He blinked, and the last few tears dropped away. "No, Alex."

"Then why should you?"

He had no answer. He just knew how he felt.

"And you've been blaming yourself for my abduction, too."

"If I hadn't met with Gage…" Another thought popped to the forefront of his mind. "Jo told me… when she decided to kill you."

"God."

"I was on the case, and Dec was spending time with me, and so she decided…"

"Stop it."

He gaped at her.

"The only person responsible for what happened to me is Jo Gage. She made her own decisions, Bobby. She did. And if you allow yourself to feel guilty about it, you've fallen for the oldest trick in the book. Killers never take responsibility for their actions. It's always because someone else made them do it. And as for Wiznesky, it's the same thing. You told him what it would do to his family, Bobby. I heard you through the door. He knew full well… Suicide is the ultimate act of selfishness."

He sighed heavily, and Alex rubbed her hand along his chest. "I could blame myself, too. But I was busy being human. And I'm not ever going to apologize for that. I'm not ever going to apologize for having feelings, Bobby. Your compassion is what makes you so good at what you do," she added. "And if you can have compassion for all of them, how is it wrong for you to feel that for me?"

His face twisted with tears again, and he nodded. Alex leaned into him and he held her. His hands moved up and down her back, then sifted through her hair. Alex reached up and took him in a deep kiss.

The creeping feeling in his skin transformed instantly to a pleasant buzzing. Bobby slipped his tongue into the warmth of her mouth, and lost himself in the moment.

Alex kept one hand against the back of his neck, holding him against her, the tips of her fingers playing against his blooming curls. She could feel his need hitting her in waves, and her body pulsed with desire.

The long kiss turned into a series of hungry nips, and as his mouth found her neck, she unbuttoned his shirt. Their breath came harder and her hand fell into his lap.

Bobby groaned in response, a throaty cry of desperation. Without thinking, he pushed up, rock hard against her palm. Bobby's hands slipped up under her shirt and she gasped at the warmth as he covered her breasts with them.

Maybe it wasn't the right thing to do. Maybe they were both too fragile. But it was honest.