A/N: Never fear, it's still coming along! Thanks for your continued interest. This chapter and the next will cover the episode "Smile."

Chapter 50

Alex had been watching him carefully, and she was convinced. He was angry. She could see the signs so clearly: the way he carried himself, the way he chewed his cheek when he bit his tongue, the snippy comments when he didn't.

He was keeping to himself more, as well. He stayed at his apartment most nights, now, rather than spend evenings with her. In and of itself, that wasn't a big deal. Bobby had always needed time to himself.

Alex knew there was a bigger issue, though.

Bobby was depressed.

So when he'd decided to tell that mother that in fact, her son wasn't a good boy and told her he hoped the kid straightened out, Alex finally confronted him.

"What, you agree with her?" He snapped back.

"No, Bobby, I don't. But what exactly did you hope to accomplish by saying that?"

"That she can save him. She's the only one who can. You don't agree?"

"Sure she can save him, Bobby. But the way you said it... She's not likely to hear you. The people in the projects hate us enough already!"

"If somebody told me that, I would hear it."

"You would."

"Yeah. Especially if we were talking about my kid."

"So if someone had something important to tell you, and they just threw it out there, you would take it to heart."

"Sure I would."

"Bobby, you're depressed."

He scoffed and turned and then half smiled. "Oh, Eames, that's just..."

"I think you should get some help with it."

The smile faded, and his face became taut. Bobby stared at her a moment, then turned and walked down the hall.

He didn't say a word about it when he came back, and before long, the two of them were stomping through the projects, trying to interview anyone on the dentist's patient list.

"Four doors... Four door slams, just because I asked about a cancelled dentist appointment."

Alex shared a frown with him, but kept from saying "I told you so." She took a breath. "Mrs. Colt was home with her son, who really was sick with the flu. She said she was worried that what happened to Toby Borden might happen to her boy." What she told him next concerned him. Borden's mother was out of her head.

They went up to the apartment, and the woman peered at them through the chained door. Bobby was kind and unobtrusive. She said she liked his voice. They thought it was all fine until they walked in. She turned around and they saw she was holding a butcher knife against her daughter's neck.

Bobby's instincts kicked in. He acknowledged her delusion, turned it just enough to make it complimentary rather than persecutory. It wasn't working, though. She just kept that knife against the child's throat.

Alex almost gasped when she saw Bobby step in and grab the woman's hand. "Look, I lost my Mom, okay? I lost my mother recently," he intimated. "Can I get a glass of water from you?"

She turned to walk to the kitchen and the girl was finally set free. Alex collected her and put her safely in the hallway while she called backup with one hand and tried to keep a visual on Bobby with the other.

A moment later, he was safe. The knife rested on a plate on top of a soup pot, and she was mourning with Bobby.

"Look, I know what you're gonna say, and just... Just don't okay? Because I'm not sorry."

"But you would have been. If it hadn't worked, if she'd slit that little girl's throat."

"She wouldn't hurt her daughter. Look how distraught she was over her son!"

"You took a hell of a chance, Bobby."

"I was right. I knew I was right."

"And what happens when the day comes that you're wrong? Rein it in, Bobby. If something had happened to that little girl, you know what that would have done to you, and I'm not talking about the job."

He was silent a long time. "Fine. Okay, fine." He opened his hands and waved them in front of him, his brows raised in a frustrated defeat.

Neither spoke of it again.

The interrogation of Mrs. Borden, a trip to the morgue, a hospital visit, and now they were called to Ross's office to meet with the FDA. Only it wasn't just the FDA, the CEO of Schorr labs was there, too.

Bobby noticed the difference in the logos almost immediately, attracting the attention of Leslie, the Assistant Deputy Director of the FDA Atlantic Division. When the group left, she gave him her card and asked him to call immediately with news about the sick children.

Alex got a message. DeShaun Colt was dead.

There was a reason Bobby had steered clear of Special Victims Unit. Although he encountered every kind of victim in his work at Major Case, the cases which involved special victims took more of a toll. He knew himself well enough to know that he couldn't work those kinds of cases every day.

So now this case was steering away from the death of a dentist to the deaths of children, who innocently drank poisonous mouthwash. Bobby was less than impressed with the FDA. The mere fact that they'd brought Schorr to the precinct demonstrated that they were bedfellows with the company. To his way of thinking, the FDA should put the public first, not big business. Leslie appeared to be the only one who understood that.

There was an undercurrent of anger in everything he did, now.