ONE
It probably wasn't a good thing that he was in love with his partner. His senior partner, no less, not that it would have made it any better if she was his junior, in years or seniority. In fact, he had to admit, the fact that she was both (older, more experienced, technically his boss) only added to the thrill of his feelings for her. A rush of warmth spread through his chest every morning when he saw her, like the first swallow of hot coffee or sip of a whisky. He tried so hard not to moon after her, not to shuffle after her like a big puppy. She wouldn't respect him then, and after six months of partnership he thought-he hoped-she at least respected his abilities. He showed off for her. Every case piqued his interest in some way, every case let him get a little lost inside it, but he'd never been so brazen about the way he announced his discoveries, interrogated their suspects. Certainly not when he was an MP. The army would never have stood for his shenanigans, an open display of his twisting thought processes, but for some reason the regimented Alex Eames did. And for that, more than anything else, he loved her.
Alex worried about her partner. Not unduly, not so much that it interfered with her daily life, but still. She worried. Out of a sort of...protective instinct. She was the senior partner, after all. And he could get so lost, sometimes. Wrapped up in a case, in a crime scene, a suspect, the tiniest piece of evidence. His eyes were always moving, taking everything in. He looked at things from an almost academic standpoint, seeing people and situations as neither bad nor good, but simply as they are. Whereas she, after growing up in a cop's household and with almost a decade on the force under her belt, saw perps and liars and all the ways things could go wrong. She tried to always be the first one through the door, the last line of defense, the sharp-eyed, steel-toed barrier between her soft and wondering partner and the panicking, dangerous people he invariably upset. She didn't always manage it, though. Sometimes Goren was first through the door, out of a puppy-like enthusiasm to be first on the scene, or sometimes, she half-suspected, to protect her, to place his not insubstantial bulk between her and whatever might be waiting for them on the other side. It was sweet. She almost loved him for it.