Warnings: AU, some Eames/Logan (as a plot device to get to BA, not as a real couple)
Disclaimer: Dick Wolf's, not mine, even in my weirdest dreams
A/N: This came to me in a dream (yes, yes I am weird), and I woke up thinking, "Eww how seriously creepy and melodramatic would that be?" . . . and yet an hour later I was intrigued enough to see what happened if I tried to write it. It started out as a oneshot (no way was I letting myself get into a fourth multi-partner), but it kept getting bigger and bigger and bigger. I forced myself not to post it til I had the whole thing done, though, so enjoy these couple really long chapters!
A/N 2: I'll be on vacation from this coming Friday to the next Sunday, so there will be no updates during that week (do you have any idea how much internet access costs on a cruise ship!). I am bringing a supply of pencils and paper, though, and I plan to try to do some longhand work on Reunion, etc
"That's all you're going to say? Bobby!" Alex shouted as he turned his back on her and pulled open her apartment door. "Would you at least tell me what . . ." She let her voice trail off as she realized that she was only talking to the door, not him. Dragging a hand down her face, she sighed and finished in a whisper, ". . . what this is all about?"
It was no use; he was gone. She stood there for a few more seconds, trying to make some sense of the not-argument she'd just had with her partner. She'd moved to hug him when he walked in - something that had gotten to be habitual for them when they met outside of work - and instead of putting his arms around her, he'd stepped back and put out his hands as if to ward her off. A second later, instead of a greeting, the first words out of his mouth had been, "I'm leaving."
She'd looked at him blankly. "That's stupid; you just got here."
"No, Eames." He'd shaken his head and taken another step away from her, retreating toward the door he'd walked through only seconds ago. "I mean I'm leaving. I'm . . . taking a leave of absence."
"What?" she managed to say through her shock. "Why?"
He shook his head again. "It's not important. Just . . . I'll be gone for a while. I just wanted to tell you in person."
She stared at him. "But you're not going to tell me why? No way, Goren. I want an explanation."
"I can't give you one," he said quietly, turning away from her and moving toward the door.
That's when she'd started shouting.
Four months later
"You have reached the voicemail box of Robert Goren. Please leave a message -"
She slammed down the phone and pressed the heels of her hands into her eyes, trying to hold in the urge to scream or cry - or maybe both. He'd stopped answering her calls a month ago; she probably shouldn't have expected anything different today.
For a while, when he'd returned a call every now and then, she'd made excuses for him, telling herself that he was probably being worked hard at Quantico, that the ISU training program probably didn't allow much time for personal phone calls, but it was becoming clear now that it wasn't that he didn't have time to speak with her - he just didn't want to speak with her. Even if that was the case, though, for him to ignore her calls today, of all days, was a true slap in the face.
Because today, she was desperate to speak with him. He had to have known that; he'd been the one to give Deakins permission to tell her the news: Goren had accepted a permanent position with the FBI. He was no longer a detective on a leave of absence, because he was no longer a detective at all.
And he hadn't contacted her beforehand. He'd left it up to Deakins, who had broken the news as gently as he could, even though he and she both knew that he no matter how well he'd phrased it, she'd know that it was her boss telling her because her partner - her ex-partner - refused to.
She dragged her palms down from her eyes to cover her whole face, whispering into them, "Jesus, Bobby." He wasn't talking to her, he'd given up his job and their partnership, and she still didn't know what she'd done to cause it all, because he wouldn't tell her!
"Eames?" a male voice asked from behind her.
She took a deep breath, rubbed her eyes one more time, and turned to face Mike Logan. "Yeah?"
He had been about to hand her a take-out menu and ask what she wanted to add to the squad's order, but the dull look in her eyes was so alarming, so un-Eames-like, that he forgot about the menu entirely. "Are you ok?" he asked instead, leaning against the corner of her desk and taking a closer look at her.
"I'm fine," she said flatly. "What do you want?"
"You don't look very 'fine,' if you don't mind my saying so."
She glared at him for a second, then turned her head and stared down at her desk. "Yeah, well, maybe I do mind. What do you want?"
It didn't take much brainpower to decide that she was probably upset today for the same reason she'd been upset for months. "Is it something about Goren? Did he get hurt?"
Her eyes widened and she just stared at him with her mouth slightly open for a few seconds before she squeezed her eyes shut and shook her head tiredly. "How the hell would I know," she mumbled, not bothering to make it sound like a question.
"What do you mean, 'how would you know'?" he asked, confused. "Don't you still talk to him?" It was a stupid question to ask, he realized a second after it came out of his mouth. Of course she talked to him; Goren and Eames were too close to forget about each other just because one was on leave.
He was so busy thinking about what a dumb question it was that it took him a few seconds to realize that she hadn't answered. What he saw when he finally returned his attention to her rendered him speechless: she had her head down, as though she didn't want him to see her face, and her closed eyelids were trembling. Mike Logan may not have been a great people-reader like some others he knew, but he was perceptive enough to realize that those trembling lids meant she was fighting back tears. Alex Eames, crying? What the hell?
"Come here," he said quickly, taking hold of her arm and pulling her up to her feet.
"Stop it." She tried to brush his hand away, then opened her eyes to give him a look of annoyance when he didn't let go.
He saw tears in her eyes in the few seconds she kept them open, and he tightened his grip on her arm. "Come on," he said, more gently this time. "You don't want to do this in here where people will see."
She swallowed, realizing he had a point, then nodded and allowed him to lead her toward an empty interview room.
He released her arm as he closed the door behind them, then pulled the blinds so that spectators would be foiled. "Sit," he told her. "You need a tissue?"
Her breathing hitched, although she managed to keep any tears from falling. "Maybe." She knew her voice sounded ridiculously weak, but she was pretty sure that if she spoke any louder, she'd choke on her words.
He slid the box on the table toward her and watched as she reluctantly dabbed at her eyes. "Do you want to talk about what's wrong, or do you want me to leave you alone?" He was fully prepared to leave her; she seemed like the type of woman who hated having others see her cry.
She folded the used tissue neatly in front of her and ignored his question as she scrubbed her fists over her face. "I can't believe I'm doing this. This is pathetic."
"Somehow, I doubt that you're this upset over something that's not worth it. Is . . ." He paused, trying to guess how she'd react to what he was about to ask, then decided to forge ahead. "Is it something to do with Goren?"
She nodded, then shrugged. "It's stupid. He didn't do anything to me, it's just that . . . oh, I don't know."
"Did he get hurt or something?" Logan prompted.
She snorted. "No. No, he's doing just fine as far as I know. But who am I kidding . . . if he got killed tomorrow I'd probably be the last to know."
Well that wasn't quite what he'd expected to hear. "You had a fight?"
"You have to actually be talking to have a fight," she said with a humorless laugh.
"Hmm." He didn't want to keep asking question after question. Eventually she'd lose patience and probably go storming out of the room, which would only make things more difficult for her when people started asking questions. "Listen, Eames . . . do you want to go get some lunch or something? Take some time to unwind? My treat."
She almost refused, figuring that the invitation was probably another one of Logan's attempts at womanizing, which he'd been casually lobbing at her and every other female in the building since he came on the squad. "I don't think . . ." She paused there, realizing that he was standing almost all the way across the room and his eyes were glued to her face. If this were a pick-up, he'd probably have sat next to her and tried to look down her blouse.
"Eames?" he asked, confused, when she looked hard at him and stopped talking.
After a second, she blinked. "Uh, sorry. Look, it's just . . . lunch sounds nice, but I don't want you to think it's anything but lunch," she finally said bluntly, at a loss for how to phrase it more delicately.
He raised his eyebrows. "Eames, you're a wreck right now. Believe me when I say I'm not going to try to jump you over cheeseburgers and fries."
His earnest delivery coaxed a tiny smile out of her, and she nodded. "Ok. Fine, then. Cheeseburgers and fries it is."
Three months after that; seven months after Bobby left
"Listen, man," Lewis said, trying to keep the phone between his ear and his shoulder as he bent over the '67 Mustang that was his current project, "you gotta get them to give you some time off. You've been working six, seven days a week for, like, seven months now!"
Goren slumped down on the couch in his small Virginia apartment. "This isn't the type of job where you can ask for time off. Besides, I enjoy it."
"Oh, is that why?" Lewis replied skeptically. "And here I was, thinking it was because you were trying to bury yourself and forget about what you left behind up here."
"What'd I leave behind that I would be trying to forget?" he asked, as if he and Lewis didn't both already know the answer.
"Last time I checked, it started with an A and ended with an X. And, incidentally, 'it' is due here in a few minutes to help me with this 'stang."
"Alex is working with you?" Goren said, suddenly sitting up a little straighter. "Why?"
"Why not? Shit," he mumbled as the ratchet he had been using slipped into a hard-to-reach area. "Hold on, Bobby. Gotta dig out a tool I dropped." He set the phone on the ground where he wouldn't step on it, then leaned further under the hood.
Goren sat with the phone still to his ear, only half-listening to the clanging and banging noises Lewis's search was producing. Alex was hanging out with Lewis? Working on cars with him? He'd known she enjoyed antique cars, but she'd never shown any interest in working with Lewis on them before . . .
Before what, Goren? said a voice in his head. Before you got the hell out of her life and made sure she knew you weren't coming back? What did you expect her to do, sit around and mope for the rest of her life?
"Bobby?" Lewis's voice shook him out of his thoughts. "You still there?"
"Yeah," he said shortly. "Why is she coming over there to work with you?"
Lewis pondered how to phrase his answer without angering his friend. "Well, this car's kind of her project. She came to me for help with it," he finally said, hoping the answer didn't sound as evasive as it really was.
"She doesn't own a Mustang," Goren said in confusion. "Or at least, she didn't," he added, reminding himself that it had been the better part of a year since he'd really even spoken to her.
"It . . . uh, well, it's not actually her car. It's just . . . her project."
"So then whose car is it?"
Before Lewis could answer, Goren heard the sound of a car door slamming on the other end of the line. Stiffening, he strained to hear what was being said.
"Hey!" a female voice, which he easily identified as Alex's, called. She sounded cheerful and not at all like she missed anyone whose initials were RG.
"Hey," Lewis replied. "I've got the hood up back there. You can get started; I just gotta finish this call."
"What've you guys got left to do?" asked a third voice - a male that Goren couldn't identify.
"Transmission's the next big thing on the list," Alex said, sounding farther away from the phone now. "Lewis, who are you talking to? Hurry up, we've got to get back to One PP by one or Deakins'll turn us into pumpkins!"
We? Who the hell was "we"? Lewis certainly didn't have any business at MCS, and that meant that whoever owned the other male voice did. Who from the squad would she be going around with on her lunch hour?
There was a series of shuffling noises that told Goren that Lewis was lowering the phone and covering the mouthpiece. "Alex," Bobby heard him say, the sound muffled but still comprehensible. "Why don't you send Mike, uh . . . to get some clean rags from inside. This is . . ." He couldn't hear what was said next; either Lewis covered the phone better, or he didn't finish the sentence. "I'd really rather he didn't hear," his voice picked up a second later.
"No," Alex said, loudly enough that he had no trouble discerning her snappish tone. "He's your friend, not mine."
"Oh, come on," Lewis said. "You know he's . . ."
Goren fought the urge to hurl his phone against the wall as Lewis's voice faded out again.
"I think maybe we'll just come back later," Alex said. "Logan, come on. We'll go back early and get brownie points from the boss."
Logan? Lewis had said something about "Mike" a minute ago. Alex was . . . with Mike Logan?
"Lewis!" he shouted into the phone, trying to get his friend's attention.
Two car doors slammed, then Lewis's voice returned to the phone, growling, "What?"
"Was that her?"
"Yeah, and if you couldn't tell, she doesn't want anything to do with you." Lewis didn't even try to conceal the contempt in his voice. "Was this what you were aiming for?"
"Who was with her?" he demanded, ignoring the question. "Was that Mike Logan?"
"Bobby," Lewis said, more calmly now, "you really don't want to hear about that stuff. You're done with her, remember?"
"Who was it?" Goren repeated insistently.
"Fine. Yes, it was him. She's been seeing a lot of him lately."
"Are they dating?"
"Ok, look," Lewis said with a sigh. "You know I'm your friend and I'm on your side and all, but you messed with her, big time, when you left. As far as I'm concerned, if you're going to keep your head up your ass, she's welcome to date whoever she wants, and if you want details, you're just going to have to call her and ask. I'm not here to play telephone because you two aren't talking to each other."
"Lewis!"
"I'm serious, Bobby. You want to know, you call her. Otherwise, leave it alone. Now, I gotta go get started on the work she would have been helping me do if she hadn't left as soon as I mentioned you. I'll talk to you later."
"Uh, yeah . . ." Bobby muttered dazedly. He lowered the phone when he heard the click of his friend hanging up, but just dropped it into his lap instead of hanging it up. Alex and . . . Logan? No, he thought, shaking his head, she'd never date him. He's too . . . too what? Too unlike me? Well, apparently she's not a big fan of me anymore, so I guess that's no longer a good reason.
This time, he did pitch the phone across the room, taking a vague satisfaction in the way it shattered against the bricks of the chimney.
Two months after that; nine months after Bobby left
He fought it for two months, that crushing desire to do what Lewis had said he should: call her. He had no idea what he could say to her, to explain his actions or to make things better between them, but he needed to speak to her. To hear her voice.
. . . and to know what was going on between her and Mike Logan.
And then one day, after staring for six straight hours at pictures of mutilated bodies and trying to think himself into the photos and the killer's head, his restraint just snapped. He swept a hand across his desk, knocking the photographs to the floor, along with four pens and his portfolio, and snatched the phone out of its cradle. It occurred to him after he started dialing that he had no idea whether she still had the same phone number, but it was too late to wonder about that now.
A male voice answered, and he almost hung up automatically, figuring she'd changed her number, before he processed what the voice had said: "Eames's phone."
The words stuck in his throat. It was still her number, but there was a man answering for her.
"Hello?" the male voice tried again. "Anyone there?"
It sounded like Logan, god damn it. Now what was he supposed to do? "Eames, please," he finally managed in a voice so tight that it was probably unrecognizable, anyway.
"Hold on," the man replied with equal abruptness.
There was silence for a few seconds before she came on the line and said, "Hello?"
"Al - uh, Eames," he said hesitantly.
There was silence again, although this time he could hear her breathing next to the phone. "Who is this?"
She'd recognized his voice on the first syllable, he knew. There was no way she couldn't have. So why was she making him say it? He swallowed. "It's, uh, me. Goren."
"Whatever you're calling about, I'm not interested," she said brusquely.
"Alex!" he called, trying to keep her from hanging up. "Please, just . . . listen to me?"
She sighed. "What is it you want to say, Bobby?"
There was a muffled exclamation in the background, and he realized that whoever had answered the phone was still in the room, listening. "Send him into another room while you talk to me," he ordered without thinking about how autocratic it would sound to her.
"No. You don't get to set the rules for this conversation, so either talk or hang up. I've got better things to do than listen to you bitch."
"I'm not bitching."
"Then what are you doing? You haven't returned any of my calls in months, so why are you suddenly calling me? Get bored with your profiling?"
"No." He sighed, realizing that she wasn't going to cut him any slack - not that he really had any right to expect any. "I just . . . wanted to see how you're doing. If you're ok."
"You already know I'm fine. I'm sure Lewis has told you that. What's your real reason?"
"Who was it that just answered the phone?" he blurted before he could lose his nerve.
She let out a breath of disgust. Silly her, thinking he might actually be calling to apologize and talk to her. "That's not any of your business."
"Was it Mike Logan?"
"Why ask if you already know?" she countered, not directly confirming or denying it.
"Does that mean it was?" he pressed.
She snorted. "Goren, it wouldn't be your business even if I had the entire starting lineup of the Yankees naked in my apartment. You got any other questions, or were you just checking to make sure I hadn't replaced you?"
"I . . ." He licked his lips nervously. "How has Major Case been?"
"We've survived just fine without you."
"Alex, please."
"Don't call me that," she snapped, trying to keep her voice from shaking. His tone sounded contrite, but his words were anything but, and she could feel herself wanting to soften toward him even though he hadn't expressed any remorse. "You call me 'Eames' or you don't call me anything."
Before he could respond to that, Goren heard a low voice murmuring to her on the other end of the line. He tried to listen in, wondering with horrified fascination what was going on in her apartment:
". . . don't have to," the male voice was saying. "He's not your responsibility anymore."
"I know," she whispered. "I just . . . need to know why." Her voice grew louder as she began to speak into the phone again. "If you're just calling to chat, Goren, then I'm hanging up. Unless you've got anything more important to say?"
"I guess I just wanted to know . . ." He closed his eyes, hating both himself and her for this conversation. "Are you happy?"
"I'm still alive," she said simply. "What about you? Did you enjoy running away from your life?"
"I asked if you were happy," he repeated softly, ignoring her taunt, "not if you were still alive."
She sucked in a breath, amazed at his gall. "You really want to know the truth, Goren? Then no, I'm not happy. It's hard to be happy when your best friend runs away from you and won't even speak to you to tell you why. There, is that what you wanted to hear? Are you happy now?" She was losing the iron grip she'd kept on her emotions up to this point. Shoving the phone at Logan so he could hang it up, she dropped onto the couch and buried her head in her hands, trying not to shake.
"You've got a goddamn lot of nerve, Goren," Logan bit out, putting the phone to his ear as he sat down and put an arm around her. "What, tearing her up once wasn't enough for you?"
"I . . ." He took a breath and let it out, trying to regain his self control. "I didn't mean to tear her up at all."
"Yeah, well, if the whole disappearance thing was supposed to be a love letter, it got lost in translation. She's rebuilding her life now, and she doesn't need you trying to take that away from her."
"I don't want to . . . I just want to know that . . ." That what? She'd already said that she wasn't happy. Why was he still on the phone, torturing himself?
"You wanted to know what?" Logan demanded. "Whether she'd still come crawling if you snapped your fingers? Got news for you, buddy: you had your chance, and you blew it to kingdom come. So leave her alone."
With that, Logan disconnected the call and tossed the phone toward the coffee table. "Alex? You ok?"
She shuddered. "Yeah. I . . . I'm sorry. I shouldn't have . . ."
"Stop right there," he cut her off. "Don't apologize. You think I don't know what you two had between you? You have every right to be shaken when he pulls a stunt like this." Wrapping his arms around her, he kissed the top of her head. "It's getting late; I should head home. Will you be ok alone?"
She nodded slightly. "Yeah. I just . . . won't answer the phone for the rest of the night if I don't recognize the number. Thank you, Mike. For being here."
He shook his head, refusing her thanks. "I couldn't do anything else for someone I . . . care about so much." He mentally kicked himself for almost letting the l-word slip out - if there was one thing he'd discovered about Alex in the months since Goren abandoned her, it was that she'd shy away from anything resembling commitment or emotional dependence. "Call me if you need me, ok?" he went on after a second, standing up. "Any time of night."
"Ok." She stood up and hugged him for a long second, then allowed him to pull away.
"Lock the door behind me," he warned automatically, although they both knew she didn't need to be told.
"I will." She leaned against the edge of the door for a second as he moved into the hallway, then seemed to make a decision. Catching him by surprise, she stepped forward, rose on her toes, and kissed him quickly. By the time he realized what had happened, she was back in the doorway, giving him a small smile. "Night, Logan."
Wondering what the hell had just happened, he watched blankly as the apartment door closed between them. Then, not sure whether he should be angry at Goren for hurting her again or thankful to him for spurring her on, he just shook his head and headed for the elevator.