In the end, it was something so simple. It wasn't a deathbed confession, it wasn't after the end of a terrible case, it wasn't in the aftermath of another bad phone call from Carmel Ridge, and it wasn't anything, really. Just one slip off the tightrope he'd been walking for so long. The irony was that it wasn't even him that tripped.

They were walking down the street, like they had a thousand times before. If he thought about it- if he calculated it- they had walked so many blocks together. They had been all over the city. They had taken their deep breaths as they quickly approached crime scenes. They had walked slowly, heads together, talking in low voices after leaving a witness's house. They had run in pursuit of a suspect and ambled over to the bar on a Friday night.

But this day, on the way back from the driest of interviews, with someone who was not going to help their case at all, her heel caught on something and she stumbled.

"Crap!" she said, and clutched his arm. He automatically reached his arm around to steady her. She leaned against him briefly, looking up, long bangs half in her face, laughing and shaking her head.

He smiled and looked down, his arm still around her, her hand still on his arm, her face still tilted up and laughing, and everything in the world stood still. For him. She quickly recovered, shook her head, glanced at her heel ruefully, steadied herself and kept walking.

For him, everything was perfectly quiet as he watched her walk away. Something inside of him had been bending for so long that he had foolishly thought it would never break. It had withstood so much, and for so long. Her loyalty, and her caring, and her bravery, her matter of fact acceptance of him, and her.

Bobby was surprised there was not an audible sound to the last, thin thread snapping. He closed his eyes briefly. He might be a master at avoidance, but he wasn't a liar, not even to himself. He stood for a brief second and acknowledged what was true.

He wanted her to grab his arm when she was stumbling. But not just on this street. He wanted her to reach for him anytime she was falling. He wanted his arms to steady her always, through anything. He wanted to see her laughing face tilted up to look up at him, while he smiled and bent his head to….

"Oh Christ." he thought weakly. He shook his head and took a few long steps to catch up with her.

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She chattered as they entered the elevator together, rolling her eyes about another dead-end, throwing out suggestions about phone logs and credit card receipts. He made appropriate responses and watched her she punched the button to their floor. Everything about her was normal, every-day, so perfectly Alex.

Her tailored pants, the small gold earrings, the subtle, almost non-existent perfume, everything about her was so right, and so pleasing to him, and he admitted to himself that it had been that way for a long time. How many times had just seeing her walking towards her desk in the morning filled him with happiness?

As she flipped through her notes, he covertly examined her eyelashes and remembered times when he had seen her without any make-up, and how her eyelashes had been the same color as her hair. Remembered her yawning at a 3am crime scene, and wondered how she would look at 3 am under different circumstances- lazy and sleepy in his bed.

He closed his eyes briefly and indulged. Her voice snapped him out of his thoughts.

"Well?" she said, looking at him closely.

He didn't say anything, just opened his eyes and looked back as the elevator doors slid open.

She smiled and shook her head as she exited the elevator.

"I can tell you've got something brewing in that head of yours. I guess you'll tell me when you're ready," she tossed over her shoulder, "But in the meantime, I'm going to go over those phone logs again."

She glanced back briefly.

"When you're ready to share, I'll be all ears."

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"Ew," she groused. He looked up and couldn't hide a smile as she dropped a chunk of green pepper onto a napkin. She looked up, saw his smile and grinned back, briefly. Then she went back to the phone logs, stopping every once in a while to absently spear a forkful of salad.

Bobby went back to staring unseeingly at his computer screen and shifted in his chair uncomfortably. His mind had been running on a tortuous path all afternoon. Seeing Eames picking peppers off her salad should not make his heart swell with joy. It shouldn't make him want to snatch the salad away and dig through it until every offending pepper was removed. And it should definitely not make him want to scoop her off her chair and set her in his lap, stroke her hair, settle his hand at the nape of her neck and pull her head towards his.

"What's going on with you today?" Her voice, lowered and directed only to him, startled him. He looked up quickly. She was leaning slightly towards him, frowning slightly. "You've barely said a word since we got back from that last interview."

He rubbed the back of his neck, looking down. When he looked up, she was still looking at him, puzzled.

"Oh, sorry. No, it's just…I mean…" he trailed off and looked at her.

She raised an eyebrow, waiting patiently.

"I just..um…just thinking through some things…" he stammered slightly.

"Okay, you're still percolating something. Just let me know when you need some help."

He stared back for a brief second, enjoying how warm and understanding her eyes were. Imagined those same eyes, that same look, as she caressed his face. He would pull her closer and…

She bent her back to her notes. He realized he was still staring at her and slowly turned his head back to his computer screen.

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