Fic: The Life You Save/1
Title: The Life You Save
Author: Scribere Est Agere
Pairing: Goren/Eames
Spoilers: After Purgatory
Rating: M
Disclaimer: These characters do not belong to me.
Summary: May be your own.
//
A/N: Thank you, as ever, to csinut214 for support and encouragement, and an Epic Writing Day that worked wonders. And Christina: I haven’t forgotten about you. You were the original inspiration, three years ago. So. Yeah. Finally, this particular version evolved from the following music prompt suggested by the lovely leigh57:
I know the darkness pulls on you
But it’s just a point of view
When you’re outside looking in
You belong to someone
~ Brandi Carlile, Looking Out
//
“He’s coming off suspension. They’re working it out.”
~Captain Danny Ross
//
There are three men in the room. They sit back to back, in a close circle, on metal chairs. They’re not comfortable, but they aren’t meant to be.
Then the music starts.
//
What a mess. What a stupid, fucking mess.
For Alex, the weeks following Bobby’s reinstatement are strange and uneasy ones, with a mood balancing precariously between light and dark, sweet and sour. Would their partnership - their relationship - return to its previous state, or would it slip off the edge, fall into darkness, never to recover? Bobby’s constant sucking up/desperate placating both pleases and infuriates her (ENOUGH ALREADY she wants to scream on more than one occasion; does, on several occasions, roll her eyes without bothering to turn away from him first), but it’s more than that. The job is exhausting her, and the months she spent working without him only amplified the difficult nature of some of the cases. She knows she needs a break, but she doesn’t know from what, exactly, and that uncertainty is enough to keep her up at nights.
Dark, gloomy afternoon, neck-deep in paperwork that she hadn’t been able to maintain while Bobby was gone, and Bobby is hunched over his desk, muttering to himself below the scritchscritchscratch of his pen, when it hits her:
She isn’t just tired of the job. She is, surprisingly, tired of him too, of his antics, of them and their dancing around their weird, fucked-up partnership, or whatever it is.
It isn’t that she doesn’t want to forgive him. Nothing is further from the truth, actually. She thinks about forgiving him all the time. She thinks about letting it all go, all the anger, all the hurt and disappointment, completely and once and for all.
(You’re undercover you don’t tell me?)
But.
But, it’s the shock and surprise of bursting into a room with her gun cocked and ready to fire and finding Bobby at the receiving end-
But, it’s the notion that if she had fired (or if he had) that nothing would ever be the same again, ever ever, and life as she knows it would be so fucking damaged and beyond repair that there really would be no point, no point at all to anything-
But, it has something to do with the fact that every time she looks at him - every single time - she wants to either hug him or punch him in the face. Sometimes both.
And, oh, he keeps trying, despite her cold silences, her steely stares, her monosyllabic responses. Bobby Goren is nothing if not doggedly persistent in matters he truly cares about.
“Need help with that file?”
“I’m…uh…getting a coffee. Want one?”
“Do…you…uh want to go for dinner?”
That one almost makes her laugh out loud. Almost. She stares at him. “Why?”
And he only shrugs and shuffles his size 13s and mumbles something she doesn’t quite catch, but doesn’t bother to ask him to repeat, and they go their separate ways, and it is only later, much, much later, (too late), that she realizes what he’d really been trying to say:
Please forgive me already.
//
And there are always comments and opinions buzzing around like mosquitoes, some muttered behind her back, but many directed right to her face.
“How’s that crazy partner of yours?” This time it’s Leonard, in Homicide. Eames slams her locker door shut, looks around to make sure Bobby is nowhere in sight.
“He’s not crazy.” Her face is hot, her pulse racing. Shit. Shit shit.
“All right, all right,” Leonard laughs, holds up his hands. “Looks like I touched a nerve.”
Which isn’t too hard, really: These days all her nerves are connected directly to Bobby.
//
She will never tell him how much he’s hurt her, just like she will never tell him how much she loves him.
//
And things are finally settling down, the two of them are finally falling back into step, mostly, but there are still a few bumps, a few-
(I think there are... some unresolved issues... with a man in your life. Some...trust issues.)
-and she hides the Vacation Request forms she’d sneaked out of Ross’s office one afternoon under her desk blotter, because maybe, just maybe, they are going to weather this, they’re going to be fine, but then the call comes from Ross, via Bobby, about Frank, and everything changes.
Again.
//
Frank Goren is buried on a cool and windy May morning next to his mother beneath a tumble of white clouds. Weak sunlight, trees just beginning to bloom, scraggly branches raking the sky. It had rained during the night and the grass is wet and brushing against the mourners’ ankles.
Alex is there, and Ross and Rodgers. Donnie’s mother Evelyn. Bobby. Frank’s AA sponsor, Dan? Dave? The minister. A lot of ghosts, welcome and otherwise.
Alex has been fighting tears for days, for so many different reasons, and during the brief, impersonal service she can no longer contain them. She bows her head during the final prayer and cries very quietly. Bobby, who is standing next to her, unclasps his hands and takes one of hers in his, squeezes her fingers briefly, then releases, which makes her cry harder.
Bobby patiently receives the well-wishers (what is there to say, really? The only surprise is that Frank didn’t bite it sooner), and speaks briefly with the minister. Alex watches the cluster of dark, retreating backs and turns to Bobby. His head is down, shoulders hunched, hands balled in his pockets. He looks smaller than she’s ever seen and very alone.
“Do you want to go for a walk? Get a coffee?” she asks. She very much doesn’t want to leave him and she’s grasping. He shakes his head. She tries again. “Beer? Scotch? My treat.”
(Do…you…uh want to go for dinner?)
He looks up and smiles. “No. It’s okay. I…I think I just want to be alone for awhile. But…thank you.” He looks back down, digs the toe of one recently polished shoe into soft earth.
Still she hesitates, wavering, uncertain. She feels the tears again and suddenly, impulsively reaches up on tiptoes and throws her arms around his shoulders. She closes her eyes, pushes her face into the scratchy and vaguely musty smelling fabric of his dress coat.
“I’m so sorry,” she mumbles and she wonders if he can even hear her. He drags his hands out of his pockets and hugs her, hard, harder - she can feel his fists digging into the small of her back - and he just nods against the top of her head, to let her know he has.
//
After Declan is escorted from the room (muttering, gesticulating, begging forgiveness, understanding, immunity), Alex slips in, knees shaking, stands beside Bobby, who is gripping his head in his hands, not moving, not speaking.
“Bobby-” Her voice sounds loud, useless. She doesn’t know what to do with her hands.
“Please…Eames. Please. Just…don’t-”
“Goren.” Ross stands at the door, his voice quiet, resigned. “I need you to make a statement…before you forget anything.”
Bobby heaves himself to his feet, swipes one arm across his face, and though Alex wants desperately to hug him again, this time she has to be content with touching the sleeve of his shirt as he passes.
She’s not sure he even notices.
//
Another death, another drama, another enforced leave of absence. Alex ponders the nature of The Twilight Zone, of days repeating, endlessly, the same one, over and over and over again, pushes her fingers against the bridge of her nose, pushes back the tears.
“Just a week, right?” Bobby clarifies with Ross three times, just to be absolutely certain.
“Yes, Goren. One week. One complete week. I don’t want to see or hear from you until Tuesday. Next Tuesday.”
Bobby looks long and hard at Eames, imprinting, she thinks irrationally, before he turns and walks away.
Again.
//
She is good about staying in touch, at least for the first few days.
“Am I missing anything?” he asks. (Besides you, he wants to add.)
“I’ve caught a robbery case. Very…boring.”
“Oh yeah?”
“Yeah.”
“Where?”
“Uh…McMartin art gallery. Four paintings, the curator and the owner’s wife have mysteriously gone missing.”
They wait, listen to each other breathing.
“Are you all right?” she finally says.
“Yeah.”
“Okay.” She takes a breath. “Good night, then.”
“Good night.”
Bobby reads books and newspapers and surfs the web and paces his apartment and drinks coffee and smokes (only a couple a day) and drinks (only at night) and thinks about Frank and Declan and Frances and work. Always work. And Eames. Always Eames. Then he doesn’t hear from her for two days and he panics. His calls to her home phone went unanswered, and messages on her cell, unreturned.
He calls work, gets hold of Ben, a young detective with a well-acknowledged crush on Eames. Great. Great.
“I’m trying to track down Eames.” Bobby clears his throat. “Do…do you know where she is?”
He hears the mouthpiece covered briefly, some muffled voices behind it. Bobby frowns. What the hell is going on?
“She’s in training, I think.”
“Training…for what?” What the hell kind of training does she need for a robbery case?
“Uh…hang on.” Again the phone is covered, more muffled voices, some laughter.
Ben clears his throat. “I don’t think you’re supposed to know.”
This is getting ridiculous. Bobby laughs nervously. “Come on. Help me out…I’m in the dark, here.”
Another pause, more muffled talk. Apparently this is too good not to share.
“Okay. But I’m not supposed to be telling you this.” Ben lowers his voice and Bobby pictures him leaning close to his desk, one hand cupped around the phone. “She’s…dancing.”
“…what?” Bobby closes his eyes. Feels a migraine building.
Ben giggles. God, Bobby wants to punch him. In the mouth.
“She’s going undercover. Dance club.”
Bobby’s heart skips, lurches. His mind races. “Not…not the Vice Club murders? Are you fucking kidding me?”
“Nope. Apparently she fits the victim profile perfectly. Chief of D’s handpicked her.”
“Really.”
“You want me to tell her you called?”
But Bobby has already hung up.
//
She doesn’t get home until almost 1 a.m.
He knows this because he waits outside her apartment building for five fucking hours.
And he fucking hates surveillance duty.
He forces himself to wait a full 10 minutes before he goes in.
A full 10 agonizing minutes.
//
“Are you out of your mind?” He’s already yelling as he pushes his way through her door without waiting for it to open completely. She’s wearing a long, blue bathrobe and her hair is pulled back in a ponytail. She looks adorable, but he’s too blind with anger to notice. Much. She folds her arms across her chest, regards him calmly.
“Hi. How are you?”
“The Vice? Have you completely lost your senses?”
She sighs. She seems resigned and not very surprised.
“How did you find out about that?” She closes the door, locks it, motioning for him to sit down. He does not. He’s quivering with rage and something else. She perches on the edge of the couch.
“Not from you!” he shouts. “Do you have any idea how that feels?”
She raises an eyebrow.
“Yes. I know exactly how it feels, funny enough.”
He stops short. “Oh…so we’re going back to that again?”
“You brought it up.” She shrugs. She realizes with a start that the pain is still there, simmering just below the surface. She can’t resist a small pang of childish satisfaction: Nyah nyah.
He paces a few steps more, runs an agitated hand through his hair.
“You’re not doing this.”
“Pardon?”
“This…this stupid undercover crap. Forget it. No fucking way.”
“Bobby-”
“Those girls.” He takes a shallow, jagged breath that catches in his throat. “Those girls were…strangled, okay? In case you’d forgotten. And, they had the shit beat out of them.”
“Which is exactly why this needs to be done. Someone has to stop whoever’s doing it-”
“Yeah. Fine. Someone else. Not you. You’re not doing it.” He hears himself, knows he sounds like an asshole.
Doesn’t care.
“Really. You think you’re going to stop me?” she counters, her voice finally rising, eyes snapping.
He pauses. “No.” He takes a step closer, looks down at her tense, beautiful face. “I’m going with you.”
Her face softens then, imperceptibly, but he sees it, grasps for it.
“I want…I need to…go with you.”
She sighs.
“You know I have no say about that.”
He swallows. It’s very hot in her apartment suddenly.
“But…you could ask, right? You could…ask.”
She sighs again, looks down. When she looks back up he’s staring at her with a furious intensity usually reserved for serial killers…or Ross. Her heart races.
(But…you could ask, right? You could…ask.)
Of course she could.
//
“Goren, are you deaf? Or just defiant?” Ross is practically trembling with anger, but Bobby’s too angry himself to give much of a fuck.
“We’re partners, in case anyone in this room has forgotten.” He directs this at both Ross and Eames, who, he notices, is studiously avoiding his murderous gaze.
“No one has forgotten anything, Goren, except for you. Forced leave of absence. Ring a bell?”
“Look…Captain.” Bobby can feel it slipping away, his chance, and he can’t…he won’t let that happen. “I…need to be in there, with her. Not some fucking rookie, not Ben, for god’s sakes-”
(Eames. Help me out here. Please.)
“Captain, I would feel more comfortable,” Eames breaks in, still not looking at Bobby, whose hands are twitching, flexing, twisting the hem of his rumpled suit jacket. At least he dressed for the occasion. Sort of. “Nagy does have a history of…unpredictability-”
“Who?” Bobby says.
Ross stares at him, unblinking. The mutual dislike is palpable. “Our suspect, Karl Nagy. He is, apparently, some sort of up-and-comer in the art world. The victims are all dancers, and have all danced at Vice. Their names are Starr, Crystal and Blue, aka Diana, Sarah and Claire.” Ross pauses. “Nagy is the only connection we have between all the girls. We found paintings of each of them in the McMartin gallery.”
“Wait a minute.” Bobby turns to Eames. “You were investigating a robbery there.”
Eames sighs. “The owner’s wife is a former Vice dancer. Apparently is - was - good friends with Nagy. Her ‘disappearance’ isn’t murder, but she displays a lot of Nagy’s work. The girls at Vice all talked about a patron who…asked to paint them, at one time or another. Nagy fits the profile.”
There’s a knock at the door and Ben appears. He smiles at Eames before speaking.
“Rodgers sent me…the body’s ready.”
Bobby stops, looks to Eames. “…what? Another girl?”
“Found yesterday. Bobby-”
The room is too small for Bobby’s energy. He might flip Ross’s desk over. He might smash his fist through the window. He might throw Eames over his shoulder and run and and run and-
“Goren-” Ross takes a deep breath, engages in a brief staredown with Goren that he knows, he knows he will never win. “Fine. Let’s go.”
//
“Victoria Moretti, 23. Danced under the name Diamond. COD strangulation. Same MO.” Rodgers pauses. “And, she took a beating, first. A bad one. If this guy’s an artist, he must paint them before he loses his temper.”
The girl looks startlingly young under the harsh lights, scrubbed clean, bruises and scratches standing out in raw, stark relief. Bobby grips the edge of the metal table, feels nauseous for the first time in years and years, because he can see Eames’s face superimposed over Victoria’s, her eyes, her nose, her mouth-
(Do you see? Do you see what he does to them?)
“I hear you’re going in,” Rodgers says suddenly. Eames looks at her and nods, once.
“Be careful.” She lowers the sheet, displays the girl’s bruised, battered breasts. “This is personal.”
Eames pales, nods again.
“Thank you, Elizabeth,” Ross says. Bobby releases his grip on the table, takes a steadying breath. When he opens his eyes, everyone is looking at him. He looks only at Eames.
“This doesn’t change your mind?”
She crosses her arms, shakes her head. She looks young and old at once, all lines and softness, resolve and vulnerability. “No, in fact. It makes me more determined than ever to catch the bastard.”
And because he knows her, knows nothing he can say or do will sway her, he only nods, swallows against the rising bile.
“Ok. Let’s do it, then.”
//
Bobby fidgets as he’s wired up, watches Eames out of the corner of his eye. She’s fidgety, too, flexing her hands, turning her head back and forth. The muffled thumpthumpthump of music through the club’s walls is both distracting and soothing. Bobby tries to measure his heartbeat in time. The two other dancers and standing by, watching with bright-eyed interest. Bobby assumes they are the ones who trained Eames, because she turns and smiles tightly at them.
“You realize,” she says to no one in particular, “that I’m old enough to be these girls’ mother-”
The girls giggle.
“It’ll be dark,” Bobby offers.
Everyone falls silent.
“Gee…thanks,” she drawls. Bobby’s heart breaks a little.
“That didn’t come out right…I mean, I didn’t mean it like that-”
Eames is watching him, and Ross is watching her. Is she going to yell? Snark?
“Are you saying you don’t want to see me dance?” she teases instead.
“No, no. That’s not what I’m saying at all.”
“So, you do want to see me dance?”
(Oh god yes I do I do but I can’t say that what does she want me to say exactly?)
Ross shakes his head, steps forward, addresses Eames.
“When Nagy ‘chooses’ you for a private dance, he’ll nod and raise his hand. Once you’ve left the main area, we’ll be able to hear everything. He’ll ask to come back to his loft, he’ll want to paint you. When he does that, we’ll be there.”
“How do you know…he’ll choose her?” Bobby speaks through a choking haze of panic and imminent vomit. He still wants to pick her up and run with her, run run run-
“Eames is going to show him…special attention,” Ross says carefully. “And…she’s his type.”
Eames nods, takes a huge breath through her nose, exhales through her mouth, looks over at Bobby, because she knows he’s watching her and she wants him to know that everything is going to be all right.
“Are you…sure you want to do this?” he asks, for the millionth time, it seems. His throat is very dry. She’s rubbing her hands together and bending her knees slightly. She nods tersely. She looks down at herself, at the tight black bodice and fishnet tights, the impossibly high heels.
“Besides. Where else am I going to go dressed like this?”
Right.
Well, he has a few suggestions, but nothing he can actually say out loud.
So, he shrugs, instead, and she laughs loud and harsh, sharp like a slap.
//
There are three men in the room. They sit back to back, in a close circle, on metal chairs. They’re not comfortable, but they aren’t meant to be.
Then the music starts.
//
There is a pounding of music, a throbbing and thumpthumpthumping, flashing lights. He knows then, as he shifts on his chair, as if he needed a reminder, why he never frequents these establishments. This is hell, he thinks. This, right here. He blinks and moves to shield his face before realizing that wouldn’t look good, wouldn’t look professional at all. So, he sits still and pastes a bland, mildly expectant expression on his face and grips the edge of his metal chair with both hands, knuckles white, and he’s sure, with the crazy manic flash of bluegreenredyellow lights that keep flashing god I’m going to have a fucking seizure if they don’t fucking stop soon-
There are three men in the room. They sit back to back, in a close circle, on metal chairs. They’re not comfortable, but they aren’t meant to be.
Then the girls appear.
//
tbc
Author: Scribere Est Agere
Pairing: Goren/Eames
Spoilers: After Purgatory
Rating: M
Disclaimer: These characters do not belong to me.
Summary: May be your own.
//
A/N: Thank you, as ever, to csinut214 for support and encouragement, and an Epic Writing Day that worked wonders. And Christina: I haven’t forgotten about you. You were the original inspiration, three years ago. So. Yeah. Finally, this particular version evolved from the following music prompt suggested by the lovely leigh57:
I know the darkness pulls on you
But it’s just a point of view
When you’re outside looking in
You belong to someone
~ Brandi Carlile, Looking Out
//
“He’s coming off suspension. They’re working it out.”
~Captain Danny Ross
//
There are three men in the room. They sit back to back, in a close circle, on metal chairs. They’re not comfortable, but they aren’t meant to be.
Then the music starts.
//
What a mess. What a stupid, fucking mess.
For Alex, the weeks following Bobby’s reinstatement are strange and uneasy ones, with a mood balancing precariously between light and dark, sweet and sour. Would their partnership - their relationship - return to its previous state, or would it slip off the edge, fall into darkness, never to recover? Bobby’s constant sucking up/desperate placating both pleases and infuriates her (ENOUGH ALREADY she wants to scream on more than one occasion; does, on several occasions, roll her eyes without bothering to turn away from him first), but it’s more than that. The job is exhausting her, and the months she spent working without him only amplified the difficult nature of some of the cases. She knows she needs a break, but she doesn’t know from what, exactly, and that uncertainty is enough to keep her up at nights.
Dark, gloomy afternoon, neck-deep in paperwork that she hadn’t been able to maintain while Bobby was gone, and Bobby is hunched over his desk, muttering to himself below the scritchscritchscratch of his pen, when it hits her:
She isn’t just tired of the job. She is, surprisingly, tired of him too, of his antics, of them and their dancing around their weird, fucked-up partnership, or whatever it is.
It isn’t that she doesn’t want to forgive him. Nothing is further from the truth, actually. She thinks about forgiving him all the time. She thinks about letting it all go, all the anger, all the hurt and disappointment, completely and once and for all.
(You’re undercover you don’t tell me?)
But.
But, it’s the shock and surprise of bursting into a room with her gun cocked and ready to fire and finding Bobby at the receiving end-
But, it’s the notion that if she had fired (or if he had) that nothing would ever be the same again, ever ever, and life as she knows it would be so fucking damaged and beyond repair that there really would be no point, no point at all to anything-
But, it has something to do with the fact that every time she looks at him - every single time - she wants to either hug him or punch him in the face. Sometimes both.
And, oh, he keeps trying, despite her cold silences, her steely stares, her monosyllabic responses. Bobby Goren is nothing if not doggedly persistent in matters he truly cares about.
“Need help with that file?”
“I’m…uh…getting a coffee. Want one?”
“Do…you…uh want to go for dinner?”
That one almost makes her laugh out loud. Almost. She stares at him. “Why?”
And he only shrugs and shuffles his size 13s and mumbles something she doesn’t quite catch, but doesn’t bother to ask him to repeat, and they go their separate ways, and it is only later, much, much later, (too late), that she realizes what he’d really been trying to say:
Please forgive me already.
//
And there are always comments and opinions buzzing around like mosquitoes, some muttered behind her back, but many directed right to her face.
“How’s that crazy partner of yours?” This time it’s Leonard, in Homicide. Eames slams her locker door shut, looks around to make sure Bobby is nowhere in sight.
“He’s not crazy.” Her face is hot, her pulse racing. Shit. Shit shit.
“All right, all right,” Leonard laughs, holds up his hands. “Looks like I touched a nerve.”
Which isn’t too hard, really: These days all her nerves are connected directly to Bobby.
//
She will never tell him how much he’s hurt her, just like she will never tell him how much she loves him.
//
And things are finally settling down, the two of them are finally falling back into step, mostly, but there are still a few bumps, a few-
(I think there are... some unresolved issues... with a man in your life. Some...trust issues.)
-and she hides the Vacation Request forms she’d sneaked out of Ross’s office one afternoon under her desk blotter, because maybe, just maybe, they are going to weather this, they’re going to be fine, but then the call comes from Ross, via Bobby, about Frank, and everything changes.
Again.
//
Frank Goren is buried on a cool and windy May morning next to his mother beneath a tumble of white clouds. Weak sunlight, trees just beginning to bloom, scraggly branches raking the sky. It had rained during the night and the grass is wet and brushing against the mourners’ ankles.
Alex is there, and Ross and Rodgers. Donnie’s mother Evelyn. Bobby. Frank’s AA sponsor, Dan? Dave? The minister. A lot of ghosts, welcome and otherwise.
Alex has been fighting tears for days, for so many different reasons, and during the brief, impersonal service she can no longer contain them. She bows her head during the final prayer and cries very quietly. Bobby, who is standing next to her, unclasps his hands and takes one of hers in his, squeezes her fingers briefly, then releases, which makes her cry harder.
Bobby patiently receives the well-wishers (what is there to say, really? The only surprise is that Frank didn’t bite it sooner), and speaks briefly with the minister. Alex watches the cluster of dark, retreating backs and turns to Bobby. His head is down, shoulders hunched, hands balled in his pockets. He looks smaller than she’s ever seen and very alone.
“Do you want to go for a walk? Get a coffee?” she asks. She very much doesn’t want to leave him and she’s grasping. He shakes his head. She tries again. “Beer? Scotch? My treat.”
(Do…you…uh want to go for dinner?)
He looks up and smiles. “No. It’s okay. I…I think I just want to be alone for awhile. But…thank you.” He looks back down, digs the toe of one recently polished shoe into soft earth.
Still she hesitates, wavering, uncertain. She feels the tears again and suddenly, impulsively reaches up on tiptoes and throws her arms around his shoulders. She closes her eyes, pushes her face into the scratchy and vaguely musty smelling fabric of his dress coat.
“I’m so sorry,” she mumbles and she wonders if he can even hear her. He drags his hands out of his pockets and hugs her, hard, harder - she can feel his fists digging into the small of her back - and he just nods against the top of her head, to let her know he has.
//
After Declan is escorted from the room (muttering, gesticulating, begging forgiveness, understanding, immunity), Alex slips in, knees shaking, stands beside Bobby, who is gripping his head in his hands, not moving, not speaking.
“Bobby-” Her voice sounds loud, useless. She doesn’t know what to do with her hands.
“Please…Eames. Please. Just…don’t-”
“Goren.” Ross stands at the door, his voice quiet, resigned. “I need you to make a statement…before you forget anything.”
Bobby heaves himself to his feet, swipes one arm across his face, and though Alex wants desperately to hug him again, this time she has to be content with touching the sleeve of his shirt as he passes.
She’s not sure he even notices.
//
Another death, another drama, another enforced leave of absence. Alex ponders the nature of The Twilight Zone, of days repeating, endlessly, the same one, over and over and over again, pushes her fingers against the bridge of her nose, pushes back the tears.
“Just a week, right?” Bobby clarifies with Ross three times, just to be absolutely certain.
“Yes, Goren. One week. One complete week. I don’t want to see or hear from you until Tuesday. Next Tuesday.”
Bobby looks long and hard at Eames, imprinting, she thinks irrationally, before he turns and walks away.
Again.
//
She is good about staying in touch, at least for the first few days.
“Am I missing anything?” he asks. (Besides you, he wants to add.)
“I’ve caught a robbery case. Very…boring.”
“Oh yeah?”
“Yeah.”
“Where?”
“Uh…McMartin art gallery. Four paintings, the curator and the owner’s wife have mysteriously gone missing.”
They wait, listen to each other breathing.
“Are you all right?” she finally says.
“Yeah.”
“Okay.” She takes a breath. “Good night, then.”
“Good night.”
Bobby reads books and newspapers and surfs the web and paces his apartment and drinks coffee and smokes (only a couple a day) and drinks (only at night) and thinks about Frank and Declan and Frances and work. Always work. And Eames. Always Eames. Then he doesn’t hear from her for two days and he panics. His calls to her home phone went unanswered, and messages on her cell, unreturned.
He calls work, gets hold of Ben, a young detective with a well-acknowledged crush on Eames. Great. Great.
“I’m trying to track down Eames.” Bobby clears his throat. “Do…do you know where she is?”
He hears the mouthpiece covered briefly, some muffled voices behind it. Bobby frowns. What the hell is going on?
“She’s in training, I think.”
“Training…for what?” What the hell kind of training does she need for a robbery case?
“Uh…hang on.” Again the phone is covered, more muffled voices, some laughter.
Ben clears his throat. “I don’t think you’re supposed to know.”
This is getting ridiculous. Bobby laughs nervously. “Come on. Help me out…I’m in the dark, here.”
Another pause, more muffled talk. Apparently this is too good not to share.
“Okay. But I’m not supposed to be telling you this.” Ben lowers his voice and Bobby pictures him leaning close to his desk, one hand cupped around the phone. “She’s…dancing.”
“…what?” Bobby closes his eyes. Feels a migraine building.
Ben giggles. God, Bobby wants to punch him. In the mouth.
“She’s going undercover. Dance club.”
Bobby’s heart skips, lurches. His mind races. “Not…not the Vice Club murders? Are you fucking kidding me?”
“Nope. Apparently she fits the victim profile perfectly. Chief of D’s handpicked her.”
“Really.”
“You want me to tell her you called?”
But Bobby has already hung up.
//
She doesn’t get home until almost 1 a.m.
He knows this because he waits outside her apartment building for five fucking hours.
And he fucking hates surveillance duty.
He forces himself to wait a full 10 minutes before he goes in.
A full 10 agonizing minutes.
//
“Are you out of your mind?” He’s already yelling as he pushes his way through her door without waiting for it to open completely. She’s wearing a long, blue bathrobe and her hair is pulled back in a ponytail. She looks adorable, but he’s too blind with anger to notice. Much. She folds her arms across her chest, regards him calmly.
“Hi. How are you?”
“The Vice? Have you completely lost your senses?”
She sighs. She seems resigned and not very surprised.
“How did you find out about that?” She closes the door, locks it, motioning for him to sit down. He does not. He’s quivering with rage and something else. She perches on the edge of the couch.
“Not from you!” he shouts. “Do you have any idea how that feels?”
She raises an eyebrow.
“Yes. I know exactly how it feels, funny enough.”
He stops short. “Oh…so we’re going back to that again?”
“You brought it up.” She shrugs. She realizes with a start that the pain is still there, simmering just below the surface. She can’t resist a small pang of childish satisfaction: Nyah nyah.
He paces a few steps more, runs an agitated hand through his hair.
“You’re not doing this.”
“Pardon?”
“This…this stupid undercover crap. Forget it. No fucking way.”
“Bobby-”
“Those girls.” He takes a shallow, jagged breath that catches in his throat. “Those girls were…strangled, okay? In case you’d forgotten. And, they had the shit beat out of them.”
“Which is exactly why this needs to be done. Someone has to stop whoever’s doing it-”
“Yeah. Fine. Someone else. Not you. You’re not doing it.” He hears himself, knows he sounds like an asshole.
Doesn’t care.
“Really. You think you’re going to stop me?” she counters, her voice finally rising, eyes snapping.
He pauses. “No.” He takes a step closer, looks down at her tense, beautiful face. “I’m going with you.”
Her face softens then, imperceptibly, but he sees it, grasps for it.
“I want…I need to…go with you.”
She sighs.
“You know I have no say about that.”
He swallows. It’s very hot in her apartment suddenly.
“But…you could ask, right? You could…ask.”
She sighs again, looks down. When she looks back up he’s staring at her with a furious intensity usually reserved for serial killers…or Ross. Her heart races.
(But…you could ask, right? You could…ask.)
Of course she could.
//
“Goren, are you deaf? Or just defiant?” Ross is practically trembling with anger, but Bobby’s too angry himself to give much of a fuck.
“We’re partners, in case anyone in this room has forgotten.” He directs this at both Ross and Eames, who, he notices, is studiously avoiding his murderous gaze.
“No one has forgotten anything, Goren, except for you. Forced leave of absence. Ring a bell?”
“Look…Captain.” Bobby can feel it slipping away, his chance, and he can’t…he won’t let that happen. “I…need to be in there, with her. Not some fucking rookie, not Ben, for god’s sakes-”
(Eames. Help me out here. Please.)
“Captain, I would feel more comfortable,” Eames breaks in, still not looking at Bobby, whose hands are twitching, flexing, twisting the hem of his rumpled suit jacket. At least he dressed for the occasion. Sort of. “Nagy does have a history of…unpredictability-”
“Who?” Bobby says.
Ross stares at him, unblinking. The mutual dislike is palpable. “Our suspect, Karl Nagy. He is, apparently, some sort of up-and-comer in the art world. The victims are all dancers, and have all danced at Vice. Their names are Starr, Crystal and Blue, aka Diana, Sarah and Claire.” Ross pauses. “Nagy is the only connection we have between all the girls. We found paintings of each of them in the McMartin gallery.”
“Wait a minute.” Bobby turns to Eames. “You were investigating a robbery there.”
Eames sighs. “The owner’s wife is a former Vice dancer. Apparently is - was - good friends with Nagy. Her ‘disappearance’ isn’t murder, but she displays a lot of Nagy’s work. The girls at Vice all talked about a patron who…asked to paint them, at one time or another. Nagy fits the profile.”
There’s a knock at the door and Ben appears. He smiles at Eames before speaking.
“Rodgers sent me…the body’s ready.”
Bobby stops, looks to Eames. “…what? Another girl?”
“Found yesterday. Bobby-”
The room is too small for Bobby’s energy. He might flip Ross’s desk over. He might smash his fist through the window. He might throw Eames over his shoulder and run and and run and-
“Goren-” Ross takes a deep breath, engages in a brief staredown with Goren that he knows, he knows he will never win. “Fine. Let’s go.”
//
“Victoria Moretti, 23. Danced under the name Diamond. COD strangulation. Same MO.” Rodgers pauses. “And, she took a beating, first. A bad one. If this guy’s an artist, he must paint them before he loses his temper.”
The girl looks startlingly young under the harsh lights, scrubbed clean, bruises and scratches standing out in raw, stark relief. Bobby grips the edge of the metal table, feels nauseous for the first time in years and years, because he can see Eames’s face superimposed over Victoria’s, her eyes, her nose, her mouth-
(Do you see? Do you see what he does to them?)
“I hear you’re going in,” Rodgers says suddenly. Eames looks at her and nods, once.
“Be careful.” She lowers the sheet, displays the girl’s bruised, battered breasts. “This is personal.”
Eames pales, nods again.
“Thank you, Elizabeth,” Ross says. Bobby releases his grip on the table, takes a steadying breath. When he opens his eyes, everyone is looking at him. He looks only at Eames.
“This doesn’t change your mind?”
She crosses her arms, shakes her head. She looks young and old at once, all lines and softness, resolve and vulnerability. “No, in fact. It makes me more determined than ever to catch the bastard.”
And because he knows her, knows nothing he can say or do will sway her, he only nods, swallows against the rising bile.
“Ok. Let’s do it, then.”
//
Bobby fidgets as he’s wired up, watches Eames out of the corner of his eye. She’s fidgety, too, flexing her hands, turning her head back and forth. The muffled thumpthumpthump of music through the club’s walls is both distracting and soothing. Bobby tries to measure his heartbeat in time. The two other dancers and standing by, watching with bright-eyed interest. Bobby assumes they are the ones who trained Eames, because she turns and smiles tightly at them.
“You realize,” she says to no one in particular, “that I’m old enough to be these girls’ mother-”
The girls giggle.
“It’ll be dark,” Bobby offers.
Everyone falls silent.
“Gee…thanks,” she drawls. Bobby’s heart breaks a little.
“That didn’t come out right…I mean, I didn’t mean it like that-”
Eames is watching him, and Ross is watching her. Is she going to yell? Snark?
“Are you saying you don’t want to see me dance?” she teases instead.
“No, no. That’s not what I’m saying at all.”
“So, you do want to see me dance?”
(Oh god yes I do I do but I can’t say that what does she want me to say exactly?)
Ross shakes his head, steps forward, addresses Eames.
“When Nagy ‘chooses’ you for a private dance, he’ll nod and raise his hand. Once you’ve left the main area, we’ll be able to hear everything. He’ll ask to come back to his loft, he’ll want to paint you. When he does that, we’ll be there.”
“How do you know…he’ll choose her?” Bobby speaks through a choking haze of panic and imminent vomit. He still wants to pick her up and run with her, run run run-
“Eames is going to show him…special attention,” Ross says carefully. “And…she’s his type.”
Eames nods, takes a huge breath through her nose, exhales through her mouth, looks over at Bobby, because she knows he’s watching her and she wants him to know that everything is going to be all right.
“Are you…sure you want to do this?” he asks, for the millionth time, it seems. His throat is very dry. She’s rubbing her hands together and bending her knees slightly. She nods tersely. She looks down at herself, at the tight black bodice and fishnet tights, the impossibly high heels.
“Besides. Where else am I going to go dressed like this?”
Right.
Well, he has a few suggestions, but nothing he can actually say out loud.
So, he shrugs, instead, and she laughs loud and harsh, sharp like a slap.
//
There are three men in the room. They sit back to back, in a close circle, on metal chairs. They’re not comfortable, but they aren’t meant to be.
Then the music starts.
//
There is a pounding of music, a throbbing and thumpthumpthumping, flashing lights. He knows then, as he shifts on his chair, as if he needed a reminder, why he never frequents these establishments. This is hell, he thinks. This, right here. He blinks and moves to shield his face before realizing that wouldn’t look good, wouldn’t look professional at all. So, he sits still and pastes a bland, mildly expectant expression on his face and grips the edge of his metal chair with both hands, knuckles white, and he’s sure, with the crazy manic flash of bluegreenredyellow lights that keep flashing god I’m going to have a fucking seizure if they don’t fucking stop soon-
There are three men in the room. They sit back to back, in a close circle, on metal chairs. They’re not comfortable, but they aren’t meant to be.
Then the girls appear.
//
tbc