Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Carolyn Barek can’t help but smile at the cascade of emotions running through her. She’s proud that she’s helped solve what turned out to be a convoluted case and relieved that in doing so, she’s helped take several dangerous people off the streets and, more importantly, eliminated a business front that turned out to be funding terrorist recruitment efforts. But then there’s the disappointment. Closing the case (and finishing the mountain of paperwork attached to it) means that her tenure as a liaison to the NYPD Major Case Squad is over, and that means leaving New York to return to claustrophobic confines of her tiny Bureau office.

Say good-bye to the real world, Carolyn, she thinks to herself as she gathers up files from her temporary desk and begins to pack her briefcase.

She feels him behind her before he says anything, pulling her out of her reverie.

“Barek,” Bobby Goren says, “Eames and I are going out for dinner and maybe a drink afterwards. You interested?”
Carolyn turns around and nods at him.

“Hell, yes,” she says. “Let me just finish packing up here. I need to say a few good-byes, and then I’ll be ready.”
“Sounds good. Just stop by our desks when you’re ready to go.”

“I will,” she says.

She watches him walk away and smiles to herself. Since she came to work with the Major Case Squad just over two months ago, she’s gone to dinner with Goren and Eames several times, but each time, he still asks almost formally, down to his habit of calling her by her last name – a holdover from his military career, she suspects, and a sign of respect.

After a pleasant dinner, they head to what’s become their regular bar for the duration of Carolyn’s stay. It’s a few blocks from her hotel, the drinks are good, and it’s quiet enough that they can actually talk. They spend their last evening together laughing and trading stories from their uniform days.

It’s not even 10 when Eames stands up and says she has to go.

“Early morning with my nephew,” she says in explanation as she pulls on her leather jacket, “and I need some decent sleep. I swear, if I could bottle and sell his energy, I could retire to some tropical paradise.”

“Margaritas every night,” Carolyn says.

“Amen, sister,” Eames replies with a smile. “Good luck, Carolyn. It was great working with you.”

“You too, Alex.”

“Let us know if you’re ever back in New York.”

“I will.”

Eames turns to her partner and asks, “Will you be alright getting home?”

“Sure, Eames. Have a good night.”

“Don’t keep him up too long,” Eames says, turning back to Carolyn, “even if he does have the day off tomorrow.”

Carolyn’s not sure, but she thinks she sees a mischievous glint in the blonde woman’s eyes. “I’ll be good, I promise,” she says.

“Not too good, I hope,” Eames says as she walks away from the table.

Carolyn and Bobby order another round of drinks and talk for another hour before she accepts his offer to walk her back to her hotel. She draws a deep breath as they step out of the bar.

“God, I missed New York!” she says, as she closes her eyes for a moment.

“What made you leave?” Bobby asks.

“I was transferred on special assignment after 9/11. It was supposed to be a temporary thing, but four years later, I’m still there.”

He nods and says, “It’s important work.”

“It is, when it’s organized and the lines of communication are open enough for us to get anything done.”

They walk the rest of the way to her hotel in companionable silence. He comes with her into the lobby where he smiles, and she knows he’s about to say his good-byes.

She looks up at him and says, “I have a great bottle of wine I don’t plan to take back with me. You’re welcome to come up and share it.”

She’s watched him – heard the rumors – knows enough about him to know that if he accepts her invitation, she’ll likely have a night to remember. He agrees to join her, and she does have such a night. Just not in the way she’d thought she would. Instead, she finds herself sitting on her couch with him engaged in the kind of all-night conversation she hasn’t had with a man in years – the kind where they talk as if they’ve known each other for a lifetime. She enjoys it as they share details of their lives and interests and motivations.

It’s after 3am when there’s a lull in their conversation and she feels something shift in the air between them.

The quiet lingers for a few moments before he says, “I’m … curious to know what you think of me.”

Carolyn looks into her glass as she swirls around the last few drops of wine. She sighs, then asks, “Do you want my honest answer?”

“Yes,” Bobby says, so softly she barely hears him.

“I’m very attracted to you. You know that. Alex definitely knows it. Hell, it would probably be faster to list who doesn’t.” She chuckles. “I think you’d be an easy man to fall for, and part of me thinks I already have. But another part knows that you’d be a hard man to get close to. I think you’ve held people at arm’s length for your own protection for so long that you might not know how to let anyone in. And I’d love to try with you, but I know it’s a risk. You have long arms, Bobby. Something tells me you’d know how to win a woman’s heart and break it at the same time. And a big part of me wants to forget my reservations and take you to bed for what’s left of the night. But the biggest part of all thinks that you’re too wonderful to waste on a one-night stand.”

She looks up to see Bobby nodding, wondering if he’s even conscious of the movement. She then looks back into her glass. He tilts his head downward to catch and hold her gaze. She finds she can’t let go of his eyes. It amazes her how with such a similar movement, she’s seen him intimidate suspects – set them off their guard. The look he gives her is intimidating in another way – it’s full of possibilities and just a glimmer of the pain she suspects is part of the foundation of who he is.

“Fair enough,” he eventually says. “Would you like to know … what I think of you?”

“Yes,” she says. His sometimes halting voice has her full attention.

“I think you’re brilliant. Far too intelligent and … driven … to stay in a job you hate. And while you’re too professional to say it, I know you can’t stand it. There’s a … a calm about you that I’m drawn to, and I’m in awe of the way you connect with the world. I could get lost in your eyes forever, and I’m dying to have all the conversations we could have. If you do what I know you want to do and move back to New York … I promise to do my damnedest not to break your heart, Carolyn. Because believe me … I’d want more than one night.”

She’s tempted to break the tension with a flip comment about the dangers of two profilers exploring the idea of a relationship, but decides it would be sidestepping the real issue – that there’s something undeniable between them that might be worth the risks they’re both afraid of taking.

Instead, she says, “Be careful, Bobby, because I’ll hold you to it.”

“I wouldn’t expect any less,” he says.

She shivers as he takes her glass from her hand and places it behind him on an end table then closes the gap between them to kiss her.

“What time does your flight leave?” he whispers, his lips hovering by her ear.

“1 o’clock,” she says.

“Plenty of time,” he replies and kisses her again, this time more deeply.

“It doesn’t have to be one night,” she says when they break the kiss.

He nods and says, “It could just be the first.”

“It’s morning, anyway,” she says, and she leans into him, wanting to be the one to initiate their next embrace.

She kisses him, and feels the corners of his mouth turn up into a smile as he leans back and pulls her on top of him.
He’s there when she wakes up, late in the morning. She suspects that he’s been up for a while, watching her sleep. She’s surprised at how pleased she feels that he hasn’t left.

When she’s ready to check out, he helps her carry her luggage to the lobby and makes arrangements with the concierge to hold it so he can take her to brunch in the hotel’s restaurant. As they talk over their meal, she finds herself smiling at the lovely way she’s spent her last hours in New York.

It’s when he kisses her good-bye as she gets into a cab to head to the airport that she realizes she will put in a transfer request as soon as she gets back to her office. With or without Bobby Goren, she belongs in New York, and she hopes it will be with him.

---

A/N: Okay, just a little indulgence of my secret CI ‘ship. I just can’t resist the idea of two profilers getting together. The “what if” is What if Barek never left the FBI, but one day crossed paths with Bobby? Next up … Lynn Bishop.

Chapter Text

People often mistake her mixture of enthusiasm and confidence for a kind of arrogance, but that’s because they don’t understand her drive. Her record speaks for itself, though. She’s one of the youngest to reach Detective First Grade in NYPD history, and she’s earned her place on the Major Case Squad. She knows that someone has confidence in her abilities, because she’s been given this interrogation on her own. Captain Deakins, ADA Carver and Mike Logan, her partner, are behind the glass, but she’s the one facing down an accused killer. She knows the man’s guilty and knows she has the evidence to prove it. They don’t need a confession, yet they’d like to avoid a trial if they can.

But there’s a problem with what should be a fairly straight-forward case.

The problem is not the man with the soulless eyes for whom she doesn’t need a psych eval. to tell her he’s a sociopath. It’s the impeccably dressed man sitting next to him. It’s her first encounter with him, but she knows his reputation. What was it that Carver said about him? Something about him being one of the most formidable defense attorneys he’s ever come across. She’s heard other things about this lawyer – that he’s unstable and combative. But she’s not afraid. A little curious, but not afraid.

She fixes her target with a hard look. People are often taken aback by her demeanor, especially her supposedly icy stare. But she knows it’s not ice that comes through in her eyes; rather, it’s a look that’s uncompromising when necessary, and it’s necessary now.

“Come on, Harris,” she says, a finger stabbing at an evidence photo. “We know you killed her. We have the murder weapon with your prints, your DNA at the scene, eye witnesses who can place you in the building at the time of the murder and security camera footage placing you in the hallway. It’s over.”

“If it were over, Detective Bishop,” Robert Goren says, “we wouldn’t be here.”

As he sits, Goren holds his body still. But it’s as if the stillness contains a tension that could explode at any second. His voice is disarmingly soft, almost a purr. She feels herself frown slightly before collecting herself. Goren shifts in his chair, and she knows that he’s seen her reaction.

“Do your client a favor and suggest he make it easier on himself and confess,” Bishop says.

“That wouldn’t be a favor,” Goren says, cocking his head so he’s almost looking at her sideways. “A favor will be when I poke so many holes in your case in front of a jury that they’ll be falling over themselves to acquit him.”

“Harris has confirmed motive, means and opportunity.”

“Oh, yes,” Goren says with a smirk, “Crime fighting 101. Really, Detective, give me enough time, and I’ll have the jury thinking you did it. All I need is one crack. One mistake. And there’s always a mistake.”

Goren abruptly picks up and zips the brown leather binder he’s had open on the table. He stands up and gestures for his client to do the same.

“Unless there’s anything new here, we’re done.”

As they leave, Harris turns to Bishop and leers. Her eyes narrow, but she says nothing. When they’ve cleared the door and Harris has returned to the custody of the uniformed officers who accompany him back to the holding cell, she steps into the observation room to talk with her colleagues.

Carver is the first to speak.

“A confession would have been nice,” he says, “but we have an airtight case. In spite of that little display of bravado, even Goren isn’t going to be able to beat this one.”

“Yes,” Deakins says, sounding everything like a proud father. “The two of you did well.”

Bishop nods, but says nothing. She looks over at her partner and knows that his thoughts are similar to her own. They have constructed a solid case. But they also know that evidence isn’t always what interests a jury. Attorneys less competent than Goren have swayed juries before.

It’s these thoughts she remembers during the trial when he’s cross-examining her and it’s only her drive and dedication that let her hold on to the certainty that she did her job. Goren keeps his promise and hammers holes into their case. But they’re not real holes, just things she knows the jury will perceive as enough to let them find reasonable doubt. And she hates him at that moment. Hates him because she knows Harris will walk. Hates that his verbal tricks make her and her department look incompetent, because she knows they’re not.

When she sees Harris’ leer again as her collar walks free, it’s only a small comfort to know that she’s done her job in the best way she knows how. She catches Goren as he walks down the aisle behind his client to face the waiting press.

“How does it feel to know you helped a murderer walk?” she asks him quietly enough that she knows only he can hear the question. “You know he’ll kill again.”

He stops and turns back to look at her. He moves into her personal space, and she has to resist the urge to step back away from him. He tilts his head and stares at her for a moment before answering.

“Your sanctimony is amusing, Detective. But I’m just as important a part of the system as you are. You did your job. I did mine. I just did mine better.”

She frowns, and again knows he’s seen her reaction when he throws her a mirthless grin before turning to leave.

“Forget it, Lynn,” Mike Logan says, walking up behind her, gently placing a hand on her shoulder. “We can’t win them all.”

She nods but knows that neither she nor her partner will forget – or rest easy – with Harris back on the streets.

---

A/N: The “what ifs” are: What would Bishop be like if she had a little more experience? and What would Bobby be like as a defense attorney? (Inspired by a comment Carver made about Bobby in "Badge"). I think he’d take that role as seriously as he takes being a cop.

Up next … Frances Goren.

Chapter Text

“Excuse me, ma’am, but could you please direct me to the new James Patterson novel?”

Frances Goren smiles at the sound of her son’s voice and looks up at his handsome, grinning face.

“You know you put that on reserve weeks ago, Robert,” she says as he leans down to kiss her cheek.

“Well, I guess I just can’t resist the lure of the information desk,” he says. “It must be the beautiful women.”

“Flatterer,” she says, shaking her finger at him. “You should know by now that that charm of yours is going to get you into trouble some day. And anyway, my shift is just about over so you’ll have to track down your book yourself.”

She stands up and comes around from behind the desk to accompany her son to the counter where his book is on hold. She’s retired as a librarian, but still volunteers at her local branch once a week. On those evenings, her son comes to pick her up to bring her home. It’s a ritual she and Robert have, and she cherishes her weekly visits with him.

As he checks out his book, Frances notices when the woman working the counter returns her son’s bashful smile with an interested look. She also notes the barely covered look of disappointment on the woman’s face when she notices the ring on Robert’s left hand. Frances doesn’t recognize the woman and presumes that she’s new. She can’t help but laugh to herself at the effect her son has on so many of the people she works with.

Robert tucks his book under his arm and they leave the counter.

“You have access to the greatest writing the world has known in those libraries at Hudson,” Frances says as they walk toward the staff room so she can pick up her coat and purse. “What are you doing reading this stuff, anyway?”

“They’re fun books, Mom,” he replies, “and it’s good to read a little of everything, you taught me that. Plus, I’m a criminology professor, remember? Do you know how many students end up in my classes because of a crime novel they read or a cop show they watched? I have to know what they’re expecting.”

“So you can disabuse them of false notions?”

He grins. “Something like that. It also doesn’t hurt that thrillers and mystery novels drive Mike up a wall.”

She tsks at him, and, in a mock-scolding voice says, “Now, what are you doing, provoking my son-in-law like that?”

“He thinks they’re silly. I tell him they’re research for the private detective agency we should open when we retire.”

“And what does he say to that?”

“He usually goes off on PIs,” Robert says with a laugh.

Frances shakes her head and says, “Wait here. I’ll be right back.”

As she gathers her things, she thinks about Robert and his partner. She’d been surprised when her intellectual son had fallen for the no-nonsense policeman, but also quite pleased at the resulting change in Robert she hadn’t consciously known she was hoping for until it happened. Ever since he was a boy, a deep sadness had taken hold of her youngest child. He was far into adulthood before he was diagnosed with chronic depression. His illness was eventually stabilized with medication and other treatment, but there was always a melancholy about him it seemed nothing could touch until he met Detective Mike Logan. Since he’s come into his life, Robert finally seems happy, and she loves Michael for it.

She rejoins her son, and they walk to the parking structure where he holds the door to his car open for her as she gets inside. He comes around and gets in on the driver’s side. Instead of starting the car, he reaches behind him to put his book on the back seat, grabs something else off of the seat, then hands what he’s grabbed to her. She takes it and sees that it’s a recent copy of The Northeastern Journal of Criminology.

He nods at her hands and says, “My study’s in there.”

She beams, looks for his name in the table of contents, then flips through the pages to quickly read the abstract.

“You don’t actually have to read it,” he says. “It’s not all that interesting to people outside of the field.”

“It’s good to read a little bit of everything,” she says with a sly grin. “And anyway, ‘The Effect of Police Residency on Public Perception of Law Enforcement in Urban Communities’ sounds plenty interesting.”

He shakes his head and turns on the car. Frances knows that he enjoys it that she reads his work. She has copies of everything he’s published, no matter how obscure or specialized, and she’s read every word. She skims the first few pages of the study before hugging the journal to her and then placing it on her lap.

“Are the two of you ready for this weekend?” she asks when they’ve driven a few blocks.

“Mike’s thrilled, and so am I,” Bobby replies. “It means a lot that Mark asked us, especially …”

He doesn’t finish his thought, but she knows what he’s thinking.

“Will you be okay during the ceremony?”

“Yes,” he says. “And anyway, you know we’d do anything for Anne-Frances.”

“She does have her uncles wrapped around her little finger, doesn’t she?”

He smiles, but the smile is quickly replaced with a guarded look.

“How does Dad feel about everything?”

Frances looks out of the passenger side window for a moment then back at her son.

“He’ll be on his best behavior,” she says, an unspoken apology in her voice.

Robert nods, but says nothing.

The birth of Anne-Frances Goren, named for her grandmothers, was a source of great joy to Frances and her family. Her eldest son’s daughter is her first grandchild. Both of her sons waited until relatively late in life to settle down, so for a long time, she hadn’t been sure she would get to experience being a grandmother. She’d been ecstatic when the child was born.

The baby’s baptism, which should be a cause for celebration, is unfortunately bringing to the surface all of the major conflicts of her family, and it makes her heart ache. She loves her husband and her sons, and she knows that they love each other. But Robert and his father’s already tense relationship had gone cold since Ben, who wasn’t able to come to terms with his son’s sexual orientation, had refused to attend Robert and Michael’s commitment ceremony three years back. The baptism would be the first time Robert and Ben had been in the same room in almost half a decade.

Further tension came from her son’s difficult relationship with the Church. When he was young, one of the few things that seemed to bring Robert contentment had been his time as an altar boy. But trouble reconciling his sexuality with his faith had come to a head when a well-meaning priest had blamed a 22-year-old Robert’s debilitating depression on his sexual identity rather than on the biochemistry that was the true cause. Not long after this, Robert had a breakdown and had to be hospitalized. Outside of attending weddings or funerals, he hasn’t set foot in a church since.

Frances knows that Michael has had a difficult time with religion as well. Robert sometimes hints at, but never outright tells her, the cause of his partner’s discomfort, but she suspects it’s a history of abuse. So when Mark and Karen asked Robert to be a godparent along with Karen’s sister and told him that they wanted the spouses of the godparents to stand for the child during the ceremony, it was significant on a lot of levels. In the end, both Robert and Michael had agreed, their love for their niece overruling any reservations they might have had. Thankfully, because Karen’s sister was a practicing Catholic and because Robert had been baptized, any theological issues were taken care of, and the priest who was going to do the ceremony had agreed with Mark and Karen’s choices. But that hadn’t satisfied her husband, who had voiced his objection to Mark. Frances hasn’t told Robert about this, but she’s certain he knows and that his father’s actions have yet again hurt him.

She realizes her sadness must be showing on her face when Robert takes his right hand off of the wheel to hold her hand.

“It’s okay, Mom,” he says.

She smiles wistfully and squeezes his hand before letting it go.

Robert turns on the radio, and they listen to NPR for the rest of the ride. When he arrives at his parents’ home, he parks and turns off the car.

He turns to his mother and says, “Mike and I want to take you out for dinner soon.” He pauses, then takes a deep breath and rubs the back of his neck before saying, “Dad’s welcome to come … if he wants to.”

They both know that he won’t, but she nods and says, “I’ll tell him.”

He steps out of the car to open the door for her. Usually, she fusses at him, saying that it’s not necessary, but this time she holds on to his offered hand after he’s helped her out of the car and looks him in the eye.

“I love you, Robert,” she says, “and I’m so glad you are my son.”

He hugs her, saying, “Thank you, Mom. I love you, too.”

He walks her to her door, but won’t come onto the landing. When she’s safely in her home, he gets back into his car. From her living room, she watches as he drives down the street. She waits until she can no longer see his car before going to the den to find her husband.

---

A/N: what ifs: What if Frances Goren didn’t have an illness that required permanent care? What might Bobby’s relationship with his mother have been like if he hadn’t spent his adulthood in a caretaker role? And, of course, there’s a little Goren/Logan thrown in because I like Goren/Logan. I’ve long thought Bobby would make a great professor, especially since in academia, he could get away with a lot of the things people think are “weird” about him without anyone batting an eyelash.

As far as I know, there is no Northeastern Journal of Criminology, though there are criminology journals named for other compass directions (presumably related to schools with those directions in their names. I just picked a direction. No particular school is implied).

On deck … (the infamous) Nicole Wallace.

Chapter Text

Detective Nicole Wallace-Fellowes watches her suspect through the glass of the one-way mirror. He’s alone in the interrogation room, absently tapping a finger against the tabletop as he sits facing the glass. There’s something captivating about him, but she can’t put her finger on it. He’s handsome, but that’s not what it is. He sports a well-groomed goatee and curly salt-and-pepper hair that’s just long enough to be slightly disheveled. His clothes are casual, but expensive with a designer label on everything from his black t-shirt to the frames of his glasses. He radiates an arrogance that could read as either an off-putting superiority or a compelling confidence, and she has a feeling that he’s used it to both effects depending on what he wanted at the time. She knows from the previous, brief encounters she’s had with him in the course of her investigation that he’s bright and he’s charming and he will likely be difficult to interrogate. She’s ready for it, though, and the part of her that enjoys the chase is actually hoping for a challenge.

“You sure you want to take this one by yourself?” her partner asks.

“Yeah, Alex. It’ll be fine.”

“His lawyer’s on her way.”

“He’s willing to talk in the meantime.”

“I thought professors were supposed to be smart.”

Nicole chuckles as she leaves the observation room to join the suspect. She opens the door, and he looks up at her.

“Professor Goren,” she says.

“Call me Bobby,” he says.

“Okay, then. Bobby.”

“Lovely to see you again, Detective, though the location could be better.”

She doesn’t respond to his greeting. Instead, she sits down and places a legal pad and pencil on the table in front of her.

She looks at him for a moment before saying, “Let’s talk about Bailey Marcus.”

He ignores this and says, “Your accent. It’s a Commonwealth muddle. It’s been bothering me that I can’t place it.”

She knows he’s trying to redirect the conversation, but she goes along with it for a moment, curious to see where he’ll take it.

“I was born in the U.S., but I moved around a lot as a child,” she says. “I spent the most time in England, Australia and New Zealand. ‘Commonwealth muddle’ is as good a descriptor as any, I suppose. With a little Thailand and New England thrown in.”

“How’d you come to work for the NYPD?”

“We moved back to the States when I was in high school. At some point, I decided to go into law enforcement.”

“Why?”

“I had my reasons.” Her tone makes it clear that she’s not interested in sharing those reasons.

She returns the conversation to the subject at hand.

“Bailey Marcus,” she says. “Do the grad students who sleep with you often end up dead?”

“I don’t sleep with graduate or any other students. It’s, among other things, against University policy. Bailey’s death was a tragedy, but I had nothing to do with it.”

“You must have had some kind of close relationship with her. You bought her a rather excessive gift not long before she died.”

“I wouldn’t call it excessive. She’d mentioned that she was writing her thesis on cultural references to Melville’s ‘Bartleby.’ I had the means to get her an early edition of The Piazza Tales as thanks for showing me around when I moved here. Yes, it was expensive. But not as much as, say, a first edition. Grad students generally don’t have a pot to piss in. She appreciated it. It was my good deed for the year.”

“A visiting lecturer’s salary isn’t going to do much for your lifestyle. With that condo you’re borrowing, your expenses aren’t as high as they might otherwise be, but you’re still living a bit beyond your means, especially with gifts like that—excessive or not. For a man with your interests, taste in clothes and the like—what you’re making wouldn’t butter your parsnips.”

“I make do.”

“With a little outside help?”

“You’re obviously trying to insinuate something. Why don’t you tell me about the ‘outside help’ I’m supposed to be getting.”

“We have reason to believe Bailey might have been caught up in a scam to get anthrax vaccine from McGuire Air Force Base in order to sell it. We’ve reason to believe that you put her up to it through a connection with Connie Matson, a woman with whom you were romantically involved in the past. She’s stationed on the base and is now AWOL."

“First you have me sleeping with grad students. Now it’s soldiers. I have to say I’m flattered. I wish my sex life was as busy and … varied as you seem to think it is. But even if I did sleep with both women, that’s not much of a connection.”

As he talks, he reaches a long arm over, pulls the legal pad and pencil toward him and begins to write. He’s left-handed, and the movement of his hand over the top of the paper obscures what he’s writing.

“When was the last time you saw Connie Matson?” Nicole asks.

Instead of answering, he pushes the pad back to her. She looks at what he’s written and fights, but fails to maintain her composure. A glint lights up his otherwise cold eyes.

“That’s my social security number. And birth date,” she says, after a stunned moment.

“Yes,” he says with a predatory smile. “It’s remarkable the fountain of information that can spring from those little numbers. Your domestic partnership registration. Age and sex of your dependent child. Your parents’ names. Looked them up, too. Imagine my surprise when I found out that your father’s a registered sex offender.”

Nicole leans back in her chair and crosses her arms, subconsciously moving away from the man sitting across from her.

“Tell me, Nicole. Do you ever take your daughter to visit her grandfather?”

“No,” Nicole says, barely managing to raise her voice above a whisper. “He’s not a part of our lives. I haven’t seen him since his sentencing, and I don’t plan to until he comes up for parole.”

“To make sure he doesn’t get it?”

She only nods. She’s furious that he’s managed to blindside her with this invasion into her privacy. But more than that, she’ s furious that she’s lost control of the situation.

“How old were you when he first molested you?”

She debates whether or not to answer. She’s not ashamed of her past. She’s proud that she survived her childhood. That as an adult, she’d had the courage to testify against her father when she found out he was accused of molesting a child in the neighborhood he lived in. Between issues with the statute of limitations and jurisdictional complications related to her international upbringing, he was never charged with what he did to her. But she was able to help to establish a pattern in his behavior, and she was able to speak at his sentencing in support of him receiving the maximum sentence … none of which is any of this man’s business.

“I was three when it started,” she eventually says. “My first memory is of him … touching me. It didn’t stop until I was thirteen when my mother finally left him and took me with her.”

“Do you blame your mother for not stopping it?”

She sees an opportunity to regain a measure of control over the interrogation and takes it.

“Stop,” she says. “If this is the game you want to play, then it’s going to have to be tit for tat. You have to tell me something true about you and Bailey.”

She stands up and walks around the table, taking her chair with her. She puts the chair down next to him and sits so they’re side-by-side. In the back of her mind, she’s aware that anyone in the observation room can now see her own reactions as clearly as they’ve been able to see his, but she feels the need to shift the dynamic of their interaction.

He turns to look at her. His head is tilted as he examines her face, as if he’s assessing her as an adversary.

“Okay,” he says. “Bailey did say something about meeting a woman from the base and getting involved in something clandestine. I didn’t take her seriously. I figured she was trying to impress me—to come across as worldly or more … sophisticated than she was. An inept attempt at flirting. My fault, I suppose, for giving her the book.” He pauses, then again asks, “Do you blame your mother?”

“In all honesty, I don’t know,” she says, pain evident in her voice. “To this day she says she never knew it was going on. For the longest time, she wouldn’t believe me. I was angry with her for years, but now, more than anything, I’m just sorry for her that he was tangled up in her life for so long.”

She watches him as he hangs on her words, and suddenly, she understands something about him.

“My turn,” she says. “Did you blame your mother when your father left you?”

She knows she’s touched a nerve when his face clouds over. For a moment, she’s not sure he’ll answer. But it’s something he started, and she knows that his ego won’t let him stop.

“Yes,” he says with a new edge to his voice. “She was … is … sick. I blamed her … for driving him away.” He glares at her and lashes out, “Is your father why you hate men? Is that why you’re with Christine?”

“I don’t hate men,” she says calmly and honestly. “I’ve had some wonderful, healthy relationships with men. I’m on good terms with my daughter’s father, as is my partner. My feelings for Christine are about her, not about anything—or anyone—else.” She pauses, letting the words hang in the air before saying, “What illness does your mother have that you thought drove your father from you?”

“Paranoid schizophrenia,” he says without hesitating, his eyes now focused on a spot above her shoulder. After a pause, he looks down at his hands and quietly adds, “She’s been slipping away from me my whole life.”

She’s surprised at the vulnerability he shows and can tell he’s surprised as well.

“Why, if your father is the one who abandoned your mother, do you harbor such hatred for women?” She asks before he can ask her another question.

He seethes, and she can feel the anger building within him. Suddenly, he slams his hand palm down onto the table, and she can’t help but jump a little.

“No!” he yells, then, “No,” again, this time quietly.

“No, what?” she asks.

“I don’t hate women. I don’t … hurt … them.”

She makes full eye contact with him as she asks, “Then why is Bailey Marcus dead?”

He’s about to answer her when the door to the interrogation room opens and Goren’s lawyer steps in.

“This interview is done,” she says. “I’d like to talk to my client alone, please.”

Nicole hesitates before standing up to leave, knowing that she was close to getting if not a confession, then enough information to build a more solid case against him. She knows it’s unlikely that she’ll get more from him now. She reenters the observation room, shaking her head, angry that she’d come that close only to have it taken away.

At some point during the interrogation, Deakins and Carver must have come to observe, as they and Alex all look at her with different measures of concern in their eyes. It’s quiet. The intercom’s been turned off in respect of the privileged conversation taking place on the other side of the glass.

“He didn’t kill Marcus,” she says, breaking the silence. “Or, at least, he didn’t do it directly. But he did push her to get involved in the vaccine scam and she got in over her head, as he knew she would. Connie Matson is probably the one who did the actual killing. The question is whether or not she did it at his request.”

“But why would he be involved in the first place?” Deakins asks. “The vaccine would fetch decent money, but not so much that it would be worth it to a guy like him.”

“It’s a game to him,” Nicole explains, “one he’s not completely conscious of playing. The money is only secondary. It’s about manipulation.” She turns away from her colleagues to watch him through the mirror. “He hates it when men are cruel, neglectful or take advantage of women. But he hates it more when women allow it to happen. His relationships are about emulating his father even though he resents him. They’re also about punishing his mother even though he cares for her. So he’ll buy a thoughtful, personal gift for the grad student he sleeps with, but he’ll maneuver her into a dangerous situation as a punishment for getting involved with him in the first place—for allowing an inappropriate relationship to happen. His mother didn’t have a choice in her illness, but Bailey had a choice in getting involved with him. He plays out his reactions to his parents in ways that don’t require him to directly confront or blame them.” She sighs deeply. Her posture’s defensive, her arms folded tightly against her body. “He’s compelled to do this. He won’t stop.”

Carver shakes his head and says, “That’s fascinating … and more than a little disturbing. But there’s nothing here I can prosecute.”

“We need to find Matson,” Deakins says.

Nicole frowns and says, “I don’t know if we will.”

“If he’s killed anyone,” Alex says, picking up on what Nicole is thinking, “It’s Matson. She’d be a loose end.”

Deakins shakes his head and says, “You know that I respect your intuition, but I need you to get me evidence of something. You two, keep digging.”

He and Carver turn to leave. Nicole continues to look through the glass at Bobby Goren and his lawyer. She feels Alex come to stand beside her.

“Nicole,” Alex begins.

Nicole cuts her off, saying, “It’s okay, Alex.”

“What he did in there…”

“I underestimated him. I won’t do that again.”

Nicole sees that Alex wants to say more, but won’t in respect for her boundaries. Instead, Alex says, “Come on. We have work to do.”

Nicole nods and follows her partner out the door.

---

A/N: So yeah, I took it there (:dodges the flying tomatoes, garbage, etc.:). A very simple what if: What if Nicole were a cop and Bobby a killer? The details are composites and inferences from various scenes with Bobby and Nicole (with a few characters and direct quotes from several episodes). I had a much more complicated scenario worked out, but it was getting far longer than I wanted any of these pieces to be.

I’m probably one of the few people in the CI fic community who doesn’t want Nicole dead. Yet. [this note was obviously written long before I posted this here.] The first CI I watched turned out to the last half hour of “Anti-Thesis,” and it’s what hooked me on the show. When VDO’s contract is up, they can have a (fatal. for her) showdown, but in the meantime, Goren needs a nemesis. That he’s not invincible humanizes him and makes the character a bit more believable, IMHO.

Coming in last but most certainly not least … the one and only Alexandra Eames.

Chapter Text

It’s on days like this that Alex Eames has to remind herself that she’s a professional—that Detective First Grade is a rank she worked her ass off for, and that it comes with a great deal of responsibility. But she can’t deny that she’s annoyed. It’s not just that it’s Independence Day or that she’s been called away from a family gathering where she’d been spending time with her nephew for the first time in far too long. It’s that she’s not even on call, and she’s still drained from the case she and her partner just closed not even a week ago. Between the holiday and some kind of high priority crime wave that seems to have come in with the heat, the detectives who are on call are all out handling cases of their own. And while Major Case might be home to “the greatest detectives in the world,” even they haven’t managed to figure out how to be in two places at once.

She finds herself wishing that her partner wasn’t restricted by such minor matters of immutable laws of time and space. It’s only been two days since he left to visit a sister in Seattle, but it feels like an eternity. She tries to ignore the fact that she’s the one who recommended he take vacation time for what’s probably the first time in his life, as she would like more than anything not to be heading out to meet up with a detective from Homicide who’s also temporarily without a partner.

Alex puts the SUV in park. She briefly closes her eyes against the blast of heat that greets her when she opens the door then gets out to walk toward the unique focused activity that accompanies the investigation of a crime scene.

After identifying herself to the officer supervising the scene, Alex approaches the body and is immediately reminded of why she does what she does and of why she can stand to be inconvenienced. She forces down the familiar anger that rises in her at the up-close sight of a person whose life was taken from him and replaces it with a silent promise to do all she can to see that justice is served.

She shifts her attention from the victim to the man examining him, his large frame crouched over the body as he points out things for a photographer to record.

“Detective Goren,” she says.

As she waits for him to acknowledge her, she braces herself for the onslaught of his boundless energy and lack of respect for personal space. He stands, and she’s surprised by his sedate, almost withdrawn demeanor.

“Detective Eames,” he says, holding out his hand.

She shakes his hand, determined to keep things professional, then asks, “What do we have so far?”

“The victim’s name is Henry Stephenson. He’s a fellow at the Acuity Foundation think tank, which is probably what got the attention of Major Case.”

She wonders if his mention of her squad is meant to be an accusation, but she can’t read him. His expression is carefully guarded, and there’s nothing untoward about his tone.

“He was strangled,” Goren says. “He definitely put up a fight. From the ligature marks around his neck, it looks like the killer attacked him from behind with some kind of thick cord, but switched to using his… hands once the victim was on the ground. This was…personal. We’ll have to wait for the M.E. report to be sure, but I’m guessing we won’t find much on the body to identify the killer. There was a lot of anger in this murder, but also a lot of control. A lot of…planning.”

She nods and crouches down to take a closer look.

“Personal, premeditated, and thorough,” she says. “Great.”

An hour later, they’re walking to the parking lot to head to One PP to do some research while waiting for the initial report from the medical examiner.

“I’m driving,” she says.

“I remember,” he says.

“My car’s over there,” she says, pointing, and he walks to the passenger side of the vehicle.

He waits until she pulls out into traffic before asking, “Is it alright with you that we’re working together again?”

No, she thinks, but out loud she says, “Of course. Both of our squads are spread thin. You’re between partners and mine’s on vacation. It makes sense.”

He nods.

When they arrive at the Major Case bullpen, she catches some of the other MCS detectives looking at them with raised eyebrows, and she knows Goren has to see it, too, though he doesn’t let on. He asks permission before he sits at the desk that used to be his.

Alex looks up the victim on the Web and finds reports of a controversial position paper he authored. She shows what she’s found to Goren.

“I remember reading about that,” he says, “though I haven’t gotten around to reading the actual paper. A lot of people were angry with his position on racial profiling.”

“Motive?”

“Maybe. It looks like his next-of-kin is his brother. He also has a fifteen-year-old son. If he’d received any threats, maybe they’d know about it.”

They meet with Stephenson’s son and brother. As they talk with him, the son desperately tries to keep things together, though his world has fallen apart.

“I hadn’t even seen him in over a month,” the son says, his voice cracking. “Half the time, I couldn’t stand him, but…but he was my dad. I can’t believe he’s gone. I barely knew him, and now he’s gone.”

The young man’s tears are falling freely now, and he won’t make eye contact with either detective.

“I hardly knew my father…when he died,” Goren says, his voice so quiet that Alex almost misses his words. “I hadn’t spoken to him in over a year. I don’t regret that—it was the way our relationship was for a lot of reasons. But it didn’t make it hurt any less when he died. It’s okay to feel…conflicted about this.”

Alex watches as the teenager connects with what Goren says. It hits her that this may be the most she’s ever learned about his life outside of work.

They finish with their questions and give their business cards and their condolences. As they leave, the brother stops them to ask when the investigation—or at least his and his nephew’s part in it—will be over.

“It’s not like Henry was ever around,” he says. “Harry needs to be able to move on, and I don’t want this to take up too much of our time.”

“His brother’s dead—murdered—less than 24 hours ago,” Alex says as soon as they’re back in the car, “and he’s talking about his nephew ‘moving on?’ Something is not right with that guy.”

“His affect’s all wrong,” Goren says. “There’s no grief. It’s all about him being inconvenienced.”

“I’m beginning to think that this isn’t about any position paper,” she says as she starts the ignition.

They continue to investigate, conducting interviews and reviewing evidence. The M.E. report comes back, and while as Goren predicted, there’s little evidence on the body, sometimes a little is enough. It’s not long before the pieces fall together, and a clear suspect—the victim’s brother—emerges. They present their evidence to the ADA, receive an arrest warrant, and bring him in.

The questioning starts out in a way Alex would call normal. But then Goren’s all over the suspect—crowding him and teasing him about being the ineffectual brother—laughing at him. It’s bizarre and erratic, and Alex remembers why she decided five years before to request a new partner. As the inquiry progresses, however, she gradually sees where Goren’s taking it. She begins to play along, and suddenly they’re riffing off of each other like improvising master musicians. The brother confesses, never knowing what hit him.

Alex indulges in a grin when she sees the look on his face.

They step into the observation room after the suspect is escorted away.

“Thank you, Detectives,” Ron Carver says. “You’ve made my job very easy.”

After Deakins and Carver leave and she’s alone with Goren in the observation room she says, “Look. I get what you were doing back there, but I would have gotten it a lot sooner if you’d have just clued me in beforehand.”

His look is searching before he nods, and she wonders what he’s looking for and if he’s found it.

“I’m not always the best at doing that,” he finally says. “Tony, my most recent partner, used to say he was going to write a manual on how to work with me for my next partner as his first retirement activity. That, and take his wife on a cruise.”

Alex chuckles, and he smiles.

They sit across from each other as they wrap up the paperwork on the case with subdued energy. Solving a murder is always a muted celebration. There’s satisfaction, yes. But at the end of the day, someone has still lost a person they loved. It’s a pain Alex knows intimately and wouldn’t wish on anyone. She acknowledges the tug of empathy she often feels at this point in an investigation, then pushes it away.

Her thoughts turn to the man sitting at her partner’s desk. There’s a sadness about him that she hadn’t noticed before, and she realizes that there’s more to Bobby Goren than she’d ever previously considered. She has to admit that their temperaments and skills compliment each other, and she wonders how their partnership might have developed had she not requested a new partner. She thinks of the letter she’d written five years before. She hadn’t pulled any punches, and she hopes that he never read it. She knows Deakins would have kept the letter confidential, but things get around. She’s grown to like and respect Goren, and the idea of her actions hurting him, intentionally or not, distresses her.

It’s after 9pm before they’re finally done. They’re the last ones in the bullpen.

He stands up and comes around to her side of the desk.

“Good night, Eames,” he says, holding out his hand to her.

She shakes his hand without hesitation.

“Good night, Goren,” she says.

He runs his hand through his hair, then rubs his neck. She watches him as he gathers up his things and heads to the bank of elevators before getting up to leave herself.

The next day, Deakins calls her into his office to ask her about working with Goren.

“I don’t know if he’s changed or I have or both,” she says. “It was awkward at first, but I guess that’s to be expected. In the end, he’s effective and ethical, and I don’t think I’ve ever met anyone who can get at what makes people tick faster than he does.”

“Alex Eames playing cheerleader for the Goren Show,” her captain says, chuckling and shaking his head. “Never thought I’d see the day.”

“What can I say? His style is definitely unique and…” she pauses, searching for the right words. “An acquired taste,” she finally says with a shrug. “But it works.”

Deakins chats with her a little longer, going over a few more details of the case before she heads back to her desk. She notices that before he left, Goren arranged her partner’s desk exactly as he’d found it just over two weeks ago. As she takes a moment to marvel at his attention to detail, she sees a slip of orange paper peeking out from under the Santa mug on her desk.

It’s a Post-It with, “I enjoyed working with you. I always did,” scrawled on it in Goren’s handwriting.

She decides to keep the note, placing it away in a drawer before turning to her list of things she needs to finish before her partner returns from his trip.

---

A/N: What if Alex hadn’t withdrawn The Letter?