CI: Out of It

Summary: Begins with Eames and Ross busting Bobby out of the Psych Ward. PostUntethered

This was taking too long.

Eames leaned forward in her chair and tried hard to focus on the sound her boot heel made against the wood as her leg shook with impatience. For a full minute she managed to make Ross’ baritone and the warden’s placating assertions fade into a dull buzz. She had to. She couldn’t focus on whatever formalities they were going through -- couldn’t listen to that hag go on or she was going to lunge across the desk and shake the witch like a rag doll. And who could blame her?

She didn’t know where Bobby was. He was in this building, somewhere, but that hardly gave her any comfort. On the contrary, it made her more anxious. Alex had a deep suspicion he was in “Heaven” – whatever that meant. Bobby had only told her the manic ramblings of his nephew and she was hesitant to fully believe him. Now she was terrified it was all too true and not a one-time incident. She’d seen the body, the autopsy report, and she’d let him go in there undercover anyway – not that she could’ve stopped him, but the cycle kept playing though her head nonetheless – what if she had just told Frank to go to hell and not told Bobby? But Bobby would’ve wanted to know and they didn’t keep secrets from each other – they gave each other the honest to god, non sugar coated truth, always. The fact that he had even told her his plans and entrusted her to be his outside contact spoke volumes – he wouldn’t have told her anything up to a year or two ago, he would’ve just pulled away, told her to “trust him,” and that would’ve been it. And now he had landed himself in the psych ward.

And his fragile psyche couldn’t take it. Alex wasn’t worried so much what the guards were doing to him as what he was doing to himself – Bobby could be his own worse enemy and torture himself worse than any sadistic guard ever could. When she hadn’t heard from him in hours, she tried not to panic, tried to give him time to get to a phone, get to her, get himself out of whatever mess they had gotten him into. Again Eames cursed herself for ever letting him go on with this stupid plan. Instead, she’d given in to the silent threat of him pushing her away, retreating into his own head, and going on with the arrangement on his own with no contact on the outside. She could have been blissfully ignorant – imagining him on leave up in the mountains visiting his buddies and tinkering with cars and motorcycles. But what was the alternative? The abuse would still be going on and those bastards would continue without so much as a reprimand – a proper investigation and trial would take months, years. She couldn’t not be with him through this – not anymore, not after all they’d been through.

She knew she had had tears in her eyes when she went to the captain, begging him to get him out. She was fully willing to go by herself – no problem. She may not have been willing to play by their rules and go through protocol to get though the door, but instead would’ve charged in like a bull in a china shop – just like Goren. Instead she had stood next to the captain and danced in place, her legs visibly twitching to move, to get closer to him – to tear the place down looking for him. He would’ve done the same for her . . . he had. More than once Ross had given her the up and down, and towards the end a few glares punctuated the “what’s wrong with you? This is actions more becoming to your partner, not to you” question in his eyes. Even now the looks continued, willing her to keep calm, just relax, they had to go through the right channels. Screw the channels. She hadn’t heard from Bobby in hours and hadn’t seen him in days.

And the channels weren’t getting them anywhere. As she sat there and stared at the warden’s hard eyes as Ross tried in vein to convince her Goren/Brady was not a nutcase, but an important NYPD detective, she knew they had hit a wall. The evil wench was talking about making a few phone calls, calling together a meeting . . . things that would take hours, days even and neither Ross nor Alex was convinced that the Chief of D’s or any of the higher ups would be in a particular hurry to come to her partner’s aid.

Alex could stay silent no longer. “This is ridiculous. I want to see him and I want to see him right now,” she interjected.

The warden sat back in her chair, in no hurry to acquiesce, “And who are you?” Alex’s icy reception of her and the lack of impressive credentials in front of her name meant she didn’t have to concern herself with any of Alex’s demands.

The words were out of her mouth before she knew what happened.

“I’m his wife!”

Ross just about fell off his chair, but Alex fought the urge to look at him, and instead sat up taller, meeting Nurse Rachett’s eyes across the desk.

She was trying to recompose herself. “Oh,” she stammered, “well . . . why didn’t you mention that in the beginning?”

“Forgive me for thinking a Major Case badge and the Captain of the Major Case Squad would be enough,” Alex forced out, still fighting the reddening of her face, silently asking Ross not to contradict her or ask any questions. “And if you don’t let me see him I’ll sue you and this place so fast it’ll make your head spin. You have no idea of my means. I’ll have the Assistant District Attorney on the phone right now.” Actually, straitlaced Carver wouldn’t do crap for her, and once he heard her and Bobby’s names, probably would deny ever knowing them, but this lady didn’t know that. “I’ll own this place when I’m done and you’ll be out in the street.”

What the suggestions of a lengthy investigation and police couldn’t do, a direct threat of a pricey lawsuit did. The good warden must not have many friends in the legal system.

“I’m afraid your . . . husband . . . won’t be the same man you remember. He’s suffered a complete mental break. What you see may upset you,” she said trying to dissuade her. “Your husband will not be recognizable. If you could wait until we stabilize him . . .”

“I think I can handle it,” Alex interrupted her. Despite the certainty in her voice, the warden had planted a seed of fear in Alex. With Bobby forced to face his demons, would he still be there when he came back. Would he ever come back to her?

“Follow me.” The warden stood up primly and took her sweet damn time leading them through the twists and turns of the prison. Alex’s heart was in her throat when they passed under the ominous words “MENTAL OBSERVATION UNIT” painted above the doorway.

Ross saddled up next to her and spoke though his teeth, “I know we hit a wall in there, but I don’t think lies are going to help us or your partner in the end.”

Alex kept her eyes straight ahead and shrugged, “It got us in, didn’t it?” He may have replied but right then they reached Bobby’s cell. Alex tried to breathe evenly while they unlocked the door. Alex was peering over the shoulder of the guard that opened the door and forced herself past him to her partner’s side. With trepidation she took shaky steps into the small claustrophobic room. God, how horrible it must have been for him in here. Bobby didn’t like small spaces. She was slightly mollified to see him passed out on the shabby looking cot, like they had just thrown him there – at least he wasn’t awake to experience it.

“When was the last time he had something to drink?” she demanded, framing his face with her hands she looked accusingly from the woman to each of the guards. They looked at each other dumbly. “When!?” her voice rose. Ross had smartly stepped aside at this point and allowed her run the show. The guards each shook their heads and shrugged. The warden looked down at the floor. “I want some water in here right now!” Her forceful words had Sparky the guard, who she would personally seen burned at the stake, on his toes and running in the general direction of the requested beverage.

Ross turned to the warden, “May I speak to you outside a moment?” his stern tone reverberated off the walls. With a parting glare at Alex, she stepped out of the doorway into the hall.

With the enemy out of the room, Alex was allowed to fully focus in her partner. He was fading in and out of consciousness and ever once in a while opened his eyes weakly and looked at her with a mixture of confusion and relief. His eyes were cloudy and drugged – what the hell had happened in here? Giving him a once over, she could she he’d visibly lost weight but hoped he wouldn’t suffer any other short or long term damage if they got him to a hospital soon. She made the shaky call herself on her cell phone.

Alex didn’t know how long she sat there next to him, but didn’t move or talk to anyone until the paramedics edged her out of the way. “Four days without water” – Rogers’ words from the autopsy – kept flashing in front of her eyes -- “Chronic and acute trauma.”





Alex’s boot heels clicked and echoed off the pale green walls of the hospital, following the painted lines on the linoleum floor that led her to the correct wing of the building and Bobby’s room.

At the prison, when he had come to and was sitting up drinking water and conversing with Ross, she had stayed silent, leaning against the wall with her arms around herself watching him, afraid if she blinked she’d miss some sign of impending trouble. She didn’t say anything to her partner, and he’d said nothing to her, but their eyes met frequently. When they were taking him to the hospital she’d murmured to Ross she’d see them at the hospital while Ross rode in the ambulance to continue briefing the paramedics on what her partner had been exposed to.

Now at the hospital, she turned the corner into the doorway and was relieved to see he was looking a degree better. His color had returned but his brows were still furrowed and his eyes listless, though they had been for a good part of the year. He was in the street clothes he’d entered the prison in, his right sleeve of his button down was folded up to his forearm and he was playing with the spot where his liquid IV had been.

She crossed her arms and steeled herself as she entered the room.

He gave her a weak smile, happy to see her but tired and wary. They hadn’t spoken in something that wasn’t code in days. “Hey,” he greeted.

“Hey yourself,” she replied, her voice a degree harder. She couldn’t help but let her eyes give him the once over, double checking he was still more or less intact. He took her silence for something else.

“Look, Eames, I’m sorry . . .”

She shook her head, “You can apologize to me later, that’s not what I want right now. What I need to know is, is that it? Are we done now? Have you decided you are not the son of a serial killer? That you’re not crazy? Are you’re back with me?”

“I never left you Eames,” he defended.

“Yes, you did,” she insisted. “Who were you thinking about when you were in that cell, strapped to that table? When you threw that brick through that window?”

“You knew what I was doing when I did that.”

She was upset and let all the worry and the stress that he’d put her through wash over her. She was too tired to censor herself and hadn’t been sleeping properly. “I could say that was selfish of you, Bobby, but I don’t think you were even thinking about yourself. And you sure as hell weren’t thinking about me or you would have never had done that.”

“I never left you Eames,” he repeated, softer this time.

“Alex,” she insisted, tears pricking her eyes. “Call me Alex.” He only ever called her Alex in the most intimate of situations. Whereas she’d taken to calling him Bobby most of the time, he still held to calling her Eames, only now with a varying degree of softness and fondness that hadn’t been there before.

“Alex,” he concede and he looked at her as if seeing her for the first time, “How did you get to me?”

Alex visibly reddened. “I . . . I told Nurse Rachett I was your wife.”

By her tone, he knew she meant the warden. Bobby nodded and was silent, staring at his hands. “Was Ross there?”

Eames nodded and held her breath. Now she was the wary one.

“Well,” he started, rolling down his sleeve, hiding the restraint marks from her, and reaching out to her. Her shoulders relaxed, and relieved she took his hand immediately; he tugged her over between his knees. She rested her hands comfortably on the back of his neck, now almost eye level with him. Her thumbs caressed over his pulse points. He took one arm off her back and reached into his pocket, retrieving the familiar object and offering it for her inspection between his thumb and index finger. “Well, I guess you can wear this now, huh?”

Even the unflattering overhead fluorescent lighting of the hospital room failed to downplay the brilliancy of the family heirloom that he slipped into her left hand, the hand that she hadn’t realized how naked and vulnerable she felt without it.

END