CI: A Woman Scorned

Okay, so she’d been annoyed with him before, sure. Even to the point where he knew she disliked dealing with bodies that had to do with their cases: he always came in and took over – poking everything, smelling things she’d never even contemplated smelling before -- in her eyes basically violating the corpse and her sacred professional space.

He always jumped the gun on things – over eager to connect the next set of dots in his brain. Impatient, asking questions she planned on eventually getting to, not standing to the side, bowing to her expertise like Eames had the common sense to do, and always offering up the answers before she gave them all the pieces.

As much as Bobby could read people and successfully manipulate personal space – when it came to getting answers, he was decidedly blind to others’ uneasiness. Or maybe he chose not to see the signals, he didn’t know. That’s what he liked about Eames -- she would tell him outright when he was doing something that annoyed her. And he’d stop . . . or try to.

But Rogers . . . Eames had clued him in multiple times about Rogers’ annoyance with his . . . over excited methods in her morgue. But he always shrugged them off – he’d gotten what he wanted, she’d get over it. He was just doing his job.

But that all faded into the blue when it came to how she was acting towards him now.

He could be wrong, but she seemed to be going out of her way to be extra nice to Eames. And Rogers was never extra nice to anyone. He’d ask a question and she’d either choose to ignore it and eventually answered it later, or she’d give the answer but give it directly to Eames. She hadn’t made eye contact with him since he’d entered the room – and even then it had been an icy one. Not that she usually gave them an overly warm reception, but he swore he saw her smile at his partner, not a hint of condescending to it.

Whatever she was trying to do it worked -- her actions had effectively silenced him. Instead of bending over to get up close and personal with the late Mr. Wilkenson, he stood to the side, trying to concentrate on the corpse in front of him. But he kept looking at Rogers, trying to diagnose her strange behavior. A glance at Eames offered him nothing. Alex either didn’t notice or was pretending like nothing was out of the ordinary and had the same look of polite, professional interest on her face as she always did -- looking but not getting too close out of personal choice, taking Rogers’ word for it.

Bobby wasn’t sure how many minutes had passed, but Rogers had deemed them informed enough and asked if they, or Eames really, had any questions. Well, he had a million of course, but was too apprehensive to ask them at the moment. Rogers dismissed them quickly and ushered them out of her hallowed workstation.

They rode the elevator back to their floor in silence, Bobby contemplating Rogers’ strange behavior.

“Eames,” he finally reached out plaintively.

“Huh?” she asked, eyes flitting over the copy of the autopsy in her hands.

“Did . . . err, I mean . . . did Rogers seem . . .,” he turned to face her, his hands fumbling with his words, “different, to you?”

Pause. Eames snapped the folder shut as she looked up. “I know you’ve been concentrating on other things, Bobby, but Rogers has been blonde for a while now.”

“No,” he shook his head frustrated, like a child who couldn’t find the right words to communicate properly, “No, that’s not it.” The elevator pinged and Eames continued to their desks, Bobby trailing doggedly behind her, not able to see the amused smirk on her face. “I mean, the way she was acting, did anything seem a little . . . off to you?”

She spun on her heels to face him finally, that smile still tugging at the side of her mouth. “You really don’t know why she’d be mad at you?”

Bobby tried, he really tried, but nothing in his brain was connecting any of his actions to Rogers. He hadn’t even seen her in the days leading up to his forced leave and this was his first day back in the morgue since. He shook his head, truly trying not to give up – it didn’t feel right to give up.

Alex sighed, looking around the squad room, not really sure how much she should be divulging. “When we came to bust you out of the psych ward,” she began, he lowered his head expectantly, “she and Ross . . .” she trailed off, feeling absolutely ridiculous discussing this – like a gossiping teenager at the mall. Alex was personally proud of herself, especially with having him as a partner, for staying above and out of the gossip mill. But if this was truly bothering him, and she could tell it was, she was not going to have his undivided attention on this case unless he got an answer, but he at least needed to meet her halfway. “They were dressed up . . .” but she could see he wasn’t. He shook his head and blinked slowly at her, giving her a look that made her feel like the idiot. Alex sighed and rolled her eyes, “You interrupted their date, Bobby,” she injected, a little louder than she had planned. Just rip the Band-Aid off, Alex.

Bobby was physically taken aback, and it took him a second to gather himself, “But Ross hasn’t acted differently toward me,” he argued.

“Ross is in a perpetual state of being exacerbated with you. You wouldn’t know it if he was mad at you,” she answered.

“Oh,” comprehension came over his face, looking off in the distance. “Oh!” he repeated, his eyes focusing on her. “So this is a girl thing.”

Alex smiled at him and fought the urge to pat him on the head, “Yeah, Bobby, a girl thing.” She turned away to sit down at her desk, this time knowing he was right behind her.


A few hours later brought a call in to Eames from the morgue – another body with wounds similar to those found on their guy.

Bobby paced a little bit in the cool room while he and his partner waited for Rogers to join them. When she did, she didn’t even look up from the autopsy report in her hands. Bobby cleared his throat. She didn’t even blink. Alex looked on amusedly. “Uh,” he started. Rogers’ hand stilled from where she was turning the page. “I’m sorry I uh . . .” he lifted up off his heels,
“I’m sorry I wreaked your date,” he finally got out. Her eyebrows shot up, but that was the only motion she made that insinuated she had heard him. After a moment, Roger took a deep breath in, held it, then exhaled slowly, bringing her head up to give him one of those looks of hers that let you know you’ve been studied and found wanting.

“Yeah,” she drawled doubtfully. “Sure you are.” She snapped the folder shut and nodded at the both of them and then to the body before them: “Annabelle Chester, female, age thirty-five, died of a self-inflicted gun shot wound to the head, but that’s not the interesting part . . .”

And they were off.