Summary: “Isn’t he the crazy guy that throws himself off of buildings and slices his hand open in interrogation rooms?”
A/N: Everyone has their own take on what Alex’s family must be like, here’s a sampling of mine. Since the writers haven’t given us a clear picture of the Eames family, I took some liberties while still trying to be faithful to what we do know. This could be considered a continuation of my story "Overprotected".
“Are you sure you don’t want me to come with you? Seriously Alex, I’m responsible too ya know. This is my child too.” He was making a last-ditch offer to accompany her to her parents’ house to break the news she was pregnant. Since Nicole Wallace had so thoughtfully revealed to the captain and certain other key players in their professional lives, Alex could no longer put off telling her family. God forbid they heard it from someone else. She’d never hear the end of it.
She looked at Bobby from across his apartment. “I know that and you know that,” she reasoned, “But honestly, your being there might . . .” Alex searched for how to put it into words he’d understand, “heighten emotions and further aggravate the situation,” she finished finally. Cop terms, she thought, word it like one of those criminal profiles he likes so damn much.
She could see by the look on his face that her carefully chosen words hadn’t had their desired effect. “What?” he asked genuinely perplexed. “How can that be? Wouldn’t your family want the man responsible there?”
She leaned her hip against the counter, put her hand on her waist, and looked at him from underneath her eyelashes, “My family are cops, firefighters, nurses . . . they could make New York a very uncomfortable place for you, Bobby.”
“You make it sound like the mob,” he grumbled scrunching up his neck in an effort to look down, trying for the third time to knot his tie properly amongst their exchange.
She smiled at him exasperatedly, leaving the omelet she was making on the stove to walk across the wood floor to stand in front of him. She gently pushed his arms down to his sides, evening the silk in her hands, “I come from a family of cops, Bobby. They have guns.”
“Well, so do I,” he countered weakly.
“Yeah but they wouldn’t hesitate to use them,” she replied, straightening his tie.
“I’m going to have to meet them eventually,” he commented quietly in the voice that usually broke her heart, like a pathetic little boy. But today she was putting her foot down.
She gave him a look, “Come on, Bobby, this is the Eames family – we have a picnic for everything, you’ll get to meet them.”
He rolled his eyes and opened his mouth to say something, but she cut him off by quickly pressing her mouth to his and picking up his jacket, “Go to work. I’ll be right behind you.” He didn’t complain, just rubbed his hands over his mouth a few times and grumbled some words under his breath she chose not to acknowledge and saw him out the door.
TBC
Showing posts with label Goren. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Goren. Show all posts
Monday, July 21, 2008
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
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
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.
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.
Sunday, June 8, 2008
CI: Take Me Anywhere Chapter Four
“Agh!”
Goren cautiously followed the exasperated echoed tones he recognized as Alex’s down the hall and around the corner. When he had arrived that morning, instead of getting the itinerary of her schedule, like he normally did, he was told cryptically by the secretary that he would “find her in the third ballroom.” Goren didn’t like when he didn’t get concrete answers to his questions, and he would have been concerned if it weren’t for the gleam in the eye and half smile of the woman.
Alex didn’t know he received daily printouts of her schedule, which covered her whereabouts for not only every waking second, but her sleeping arrangements as well. They also told him who she’d be with at all times. In addition he regularly viewed the phone records that tracked incoming and outgoing calls, looking for patterns and suspicious area codes. These printouts gave him a plethora of information: That Alex did not have a significant other nor was she dating. And that she cleared out time in her schedule, almost every day, to call her father’s family in New York to speak with her aunts, uncles, nieces and nephews. She was big on getting her required eight hours sleep and didn’t sacrifice those precious hours for anyone, least of all royalty-related activities – “high-heel boot camp training”, she called it.
After a long discussion and for convenience’s sake she had at least been convinced to leave her apartment and sleep in her room in the castle instead. “Sleep” being the operative word because she refused to give up her old place, despite the rent. Goren noted that soon he have to go over her apartment to get the layout – map out entrances and exits -- should anything ever happen. He’d been given the key to her apartment by her father, but he didn’t feel right using it to break in. He needed to get Alex’s okay first, or at least be invited.
Bobby gingerly approached the ballroom, where music (something from Vivaldi’s Four Seasons Concertos, if he wasn’t mistaken) was wafting out of a phonograph Goren was sure they stopped making in 1848. He waved back a few household helpers who were finding enjoyment in eavesdropping and peered around the door, not allowing his full body to come into view.
Alex and a man of a dignified sixty stood in the center of the vast floor, the design on which was spiraled like the yellow brick road. The man had his right hand on her waist, which Goren could tell she didn’t like by the barely hidden distaste on her face and stiffness of her posture, which Bobby could tell wasn’t just for the sake of proper form. The man’s left hand was joined in hers, held out to their side.
She was wearing a zip-up hoodie, jeans, and delicate heels that glinted when the light from the tall windows hit them just so. Every few moments, Alex would wrench her hand out of the gentleman’s to yank at the bottom of the sweatshirt, which kept riding up, exposing the bare skin of her hip to his instructing touch. When she did this, she would shortly lose her focus and wobble on her heels before quickly righting herself.
“Your Highness. . .” the man insisted, exasperated, sounding to Goren like he was yet again starting in on an argument that they’d had before.
“Alex,” she insisted a little more forcefully than she might of had she not been stressed and frustrated. Bobby got the sense this was not the first time she’d had to tell the man to call her something other than “Your Highness.”
Neither of them looked particularly happy to be there.
“Perhaps we should call it a day,” offered the man.
“Perhaps we should,” repeated Alex in an overly chipper imitation of his stiff accent, forcibly shrugging off his hands.
The man quickly gathered himself and heeled it out of the room.
Bobby entered, watching Alex take deep breaths and fiddle with her high heels that looked to be giving her blisters. She hopped on one heel and mouthed “Ow” a few times.
“What was that all about?” he ventured, bending at the waist to follow the man out of the room.
Alex spun to face him. “Dancing,” she spat, unconcerned with Bobby’s sudden appearance. On the contrary, even only after a few days, Alex had come to accept him as just an aspect of her life, one she expected even. She’d even caught herself seeking him out in a room once or twice, which momentarily disconcerted her for a bevy of reasons. “I have to learn to dance,” she motioned to the music that was wafting from the record player “because apparently this country has yet to come into the twenty-first century,” she yelled out to where the man had just existed. “And me and Jeeves there don’t exactly get along,” she hitched her thumb to where the man had stood.
Goren smiled, nodding in understanding. “It’s not that hard,” he commented, walking further onto the floor.
Alex turned her bad mood onto him, putting her hands on her waist, “Oh yeah, hot shot? You going to tell me that in one of those many places you’re from you were a competitive flamingo dancer?”
Goren grinned at her, “Not exactly,” he shrugged, “I just like to dance.”
She folded her arms, “Well so do I but this isn’t exactly ABBA, now is it?”
He approached her and despite the strange look she gave him, took her in his arms. Her arms automatically joined his in the now engrained position. “Now, what have you learned so far?” he asked, looking down at her.
Alex blanched but quickly recovered, “Something that had a one-two-three, one-two-three in it,” not objecting that he hadn’t done the formal ask and bow first and instead had been so bold as to simply take hold of her.
Bobby nodded, “A minuet,” he commented, “which is strange because a minuet is usually the third movement in a symphony or string quartet,” he ruminated aloud. Her brows arched in an are-you-kidding-me look he was beginning to recognize, “Right,” he quickly amended, looking down at his feet, “not relevant. Okay, we can start there.”
The record player skipped for a moment, and then a simple violin began to echo against the walls; a much less intimidating tune. Bobby gently pushed her away and made an exaggerated bow. Alex laughed despite herself, the first real laugh she could remember in days, and made a curtsy of her own. Bobby was glad to see her smile as they met again in the middle of the floor.
As he slowly moved them in circles, he could feel her body clench, her face contorted with concentration. “Don’t count,” Bobby interrupted her, causing her to glance up from where she was watching her feet, “Don’t count,” he insisted, shaking his head. “Just move with me.”
“Easier said than done,” she grumbled, trying to will her muscles to relax. Alex’s natural inclination was not to be led.
He leaned in much closer than Jeeves had and spoke softly into her ear, her forehead brushed his chest, “You gotta trust me, Alex,” she closed her eyes at the feeling of his breath on her skin, the slight plead in his deep timbre. “Let me lead. Don’t try to be three steps ahead of me.”
Alex couldn’t help but smile at the mere thought of it, “I doubt anybody has ever been three steps ahead of you at anything.”
She breathed deep and exhaled slowly, letting go – letting all of it go – and just moved. He turned them in patterns she hadn’t even learned yet, patterns she probably would have deemed too difficult, but with him – when they moved together – they weren’t. He didn’t even keep hold of her the whole time. He’d gently let go, smoothly advancing her into a spin, finishing with her back pressed against his chest. She arched her neck back towards him, almost to question the closeness of their bodies, but before she could fully form the thought in her head, he’d spin her out again, moving them with more refinement than she thought she was capable of and with more grace than a man of his stature ought to have.
As the last notes trickled from the antique machine he spun her, one last time, gracefully away from him.
When their eyes met, Bobby bowed again, “Thank you for the dance, Your Highness.” With a gentle smile he swept out of the room, leaving Alex in a considerably better mood. She hadn’t even noticed to object when he called her “Your Highness.”
TBC
Goren cautiously followed the exasperated echoed tones he recognized as Alex’s down the hall and around the corner. When he had arrived that morning, instead of getting the itinerary of her schedule, like he normally did, he was told cryptically by the secretary that he would “find her in the third ballroom.” Goren didn’t like when he didn’t get concrete answers to his questions, and he would have been concerned if it weren’t for the gleam in the eye and half smile of the woman.
Alex didn’t know he received daily printouts of her schedule, which covered her whereabouts for not only every waking second, but her sleeping arrangements as well. They also told him who she’d be with at all times. In addition he regularly viewed the phone records that tracked incoming and outgoing calls, looking for patterns and suspicious area codes. These printouts gave him a plethora of information: That Alex did not have a significant other nor was she dating. And that she cleared out time in her schedule, almost every day, to call her father’s family in New York to speak with her aunts, uncles, nieces and nephews. She was big on getting her required eight hours sleep and didn’t sacrifice those precious hours for anyone, least of all royalty-related activities – “high-heel boot camp training”, she called it.
After a long discussion and for convenience’s sake she had at least been convinced to leave her apartment and sleep in her room in the castle instead. “Sleep” being the operative word because she refused to give up her old place, despite the rent. Goren noted that soon he have to go over her apartment to get the layout – map out entrances and exits -- should anything ever happen. He’d been given the key to her apartment by her father, but he didn’t feel right using it to break in. He needed to get Alex’s okay first, or at least be invited.
Bobby gingerly approached the ballroom, where music (something from Vivaldi’s Four Seasons Concertos, if he wasn’t mistaken) was wafting out of a phonograph Goren was sure they stopped making in 1848. He waved back a few household helpers who were finding enjoyment in eavesdropping and peered around the door, not allowing his full body to come into view.
Alex and a man of a dignified sixty stood in the center of the vast floor, the design on which was spiraled like the yellow brick road. The man had his right hand on her waist, which Goren could tell she didn’t like by the barely hidden distaste on her face and stiffness of her posture, which Bobby could tell wasn’t just for the sake of proper form. The man’s left hand was joined in hers, held out to their side.
She was wearing a zip-up hoodie, jeans, and delicate heels that glinted when the light from the tall windows hit them just so. Every few moments, Alex would wrench her hand out of the gentleman’s to yank at the bottom of the sweatshirt, which kept riding up, exposing the bare skin of her hip to his instructing touch. When she did this, she would shortly lose her focus and wobble on her heels before quickly righting herself.
“Your Highness. . .” the man insisted, exasperated, sounding to Goren like he was yet again starting in on an argument that they’d had before.
“Alex,” she insisted a little more forcefully than she might of had she not been stressed and frustrated. Bobby got the sense this was not the first time she’d had to tell the man to call her something other than “Your Highness.”
Neither of them looked particularly happy to be there.
“Perhaps we should call it a day,” offered the man.
“Perhaps we should,” repeated Alex in an overly chipper imitation of his stiff accent, forcibly shrugging off his hands.
The man quickly gathered himself and heeled it out of the room.
Bobby entered, watching Alex take deep breaths and fiddle with her high heels that looked to be giving her blisters. She hopped on one heel and mouthed “Ow” a few times.
“What was that all about?” he ventured, bending at the waist to follow the man out of the room.
Alex spun to face him. “Dancing,” she spat, unconcerned with Bobby’s sudden appearance. On the contrary, even only after a few days, Alex had come to accept him as just an aspect of her life, one she expected even. She’d even caught herself seeking him out in a room once or twice, which momentarily disconcerted her for a bevy of reasons. “I have to learn to dance,” she motioned to the music that was wafting from the record player “because apparently this country has yet to come into the twenty-first century,” she yelled out to where the man had just existed. “And me and Jeeves there don’t exactly get along,” she hitched her thumb to where the man had stood.
Goren smiled, nodding in understanding. “It’s not that hard,” he commented, walking further onto the floor.
Alex turned her bad mood onto him, putting her hands on her waist, “Oh yeah, hot shot? You going to tell me that in one of those many places you’re from you were a competitive flamingo dancer?”
Goren grinned at her, “Not exactly,” he shrugged, “I just like to dance.”
She folded her arms, “Well so do I but this isn’t exactly ABBA, now is it?”
He approached her and despite the strange look she gave him, took her in his arms. Her arms automatically joined his in the now engrained position. “Now, what have you learned so far?” he asked, looking down at her.
Alex blanched but quickly recovered, “Something that had a one-two-three, one-two-three in it,” not objecting that he hadn’t done the formal ask and bow first and instead had been so bold as to simply take hold of her.
Bobby nodded, “A minuet,” he commented, “which is strange because a minuet is usually the third movement in a symphony or string quartet,” he ruminated aloud. Her brows arched in an are-you-kidding-me look he was beginning to recognize, “Right,” he quickly amended, looking down at his feet, “not relevant. Okay, we can start there.”
The record player skipped for a moment, and then a simple violin began to echo against the walls; a much less intimidating tune. Bobby gently pushed her away and made an exaggerated bow. Alex laughed despite herself, the first real laugh she could remember in days, and made a curtsy of her own. Bobby was glad to see her smile as they met again in the middle of the floor.
As he slowly moved them in circles, he could feel her body clench, her face contorted with concentration. “Don’t count,” Bobby interrupted her, causing her to glance up from where she was watching her feet, “Don’t count,” he insisted, shaking his head. “Just move with me.”
“Easier said than done,” she grumbled, trying to will her muscles to relax. Alex’s natural inclination was not to be led.
He leaned in much closer than Jeeves had and spoke softly into her ear, her forehead brushed his chest, “You gotta trust me, Alex,” she closed her eyes at the feeling of his breath on her skin, the slight plead in his deep timbre. “Let me lead. Don’t try to be three steps ahead of me.”
Alex couldn’t help but smile at the mere thought of it, “I doubt anybody has ever been three steps ahead of you at anything.”
She breathed deep and exhaled slowly, letting go – letting all of it go – and just moved. He turned them in patterns she hadn’t even learned yet, patterns she probably would have deemed too difficult, but with him – when they moved together – they weren’t. He didn’t even keep hold of her the whole time. He’d gently let go, smoothly advancing her into a spin, finishing with her back pressed against his chest. She arched her neck back towards him, almost to question the closeness of their bodies, but before she could fully form the thought in her head, he’d spin her out again, moving them with more refinement than she thought she was capable of and with more grace than a man of his stature ought to have.
As the last notes trickled from the antique machine he spun her, one last time, gracefully away from him.
When their eyes met, Bobby bowed again, “Thank you for the dance, Your Highness.” With a gentle smile he swept out of the room, leaving Alex in a considerably better mood. She hadn’t even noticed to object when he called her “Your Highness.”
TBC
Sunday, June 1, 2008
CI: Take Me Anywhere Chapter Three
Richard Eames was not okay with the idea of his daughter armed. It wasn’t that he didn’t trust her. He did. But it was so much easier for him to lay the responsibility for his daughter’s safety on someone else’s doorstep, namely Goren’s. Maybe it was the fact that the two of them were already conspiring against him: He had to hear about a purchase of a gun for his little girl from one of his spies, a/k/a the other guards who overheard them. This was not exactly what he had planned when he hired outside help to look after his daughter – instead of being kept in the loop, details were being kept secret instead.
So, on a rainy Saturday afternoon, a quiet day in the castle, Alex and Goren crept down an old winding stone staircase that was supposed to lead to an old basement that had been converted into an underground shooting range that not many people used anymore, let alone knew about. As a country with a history of peace – where firearms and gun laws have never been a problem, where the royals were for the most part cared for and lauded after, not threatened – so far as the secret service in the castle never felt an overwhelming need to use the place much.
They began this excursion right after brunch.
And they were still descending.
Alex brushed her hair out of her face, “How far down is it? I’m getting vertigo.”
“I think I heard my ears pop about three floors ago,” Goren conceded, like Alex keeping his hands out to his sides to brush the narrow stone walls to help him navigate the spirals in the low lighting. “According to the map,” he waved the folded paper and flashlight, “it shouldn’t be much farther.”
Of course. No wonder Alex felt like she’d been dragged around the castle by him since she’d met him: He’d memorized the floor plans. He led her around the palace practically by her ear. It irritated her that he all of a sudden knew the place so well. It was HER palace! Meanwhile she couldn’t even find the bathroom.
“Ha!” she heard him call out in success as he rounded the last corner before her. She forced her gaze down to maneuver the last few uneven cobblestone steps. She had gotten out of the heels hours ago but she still felt like she was walking on stilts. He glanced back at her and absentmindedly offered his hand, which, under the circumstances, she gratefully took to help her hop off the uneven last step, and looked up.
“Huh,” she marveled with him. “Who knew?” Before them was a thick, soundproof Plexiglas door through which you could see the range: a half a dozen dividers designated the spots each with a pulley system that allowed you to hang your target and move it downrange toward the new walling that had been put in to absorbed the bullets. It wasn’t exactly state-of-the-art, but it would work. The view took some getting used to: the mix of the centuries old stone and the new-age technology.
Alex followed him through the door. The air was stale because of the tight seal the soundproofing had created, whereas the rooms in other parts of the building were high and breezy. Goren put the case he had been carrying down on the counter. The locks clicked open and in the case sat Alex’s new handgun – a .99 mm Glock. Goren picked up the piece and began fiddling with it. He’d been quiet ever since their day in the conference room, when she’d first learned about the threats on her life. And besides the crack on the stairs earlier, Alex was finding he wasn’t a real talkative guy. Meanwhile, Alex had to spill her life story and movements on a regular basis.
“So where are you from?” she ventured, as she stood helplessly to the side.
The personal question visibly threw him, his hands on the gun stilled. “Um . . . a lot of places,” he resumed concentration on his task, removing pieces, examining them, and putting them back together.
Alex didn’t appreciate the brush-off, “A lot of places?” she crossed her arms, “What the hell does that mean?”
He shrugged, “Means I’ve lived in a lot of places. Grew up in many places, many countries.” Alex studied him, obviously uncomfortable under scrutiny. “Here, I . . . I’ll show you how to load it.”
Fifteen minutes later, Alex took a strong stance and lifted the gun downrange, finger off the trigger. Goren stood behind her and reached around her with his right hand. “See this . . . this divot in the front on the gun, and the white dot, back here,” he explained patiently, fingering the items with his thumb and index finger. “You line the dot in between the two divots and your target on top.”
He adjusted his body closer to hers, his arm brushing hers to point out some aspect of the weapon. At first, his movements were hesitant – a combination of her standoffishness and his nervousness. But, as they both focused on their task and their roles as teacher and student, he became more confident. His hands danced across her body, once to adjust her shoulders, again to tighten her grip in one place, loosen it in others. It kept her slightly on edge, not knowing where she’d feel him next.
His fingertips slid down her arms, starting at her shoulders and ending at her fingertips, where he gripped harder.
Once to her wrists to fine-tune them.
Her hips to straighten them.
Her thigh to move her leg into a stronger stance.
She was hyperaware of his close proximity and when it was actually time to shoot, she had to take a few deep breaths to better concentrate on the figure eight her hands naturally made. Alex inhaled, exhaled, watching the movement of her gun, and squeezed the trigger with her fingertip. The kickback pushed her more firmly against his chest. The effort forced him to take a step back and steadied her by gripping both her elbows.
They were suspended for a moment . . . just like that. Alex felt his hands grip her tighter and, for just a moment, she let herself sink back into him ever so slightly. Then, just as suddenly, the air broke. Goren cleared his throat and eased her back steadily onto her feet. Alex let out an uneven breath and brushed herself off.
He reached around her to pull the target back to them to examine. There, in the upper left area of the paper was a perfect round hole. It wasn’t the bull’s-eye, but it was the quadrant she had been aiming for.
“You’re a natural,” he praised, as happy with her as his ability to teach, which he wasn’t sure in – people tended to be turned off by his seemingly unrelated tangents. But anytime he lost her, she’d stop him assertively and tell him to slow down and clarify.
At first his efforts were clumsy – he wasn’t used to being part of a team. He usually worked alone – his hirers preferred he deal with whatever the circumstances were by himself, give them an occasional update, but let them know when it was all done. But this case was different . . . Alex was different.
They stood so close Alex could smell the mix of her spray with his cologne, heightened by the enclosed windowless space and the heat of their bodies. And Alex noted the scent wasn’t completely unappealing.
“Germany,” he murmured, he had his head down as he was loading another clip.
Alex shook her head, still lost in her own thoughts, “Huh?”
“Germany. I was, ah, I was born in Germany. I was an ARMY brat and I was born in Germany. But I grew up mostly in New York.”
Alex couldn’t help the softening of her features and the small smile on her lips.
“I’ve . . . never told anyone that.”
TBC
So, on a rainy Saturday afternoon, a quiet day in the castle, Alex and Goren crept down an old winding stone staircase that was supposed to lead to an old basement that had been converted into an underground shooting range that not many people used anymore, let alone knew about. As a country with a history of peace – where firearms and gun laws have never been a problem, where the royals were for the most part cared for and lauded after, not threatened – so far as the secret service in the castle never felt an overwhelming need to use the place much.
They began this excursion right after brunch.
And they were still descending.
Alex brushed her hair out of her face, “How far down is it? I’m getting vertigo.”
“I think I heard my ears pop about three floors ago,” Goren conceded, like Alex keeping his hands out to his sides to brush the narrow stone walls to help him navigate the spirals in the low lighting. “According to the map,” he waved the folded paper and flashlight, “it shouldn’t be much farther.”
Of course. No wonder Alex felt like she’d been dragged around the castle by him since she’d met him: He’d memorized the floor plans. He led her around the palace practically by her ear. It irritated her that he all of a sudden knew the place so well. It was HER palace! Meanwhile she couldn’t even find the bathroom.
“Ha!” she heard him call out in success as he rounded the last corner before her. She forced her gaze down to maneuver the last few uneven cobblestone steps. She had gotten out of the heels hours ago but she still felt like she was walking on stilts. He glanced back at her and absentmindedly offered his hand, which, under the circumstances, she gratefully took to help her hop off the uneven last step, and looked up.
“Huh,” she marveled with him. “Who knew?” Before them was a thick, soundproof Plexiglas door through which you could see the range: a half a dozen dividers designated the spots each with a pulley system that allowed you to hang your target and move it downrange toward the new walling that had been put in to absorbed the bullets. It wasn’t exactly state-of-the-art, but it would work. The view took some getting used to: the mix of the centuries old stone and the new-age technology.
Alex followed him through the door. The air was stale because of the tight seal the soundproofing had created, whereas the rooms in other parts of the building were high and breezy. Goren put the case he had been carrying down on the counter. The locks clicked open and in the case sat Alex’s new handgun – a .99 mm Glock. Goren picked up the piece and began fiddling with it. He’d been quiet ever since their day in the conference room, when she’d first learned about the threats on her life. And besides the crack on the stairs earlier, Alex was finding he wasn’t a real talkative guy. Meanwhile, Alex had to spill her life story and movements on a regular basis.
“So where are you from?” she ventured, as she stood helplessly to the side.
The personal question visibly threw him, his hands on the gun stilled. “Um . . . a lot of places,” he resumed concentration on his task, removing pieces, examining them, and putting them back together.
Alex didn’t appreciate the brush-off, “A lot of places?” she crossed her arms, “What the hell does that mean?”
He shrugged, “Means I’ve lived in a lot of places. Grew up in many places, many countries.” Alex studied him, obviously uncomfortable under scrutiny. “Here, I . . . I’ll show you how to load it.”
Fifteen minutes later, Alex took a strong stance and lifted the gun downrange, finger off the trigger. Goren stood behind her and reached around her with his right hand. “See this . . . this divot in the front on the gun, and the white dot, back here,” he explained patiently, fingering the items with his thumb and index finger. “You line the dot in between the two divots and your target on top.”
He adjusted his body closer to hers, his arm brushing hers to point out some aspect of the weapon. At first, his movements were hesitant – a combination of her standoffishness and his nervousness. But, as they both focused on their task and their roles as teacher and student, he became more confident. His hands danced across her body, once to adjust her shoulders, again to tighten her grip in one place, loosen it in others. It kept her slightly on edge, not knowing where she’d feel him next.
His fingertips slid down her arms, starting at her shoulders and ending at her fingertips, where he gripped harder.
Once to her wrists to fine-tune them.
Her hips to straighten them.
Her thigh to move her leg into a stronger stance.
She was hyperaware of his close proximity and when it was actually time to shoot, she had to take a few deep breaths to better concentrate on the figure eight her hands naturally made. Alex inhaled, exhaled, watching the movement of her gun, and squeezed the trigger with her fingertip. The kickback pushed her more firmly against his chest. The effort forced him to take a step back and steadied her by gripping both her elbows.
They were suspended for a moment . . . just like that. Alex felt his hands grip her tighter and, for just a moment, she let herself sink back into him ever so slightly. Then, just as suddenly, the air broke. Goren cleared his throat and eased her back steadily onto her feet. Alex let out an uneven breath and brushed herself off.
He reached around her to pull the target back to them to examine. There, in the upper left area of the paper was a perfect round hole. It wasn’t the bull’s-eye, but it was the quadrant she had been aiming for.
“You’re a natural,” he praised, as happy with her as his ability to teach, which he wasn’t sure in – people tended to be turned off by his seemingly unrelated tangents. But anytime he lost her, she’d stop him assertively and tell him to slow down and clarify.
At first his efforts were clumsy – he wasn’t used to being part of a team. He usually worked alone – his hirers preferred he deal with whatever the circumstances were by himself, give them an occasional update, but let them know when it was all done. But this case was different . . . Alex was different.
They stood so close Alex could smell the mix of her spray with his cologne, heightened by the enclosed windowless space and the heat of their bodies. And Alex noted the scent wasn’t completely unappealing.
“Germany,” he murmured, he had his head down as he was loading another clip.
Alex shook her head, still lost in her own thoughts, “Huh?”
“Germany. I was, ah, I was born in Germany. I was an ARMY brat and I was born in Germany. But I grew up mostly in New York.”
Alex couldn’t help the softening of her features and the small smile on her lips.
“I’ve . . . never told anyone that.”
TBC
CI: Take Me Anywhere Chapter Two
For not the first time in the past few months, Robert Goren had to stop and take a minute to remind himself just what country he currently resided in. While traveling all over the globe for varying amounts of time was something he enjoyed, acting as a bodyguard wasn’t his first choice of occupation coming out of the ARMY and working as a cop in the New York City Narcotics division. He’d just kind of fell into it. First as a favor for a friend of a friend of the captain’s, then word got around that he was pretty good and thorough and before he could return to his home base of New York, he was offered another job in yet another part of the country.
The avalanche of assignments meant he hadn’t been to the apartment he continued to pay rent on in over two years. He had wanted to end up in Major Case, but had gotten sidetracked. His captain had assured him he’d put in a good word that would almost guarantee him a spot when he was ready for it. And to be honest, he was ready to go home. Or stay in one place, at least. His buddy, Lewis, was living in his apartment rent-free in return for taking care of the place and the bills. Lewis was a good guy, but Bobby held his temples when he thought of the state he may find it in should he ever return.
But Bobby liked his current job. It was always changing, which kept his mind occupied, and took him to all sorts of locations. He could exercise his knowledge of foreign languages and got to travel, which he always enjoyed – trying new foods, blending in with new people. He had just come off a stint in France, now he was back in the English-speaking part of Europe, where they had the slightest tinge of upper-crust English accents to their voices. It was a small country, which at first surprised him. He was mostly brought on specifically for special cases, high profile or high risk only, so his job was never to just stand around, there was always an investigation to run. But he’d be lying if he said all of it wasn’t catching up to him.
Bobby sighed, pushing any remaining negative thoughts to the side, and flipped open the file he’d already memorized on the plane. Alexandra Elizabeth Eames, who preferred to be addressed as “Alex,” was a newly recognized royal plucked from among the masses to be made the country’s figurehead. But the assent was expected to be a complicated one as the family was already plagued with tragedy and the general public, along with other royals, were getting restless. Bobby’s role in all this was to be combination bodyguard, head of security, and investigator as there had already been death threats on Ms. Eames’ life.
Bobby looked up across the desk at Mr. Eames, Alex’s father and the man who had sought him out. Which was something Bobby had worried about at first – parents were notorious for their overreacting and had a habit of getting in the way of the truth. In a folder in Bobby’s hand were copies of the numerous letters and e-mails mentioning Ms. Eames chances of not living long enough to wear the crown. Bobby could tell right away some, ironically the more forwardly hostile, were amateur – cranky citizens looking to make a fuss or young kids looking to get on the local news and cause uproar. But some, he zeroed in on as quite legitimate.
Richard Eames nodded to the pile on the desk Goren shifted through, “Alex doesn’t know . . . all of this, but this wouldn’t be the first time a royal’s life has been threatened.” He stressed the phrase “all of,” which Bobby took to mean “anything about.” That, along with the brush off at the end, raised all sorts of red flags.
“Has anyone looked at the rival family? The . . .?”
“Wallace’s,” Richard supplied. He smiled, “Goren, the Wallace’s are not known for their good moral standing, but trust me, they wouldn’t kill anyone.”
Bobby didn’t feel particularly convinced and, judging by the wavering in his voice, he wasn’t sure Richard was either. Understandably, the idea may be so unsavory he refused to acknowledge it -- he couldn’t be objective as it was his daughter being threatened. That’s where Goren came in.
“Well, sir, don’t you, don’t you think she ought to know?”
Richard leaned forward in his chair, “Alex is going to having a rough time of it, I’m afraid. I did not raise her for this possibility. In fact, I raised her for the opposite. If I can take one thing off her mind, I was hoping it would be this,” his eyes visibly saddened.
“If you don’t mind, I’d rather discuss this with her,” Goren plodded gently, albeit firmly, ahead.
Richard nodded in defeated understanding.
“If she’d rather be left out of it, then I will,” Bobby put both hands up in surrender, “But I’d like to hear it from her.”
Richard jumped a bit in his seat, “Speaking of,” he said. “Ah, Alex!” he called out as he saw her swoosh past the open door and Goren twisted in his chair.
Alex audibly skidded to a halt. Backpedaling she stood in the doorway, craning her neck to check out the entire room, then looked at her father and poked her head back outside the hallway, obviously surprised to see them all there. She was noshing on licorice, and had a peace hanging loosely from her lips as she surveyed the room confusedly. She could’ve sworn her dad’s office was around the next bend, but nope, there he was, standing up at his desk across from some big guy who was looking at her amusedly -- which pissed her off.
OK, so she was already in a bad mood. She had just spent five hours in an enclosed space with people called themselves “fashion consultants” -- two word that Alex detested separately. Together, they were pure hell.
“Alex, is the candy completely necessary?” Richard Eames glanced nervously at their guest.
Alex rolled her eyes – trying to turn her into a snob already, was he? “You spend five hours in a corset circa 1887 and see if you don’t get a little peckish,” she gestured at him with the Twizzler in her left hand.
Goren dropped his head to hide the smirk and chuckle that threatened to escape. “No, its fine,” he insisted, lifting a hand.
Alex crinkled her brows, Like I need this guy’s permission to eat. Who is this guy?
“Who is this guy?” she voiced the thought in her head. Okay, that had come out a little pissier that she had planned, but the guy looked like he could deal, yet she guiltily watched him sober nonetheless.
“Meet Detective Robert Goren,” her father gestured to the big guy who stood belatedly (that much she remembered from that morning’s Etiquette 101) and a little clumsily.
“Alex,” the Detective offered his hand, and his chair, his eyes aimed at the floor for most of the greeting.
Alex took his hand, her eyebrows still knitted together, “Call me Al . . .,” she began out of habit of insisting on being called Alex then stopped, realizing he already had. Huh.
But her mind was already going in another direction altogether, “Wait a minute – detective?”
“I, I’m not here to get in your way,” Goren began.
“Well that’s fine, but get in my way how?” she insisted, looking at Richard warily.
Her father stood, “It’s because of the nature of the thing.”
“The nature of what thing, how?” Now her father was being cagey, which was never a good sign. Neither was the ominous folder in the detective’s grip.
Bobby stood also, but had the good sense to stay out of it for the time being. This is what he had been afraid of – Alex had been kept out of the loop and now she was being thrust into yet another foreign situation. Now she was openly hostile to her father . . . and to him.
“If I could, ah, interrupt,” Goren forced himself into the middle of the standoff – a role he was used to.
“What?” she whipped around on him.
Bobby tilted his head and gave her dubious look. He didn’t mind being the interim scapegoat for the anger that was inevitably to come out of such an adjustment, but this would get them nowhere and Alex seemed to come to the same conclusion.
“Sorry,” she quickly amended.
Goren shook his head, “Fine. I see we have . . . a lot to cover, do you mind if we take this,” he gestured with the folder and Alex’s eyes followed it, “elsewhere?” He’d purposefully not asked her father for permission; instead spoke directly to her, moving to let her through the doorway first.
“Fine,” she agreed tersely. She knew she was acting the part of the petulant child, but if she was going to be treated her like one, what kind of reaction did they expect? She strode down the hallway, trying her best to ignore the gawker-lined hallways that seemed to be a fixture in her life now and allowed herself be led toward one of the smaller conference rooms.
She chose to concentrate on the sound their shoes made echoing off the walls. Alex glanced out of the corner of her eye, studying the man as he shortened his strides to fall in step with her. “What’s in the folder?” She nodded to the manila in his grip.
Now it was his turn to look confused as he followed her gaze, seemingly having forgotten he carried it with him. “Oh, um,” Goren stalled, not really wanting to start this conversation in the hallway, “Ah . . . you,” he finally settled on the truth.
Alex visibly jerked. His answer may not have been a great one, but it effectively shut her up for the rest of the trip.
They entered the conference room she vaguely remembered having a meeting in that morning. Her orphaned New York Times on the table, folded open to the crossword, confirmed it. She had brought it with her, thinking she’d have time to kill. She had been wrong. Alex watched as the detective picked it up like he was familiar with it.
“Boomtown.”
“What?” She was getting sick of playing catch-up with this guy.
Goren looked up, like he hadn’t realized he’d said it aloud. He licked his lips and danced a little agitatedly, “Thirty-five Across, Fast-growing community, eight letters. The, the answer’s Boomtown,” he gestured with his hands.
Alex’s eyebrows finally unknitted from the previous room, but only because they now shot up in the air. This was surreal. And jeez, he stuttered a lot. If this all turns out okay, he’ll prove to be the most competent incompetent she’d ever met.
“Oh. You do the crossword?” He hadn’t answered in a conceited way and she couldn’t fault him for knowing the answers just by glancing at it. Meanwhile Alex had to stare at it like a monkey doing a math problem.
He nodded, “When I have the time, yeah. I’m surprised to find The New York Times here. I couldn’t find it at the airport.”
Alex circled around the table, “This country is suspicious of anything that wasn’t discovered, invented, or grown here. I have to get it smuggled in. Though I’m sure that’s in your file,” she nodded to the little slip of manila in his hand that apparently held her life story. Why the hell’s it so thin? “Along with me,” she added when he wasn’t instantly forthcoming with information.
“I don’t know how much your father or anyone’s told you . . . about the threats against your life. I’m led to believe not a lot.”
Alex’s face visibly paled, “You’d be right.” Her hand felt to her right and gripped the back of a chair, but fought the urge to lower herself into it.
“There’s been threats made on you life, Alex – real threats. Now, some turmoil is to be expected in this type of situation.”
So she was a ‘type’ she thought.
As he talked, he reached into the folder, deliberately taking out one letter at a time, lining them in a row on the table. “You’re being brought in from the outside. Now . . . now, some of these are pretty flimsy – designed to just ruffle a few feathers. But some of these could be very serious.”
Alex watched as the row became longer and longer. She wanted to yell out, “Stop” – to grab his arm and throw the pages away, but she didn’t.
“That’s what I’ve been brought here for – to protect you and weed out the likely suspects, and hopefully bring them out into the open before any real attempt is made on your life and preferably before your coronation.”
Stammered, Alex mentally corrected herself. He stammered, not stuttered. She continued her delicate, shaky trek around the table, blindly picking up letters and email printouts, fighting the bile that rose in her throat over the horrible words and pictures that littered them. Alex’s focus was blurred and she couldn’t read what was on the page in front of her. She steeled herself under his studious gaze – she could feel his eyes burning onto her face, watching for any and every reaction.
“Well, what do you think?” Alex didn’t normally seek out others’ opinion on her life, but he seemed to be some kind of an expert, and she needed to buy some time to allow some things to sink in.
Bobby jerked a little at her question, probably surprised she wasn’t getting hysterical. “I don’t want to alienate you out of this. We should be a team.” Bobby ducked his head, trying to catch her eyes as she was staring into space with an expression that worried him, partly because he couldn’t read it. “That is if . . . if you want to be. What do you think?”
“Well,” she breathed, “I knew I wasn’t going to be popular in some circles, but this is ridiculous.”
He looked shocked, suspended in midair. It was a beat before somebody cut the strings that held his limbs all at once, “Oh, humor, I get it.” But neither of them relaxed. And he was still waiting for her answer.
“Do you always carry that?” she nodded just to the right of him. He followed her gaze to the gun at his hip. She hadn’t been staring unfocusedly at all, quite focused in fact.
“Ah, yeah,” he answered confusedly. She nodded at his answer. “And you?” he ventured again. “Um . . . what do you think?”
She raised her chin, met his eyes dead on, and spoke with the authority that finally hinted to him why these people wanted her for their queen, “I think you’re going to teach me how to shoot.”
TBC
The avalanche of assignments meant he hadn’t been to the apartment he continued to pay rent on in over two years. He had wanted to end up in Major Case, but had gotten sidetracked. His captain had assured him he’d put in a good word that would almost guarantee him a spot when he was ready for it. And to be honest, he was ready to go home. Or stay in one place, at least. His buddy, Lewis, was living in his apartment rent-free in return for taking care of the place and the bills. Lewis was a good guy, but Bobby held his temples when he thought of the state he may find it in should he ever return.
But Bobby liked his current job. It was always changing, which kept his mind occupied, and took him to all sorts of locations. He could exercise his knowledge of foreign languages and got to travel, which he always enjoyed – trying new foods, blending in with new people. He had just come off a stint in France, now he was back in the English-speaking part of Europe, where they had the slightest tinge of upper-crust English accents to their voices. It was a small country, which at first surprised him. He was mostly brought on specifically for special cases, high profile or high risk only, so his job was never to just stand around, there was always an investigation to run. But he’d be lying if he said all of it wasn’t catching up to him.
Bobby sighed, pushing any remaining negative thoughts to the side, and flipped open the file he’d already memorized on the plane. Alexandra Elizabeth Eames, who preferred to be addressed as “Alex,” was a newly recognized royal plucked from among the masses to be made the country’s figurehead. But the assent was expected to be a complicated one as the family was already plagued with tragedy and the general public, along with other royals, were getting restless. Bobby’s role in all this was to be combination bodyguard, head of security, and investigator as there had already been death threats on Ms. Eames’ life.
Bobby looked up across the desk at Mr. Eames, Alex’s father and the man who had sought him out. Which was something Bobby had worried about at first – parents were notorious for their overreacting and had a habit of getting in the way of the truth. In a folder in Bobby’s hand were copies of the numerous letters and e-mails mentioning Ms. Eames chances of not living long enough to wear the crown. Bobby could tell right away some, ironically the more forwardly hostile, were amateur – cranky citizens looking to make a fuss or young kids looking to get on the local news and cause uproar. But some, he zeroed in on as quite legitimate.
Richard Eames nodded to the pile on the desk Goren shifted through, “Alex doesn’t know . . . all of this, but this wouldn’t be the first time a royal’s life has been threatened.” He stressed the phrase “all of,” which Bobby took to mean “anything about.” That, along with the brush off at the end, raised all sorts of red flags.
“Has anyone looked at the rival family? The . . .?”
“Wallace’s,” Richard supplied. He smiled, “Goren, the Wallace’s are not known for their good moral standing, but trust me, they wouldn’t kill anyone.”
Bobby didn’t feel particularly convinced and, judging by the wavering in his voice, he wasn’t sure Richard was either. Understandably, the idea may be so unsavory he refused to acknowledge it -- he couldn’t be objective as it was his daughter being threatened. That’s where Goren came in.
“Well, sir, don’t you, don’t you think she ought to know?”
Richard leaned forward in his chair, “Alex is going to having a rough time of it, I’m afraid. I did not raise her for this possibility. In fact, I raised her for the opposite. If I can take one thing off her mind, I was hoping it would be this,” his eyes visibly saddened.
“If you don’t mind, I’d rather discuss this with her,” Goren plodded gently, albeit firmly, ahead.
Richard nodded in defeated understanding.
“If she’d rather be left out of it, then I will,” Bobby put both hands up in surrender, “But I’d like to hear it from her.”
Richard jumped a bit in his seat, “Speaking of,” he said. “Ah, Alex!” he called out as he saw her swoosh past the open door and Goren twisted in his chair.
Alex audibly skidded to a halt. Backpedaling she stood in the doorway, craning her neck to check out the entire room, then looked at her father and poked her head back outside the hallway, obviously surprised to see them all there. She was noshing on licorice, and had a peace hanging loosely from her lips as she surveyed the room confusedly. She could’ve sworn her dad’s office was around the next bend, but nope, there he was, standing up at his desk across from some big guy who was looking at her amusedly -- which pissed her off.
OK, so she was already in a bad mood. She had just spent five hours in an enclosed space with people called themselves “fashion consultants” -- two word that Alex detested separately. Together, they were pure hell.
“Alex, is the candy completely necessary?” Richard Eames glanced nervously at their guest.
Alex rolled her eyes – trying to turn her into a snob already, was he? “You spend five hours in a corset circa 1887 and see if you don’t get a little peckish,” she gestured at him with the Twizzler in her left hand.
Goren dropped his head to hide the smirk and chuckle that threatened to escape. “No, its fine,” he insisted, lifting a hand.
Alex crinkled her brows, Like I need this guy’s permission to eat. Who is this guy?
“Who is this guy?” she voiced the thought in her head. Okay, that had come out a little pissier that she had planned, but the guy looked like he could deal, yet she guiltily watched him sober nonetheless.
“Meet Detective Robert Goren,” her father gestured to the big guy who stood belatedly (that much she remembered from that morning’s Etiquette 101) and a little clumsily.
“Alex,” the Detective offered his hand, and his chair, his eyes aimed at the floor for most of the greeting.
Alex took his hand, her eyebrows still knitted together, “Call me Al . . .,” she began out of habit of insisting on being called Alex then stopped, realizing he already had. Huh.
But her mind was already going in another direction altogether, “Wait a minute – detective?”
“I, I’m not here to get in your way,” Goren began.
“Well that’s fine, but get in my way how?” she insisted, looking at Richard warily.
Her father stood, “It’s because of the nature of the thing.”
“The nature of what thing, how?” Now her father was being cagey, which was never a good sign. Neither was the ominous folder in the detective’s grip.
Bobby stood also, but had the good sense to stay out of it for the time being. This is what he had been afraid of – Alex had been kept out of the loop and now she was being thrust into yet another foreign situation. Now she was openly hostile to her father . . . and to him.
“If I could, ah, interrupt,” Goren forced himself into the middle of the standoff – a role he was used to.
“What?” she whipped around on him.
Bobby tilted his head and gave her dubious look. He didn’t mind being the interim scapegoat for the anger that was inevitably to come out of such an adjustment, but this would get them nowhere and Alex seemed to come to the same conclusion.
“Sorry,” she quickly amended.
Goren shook his head, “Fine. I see we have . . . a lot to cover, do you mind if we take this,” he gestured with the folder and Alex’s eyes followed it, “elsewhere?” He’d purposefully not asked her father for permission; instead spoke directly to her, moving to let her through the doorway first.
“Fine,” she agreed tersely. She knew she was acting the part of the petulant child, but if she was going to be treated her like one, what kind of reaction did they expect? She strode down the hallway, trying her best to ignore the gawker-lined hallways that seemed to be a fixture in her life now and allowed herself be led toward one of the smaller conference rooms.
She chose to concentrate on the sound their shoes made echoing off the walls. Alex glanced out of the corner of her eye, studying the man as he shortened his strides to fall in step with her. “What’s in the folder?” She nodded to the manila in his grip.
Now it was his turn to look confused as he followed her gaze, seemingly having forgotten he carried it with him. “Oh, um,” Goren stalled, not really wanting to start this conversation in the hallway, “Ah . . . you,” he finally settled on the truth.
Alex visibly jerked. His answer may not have been a great one, but it effectively shut her up for the rest of the trip.
They entered the conference room she vaguely remembered having a meeting in that morning. Her orphaned New York Times on the table, folded open to the crossword, confirmed it. She had brought it with her, thinking she’d have time to kill. She had been wrong. Alex watched as the detective picked it up like he was familiar with it.
“Boomtown.”
“What?” She was getting sick of playing catch-up with this guy.
Goren looked up, like he hadn’t realized he’d said it aloud. He licked his lips and danced a little agitatedly, “Thirty-five Across, Fast-growing community, eight letters. The, the answer’s Boomtown,” he gestured with his hands.
Alex’s eyebrows finally unknitted from the previous room, but only because they now shot up in the air. This was surreal. And jeez, he stuttered a lot. If this all turns out okay, he’ll prove to be the most competent incompetent she’d ever met.
“Oh. You do the crossword?” He hadn’t answered in a conceited way and she couldn’t fault him for knowing the answers just by glancing at it. Meanwhile Alex had to stare at it like a monkey doing a math problem.
He nodded, “When I have the time, yeah. I’m surprised to find The New York Times here. I couldn’t find it at the airport.”
Alex circled around the table, “This country is suspicious of anything that wasn’t discovered, invented, or grown here. I have to get it smuggled in. Though I’m sure that’s in your file,” she nodded to the little slip of manila in his hand that apparently held her life story. Why the hell’s it so thin? “Along with me,” she added when he wasn’t instantly forthcoming with information.
“I don’t know how much your father or anyone’s told you . . . about the threats against your life. I’m led to believe not a lot.”
Alex’s face visibly paled, “You’d be right.” Her hand felt to her right and gripped the back of a chair, but fought the urge to lower herself into it.
“There’s been threats made on you life, Alex – real threats. Now, some turmoil is to be expected in this type of situation.”
So she was a ‘type’ she thought.
As he talked, he reached into the folder, deliberately taking out one letter at a time, lining them in a row on the table. “You’re being brought in from the outside. Now . . . now, some of these are pretty flimsy – designed to just ruffle a few feathers. But some of these could be very serious.”
Alex watched as the row became longer and longer. She wanted to yell out, “Stop” – to grab his arm and throw the pages away, but she didn’t.
“That’s what I’ve been brought here for – to protect you and weed out the likely suspects, and hopefully bring them out into the open before any real attempt is made on your life and preferably before your coronation.”
Stammered, Alex mentally corrected herself. He stammered, not stuttered. She continued her delicate, shaky trek around the table, blindly picking up letters and email printouts, fighting the bile that rose in her throat over the horrible words and pictures that littered them. Alex’s focus was blurred and she couldn’t read what was on the page in front of her. She steeled herself under his studious gaze – she could feel his eyes burning onto her face, watching for any and every reaction.
“Well, what do you think?” Alex didn’t normally seek out others’ opinion on her life, but he seemed to be some kind of an expert, and she needed to buy some time to allow some things to sink in.
Bobby jerked a little at her question, probably surprised she wasn’t getting hysterical. “I don’t want to alienate you out of this. We should be a team.” Bobby ducked his head, trying to catch her eyes as she was staring into space with an expression that worried him, partly because he couldn’t read it. “That is if . . . if you want to be. What do you think?”
“Well,” she breathed, “I knew I wasn’t going to be popular in some circles, but this is ridiculous.”
He looked shocked, suspended in midair. It was a beat before somebody cut the strings that held his limbs all at once, “Oh, humor, I get it.” But neither of them relaxed. And he was still waiting for her answer.
“Do you always carry that?” she nodded just to the right of him. He followed her gaze to the gun at his hip. She hadn’t been staring unfocusedly at all, quite focused in fact.
“Ah, yeah,” he answered confusedly. She nodded at his answer. “And you?” he ventured again. “Um . . . what do you think?”
She raised her chin, met his eyes dead on, and spoke with the authority that finally hinted to him why these people wanted her for their queen, “I think you’re going to teach me how to shoot.”
TBC
CI: Take Me Anywhere Chapter One
TITLE: Take Me Anywhere
Summary: Alexandra Eames never wanted to be a princess. She wanted to play and climb and jump and throw with the boys -- and for thirty-two years she had. Now a country which she had never really identified with as her own, have risen up to demand her as their figurehead. BA and VERY NON-CANON
A/N: I don’t know how this one’s going to fly, but it’s something that won’t get out of my head. Their characters are very similar to how we know them, just in a different element. Its Criminal Intent meets Princess Diaries meets Chasing Liberty – so if you’re not into the BA romance, look elsewhere.
Chapter One – Big Girls Don’t Cry
A small, yet noteworthy country somewhere in Europe; Today . . .
“You have got to be kidding me,” the petite woman insisted, her voice breaking though her anger was evident. “You promised me,” she hissed, pointing her finger accusingly. “You promised this would Never. Happen.”
“I know,” her father responded regretfully, not being able to meet his daughter’s eyes despite his tough exterior. “Alexandra,” he pleaded.
“Alex,” she corrected distractedly out of habit, her palm went to her forehead and she began pacing, her steps echoing off the vast walls of the ballroom they stood in. Technically, it was a “conference room” but the former term, by normal standards, could apply.
“Alex,” he placated, “I cannot change what the people demand. And they demand you. You should be flattered,” he made a futile attempted to put a positive spin on the situation.
“Flattered!? This is my life, dad! I was NOT raised for this! I was raised for the opposite of this! Do you know what this means?” she opened her hands in entreaty, using her whole body in an attempt to communicate with him. “Of course you know what this means,” she chastised herself, “but so do I. I’m not naive. The majority of the country may want to see me in a dress and a crown, but a minority, which is an awful lot of people, demand otherwise. I’ll have the rightful heirs, a large and powerful family, out for my head!”
Richard Eames studied his headstrong daughter. Even now, she was a sight. Wearing jeans, a t-shirt, and sneakers she did not fit with her surroundings – the grand (Alex would say ‘gaudy’) conference room. Her blue t-shirt clashed harshly against the gold walls and shimmering ceiling fixtures. She’d never know how much it hurt him to do this to her – how much it broke his heart to tell her the news that would pull her into this other world against her will, utterly on her own and at the mercy of strangers.
“You don’t have to do this,” he conceded quietly.
Alex spun to face him and gave him a doubtful look, “If I don’t, the Wallace family falls into line, the country will fall apart, and everyone will blame me,” she thrust a hand at her chest. Alex closed her eyes and attempted a cleansing breath. The smell of majesty hung over the place like a death shroud and she choked on the heavy air.
When Alex woke up this morning, she thought all that was on her schedule for the day was her morning coffee (tons of sugar) while pouring over her imported New York Times. Maybe she’d even attempt the crossword. She never risen to Will Shortz’s challenge when she lived in his city for most of her life, but now that she had returned to her European birthplace to spend time with her dad at his request, the urge to have a crack at the puzzle had overtaken her.
She was only on fourteen across -- “modern business equipment,” seven letters -- and welcomed the interruption of the ringing telephone. On the other end was an over-polite woman informing her she was requested to “have an audience with her father” at noon at the palace. Alex was willing to do a lot of things for her father, stepping onto the high-and-mighty grounds of royalty was not one of them. Why in the world didn’t he just call and tell her what he wanted? When she suggested this idea to the woman on the phone, she was given a polite version of “screw you” and hung up on.
Alex sighed. When she had agreed to come back to spend her summer vacation off from her job as an elementary school teacher with him, her father had given her a cryptic response of “maybe you’ll find a job here.” What Alex at the time thought was a father’s hopefulness to be near his daughter was now known to be a foreshadowing. Which explained why every time Alex suggested him moving to New York (his birthplace); she got a shake of the head.
Since birth she had avoided the ballrooms and the palace grounds in general, if she could help it. She supposed that as a kid she should’ve liked the large estate and all the open grass, all the mazelike hedges, but she hadn’t. She much preferred the tree house in the backyard of the simple home off the palace grounds that she and her father had shared and playing with the neighborhood kids in the adjoining town where she went to public school. She knew people in the palace looked down on her, even as a child when she didn’t know the full circumstances, she could feel their disapproving stares -- that she was tracking her bastard mud into their pristine world – a reminder that their precious Queen had felt the need to go slumming with her own bodyguard and had chosen to bear the child instead of quietly getting rid of it, the option the staff and general public found more palpable.
Alex’s father had had an affair with the Queen, who was supposed to have been in mourning for her late husband, the King. At the time, the staff had looked the other way, deciding the Queen deserved some happiness, having lost her husband and left with a country to run and a young son to raise. That was, until she became pregnant with Alex. A little misdemeanor suddenly became a national felony.
Richard was quickly demoted to bodyguard for the young Prince Michael, the Queen’s legitimate child, and the Queen had spent the duration of the pregnancy in hiding, not making a single public appearance. Upon her daughter’s birth, Alex’s mother had been given the choice of kin or country and she chose the latter. Richard had more or less raised Alex as a single parent. She had a happy childhood regardless. Not one of anonymity, as her father’s affair with her mother was a nationwide scandal. Her mother had tried to reach out a little, but Alex had gone away to the United States where she had duel citizenship, to go to school and live with her father’s family.
But, as the castle was her father’s place of business as bodyguard to the Prince, entering its sacred grounds couldn’t always be prevented. As the guard to Prince Michael since before the young heir could walk, Richard Eames was to naturally rise to the place of bodyguard to King Michael one day – but that would never be. Michael had tragically died of cancer mere weeks ago, which had been followed, even more unfortunately by the death of the Queen (and consequently Alex’s estranged mother) days later by a stroke. Alex had mourned their deaths, but not as half-sister and daughter, and not as dedicated supporter, but the kind of mourning of a distant relation. She hadn’t spoken to either of them much at all in her entire life.
Michael had been so youthful, even during the illness, and only a couple years older than Alex’s thirty-two. No one believed he would ever die before having a son or daughter of his own. His wife, filled with grief and overwhelmed by the pressure, had vanished. The whole country mourned. The line of succession had been abruptly snuffed out. They looked to a leader and they had chosen Alex, the Queen’s only other offspring, by popular consent and, hours ago, officially by Parliament. Alexandra would either agree to give up her status as a normal citizen or the line of succession would fall to the Queen’s mother’s side, the Wallace’s. And a dubious side of the family it was.
“You’re life will have to change,” Richard Eames spoke finally. “I wish it didn’t, but I have no power to change that.”
“And I don’t either?”
Alexandra Elizabeth Eames never wanted to be a princess. She wanted to play and climb and jump and throw with the boys, and for thirty-two years she had. Now a country which she had never really identified as her own, have risen up to demand her as their figurehead -- the same country that had branded her a bastard upon birth, the product of an affair when her mother, the Queen, had an affair with her bodyguard, the man that stood before her now.
Alex knew, in the back of her mind despite how far she forced it, that this might be a possibility some day, that her parentage might come back to haunt her, that she might someday be called upon to aid her mother’s native country. As hard as she tried to leave it behind her, when Alex was in America, she couldn’t help but scan the newspapers for the name of her native country.
“I don’t look like these people. I don’t talk like these people,” she offered piteously.
“You’ll learn,” her father assured her, a smile tugging at the corner of his mouth.
“An English accent?” she kidded.
Richard smiled at his daughter’s characteristic humor. He put his arm around his daughter, “Well, maybe not the accent. I’m afraid you and I will never be true residents, will we?” He led them towards the door. Before she exited, his expression turned serious and he moved her shoulders to face him, look him in the eyes. “You’re going to be hearing this a lot from me in the upcoming months, but I want you to know that I mean it now. You will make a great Queen, Alex. I knew you always would. I recognized you as the Princess you were – even if the rest of the country took a little longer.”
Allowing his daughter to be whisked away to make her decision official, Richard entered his office that resided off of a side hallway. He heaved a great sigh as he flopped down into his chair. Well, it was over. He had broken the news to Alex and she had taken it with dignity. He was filled with pride for his daughter and beloved adopted country. But his thoughts quickly sobered. Nothing was really over. It’s really only just begun.
“Richard,” Tom, who had been the bodyguard to the Queen until her death, greeted as he entered. “I just heard the news. Congratulations are in order, I suppose.”
Richard shook his head, “I didn’t do anything. It was Alex’s decision.”
Tom shrugged, “Congratulations all the same. It’s about time Alex was recognized. But this leaves us very little time. There’s going to have to be some arrangements made. A bodyguard for instance. You could be a conflict of interest and I’m only staying on long enough to get things settled. I could suggest a few men and women we’ve been training, but I don’t have to tell you that this is a delicate situation. I don’t think Alexandra has the full grasp of just how much danger she could be in.”
Richard stood, shaking his head, “I’ve already found the guy,” he plopped a folder down onto the desk between them.
Tom picked it up, looking doubtful he flipped through. “Robert O. Goren,” he recited. “Wait, Goren? The guy who jumps off buildings?” his speaking earned him a glare and he quickly corrected himself. “But . . . he is not one of us,” he ventured. “He’s American.”
Eames nodded, “So is Alex, really. She might feel more comfortable with someone she more identifies with.”
Tom continued to peruse the folder. “I don’t think anyone could identify with any part of this guy,” he commented offhandedly. He snapped the folder closed and looked up at Richard incredulously, “He knows five languages.”
Richard ignored him, “We bring someone in from the outside, we know he will not be aligned with anyone but us,” he reasoned.
“Or he could be bought off by the other side,” Tom threw out.
Eames shook his head, smiling excitedly, “Not this guy.”
Tom made a last ditch effort to persuade his colleague, “Isn’t he a little . . . unconventional?”
Richard Eames sat back in his chair, “These are unconventional times, Tom. And Alexandra is an unconventional princess.”
TBC
A/N: Will Shortz is the editor of the NYTimes’ notoriously difficult crossword puzzle.
Summary: Alexandra Eames never wanted to be a princess. She wanted to play and climb and jump and throw with the boys -- and for thirty-two years she had. Now a country which she had never really identified with as her own, have risen up to demand her as their figurehead. BA and VERY NON-CANON
A/N: I don’t know how this one’s going to fly, but it’s something that won’t get out of my head. Their characters are very similar to how we know them, just in a different element. Its Criminal Intent meets Princess Diaries meets Chasing Liberty – so if you’re not into the BA romance, look elsewhere.
Chapter One – Big Girls Don’t Cry
A small, yet noteworthy country somewhere in Europe; Today . . .
“You have got to be kidding me,” the petite woman insisted, her voice breaking though her anger was evident. “You promised me,” she hissed, pointing her finger accusingly. “You promised this would Never. Happen.”
“I know,” her father responded regretfully, not being able to meet his daughter’s eyes despite his tough exterior. “Alexandra,” he pleaded.
“Alex,” she corrected distractedly out of habit, her palm went to her forehead and she began pacing, her steps echoing off the vast walls of the ballroom they stood in. Technically, it was a “conference room” but the former term, by normal standards, could apply.
“Alex,” he placated, “I cannot change what the people demand. And they demand you. You should be flattered,” he made a futile attempted to put a positive spin on the situation.
“Flattered!? This is my life, dad! I was NOT raised for this! I was raised for the opposite of this! Do you know what this means?” she opened her hands in entreaty, using her whole body in an attempt to communicate with him. “Of course you know what this means,” she chastised herself, “but so do I. I’m not naive. The majority of the country may want to see me in a dress and a crown, but a minority, which is an awful lot of people, demand otherwise. I’ll have the rightful heirs, a large and powerful family, out for my head!”
Richard Eames studied his headstrong daughter. Even now, she was a sight. Wearing jeans, a t-shirt, and sneakers she did not fit with her surroundings – the grand (Alex would say ‘gaudy’) conference room. Her blue t-shirt clashed harshly against the gold walls and shimmering ceiling fixtures. She’d never know how much it hurt him to do this to her – how much it broke his heart to tell her the news that would pull her into this other world against her will, utterly on her own and at the mercy of strangers.
“You don’t have to do this,” he conceded quietly.
Alex spun to face him and gave him a doubtful look, “If I don’t, the Wallace family falls into line, the country will fall apart, and everyone will blame me,” she thrust a hand at her chest. Alex closed her eyes and attempted a cleansing breath. The smell of majesty hung over the place like a death shroud and she choked on the heavy air.
When Alex woke up this morning, she thought all that was on her schedule for the day was her morning coffee (tons of sugar) while pouring over her imported New York Times. Maybe she’d even attempt the crossword. She never risen to Will Shortz’s challenge when she lived in his city for most of her life, but now that she had returned to her European birthplace to spend time with her dad at his request, the urge to have a crack at the puzzle had overtaken her.
She was only on fourteen across -- “modern business equipment,” seven letters -- and welcomed the interruption of the ringing telephone. On the other end was an over-polite woman informing her she was requested to “have an audience with her father” at noon at the palace. Alex was willing to do a lot of things for her father, stepping onto the high-and-mighty grounds of royalty was not one of them. Why in the world didn’t he just call and tell her what he wanted? When she suggested this idea to the woman on the phone, she was given a polite version of “screw you” and hung up on.
Alex sighed. When she had agreed to come back to spend her summer vacation off from her job as an elementary school teacher with him, her father had given her a cryptic response of “maybe you’ll find a job here.” What Alex at the time thought was a father’s hopefulness to be near his daughter was now known to be a foreshadowing. Which explained why every time Alex suggested him moving to New York (his birthplace); she got a shake of the head.
Since birth she had avoided the ballrooms and the palace grounds in general, if she could help it. She supposed that as a kid she should’ve liked the large estate and all the open grass, all the mazelike hedges, but she hadn’t. She much preferred the tree house in the backyard of the simple home off the palace grounds that she and her father had shared and playing with the neighborhood kids in the adjoining town where she went to public school. She knew people in the palace looked down on her, even as a child when she didn’t know the full circumstances, she could feel their disapproving stares -- that she was tracking her bastard mud into their pristine world – a reminder that their precious Queen had felt the need to go slumming with her own bodyguard and had chosen to bear the child instead of quietly getting rid of it, the option the staff and general public found more palpable.
Alex’s father had had an affair with the Queen, who was supposed to have been in mourning for her late husband, the King. At the time, the staff had looked the other way, deciding the Queen deserved some happiness, having lost her husband and left with a country to run and a young son to raise. That was, until she became pregnant with Alex. A little misdemeanor suddenly became a national felony.
Richard was quickly demoted to bodyguard for the young Prince Michael, the Queen’s legitimate child, and the Queen had spent the duration of the pregnancy in hiding, not making a single public appearance. Upon her daughter’s birth, Alex’s mother had been given the choice of kin or country and she chose the latter. Richard had more or less raised Alex as a single parent. She had a happy childhood regardless. Not one of anonymity, as her father’s affair with her mother was a nationwide scandal. Her mother had tried to reach out a little, but Alex had gone away to the United States where she had duel citizenship, to go to school and live with her father’s family.
But, as the castle was her father’s place of business as bodyguard to the Prince, entering its sacred grounds couldn’t always be prevented. As the guard to Prince Michael since before the young heir could walk, Richard Eames was to naturally rise to the place of bodyguard to King Michael one day – but that would never be. Michael had tragically died of cancer mere weeks ago, which had been followed, even more unfortunately by the death of the Queen (and consequently Alex’s estranged mother) days later by a stroke. Alex had mourned their deaths, but not as half-sister and daughter, and not as dedicated supporter, but the kind of mourning of a distant relation. She hadn’t spoken to either of them much at all in her entire life.
Michael had been so youthful, even during the illness, and only a couple years older than Alex’s thirty-two. No one believed he would ever die before having a son or daughter of his own. His wife, filled with grief and overwhelmed by the pressure, had vanished. The whole country mourned. The line of succession had been abruptly snuffed out. They looked to a leader and they had chosen Alex, the Queen’s only other offspring, by popular consent and, hours ago, officially by Parliament. Alexandra would either agree to give up her status as a normal citizen or the line of succession would fall to the Queen’s mother’s side, the Wallace’s. And a dubious side of the family it was.
“You’re life will have to change,” Richard Eames spoke finally. “I wish it didn’t, but I have no power to change that.”
“And I don’t either?”
Alexandra Elizabeth Eames never wanted to be a princess. She wanted to play and climb and jump and throw with the boys, and for thirty-two years she had. Now a country which she had never really identified as her own, have risen up to demand her as their figurehead -- the same country that had branded her a bastard upon birth, the product of an affair when her mother, the Queen, had an affair with her bodyguard, the man that stood before her now.
Alex knew, in the back of her mind despite how far she forced it, that this might be a possibility some day, that her parentage might come back to haunt her, that she might someday be called upon to aid her mother’s native country. As hard as she tried to leave it behind her, when Alex was in America, she couldn’t help but scan the newspapers for the name of her native country.
“I don’t look like these people. I don’t talk like these people,” she offered piteously.
“You’ll learn,” her father assured her, a smile tugging at the corner of his mouth.
“An English accent?” she kidded.
Richard smiled at his daughter’s characteristic humor. He put his arm around his daughter, “Well, maybe not the accent. I’m afraid you and I will never be true residents, will we?” He led them towards the door. Before she exited, his expression turned serious and he moved her shoulders to face him, look him in the eyes. “You’re going to be hearing this a lot from me in the upcoming months, but I want you to know that I mean it now. You will make a great Queen, Alex. I knew you always would. I recognized you as the Princess you were – even if the rest of the country took a little longer.”
Allowing his daughter to be whisked away to make her decision official, Richard entered his office that resided off of a side hallway. He heaved a great sigh as he flopped down into his chair. Well, it was over. He had broken the news to Alex and she had taken it with dignity. He was filled with pride for his daughter and beloved adopted country. But his thoughts quickly sobered. Nothing was really over. It’s really only just begun.
“Richard,” Tom, who had been the bodyguard to the Queen until her death, greeted as he entered. “I just heard the news. Congratulations are in order, I suppose.”
Richard shook his head, “I didn’t do anything. It was Alex’s decision.”
Tom shrugged, “Congratulations all the same. It’s about time Alex was recognized. But this leaves us very little time. There’s going to have to be some arrangements made. A bodyguard for instance. You could be a conflict of interest and I’m only staying on long enough to get things settled. I could suggest a few men and women we’ve been training, but I don’t have to tell you that this is a delicate situation. I don’t think Alexandra has the full grasp of just how much danger she could be in.”
Richard stood, shaking his head, “I’ve already found the guy,” he plopped a folder down onto the desk between them.
Tom picked it up, looking doubtful he flipped through. “Robert O. Goren,” he recited. “Wait, Goren? The guy who jumps off buildings?” his speaking earned him a glare and he quickly corrected himself. “But . . . he is not one of us,” he ventured. “He’s American.”
Eames nodded, “So is Alex, really. She might feel more comfortable with someone she more identifies with.”
Tom continued to peruse the folder. “I don’t think anyone could identify with any part of this guy,” he commented offhandedly. He snapped the folder closed and looked up at Richard incredulously, “He knows five languages.”
Richard ignored him, “We bring someone in from the outside, we know he will not be aligned with anyone but us,” he reasoned.
“Or he could be bought off by the other side,” Tom threw out.
Eames shook his head, smiling excitedly, “Not this guy.”
Tom made a last ditch effort to persuade his colleague, “Isn’t he a little . . . unconventional?”
Richard Eames sat back in his chair, “These are unconventional times, Tom. And Alexandra is an unconventional princess.”
TBC
A/N: Will Shortz is the editor of the NYTimes’ notoriously difficult crossword puzzle.
CI: Overprotected Chapter One
Author: rebel diamonds
Title: Overprotected
Rating: PG
Summary: Future Fic. Emma Jane Goren recounts how everyone found out about her, with a little help from her parents’ favorite psychopath.
Emma Jane Goren-Eames could say a lot about growing up with two cops for parents. Of course there existed the same old “look both ways before crossing the street” and “never talk to strangers” but there was also an underlining awareness of something more, a bigger threat that was never talked about but could be seen in the looks between her parents.
To say her father and mother were cautious would have been a grave understatement. With all they’d seen, it was inevitable – the random young women and children that were in the wrong place at the wrong time. They tried so hard to keep her out of harm, but always with the knowledge that no matter how hard they struggled, so much of it was still out of their hands. Emma wasn’t aware of the countless hours her parents spent lying awake at night, staring at the ceiling, worrying about her.
Consequently, her conception was not a planned one. Emma’s parents had managed to keep their personal relationship secret so as to not be split up. Her father was, to be honest, impossible to work with and her mother had been the only one in a long line of partners to get him to trust her. It had been dicey for a while, and her mother had almost not made it and had put in for a transfer, a touchy subject then, but now years later it was a fact her father liked to hold over her mother’s head and playfully taunt her with it. She joked it wasn’t too late to retract the retraction. All this statement ever earned her was a smile and a kiss.
His inability to function with anyone else did not bode well for him or the NYPD. Everyone knew of his monumental meltdown the last time she left him to go on maternity leave. If people found out exactly whose baby she was carrying this time, his new partner reassignment was going be permanent. So, late at night, talking quietly in bed, the mutual decision was reached to keep the pregnancy a secret for now, something her mother was slightly less at ease with than her boundary-pushing father.
So with a few strategic changes in her mother’s wardrobe, effectively hiding the early pregnancy, mum was the word. Her family didn’t even know. So successful were they in fact, while she was still in the womb Emma had managed to become central in quite the drama – one her mother didn’t talk about, even over a decade after the fact.
So the worrying had begun early.
It had started with a woman named Nicole Wallace. This information, of course, she got from her father, who was much more honest and forthcoming with information her mother deemed too upsetting for their daughter. Her mother had all out forbid the utterance of the ‘N’ name in their home after this particular incident. Her father reasoned that Emma could look up the case reports and newspaper stories someday, so wouldn’t it be better coming from them anyway?
This Nicole character had been something of an arch nemesis of her father’s, his professional intrigue in her rivaled only by her mother’s distaste.
Over the years Nicole’s sickness had only escaladed, as had her slipperiness when it came to the justice system. Emma’s parents had had yet another run in with this woman and were trying to pin her for several deaths of children in the area.
It all started, as do most infamous stories regarding her father, in the interrogation room. It had escalated to the point where both her parents were ranting at this woman, laying out her crimes, the children she’d killed, throwing pictorial evidence onto the table in front of her. Unlike the many other times they had run into Nicole, her mother was more involved in the case then ever before, as the victims were infants of parents who had trouble conceiving, her surrogacy and current secretly delicate situation foremost in her mind.
Alex leaned on the table over the woman in question, “Six children, Nicole, babies. You killed them and left them for their mothers to find,” she stated angrily.
Nicole was calm, “Maybe they were neglectful mothers. Maybe their children were better without them.”
“That wasn’t for you to decide!” Eames railed.
Nicole retracted in surprise at Eames’ invasion of her personal space. She considered the detective for a moment. “Speaking of mothers,” Nicole dragged her gaze to Goren, as she usually did when the talk turned to mothers, “you better tell your partner to calm down Bobby. That rising blood pressure can’t be good for the baby.” She leaned back to observe them both.
Bobby kept his body lax, “What?” he asked as he managed to hide the shock and anger that welled up inside him; but Alex startled noticeably, her arm twitching to grab at her stomach protectively. How could she possibly know that?
For the past hour they had gruelingly questioned Nicole, and with that little bomb she had managed to change the entire dynamics of the room and, taking into account the Captain and numerous other people of law enforcement and the justice system on the other side of the two-way mirror, most likely their lives.
Nicole smiled in satisfaction. “Woman’s intuition,” she answered the unspoken question. She leaned conspiratorially across the table to Alex, placing her hand on top of hers, “But thank you for confirming it. Who are the lucky parents of this egg detective?”
Eames wretched her hand from under Nicole’s trying not to look shaken. She could deny it, but it would take the focus away from Nicole. Silence permeated the room. Alex internally chastised herself – why had she grabbed at her stomach, what else had she done to give it away? She couldn’t help her natural protectiveness; it was their baby, their one and only shot at bringing a child of their own into this world. Alex and Bobby ignored her line of questioning and both took a deep breath, trying to gain composure and control over the situation. On the exhale, they instinctually met each other’s eyes across the room.
Nicole, who had been watching them the whole time, had a realization, “Oh my God,” she slid back in her chair, her arm snaking over the back. A flicker of puzzlement crossed the detectives’ faces at Nicole’s stunned expression. “Well,” she breathed, looking at the floor before gaining her composure. She lifted her chin, “Congratulations are in order, Bobby. How’s the proud papa holding up? I’m sorry I forgot a cigar.”
“Now why would you think that, Nicole?” he asked. There was no way she could figure that out from a glance.
She ignored the question, “Will you name her after me, Bobby?” If the earlier divulgence had failed to stir him, the disclosure of the fetus’ sex succeeded. No one, absolutely no one knew the results of the ultrasound except for the three people that were present – Alex, the doctor, and himself. “Don’t blame yourselves detectives,” she continued. “You two are always glancing at each other; these were just a bit more telling. As for the gender, I had a fifty-fifty chance.”
Yeah, guess my ass, Alex thought. Granted, Nicole was possibly one of the only people able to rival Bobby’s observant deductive skills, but still. She knew. Somehow, someway, she knew.
“I admit I was wrong Bobby. I said people like you and I weren’t meant to have children. Apparently I was wrong. Though, you did tell me not to count you out just yet,” her eyes raked over Eames’ torso. Alex could feel the yogurt she had eaten earlier rise towards her throat. “I just didn’t know you already had someone in mind.” Nicole turned her eyes directly to the two-way mirror, effectively meeting the eyes of Captain Ross, who Eames could swear she could hear fuming over the discloser.
Goren moved to say something, but abruptly stopped. Something clicked in his head, Alex saw it when he shook his finger and he visibly paled. Just as suddenly, Bobby stormed out of the room, making no attempt to hide the fact he was marching into the room opposite the two-way mirror.
Ross and the DA stood speechless waiting for him when he entered. “Dr. Michelle Winland. Her office is 1445 East 32th Street,” Bobby announced.
“What is this detective?” the DA asked. Ross hovered over Bobby’s shoulder, keen to question him on another subject.
“That’s it, that’s the connection; all those parents were treated at Winland’s office at one time or another. Nicole was there. That’s how . . . she knew. Look, if you ask the employees there they’re going to describe someone matching Nicole’s description.”
When Ross made quick work of sending officers out to follow the lead, Goren slipped out of the room with them, forcing the captain to hold his tongue on the pregnancy issue. He tried to control his anger and turned back to the mirror.
Nicole was spitting poison at Eames, “Aren’t you worried about passing on his mother’s disease? These things are genetic, you know.” Bobby reentered the room. “But you know that.” She was met with silence. She looked back and forth between the two of them. A slow smile crept to her lips, “Ohhhh, so this wasn’t planned?” She clucked her tongue, shaking her head slowly. “Naughty, naughty, Bobby, bringing a bastard into the world.”
Alex almost didn’t get there in time to stop him as he launched himself across the table at her. Alex’s sharp “Bobby!” echoed off the walls, stopping him short.
“Just shut up, Nicole. Just the hell shut up,” he growled. They actually through he might kill her and judging by how startled Nicole was at his outburst, she thought so too.
The Captain must have thought enough was enough because he appeared in the doorway instantly. “Both of you, get in here . . . NOW.” The were led to the next room, Bobby jerking his arm away from the hand Ross had placed on him. The captain took a minute to look over his detectives. Goren was visibly shaken and so was Eames, he could see it behind her eyes. They didn’t look at each other. Ross kept his voice calm, “Is it true?” he asked. Neither of them said anything. “Are these allegations true?” this time more insistently. “Detectives,” he ground out.
Bobby spoke up, “Yes . . . Yes,” he repeated, his voice louder, stronger. Granted, they did not want the news to come out this way, but there was nothing to be ashamed of -- they were adults in a mature, committed relationship. Their personal life was none of Ross’ business until the pregnancy would affect Eames’ ability to perform her job and that wouldn’t be for months. “It’s true.”
Ross looked over at Eames, “You’re pregnant,” he stated.
She lifted her chin and met his eyes, “Yes.”
He nodded towards Bobby, “With his child.” Eames answered in the positive. “And Dr. Winland?”
She’s the ob/gyn who performed the ultrasound,” Eames replied. She pointed at Nicole, “She good, but she’s not that good. The only way she could have known I’m pregnant is if she was in that office.”
Ross nodded, comprehending the consequences of these new facts. “I want you both off this case,” he stated finally. If Goren had been aggravated before, it couldn’t be compared to the objection that rose inside him now. But Ross cut him off, “Neither of you can look at this case objectively.” He continued, “And I want you both out of here until Monday morning then I want you in my office. Don’t think this is over.” Goren took a step forward, but Ross held up his hand, “We’ll discuss this on Monday. Don’t make me have officers forcibly escort you out of here detective,” he warned, aware of the cops, who had no love loss for Goren, who lingered at the doorway. “Both of you, go home.”
“But Nicole . . .”
“Is going to lawyer up and will be in the capable hands of Logan and Wheeler. Go. Home.” Ross swept out of the room, letting the door close behind him.
Bobby and Alex turned towards each other, now alone together in the room. The moment was bittersweet – they both knew this was the end of their secret -- the moment between them was even more fleeting than they thought. She looked so dazed, they both were. With all that had transpired in such a small amount of time, their professional and personal lives irrevocably changed. Bobby’s fingers twitched at his side, wanting to reach out and touch her, common sense telling him they were in their place of business stopped him. To hell with it, he thought, everyone’s going to know in a few hours anyway. He reached his hand towards her.
“Bobby,” she breathed, as if she had been waiting for it. He pulled her into his arms and into his chest. They stood there like that for minutes, composing themselves, giving each other strength until Alex quietly suggested that they better get out of there. They quietly gathered their things from their desk and left, holding hands when they reached the street.
Late that night, hours after they should have been asleep, they lay in bed together, staring into the darkness. Her strong voice rung out in the darkness, “I will not let her ruin this for me.”
He shook his head, gathering her closer and burying his nose in her hair. This always made her smile. She learned early in their relationship, though he had initially tried to hide it from her -- his smelling obsession did not stop at the crime scene.
She clutched at him harder, startling him, “Lie to me,” she whispered in the dark, “Tell me everything will be okay. Tomorrow, and Monday, and the next day, and the next year. Lie to me.”
He kissed her temple softly, “Everything will be okay,” he spoke into her skin. “And I’m not lying. I promise.”
TBC
Title: Overprotected
Rating: PG
Summary: Future Fic. Emma Jane Goren recounts how everyone found out about her, with a little help from her parents’ favorite psychopath.
Emma Jane Goren-Eames could say a lot about growing up with two cops for parents. Of course there existed the same old “look both ways before crossing the street” and “never talk to strangers” but there was also an underlining awareness of something more, a bigger threat that was never talked about but could be seen in the looks between her parents.
To say her father and mother were cautious would have been a grave understatement. With all they’d seen, it was inevitable – the random young women and children that were in the wrong place at the wrong time. They tried so hard to keep her out of harm, but always with the knowledge that no matter how hard they struggled, so much of it was still out of their hands. Emma wasn’t aware of the countless hours her parents spent lying awake at night, staring at the ceiling, worrying about her.
Consequently, her conception was not a planned one. Emma’s parents had managed to keep their personal relationship secret so as to not be split up. Her father was, to be honest, impossible to work with and her mother had been the only one in a long line of partners to get him to trust her. It had been dicey for a while, and her mother had almost not made it and had put in for a transfer, a touchy subject then, but now years later it was a fact her father liked to hold over her mother’s head and playfully taunt her with it. She joked it wasn’t too late to retract the retraction. All this statement ever earned her was a smile and a kiss.
His inability to function with anyone else did not bode well for him or the NYPD. Everyone knew of his monumental meltdown the last time she left him to go on maternity leave. If people found out exactly whose baby she was carrying this time, his new partner reassignment was going be permanent. So, late at night, talking quietly in bed, the mutual decision was reached to keep the pregnancy a secret for now, something her mother was slightly less at ease with than her boundary-pushing father.
So with a few strategic changes in her mother’s wardrobe, effectively hiding the early pregnancy, mum was the word. Her family didn’t even know. So successful were they in fact, while she was still in the womb Emma had managed to become central in quite the drama – one her mother didn’t talk about, even over a decade after the fact.
So the worrying had begun early.
It had started with a woman named Nicole Wallace. This information, of course, she got from her father, who was much more honest and forthcoming with information her mother deemed too upsetting for their daughter. Her mother had all out forbid the utterance of the ‘N’ name in their home after this particular incident. Her father reasoned that Emma could look up the case reports and newspaper stories someday, so wouldn’t it be better coming from them anyway?
This Nicole character had been something of an arch nemesis of her father’s, his professional intrigue in her rivaled only by her mother’s distaste.
Over the years Nicole’s sickness had only escaladed, as had her slipperiness when it came to the justice system. Emma’s parents had had yet another run in with this woman and were trying to pin her for several deaths of children in the area.
It all started, as do most infamous stories regarding her father, in the interrogation room. It had escalated to the point where both her parents were ranting at this woman, laying out her crimes, the children she’d killed, throwing pictorial evidence onto the table in front of her. Unlike the many other times they had run into Nicole, her mother was more involved in the case then ever before, as the victims were infants of parents who had trouble conceiving, her surrogacy and current secretly delicate situation foremost in her mind.
Alex leaned on the table over the woman in question, “Six children, Nicole, babies. You killed them and left them for their mothers to find,” she stated angrily.
Nicole was calm, “Maybe they were neglectful mothers. Maybe their children were better without them.”
“That wasn’t for you to decide!” Eames railed.
Nicole retracted in surprise at Eames’ invasion of her personal space. She considered the detective for a moment. “Speaking of mothers,” Nicole dragged her gaze to Goren, as she usually did when the talk turned to mothers, “you better tell your partner to calm down Bobby. That rising blood pressure can’t be good for the baby.” She leaned back to observe them both.
Bobby kept his body lax, “What?” he asked as he managed to hide the shock and anger that welled up inside him; but Alex startled noticeably, her arm twitching to grab at her stomach protectively. How could she possibly know that?
For the past hour they had gruelingly questioned Nicole, and with that little bomb she had managed to change the entire dynamics of the room and, taking into account the Captain and numerous other people of law enforcement and the justice system on the other side of the two-way mirror, most likely their lives.
Nicole smiled in satisfaction. “Woman’s intuition,” she answered the unspoken question. She leaned conspiratorially across the table to Alex, placing her hand on top of hers, “But thank you for confirming it. Who are the lucky parents of this egg detective?”
Eames wretched her hand from under Nicole’s trying not to look shaken. She could deny it, but it would take the focus away from Nicole. Silence permeated the room. Alex internally chastised herself – why had she grabbed at her stomach, what else had she done to give it away? She couldn’t help her natural protectiveness; it was their baby, their one and only shot at bringing a child of their own into this world. Alex and Bobby ignored her line of questioning and both took a deep breath, trying to gain composure and control over the situation. On the exhale, they instinctually met each other’s eyes across the room.
Nicole, who had been watching them the whole time, had a realization, “Oh my God,” she slid back in her chair, her arm snaking over the back. A flicker of puzzlement crossed the detectives’ faces at Nicole’s stunned expression. “Well,” she breathed, looking at the floor before gaining her composure. She lifted her chin, “Congratulations are in order, Bobby. How’s the proud papa holding up? I’m sorry I forgot a cigar.”
“Now why would you think that, Nicole?” he asked. There was no way she could figure that out from a glance.
She ignored the question, “Will you name her after me, Bobby?” If the earlier divulgence had failed to stir him, the disclosure of the fetus’ sex succeeded. No one, absolutely no one knew the results of the ultrasound except for the three people that were present – Alex, the doctor, and himself. “Don’t blame yourselves detectives,” she continued. “You two are always glancing at each other; these were just a bit more telling. As for the gender, I had a fifty-fifty chance.”
Yeah, guess my ass, Alex thought. Granted, Nicole was possibly one of the only people able to rival Bobby’s observant deductive skills, but still. She knew. Somehow, someway, she knew.
“I admit I was wrong Bobby. I said people like you and I weren’t meant to have children. Apparently I was wrong. Though, you did tell me not to count you out just yet,” her eyes raked over Eames’ torso. Alex could feel the yogurt she had eaten earlier rise towards her throat. “I just didn’t know you already had someone in mind.” Nicole turned her eyes directly to the two-way mirror, effectively meeting the eyes of Captain Ross, who Eames could swear she could hear fuming over the discloser.
Goren moved to say something, but abruptly stopped. Something clicked in his head, Alex saw it when he shook his finger and he visibly paled. Just as suddenly, Bobby stormed out of the room, making no attempt to hide the fact he was marching into the room opposite the two-way mirror.
Ross and the DA stood speechless waiting for him when he entered. “Dr. Michelle Winland. Her office is 1445 East 32th Street,” Bobby announced.
“What is this detective?” the DA asked. Ross hovered over Bobby’s shoulder, keen to question him on another subject.
“That’s it, that’s the connection; all those parents were treated at Winland’s office at one time or another. Nicole was there. That’s how . . . she knew. Look, if you ask the employees there they’re going to describe someone matching Nicole’s description.”
When Ross made quick work of sending officers out to follow the lead, Goren slipped out of the room with them, forcing the captain to hold his tongue on the pregnancy issue. He tried to control his anger and turned back to the mirror.
Nicole was spitting poison at Eames, “Aren’t you worried about passing on his mother’s disease? These things are genetic, you know.” Bobby reentered the room. “But you know that.” She was met with silence. She looked back and forth between the two of them. A slow smile crept to her lips, “Ohhhh, so this wasn’t planned?” She clucked her tongue, shaking her head slowly. “Naughty, naughty, Bobby, bringing a bastard into the world.”
Alex almost didn’t get there in time to stop him as he launched himself across the table at her. Alex’s sharp “Bobby!” echoed off the walls, stopping him short.
“Just shut up, Nicole. Just the hell shut up,” he growled. They actually through he might kill her and judging by how startled Nicole was at his outburst, she thought so too.
The Captain must have thought enough was enough because he appeared in the doorway instantly. “Both of you, get in here . . . NOW.” The were led to the next room, Bobby jerking his arm away from the hand Ross had placed on him. The captain took a minute to look over his detectives. Goren was visibly shaken and so was Eames, he could see it behind her eyes. They didn’t look at each other. Ross kept his voice calm, “Is it true?” he asked. Neither of them said anything. “Are these allegations true?” this time more insistently. “Detectives,” he ground out.
Bobby spoke up, “Yes . . . Yes,” he repeated, his voice louder, stronger. Granted, they did not want the news to come out this way, but there was nothing to be ashamed of -- they were adults in a mature, committed relationship. Their personal life was none of Ross’ business until the pregnancy would affect Eames’ ability to perform her job and that wouldn’t be for months. “It’s true.”
Ross looked over at Eames, “You’re pregnant,” he stated.
She lifted her chin and met his eyes, “Yes.”
He nodded towards Bobby, “With his child.” Eames answered in the positive. “And Dr. Winland?”
She’s the ob/gyn who performed the ultrasound,” Eames replied. She pointed at Nicole, “She good, but she’s not that good. The only way she could have known I’m pregnant is if she was in that office.”
Ross nodded, comprehending the consequences of these new facts. “I want you both off this case,” he stated finally. If Goren had been aggravated before, it couldn’t be compared to the objection that rose inside him now. But Ross cut him off, “Neither of you can look at this case objectively.” He continued, “And I want you both out of here until Monday morning then I want you in my office. Don’t think this is over.” Goren took a step forward, but Ross held up his hand, “We’ll discuss this on Monday. Don’t make me have officers forcibly escort you out of here detective,” he warned, aware of the cops, who had no love loss for Goren, who lingered at the doorway. “Both of you, go home.”
“But Nicole . . .”
“Is going to lawyer up and will be in the capable hands of Logan and Wheeler. Go. Home.” Ross swept out of the room, letting the door close behind him.
Bobby and Alex turned towards each other, now alone together in the room. The moment was bittersweet – they both knew this was the end of their secret -- the moment between them was even more fleeting than they thought. She looked so dazed, they both were. With all that had transpired in such a small amount of time, their professional and personal lives irrevocably changed. Bobby’s fingers twitched at his side, wanting to reach out and touch her, common sense telling him they were in their place of business stopped him. To hell with it, he thought, everyone’s going to know in a few hours anyway. He reached his hand towards her.
“Bobby,” she breathed, as if she had been waiting for it. He pulled her into his arms and into his chest. They stood there like that for minutes, composing themselves, giving each other strength until Alex quietly suggested that they better get out of there. They quietly gathered their things from their desk and left, holding hands when they reached the street.
Late that night, hours after they should have been asleep, they lay in bed together, staring into the darkness. Her strong voice rung out in the darkness, “I will not let her ruin this for me.”
He shook his head, gathering her closer and burying his nose in her hair. This always made her smile. She learned early in their relationship, though he had initially tried to hide it from her -- his smelling obsession did not stop at the crime scene.
She clutched at him harder, startling him, “Lie to me,” she whispered in the dark, “Tell me everything will be okay. Tomorrow, and Monday, and the next day, and the next year. Lie to me.”
He kissed her temple softly, “Everything will be okay,” he spoke into her skin. “And I’m not lying. I promise.”
TBC
CI: zoion logia
Author: rebel diamonds
Title: zoion logia
Rating: G
Summary: Future Fic. A series of shorts I have planned – snippets of Emma Jane Eames-Goren’s life so far.
It was crowed for a scorching hot Sunday in August. People, mostly families, meandered down the curved pavement. You had to watch where you were walking because every once in a while a toddler would dart out in from of you. Screams and yells (not all human) reverberated through the trees and Eames was glad she wasn’t here to work because she couldn’t hear herself think even if she wanted to.
Gone was the time when precious days off were spent sitting at home alone, completing various household chores you claimed couldn’t wait, subconsciously hoping for the phone to ring or the beeper to go off, begging you back to the office. Now, time off was spent concocting ways to amuse a three year old, showing her the city in which she lived.
Currently, their little family resided at the Monkey House of the New York Zoo.
“Daddy! Daddy! Look!” the diminutive girl yelled, despite having her mouth mere inches from her father’s ear. Goren flinched at the shrill pitch, but did nothing to discourage it. He was currently holding her up to see better – an advantage of his stature that she often utilized. Her arms were wrapped around his neck like the monkey his child’s delicate little finger pointed to.
“I see,” he answered, grinning at her. “Is, is that the Mommy or the baby?”
“The baby,” she drawled. “That’s the Daddy over there,” Emma said smartly, pointing at the largest of the animals that looked down on the rest of them from the highest branch.
“Do you know why they’re called “Colobus” monkeys?”
Emma’s little brunette pigtails swished as she shook her head, gazing at her father. Of course she didn’t know, but the little girl was like a sponge, especially when it was coming from him.
“It’s Greek. It means they don’t have thumbs.” He snatched at her finger and pretended to bite it off. Emma leaned back in his arms and laughed, causing him to laugh with her.
His wife watched them admire the animals from across the street. The furry things looked pretty ugly if you asked her, but everything with the two of them was like discovering it for the first time. She approached them, balancing three ice cream cones – one chocolate, one vanilla, and a small swirl cone wrapped in enough napkins to just make it hold-able in her daughter’s tiny grasp. If Alex was any kind of mother, it was a proactive one.
But if she were to be honest, the napkins were just as much for Emma as they were for her husband, who most likely would let his cone melt in the August sun so as to better hold his daughter’s, having her hold onto his wrist and guide her Cupie doll mouth to it for neat little licks. He’d spend the rest of the day attracting flies. And he wouldn’t care.
Robert Goren couldn’t refuse his daughter anything. Because of his childhood traumas he was attentive to his daughter to the point of being ridiculous – every picture, scraped knee, new word, and whim was given his utmost attention. This child had given him a sense of definite stability he’d never had before or wouldn’t have had. Partly because if there was one certainty in this world, it was that Robert Goren would never leave his daughter.
As vanilla ice cream began to drip down Bobby’s hand, Alex moved to wipe it from his fingers and then their daughter’s mouth for good measure. Emma smiled at her mother and Alex couldn’t help but grin back and give her a small tickle. At her birth, she had filled something in her mother as well. Alex had felt so empty after giving birth to her nephew and giving him away, even if it was to such a close relative. In contrast, the months after Emma’s birth were filled with wonderful memories of lullabies and late-night feedings. Whereas Bobby was forced to sleep in order to get up for his early shifts, Alex’s maternity leave granted her the luxury of getting up every time her baby so much as whimpered. Even the crazy hours failed to aggravate her because the honor of being allowed to be this little girl’s mother trumped all.
As they continued through the zoo, throwing away the remainder of their cones as they passed, the Madagascar Tree Boa had Emma hiding her face against her father’s neck and grabbing for her mother’s hand. Even Eames squirmed a little at the sheer number of snakes in the little underpass, but of course Bobby couldn’t see what might be even slightly creepy about it. He took Alex’s hand as he led them out and they turned their heads to grin at each other.
If the guys at the precinct though he was eccentric, they should see him at home at three in the afternoon dancing to 60’s songs on the radio with Emma, anything to make her laugh. Alex would never tire of watching the look on his face every time he made their daughter laugh – the wonderment and soft amazement that came over his features. The two of them were endlessly fascinated with each other. One would think Alex would feel left out with her husband and daughter’s close camaraderie, but on the contrary, Alex felt blessed to have the two of them and the ability to give them to each other. Bobby was a wonderful father and reveled in every minute of it, making up for his own lacking childhood.
On the way out of the park Emma’s eyes began to drift and she was asleep before they hit the sidewalk. It wasn’t unlike her to nap, considering the little sleep she had gotten the night before because of her excitement of the special occasion – an all day excursion with Mommy AND Daddy -- and the amount of running she’d done all day. Alex thought about rousing her so she would sleep instead of play when they got home, but couldn’t bring herself to do it. Instead of hailing a cab right away, Emma’s preferred method of transportation on their little outings, they made their way towards the subway. The early evening was cooling considerably.
They got through the turnstile and into available seats before she half-woke.
“Gerry,” she grumbled, holding her arm over her father’s shoulder towards her mother and flexing her fingers. Alex nodded and fumbled through the book bag between her legs and pulling out a stuffed penguin, oh yes, Gerry the Gentoo Penguin -- today’s new edition to the ever expanding zoo of her own. She handed over the animal and Emma cuddled it between her arm and Bobby’s shoulder.
The short ride and even shorter walk later they reached the destination of their car. Emma didn’t fuss much being put in her car seat and the drive home was calm and comfortable. Alex and Bobby talked quietly, him holding her right hand and fiddling with her fingers most of the ride, frequently lifting the back of her hand to his lips, something that always got a smile out of her.
Sadly, the silence didn’t last for long. Emma woke bright-eyed and bushytailed when Alex pulled the car into the driveway.
“We’re home, Mommy!” she announced from the backseat, struggling against the straps of her car seat. Of course, there was no settling her down until they had acted out every animal they saw and she introduced Gerry to all his new animal friends individually.
Finally, after this long rigmarole it was time for another ritual . . . bedtime.
END
Title: zoion logia
Rating: G
Summary: Future Fic. A series of shorts I have planned – snippets of Emma Jane Eames-Goren’s life so far.
It was crowed for a scorching hot Sunday in August. People, mostly families, meandered down the curved pavement. You had to watch where you were walking because every once in a while a toddler would dart out in from of you. Screams and yells (not all human) reverberated through the trees and Eames was glad she wasn’t here to work because she couldn’t hear herself think even if she wanted to.
Gone was the time when precious days off were spent sitting at home alone, completing various household chores you claimed couldn’t wait, subconsciously hoping for the phone to ring or the beeper to go off, begging you back to the office. Now, time off was spent concocting ways to amuse a three year old, showing her the city in which she lived.
Currently, their little family resided at the Monkey House of the New York Zoo.
“Daddy! Daddy! Look!” the diminutive girl yelled, despite having her mouth mere inches from her father’s ear. Goren flinched at the shrill pitch, but did nothing to discourage it. He was currently holding her up to see better – an advantage of his stature that she often utilized. Her arms were wrapped around his neck like the monkey his child’s delicate little finger pointed to.
“I see,” he answered, grinning at her. “Is, is that the Mommy or the baby?”
“The baby,” she drawled. “That’s the Daddy over there,” Emma said smartly, pointing at the largest of the animals that looked down on the rest of them from the highest branch.
“Do you know why they’re called “Colobus” monkeys?”
Emma’s little brunette pigtails swished as she shook her head, gazing at her father. Of course she didn’t know, but the little girl was like a sponge, especially when it was coming from him.
“It’s Greek. It means they don’t have thumbs.” He snatched at her finger and pretended to bite it off. Emma leaned back in his arms and laughed, causing him to laugh with her.
His wife watched them admire the animals from across the street. The furry things looked pretty ugly if you asked her, but everything with the two of them was like discovering it for the first time. She approached them, balancing three ice cream cones – one chocolate, one vanilla, and a small swirl cone wrapped in enough napkins to just make it hold-able in her daughter’s tiny grasp. If Alex was any kind of mother, it was a proactive one.
But if she were to be honest, the napkins were just as much for Emma as they were for her husband, who most likely would let his cone melt in the August sun so as to better hold his daughter’s, having her hold onto his wrist and guide her Cupie doll mouth to it for neat little licks. He’d spend the rest of the day attracting flies. And he wouldn’t care.
Robert Goren couldn’t refuse his daughter anything. Because of his childhood traumas he was attentive to his daughter to the point of being ridiculous – every picture, scraped knee, new word, and whim was given his utmost attention. This child had given him a sense of definite stability he’d never had before or wouldn’t have had. Partly because if there was one certainty in this world, it was that Robert Goren would never leave his daughter.
As vanilla ice cream began to drip down Bobby’s hand, Alex moved to wipe it from his fingers and then their daughter’s mouth for good measure. Emma smiled at her mother and Alex couldn’t help but grin back and give her a small tickle. At her birth, she had filled something in her mother as well. Alex had felt so empty after giving birth to her nephew and giving him away, even if it was to such a close relative. In contrast, the months after Emma’s birth were filled with wonderful memories of lullabies and late-night feedings. Whereas Bobby was forced to sleep in order to get up for his early shifts, Alex’s maternity leave granted her the luxury of getting up every time her baby so much as whimpered. Even the crazy hours failed to aggravate her because the honor of being allowed to be this little girl’s mother trumped all.
As they continued through the zoo, throwing away the remainder of their cones as they passed, the Madagascar Tree Boa had Emma hiding her face against her father’s neck and grabbing for her mother’s hand. Even Eames squirmed a little at the sheer number of snakes in the little underpass, but of course Bobby couldn’t see what might be even slightly creepy about it. He took Alex’s hand as he led them out and they turned their heads to grin at each other.
If the guys at the precinct though he was eccentric, they should see him at home at three in the afternoon dancing to 60’s songs on the radio with Emma, anything to make her laugh. Alex would never tire of watching the look on his face every time he made their daughter laugh – the wonderment and soft amazement that came over his features. The two of them were endlessly fascinated with each other. One would think Alex would feel left out with her husband and daughter’s close camaraderie, but on the contrary, Alex felt blessed to have the two of them and the ability to give them to each other. Bobby was a wonderful father and reveled in every minute of it, making up for his own lacking childhood.
On the way out of the park Emma’s eyes began to drift and she was asleep before they hit the sidewalk. It wasn’t unlike her to nap, considering the little sleep she had gotten the night before because of her excitement of the special occasion – an all day excursion with Mommy AND Daddy -- and the amount of running she’d done all day. Alex thought about rousing her so she would sleep instead of play when they got home, but couldn’t bring herself to do it. Instead of hailing a cab right away, Emma’s preferred method of transportation on their little outings, they made their way towards the subway. The early evening was cooling considerably.
They got through the turnstile and into available seats before she half-woke.
“Gerry,” she grumbled, holding her arm over her father’s shoulder towards her mother and flexing her fingers. Alex nodded and fumbled through the book bag between her legs and pulling out a stuffed penguin, oh yes, Gerry the Gentoo Penguin -- today’s new edition to the ever expanding zoo of her own. She handed over the animal and Emma cuddled it between her arm and Bobby’s shoulder.
The short ride and even shorter walk later they reached the destination of their car. Emma didn’t fuss much being put in her car seat and the drive home was calm and comfortable. Alex and Bobby talked quietly, him holding her right hand and fiddling with her fingers most of the ride, frequently lifting the back of her hand to his lips, something that always got a smile out of her.
Sadly, the silence didn’t last for long. Emma woke bright-eyed and bushytailed when Alex pulled the car into the driveway.
“We’re home, Mommy!” she announced from the backseat, struggling against the straps of her car seat. Of course, there was no settling her down until they had acted out every animal they saw and she introduced Gerry to all his new animal friends individually.
Finally, after this long rigmarole it was time for another ritual . . . bedtime.
END
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