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You’re free now.
Bobby… You’re free.
The words echoed in his head. The phrase repeating itself, over and over, Declan’s voice reverberating through his skull. As he sat in the interrogation room, staring at his long ago mentor. As he stood in the hallway, watching Declan get carted away in cuffs. As he ignored Alex’s sympathetic look and the brush of her hand against his arm as he stormed away - all the way out of 1PP and carried through his drive home.
As Bobby slammed his front door behind himself and slid down it, the strength to make it even one more step, gone.
“Free," he whispered to his dark apartment. And then he laughed, the sound high and slightly unhinged to his own ears.
Free.
***
Bobby wasn't sure how long he sat there. He watched the last light of the day sweep across a far wall, dim, and finally fade. The deep golden hue of sunset was replaced with the cold bluish light of street lamps, bouncing around the angles of his living room, barely illuminating the contents.
His phone rang at least three times. He ignored it for the first two, and on the third he finally looked - Alex. Of course. He knew it was her, if only by the logical reasoning of who else could it possibly be?
Free.
It hit him then - Alex was all he had left. Bobby looked at the phone, buzzing in his hand, her name emblazoned across the display. He threw the phone down the hallway, out of sight, out of mind. He couldn’t answer it. She would try to make him feel better. She would tell him Declan was the crazy one. She would tell him he wasn't alone. He had Donny - right, if he could ever find him. If Donny even wanted any sort of relationship with him. Donny couldn’t even bother keeping in touch with his own mother. Bobby was almost a stranger to him.
Alex would tell him that he still had her. And for how long? He wondered. Everyone left him, whether by their choice or not. Eventually, everyone left.
Alcohol. That's what he needed.
He pulled himself up off the floor - nearly falling over on account of one of his legs having fallen asleep - and shuffled to his kitchen. He shed annoying articles of clothing and other accoutrement as he went - kicking off shoes, tossing his badge and gun on a table, shrugging off his jacket, stripping off outer layers until he was down to his undershirt and pants. he poured himself a couple fingers of the nearest brown liquid and knocked it back. Then he poured another. And another.
A warm softening quickly arrived at the edge of his senses. He took a deep breath and tried to let go of his anger. He sipped his drink and imagined putting his anger on a boat floating on the shore of the ocean - and in his mind's eye, his anger was personified as Declan Gage - and gave the boat a hard shove into the water. He watched it float away.. gone, gone.. Declan’s angular, sickly face fading into the misty sea.
Bobby sipped. He scrubbed a hand over his face. He drew himself out of the fantasy and gently probed around his emotions again, trying to see if it worked.
The anger was still there. Maybe dulled a bit (he probably had the alcohol to thank for that), but it was there.
He chuckled emptily to himself. Worth a try, anyway.
Bzzz. Bzzz.
He stepped into the hallway and peered down it. His phone was on the floor - it had almost made it all the way into the bedroom, and he mentally patted himself on the back for his throwing range - and he could see the glow of the display.
Eames has to give up some time, he reasoned.
Yeah, right.
He ignored the phone and flopped on the couch. He'd never known his partner to give up on anything in her life. Including him.
Especially him.
Why?
Everyone in his life was a disaster. His mother, Frank, Nicole, Declan. Bobby attracted horrors. The mentally diseased, monsters, psychopaths, and leeches. All of the worst kinds of humans. That's who populated his life. Those kinds of people.
And.. and Eames.
Everyone else close in his life had used him, hated him, tortured him, manipulated him.
All except Alex.
Why? Why did she stay?
He felt like he didn't deserve the loyalty.
Of course, Bobby wanted that loyalty. He relied on it. And for every time he'd pissed Alex off royally and she was still there next to him - he was thankful for it. He just knew he didn't deserve it.
The phone was ringing again.
Bobby sipped his drink and chuckled.
My tenacious Eames.
The anger ebbed away and he felt stupid for having felt any anger towards her at all. The tiny, rational part of his brain still ticking away in a dusty corner of his skull said he was just trying to keep distance, because he knew she wouldn't stay forever, and he had to mitigate his hurt for when he did. But if he kept treating her this way, he knew, she definitely would leave.
Bobby considered doing it anyway. She was the last link he had to anything, and without her, well.. Maybe he could just abandon all pretense at living a normal life.
He sighed. He couldn’t do it. For however much it seemed logical and reasonable to let his partner cut herself loose and not be weighed down by him anymore, selfishly, he couldn’t do it. He briefly envisioned a life without Alex - having driven her away, one or the other of them having transferred, or maybe quit - and panic licked up his back. He didn’t know how he’d become so dependent on another person, but it had happened, and now he couldn’t go back.
Bobby stumbled to the hallway, picked up the phone, and answered it. But he felt the word 'hello' die on his tongue as he did. He just breathed, and took another sip of his drink.
“Bobby?” came her voice. It was worried, tentative. Tired. He looked at the clock.. it was one in the morning.
“Yeah?” he answered.
She sighed. Relief, maybe? His brain was too fuzzy from alcohol to profile anything about her properly at the moment.
“I was worried, Bobby.. when you didn't answer - “
“I'm okay, Eames,” he said, cutting her off, but not unkindly. He just hated when she worried.
“You think Declan knows you but he doesn't, Bobby. He hasn't known you, really known you, for decades.” Alex’s voice was earnest, almost pleading, begging him to see it from her point of view.
Bobby mumbled, something vaguely affirmative. He knew she was right, but his self flagellation instinct didn’t want to acknowledge it.
“Listen, um..” Alex started to speak, hesitantly, the way she spoke when she knew he wouldn’t like what she was about to say. “I'm going to Gage's place tomorrow.”
That made Bobby sit up.. “What? Why?”
“Carver, he asked me to.. to collect whatever I could, to help for sentencing.”
“Declan is going to plead insanity,” Bobby said. He could almost hear her nod on the phone.
“And Carver isn't going to fight it. But he wants everything he can to get him locked up in the highest security place he can, and for a long, long time.” Alex took a breath. “Forever, ideally.”
Bobby sighed. He usually enjoyed the post-solve denouement. Shoring up his evidence, making sure every piece of the puzzle was fully slotted into place and the case was airtight. Sending it along to the lawyers knowing he’d done his job to the best of his ability. But he was deeply irritated at knowing that this entire situation still wasn't technically over. There were court appearances and testimony and evidence to finalize. And if he knew Declan, he would drag out every part of it as long as possible, in any attempt to keep Bobby in his life for one minute longer.
“You don't have to come,” Alex’s voice broke through his brooding. “I just wanted you to know.”
“I'm coming,” Bobby said gruffly. He didn't have a choice. He couldn't let her bear the burden of Declan's insanity by herself. “It'll go twice as fast if we're both there..”
“Okay,” she replied softly.
Bobby could feel her weighing something as they both went silent. He could tell she wanted to say something to him, but his years of avoiding any kind of emotional intimacy always made her think twice before delving into deeper subjects.
He wanted to spill his guts right then. Talk to her about every feeling of betrayal, of fear, of anger, of everything Nicole and Declan and Frank and his mother had brought into his life. But he couldn’t bring himself to start the conversation.
And he’d made her too afraid to ask.
“Goodnight, Eames,” Bobby said, waiting for her returned ‘goodnight, Bobby’ before hanging up.
He had nobody to blame but himself.
***
Declan’s place was a mess. Far beyond clutter, though there was plenty of that - books piled high, some stacks so tall they had fallen over into piles, notebooks strewn everywhere, some open to pages, many shoved on every available open surface. Aside from the clutter, there was so much literal trash. Half-full garbage bags sitting on the floor. Overflowing garbage bins. A kitchen sink piled high with dirty dishes, teeming with half-finished old food. New strains of mold had begun growing on some of them.
“Jesus,” Alex finally said, after they’d both taken a couple minutes to absorb the surroundings. She was holding a hand to her face, trying to block the smell of rotting food and old garbage.
“This is.. this is a reflection of Declan’s state of mind,” Bobby said. He looked around the floor as he carefully chose his steps, narrowly missing a half-eaten sandwich laying on the carpet.
“This is practically all the evidence Carver needs,” Alex said dryly. “The crime scene unit took photos already.”
Bobby nodded as he reached his destination. A kitchen table that Declan had obviously been using as his desk. It was mercifully free of food-related garbage, and contained only books and notebooks. He sat down at a chair and grabbed a notebook from the top of the nearest pile.
Alex crossed to a window and attempted to open it. She struggled for a moment before examining the sash. “It’s nailed shut,” she said, annoyed. “No fresh air for us. I never thought I’d miss the smell of a New York City street.”
Bobby grunted. “He’s paranoid. Been paranoid for a while. This place is probably a laundry list of.. of fire code violations, all in the name of keeping out unknown threats.”
Alex sidled up next to him, peering over his shoulder as he flipped through the notebook. The pages alternated between fairly cogent-sounding ruminations on some aspect or another of psychology that Declan had been working on, and unhinged, scrawled rantings where only every fourth or fifth word was even identifiable as English.
Bobby set down the notebook on the table, open to a page of ramblings, and sighed. “This is not going to be easy. There’s a lot here, and no organization whatsoever.”
Alex chuckled. “You volunteered to come,” she said. She leaned forward to grab the notebook he’d set down, and in the process she unintentionally brushed her arm against him.
Bobby’s heart lurched at the contact. He was still feeling emotionally raw, and was processing through his feelings from the previous night over and over. How Alex was all he had left. How much he needed her. How he couldn’t lose her.
Bobby could smell Alex, her scent cutting through the stench that surrounded them - whatever soap it was she used, something cheap (because Alex was nothing if practical to a fault) but fresh-smelling. The light scent of her laundry detergent. The lingering aroma of the coffee she’d had on the drive over. All the smells that were intrinsically her, and that he’d smelled a thousand times before. The distance that had been created between them recently had made him want to be closer than ever before, and he relished this moment where he was close enough to smell her.
“We should, uh.. We should come up with a system,” Bobby said, pulling himself out of his thoughts.
Alex slowly nodded. “Sure,” she said. Then: “For what?”
“For cataloging all this,” Bobby waved his hand. “Maybe.. maybe we should.. take everything out of here.”
Alex regarded the notebook in her hands and tossed it on the table. “I think you’re right. For one thing, I don’t know how much longer I can stand the smell in here.”
Bobby nodded but avoided looking at her. “Let’s.. go get some boxes.”
The two of them made their way back out of the apartment, and headed back to the station. Bobby was silent the entire way, trying to puzzle himself - his reaction to his partner’s proximity - out.
He knew he was attracted to his partner - that had been a day one realization. Purely physical and easily pushed aside for professionalism, it was something he’d gotten past within the first day of working with her. Bobby considered her beautiful, but he’d worked with beautiful women before. Interrogated beautiful witnesses and suspects. It was something that was easy to set aside.
What was less easy to set aside was the deep wellspring of emotions that had suddenly erupted for Alex.
This was Declan’s fault, he reasoned. He’d finished off the remaining important people in Bobby’s life, and left him with only one.
But did that mean his feelings were artificial? Forced as a result of desperation, to cling to the one person he had left?
Bobby stole a sidelong glance at Alex, who was staring ahead at the road, her brow furrowed. She was worried. Worried about him. As usual.
No, Bobby thought. These feelings had been there a long time. Declan just.. Hastened their discovery.
Eventually, they arrived at the station, and Bobby shook off his musings. They made quick work of gathering boxes, returning to Declan’s place, and boxing everything up. Eames made the occasional joke or cutting observation, trying to lighten the mood, and after an hour, their SUV was loaded with the remains of a crazy person’s life, scrawled on the pages of composition notebooks and shoved haphazardly into boxes.
“Should we bring them to the station?” Alex asked, her fingers tapping on the steering wheel. She’d turned the car on but had left it in park, wanting to be sure of their destination before moving.
Bobby shook his head. “No,” he said sharply. The idea of his former mentor’s fall from grace spread out on a soulless grey metal table in front of his boss and coworkers felt.. humiliating. Bobby felt an old feeling rise in his gut - how he’d feel when someone new found out about his mother, or would ask about her publicly. Shame. “No, let’s.. bring everything to my place.”
Alex looked at him for a moment, then nodded.
Once they’d arrived, they silently set up the boxes in a pile next to Bobby’s kitchen table. They each sat at a chair across from each other, grabbed a notebook, and settled in to read. Bobby could barely make heads or tails of half of the contents he read. A lot of it was stream of consciousness, lists of words or ideas, just unconnected thoughts. Once in a while he would point something out to Alex, who would take a photo for Carver. Bobby saw her marking this page or that, taking her own photos occasionally. The most unhinged sections of writings that ideally indicated he was a danger to himself or others, that his mind had broken, that he couldn’t function in society any longer. All the best evidence for Carver.
After a few hours, Bobby pulled a notebook from the stack that on the front, looked the same as all the others. But once he opened it, he nearly dropped it. On the first page, written in big letters at the top, was ‘Alex Eames.’ Bobby flicked his gaze up to the person in question, sitting across from him, irrationally worried that she knew what he was reading. She was slouched over, her head in her hand, as she paged through her own notebook, unaware of his find.
Bobby returned his gaze to the notebook. The first page was filled with background stuff - who Alex was, and in particular, her relationship to him. There were notations of some of their bigger cases together. He flipped through a few pages, skimming over the summaries. Bobby reasoned these were cases that would have been big news in the papers. Declan had been following his career. But of course he had.. Declan had said to Bobby that he was like a son to him. So he’d read everything he could about him that made it into the papers.
And Alex, too. After the first few pages of general summaries, there were several pages about Jo, and the kidnapping incident. It made Bobby’s skin crawl to see the recapping of the entire event in Declan’s chicken scratch. Dry, academic analysis of his daughter’s motivations for kidnapping, torture, and murder. There was a whole paragraph at the end that contained Declan’s ideas on what would have happened if Jo had successfully killed Alex.
*Prediction: Eames dead, Bobby alone. Anguish, fear. Bobby tainted in his coworkers’ eyes. Would not be able to get a new partner - eventually would leave the NYPD. Loss for them - but new opportunities. Consulting? High probability. Would need to work alone. Nobody could keep up with him.
Bobby shook his head as he read it. He was starting to think Declan had never truly known him at all. He kept paging through, then came to a new section. A breakdown of Alex’s strengths and weaknesses. A listing of what Declan perceived to be her abilities - mostly coming down to the way she supported Bobby - and the ways he thought she lacked - the underscoring point being that she was fine for an average police officer, but paled in comparison to Bobby, and could not hope to mentally match him.
Bobby gripped the notebook so hard it was bending under his fingers, and he could see his knuckles turning white. This is what Declan saw when he looked at Alex? He felt the anger from the previous night come back full force, fully aimed at Declan Gage. How dare he? How dare he - or anyone - think that, of Alex?
“What’s wrong?” Alex’s voice cut through Bobby’s thoughts. She’d noticed his change and demeanor and had another worried look. Bobby wondered if he’d ever stop causing her to wear that expression.
He took a breath and loosened his grip, aware he was about to rip the notebook in half. “Uh, nothing..”
Alex raised an eyebrow and held out her hand, silently asking for the book. Bobby shut it and clutched it to himself.
“Uh, this one isn’t.. it’s not relevant,” he muttered lamely, knowing full well Alex would not accept that and was going to see for herself what was in it.
“Bobby,” she said, sighing. “It’s all relevant.”
“He’s a - a crazy old man,” Bobby said as he held out the notebook for her to grab. “Don’t - don’t think.. Eames, nothing he says in here is true.”
Alex quirked her head to the side at that before plucking the notebook out of his hand, her curiosity high. Bobby watched as she cracked it open, and immediately her eyebrows shot up when she saw her own name at the top of the page. Bobby observed her as she carefully read each word, sometimes shaking her head, sometimes scoffing aloud. She read further than he’d gotten, all the way to the end of the notebook, and he was glad she’d taken it from him before he could read it all, because he truly didn’t want to know what other crap was written in there.
Eventually she finished, softly closing the notebook. She kept her head down, her eyes focused on the marbled black and white cover of the notebook.
“Eames,” Bobby said, trying to draw her attention. She didn’t move. “Alex,” he tried again.
She jerked her head up at the use of her first name. Her mouth was in a tight line, and her eyes were bright, and Bobby had seen the look in her face enough times to know she was as angry as she’d ever been.
“You know,” Alex started, taking a steadying breath. “I’d wondered why Nicole never tried to kill me. Or why she and Declan didn’t in this recent spree of murders.”
Bobby shook his head. “I always thought.. She didn’t want the heat of killing a cop.”
“It’s because she didn’t think I was worth it,” Alex ground out. She threw the notebook on the table between them. “Her and Declan hooked up to get rid of everyone in your life, but I didn’t make the cut.”
“You’re upset they didn’t kill you?” Bobby asked, though he found himself strangely feeling that way a little. He didn’t want her in danger, but he also didn’t know how two people who claimed to know him so thoroughly, inside and out, never saw Alex as a threat the way they’d seen everyone else in his life.
“It’s stupid, I know,” Alex leaned back in her chair, stared at the ceiling and laughed a little. “Obviously I don’t want someone to try to kill me.. again. I don’t think it’s really about them. I don’t actually care what - what Declan Gage thinks of me. He’s a murdering psychopath. It’s just…”
Bobby waited for her to continue, but she didn’t. He thought he shouldn’t push. He should let the moment pass, be water under the bridge. Another thread of emotion between them unchased, left to fester in a dark corner. It was their tried and true way, and that was how their partnership had worked for years. But Bobby realized he didn’t want it to work that way anymore. He knew over the years she’d learned when to hide her true thoughts or feelings from him, when it was going to upset him. She was protective, both of him, and of their partnership. And their partnership had thrived on letting sleeping dogs lie. But Bobby didn’t want that anymore. Most of his relationships had survived on that principle, of people tiptoeing around him and his anger, until they couldn’t do it anymore. Until they were gone from his life, one way or another. And he didn’t want to lose her.
“It’s just - what?” he asked, leaning forward in his chair. Alex sat forward again and locked eyes with him. He held her gaze, barely blinking, trying to translate in his look that whatever she had to say was important to him.
“It’s just that.. I care what you think of me,” Alex said, her voice quiet. She broke his gaze then, closing her eyes and slumping back in her chair.
“Eames, I don’t - I told you, nothing in here is true. Declan.. He didn’t know you. Or.. us.”
Alex nodded, but in a way that telegraphed she expected him to say something like that. “I know, but.. these are my own insecurities, written down matter of factly, by someone I barely knew. And we’ve been - been off lately, Bobby.”
Bobby shook his head, not because she was wrong, but because he’d been working very hard to try and forget the events of the last year had even taken place. But he couldn’t, and he knew she couldn’t either.
Alex stood up and went to his fridge, digging around until she came out with a beer. Bobby watched as she opened it and drank half the bottle in one go, facing his kitchen counter as she did so, studiously avoiding having to look at him.
“I don’t know how it is you’re still here,” Bobby said, finally getting out the words he’d been thinking of last night, and that he’d been thinking of over the past year.
Alex turned to look at him. She knew him well enough to know he didn’t mean literally, in that moment, in his apartment. But more abstractly - why was she still his partner. She shrugged. “Where would I go?”
“You’d have people lined out the door to be your new partner,” Bobby said. He thought it would have been normal for him to be bitter about it, but he wasn’t. If anything, he was proud. He smiled at her. “Everyone knows you’re the better half.”
“If you haven’t figured out by now that you’re the only partner I want, then I don’t know how to explain it better,” she said. “After everything, I never even thought about requesting a new partner.”
“I hurt you,” Bobby said as a statement, rather than a question, because it wasn’t a question. He saw it every time they got into an argument since he got his shield back, or every time something made them remember his time undercover. He saw it when he’d lashed out at her for investigating him over his brother’s death.
“Yeah,” Alex said softly. “And you’re still making up for it.”
Bobby looked up at her, and she had a slight twinkle to her eye, the usual Alex Eames sign of amusement. He smiled, gratefully grabbing onto the olive branch. But he couldn’t let it go until he had a solid answer. “Why.. why am I the only, uh, partner you want?”
Alex set her beer down and took a few steps towards him, a few feet away from him. But he had to angle his head up to look at her, and he thought about how that was how she’d spent most of their partnership.
“Because you’re the only one that can keep up with me,” Alex said, a grin crossing her face.
Bobby laughed. It wasn’t quite an answer, but he thought it was the best he was going to get right then. And if Alex was making jokes, then she was feeling better, and that was good enough for the moment.
Bobby realized he hated Declan. He hated him for raising Jo into a murderer, for indirectly causing Alex to experience kidnapping and torture. He hated him for conspiring with Nicole and killing his brother. And he hated him for ever underestimating Alex Eames.
“I think we got enough for Carver,” Bobby said, looking at the piles of notebooks with disdain.
Alex made a noise of agreement. “I’ll send him the photos,” she said. “Then we can be done with this.”
***
Alex had made quick work of sending Carver the photos of the worst parts of the journals they’d read. The best examples of Declan Gage’s frayed mind, to show how far gone he was. Afterwards, they boxed everything up and lined the boxes by the front door. They would bring them to evidence and lock them away, hopefully never to see the light of day again.
After they finished the task, Bobby asked if Alex wanted to stay for dinner. He saw her pause and consider it. They hadn’t eaten a meal together (outside of late night Chinese food over piles of evidence strewn in an interview room) since before their rift. Bobby had tried a few times, and she’d always declined. But this time - she was considering it.
Bobby stood with his hands shoved into his pockets, waiting for her answer. He felt nervous.
“Why not?” she’d finally said, and hung her jacket back up on the hook she’d taken it from. “You’re buying.”
Bobby eagerly accepted her terms. He ordered Italian, and they watched an old movie on TV while they ate it. Something black and white. He hardly paid attention, spending more time watching Alex than the screen. Every realization he’d come to over the past couple days, every unspoken thought he’d had, was bubbling up, threatening to spill over. He’d spent most of their partnership avoiding telling her almost anything about his own feelings, and it turned out to be all for naught. He hadn’t protected her from anything, least of all from himself.
“I - I need to tell you something,” Bobby said suddenly, the words out of his mouth before his brain had caught up - unusual for him.
Alex turned to look at him, eyebrows raised. “What is it?”
Bobby lowered his eyes from hers, unable to take her gaze, afraid to see her reaction to what he was about to say. “Eames, you’re the.. The best thing to happen to me.” He paused to observe her from the periphery of his vision. He couldn’t see her expression, but she was stock still, staring at him. “I could never work with another partner. Nobody would measure up to you.”
She remained silent, and he risked a glance up at her. Her mouth was open slightly, her breaths coming slightly faster than usual. “Bobby..” she said, but seemed struck for words.
“Thank you, for.. For staying. With me,” he finished.
Alex reached between them and grabbed his hand. His first instinct was to pull away - to keep that distance between them. But Bobby let that instinct go. He wanted her to know what she meant to him.
“I’ll always stay with you,” Alex whispered.
“I’m sorry,” Bobby said, ducking his head. “I said it before, but.. I didn’t.. really mean it.”
Alex chuckled. “I know.”
“But I mean it - this time,” Bobby lifted his head again. He could feel a weight releasing off his back as he said the words. “I’m - I’m sorry, Alex.”
She smiled, not one of her usual on-the-job smiles when she was making a potshot, but a slow smile that came from a deeper part of Alex that he didn’t always see, and it was like a salve to Bobby’s soul.
“Apology accepted,” Alex said, and released his hand and pointed at one of the bags their dinner had come in, sitting on the coffee table. “Did you say there was dessert?”
Bobby grinned, eagerly fetching the bag, which contained some tiramisu. He’d gotten it because she always ordered it whenever they got Italian. The atmosphere in Bobby’s apartment was lighter as he served it up, and Alex’s tinkly laugh was back, as she laughed at something outdated and silly in the old movie. He watched her as she ate tiramisu, and he felt..
Free.