A/N: Once again, I find myself slacking in updates. In any case, this follows Goren and Eames through their episodes in season seven.

"I wanted to believe we'd been right."

The comment comes out of nowhere, in the middle of a semi-darkened squad room, where their desks sit facing each other. He doesn't look up, not because he wants to ignore her, but because guilt over going behind her back has finally settled over him, and he doesn't like it.

Even so, she continues.

"It was just easier that way," she tells him. "It was easier to believe that we'd gotten the right guy…there wasn't any reason for us to believe that we didn't."

Silence, broken only by the sound of a pen moving across paper, fills the squad room. He still doesn't look up, and doesn't answer her, either.

"Why is it that sometimes, the truth hurts worse than the lies?"

This time, he looks up, startled. The expression on her face is blank, but the look in her eyes is not.

"I'm…" he starts, but the apology dies on his lips before he can finish when she shakes her head.

"Don't be," she says, quietly. "I'm not."

"You're never going to tell me what it's too late for, are you?"

Being stuck in traffic with each other used to be fun, once upon a time. Now, it's just awkward. The radio is background noise, where before, it used to be an excuse for them to make an attempt at singing.

He's been sitting on this question for a few days now, ever since she first told him that it was too late. Something in him didn't really want to know the answer, but the part that does want to know has managed to push its way to the surface.

"It's too late to worry," she tells him. "I don't anymore."

Somehow, he knows exactly what she means. The strange thing about it is that it's too late for both of them, for different things.

He used to worry that she'd walk away. Now he knows that she stays because it's too late for her to leave.

"There used to be another reason why you stayed," he remarks, and she turns to look at him.

"I know."

They leave it at that, neither of them daring to say more than they already have.

Things seem relatively better, by the time they pick up the next case.

"Well, there's something we haven't seen before," Alex remarks, and there is a hint of her old sarcasm in her voice that hasn't been there for a while. "Who'd have thought?"

"Some people still believe in such things as treasure maps," says Bobby, without looking her in the eye. "Is it really so hard to believe?"

Alex casts an appraising look in his direction. "Do you?" she asks.

The question catches Bobby off guard, enough so that he stares at her for a long moment, trying to make sense of it.

When he does, he nods. "Sometimes," he admits. "It's…it's fun to think about every now and then."

She bites back a smile, amused by this, even though she's not really sure why. "That sounds like you," she says.

It won't occur to him until a few days later that he has no idea what that was supposed to mean.

He wants to laugh at the comment Ross makes about Alex having found a few things on a message board about bad bosses, but he doesn't.

She, on the other hand, kicks at his feet when Ross goes away. "You think it occurred to him that someone might have posted something about the way the squad is now?"

Bobby looks up from the paperwork he's supposed to be doing. "If someone did, it won't take him long to find out," he replies. "Why?"

Alex shrugs. "Just wondering," she says, and then, "Apparently, this publisher was one of the worst. The kind that can't ever be satisfied, y'know?"

And he does know, because they've come across the type many times before, in other cases they've worked.

"You ever wonder what would happen if you wrote a memoir of your own?" Bobby asks finally, and Alex laughs.

"I think there would be a lot of pissed off brass, a few pissed off former partners, and the off chance that someone might actually laugh at it," she replies. "What about you?"

He shakes his head. "I've never thought about it," he admits. "Somehow, I don't think anyone would really want to know about half of what I had to say."

"I know you're in there. Open the door."

This is not the first time that Alex finds herself standing outside her partner's apartment following a case, but it is the first time that she finds herself more than just a little bit pissed off about it.

"Don't make me go fishing for my keys, Goren," she says, and before she can continue, the door opens and she's being yanked inside.

"What the hell is wrong with you?" she demands. "Since when do you care what the brass have to say?"

"Six months," Bobby tells her, and that's all he needs to say. The words sink in slowly, and after a moment, Alex scowls.

"They can't do that," she says furiously. "There's got to be…Ross didn't say anything?"

"What could he possibly say?" Bobby asks, half-sarcastically. "There isn't any going back now."

There is a double meaning to this, one that isn't lost on either of them.

Even so, neither of them bother to pick up where they leave off.

Six months and a few weeks later, she finds herself watching him sleep, and trying not to think about how close she came to losing him.

"I can hear you thinking," Bobby says, the sound of his voice making her jump. "Penny for your thoughts?"

Alex looks down at him (for once, she thinks, wryly). "I hated you," she admits. "For not telling me, for avoiding me…Six months is a really long time, y'know."

He has the grace to look somewhat guilty about this. "It wasn't you," he says, and realizes too late how stupid that sounds.

She laughs, hard.

It's been a while since she was able to do that, and after a whole, he laughs, too, because the whole thing is just so completely ridiculous and now that it's over, neither of them can help it.

Once they trail off, though, the expression on Alex's face goes completely serious. "I almost shot you," she says, her voice nearly inaudible as it all comes crashing down on her again.

Bobby reaches out towards her, tentatively, and pulls her closer. "But you didn't," he replies, just as quietly. "That's all that matters."

"Don't laugh."

"I'm not laughing."

"But you're going to. I know you're going to, and it's not funny."

At the same time, it is. The two of them have been avoiding each others' gazes all afternoon, just so they won't start laughing, but the fact that something has finally gotten personal for Captain Ross is one of those things that they want to laugh at, even though they know they shouldn't.

Bobby throws a paper clip at Alex, who sits across from him, smirking as she shakes her head.

"Oh, come on," she says. "Even you have to admit that it's kind of funny. Well, not really, but…you know what I mean, don't you?"

"Yes, I know what you mean," Bobby replies, without looking directly at her, "Though, I do have to say that it occurs to me that two years ago, this wouldn't happen."

"Of course it wouldn't have. Two years ago, we had a captain who was married."

A passing colleague overhears this and casts an amused look at the two of them before disappearing into the break room.

It is this that finally makes Bobby and Alex look at each other, and then away, quickly, both hoping that they won't start to laugh.

It doesn't work.

Things are slowly starting to repair themselves by the time the next case comes along.

"You know, things like this make me glad all the kids in my family have gone to public school," Alex mutters, as the uniforms take Marla Reynolds away. "There's no point in waiting if you don't have to."

"Some parents think it's worth the wait," Bobby remarks. "I can see why they'd want to start early."

"Well, sure, but three?" Alex asks. "I understand the importance of getting your kid on the waiting list, but there's still no guarantee they'll get in."

"I don't…I'm not sure that's the point," Bobby replies. "All parents want the best for their kids, but…it's easier for some to get it than others."

Alex rolls her eyes. "Public school isn't that bad," she says. "Then again, I can see the appeal of a school like this."

"Of course it isn't," says Bobby, pushing open the doors leading outside. "It all depends on how you look at it."

A quarter appears from behind her ear, and then Skittles appear on her desk.

"One of these days, you're gonna have to show me how you do that," Alex remarks, an amused look crossing her face as Bobby sits across from her. "It's not nice to keep secrets from your partner."

"Everyone's got to have their secrets," Bobby replies. "If I told you how I did that, there wouldn't be anything left for you to figure out about me."

Alex gives a derisive snort. "Somehow, I doubt that," she tells him. "Whatever else there is to be afraid of, not having anything else to figure out about you is at the bottom of the list."

"Then I have nothing to worry about."

"As long as you keep me supplied with coffee and Skittles, I'd say you were safe."

Another sign that things are starting to fix themselves. He wonders for a brief moment if she still thinks it's too late, but decides that he doesn't really want to find out.

"…You've at least got to show me that card trick again," Alex is saying, when Bobby starts paying attention to her. "My nephews will get a kick out of it."

He gives her an amused look, and nods. "I'll show you," he says. "But that's the only one."

"It really is a cutthroat world out there, isn't it?"

They have both seen a lot of things in their line of work, but every now and then, something like this comes along, and in the most unlikely settings.

"We go from a preschool to a prep school," Alex continues, when Bobby doesn't answer. "From waiting lists to webpages."

"Does it really surprise you?" Bobby asks, but she shakes his head.

"With that kid's dad being the way he is?" she asks in reply, and then, "No. It doesn't surprise me. It should, but it doesn't."

"Maybe we really are too jaded for our own good."

"Or maybe we're just not as elite as the rest of the department thinks we are. We're slacking, partner. Next time, we've got to put on more of a show."

Bobby laughs at the faint smirk that crosses Alex's face as she says this. "I've used up this year's get-out-of-jail free card with the brass," he says.

Alex fishes a set of keys out of her pocket, still smirking. "I haven't."

It is a rare thing for either of them to find themselves completely at a loss, but this time is one of those times.

"It wasn't supposed to happen this way," Bobby remarks, staring out at the city below them. It's been a while since the two of them were last on the rooftop of the headquarters building, but there they are, now, because technically, they've still got ten minutes left to go before they can leave work, and there is nowhere else for them to go. "It just…it wasn't."

"I know it," Alex replies. She remains where she is beside him, facing inward, because in all honesty, she really doesn't like heights. "What are you going to do?"

"I don't know."

This is an answer that she'd expected, and yet at the same time, it almost scares her to see her partner back in a place where he isn't sure of himself.

"My brother is gone, Nicole is gone, Declan's going to be locked up for the rest of his life…He tells me in there that I'm supposedly free, but free from what?" Bobby asks finally. "From myself? From them? How the hell am I supposed to be 'free' if I don't even know what it is that I'm free from?"

"This is going to come out wrong, but I suppose Declan thought in his own twisted way that by getting rid of the two things that worried you the most, it would give you a clean start," Alex remarks, slowly.

She waits for a reaction, but there is none. Instead, Bobby leans a little bit farther over the railing, attention caught by a noise beneath them.

"You're not going to jump, are you?" Alex asks, a fleeting panic shooting through her, because she knows that if he made up his mind to do it, it's highly unlikely that she'd be able to stop him once he started going over. He turns to look at her, startled.

"No," he says. "No. I'm not going to jump. I just…I wanted to see."

But what exactly it is that he wanted to see, he doesn't say. Silence falls between the two of them and lingers, but this time, it isn't awkward. After a while, Alex reaches forward, and puts a hand on Bobby's shoulder.

"You'll figure it out," she tells him, quietly, and looks at her watch. "In the meantime, you're coming with me."

And he does, allowing himself to be led away from the railing and back into the building, without so much as a word of protest.

It is only when they reach the eleventh floor that he speaks again. "Will you stay with me?" he asks.

Alex looks up at him, and nods, before repeating something she told him years ago.

"I'm afraid you're stuck with me."