Wild Horses

"I watched you suffer a dull aching pain, Now you decided to show me the same
No sweeping exits or offstage lines, Could make me feel bitter or treat you unkind - Wild horses couldn't drag me away. Wild, wild horses, couldn't drag me away"

(This song is accredited to Mick Jagger and Keith Richards, but I have a feeling it may have originally been written by Gram Parsons.)

I know nothing at all about the monetary value of Goren's 1966 (?) Ford Mustang, not knowing what condition it is in.

A Mustang (Equus caballus) is often referred to as a Wild Horse. They are small, compact and very hardy.

Just like Alex Eames. Fortunately.

/

Eames watches ruefully as an unrepentant Declan Gage is led away by uniforms to the holding cell. She hadn't suspected the old man until Goren pointed out the discrepancy with the postmark on the package containing Nicole Wallace's heart.

Her attention turns back to Goren. She wonders about the state of the package containing his heart.

"Hey," she says, pulling out a chair and sitting opposite him. There is, predictably, no answer. Goren has his eyes closed, his head resting in his hands, and appears to be on some other world. But Eames is used to that. She clears her throat. "Ross has oh-so-kindly allowed us to complete paperwork tomorrow morning, 8.30am start."

No response. She tries another tack.

"So ... I am going to take you to a nightclub and see if I can get you hooked up for the night with someone half your age. Sound good?"

Bobby opens one eye. She almost smiles at him. But not quite. "Come on, let's get out of here. Give me your car keys."

He opens his other eye.

"Look," says Eames, her tone conspiratorial. She leans in closer to him. "You're exhausted, overwrought. Grief-stricken. I have to take advantage of that. When else would you ever let me drive your Mustang? Now - give me the keys."

Speechless, Goren gives her the keys.

/

Eames turns the engine over and revs it a couple of times. Like an expert, thinks Goren. He's apprehensive, but too numb to do very much about it. If he can't trust Eames to drive him safely in his own car, then who CAN he trust?

I mean, who else is left?

She eases out of the parking space and Goren breathes deep and relaxes. He leans back, watching the interplay of muscles in the top of her arms as she winds the steering wheel around and around. He thinks how her driving his cumbersome, awkward and petulant old car is a metaphor for her presence in his life. She is more than capable of dealing with whatever he throws at her.

A strong and beautiful woman driving a classic muscle car. Other men would pay money for this experience, he thinks.

The guttural sound of the engine as it idles at the traffic lights, the smell of the waxed leather seats; it all rocks him gently. Like a lullaby. He has not often been a passenger in his own car, letting someone else take charge, navigate, propel him forwards. He's been his own driver for so many years.

The car slides forward and his eyes slide closed and he falls again into the untidy sleep of a man with too much on his mind.

Eames glances over at him. Goren's head rolls, banging against the window column, but that isn't enough to waken him. She checks the rear-view and slows down to a speed that the car is barely comfortable with, but which is better for his skull.

He's probably had enough knocks just now, she thinks.

He has nearly three-quarters of a tank. Plenty for what she wants to do. She drives and drives.

The city spreads out like the legs of a whore, as the big car noses on into the depths of it. Eames feels like she knows every part of New York, but parts of it still have the ability to surprise her and horrify her, albeit briefly.

The last couple of days have been a Coney Island roller coaster. She's learnt more about her partner in that short time than she has done in seven years sitting opposite him.

She knows his favourite restaurants for take-out, and how he's been supplementing his income by ghost writing essays for failing Ivy Leaguers.

How he buys dishwashing liquid in bulk because it is cheaper. About his battles to get his medical debts restructured, and how close he has been to bankrupcy.

It isn't just about the money. She knows which sex-lines he calls, and how he kept every single stupid joke e-mail she has ever sent him.

You're crazy and mixed up and sometimes pretty dark Goren, just like New York City ... she thinks.

But I still don't want to be anywhere else.

/

He wakes up later and starts, confused. The seat belt across his lap holds him safe as he remembers.

"Where are we?"

"Just coming into the Bronx."

He yawns so hard she hears his jaw bone click. "Where are we going?"

"Nowhere. Well - everywhere. I just want to drive your car some more." She meets his gaze for a moment and says, "God knows when you'll be weak enough again to actually let me when I ask."

Goren stares out of the window at the endless B-movie starring nocturnal New York City sliding past him. The doze has refreshed him but he still feels pretty horrible. The moving picture cityscape suits his mood.

Eames says, "This is a beautiful car. You can't sell it."

He sighs. She is referring to the e-mails between him and Lewis she has seen on his server. "Can't you re-finance somehow?"

"Huh. You tell me. You know more about my credit rating now than I do."

There is an uncomfortable pause, where the car's spacious interior suddenly feels constricting and close. Outside it has started to rain. Eames fumbles for the windshield wipers and Goren leans over to flick the lever for her.

"I had to do that, Bobby. You know I did."

Goren is reminded of something similar that he said to an outraged and tearful Eames when he had re-opened her husband's murder case. The memory makes him feel very sour.

"Let me guess. You were only following orders." he snips.

"Yes - something like that." A beat. The wipers slap lazily back and forth. "Pretty much the same as you were doing at the end of your suspension."

He clenches his jaw in irritation and sucks in air though his teeth. They could go on like this for ever. Here he is, fresh from a game of deadly tit-for-tat with Nicole Wallace and suddenly he's engaged in something similar with Alex Eames. It all feels vitally familiar. Gage was right. Eames does remind him of his mother.

And, right on cue, she digs at him again. "Anyway, don't get all prissy with me. That smoke and brimstone routine might work on poor old Liz Rodgers, but I've seen the ordinary little man behind the green curtain working the buttons and levers - "

The Wizard of Oz? He has to interrupt her now."Is that your version of a cultural reference, Eames? I guess the Water Carrier has learnt a thing or two from the Genius, eh?"

She purses her lips. Seconds out, round two. "You're really bargain basement tonight, you know that?"

"Yeah. I guess. That was cheap. But I just wish you'd told me what you were doing, is all."

Eames snorts derisively and shakes her head. The hypocrisy of what he says is not lost on her. "You should know better than to antagonise the person driving your twenty thousand dollar car, Goren. Anyway, I did tell you. I changed your email password, remember?"

"Oh. 'Bigfoot' ... "

"The Water Carrier is considerably less dumb than she is given credit for. It was my way of letting you know I had been there."

A frown throws a rope around Goren's brows and pulls them tight together. How had he forgotten that? The - very obvious - password change was how he'd discovered that he'd been hacked in the first place, which led him to immediately look for evidence that his Credit Union communications and his LUDs had been compromised, too.

Silence settles like a wet dog in the car. It's quiet, but you can still smell it.

Without bothering to consult him she gets Chinese takeout and lets them both into his apartment using her spare key. He'd forgotten she even had one. How is it he could have been so clumsy, to let this determined little one-woman army of a woman march victorious into his life, without even putting up a fight?

He is too tired to be embarrassed by the state of his kitchen, but she doesn't seem to notice the mess. After the revelations of the last forty-eight hours, an untidy kitchen is probably the last thing about him that concerns her. They sit and eat. Well, she eats, anyway. She is ravenous.

"Honestly Eames, this - " He gestures at the spread of food with his chopsticks, but then gives up on whatever platitude he had been thinking of trying with her. "I really just want to be on my own."

"Yeah, I know you do." Eames stabs into the cardboard bucket of Kung Pao. He looks at her uncomprehendingly. She finishes her mouthful and has a swig of beer before saying again, "I know you do."

She lays her chopsticks down. What she has to say is more important than the food. He settles back in his chair, watching her. He fancies he can see the feelings prowling around beneath the skin of her face, threatening at any moment to appear.

"Do you remember when my sister and her husband came to take the baby?" she says quietly, after a while.

Of course he remembers. She's only asking him that to give herself more time. "I said I needed to be alone, and you left. But then you sat outside my room for seven and a half hours, listening to me cry."

He is genuinely surprised. "How did you know I was there?" he asks, intrigued in spite of himself.

She looks at him, her lip curled in mock disdain for his great foolishness. "I'm Senior Partner. Detective First Grade, NYPD. Major Case. Of course I knew you were there."

So. He's been rumbled again. Another one of his carefully nurtured secrets is exposed. He fumbles for an excuse, an explanation. Anything to avoid telling her how he had really felt that night. He's so tired now, all he can come up with is the truth. "I knew you wanted to be alone. You told me that. But I didn't want to leave."

Eames feels she has made her point rather well. She reclaims her fallen chopsticks and makes another assault on the pork balls. "I'll sleep on your couch tonight, then." It isn't a question.

Goren struggles. He is feeling overwhelmed by events and by people doing things for him that he might never have imagined, a year or so ago. "I don't know what to say," he mumbles.

"Just say 'thank you' and, 'are you going to eat that last egg roll?' like you normally do, Bobby."

He makes a sound suddenly - a curious noise - and at first Eames fears he is choking. Then her fears turn to alarm - is he crying again? It is only after a few anxious moments that she realises he is, in fact, laughing.

"I cannot believe how you got me to let you drive my car," he says, shaking his head. And he picks up his chopsticks again.