A Post-Ep for "The War at Home". "WaH" has got to be the BEST EVER episode this show has ever done. EVER. I just about had a heart attack when I watched it…can't wait to see where this one goes. The following is my humble thoughts on that very issue. Enjoy- and watch the eppy many, many times over…
I think I only took 2 liberties with this one: Ross's Ex-wife's name, and the fact that Eames still has her Santa Mug. I haven't seen it recently and I think it's gone for good, but it's one of those things you always imagine seeing there when you watch the show…
Alex stood in the squad room next to Capt Ross in shock. You wanna fire me? Fire me.
She stood there for a minute before whispering, "Bobby?" She stared at the place where he disappeared from view, watching it happen over and over again in her mind.
Any anger she had felt left her instantly. All of her annoyance at his childish behavior had gone in an instant. Now she was worried. Worried that if he left that she would never feel safe again. Worried that if he was gone and something happened to her again that no one would ever care like he did. Worried that his childish behavior would lead him into worse trouble than he was already in…
"Bobby?" she asked again, to no one in particular. She suddenly ran after him and came to a screeching halt in front of the elevator, where both sets of doors were closed. She pressed the buttons frantically before running towards the stairs. When she burst through the doors into the cold New York air, she looked around, and it didn't take long before she saw her partner- or was it now former partner? - walking agitatedly towards the subway. His cell phone rang and he threw it across the street without looking at the caller ID.
He was running away. Running away from his needy mother, running away from his failure of a brother, running away from his ass-hole captain, and running away from his partner…
"Bobby!" she shouted at him, the anger and frustration in her voice apparent. He stopped and turned to look back across traffic at her. Her hair blew across her face obstructing her view, and by the time she had wiped it away, he was gone.
She walked back into the squad room in a powerful strut. He gun swayed with her hips as she stepped up to her desk, looking confident and sultry. Ross watched her from the doorframe of his office. She grabbed her coat from the back of her chair and turned to leave again.
"Eames," she heard Ross call after her.
She stopped and looked at him over her shoulder. "Yes, captain?"
"Where do you think he went?" he asked casually, leaning in the doorframe.
"Why? So you can call him back to work from there, too?" She snapped before flashing an evil grin. "He threw his cell phone into the door of a taxi cab. Tough luck, Captain." She shrugged and turned to walk away again.
"Eames," he called again and she stopped again. "Where are you going?"
"To find him," she answered simply.
Danny Ross watched her walk to the elevator and press the button delicately. She wasn't in a hurry, and her behavior was almost disturbing.
As much as he hated to admit it, he really admired her; really had an interest in her. She was tough, straight up, and never let anything hold her back. What he didn't get was how in sync she was with her partner- at least up until now, anyway. How when he worked his first case with them, she found it funny that he was skeptical and uptight about the…unusualness of their partnership.
He wanted to test it, to push it- to see if Goren and Eames really were the pair they were made out to be. To see if Eames really was the hard-ass from Vice her file said she was. To see if Goren really was the 'genius on the edge' that his reputation made him out to be…and to see if Eames really had developed the 'acquired taste' she had claimed to.
And as much as he hated to think about it, Major Case was a tough squad, and Eames really was everything he had been looking for in a detective, in a woman- until he had broken her partnership, possibly for good.
He sighed and turned and went back into his office. He definitely wasn't going to fire Goren if he ever came back- if only for Eames' sake.
Eames pulled out her cell phone and dialed a number.
"Hello?" came a raspy voice.
"Mrs. Goren?" Eames asked. "Francis?"
"Yes, who is this?"
"This is Alex, Bobby's partner from work."
"He doesn't work with an Alex," she said. "Who is this?"
"This is Eames, Francis. Eames."
"Oh, Eames. You're that bitch that pulled him away from me on thanksgiving. Bobby and I were having a nice chat until you called."
She sighed in frustration. Damn it, Ross. "I'm sorry I had to do that. I had no choice. We solved the case about an hour ago," she finished cheerfully. "Has he come back to visit you yet?" she asked, trying to sound cheerful.
"No, he hasn't. He hasn't even called." She sounded troubled. "He usually calls when he's solved it…What's wrong with my Bobby? Is he with his brother? He promised he'd bring his brother to see me. Bobby got him into a 12-step program….Where's Bobby? He hasn't called."
"He…lost his cell phone. He asked me to call you for him."
"Why can't he call me himself? Why can't he use a payphone? Why can't a boy call his own mother?" She was getting agitated again. "Are they monitoring his calls?" she asked in a hushed voice.
"They are," Eames, said quickly, before adding, "That's why he asked me to call you. When he comes to see you, will you call me?"
"They aren't monitoring your calls, too?"
"No, ma'am. I have a phone they don't know about." It was like talking to a child, but if that's what it took to find him. "Will you call me when Bobby comes to see you? I'd love to talk to you again."
"I will," she said stately. "But only if you promise to tell him to get me new doctors. I keep telling him that these guys up here are no good. I want a city doctor. You tell him that for me, and I'll call you when he comes to see me."
"I will do that. Thank you Mrs. Goren." She got no reply but the click of the phone disconnecting.
She flipped her phone shut and stepped inside her house. She needed a shower, a fresh change of clothes, and a drink before she set out again. She'd be damned before she let him mess her up even worse- but her thoughts strayed back to where he could be- If he wasn't with his mother, then he was probably at home…
She stepped inside. "Bobby?" she called out. "Bobby?" Things were strewn everywhere. He had made a mess in his agitation, but hadn't seriously damaged or destroyed anything- unlike her Santa mug that had gone flying off her desk.
She carefully walked down the hallway and turned the doorknob to his bedroom. He was asleep on his stomach on the bed, fully clothed, in what looked like the deepest sleep he had ever been in.
"Not a brilliant plan, Bobby, running away from work…usually when 3 year olds run away from their Mommy or the mean kids at school they don't go home where someone can find them."
He grunted and lifted his head. "Huh?" he mumbled.
"I said, 3 year olds usually run away from home, not work," she said loudly.
He sat up. "Go away, Eames."
"Right," she said sarcastically. "Because the last time I went away you nearly beat the crap out of your mentor in a frantic search to find me. If you don't want to work, and you don't want to see your Mom, you need to tell people. You can't hold the weight of the world on your shoulders forever. You'll break."
"How insightful," he snapped, sitting up. "Go away," he repeated.
"Not a chance. You don't get to treat me like shit without an explanation."
"I didn't do anything to you-"
"Save it- you wanna get fired, this is a sure fire way to do it. Wallow in your own guilt and misery. You blame yourself for your mother's illness, you blame yourself for my kidnapping, and you blame your father for that girl's murder. Get over yourself! Sometimes life doesn't go the way it should- sometimes people get taken from us that we love. You can't just run away! And you certainly can't insult Police Commissioners in front of your Captain!"
"Hey! I didn't need someone to come here and yell at me!"
"You're acting like a 3 year old!"
"Why do you think I left?!"
"I don't know…to run away from your problems? To leave me feeling abandoned and helpless- again! And you know what Bobby? I was trying to help you! And you just kept pushing me away. You say you're lucky to have me, but right now you're not acting like it. Even if everything you believe is true, you've still got me!
"Oh- like this isn't some personal agenda for you too? 'Sometimes you want it to be more than your job.' That's what you told Ross… you're desperate for a family! You don't care whose life you have to meddle in to get one!"
Alex stopped and looked at him. "You're a real ass, you know," she said, on the verge of tears. "I want to help you, because believe it or not, you are a part of my family. You need help, Bobby. You're not crazy, you're just in over your head." She paused and took a deep breath. "Let. Me. Help. You."
She stood there in silence staring at him, holding back her tears. They were both startled when Bobby's cell phone rang.
"Yah- Dr. Sebastian…" There was a pregnant pause. "Yah…ok." He flipped his phone shut and looked up at Eames. "She died. Just an hour ago… the uh, cancer, it metastasized or something…and my brother was there and she, uh…she…she killed her self."
"Bobby…" Alex immediately sat down next to him on the bed and took him in a hug, which he reciprocated. And he finally broke down. Alex felt his weight fall into her shoulder and he sobbed. "I'm sorry, Eames," he mumbled. "I should have-"
"Should have done what? Been Superman?" She was on the verge of tears herself, but she had to hold them in- if only for Goren.
Eames opened the door of her house and went through her new routine. She immediately turned on all the lights, looked around, locked her front door, and then went through her mail. As much as she wanted to believe that things we back to normal, at least in her own house, things were not. She still had that small twinge of fear. And now that her partner had totally lost it, she didn't feel like calling him over to come sleep in her couch again.
She had also lost it too, to a certain extent. She was sick of carrying all the emotional baggage she had carried for years as Bobby's partner. She was beginning to wonder if the ecstasy of solving a crime with Bobby was all worth it. They were now officially damaged. Nothing would ever be the same, and she honestly didn't know if they would ever get better. All she knew was that she was refusing to let go of him, no matter how pissed off she was.
She flipped open her phone and dialed. "Captain Ross? Wanna go get a drink?"
"Sometimes you need more than the job, huh?"
"Yah," she sighed.
Two hours later…Alex sat in her nicest pair of jeans and her favorite red shirt at the bar, next to Danny Ross. The cuffs of his blue shirt were rolled up to his elbows and he was sipping the beer in his hand.
"Did you find your partner?" he asked.
"She finally died," she blurted a little less sensitively than she had meant to.
"How's he holding up?"
"Uh- not the job." She didn't want to talk about it. She had done her share of emotional lifting today and needed a break. Why she thought she'd get it from her hard-assed Captain, she had no idea. "How was your thanksgiving- until it was so rudely interrupted?" she asked back.
"Oh- it wasn't bad. Lisa was there with the kids. Todd was there too. And my Dad. It was actually going pretty smoothly. Well, as smoothly as can be expected. How 'bout you? How's your nephew doing?"
She took a gulp of her margarita (Bobby used to buy them for her all the time until the Tagman case…) and said, "He's doing well. He's 3 now- it seems like only yesterday…"
She inched closer to Ross and sighed again. "You alright, Eames?"
"Alex- only Bobby calls me Eames."
"You're my detective, it would be unprofessional for me to call you by your first name."
"Oh please- 3 weeks in and Deakins had dropped that charade. Bobby just calls me Eames because I don't think he remembers what my first name is." She laughed and took another drink. "And besides- we're out drinking together, how much of a professional relationship are we talking about here?"
He nodded in acquiescence and finished off his beer. "Well, I'd better go."
"You wanna come over?" she asked.
Ross only smiled and said, "I can't- I've got the kids at home. Maybe next time."
"Yah," Alex mumbled as she watched him leave. Another night alone. Oh joy.
Three Weeks Later…
Bobby closed his notebook and placed it neatly in the drawer of his desk. Eames' Santa mug now sat, fully restored, on the corner of his desk, pens and pencils all back in place. It had taken him a while to put all the smashed pieces back together from when he had 'cleared' his desk at Thanksgiving.
He looked up and Eames smiled at him. "Done?" she asked.
"Yeah."
"Tomorrow's your first Sunday without having to…" she began meekly. "You wanna-"
"I can't. I'm visiting my brother at the rehab clinic…"
Eames felt a wave of guilt pass over her as she followed him out towards the elevator, shooting a glance back towards Captain Ross's office…