NOTE: None of it's mine, except what is.

ALSO: Thanks to everyone who read any of it and felt it was worth the time.

AND: Squarey is my new BFF, beta friend forever.

Bobby entered the empty MCS bullpen to temporarily clean out his desk. He sat in his chair and twirled it around, trying to memorize the details. It was only going to be four weeks. It could have just as easily been never again, but he still wanted to remember it now so that he had some comfort during the long days of checking backpacks and issuing traffic tickets.

Bobby paused mid twirl when he saw the place wasn't empty after all. The blinds in Ross's office were slightly drawn, but he could see his once and future boss sitting behind his desk grinning widely. Ross smiling? What the hell? Eames stood with her back toward Bobby but her body language was relaxed and amused. He craned his neck and recognized the Hollywood profile of Calvin Forrester. The Inspector's hands were working animatedly and he was obviously in the middle of telling some incredibly amusing story since the other two laughed. Ross was laughing.

Suddenly no longer nostalgic, Bobby sat up abruptly and began gathering his things. He felt slightly cranky; it wasn't as if he wanted Eames or Ross to tear their hair out or rend their clothing as they mourned his temporary reassignment. It would be nice, though, if they weren't quite so happy that the annoyingly charming Calvin Forrester was joining the team. Bobby carefully placed his highlighter collection in the pocket of his canvas bag.

The bag reminded him of Eames. She got it for him during a trip to Seattle when they flew out to follow a lead during the investigation of a prison warden. Their layover was in Denver, and he had needed another book to read since he finished the one he brought on the first leg of the trip. Eames had gone into the bookstore with him to mock his choices and just generally give him a hard time. He had decided on a thick book about the fates of human societies and, feeling generous, also paid for Eames' gossip magazines. She would never know that he secretly wanted to peruse them while she napped. Or, if she stayed awake, he would settle for listening as she described the latest Hollywood entanglements while he pretended to be bored. He was busy paying, and Eames sweet talked the manager into giving her the bag, since it normally carried a 50 price tag. His partner was excellent at negotiation and/or intimidation. There was a quote from Desiderius Erasmus stitched on the tote:

When I get a little money I buy books; and if any is left I buy food and clothes.

She had said she didn't know who that was, but she thought of Bobby when she saw the quote. He didn't have the heart to point out that he didn't usually spend that much money on books since most could be checked out of the library for free. He secretly treasured the gift, delivered with her usual brand of snark.

Bobby was still lost in thought and didn't hear the door open. He nearly jumped when he heard Eames' voice behind him ask, "Hey Bobby, you aren't taking all your stuff away, are you?" She had a frown forming between her eyes. She looked down at him and then quickly scanned his half cleaned desk.

"W…what?" Bobby blinked up at her. He was relieved to see that she seemed concerned. Maybe his departure would be noticed after all.

Forrester popped out from around her and ruined the moment. "Hey, Goren!" he said, all friendship and smiles. He held out a hand and Bobby took it automatically. "You aren't doing that on my account, are you?" The former IAB inspector surveyed Bobby's desk. "I don't need much room, won't be here long."

"Oh, uh...yeah. I was just getting some of my stuff, making room for yours," he said. Eames had glanced at the bag and gently ran her fingers over the stitched quote. She looked up and Bobby and flashed him a small, knowing smile. He smiled tentatively in return.

"Really, Goren. You aren't going to be gone that long," Forrester said, flashing his pearly whites. "Think of it like this: We aren't moving in together, but we aren't breaking up. I just need a drawer at your place to stash a clean pair of clothes and a toothbrush."

Eames laughed and Bobby smiled. It was hard to be mad at Forrester; his good mood was infectious.

"You meet with the Spec yet?" Sharpie asked.

"Yeah, this morning," Bobby replied. "She's…tough."

Sharpie laughed. "You ain't seen nothing." The Inspector looked around. "You, uh, you meet with Santelli yet?" he asked, looking at Bobby's face as if trying to see if there were scratch marks or any other damage.

"Uh…no. No." Bobby rubbed the back of his neck with his hand. Busted. Bobby had been putting it off. With the stress of the hearing and subsequent verdict, and his tense meeting with the Chief Inspector, Bobby didn't have the energy to bond with Santelli.

Sharpie nodded in understanding and checked his watch. "I'm supposed to meet her in about 10 minutes on the Fourth Floor." He glanced at Eames and then back at Bobby. "We're going out, a last hurrah kind of thing before the big changeover. Her mother-in-law's got the kids, so Greg's coming in to join us so he can be the designated driver. You guys wanna come?" The two MCS detectives glanced at each other and Bobby could tell by Eames' face that she wanted to. He cocked his head to the side and considered it. His first instinct was to pass; he was so used to keeping to himself these days that he wasn't sure he'd be good company. On second though, it might be better to deal with Santelli in a social situation, surrounded by people they were both comfortable with, and avoid the one on one. After a moment, he nodded.

"Great, I am going to call Theo and see if he can make it. We're headed to McSorley's around the corner." Sharpie went over to a desk, Logan's, and picked up a phone. "Goren, why don't you go and retrieve Gus?"

Augusta Santelli sat in the Fourth Floor Conference Room, which was a generous description for the space. It was more of a closet; the casualty of an idiot architect who couldn't adequately divide the floor into evenly distributed administration cubicles. Eventually, someone thought to throw a chair and a TV in there and call it an AV room. There wasn't enough room to fit more than a person and a half, a TV and a tiny side table with a crappy folding chair. It was cramped, but it was still better than anything in the basement where IAB was located. Besides, she didn't plan on being there for much longer. Her mother-in-law had the kids and Sharpie was due to swoop in and save her soon.

Gus leaned back in her chair and pressed "rewind" on the remote.

"I give up," she said.

"I'm, uh, I'm sorry?" he stammered back at her.

"I give up. In the wake of all this," she gestured over the mess on the table which was quickly spilling onto the floor. "I honestly don't know what to do with you. None of us do. Since you're the genius here, Detective Goren, what do you think we should do?"

She rubbed her forefinger between her eyes and under the bridge of her glasses. She was not at her finest here, and the Spec's order to watch and rewatch was starting to fry her brain. She sighed and rewound and watched again. He never answered the question, damnit! She made a note and pressed on.

"Why did you become a cop, Detective?" she asked suddenly.

"Why did you?" he asked.

Duh. Answering the question with a question, classic switcharoo, Augusta Rose. Thus it becomes about Gus and her motives, and no longer about Goren and his. Gus made a notation on her legal pad and rewound the video and watched that bit again. Where the hell was her head that day? She'd spent hours with perps of every stripe – cops, pimps, petty thieves, and serious career criminals without letting a questioning transfer back to her and without loosing the direction of the interrogation. But here was a rookie mistake smacking her in the face. She leaned forward on the little table and rested her head in her hands as she continued to watch.

"So that makes you, what, both the checks and the balances?" he countered.

"It does," she agreed.

She had to smile at her quip. Of course, her wit was worthless in the face of her failure. Damn. She fast forwarded to the part where Goren got out of his chair and walked over to her. She watched him round the table and lean over her left shoulder; she could see Logan in the background leaning back, looking relaxed.

"But you, you're the Queen of the NYPD," he sneered at her.

"'Your Majesty' does have a nice ring to it," she responded. She cringed at the tremor in her voice which he had to have known was as a sign of weakness.

"What happened to the cop who shot you?" he asked as bent from the waist and leaned forward. She had felt the hairs on the back of her neck rise as his breath tickled her ear. She had struggled with her panic, fighting the urge to turn around and backhand him across the face or jab an elbow into his trachea. Since the shooting those many years ago, she was very particular about being approached from behind, especially on the left side. He definitely, deliberately approached her from behind and intentionally leaned over her left side. Shit. How did he know?

"He went away for awhile, then he died in prison," she replied. Cops did not make very popular inmates and she knew that the one who shot her, Officer Frederick W Webster, would rank as one of the least popular. Webster was a belligerent bully who hid behind his shield; he shook down the people he was supposed to protect and took a cut from a prostitution ring run from inside a strip club. He had a reputation for beating confessions out of people, innocent or not. No. Webster had found no allies in the New York City Prison System.

No one, not even her husband, had known that Gus tracked Webster's movements from the day he went inside. On any given day during that time, she even knew how many times Webster had taken a piss. She tracked every infraction he received from guards, and every beat down he got from other inmates. She'd been present during his two appeal hearings, silently sitting in the gallery, watching. She also knew he told anyone who would listen that she, Gus, was responsible for his mistreatment, that his infractions and beat downs were because she called in favors from her friends and her cop daddy's friends. Interestingly, the number of people who listened was usually one, and that person usually requested a transfer to a different cell after about three weeks; a request that was always granted.

"You pushed and pushed," Goren had accused. "Trapping him in a corner like a cat with a mouse, using your influence and your powerful friends to take everything away from him until he was left with nothing and was killed. The perfect revenge."

As Goren used her as a verbal punching bag, she sat silently serene, her back at a flawless ninety degree angle to her chair. Her dancing master would have wept to see such perfect posture. She'd heard it all before so she'd let the big detective talk. The beauty of those rumors was the seedling of truth upon which they were based. She never lifted a finger, never wrote a request, never so much as intimated in a conversation, casual or otherwise, with anyone in the NYPD or beyond that Webster was marked. He had done it himself by being the worst kind of cop, the kind that uses the badge to legitimize his crimes and fires on one of their own. He'd sinned against the brotherhood and in the end got what everyone, herself included, believed he deserved.

Five years after he was first sentenced, Webster was killed in the prison yard. Someone had stabbed him with a shiv made out of the top of a bean can stolen from the cafeteria. No witnesses came forward, no suspect was ever found. Preliminary investigation ruled it a professional hit with too many suspects to narrow down and not enough people who cared to do the narrowing. Popular belief had it that one of Webster's business partners was not happy the former officer had decided to turn State's evidence in exchange for more privileges (which really just equaled less harassment). Gus had attended Webster's funeral, with four other people: two former partners, an ex wife and the chaplain. No one had cried. His ex-wife had spat on the grave as the bastard was lowered into the ground.

Gus enjoyed her work in Internal Affairs. It gave her a chance to ferret out other Websters before anyone else could get shot. It frosted her cookies that even after all these years she still had a visceral reaction, a fight or flight response to someone, anyone, sneaking up on her from behind on her left side. She absently rubbed her shoulder as she watched the screen, probing for the tell tale lump with her fingers. That bullet would never come out and she would probably never get over it.

Gus heard a knock at the door behind her, probably Sharpie. "Come in," she called but didn't turn around as the door cautiously opened. "I'll be just a minute," she said absently. Her eyes were riveted on the screen which was paused as Goren leaned behind her and talked in her ear. It pissed her off that he could have figured her out so quickly, and she could not return the favor. Where was her tell that tipped him off? She didn't favor her left side and she didn't rub at the shoulder for the bullet, not in public anyway. He had certainly gone for the jugular quick enough. No wonder people were conflicted; either hostile like Kenny Moran or loyal like Alex Eames. Goren was good at what he did. Asshole.

It took her a minute to register that Sharpie had not said anything. She sat upright but didn't turn around. Because Sharpie not saying anything meant that it was not, in fact, Sharpie that had opened the door. Damnit, he had snuck up on her again.

"What the hell are you doing here?" She asked irritably. She wasn't scheduled to meet with him until later in the week, before they went out on patrol.

"Your partner, and uh, my partner," he stammered. "They all want to..." She felt his confusion at her recognition because she still refused to turn around. "How, uh, how do you do that?" he blurted.

She turned her folding chair with a bit more emphasis than necessary, clunking it around loudly to send the message that she was annoyed. "Do what?" She said, eyeing him distastefully. She knew what he meant, but wanted to make him work for it. It was bad enough that she had spent the last two hours watching him completely annihilate her on screen, to have him there in person seemed the worst kind of insult. She knew it wasn't his fault, technically, but she was cranky so he was just going to have to deal.

"Know it was me?" he said.

"Detective Goren, I have five boys and a husband. I can recognize them - without looking - by voice, smell, cadence of footsteps, or lack there all," she responded condescendingly. "Sharpie's idiosyncrasies have been added to the fold, so to speak." She shook her head to clear it. She was going to have to work with him, so she had better lighten up. "I'm sorry," she said sincerely. "I'm just cranky." She gestured to the TV screen where their alternate selves were frozen on screen. "Look familiar?"

He watched the TV with interest then looked back at her. "This is us, from the other day?" he asked. She looked up at him standing in the doorway, and cast a sideways glance toward the screen. She cocked her head to the right and regarded him fully. Why not go to the source? That would mean she could stop watching this stupid video which was getting her nowhere. Besides, he owed her for getting in trouble in the first place.

"It is. Sit down." She tapped the table. "This room isn't big enough for you to loom over me like some sort of angel of doom." He obliged her by leaning on his hip. "My homework assignment is to figure out exactly the moment where you took away my lollipop." He started at her blankly before nodding in understanding. She gestured to her notepad. "Obviously, you use the old "answer a question with a question," which I did not pick up on."

"Old trick," he responded.

"Rookie mistake," she agreed. She checked her notepad again. "What's really chapping my ass here, Goren, is how did you know?" She dismissed his quizzing look, knowing he was making her work for it just as she had done for him earlier. "Cut the crap, and I will too, deal?" She said, holding out her hand.

"Deal," he affirmed, taking it. "Although with all those boys, don't you would know this handshake is more binding if we spit?" He smiled slightly as he shook her hand.

"I'll be damned," she said in wonder. "Don Quixote has a sense of humor." She took her hand away before any spit could accumulate and waved away any chance of saliva. "No, how did you know that I would be," she paused and searched for the right word. "Unnerved," she decided. "Unnerved by your hovering behind me on the left side?"

He glanced back at the TV. Saw himself intentionally intimidating her by pressing on her weakness. "I didn't."

"What the hell does that mean?" she asked, the annoyance creeping back into her voice.

"I mean I didn't know for sure," he explained, hoping he hadn't stepped on their newly emerging truce. "I knew from Mike you had been shot by a cop. I did some digging, found out it was from the back." He seemed a little embarrassed to be talking about it and rubbed his hand along the back of his neck. "Messy."

"Very," she agreed. She motioned for him to continue.

"You had no problems writing with your right hand, so I figured you were shot on the left side." He shrugged. "A shooting like that, bound to leave you nervous about who might be sneaking up on your flank. Bound to unravel you if someone parks there, pushing you about the incident."

She considered this for a moment, head tilted and then finally nodded. "That's some fast math, Don, the way you added up all those facts and then put them into motion."

He raised one shoulder and let it fall.

"Thank you.," she said. He nodded in acknowledgement.

"Everyone, uh, wants to go out," he said. "If you're done here."

She regarded him for an intense moment as if she were weighing two incredibly heavy options. Finally she said, "My turn. I'll help you."

"What?" He was confused once again. She switched gears so quickly, once again leaving him several stop lights behind. She wasn't talking about his interrogation anymore, and she wasn't talking about McSorley's either. It was as if the conversation had moved ahead in her brain and she was only now letting him in on it. He wished he could keep up. Guess he better get used to it. She picked up her PDA and with fast moving thumbs shot off an email. "I'm gonna help you," she repeated more slowly.

"H…help me?" he said.

"Stammer's back," she commented. She put the Blackberry in her bag, gathered up her things and turned off the TV. "Remember I said I have snitches?" He nodded. "Well, I'm gonna to ask a few of them if they've seen your nephew."

"What?!" he said incredulously.

"Young kid from the sticks of Pennsylvania, on the run from the law?" She summed up his fears about Donnie succinctly. "I guara-god-damn-tee you someone has seen or talked to him, or knows someone who has." She gestured for him to precede her out of the narrow room. "Odds are, I know one of those someones."

"I don't want to risk him going back to Tate's," Bobby said forcefully as he was successfully herded out of the room. She switched off the light and closed the door.

"Don't get your windmills in a twist, Don," she said as they made their way to the elevators. "My investigation of you is long over. I have no intention of turning him in, just getting some intel, maybe letting that info slip out to parties who may or may not be interested. This is a big city, wouldn't like to think of one of my kids getting lost in it." She pressed the down button. "We're partners now, hello."

FINIS