This story is set about a month after "Untethered", early into Bobby's suspension.

She's waiting for him in the kitchen, preparing his favorite dish and probably the first meal that's been cooked in here in weeks, if not months... The apartment reeks of stale air and defeat, so much so that she has to crack a window just to breathe.

She hears the lock snick quietly and she smiles, stirring the sauce of the lamb parmesan calmly even as her heart rate soars as it does every time they're in a room together. He effects her like no other man has before in her life. She can't hide her shiver of anticipation as she hears the front door creak open.

First there's the sharp shocked inhalation of breath as he sees her through the gloom of his apartment, haloed by the harsh fluorescents of his stove hood. Then, his whole body tensing trying to decide whether it's smarter to confront her for being in his apartment, or leave. Just as she feels he's going to decide, she turns to face him:

"Hello, Bobby. I'd ask how you're doing, but from the looks of it, not well."

Indeed, he's a shadow of the brash gumshoe that first questioned her five years ago back at Hudson University: for one thing he's fatter, as well as unshaven, and sloppily dressed in a worn flannel shirt and torn denim. While she's hardly changed, her prize stud has rapidly declined into a swaybacked toothless nag.

"Where's your wife, Bobby? Where is the pitter-patter of little Bobby junior? I know you said not to count you out, but tick tock tick tock… You'd best hurry otherwise all us single women are going to start wondering what's wrong with you…"

She's careful not to show her surprise at the dull look in his eyes. Her Bobby's eyes would have flashed for a brief second with pain, before becoming ignited with bloody minded determination. This Bobby before her, this weak creature that can't even muster up a reaction to her presence, is revolting.

He's supposed to demand to know why she's here, what she's planning, to congratulate her for doing the right thing and handing Gwen over to her aunt, to ask if she had anything to do with Theirry/Bernard/whatever-he-was-calling-himself-then's death. He's supposed to be quivering inside wondering what she'll take from him, just like she promised…

Except his precious NYPD has done all that for her, stripping him of the badge and gun that little Bobby Goren uses to hide from all his monsters lurking in every shadow. Of course he's done it to himself, going on a rogue mission to that prison upstate… for one murdered schizophrenic prisoner?

She's starting to think he's less of a Captain Ahab and more a Don Quixote.

He shuts the door behind him quietly, slipping off his trainers and leaving them beside the door, like his arch nemesis' drop by his apartment on a regular basis.

He's not appreciating how much effort she put into planning and exacting this revenge. It's really only a preview of what she has planned for him if he manages to get reinstated. Which is looking increasingly unlikely.

"You made my favorite, such consideration isn't like you, Nicole," He says flatly, bending over to smell her concoction. "Nightshade in the sauce?"

"Don't be crude," she pouts, surprised at how quickly he moved without her noticing. Perhaps her Bobby is in there somewhere under all that stubble. "Can't I do something nice for my favorite detective--" She gasps mockingly, "Except you're not a detective, are you? They took your shield from you--"

He looks at her out of the corners of his eyes, slowly standing back up. That's more like her old Bobby, and she finds herself smiling.

"What do you want this time, Nicole? What are you going to try and take?" His voice is flat, eyes cold as he looks at her skeptically, as if to say Your best isn't good enough. As if he's BORED of their games.

He thinks there's nothing she can do to hurt him… like he can't feel any more pain. She's always enjoyed a challenge, her Bobby would have thought twice about his wording, before offering up a bet he couldn't win.

"I was sorry to hear about your mother…" She turns to face him, looking deep into those eyes, trying to see how deep she's struck.

Others that work with him must think she finds his most sensitive wounds by pure luck; it's not, it's simple mathematics and research. She keeps throwing barbs until she sees one hit and then she pursues it relentlessly. Her aim is aided by almost obsessive research, she know her way around a library just as well as Bobby…

She keeps missing tonight. Theoretically this time had to come, especially after the streak she'd been on. She's not ready to give up yet, though…

"Is that why you took on the Mark Ford Brady case, Bobby? To escape her and your responsibilities to be at her bedside? Just like your father?"

She's won, she realizes as pushes her against the wall, hand to her throat, but she's now dangerously close to losing her life. There's an anger burning bright in his eyes now, hotter than she has ever seen it, and a glimmer of madness that she's always teased him about but never really seen until now.

"Can you sense it inside me, barely restrained, that anger that makes it so easy for you to kill, Nicole? Is that what keeps you coming back to me, trying to push me further and further until one day I snap," He whispers in her ear, voice still flat, body pressed tight against hers.

"What the narcissist we've become, Bobby," She can't quite hide the tremble in her voice, just as she can't resist pushing him further.

"Maybe that's too broad, because it all really comes down to you Nicole, doesn't it? You and that truth that you refuse to accept. Your father and I are the two men you can't charm, aren't we? We see the real Nicole, the weak, helpless creature who can't admit to her desires." His free hand runs gently down her side, coming to rest warmly on her hip. "You want me to fuck you, don't you Nicole? So you can have some sort of control over me, just like you did when you learned to perform for your father… How would you like to do it? Do you want me to bend you right over this counter and take you from behind? Or maybe we should go back to the bedroom and I can fuck you on the bed and make you call me 'Daddy'? Fuck you until you bleed, just like old times… Would you like that, Nicole?"

He presses tighter against her and she can feel it hard against her hip. Bile rises up in her throat, her body spasming out of her control with the conflicting desire to vomit, scream, pass out, and moan…

It takes her a moment to realize that she's lying on the floor, gasping desperately for air. As the haze clears from her vision, she sees him looking over her disinterestedly. She tries to summon her fury, to attack him, punish him for making her feel this. From this position, though, she finally realizes how tall he is, how much he now outweighs her. If he wanted, he could force her to do anything, and she would be powerless…

She shakily pushes away from him, waiting to see what this new, more frightening, Bobby will do.

"Go away, Nicole," he says boredly, uninterested in savoring her pain…

She gets to her feet unsteadily, quickly making her way to the door--

"If you come back, I'll show what the crocuses look like in the spring."

The sentence doesn't even make sense to her, but the threat underneath them has her shivering long after she returns to her hotel room.