Chapter Text
Note: If you know me personally, you may want to bear in mind that I write these stories as a private hobby. I'm not embarassed by anything I write, but if you think you might be, please turn around now.
Disclaimer: I don't own these characters and acknowledge the legal rights of those who do. I will make no profit from this story.
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It had been, he reflected, a spectacularly crappy day. As he climbed into the cab, giving the driver his address whilst trying not to hit his head on the doorframe, he managed to drop his folder right onto his injured ankle. And so far, he thought, it showed few signs of getting any better. As the cabbie pulled out into traffic, merrily ignoring the blare of horns from behind him, Bobby Goren leaned his head back against the seat and tried to calm down.
It had been one of those days when everything that could possibly go wrong, did go wrong. Firstly, they'd learned that a perp who'd actually confessed to murdering his wife, right in front of them, had gotten away scot-free because of a mix-up when processing evidence. Heads would roll among the CSIs for that, but it was small consolation. Then several days of undercover work with himself and Eames posing as a successful businessman and his secretary at a convention for real estate agents had ended badly. They had managed to collar the Russian con-artists they'd been pursuing following a tip-off from the new Interpol Foreign Serious and Organized Crime Squad (or 'SOS' as it was rapidly becoming known), but one of the younger officers involved in the take-down had fallen for the female con-artist's ruse of faking pregnancy and labour pains to disarm an opponent; he'd been stabbed in the chest and was seriously ill in hospital. Eames had arrested her, but it was little consolation to either the man's colleagues or family.
Normally he'd have taken some comfort in the way he and Eames had worked together - Major Case at its best, the two of them getting the information no-one else could - but even that wasn't much consolation today. Eames had not been her usual self recently, he mused, and whilst professionally they were getting along just fine, there was something missing there, their usual open friendship seemingly having been replaced by a more businesslike approach, on her part anyway.
Possibly she was just pissed at having to pose as his secretary. They were both too professional to let the constraints of a particular undercover role get to them, but a lot of the individuals they'd been mingling with did not hold very enlightened views, and several days of having him boss her around in order to not stand out was bound to grate slightly. Goren vividly recalled one particularly repellent individual asking if his secretary looked as good laid on top of the desk as she did sitting behind it; it had taken a great deal of his self-control to joke back that he'd not managed it yet and suspected she was a lesbian, instead of loosening the man's teeth as he'd have sincerely liked to do.
Then again, he thought, idly watching the grey streets slide past, possibly there was something more to it. Eames had been just very slightly distracted of late. They'd not planned to take down the con artists until the end of the convention tomorrow, but as with all the best-laid plans, life had gotten in the way. After booking in the perps and finishing up the paperwork, she'd been in a surprising hurry to get away. Originally they'd planned that she'd drop him off at his apartment after they finished the day's undercover work, but she'd so obviously been in a rush to leave he'd offered to take a cab instead. Hmm. perhaps there was another man in Eames' life? Well, he could hardly complain if there was. Four months after the surveillance operation, and he and Sienna were still going strong.
To top it all off, he'd put on weight recently, largely as a side-effect of posing as a businessman for the past few days. The convention seemed to exist largely as an excuse for its attendees to stuff themselves silly, drink the bar dry, and try to seduce each other's secretaries. Admittedly it added to the realism of his role - most of the men his own age there were pot-bellied and had long since given up on any form of weight control, he if anything looked too thin for the role he'd been playing - but he hated the feeling of being too heavy. He'd originally planned to fit in a treadmill session and get started on shedding the weight tonight, but he'd twisted his ankle running after one of the con-artists. It would be fine in a day or so, but right now it hurt every time he put his foot down, so that was that plan out of the window. He had no definite plans for his evening, but the phrase "double Scotch and a cigarette" was beginning to suggest itself as a good idea.
Suddenly, the cab stopped. He looked around. They were one block away from his home.
"This isn't my address," he informed the man, who shrugged.
"I know that, but you see there? Roadworks. Burst main. I can't go further. Street's blocked off at both ends."
He peered out of the window, and saw what the man meant; there were huge signs blocking off the road, water flooding everywhere and several man in fluorescent jackets running around with pissed expressions and pipe wrenches. Even pulling out his badge and trying the "I'm NYPD; get me where I want to go NOW" routine wasn't going to solve this one. With a resigned expression, he fished in his pockets and pulled out a handful of bills, paid off the cabbie, and levered himself out of the cab. As he set off towards his apartment - definitely a double Scotch, he thought, and the hell with it, I'll get takeout and worry about my fricken' weight tomorrow - there was an ominous rumble overhead. He pulled his coat tighter around himself and tried to walk faster. His ankle immediately protested, and he slowed to a limp. Three paces later, and the heavens opened.
As everyone else around him cursed and swore and dived back into their homes for umbrellas, or ran for the cover of nearby shops or doorways, he stopped, and glared balefully at the sky. Yes, why don't YOU piss on me too? Everything else seems to be. He limped on, cursing and getting into a blacker mood with every step.
Suddenly, he noticed one person who wasn't running for cover. A small elderly woman in a thin cotton gown was wandering down the middle of the road. He rushed across to her as fast as his ankle would allow. She was singing to herself, a faint frown on her face. Suddenly, she turned and addressed him before he could speak.
"Do you live here?"
"Uh. yes, yes, I live here. Are you lost?" He assessed her quickly. Not undernourished - physically healthy, no bruises or injuries, her hair and nails were neat and well cared-for - but her gown was soaked with the rain, and he realised quickly that it wasn't a gown, but a nightdress. Combine that with her slightly distracted gaze, the way she was wandering down the street, the fact that she wasn't waiting for his answer but was wandering off, murmuring "I don't live here - why am I here? Where's Frank?" and he strongly suspected she was an Alzheimer's sufferer who'd wandered out of her home and got lost. He looked around. No sign of anyone else.
"Ma'am? Are you lost?" He stepped in front of her, not touching her, but blocking her way so that she couldn't wander off and go further.
"I don't live here, you know," she informed him, looking increasingly distressed.
Suddenly, there was a rapid patter of footsteps behind him, and a tall thin woman in her forties ran up to them, calling "Mother? Mother?" She arrived and took hold of the woman's arm, muttering "I'm so sorry, she's got dementia, she just wanders off, I had the door open for a few seconds and had to go in to get my purse to pay the delivery man, he must have just let her get out."
"Where do you live?"
"Just over there, the next block," the woman replied. Like her mother, she wasn't dressed for the rain, and they were both shivering.
"I'll walk you over there - here, you can borrow my coat." He ignored her protests and draped his coat round the woman's shoulders, and his jacket around her mother's. He was half-afraid that she would protest, but she seemed reassured by the jacket. She was so tiny, it was more like a coat on her, hanging nearly down to her knees. They set off together through the increasingly heavy and cold rain. He was soon soaked to the skin, and trying not to shiver by the time they reached the woman's apartment. She unlocked the door, shepherded her mother inside and returned his coat, then tried to remove his jacket from her mother.
She protested. "This is Frank's jacket. He gave it to me when we walked back from the dance last night." She clutched the jacket closer to herself, looking distressed.
"I'm so sorry - Frank was my father, she must be thinking of the past." the woman's voice trailed off. She looked utterly exhausted, life's struggles aging her prematurely.
The hell with it, he'd never much liked that jacket. "She can keep it. Really, it's an old suit, I was planning to throw it out anyway."
The look of relief on the woman's face was heartbreaking. No one should have to live the sort of life where a stranger giving away a jacket to comfort their senile mother was the high point of their day. He weighed his next words carefully.
"You know, I'm a police officer. If you're interested - " He got no further, as she interrupted him.
"I know, there are people who can help me," she sing-songed, then pulled her face into a weary smile. "Thank you." And she shut the door in his face, with a rattle of bolts. He stared at it for a few minutes, then sighed, firmly pushed the concern he felt for the two of them out of his head - he could do no more to help - and set off again for his own apartment, carrying his coat. He was soaked to the skin, and all putting his coat on now would do was just get the inside of it wet as well as the outside.
Yes, he thought, reflecting on the day's events, Sienna would be happy about the arrests, but not about the shooting. Her new division had warned the NYPD not to underestimate the con-artists. A valuable lesson learned.
Well, he thought of it as 'her' new division; she wasn't formally attached to it yet, but it was now only a matter of time before she left her old Interpol posting in the Ukraine and moved permanently to New York. The plan at present was to create several teams, consisting of a mixture of police officers, FBI agents and auditors, and translators, and have each team focus on a particular criminal organisation or individual. Sienna had lobbied strongly to get herself onto one of the teams as a translator, intending to use it to gain experience of hands-on intelligence work, then build on that to get herself out of the translation side of things and move upwards and onwards into the decision-making and management side of things.
She'd interviewed for a post on one of the new teams last week and been accepted, and almost immediately racked up major brownie points by providing one of the other teams with a tip-off about the three con-artists they'd been pursuing. They'd done the research and passed it to the NYPD, who'd awarded it to Major Case, hence he and Eames spending the past few days undercover. He still didn't know exactly how she'd got that juicy little piece of information, but he was impressed. Perhaps he could persuade her to tell him.
The thought should have brought him more joy. Watching Sienna blossom before his eyes, visibly growing more confident and decisive as she'd become increasingly involved in helping to set up the new division, had been a real pleasure for him. Her old boss, Tim Whitefield, had been one of the major instigators of the creation of the new division and he'd insisted on keeping her on as his staff translator. As such, she'd spent the past five months spending two weeks every month in the Ukraine at her old job, two weeks in New York with him. Some people would have wilted under that much travelling, but Sienna was a natural born traveller, legacy of her childhood spent flitting between Russia and the US, and if anything she seemed to thrive on the regular changes of scene.
She'd swiftly grasped that, as Whitefield's right-hand woman, she needed to be prepared to boss around people who were both older and more experienced than herself, and she seemed to be developing a real talent for managing others, getting people to work smoothly together. He liked to think he'd had a hand in that. Well, there was a certain security, he supposed was that best way to put it, in knowing that you had someone waiting for you at home. Someone whose eyes would light up when you walked in the room. Someone who would listen when you wanted to talk about your day, and who'd back off if you needed the space.
And there was the problem, he thought, and the reason why the thought of Sienna, usually something that cheered him up even on the worst days, was instead causing slightly mixed feelings. Ever since they'd begun seeing each other, right from that first memorable weekend, she'd always officially been staying with her friend Juliet. Back then he'd been a little surprised when she'd announced, politely but firmly, that she was going to catch up with her old friend and stay with her for a night, but since then he'd come to appreciate why she'd done it. She'd realised from the beginning that he was used to living on his own, and had neatly ensured that he didn't start secretly wishing for a little time alone to wind down whilst she was there by ensuring that they always had a safety valve. It was also something of a reminder - to both of them, he suspected - that she was her own woman, independent, capable of taking care of herself.
He deeply appreciated her consideration, and if anything, the nights she spent staying with her friend just made him appreciate her all the more when she was there. They were moving past the "I must spend as much of my time with you naked as possible" stage of the first few months, but if anything things were getting even better. Their recent trysts had had all the passion and fire of their first times together, but they were becoming more tender, more affectionate. They were both highly tactile and had been from the beginning, but Bobby had noticed that Sienna was becoming more and more comfortable reaching out for him, her lovemaking becoming both more instinctive and assertive as she learned his responses and gained confidence in taking the lead. Where previously she'd always hesitated just a little before embracing him when he got in from work, or when they weren't in bed together, now she just reached out and hugged him whenever she felt the need to - or could sense that he needed her to.
And he'd found himself doing the same thing. Sometimes he just reached out and stroked her, or pulled her against him, and she responded like a flower in the sun, opening up to the warmth. He was getting used to it. Used to having someone around to cook for, someone else's needs to take into consideration, someone who needed him personally, who he could make smile with just a look, a few words, and he was certainly getting used to having a gorgeous young female snuggling up to him in bed on a regular basis, to not having to go out and haunt the bar scene or look up an old acquaintance every time he wanted some female company. Sienna's wholehearted enjoyment of sex matched his libido and imagination, and there had been one or two times he'd rolled into work with shadows under his eyes, yawning, unshaven and grinning smugly.
(Now he came to think of it, Eames had been doing the same thing recently, albeit with less stubble and more make-up. Hmm, yes, he definitely suspected another man on the horizon. Heh, perhaps they'd end up double-dating. Now that would be interesting.)
Which was all good, but, he'd been getting the message from some hints Sienna had dropped that her friend was moving towards getting engaged to her long-term boyfriend. In which case, Sienna's plan to move in with her permanently when she moved to New York was off the cards. He could see the storm cloud of the "to move in together or not to move in together?" dilemma looming up on the horizon, followed in short order by the "how permanent an arrangement do we want to make this?" question, and the even blacker and larger clouds of "does she really understand what she's getting with me?" and "what does she want for her future?". Sienna knew about his mother's illness, and she'd undoubtedly worked out some of his personal history, but he still wasn't if she fully understood all the implications.
It wasn't that he didn't want to discuss it with her, but it never seemed to be the right time, and anyway, they'd known each other only a short time, why spoil something good with those kinds of problems? Wasn't it better to take the enjoyment now, rather than wreck a good thing with worries and doubts that might never amount to anything? He believed so, but until the whole "Juliet Issue" was resolved, he couldn't think of Sienna without a certain amount of worry attached, and that annoyed him deeply.
Still, it was due to be resolved one way or the other. Sienna was coming to New York for the next week, arriving today. They'd agreed that due to the undercover work he was doing, it would make more sense for her to stay with Juliet for her first night in the city and join him the day after, so one way or the other they'd have to work out what they were doing about it at some point over the next few days. Which was a good thing, but it did mean that something that was usually a source of uncomplicated joy was now a source of worry and indecision. That and there was another thought circling his head, maddeningly unclear. Something he'd noticed during her last visit - or possibly not noticed, he wasn't sure - that didn't quite add up. He shook his head frustratedly. It would come to him in due course, but for now it lingered on the edges of his thoughts, bugging him.
With a feeling of great relief, he finally staggered through his apartment's doorway, slammed and locked the door behind him and ditched his folder, coat and shoes. He peeled off the shirt, throwing it into the laundry pile. He'd meant to do the laundry last night, and had only got as far as ditching it by the machine before the phone rang - Sienna, keeping him updated on her travel plans - and he'd forgotten about it. He rooted through the pile and managed to find the least-dirty towel, swiping vaguely at his chest and shoulders and rubbing his head. He was about to wander through to his bedroom in search of a t-shirt and dry pants, when a faint sound on the edges of his hearing caused him to stop and look up. He stood stock still, frozen, straining to hear. There it was again - a faint sound, definitely caused by another human being.
There was someone in his apartment.