“Fallout” by Scripted Starlet

(Sequel to “Intercession”)

Chapter 1: Harbinger

Rating: T

Disclaimer: Own not, want not. And I think we can safely say that my version of Goren and Eames will never reach the screen. (Not unless the FCC loosens up considerably, anyhow.)

Setting: Set two months after “Intercession”. Or one month and three weeks after “Skirmish” if you care to read it, but the latter story isn’t imperative to understanding this one.

A.N. Marion makes me giddy even when my writing is not.

This probably won’t be as long as its prequel. But never say never, right? Let the rollercoaster begin. ;)

…

The first bite was not as pleasant as I expected it to be.

My partner saw me go green around the gills and asked worriedly, “What’s wrong?”

Grabbing a napkin and calmly, but quickly, spitting out what I hadn’t already swallowed, I wiped my mouth and uttered the ugly, four-letter word: “Mayo.”

“Aw, shit,” he cursed in turn. “I remembered to ask for it without it, Eames. I always remember. Do you want me to go back and get you another one? Or here, you can share mine.”

I shook my head as he pushed his pasta salad towards me. “No thanks, Bobby. I seem to have lost my appetite.”

I wanted to roll my eyes at his guilty expression. It wasn’t as though they’d embedded a bug in my sandwich.

Lowering my volume to a near whisper, I said, “Look, Goren, you’ve got to think about how it would look around here if you and I start eating from the same plate. A little intimate, don’t you think?”

His eyes went dark and I knew he was remembering how I’d sampled his cooking last night. Throwing my two cents in by licking the spoon a little longer than I should’ve and then going after his finger. Another delayed meal.

“I suppose.”

There was a stab of longing to the words and suddenly I wished that I could erase the wistfulness from his face. I wished that I could lean over and peck him on the lips whenever I pleased. I wished that he could call me Alex and that we could share the same food and embrace at the end of nights that we wouldn’t be spending together. It was all very selfish of me, of course. But it was what I wished.

“I’m going to use the restroom,” I informed him.

“Okay. CSU is supposed to send up an assortment of syringes and sponges soon. They might be on our desks by the time you get back.”

“Sounds promising,” I chirped, hiding my head to keep him from seeing that my mind was elsewhere.

I walked out of the break room wringing my hands—thinking about the very thing that I’d been dwelling on for ages now but still hadn’t worked up the courage to address. Nevertheless, I knew it would have to be soon, because this yearning of mine was only going to get worse. I wasn’t a young woman anymore, and I wasn’t able to bide my time when it came to matters like this.

It had taken me all of last month to realize that falling asleep in Bobby’s arms two or three times a week wasn’t enough. Working with him and maintaining our professional distances did not amount to quality relationship time. And yes, we were both busy and yes, we both had other things, other engagements, and other people in our lives...

But I knew I was in love.

More in love than I’d ever been and more in love than I ever thought I could be.

And despite that love… despite the fact that my feelings were reciprocated… I was still coming home to an empty apartment nearly every night. Still dropping face down on a barren bed and sighing when it would be so easy to ask him to stay. So easy to help him pack his bags and his boxes and to make room for him along my walls, inside my drawers and within my life.

I wanted him there with me. Not whenever it was convenient or whenever we were up to it. I wanted him there permanently. And I knew he wanted to be there, too.

The only thing holding me back were the repercussions.

Bobby moving in would mean a change of address. After all, there would be no sense in his receiving mail or paying rent at a place that he didn’t even use. A change of address would mean informing the department, and it wouldn’t take the eggheads down in processing too long to figure out that MCS’s two star detectives were living together. And where there was living together, there was most undoubtedly sleeping together. And where there was sleeping together, there was a severe break in NYPD policy.

Yet perhaps the worst part of it was that I wouldn’t mind.

I wanted everyone to know that we were together. I wanted everyone to know that I was happy and that Bobby was mine and that when I got up every morning the whole world was a little less cynical than it used to be. And while I’d rather not see him or me get reassigned, I would be willing to make that sacrifice in order to move forward. In order to keep Goren and I going before the ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ blew up in our faces.

And even though we never talked about it, I knew that’s what would inevitably happen.

Someday… somehow… someone was going to find out. And given our history, given the charges that had been thrust upon us in the past… it was not going to be pretty.

Why couldn’t we be one step ahead, then?

Why couldn’t we take matters into our own hands and prevent that from happening?

Why couldn’t we—

My internal bitch-fest was stifled by the sight and sound of a woman crying. Dabbing at her eyes and sniffling above the sink. My jaw dropped when I recognized the shape.

“Carolyn?”

She turned, her lashes thick and spiked, and offered me a weak wave. “Hey, Eames.”

“Are you all right?”

Dumb question. She’s obviously not.

I was at her side in a second, recounting the collection of painkillers and over-the-counter agents I kept stacked in my desk. “Can I get you anything?”

“I’m fine, I’m fine.” She squeezed her lips shut and went tight altogether. “It was a fight. My partner and I had a… falling out.”

“You and Mike?” I’d never even heard him so much as raise his voice at her. “What about?”

“Oh, nothing important,” Carolyn scoffed, her throat watery with emotion. “Only the fact that I just went to Deakins and told him that we slept together yesterday night.”

I hadn’t the slightest clue of what to say to that. “You mean the Captain had already forgotten?”

“What?” she sputtered. “No, Alex, that’s not what I…”

Before she knew it Barek was smiling, her hands clutching the porcelain in front of her as her limber body shook with laughter. I waited for it to pass, knowing that the gravity of whatever she was about to tell me would leave us both worse for the wear.

“Thanks,” Carolyn choked, brushing her eyes. Whether they were tears of humor or heartache, I could only guess. “I needed that.”

I nodded understandingly. “You want to step out with me for a little while?”

“No!” Her response was immediate. “No, I’m not ready to go out there yet.”

“That’s fine.” Scanning the perimeter, I decided that the tall waste bin would probably be our best bet. I dragged it against the door to block anybody else from marching in, feeling abruptly thankful for the lack of women in Major Case. Made for a useful hideaway in this scenario, anyhow.

“Good thinking,” she commented, on the verge of amusement again.

“Oh, I’m resourceful.” Shrugging my shoulders and meeting Barek’s puffy gaze, I spoke carefully. “So what happened, Carolyn?”

“Which part,” she murmured, “today or yesterday?”

“Why don’t you try it in order?”

Drawing a deep breath, she started off hesitantly. It was as though she was afraid of reliving it all. “A few days ago, Mike invited me to dinner. He said that it was supposed to be special and that he… he had something ‘serious’ to discuss with me.”

“And that alone raised your antenna,” I filled in.

“Exactly!” Her relief was evident in the way she loosened. “I mean, since when is Mike ever serious about anything?”

“Did you press him for details?”

“No, he wouldn’t tell me what it was about. Just kept insisting I make time for it when I had the chance. And so I did. Last night.”

“And what was it about?”

I can guess, my mind raced.

“Long story short,” she said with difficulty, “he told me he was in love with me.”

When I didn’t jump or gasp or do anything to distract her from her storytelling, Carolyn frowned a bit and went on. “He said that he hadn’t planned on it happening and that it had just, well, snuck up on him. But still, it was so out of the blue for me and I think… I think he was trying to make it seem as though he was surprised too, y’know? To make me more comfortable.”

That was smooth of him, I supposed, awarding Logan a few points in the scorebook.

“And what did you say to Mike?”

“I told him that I’d… have to think about it.” I couldn’t resist my sidelong smirk and when she saw it, she quickly added, “Of course, that was before he kissed me.”

And thus we hit the juicy center…

“You let him kiss you or…?”

“I let him,” she admitted. “He was dropping me off. At most I thought he was going to hug me or something. Logan and I have never been… touch-feely with one another. I really didn’t anticipate him moving so fast.”

My spine stiffened ever so slightly. “He didn’t pressure you, did he?”

“Not at all.” Carolyn’s skin flushed somewhat as she became suspiciously enthralled with the adjacent stall. “It was sort of the other way around.”

“So you did have feelings for Mike?” I concluded in wonder. I was unsure of how I missed it.

“No, I didn’t. At least… not any feelings that I was aware of. And this was such a bad move on my part, Alex, I can’t even begin to tell you.” Weaving her hand through her hair, she teared up, stricken with the pangs of something I had yet to identify.

“I’ve been seeing someone. He’s a great guy and it’s been, well… nearly three months now. Jeremy and I were just starting to get serious when all of the sudden Mike drops this—this bombshell on my head. I didn’t know what to do. And I was probably going to figure out a way to turn him down but after he kissed me, I just… stopped thinking.”

“Must’ve been some kiss,” I said wryly.

She winced. “You don’t even know the half of it.”

“That good, huh?”

“I said I loved him, Eames. But it was the throes of passion and I don’t even know if I meant it or not. How could I have done that? How could I have been so stupid?”

“That wasn’t stupid,” I insisted. “That was the heat of the moment. You couldn’t help yourself.”

But my reassurance only served to plunge her deeper.

“The look in his eyes as we were…oh, Alex, I’ve never felt so wanted. I’ve never felt so needed before. It was surreal. It was like I couldn’t control my own mouth with the things that he was doing to me. The way he made me feel, I just…” She shuddered from the memory and stopped struggling for words. “It has never been like that. With any man.”

“I know.” I rested my hand on her bare arm and stroked lightly. “Believe me, I know.”

I flirted with the notion of telling her then and there. Telling my flustered friend about Goren and me. But then the moment passed and Barek was back to unveiling. I let her talk.

“And when I woke up today I was scared. I thought that I might’ve made this huge mistake but then Mike woke up right after and he… he was so happy. And it felt strangely right, having him there. Then he kissed me again and… well… now you know why we were late for work.”

Trying to ignore my fond recollections of having Bobby Goren as my very own, personal alarm clock, I fastened my grip on her wrist. “Carolyn, why’d you tell Deakins?”

She gaped at me incredulously. “I needed to, Alex. Mike wasn’t saying a thing. All day he kept acting and working like the whole night hadn’t even happened. And I couldn’t look at him without remembering. I can’t function like that! And if he really wanted to date me, then he shouldn’t have such a problem with my telling our boss that the circumstances between us have changed. It was the right thing to do.”

“You told Deakins without Mike present?” I was trying to pinpoint which of two was more at fault.

“Well, I said something to him like, ‘Shouldn’t we go in together?’ And then he made up an excuse about incriminating hardware and practically ran all the way to the techno lab to play with computer geeks. I was alone for almost an hour. I got fed up.”

Logan, I groaned. Definitely Logan. It’s just like him to take his cues from Goren and me and assume that he could pull it off. Pull it off without even asking Barek’s permission or coming to any sort of mutual agreement on how to handle the relationship. Hell, it wasn’t even a relationship yet. As far as I could tell they’d just had sex. Twice.

Gathering some courage, I asked the question that I least wanted to ask: “How did the Captain react?”

Carolyn smiled sadly. “He was very nice about it, actually. Taken aback but… nice. He wasn’t disappointed because he appreciated my coming in right away. Naturally, he said that he’d have to split us up and so I’ve been reassigned to Palacio. Mike’s got Brechin for now.

“And I volunteered to be transferred out at first but Deakins wouldn’t hear of it. Even though the way I told the story was something to the effect that I seduced him. Which is partly true. I’m the one who dragged Logan into my home. Whether or not he went willingly is besides the point, right?”

I’d stopped breathing the moment Barek invoked the syllables ‘split’ and ‘up’. Until today I had always held out hope that Deakins might make an exception for Bobby and me. We were, in most respects, Major Case’s strongest team. And every time I would imagine the worst, I’d console myself with the best. The possibility that maybe I could have it all.

Goren as my partner and as my lover, too. Without the secrets.

In a span of ten seconds, all my dreams… all my hopes were wrenched away from me. This was reality. Hard cold reality. And there was no sense in my inviting Bobby to move in with me anytime soon.

“What did Mike say?” My lips were cracked and I was trying my hardest not to lose it in front my friend when she needed me the most.

And then Carolyn did something very un-Carolyn. She fell into my arms.

“I regret it.” The words whooshed past my earlobe. “Alex, I never should’ve slept with him. Or maybe I never should’ve talked to Deakins. I don’t know. He was so upset after I told him that he turned into a completely different person. And this was all in the car but we were screaming at each other in the parking garage. Screaming, Alex. Do… do you think someone heard?”

“Nobody’s been talking about it up here,” I said meekly, rubbing her back as she sobbed it out.

“I was furious. He kept saying that I had no right to do it without him. No right to break us up. He wouldn’t even let me speak. And then he started whining about having gone through a million partners and I yelled that if he really loved me then he wouldn’t want to keep me on as just the partner he fucks.”

Ouch. My hand took pause as I considered how much that must’ve hurt Mike.

“He left then, didn’t he?”

“Haven’t seen him since,” she gasped, pulling back a bit. “This was twenty minutes ago. He just got out of the car. I don’t… I don’t know where he went.”

And as I was stood there, holding what used to be the strong, impenetrable form of Carolyn Barek, I couldn’t stop thinking one thing:

I don’t want this to be Bobby and me.