I wrote this before I had the good sense to stop so I need to get it off the desk top.

Don't own 'em, just playin'.


Epiphany



She started at the thought. It wasn't him, Goren, that drove Ross nuts; it was HIM. Eames looked over her shoulder at the one man she thought that she would never understand. Standing at the vending machine, not even noticing her gaze, he put his money and bent to take out the prize. Coke can in hand; he turned to go back to his office. Ross resigned himself to dealing with the brass and his charges once again.



The phrase "adult supervision" should have given it away. Wheeler and she had always exchanged glances when their respective partners were starting to wear on the captain. Kind of a here we go again signal. Wheeler did not have the dubious distinction of senior partner so she often was sent out of the room when the yelling started. But this was familiar. There was the use of a name rather than "Detective" but it could be a discussion between Goren and the captain any time it started. She remembered being left to explain extended lunches to go to a deli, synagogue, or NYU to a simmering captain. But she never had to look her captain in the face and say Goren was catching a matinee of a 40 year old movie. Wally Stephens wasn't Goren's "older, geekier brother," Zach Nichols was.



The phone rang in the glass office, Ross had not closed the door all the way, and he began to try to calmly explain that he could not possibly arrange his schedule properly with the current staffing unless the personnel department could personally guarantee that there would be no murders, thefts, or heinous crimes that would be committed between the hours of 11 and 3 for the next two weeks. Obviously, they could not because Eames thought that she could see his hair curl even tighter as he tried to breath in between growling answers.



Unlike her partner, Eames noticed that there was a self-deprecating humor instead of an apology or apathy when Nichols stepped on toes or offended someone. There was no lack of social grace or disregard for social mores but rather the feeling of a psychology experiment that would not be allowed in the post-Stanford Experiment era. Every action, small, medium, large, or elephantine, was deliberate and every reaction observed, recorded and catalogued. Eames was almost certain that he would eventually bring a couch into the interrogation room and sit in a wing-backed chair with his small little note book, legs tightly crossed and looking over his glasses, asking the perp about their childhood. "And how did that make you feel?...Uh-huh… Our hour is about up, is there anything that you would like to confess about the murder you committed? … Oh well isn't that lovely… and thank you for that admission of guilt, see my secretary on the way out to set up your next appointment."



How could anyone walk and write in that little of a notebook anyway? It may be frustrating but at least she could peek over the edge of Goren's notebook and glean a bit of what he was thinking. This guy, she would need a stepstool and a telescope to even try. Even then she would need a course in reading doctors handwriting; he left her a note saying he was "stepping out for a bagel, bring you back one" and she had begun to think that it was an alien ransom note from squinting at it so long. She could follow where Nichols was headed but sometimes she would have liked the moment to delay the inevitable or just some info as to why they were hurtling toward a cliff without brakes. Carrying along a deer stand and attaching it to telephone poles would just be tiresome not to mention the attention it would draw. That would be a sight. Her sitting in a deer stand on the corner of Park and Lex, peering through a pair of high powered binoculars with a mound of handwriting analysis books and comparative translation guides trying to see what her partner was writing in his beloved little pocket notebook. She let loose a little giggle as she imagined the stairs that she would get packing up her encampment and toting it along to the next crime scene. She began to wonder what sort of wardrobe she would need to go with a deer stand, wondering how her heeled boots would hold up to the strain of climbing a ladder several times a day. Wow, ADHD must be contagious after prolonged exposure, she thought as she snapped back to her work.



She finally got the warnings from that first day. "You're the senior partner." Read – don't let him get you in trouble. "It took me a long time to get here." Read - and you would not believe the hoops they made me jump through because of all those little reprimands in my jacket. "Your partner has a reputation for over-thinking things." Read – been there, don't let him pull you down a path you cannot recover from or that you will need to explain to a review board.



That final exchange before the trip to the Coke machine just made it all fall into place. "When I was your partner, I was almost suspended every other week!" There were only a few people that heard and she was sure that she was the only one that let the words register. Whenever it began with "Nichols" or "Goren" the rest of the room heard the name and then the old Charlie Brown holiday special adult voice. Wha wha wha wha wha wha.



Those words finally made everything snap into place. The Chinese puzzle box was solved. Ross did not hate Goren; he was just suffering a little "transference" as both her temp partner and her permanent partner voices chimed in with the definition in the back of her skull. Now she knew what Ross was feeling, she could "empathize" both boys chimed into her thoughts, and then they played out this Marx Brothers routine of "no after you, no I really do insist, after you" with the definition. OK, she really needed to find some other way of falling to sleep other than putting Duck Soup into the DVD and letting it play while she slept. It must have been déjà vu for the Captain walking into a brilliant but odd detective; especially one that had a penchant for being beyond the conventional, with complaint letters and commendations making up equal stacks.



Ross had been there and done that. He probably even bought the t-shirt, had the photos, and even the what-the-hell-where-did-that-come-from-how-drunk-was-I tattoo. Eames could not wait to call Goren and see whether he agreed, but then she realized this would not be a good thing. Well, maybe the deer stand thing, he would get a laugh out of that. She and Wheeler would be having a girls night out as soon as she was ready to laugh about their respective partners and their collected effect on the man behind the curtain, she thought as Abrams slunk out of Ross's office and the latter slammed the door and drew the blinds.

Tell me what you think. I dish out constructive criticism to my students all the time, it is my turn to be on the receiving end.

I love it! Maybe Eames, Wheeler and Ross need to go out for a drink sometime.

Watching the two episodes with Nichols and Eames, I can believe Eames thinking these thoughts. Great!

I haven't watched the entire season 8 yet, but I really really like your story. I sooo see her thinking those things, lol...
Really nice. Thanks for sharing

OMG! LOL over here! That was great. And you hit it right on the head with this one:

>>Wally Stephens wasn't Goren's "older, geekier brother," Zach Nichols was.<<

Nicely done!

Unsteady, once again, your insights are uncannily spot on! Thanks for taking the time to share this with us. I really enjoyed it. Took me a while to figure out who you were writing about and under what circumstances, but once I did, I went back and re-read, and really enjoyed it!

I'd like to see you write from Wheeler's perspective, and have her comparing Nichols and Logan. That should be a good one!