If he wasn't in uniform, he might have been skipping, giddy from his realization. He knew where she was. He'd figured it out. He'd found Blair Roche. He could see it now, opening the door, finding the girl, leading her out of the dingy building, bringing her home to her parents... He was going to save her. He was going to bring her home and everything was going to be alright and it was going to be because of him, because he had finally found something that didn't make him feel empty and hollow inside, and that was saving little girls and protecting the innocent and bringing Justice to those who needed it most.
He had twisted a few arms, had made more than a few threats, but in the end, he had gotten the information he needed. He had told Dan right away that he would be going out alone that night, going to get the Roche girl, that he had found her and was going to save her, and for a moment, he had almost whipped his mask off, almost smiled. And Dan had just nodded, told him he was happy, grinning from ear to ear, and clapped him on the shoulder, wishing him good luck.
It was nearly dusk by the time he reached the abandoned dressmaker's shop, and even as he approached, he heard the barking and growling of two dogs. Big dogs, by the sound of it, but even that didn't bother him. The girl was here, and he was going to find her, to get her, to protect her and keep her safe and warm and get her back to the home he had never had and had always wanted, with parents who loved her and cared about her. It didn't take him long to find a section of the high fence he could hop over, and when he peeked over the top, he saw that the dogs were chained, and the barking and growling was apparently a dispute over who was the rightful owner of a chunk of bone. It was funny, how well that seemed to mirror society, people always baring their teeth and fighting over small luxuries they didn't truly deserve or need, solely because if they had them, that meant someone else couldn't.
He vaulted over the fence, surprised to find the door of the building unlocked, and stepped inside, calling the girl's name.
"Blair? Blair Roche?" He paused, hearing nothing. "My name is Rorschach, I'm here to take you back home to your parents..." Still, no response. Not so much as the faintest movement. It was possible the girl was sedated, he supposed, to keep her from crying... He would have to search the building for her. There were only so many places she could possibly be, and he was absolutely prepared to search every last one of them to find her and get her home safely.
He tore the building apart looking for her. Starting in the basement, he worked his way up, stomping across floorboards to look for hidden compartments, knocking on walls, sliding furniture around... It wasn't until he reached what was apparently supposed to pass for a kitchen that he found anything. He had opened a small woodburning stove, wondering if perhaps the scum who had taken this little girl had attempted to burn some evidence, papers or gloves...
And that was when he saw it, and his heart plummeted straight through his feet and into the basement.
There, sitting among the ash and soot, not burnt yet, but obviously going to be destroyed soon, sat a pair of little girl's panties. A tiny noise of alarm left his throat, and his hand plunged into the stove, pulling them out. They were filthy. He could smell urine on them, undoubtedly the girl's reaction to being terrified, or perhaps from being unconscious, there were a few spots that couldn't possibly be anything but blood- it didn't take a genius to tell him what that was from. The noise emanating from the back of his throat turned to a growl, and he clenched his fist around the tiny garment. Scum. Complete scum. Had hurt her. Soiled her. Defiled her. Filthy, filthy, filthy. Stolen innocence at six years old.
And that was when it hit him, and his knees hit the floor.
The dogs had been fighting over a bone.
A small bone.
Exactly the shape of a human femur, but smaller.
The growl in his throat turned to a scream, raw, hard-edged, the cry of a man who words have failed for perhaps the last time. Fists crashed down into the floorboards, hard enough to bruise flesh, but he didn't even notice the pain. Tears cut down his cheeks beneath the shifting patterns on his mask, and he let them come, screaming and pounding his fists against anything within his reach because that was all he knew to do in that moment. He had failed her. He had failed that little girl, and now she was dead, and it was his fault. All his fault. His, his his. Blair Roche was dead because of him. He hadn't been fast enough, hadn't been smart enough, hadn't been able to complete one simple task in a timely manner, do one little thing that would have saved an innocent life... She had been raped. She had been murdered. She had been frightened. She had been alone.
She had died alone. What kind of God would let a little girl die alone, let her body be fed to dogs?
The sobs and screams quieted, turning once again to snarls of barely-contained rage as he searched the room, looking for something to use as a weapon. He didn't know how long he had until the murderer, the scum who had done this to this poor, sweet, innocent little girl, would come home. But he would make him pay. Oh, he would pay dearly. God may not punish men for their crimes, but he would. Justice would be served.
He was suddenly oddly calm as he spotted a meat cleaver on a counter nearby. That would do nicely, he supposed. He climbed to his feet, his breathing slow and even, something altogether unfamiliar gnawing at his insides. Emptiness threatened to consume him as he wrapped leather-gloved fingers around the handle of the knife, moving to the window and slipping out as easily as though he were rolling into bed. The two dogs were still fighting over the last bits of the bone. He saw her little pink shoe laying out in the yard, and that only strengthened his resolve as he stalked over to the beasts, raising the cleaver and sending it smashing down, feeling it sink into bone, and raising it again and again until he no longer felt resistance, until both dogs were on the dirt and the dirt was stained red-brown with blood.
He knelt, removing the chains from the dogs' collars, and lifted one across his shoulders, carrying it back to the window and throwing it inside. The scum deserved to see this, to know terror like Blair Roche felt, to understand the pain and loss the family would feel knowing that their little girl would never come home again.
The scum deserved to die. The scum deserved to die. The scum deserved to die. Had hurt the girl. Raped her. Murdered her. Fed her to dogs. Deserved to die. Hurt her, raped her, fed her to dogs. Less than human. Did not deserve to live. Should die. Hurt her. Deserved to die. Raped her. Deserved to die. Fed her to dogs. Should die. Must die.
It became a mantra, and when the scum did come home, he was waiting.
It wasn't until later, when he was watching the building burn to the ground from another rooftop, that he realized how empty he still felt. He was angry, angrier than he had ever been. He wanted to rip men apart, to kill them, to make them feel every ounce of pain they had ever inflicted on someone else- make them feel every ounce of pain Blair Roche had felt before her life was cut short. And what was there to stop him? Nothing. There couldn't possibly be a God- no God would have allowed this to happen. No, there was no God, there was only Man, and Man had done this. Man had ruined itself, had ruined the world.
It was nearly six days before Rorschach appeared at Dan Drieberg's brownstone again. When he did, his partner could tell the smaller man hadn't bathed. His coat was smeared with dried blood, there were spots of it on his mask... The only thing that somehow remained pristine was the brown leather gloves Rorschach wore on his hands. Dan had asked him what had happened, had asked if he was okay, had asked if he found the Roche girl, but Rorschach didn't answer. When Dan reached out to touch him, Rorschach drew back, and that was when he knew what had happened. No amount of apologizing, of offered sympathy or comfort, however, would make the other man respond to him, make him open up.
That entire night, Rorschach only said five words to his partner, the words soft as they sat and sipped coffee after patrol: "Scum, Daniel. Deserve to die." When Dan had tried to placate the other, had tried to suggest that perhaps Rorschach was overreacting, that they couldn't just kill people for every little misdemeanor, the other had shoved his coffee cup off the table and stormed away, leaving Dan staring at the pooling mess of milky coffee gathering on the floor and wondering what in the hell had happened to his partner.