Timshel
Rating: T
Warnings: Passing reference to abuse of a minor, several curses.
Spoilers: Several events from the show are mentioned.
Summary: In which Nolan learns a hard lesson about hope.
Author's note: Somewhat inspired by Mumford & Sons' song Timshel. Gorgeous.
The scraggly slip of a girl Nolan is hauling along behind him is a level of fierce on par with Irisa. The kid had even bitten him. She's struggling hard to get away, kicking at his shins and cursing in a steady stream of different languages. Was that Indojisnen? He'd never known anyone who could speak Indojisnen besides the Indogene.
"Could you throttle it down?" he'd asked, and that was when she'd bitten him.
"Hey there, Madame Mayor," he says to Amanda, who raises an eyebrow. "Remember how I promised to get a handle on the petty theft? I caught the main culprit."
"Only because you cheated!" the girl shouts angrily as he shoves her in front of him. "Otherwise you never would've caught me!"
"True. She had the misfortune of stealing something I'd booby trapped."
"I ain't stealing!"
"Oh? What are you doing?" asks Amanda, who looks more bemused than anything else.
"Borrowing."
"Do you intent to give what you stole back to the original owner?"
The girl scowls. "No, but I could."
"What about food?" Nolan asks. "You steal that."
"Of course I do," she scoffs. "I don't want to die."
"I didn't want to throw her in a cell. She's too skinny; she'd slip right through the bars."
Amanda sighs a bit. "Perhaps some community service could be worked out. I'll have to think about it. In the meantime, take her to my sister, get the girl cleaned up."
"I ain't getting in no shower!" the girl shrieks.
In the end, it costs him 50 scrip to get the kid to Kenya, 25 now and 25 when he picks her up. He finds out it's a scam when Kenya greets the girl with a smile and a brief hug.
"Hey, Kenya," the girl says smugly.
"Hi, Tim. Making new friends?"
'Tim?" he mouths at Kenya over the girl's head, to which Kenya just shrugs.
"He's a cheat and a..." and here, 'Tim' lapses into some extremely rude Irathient curses.
"Your sister wants her cleaned up," Nolan explains. "Think you can manage?"
"I'm sure we'll be fine," Kenya says sweetly, wrapping an arm around the girl's skinny shoulders.
"She's always welcome here."
He's not so sure. "You give her any trouble, kid, the 25 scrip goes down the drain."
The girl hisses at him.
"I don't know what you want me to do with her," Amanda says when he returns to her office.
"Give her a chance," he tells her. "Kid's smart. Followed her around for awhile before I actually nabbed her. Knows every Votan language, give or take. That could be useful."
"She's also a thief."
"Yeah, but you know what she does with the money? Most of it goes to a group of young children she helps look after."
"So you want me to give her a chance because she helps kids with illegally obtained funds?"
"I want you to help her because she's kind, Amanda. She's kind in a place where kind makes you weak and weak gets you killed."
Amanda sighs. "Maybe I can put her to work translating."
"Thanks, Amanda."
"Is this a thing with you? Rescuing orphans?"
He chuckles. "Already got me an orphan. This one's for you."
Back at Kenya's, he finds the kid shoveling down food while talking to the Liberata barkeeper in Yanga Kayang. She's actually a cute little thing when she's not filthy. The biggest shock is her hair. The brown must have been all dirt, because the kid's hair is red. Not the Irathient orange-red, either; real, copper penny red.
She scowls at him when he heads over. "Where's my scrip?"
He rolls his eyes but hands it over, clamping a hand on her shoulder when she tries to slip away. "You know, I thought maybe you were all dirt, but there's actually a girl under all that shtako."
"All that shtako took me months to build up, asshole," she says, and it's good to know she can curse in English, too. "If you're clean, you're either rich or on the take. I ain't either one."
"Well, kid, you can run off to roll in the dirt later. Right now, you have a meeting with the mayor."
"I ain't talking to her again! It's bad enough you got me clean! Kenya!"
"We talked about this, Tim. He's actually a good man, and my sister isn't so bad, either," Kenya says soothingly, running a hand over the girl's back.
"I liked the old lawkeeper," Tim says grumpily. "We had a deal. I didn't pull any big shtako and he left me alone."
"Theft is theft, kiddo," he tells her with a shrug. "Come on."
She stomps on his instep halfway there and takes off. Five minutes later, Irisa drags the kid back howling and fighting.
"I think you lost this."
"Thanks, honey," he says, kissing Irisa's temple.
"Oh, gag me," Tim mutters.
"If that's what you'd like," Irisa says mildly, and the kid's eyes go comically wide when Irisa moves towards her.
"Careful, the kid bites," Nolan warns, chuckling.
Irisa leans in close to the girl. "So do I."
"Tell you what. If you really don't want to meet with the mayor, I'm sure Irisa would entertain you for awhile."
Tim mutters something in Castithan he's sure is extremely inappropriate, but stops struggling.
"Welcome back," Amanda says warmly. "Have a seat."
"It was you or Irisa," Tim says, slouching into one of the chairs. Nolan takes the other.
"Well, I'm glad you're here, anyway," Amanda tells her, not missing a beat. "Nolan tells me you know Votan languages?"
"A bunch of them, so?"
"Can you show me?"
"I ain't lying, lady," Tim says, but takes the documents Amanda hands her and rattles off the translations for several languages.
Amanda nods. Nolan is impressed. "How would you like a job translating?" Amanda asks. "My old assistant used to do it for me, but..."
"Yeah, I know," the kid mumbles. "You gonna pay me?"
"I thìnk it'll have to be a week of community service, and then I'll pay you a fair hourly wage."
"Maybe," Tim says, and bolts.
"That went well."
"How so?"
"She didn't say no."
"Nolan, she stole your watch."
He gives Tim a few days, then seeks her out at the children's home. He finds her playing with two Castithan children, and it's nice to see something other than a scowl on her face. She spots him, speaks to the kids in Castithan, and shoos them off.
"Thought you'd be here sooner."
"That why you took my watch? Couldn't wait to see me again?"
"I hate you," she says with feeling. "Wanted to see if I could."
"Can I have it back?"
"Pawned it."
"You-you what? You-no. You didn't. I swear-:"
She laughs, actually laughs. "'Course I didn't. You'd send Irisa after me. Here."
He puts his watch on and scoots out of arm's reach. "Answer's still maybe?"
"Maybe."
He sighs, almost leaves, but there's a softness about the kid that wasn't there before. "So, Tim, huh? That your whole name?"
"What if it is?"
"Is it?"
She sighs. "It's Timshel. It means 'thou mayest' in some weird dead language." She pauses, looking tired. "My mom loved languages. She wanted to learn all the Votan languages and since Da wasn't around, I was the only one she could practice on."
Thou mayest. He likes that. It sounds hopeful. "That's how you learned?"
She nods. "It's good to speak to the kids in their own language, anyway. Helps them feel more comfortable. Also, if I talk to Doc Yewll in Indojisnen, she gives me free medicine for the kids, and sometimes Jered will give me free food."
"You really want to help those kids, take the job. You'll make a lot more money that with the petty theft."
"Why do you care so much?"
"Because I think you're a smart kid, and you're worth more than theft," he says honestly.
"How do you know?" she says scathingly. "And who says I need your pity?"
"It's not pity, Timshel. It's the truth."
She sighs, seeming overly weary for a kid. "I guess I'll try."
For all her reluctance, he hears that Timshel is taking her new job seriously, appearing on time and consistently. He doesn't go look for himself; he's pretty sure the girl genuinely dislikes him, but Amanda keeps him updated.
"You were right, Nolan," Amanda says as they're having dinner one late night. "She's smart, and her translations are excellent." He feels smug, but tries not to show it. "She's even caught some politic oddities I needed to look into."
He's glad of that. Political intrigue and subterfuge are not Amanda's strong point; she's too honest. It's one of the things he likes most about her, but it does make him worry.
He realizes a few days later that Timshel could give him some valuable insight into the criminal underworld and borrows her for a day. She's reluctant, almost edgy. In the end, he has to bribe her, and she still misses their first appointment (as well as a day at work, which earns him an earful from Amanda). When Timshel does show up at the office, her copper hair is tucked under a dark hat with sunglasses obscuring her eyes. She looks a little paler, a little thinner. It worries him; he knows Amanda has been feeding her lunch.
"Avoiding the paparazzi?" he asks instead, at which she gives him a confused look. He always forgets how much post-Votan, post-Arkfall, post-Pale Wars kids just don't know. "Why the disguise?"
"Ain't allowed to be dirty anymore. Have to hide somehow. Last thing kids like me want is to be memorable." She scowls. "Can't you put on a disguise?"
Taking her cue, he dons a hat and sunglasses and follows the girl. Timshel takes him on a tour of the underworld's surface, providing a running commentary on who owns what patch and who will buy stolen goods and who will turn you over after buying. She shows him who deals in banned goods and who runs a prostitution ring for people whose tastes are too weird or unsavory for Kenya and who deals drugs. She doesn't know many of the big jobs, the major imports like banned substances, but her apparently famous hands had given her a unique place in the underworld. She picked pockets for the most part, but the major players had come to her for bits and pieces of big time crime, so she knew more than most street urchins.
"I'm impressed," he says while he's treating her to dinner at the Need/Want. With the sunglasses off, he can see deep shadows under her eyes.
"Thank you." She eats quietly for a bit, the weariness pressing her shoulders down. "You ain't gonna go around arresting people, right? You do that, some new fish will just rise up and take their place, only now the alliances will change and nothing I just told you will be true."
"I know," he assures her. "I don't like it, but I understand."
She shakes her head. "No, the old lawkeeper understood. You just pretend. You want to get the big fish, you gotta let the little things go," she says pointedly. "You watch how the little things change, who suddenly has more stock or better clothes and then you trace that back. You tiptoe. You don't go stomping around."
"Point taken," he says, holding up his hands. "I'll be more careful."
She just nods, staring at her food. He wonders, not for the first time, what kind of things she's seen that could make her so thoroughly tired of the world at such a young age.
"I'm sorry," he says, and her eyes snap back up to his. "I should've let you be."
"I do make more money now," is her only answer as she slips away. He can see a bruise that almost looks like finger marks trailing down the back of her neck, but doesn't move to stop her.
He doesn't see her for awhile. There are so many things to do around Defiance, and the insights she provided are helping him get crime further under control. Then of course there's Irisa to deal with and Sukar and Tommy's in a coma for a bit and there's a shooting and all in all he has little time to spare to solve the mystery of a bruise on a girl who doesn't want his help. When Amanda tells him she hasn't seen Timshel in 3 days, however, he stops what he's doing and goes looking.
The matron at the children's home has no idea; apparently Timshel drops the money off, spends a few hours working with the kids, and leaves.
"She's not allowed to sleep here, unfortunately. She's past our age limit."
"Let me get this straight. She gives you most of her money and a lot of her time, and you can't even give her a place to stay?" he asks in disbelief.
No wonder the kid's so tired all the time.
He asks around; there are plenty of street urchins in Defiance, but Timshel's an oddball even with them.
"She's so weird."
"Yeah, always wasting time with those babies. She didn' steal so good, ain't nobody'd be seen with her."
"She in trouble? Tim's got the softest hands outta anyone. Makes more money on a bad day than anyone on a good day and then gives most of it up. She coulda been rich."
He finally finds a young girl who looks just old enough to be kicked out of the children's home.
"I liked Tim," the girl says shyly. "She used to run with the big kids cause of her hands being so soft, even if she's weird. When she got all clean, the big kids beat her and chased her off."
Nolan's heart aches. "Where's she sleeping now?"
The little girl shrugs. "She's gotta move around. Ain't a lot of places clean people can sleep." She thinks for a second. "Tim is pretty. She could've got a bed with guys who like kids."
He only finds Timshel once he's stopped looking. She's curled in a ball under his desk. He's pretty sure she's dead until she opens her eyes when he goes to check for a pulse. It's there, but weak and fast. Her skin is hot and her face flushed; her hair and clothes are damp with sweat. She tries to pull away at his touch.
"Hey," he whispers. "It's okay. It's Nolan. I just want to take you to Doc Yewll."
She looks through him with fever-bright eyes. "Thought I'd be safe here."
"You are safe here, Timshel. You're safe with me; I promise."
Her eyelids flutter once, then close. He's not sure if she's conscious enough to hear or understand him, but he keeps whispering that she's safe as he cradles her fever-scorched body against his chest. She weighs almost nothing.
"It's going to be a hard human flu season," Doc Yewll says as she points him to a bed. "She's my fifth case in three days."
Irisa comes to sit with him while he sits with Timshel. "Why do you care so much about her?"
"Feeling neglected?" Nolan teases gently, at which Irisa rolls her eyes. "I care about her because no one else does, and someone should."
The girl's fever rages day and night. Even though her lucid moments are few and far between, he sits with her as much as he can; Tommy and Irisa pick up the slack without being asked. Sometimes Irisa or Amanda or Kenya sits with him, and he knows Amanda visits on her own, but his vigil is mainly solo.
Late one night, he's awoken by soft movement, and opens his eyes to see Timshel staring at him.
"Hey," he whispers.
"You don't have to stay," she murmurs, seeming lucid for the moment.
"I know. I want to."
"Nolan..." She sighs, and he's been around enough death that he knows when someone is giving up.
"Hey, Timshel, no. You have to fight," he says urgently.
"For what?" she asks, and the weight of the world is in those two little words.
He shakes his head. "For me, could you fight for me? You pull through this, I'll find you a bed, get you eating right. You'll be fine."
"It's okay, Nolan," she whispers.
"No, it isn't. Where's that fierce girl I caught in the marketplace?"
"Cleaned her up."
His heart breaks, just a little. He started off wrong with her and never made it right. "I'm sorry. If-if I could take it back, I..."
"It's okay, Nolan," she repeats a little more forcefully, her thin hand finding his.
"What about thou mayest?"
She smiles, just a little. "Hope goes both ways. I hope I die; you hope I live. Your hope isn't any more important than mine."
He's with her when she dies. Amanda finds him crying next to Timshel's body and doesn't say anything; just wraps her arms around him and lets him hold on tight.
In memoriam, he gets absolutely shitfaced, starts a fight, and gets himself kicked out of the Need/Want. Like she's done before, Irisa takes him home, cleans him up, and lets him sleep in her bed.
They don't talk about it.
He doesn't talk about it with anyone. He shuts Amanda down any time she tries to bring it up. Kenya knows better, though she does temporarily let him back into her bed. He sends money to the children's home every week in Timshel's name, and he finds that little street urchin and gives her money, too.
In time, the pain fades to a dull ache.
His heart still twinges any time he sees a flash of copper penny red.