Title: Riemannian Symmetry
Disclaimer: I, in no way, shape, manner, or form, own the Watchmen or the characters said comic/ film adaption contains. All publicly recognizable characters are copyrighted to Alan Moore and I do believe DC. No copyright infringement is intended.
Fandom: Watchmen
Characters: Janey Slater
Continuity: Comic
Warnings: Slight language
Summary: Janey Slater goes job hunting.
Author's Note: Hard criticism pitifully begged for.
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It isn't fair.
It's childish, she knows, but it's all that runs through her head as she closes the door behind her, the secretary behind his desk smiling genially at her back. They don't know, none of them do, and maybe it's just that awareness that makes her hands shake when she shuffles her résumé under her other arm.
"You have a fine day, Ms. Slater."
"Thank you," Janey says, but she means fuck off. She can feel it in his curious smirk, his eyes, his breath, even as he turns back to his phone and his daily planner and pictures of a happy family bordered in sensible wood frames.
What was it like? He doesn't ask, they never ask, even though they all want to. What is he like?
Honestly, she doesn't know. Sometimes she thought he was Jon, her hopes swelling at the little quirks that by some miracle or chance managed to shine through. Only for a moment, a space between blinks, and it had been enough, for long enough, because she had wanted it to be. But—how to reconcile, how to adapt, to someone who should be dead and is not, someone who could be someone you had loved, but isn't? And how to move on, when no one would let you forget?
Not that she ever could, not for a moment. He couldn't even allow her that much.
Janey slips out the door without further incident, but she's almost certain every eye is surreptitiously turned toward her exit, watching her go. What was it like? What is he like?
There's a cool sweat under her forearms, the manila folder jammed tight up against the soft flesh under her shoulder, and that in itself is almost more than she can bear. She wouldn't have sweated like that before, wouldn't have been so fidgety and nervous – she was brilliant, accomplished, one of the pioneers of her field. That was the reason she had been there in the first place, because she deserved it.
And now? Now she was interviewing for a two-bit job teaching yawning students without half the dedication she had ever possessed, ushering young minds into a future that, by rights, should have been hers.
She had thought this might have been different – a chance at a lab, out of the public consciousness, simple but important. The call had been formal, straightforward, like it was supposed to be. None of the hush of her secondhand fame, no sitting demurely in the shadow of a—of Jon.
But then, as inevitable as the ticking hands of a well-kept clock, he had glanced up from her files, still smiling, still smiling, and said, "You're Janey Slater? Ms. Slater, from Gila Flats?"
"Yes," she had said, nodding. "That would be me."
"Top form. This is, this is really an honor, Ms. Slater, really. I read all your journals— I still have your theory about the intrinsic fields, when the research was still coming in. Brilliant stuff."
"I don't work with intrinsic fields anymore. I'm much more interested in stem cell."
"Right, no, of course. What with it being confiscated information and all." He had shifted back in his seat, flipping through her personal history, told in words as dispassionately sterile as a surgeon's gloves. "But, let's talk shop here for a moment, if you don't mind."
What was it like? What was he like?
Her fingers, laced in her lap, had curled into each other sharply. "I do mind, actually. I don't work with intrinsic fields anymore. It's been closed off to public inquiry. I'd appreciate it if we didn't discuss it."
He did not hide his disappointment well. His tone, jovial and open mere moments before, slipped down into a professional disinterest, mouthing the starch questions he had likely asked a hundred times before, and would a hundred times after she was gone. It was polite, clear-cut, and likely just a formality at that point. She would not be returning there again.
Her mouth drawing into a sharp line, she waves down the nearest taxi, sliding in gratefully. Ignoring the flat stare from the cabman in the rearview mirror, she sorts through her latest prospects, shifting the more likely to the top of the pile. It's early, and she can get just one more interview in – this one is promising, and maybe she just has enough left of her old spark left to hope this won't be as humiliating as the last one.
"The Veidt building, please."
It isn't fair, but she can make it work.