He remembers Ema Skye, dutifully finishing her drawing and passing it to him, then asking him through a torrent of tears "I-Is it good enough?"and he almost cried himself because it didn't matter.
Nothing would be good enough to ever truly put this case to rest.
And that's what he has to do today, save for the little problem of not being physically able to. His ID card is gone.
He's hesitant to say lost, because he couldn't have possibly lost it in the two hours ago he's been at the station, having done nothing but sort through paperwork, and visit the caf for breakfast and coffee.
Yet that's what the evidence points to. Transferral and the awards ceremony means the office is high-traffic, but also filled with a casual atmosphere rivaled only by the day before Chief Gant's annual summer pool party. It'll hardly create an issue if he extends his smoke break ten, fifteen extra minutes to retrace his steps for something this important.
Everything about this case, even the matter of closing it, has become so dramatic and important, it seems.
Those extra fifteen minutes turn into twenty-five as he searches high and low, backtracking to the caf and then out to the parking lot, eyes scanning the ground circling him the entire way.
It doesn't slip him by that it's more than a little ironic that what he needs to shut this case is gone, because he's pretty sure Ema's drawing disappeared too. Other evidence as well. And the investigators on the case, be it in badge or in spirit or in both. All wiped away and leaving a stain.
Marshall and Starr will stop at nothing to rub that stain out. But as the only investigator left standing, Bruce is more than content simply covering it up with silence and deference, not to mention the occasional cigarette, which he lights up in the makeshift smoking bay cut out on the edge of the lot, dismayed by his lack of results.
He truthfully hates that he started again after nearly a decade tobacco-free. It's as far from a productive or healthy form of stress relief as one could get, but it's the only one that sometimes smoothes the constant ripple of anxiety inside him ever since the night he picked up the bad habit again.
The plume of smoke he exhales dissipates to reveal the Lunchland van waiting ominously in the far corner of the lot, and Bruce swears under his breath.
The night he restarted smoking, he remembers quite well as also being the only time Detective Angel Starr needed a man to support her.
They both arrived at the station the same time that stormy night, exchanging confused glances as they closed in towards the front steps, where Damon Gant was talking with a visibly agitated Jake Marshall.
And when Jake collapsed to his knees, curled up in the rain and howling like a wild animal being flayed alive, Angel let out a shriek that sliced brighter through the night than the lightning overhead. Bruce had grabbed her by the elbows to keep her from slumping to the ground herself.
Soon, Detective Starr was no longer, replaced by the founder of Lunchland who became very verbal about her thirst for revenge.
While he's never questioned that most of her motivation to seek out the supposed truth behind SL-9 lies in the fact that no lack of badge will ever prevent Angel Starr from not being a detective through and through, he wasn't blind then, and he isn't now.
The Cough-Up Queen, too high and mighty for any man to even dare breathe around her without her permission, would briefly descend her throne if it meant engaging in witty repartee and he-didn't-need-to-know-what-else with Neil Marshall.
Angel's glare could torch the skin off anyone else, but she's never scared Bruce. While maybe a little annoyed, more than anything he's just sick of her act. Jake's abrasive attitude, his obsession with SL-9 was justified; Angel's was selfish and more than a little hypocritical, and a complete waste of Bruce's time.
So of all the things he remembers about Angel, what Bruce has especially committed to memory (whether she is aware of it or not) is her roster of "boyfriends" and what days and times she comes closest to the precinct to bring them lunch, putting him in danger of crossing paths with her. Mostly, he's been able to avoid her.
Mostly. Not today, but he was expecting as much, for her to deviate from her schedule. So that's why he doesn't make an effort to ignore Angel as she strolls up to him, only stubs out his half-smoked cigarette and giving her a nod in greeting. Immediately, he notices she doesn't have her giant lunchbasket with her, only a single bento box that she extends to him.
"Special delivery."
"I'm not doing it, Angel."
"Doing what? I haven't the slightest idea what you're talking about. I just swung by, thinking it'd be the perfect day to honor the special connection we'll always have, Bruce." She flutters her lashes as he takes the box from her, like that alone can melt away the icy wall that's always been between them, harkening back to their days at the precinct.
He doesn't need her to give one of her little Lunchland narrations to describe his meal, but she leaps on the opportunity in her most honey-sweet tone.
"Plain white rice. A bland side dish for those who like to play it safe, comfortable living life without taking any chances. Just for you."
He doesn't really mind white rice by itself, especially not if it's free. It's not too bad, with enough salt.
Too bad all he's going to be supplied with today is an overdose of the figurative kind.
"I've been thinking a lot, Angel. About...well, about you." He motions to her with the plastic fork he unwraps. "How you seem like a woman who's very unsatisfied."
"Oh, I like a man with a woman's needs in mind. You feel like pleasing me today?"
Her coy smile doesn't falter even as he rolls his eyes so hard they almost fall out of his head. Her brushing up on him shortly after her termination, purring in his ear that they could trade favors was brazen, even for her, considering she had the prior knowledge that he already had a husband to do all that with, thank you very much. Apparently the Cough-Up Queen is not as selective with her flirtations as she is with her lunches.
Bruce continues between small forkfuls of rice. "Actually, I was wondering about...well, there's other cases. Not just SL-nine. Are you unsatisfied with those, too?"
She crosses her arms. A toss of her bangs reveals her more devilish side, and the hellfire glare that comes with it. "Why would I be?"
He shoves in another mouthful of rice, savoring it slowly for no reason other than to keep her in suspense.
"Because...well, it can't be the first or last, right? Hundreds of cases each year, do you really think there's not any others out there that have been closed with results not...good enough, for those involved?"
"Those other cases didn't cost me my job. My job was everything to me. I'm doing-"
"You're doing what you have to do? I get that, fine. But I'm doing what I have to do. You're telling me to take a risk, but you did, right, and was it worth it? I have car payments, a mortgage, a bunch of other crap I'm sure you couldn't possibly care about, just like I don't lose sleep over you..." He pauses, not knowing else how to sum it up, except, "-doing what you have to do."
It's meant to be an olive branch, in a way. That he will agree to disagree, and what's the the first rule of the food service industry that Angel's now a full-time employee of?
The customer is always right.
Except her piercing glare right now suggests that the customer is just a dickhead. Then that glare slips away, bubbles up into a chiming laugh, and Angel presses her fingers to the exposed triangle of skin under her feathery coat.
It's the kind of laugh he's heard from suspects who plea insanity.
"What's so funny?"
"You are. Oh Bruce, you're so damn funny, thinking I'm the only person in the world who would go to these lengths to ensure justice prevails. You think you're so superior for keeping your mouth shut, and-"
"That's not what I think. Not exactly." This is how she wants to play, with nothing but insults and patronizing remarks? Fine. See if the Cough-Up Queen can take what she dishes out.
"Oh?"
"No. I think that you think you have so much more right to get your hands back on this case, not because of losing your job, but because you were screwing the vict-"
The bento box goes flying out of his hand, rice spraying everywhere around them. It's not a deadly glare that meets him, but instead the wild, stricken eyes as if she's the one who's just been slapped. The bully losing her will to fight when the target fights back.
"You're such a piece of shit." There's the slightest hint of tears clogging her words, making her sound and look neither devil nor angel, but very pathetically human.
Bruce wishes he could believe it's not yet another attempt at manipulation. "Detective Piece-of-shit to you, Angel. Don't think I can't see to it Lunchland loses its permit to vend here." He has no clue if that's within his power, but surely she doesn't either.
"I'm sure you would, since you're not making yourself useful any way else. But I do have to say..." The devil returns, grabbing his lapel, and pulling close to breathe hot in his ear. Her lavender perfume is cloying, and he flinches at the sensation of her chest pressed to his. "-of all the men I've known, you're the one who's screwed me the best. Thanks, Bruce."
Her hand rises to swat his cheek, and not gently. She pushes away, throwing her head back and laughing a harpy's laugh before striding across the lot to her van.
The van speeds away and his stomach won't stop churning, like he just ate a whole spoiled box of her Pro Bono Pasta Salad.
Why is he the one as unsatisfied as he just accused Angel of being?
He should feel emboldened, finally pushing back and feeding Angel a helping of her own ruthless tactics, but all he feels like is the piece of shit she labeled him as.
Even if they have different ideas of what the "right" thing is, at least she's doing something about it. Being a monstrous pain in the ass in the process, sure, and whether it's "ethical" or anything else is up for debate, but it's something.
Hunting down his lost wallet; it's the most he's ever done about anything in the past two years. He's tricked himself into believing he's only doing what's right and what's good, but in reality he's done neither. Just the worst thing possible: nothing at all.
This is bad, this is so freaking bad. He can't remember his Detective ID number.
Somewhere in the deep recesses of his mind, he has to know it, having seen that card approximately a thousand times at minimum. Except, it's muddled up with his phone number, his library card number, his sixteen-digit wireless password, and most glaringly, two letters, one number. The quivering nerves replicating over themselves ever since his encounter with Angel have traveled all the way up to his brain, wrestled away any focus that might have aided him in filing his lost item report, further proving Jake's proclamation to him in the caf this morning that maybe Bruce would receive an award today for being "such an excellent do-nothing".
But it's his own stupid fault for losing it in the first place. He weaves through the milling crowd exiting the auditorium, and rounds the corner towards the administrative wing when he nearly collides with...
"Chief!"
"Hey-o, look out, Goodsy!" Chief Gant tosses a greeting his way and keeps walking, but Bruce rushes back to him before allowing himself to second-guess.
"Do you have a minute?" Chief Gant will understand. He'll understand, and he'll help.
"For you, I have five." He stops to regard Bruce as if he's the only other person there, ignoring the barrage of salutes and hellos from passers-by. "How'd you like the ceremony?"
"Oh uh..." He hadn't paid it much attention, slouched in the back row and too preoccupied with sifting through his memory bank for his badge number. "Very enjoyable. That was a rousing speech you gave."
Everything Chief Gant has to say can be at least partially described as "rousing", so he's surely not wrong.
Gant grins his high-wattage grin. "Just like to keep the morale up! You know, it's been a bit...dismal lately, I thought everyone could use a pep talk. Looks like it didn't work for everyone, though. Why so glum there, Goodsy?"
Bruce feels his breath still, unaware that he'd given away his current state. Maybe to anyone else, he hadn't. But this is Damon Gant. Who doesn't miss a thing. Who can't be lied to.
"See, I've temporarily misplaced my ID card, and I...well, it is Transferral Day. And I needed to..." He stops, unable to fully admit his mishap, for the knot in his throat.
"Ah, yes! SL-nine. I know, Goodsy; how could I forget?"
"Oh, y-you wouldn't, Sir," he stammers through his nerves, his compliment in no way a form of sucking up. Of all the things that make Gant so effective as chief of police, his encyclopedic memory just might be one of the most impressive. "So...well, I needed to-"
"Don't be so shy about it! I'd be honored to put this case to rest with you. Where it belongs. Then we can worry about your little...issue."
Wait a second, he only wanted to see if the chief could somehow expedite the process of getting a new ID, without having to bother with all the rigmarole of having to file that item report. For Gant to offer to go with him? It's almost as if...
He's ignored Jake and Angel, but...this sort of happenstance?
His response is automatically generated, so used to having said variations of it nonstop over his career. "...Thank you, Chief. I really appreciate it."
"Look, I have a few things to wrap up, but I'll meet you at the evidence room in -" Gant checks his watch, so fast that Bruce doesn't think he's actually registered the time. "An hour. Sound good?"
Ideally, he'd like to go now, but he's not going to turn down any sort of generosity from the chief. "Yes, Sir. An hour."
He's had to wait two years; he can wait another hour.
Fifty-eight minutes later, Bruce is in the security room outside the evidence vault, and Jake Marshall, as expected, is not.
He's very much there in spirit, cacti and booze sprawling over every spare inch of the desks. In a way, it's surprising to Bruce, to see so much of a man whose made himself so unavailable in every other sense. But physically, Jake must be, as he promised to Bruce that morning in the caf, off doing things his way.
Whatever that meant. Bruce had long ago given up trying to decode Jake's obtuse manner of speaking, because ultimately it was all about the same topic if enough layers were peeled away.
Most of those layers were thick with rage, disdain and a dash of recklessness that was frightening, for how well-constructed it was around a man so broken.
As such, he expected a heated, bristling attack from Jake this morning, but all he got other than the "Do-Nothing" jab was a funny little smirk and Jake conceding, "I ain't gonna bother you 'bout it no more, Brucey. You're gonna do things your way, and I'll do 'em mine."
Jake has always made it very clear what he thinks of Bruce, but Bruce knows what Jake doesn't think about. Things he doesn't have room to think about, every last corner of his thoughts overstuffed with memories of his brother.
It's not like he's trying to prove a point, in letting the images spring to his mind without warning. Because Bruce telling Jake that he'll never be able to erase the moment of discovering Rachel Moss's headband, dotted with brain matter and splinters of her skull, or turning Jason Knight's young body over to be met with Jason's throat smiling a crusted black-red at him...it doesn't mean anything.
They're names, photos filed away, just like Neil Marshall is to the Mosses and the Knights and everyone else. He's someone, sure, but noteverything the way Neil was – and still is - to Jake.
So Bruce doesn't blame him, not one bit.
He's wished so desperately for Jake to extend him the same courtesy. It's become nearly unbearable that Jake dislikes him so intensely -hates him, probably – for being put in the middle of a situation Bruce never asked for.
"Ah, Goodsy!" The beep of the cardreader and the Chief's authoritative voice breaks through his reverie. "Let's make it snappy, hm?"
Now, with the deadline upon them, Bruce knows he'll never blame Jake for despising him. He'll only ever blame himself.
The evidence room is a crypt, as lifeless as the cases housed within its lockers. Even Chief Gant and his electric personality seem inconsequential in the sterile nothingness.
Nothingness. What a perfect place for someone like him to be, in charge of everything that changed so many lives.
He stares at the broken knife, the piece SL-9 once hinged on. The piece that now – and every other time he's looked at it – he couldn't quite envision as the weapon that ended Neil Marshall's life. And this isn't speaking from some ridiculous sibling bond or some bias created by a romance cut short. It's from all his years as a detective, and just as (what he believes, anyway) a decent, intuitive human being.
It doesn't match up. It never has.
Just like it won't match up if he has to tell Jake and Angel, that hey, at least he wanted to do the right thing. That means something, doesn't it?
No. Because nothing he does ever means anything. Because all he ever does is nothing.
He can't take being nothing anymore.
He turns, looks up at Chief Gant. The rice he managed to down earlier threatens to push back up, but he swallows heavily and starts out small. "Hey, Chief?"
"Hey, Goodsy," Chief Gant replies playfully.
"Do you...do you wonder about SL-nine sometimes? If everything was really..." Oh screw it, he'll throw Jake under the bus – it's not like he hasn't been run over by it several times already. "Well, Jake Marshall, he's asked me a couple times to see if we could reopen this, and...to be honest, I don't think it's the worst idea. I mean, just to appease him, and all."
Gant's brow crease a fraction, the ever-present glint in his eye now gone, transforming his face into something neutral, unreadable.
"You can't be serious, Goodsy. You know Officer Marshall hasn't been all there since...well, you know. " Gant motions with his hand vaguely, as if that's all the meaning Neil's murder holds. "I wouldn't take any stock in what he has to say, or 'appeasing' him, for that matter. I can have a little chat with him, if he's been hounding you too much."
"No. No, Sir, I don't think of it like that. He hasn't really bothered me or anything, just brought it up." Of all the untruths this case has revolved around, that statement is one of the bigger ones. "I actually...well, it's just sort of a hunch that I had too."
"A hunch!" Gant laughs, a humorless kind that makes Bruce feel as unsteady as the jar whose pieces are in the locker behind him. "We can't reopen a case based on a hunch. Joe Darke was executed. What else do you want?"
The truth.
"...What are you talking about, Goodman?"
And Bruce realizes he thought out loud, and somehow that steels him; he can speak his mind.
"Can you...please reopen the investigation, Chief? We can't transfer the evidence out. There's too many questions left unanswered."
The weight of the dread pooling over his nerves is paralyzing. He's only ever wanted to uphold the law, stay on straightest, narrowest path he could. Because he'd been so sure that it'd always be the right one, and even if it wasn't – who was he? Who was he to fight?
By the restlessness unfurling across Gant's face, he's somebody.
"Goodsy, it's too late."
But...but he's doing the right thing – it can't be too late! He was only doing this to say he could face Jake and Angel and himself and say he fought the good fight, and now all he wants is to be able to take every time they called him a cowardly bootlick, a spineless ass-kisser, and tell them to shove it. That they were wrong about him being able to do right.
"It's not too late." He shows off the files, as if Gant didn't know what they contained, having gone through them hundreds of times during the initial investigation. "I'll...I'll hand this to Marshall, and - !"
Gant cuts him off, ripping the files from Bruce's hand and tucking them securely under his opposite arm. "Goodman."
"Sir?" Another hunch kicks in, and Bruce tries to back up, but there's nowhere to go. From the side of his eye, he sees the flash of Gant's arm as he swipes out something else from the locker.
"I can't. You see what I mean, don't you?"
But he doesn't see what Gant means. All he sees is blinding stars of pain bursting bright behind his eyes, shattering Gant into a thousand fractured mini-Gants, all with the same curious cocked-eyebrow stare, waiting for Bruce's response.
There's the heavy clang of something hitting the locker behind him, the thump of something dropping to the floor.
And he opens his mouth to ask just what the hell that something was but all that comes out is a gurgling splutter that tastes like copper and he has his answer.
Everything is sideways and cold, getting colder except his chest, where his heart is racing in a hot, terror-induced fever-pace.
The blood, too, spreading so fast. That's probably why else he's so warm there.
Gant's disembodied voice hovers overhead. "Oh, Goodsy, do you really have to make such a mess of things?
His arm aimlessly flops towards Gant's foot – or what looks like it could be Gant's foot, through his smeared vision. His fingers brush something solid, sleek and are immediately prodded away.
Then they're crushed across the knuckles, trapping Bruce in a terrific agony and sending him twisting about fruitlessly, an animal in a steel-tooth snare. He tries to scream, for help and for mercy and for that Jake had told him to just try goddammit, and Bruce knows with the same dark certainty Jake's had these past two years, that he won't have another chance to. None of them will.
"Admirable fight there, Goodsy." Gant grinds his heel harder and the sob shaking Bruce's chest only drives his inevitable fate closer. "Better than little Marshy, he just told me to go fuck myself. Or, I think that's what he was trying to say. Hard to hear through all the blood, and all. Give him my regards, he really was a big help."
He whimpers as Gant lifts his foot and moves away. Even in his rapidly fading state, it's clear as crystal what any of this means.
Chief Gant killed Neil. How or why...? He'll never know.
In a matter of minutes (sooner, he hopes. Oh God, please), he will be dead too. And there's a good chance no one will know why or how either.
His mouth is thick and syrupy, drowning him and making his cry impossible as Gant's voice, that sounds so faraway but is right there, mutters about all the blood.
"Such a hassle...oh, no, Lana, just so hectic today. You know, this time of year just seems to be so filled with troublesome distractions, if you wouldn't mind - "
He only wanted to do the right thing. To find the truth. That's all he wanted.
That's all he got.
Ey yo this is my little offering to the AA fandom for SL-9 Day (and I suppose an early post for Rise from the Ashes, which is the 21st). Just gotta say, I love the RFTA cast so much and though I have tons of ideas revolving around them, one thing I really wanted to do first and foremost is give Goodman a voice, and show what I believe is his side of things. Anyway, thanks for reading, and feedback is always appreciated. :]