AN: In case it isn't obvious, this story is AU. In this universe, Johan got caught before coming in contact with Tenma or Nina. Now in prison and considered criminally insane, he is required to have sessions with one of the prison's psychiatrists, Dr. Gillen.
/.../.../
Dr. Gillen had never worked with such a strange man as Johan before.
Johan. In Gillen's notes, he liked to have both the first and last names of his patients. But when it came to Johan, there was no last name. No one knew what it was, not even Johan himself. Johan had in fact told Dr. Gillen that even Johan was not his real name.
"You told the police and the court your name was Johan," Gillen said.
Johan, who sat across the table from him, shrugged. "They needed some name. After all, they couldn't try me as the monster with no name. That is what would describe me best."
He leaned forward, closer to Gillen. Gillen fought the inclination to pull his chair back, back away. He was the one with the power here; Johan was just another prisoner. And a charismatic, observant prisoner, at that: If he showed any signs of weakness he had no doubt that Johan would pounce on them without a moment's hesitation.
"You have heard your other patients speak of me, , have you not?" Johan said. "I know you had some of them. I heard Jurgens killed himself in your presence." He smiled. He had such gentle blue eyes. "How did that feel?"
Infuriating. One of the upsides of going into psychiatry, rather than some other branch of the medical profession, was supposed to be that he wouldn't lose any patients. He had never in his life felt as helpless as Jurgens had made him feel.
"We aren't talking about me," Gillen said. "We're talking about you, Johan."
Johan leaned back now, the smile never leaving his face. He said, "But there is so little to say about me, Dr. Gillen. I am no one. I am nothing. I don't even have a name."
"But you call yourself Johan," Gillen said. "Why do you do that?"
"I've used many names over the years," Johan said. "But my favorite one was always Johan. Johan Liebert. That was the most important name."
There was some finality about that declaration. So when Gillen said, "Why is the name Johan Liebert so important?" he really did not expect a reply.
But Johan did reply.
Staring off into the distance, he said, "That is the name I had when I was resurrected. That is the name he knows me by."
It wasn't like Johan to be so cooperative.
"When you were resurrected? When was that?"
Johan didn't answer. He was still staring off into the distance, the smile faded from his lips and his eyes glazed over.
"Who knows you by that name? Why is he important?"
No answer.
/.../.../
This was what Gillen knew about Johan:
He was a murderer.
He had been arrested for the serial killing of several different old couples. At his trial, he had admitted not only to those murders, but to many others: Old couples killed many years ago, stray murders where a motive had never been found, the killing of several gangsters and East German spies, talking people into suicide because he could and some doctors murdered ten years ago at the Eisler Memorial Hospital.
To all these charges he had pleaded guilty.
He was asked if he felt remorse over the murders. He answered, in a word, no. He was pressed further. He merely smiled.
He would give very little testimony for or against himself, mentioning a few times that he committed crimes because it was interesting to see everyone run about, and occasionally referencing "the landscape of doomsday." He also continuously brought up that he had "another half" but refused to say who or what this mysterious other half was.
All in all, the court's verdict was that Johan was guilty and criminally insane.
As for Gillen, he had to say that he agreed. Johan had not shown any emotion yet in the sessions he had had with Gillen. He didn't even show distress at his imprisonment. If anything, he seemed constantly amused.
Gillen resented the fact that half the time Johan seemed to be amused by him.
/.../.../
"Who is your other half?" Gillen asked.
Johan touched his fingertips together. His elbows rested on the table, but not in a way that could be called rude. He always acted so perfect. It got on Gillen's nerves; he would have preferred to deal with someone more human this afternoon. Most serial killers or other serious criminals at least could explain the motivation behind their crimes. Most killers had some sort of emotion.
"You spoke at your trial about having some sort of other half, someone or something that completes you. What were you talking about?" Gillen asked.
Johan said, "There were two of us. I don't know if we would fit together so nicely anymore, but we remain pieces of the same puzzle. The two halves that should never be separated." He sighed. His clear blue eyes seemed to radiate deep, bitter sorrow (though you could never be sure with Johan; he could be only faking). "Nothing remains perfect or whole in this world. That is why there is little point in living."
"There were two of you," Gillen repeated. He frowned. "A second personality?" Did Johan have multiple personality disorder? He wouldn't put it past the blond to have any type of mental condition, but he was reluctant to jump to conclusions.
Johan smirked.
"Anna is not me. She is nothing like me," he said. He steepled his hands again. "And yet, we are exactly alike."
"Anna? Your other half is named Anna?"
"I told you," Johan said. "We don't have names."
"Ah," Gillen said. He felt like he was going in circles. So there was someone, or something, named Anna, but was that what Johan was calling his second half? And was it a person, or just a name he made up for a second personality?
"Though she has found a name," Johan added. "She doesn't go by Anna anymore. Even though it was such a nice name. I gave it to her myself, when we had walked so many miles that she had begun to lose hope. Back then, she clung to me." He sighed. "I miss her."
For that moment, Johan's voice sounded simple, sincere.
Gillen didn't trust it in the slightest. (Every report, and every experience he had had with Johan, cautioned him: Johan was manipulative. Johan was incapable of sincerity. Johan could never feel such an emotion as missing someone, as feeling alone.)
"So Anna is a person," he said. He had to be careful not to jump to assumptions with Johan. Johan said so many confusing things. It was a good thing that Gillen had them all recorded, so that he would be able to figure out more about what they meant later.
Johan said, "Dr. Gillen, you are actually very stupid, aren't you?"
He said it in the same calm, philosophical voice that he had used to reminisce about this Anna and discuss the pointlessness of life. Nothing is the world remained perfect or whole, Johan didn't have a name, and Dr. Gillen was actually very stupid. These were all facts.
Gillen was not sure how to respond.
"I've told you things that I've never told anyone except Roberto before. I told you about Anna," Johan said. "And you weren't even paying attention."
Gillen cleared his throat. "I'm sorry. It's hard to understand what you're saying."
"Oh," Johan said. "Well then, I'll give you some time to figure it out. We'll talk later, Dr. Gillen."
There were still ten minutes left of the session. Johan refused to say a word.
/.../.../
Inspector Lunge had done most of the investigative work necessary to catch Johan. It was surprisingly easy for Gillen to arrange an appointment to talk to him about Johan.
Lunge, though, had nothing very enlightening to say.
Their talk started promisingly. Lunge said, "I am often able to catch criminals by imagining myself to be them and putting myself into their minds. I catch criminals by becoming them."
"So you put yourself into Johan's mind," Gillen said.
Lunge shook his head. His fingers, which had up until that point been constantly tapping on the table, froze. "I tried to."
"What do you mean?" Gillen asked. Clarity, clarity, couldn't anything be clear about Johan?
"I tried to step into Johan's mind. I tried to put myself in his place," Lunge said. "But all I found, when I tried to do so, was a vacuum." His right ring finger started tapping now, separate from all the others, over and over again. "No emotion, no motive, no logic, no humanity. There was nothing for me to find. His crime scenes were devoid of any sense of self, and half of his crimes I am certain he talked others into committing. His modus operandi was erratic, his victims inconsistent. I look at his crimes and I don't understand."
He paused.
Gillen said, "I don't think anyone understands Johan." Maybe Johan didn't even understand himself.
"I researched his victims, put together clues he left behind on purpose. I found a couple people who had met him. I got lucky, most of the time," Lunge said. "That was how I caught Johan. I still have no idea what it's like to be in his mind."
"His mind is what I'm concerned with," Gillen said. "I can't understand it either, and it's my job." His job and his current fascination. He wouldn't be able to rest easily until he understood what was going on behind that smirk. It kept him awake at night. It gave him nightmares.
"I won't be able to help you," Lunge said. "I came hoping you could tell me something about Johan. That case has never been resolved in my mind."
His right ring finger had stopped moving.
"Do you know anything about Johan's past that might be helpful?" Gillen asked. "Anything not in the files?" The files were practically empty. They only held what facts about Johan were certain, and that was almost nothing.
"He came from Czechoslovakia," Lunge said. "That seems almost certain." He paused. His right hand tapped out a fast, hard rhythm. "Someone named Franz Bonaparta was involved with him, I think. But I couldn't find any details on him. He also went to an orphanage called Kinderheim 511."
"Why wasn't this in the files?"
"Franz Bonaparta is classified information. He was an agent in East Germany before the wall came down, and we don't know much about him. What we do know cannot be spread around so easily." Lunge paused. "And there is little certain information about Kinderheim 511 at all. Their records are all destroyed and everyone who went there except Johan and a few others are dead."
"Dead?"
"Massacred," Lunge said. "The place has a dark history. I can send you my research on it if that would help."
"It might." A whole orphanage, dead. Gillen thought of Johan, talking about monsters. What kind of person walked away from such ruins? Gillen was not naïve enough to think it would be a hero.
"As far as I can tell, he stayed with most of the old couples before killing them," Lunge said. "But you know that."
Gillen nodded. He asked, "What about the name Anna? Did that ever come up?"
"Anna..." Lunge hesitated and then shook his head. "I do not think I ever heard that name in conjunction with the case. I will look into it for you if it is important."
"He used it to refer to his mysterious 'other half'."
"Important, then. I'll let you know if I find anything out about it. But you must tell me if you come to understand Johan. I do not like being so baffled," Lunge said.
"Agreed."
They shook hands. Lunge's fingers held still for the handshake, but the fingers on his other hand beat against his leg.
/…/…/
"You went to talk to Inspector Lunge about me," Johan said.
Gillen frowned. "I did. How did you know about that?"
Johan said, "I liked the inspector. That was why I let him catch me." He smiled. Such a charming smile made you understand all those serial killers that had done his work for him, even made you sympathize with them. "I wouldn't want him to kill me though."
"You let the inspector catch you?" Gillen said.
Surely that couldn't be right. Johan couldn't have actually wanted to be caught, after covering his tracks so carefully. But Lunge had said that he had continuously gotten lucky working on Johan's case. Could it be that Johan had made it possible to Lunge to capture him on purpose?
"Dr. Gillen, please don't be stupid again," Johan said. "That wasn't the important part."
"The important part?"
"The important part is that I wouldn't want him to kill me," Johan said. "I gave him the honor of capturing me. He deserved it, for putting so much effort into finding me. But in the end, I don't want to be killed by him. I will probably kill him as soon as I break out of here."
Gillen said, "You're planning on breaking out?"
Of course, many of the inmates planned on breaking out of the prison. It was only natural. Many of Gillen's patients even bragged about it in this way. But the thought of Johan loose (even though he had already been loose for so long, and had only been imprisoned for the past couple months) gave Gillen the chills.
"You're missing the point again," Johan said.
He spoke in a measured, patient voice. The teacher speaking to his pupil, explaining a calculus problem. Gillen had been a star student, but this he did not understand.
Johan said, "You're supposed to ask me, now, who I would want to kill me. That's the point. The inspector isn't that important, in the end, since I am going to kill him."
Gillen resisted the temptation to follow up on that by asking why Johan wanted to kill Lunge and how he planned on doing it. He gritted his teeth and asked, "Who do you want to kill you?"
Johan smiled.
Gillen hated that seeing that sunny smile made him feel good, gratified.
"You aren't ready yet," Johan said. "But I'll tell you about him soon."
It would be pointless to ask any more questions in that direction, then. Gillen said, instead, "Who is Anna?"
"My second half," Johan said. "Didn't I already explain that?"
"I don't understand," Gillen said. "You'll have to be clearer."
"If I must," Johan said. He sighed. "Anna is my twin sister. She is the most important thing in the world to me. If she killed me, I suppose that would be all right, but not ideal."
"You have a twin?"
That, Gillen had not been expecting. A woman, yes, a woman important to Johan, but not actual family. Gillen never imagined Johan having a real, biological family. In his mind, Johan existed in a void.
"I do," Johan said. He didn't even tell Gillen that he was being stupid. "She is exactly like me, but not like me at all. I had to postpone our meeting, but as soon as I break out of here I am going to see her. I am sure she will be as happy as I."
/.../.../
Gillen had promised to tell Lunge about any new developments and he did. Lunge said he appreciated the information but did not find it very enlightening.
"That a monster like that should have a twin," he mused. "I hope that when he said they are exactly the same he was exaggerating. The world could not handle another Johan."
Personally, Gillen agreed. But he kept that to himself. It was not right for a psychiatrist to be frightened of his patient. He had to stay objective. This was for the patient's sake. He could not see Johan as a monster; he was supposed to be helping the man.
Reading the files Lunge gave him about Kinderheim 511 helped him to sympathize with Johan to an extent. It sounded terrible. Children being abused, neglected, brainwashed until they forgot their own names. Was that where Johan had lost his name? Was that where Johan had lost himself?
It seemed entirely possible. Surely such an authoritarian method of training a child into a mindless drone could misfire and create a monster. It was not a far stretch.
Lunge's notes, though, suggested otherwise. He had personally added to the official information and written on the last few sheets of paper that people who had met Johan before Kinderheim 511 seemed to testify that he had been the same even back then.
So Kinderheim 511 was just another stop on the journey of a monster. (He had to stop thinking that way. Johan was only human. Only human.)
And the other children at the orphanage, and all the adult supervisors...
All dead.
Gillen shivered. He tried to suppress the feeling that it was all Johan's fault. He had done that, he had killed everyone at Kinderheim 511, if not by his own hands then by his instigation. He had done everything.
(Gillen couldn't think like that.)
/…/…/
"I like doctors," Johan said a couple weeks later, as Gillen tried to persuade him to talk about anything relevant.
"Oh?" Gillen said. "I'm flattered." He wiped some sweat off his forehead. He didn't like when Johan said things about him. Even when they were compliments, it was never good.
"That was a lie," Johan said. "I don't like doctors." He paused. "There is one doctor, though, that I like very much."
"And who is that?" Gillen asked. He didn't bother to make a big deal out of the position reversal. Johan did whatever he wanted. He was going somewhere with this, even if Gillen had no idea where.
"Just a certain doctor," Johan said. A smile had appeared on his face. "He saved my life. I was meant to die, but he saved me even though I had been killed. That was how I had my resurrection."
Resurrection. That sounded familiar. Gillen was sure Johan had mentioned being resurrected before, but such a long time ago. He would have to dig through his tapes later and figure it out. "How did he save your life?"
"My sister shot me in the head," Johan said.
There were moments when Johan broke out of his mysterious rambling and was extremely blunt. Usually those moments, like this one, made Gillen wince.
"I thought I would die then," Johan said. "That was fine. Back then, she was the one I wanted to kill me." He looked almost wistful, gazing off into the distance again. "I thought it was the end. But I was taken to a hospital, and that doctor saved my life. It was a miracle. I should have died then, but I lived. I was grateful." He glanced back over at Gillen. "I doubt anyone else is."
Gillen doubted it too. "When did this happen?"
"Many years ago," Johan said. "I still looked like a child back then. Of course, I was never a child. The amazing thing was, the doctor didn't do it just because it was his job. Actually he was supposed to be operating on someone else. He was a very skilled surgeon, and I was low priority." He brushed a strand of blond hair off his face. "He got demoted for a while. It looked like his career would be ruined. I helped him out, then. I showed my gratitude, though he probably never knew it was me."
The hair on the back of Gillen's neck was prickling. He couldn't help but remember the file on Kinderheim 511, all those people dead and no logic behind it. But surely Johan knew ways to show his gratitude without committing mass murder. And he hadn't heard of any massacred hospitals in the past ten years or so. "How did you help him?"
"I killed the man who demoted him," Johan said. Why was his voice always so bland? "I also killed those that benefited from his demotion. I don't remember their names anymore. They were scum. Even my doctor agreed with me. He thought they deserved to die as well."
So it seemed Johan couldn't do anything without killing. Gillen wondered who the doctor was.
"And how did you know that?" Gillen couldn't imagine any doctor who would risk his career to save a boy's life condoning murder.
"He told me," Johan said. "He thought I was asleep, but I know some part of him wanted me to hear. I know he wanted them dead."
Gillen doubted that. He doubted it very much.
He asked, "Who was this doctor?"
"He is the man I want to kill me," Johan said. "Though it will take a while to get him there, I suppose. He doesn't see yet, but he will."
"Who is he?"
Johan smiled. It wasn't his usual smile, the perfectly innocent one, but rather a smug one. "You can figure that out for yourself, Dr. Gillen. Perhaps when you know, we can talk more."
/.../.../
Lunge was not completely surprised by this information.
"He admitted to killing the doctors at the Eisler Memorial Hospital ten years ago already," he told Gillen. "He never said what his motivation was, though. It is strange to think that a man like that could feel gratitude."
"Do you think he was telling the truth?" Gillen asked. He himself could never tell when Johan was lying.
"I do think so," Lunge said. "He has no reason to lie about this. Ever since his arrest, he has been very honest, though most of the time he won't tell us anything relevant." His right hand drummed on the table. He used his left hand to take a drink of coffee. Gillen had never seen Lunge drink anything but coffee. He was always completely on task, completely alert.
"It's a strange reason to murder three people," Gillen said. To be honest, he found it strange because it was so human. Johan had killed three doctors to avenge someone. That wasn't like him at all.
"The doctor who benefited most from those three murders," Lunge said, fingers drumming absently. "Was Kenzo Tenma."
"Tenma?" Gillen said. His brow furrowed. "I knew him in med school." He hadn't particularly liked him, either. Tenma had always looked down on Gillen, ever since he had caught Gillen cheating on that one test. He had stolen Gillen's thunder by getting better grades than him, doing better than him in class, usurping his position as top student. And everyone had liked Tenma better than Gillen, too.
But he had been a good man; that much had been obvious even to Gillen. (Honestly, it had made Gillen hate Tenma that much more. He thought that he was better than everyone...and he was.) Gillen could imagine Tenma risking his career to operate on a wounded boy. And he could picture Tenma's outrage at being demoted (brought down like any other mortal) goading him to say that his superiors deserved death.
"Kenzo Tenma," Lunge repeated. "He was demoted by Director Heineman a few days before Heineman was murdered, and the other two doctors murdered were promoted as a result. After the murders, he got his place back as head of the brain surgery section. This caused him to be a major suspect at the time. I questioned him myself." His right index, middle and ring fingers let out a spasm. "He is even to this day the most talented brain surgeon at Eisler Memorial Hospital, and gifted in other types of surgery as well. After the murders, he became more motivated in his work and in the present time he does little other than his work. His social life is next to nil. He also broke up with his fiancée, Eva Heineman, at the time of the murders, and has not had a consistent girlfriend since."
It was strange to hear this much about Tenma. Gillen had not thought about him in a long time. "Why do you know so much about Tenma?"
"Until we captured Johan, that case remained unsolved," Lunge said. "I hate unsolved cases." He finished off his cup of coffee. "Tenma was still the main suspect, so I kept an eye on him. I always hoped the case would someday be closed, though I did not at first suspect that it had anything to do with Johan."
Gillen shrugged. "It's hard to connect anything with Johan."
He wondered if he should tell Lunge Johan's claim that he had allowed Lunge to capture him. But Johan had only said that once, and Gillen was not sure he had fully understood it.
Lunge leaned back in his chair and closed his eyes. His fingers stilled on the table. "I am a nameless orphan. I call myself Johan Liebert. I have a sister whom I call Anna. Anna has tried to kill me."
Gillen sat as quietly as he could. Was this how Lunge acted when he went into the mind of a criminal? Gillen almost wanted to profile the inspector himself, sometimes.
"I should be dead. Dr. Tenma saved me. Dr. Tenma is now my savior, but he has suffered from helping me. I will help him in return. I will kill those who have harmed him."
Lunge opened his eyes. "That was interesting."
"It feels too straight forward," Gillen said.
Lunge nodded. "When I thought of it that way, the void was gone. Can Johan really be so simple?" He frowned. "Well, it is just one of his crimes. The others, I still do not fully understand."
/…/…/
"Why do you want Dr. Tenma to kill you?"
Johan did not seem surprised by the question, even though it was rather abrupt. Nor did he seem surprised that Gillen had figured out who the mysterious doctor was.
"I was meant to die that night Anna shot me," he said. He stretched his arms and laced his fingers behind his head. "He brought me back to life. He should take responsibility for that, don't you think? Besides, Anna has already had her chance to kill me. I would like to see her, but she will not be the one again."
That made a surprising amount of sense, for Johan. Maybe his relationship with Tenma was the only thing that ever made sense about him, because nothing else about him was ever that logical.
"But you haven't contacted Tenma in years," Gillen said. Hopefully that was right. Gillen didn't want to know another man had fallen under Johan's influence.
"I've never spoken to him at all," Johan said.
"He won't want to kill you."
Johan smiled. "It will take time, but he will."
Johan's assurance made Gillen pause. He was always so sure of himself, that what he wanted to happen, he could make happen. Perhaps that was why those around him were so ready to bend to his will. It was another part of his charisma.
He had wanted to ask Johan another question in this session. "How do you feel about Dr. Tenma?"
Johan looked away from Gillen and up at the ceiling. "That's between me and him."
"Are you still grateful towards him? Do you think he would be receptive to you?" Gillen pressed. "Do you think he would approve of the things you do?"
Johan said, "Dr. Gillen, you are not completely stupid all the time. But you are still an outsider. Tenma and I are like Anna and I. No one else needs to know what is between us. I know, and they too will know. In time."
/.../.../
Gillen considered calling Tenma up or even visiting him to tell him about Johan's apparent obsession with him. He decided against it. It would accomplish nothing good. Johan was in prison now; he wouldn't be able to influence Tenma's life in any way. And if Tenma learned that Johan had killed those three doctors because of him, Gillen didn't want to think about how guilty he would feel. Or even how guilty he would feel knowing he had "resurrected" a man who went on to kill so many people.
Lunge called him with information, though. He said he had found the mysterious Anna, Johan's twin, though it had required some investigation.
"Nina Fortner is the name she goes by now," he said. "She lives with an elderly couple, the Fortners. If Johan had not been captured, I wonder how long they would have lived."
"Have you told her about her brother?" Gillen asked.
Lunge said, "No. I told her foster parents as much as was relevant. It is their decision whether they will tell her or not, just as it is their decision whether or not to tell her that she is adopted. If Johan breaks out of prison or anything occurs to endanger Nina, she will be fully informed."
"I wonder what Johan would do if he contacted Nina," Gillen said. "He says he doesn't want her to kill him anymore, but I doubt it would be just a happy reunion."
"Let's hope we never find out."
/.../.../
He got the call at one thirty in the morning. It didn't wake him up because he had been going through his recordings of conversations with Jurgens, trying to fit what the way Jurgens spoke of Johan with what he himself knew of Johan. It still annoyed him. Who called this late at night?
It was the prison. Johan had escaped.
Apparently one of the guards had given him the keys to the cells. No one knew why the guard would do such a thing because the guard was dead now, stabbed with a shank Johan had been hiding in a corner of his cell. Johan had gone on to release all the prisoners in his section of the prison, causing chaos in which he had slipped away. It was all caught on surveillance camera. Two prisoners and one other guard had died in the chaos, and there was no sign of Johan. They were alerting Gillen to the news this early in case Johan for some reason decided to target him-after all, Johan was a serial killer.
Gillen listened to the man on the phone without saying a word. He thanked him, and told him he would still be in the next day. Some of his patients hadn't been freed, even if Johan had.
He didn't go back to listening to Jurgens' tapes, though. Instead he got out his gun (he had obtained a license for one when he had first started working at the prison) and sat on his bed, and waited, silently, for the end to come.
He kept the shades open and the lights on. Part of him wanted to pull the shades closed and turn off the lights and hide in the dark, but he knew that would accomplish nothing. He would be more easily frightened in the dark (not that he wasn't frightened already) and it would be good to be able to see Johan coming, if he came. And if Johan came and he did have the lights off, he could still turn them on again with the flip of a switch.
Part of him said to get out of the house right away. He could go spend the night with a friend or sit up in an all night restaurant. The restaurant idea appealed to him, but he couldn't stop thinking about the people Johan had poisoned, with wine, candy, even bread once according to his confessions. He didn't want to eat, or even to be around food.
As for going to a friend's house, how could he go to a friend when he could bring danger with him? He didn't want anyone killed on his account.
So he just sat and waited for the inevitable.
Only perhaps it wasn't inevitable after all, because the dawn came and the morning came and it was time to go to work, and Johan never showed up.
All day at work, he felt like he was walking on tiptoes. Of course, around his patients he behaved as normal. But his voice still came out a little strained. And the prisoners were in strange moods as well, excited by the escapes the night before. A couple even threatened him, like they used to in the first days he spoke to them, though these days they were usually civil.
It was not a good day, but the next day was worse. That was when it came out in the news that one Inspector Lunge was dead, found poisoned in his own home with no fingerprints or clues anywhere to be seen.
Gillen called in sick to work. Most people had been surprised at his showing up the day before anyways.
Lunge and Gillen hadn't been friends, exactly. But there had been a certain sense of camaraderie between them. They had been together on this quest to peel away the layers of Johan's heart, figure out what made him tick. And Gillen knew Lunge had had many admirable qualities. His punctuality and efficiency at least, and at best an utter dedication to his job and to helping others even at his own expense.
Even at the expense, now, of his life.
What had Johan seen in Lunge? Had he seen that devotion? Gillen knew he had seen Lunge as a worthy foe. In the end, though, he supposed it didn't matter what Johan had seen in Lunge. Johan killed men indiscriminately, no matter what was in their hearts.
And whatever Johan had thought of Lunge, whatever Gillen had thought of Lunge, Lunge was dead.
Gillen took half the day to mourn, in what little way he could. Certainly he hadn't known the man well enough to grieve him in any meaningful way. Then, when morning was gone and afternoon beginning, he knew what he had to do. With Lunge dead, he was the only one left who knew certain things about Johan, and there was a man who was going to need that information more than he would.
He got in his car and headed off towards the Eisler Memorial Hospital.
/.../.../
AN: And that's that. I wrote this because honestly, who wouldn't want to get a look at whatever is in Johan's head? And who would be able to get much success in their attempts? Isn't that what the whole series is trying to do, after all, just figure out what Johan is thinking? Tasks like these are beyond mere mortals like Gillen.
Reviews are always appreciated.