He woke up shivering. Had the furnace gone out? His eyes opened, blinked twice, and there was someone standing in front of them. His first jolt of adrenaline was tentative. He expected it to be Rorschach when his vision cleared, but it wasn't.
Fear jolted him back against his headboard. A stranger had made it into his house. At first all he could see was the eyes, wide and brown and so horrified they might as well be mirrors of his own. It was a girl, wild-haired, naked and filthy, with blood slicked down both sides of her neck. Recollection stirred. He had seen her before.
She pointed, wildly, dramatically at his door. He couldn't help but look just as quickly and then she was gone and he was left panting in the darkness by himself. Maybe it had been a nightmare. He hadn't woken up gulping and shaking like this since he had been a child and dreaming of falling. He huddled under his blankets, wishing that Rorschach would suddenly appear and give him something tangible to jump at. Then again, he was glad no one could see him this frightened.
When he got his adrenaline back under control, he was able to remember where he had seen her. Like he could forget, he chided himself. Rorschach had found her on patrol the night before. The shape of a bundle of plastic in a pile of garbage had caught his eye and he had stared at it for a full two minutes, ignoring Dan's questions. He had walked over and pulled, making it unroll like a red carpet from hell, and she had spilled out at their feet. There were lines cut into her wrists and ankles where she had been bound and both her eardrums had been punctured by something, probably an ice pick. It wasn't clear if that had killed her, but she was clearly dead. She looked maybe seventeen, still a little gawky, and unremarkable except for her long hair.
There had been no clues they could find at the site. Dan had wrapped her in his cape and they had called the police. Rorschach had fumed in silence for the rest of the night and hadn't shown up tonight. Dan assumed he was leaving a trail of snapped joints out there, seeing who knew what about a missing teenager. He had patrolled by himself until about 2 and turned in. It was almost 5 now, still a ways until sun up, and he didn't move from the bed until light spilled in through the window.
The room had warmed up by then, so he ventured out. He went downstairs and found Rorschach collapsed on his couch. Aha. That was it. He had heard his partner come in and his brain had processed it without waking him up, and thinking of Rorschach had triggered the memory of their last patrol, and had brought up the horrific image of the poor dead girl to loom over him. He shuffled off to make breakfast, relieved to have an explanation, and wishing it was enough to shake the chill out of his bones.
The smell of coffee and broiler-made cinnamon toast lured Rorschach back to the land of the awoken, but just barely. He answered all questions with grunts in various pitches and left covered in cinnamon/sugar dust. Dan caught a few more hours of sleep, then spent the rest of the day replacing his cape and listening to police reports to see if there were any updates. There weren't, but there was mention of a local hood with his wrist bent all the back in a local hospital. Dan had to grin.
Rorschach showed up at nightfall. They went out the darkness, following blood trails. Rorschach had found out that the plastic was a cheap tarp, sold in every hardware store, often used by movers or painters. No way to track that, but they did break up a mugging and thwart a hold up. Then things got interesting. There was a gang fight that spilled over into a dance club that turned into a hostage situation that turned into a brawl as soon as Rorschach came through the skylight. They fought back to back for what felt like hours, against gang members, bouncers, and the occasional scrappy-drunk patron.
Back in Archie, they collapsed in their chairs and got home on autopilot. They were both exhausted and both dozed in there for a moment after landing, too battered and beaten to want to move. Eventually though, Dan heard Rorschach get up and knew he would have to try too. His eyes bleary through the goggles, he saw his partner's silhouette pass by the yellow window to lean over him. He hoped he hadn't been drooling. He shifted, starting to sit up and offer a drink, but then the shadow's arm shot up to violently point to the left. Dan looked, alarmed, and there, still snoozing in the chair was Rorschach. Dan's head jerked back quickly enough to get glimpse of a scrawny body and long brown hair and then it was gone again.