A/N: Prelude to the scene in 3.01 "White Warrior" where Branch attacks Cady.
It pained me so much to write this, as it pains me every week to watch Branch descend into darkness. Dammit, why can't these characters have their happy ending already?
I don't own Longmire and in no way profit from this. Also the title comes from Native American card readings, where the lizard symbolises the power of one's dreams and what messages might be hidden there.
Lizard Dreaming
We're so close
to something better left unknown…
Metric, "Gimme Sympathy"
The room smells of sanitiser and iodine. Cady thinks there's blood in there somewhere too, a strange metallic perfume to offend her senses. It's the hospital smell; Cady knows it well.
She sees him lying there and there is blood in his hair, what was left unwashed. Maybe they couldn't wash it out, that much blood. Maybe they had to let it sit, clump, dry in place.
When she sits still on the bed's edge, close to him, and tries to focus she realises she's had one coffee too many, and the headache that's been brewing for an hour comes to the fore. But maybe it's the smell that's driving the ache in her head. She knows it's the sight of him there, lying prone and helpless and bloody that's driving the ache in her heart.
Branch stirs, a gurgle emerging from the slight break of his lips. Spit bubbles as his mouth closes again and Cady can see the red in it.
A nurse comes to check the monitor when Cady moves to take the limp hand beside her. She recoils, flashes the woman in uniform a brief smile and adjusts her position on the bed, folding her arms across her chest stiffly.
The nurse, whose kind eyes had looked on Cady with a deep empathy, flicks a switch on the monitor, checks a box on Branch's chart and promptly departs the room, leaving the door not fully open.
A moment passes and Cady doesn't move. Her eyes lock on the face of a man whose life dangled precariously mere hours ago, who now begins to wake and Cady clutches his hand and squeezes. It's more for her comfort than his, she admits to herself and sighs her relief nonetheless.
"You know, we have to stop meeting like this…" Her voice is soft and foreign even to her after having not spoken for over an hour.
The soft skin under his eyes creases as Branch grimaces, Cady not seeing any trace of recognition as he begins to look at her. He's pained, the strain of some affliction clear on his contorted face.
"Branch?"
She hears it first, a growl like some unnatural beast was inside him, then the hand she's holding tears away from her. His hands are around her throat before she can move away. He'd moved fast as a man possessed, bolting straight up as his fingers clamped tight around her.
Cady almost passes out. She feels her blood stopping below his grip, sees white spots forming at the corners of her vision and black beginning to creep in. Helpless, she can't fight. She knows she needs to move but his monstrous strength holds her down, squeezes out a little more life.
She cries out his name. His eyes change as he registers it, wild to horrified, and he lets her go. She stands quickly, turns away, coughs weakly. Something in Branch's voice when he apologises sounds insincere to her and a hysterical thought comes to Cady.
Okay Branch, you win.
When her dad comes in Cady rushes out, her voice leaking something about coffee.
She finds a vending machine and pushes herself in the crevice between it and the wall. Her knees buckle and she cries silently, body curled halfway between standing and kneeling. She knows there'll be a red mark around her neck and worries her dad might see it.
Branch's words before she left the room scream in her mind. "You're not gonna tell anyone about this, are you?" Like a threat.
Cady doesn't know. She thinks she'll keep it a secret, for now.
What she does know is whoever that man is that woke up strangling her, it isn't Branch. Not the Branch she knows. Whoever did this to him took something from him, stole him away. Replaced him. This Branch was a monster, her Branch is gone.