Ray wanted Naomi off the task force. He'd been trying to persuade her to focus on a different case since the day that enlisting the aid of Beyond Birthday was proposed. Before that, even. It seemed as though he was constantly alluding to the idea of Naomi settling down now that they were engaged, leaving the FBI entirely. She had no intention of doing so. Ray was a smart man – if Naomi wasn't ready to retire anytime soon, he would figure that out, and just have to accept it. He would accept it. Ray was smart, and understanding, just the sort of man she'd always intended to marry – was supposed to marry. And she did love him.
But he wanted her off the task force. "Naomi, please, I'm just looking out for your well-being. You've been exhausted since starting this case, and now…I just don't like the idea of you working with some…with this complete psychopath."
"He is a genius," she cut in, sharply – where had that sharpness, that vehement defense, come from? Evidently her expression matched her tone, as Ray looked surprised and a little alarmed, and said no more about it. That had been the night of her first day on the case with B.
And now Naomi's fiancée was going to talk to the FBI again, to ask that Naomi be switched over to a different task force. It was at her request. Now, with B's revelations, all the evidence, the investigation…Naomi felt as if it was all beginning to point one direction, and it was a direction she did not want to go. Couldn't even handle admitting to herself.
She'd come home that night, bleary and miserable, with Ray immediately demanding (gently demanding) to know what the problem was. He had picked up on her emotional state at once, which very occasionally annoyed her but was often, as now, one of the things she loved about him. Or else her outward appearance was betraying what she felt, but her pride as an FBI agent preventing her from admitting that – they were supposed to be expressionless, clinical, professional. Able to hide their pain. Now was not the time for professional, however. "Ray…I want off of this case."
***
Beyond Birthday refused to work with anyone else. Only Miss Misora, he said. The director of the FBI was red in the face. "We're this close to a break through, and now the whole investigation is halted! Agent Misora, at least go talk to him! Can you try and convince him to work with another agent?" So Naomi found herself back in the little white room, facing B through the glass wall.
"I wouldn't have taken you for one who'd be scared off, Miss Misora," he said, blunt as ever, though there was something biting beneath that scolding, teasing, indignation that brought Naomi a rush of shame. Shame! From the opinion of the criminally insane man behind the glass! Almost as if she was the loony, and the therapist was disappointed in her for reversing the progress they'd made. The shame turned to anger, self-defensive.
"B, my reasons for leaving this case are not for you to-"
"Is it because you fear the outcome?" he cut in, interrupting her as always with his uncanny ability to know what she was thinking (maybe, sometimes, better than she did, for she was less willing to admit certain things to herself). Naomi inhaled sharply at his deduction. B raised an eyebrow.
"Or maybe there's something else, too, that you're running away from…" he said, looking away to a different part of the glass wall.
"This glass…I can see my reflection in it all the time. What I did to myself. It's a punishment befitting of some ancient Greek myth, isn't it? Tantalus' suffering pales in comparison." Naomi thought that was a little egotistical, but…having no escape from the image of your scarred being, burns that represented when the very realization of your most important goals and dreams fell apart...it sounded like a never-ending nightmare, to be sure.
Her eyes followed the path of those scars, from the curled toes on his bare feet, to the hands clasped and resting on his orange-jumpsuit-clad knees. That face – part of the pale complexion he once had showed through behind the red and purple and black. Naomi's gaze drifted to his eyes, where they lingered. Trying to see into that distorted, brilliant mind.
"Do you think it's hideous? Do I horrify you, Miss Misora?" B asked, softly, as if the silence was something physical, fragile, that he wanted to avoid shattering. Slowly, he leaned forward and pressed one scarred hand to the glass. Naomi's heart thudded, an internal alarm, as she watched her own hand move on its own accord to the glass, fingertips then palm resting against it, mirroring his. She could feel the warmth of his hand where it –almost– touched hers, through the cold of the glass. Thump-thump, thump-thump, thump-thump.
Then her wristwatch buzzed (though she'd hardly heard it, with her pulse pounding so loud in her ears), the watch Naomi had starting wearing after her first disorienting day in the white tomb. Ten thirty. She drew her hand back from the glass, thankful and, frighteningly, somehow disappointed, for that mechanical reminder bringing her back to Earth. Her breathing was still shaky, from fear and something she did not want to identify.
"We…we'll continue the investigation tomorrow," Naomi stammered, looking at the floor, the wall, the ceiling – anywhere but at B. She gripped the manila case-folder hard enough to leave indentations of her fingernails. She could hear true amusement in B's reply, an indicator that he had recovered from that uncharacteristic…gentleness (wrong word, wrong word, Naomi's brain shouted when her vocabulary came up short again).
"Very well. See you tomorrow, Harley."
Harley? Naomi Misora found herself backing out of the room again, half of her brain telling her to run, run before she did something more that would send her life spinning totally out of control. She didn't – wouldn't – let herself hear what the other half was saying.
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