AN: I want to thank everyone who has reviewed so far. Your comments and support brighten my day. Mirrordjyn, I assure you I do not intend to turn Emory into a killer; she's too strong a person to change that much for Michael. But that's not to say she isn't without some mental issues of her own. And yes, Mr. Riddle, I intend to remedy Laurie's ignorance.
Also (and finally) a romance scene coming up soon, for those of you who just can't stand the sexual tension any longer. ;D
On with the show!
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Three weeks passed.
October 29th dawned cool and fresh. It was a Monday. Emory's fourth Monday, to be precise. In the three private sessions she'd held with Michael, she had accomplished astonishingly little, and that irritated her to no end. She didn't even count Thursdays; they were merely an irritation to both of them, a play put on for Loomis.
So that afternoon, when she walked into the Conference Room, her eyes fell on Michael's carefully slumped form, and she couldn't help but smile. She noticed how, despite his bowed head, he kept his spine straight, legs stretched in front of him languidly, shoulders back, a posture of defiance if she'd ever seen one. No amount of chains and shackles could strip away that subtle dignity, and when he looked up at her, his eyes were sly and full of unspoken challenges.
Oh, she had learned things about him, about how he worked, how he communicated – it was through his eyes – and she had learned how he had managed to fool so many people before her.
But she still couldn't figure out what drove him. Why he stayed here, why he played mental, when he could so easily escape at any moment he so chose.
That was what bothered her. That was what she hadn't accomplished. It bothered her so much she'd lost sleep over it, tossing and turning and throwing ideas back and forth within her head. And to no avail. She still didn't know. It wasn't his mother. She died a long time ago. It wasn't a sense of conscience or guilt; currently he did not appear to have either, though she was sure he must have at least some conscience, otherwise he could not function at his current level of intelligence.
Loomis had tried to tell her that there was nothing but evil in his eyes. That sometimes a lack of conscience was the worst kind of intelligence, but she disagreed. If one had no conscience, then one would not be able to understand that what one did was wrong.
Michael understood exactly what he had done. Having a conscience and then ignoring it was, in Emory's opinion, much worse than not having a conscience at all.
When Loomis looked in Michael's eyes, he saw nothing but a monster.
When Emory looked into Michael's eyes, she saw much, much more.
But the monster was still there, nonetheless. It was hard to ignore, because every time he looked at her, she recognized in his gaze the shrewd calculation of a predator assessing its prey. It would have been enough to give anyone the shivers.
Anyone else, that is.
She sat down across from him, flipped her notebook open to the notes from her last session with him. There was a bright blue sticky note reminding her that Loomis, who was currently at a lecture in Chicago, had shipped his oldest files about Michael to her office. She peeled it off and stuck it in her lab coat. Michael followed every movement with his eyes.
"Stop doing that," she told him irritably, "if you want to see it, ask for it."
His eyes narrowed, expressing his distaste for her ploy. She didn't usually get short with him about his silence, it was too great a barrier for him to break without risking the total failure of his façade, and she knew that. But that didn't help her frustration.
She tried a different tactic.
"How long has it been since they let you outside?" She schooled her expression to one of innocent curiosity. "Probably since you got too big to handle, hm?"
Michael's gaze was distinctly disapproving. Surely she should know better than to answer her own questions; that was something Loomis would do. And bribery was below her.
All of this, just in his eyes. She only barely managed not to throw her pencil at him. He'd probably just ignore it as a way to belittle her and her anger. And then he'd laugh when Loomis watched the security video and yelled at her for pelting his precious patient with writing utensils.
She crossed her arms and leaned back in her chair. "If I'm being juvenile it's because you've driven me to it. I never said I was a patient person." She paused, watched him for a moment, and frowned. "I don't care if you see that as a character flaw." He raised an eyebrow, just a fraction of a millimeter, at her. "It's human nature to want to understand that which we cannot."
The corners of his eyes crinkled slightly, an indicating of amusement.
"Of course I don't understand you," she snapped. That's why I'm still here."
This time he raised both eyebrows. Despite herself, Emory grinned. It had gotten to a point now where she could almost hear his voice in her head. He had been starved of communication with others for years, and even for a man of his intelligence, that was a daunting prospect.
"I'll figure you out eventually. You can't keep me here forever."
He accepted her challenge eagerly, or at least to the extent with which he was capable of showing eagerness.
And he shut down completely. His eyes went blank and his face lost all inflection. To Emory, the change was so drastic now that it seemed like his presence had been sucked out of the room, and all she was looking at was a replica of the real man.
Despite her frustration, Emory had to give a nod of approval for his performance.
"May the best man win," she agreed. Then she gathered her things and left the room.
Just outside the Conference room, she paused and watched Michael make his way back to his cell. She couldn't help but admire his skill; he walked exactly the same way Jack walked. If Emory hadn't already figured out what was really behind the façade, she had to grudgingly admit that even she may have been deceived. She shuddered at the prospect of coming to interview him and acting like a normal, unassuming psychologist in the presence of such a man.
She turned away, began the walk to her office, down a flight of stairs, down a hallway, down another hallway, to the far corner of the building. Her office was nestled beside Loomis's, much smaller than his and with a half-rate view, but still a league above the broom closet she'd been stuffed in back at Lazare.
And there, perched innocently on her desk, was a moderately sized package. Emory's heart leapt; she'd completely forgotten about the files Loomis had promised to send her. She dropped her clipboard on her couch and rushed over to the box, ripped it open, and pulled out a pair of three-inch-thick folders covered in dust and age.
She moved over to the couch, sat down, kicked off her shoes, and flipped open the first folder. A picture of 10-year-old Michael glared back at her. Emory blinked. He looked…frightened. She'd seen that photo on the cover of Loomis's book, but she'd never paid much attention to it. His eyes, they were so expressive, even as a child. She set the picture aside, looked to the next piece of paper: a transcript of Loomis's first session with Michael. It was an easy read, and it did not surprise her. Michael was just learning his tricks; he messed up a few times and he played Loomis like a puppet a few times.
Two hours passed in tense, expectant silence. Transcripts of interviews, notes scrawled in Loomis's handwriting, excerpts from articles about Fugue Catatonia, Schizophrenia, MPD, etc. Useless. All useless.
Finally, Emory sighed and shut the folder. She closed her eyes and leaned back into the soft leather couch cushions. Her head felt like it was five times too small for her brain, and it pounded in time with her pulse. She considered writing herself a prescription for vicodin, but dismissed it; Michael would notice if she started taking medication. He'd even noticed the fact that she hadn't been sleeping well lately.
So she gritted her teeth and pulled the second enormous file onto her lap. There was Michael, again, but this time his photo was not clear, but blurry and colorless. Newspaper articles.
Emory frowned. Why would Loomis keep newspaper articles about Michael? They wouldn't have said anything he didn't already know. Unless it was for some purely narcissistic reason.
She smirked. That second option sounded much more likely.
"Why did you do it, Michael?" She whispered. "What set you off? You're so smart…"
A second article, this one detailing the suicide of Deborah Myers. A third article, talking about Michael's trial, calling it grueling and visceral. Emory shook her head and thumbed past it.
And then the fifth article. Nothing special, no pictures, but it was dated November 1st, 1990. That was… that was the day after the murders.
Emory skimmed through the article once, and her pulse quickened. She read through it more slowly a second time, and the blood froze in her veins.
For a few moments, the world stopped breathing. Everything went still, while inside Emory's head, thoughts screamed and danced and shot back and forth. And then her heart beat. Once. Twice. And the world came back to life, and Emory smiled.
She had it. She'd figured it out. She'd found the missing piece of the puzzle. She'd cracked him, she'd finally figured it out.
Bonnie Myers!
Emory started laughing. She couldn't help it. She'd bested him. Sheknew what he was doing, and why. All this time, all this energy spent on throwing words at a brick wall, and she'd found the answer in a newspaper article seventeen years old.
She looked back at the article and read aloud, "Myers was found sitting on his front porch with his baby sister, Bonnie, in his arms."
She giggled.
"Oh, I have you now, you tricky son of a bitch. You were protecting her, weren't you?" Loomis had never mentioned the girl, probably because he never thought twice about why Michael spared one sibling and murdered the other. That was just the sort of thing he would overlook. But Loomis had been very open about how physically and emotionally abusive Michael's stepfather and older sister had been towards him. Bonnie was the missing piece. Bonnie, who was only a baby at the time, an innocent in a world full of hurtful, hateful people. Michael, oh God, he'd just been trying to protect his little sister.
Emory let the folder slide off her lap and across the floor. She didn't care, she was too dazed with triumph and pain. She hadn't slept in two days. It was time to do that.
As she stretched out on the couch, she sighed, and for the first time in weeks her sigh was not one of frustration, but of relief. She'd just figured out Michael Myers. Oh, Loomis would be so pissed.
But she didn't intend to tell Loomis, or anyone for that matter. She wanted to get Michael's opinion.
Emory's eyes drifted closed, and Michael's face rose up in her mind. His eyes were smiling at her, and they were mischievous and delightful and at that point she was too tired to reprimand herself for feeling so attracted to him. She'd been doing a lot of that reprimanding lately. And she was so damn tired…
She fell asleep to blissful, enveloping silence.
