Chapter Ten
I don't know where you're going
But do you got room for one more troubled soul?
I don't know where I'm going
But I don't think I'm coming home and I said
I'll check in tomorrow if I don't wake up dead
Fall Out Boy – Alone Together
The stench of burnt plastic still hung in the fresh morning air and Maddie could taste that strong, pungent smell in the back of her throat as she stood beside Nick with her arms crossed over her black leather jacket, starring through aviator sunglasses at the odd, giant charred dome that was currently in the process of being rifled through by the fire brigade. She knew that scent would stick to her for the rest of the day and gave a little sigh at the prospect. The house itself looked strange, it looked like the weird little cottage up on the hill should have been part of an observatory a long time ago now it was sad, having been condensed into a mass of crumbling rubble. The belongings of the occupant were spread in various areas across the plush green grass, dotted on either side of the concrete path that led up to the building. Everything was fire damaged, she doubted there was anything that the owner could have retrieved from the wreckage.
The owner was still here and had apparently escaped the blast unscathed. Maddie had to admit she had never quite met anybody like Hap Lasser, his attitude was oddly refreshing despite the fact that he was currently trampling through his belongings in a multicoloured vest and knee length shorts. His curly hair was an uncombed, wayward mass at the top of his head and his scruffy face unshaven. She expected him to look dishevelled, who wouldn't after escaping an explosion but she got the general feeling that unkempt was his natural look. He was now cradling a ruined vinyl to his chest and groaning as he clutched the melted plastic. If she was honest Maddie would have felt the same way if her own record collection had been subjected to the same abuse so she could sympathise with Hap in that respect. However it would seem that Hap had the attention span of a child, once he spotted one thing he would wander off in it's general direction until he spotted another and then another, which was made questioning him a problem. Not for the first time Nick was snapping his fingers in front of the other man in an attempt to regain his attention.
"Mr Lasser." he tried once more, his tone showing his frustration.
Maddie unfolded her arms in attempt to look more forthcoming and more open in response to Hap's erratic behaviour. As far as she knew this could be the way he dealt with stress and it seemed unfair for both of them to play tough cop when he was standing in the tattered remnants of his life. Sometimes people needed the assertive jolt to get them back on track and focus their thoughts after a traumatic event but Hap seemed to be operating on a completely different planet to the two of them. It seemed he accepted the event in his own strange way but he was unable to associate it with himself.
"You said you stepped out of the house just before it exploded?" Maddie asked in a soft tone before she gestured at the destroyed building over her shoulder.
"Well yea Detective." Hap stated frankly as he pointed at the dome. "If I had been in there I wouldn't be out here."
Both Nick and Maddie exchanged a glance before nodding their agreement at that statement, the expression on Nick's features matched her own before their gazes returned to Hap. There was something almost endearing about the large child like man and despite the possibility that he may be a suspect, they both found themselves liking him. He seemed genuine in terms of his body language and neither of them seemed to think that he was playing the fool intentionally. Hap's gaze seemed to fixate on something beyond them before he took off once more, putting the conversation on hold while he pushed past them both and dropped to his knees in the grass, his hands smoothing over crisp, discoloured pages of what looked like a comic book.
"Xena Warrior Princess Issue 15, this was a classic." he groaned, peeling apart the hardened pages in an attempt to see if they salvageable. Maddie could see from her position over his shoulder that it was not.
"Mr Lasser." Nick reasserted, his firm voice drawing Hap back to reality as he rose to his bare feet. "We have a lot of people out here investigating the explosion, if you were involved in any kind of bomb making now is the time to let us know before anybody gets hurt."
It was a question they had to ask and it was entirely possible. People made bombs out of house hold objects all of the time for the fun of it. The instructions weren't that hard to print off the internet these days. Wu had told her just last week about how come college kid had blown up part of his dorm because he was trying to continue his chemistry experiment outside of the lab.
"Me?" Hap beamed at them looking completely amused by the notion. "I wouldn't know how to do any of that."
Maddie glanced at Nick whose lips pursed into a thin line to hide the smile tugging at his lips. Between the two of them they had both known that Hap was incapable of creating an explosive, he was more likely to have accidentally left a lit cigarette next to an unlit oven hob.
"Everything I love was in there." Hap said, hugging the burned Xena comic to his barrel-like chest as if it were still one of his most prized possessions. "My entire life."
There was a change in the air, it was subtle but she felt it and at the same time she knew Nick had too. Sometimes this happened, since the Capra incident she had become more in tune with her instincts, honing in on them instead of discarding them the way she had that night. She didn't know what it meant but she knew it was something to do with Hap. All she could see was his downcast, sullen expression, Nick however was giving the burly man an uncomfortable wide eyed look. He shifted beside her, looking Hap up and down as if sizing him up. Maddie didn't know what he was seeing but sometimes when she worked a case with Nick he did this and it would send her hackles up in an instant. She didn't know if he was a Wesen and that was his reaction to others or whether it was something else entirely. Either way it was disconcerting.
"My brother's baseball cards." Hap exclaimed unhappily, his gaze fixated on the warped plastic covering that had dissolved onto the little pieces of cardboard. "If he found out about this, he would crap a car."
"I think he'll just be happy your alive." Maddie interjected kindly, trying to shed a positive light on the situation.
"How's he gonna hear?" Hap responded sadly, his shoulders sagging.
Maddie reached into the inside pocket of her leather jacket and removed her cell phone from it before holding it out for Hap to take.
"Your going to need a place to stay tonight so why don't you give your brother a call?" she told him, her lips pressed together in a sympathetic line.
Hap shook his head, a bitter smile crossing his scruffy features.
"Your cellphone isn't that good Detective." he chuffed at her, his hands by his sides. "He didn't make it out."
"Didn't make it out?" Maddie repeated, her icy blue eyes straying back to the building in the background.
"It's weird." Hap said, his broad hand coming to rub the back of his head as he spoke. "The same thing happened to him last month with him in it. He's so dead."
Maddie slipped her cell phone back into the interior pocket of her leather jacket as Nick shot her a look of sheer disbelief. It would appear that Hap had no idea that the two events in themselves could be connected. There was a possibility that they were both a strange coincidence but it was something the two of them were going to have to look into before they released Hap from their charge. Nick was the first to speak, his voice betraying none of his thoughts as he spoke.
"I think you should come with us to the station."
"I kinda feel sorry for him." Maddie said, leaning back on her swivel chair and rocking it from side to side as both her and Nick waited for Hap to finish off his phone call. "He's like a really big kid."
From the pleading in his voice they could both tell that it wasn't going very well. The few hours they spent with the burly man has been tiresome in some ways. His attention had the tendency to wander constantly and they were both beginning to find the task of guiding him back onto the subject at hand more than a little exhausting. They couldn't even hand off to Hank because he was away in Boston on a conference. They'd decided to take a break by giving Hap the opportunity to call someone in order to ensure he had a place to stay that night and that had given them a well deserved ten minute reprieve.
Nick was sitting across from her in his own chair, his fingers interlocked behind his head as he watched Hap gesture manically while he spoke.
"Yea, he seems to be taking the destruction of his home pretty well considering." Nick submitted, his dark eyebrows furrowed in thought. "We both know it wasn't an insurance job because Hap doesn't have any."
"The whole brother thing seems too coincidental." Maddie stated, picking up her bright green pen between her fingers and using it to tap out a rhythm on her desk. "But it does happen."
"Your forgetting all the bookies he owes out to." Nick uttered, stretching out to dislodge the stiffness at the base of his spine. He'd been out last night in the trailer, hunched over some of the grim-lores trying to widen his knowledge on the Wesen that lived in this world. He thought the more he learned about it, the more prepared he would be in the future. He couldn't take a risk the way he had with Billy Capra again.
He chanced a glance at Maddie, who was now perched on the edge of her seat tapping furiously on the keyboard in front of her. She was gnawing her lower lip with an expression of concentration on those pale features of hers. She'd been back a couple of weeks now and he had been keeping a watchful eye on her when he could. She was still the same woman she had been before the attack but he could see that she was guarded. She was constantly on alert and he understood that hyper vigilance could be an effect of such an attack but he didn't think that was it. He thought this was something more, self awareness didn't seem like the right term but it was close enough.
There was definitely something about her. She wasn't Wesen, at least he didn't think so and neither did Monroe after he'd asked him to scent her but there was an 'otherness' he couldn't explain. Monroe thought he was being overly suspicious, the Blutbad thought his Grimm senses were kicking up a notch and he hadn't utilised all of his skills yet. Nick didn't know but he couldn't shake that nagging feeling in the back of his mind.
He'd fallen short of looking her up on the database, he thought that would be too much of an intrusion but he thought it may get to that point if he didn't figure it out. He'd heard rumours regarding her transfer to Portland but he never held much stock in them.
Hap was back and Nick found himself watching intently as he handed Maddie's cellphone back to her, thanking her for it's use. Did she know what Hap was? He studied her face for any tell tale details and found her lacking. If she did she was good at hiding it but then again he liked to think he was too. He rubbed at his eyes tiredly, trying to scrub away the rambling thoughts that waged through his mind. Jesus maybe Monroe was right, all of this Grimm stuff was driving him a little crazy and he just needed to relax about the whole thing.
"Monroe?" Maddie frowned as the name rolled off her tongue and Nick found himself twisting around in his seat to find his Blutbad buddy standing in the Squad Room, his hands dug deep into his jeans pockets.
"It's my main man Monroe!" Hap's voice boomed through the bullpen as he hurtled over to the other man." I knew he wouldn't bail on me."
Hap was already embracing the other man, his burly arms wrapped around Monroe before he literally lifted him off his feet.
"I'm guessing they know each other?" Maddie said looking to Nick for guidance as they both stood up and approached.
"Yea I guess so." Nick uttered, equally as amused as Maddie as they reviewed the encounter.
"Hap and I went through a treatment program together." Monroe greeted the two of them with the explanation. "Many years ago, you have to honour the bond."
That sounded interesting, Maddie thought as she took stock of the two men. Hap in a treatment program she could see, maybe for gambling or drugs but Monroe didn't seem like that kind of guy. Then again everyone had their secrets. She wondered if Alex knew about the program or whether it was on the cards to tell her about it. Hell Alex helped out at some of those meetings, that was probably how the two of them met.
"Am I done?" Hap broke into the conversation, his eyes bright and eager as he fixated on the two detectives. "Can I go?"
"You can go but you need to lay low for a couple of days until we figure out what we've got going on here." Maddie told him pointedly.
Monroe's forehead creased as he interoperated the meaning behind the young detective's words. He had had contact with Maddie before through Alex but he didn't know her, not the way he knew Nick so he looked to him for an explanation.
"Just keep an eye on him for a couple of days." Nick enforced gripping his friend's shoulder and squeezing it to reinforce his statement.
"Yea." Monroe agreed, understanding the truth behind Nick's words. "I'll do that."
Hey all, I hope your having a great week! Thank you to everyone who takes the time to read this story!
Random: I thought we needed a chapter where we saw how Maddie was beginning to process what had happened to her. I wanted people to see there were more sides to Renard and I wanted it to stay in char so thanks so much for letting me know it works.
Lil Green: I know what you mean in terms of hotness and complicatedness, it's just one of those things that seems to work for him. There are so many different layers to Renard and all of them are interesting because we never quite know what motives him.
Vamp:I am really glad your enjoying this story, I really appreciate the fact that your reading it. Thanks very much for he review.
Space:I think it's because it gives you insight into Maddie's head space. I think people recognize that she will do the best she can. You made me blush with the writing skills comment, I really appreciate your kind words. I thought people would want to know what had happened the night before but I didn't want to make it a huge deal for them because their sort of on uneven territory. I think it's important for people to understand how different precincts and work dynamics work.