DISCLAIMER: Not mine, please don´t do anything nasty to me for taking them.
A/N: Finally!! Not just an update but finished!!! I want to thank (again) all of the people who reviewed, it was great. I was surprised to find such good comments and I really, really, really appreciate it. I will say no more and let all of you get on with the reading. Thanks a lot!
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It was another week later and there was still nothing new about the murders in the news. I started to worry, but my life was just to hectic, I needed to prioritize and murder cases which no longer involved me were at the bottom of the list. I needed to get Ty enrolled in school (there was no telling how long my father would be gone) and for that I needed his papers. He hadn´t attended school for the last six months and that put him behind practically an entire year. He didn´t deserve that so I was looking for a school which would take him without putting him behind. It was not going well, most schools wouldn´t even hear of it.
There was also the matter of all of Ty´s things. After he´d worn the same clothes for three consecutive days I needed to go and get him some more. It wasn´t much, but it was enough and he didn´t seem too upset about it. I also cleared out the extra room in my appartment which I had used as storage. A lot of crap came out, but after two days it was all gone. Ty slept on the only bed at the moment, I had dragged the couch to my bedroom and it was permanently folded out. When we watched t.v. we sat on big cushions on the floor. Sharing the bathroom was hellish, we always fought about who got to take showers when.
I also needed to take him to work with me. He said he could stay on his own, but I didn´t want to risk it. I wanted him to be a normal boy again and that included not staying alone all day at an empty appartment. I also took him into my volounteering job. He didn´t get too bored there, he was usefull for organizing bed pans and lunch orders and other such things. All the nurses took to him, well, almost... The charge nurse refused to accept him and he had to hide everytime she was around. I was exhausted and needed more money. I considered quitting the voulenteering job to get a paying job, but Ty begged me not to. He said he had fun, and I couldn´t say no to him. Instead I went and did something I should have done a long time ago. I asked for a teaching possision, a real one, not a teacher´s assistant. I was surprised when I was assigned three classes and my pay check almost tripled. It still wasn´t much, but it was better than almost below minimum wage.
So one week went by, then two, then three. It had been a month before I remembered the murders. I was organizing some books when I found my old notebook. It all came back to me in a second and I suddenly felt guilty for not keeping in touch. I didn´t even know why, I just did. I picked up the phone and dialed the number. I was amazed I still remembered it. It rang once, twice, three, four, five, six times. I was just about to hang up when someone picked up. It was neither Eames nor Goren. From what I gathered from the very short conversation I had with the person on the other side, neither of the detectives were available and would not be for several hours. The person asked if I wanted to leave a message, but I said no, I´d call back later. It was a stupid remark, because I knew I never would.
After this my life seemed to settle down a bit. I finally got some time to think about the murders. Since I wasn´t about to call the police station again, I decided to keep an eye out for Goren. I had been so busy the past month that I hadn´t really noticed if he´d been in or not, he probably was, he never missed his weekely visit, but I hadn´t seen him. I started hanging around the front desk more, taking longer with the patience in the same hall as Mrs. Goren, I even asked the nurses if they´d seen Goren. I always got the same confused looks, they wondered why in the hell I´d want to talk to -that- man; in any case all they ever did was shrug their shoulders and say they hadn´t seen him, then walk away quickly, probably to gossip about the reason why I´d be looking for Goren. Ty started asking about why I was always looking for him, I told him I had to talk to him and Ty simply accepted it and moved on. I wondered why the rest of the staff couldn´t just do that. Why must humans always gossip? Is it to undermine others so that our own faults don´t seem to great? Maybe it´s because we need to fill our empty lives with something that seems greater than ourselves...maybe we´re just a bunch of idiots with nothing better to do. I didn´t care, I didn´t see Goren and Mrs. Goren, I noticed, avoided the subject of her son around me very carefully. I got the feeling he´d told her about the murders and my involvment, but I couldn´t find out any more than that, trying to get that woman to talk was like trying to get the wall to pick up and move.
I still didn´t give up, but while I was trying to track down Goren something else happened, Ty followed me one day to Mrs. Goren´s room and they got to talking. He said he liked her, and she seemed to take to him too. Whenever she had a good day she´d ask me if I could bring him over, she would sit him on her bed and would pull out book upon book from the various stacks she kept in her room. She would pace around the room or sit in the chair her son usually occupied. Sometimes she´d even take him out to the hall and walk with him. Years later he would always boast about how he was shaped by a half-sister he´d never known and who´d run away at age 16 and a crazy old woman who must´ve once been normal.
I soon decided Goren had to be avoiding me, or had to be avoiding something to do with me. His mother kept saying he was well but I didn´t believe her, she always looked down and then out the window whenever she said it, a clear sign she was lying. Yet another month slowly crawled by and I found myself now more annoyed at the fact that I had yet to contact Goren. A voice in my head told me to call the police station, but my pride refused to give in, I would not chase this man down to the ends of the earth! I was thinking just that one day when I suddenly turned a corner and bumped into someone. At first, it felt like I´d run into a wall, but I soon looked up from the floor in my less than gracefull state and saw the man I´d been looking for. I saw Goren. Ever the gentleman, he helped me up and apologized, even though he´d done nothing wrong. He didn´t avoid my eyes, but there was something elusive about his manner none the less. After a few seconds of silence I couldn´t take it anymore.
"What happened Goren?"
He looked at me, he knew what I meant. He stuck his hands in his pockets and took a deep breath. When he spoke, it was barely above a whisper, "They got away...they played us, the system...me."
"I´m sure it wasn´t about you, Goren."
He stared at me as if I was saying something incredibly obvious yet terribly difficult to grasp for him, he shrugged his shoulders a little and continued, "We had them, but it was all circumstancial. It never even got beyond the interrogation room...they were good, too good."
I never asked who he was talking about. In truth, I didn´t know what to say. Somehow, I´d built this image in my head that Goren and Eames were never wrong, they always caught someone and it was always the right person. I knew how he felt and yet I couldn´t possibly understand it. Since I could find nothing to say, Goren jumped in.
"My mother says Tyler is a very bright boy."
I smiled, "Yeah I know...he´s great."
"Are you trying for custody?"
I was caught by surprise, the man who gives no personal information seemed awfully curious about mine. I shrugged my shoulders, "I don´t know...my father´s a lost cause but to drag him into this...and Ty...I don´t think he can take much more. He cries himself to sleep almost every night, he misses his parents, but he also understands he can never relly on them, he´ll never belong to a normal family."
"He´ll survive, the smart ones always do...if you need any help I know some people who can..."
I interrupted him, "Thanks, I think we´ll be fine, I think we need some time to figure things out, but we´ll be OK."
He nodded and leaned against the wall, I was starting to think he was going to drop the subject. I was wrong, "How about school? Is he...going anywhere?"
I couldn´t help but laugh. He seemed a little surprised but recovered quickly, "No school will take him without putting him back a year. He doesn´t want that, he´s worried the other kids will think he´s stupid, or that they´ll find out about his father...I can´t blame him. After my mother died, I didn´t want people finding out about him either. It´s embarassing, it makes you feel...different, like you don´t belong."
"Your mother died? I...didn´t know."
I rolled my eyes at him, but continued, "I was twelve. My father was passed out drunk on the couch. My mother was a coroner, she was carrying a set of scalpels when she fell down the stairs, pierced her liver...my father was not ten feet away and he never noticed...before that we were pretty normal, my father used to love his job, and my mother hers, we were...a good family. I don't want Ty to look back on his life and have only bad memories and difficulties. He deserves a chance to be normal."
"Everybody does."
"I guess they were right then...," Goren straightened up and looked at me, I knew he understood what I meant. The killers, they´d been right. It was a hard thing to accept, but in the end, they´d proven an awfull truth, "Anyone can be anything...", he said nothing. He only looked at me, he didn't even blink. I turned away after a few seconds, I wasn´t intimidated. But for what I would say next, I was afraid to look him in the eye, "Is that what bothers you? About the murders...that they were right?"
I gathered all my courage and looked back at him. There was no emotion in his eyes but I knew he was hiding it all. Only another single second passed before he simply walked away. I followed him with my eyes. His mother was walking down the hall, towards us. She was reciting something from some long-forgotten book, Ty walked next to her, stumbling thru the quote. Mrs. Goren did not stop quoting for her son and it was only when she was done that she greeted him. She smiled at him and send him to wait in her room. He obeyed after saying hello to Ty. Goren never looked back at me. Mrs. Goren smiled weakly at me and I returned it with one of my own. Mrs. Goren turned back and began on another quote, Ty followed her, this time he stumbled much less. I watched them go for a few seconds before turning back, Mrs. Mills still needed her lunch and life had not stopped for a second. I turned back to my life, it was all I could do.
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Well, don´t kill me because of the ending! I know it´s not conventional or traditional or anything of the sort but I like this sort of fatalist quality that life can sometimes have. It keeps all of us on our toes. Despite that though, I am thinking about sort of a sequel (in which I will take up issues I left flying in the air here), I´m not sure yet, and if it comes it´ll be at least three more weeks before I start on it...anyways, I´ll just shut up now and let you all continue with your lives. Thanks for reading this far! -Rata-
A/N: Finally!! Not just an update but finished!!! I want to thank (again) all of the people who reviewed, it was great. I was surprised to find such good comments and I really, really, really appreciate it. I will say no more and let all of you get on with the reading. Thanks a lot!
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It was another week later and there was still nothing new about the murders in the news. I started to worry, but my life was just to hectic, I needed to prioritize and murder cases which no longer involved me were at the bottom of the list. I needed to get Ty enrolled in school (there was no telling how long my father would be gone) and for that I needed his papers. He hadn´t attended school for the last six months and that put him behind practically an entire year. He didn´t deserve that so I was looking for a school which would take him without putting him behind. It was not going well, most schools wouldn´t even hear of it.
There was also the matter of all of Ty´s things. After he´d worn the same clothes for three consecutive days I needed to go and get him some more. It wasn´t much, but it was enough and he didn´t seem too upset about it. I also cleared out the extra room in my appartment which I had used as storage. A lot of crap came out, but after two days it was all gone. Ty slept on the only bed at the moment, I had dragged the couch to my bedroom and it was permanently folded out. When we watched t.v. we sat on big cushions on the floor. Sharing the bathroom was hellish, we always fought about who got to take showers when.
I also needed to take him to work with me. He said he could stay on his own, but I didn´t want to risk it. I wanted him to be a normal boy again and that included not staying alone all day at an empty appartment. I also took him into my volounteering job. He didn´t get too bored there, he was usefull for organizing bed pans and lunch orders and other such things. All the nurses took to him, well, almost... The charge nurse refused to accept him and he had to hide everytime she was around. I was exhausted and needed more money. I considered quitting the voulenteering job to get a paying job, but Ty begged me not to. He said he had fun, and I couldn´t say no to him. Instead I went and did something I should have done a long time ago. I asked for a teaching possision, a real one, not a teacher´s assistant. I was surprised when I was assigned three classes and my pay check almost tripled. It still wasn´t much, but it was better than almost below minimum wage.
So one week went by, then two, then three. It had been a month before I remembered the murders. I was organizing some books when I found my old notebook. It all came back to me in a second and I suddenly felt guilty for not keeping in touch. I didn´t even know why, I just did. I picked up the phone and dialed the number. I was amazed I still remembered it. It rang once, twice, three, four, five, six times. I was just about to hang up when someone picked up. It was neither Eames nor Goren. From what I gathered from the very short conversation I had with the person on the other side, neither of the detectives were available and would not be for several hours. The person asked if I wanted to leave a message, but I said no, I´d call back later. It was a stupid remark, because I knew I never would.
After this my life seemed to settle down a bit. I finally got some time to think about the murders. Since I wasn´t about to call the police station again, I decided to keep an eye out for Goren. I had been so busy the past month that I hadn´t really noticed if he´d been in or not, he probably was, he never missed his weekely visit, but I hadn´t seen him. I started hanging around the front desk more, taking longer with the patience in the same hall as Mrs. Goren, I even asked the nurses if they´d seen Goren. I always got the same confused looks, they wondered why in the hell I´d want to talk to -that- man; in any case all they ever did was shrug their shoulders and say they hadn´t seen him, then walk away quickly, probably to gossip about the reason why I´d be looking for Goren. Ty started asking about why I was always looking for him, I told him I had to talk to him and Ty simply accepted it and moved on. I wondered why the rest of the staff couldn´t just do that. Why must humans always gossip? Is it to undermine others so that our own faults don´t seem to great? Maybe it´s because we need to fill our empty lives with something that seems greater than ourselves...maybe we´re just a bunch of idiots with nothing better to do. I didn´t care, I didn´t see Goren and Mrs. Goren, I noticed, avoided the subject of her son around me very carefully. I got the feeling he´d told her about the murders and my involvment, but I couldn´t find out any more than that, trying to get that woman to talk was like trying to get the wall to pick up and move.
I still didn´t give up, but while I was trying to track down Goren something else happened, Ty followed me one day to Mrs. Goren´s room and they got to talking. He said he liked her, and she seemed to take to him too. Whenever she had a good day she´d ask me if I could bring him over, she would sit him on her bed and would pull out book upon book from the various stacks she kept in her room. She would pace around the room or sit in the chair her son usually occupied. Sometimes she´d even take him out to the hall and walk with him. Years later he would always boast about how he was shaped by a half-sister he´d never known and who´d run away at age 16 and a crazy old woman who must´ve once been normal.
I soon decided Goren had to be avoiding me, or had to be avoiding something to do with me. His mother kept saying he was well but I didn´t believe her, she always looked down and then out the window whenever she said it, a clear sign she was lying. Yet another month slowly crawled by and I found myself now more annoyed at the fact that I had yet to contact Goren. A voice in my head told me to call the police station, but my pride refused to give in, I would not chase this man down to the ends of the earth! I was thinking just that one day when I suddenly turned a corner and bumped into someone. At first, it felt like I´d run into a wall, but I soon looked up from the floor in my less than gracefull state and saw the man I´d been looking for. I saw Goren. Ever the gentleman, he helped me up and apologized, even though he´d done nothing wrong. He didn´t avoid my eyes, but there was something elusive about his manner none the less. After a few seconds of silence I couldn´t take it anymore.
"What happened Goren?"
He looked at me, he knew what I meant. He stuck his hands in his pockets and took a deep breath. When he spoke, it was barely above a whisper, "They got away...they played us, the system...me."
"I´m sure it wasn´t about you, Goren."
He stared at me as if I was saying something incredibly obvious yet terribly difficult to grasp for him, he shrugged his shoulders a little and continued, "We had them, but it was all circumstancial. It never even got beyond the interrogation room...they were good, too good."
I never asked who he was talking about. In truth, I didn´t know what to say. Somehow, I´d built this image in my head that Goren and Eames were never wrong, they always caught someone and it was always the right person. I knew how he felt and yet I couldn´t possibly understand it. Since I could find nothing to say, Goren jumped in.
"My mother says Tyler is a very bright boy."
I smiled, "Yeah I know...he´s great."
"Are you trying for custody?"
I was caught by surprise, the man who gives no personal information seemed awfully curious about mine. I shrugged my shoulders, "I don´t know...my father´s a lost cause but to drag him into this...and Ty...I don´t think he can take much more. He cries himself to sleep almost every night, he misses his parents, but he also understands he can never relly on them, he´ll never belong to a normal family."
"He´ll survive, the smart ones always do...if you need any help I know some people who can..."
I interrupted him, "Thanks, I think we´ll be fine, I think we need some time to figure things out, but we´ll be OK."
He nodded and leaned against the wall, I was starting to think he was going to drop the subject. I was wrong, "How about school? Is he...going anywhere?"
I couldn´t help but laugh. He seemed a little surprised but recovered quickly, "No school will take him without putting him back a year. He doesn´t want that, he´s worried the other kids will think he´s stupid, or that they´ll find out about his father...I can´t blame him. After my mother died, I didn´t want people finding out about him either. It´s embarassing, it makes you feel...different, like you don´t belong."
"Your mother died? I...didn´t know."
I rolled my eyes at him, but continued, "I was twelve. My father was passed out drunk on the couch. My mother was a coroner, she was carrying a set of scalpels when she fell down the stairs, pierced her liver...my father was not ten feet away and he never noticed...before that we were pretty normal, my father used to love his job, and my mother hers, we were...a good family. I don't want Ty to look back on his life and have only bad memories and difficulties. He deserves a chance to be normal."
"Everybody does."
"I guess they were right then...," Goren straightened up and looked at me, I knew he understood what I meant. The killers, they´d been right. It was a hard thing to accept, but in the end, they´d proven an awfull truth, "Anyone can be anything...", he said nothing. He only looked at me, he didn't even blink. I turned away after a few seconds, I wasn´t intimidated. But for what I would say next, I was afraid to look him in the eye, "Is that what bothers you? About the murders...that they were right?"
I gathered all my courage and looked back at him. There was no emotion in his eyes but I knew he was hiding it all. Only another single second passed before he simply walked away. I followed him with my eyes. His mother was walking down the hall, towards us. She was reciting something from some long-forgotten book, Ty walked next to her, stumbling thru the quote. Mrs. Goren did not stop quoting for her son and it was only when she was done that she greeted him. She smiled at him and send him to wait in her room. He obeyed after saying hello to Ty. Goren never looked back at me. Mrs. Goren smiled weakly at me and I returned it with one of my own. Mrs. Goren turned back and began on another quote, Ty followed her, this time he stumbled much less. I watched them go for a few seconds before turning back, Mrs. Mills still needed her lunch and life had not stopped for a second. I turned back to my life, it was all I could do.
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Well, don´t kill me because of the ending! I know it´s not conventional or traditional or anything of the sort but I like this sort of fatalist quality that life can sometimes have. It keeps all of us on our toes. Despite that though, I am thinking about sort of a sequel (in which I will take up issues I left flying in the air here), I´m not sure yet, and if it comes it´ll be at least three more weeks before I start on it...anyways, I´ll just shut up now and let you all continue with your lives. Thanks for reading this far! -Rata-