AN: It's been years and I'm honestly sick of slogging through notes and stuff and anxious to get back to the main storyline...here's the interim chapters of Sonatorrek in some-what-story and some-what-outline format for any readers who are interested!


[AARON LAWLESS' POV]

[Jimmy and Aaron respond to a call, house fire, Jimmy runs in, Aaron pulls him down and away at the last moment.]
"The dog…the dog was barking—"
"It's a goddamned house fire, Kid. Of course the damned dog was barking!"
"Wrong, the wrong way—"
Lawless looked. And Kipper the German Shepherd was still barking, barking even now as animal control led her away…but she wasn't balking, tail-tucked at the end of her leash, cringing and dragging to safety. No, she was snapping, straining, clawing at the rope that held her back, back and away from the family still trapped inside.
"They were still inside."
"You can't know that," Lawless tried to object, but that's when the first blackened body was carried out over Haddad's shoulders. Small. No bigger than Ian. Someone's toddler had burned to death—how he hoped they'd suffocated!—while he stood feet away in safety and did nothing.
Nothing.
Murderer. Killer.
He shook his head. That was the sort of guilt that could drown you, drown him. And it nearly had…
"They're all dead now," the Kid said. "Anyone who was inside. They're all dead now."
"It's not our fault,"
"We could've saved them."
"Maybe. Or we could've died."
"We could've tried."
"We protect and serve, but we don't take stupid risks, Kid. That's not our job. We've got families, lives of our own—"
"You could've at least let me try."
He blames you. He blames you for their deaths, just like the Howe children, just like that Frye boy…it's your fault. Murderer. Killer. An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, a life for a life…a son for a son. Ian. Amy. You'd dreamt of their deaths every night, spent every waking moment both cherishing and dreading them…
But this was Detective Jimmy Connolly, and suddenly Aaron understood. The youth. The stubborn, heroic insistence and guilt that plagued him…
"You're him, aren't you," Aaron grunted. "You're Jimmy Connolly. The Jimmy Connolly. The Boy Who—"
"Don't say it," the Kid pleaded. "Please. Just don't say it."
The Angel of Mercy. The-Boy-Who-Lived. Everyone in Gotham—the entire Eastern Seaboard—knew the story. The night Sisters of Mercy burnt to the ground she took 42 children and nuns to their deaths, buried forever under ash and crumbled stone…
Only four children escaped: Achilles Dumas, Rosario Tijeras, Maggie Kyle, and Jimmy Connolly. The stress of celebrity killed two of them. A third chose to retreat and shun the world. The fourth…
Jimmy Connolly was the first and only to escape the initial inferno. Responders at the scene recorded he ran back in no less than five separate times to save his friends. Achilles, Rosario, Maggie, Pedro Hernandez who'd been declared dead by EMS from carbon monoxide poisoning and third degree burns that covered over 65% of his body. Jimmy went in five times…but he'd only escaped four. GCFD found him huddled in the south stairwell under fifteen feet of rubble, still shielding Johnnie Doe.
Johnnie'd died in the Gotham General ICU burns unit less than 48 hours later. Jimmy Connolly had disappeared.
"You were there. At Sisters of Mercy. You went in five times. Christ, Kid."
Another body. The inferno raged on. The dog broke free and disappeared, flames licking up and swallowing her whole. Seconds later the house let out a groan and a shuddering sigh, gave up the ghost and laid down to die. It happened slowly, gently, like laying down to sleep.
Their family was whole. Together again. Only now would they rest in piece.
Tears mingled in ashes, forming trails of living flesh on the boy's blackened face.
"You shouldn't've stopped me," Jimmy Connolly whispered. "You should've let me try."
…You should've let me die.


[LESLIE THOMPKINS' POV]
Jimmy Connolly comes to her on her deathbed "Dr. Thompkins?"
"Tell me, child, are you real? I've thought of you often, here at the end."
"I didn't know if you'd recognize me."
"You haven't aged a day, dear boy."
"I'm sorry I ran out on you."
"Children do selfish things. They break hearts, but all hearts need breaking."
"I couldn't come back."
"Of course not, my dear. Whatever it was you were running from, well, it would have caught you up."
"You were wrong."
"Was I?"
"About the accident. About the fire."
"My poor boy, do you still believe—"
"I opened the file when I was eighteen. The Connolly's…they weren't my parents."
"They must've been."
"They weren't. I think you know that. I think you've always known. Dr. Tompkins—who am I?"
"You're Jimmy Connolly."
"Was I always?"
Leslie smiled. Johnnie—Jimmy—had always been too smart for his own good. It had been a mistake. Maggie Kyle's simple, honest mistake…and by the time she'd realized the truth, it was too late. Best to continue the lie. Better for everyone.
…Even for Jimmy. He'd died to give the boy a chance at life. Who would she be to deny that request? Her oath was to do no harm, and the truth—in this case, and this case only—wouldn't set him free.
"Am I crazy? Does that make me dangerous? Is—is that why I killed Abel Frye?"
"My dear, you're delusional," she lied. "But that hardly makes you dangerous. You shot that poor boy because in the moment, you were afraid, you were trained, and it turns out it was horrible he died but it was the right thing to do. I'm glad you're with me, here at the end. And if you hadn't…who knows? Perhaps an old woman would be dying alone without any comfort in the world. I think that makes it worth it—don't you?"
"Would you stay awhile, dear? I feel so tired. So very tired. Perhaps we'll talk more after I sleep?"
"Yeah. I…I can stay, Dr. Thompkins. I can stay as long as you need."
"No…I was wrong," her voice came so very, very far away. "I'm dying."
"Please don't!" He clutched her fingers tightly.
"Don't be afraid," she whispered, smiling up at him. "We all have to die, in the end…it's just like…like being born…"


[AMY LAWLESS' POV]

Aaron goes on a sabbatical after the fire with Amy. Spend a three day weekend together but never sleep together. Last day he receives a phone call, sits heavily, holds out his arm to her and she sits on his lap as he finishes the call and wipes his eyes.
"What's wrong, baby?"
"It's—Leslie," her husband hung up. "Dr. Tompkins. One of my profs from Med School. She—she died this weekend."
"Oh, baby…"
[SCENE]
Says that she hates being so insecure, hates thinking that Aaron might cheat on her for the way she looks (friend is a psych NP?/former instructor?), mentions Leslie Thompkins' funeral, getting jealous when Aaron talked to Rebecca James about writing a book about Leslie.
Disgusted-did you know over half of us are on anti-depressants or anti-anxiolytics?
Amy takes Aaron's gentlemanliness to mean he isn't interested in her, can't help but think he's going elsewhere to get it.
"Is this what love is, after all? Hating someone or something but staying with them because you've made a promise?" Where was the storybook happily ever after she was promised? That honeymoon glow and that feeling of intense attraction?
Mention her mother teaching her that a woman's job was to make men happy, it was her fault if she couldn't keep one, that to be happy she had to find a guy, religious-sex was wrong, so of course I had as much as I could just to piss the old hag off.
"Do you miss having sex with a lot of men?" XXX pressed. "The opportunity?"
"No," she finally admitted to herself. "I miss feeling like men want me."


[AARON LAWLESS' POV]
"Que lo que, 'mano?"
"What is…what?" the Kid frowned.
"It's an idiom," Anna explained.
"You're an idiom," Montoya shot back. "¿Como está?"
"So it's another way of saying how are you?"
"Solamente si seas loca."
"Soy dominicana, porra."
"Porra?"
"Sounds like…"
"Parra? Perra? Pirra? Perra, that's dog, right? So…that's not very nice!"
"C'mon, Jimmy," Anna laughed. "Tell us a joke."
"Yeah," Montoya drawled. "We need a good laugh."
"You never laugh at my jokes."
"That's because your jokes are never funny."
"If they're not funny, why do you want me to tell them?"
"Like I said. We need a good laugh."
"Really funny, Renee."
"Jimmy, we don't mean anything by it—"
"Aye de mi, tan sensitivo!" Renee nugied his hair. "Bebe, Pobrecito, mariposo…"
"Hey!"
"He's just mad about the last prank we pulled on him."
"What did you do this time?" Anna groaned. "Not the old 'spic and nigger' routine."
"It's like you don't know me at all, amuercita."

"Hey, no fair."
"Aye, manin! Sé que hablas bien Español."
"Si. Hola. Izquierda, derecho. Are you kidding me? I'm so tired I can't even speak English anymore."
"C'mon, Jimmy! Just the one?"
"Alright, alright. Por que se llamaba 'la guerra fria'?"
"Por que?"
"Um, I forget the rest but something about ice cream cones."
"Neh, 'mano, you're so lame!"
"No, wait, I got it! Porque luchaban los helodos unidos contra la union sorbietico."
"Hombre, you weren't even born yet during the Cold War," Renee complained.
"Neither were you."
"The Cold War ended in 1991," Anna shook her head. "Even I don't remember it."
"Yeah. And you're so viejisma, Anna."
"Como está tu mama?"
"Peor."
"I'm really sorry, Anna."
"Yeah. I know. And it's…she's not getting better. She's never getting better. Es todo. El fín. And part of me just wishes…just thinks you know, I wish it was over. For me. For her."
"That's pretty awful."
"Hey, Kid."
He startled. And all that compassion swimming in his eyes disappeared instantly behind the shutters.

He cast around wildly for some comment, a way to start a conversation, but as the seconds and silence wore on the awkward tension between them grew.
"You um, you filled out this report wrong."
"What?"
"Yeah. The addresses. You've got the numbers wrong. These are official documents, Kid, designed to be used in a court of law if necessary. You've got to be more careful. Any lawyer could construe this as sloppy police work and call all of our findings into question."
He scrutinized the documents in that robotic way of his. "But I proofread it," he insisted. "Like five times."
"I'm not saying you're being careless. It's a simple mistake, it could happen to anyone," he tried to soothe. Every interaction was an opportunity to build made him feel as manipulative as hell, but what else could he do?
"It keeps happening to me," Connolly mumbled.
And it did. It was the fifth one he'd caught in the past two weeks. He'd already sent a letter off to Paltron and Gordon about lack of attention to detail. Damn, the Kid could spot anything at a scene, make mental connections almost as fast as he could after six years on the job…but the day in, day out tasks and bread and butter of police work were what held him back. The boring, unexciting tasks clearly weren't being given the same priority. He supposed that was what happened when you promoted people right out of Academy rather than on merit or experience.
…Merit or experience. Yeah. Good luck recruiting outside cops or administration into Gotham City. The Joker had taken care of that. The GCPD these days was composed of young idealists, embittered veterans and career criminals deep in the pockets of the Meroni clan. Their force was young, and WATCHDOG were some of the youngest.
"It's been a tough couple of weeks for you. You sleeping okay?" Ranaan Frye's death wasn't yet a month old.
"I'm fine."
"You—"
"I said I'm fine."
"Yeah, well, I'm here. If you ever need to—"
"I don't."
Of course he didn't. His partner had stood by and watched him get beaten within an inch of his life in a training exercise. Everything he had said or would ever say was now overshadowed and insincere.
…Their whole partnership was not working out.
But they were adults. Professionals. They had to work together. Respect each other. They didn't have to like each other.
But dammit, they were partners, not co-workers, Lawless mulled it over.
He decided to talk to Crispus.

"Allen, I need a minute."

"Sure, man. Shoot."

"It's about Connolly."

"How's Pint-size shaping up?"

"Hard to say. I just can't put my finger on it, you know? He makes mark, passes the PT requirements…but something's…off. It's like he won't let me in. And with a partnership…I have to know he's got my back, you know? He's not careless, he's goddamn meticulous, actually. Sure, he makes the classic rookie blunders and the sleep deprivation's getting to him, but he does his best to adjust. It's just, after so long, working together…I just can't get in his head. There's no connection. You and Nay know him better than I do and I figured you were the people to go to-"

"Know him?" Allen asked thoughtfully. "No, not really."

"Bullshit, Crispus, you wrote him a fucking letter. You never do that. You wouldn't've made an exception unless you had a compelling reason."

"Don't sweat it, Lawless." Crispus finally said gently. "It's not just you. I know a lot about him-but not him. Pint-size doesn't let people in. Got a good head on his shoulders, good heart. Gives his goddamn best. But good luck getting inside his mind."

"So it's not just me." Lawless finally sighed-almost in relief. "He's not close with anybody."

"Hell, no." Allen said. "He'll keep you at arm's distance. Always. And the harder you try to get closer the fucking harder he'll wriggle away. 'Nay'll tell you the exact same thing."

But Renee Montoya hadn't known him well, either. She'd gone after him in the ring for 'not hitting a girl'. Thought she could teach him a lesson. A valuable lesson. Jimmy Connolly had refused to play, and she damn near put him in the hospital. She would have, too, if Paltron hadn't intervened. Goddamned Guinevere Paltron, the only woman—only person—he knew who was completely immune to the by-stander effect. Go in guns blazing had been her modus operandi, and shoot first, apologize never her mantra.

Between the two of them, both his partners were bound to get themselves killed. He'd spent the last six years trying not to let that happen, and this new partnership smelt suspiciously the same.

"I dunno." Lawless sighed. "It's good to know, I guess. But it doesn't sound like a very healthy relationship-especially for partners. If he can't make interpersonal connections—if he's as schizotypal as he acts—maybe he shouldn't be here. Least not yet. He's young, Crispus. Damn young."

"I know what you're thinkin'." Allen countered. "He's not immature. He didn't get along with the other recruits in Academy or Quantico because he's too grown up. Doesn't let go. Hell, you remember what we were like at that age? I was still chasing pussy at xxx—don't you ever tell my kids I said that—but if we were his age again we'd do nothing but pick on him, too."

Aaron Scott Lawless had been busy studying. Studying and drinking. He'd never been a partier himself, just needed to deal with the stress, found that alcohol could help him cope…

"Yeah. Milton and Bradley've been doing their best at that," the amount of gay jokes and homosexual slurs the duo had in their repertoire was just as impressive as it was repulsive. " I just want him to trust me, I guess. How ridiculous is that? Me and Paltron just hit if off and Connolly? Connolly's like pulling teeth." Lawless scratched his beard thoughtfully. "You think he'll come around?"

"Between us?" Allen said in a moment of brutal honesty. "No. I think something fucked him up and fucked him up bad.


[SELINA KYLE'S POV]

Has Hal and some of the other men rape her repeatedly.
"There's a story here in Memorial. A pedophile. A cop. Turns out she was innocent all along. But they didn't find that out until later, not until she'd killed four of her cellmates with her bare hands, and drowned a dyke in the deep fat fryer."
"Selina, please!"
"Don't worry. I wouldn't harm that pretty face—I want you to live. I want you to see—and apparently the eyes are the first things to boil. I want the look of revulsion on every man's face who'd consider fucking you to burn into your retinas. My sister will never know what it's like to let a man love her, afraid of her own body, hiding herself because she feels so damned wretched every second of every day."
"Selina, please…"
"Legs first," Selina instructed. "Up to her cunt. Make sure no man fucks her ever again."
"But, but what do we say—?" Flass blundered.
"What you always say!" she snapped. "An unfortunate accident. You came in. You found her. That's all you know."


[MAGGIE KYLE'S POV]
Maggie Kyle at soup kitchen, Jimmy comes to visit.

"Are you happy here? Really happy?"
"Are you?"
"Sometimes," he finally admitted."Sometimes I'm not unhappy."
"Then I'm sometimes I'm not unhappy, too."
It was a lie. They both knew it. They both wanted desperately to believe it true.


[AMY LAWLESS' POV]

SKIN GRAPHS.
Not skin graphs. The surgical team had said no way, couldn't be done, the legs were past saving and should be amputated. Full thickness, circumferential third-degree burns to forty-two percent of the woman's body. Amy was used to seeing burn victims in the emergency and ICU settings…but she still hadn't been prepared for this.
The skin was usually gone. Gone or blacked. Blistered. Charred white eschar bright raw red. This woman's legs, genitals, and buttocks looked like the crispy skin of a thanksgiving turkey. The smell had been even worse. She'd salivated. Actually salivated and her stomach had rumbled. For the first time in five years of working as a full-time RN, Amy Lawless had to excuse herself from a procedure to go heave into a toilet.
"Amina?" Wanza Kilulu's accented voice rang, along with the sounds of the Swahili woman entering the stall behind her. "Are you alright?"
"Ugh," she spat out long strings of phlegm, stomach still heaving.
"Amina?" the pet name was repeated.
She wiped her chin with a dab of single-ply. Turned."Is it completely racist to say she smelt like fried chicken?"
"Only if I am black," her friend returned seriously. Then Wanza snorted, head thrown back in laughter, teeth contrasting starkly with the smooth, near-purple tones of her handsome skin. Their job took humor, humor as much as empathy and horror, to survive the atrocities and absurdities they encountered on a daily basis.

They scrubbed back in. Were able to watch as various burn experts gave their opinion either in person or via the commlink, and were shocked and astounded when the controversial—and unusual—idea was posited to institute a full skin transplant from cadaveric tissues. There was no precedent for a transplant on this scale, no protocol for Major Histocompatability Complex. But an suitable organ donor of matching blood type, gender and rough age was located at a morgue in the Greater Gotham City Area, and immediately flown in. She'd been able to overhear the brightest minds and the most brilliant in their fields discuss a unique case, a historical case, and regardless of the outcome of the procedure, her name—and her friend's name—would be included on the final written report.
Amy Lawless was a nurse. And even when her job entailed scrubbing in the best taxidermist in the Tri-State region, fresh off a helicopter, and watching him meticulously flay the fat and flesh of a dead woman's buttocks, genitals, legs and feet down to the toes in one intact piece, it meant making a difference.
These were the cases she loved. Longed for. Remembered. The cases that reminded her how amazing, how far science had come.
…The cases that reminded her that no matter what uncertainties life had in store, that the things humans chose to inflict on each other were still the worst and the cruelest. Their patient with the new skin pants and blistered-shut vulva had been a prisoner at Jane C. Arkham Memorial. In her position, she was used to recording and reporting sexualized violence committed by men. But women? As both victim and perpetrator—?
"Women," Amy sighed at the end of her shift, shucking off her scrubs and exchanging them for her yoga gear.
"What about us?" Wanza wondered.
"Do we treat each other any better here than they did in Mombasa?"
"Sometimes yes," the former FGM aid worker at a Somali refuge camp told her. "Sometimes, sadly, no."

Asks another mom to tell her kids to leave Ian alone.
Mom ignores her, on her cell phone.
Kids take Ian's toy/knock over the sand fort he was building.
Amy confronts mom, but mom waves her off. Amy storms across the sand and gives the kids hell.
"And you know what really chaps my ass? When my kid's in college his tuition dollars are going to be supporting your asses in prison!" She snarled. "At least you'll finally get some time to spend with your fathers!"
"How dare you talk to my kids that way!"
"Lady, if you gave a shit about your damn kids you'd make sure they weren't juvenile offenders!"
"That does it!"
"Does what?" Amy snapped. "You going to hit me? Here? In public? Newsflash, bitch, this isn't welfareland. I'm a cop's wife and there's CC camera monitoring from every angle at this park and if you so much as fucking touch me I'll land your ass in jail with a suit so long you can kiss your worthless kids goodbye and hope to God CPS doesn't get them killed!"
"You're such a cunt!" the stranger shrieked.
"AT LEAST I DON'T SMELL LIKE ONE!" Amy shouted after her, face hot, red and contorted. Beside her, Ian was sobbing uncontrollably.
"Stop crying!" she snapped.
"Is mommy mad?"
"Not at you," she said tersely. "Mommy's mad at all the fucking assholes and the uppity little shits. Just don't tell daddy she said that."
"Okay," Ian smiled.
If Aaron were here, they would've listened to him.

Amy: Aaron says they've got a lot of paperwork to finish for the Gaetano Meroni case, want to come home for dinner. She says she won't be there for most of it since she's got to head into work. Meets Jimmy briefly.


[AARON LAWLESS' POV]

Jimmy spends the night, working on a Fear Night case (caught one of the escapees, finishing up paperwork. Ian tells Aaron 'Jimmy's crying.' Aaron assumes elsewise, but Ian makes him check.

Jimmy Connolly lay curled up on top of the sheets in the fetal position.
He was weeping.

"You sleep okay?"
"Slept fine."
"You alright?"
"I'm fine."
"You uh, you got a girlfriend?"
"No."
"Boyfriend?" What was it? Anger? Fear? Denial-?
"What do you want?"
"Just wanted to make sure you were doing okay. This job can get stressful. Eat at you. Just checking in. Making sure you've got someone to help you cope-"
"I'm 21. I make less than twenty-five thousand a year and I work 80 hours a week. I don't really have time for much else."
He never answered the question.
"I'm here, you know. If you ever…want to talk."
"I'm fine."
...No, Jimmy Connolly, you're not.