SNOW IN SUMMER
DISCLAIMER: I don't own them. I bet they're glad about that, too….
SUMMARY: Bester receives a visit from Garibaldi… yet another 'Garibaldi revenge' story.
RATING: PG. Darkfic.
ARCHIVE: Ask first.
NOTES:
1. There's an area as yet unexplored (as far as I know) about these stories that suddenly occurred to me. I'd wanted to breach this particular topic for some time now – 'how far will Michael go?' – but wasn't entirely sure how. I'm not really that happy with this, and may try again later when I feel more confident of my footing. In the meantime…
2. For those confused, #Blurb…# means a flashback, or a remembrance of something happening. The flashback doesn't necessarily take place in a person's mind – it's more a kind of tv episode thing, where you skip around in the episode's story. Make sense? Good. :-)
On this detestable world, even the summers were unbearable. Bester wondered what he found more objectionable – the heat from the body standing in front of him, or the coldness that radiated from the mind it housed.
He steeled himself. "Is that it?" He stared at Garibaldi, his face defiant, his voice even more so. "Cat got your tongue, Mr Garibaldi? I asked, is that it?"
Garibaldi didn't answer. He just smiled.
And then he turned his back and walked away.
Bester stared in his wake and wondered why hadn't scanned him. He wondered why he'd been so sure that Garibaldi had been altered by Lyta… had been helped by her. Because Lyta hadn't come back. Lyta was maybe never going to come back.
Michael Garibaldi, it seems, was not willing to wait forever.
And who'd take the word of a former psi cop, now wanted on a dozen different worlds, anyway?
So he turned away too, his back to the door, and walked back into his meagre little room in this back hole of a world. The air conditioning was on too high; he felt a chill almost as soon as he entered. Outside he heard the whine of a transport. He paid no attention to either the sound or the sensation.
#"Michael – to what do I owe this honour?"#
There was no decoration in the room. No cushions. No pictures. Nothing to indicate that anyone sentient lived there. Just the endless organisation of everything in sight. Whoever did live here obviously had time on their hands.
#"Just wanted to give you something. Then I'll go."#
Alfred Bester sat down on the bed and stared at the small desk in front.
#"Not going to try and kill me? I'm disappointed. Really."#
Pictures. Photos, a couple of drawings. A data crystal with various police files on it.
#"No. I guess I've given up."#
A child's doll wrapped in hand-made paper and put away carefully in a shoebox full of little-girl secrets.
#Incredulous. "Given up? Um… are you okay?"#
A personal padd, a couple of books on data crystal, a lock of hair. A small locket with 'Daddy loves you'. Did Daddy love her? She'd never been sure and had never dared to ask.
#"Are you actually asking me now? What, did I get over the fact that you destroyed my life? No. I didn't. But… I'm coping. And you know what? It doesn't matter any more. So. You can come out of hiding, Bester. I'm not going to give you any more of my life. Not anymore." And he'd glanced, ever so quickly, at the things he'd brought and left scattered on the desk. "Enjoy your present."#
And Bester knew, then, why he hadn't scanned Garibaldi. He could have, despite the half a dozen 'telepaths for hire' waiting outside, sweating in their hot black uniforms – the bastions of the shiny new 'cleans whiter' Psi Corps. He could have, would have, should have, but he'd taken a look at the photographs scattered on the desk and had done nothing. Gloriously large 8x10 inch glossies in an age where the data crystal was everything. Had Garibaldi taken pity on him? Or was this the ultimate revenge – to be able to touch the glossies with bare hands but no more?
It did not matter. He could not look in Garibaldi's mind now. Quite apart from the fact that he disliked dealing with clinically insane people, he wasn't entirely sure that if he did scan Garibaldi he'd be able to keep from being sick. If he'd be able to block out a child's plaintive, incredulous cry – "Daddy, Daddy, Daddy!"
But Daddy had never come. Because Daddy had not been to Mars for over three years. Because Daddy had implanted too good an Asimov in Garibaldi's brain, and the poor man had short-circuited. Because Mr Garibaldi had needed to hurt Daddy desperately, and couldn't get close enough.
Because Daddy had never been around anyway, and what did her final moments matter?
#And he'd given him lip, even then. He'd seen the photographs, seen his child lie there in a pool of blood, and he couldn't even ask. Wouldn't even give Garibaldi the satisfaction of asking if he'd been the one to kill her. If he was responsible, or if this was some terrible, frightening coincidence. Because it didn't matter. "Is that it?"#
Bester stood and turned the small comm.. on the side of the desk on, slipping the data crystal in. Garibaldi's face sprung into focus. "I thought you should see this." That was it. No more. Just endless police files from the investigation. Endless comments and replies and more comments and replies as police on Mars tried to find a child-killer amid the civil war that threatened to tear apart the planet. What did one girl's life matter amid all that? Who'd bother looking?
Carolyn was dead, along with the child inside her. Bester's wife – shy, quiet, venomous little thing that she was – had died trying to protect her child. Because there was no one around who would. Because her child's father had not been there. Because she'd known that he'd never been there for them in the past, and the present made no difference.
#"Daddy, Daddy, Daddy!"#
Amazing how much blood there could be in one little girl.
Bester continued to stare at the screen blankly, watching the forensic report unfold.
He'd stopped Garibaldi all right. Stopped him a little too well.
He wondered if he'd be able to find out what had happened after the investigation petered off.
He wondered if he'd find Garibaldi again and scan him to find out if he'd been the one to kill his daughter.
In the back of his mind, snow fell as a little girl wept. #"Daddy!"#
He wondered when she'd stop.
fin