In the hospital
In his memories, Rogers could just picture his sole regret of losing the girl and the way his faded thoughts of that night swam. The first 24 hours were crucial for police to find children and yet, he had passed on the baton to his team. It didn't matter, he had thought. A star policeman always found the child anyways, asleep at a neighbor's or on the odd chance, in someone's car that hadn't driven far off yet in the patrolled sector. Rookie Officer Rogers was just the substitute for someone out on sick leave. In the wake of an Amber Alert, he was immersing himself in finishing a bottle of hard liquor instead of patrolling her neighborhood.
Would things have been different if he hadn't been depressed with the way his life was going after Liam's tragic passing or if he had known she was kidnapped within his viewing distance of doing something? He damn well knew it was an agonizing no. His past self would have been remiss about anything, from paperwork to being part of the action he proclaimed he desperately needed and was aching for. Hell, it took missing a hand in an accident, a nearly fatal bullet wound in crossfire, and someone believing that he could be the good he had joined the force to be to change. The current detective, dubbed Eagle Scout while turning over a new leaf, was proud to have finally closed the missing case.
Deep down, Rogers had known that Eloise was out there somewhere. Every fiber in his being longed for it, that she wasn't just some "missing girl" for the police uncover years later as a grizzly murder case. Sure, his heart sank and he almost gave into his past alcohol addiction, the mind numbing substance, when Tilly had told him Eloise was dead from a car accident. She had seemed so sincere and heartbroken on relaying him the message that he couldn't believe she'd be lying. Finding out Weaver, the conniving bastard, had put her up to it had softened the blow, but he found himself justified to be seething with anger from the betrayal. They both knew how much the cold case meant to him, so why did they do it?! He didn't mind if he never had to see them again, maybe he could even find a way to switch partners in their small line of work.
The detective splashed some water on his face to cool himself down, wiping it dry with a paper towel. His hair was still quiffed in place, some gray hairs fluctuating from stress and age, however, he was still hardy. His eyes had faint dark circles from lack of sleep, but it was worth it since it led to Eloise being safe. The reflection he saw in the bathroom mirror gazed back at him with more life than he'd seen in a while, his blue irises the pull of an ocean's tide rather than the depths he'd felt in the past few months. However, his face was unnerving to him. Instead of being picturesque in excitement like a child getting their favorite candy bar, he was muzzled up in conflicting cascades of emotions.
He exited the restroom and sat in the lobby of the hospital, the brush of his glove cool against his wrist as he played with the silver chain he had on it. He couldn't stop thinking about what the older detective had said. The lies were to protect him from himself? Protect him from what? The most muddling thing was what he said about Eloise. Eloise isn't the one he's looking for?
Rogers shook his head, clenching his jaw in frustration. Weaver was the one who was blind to things. Wasn't the older man the one who hired him to be his partner over trust and moral code? If the man really wanted to protect him, he should have been straight forward, left Tilly out of the act, and not kept an innocent woman like Eloise in Belfrey's clutches by withholding information. He had been wrong. The man didn't care about anyone. He didn't have long to brood over it before a nurse called him in, saying that Eloise was stable enough for a short visit.
Normally, she would be allowed to have guardians or parental figures contacted to see her, but Eloise's parents were deceased. He was the next best thing, having been a familiar face as her rescuer and as the lead still digging up in her cold case. The detective gave his papers to the guards posted and entered the hospital room, a grin beaming on his face as he both assumed it was best for her in the gloom of things and was delighted she was as well as can be.
Multiple IVs were attached to her arms and pulse monitors were strapped to her chest from wires extending out from her hospital gown. Her hair was less of a mess as the doctors had cut away some of the long plaits for examination. Sat upright in a hospital bed, she looked thoroughly put together as if it were a spa day as she braided the untangled strands, but he assumed it was just the shock of it all.
"Detective Rogers! I'm so glad you could be here on short notice," Eloise crooned. She beckoned him over and he sat on the plush visiting chair next to her. "I know the other policemen were stationed to protect me but I had to talk to the one who rescued me."
It wasn't that he wanted to leave her after they had gotten out of the ambulance but it was necessary that the paramedics do their job first to stabilize her and check to see if there was anything wrong. Always liking to be ahead of schedule and dreading doing paperwork, Rogers had gotten a head start on writing the report in the lobby. That was until he had gotten a walkie talkie call that Eloise was asking for him and wouldn't go to sleep without talking to him first.
"Infuriating human contraptions these are! Poking and prodding into me, for what reason anyway?" she said irate, tugging at the tubes that lined her arms, the skin adhesive tape nearly coming off.
He held one of her arms down quickly, stopping her from pulling at them. When he had found her, she was chained up and shackled at the wrists, her hair a matted canopy of varying colors, and her body feeling like it weighed less than it should. There was no way he wanted to worsen or make her relive trauma that she gained since her disappearance and captivity at Victoria Belfrey's. The detective heard terrible rumors about the up and coming real estate monopolizer but he couldn't foresee that she was hiding Eloise right under his nose.
"Sorry," he said, letting go out of worry that he was hurting her. Scratching the back of his ear slightly, he reaffirmed, "Eloise, I know being in hospital can be overwhelming, but you need to keep those in so that you can regain your health and the strength to walk properly. The longer they stay in, the sooner you can be checked out."
"My white knight, always looking out for me," Her anger had dissipated in a flash as she crossed her arms lightly, keeping herself from looking at the IV lines by turning to him and smiling. "First, you find and rescue me from that horrid woman's tower. Then, you check in on me, making sure I get better sooner. How does a girl ever get so lucky?"
Some part of him felt disturbed and disgusted with what Eloise said. If Rogers didn't know better, he'd assume she was flirting with him. It was nothing like the innocence or confusion that he had expected out of the missing girl that he had surely found. He had met abused or kidnapped victims every once in a while when he was sent out on a police force before becoming a detective, but none of them acted like her. Maybe being isolated for so long with only a cruel captor for socializing had made her vocabulary and speech skewed to certain areas, he rationalized. She had been gone for over ten years. Believing in her earnest sincerity, he disregarded his gut feeling.
He plastered a smile on his face. "Anyone could have found you if they knew where to look. I was just lucky to have done so and all that matters is you're safe now."
"Would they have?" she asked, suspicious, her gaze narrowed and eyebrows firm. Her voice took on a solemn tone. "It looks to me as if they'd rather keep me away from prying eyes, rotting away until the end of my days. Only someone keeping tabs would have noticed."
"I'm only doing my civil duty," the detective replied dutifully.
He looked away embarrassed, his skin itching like he had gotten sunburned as it turned a shade redder. "I should leave you to rest. Got plenty of things to clear up before I head home for the night."
Eloise grabbed his arm, holding him back. "Wait," she demanded, "Do you like sweets, Detective?"
"Yeah, although it's more of a treat now I suppose," he responded. "Anything else you want to know?"
It was as if she could read him, aiming for some of his deepest desires. He didn't know when it was that he craved sweets, whether it was the lack of them as a child growing up on scraps or as an adult striving to not get early onset diabetes, but he found it hard to deny.
She let go of his sleeve and looked amused about some secret, a smirk inching across her face. "That will be it for now, Detective. Thank you."
Rogers nodded. "It was nothing. Have a good night." She waved at him as he closed the door and headed for the lobby, stopping at the guards posted outside the hospital room.
"Has the woman settled yet? She was real fussy about seeing you," one of the guards, Jeremy, droned with a drawl.
"She's just trying to get her bearings." The detective's brows furrowed, determination withstanding his anger that people sometimes forgot to have a heart. "Imagine being plunged into a future you weren't allowed to see, told you're safe only to have beeping lights and doctors prodding you with medicine and facts."
"Chill, pal. I was just joking," the guard said, hands raised in playful defense. He perked up as his female partner came back, "Nikaiah, got something good? I could use some coffee."
She was holding papers and a coffee cup. "This one's for me. Get your own," Nikaiah said with a smile as she bumped her elbow to his arm.
Jeremy quickly frowned, dejectedly walking away. Until he looked back smiling down the corridor, shouting louder than he should for the hour, "My legs could use the walk anyways."
She shook her head at her aloof partner. "Hope he wasn't too much of a handful." After a shuffling of papers, she handed them to Rogers, who was grinning from the friendly encounter the guards had. "I've got info regarding the closing of the case. Eloise is going to be transferred to a transitional home. Doctors have cleared her for therapy as she may well need it and she has listed you as her emergency contact."
"Perfect, thank you," he replied, fingering through the sheets. "Hope you guys have a good night."
"Coffee willing," she remarked, sipping from her cup and raising it in a toast as he walked away.
In police station, cleaning cake mess
Rogers's nose crinkled as he picked up the cake filled trash can, the red velvet confection with its white buttercream oozing out of the metal mesh wastebasket. He threw a garbage bag over the top of the bin, flipping it over and letting the uneaten contents and broken porcelain spill into the plastic. His gloved prosthetic hand against his forehead, he groaned for the tenth time that morning. It was a waste of good cake that Eloise painstakingly made, he thought.
The detective had been looking forward to it. He'd gotten the plates and forks out, ready to share it with the rest of the team, nearly serving himself a slice when Roni had dumped it carelessly into the unbagged bin.
"Too much sugar will kill ya," she had said smartingly.
Rogers rolled his eyes as one slice hardly ever was warrant for an alarm. Everyone seeming to cheer him at any chance they got with attention he'd never received before, Weaver being cryptic as always, Eloise showing up unannounced with a Thank You cake, and finally, Roni acting like she was trying to teach him what to do, as if he'd done something wrong, gave him mixed signals. People had been odd the whole day.
What the detective didn't know as he hosed down the cake covered waste bin in the back of the parking lot was that although the cake wouldn't have killed him, Roni, bartender with a steadfast mama bear vibe, had been doing him and everyone else a favor by dumping the cake. Eloise, not quite the innocent victim she made herself out to be, had laced the sweet treat with laxatives, bound to give them stomach pain, send them all to the restrooms, or even those unlucky few to the Hyperion Heights Hospital's Emergency Room. She did have a streak for torturing people for her own amusement, to satisfy the idea that even those that did good were bad people masquerading as such for selfish desires. However, the witch would never pin the blame or suggestion on herself.
Going on with his day, Rogers washed his hand with the hose, the last of the red food coloring swimming into the sewer drain. The bin, considered clean enough by Rogers's standards, was put back next to the attending officer's desk, a plastic bag neatly put in to prevent future inconveniences. He clocked out for lunch and headed to the nearby cafe, ready to order his trusty ham and cheese croissant with a cup of tea to go with, when a toy store he'd always passed without a second glance caught his eye.
In the shop window were a bunch of classic games, ranging from Connect 4, backgammon, checkers, and jenga. But that's not what caught his attention. In the store front was a small opened briefcase, some chess pieces set up ready to move and some scattered in disarray in its storage. Left half set up as if the player couldn't decide whether they wanted to play or put it away, he was reminded of Tilly, the fond way she said, "Things are always more fun when you start in the middle."
She confused and amused him with her riddles and way of looking at the world with more passion than he'd ever held in the tip of his finger. He clenched his jaw as he urged his thoughts to stop. The blonde informant had disappointed him deeply, going as far to even lie to him about Eloise, dead of all things. As much as he wanted to forgive her, his last memory of her being so apologetic and sorrowful, he didn't know if he could.
Rogers was a man of many things, holding grudges being one of them and being rational in the other. His fists closed, filling up with tension, he thought of what transpired. Tilly had been nothing but willingly helpful to his case, bringing him more joy than he'd known in a while as if they were meant to be friends. The only moment she hadn't been was under Weaver's thumb, someone she had known and trusted more than anyone; it seemed as he never saw her with anyone else. People came and went from the older detective's team and informants didn't become such unless they had a special skill set or blackmail hanging over them. If anything, she wasn't to blame, Weaver, the traitorous partner of theirs was.
"How could I have been so stupid?!" he shouted, putting his weight on his hand on a lamp post as he stopped his pacing, not caring who was looking his way.
Roni was right. People like Tilly wouldn't let themselves be used like pawns if they didn't have any other option. The young woman had even been brave enough to try and apologize to him in person after what she did, showing up to the crime scene, and he hadn't even given what she had said a second thought. Weaver probably didn't even give her the entire picture and used her good intentions in an ill manner befitting the man's deceitful ways, leading her to think it was for the best. If he was going to make things right and reach out to her, probably for looking like an asshole in her eyes, he might as well bring a gift.
He walked into the toy store, the bell chiming his entrance. "I was wondering if I could get the chess set in your window."
The old shop owner adjusted his glasses. "Oh, I never thought I'd hear that! Most people have been coming in for Pokemon cards, train sets, Hot Wheels and checkers." He rushed over to the window with joy and grabbed the board over, packing all the pieces nicely into the game's tiny suitcase.
"Do you play it or are you learning to? This is a great set to start with, carved with care. If you want something more compact though, we have a miniature set with pieces that can be magnetized to the board," the elderly shopkeep rambled.
"This is the one I want," Rogers assured him. "I'm buying it for a friend. I've always liked the game but have had no one to play with."
"I see. Well, I hope you two can have a fantastic time with it. Nothing like a witty competition to get the heart pumping!" he said ecstatic, ringing up the total. "It will be $30."
Rogers's heart jumped at the price. He knew it'd be a pretty penny but he hadn't bought anything so expensive in a long time, let alone a toy. However, he was relieved, knowing Tilly would appreciate it, even if they never play with it together, depending on if she never wanted to see his face again. She could use a new set considering the last time he visited her place, if you could call a storage container that. The young woman had a chess set made entirely of different sets, probably gathered anywhere she could find. He finalized the purchase and left, holding a paper bag with the game in hand.
Drifting off the planet together
After finishing work for the day, he had gotten out at 4 pm and ended up looking for Tilly. He had driven around the neighborhood but he'd never spotted the informant. For a person known to constantly roam around, he made sure to check all the points he knew she could be. Rogers panted upon entering Roni's bar, having run all the way back from the station.
"I've been to the park, market, police station, and even her place. It's like she doesn't want to be found," he said with a sigh as he sat down on a bar stool.
Roni clicked her tongue and made him a nonalcoholic drink, mixing some fruit puree and sparkling water together. "On the house," she said proudly, "You look like you could use it." Swinging a towel over her shoulder, she asked, "Have you checked the Troll under the bridge, down the street? She's usually hanging around there."
"Yes," he replied. With a shake of his head, Rogers said, "I don't know. When I didn't want to see her yesterday, I saw her and thought about her everywhere. However, now when I do, she's nowhere to be found."
"Well, I admire your dedication, Rogers." He took a gulp of his drink as Roni took a shot of whiskey. "I think you should give it another shot. Double check the Troll. I bet she'll be admiring the sunset."
"Thank you and here's to that." He finished his beverage, feeling the burn of the bubbles and sweetness of it, and hopped off the stool. Grabbing his gift bag, he walked out the door and decided to leave his car there for a nice walk down the sloping road.
Luckily, by the time he got there, she was resting in the crook of the Troll's smooth concrete arms. "There you are," he said rounding the corner of the statue, his voice light, "I've been looking for you."
Tilly looked up at him, fumbling with her hands in nervousness, her eyes downcast. "Have you?" her voice, fragile with the faintest of hope.
He nodded and her brows furrowed, her mouth coiling in disgust, boiling internally at herself. "I thought you didn't want anything to do with me." She looked away, staring at the ground in regret, "After what I did for Weaver."
"I get it," Rogers responded. He shook his head from thinking of the bastard, sympathizing with her as if he was in her shoes, "He's like a father figure to you." He pursed his lips. "You trusted him over a stranger. It's understandable."
"I mean, well, I thought he was a good man," she explained, agreeing with him. Her eyes wallowed with grief and dejection as she spoke, her gaze meeting his again, "I thought he gave a damn about me." Her lips drew into a tight line as he nodded.
Lost in her thoughts, Tilly opened up and asked, "Now without that, what ties me to the world?"
Her question was so innocent and Rogers was taken abash as he didn't have an answer to that. He couldn't tell her that things were going to get better for her, if Weaver would stop being a bloody scoundrel, or that he could do anything to fix her discomfort. The only things he had were himself and the gift he brought.
"Well, I don't know if I have a tether to the world," Rogers admitted as he walked up to her, "but I do have this." He handed her the paper bag, the Troll's hand distancing her from him as if she were his precious gem, a smile lighting up her face and reaching her eyes as she received the bag.
Tilly pulled out the foldable chess case, immediately giggling at the recognizable checkered print that made the outside of the board. Rogers found himself smiling too as she checked it out and he suggested, "I thought we could start a weekly game."
As she clicked open the case, her eyes purveying the solid pieces with their delicate features carved into them, he continued with enthusiasm, "A way to fill the time, now that I've found Eloise Gardener."
He leaned his elbow against the Troll's giant hand, staring into the distance as Tilly gazed at him in appreciation and happiness from the thoughtful gift, a mischievous grin etched on her face as she thought of how well she could thoroughly give him a friendly takedown.
"You know, I thought finding her would be," he paused as he grimaced, harshly finishing his sentence, " it ."
Ashamed and taking in the brevity of his cynical words, he found himself having to explain how he felt to Tilly. He placed his hand on the stone, his eyes closed as he said with resolution to convince himself and her, "And look, I'm relieved that she's free."
"It's just that I don't feel -" Every word was hard pressed and slow. He paused and let out a deep sigh.
His mind scrambled as his heart felt unsteady. Finding Eloise had been his goal for years and yet, after finding her and feeling himself no longer needing to regret or repent for his mistakes, he found himself lost. The connection he felt to her was still there, as if he knew her from sitting up late looking through what little there was in her files to glimmer. In his mind, he had always pictured a little girl, bright and bubbly, with untamed flaxen hair and eyes full of curiosity and life. However, seeing her in real life as a grown woman now, beautiful but jaded in all respects, he felt like he was still missing a piece. She wasn't anything like that he knew. Maybe it was his fault that he had put Eloise on a pedestal that would make everything right but it hadn't. He was still unchanged as Rogers, the detective with a handicap and the feelings of loneliness and despair.
Lines formed on his forehead, his eyebrows slanted downward as he got his thoughts together. "I just don't know what to do next that will matter," he said vulnerably, honesty resounding as his stormy blue eyes met her bright blue ones that gave him a tender hug.
Tilly pulled away in realization, aware that he understood what she couldn't verbalize. "That's the feeling," a soft understanding smile appearing on her face, "Not mattering to anyone."
She leaned in closer as she solemnly noted, "That's the 'Coming Untied from the World' feeling."
He nodded, his eyebrows raising minutely in shock. "That's not a good feeling."
Tilly let out a small laugh of nerves, clearing up the tension, as she mused, "No." Her head shaking as if to continue, implicitly saying, "It's not."
She continued, grabbing and playing with a white knight, the chess piece gallivanting in her hand, "But now, maybe we'll drift off the planet in the same direction."
They gazed at each other again, smiling at shared kinship in the achy feeling. Rogers didn't know how life was going to turn out, but he was glad that he and Tilly had made up, his heart letting out a relieved sigh.