Kayla- It's easy to see why people wouldn't want to trust Ric after
everything he's done, a very understandable stance to be taken on Mr.
Lansing. Maybe, just maybe, I can do something about that. As for when Mac
and Maxie find out... well, you'll just have to keep on reading, won't you?
Barring any evil setbacks from the devil known as Fanfiction.net, they
should know by the middle of the week.
Story-
With Sonny, Carly, and Damian gone, Ric was now able to express his discomfort in the situation that he had been placed under. He did so in a rather unique way, by slamming his fist into the desk. The wooden desk trembled slightly under the force that had been placed on it. Ric winced as the moment passed and his hand registered the pain. "I always have to let them walk."
"You didn't have anything to keep him here, Ric," Elizabeth grabbed his hand and looked at it. "Taking your anger out on yourself isn't going to do anyone any good, you know?"
"I had to do something," Ric said. "I couldn't just stay docile while I watched my brother work his way around the system again."
"Damian's innocent," Elizabeth mentioned. "You know it."
"And you know that Sonny is the one that is really guilty of killing those people," Ric's hatred was easy to tell. It wasn't hatred for his brother entirely, it was hatred for the system that he had pledged to uphold being so blind that it would continually let someone like Sonny walk away time and time again. "But he's never going to actually face any repercussions for the actions that he took. Instead he's going to let his own son take the blame for the entire situation and then still walk away. He has no conscience, Elizabeth."
"There's nothing you can do about that," She told him, trying to keep him calm. She knew that Ric was very easy to break, especially when it came to Sonny. If Ric reached that threshold and was pushed over there was no telling what actions he would take. She could try to tether him, but there was no telling how long it would actually work. She had tried to be the thing that Ric could look forward to in life outside of Sonny before, it did not go very well.
"Tell me I did not see what I just thought I saw," Scott walked back in. "Surely there was no way in hell that Corinthos and his family walked out of here without being escorted in handcuffs!"
"We've got no reason to keep Damian Zuniga detained, Scott," Ric said. "Sonny knows it, and threatened to place a malpractice suit on the department."
"I don't care what that criminal threatened to do, we do not bend for anyone!"
"Look, Scott," Ric began as he got right into his boss's face, "I know how much you hate the fact that you can never bust Sonny, and I respect that and sympathize. But I also know how blind you get when you think that you're right, which happens far too often and even then you're almost always wrong. Plus, I'm also more than aware of the fact that this department has had more than it's fair share of civil suits for malpractice filed against it over the years, most of which took a spike when you became the district attorney. You're up for re-election soon, aren't you? How good would it look if you took some innocent college kid who just wants to become a doctor so that he can help people in a way that he was never helped was held here with no actual legit reason to hold him? Never mind the fact that Sonny would probably find some way to actually get his son out regardless of how legal or not it was for a moment, would you? Just think about how many people would drop their opinion of you the minute they heard what you did."
"I didn't give you this job to stand against me, Lansing!" Scott barked. "I gave it to you so that you could support me in my decisions."
"And I do support you, Scott. When you make the correct ones. Sadly, that doesn't happen very often, does it?"
"We've got evidence."
"It's entirely circumstantial," Ric noted. "The pier is a public place that people traverse on a daily basis. How are we to know that Damian wasn't there earlier and just happened to drop his wallet hours before the shootings happened? We've got nothing outside of that wallet that pins him or anyone else to the scene."
"You know who did this!" Scott yelled. "We all know that this is just another crime courtesy of that brother of yours!"
"We've got no proof linking Sonny to any of this. We don't even have proof linking him to being on the docks today!"
"You know he did it," Scott's face was becoming more enraged by the moment.
"I know a lot of things!" Ric yelled back. "I know that you're nowhere near as morally secure as you claim to be. I know that, if you could, you'd find a way to kill every single person that stands in your way provided that you could get away with it. I know that I'm probably on that list, and I know that I don't trust you."
"I should be your best friend, Lansing."
"I've got my best friend right here," Ric grabbed Elizabeth's hand. "Someone that I can trust with my life if I need to trust someone with it."
"She can't keep you safe from the system, I can." Scott grinned. "If Corinthos ever does turn up sleeping with fishes, who do you think is going to be the first person that we place the blame on?"
"Sonny has plenty of enemies that would want to see him dead more than I do," Ric defended himself.
"You've still got the brains to do it, and that's what separates you from the people like Faith and Alcazar. They might have plans, but those plans couldn't anywhere near as meticulous as the plans that you could think up in that twisted little head of yours. That's one of the reasons I hired you, Lansing. You understand how the criminal mind works because you're not that much better then the scum that we bring in on a daily basis." Scott looked at Elizabeth, "You cloud the minds of good women just as easily as your brother. Look at what he did to Lily and Brenda. Carly, I'll admit, isn't exactly the most stable person on the planet so we're keeping her out of the equation, but they were good women and now they're either dead or not going anywhere near this town for a very long time."
Elizabeth tugged at Ric's arm, "Let's go, Ric. There's nothing more you can do here, is there?"
"No, I suppose there isn't," Ric grabbed his coat. "This place is already beginning to depress me."
"Bye, Lucky," Elizabeth said her farewell to her dear friend as she walked out with Ric.
"I don't know why you let her go," Scott told Lucky as Elizabeth turned the corner. "She's got a temper, but she's still one of the few decent women that we've got around here."
"We needed each other at a time in our lives, but we've both grown up since then," Lucky said as he began to walk away. "We're still friends and we still care about each other to the point that we would look out for each other no matter what. I'm not sure that you would know what it's like to actually have friends like that."
"I had everything... until your father came and destroyed it all," Scott's voice had actually dropped from the irate tone that it was in to an almost remorseful one. It wasn't easy for him to accept everything that had happened to him. How he lost Laura to Luke. Everything after that was a continual downward spiral. There were a few times when things would look up, but for the most part it was all a pit of despair that centered around that one event.
"My father's responsible for many things, Baldwin, and very few of them are things that I would want anyone to know, but he is not responsible for what happened to you and my mother. You brought that all on yourself."
"Funny, I don't recall myself raping Laura."
Lucky stopped himself. Scott had pushed his button, the one thing that would always pain him. It was a low blow, and they both knew it. However, Scott didn't care. He didn't care that Lucky was Laura's child, that Laura loved him very much. Lucky wasn't his, and that was all that mattered. "Only out of respect for the fact that my mother still, on some level, cared for you even after all the things that happened am I not punching you in the face."
"You'd lose your badge, Spencer," Scott said.
"Some things are more important than my job, but you would never be that important, Baldwin. You're not worth it."
Outside-
"Hey," Elizabeth said softly into Ric's ear. "You going to be okay?"
"I lost my temper, again... I shouldn't have."
"Scott's a horrible person, Ric. He knows the ways to cause you to lose your temper and he used them. Don't blame yourself. He's been doing it for years, even before you came around."
"He's good at it." Ric looked up at the night sky.
"Yeah, he is. It's gotten him into more trouble than anyone should ever be in, though."
"Can we talk about something else?" Ric asked. "I'd really rather get my mind off of Scott Baldwin for now."
"What do you want to talk about?"
Ric smiled, "How much I love you."
Elizabeth blushed, "You pick the worst times to tell me these things, you know?"
"No, this is the perfect time," Ric said. "You helped me keep my job in there, Elizabeth. I probably would have gone off the deep end if you hadn't been there to calm me. Lucky wouldn't have tried, he wouldn't have cared if I kept my position or not. You're the only person that can actually curb my lust for vengeance, and I want to thank you for that."
"I was able to do it today, Ric," Elizabeth murmured. "But how many times have I tried to stop you from letting your thirst for revenge get the better of you? How many times have I failed and only gotten myself hurt?"
"We can never get past that, can we?" Ric asked sadly.
"I wish we could, but it will always be there," Elizabeth stated. "You're a changed man, though. You're a better man now than you ever were before. You understand things about human nature that you blinded yourself to when you first got here."
"I don't want to send that kid to jail for something that I know he didn't do, Elizabeth."
"Then don't."
"I wish it were that simple, but it's always more complex than that," Ric sighed. "He's the only link that we have, and everyone knows that he does know something, even though he's hiding it. The question is... what?"
Inside-
Scott walked into his office and slammed the door, causing it to shut with a mighty thud. No one believed that Damian was the guilty party, but Scott wasn't going to let them walk away with a clean slate again. He sat in his chair and pondered ways to make sure that somehow, someway, that kid got put away...
202
Story-
With Sonny, Carly, and Damian gone, Ric was now able to express his discomfort in the situation that he had been placed under. He did so in a rather unique way, by slamming his fist into the desk. The wooden desk trembled slightly under the force that had been placed on it. Ric winced as the moment passed and his hand registered the pain. "I always have to let them walk."
"You didn't have anything to keep him here, Ric," Elizabeth grabbed his hand and looked at it. "Taking your anger out on yourself isn't going to do anyone any good, you know?"
"I had to do something," Ric said. "I couldn't just stay docile while I watched my brother work his way around the system again."
"Damian's innocent," Elizabeth mentioned. "You know it."
"And you know that Sonny is the one that is really guilty of killing those people," Ric's hatred was easy to tell. It wasn't hatred for his brother entirely, it was hatred for the system that he had pledged to uphold being so blind that it would continually let someone like Sonny walk away time and time again. "But he's never going to actually face any repercussions for the actions that he took. Instead he's going to let his own son take the blame for the entire situation and then still walk away. He has no conscience, Elizabeth."
"There's nothing you can do about that," She told him, trying to keep him calm. She knew that Ric was very easy to break, especially when it came to Sonny. If Ric reached that threshold and was pushed over there was no telling what actions he would take. She could try to tether him, but there was no telling how long it would actually work. She had tried to be the thing that Ric could look forward to in life outside of Sonny before, it did not go very well.
"Tell me I did not see what I just thought I saw," Scott walked back in. "Surely there was no way in hell that Corinthos and his family walked out of here without being escorted in handcuffs!"
"We've got no reason to keep Damian Zuniga detained, Scott," Ric said. "Sonny knows it, and threatened to place a malpractice suit on the department."
"I don't care what that criminal threatened to do, we do not bend for anyone!"
"Look, Scott," Ric began as he got right into his boss's face, "I know how much you hate the fact that you can never bust Sonny, and I respect that and sympathize. But I also know how blind you get when you think that you're right, which happens far too often and even then you're almost always wrong. Plus, I'm also more than aware of the fact that this department has had more than it's fair share of civil suits for malpractice filed against it over the years, most of which took a spike when you became the district attorney. You're up for re-election soon, aren't you? How good would it look if you took some innocent college kid who just wants to become a doctor so that he can help people in a way that he was never helped was held here with no actual legit reason to hold him? Never mind the fact that Sonny would probably find some way to actually get his son out regardless of how legal or not it was for a moment, would you? Just think about how many people would drop their opinion of you the minute they heard what you did."
"I didn't give you this job to stand against me, Lansing!" Scott barked. "I gave it to you so that you could support me in my decisions."
"And I do support you, Scott. When you make the correct ones. Sadly, that doesn't happen very often, does it?"
"We've got evidence."
"It's entirely circumstantial," Ric noted. "The pier is a public place that people traverse on a daily basis. How are we to know that Damian wasn't there earlier and just happened to drop his wallet hours before the shootings happened? We've got nothing outside of that wallet that pins him or anyone else to the scene."
"You know who did this!" Scott yelled. "We all know that this is just another crime courtesy of that brother of yours!"
"We've got no proof linking Sonny to any of this. We don't even have proof linking him to being on the docks today!"
"You know he did it," Scott's face was becoming more enraged by the moment.
"I know a lot of things!" Ric yelled back. "I know that you're nowhere near as morally secure as you claim to be. I know that, if you could, you'd find a way to kill every single person that stands in your way provided that you could get away with it. I know that I'm probably on that list, and I know that I don't trust you."
"I should be your best friend, Lansing."
"I've got my best friend right here," Ric grabbed Elizabeth's hand. "Someone that I can trust with my life if I need to trust someone with it."
"She can't keep you safe from the system, I can." Scott grinned. "If Corinthos ever does turn up sleeping with fishes, who do you think is going to be the first person that we place the blame on?"
"Sonny has plenty of enemies that would want to see him dead more than I do," Ric defended himself.
"You've still got the brains to do it, and that's what separates you from the people like Faith and Alcazar. They might have plans, but those plans couldn't anywhere near as meticulous as the plans that you could think up in that twisted little head of yours. That's one of the reasons I hired you, Lansing. You understand how the criminal mind works because you're not that much better then the scum that we bring in on a daily basis." Scott looked at Elizabeth, "You cloud the minds of good women just as easily as your brother. Look at what he did to Lily and Brenda. Carly, I'll admit, isn't exactly the most stable person on the planet so we're keeping her out of the equation, but they were good women and now they're either dead or not going anywhere near this town for a very long time."
Elizabeth tugged at Ric's arm, "Let's go, Ric. There's nothing more you can do here, is there?"
"No, I suppose there isn't," Ric grabbed his coat. "This place is already beginning to depress me."
"Bye, Lucky," Elizabeth said her farewell to her dear friend as she walked out with Ric.
"I don't know why you let her go," Scott told Lucky as Elizabeth turned the corner. "She's got a temper, but she's still one of the few decent women that we've got around here."
"We needed each other at a time in our lives, but we've both grown up since then," Lucky said as he began to walk away. "We're still friends and we still care about each other to the point that we would look out for each other no matter what. I'm not sure that you would know what it's like to actually have friends like that."
"I had everything... until your father came and destroyed it all," Scott's voice had actually dropped from the irate tone that it was in to an almost remorseful one. It wasn't easy for him to accept everything that had happened to him. How he lost Laura to Luke. Everything after that was a continual downward spiral. There were a few times when things would look up, but for the most part it was all a pit of despair that centered around that one event.
"My father's responsible for many things, Baldwin, and very few of them are things that I would want anyone to know, but he is not responsible for what happened to you and my mother. You brought that all on yourself."
"Funny, I don't recall myself raping Laura."
Lucky stopped himself. Scott had pushed his button, the one thing that would always pain him. It was a low blow, and they both knew it. However, Scott didn't care. He didn't care that Lucky was Laura's child, that Laura loved him very much. Lucky wasn't his, and that was all that mattered. "Only out of respect for the fact that my mother still, on some level, cared for you even after all the things that happened am I not punching you in the face."
"You'd lose your badge, Spencer," Scott said.
"Some things are more important than my job, but you would never be that important, Baldwin. You're not worth it."
Outside-
"Hey," Elizabeth said softly into Ric's ear. "You going to be okay?"
"I lost my temper, again... I shouldn't have."
"Scott's a horrible person, Ric. He knows the ways to cause you to lose your temper and he used them. Don't blame yourself. He's been doing it for years, even before you came around."
"He's good at it." Ric looked up at the night sky.
"Yeah, he is. It's gotten him into more trouble than anyone should ever be in, though."
"Can we talk about something else?" Ric asked. "I'd really rather get my mind off of Scott Baldwin for now."
"What do you want to talk about?"
Ric smiled, "How much I love you."
Elizabeth blushed, "You pick the worst times to tell me these things, you know?"
"No, this is the perfect time," Ric said. "You helped me keep my job in there, Elizabeth. I probably would have gone off the deep end if you hadn't been there to calm me. Lucky wouldn't have tried, he wouldn't have cared if I kept my position or not. You're the only person that can actually curb my lust for vengeance, and I want to thank you for that."
"I was able to do it today, Ric," Elizabeth murmured. "But how many times have I tried to stop you from letting your thirst for revenge get the better of you? How many times have I failed and only gotten myself hurt?"
"We can never get past that, can we?" Ric asked sadly.
"I wish we could, but it will always be there," Elizabeth stated. "You're a changed man, though. You're a better man now than you ever were before. You understand things about human nature that you blinded yourself to when you first got here."
"I don't want to send that kid to jail for something that I know he didn't do, Elizabeth."
"Then don't."
"I wish it were that simple, but it's always more complex than that," Ric sighed. "He's the only link that we have, and everyone knows that he does know something, even though he's hiding it. The question is... what?"
Inside-
Scott walked into his office and slammed the door, causing it to shut with a mighty thud. No one believed that Damian was the guilty party, but Scott wasn't going to let them walk away with a clean slate again. He sat in his chair and pondered ways to make sure that somehow, someway, that kid got put away...
202