Chapter 4: Revisiting the Past


"I' d like the opportunity to work for this company, Schuldig-san, because I feel I could provide it with. . ." Schuldig let the rest of the babble go over his head as he boredly picked the man's brains. This guy was a moron, but he was less of a moron than the others that had applied for the position. He made up his mind that he would hire this guy. At least he knew his ass from a hole in the ground. He had only been working as a normal for three days, but in that time he had decided that, not to put too fine a point on it, it sucked. Completely and utterly.

To amuse himself, he had the guy sing the 'Hokey Pokey' and do the dance as he sang. Having his own office had its privileges. Only the Americans could have come up with something so stupid, he sneered to himself. He remembered tormenting Crawford with it. Schuldig only needed to hum the first few bars or slip it into the pre-cog's head for it to run there for most of the day. It used to drive Crawford insane. He wondered what the other man was doing right now.

Leaving his soon-to-be coworker to continue his ridiculous dance, he reached out to Crawford's mind, only to find it locked against him. That wasn't common, but it wasn't uncommon, either. If he really wanted to he could get in, no problem. Years of respect for the other man prevented him as surely as incapability ever could. He might dig around in Nagi's head, but never Crawford's.

When they had first started working together, Crawford had told him that as a pre-cog, he had to have good shields against telepaths. Crawford's shields were works of art, like the stone walls of a cathedral. They were as impenetrable as stone, too. But not to Schuldig. What was stone to everyone else was like smoke to him. When Crawford had discovered that Schuldig could not be blocked, he tried a barrier that proved to be stronger than mental will: reason.

Schuldig had a reputation for being reckless, careless. And he was, to a degree. Even he could see that. Yet he was able to be swayed by reason, if laid out correctly. Crawford had done just that. He had compared his talent to that of an orchestra conductor. He alone had the power to conduct the music of the future because of his vision. But an orchestra would degrade into discordant chaos if there was more than one conductor. Especially if that other conductor was a beat behind. With Schuldig and his quickness, it would only be a half-beat, or quarter. But that was still enough.

So Schuldig had let Crawford do what Crawford did best, and Crawford had let him do what he did best. Schwarz had been good about that. It had let each of them shine. They had been a well-oiled unit. Verdammt. He missed Farf. He missed Crawford. He missed Schwarz. He would love nothing more than to take his gun from where it lay snug against his side and put a couple of bullets into this sycophant in front of him.

Then he would go down the hall and get the smug man who'd hired him, thinking he had been doing Schuldig a favor. Then the guy in Receiving would get a round for fantasizing about having Schuldig suck him off. Preferably in that thing that he had so wanted Schuldig to suck. Then a bullet for the xenophobic receptionist that thought he looked like a gay boy, 'everyone knows those Europeans are like that—'

"Sir?"

Schuldig realized that he had said the last out loud. With a wave, he wiped that memory from the man's head and sent him off. He needed to get out of here. He dropped his swipe-card off with the assistant director and gave her a subliminal directive to clock him out at the end of the day. He waved at the girl at the desk, then wiped her memory clean of seeing him leave. While he was at it, he gave her a migraine for fun.

Instead of driving back to the apartment, he found himself pulling up to a familiar house. He pulled into the spot that Crawford used to park in and climbed out. He flipped through his key ring and saw that he still had the key to the old place. Why was that? He usually couldn't wait to ditch keys he no longer needed. To his further surprise, the key still unlocked the door.

The hairs on the back of his neck stood up. Part of him wanted to turn and walk back to his car, climb back in, and drive off. Back to work, back home, anywhere but here. It was so strong that he could see it in his mind's eye. Turn, walk, drive. Instead, he walked in. Somehow, he wasn't surprised to see that everything was still in place. The remote was sitting in its customary place on the arm of the couch. A bottle, one of those glass ones that Farf and Nagi always toted around, sat on the table next to a Japanese magazine.

His coat was gone, though. He felt a brief spurt of anger, then it was gone as well. Nothing could stay too long in this place. He felt like he was walking on holy ground. He turned down the hall, then left, into his old room. The closet door was open, gently swinging back and forth. Schuldig didn't like looking at that gentle sway. There should be no air moving in this place. But there was. If the hairs on his arms hadn't been standing up, he might not have felt that faint breeze.

All the drawers were yanked out and scattered on the floor. They were all empty. He knelt to look under the bed. A lone sock was under there. He was reminded of the time he had peeked under Crawford's car to see the kitten with its first kill. In his mind he saw the scatter of crow feathers. Black feathers, white cat. He heard a small clicking sound.

Schuldig was on his feet, gun drawn, in the blink of an eye. The closet door had closed. He laughed a little, the sound echoing in the empty room. Good thing no one was here to see him make a fool of himself. He left his room and looked into Nagi's next door. Same story. Open, empty closet and scattered, empty drawers. The mess of circuitry and wires on a corner desk was the only difference. If Schuldig hadn't seen Nagi's computer there before, he would not have recognized it as a former computer.

The doors across the hall stayed shut. He didn't want to go into Farfarello's room, and he would never think of going into Crawford's. He peeked into the bathroom, but it was stripped of anything interesting. That left . . . the kitchen. He really didn't want to go there, but he went. It looked like it did before they had left. He opened the refrigerator. It looked the same, too. Nothing in the place had been touched.

He opened the cabinet above the coffee-maker and found Crawford's coffee beans. He loved Crawford's coffee. But Crawford wasn't big on sharing. The only time he was lucky enough to get some of that dark ambrosia was if he happened to come home from a late night out before Crawford had gotten his second cup. Crawford only made enough for two cups and drank them both while he read the paper. With a gleeful grin, Schuldig slipped the bag into his jacket pocket.

He turned around, and then his hands went lax and his eyes glazed over.

----

Nagi came home to darkness. That didn't bother him too much. His night vision was superior to most people's. He had spent too much time wandering in the dark to feel uncomfortable with it. "Tadaima," he called. Schuldig's half-hearted answer didn't materialize. Puzzled, he looked up. Schuldig was sitting on the couch. He wasn't asleep, because the TV would change stations every once in a while. Not at Schuldig's usual dizzying pace but at a slow, haphazard one.

"Schuldig?"

Schuldig still didn't answer, didn't turn his head. He did shut the TV off, though. Nagi frowned. "Are you having a migraine again, Schuldig?"

"No."

Nagi clicked on a lamp, then came over to stand in front of Schuldig and see for himself. Schuldig's head slowly rose, reminding him of something. Then Schuldig's eyes cleared, and his empty face snapped back into a more familiar expression. "Hallo, Kind."

"Schuldig, are you feeling okay?"

"I went back to the old place." Schuldig picked up the glass of whisky on the table in front of him and took a sip, then grimaced. It was watered down. The ice that had been in it had melted. But hadn't he just made it?

"Why?"

"Why what?" Schuldig put the glass down, then remembered what he had been talking about. Or had he picked it up from Nagi? He put a hand on his forehead. "Oh, right. Don't know. Just did." His hand dropped to his side, where his pocket felt weighted down. He pulled out the bag of coffee. Why was this still in his pocket? "Here, Nagi, catch." He tossed it to the boy, who caught it adroitly.

Nagi examined the bag. "This is Crawford's."

"Not anymore, it's not."

"What do you think he's doing, Schuldig?" Nagi clutched the bag to his chest, wrapping his arms around it.

"Don't know that, either. Being Crawford, I suppose."

----

A/N:
Verdammt - "Damn" in German.
Tadaima – "I'm home" in Japanese. Usually responded to with "okaeri."
Hallo, Kind – "Hello, kid" in German.

Whee! I've been so good. I got two chapters out this time around! Thanks again to Hisoka for reviewing the 3rd chapter-- yes, I thought it was sweet, too. Not usually touchy-feely types, but I thought the circumstances called for it.