No. 8

"Shh. Stay low." I peek out from behind the ledge of the roof, and relief fills me. "Nevermind. It's Rorschach." Adrian looks down at the lone figure walking through the orange circle of a streetlamp. His collar is turned up against the cold and his masked face is hidden in the now-shadowed section of the sidewalk as he keeps moving forward, but I can still see a large dark stain covering the front of his coat.

"Hold on." The police frequency staticks in and I can hear the mumbled voice of two policemen on patrol. I relay to Adrian the information I hear. "There's a...I think they got a gasoline fire reported in a...probably abandoned factory down at 54th street." We look back down at the figure on the sidewalk; he's slowed, standing there and staring across the street. "I wonder if he had anything to do with it."

"I'll check it out. If I don't see you, I'll be back home at 3." Adrian pecks me on the lips before I place the helmet back on my head. I pat him on the shoulder before he disappears into the shadows of the rooftop.

My head turns, watching as he vaults off the far side of the roof, and in the darkness I can barely make out his figure as he ducks and rolls onto the other side and keeps running. I shake my head after he's gone, amused by his naturally dramatic flair yet still grateful for his volunteering.

Rorschach's turning the corner now, and I climb down a rusted ladder, dropping rather loudly onto the metal fire escape and cringing as the sound echoes. The footsteps stop, then a shadow falls across the alley entrance as Rorschach looks in.

I give an awkward wave. "Hi, Rorschach!" I can almost feel him roll his eyes before he turns and keeps walking. I run out the alley, following him. "How's it going tonight?"

"Fine." His voice is hoarse.

I raise my eyebrows as I look at his coat. Up close, it's visibly dark red. "Is that blood?"

"Yes." His answer is curt as he puts his hands in his pockets and begins to walk faster. I'm surprised that he's avoiding me - we'd been "friends" for almost four years now.

"Hold on, man!" He stops abruptly when I grab his shoulder, and I quickly pull my hand away, knowing how he despised human contact. "Are you okay?"

He stares at me, the ink on his face shifting across his cheekbones, sliding upwards to crest over his forehead. His hand jerks up suddenly, as though he wants to pull the mask off his face, but he stops himself at the last moment. Looking down at his hands, I can see the flecks of dark red blood on the purple leather.

"He fed her to the dogs."

I don't understand what he's talking about, though the words and the monotone of his voice scares me. I shake my head. "What do you mean? Is someone hurt?"

"It was a mistake. Father was bus driver. No money for ransom." His voice is shaking.

"Rorschach. What happened?" My muscles ache as I lean up against a wall. "C'mon, I can't help you if you don't tell me what's going on," I joke weakly, rubbing at a bruise on my elbow.

He stares at me, the brim of his fedora casting a stark line of shadow across half of his face, and I look away, disconcerted by his unnatural coldness. Up in the distance I can soon see a dark, oily black column of smoke, the drifting swollen curves highlighted by a hellish orange light.

Was that what it looked like when Adrian and I were inside that factory? Broken ribs and a hairline fracture in my shin that still pains me a little today. Glass shattering, propelling us into air like ice water while heat followed. Scuttling, dry whisper-noises as I dragged him across the grass.

Fire in the wind.

"Starmaker? Do you copy?" I hear Adrian's voice from my earpiece, and realize I'd nearly drifted off. I blink sleepily.

"Sorry, I kinda...Wha...what's happened?"

"There's police and firemen crawling all over the brought out three bodies, though. A man and two German Shepherds." His voice is horror-filled. "He's burned to a crisp."

I shiver, and it's then that I realize Rorschach is gone. Where he'd been standing, now there's only cracked grey concrete.

"Shit." I stretch, standing up.

"Are you alright?"

"I'm…" I yawn. "I'm fine. Rorschach's disappeared."

"We should probably head back home. It's been a long night."

"Mmm." I nod even though he can't see me, and when I yawn again I hear him laugh.

At night, even after Adrian's asleep, his breathing soft and warm against my neck as he hugs me to his bare chest, I stay awake thinking about the blood on Rorschach's coat and the sounds of baying dogs.

In the morning Adrian is no longer in the penthouse, probably off to a board meeting. He leaves a note on the nightstand next to the window saying that he'll be back at 6, which I only see after I've fallen off his side of the bed trying to find him.

Walter Kovaks seems tired, too, at the newsstand. I buy a Gazette from Bernie as per usual, and as I'm flipping through the pages I hear the shuffling of his feet as he comes up behind us.

"Here, gotta New Frontiersman fer you," the vendor says, handing Walter the paper. The redhead grumbles something unintelligibly and drops a few coins into Bernie's gingerly outstretched hand.

"Rough night?" I ask him. Walter nods, and, without saying another word, leaves. I raise an eyebrow, but head to work all the same. We all seemed to be having a bad day.

10:43 in the morning, I'm sitting down in the faculty lounge reading a book on post traumatic stress disorder. Even though the war in Vietnam ended in victory for the US, there was still so much mental damage caused by it; things that generals and military officials wanted to overlook - things that my branch was working on to make public. The television's on, and I smile when I hear the sound of Nat King Cole's Unforgettable in an ad for Nostalgia, though what I'm reading sickens me. Even during World War Two, treatments were ice baths and bloodletting to shock soldiers out of the trauma before they were sent back into the lines.

"And, darling, it's incredible...That someone so unforgettable...thinks that-"

The ad cuts off and I look up, eyebrows raised.

"Breaking news. I'm Natasha Johnsen, reporting live from the scene of the factory fire last night. The next series of pictures and statements are graphic and disturbing; you may need to censor if you have children near by. Police sources say that the man who burned to death in the building with his two German Shepherds has been identified as Gerald Grice. Both German Shepherds have suffered severe head wounds, and Grice himself has had his head hacked open. In the backyard of the tenement, police have also discovered remains of a young female child, and are running analyses as we speak in order to determine if this may be Blaire Roche."

"He fed her to the dogs. It was a mistake. Father was bus driver. No money for ransom."

My mug drops from my hand and shatters on the uncarpeted concrete floor; hot water splashing onto my jeans.

Before I know it, I'm grabbing my jacket and running out the door and down the stairs.

I find him walking along the cobblestone walkway along Central Park. The air stinks of gasoline and the oily grease of hot dog stands mixed with the wet loamy smell of the park - where nature meets the rolling city. He's doing nothing, saying nothing, his footsteps soft on the uneven paving - yet the sign in his hand and the look in his eyes are like weapons in and of themselves, a testament to the changing times. Nuclear war could happen at any second. The end was indeed nigh.

"Walter."

It's the first time I've said his name in a very long while, almost since he'd first told me it a few months ago. The man turns, sign still slung on his left shoulder. Dark freckles across his cheekbones, orange hair matted and shoulders slumped. I wet my lips, stare at my feet before I finally get the courage to speak.

"I know what...what you did for Blaire Roche. Rorschach, I know."

He stares at me for a long moment; flat blue eyes glassy and emotionless, probably as he decides whether or not to run. His Adam's apple bobs as he swallows, and his fingers flex against the splintered wood of his sign. When I look down, I can see his hand is trembling. Just a little.

"Look…" My voice is soft. "You don't need to do it alone anymore."

"Always have been alone. Don't need friends."

To my side, a pigeon coos, pecking at a half-eaten crust of a burger next to the lamp post.

"We have time for friends. Maybe not today, not tomorrow, but we always save time for friends.' I swallow. "You can talk to me. I...I want help you. As a friend." I reach into my handbag, rummaging for the business cards. As I fish it out, his eyes follow my movements. Columbia University's crown symbol is printed on the back side, and on the front is my number.

"I...um, I have the feeling that I won't be...seeing you in a while. I'm part of the psychology board and research team at the school. You… you don't need to do anything with it. Just take it, please."

I stare imploringly at him, and he finally pulls the cardstock from my fingers and shoves it into a pocket on his tattered jacket, before turning and walking away.

I don't see him again for two months.

In that time Adrian and I take down a drug-prostitution ring as well as go visit Coney Island. There, he has to wear a baggy grey sweatshirt and shades, hood drawn up in order not to attract paparazzi. I tease him endlessly until, in broad daylight in front of the 6'o clock news camera, he takes off the sunglasses, pulls me up against him and kisses me. The media goes wild; thankfully, my face had been mostly covered by hair and Adrian's hand on my cheek.

Like a stray cat, Rorschach eventually comes back to us. He's quieter, though. Changed. If it was even possible, he talks less than before. Dan doesn't mention it most of the time, but I see the way he looks at Rorschach after the man breaks a stranger's metacarpals at a seedy bar and calmly walks away. Affection, and something close to pain.

In the long hours before dawn, I can hear the way he breathes - tired and old - under the mask. I never tell Adrian who Rorschach is. And, sometimes, I wonder if Rorschach kept the card. If it was sitting, in jagged shadows from crumpled edges, on some scratched nightstand, slowly gathering dust.

At least we'll always have a place to put these kinds of things.

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