AN: Thanks for the incredible response to this Snowing story! See previous chapter for important authors notes on characters and story notes.
Important note: Milah is not Neal's father in this universe. Cora is I've taken some liberties again with characters and back stories. :)
Special Note: The character of TJ Morrison is a Manifest character. The characters of Nick and Greta Branson are based on Hansel(also known as Jack and Nick Branson) and Gretel from Once season 7.
This one will update bi-weekly on Sunday nights now. Please consider leaving a review, it is much appreciated. Here are individual responses to reviews:
Ghostwriter: Yep, it keeps getting dicey. Glad you're enjoying.
Jennifer Baratta: Don't worry, Olive and Regina pop up in this chapter.
210: Thanks, glad you enjoyed it. Yeah, Tamara is probably up to no good. Yeah, when Margaret finds out it was really Cora, it's going to be devastating too. Though I don't know if amends is in the cards for her and Leopold. He's done a lot of rotten things still. Glad you're enjoying!
Sexystarwarslover: Yeah, I think the baby will be okay. Yeah, it's a good question on how the Major found out. She probably has a mole somewhere. Yep, David and TJ are going to investigate the X'ers, especially after Margaret is attacked. Yep, Greta and Nick cannot be trusted, but I have a feeling Killian knows that and he's there on purpose. Yep, they hit Margaret and Henry on purpose. Yeah, David is not letting her and the baby out of his sight. Yeah, Tamara is probably trouble and I think the baby will be okay. Glad you're enjoying it!
Grace5231973: Yep, who indeed. Perhaps some certain pawnbroker that has all kinds of dirt on Cora. ;) Tamara is trouble for sure and I hope the baby is okay too. Glad you're enjoying it!
Special Note: Sorry for the delay on this chapter. My Mom passed away suddenly on August 13th and the rest of the month was pretty rough. I didn't have the time or mindset to write the last few weeks, but I should be back to a regular schedule now. Thanks
Lightning in a Bottle
Chapter 63: Coordinated Flight, Pt 3
After saying hi to Margaret and giving her a hug, Emma was on her way out of the hospital when her new partner, Ruby, caught up to her.
"Hey," Emma said.
"Hey," Ruby replied.
"We may have something," she said, as she pulled up some footage on her phone to show Emma.
"So, we pulled this footage from an ATM a couple doors down from the church," Ruby explained, as Emma watched a guy approach to use the machine.
"The perps stopped for cash?" Emma asked.
"No, not quite. But check this out," Ruby said, as they watched the man look around, afraid and almost paranoid.
"What's he so afraid of?" Emma questioned.
"Just watch," Ruby instructed and that's when three guys with baseball bats passed by the man and the ATM machine.
"Three guys with baseball bats. These feel like our suspects," Emma said.
"Yeah, and we got ourselves a witness," Ruby added, referring to the nervous onlooker.
"Nice work. Get a patrol unit to pull him in," Emma instructed. Ruby nodded and left to do just that, while Emma headed back to the station.
Killian arrived down at Cyber, having gotten the call and approached one of the cyber techs. This tech appeared shy and bashful, but if he had gotten something so fast, Killian assumed he was good and very suited for this kind of work.
"You have something?" he asked. The man nodded.
"I traced those accounts and you were right, they are dummy accounts in the Cayman Islands. They would be untraceable to most, but something caught my eye in the coding," the man said.
"You're speaking Greek to me, mate, but go on," Killian admitted. He smirked.
"Every hacker has their own style or signature and some are more obviously recognized than others. The only problem is that this signature is from a hacker that we caught two years ago. They are in Riker's," he explained.
"How is that possible? Someone like that wouldn't be allowed computer privileges in prison," Killian said.
"Correct…but sometimes a hacker in lock up will sell their signature to another hacker on the outside if someone is willing to pay the right price. The money will sit in an account until said hacker is released and then the purchaser will use this signature, because it's less likely to be flagged by us since it's considered dead code," he continued to explain.
"Still sounds like Greek to me and how does this help trace those accounts?" Killian asked. He smirked.
"It helps, because I was able to recognize the signature and trace it back to one New York Times reporter, Sidney Glass. At least one of the accounts belongs to him and I took the liberty of tracing his steps for you. I found this," he said, as he pulled a photo of the reporter meeting at a coffee house with none other than Cora Mills-Blanchard.
"Do you think you can prove these other dummy accounts are connected to Cora?" he asked.
"Not yet…but with more time, I'm sure I can if she's connected," the tech replied.
"Keep working and send me that photo. It's enough to bring Mr. Glass in for questioning," Killian said. The tech nodded, as the Detective left to bring Sidney Glass in for questioning.
David browsed through the electronic files and reports that Emma had sent to his tablet and he sighed.
"I didn't realize there had been so many complaints by passengers," David lamented. Before Margaret could comment, Olive came rushing in.
"Mom! What happened?" she cried.
"Oh, some idiot hit us. Your dad thinks it may have been deliberate," Margaret replied, as they hugged and she looked expectantly at her dad.
"I had a Calling…Save her. I just don't know why it would warn me if there was nothing I could do about it," he explained.
"The important thing is we're okay...I think," Margaret said and Olive furrowed her brows.
"They just need to check on the baby," Margaret assured and then smiled.
"Your baby sister," she added and Olive smiled.
"Well, is she okay?" the teen asked.
"We think so. We'll know soon," Margaret assured her.
"How are you not freaking out?" Olive asked.
"Moms are superheroes," TJ interjected, making his presence known from the doorway.
"Sweet of you to come, TJ," Margaret said. He smiled.
"Of course," he said, as he noticed David with his nose to a tablet.
"Are you doing research?" he asked with interest. David nodded.
"Yeah…Emma sent over police reports on attacks against passengers. And in every instance, no witnesses, no evidence…" he explained.
"Like what happened today with the Believers...Em says no one will talk," David continued.
"Maybe people are scared to talk," Olive suggested.
"Yeah, maybe. In the meantime, your mom's lying in a hospital bed," he fretted.
"Baby…I'm fine and the baby will be okay too," Margaret said.
"This time…but I have to stop them from coming after you again," David replied.
"Do you really think it was related?" Olive questioned.
"I just don't just think it and I'm gonna prove it," David promised.
After finishing sending the police records David had asked for off to his email, Emma slowly approached Killian's desk.
"How's the…how's the case load?" she asked. Other than Johanna's murder case, Killian wasn't getting a lot of high profile stuff. He looked at her and wondered if he should tell her that he suspected that Cora was responsible for Johanna Mason's murder instead of Leopold. But he decided against it for now.
"Pretty thin, ever since my name came out in open court as a rule-breaking obsessive detective. I had to beg Graham to let me stay on the Mason murder case. Leopold is high profile, but he reluctantly let me stay on it. Other than that, it's pretty dry," he said. She sighed. That was her fault and he blamed her.
"Look, I don't expect you to understand about Neal, but I didn't know what else to do," she said.
"Other than throwing my name under the bus?" he asked. She sighed again.
"Look, it's okay. I've moved on," he said vaguely.
"Good. Maybe you can let the rest of the precinct know. It's hard enough being an 828er without having to go up against the blue wall too," she mentioned. She was getting the cold shoulder from most of her fellow officers and detectives.
"I think that's all in your head, Em," he replied.
"Do you?" she challenged.
"An Xer beat the hell out of an 828 Believer, and the responding officer treated it like a joke. I'm going to interview a suspect now. Meanwhile, someone else ran Margaret and Henry off the road, and the officer gave David a bunch of attitude," she explained. That got his attention.
"Is everyone okay?" he asked in concern.
"The baby might not be. They're waiting to find out," she answered.
"I'm sorry," he offered.
"The point is…Xers are hunting us," she said.
"Emma, the Xers are a bunch of angry mouth breathers. Don't you think you're giving them way too much credit?" he questioned. But she was unconvinced.
"I am telling you if someone doesn't start taking this seriously and shut them down, the next 828 victims are gonna end up dead. It might be me. It might be David.
It might be Henry. But, no, yeah, you're right. It's... It's probably all in my head," she said, as she walked away.
Ruby stared down their witness in the interrogation room, as he fidgeted in his seat.
"Look, I didn't see anything," the man insisted.
"Well, you seemed to be in a pretty big hurry to get out of there," Ruby mentioned.
"I was late. Is that a crime?" he asked.
"We got all day. What got you so scared, Harry?" she questioned.
"You just see dudes coming down the street like that, you get out of the way," he said sternly. She smirked.
"So, you do remember something, then?" she questioned.
"'Cause you're the only one here in this photo," she added, showing it to him.
"So, what?" he snapped.
"So, what do they look like?" she asked.
"Like, I don't know, regular guys in hoodies," he answered. She raised an eyebrow.
"Regular guys got you running your ass off?" she asked.
"It was a fire alarm, okay?" he claimed.
"They were coming at me," he added.
"Sorry, which one got you scared? The guys in the hoodies or the alarm?" she questioned.
"Look, that place, okay, is freaky. And that thing with the plane…it's not natural," he stammered.
"But I didn't do anything to any church," he said, as Emma slipped into the room.
"Did you...no, I don't think we said anything about a church," the blonde said.
"So, let's start over. From the beginning," Ruby said, as Emma slipped back out where Graham was watching.
"That guy just got an upgrade from witness to suspect," she said. He sighed.
"Based on what? Another one of your hunches?" he asked.
"He's lying through his teeth. We didn't even suggest he was involved, and he started denying it," she replied.
"Emma…I am on thin ice with my superiors. I give you the leeway I do, because I know how good you are, but you pull a random guy into the box in the middle of the day. Of
course he's on edge," he said.
"He's involved…I know it," she insisted.
"Then prove it, or thank him for his help and offer him a ride home," Graham ordered.
"Nice apartment," Tamara mentioned, as they went inside. He shrugged.
"Not mine," he replied. She nodded.
"So…who is she?" Tamara asked. He sighed.
"She's a friend that's helped me and it's not like that," he insisted. She smirked.
"But you'd like it to be," she replied and he detected a note of bitterness.
"Okay…so you're angry," he said.
"I find out you're back after falling off the face of the Earth for a year and you don't call or text or even try to find me. Yeah…I'm angry, Neal," she snapped. He sighed.
"I didn't mean to disappear. It just...sort of happened," he said. It was the truth, but he couldn't tell her exactly how he disappeared or that he basically froze to death, before
coming back to life a year later. She'd have him committed.
"It felt pretty intentional to me," she said.
"I never meant to hurt you," he offered. It was lame, but it was all he had for her. Tamara was never going to understand and they were the worst for each other.
"I know you were never big on goodbyes, but after what we went through, I think I deserved better," she said.
"That's actually why I'm here. I'm going through the program," she added.
"Your grandma put you in rehab again?" he asked.
"No, this time it was me," she replied.
"So, what do you want from me? A gold star?" he asked.
"I need to make amends," she replied.
"Tamara, I'm sorry for all the ways I hurt you. I wish I could take it all back," he said.
"You make it sound like it was the worst time of our lives. But we had fun," she reminded him.
"The only thing I remember was us always chasing the next high," he said. She scoffed. He had definitely moved on, whether he knew it or not yet.
"We had fun, but you have to admit that we enabled the shit out of each other," he said.
"I guess you have a point," she conceded.
"Consider your amends made," he said.
"Great," she said, feeling a little unsatisfied by that.
"If there's anything I can do, would you please…" he said, but she cut him off
"I can take care of myself, thanks. I had no other choice when you vanished into thin air, did I?" she retorted.
"Good luck sticking with the program this time," Neal said, as she left in a huff. He sighed and decided to go see his father for a bit. By now, all that information he had on Cora was in the hands of a Detective so he only hoped that their help could lead to true justice.
"That is either the longest page in history, or you are somewhere else," Olive mused, as she watched her mother pretend to read the same page in her book for the last twenty minutes.
"I know what it is to lose a child. I don't think I can go through it again," Margaret said.
"You have to have faith. You have to look at the future with the possibility...that everything will turn out well," Olive said, as she put a hand to her mother's stomach.
"Stay strong, little girl. You have the best mom in the whole world. But don't tell her I told you so," Olive added, as they shared a smile, just as David and TJ came bursting back into the room.
"MM...they're not random," he said, anxiously.
"What are you talking about?" she asked.
"What happened to you? This recent wave of violence. The Xers are systematically attacking the passengers. We ran the data," TJ explained.
They're coordinating their attacks to overwhelm the police and minimize the chance they'll get caught," David continued.
"The Xers are organized?" Olive asked.
"The timing and distribution of the attacks is too precise to be a coincidence. Your mother and Henry were targeted," David said, clearly itching to make these people pay.
"So, Mom's accident and everything that happened at the church, it's connected?" Olive questioned, as a feeling of guilt and dread settled in her stomach.
"Everything is connected. It's just gonna get worse, unless we find the person that's running things. There's someone pulling the strings from the shadows and keeping their hands clean," David said.
"Then we investigate and stop them," TJ said. Olive nodded in agreement, but quickly found an excuse to leave. She had something important to do. She hailed a cab and
quickly arrived at the twenty-eighth precinct. She went in and found her Aunt.
"Olive, what are you doing here?" Emma asked, but her niece was clearly troubled.
"Everything okay?" the blonde asked again.
"I have...I have something to tell you, but you can't tell Mom and Dad," Olive begged. Emma nodded for her to continue, though she could never make a promise to hide things from David and MM, especially if it involved one of their children.
"I know what happened at the Church of the Believers," she confessed.
"How?" Emma asked. A look of guilt was suddenly present on Olive's features.
"I was there…I'm one of them," she admitted, shocking Emma to her core.
After Olive left, TJ excused himself to go do some more research and give David and Margaret some time alone. David gazed at his wife with fondness and a bit of worry. He was so in love with her and afraid to lose her and the baby.
"You're not going to lose me, my love," she whispered, reading his thoughts. He smiled and kissed her forehead.
"I can't…which means I have to find who is behind all these attacks," he said.
"And you will…I have all the faith in the world in you," she promised, as they shared a tender kiss, just as their doctor returned.
"Good news. We found no sign of placental abruption or trauma to the fetus," she reported.
"So, the baby's okay?" Margaret asked.
"Yes," she replied.
"Thank God," David said in relief.
"But this was no minor accident. You need to take it very easy. We don't want any further complications," the doctor warned.
"Understood," David said. Margaret almost rolled her eyes at that tone. She knew her husband. This meant he was going to be even more determined that she barely lifted a
finger during the rest of the pregnancy.
"Thank you, doctor," Margaret said. She smiled.
"You're so welcome," she said.
"I'll give you time to change, while I process your discharge papers and you can take Mom and baby girl home," she added, before leaving to give them some privacy.
"Well, that's it. I'm wrapping you and our baby girl in bubble wrap," David said. She knew he was joking, but she almost wouldn't put it past him.
"Well, I'm not sure how I feel about that," she admonished. He smiled and kissed her tenderly.
"We can talk about it at home. Where I am going to take care of you and our baby," he said.
"That doesn't mean waiting on me hand and foot, my love," she said.
"How about serving you ice cream?" he asked. She smiled coyly.
"Mmm…now that I could go for," she replied, as he gently helped her up and out of the hospital gown. She got dressed back in her clothes and the doctor returned a few
moments later with her discharge papers and surprisingly Regina. Margaret's face lit up and they all hugged.
"I'm sorry I couldn't get here sooner…" she said.
"It's okay…is everything okay?" Margaret asked.
"Not really, but I can tell you at your house, if you're up for a little company?" she asked. They smiled.
"Always…and you're family, not company," David said. She smiled and turned to the other doctor.
"Can I peek at her chart?" she asked. The doctor looked at them and they nodded.
"She's my step-sister," Margaret confirmed. The doctor nodded and handed it to her.
"Her discharge papers are here too," she said, before leaving them.
"Thank goodness the baby is okay…" Regina said.
"Yeah…it was a bit scary there for a moment," Margaret replied.
"Especially since the attack was targeted," David said. Regina's eyes widened.
"You're sure?" she asked. He nodded.
"TJ and I ran the numbers. All the attacks on 828 passengers are too precise and now it seems they've decided to go after family members of passengers," David replied.
"Well…that brings me to another reason I'm glad I came. The waiting room is full of reporters. Someone must have tipped them off that you were here," Regina said.
"How?" Margaret asked.
"Probably a nurse with loose lips," Regina surmised.
"We can't take her out that way…she doesn't need that stress," David lamented. Regina smirked.
"Not to worry…we're going out the back way. It's usually just for staff and since I'm staff, I can get us out that way," she said. They smiled.
"You're a lifesaver," Margaret replied gratefully, as they followed her out.