I've been really thinking this story over, and I've come to the conclusion that Brygida and Rorschach cannot get together. I've been planning things out lately, and this story is NOT a romance.

It's more of a... prequel. But don't let that get you down; there's still going to be tons... Well. Maybe not tons, of interaction between them. There has to be some type of character development, no?

Rorschach is a VERY difficult character, and if I can help it, I'm going to drag this out for as long as I can. Don't worry, I do actually have a plan! Oh my god, a fan fiction writer, planning things out. Blasphemy, I know. But I promise, fangirls, you will have your moments. Metaphor buffs, I think you'll have more moments than the fangirls.

Anyway, enjoy the chapter!

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The 16th of October was a rainy day. People tended to come together in rain, like single drops pooling into dark and dirty crevices, taking solace in the fact that they really weren't alone in the world. Jane and Michelle came to Brygida that day. They told her that Anja was in the hospital with second degree burns and third degree insanity.

The operatic basis of their generation was lost. Michelle wanted the three of them to meet with her older brother later. He was the lead vocalist in his up-and-coming metal band, but he admitted to his little sister that there was something missing. Jane and Brygida being the musically gifted people they were, were glad to meet with him and try to help with such a malady. All three of them were musically starved.

The man with the sign came by while Jane and Michelle were talking to Brygida. The two of them glanced up as he walked up behind Brygida as he always did. It had become fairly routine for the two of them:

Tap on the shoulder.

Newspaper.

Small talk.

Gone.

But Michelle and Jane didn't know that. Jane whispered in Brygida's ear, "There's some crazy looking guy coming up behind you. You want my pepper spray?"

Brygida raised an eyebrow and turned around, a smile on her face once she saw her daily 'buddy' of sorts, sign on his shoulder and that odd, scratchy looking green jacket, "Hello sir. The usual?"

He nodded, and Jane and Michelle were a bit taken aback. They both came from fairly wealthy families, and though they weren't high and mighty enough to look down on people who weren't as well off as they, but they still avoided people who looked like hobos. Jane in particular watched in slight disgust,; her sister had previously been sexually assaulted by a homeless person.

Brygida and the man with no name talked for a few moments about recent stuff in the media, the end of the world, and the like, and then he left. She turned back around in her seat, "Sorry, He's kind of a regular here. Strange person. But, you know, crazy people say the best things." She smiled sincerely. Some of the things that the nameless sign holding man said were just... Brilliant. And she was glad that she picked up on the brilliance of some of the things that he said, because most people would write them off as incessant rambling.

"Darling..." Jane said, her term of endearment striking an off note with Brygida, "Do you really sit here every day, talking to those... people?"

"What's wrong with those people?" Brygida replied sourly.

"Don't you feel kind of dirty when you talk to them?" Jane looked very uncomfortable, "I mean... He looks and smells like he hasn't had a shower since '75..."

"Jane, darling, I know that your sister had a hard time with some homeless guy." Brygida replied, crossing her arms and rocking back in her chair, "But you can't attach such a shit stereotype to people. It's just not done."

Jane looked away from Brygida, "I just can't imagine being friends with one of them..."

Brygida rolled her eyes and grabbed another comic book, "Then don't be. It's completely up to you."

Jane sighed, putting her hand on Brygida's head, "I'm sorry, I've upset you. I won't bring it up again."

Brygida looked at Jane's smiling, kind, wonderful face and couldn't help but smile a little back. She was such an infectious person. If she was happy, then people within a 12-mile radius were happy with her. Visa versa, etc. She seemed sad today, though. Perhaps she brought the weather down with her? The two of them soon left, slightly perturbed by Brygida's capricious behavior.

Bernard put the flap of the news cart down, successfully stealing another portion of the sidewalk from the rain. In return, the rain beat down harder, angrier. Brygida was cold. She flipped the blanket over her head and blew warm air into her hands. Her coffee was cold. She refused to drink what was left of it, as it made her feel old and disgusting: like her old teacher.

"You know..." She said to Bernard as they hid from the rain together, "I really did want to go to college."

"I thought you didn't go to college in order to become an opera singer." The old man's teeth chattered as he spoke.

"Anja talked me out of it... Don't get me wrong, I love opera, I still do. But it's gone now... And... I really wanted to major in Literature. Read as many books as I could and find hidden meanings to everything. The words behind what was written, the poetry inside of Hemmingway, the simplicity that Bly offers in his ridiculous poetry..." She blinked slowly, sadly, "I wanted to be left alone to my books... But when Anja came to me, she won me over with her grandeur and I was left in awe of her presence and her flattery after I sang at a High school talent show. Which I didn't win, by the way. I think the last book that I read was All Quiet On The Western Front, by Erich Maria Remarque... I think that was the last serious book that I read. I really miss it, Bernard..."

The man patted her on the back, "I'm sure that you'll be able to go to college sooner or later, missy. There are community colleges and special programs... You'll make it one day. Even if that day doesn't come for a long time. You'll make it..."

But she wasn't very sure of that. She was given chances in High School. Many of them. But she gave them all up for the opera. And now, even though she knew that she had a great voice, what's it good for when there's no one there to hear you sing?

Laurie called her that evening. She had been so down the last time that they had talked, and now, she seemed even more so. Brygida, though caring, had started becoming less and less tolerant of Laurie and her self-inflicted drama. Brygida had to hear about it all the time, and she wondered why she didn't just leave Jon. If there was nothing there to make it wonderful, than why?

Halfway through Laurie's rant about her mother, Brygida interrupted her by replying that she had to talk to her landlady, and hung up.

... And Laurie had never felt more alone. Jon wasn't around at the moment. She didn't like looking weak in front of him, since it never seemed like he cared much. He always said that he did, but there was nothing on his face that made it seem so. So she took her time, make some popcorn, watched a movie, and cried for a bit... Until Jon came home. She greeted him with a smile. He didn't see the sadness that Laurie hid from him under her eyelashes. All he saw was a smile.

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In Vietnam, a young girl walked through the wilderness to get to her village. She held a bundle in her arms. She moved quickly; people tended to get suspicious late at night. There were still guns in Vietnam, stock piled for the long since over war, but there was still conflict among the Vietnamese, aggressors from China. And people tended to 'pray and spray' late at night.

Her bare, calloused feet moved the rest of her body carefully over unmarked graves. Her brother was there, hiding under the soil, and she believed that his soul was too afraid to be reborn; too scared that he would be brought back into another life of war, of poverty, of hatred. She felt him in the ground she walked on, the air she breathed. But she didn't want to. She wanted him to be dead.

She didn't want to have to be reminded of him everywhere that she went. She heard something in the bushes, and she started to run. Voices came from the trees, and with wide-open eyes, she leapt through the brush and into the village. Sighing, she stood up, feeling safe and at home. The voices had stopped, she didn't hear anything odd or unusual.

She could already smell the coconut oil in her mother's hair, see her father moving his large body across the grass hut, touch her sister's wooden doll—

A bullet went through her head. She was down.

A couple men came from the trees, guns in hand, dressed in stolen American uniforms, dyed black with berry juice. They kicked the bundle from the girl's limp hand, moved back, and shot it.

"Not a bomb." One of the men said after the gathered up sheets hadn't exploded. The other went up to the bundle. He could see blood leaking from the hole. Faint, ragged breathing could be heard from it. The man who had approached the bundle was new to the paranoia, and the guns. During the Vietnam war and the Third Indochina war in '79, he had been with his family, in hiding. He never saw war.

The bleeding bundle horrified and sickened him.

People started to file out from their huts and stared at the girl on the floor and the bleeding clump of rolled up sheets. They all stared at the two men, eyes wide and disbelieving. The two men quickly held up their guns and pointed them at the people of the village, slowly backing away. The people stared, judging them, hating them, their face showing white against the falling twilight.

And at that moment, Brygida sat in her home, her finger on a page in a book of poetry. She read the words on the page with a steady finger and quick eyes; she always had to put her finger under the words she was reading or she would lose her place.

The poem was called In A Station Of The Metro. It consisted only of two lines that didn't rhyme.

The apparition of these faces in the crowd;
Petals on a wet, black bough.

An odd feeling crept up her spine. She felt sad, but at the same time, enlightened. Strangely enough, she felt slightly like she did when she was in front of the burning building. But while the fire was a sudden, unexplained and life-changing experience.

The poem simply... was. She stared at the lines on the page and found ghosts of the living. She saw all of her friends, her family: petals...

Sitting in the rain on a black bough. All black and white. She saw a backwards Rorschach Inkblot Test: blots of white on a black background. She wanted to look through the eyes of the alleged petals, who were surrounded by other petals, who sat on a dark branch, high above the rest of the world, either jaded or ignorant, it didn't matter. They all lived on the same dark branch.

A sound cracked the glass solitude and Brygida was awake and alert. She heard the empty, metallic sound of cans dropping on the sidewalk, and she grimaced: Street animals looking for food in the garbage. She grabbed an oddly placed fire poker in the corner and crept outside. Her landlady had given her a fire poker as an apartment-warming gift when she gave her the first check for the rent. It was odd, since she didn't have a fireplace, nor did she feel the need to poke fires with it.

She walked outside, iron bar in hand as she opened the door, rain still pounding on the roofs and the sidewalk. Some would describe the rain as cleansing, pure. But New York rain was different. Pure, maybe; but only pure enough to show the citizens the contrast between the rain and what their city had become.

Brygida stared at the trashcans, a familiar figure nearby. She hid behind the jutting walls of the apartment, hoping that he didn't see her.

Rorschach stood by the trashcan, sifting through it's contents. Brygida had only gotten a quick look at him. She had seen a spot of red on his lapel. Blood, maybe? She heard more cans clattering to the ground, a disgusting splat every now and again. She stood there for a long time, too afraid to open the door again and risk him hearing her movements, maybe attacking her, maybe killing her.

So she stood there, bare footed in big, baggy pajamas that offered no help to her figure. She shivered, rubbing her arms as she attempted to stop her teeth from clacking together. She thought she sounded like a horse on concrete.

Finally, she heard the rummaging stop, and light footsteps start towards her. She pressed herself against the inner wall, perpendicular to the line that Rorschach's feet followed.

She held her breath as she saw a foot.

Dark purple pinstripe pants.

Trench coat.

Shoulder.

Mask.

Him.

Rorschach didn't see her. Hands in his pockets, he was looking straight ahead. Curious, Brygida trained her eyes onto his lapel...

It was a rose.

A single, beautiful, red rose. Her eyes widened slightly. What would Rorschach want with a rose...? It looked new, freshly cut, she imagined that he hadn't had it for long. It seemed like it almost didn't belong on his person, it contrasted so much from who she thought he was. And what he was wearing.

And then she realized.

'Petals on a wet, black bough...' That was Rorschach. A black petal on a black bough. Unseen, unnoticed, unwanted... But like the rest of them, he was still a petal. He was human. He had a beating heart like the rest of them. She had created him into some kind of poltergeist in her mind, but that rose made her think otherwise. Even if he did smell odd, and probably didn't like her, she didn't mind much.

Underneath it all, he really was a good person who did what he was right in order to make his way in the world.

For a moment, she didn't notice that the fire poker dropped from her hands and clattered to the floor. She soon heard footsteps returning to that spot, and ran inside.

Rorschach picked up the fire poker and stared up at the apartment.

Fire poker. Possible murder attempt? Too afraid to go through with it. Afraid of me. Most likely, ran inside. Run down old building, good place to hide out for scum. Will investigate further.

He dropped the fire poker in the trashcan and continued walking, pulling his collar up to the cold and rain.

The next few days were less than eventful. Brygida read comic books, drank hot chocolate, and the like. She had all but stopped drinking coffee at the time, since she really didn't need it. All the caffeine just made her feel stressed and nervous. There was a boy that showed up at the newsvendor's cart a lot nowadays, and he sat there reading the Black Freighter comics as well.

Her daily visitor came each day, the same sign on his shoulder. She found solace in the fact that some things never changed. She smiled at him more than usual. It probably weirded him out, but she didn't care. The world needed more smiles, anyway.

On the night of the 19th of October, Brygida's phone rang twice before she picked it up, in the midst of watching a documentary on the Salem Witch Trials.

"Hello?" She answered, shuddering as a chill ran up her spine. She bit her knuckle.

"Bridget..." It was Laurie. "I need a place to stay tonight...I got in a fight with Jon, and... Please, can you help me?"

Brygida rolled her eyes. Oh god. More of Laurie and her incessant complaining. And now she wants a place to stay?

"I'm so sorry Laurie, I really have no room in my tiny apartment. I'll help you find a hotel for tonight, if you want." And then you can go running back to Jon, and the cycle continues.

"No... It's alright. I'll find somewhere... Thanks, Bridget."

"I'm sorry again, good luck." She hung up and sighed, happy that she was finally doing something for her own sake. Laurie was a big girl, she could take care of herself. She snuggled back into her couch and flipped the TV back on, watching it until she fell asleep...

Dr. Manhattan Leaves Earth

The headlines of all the major newspapers the next day said the same thing. Brygida felt horrible. She had left Laurie all alone, the one time that she really needed help, and now, she had no idea where she was. She had no way of contacting her.

'But...' She thought, 'It was also sort of a Boy Cries Wolf type scenario...' She convinced herself that it couldn't have been entirely her fault, and read the article in the New Frontiersman. She felt a tap on her shoulder, closed the paper she was holding and handed it up to the man, "I'm sure that people have been talking about it enough that you shouldn't actually need a newspaper."

"I don't talk to people." He replied, and looked up at the stand, "I'll take a Gazette as well."

This involved her actually getting up out of her seat to get the newspaper. Standing on her toes, Brygida reach up and snatched a New York Gazette from the second to the top row of magazines and newspapers. She handed it to the man and smiled, "Here you go."

He nodded, what she usually took as 'thank you', and walked away.

Grabbing another New Frontiersman, she flipped it open to the story of Dr. Manhattan's disappearance, and started reading...

That night, there were re-runs and analysis' done on Jon's disappearance. The news said that apparently, he had given his closest friends and ex-girlfriend Janey Slater cancer. Did Laurie have cancer? Brygida really hoped not... She had to find out where she was. She couldn't call Jon's apartment, no one would be there. Nor could she just start asking around at all the hotels and motels in the area. She wouldn't be done checking them for years.

She sighed, taking off her glasses and wiping them off with her shirt.

She turned off the TV and walked outside to sit on the steps of the apartment building to think. Maybe Rorschach would walk by again, she could ask him to find Laurie for her. She would pay him for his services... Maybe.

She sat there, tapping rhythms on her collarbones, her eyes closed, as she thought about what she would say to Laurie. Tell her the truth, possibly. She may lose one of the few people she really cared about, but at least she would be telling the truth. And if Laurie really loved her as much as she claimed, she wouldn't be mad. They would be able to finally talk instead of just complaining to each other...

She smiled, "A chance to have a real friend again..."

And of course, Rorschach never walked by. She didn't think he would. He was probably busy, anyway...

And at that moment, one faceless Rorschach was being dragged away by the police, insulted, beaten, mindless with rage, sightless with hatred. He hated himself for falling for such a simple trap, for not figuring out escape routes beforehand. Still too sloppy. Once he was in the police car, he stopped struggling. Like a wounded jaguar in a cage, he bided his time, for the moment. He would get out. That he was sure of. Not because of good behavior, either.

Really, the exact opposite.

Never compromise, never surrender.