Sea of Green
by Zebeckras
A/N: Thanks for the reviews to those who left 'em... Hope this chapter lives up to the rest of it, and that's about all I have to say... That, and I'm still hoping to have this done by the end of the year! Just under 4 weeks to go...
Chapter 3 act II
"Dad?"
Drake cracked an eye open and found that the door to his bedroom was half-open and a rectangle of light from the hallway was spilling into the dark room, framing his daughter as she stood in the center.
Blearily, he said, "What is it, Gos? And it better be good. It's four am." He hadn't checked the time, but from the light in the room and how groggy he felt, two hours of sleep seemed about right. He let his eye fall closed again.
"It's almost ten, Dad."
He hesitated and tried to do some math in his head. It didn't happen. Opening his eye once more, he checked; room was still dark, light was still on in hallway, daughter was therefore incorrect. "You lie," he said into his pillow.
Gosalyn made a noise. It was the kind of noise she made when she felt like he wasn't listening to her, and he had to admit that she wasn't far off. "DAD. It's ten o'clock in the morning and the only reason you think it's dark outside is because the house is wrapped up in plants and so all the windows are blocked. So you have to get up and do something to save the city, Darkwing."
Well. This was unexpected. "The city?" he asked. Gosalyn answered in the affirmative. "The whole city is covered in plants?"
"Yeah Mister Motivation, the whole city."
Drake rolled over in bed and checked the clock; sure enough, although slightly blurry to his eyes, the digital display read 9:54. "Okay," he said reluctantly; he still felt like he had only just gone to sleep. "Okay, I'll get up."
But his body didn't want to move, and his eyes felt like shutting, and he didn't seem to be able to do anything to stop them.
After a suitable pause, Gosalyn prodded him. "Dad..? Dad!"
He groaned. "Gos, one thing I do need to know," he said slowly, with his arm draped over his forehead. "Is there any emergency you haven't told me about? Are people, say... exploding?"
"No..." Gosalyn said hesitantly - almost suspiciously.
"No fires, no - looting, or anything like that?"
"No one can get outside," she said impatiently.
"Aha. Alright then," he said, rolling over onto his side and turning his back on her, "come back in about... let's say an hour. The city will keep until then."
He tuned out Gosalyn's irritated protests, and went back to sleep. After all, a sleep-deprived crimefighter was a potential liability.
A moment after he'd said Rhoda's name, Bushroot knew it wasn't her. He just blinked, and her face seemed to rearrange itself; she looked nothing like Rhoda Dendron, really, except that she was a brunette with glasses. She was thinner, her hair was lighter and pulled back in an unstyled ponytail, and her glasses were thicker. She also didn't have Rhoda's effortless elegance, although she looked cute enough.
It had only been wishful thinking that had made him see Rhoda in her. He was still shaken by the whole thing, though, and when the overgrown sapling put her down at his feet he blurted out, "Who are you?"
She looked back at him with wide eyes and a terrified expression. "I-I'm nobody," she said, cringing. She was afraid of him; yet again, another person who barely knew him was scared of him. Disheartened, he sighed, then noticed she was decidedly wobbly.
Bushroot took a step back and looked her over, and realized that she was bound from head to foot by vines. He frowned at her guards; no wonder she was scared of him, she probably thought he was some kind of madman. "Hey, come on, let her out of this. What's this supposed to do?" The saplings turned towards one another with an air of glancing at each other, before shrugging at him. "Well, this is just overkill! What's she going to do, start deforesting us or something?"
The vines binding the girl's arms to her torso loosened and then fell away. A second later her legs were freed too, although Bushroot suggested that a couple of smaller vines keep in place around her wrists and ankles just in case.
Once this was taken care of, she just stood there as though rooted to the spot. Bushroot hadn't exactly been expecting her to make a break for it, but he'd thought he'd get a bit more of a reaction than this. He tried smiling at her. "So, uh, sorry about that. They get a little overly enthusiastic, you know? But they mean well." He chuckled; she stared at the ground and didn't speak.
He felt obligated to prove to her that he wasn't really the kind of guy who would kidnap a perfect stranger off the street and bring her home to torture her. Unfortunately, he couldn't think of any particular way to definitively prove that, so there was an awkward silence until he said, "Uh, well! Where are my manners? I should introduce myself!"
"I - I know who you are," the girl answered quietly. "You're Bushroot."
It wasn't a good sign that she'd heard of him, but he soldiered on. "Doctor Reginald Bushroot," he corrected affably, and held out his hand. "I'm a scientist."
The girl's eyes flicked up to his oustretched appendage, and she tensed and looked back down quickly. "Um. I, um..."
"Oh come on. I'm not going to bite." He was starting to feel hurt. She still didn't move, so - aware of a slight whine creeping into his voice - he said, "So you're not even going to tell me your name or anything?"
She hesitated, then shook her head. "I just... it doesn't seem v-very s-smart to tell a s-supervillain your name-"
"I'm NOT a supervillain!" he said sharply; she flinched. Well, that hadn't done anything to help his cause; Bushroot took a moment to compose himself, even though her comment had left him more than a little irritated. More evenly, he said, "Okay, look. You're upset, I get that, and hey - I don't blame you! It's been kind of a crazy day for everyone! But, before you start pointing fingers and, and... over-simplifying a guy's character, how about you get to know him a little, huh? Maybe?" No answer. He added, "It's not that I'm bad. They just like to say that about me. I'm just misunderstood."
Still casting her eyes to the ground, the girl nodded once, very slowly. Then she said, "Um... o-okay. So you... you're m-misrepresented in the - the m-media?"
He felt a wash of relief as he realized he was actually getting somewhere. "Exactly!" he said emphatically. "You know how it is - you do one thing you regret later, lose your temper for a moment, whatever... But see, when I do it, they jump all over it."
The girl nodded again. She lifted her arms for a moment, apparently trying to cross them across her chest, and then lowered them again when the vines prevented her. She took a deep breath, and said, "W-well, they said that you... I mean, that you kind of... rob stores. And... and um, h-hurt people."
"Okay, yeah, but what they're NOT telling you is that those are special circumstances." That, he realized, sounded pretty lame. "Really," he said, "I could tell you all about them if you wanted. And - and I would never hurt someone innocent. I mean, you know, someone who didn't deserve it."
"Oh," she said quietly. He could hear in her voice what she was thinking: no one deserved to be hurt. If she believed that, then she'd led a charmed life, he thought resentfully.
Beth was in the worst situation of her life. What was a person supposed to do when they were being held hostage? Just go along with whatever they were told, she thought, but she wasn't sure. She kept her head down, trying not to make eye contact - or was she supposed to make eye contact? Maybe that was a, a thing that hostages did?
Honestly, she wasn't even sure she was a hostage. Hostage situations tended to be a standoff in front of authorities; even if they weren't, they were nearly always done so that the person doing the hostage holding could get something. Bushroot wasn't making any demands and there were certainly no authority types around that he could use her to bargain with.
She kept her head down and tried to breathe evenly and keep her head. Meanwhile, he kept talking to her like they were meeting up for coffee after answering a personals ad. Only every time she said the wrong thing, he seemed to take it harder, and now it was looking like she'd gone and completely offended him... which was probably pretty dangerous.
In the back of her mind she remembered the first thing she'd heard about Bushroot. He'd been a scientist in the botany department at St. Canard University, but after he'd completed an experiment that had somehow spliced his DNA with that of a plant, he'd attacked his former coworkers, killing two and eventually kidnapping a third. Beth had been scared and fascinated by this, because she had seriously considered doing her grad studies at SCU specifically because of the botany department. She had a tendency to tune out a lot of the details on the crime activities in St. Canard, but she'd kept track of Bushroot after that; his name turned up every so often, and it was never in a good way.
However, she realized, her life very likely depended on her staying in his good graces just now. And to do that, it seemed as if she was going to have to be friendly. She was going to have to ... socialize.
She was really, really bad at socializing.
She swallowed, and thought back to the advice her family had given her as a child: speak out, or everyone will think you don't like them. "S-so..." she began cautiously, lifting her head a little; Bushroot was half-turned away from her, with his arms crossed over his vine-like chest. When she spoke, he lifted an eyebrow in her direction. "Y-you... um... You had... special cir-circumstances?"
"Well, if you're interested, yes I did." He paused, and with a closed expression said, "Personal circumstances."
"Oh." That sounded like he wasn't going to go into them. She was a little relieved.
"But do you think the newspapers and the reporters mention that? Do they mention that I was driven to it? Do they mention the way my funding was cut off? No, no, they don't even bother to get the full story. They get all their information from Darkwing Duck," he said, his voice rising into a mockingly nasal tone.
Beth nodded shakily. "Because... because he's the one who always fights you?"
"Oh, of course. That guy, he can't just let a guy live his own life. It's got to be dramatic, always the big alliteration and 'don't you go existing in MY city!' and things like that." He snorted and shook his head. "Now that is a guy who makes up his mind right away and never lets you give a second impression."
"Wow, that... that's... terrible." Beth had never actually seen Darkwing Duck but she had been holding him in some esteem for the way he'd rescued Gosalyn the other night. Well, it would only make sense that someone who ran up against him a lot on the wrong side of the law would not like him, she supposed.
Bushroot seemed to be relaxing a little bit again, so she figured she should just keep him talking for a while longer. There were few times in her life when she couldn't think of anything to say, but this was one of them... still, though, she was well aware that sometimes the way to get on someone's good side was by keeping your mouth shut and letting them do the talking. She knew when to listen, and she knew how to listen. She could get through this. She took a step closer to him. "Um... Does he - Darkwing, I mean - well, what kinds of - what is it he has against you?"
With a shrug, Bushroot said casually, "Oh, you know... I might've sort of tried to kill him a few times. Well, I mean - that's how he took it," he backpedaled quickly, waving a hand in the direction of Beth's slightly shocked face. "Heh, I mean... he's still standing, right? So obviously I wasn't actually going to do it. But he's the kind of guy who pushes and pushes until he gets you to say and do things you end up regretting later." He sighed. "The whole thing has been a nightmare for my public image."
"I bet," said Beth sympathetically.
"Boy, you have no idea!" he said, leaning towards her and relaxing at last. He held a hand out. "Nobody knows this, but I'm a really mild-mannered guy at heart. I mean, all I even wanted was to help mankind! I was going to end world hunger! Nobody ever talks about that, do they?"
"Really? I didn't know that!" Beth said, genuinely surprised.
"Oh yeah. Hey look - you must be kind of rattled. Have a seat." He flicked his finger-leaves, and before she was able to ask if he meant for her to sit on the ground, something pushed up from the ground and knocked her off her feet. Startled, she looked down to find that she was entirely supported by a very vibrant, very buouyant flower that was holding her full weight, like a chair. When she looked back up at Bushroot, open-mouthed, he grinned and lifted his eyebrows at her. "Just a thing I can do," he said, his tone approaching charming. "Well, if you're comfortable... Let me tell you my side of the story."
Gosalyn paused outside of her father's door, and hearing nothing, grimaced in frustration. It was 11 am and he was still asleep! "Gimme a break," she said under her breath, and pushed the door open.
The lump in the bed gave a groan when she flipped his lightswitch on. "Dad. Get up," she said firmly.
"Gosalyn," he began in a bleary tone, "when you pass 25, and all of a sudden all your joints start to creak when you stand up in the morning, you'll begin to understand..."
She blew out a breath in impatience. "C'mon, Dad! This is the kind of thing you wait all year for! The entire city is in the thrall of a villain and you're the only one who can save them. So what's up with the sleeping beauty act?"
"The city can wait," he said, stretching leisurely. "We've been over this. If no one can get outside, then no one is in any immediate danger. And everyone will appreciate my dramatic rescue just a little bit more if they've spent an hour or two fretting over their predicament, I might add."
"Your rescue? Sorry, Dad, but you missed the boat on this one. The radio says that they called in Gizmoduck, and he's just wrapping things up -"
"WHAT!" There was a whir of motion that passed her and sent her hair flying; since her father's bed was vacated when she looked back into the room, she assumed it must have been him. Somewhere behind her, running through the house, he yelled, "Why didn't you wake me up!"
She rolled her eyes and uncrossed her fingers from behind her back. "Psych," she muttered, grinning. At least that finally got him moving.
"But then Darkwing Duck showed up. Again," Bushroot finished, clenching his fists, "and he just couldn't keep his hands off poor Posey. Well, what would you do?"
"I don't know," Beth said honestly, trying to keep her tone purely sympathetic. She had no idea how she'd react, but then, she'd never grown her own spouse-to-be out of a potato. "What did you do?"
"Well, I'm a normal, red-blooded man - I mean, I was, and those kinds of emotions don't just dry up when you get rid of your blood in favour of chlorophyll, y'know?" When Beth nodded, he said, "So I did what any normal, red-blooded guy would do when I found her in the arms of another man. That's all. It's the kind of thing you regret later, but in the heat of the moment..."
"I... I'm sorry, I - I don't know what..."
"Oh," he said, and chuckled. "Well, that's right, you're not a man. Not at all," he said in a lower voice, leaning closer to her and wiggling his eyebrows a little. "Well, I kinda tried to run him over with a lawnmower."
Beth felt like the moment following this went on forever, and she couldn't seem to move through it at all. Finally, she forced a nod. "Oh. That's what... anyone would do."
"Find me a red-blooded, emotional guy who wouldn't at least consider the idea."
"I bet I couldn't," she said.
She was surprised by how easy this was getting. She was not a good conversationalist - most of the time she just talked to fill up silences, regardless of whether the other person was answering or not - and she had never in her life been a good liar. But the more time went by, the more naturally she was able to follow along with what Bushroot was saying.
He was an odd mix, actually, and what she felt in reaction to what he said was an odd mix of emotions. As much as he would casually address the violence and criminal acts of his past - as much as that alarmed her - he also had such a pitiable past that she was almost surprised to find that she did, in fact, feel sorry for him. She couldn't quite be afraid of him anymore, because he just... he just so wanted to be liked.
Bushroot's story in his own words was almost nothing like what she had read. Motivated by altruism, he had used his own body as a guinea pig for a dangerous but potentially world-revolutionizing experiment. His coworkers had shunned and mocked him, sabotaging his work to make their own advances, and their deaths had been an accidental side effect of his inability to fully control his own new powers; if they had stayed out of his way, not provoked him, they'd have come to no harm. The coworker he'd kidnapped, Rhoda Dendron, had been a close colleague and had expressed an interest that he had returned, but Darkwing had interviewed her and filled her head with lies and rumours about him...
She didn't know what she believed. Of course Bushroot would tell his life story from his sympathetic perspective, and even though he denied that he'd meant to kill those two doctors, he still seemed awfully cavalier about the event.
But there were elements of the story that he couldn't disguise. If not all of it was true, he certainly believed that it was true, she was certain. He wasn't lying, not on purpose. More than that, though... The unhappiness of his background was so... so palpable. Beth recognized that and responded to it despite herself. She had to keep reminding herself that she was not hearing this story from an unbiased source, and that people had died in the course of this - and that, no matter his reasons, Bushroot had broken the law. Repeatedly, and willfully.
"So you get it?" he asked hopefully. "You understand?"
This was the big question, Beth sensed. She knew what she'd have to say, no matter whether she meant it or not; and she'd have to sound sincere. Everything depended on Bushroot believing this. She swallowed. "I do."
He broke out into a relieved smile. "See? See, I knew it, I knew you just needed to get a chance to get to know me and you'd see..."
Beth nodded, and held out her hand to him. "My-my name is Beth Webfoot," she said. He took her hand in his and shook heartily, joyfully. The feeling of having her hand wrapped within a leaf was odd; more so was the sense of how flexible, and *strong*, the leaf was. It was almost papery, but firm, at once. "It's n-nice to meet you, Dr. Bushroot."
Still beaming, Bushroot said, "Oh, please, call me Reggie."
"Okay," she said quietly; she'd wondered if that ever happened in real life, if people really did that, corrected you for using their last names. She'd hoped for days that Drake Mallard would do that, but he hadn't, and she'd started to think maybe that only happened in movies. Oh, well, this whole day was turning out almost too surreal to be real life. "Um... Great, I - I will. Um... so... listen, I just - Reggie - I wanted to know, do you think..." She crossed her fingers that he wouldn't be offended and undo all the work she'd just done, and then she spit it out. "Do you think I could just... go home? I - I swear, I wouldn't go to the police or anything," she added hastily as his face fell. "I'll just go home, and I'll stay there, and I'll be perfectly happy. It's only that I haven't been home since yesterday and - and..."
Now he was looking confused. "You haven't? Where'd you come from, then?"
"Um, I got out through the skylight in the attic at the building I work in."
"Your work?" He raised an eyebrow. "What'd you do, sleep there?"
She flinched a little, and felt her cheeks growing warm. "N-never mind," she said in embarrassment. "I just... Look, you know you can trust me, and it's nothing personal, I just would like to get back home. And then you'll never have to worry about me again, really. I won't be in your hair and I *definitely* won't tell anyone where you are or anything. I don't even have anyone to... tell..."
She trailed off as she read the look on his face. He didn't look angry, or offended - just very, very serious. And his voice matched that as he said, almost sadly, "Listen, Beth, don't take this the wrong way, but... I can't ever let you leave."