AN: Between the reviews and PMs we're going to continue with Danni/Margot but her story will explained. Thanks for everyone's input!
Post 504
Gail had felt her tears spill over as she told the girl what had happened to her mother when they got back to the station. To be honest, they had started when the girl had said her name was Sophie. God how she wished she had taken Chris up on his offer and brought him along.
Gail had come far enough with her therapy to know that she needed to be with someone tonight so that she didn't drop into a dark mood. Those dark moods tended to be followed by a depression that had large, heavy claws. The last time she was in their grasp she almost let them have her, hearing Leo ask Traci where Jerry was shattering her each time she heard it. A total of three devastating times.
Holly wasn't an option, despite the fact that the comfort of Holly's arms would rid her of most of her demons. Chris wasn't an option because he'd been trying to be there for her all day but she'd just ignored him, and who knew what fun he was up to now. She would have asked Oliver, but McNally seemed to get herself into another mess and it had Oliver rubbing the remaining hair off his head.
It didn't matter in the end, since when she got in her SUV, she found herself on autopilot and in Danni's driveway on one of the bartender's few nights off.
So here she was, watching a bad horror movie with Danni while they waited for Johanna to get off work and show up with pizza. Danni had told Gail about Holly now knowing who she really was after Gail had told her about her day. The movie had just started and Gail looked towards the screen without really watching the movie, the feeling of the small girl's hand a ghost in hers. Oliver had explained everything that had happened to Sophie in his office while Gail waited outside. As her Aunt took her home, she had run over and hugged Gail, thanking her for trying to save her Mom.
Gail mentally shook her head clear and turned to watch Danni. She supposed she could call her Margot, but she had always been Danni to her.
Danni is safe. Margot brings...torment.
Verger was the largest meat packing company in North America, but the name also became well known due to her brother's emotional and sexual abuse of the impoverished children who went to the summer camp the late Mr. Verger had created. Mason had been tried and found not guilty having been a minor himself when the allegations first started, so it was believed he didn't know any better. There was also the fact that as Margot had put it, "Everyone loves a sinner redeemed." Rehabilitated. Bullshit. The late Mr. Verger had never thought much of girls, so he shipped Margot off to Toronto under her middle name and a cousin's last name and demanded that she get a good education but leave the business to the men, or something along those lines. Gail had met the man once. He'd made Gail's Mother seem warm and doting.
But Gail knew more than the papers, and would have told them all she knew, if Margot hadn't plead with her not to. Margot had explained that the Verger name may be US based, and she wasn't sure if Gail's parents would lose their jobs and Margot wasn't willing to take any chances. So Gail kept quiet about how she knew that Mason had known exactly what he was doing when he abused the children at the camp since his sister had been his victim for years before.
Mason Verger was a psychopath who made cocktails with the tears he collected from his victims. His true passion was for raising man eating pigs since the pigs would eat every bit of their food, including the bones. Of course, the pigs wouldn't eat a person on their own, they had to be trained to do so.
A few months ago, Johanna and Gail had arrived at Margot's to find a Verger Meats box on the door step. Inside were bits of red tattered cloth that smelled of meat and an audio cassette. Johanna's car was old enough that it had a tape deck. Their blood went cold at the sound of the screams, and there was no need to guess who's they were. At the bottom of the box had been the photo of a piglet with the words "Pavlov says Hi" written cheerily in red marker. Gail and Johanna had gotten rid of it all, an unspoken agreement between them that Margot was never to know of the delivery or it's contents.
Their friendship might have become quite complicated had Margot's attempt to kill her brother been successful. There would have always been the question of Had she known? As a police officer, Gail would have had to arrest Margot for premeditated murder had she known, but Margot was careful. Not that Gail would ever argue that the bastard didn't have it coming. He had shown up in Toronto once or twice, supposedly looking for his sister, but it was clear he was only making it known that he knew where Margot was hiding. He would talk leisurely about the crimes he'd been found not guilty of. Gail would never associate the word innocent with Mason Verger.
Traci had called in a bit of alarm one night when Steve had gone into a rage after having a conversation with Gail. She remembered telling Traci to take Leo for pancakes and bring back Steve a stack to give him time to cool down, but he'd be fine. Gail had been listed as Margot's emergency contact, so when she'd been dumped in a wheelchair in front of a hospital after her "surgery" they'd called her. She had called Steve for advice as to how to tell Johanna. Johanna Mason worked for a SHIELD version of Children Services, and their paths had crossed a few times in work. Gail actually really liked Johanna, and that was saying a lot since she could count the people she really liked on her fingers. She was good for Margot and as a SHIELD agent, Gail bet she could hold her own against Mason, or at least sense him coming. That hadn't been the case this time though and Gail hadn't known how to tell her. Death notifications were different, at least the victim was at peace. They may not have gone peacefully, but they were free of any pain and suffering. Margot had not only lost her child, but her brother had robbed her of ever having another by making her infertile. Johanna had hung up as soon as Gail had told her the name of the hospital and Gail had had to cut her off as she raced down the hall towards Margot's room. Johanna might be short in stature, but she was also one of the strongest people Gail knew but she almost couldn't catch her as she collapsed into tears.
Normally, Gail found most kids to be annoying but she had been surprised at how sad the fact that Margot would never have a child made her. She could see it, Margot would have been an interesting mother, no question, but there would also be nothing she wouldn't do to keep her child safe.
Margot would have been the first suspect when it came to Mason feeding his face to a pack of dogs, but she had been at the Huxley with Steve and Gail sitting at the bar while their parents attended some award ceremony or conference that night. Gail had asked her if it made her feel safer, her brother's now limited state. Margot had said not really, it wasn't as if his disfigurement kept him from being able to use his money, so he was still free to torment her at his pleasure but the planning took longer since he now tired easily.
"I thought of you, when the woman grabbed me. It was a bullet through the air vent that killed her. But the panicked look in her eyes and how tight she was holding on to me reminded me of you when you have your nightmares" said Gail suddenly. Gail was no stranger to nightmares herself, hers usually involving still being strapped in that basement or drowning in Jerry's blood as it filled the car trunk. She and Margot frequently had sleepovers, the sight of someone that was practically their sister and completely separate from the events was often enough to calm them after a nightmare.
"I hoped that if I ever was— or am I suppose, to meet my death here that you and Steve wouldn't be the officers responding. Now that I think about it though, I'm betting you have it set up so that if dispatch ever does get a call here, you two are the first to know. I'm guessing my possible death has caused some gruesome nightmares over the years?" asked Margot as she muted the movie but let it play on.
"Maybe once or twice. You know, it's not even the scar that gets me? It's the phone call from the hospital telling me I was listed as your next of kin. Sometimes I'm the one making that call and it's never to give someone good news. It was just so scary being on the other end of that call. I mean they said your name and…I just froze. If it was Steve, it would have probably been on the job or him stepping into something off duty. But you, you're my unofficial sister. I take comfort in the fact that you're a bartender. I mean, even if you don't have your lighter on you, you have glass bottles, alcohol, and salt on hand. I know you can more than take care of yourself with just one of those so god help who comes at you when you have all three."
"You didn't answer as to whether I'm on some alert list, but I thank you for the compliment. I've always prided myself on being industrious. That's all of course in addition to the heavy plastic switchblade that Johanna gave me that I now keep in the collar of my leather jacket. I'm not going down without a fight, Gail. I almost got away, you know." Gail sat up straighter, knowing that despite her flippant tone Margot was still probably cursing her timing in her head. "I had my car all packed and was already speeding down the road. Carlo had to hit me at an intersection to catch me."
Margot moved over on to the couch with Gail and tossed the blanket over their legs to keep them warm as their thoughts gave them a sudden chill and then unmuted the movie. In the movie, a young woman ran out of an RV
"HELP! HEL-. What is this? Oh my God! This isn't a town! Why would we stop here?"
Gail and Danni laughed, this being their favorite kind of horror movie where it was all over the top. Gail gave a deep sigh and let herself become engrossed in the movie. For the time being Margot was gone, that part of herself stayed in Maryland with Mason. Though she may return during the night when Margot awoke in a panic, checking herself for wounds or to see if she was in one of her brother's traps. Toronto though, was a place where only Danni existed, much like how the Gail that is tormented with thoughts of losing people close to her might appear after nightmares or when she gets too lost in thought, this place, here on this couch, was a place for Gail to be free of anxiety and worry. Together, she and Danni would watch over each other like they always had. More than anyone else, Danni had helped her through her trauma after her abduction. Most of the others seemed to forget that it happened rather quickly, except for Traci and Steve. Despite having to face her tormentor, Nick had still chosen that day to break up with her. Sadly, now Oliver could relate to that experience but everyone seemed to have forgotten what he had endured as well. Danni must have spent at least $300 on horror movies to get Gail through it all. She still had her nightmares, but should a stonado or zombie apocalypse occur, she and Danni would be set. She tuned back into the movie.
"There's someone in the church. We could be safe in there!"
"Never spent much time in one" commented the Robert Patrick knock off.
"Okay, well, I don't know…MAYBE demon people eating biker monsters can't go in a church!"
They both laughed, knowing that if they were in that situation they'd probably hope the same thing, but there was no doubt they could go in a church. Gail tried to ignore the fact that that's the way her life seemed to be going, with both Holly and the woman she'd thought she'd saved.
AN: I never liked how quickly they dispatched Gail's trauma on the show. I'm not saying they should have made her a mental case or anything but maybe trouble sleeping or Dov complaining that she now leaves the lights on in her room all night or something? Same with Oliver. I would have loved to see Gail awkwardly offer to be there if he ever wanted to talk and then scurry away. The movie they are watching is called Hard Ride To Hell and has Katharine Isabelle in it as the girl who comes out of the RV. The clip is on my tumblr which is calvinsolo. Stonado is a reference to a really bad syfy movie Aliyah O'brien was in. I tried to explain as much as I could of Margot's story for those of you that don't watch HANNIBAL, but once again my muse has decided to show up when I'm nearly squinting to keep from seeing double I'm so tired. But I wanted to get this up because I have an idea of where I want this to go (although I'm curious about what they have planned for the next episode). Oh and the Johanna Mason working for SHIELD came from a discussion on tumblr with someone (tell me who you are because I forgot!) who has a mutual love of Jena Malone. That's a long enough note for now.
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