For all his hard work and sleepless nights, he never gets the chance to track her down, because she finds him first.
Waits for him, actually. It's been a long, hard day at the office, in which he was handed one of the hardest kind of cases—a child, little girl, not even nine years old, found beaten and raped beside the road—and had no leads, and he's looking forward to just going home and getting sloshed. It's been raining hard all day, and any other day, he'd get a small sense of satisfaction from knowing the weather reflected his frame of mind.
Instead, he finds Rose sitting on the curb next to his car, humming what he vaguely recognizes as one of the "popular" songs that are played over and over on the radio. She looks up as he approaches, alerted to his presence to the great groan he lets out when he sees her. He wonders how long she's been sitting there, because her hair is plastered to her face and water is dripping down her jacket.
"I am really not in the mood," he says, hoping she'll just go away.
She's good at that, at least.
"Hard day at work?" she asks, and he can almost believe that she doesn't already know about the girl, except she has a dark look in her eyes that he knows very well; it's the same one he sees in the mirror.
He snorts, groping around in his pocket for his car keys; she lets him look, slowly at first and then more frantically, for more than a minute before she takes pity on him.
"'Fraid you're not leaving yet, Inspector. I've got some things to say, things I think you want to know, and really, I'd like to get out of the rain. I think I've ruined my shirt, and that's your fault, Inspector. Also, you didn't take my advice and get a haircut, did you? Pity, 'cause you'd look a lot better with one."
He doesn't understand how she can shift from one line of thought to another so smoothly and quickly, and he doesn't have a clue how her mind works, which irks him. He only knows that a madwoman—yes, he decided weeks ago during his manic search for proof that if he was crazy, so was she—is stopping this harried detective inspector from leaving, and looks entirely too pleased with herself. Finally, he settles on a heavy sigh, because all he wants to do is get drunk off his arse and now this woman—this Rose—has placed herself smack in the way and seems to be enjoying herself immensely.
He's getting too old for this.
"Are you going to let me leave?" he sighs, and it seems like he's been doing a lot of that today—sighing.
She starts to nod, pauses as if something new just occurred to her, and then shakes her head violently, sending chunks of wet hair whipping around her face. They stick when she stops, and she has to drag a hand across her face to dislodge them; he's struck by how much she resembles a drowned rat, and manages to derive some measure of pleasure from that thought.
"Nope, sorry," she says, and doesn't look the least bit apologetic to him. "Wish things were different, better circumstances, cause I used to think about how I was going to do this; you deserve to know what's goin' on in your own town, 'cept I don't know if you can handle it, you know?"
And no, he doesn't know, because he doesn't think they're on the same page anymore, if they ever were.
"'Sides, I've had a hell of a day and I know you have, too, and I thought, well, since we've both had shit days and we both want to get sloshed, you might as well buy me a drink."
Correction: they aren't on the same page because she's in a completely different book, and probably been there the entire time, waiting impatiently for him to catch up.
"And after you buy me a drink, I'm gonna tell you everythin' you've been tryin' to figure out since we met. Because like it or not, this case—this girl—involves somethin' you're vastly unprepared for, and you're gonna need my help."
There are a million different questions and a million things he wants to say, but when he musters up the ability to speak, all that comes out is, "Alright."
She brightens and jumps to her feet, and after everything, he isn't surprised when she retrieves his keys from her pocket and tosses them at him.
"Glad that's sorted. You can drive."
oOoOoOo
Heh. Heh.
I have no excuse. Except, slightly crazy Rose is a lot more fun to write than normal Rose.
I'll update as soon as I have a few reviews, or next Sunday-whichever comes first. Hope you enjoy, please review and let me know. Since it's un-beta'd, please let me know if you see any errors.
~Nagi