Ch. 42

Rorschach felt a little bad about breaking into Hollis' house, but it had to be done.

Hollis had luckily been asleep at that hour. Rorschach had sneaked into his study, where he went through his papers until he found what he wanted -- Dan's last name. Dreiberg.

Rorschach hoped Hollis didn't have two Dans in his life, and looked up the name's corresponding address in the phone book. Rorschach knew it must be correct, because it was in the neighborhood Nite Owl II had mentioned was his own, what seemed like years ago. Rorschach made his way to Dan Dreiberg's house, hoping he was making the right choice.

Rorschach briefly contemplated climbing through the window, or even breaking the lock and walking in, but that was a maniac's idea. Instead he knocked on the door, "like a normal human being", would be what Sally would say.

Dan answered the door after a couple of minutes and jumped back in shock.

"Oh God," said Dan, moving away very quickly. "You again."

"I'm not here to kill you," said Rorschach, though he couldn't help but cruelly add, "Not tonight."

"Oh?" asked Dan, adjusting his glasses and looking at him with a great degree of suspicion. "Then why are you here?"

Dan was wearing a neck brace, and there was a plaster on his nose. Walter felt bad and smug at the same time. He hoped he had left a scar that Dan would remember each time he thought of Laurie. No, he hadn't come all the way here to gloat -- what was he doing, thinking like that?

"I wanted to apologize," said Rorschach. "My behavior was unacceptable."

"Damn right it was," said Dan. He was sweating now, Rorschach could see.

"I am quite contrite, and I ask for your consideration towards my convivial extension of the right hand, so to speak."

"Well," Dan sighed, but he appeared to relax. "I really don't know what to say to that."

"Understandable, especially given the short time between our disagreement and now."

"You call that a disagreement?" asked Dan, in disbelief. "You tried to kill me."

"And I probably would too, if you try to touch Laurie again." Rorschach had to be honest here.

"What I don't get is why you go on about me and Laurie," exclaimed Dan. "I don't know what to be more insulted over, the fact that you think I'm going after her, or the fact that you think of killing me as if it were nothing."

"I can't help it," admitted Rorschach. "I'm new to this."

Dan gave Rorschach a confused look, but then it seemed to dawn on him. He really was smart when he used his brain.

"Well, I..." Dan tried to rub the back of his neck, then winced. "I don't know, Rorschach."

"All right," Rorschach shrugged. "Good night."

"Wait," Dan held up his hand. "Look, why don't we just... well, pretend wouldn't exactly be the word... Just... fine. Why don't we start over? Put this behind us."

Rorschach was surprised. He looked at Dan with apprehension.

"Yes?" asked Rorschach, tentatively. Dan just smiled at him.

"All right," he said, and held out his hand. "I'm Dan."

Rorschach took the hand.

"Uhm..."

They stood there awkwardly while Rorschach tried to figure out whether to refer to himself as his costumed persona or his secret identity. It wasn't like Dan didn't know either by now.

"Rorschach," he said, finally. Dan was nodding in that good natured manner of his; or the best he could, considering the brace.

"All right, Rorschach," said Dan. "Well, this was nice and all, and I really appreciate the... uh, time, you took the apologize. However, it's after midnight, and I'm still recovering from the beating you gave me."

Rorschach shrugged again.

"I'm sorry."

"Look, forget about it, all right?" Dan sighed. "I just... I don't know. I don't even know why I'm doing this."

Rorschach stared at Dan for a long while.

"Because you are a good man," Rorschach said. The realization made him uncomfortable, but he couldn't lie.

"Heh -- isn't that what they call pushovers?"

"Good night, Dan."

"Uh, good night. Rorschach."

Rorschach left the house. He felt a little odd, and just a tad bit ashamed. But only a little.

Rorschach started to walk to Blake's house out of habit, and stopped himself. He stared up at the night sky, cursing himself out for a long while before he gave up and continued on in the same direction. He hesitated outside Laurie's window, feeling like a pervert until he finally rapped on it.

Rorschach waited a long moment before Laurie appeared, looking wary. She brightened when she saw him. She unlocked the window and opened it.

"Walter," she whispered. "Is that really you? Or is it Agent Orange in disguise?"

"What if it had been?" Walter chided her gently, revealing his face and clenching his mask in his hand. He was vibrating with a nervous energy that he couldn't pinpoint the source of.

Laurie said nothing; just stepped aside and let him climb through the window.

"I apologized to Dan," Walter told her. Laurie looked surprised.

"You did?"

"Yes."

"Oh."

Laurie looked a little guilty, and it made Walter react without thinking. Unfortunately, the reaction was that of anger.

"What is it?" he asked her, suspiciously.

"Well, I, uh..." Laurie blushed. "I went to see Dan today, actually."

Walter paused, not sure if he was really hearing what she was saying.

"Oh." He said, finally.

"Are you angry?"

"No." But disgusted and betrayed? Surely.

"I was worried about him, and my mother went with me -- he was at Hollis' house."

"Ah." Walter looked around the room before throwing up his hands. "Well, good night."

"Walter--"

Walter put his mask back on.

"Have to patrol," he told her. Then he left. Laurie was saying something, but he didn't want to listen.

He hadn't actually intended to patrol, of course. He ended up arriving at his apartment in a foul mood that dissipated as soon as he walked in and saw the note on the floor. Someone had slipped it under the crack in the door, and he knew for sure who that someone had been.

Rorschach looked around, making sure he really was alone, before he stooped down to pick it up. Only four words and a symbol, but it made Rorschach's stomach twist with unease.

"No hard feelings

friend"

Smile.

Rorschach started to breathe heavily. Was that a threat? Or the man's idea of some sort of truce? Rorschach tried to find the hidden intentions, the feeling behind the words, but like anything behind the man's smiling face, there really was only pure thought in this note and nothing else.

Rorschach paced the room. He could find Agent Orange, tell him to go to hell; maybe really kill him, after all. No, no, he wasn't thinking right. Why did he think that was the only solution now? That was the sort of thing Rorschach would have thought. God, Rorschach -- he wanted to think Rorschach was something outside of him, some crazy part of himself that had become alien through the course of his life experiences. But Rorschach was really him, wasn't it? Walter was Rorschach, Rorschach was Walter. If that was the case, then Walter really was a sick bastard. There, he said it.

Walter was Rorschach was Walter, and there was nothing he could do about that. Damn Agent Orange making things so complicated didn't help.

Rorschach agonized for a long while before he returned to Blake's house. Laurie's window was dark again, and he quietly tried it to make sure she had locked it. Good. But he still worried, so he waited outside her window, looking out into the night to see if he would spot Agent Orange peering out at him from the darkness. Damn him to hell and back just to damn him there again. Rorschach spent all night outside Laurie's window, stewing in his thoughts and hating everything. He even waited until he was sure Blake was awake, at least, then he headed home and changed for work.

It was close to lunchtime when Laurie came into the shop, surprising Walter. It wasn't the fact that she had somehow found out where he worked. He was more surprised that he had been made to see her this soon -- he wasn't ready for her right now. Not in this state. There was so much more he had to sort out in his mind before he could talk to her again. But there she was looking as pretty ever and as apprehensive as anything.

Laurie looked around tentatively before she spotted Walter and waved at him from the door. She seemed apologetic and didn't step any further inside. Walter looked at Mr. Petersen, who was trying to measure a dummy with shaking hands. The old man probably wouldn't mind, but Walter quietly crept to Laurie anyway.

"Laurie," he whispered.

"I'm sorry Walter," she said, frowning. "I asked Mr. Greer for the address to where you worked. He was surprised I didn't know -- I just said I had the address at some point, just didn't remember."

Laurie seemed to have some amount of bitterness in her voice.

"Could I talk to you?" she asked him.

"I can't. At work," he told her.

"Well, all right then."

"I will be free in fifteen minutes."

Laurie nodded sighed.

"I'll wait outside," she told him, managing a smile.

Walter spent the next fifteen minutes with his palms sweating and his heart beating hard in his chest. He had to dry his hands on a towel before he came out of the shop in order to take Laurie's hand. Laurie held on to his hand as if her life depended on it.

"Walter," she said, after they had turned the corner behind the building to a more secluded area. "What's going on?"

Walter blinked at her. Was he really that apparent? Did she know?

"Is everything all right?" she asked.

"Yes." For someone else in the world, but not him, for sure.

"I just feel like things are getting out of hand," Laurie explained. "I wish we could talk about it."

"There's nothing to talk about."

"Not even yesterday? When you walked off so abruptly?"

"I had to patrol."

"You had to patrol," Laurie sighed. "I wish you wouldn't talk to me in that voice."

"What voice?"

"The... The Rorschach voice," she said, letting go of his hand so she could gesture with both of hers. "You get so cold when you use that voice, Walter."

"Then you will have to get used to it," he told her. "It's the only voice I have."

"What are you saying? That you're just going to be Rorschach now?"

"I am Rorschach -- I always was. Walter is Rorschach, whether he likes it or not."

"And does Rorschach still want to be involved with Laurie?" she asked, folding her arms.

"I don't know."

Laurie looked as shocked as he felt. He felt immediate remorse and quickly hugged her. She felt cold in his arms.

"I'm sorry," he said, looking into her eyes, but her eyes had a strange glint to them.

"Why are you doing this?" she asked him.

"I don't know."

Walter pulled away and put his hands to his face. He wanted to tell her that he felt like he was drowning, that he felt like he was going insane -- that he was losing himself in a darkness he didn't understand. His hold on his life was slipping around him, and there was nothing left to grasp on to. Nothing left but himself, and he hated himself.

"Then what's going on, Walter?" Laurie asked, approaching him. "Are you saying you want to break up with me?"

"No!" God, don't do this, Laurie. Agent Orange was ruining everything about crime fighting, everything about it that was important to him. With that gone, she was all he had left.

"Then tell me," Laurie said, placing a trembling hand on his wrist. "Why won't you tell me anything, Walter?"

"I tell you many things," Walter was astonished.

"No you don't -- I don't even know your last name, or where you live--"

"It's Kovacs." Walter was trying to control his emotions, but it wasn't working.

"I know that now; Mr. Greer told me--"

"Then it all worked out for you, didn't it? Why don't you ask Mr. Greer where I live too?"

"I don't want him to--"

"Then what's the issue?"

"I want you to do it," Laurie was brushing back tears now. "I wish you could trust me enough to tell me a simple thing like that. I shouldn't have to ask your ex-employer where you live, for crying out loud."

"Look me up in the phone book then, if it's so important to you," Walter told her, folding his arms.

Laurie stared at him. She didn't even bother trying to hide the tears and let them fall. Walter frowned as she turned away from him. He didn't even remember why he had been so adamantly against her finding out where she lived, but it all seemed so embarrassing now. There was a stubborn part of him that never wanted to tell her now that they had had this conversation, and he felt terrible. His mother was right -- she should have had that abortion. God, why was he thinking about her now? Why was he such a disgusting specimen of human life? He wished he had never met Laurie. He was sure he had ruined her, somehow. He had carried along with his serious intentions until it all came down to this. This mess. He hated it.

Laurie seemed to be attempting to say something, but she couldn't over her own sobbing. She just shook her head and started to walk away. He still had time to stop her, even as she got further into the distance he still had time to run and catch up to her. But he didn't. He wished he was dead.

Feeling thoroughly disgusted with himself, Walter went straight to his apartment. It wasn't until he had been home an hour that he remembered he had left work on his break and never went back. Maybe he would get fired and that would be the end of that, too. What was the point? Just live out in the goddamn street -- who cared. Agent Orange cleaned the place up proper, didn't he? Nobody needed Rorschach around. And he had royally screwed up his chances with Laurie, so Walter wasn't needed either. Feeling sick and angry, Walter trashed the place. He had half a mind to burn down the whole building.

Disgusting, backwards freak -- the world was a better place without Walter Kovacs.

-----

To be continued...