It's been a long 6 months working on this, and I hope that it measures up.
Chasing Phantoms
Chapter 14
The Spaceman
1.
Danny stirred lightly to the sound of creaking stairs. The soft couch groaned with his weight as he shifted to his side and pulled a thick blanket closer to his body.
Soft couch. Thick blanket. His work clothes. Creaking stairs. He shifted again and yawned silently without opening his eyes. His couch was hard and unforgiving. There was a blanket on him. He lived in an apartment without stairs. Danny's eyes snapped open and instantly noticed the still-dark sky outside and the low moon. It was morning, but very early morning
"Oh crap, oh crap," he muttered quietly to himself as he scrambled off of Sam's couch, tangling his legs in the blanket and sprawling onto the floor with an ungraceful clunk that rattled the lamp on the side table.
"Oh good, you're awake," Sam called from what Danny thought could be the kitchen, but he wasn't quite sure since his head was throbbing, the room was dark, and his head was under some coffee table that was far to stylish to be his, while his legs…where were his legs?
When he finally got his legs untangled from the thick knit blanket, he stood up and stumbled towards the voice that had called him. He found himself standing in an immaculate but eclectic kitchen dimly lit by under-cabinet lights.
He blinked sleepily at the open space he hadn't had the chance to visit last night, but instead of taking in the surroundings, which were orderly and slightly neglected, he found his unfocused gaze on Sam who was sitting on a barstool at the kitchen counter. Her dark hair was soft; a wavy mess of jet black that made her look a little rougher around the edges. She wore a pair of deep green pajama pants with a matching button down sleeping shirt, the cuffs unbuttoned and casually rolled up to her elbows. The lights under the cabinets lit the planes of her face in sharp relief, her eyes and cheeks reduced to dark shadows. Her gaze was unfocused but full of thoughts as she stared out of the dark window above the sink.
"Coffee," she said, gesturing to the steaming mug on the table. She glanced up at him from over the rim of her own mug, and for a second her eyes were alight with what looked like laughter. Color rose in Danny's cheeks as he noticed his appearance. His hair was hopelessly disheveled, inky strands spiking in every direction, shirt wrinkled so badly that one could have thought that he had slept in paper, face unshaven, and to top it off, he was groggy and half awake with nothing to say. He sat down sheepishly and simply sipped at the coffee. It wasn't entirely the slight hangover he had from waking up, but he felt oddly clumsy around her; fortunately she wrote it off as him simply being tired.
Sam recognized that it wasn't just a lack of sleep, but a pervasive fatigue of the soul; months of difficult emotional, professional, and physical struggle had left him tired in more ways than one. In many ways, she felt almost as though she were obligated to take care of him, and the previous evening when Danny had fallen asleep with his elbow resting on the arm of the couch, his slack, slumbering, and peaceful face propped up in his hand. She hadn't objected, but had merely leaned against the doorway to the kitchen, watching him with a bemused expression, cradling the cup of tea she had brewed for him in her hands. There he was on her couch, asleep, as if there were no other place more comfortable and homey. Sam closed her eyes and exhaled sharply, rubbing her temples. Waste of tea.
She walked over and reached her hand out to shake his shoulder to wake him as she ought to, but hesitated. She let out a quiet but long breath, her hands poised midair for a split second. Her hands moved of their own accord; they cupped his cheek gently and pulled away the hand his face rested on; they had silently lowered his raved haired head onto the pillow at the end of the couch; they had unfolded his knees and lifted them.
Sam had picked a thick blanket up and draped it over his prone body, which hadn't stirred since she had moved him. She could imagine what he had looked like as a child, being granted the privilege of staying up late, but falling asleep before his reward came.
He had settled in, making contented sleepy noises. He had looked peaceful, and she couldn't help but brush a lock of hair out of his face before jerking her hand back and walking back to her kitchen, finishing off the now cooled tea and retiring upstairs, waiting for the dawn light or sleep. Whichever came first.
As she settled into her bed, she reflected back and noticed that her passive acceptance of Danny was rather odd. Sure they knew each other perhaps better than the traditional office acquaintanceship, but was she really so acclimated to his informal presence that she merely let him worm into her life, making him tea and coffee and forgiving him for forgetting her? Easy friendship was completely foreign to her. Out of all the people who had passed by her, sat next to her, talked to her, he had been the only one who had simply walked into the private spaces of her mind and had decided to stay. He was clumsy where she was sophisticated. He was heartfelt where she was coldly logical. He was brave where she was afraid. He seemed simple where she prided on being complicated. She ran through her old thoughts and old evidence; everything pointing towards broken friendships and alliances turned sour, her own demanding family life. The evidence struggled to align with her situation now and it churned through her mind uncomfortably as she fitfully drifted off to sleep.
"You feel asleep on my couch last night. I didn't think it prudent to wake you."
He just looked at her, methodically bringing the mug to his lips.
Sam couldn't help but examine him as a person rather than a mere coworker. Who was Daniel Fenton? Not a chatty morning person, she catalogued, but precise in his sleep cycles. Regularly wakes up at this time of day. Unperturbed by sleeping on a couch, so he must sleep on one at home often by accident because the wrinkles on his shirt are set in the same places, and he doesn't have the money for dry cleaning all the time, nor to buy new shirts. It wasn't hard to deduce his daily routines and habit, and she was sure that despite his great intellect and character, he possessed a sort of innocence that had not died in adolescence. It was endearing actually-and astonishing. She was privileged enough to see Danny without his professional mask-not Mister Fenton, not the Fenton in the cubicle, not the ex-NASA Fenton but pure Danny Fenton.
To her he was mesmerizing in his honest simplicity.
Something deep within her inquisitive mind wanted to go further, but her thoughts were interrupted by the vague buzzing of a phone in the foyer. Danny's eyes shifted to the source of the sound immediately, put down his mug and stood up.
"That's probably my phone –" she started.
"I know," he said, flippantly waving behind him. He came back with the phone in his hand, "I think it's Kim, though I can't be sure since it says 'Firebreather Ninja' instead of her real name."
A tinge of amusement filtered through his voice, accompanied by a teasing smile.
She looked up at the ceiling and shook her head in annoyance, but with a smile and picked up the phone.
"Doctor Sam Manson speaking."
Danny chuckled and silently imitated the formal way she answered the phone.
"Manson, we have another body, is there any way you could get over to Neal's Pub in Rockville?"
Her mind automatically decoupled from the easy familiarity he drew out of her and with all of her upper society politesse, answered, "Yes, I'll be there…text me the address. Neal's Pub, correct?"
"Neal's Pub? The Neal's Pub! Kim's got a crime scene there? Tucker and I go there all the time!"
Danny looked concerned but not too frantic. He was probably just mourning the loss of his favorite bar to a murder for the night. Men.
"Manson, is that Danny?"
"Yes."
Sam heard a heavy breath on the other end of the line which was laced with annoyance and disapproval. Oops. She hadn't meant for the accidental sleepover to become her boss's business. It looked, at best, suspicious. There wasn't any recovering from this skid and Sam unemotionally told the truth.
"Possible, I was going to drive him home because of the sleet, but he fell asleep."
"I've already heard that from Valerie and Tucker, funnily enough."
Sam pulled the phone away from her mouth and said, "There's another victim."
He sighed, looking suddenly aged by the business but gave her a knowing look unhesitatingly and said, "I want to go in to work today, Sam, can you tell Kim that?"
She frowned at him for a moment, chewing the inside of her cheek while weighing her opinion of whether he was fit to work, but his earnest look endeared her to him, and she brought the phone back to her mouth. "
Did you hear that Possible? He wants to come in to work, does he have adequate permission?"
"Are you sure Manson?"
Sam gave Danny a thorough glare, and he doubled his efforts in looking sincere. She had half a mind to laugh at his puppy dog eyes and the way he sat up taller. He was a man for Christ's sake, but he was as easy to read as a 12 year old boy. Perhaps she was gaining the ability to read him like a 12 year old boy. It didn't matter, really, since he believed that he was still as clueless and klutzy as he had been on day one.
"Personally and professionally, he is fit to return to duty," Sam said, rolling her eyes at him.
"He's not coming out here though…tell him it's desk work for a week until I'm sure he can handle himself. I want him at work at seven so he can handle some of evidence that we bring in."
"Roger that, desk work for Danny."
His chest instantly deflated and he cried out indignantly, "Hey! That's not fair!"
She gave a snide laugh and said, "Yes it is you dolt, and finish your coffee. Or did you forget that you still have to go home and change because you look like an unshaved and dirty homeless man who stole work clothes out of someone's trash?"
"Hey, that's not nice. So what if I slept in my clothes? You're the one who didn't bother waking me up!" Danny looked properly affronted, but there was a twinkle in his eye that made Sam want to tease him that much more. A quiet ease settled over the both of them. The dark outside seeped into the room, a warm and safe silence filled with the hum of a refrigerator and quiet sips at coffee.
"Did you injure yourself recently?" Sam asked between sips, her eyes eerily unwavering.
Danny didn't say anything, just gave her a puzzled look.
"Your back is stiff. I didn't notice until you went to grab my phone."
He sighed heavily. She didn't like the sound of that sigh. It was the sigh of a soldier, not a young man. But maybe that was what he was – a soldier. A man at war with demons he was too young to face.
"I slipped on the stairs outside my building a little bit ago and bruised my ribs. It hurts more in the morning after I've slept on it a while. Sometimes the scars on my back and chest ache. I don't heal very well."
"Interesting."
"Oh god, don't use that word and look at me like that."
Sam blinked twice, unperturbed, "What way? This is the way I always look."
"No, you don't. You're looking at me like I'm some psychology experiment! You're doing it again!"
"No I'm not…"
"Yes you are…you get that little frown and that little line between your brows."
"Sorry...Sorry…" she said, waving it off, and the corners of her mouth twitched up as she picked up her coffee again. An observant soldier. He was full of very small, but very important surprises.
"I think I should get home and change before going to work today," Danny said, "Thanks…for…"
"Save it," she said, and casually waved off his gratitude, "Go home before Possible filets you."
He flashed her a grateful smile and set his empty mug next to the sink. Sam stayed at the counter, her coffee gone. She registered the shuffling of feet in the living room, a thud and a rattle that was accompanied by a copious amount of quiet swears, and finally, the reverberations from the front door. Only when she heard the slam of a car door and the purring of an engine did she stand up and walk to the window in the living room and peer through the mauve velvet curtains. She watched him go in the dead darkness of early morning.
The house suddenly felt strange and empty, but that shouldn't have been a surprise to Sam. Her grandmother had insisted she use it.
"You shouldn't waste money on rent when this house is paid off and has been in the family for decades. Your uncle and aunt are spending their retirement in Naples and don't need it. Your father would want you to live here. No one will disturb you."
Her nana always knew what strings to pull with Sam, and she had agreed without too much fuss. She was right about the rent and right about her father. She was happy to not pay anything other than the electric and water bills, and send what was left of her paychecks to her father's bank account. In the end, it had been a prudent decision, for the townhouse was elegant, and had become a comfortable dwelling that she was content with. The side bedroom had been the exception, and she had redone the useless chamber into a library where she spent most of her time. The rest of the house she had merely redecorated to her liking. It felt like a residence that she liked well enough. The strange thing was that when Danny had been there, something in the house had shifted. The posh crown moldings became simple and unpretentious. The neglected books became loved decorations. The dark mahogany hardwood and the clean white walls became rustic and lived in. She went upstairs to change for work.
This was her house now, but home was a sentiment that she didn't try to comprehend.
2.
"Are you sure this is one of Skulker's kills? The cause of death is different, the location…" Sam said, her arms crossed tightly over her chest. Dr. Simone was carefully photographing the body on the table
"We're sure. The precision of the stab is military and the man has to be very powerful to subdue someone like Richards. He fits the profile, but it looks like an escalation. I just don't know why he's starting to unravel now," Kim said.
"I think he's actually doing the opposite. He's getting more careful, more precise, and closer to us."
Monique started to peel away the outer clothes of the man on the metal examination table. The body was nearly untouched by bruises, and if he weren't so pale and so dead, Sam thought that she might have found him handsome. The thought unsettled her, so she put it away neatly, calmly, where she wouldn't find it.
"May I?" Sam asked, gesturing towards the body as Dr. Simone began to unbutton the smart navy blue blazer of the dead man.
Dr. Simone glanced towards Kim for confirmation, and Kim held up her hands as if to say by all means.
Sam examined him, poking at his clothes, looking at his hands, his shoes, his clothes, and his ankles.
"All I can tell is that he was under a lot of stress at work and his father has recently died."
"How can you tell any of that?" Monique asked, skeptical.
"The man is of robust build, which is due to genetics. His work was sedentary, judging by the lack of bulk in his butt and legs. It was, however, stressful and demanding. He paced a lot, fidgeted probably; his calves are hard and stringy, his feet calloused, and his shoes worn by carpet rather than by anything on the street. Notice the fresh and faded ink splotches on his fingers from twiddling with a fountain pen. His clothes are professional, and his phone is sleek and modern, even if it is a year old or so. Therefore, he lacks the air of someone who used a fountain pen because he was an enthusiast for the classic. That leaves an enthusiast for nice pens or a family relic. It's more likely the latter because he hasn't quite learned how to keep the ink from spilling after putting in a new cartridge; it's both a newly acquired and unfamiliar device. The pen's most likely from a father, recently deceased. People hang onto the things that belonged to the people they loved long after they're gone, but since he would have learned how to properly put in a cartridge the second time around, it can't have been more than a few months since it was inherited."
"Makes sense," Monique conceded.
"There are no wounds on the body save for the single sharp force trauma to his back. He was ambushed and hunted. He was caught unaware in a city that he has no connections in. There was no one at the bar that he was meeting, so the question is why would Richards go all the way to Rockville from his home in Virginia, on a day he had probably worked judging by the state of his dress, with his car nowhere to be found?" Sam wondered aloud.
"That's what we're trying to figure out," Kim said. Her boot heels echoed on the linoleum floor as she continued to pace in the space between two empty examination tables. "What is he up to?" she murmured to herself over and over again. Kim looked up at Sam, without stopping her pacing, "I want you to reexamine the connections between our team and all of the victims so far. All of them – any connection at all. Go," she said, so imperious that Sam was taken aback.
She was Kim's coworker. She was a consultant, not her subordinate. Kim had more experience and happened to carry a service weapon, but she felt as though Kim was shouldering her with something that they had shared responsibility in. More insultingly, without much thought, they had already scrutinized every connection that they could get their hands on and Kim seemed to be second guessing what had already been established for sake of redundancy, not actual progress.
"What do you mean any connection?" Sam asked. Anger laced her words. "I was in the middle of something!"
The clicking of boots stopped. She didn't even look at Sam but dipped her head, something building within her mind, something inexplicable but angry and frustrated, maybe not at Sam but just with the situation. It took mere milliseconds for years of professional behavior, prudence, courtesy, and all the goodwill and respect built between her and Sam to be violated—harshly.
"Hell If I care, Doctor Manson," she said.
"Piss off," she snapped back, incensed by the older woman's belittling. Kim turned her head slowly, eyes widened and eyebrows slanted downwards in an angry, hawkish expression.
"How dare – "
"Am I interrupting something? Kim asked me to come down here when I arrived…" Danny trailed off when he saw Kim's heated glare and Sam's haughty scowl. Despite his crestfallen falter, he had unknowingly opened a metaphorical valve and the tenseness drained from the room, but it left Sam and Kim with acid feelings. For a moment, their eyes were drilled into a startled Danny, but dimmed and returned their gazes back to each other, allowing logical thinking to regain the helm. Both were silent for a moment. Neither spoke, their minds turning over as they grasped for sense, but neither could bury those feelings of sudden regret or resentment.
Kim didn't look away from Sam. Regardless of whether she had acted fairly or not, she was in charge.
"Whatever it was, it isn't as important as our victim here."
There was dismissal in her voice and Sam resigned with an exasperated sigh. Danny took that as permission to walk over to the two women hovering in the far corner of the morgue, a few feet away from where Dr. Simone was working.
"Care to fill me in?"
He smelled of cold air and clean soap as he stepped between Sam and Kim, fiddling with his shoulder holster straps under his navy jacket. He caught a glimpse of a deep frown on Dr. Simone's face, the navy trouser leg of the victim, and the once well-oiled brown leather oxfords of today's latest tragedy. The body was half hidden by a blue hanging curtain, but he could deduce that she was removing the man's clothing to be processed for evidence. Every couple of seconds he heard the shutter of a camera go off.
His mouth was pulled into a grim line, but his eyes were bright and alert. Kim was shifting restlessly again. Sam wondered if she knew something about the case that the rest of them didn't, or if she had some hunch that she was eager to explore. Perhaps she was just consumed with concern for all of them, but if it was concern, it was tearing away at her rationality and judgment. Sam had always believed that usually, people's sentiment only interfered with work.
"Our victim's cause of death was exsanguination this morning at two a.m., just after most of the clients at the bar had left. He was left out in the parking lot of Neal's Pub. The body wasn't moved as far as we can tell before the rain began to wash the blood away. The witness that found him said that there was a huge pool of blood, but once we got there a lot of the evidence had washed away," Kim rehashed and continued to pace.
"Kim?" Danny ventured. He looked up at her from under his furrowed brows, his voice calculating.
Sam seemed lost in thought as she chewed on the inside of her cheek, staring vaguely at the blue sheet that covered Richards.
"I know Neal's pub. Tucker and I go there after cases."
"I want you to go with Wade and look over the surveillance tapes at the bar; see if you recognize any regulars or anyone who could be out of place there."
He nodded curtly, and Kim beckoned him to follow her. At the door, she paused and turned around to face Sam.
"I want you to find out what the victim was doing in this area: who he is, anything about his life or the clothes he's wearing. I think a profile will help up pin down why he was in here."
With her unspoken half-apology she walked out of the morgue to the elevators, Danny briskly following.
"She doesn't mean to do that," Monique said to Sam once Kim was out the door.
"I don't like this whole murder thing. I wanted to be a researching psychologist, but now I'm a profiler for the FBI. I'm not a people person."
"When I was your age I wanted to be a fashion designer in New York – have my own line of clothing," Monique said, "I wanted a lot of things, but I ended up here doing the work that I do. And yes, it's tough and gruesome and sometimes…I can't sleep because I think about the people here – about the families waiting for justice, but I hope I'm helping the world bit by bit. You have to think that way to make it."
"That's not something that can be done, it's just…I don't like to put too much sentiment into my work," Sam said. She pardoned herself and floated out of the morgue. She hadn't quite signed up for this. Grotesque and gruesome weren't too bad, but being something of the victim herself or at least being caught in a crossfire of a murky war between Kim and her past, Danny and his nightmares, and Valerie's behavior. It was becoming more personal than Sam had ever imagined "work" could become, and she feared that things were only going to get worse.
"Kim! Hey Kim!" Wade called out, jogging up towards the morgue from the opposite end of the hallway. "I got the surveillance tapes from all the cameras in a half mile radius of the crime scene." He was panting a little, and there were bags under his eyes, but there was a hint of pride in his voice.
"Have you had time to look through any of it?" Kim asked. "If you haven't, then I'll have Danny help you."
"No, but I found an unlicensed camera – the neighborhood behind the pub is the only street without commercial buildings – so no cameras right? Wrong. A guy set up a camera around his house – he's a paranoid schizophrenic and is being taken care of by his family in a house less than a quarter mile from the pub. I found the camera he got past his family and they let me have the footage."
Something of a twisting smile flashed across her face as she said, "They let you have the footage at four in the morning?"
Wade's eyes were laughing, but it never reached his face. He delivered his information without tremolo or hyperbole. Kim stared at her long time friend and remembered when he actually had the heart to laugh. She wondered where hers had gone as well. It was funny, the sense of nostalgia she had for the exciting years of freelance vigilante work, an age of raw emotion, crude plans and a more innocent and direct approach to targeting wrong-doers. All lost to time, only memories left, like rain drops that fell away and drained to leave a drought of that youthful excitement and care, and waves of angst without end. But the innocence was gone, blood had been shed, and Wade's cheerful smiles were gone just like Kim could never muster the courage to cry, to laugh, to fear, and to care for anything but the case in front of her. Her words of commendation meant little except an indication that he had made progress; mechanical, professional, and impersonal
"Good work Wade – go to the lab with Danny and start analyzing, I'll have Tucker run down later to get any relevant footage – for now he's accessing the victim's work logs."
"Where are you going, Kim?" Wade asked.
"Will Du is demanding a meeting with me, it will probably take an hour or so to do ten minutes worth of work, so please call me if it's even a little important."
She turned around again, and strode back to the elevators, missing the way Wade's polite smile fell from his face just as she had turned her back.
"This phone call better be urgent, Fenton. I'm in a very important meeting."
"But you said..."
"IMPORTANT, FENTON."
"Umm…okay…We got a hit on facial recognition; I can bring the results up to our floor since you're upstairs."
"Oh! Yes, that's good work. Good job, Agent Fenton, be there in 15 minutes."
She hung up the phone abruptly and Danny gave Tucker a look.
"What is she even on today…" Tucker said, rubbing his temples.
"She doesn't sleep; I think her brothers might have laced her coffee this morning though, as some sort of experiment," Wade said sarcastically.
"Are you sure that this is the killer, Wade? I don't want it to be the wrong man. Kim will filet me."
Tucker gave him a weird look, "Dude…filet?"
"Shut up, Tucker."
"You underestimate me, Special Agent Fenton. I went through all of the security footage around the bar and the gas station as well, and the same man was hanging around outside the bar, pretending to be a depressed drunk that had already been kicked out." Tucker's sense of humor snaked through his words. The wan smile that quickly graced Danny's and Wade's face was, however, brief.
"How do you know he was pretending?"
"Well, because, less than an hour later he's completely sober and walking briskly through an unfamiliar neighborhood."
"It's suspicious, but that's circumstantial at best."
"He was there within the time of death window of the victim, Richards."
"That's sure as hell not proof."
Wade looked cross, and he pulled up on his large screen the file on the man recognized by the computer.
"Algol Skulker," Wade began, "That's not his real last name though, it's a dictated one."
"Dictated by whom?"
"Danny look at his damn file…this man is an assassin for the terrorist organization that's called the Ghosts; he's probably of Arabic origin, judging by his name, Algol. It's from an Arabian myth…"
Danny recognized the name. "Al Ghul, the Demon Star in the Perseus constellation…It means 'the ghoul' which is fitting for an assassin." a small bit of earned pretentiousness inevitably marked any of Danny's enthusiasm for his vast knowledge of astronomy, much to Tucker's chagrin at times.
"I hate it when you do that," Tucker said, smiling. "But are you convinced now?" he asked, "Or do you want all the proof laid out before you in fingerprints and DNA?"
"Oh, shut up Tucker, I have to get upstairs to Kim."
"Here's the file," Wade said, handing Danny a memory stick. "Where's Dr. Manson? I haven't seen her since she left yesterday. I didn't quite get to welcome her."
"She was in the morgue earlier, she might still be there. That's all I've seen of her at work."
Tucker saw right through him again.
"At work?" he said with a raised eyebrow.
Danny was both irritated and amused when Tucker picked apart his language. For a man with a degree in computer science from MIT, he was particularly gifted with words. He was far from a poet, but for all Danny knew he could be keeping a folder more heavily encrypted than CIA documents full of poetry somewhere on his PDA. If they ever got through this mess, Danny would make it his top priority to find some sort of blackmail material to gain some leverage. Some things, still alive within him from the days of immaturity back at high school, never changed.
"Leaving now, Tucker," Danny said, walking out of Wade's lab space.
Back in the bullpen, Sam was sitting at the empty desk, her feet on the desk and her arms crossed while she chewed on the inside of her lip. She was frowning.
"What's wrong?" Danny asked, sincerely
She gave a sort of "hmph" of acknowledgement, but continued to stare vacantly into space. Danny decided to leave her alone – he recognized her 'I am lost in thought and I can't be bothered' face from when they met in New York, and again from when he had been in the hospital. He was sure that there were some people that got offended when she dismissed them this way, but he merely sat down at his desk and absently twirled in his chair, waiting for Kim to come back from her meeting.
He gave a furtive glance at Sam, noticing her short but well groomed head of raven hair, professional yet attractive attire, elegant earrings and a worn but still youthful face that was blank, no hints at what thoughts were bouncing around in her cranium. She was pretty, but in the way a forest fire could be considered beautiful. Kim had an aged grace, like a hungry panther. Tucker had a cheeky youthfulness that had outgrown the age of awkwardness and rejection and now landed him with more girlfriends than Danny could remember. Was it professional? No, but at this point, being professional in such a work environment was becoming purely perfunctory; a sort of mask that kept their own struggles to themselves. It was actually counterproductive. They needed to work as a team, not a series of caged, unmarried soldiers that all attempted to be one man armies but turned out to be a bumbling, if not ineffective, collection of federal agents. How could he separate friendship and work in people who he had killed for and had killed for him in return? For people he carried his SIG for, and would easily fire it at the sign of danger? For people who had taken the empty place in his life; Kim was a sort of mother, Tucker and Wade were brothers, Sam was rapidly becoming a kind of close cousin, a sister, maybe, and Valerie…well, Valerie was easily that crazy aunt. A completely dysfunctional family, but it was the only one he had.
But the more he considered, the more he didn't care whether he was in a government office of what was supposed to be the most brilliant detectives in the country. The longer he stayed, the more it felt like his home away from home. He twirled in his desk chair more freely, letting himself spin before turning about and kicking off a desk to send him rolling across the carpet. A moment of bliss was never wrong and to hell with being an adult – he was Danny Fenton at any age and at any time.
A few blissful minutes later, Danny looked up to see Kim waltzing into the pen at a brisker pace than usual. Sam didn't look at her, lost in a world of thoughts, connecting discrete dots to create some sort of understandable narrative.
"That was the most useless meeting I have ever been in," Kim growled.
Danny looked up from his desk, and stood up to make his way to Kim's desk where she had fished a file from underneath a pile of other manila folders.
"You haven't put the new victim on the board. I thought I would do it while you were gone, but I don't have any file and I don't actually know anything about him since you kept me out of the field."
"There's a preliminary file on the victim in there," Kim said as she handed him the file and made her way to the whiteboard and proceeded to write 'Victim 5' in tiny letters on the cramped murder board, "– one of the tech's assigned to our case put it together; it's just field notes for now."
"Our most recent victim is a NASA technician, male, about 28 years old."
Kim pulled out a photograph of the victim, tacking it up onto the board, "His name is Daniel Richards," she said assertively. Danny frowned at the name, wondering why it felt so strange to hear it rolling off Kim's tongue as he flipped past the old victim reports, but then he looked up into the face of the man on the board. He stilled, save for the imperceptible tremor in his hands.
It was if suddenly an invisible hand began to constrict his insides; his blood running cold in his veins, making his heart thud weakly under the pressure. He stared at the whiteboard with vacant eyes, placed the file on his desk, carefully, methodically, and turned around and walked away. Kim and Sam were left staring at the place he had vanished from. Sam had been roused gently from her ruminations, and she searched Kim's face for an explanation.
"Did something happen, Agent Possible?" She had just registered that Danny had left, and appeared to have missed the reason, "Why did he leave?"
"I was going to ask you the exact same thing, Manson. But I say you go and find out what it is…maybe's he's thought of something…" Kim brushed her off and stared at the board again, chewing aimlessly at the end of a pen. Sam gave the woman a retreating glare of resentment and followed Danny to the back stairwell in the opposite direction of the elevators. It was the unofficial conference room. No one ever went there other than to be alone.
"Hey, Possible, I heard you wanted me down in the lab with Wade?"
Kim turned to Tucker as his voice brought her out of empty circular thoughts.
"Just…go. I don't care where you go." Kim brushed him off as easily as she had Sam, but whatever injustice he felt, he kept it behind his eyes.
"But.."
"But what?"
"Wade just texted me; he wanted me to tell you if I ran into you that we may have found the man on the tape who killed Richards, and that I was going to go help him with facial recognition analysis. He wants to see if we can predict where he went and therefore where he's staying in the area."
"Oh. Good. Yes... tell Wade that he did good work. Call me when you have any new information, ok?"
"Of course, boss."
Kim put her cell phone on silent, and as soon as Tucker was out of sight, she left the pen in the direction Danny and Sam had gone.
3.
He found the old and unused back stairwell, gripping the stair rail with a clammy hand and sitting on the stairs without feeling their coolness against his skin. It was an eternity for him. He studied the brick of the stairwell; the cracks in the mortar and the stains where old pipes had left damp patches. His gun was heavy against his skin, and the only thing he felt. He pulled it out of his holster and cocked it once, enjoying the feel of sliding metal and the echo of it in the empty space.
"Put the gun down."
He looked up at the intruder; the disturber of his peace. It couldn't have been anyone else. Frankly, he would have just shot anyone else for bothering him.
A man in Danny's skin looked up at Sam with wolf eyes, meandering coolly over her features, his gun cocked and wielded so haphazardly in his hand. A panicked thought crossed her mind – maybe he would shoot her. It was a mere thought, but Danny's torn gaze was suggestive enough that it was possible.
"Danny," she whispered. She had intended for her voice to come out strong and calm, but he had robbed her of her carefully crafted poise. Sam understood that emotion was as necessary and highly developed as rationality, but she had never understood before – the profound humanity in fear. Her face was collected but her heart ran amok as it leaped out of her throat.
"Danny."
He didn't move. He didn't blink. was an infinitely long moment, stretched between the second when he had met her eyes and the second when he swallowed quietly, shoving his own grief back down his throat where it wouldn't rise up to meet him.
"He's dead," Danny said, "He's dead and I'm alive."
Sam wanted to turn away, look the other direction, anything to give him a moment of privacy, but she knew it wasn't really his fragility she couldn't bear, but rather hers.
"Daniel Richards. He is…was…the most promising aerospace engineer on the East Coast."
A wry smile crossed his features and Sam couldn't help but think that it wasn't suited to his face.
"Andromeda Dan was the best in our class. Everyone knew that he would go far. Revolutionize how we saw everything in space."
How the mighty fall, she thought sadly, her thoughts on the man in the morgue. But suddenly, something in her mind clicked. Our class…Andromeda Dan, he had said.
"You studied aerospace engineering together? Who was the top of the class in the courses that you took together? Was it him?"
Something shifted again in Danny as her questions brought him to bleak reality, and he glanced down at his hands that absently held his sidearm. He disarmed it and put the safety on, sliding it back in his holster. He buried his face in his palms. It was only a second before he looked up at her again.
"'Dromeda Dan and I were friends back at Georgetown…" Danny's mirthless chuckle graced the silence. "He always said I was the brilliant one, and I never believed him; He said I'd be the one walking on the moon, while he would be stuck here on Earth, watching me up in space. But, he was the genius; it was always 'Dromeda Dan…best in all our classes. I was always second best, but I was okay with that."
There was a strange sort of quietness about the way he moved. She had no way of stopping it. Her heart leapt into her throat, eliciting a language of sentiment she had never wanted to reveal.
"Jonathan Winters was a friend of mine."
Danny looked at Sam with hard, cold eyes. She took a step backward, terrified that she had done something very wrong. The sharp look was brazen, and she struggled to push it aside. But her fear was his, and he stood up and held onto her shoulders, his face only a foot from hers. He tried to speak, but he could only make some incoherent mumbles, searching for words that he didn't have. Sam was frozen. He didn't do anything at all except fall apart in front of her without so much as a word.
"I…"
The door opened and Kim walked in. Whatever Danny was going to say was lost, but before he took his hands off of her shoulders, she grabbed his wrists. She held him together with a flash of an unguarded glance, and let his hands fall to his sides. He turned to face his superior, but he did not do so alone
"Kim, it is no coincidence that Jonathan Winters was killed in New York, so far away from the area we established, just after I left New York. It is no coincidence that Daniel Richards was a renowned aerospace engineer that studied at Georgetown with me. And, it is certainly no coincidence that he has the same first name as I do. Skulker is hunting me, and every single body that turns up is a warning to me – that he wants me dead as the biggest prize of all."
4.
"What were you doing there in Rockville, huh? Tucker told me you lived in Alexandria. Why would you drive out here? If you even drove…there was no car in the parking lot. Maybe you were visiting someone?"
Monique rambled quietly as she worked on washing the body. His skin was a shade of gray she had long gotten used to, and his lips blue from hypothermia. Daniel Richards was tall, with short, dark brown hair and that was where he looked most like their Danny. The two didn't look too much alike when one looked closer. Richards had brown eyes anyways.
"Maybe you knew Danny? Once someone tells me your basic history, I'll have more questions. You are a NASA employee…Danny has that giant poster of Apollo 13 taking off behind his desk. I think he really misses his dream of being an astronaut. What do you think? I think he would have made a great astronaut."
"Thanks, Dr. Simone," Danny said from the doorway to the morgue.
Monique looked up and replaced the blue sheet on the body.
Danny was leaning in the doorway, his arms in the pockets of his black slacks. When he met her gaze he looked ancient. Daniel Fenton had always had an air of youthfulness – it was probably from being around Tucker so much, but she knew in that moment that Daniel Fenton was as old as Ira.
"Do you always talk to the people on that table?"
"It's a habit I picked up from my old professor," she said softly as she searched his tired eyes.
"Agent Fenton."
He looked at her with a puzzled expression on his face. Dr. Simone quirked a corner of her lips, her dark eyes quietly piercing.
"Yes?"
"Why are you down here?" She took off her latex gloves.
His silence was the edge of a razorblade. He carried in the heart of him something she couldn't place but looked just a little bit like madness; madness and clarity.
"I knew him," Danny stated simply, "He was a good friend."
She then understood that it was grief that he was carrying and it was grief that aged him. In that moment, the gravity of the victim weighed in on her. It was one thing to examine a victim, and another to worry about the consequences of the victim's death. She hadn't realized how personal it was, striking deep within what was supposed to be an unassailable team.
"Sit down," she said softly, and he looked up at her with a question on his lips. Dr. Simone gestured to an empty autopsy table on the other side of the room. He went and hopped up on the table, with the distinct feeling that he was twenty-two again, the technician swabbing the blood from his fingers.
Dr. Simone sat down on a metal stool by the table, and Danny noticed for the first time her electric blue stilettos. He smiled and shook his head, laughing a little to himself, indulging in his subconscious a desire for something, anything to distract him from the unsettling matters at hand.
"What's that?"
"Your shoes."
"What about them?" she asked.
"I was just thinking that Kim wouldn't be caught dead in those."
"They don't match with those awful cargos she wears every single day."
"I was wondering about those…you've know her for a while now haven't you?" Danny asked.
"We've been friends since college. She was different back then."
"Back when you two first met?"
She paused, thinking back. "She was crazy kind of girl. Perfect, really. She was taking a semester off from school to intern at Interpol in Budapest. Cheerleader in high school, perfect grades, perfect life. She was happier then."
"So…how many pairs of cargos and black shirts does she really own?" Danny said with a half smile on his face.
Dr. Simone laughed, "God knows she can't count that high. She says they're all different but the girl can't admit that she wears the same outfit to work every day." She chuckled softly for a few more moments.
"She lost someone very important to her a couple of years ago. Kim died that day too. Her team was attacked in the same bullpen you guys solve your cases in now, her team leader was killed, and Kim was in a coma for three months because of a head wound. She used to be able to save the world – she did save it a couple of times when she was younger working as a bounty hunter for Interpol. The unstoppable Kim Possible. She didn't recover from that coma the way she had hoped and her internal injuries were so bad that she can't go out on cases the same way she used to, because of the chronic pain flares."
Danny was still and silent, staring vacantly at his hands.
"Why are you telling me all of this?" He remembered the Kim he had known when he was a rookie detective on his first case at Baltimore PD, and the Kim he knew now wasn't that person.
Her voice lowered.
"You came in here with the same look she has in her eyes. Heck, you could be one of her brothers, the way she cares about you, but she's running completely blind right now and all she can see in that body next to us is failure. Failing herself. Failing Barkin. Failing you, failing me, failing everyone she cares about because she still thinks she can save the world just like that. You're going to end up the same way if you aren't careful. Stare long enough into the abyss and it stares back into you. You are so much younger than she is, and you have some reason for being here. You passed up NASA for this job, so it's probably one hell of a reason. Just make sure that reason never drives you to the other side."
"You remind me of my sister," Danny said, "She always says things like that."
But everything that Dr. Simone had said gave him a sort of peace, and he settled for a half smile. His phone vibrated with a sudden shrill tone.
We found where Skulker might be staying. Looks like he's gone for a couple of days, I want you and Manson to check the place out. –KP
"Looks like the world needs me, Dr. Simone."
"Go solve this case. That's what you're here to do."
The look in Dr. Simone's eyes was clear, and he hopped off the autopsy table and walked out.
4.
"Turn left up ahead, onto Halpine Road…goddamnit, Sam, left!"
"Sorry, sorry!"
The sun had set about an hour ago, and Sam's navigation was at best, confused.
"Remind me why you're driving again?"
"Because we did rock, paper, scissors, and I beat you three out of three times."
"You cheated," Danny huffed, his legs too long for the cramped space of the passenger seat. The back seat of Sam's car was piled high with books and papers, and what appeared to be a salvaged lamp. There was no room to scoot the seat back to make space.
"No, I outwitted you. There's a difference. Don't you think that we should have had more backup? We're going into a murderer's apartment."
"Well, we don't have any proof that he's our murderer. I agree, it's a bit unsure, but Kim has surveillance on him. Apparently he's thirty-five miles away in Frederick, meeting with someone. He's coming back, yes, but not soon. The minute he leaves, Kim's calling us to get out."
"Alright."
"Besides, the more people, the more suspicious it is. We're the most efficient option. I have seniority over Tucker as a field agent, you can pick up on details no one else can, and you and Kim can't stand each other. It was the only option." Danny's voice was tense, clearly conveying their shared restlessness.
Danny pointedly turned his head away from her, watching the streetlights go by.
"I can't stand sitting in the passenger seat," he murmured after a moment.
"Then why did you quit the NASA program you were admitted to?"
He turned to look at her with pale gray orbs under the fluorescent lamplight, laden with a mix of annoyance and pain. She immediately regretted prying. It had seemed like a perfectly normal question at the time, something akin to, "Oh, why did you choose this college over that one?" or "What's your favorite color?"
For a moment, Danny collected his thoughts and chose his words carefully, taking a deep breath.
"I didn't quit. I just didn't go." He said frankly
Clearly the conversation was over. She should have known that with Danny, simple questions, ordinary questions, weren't going to get her the answers that anyone else would freely give. "We're here," he announced, and got out of the car just as soon as it had stopped. Sam scrambled to take the keys out of the ignition and catch up with his hurried strides, regret and a desire to backtrack already filling in a uncomfortable pit in her stomach, but it could have been an unprofessional resentment for Possible's decisions, so she brushed it aside.
"Would you hold on? I'm…I'm…I apologize," she said, grabbing his arm as he opened the door to the tall, dingy apartment complex. He sighed and looked at her.
"Sam, it's okay, but let's save this for later. We've got a job to do." He slowly removed his arm from her grip and gave her a slight nod of appreciation, before turning into the dim light of the lobby sconce lamps that cast long shadows and seemed to hide more of the room than they illuminated. It was a clean, easy place that smelled very faintly of cats and an Asian supermarket. It was a cheap place to stay compared to the lavish apartments in the area where she lived, but it seemed innocuous and normal.
They took the elevator to the seventh floor and reached apartment 316, which, according to surveillance found by Wade, was where Algol Skulker had been staying for the past year or so. However, despite the fact that they were about to enter a potentially dangerous situation that was pivitol to their case, Sam felt that her interests were splitting, one dedicated to her job, the other more deep and unsettling.
"Danny…"
"It's alright. Look, I don't want to talk about it. I've had a rough day, and it really couldn't get much worse." Even though they both knew all too well that those famous last words were empty of meaning and intention. Things could always get worse.
He unlocked the door with the key they had gotten from the security officer, and Sam followed him into the foyer. He had his hand on the end of his sidearm.
"Stay here, I'm going to check the place to make sure it's empty."
He was back in about a minute, and with an affirmative nod, put away his service weapon.
"Check the kitchen. I want to look through his coat closet."
She was glad for the guidance that in any other situation she would have resented. There was a stack of freshly washed dishes on the kitchen counter; just two plates, a bowl, a mug and a glass.
"Danny?" she called out.
"I'm in the foyer, I found a stack of receipts…"
"No, Danny, how long ago was Skulker supposed to have left for Frederick?"
"About four hours ago, why?" he called back, his voice muffled by the walls.
"Danny, I think we – "
The glass of the kitchen window shattered. Gunshots rang out, the sound exaggerated by the tinkling of glass and heavy strikes that banged from the kitchen, although there was no flash, followed by a sudden silence.
"Sam! Sam, where are you?" Danny yelled across the sparse room.
He brushed sweat off his brow with the inside of his arm, refusing to loosen his grip on his trusted sidearm. His breath came in heavy pants as he crouched low, his back flush against the wall of the narrow foyer, looking frantically into the blackness of the apartment.
"SAM!" he yelled again. A note of desperation rose in his voice. Danny stepped into the room quickly, taking in the carnage of shattered glass windows and the bullet holes littering the beige wall. A cold breeze seeped into the space, allowing Danny to clear his head momentarily and make out a glint of light in the vacant upper floor of the building across from the apartment complex they were now in.
The abrupt silence was followed by a solitary but startling gunshot that shattered the drywall with a large puff of dust just around the corner from Danny's head. If he hadn't been crouching, the bullet might have exited where Danny's head rested. He was now deathly still, eyes quivering and gun shaking slightly from the pure adrenaline, but after a moment, only more silence. It was gone as soon as it came.
Danny slowly felt the burn of his muscles being coiled up slowly recede, followed by a outpouring of sweat upon his forehead and heavy breathing as his blood stopped boiling and mind began to take over from his survival instinct. Then panic struck again.
"Sam…for the love of God, Sam, answer me!"
He was responsible for her. He was a federal agent responsible for bringing a civilian to the apartment of a serial killer. The implication began to dawn upon him with all their terrible gravity. If she had been knocked out cold, he wouldn't forgive himself. If she had died, he would never forgive the man who was responsible for her death, and wouldn't stop hunting him until he was able and then more. Sam had quickly become an integral part of his life, part of what he clung onto as good, but more than that, Danny had blood on his hands already and was stripped of reservations about his own life. Someone was going to pay dearly when Danny got out of this mess, and not just with their life.
Several minutes passed in silence before Danny decided it would be safe to move, despite his need to find her. He crawled low to the ground, moving towards the kitchen where he had seen her go before he had been distracted by a stray receipt on the entry table and the first shot had rung out.
"Oh god…" he breathed out once he reached the entrance of the kitchen, and scrambled to her body.
She was sitting on the linoleum, her back pressed to the refrigerator. Her eyes were vacant and a line of blood trickled from her temple.
"Sam…oh god, Sam…"
"I wish you would stop talking, I have quite the headache," she whispered, her violet eyes shifting towards his panicked face.
Danny froze at the sound of her voice, stared at her incredulously and then He let out a half sob, half laugh, shifting to examine her head wound. She hissed slightly as he traced his fingers from the cut on her cheekbone to the rapidly forming bruise on her brow.
"I heard the gunshot and scrambled for cover." She said with her voice shaky but relieved, a partially hysterical chuckle hidden behind her shaky words. "I think I must've slipped and hit my head on the counter," she said, her eyes gesturing towards the counter to the left, where a dark smear of blood stained the yellowing plastic.
"I thought you were dead," he said with a forced whisper, trying to put on a scolding sort of face, but the humor didn't reach his eyes. Sam only gave a small, but reassuring smile.
"I blacked out for a bit. I thought I heard you yelling my name, but my ears were ringing so I couldn't be sure."
Her eyes wandered absently, but she suddenly grabbed onto his arm.
"You've been shot."
He looked down at his shoulder, finally noticing the discoloration and the tear in his coat.
"Brilliant observation," he said, a stillness settling over his features as he unfolded his legs from their cramped crouch and sat down on the floor.
"Shut up, you dolt."
"I wish you would, once in a while," he muttered.
Their conversation was half hearted but necessary. The apartment was properly cold now, all the heat escaped through the shattered windows. Assassins were always so inconsiderate.
"Did you call the police?" she breathed out, her eyelid drooping from either pain or exhaustion – he couldn't tell which yet.
"Gunshots are quicker than any phone call."
He held onto his bleeding arm. A bullet had only grazed his shoulder, but there were still l growing stains of wet and warm blood staining his clothes. He was numb to the pain and only felt the heat of his own body that was beginning to finally catch up with his mental and physical exertion. The pain began to seep into his mind and he clenched his teeth, but still looked into Sam's eyes with vindicated relief.
"I think I could use a coffee later, what do you think?"
"I think that's a fantastic idea," she said with a laugh, "though I'm sure the police will have plenty of questions. Not to mention that we'll have to get checked out by the EMT's. We'll probably both have to go to the hospital. Kim will give us hell."
"I think we could sneak around everyone."
"Kim would have a stroke."
"Possible would, wouldn't she?"
They both were reduced to soft but impulsive giggles.
"Can you imagine…" Danny said, trying to hold back a throaty laugh.
Sam did her best imitation of Kim's reaction before bursting into a laugh that caused her to get a bit dizzy and knock the back of her head on the refrigerator. They were silent for a moment, Danny's eyes full of concern, before she began to crack up again.
"God…we can't giggle! We're at a crime scene!" Danny said between laughs.
"I know!" she replied with her own hysterical laughter, tears forming at the corners of her eyes.
He looked at her, laughing, and she became an entirely different person. It was like looking at a painting up close the whole time and suddenly stepping back and discovering that it was quite a new thing. She was simply herself, an anomaly, and even if suddenly the world became black or white; and if instead of the mad churning of the ocean in her head there was a prism of joy and pain crisply reflected, he might have been surer of what he wanted to think of her or he might have abandoned the endeavor for lack of choice. The untamed reality of her was that there was no road right entirely.
The missed sound of sirens arrived less than a minute later. In such close quarters neighbors were bound to have overheard the gunshots and have been surprised. It wasn't a posh area, but it was by no means a dangerous and degraded area. The commotion set the night ablaze with the surreal effect of the red and blue strobe flashers and joining the sounds of far off aircraft and cars with the sounds of CV radios and the running diesel engine of the Ford E-series ambulances. Sam and Danny were taken down to the street where the paramedics quickly stitched up Danny's grazed shoulder. Sam took longer since she was fussing in the other ambulance.
"I am not in shock! There is absolutely no reason for me to have this ridiculous blanket on me!"
"Miss Manson – "
"It's Doctor Manson, thank you. I insist that you remove this horrible thing from me at once! You are wasting your time and mine. I only have a small bruise on my head. I hardly think it warrants hospitalization."
, "You've got a feisty one there. I don't have a clue how you put up with her." Danny's good humored paramedic said. Danny snorted
"She's brilliant, but she's an idiot." The pain in his arm set his teeth on edge and he wasn't really in the mood for easy laughter.
"I am not in shock! I don't have a concussion! I have a degree in neurology and a doctorate in psychology; I think I know when I have a concussion!"
"Oh god no…now she's being deliberately obtuse. I'm sorry, are you done patching me up? I think we might have a murder on our hands really soon."
"By all means…I don't want to be scraping Sally's brains off the road."
"Thanks."
"It's my job."
The paramedic patted him on a shoulder with a smile before turning away while Danny wrapped his own blanket around his shoulders and walked over to Sam's ambulance, peering through the open doors and into the bright medical compartment.
"Sam!"
She didn't pay him any attention, and instead kept berating the paramedic named Sally who wore a forced smile.
"Sam! Sam, goddamn it, shut up!"
Her head finally turned to him and her irate face turned to something that looked like half-hearted and annoyed concern.
"Did he do an awful job of stitching you up to? I hope not, your wound was much more serious than mine, which this paramedic seems to not understand since I'm fine and would very much like to leave…"
"I'm so sorry about her," Danny said to Sally, "But I can take her off your hands for you."
"I'm sorry Sir," Sally said resentfully, eyeing her belligerent patient, "but if you're not next of kin we can't let you take her."
"I'm not taking her, don't worry. I just think it might be better if you just left her with me; she's had quite a shock."
He paused, fishing around in his pocket for a moment before he found his FBI badge, "She's my partner; I'm responsible for her. I do need to get back to my superior after this. She should be here shortly; this case is under our jurisdiction."
The woman peered at his badge for a moment then nodded, leaving Danny and Sam sitting alone inside the ambulance. He felt her eyes on him for a moment and he turned his head to look at her.
"What?"
She stared at him, a confused but also almost proud smirk on her face.
"Do you enjoy flashing your badge at people?"
He knew that she already knew the answer.
"Oh yes," he said, pulling his warm but scratchy orange blanket closer. It would go nicely with his couch, he thought.
"Possible is going to be quite upset."
"Did you end up getting anything, though?"
She sighed and closed her eyes tight, bracing herself against the throbbing in her temple.
"He's not coming back," she said rubbing her eyes gingerly.
"What?"
"He's gone for good."
"The place wasn't empty. I found a coat with a couple of receipts, and the bedroom still had one drawer full of clothes."
"Plates."
"What?"
"He washed the plates."
"Well, yeah, usually people wash their plates after they eat, and usually killers like Skulker keep tidy so they can move quickly, but there was still stuff left."
"There was no trash in the trashcan; no new bag. Who takes out all of their trash out on a day when there isn't going to be a trash pickup for another three or four days, and then doesn't put a new bag in right after taking the old one out?"
"Are you sure?" he asked with a climbing seriousness. His eyes narrowed as she looked at him with pursed lips and a furrowed brow.
"Fuck," he hissed, dropping his head in his hands. He roughed up his hair in agitation before taking his cell phone out of his pocket and dialing what could only be Kim.
"It's me…yes, we're all right…Look, Kim, he's gone. That was our only chance and now he's on the move again…I gave my statement to MCPD; Sam's got herself a concussion though, so she needs a ride home…yeah that might take a while; I'll just have Tucker follow in my car."
There was a long pause. Danny's jaw was clenched, a vein showing itself in his temple.
"…No, Kim. No. I will tell you right now, it wasn't. I'll see you tomorrow."
He hung up the phone and hopped out of the ambulance.
"Let's take you home, Sam," he said. He checked out with the paramedics before he and Sam made their way back to her car. They were safe for now.
4.
"Home so late…what would your parents think of that, Daniel Fenton?"
Danny flipped the switch, turning on the living room lights. As they slowly brightened to a bleak yellowish white, he saw in the half light the figure of a tall and broad man sitting on his old orange couch, leaning forward with his elbows on his knees, absently cleaning the silencer on a gun. Danny's hand went to his sidearm and he whipped it out, the nozzle expertly pointed at the intruder. Skulker casually pointed his own gun at Danny. The door to the apartment swung closed lazily behind them.
"My parents are dead."
Skulker grinned and in what would have been a welcoming fashion, beckoned Danny closer.
"Sit, sit. Make yourself at home."
"Why the hell are you in my house?" Danny demanded, in a mesmerized trance that blocked out his instinct to survive, like a moth drawn to a flame. His voice was cold but wavered with anger.
"To kill you, obviously. Your parents might miss you, your sister too. Shame."
"My parents are dead, Skulker," Danny said with a hiss, and he steadied his trembling gun hand by placing the other on top of it.
"So you feel it then? In your heart, I mean. They say when you lose a loved one that has been missing for years that you can feel it."
"Everyone says my parents are dead, so I think that means they are."
The assassin chuckled low in his chest, deep and resonating and sinister.
"You are a rather convincing liar, but I know better. I pride you on your bravery, child. A bit different than your dear old mother – she was the arguing type. Your father was quiet but worried when your mother couldn't see."
His anger surged within him. He had lived with vengeance, pain, and hope in his heart for a long time, but he knew that this man – this killer – had information, and that he wouldn't kill him yet. Danny unbuttoned his coat and tossed it aside and tucked his gun back into his sidearm holster, walking up to the man on the couch.
"You killed Dan, you killed Jon Winters, and all those other people. What the hell do you know about my parents?" he growled out, his voice low and dangerous.
"They didn't give in quietly, that's what I know. You had a nice house, I remember. I'm sorry about what I did to them and to your family."
Danny l turned his back on the man who had taken his parents. It felt like something in his mind had snapped out of reality the minute he had walked through the door. He took off his blazer and rolled up his shirtsleeves before sitting down in the chair across the coffee table from the couch. Danny's anger overcame his fear, and the trembling of his hands was from the urge to snap the neck of the intruder in his house. But Danny wasn't stupid, and he wasn't a coward. There was an assassin in his house, and he hadn't been killed yet. He had time to talk.
"Are you going to kill me? Torture me and then kidnap me like you did my parents? What do you want from me? I'm only an FBI agent – my parents have information, while I have nothing but that ugly yard-sale couch and a couple of my old university textbooks."
"Child, you cannot possibly think that I came after your parents because I wanted something. I wanted some trophies and reward, but from my employers, not from your paranoid parents."
"They had every right to be paranoid, seeing as the worst happened."
Skulker stared Danny hard in the face. The empty verdigris eyes in his sunken sockets flared with something – an emotion Danny couldn't place.
"No, child, the worst did not happen."
Skulker steepled his hands, revealing the tattoo on his left wrist. They were astronomical coordinates with a date and time. Years of staring at the constellations and his nose pressed in books that left his schoolwork abandoned, Danny recognized the star.
"Chara."
The assassin smiled. It was quiet, silent, barely there and infinitely sad. Danny closed his eyes in understanding.
"The second star in Canes Venatici. Greek for 'joy'," Danny said, opening his eyes again.
"She was. That's why I am here, child."
"That's no explanation. Why exactly are you here? Following me? Invading my home?" The aggression in his voice was barely contained. Danny knew his motives, he understood Skulker's grief. He had lost a young daughter like Danny had lost his family and his friends. But the man was still an assassin.
"I am going to try and kill you, child. You will try and kill me in return, you will not succeed, and then I shall be taken to prison."
"Why?"
He stood up, impressively tall in the diminished space of Danny's apartment.
"I hope that one day you will have the experience of doing something you do not understand for someone you love."
To be continued...
A/N: Please be kind and review.
Are the characters making sense? Or are they too OOC?
Is the setting and plot elements as they are presented in the story clear enough?
What doesn't seem to make sense when you read it?
Is the pace of the story too fast or too slow?
Special thanks to DBack47 for making this chapter possible. Your help was absolutely priceless.