Ernestina, Eris, Aequitas: to obtain that which is just we must ask that which is unjust.
August 1st, 2030
Gotham City
South Side Elementary. The Archers.
But that was over thirty years ago now. He'd since been high school valedictorian, gone to GSU for medical training, started an Orthopedic Residency at the Wayne Center for Surgical Excellence, even went to the Kane County Police Academy and received his Detective, first class. But this was where it had all began, where a bored and bright young boy had made the decision to seize the day, that the world was his to own and conquer…
It was only a local primary school. For him, it was now his one true alma mater.
Thirty years ago there was some run down, blue be-speckled, algae-eaten public art sculpture in the center of the school's crowded courtyard. No longer. Times had changed, the old school now served as barely the foundation for the new six story structure, its many windows winking in the summer sun, and the once-barren court yard of dead brown grass and cracked asphalt had been supplanted by a lush lawn and shrubbery. The old, abstract bronze blocks had been replaced with a garden, four benches, and a simple marble plaque:
JOHN & EMILY HOWE
EDUCATORS
with their likeness etched in soft-cut strokes.
The boy had stopped. Weary from carrying boxes of donated school supplies, the yearly GCPD 'kits for kids' drive. In the last six years, the Homicide Division had outdone them all, with more than one hundred thousand pounds of crayons, pencils, markers, glue, and even tablet computers raised for the once impoverished school system. South Side School still served one of the poorest Districts outside the Narrows, but she'd gained an anonymous benefactor who'd helped transform her edifice and education standards from some of the lowest in the state to the most exemplary.
The boy stretched, yawned, and in the motion of yawning noticed the small white memorial in the corner of his dark eyes. He trudged forward, curious.
"Hmm," the boy wondered. "Who were they?"
"Who?" he said.
"John and Emily Howe," the boy read, squinting in the summer sunlight. "The people in that memorial thing. You've got a picture of them at your desk, too."
"The Howe's were teachers. Here. Years ago. Damn good ones," the man replied. "Scholars with the Wayne Legacy Foundation, just like you."
"What happened?"
"Some drunk-ass doctor was too arrogant to admit he had a drinking problem, that's what," he growled. "Got behind the wheel of his car one night and killed them both. Their kids were in the back seat."
"Did they make it?" asked the boy.
"No. Marissa was five. Baby Brent wasn't even a year old."
The boy was silent.
"It was a huge media tragedy, the Wayne's all over again. Young, passionate couple and their kids get killed in an automobile wreck, you know? And it was only after they died that Kane County passed funding for free preschool for any kid, regardless of parents' income. Graduation rates have risen, college enrollment is up, there's been a decrease in projected prison populations, decreased crime…it's still Gotham City, but the Howe's deaths and Mayor Holden did a whole hell of a lot of good for a hell of a lot of kids."
"So I guess they'd be happy, right?" the boy offered timidly. " The Howe's, I mean. To know that so much good came out of something so bad."
"They weren't saints, Kid. Not gods, not angels," the man said sadly, squinting up at the afternoon sun. "My guess is they wanted to live."
Eleven Months Earlier….
Old South Side Cemetery
Miriam Frye kept a tight grip on her mother's arm. Judith was eighty-four, nearly blind, and in fading health. The day of the funeral she hadn't hardly been able to get out of bed, but as the pneumonia had lessened and the fever wrested under control Judith Dreyfus had insisted on coming to pay her respects, and Miriam knew her mother well enough to know the stubborn, frail old Jewish woman would've called a cab if she hadn't agreed to drive her.
…And the last broken hip and subsequent bed rest had been nearly enough to kill her.
She'd spent so much time helping with the rehab at her mother's tiny, overly-decorated assisted living flat that she'd neglected Ranaan. Ignored him. And maybe if she hadn't, if she'd only been there, Amos had always been so stern with the boy—
But her little boy was dead now. Shot down by some inexperienced GCPD officer only a few days on duty. The papers were calling it a tragedy, the newscasters a scandal, and even Amos had done some investigating into the Detectives that were first on the scene…
But Ranaan had been hanging around the wrong group of friends. Had been angry and lashed out at them. At her. Sought attention in whatever way he could get it because his parents were far too busy cherishing their past instead of their future and he took that with him out of spite. Ranaan had broken their hearts, and now just as suddenly he was gone, all the sweet years before this sixteenth disappearing in a bitter blur.
Her son was dead, and as the prophet David said, she could go to him, but not he return to her. But David was a King who lived thousands of years ago. Before science. Enlightenment. Before man had dreamed to leave the thin shell of air on earth and tread triumphant across the moon. Those words offered only empty comfort to the fancifully minded. There was no heaven above her, no hell beneath, and the dead went neither to paradise or abaddon, only decomposed slowly into the earth.
Judith struggled for breath as they climbed shakily up the hill, and Miriam had to stop twice to re-adjust the oxygen cannula in her mother's long nose. "You shouldn't've come, mother," she chastised gently.
"He was my grandson," Judith glowered. "Some schlemiel shot him, so I'd like to see you try and stop me!" Her octogenarian mother used the same tone to reprimand her as she would on any of Gotham's hooligans foolish enough to venture too close to her well-manicured veranda. Amos always said her mother was one plotz away from stroking out entirely, and all the Jewish doctors in Gotham City couldn't hope to save her. Judith Dreyfus was gruff. She'd grown up that way, and had to. Miriam's grandparents were Holocaust survivors, and many of her mother's aunts and uncles hadn't been so lucky. Judith's own grandparents had been among those incinerated at Auschwitz.
But Miriam didn't have her mother's ferocity. She'd let the blow of Ranaan's death wash over her like breakers until she'd drowned. She'd pulled away from him, spent time looking after her mother, and each and every time he'd lash out at them their once close-knit community had pulled farther and farther away. No one wanted their children to be corrupted by his influence. Ranaan had been dead to them, to all of them, from the first moment he chose to shoplift and sell drugs.
Amos had called it a stage. Dismissed it. But the antics had increased, he'd been sentenced as a juvenile delinquent, and while Miriam couldn't actually convince herself he'd been innocent, she still couldn't bring herself to accept his guilt…
Why hadn't she stopped him? Or Amos? Or anyone? For twenty-three years they'd been members of this community. Went if not worshipped at the same synagogue. And all those false friends, all those impostors, they'd been there for the birth, for the circumcision, came in droves to celebrate her son's bar mitzvah, mourned at his funeral, but when she had needed them most—when her son had needed them most!—they were nowhere to be found.
Together they reached his tombstone, the earth still freshly tilled. Everywhere she looked through her bloodshot eyes the memorials were covered with the star of David. These were all her people, yes…but this grave belonged to her son. Miriam was a Jew, but never a very devout one. And she'd been a mother, for sixteen brief years…but she'd never been a very good one. Not if her little boy could end up like this—
There was a snuffling sound. Throaty, wretched, disgusting. Her mother was shaking, eyes glassy, lips parted, and it took Miriam several seconds to realize it wasn't a fit. Judith Dreyfus—the paragon of stalwart, stubborn, stingy Jewessness—was crying. "Oy, vey!" In her forty-seven years, Miriam Frye had never seen her mother weep. "Vey is mir!" And it was worse, she decided, the wound of mourning was just so much worse coming from that silent strength and stoicism. She'd been holding back tears for days now, saving them all up for later like an old miser but suddenly they were let loose again and she was sobbing into her mother's arms, each clutching the other lest they fall forward onto the grave and heavy with grief never rise again.
It took her a long time to dry her tears. And for once in her life her overbearing mother didn't tell her to toughen up, that her people had gone through much worse than this, that there was no use standing around waiting on manna from Heaven when God helped those who helped themselves. Miriam dabbed at her tears with a pro-offered handkerchief (her mother still carried silk, monogrammed handkerchiefs), and the absurdity made her laugh even through her sobbing.
She rubbed her mother's back, the paper-thin skin rising in rolls underneath her fingernails. Her mother had grown so thin…and as dedicated to her care as she had been this last year with the hip fracture she'd never once actually contemplating her mother dying—
—And now the thought was just unbearable.
"You had to go and take care of me, didn't you," Judith spat through the spangled tears on her powdered face. "Seems to me you ought to have been looking after him."
"Mother, I—" How dare she blame me! Miriam's thoughts raced. How dare she! But no, no, Judith blamed herself as much as she blamed herself…and both of them needed a scapegoat, an excuse, an apology. Someone to lift the guilt of that burden away.
"I'm an old woman, not a baby. I can manage myself." Judith Dreyfus had never asked for assistance in her life. She'd certainly demanded service, but Miriam thought her mother would die before giving up her pride and last semblance of independence by doing something as weak as calling for help.
"Yes, of course, mother…" Judith's eyes were still moist and runny, but the look of hopelessness had been replaced by bitterness and resentment. She'd let down her guard, let her daughter see her cry. Let her daughter make her cry. A moment ago they'd been a family, but now Miriam was the enemy.
"Would…would you like some time alone?" She asked uneasily.
"I can't imagine anyone would want that," Judith snapped. "But I wouldn't mind some privacy!"
Miriam glanced up, startled. They hadn't been alone. A young man stood nearby, face awash with tears. He seemed lost. Horrified. Just as anguished as she was. A friend of Ranaan's, then. She didn't recognize him but she'd seen him before. A week ago. At the funeral…
His hair was cropped short as Ranaan's had been the last time he'd come home from juvenile corrections. Perhaps this young man was as lost as her son had been. Perhaps her little boy had had some comfort in his friendship. Most of the children she remembered from his far-off childhood had long since abandoned him.
"I'm, I'm sorry I don't know your name," she called, voice thick with mourning. "I'm Ranaan's mother. Were you a friend of his from school?"
He blinked. Stammered. More fat tears came trickling down from his matted lashes. "N-no, Mrs. Frye. I—I'm Jimmy Connolly…I, I'm the officer who killed your son."
A long, shuddering cry found its way up from her bowels. Anger and sorrrow and horror and rage all at once. She'd pictured a man, a full grown man, malicious, careless, an Irish thug, the picture of Gotham's corruption and the GCPD's brutality…but the harsh truth was officer Jimmy Connolly didn't look a day older than her Ranaan, and thousandfold more repentant than her son ever had. She dropped to her knees, clutched at her mother, her mouth, her womb in shock. Rage. Horror.
Judith stood as still and straight as a poker.
"Why are you here?" Miriam finally demanded, still kneeling in the soft, loamy earth of her son's grave.
He blinked bewilderedly. "I…I didn't know where else to go."
Her mother had no such pity. "Feh!" Judith hissed. "So you're the dumb pisher who shot my grandson, are you?"
That coerced confession was soft and sincere. "Y-yes."
"Are you here to give us some spiel as to how the GCPD is so sorry for our loss? Are you going to apologize?" Judith's mother-of-pearl cane shot out in accusation. " My son is a layer, you hear? We'll sue this damned city, we'll sue every cent from your worthless tuches!"
"Mother!"
But Judith Dreyfus was feeble despite her anger, and the force of lifting the cane had sent her backpedaling down the hill. She sat, heavily, wheezing and clutching at her cannula to receive the rich oxygen she so needed. A strange, choking sound came from her throat, and Miriam feared for the worst…
But no. Her mother was sobbing.
"Take me home," Judith moaned. "Just take me home and let me die. I'm just a bitter old woman with nothing left to live for."
Her heart broke. "Mother—"
"Don't 'mother' me," Judith wept. "I was never any good. And look what came of it!"
Her mother may be feeble, but her heavy frame was far from frail. Judith couldn't get up from her sprawled position, and Miriam didn't have the strength to lift her off the ground. There was no one around, she'd have to call for help, the ultimate humiliation—
This Connolly made a move forward, his guilt, shame, timidity holding him in chains of reluctance. And Miriam didn't want his help, didn't need his help, would never accept his help…
But that was the bitter, stubborn spirit of her mother. A spirit she'd never thought to see broken, let alone possess. It was her own anger, own guilt, own shame and spite that held her back from aiding an old woman who had no business being out here in the first place.
"Help me," Miriam insisted. "Or don't you think you've done enough to hurt my family?"
Officer Jimmy Connolly put an arm under her mother's shoulders, and together they hobbled down the hallowed hill to the waiting car below.
Miriam buckled her mother in, white knuckles shaking. Judith only moaned, turned her head away, lay limp and lifeless in the passenger seat like a beached fish in the sand. Past hope. Past comfort. Past caring. She knew in her heart her mother had given up.
She shut the door. Leaned against the cool dark glass with a weight in her soul. She would be back here, she knew. She would be back here again soon to bury what was left of Judith Dreyfus. Inter her mother next to her son…
She was shaking. Shaking and tired and cold. She didn't know how long she stood there with her hands on the fiberglass body of the car, contemplating life, death, the meaninglessness of everything that had ever existed. All she knew is that when she finally did look up again, her son's killer was still there.
"Mrs. Frye, I'm, I'm so sorry—"
"Why?"Miriam asked, both of the God she didn't believe in and this young man. "Why did you take him from me?"
"I, I didn't mean to," he told her. "I was just, I was just so scared!"
"Did my son really pull a gun on you?"
"I never saw it," he blanched the truth. So the GCPD had lied to them after all. "I—"
What else had they lied about? "Did Ranaan suffer?" she needed to know.
"No," the boy croaked, and she believed him. "By the time I—he, he was already gone."
There was a knell. Deep within her heart. And she knew then, what she must do if she was ever to know peace again, if she didn't want to part from this place possessed by the wormwood that had held her mother for so, so long. She could curse God, curse him and die slowly from within or be still. Be silent. Turn back. Repent.
"Then it was a mercy."
"He was your son," the boy choked in protest.
"He was my little boy…but in the last few months I couldn't even recognize him," Miriam said. "Ranaan died before he could truly hurt anyone else. I'm glad," she finally voiced. "In a strange way. I'm glad he's gone."
Tears and mucous ran unchecked down the officer's face. He shuddered in a stark misery greater even than her own, lacking either the courage or pretense to wipe them away.
"Thank you," she reached out to him. "For telling me the truth."
"You're his mother," he said thickly to his shoes. "You deserve to know."
"And your mother?" Miriam asked. "Where is she?"
"Gone. I, I just wanted to make her proud, an-and I killed a kid! Oh, God—!"
It as an apology. A prayer. A plea. An outburst of horror and guilt and remorse all at once.
The Lord gives, and the Lord has taken away. She had no more hope of arguing it with him, reasoning her case, as she had of raising her own son up from his grave. Reason said there was nothing, nothing after life, nothing after death. But she had hope—she must have hope—that even if the Almighty was only imagined, arbitrary, omnipotent, and unjust he may at least see her, and take pity as she herself took pity. Let this motherless boy be her vindication. Blessed be the name of the Lord.
She folded him gently into her arms, swayed with him back and forth as he sobbed and she shushed him, salty tears of regret and sorrow mingling, held him and offered solace as only she wished she could to her own son so cold beneath them.
Miriam Frye never imaged she would find purpose in the words of dry and dusty scriptures, never dreamed she would find closure standing over Ranaan's grave, comforting his killer.
Lawless Residence
Amy Lawless had never wanted this.
She'd had a good, solid job, worked the seven-to-seven shift four days a week in the outpatient surgical center at Gotham General. Ninety thousand dollars a year, full benefits with dental, no nights, no call, no holidays, and only the occasional weekend. She'd gotten through high school, paid her way through college wiping asses and working tables. Married well. She'd found and snatched up a good man, got that ring on her finger that she'd always wanted and the house in the suburbs and savings account that went with it. She'd worked hard to get where she was, dammit, and in the course of one afternoon that Joker had taken it all away.
She'd known about his drinking problems. His past drinking problems. It didn't stop them from having a wine cellar, a glass before going to bed at night, sometimes two, if it was a weekend or a holiday or one of them was feeling particularly playful. That man he'd tearfully told her of was gone. But the day that Jim Gordon died and came back from the dead she'd found him drunk and in tears, telling her to take the key to the cellar, just take it—!
He'd gone in to the doctor the next day. Gotten the diagnosis of depression. He'd been angry. Irritable. Haggard. Sleepless. Exhausted. And so with that madman loose and all the shit in their city they'd had the stress and threat of his badge hanging by a thread over their heads. They didn't talk about it, it wasn't Aaron's way of doing things. Her man put up that stoic front, felt he had to be strong, and dammit she needed him to be! He'd spent so much time away from home in a desperate attempt to track down the Joker, and just as much avoiding her.
Not avoiding. He'd gone to Naveen. From what Poonam had told her the two spent hours talking. Or not talking. Either way she preferred it to the drugs or drinking.
Then that madman had taken it a step too far. He'd gone after Harvey Dent. He'd gone after her. The detonation of Gotham General left over six thousand people without jobs or paychecks. The city experienced a sudden surge in the population of unemployed healthcare workers overnight all scrambling for whatever positions they could find. And her Aaron had been on that second ferry, escorting the Arkham lot away to 'safety'. Spent what they both thought would be the last moments of his life clinging to that awful Paltron woman…
They'd always been close. Uncomfortably so. And Aaron swore they'd never, that he'd never…but when the phone went dead it felt like he'd made his choice, and he hadn't chosen her. What did that old, embittered harpy have that she didn't?
They hadn't spoken about it when he returned. After the initial elation of her husband being alive, there really wasn't much else to say. You chose her over me, Amy blamed him. Over us.
And if her husband could seek solace and refuge in work, so could she. She didn't mean to hurt him. Didn't mean to be petty. She just…she just couldn't make a man who published academic treatises on the centuries' most philosophical minds see reason through arguing.
Aaron missed her. Said he was busier than ever, still trying to regain Gotham's trust after Dent's death and the Joker's capture, busy trying to train up a new partner or find a replacement after that Connolly boy had shot and killed that Frye kid…
She didn't need to work, Aaron told her. They could live comfortably off his Detective's salary. Have more time together. She could be a stay-at-home mom. A trophy wife.
…The trophy wife she wouldn't mind at all. But Amy Lawless grew up on the North Side of the Narrows, the smoggy night sky aglow in the West with the lights and luxuries of the Palisades. She didn't scrabble for a living as a teen and give up partying to live comfortably. Amy wanted more. She'd always wanted more. She wasn't content, and that clawing, blinding ambition was what got her out of that hellhole to where she was today. She wouldn't let anything—anything!—drag her back down. And giving up that desire, that pressing, demanding want felt like defeat. Felt like surrender, felt like becoming her godawful mother dying alone, addicted, and in debt. A Detective First-Class made a decent living wage, and if Aaron would just stop being an ass about the money from the books they could be well off. Well off for years to come. They'd keep the house, of course, no point in upgrading, but he could afford to take her out more, take time off…
But the money from her husband's books had never been for him. For them. He wrote to assuage his guilt. Aaron Lawless considered it blood money, and he wouldn't touch a cent. Not even if it killed him.
Between the two of them they made enough to live comfortably, and truth be told she hadn't wanted for anything in the years they'd been together. But her husband was a city cop in Gotham…and Amy Lawless had never wanted to be a mother. The thought of being a widow and a single mother terrified her. Ian was just—
Ian was three. Completely dependent on her. Sure she'd wiped noses and suctioned trache tubes, inserted catheters and dug out impactions…but she'd been paid. And at the end of the day she'd gone home, dammit, and didn't have to work anymore. Ian took them by surprise, took her figure, and took all the time and patience she had, every day. Every. Damn. Day. And this fucking potty training was only making it worse.
It wasn't that she didn't love Ian, didn't cherish the birth, the nursing, the outings with friends and matching strollers and themed showers…
She was tired. Just tired. Even with Aaron's help she was exhausted. Drained. And she couldn't—she wouldn't!—be chained to a needy three year-old pissing his pants every half hour. The thought of all day, every day was enough to make her go insane.
Work was her anchor, her independence. Even if Methodist paid less, cut her hours, forced her to third shift and placed her on call every third night it was still better than the alternative. And if she saw her husband less…if Aaron and her had grown apart in the months since the Joker's reign and capture…it was only temporary. Gotham General was being rebuilt, and she'd have her old job, they'd have their old life back. Soon. Very soon.
And Ian would be off to pre-school full-time next fall.
They could do this. She could do this. She could do this for another year…
Rachel K. Dawes Municipal Building
GCPD Dual Headquarters
"Oh, look," Paltron snorted. "Private Clusterfuck is back."
"Don't start," he warned, but her face only lit up in a grin. And MCU's newest appointment, Lieutenant Guinevere Evangeline Paltron, had a horsey face full of teeth and dead blue eyes that made a shark's smile seem positively goddamned heartwarming in comparison.
He sighed. Downed the rest of his lunchtime coffee. "I should probably go talk to him."
"If you don't want him just say the word," Paltron shrugged over a mouthful of what had to be at least half a pound of pulled pork sandwich. "I like firing people."
The power that came with her newest appointment had indeed gone to her head. And she didn't waste a minute in letting Jim Gordon, IAB, and the Associated Press know it. She ran a tight ship, got results, and did it however the fuck she pleased. "Don't you think the two of us have given that poor Kid enough hell?"
"You're the one with the bleeding heart, an extra gun in his pocket and a fucking 'shoot me here' sign taped on his back."
"Surely one of us has to take care of this."
"Don't look at me," she wiped barbecue sauce down the long sleeve of her dress uniform. "I ain't your partner anymore, sweetheart. I don't have to do jackshit."
"Haha. Don't call me sweetheart." Amy would have died of jealousy/castrated him on the spot.
"Don't call me Shirley," she leveled.
"Fuck you," Lawless grumped playfully. Then tore the hell out of there before she could start fellating her sandwich. If experience had taught him one thing, it was that a woman dispossessed her morals had even more atrocious manners.
He scanned the halls, hoping to catch a glimpse of a familiar downtrodden face. Connolly had a unique enough physiology, but he was just so damn tiny he could disappear invisible into crowd just five feet in. There. Heading back upstairs to Homicide. Kid must've just gotten back from lunch, or the gym, or wherever the hell it was he went when he disappeared inexplicably for a half hour at a time. Surely not a quickie with Stacey or anyone else on the supporting staff. Didn't really seem like the type. Jimmy Connolly was wound pretty tight (And, according to Fred, even the stick up his ass had a stick up its ass. His new partner had ignored the barb, unblinking.).
"Connolly—" Lawless called, catching sight of him.
"I'm fine," the young officer in question said. It was reflexive now, Lawless noted, like a good morning, how are you, or have a nice day. He was the damn Rookie who shot some kid according to IA—he was a liability. Another evidence of Gotham's police brutality according to the press. He was just doing his job, others said. Officers avoided him in hallways, evaded eye contact, relieved it hadn't been them, guilty for knowing it could have been. He'd been there, responded to the scene, and anyone and everyone who'd been present that day had witnessed the truth: Jimmy Connolly was just a scared Kid himself. In their report, Connolly had seen the suspect pull a gun, and had had no choice but to fire.
…When they had found him, he'd been soaked in blood, shell-shocked, and too numb to be relieved when they pulled the fully automatic .45 from Frye's bloodied corpse.
The shot had been panicked, reflexive, and Ranaan Frye's death accidental. But it had been both deliberate and by the book.
Connolly remembered intention, and fired as he had been trained to: three round burst to the head. Paltron had whistled when the ballistics came back and the skull reconstructed—both entry and exit wounds within nine millimeters of each other, with overlapping beveling. "Shitty luck for a first day on the job," she had shrugged. "But a damn good shot." Paltron, as he had come to learn quickly over their six year partnership, had a different understanding of the word 'consolation' than most people possessed of a soul. No remorse. No regret. Either she was just that cold or she'd compartmentalized it so deep down inside she really felt as little as she claimed.
And the ME's office confirmed the gun had been there. Nora and her assistant were both above reproach, so it hadn't been Paltron just planting it on him and lying through her teeth. She never would've done it to save her own ass, no, but a fellow officer? She'd take the blame, the bullet for anyone, any day. You couldn't really stand her, couldn't really be fond of her, but it was hard as hell to hate her once you'd been exposed to her big brass balls and heart of gold.
Leland might have cleared him for duty, Paltron might dismiss him, and Nora might be glad to have him back, but Detective Jimmy Connolly was far from fine. And Aaron Scott Lawless would know.
…He would know it better than anyone.
"No, you're not," Lawless corrected kindly. "And that's okay. I just wanted to let you know I'm here for you."
"Here for me," Jimmy Connolly repeated hollowly.
It took Aaron nearly a minute to grasp that it had been a question. "Here…to listen. If you ever need to talk about it."
"A kid is dead because of me. His name was Ranaan Frye. He was sixteen years old. He was an only child. His parents are devastated," he droned like an android. "Why would I ever want to talk about it."
"To get some closure," Lawless offered. "To know peace—"
"I went to his funeral. I spoke to his parents. It's done. It's over."
Peace, peace—but there is no peace, the words rattled in his head in mockery. "It's never over, Jimmy." Aaron said quietly. He, of all people, would know. It had been Hosea Howe who had given him the strength to move past that paralyzing guilt, but it haunted him still. Every day. Every single damn day.
"It is for me." Connolly turned to go, and Lawless reached out. Reflexively, Instinctively. Supportingly—
It was only two fingers. Two fingers laid lightly on the boy's left wrist. Jimmy Connolly wrenched away as though burned. "Don't touch me!" It was not a request. It was a command.
…and he'd heard it before. "Did he respond like a victim to you?" He'd asked Paltron…
It was also loud. Ambient conversation had ceased, and questioning eyes were now gazing in their direction. "I'm sorry," Aaron explained, searching the boy's stony face for answers. "I wasn't trying to scare you."
"Don't touch me." Connolly repeated.
"I just wanted you to know you're not alone in this. You can talk to me if you need to."
"I don't. I won't," Jimmy Connolly accused him. "Please leave me alone."
He had to be strong and stoic at home. Personify Manhood. Fatherhood. But here at work he had grown used to being part of two halves, and Paltron had never possessed the soul in their long partnership. It had always been him who had been forced to feel, and feel everything for the both of them. Perhaps the advance was unwelcome, the emotions too alien for another man, and a stranger at that. He withdrew. Changed his tactic. "Look, Kid, I'm your partner," he clapped his back. "It's what I'm here for."
"I work with you, Mr. Lawless. I respect you," the young man said with all the wariness of a beaten pit bull as he slunk away. "But you're not my friend. Don't. Touch me."
What the hell, Aaron wondered, had made his new partner so damn mistrusting. Was it something he had done—?
AN: Sonatorrek II coming 13 December 2013.