It's been ten weeks since this story began. Ten chapters. Come next week, I'm headed back to school for my last year of university. I'm looking forward to it, primarily because it will give me a chance to focus my mind. Lately, it's been wandering quite a bit. This typically happens around the end of the summer. I tend to get restless. Classes and assignments fix that, which might well be part of the reason I want to go into teaching.
This week, we visit some of my oldest-running OCs, and those of you who have read the rest of this series, as well as "Back from the Dead" and/or "Cult of the Dragon King" will recognize them immediately.
I figured it was time to delve a bit into the family dynamic. I have plans for further excursions in the future.
This time around, I thought I'd have an argument. Those tend to be fun.
Let's begin, shall we?
"Is this the part where I'm supposed to talk now?" Detective Darren McKinley muttered, raising an incredulous eyebrow and staring at his daughter as if he'd never seen her before. "This entire conversation is way over my head. I'd rather stay out of it."
Katie McKinley scowled, looking so much like her mother that Darren felt a shiver of superstitious fear, and glared at the woman standing next to her instead.
"Don't be thick, Daddy."
"I've already said far too much," Darren replied slowly. "I'm not about to get roped into it again. The entire debacle is over, and good riddance to it all. Now, can I move on with my day, please? I'd hoped to relax. I hear it's all the rage these days."
"Over?" echoed Katie's companion, whose name Darren did not know.
"Yes. Over. A pleasure to meet you, now if you'll excuse me—"
"Seto Kaiba committing murder isn't exactly the sort of thing I'd expect you to gloss over like this, sir. From what Katherine tells me, you're one of the good ones. So what? Is he paying you to keep quiet?"
"Don't insult me," Darren said sharply.
"Cris, cool it."
The woman, Cris, visibly calmed. "I'm not insulting you. I'm asking a question."
"You're leveling an accusation. One based on a lie. Now, excuse me. Please. I would like to sit down. Thank you."
"Now, hold on a second—"
"Or what?" Darren snapped, finally deciding that he'd had it. His hazel eyes flashed. "What do you intend to do if I don't hold on a second? What do you intend to do if I refuse to answer your questions? Last time I checked, the polite thing to do is to introduce yourself when you meet someone. The polite thing to do is respect someone's desire to enter his own home on his day off. Did I miss a memo somewhere? Did I miss the part where convention says 'unless he happens to be friends with a man I don't like?'"
Katie blinked, looking surprised and almost frightened.
Cris was stunned.
"You want to talk about Seto Kaiba?" Darren demanded. "Find someone else who wants to talk about him. God only knows how many websites are devoted to the question of his innocence these days. Or, sorry, guilt, since you're apparently already convinced. Go talk to them. I'm sure they'll have plenty to say. I don't."
If he heard one more word about Siegfried von Schroeder, Darren thought he was liable to explode. The other side of the law was looking pretty damn sweet right about now, and he thought maybe that was a sign that he should take a vacation.
So many people had grilled him on his opinion about the city's latest scandal that he'd almost considered plastic surgery just to avoid being recognized. So far, though, no one had bothered him at home. Now, here someone was, and he'd had enough.
This was going to end. Now.
"…Jesus," she said haughtily. "Sorry if I'm curious why you—"
"Why I what?" the detective cut her off, in a tone so low that he barely heard it. "Why I'm defending a murderer? Why I'm lying to everyone and sullying the reputation of the police department that hired me? Why Domino City refuses to acknowledge the truth and throw a noose around Seto Kaiba's neck? Why I don't do the world a favor and shoot the bastard myself? Why rich people get away with murder, why people are so blind to what you see, why the world's unfair, why the government pisses on the people it's supposed to protect?"
His anger was gone, if it had been there to start with.
He was just…tired.
Katie cleared her throat and wiped her hands on her sweater, looking at anything and everything but the scene in front of her. Cris's gaze was locked on his.
"…You don't want the truth. You don't want answers. You want to be right. That isn't my problem. I don't care to indulge in your delusions. You won't listen to what I have to say, anyway. You're just waiting for me to shut up. So, I will."
He turned away, ignoring Cris as she began to talk, opened the door to his home, stepped inside.
"Good. Bye."
He slammed the door behind him.
Katie came inside a few minutes later and immediately set upon her father a look fit to freeze acid. "Jeez, Dad. I know she wasn't especially tactful, but think you could have maybe pulled the stick out a foot or so?"
Darren could always tell when his daughter was irritated with him; she called him "Dad." Where most girls grew out of the "Daddy" phase at some point during…well, at some point, Katie never had. Except when she wanted to prove a point. The detective figured that if she ever called him "Father," he should start preparing for death.
Grace Jennifer McKinley wasn't the sort of woman who approved of foul language by any standard, and so she gave her daughter a sharp, searching look. Katie stared right back, as if to say: There's a point this time. Darren wondered sometimes if the static between those two would eventually cause an explosion of some kind; if the friction would start a fire. He'd long since decided that before it ever happened, he intended to be three states away.
"I'm not going to apologize for him anymore," Darren replied, and Jen (she hated her first name and liked to pretend that it didn't exist) seemed to calm down. Oh, she likely thought. It's about the Kaibas. No wonder. She went back to reading the book she'd placed on her lap when the door opened.
"I get you're on Team Kaiba." Katie muttered, taking a breath. "Me, too. I'm the freaking captain. But seriously, Dad? I mean, really? You're the one who always told me, 'Nothing sets the enemy off like smiling at them.' Where was the smile?"
"She has a point," Jen put in.
"So do I," Darren said, leaning his head back and staring at the ceiling. "God only knows how many times I'm going to talk about this. I'm sick and tired of telling people I have nothing to say about von Schroeder. I'm tired of listening to people call Seto a murderer, call us corrupt and spineless, call Mokuba an up-and-coming con artist or…whatever else they're saying now."
"…She's part of the team, you know. For the website." Katie raised an eyebrow. "Renie brought her on as a 'devil's advocate' sort of deal. To show that we're not just brainless fan-zombies. I don't like her any more than you do, but it wouldn't have killed you to be nice, if for no better reason than to prove a point."
"It wouldn't have killed her to have a brain so she could see the point I was making."
"Darren."
"No. I'm done. I'm just…done. Maybe other people want to wax poetic on Seto's guilt or innocence. I don't. I was there. I saw more than enough, and I don't want to keep living through it." He looked over at Katie with a suddenly pained look, and she blinked, surprised.
He took a moment to compose himself before saying anything else.
A moment that dragged on for an eternity.
"…If Seto had been there…the night Zac died." The temperature of the room dropped to freezing. "If he'd seen it…if he'd been standing right there with me when it happened. And people called me a murderer. He wouldn't say anything to anyone about it."
More as like for the best, he thought. Seto would probably agree with them.
"Of course he wouldn't," Katie said, with a conviction that told Darren she did understand. Not like the rest of them. Not like most of her peers, who doted on Seto and Mokuba purely for the rich-cute paradigm.
"He would, and does, expect the same courtesy from me."
