#77 -- WHAT? (Part 2)
Disclaimer: I own neither Without A Trace, nor the characters involved. They belong to Warner Brothers Television. I realise no financial return from these works, they are for entertainment purposes only. I also do not own Return To Oz. Hopefully, the big D doesn't notice me over here.
Title: "Reassigned to Oz"
Fandom: Without A Trace
Character: Martin Fitzgerald
Prompt: #77 -- WHAT?
Word Count: 15,800 (approx)
Rating: R (language) maybe... or PG-13. I'm too lazy to go counting.
Spoilers: For the movie? Lots. For WAT, not so much. Maybe minor S5 and S6, but nothing specific.
Credits: Beta'd by the great squeelated and jennukes
Author's Notes:: I know, I know. The puns are… bad. Puns are. I couldn't help myself. Thus, this is me, asking for help. My name is crazy_magpie and I have a problem. I am an inveterate punner. Any and all assistance in overcoming my condition is appreciated.
I recognise that I have played merry hell with some of the continuity of the film… but then again, the film plays merry hell with the continuity of the books, which play merry hell with themselves. (Seriously. Read them. I love them, but if ever there was an example of universal non-continuity…) Given the context, it's not badly altered. No, this has nothing to do with the Tin Man series recently released. Rather, I cling to childhood memories. :)
Yeah, it's crack. I couldn't keep them all dark and miserable. I started writing this ages ago, when rinkle was doing her 'Reel SPN' fic here, a fantastic blend of Labyrinth and Supernatural. I thought... why not?
Previously...
It is, Martin thinks, one of the most ridiculous escape plans of all time. Now that they've gotten out of the room (with his long, skinny arms, the pumpkinhead was able to simply reach through the latticed door and lift the latch), they ought to be sneaking towards the front doors and then making a run for it. Instead, he and a walking bundle of sticks are sneaking into the main hall to retrieve a rundown robot. Or rather, the pumpkinhead is attempting to sneak and doing a bad job of it. Martin isn't bothering to try. There's a reason running shoes got nicknamed 'sneakers.' Even the slight squeak of rubber on a mirrored surface is easily drowned out by clacking sticks.
"Shh." He turns around to warn the pumpkinhead once again that the goal here is to not get caught.
"Sorry. Say, may I call you 'Mom', even if it isn't so?" The pumpkin whispers.
Martin shakes his head. "That would just be too weird."
"Oh." The pumpkinhead sounds almost too sad.
"Hey, brother…" He slips into his customary address. After all, if it looks like Danny, and sounds like Danny. "It's just…"
"Brother?" The pumpkin perks up. "You want to be my brother?"
"Sure." After all, it's better than Mom. It's also a role he knows how to play. And if it saves him from having to soothe a case of squashed spirit, all the better.
"Thank you." Even though the grin is permanent, it seems a little more genuine.
Reaching the tik-tok man, Martin winds him up, and explains the plan, before sending the mismatched pair off, together. He realises he forgot to include 'be quiet' in the instructions as they start up the stairs, behind him.
"Are you sure you understand all that?" Pumpkinhead-Danny asks.
"I understand it better than you do," Tik-tok-Jack snaps.
Martin suppresses a sigh. It's just like back at the office. The Taylor-Malone cold war is going to drive them all around the bend. Realistically, it should have been Jack and Martin at each other's throats, when Martin took up with Sam. Instead, when he found out, Jack sympathised. Of course, at that point Martin was starting to get a clue. Jack must have known it wouldn't last much longer.
Focus on your own job. He's got the tough part, after all. If head thirty-four is anything like the head it looks like… those ears could pick up rebellious thoughts. Of course, half those thoughts never even happened, but that was never the point. They might have happened, they had the potential to happen, so they needed to be punished, regardless. Go to your room. You stand there until you figure out what you did wrong. Don't look at me like that. You seem to have no idea of the sacrifices this family makes for you. Why do you have to make things so difficult? Don't talk back to me. Don't you dare move from that table until you've cleared your plate. The people who think the last one is hardly a threat given the way he eats, never had to eat her cooking. He was shocked the first time he discovered that vegetables had colour, and didn't squish the moment you touched them with a fork. When he found out that they could be eaten raw, he nearly had a heart attack. He's pretty sure that the first time he tasted anything seasoned beyond just 'salt and pepper', his brain had a moment of shutdown from pure overload. She meant it, too. If it meant he sat for hours staring at a congealing mess that could only loosely be called gravy, then he sat for hours. No twitching, no fiddling, no daydreaming allowed. It's the one thing his dad would rescue him from. More than once, Victor came in and whisked the plate away before assigning a lesser punishment like a grounding, perhaps recalling what often happened when forcing a person to eat. The rest of it, though… he didn't seem to give a crap that his son was being turned into a neurotic, paranoid loner for whom 'trust' was merely a financial term.
Carefully, he pushes open one of the mirrored doors to Mombi's bedroom. She's asleep on the bed, headless, with the ruby-red cabinet key tied to her wrist. Great. Because if head thirty-four is the original one that came with this body, then this body is going to be very sensitive to things like the theft of her prize possession. He prays the others are upstairs, following his instructions, because there won't be much time, if he gets caught. People wonder how he learned to run so fast. They laugh when he tells them the truth: Getting away.
Fortunately, he's also very good at moving quietly, not to mention being light-fingered. He prides himself on the ability to steal the pillow from under someone's head and leave them asleep. The average person only hoards the blankets. He hoards everything on the damn bed. Sam was kind of funny when she found that out. She's - surprisingly - the first girlfriend he's ever had that tried to smother him with the pilfered pillow, before claiming it back. Not all of their best relationship moments involved sex, but they did all happen in bed, he realises.
There's a dicey moment when Mombi twitches as he unties the bow, but he stands back and lets her move her own arm out of the loop. He does not, in the slightest, jump back in shock while the witch engages in normal, but almost violent sleep movement. Nor does he quickly grab the key and clutch it to his chest while trying to control the pounding of a heart so loud that it's probably woken even the neighbours.
Carefully, he sneaks into the gallery of heads. Like their owner, they all seem to be sleeping. He hopes they stay that way. He makes his way to cabinet thirty-four and carefully puts the key in the lock. Gingerly, he lifts a can bearing an ornate script: Powder of Life. Nice of it to be so clearly labelled, really. As he turns to leave, his shoe squeaks just slightly on the floor.
The head's eyes fly open, and the mouth starts to scream. Startled, he jumps back, just as all the other heads wake up and start screaming. It's deafening. He spins to see the headless witch has woken up, too, responding to the screams, no doubt. She seems a little disoriented though, as if the sensory input from too many eyes and ears has the body more than a little confused. He dekes to the left then moves right, bolting for the door. He had to be the one to do this, he tells himself as he yanks open the door to the tower stairs, because none of the others could move fast enough. It's true for real life, too. Danny can be quick, and most people would look at the height difference and expect him to win any footrace. But Martin has lost track of the amount of times his friend has had a lead in both distance and starting time, yet the gap is closed easily with almost no effort. Navigating a steep set of tower stairs while packing an axe and mystery powder? Not for amateurs.
He closes the top door behind him, and terror turns to panic as he takes in the scene before him. "You're not ready! She's right behind me!"
"He went beserk!" The chicken stares at the tik-tok man, wide-eyed for even a chicken. The copper creation stumps around in a tight circle, spouting gibberish.
Aw, shit! "His brain's run down!" Martin drops the axe, setting the can of powder on the floor a little more carefully, before heading over to wind the Army up again.
"How can you tell?" The pumpkinhead asks. Martin's pretty sure that it's not the original line. The stick-man has developed a real snarky side, awfully quick.
Martin shoots him a look before winding up the appropriate key. Tik-tok-Jack sighs, appreciatively, seemingly oblivious to the fact that he's probably jeopardised the whole plan. "Thank you."
"You, watch the door." If this is going to succeed, then someone competent better take over. "You," he snaps his fingers at Pumpkinhead-Danny, "get those wings tied on!"
"We need more cord," the chicken protests.
"Well, then get it." He begins liberally sprinkling the Powder of Life on the hastily assembled 'creature', formed from one couch, one chaise lounge, some branches with curtain material tied to them (because he's not trusting mere palm fronds, no matter what he's seeming to remember), and what looks like a moulding moose's head. Nothing happens.
"Well?" He turns to the pumpkinhead.
"Maybe there are some magic words, or something."
"Like what?" Martin tells himself that the axe he's just picked up again is overkill on a pumpkin. "This might have been a detail worth mentioning before we went through this trouble, and I could have come up with another plan." He still wants to know where he came up with this one.
"I don't know! I wasn't alive then!" It's perfect lawyer-logic. My client should be found not-guilty on account of the fact that he's just plain dirt-stupid.
"Maybe you should read the instructions." Sam's acid voice stops them both, and they turn sheepishly to look at her.
Martin coughs, turning the can over in his hand. Of course he didn't read the instructions. What guy reads instructions? It's a badge of shame to be caught reading instructions. Sprinkle lightly one dusting dose, okay, there's his first mistake, On static object to be brought to life, speaking the words Weaugh, Peaugh, Teaugh. Okay, so was that a silent 'gh', an 'f' sounding 'gh' or a hard, ghastly 'g'? He feels a little like Ash in Army of Darkness, retrieving the Necronomicon. If he says things wrong, do a cadre of skeletons burst out of the walls to attack him? Does it bring on the end of the world? His sensitive ears catch a bellow that sounds like it's already on the stairs. Does he have time to argue?
He closes his eyes and says something… it might even be the right words. There's a slight hush before a voice says, "Peaugh?" The tone is that of someone who has just heard something clearly impossible, like the Yankees getting trounced by the Mets and the speaker being forced to have to watch it.
"Thank God." Martin clasps his hands together briefly. "Pumpkinhead, help get the Army on board." He slides over the back of the couch. "You, let's get going."
"Come on!" The stick-man's version of 'help' seems to consist of haranguing. "If you don't hurry, she's going to catch us."
"If you don't stop arguing, I'm going to leave you," Martin snaps. He can hear the witch's footsteps getting closer. Any second she's going to throw that door open and… "Go. Go!" He slaps the back of the couch for emphasis.
"I'm going. You don't have to be so impatient about it." Amazingly, the creature moves forward, beating its wings slowly and carefully, like it's not used to having the appendages. Then again, it probably isn't. It's just in time, too, as the doors crash open and Mombi stands there, the epitome of rage, or perhaps even beyond that. He doesn't want to stick around to find out.
"Go!"
With a crash, the assemblage hits the window and begins to slide over the sill. Gravity is definitely at work, here, though. Instead of flying, they begin to drop in what could be called a calculated descent, if someone could gauge time or distance while accelerating downward at 32.17 f/s2. Martin closes his eyes tight, wondering if things in dreams hurt as badly as they do in real life. This is going to be one mother of a car-crash.
At what he judges to be the last instant, he finds himself still waiting for another instant. Then his stomach tells him they've changed direction. He forces himself to open his eyes to find out which, telling himself that it can't be too bad, that any direction is better than down. "We're flying." He feels a little giddy, like the time he absentmindedly ate all the cookies in the coffee station and drank half the coffee, too, while pulling an all-nighter. "We're actually flying. Oh. My. God. It worked."
"Help." A plaintive voice distracts him from the wonder of it. He turns to see the pumpkinhead hanging off the back of the chaise lounge.
"You couldn't help him?" Martin gives the tik-tok a look before inching his way to the stranded stick-man.
"I was preoccupied with making sure I did not fall out," the Army tells him. "You did not seem to be rendering assistance, either."
"I gotta think of everything?"
They each grab a wooden arm and pull the pumpkinhead onto the assemblage. Catching his breath, Martin looks at the two feuding parties. "Get a grip, you guys.
"I am holding on," the tik-tok tells him.
"That's not what I'm saying," Martin mutters.
"Maybe, when you're done bickering, one of you might tell me where we're going." It could he thinks, be considered an insult to assign that voice to this creature, except it's the voice of someone who has carried the team more than once, if not so literally. * Without her, they'd just be a fractious group of kindergarteners, with half the manners. She's the calm, level-headed one and when she's around, he can't help but feel safe. He'd not only follow her into Hell if she asked, but block the Devil at the door so she could get away.
"Thataway." He risks death by leaning over the edge of the couch to point at angle the creature can see. He's not sure just what direction 'thataway' is, but knows that if narrative causality applies anywhere, it applies in dreams. He'll get where he needs to go. Lack of reality will see to that.
Dawn is breaking by the time he catches sight of their eventual destination. The mountain rises forbidding and bare, and to a mind used to the coastal mountains of the Pacific Northwest, not really mountainy at all. Size-wise it might qualify, but it looks more like just a giant pile of rubble than anything else. Mountains, to his mind, should have trees and waterfalls. They should have some evidence of life on them, even if it's only wildlife. It's while he's reflecting on the self-experience centeredness of this that all hell breaks loose.
The over-burdened old ropes they'd used to tie this thing together decide that ominous creaking isn't enough and add a few snapping noises to the list. "They're breaking!" the chicken screams, "We're coming apart!"
"No!" Martin lunges as one line separates, grabbing on with either hand and by some miracle, not separating his shoulders. He's less afraid of that than the long but probably not slow drop ahead.
"Oh, no!"
He twists to see that the Pumpkinhead has made a valiant attempt to do the same at another join, unfortunately losing his… well… head in the process.
"After it!" Visions of a smashed pumpkin-head flash through his mind, looking disturbingly like the real thing. Failure here is not an option. He grits his teeth as they go into a steep dive, using adrenaline to give him the strength to yank his broken ropes back together and fashion a quick knot that he prays will hold. He's going to need both hands for this next part, because he doesn't quite trust in the tik-tok's ability to catch, let alone catch a flying squash without wrecking it. He tells himself it's just like a basketball. If he can get his fingertips on it, he's got it. The wind rushing in his ears and the distinct lack of balance he possesses standing on a pair of separating couches tell him it's not quite that simple, and that even if he succeeds it could be a moot point. He tries to tell himself not to listen. While he's more-than-once dreamed of dying, he's not quite sure what happens if he dies in a dream. He hopes he just wakes up, because he has the distinct feeling… his fingers graze the surface of the pumpkin, just enough to direct it back towards him, but the entire motion pulls him back on to the couches and the resulting impact is too much for the overburdened ropes… distinct feeling he's going to find out.
Instinctively, he rolls towards the back of one of the couches, in the hopes that the larger object will encounter more air-resistance than the small object known as his body, and thus have a slower descent. Not that - if this place uses real-world physics this time - it would matter. Free-fall is free-fall, and sooner or later terminal velocity is reached.
"I'm sorry…" The pumpkin voice sounds a little muffled. Without meaning to, Martin wonders how much mess it's going to make on his clothes when they hit. He wonders - does pumpkin stain more than blood?
The resulting impact is far less than he expected, merely rib-cage jarring instead of bone-splintering, flesh-rending, blood-splatteringly deadly. A few more thumps follow, and cautiously he looks up to see the wooden frame of the pumpkinhead sitting rather right-up on the ground, the tik-tok buried upside down in a small snow-drift and the gump's head sitting on an outcropping. The chicken flies down to land unharmed, ruffling its feathers.
"Now that was an odd experience," the Gump says, in typical Viv-like understatement.
"Uh-huh." Odd. Experience. His legs feel shakier than if he was drunk and trying to stand on a railway bridge while a train went past, something he once swore never to re-experience. Slowly and deliberately, he stands up, walking over to the man-shaped bundle of sticks and placing the pumpkin back on it. Then, moving just as carefully, he treks over to the tik-tok and pulls it upright. Only then does he drop to his knees and begin scrabbling in the snow for something he prays he hasn't lost. It's not snow, he realises as he brushes it aside, but sand. The kind of fine, gritty sand that's worse than snow, because it allows for no kind of grip against rock, and it's a long, long, long way down to the bottom of the mountain. If he wakes up, he's never, ever going to watch a so-called kid's movie again. Weren't they supposed to be the ones having nightmares? Shouldn't they be waking him up so he can go rescue them?
At the same time, he has the distinct feeling that they're being watched. Just because they are the only people in sight doesn't mean nobody's watching and or listening, after all. He ought to know the feeling: he works for the federal government. There are levels of 'watching' and this one feels like Quantico. Not only is someone observing their actions, but those actions are being reported higher up the ladder. He swears someone told Victor about it if he even blinked funny. He's pretty sure he's the only person in the history of the Bureau pulled in and interrogated about being 'up to something' when he didn't go out and celebrate New Years' Eve. If he's to be honest, it started as an interrogation and moved into a thirty-minute argument that culminated with Martin using an expression that a great many people in the Bureau used to describe Victor, but never to his face. He's still surprised he wasn't booted out after that, even if it was personal instead of professional insubordination. His father is funny that way; Martin's never quite been able to figure the man out.
His fingers close around the handle of the axe, and he stifles his sigh of relief. No sense letting enquiring minds know just how much this means to him. Better to let them think it's just a weapon.
They strap the Gump's head back onto the more intact of the couches, despite it avowing that it looks ridiculous and that it's fine, even while broken. Just like when Viv tried this with a literal broken heart, the team ignores the protests. He's not going to leave a head out here, all alone and vulnerable.
"Tell me who you are, and why you have come all the way to my kingdom, and what I can do to make you happy." The sudden, booming voice behind him causes Martin to jump. His first instinct is to crawl behind the couch and stay there, or at least use it for cover so he can reach the cliff and slowly sneak away. Instead, he turns around, shuffling guiltily while trying to hide his axe behind him. Maybe if he looks helpless, he can minimise the yelling, this time. The words drip with barely controlled sarcasm: 'happy' isn't what the voice wants any of them to be. Rather, it intimates, it would prefer them gone, but since they are here, they'd better have a damn good explanation for what is going on and it better not involve anything the unseen speaker does not want to hear. If Mombi's appearance had been terrifying, this voice is downright dreadful in that it inspires nothing but dread. They've come all this way to lose. He knows this, because instinctively he knows he can't win. Not against that voice.
"It must be the Nome king," the tik-tok mutters.
"Where?" The pumpkinhead shows pure Danny-like naivety, seeming not to realise that just because you can't see the angry man doesn't mean he can't hurt you.
"Um…" Martin decides to wing it. "Federal agent. I came here to talk to you about the personage known as 'the Scarecrow.' Is he here?"
"Not a real federal agent from the part of the world where Kansas is." The voice sounded almost amused.
"New York office. Definitely not Kansas." On the other hand, it also means he has no jurisdiction here. "And for the record, I've only known one Dorothy in my entire life and she wasn't…" he coughs. "She."
"Yes…" There are definitely the tones of someone springing a trap with that statement. "You believe I have something that does not belong to me and I should give it back."
"Something or someone, yeah." If the Scarecrow is an 'it' then possession is nine-tenths and they're screwed. But if he's defined as a 'person', then he can't be considered property and therefore should be released.
"You believe that the appropriate action for one who has taken something that is not theirs is for them to give it back? And possibly face restitution?"
Martin nods, miserably. He has a sudden bad feeling about where this conversation is going. This is sounding an awful lot like the time he accused his sister of colouring in one of his colouring books, not long after he used one of her dolls to play tug-of-war with the dog.
The Nome king starts to cackle, confirming Martin's fears.
"Brother, why is he laughing?" The pumpkinhead cowers behind him, wooden knees knocking together.
"Because…"
As the laughing grows louder, the ground begins to shake and Martin can feel it giving way underneath him. He starts to fall, even as he hears the others shouting behind him but there's nothing he can do about it.
"All the precious stones in the world are made here, for me, by my nomes. So imagine how I feel when someone digs down and steals them from me. Imprisons them, you could say. All those emeralds in the Emerald city belong to me." The voice echoes off the walls of the cavern as Martin falls past. He hits the ground with a bit of a thud, sliding across a slick floor to hit something soft.
"So you see," the Nome king continues, "I am not the thief. Your friend is the thief."
"He's not my friend!" Martin disentangles himself from the Scarecrow who looks a little surprised to see him, but that could just be the way the guy's face is painted. "I've never even met the guy. Except now, here, and that doesn't count. I was just looking for him, because they said he'd gone missing and that's what I do. On the other hand, turning the entire city to stone could be called 'overkill', and if I recall correctly, it wasn't the Scarecrow that founded the Emerald City, but the Wizard. Shouldn't you be going after him? I'm not sure about extradition treaties, but you could at least give it a shot." He glances over at the Scarecrow who definitely seems a little shocked at the lack of defence Martin seems to be offering. "Sorry. That sort of thing is definitely not my job. I quit White Collar for a reason."
"Nevertheless," says the Nome king, and the Scarecrow vanishes with a pop.
"What the hell?" Martin scrambles to his feet and glares at what looks vaguely like a face in one of the rock walls.
"I transformed him into an ornament, an amusing and beautiful ornament for my palace."
"You son-of-a-bitch. You don't just get to do that to people." He ignores the fact that he's talking to what, here, might as well be an all-powerful being. "There are rules!"
"Rules? Do you think this is a game?" The voice grows even a little harder, no easy feat for something that sounded like it was passed through a cement mixer on the way to the ear. "Perhaps your friends would like to play, too."
He hears screaming, before the others come sliding into the room. There's no sign of the chicken, however. He hopes it isn't dead. Darwinism states that omelettes are the first thing he eats if kept here forever, followed by stewed pumpkin and if necessary, roast chicken. On the sentimental side, he was actually beginning to feel a little bit fond of the bundle of feathers.
"Here are the rules." Emphasis on the word only shows the disdain. "Each of you may inspect my ornament collection. You each have three guesses as to which ornament is the Scarecrow. If you touch the right one and say the word 'Oz', he will be transformed back and you may all leave. Sound fair enough?"
No, Martin wants to scream, but the tik-tok turns to whisper, cutting him off.
"I don't think we have a choice," the Army tells him. "He has a lot of power. We cannot fight him."
"What the hell you talking about, Jack? That usually makes you more inclined to fight." If anyone is more knee-jerk anti-authority than Martin, it's Jack Malone. "This is a trap. Trust me on this."
"We're lucky he hasn't turned us to stone." The pumpkinhead leans over to add his worries.
"Not through lack of trying," Martin mutters. "Look, I'm telling you guys, anything that sounds this easy is going to turn real nasty in a real big hurry." Like when a simple statement like 'I believe Martin is capable of deciding for himself whether or not to attend Church' turned into three years of forced Sunday labour. Oh, some clever-dick might argue that it wasn't really 'forced', since he always had the option of Church services instead, but that tends to devolve into the kind of messy 'body versus soul' type arguments that he left religion to get away from.
"It is still a chance," the tik-tok argues.
"So's the Powerball, but you don't see me staking my retirement future on it!" He doesn't care if the story is supposed to be about the nobility of sticking by friends and backing the team, because when ten thousand people believe in a dumb idea, it's still a dumb idea. He knows this is a dumb idea.
"Coward," a voice grates in his ear.
"Chicken…" he says, warningly. At least he knows where it is, now.
"Chicken?" The Nome king doesn't sound too happy to hear the word. "Where is this…"
"Figure of speech. God." He remembers now what the Wheelers said about chickens being banned. He crosses his arms and glares at the others. "I'm not doing it."
"And the rest of you?" The king seems to take the rebellion of one in stride. Maybe he was counting on it. Martin hopes not.
"We accept," the Army tells him.
"Hmmm…" the king sounds pleased.
A sucking sound comes from the far wall, as thousands of hands appear in the rock, pulling it aside like wet clay. Martin shudders, involuntarily. He'd like to say it's the same sound quicksand makes, but rather it's the same sound blood makes, bubbling into a lung. He remembers fighting to stay conscious, and every now and then he wakes up from a nightmare, wondering why. Mightn't it have been better to go gently into the dark night instead of being stuck with the memories of helplessness and pain? He doesn't necessarily think about dying, but rather just blissful unawareness.
"I think the sofa should go first." It's definitely divide and conquer, then, sending in the only known member of the team not to lodge an opinion either way. The tik-tok and the pumpkinhead have committed and they fear the power of the king more than the odds they face inside. The Gump, though… it might decide to side with Martin if it had time to wait out the failures of the other two. It's easier to break the spirit of an individual than a team.
"I have nothing to touch with," it protests.
"Use your antlers." The king isn't going to fall for such an easy excuse.
"I should have quit while I was ahead," the assemblage mutters, stumping off towards the door on legs that seem to have magically gained an ability to move. Martin doesn't remember animating the legs, just the wings, tail and head. Then again, that's dreams for you. Idly, he spins his axe, watching the doomed creature go. He can hear what sounds like the rattling of bones, and tells himself it's only the pumpkinhead shaking in its boots as it wishes luck to the reluctant Gump.
"Shall we have some refreshment while we wait?" The king sounds way, way too smugly confident for someone purporting to play a 'fair game.' If he were still working White Collar, Martin would have been assembling a list of charges and calling a judge right now.
"Depends," Martin doesn't look away from where the 'door' finishes closing itself. "Who's cooking?" After all, if you're a rock, hot lead might be considered a delicacy. Martin's had enough of it to last the rest of his lifetime.
"Ah." The gravelly voice sounds part disappointed, part proud, as though sad it doesn't get to play another little joke, but impressed with the competition for figuring it out. It's a chess-player's way of thinking, and going on behind the admiration is a rapidly revised strategy session to come up with a new way to win.
"The king mentioned a risk," the Army muses as they wait. "What exactly are we risking?"
"Didn't anyone ever teach you to ask that question before you sign the verbal contract?" Martin says, snarkily. That's why he didn't say 'yes' like these two idiots. He knows the words 'there is a slight risk' translate directly to 'you're going to get hosed.' Funny how the lawyer and the strategist never want to hear that. It's disheartening the lines they fall for, every single day. You'd think Danny'd be more cynical than that, given his background. There he is, ex-abuse victim, alcoholic, grew up neglected and in the system, went through training for professional liars, and he still believes in the innate goodness of people. He doesn't seem able to make the connection: if people are innately good, there would be no reason for lawyers and FBI agents.
Take, for instance, Martin himself. On any normal, given day, he'd throw himself in front of a train to save his friends. He'll also lie, cheat, and attempt to weasel his way out of any small trouble to come his way, even if it means blaming them. Big stuff? Sure, there he's Mr. Noble if it's a career or life on the line. Dinner cheques, lost bets and cases blown on a technicality? He'll point fingers every which way on that. I may not believe in the devil, but I'm pretty sure he made me do it. Incidentally, I paid last time.
"At least I am trying…" Whatever the tik-tok is trying to do gets drowned out as the earth rumbles and shakes, probably with laughter.
"Next." The king sounds more amused and less gravelly, the voice becoming more human and recognisable. The sucking sound returns as the hands pull open the wall again.
"Pick me up," the tik-tok begins droning.
"I'm coming." There is more than a hint of exasperation in the pumpkinhead's tone. Just like his real-world analogue, he sounds tired of pulling the Army out of trouble and listening to the man complain about it along the way.
Martin keeps himself off to the side, thinking. Clearly, the Gump isn't coming back any time soon, and their loss appears to be the king's gain. If you could call becoming more flesh-like and less rock-like while in the same room as a possible axe-murderer a 'gain.' In his blind rush towards checkmate, the king seems to have forgotten one of his opponents tends to cheat. That's why he and Victor don't play anymore. His father prefers an adversary who doesn't use slight-of-hand to move his pawn five spaces up the board while pretending to reposition his knight. It's not his fault that it's the only way to beat the guy.
"So, what happened?" He contrives to sound distracted.
"He failed to guess correctly, so now he, too, is an ornament." The rock face smiles, but it's not in the least bit friendly. "Next."
"But that's not fair!" The pumpkinhead protests.
"You said you were willing to take a risk," the king points out.
Martin nods. True. He's feeling a little vindication for all those times people made him feel like his first couple of years on the job weren't really worth anything. Hell, one of the first things he learned while just an accounting student was that you didn't write cheques if you didn't know whether or not you had the cash to cover them. You certainly didn't go around handing out blank ones.
"It all sounds very fair to me," the king continues, "and my opinion is the one that matters."
"But you didn't tell us about it!" The pumpkinhead clearly has very little grasp of what constitutes the hard realities of life.
"You didn't ask." Martin and the king chorus it together, leaving the king looking a little startled. Once again, the odd man out is changing the dynamics of things.
"Perhaps you'd like to visit my fiery furnace instead." The rock-figure snaps its fingers and a small section of the cavern suddenly glows molten hot. Martin resists the urge to hold his hands up and warm his fingers. Sometimes it's not good to press one's luck too far.
"Next…" the king continues, "Pumpkinhead."
"Me?" The gourd actually contorts as the voice becomes squeaky. He then turns and shambles his way over to Martin. "Being an ornament will probably be hardest on you, brother. You're used to eating and sleeping and will probably miss them, but since I don't eat or sleep, I won't miss them."
"Is that a dig at my lifestyle habits?" Martin decides not to remind the stick-man that the flesh-and-blood member of this team has yet to agree to anything. He regrets his snarkiness though, as he realises the guy is trying to be kind and sympathetic. "Look. Things work out. They always do," he lies.
"Tik-tok's not even alive," Pumpkin seems to be looking for the worst in everything. Optimists, Martin has learned, often do when things get incredibly bleak, leaving it to the cynics to lighten things with wisecracks and the knowledge that it may now be bad, but it is almost certainly going to get worse, so looking at it that way it's not so rotten, yet.
"I have always valued my lifelessness," the tik-tok states. It's all Martin can do not to burst out laughing, because truer words were never spoken. Given the choice, Jack will always pick himself as the sacrifice, because he feels he has so much less to lose. The less he has to lose, the less ways people can hurt him. Ironically, it's that very willingness not to admit to his own life that lets him screw up everyone else's. He still can't conceive of why Viv can't quite get over the betrayal when Jack came scrambling back for his job. It's how he can blithely mess with Sam's head without even realising it.
"Look on the bright side… once your brains run down you won't be bored." Martin drops the axe-head to the floor, leaning on the handle like a cane. "And you," he turns back to the pumpkin, "won't have to worry about your head spoiling. As long as nobody knocks you on the floor, you'll be fine." He punches the pumpkinhead lightly on the shoulder. "Don't worry about me."
"I do not hold out much hope for him," the tik-tok says as the pumpkinhead goes. "He has many excellent qualities, but thinking is not one of them."
"Only to the outside observer." It's more likely that looking at the world from an angle all the time just imparts a weird perspective on things. A lot of people think Danny doesn't think, but he's better at the short con, where all you have to do is get out of sight in a crowd before the mark figures it out. Martin, on the other hand, prefers a long con, where there's a plan and the goal is something bigger. Danny's also a lucky son-of-a-bitch when it comes down to it. Somehow Martin doesn't think luck is the pumpkinhead's strong point. "Speaking of… want a hand?"
"Yes, thank you."
No sooner has Martin finished tightening the thinking key, then another rumble fills the room, confirming his suspicions about the last contestant's strong points. He turns to look at the Nome king, who has taken on distinct features. They aren't pretty.
"Next!"
"Do not worry. I am going to guess correctly."
"Yeah, and if you were wood instead of copper, I would have been decapitated by your nose just now." He knows the Army won't get it. It's not as smart as it thinks it is. Armies never are.
It trundles off and he sighs. All he can do is hope his developing plan works. Otherwise… guessing games have never been his strong point.
"Why did you come here?" The even-softer voice than before sounds genuinely curious.
"I told you."
"All this way for a Scarecrow?"
"It's my job." Martin says, but even as the words come out, he knows it's more than that. He came because things are screwed up, and he needs to figure out what's going on, and that's not just in this dream.
"Do you really want to destroy me?" His father asks.
"No." Martin shakes his head. "But I want to save me."
"And how is that so difficult? Just say the word and I can send you any-"
"No! Don't you see? That's the problem!" Even after all these years, everyone expects him to be able to pull strings and maybe even leave them hanging when he does. He's gotten away with murder on account of that misconception.
Before he can elaborate, something whispers in the king's ear. "It appears your Army has stopped moving and is just standing there."
"Ah, crap. He must have wound down. I made sure the brains were nice and tight, but everything else…" Martin sighs.
"Perhaps you'd better go in and wind him up. More appropriately this time?"
"Trust me, I'm good at winding people up," Martin tells him. "You should know." He starts out across the floor.
"And when you are there, you might as well stay and make your guesses."
Martin turns around, frowning. "I'm not playing."
"We're all playing," the man of stone tells him. "Sometimes it's just a matter of knowing for whom."
On a whim, Martin looks down at his shirt, just to see what he's wearing. It's an old one, from Quantico, the DoJ logo almost worn off, but still recognisable. A line from another story slips into his head. There is no justice. There is just us. ☼ "Yeah."
"You don't have to go." It sounds, though, that Victor would be disappointed if Martin didn't.
"Yes, I do." The words are true, there is no justice, just Martin and Danny and Viv and Sam and Jack and Elena and every other decent law enforcement officer out there, trying to make sure the world gets through another day. Maybe they can't always win, but what's the alternative? To quit the game so nobody wins at all?
There's a rumble as the stonefaced head nods, and Martin turns back to walk down the corridor. It descends deeper than the throne room, before opening up into a vast, gaudily decorated hall. Knick-knacks litter every surface, and each of those is ornate in and of itself. It looks like Better Homes and Gardens threw up over a Hollywood set-designer's view of an eighteenth century French royal palace. A phony antiques dealer would think he had died and gone to heaven if he ever landed in here. He's more than a little freaked.
The Army doesn't move as he approaches, but as he grasps the 'movement' key, he's surprised to find that there's still a fair amount of tension there. "What the…"
"Shh. It was a way to get you in here. Pretend you are winding me up, anyway." The Army whispers badly. Martin's deaf great-aunt can probably hear him, and she lives in Boca Raton. "I have one guess left, and if I fail to guess correctly, perhaps you can see what I am changed into. Then you might be able to deduce what ornament the Scarecrow is."
"Not a bad plan." Martin is actually semi-impressed. It's shades of the creative and semi-devious thinking Jack used to indulge in, before he seemed to conclude that outright breaking the rules required less effort.
"There must be something wrong with my brains. I am having difficulty guessing. It is as though I am getting rusty."
"Rust is fixable," Martin tells him. "You just have to take the time to go in and deal with things." It's a lesson he's been learning the hard way, but he thinks he's slowly getting there. "You just can't always do things for yourself. You can't get hurt if you don't feel because you're not alive, but until you feel pain, you don't know how not to do it to someone else." Is it just him, or was his last statement not only confusing, but sickly trite?
The copper man says nothing, but a single drop of something wells in the corner of its eye before dropping and the metal hand shakes just a little as it's raised.
"Hey," Martin whispers, "maybe you'll be lucky."
There is a spoken word and a flash of light, too bright to see by. By the time vision returns, the tik-tok is gone.
"Crap." He takes a deep breath. Random guessing isn't going to work, here. He just has to hope that there is some underlying pattern to the king's choices, and figure out what it is. He thinks. Contrary to popular belief, Martin's obsession with things in proper places didn't spring from nowhere, and isn't a product of being an accountant, either. Outwardly, Victor doesn't seem hyper-organised, with piles of what seem to be random papers decorating a lot of the surfaces in his office and in his study. It took him a long time to find a good secretary who knew well enough to leave well enough alone. Unlike most people who defend their clutter as 'a system', Victor's really is. Martin knows some of it. Important, but non-security issue papers go on top, with the most commonly used ones within arm's reach. Of next importance actually go on the bottom and anything that does need a security clearance goes on top of the armoire when not locked up. His dad is, after all, the only member of the family tall enough to reach. It's hard to inconspicuously sneak a peek at something when you have to stand on a chair.
He sits down on a handy sofa and begins to scan the upper shelves. The Scarecrow is - one could say - a rival. Unlike the rather single-minded and stupid Nome king of Ozzian lore, Victor values his enemies. If, in this dream, a sweet, innocent farmgirl can become a snarky son-of-a-bitch, why can't a rather one-dimensional bad-guy transform into someone far more cunning and organised?
Voices echo from up the hallway. With only the one person left, the king must have felt it unnecessary to close the door. Accusations of 'stole' and 'ruined' reach his ears. Typical. Never was anything just an accident. He always had the worst of intentions, wrecking the dinner party by being sick or getting shot. He senses, rather than hears the pause. "You know."
"Yes. He is here. And his friends."
"He's going to be the death of us."
"Perhaps." The king sounds more sanguine than in the movie. "Perhaps… not."
You want me to win. The thought comes with all the hallmarks of an epiphany. He remembers his grandfather almost reluctantly welcoming family, and more interested in the lives of his grandchildren and angling for their allegiance against his son. Victor wasn't supposed to be a federal agent, either, Martin realises. Old money doesn't do that sort of thing, except for younger sons with no seat on the board to inherit. Defiance came at a heavy price, the evidence in the form of medals locked in a box and hidden away. I ain't no millionaire's son… the song goes, but his father was. Dad could have easily hidden away in college or bought freedom from the draft more literally, but from the bits Martin has been able to put together, he enlisted.
Of course. Despite all the heartache Martin has thrown at the old man over the years, he's never made the threat so many fathers - especially those from old money - do. Never once has he threatened to leave his son destitute. It may have sounded like it at times, but he folded every time that bluff was called. Dad never kicked him out; Martin always left of his own accord.
He remembers the end of that first, rough year in New York, flying down to DC to have a confrontation, telling himself that he didn't need an appointment because if being Victor Fitzgerald's son offered privileges, surely that was one of them. He hadn't expected his father to listen. He'd expected to be told to just shut up, smile and go along with it. Danny's dig about Martin getting a free ride had hurt at the time, but in retrospect, he was right: not many third-year agents could tell off a deputy-director and get away with it. They certainly wouldn't get a greater level of respect. The more he thinks about it, the more things make sense. Dad didn't want him in the Bureau because Dad didn't want him to think it would be a free ride. And wouldn't it have been easy, if he'd been anyone else, to do just that. So easy to think that Victor somehow owed him for a miserable, abandoned childhood.
On the other hand, it was still a miserable, abandoned childhood, so he's not going to run over and become his dad's best friend anytime soon. Some things aren't easily forgiven, especially when you're a Fitzgerald and you don't easily forget. An optimist might call it character building, but if anyone says that within Martin's earshot, he's gonna punch them out.
Just because Dad wants him to win, however, doesn't mean he's going to make it easy. The old man has never made it easy. The games aren't fair, because life isn't fair. If Martin gets pummelled at basketball because Victor has the advantage of greater height and reach, well then it's Martin's problem and he should make his own advantages. There were never any consolation prizes or encouraging comments that his best was good enough. "Are you satisfied?" He remembers being asked once, as he lay on the ground gasping for air after a failed attempt to win, while Victor towered over him, barely out of breath at all. At the time it had been a taunt, and maybe in some ways it was, but another life lesson had dangled just beyond his learning curve, too. Are you satisfied? All this time he's wanted to live up to his father's standards when he was supposed to live up to his own.
He drops his gaze. He's never been one for hiding things up high, preferring to leave them out in plain sight for everyone to ignore. When he organises, it's by association rather than any standard of alphabetising or number. When he sees what he's looking for, he almost bursts out laughing. He gets up and walks over to a table, picking up a large emerald. Ruler of the Emerald City, wasn't he? Slightly embarrassed to be saying it, Martin mutters, "Oz."
The blinding flash of light happens and there is the sound of something rustling. "Oh, my. You."
Martin rubs his eyes, trying to clear the spots. "Yeah, come on. Grab anything green. Quick."
"Green?" For someone so light, the Scarecrow seems awfully dense.
"Aren't you supposed to be the smart one? Just gather up anything green you can get your hands on." If the rumbling sounds he hears are any clue, things are going to get real ugly in here in a big hurry.
"Green. Green." The Scarecrow moves off, mumbling to itself and Martin shakes his head.
He spots something else, grabs it and says the magic word. This time he's ready for the flash, but the rumbling gets worse as the Gump appears.
"Find anything green!" Martin keeps scanning the room, even as it begins to come apart, the illusion of absolute power breaking down. I don't want to destroy you, but if that's the consequence of freedom, then I don't have a lot of choice. He'll phone and apologise when he wakes up. The Scarecrow hurries over with something that turns out to be the pumpkinhead, complete with chicken.
"Let's get out of here." He swipes one last thing as the roof begins to come apart, running for the door. On the heels of the others, he doesn't quite make it. He falls and something heavy presses down on his head, something else on his legs. He can't move, he can't breathe…
"We can't sleep."
Vaguely he realises that he didn't save the Army, but that it's also a moot point with something tugging at his shirt.
"We can't sleep. Jessie doesn't like the lighting."
"No. You said we should get Uncle Martin."
Blearily, he opens his eyes to discover that he's become a piece of furniture, himself. Outside a storm rumbles, while in here Dorothy is leading a parade through the Emerald City, grinning in high-definition. Neither one, however, is responsible for his newly awakened state. "Yes?"
"You were having a bad dream," Jessica tells him sombrely, from her perch on his knees. Emma peers upsidedown at him, over the armrest.
"Uh huh." He waits for Jessica to scramble down before sitting up. "You guys do realise it's the middle of the night."
"But we can't sleep."
He sighs. He could order them back to bed like he so often was, left alone to face his fears in the dark, demanding obedience despite their fears, toughening them up and teaching them how to deal with things for themselves. Or, he can hold them close and let them hang out here, depriving him of sleep and having it their way, letting them get away with everything he couldn't. Or maybe…
"Come on." He stands up and holds out a hand for each of them. "Back to bed, you two." There is a difference between sending and taking that allows for a happy medium. This way he can tuck them back in and still reinforce the rule that night is for sleeping. And in the morning… he remembers something about a phone call he wanted to make, but can't quite remember why. And something about loyalty and justice.
Maybe he'll remember in the morning.
--
* Author's note: I loved the Gump when I first saw the movie, and reading the stories has only encouraged that. He was probably one of the more sensible creatures in Oz, like the Sawhorse but with a more evil sense of humour. Even after the assemblage was dismantled, the head remained alive, mounted on a wall in the palace, freaking people out as it suddenly spoke.
☼ Reaper Man by Terry Pratchett. I've always imagined Martin would appreciate his sense of humour.
Title: "Reassigned to Oz"
Fandom: Without A Trace
Character: Martin Fitzgerald
Prompt: #77 -- WHAT?
Word Count: 15,800 (approx)
Rating: R (language) maybe... or PG-13. I'm too lazy to go counting.
Spoilers: For the movie? Lots. For WAT, not so much. Maybe minor S5 and S6, but nothing specific.
Credits: Beta'd by the great squeelated and jennukes
Author's Notes:: I know, I know. The puns are… bad. Puns are. I couldn't help myself. Thus, this is me, asking for help. My name is crazy_magpie and I have a problem. I am an inveterate punner. Any and all assistance in overcoming my condition is appreciated.
I recognise that I have played merry hell with some of the continuity of the film… but then again, the film plays merry hell with the continuity of the books, which play merry hell with themselves. (Seriously. Read them. I love them, but if ever there was an example of universal non-continuity…) Given the context, it's not badly altered. No, this has nothing to do with the Tin Man series recently released. Rather, I cling to childhood memories. :)
Yeah, it's crack. I couldn't keep them all dark and miserable. I started writing this ages ago, when rinkle was doing her 'Reel SPN' fic here, a fantastic blend of Labyrinth and Supernatural. I thought... why not?
Previously...
It is, Martin thinks, one of the most ridiculous escape plans of all time. Now that they've gotten out of the room (with his long, skinny arms, the pumpkinhead was able to simply reach through the latticed door and lift the latch), they ought to be sneaking towards the front doors and then making a run for it. Instead, he and a walking bundle of sticks are sneaking into the main hall to retrieve a rundown robot. Or rather, the pumpkinhead is attempting to sneak and doing a bad job of it. Martin isn't bothering to try. There's a reason running shoes got nicknamed 'sneakers.' Even the slight squeak of rubber on a mirrored surface is easily drowned out by clacking sticks.
"Shh." He turns around to warn the pumpkinhead once again that the goal here is to not get caught.
"Sorry. Say, may I call you 'Mom', even if it isn't so?" The pumpkin whispers.
Martin shakes his head. "That would just be too weird."
"Oh." The pumpkinhead sounds almost too sad.
"Hey, brother…" He slips into his customary address. After all, if it looks like Danny, and sounds like Danny. "It's just…"
"Brother?" The pumpkin perks up. "You want to be my brother?"
"Sure." After all, it's better than Mom. It's also a role he knows how to play. And if it saves him from having to soothe a case of squashed spirit, all the better.
"Thank you." Even though the grin is permanent, it seems a little more genuine.
Reaching the tik-tok man, Martin winds him up, and explains the plan, before sending the mismatched pair off, together. He realises he forgot to include 'be quiet' in the instructions as they start up the stairs, behind him.
"Are you sure you understand all that?" Pumpkinhead-Danny asks.
"I understand it better than you do," Tik-tok-Jack snaps.
Martin suppresses a sigh. It's just like back at the office. The Taylor-Malone cold war is going to drive them all around the bend. Realistically, it should have been Jack and Martin at each other's throats, when Martin took up with Sam. Instead, when he found out, Jack sympathised. Of course, at that point Martin was starting to get a clue. Jack must have known it wouldn't last much longer.
Focus on your own job. He's got the tough part, after all. If head thirty-four is anything like the head it looks like… those ears could pick up rebellious thoughts. Of course, half those thoughts never even happened, but that was never the point. They might have happened, they had the potential to happen, so they needed to be punished, regardless. Go to your room. You stand there until you figure out what you did wrong. Don't look at me like that. You seem to have no idea of the sacrifices this family makes for you. Why do you have to make things so difficult? Don't talk back to me. Don't you dare move from that table until you've cleared your plate. The people who think the last one is hardly a threat given the way he eats, never had to eat her cooking. He was shocked the first time he discovered that vegetables had colour, and didn't squish the moment you touched them with a fork. When he found out that they could be eaten raw, he nearly had a heart attack. He's pretty sure that the first time he tasted anything seasoned beyond just 'salt and pepper', his brain had a moment of shutdown from pure overload. She meant it, too. If it meant he sat for hours staring at a congealing mess that could only loosely be called gravy, then he sat for hours. No twitching, no fiddling, no daydreaming allowed. It's the one thing his dad would rescue him from. More than once, Victor came in and whisked the plate away before assigning a lesser punishment like a grounding, perhaps recalling what often happened when forcing a person to eat. The rest of it, though… he didn't seem to give a crap that his son was being turned into a neurotic, paranoid loner for whom 'trust' was merely a financial term.
Carefully, he pushes open one of the mirrored doors to Mombi's bedroom. She's asleep on the bed, headless, with the ruby-red cabinet key tied to her wrist. Great. Because if head thirty-four is the original one that came with this body, then this body is going to be very sensitive to things like the theft of her prize possession. He prays the others are upstairs, following his instructions, because there won't be much time, if he gets caught. People wonder how he learned to run so fast. They laugh when he tells them the truth: Getting away.
Fortunately, he's also very good at moving quietly, not to mention being light-fingered. He prides himself on the ability to steal the pillow from under someone's head and leave them asleep. The average person only hoards the blankets. He hoards everything on the damn bed. Sam was kind of funny when she found that out. She's - surprisingly - the first girlfriend he's ever had that tried to smother him with the pilfered pillow, before claiming it back. Not all of their best relationship moments involved sex, but they did all happen in bed, he realises.
There's a dicey moment when Mombi twitches as he unties the bow, but he stands back and lets her move her own arm out of the loop. He does not, in the slightest, jump back in shock while the witch engages in normal, but almost violent sleep movement. Nor does he quickly grab the key and clutch it to his chest while trying to control the pounding of a heart so loud that it's probably woken even the neighbours.
Carefully, he sneaks into the gallery of heads. Like their owner, they all seem to be sleeping. He hopes they stay that way. He makes his way to cabinet thirty-four and carefully puts the key in the lock. Gingerly, he lifts a can bearing an ornate script: Powder of Life. Nice of it to be so clearly labelled, really. As he turns to leave, his shoe squeaks just slightly on the floor.
The head's eyes fly open, and the mouth starts to scream. Startled, he jumps back, just as all the other heads wake up and start screaming. It's deafening. He spins to see the headless witch has woken up, too, responding to the screams, no doubt. She seems a little disoriented though, as if the sensory input from too many eyes and ears has the body more than a little confused. He dekes to the left then moves right, bolting for the door. He had to be the one to do this, he tells himself as he yanks open the door to the tower stairs, because none of the others could move fast enough. It's true for real life, too. Danny can be quick, and most people would look at the height difference and expect him to win any footrace. But Martin has lost track of the amount of times his friend has had a lead in both distance and starting time, yet the gap is closed easily with almost no effort. Navigating a steep set of tower stairs while packing an axe and mystery powder? Not for amateurs.
He closes the top door behind him, and terror turns to panic as he takes in the scene before him. "You're not ready! She's right behind me!"
"He went beserk!" The chicken stares at the tik-tok man, wide-eyed for even a chicken. The copper creation stumps around in a tight circle, spouting gibberish.
Aw, shit! "His brain's run down!" Martin drops the axe, setting the can of powder on the floor a little more carefully, before heading over to wind the Army up again.
"How can you tell?" The pumpkinhead asks. Martin's pretty sure that it's not the original line. The stick-man has developed a real snarky side, awfully quick.
Martin shoots him a look before winding up the appropriate key. Tik-tok-Jack sighs, appreciatively, seemingly oblivious to the fact that he's probably jeopardised the whole plan. "Thank you."
"You, watch the door." If this is going to succeed, then someone competent better take over. "You," he snaps his fingers at Pumpkinhead-Danny, "get those wings tied on!"
"We need more cord," the chicken protests.
"Well, then get it." He begins liberally sprinkling the Powder of Life on the hastily assembled 'creature', formed from one couch, one chaise lounge, some branches with curtain material tied to them (because he's not trusting mere palm fronds, no matter what he's seeming to remember), and what looks like a moulding moose's head. Nothing happens.
"Well?" He turns to the pumpkinhead.
"Maybe there are some magic words, or something."
"Like what?" Martin tells himself that the axe he's just picked up again is overkill on a pumpkin. "This might have been a detail worth mentioning before we went through this trouble, and I could have come up with another plan." He still wants to know where he came up with this one.
"I don't know! I wasn't alive then!" It's perfect lawyer-logic. My client should be found not-guilty on account of the fact that he's just plain dirt-stupid.
"Maybe you should read the instructions." Sam's acid voice stops them both, and they turn sheepishly to look at her.
Martin coughs, turning the can over in his hand. Of course he didn't read the instructions. What guy reads instructions? It's a badge of shame to be caught reading instructions. Sprinkle lightly one dusting dose, okay, there's his first mistake, On static object to be brought to life, speaking the words Weaugh, Peaugh, Teaugh. Okay, so was that a silent 'gh', an 'f' sounding 'gh' or a hard, ghastly 'g'? He feels a little like Ash in Army of Darkness, retrieving the Necronomicon. If he says things wrong, do a cadre of skeletons burst out of the walls to attack him? Does it bring on the end of the world? His sensitive ears catch a bellow that sounds like it's already on the stairs. Does he have time to argue?
He closes his eyes and says something… it might even be the right words. There's a slight hush before a voice says, "Peaugh?" The tone is that of someone who has just heard something clearly impossible, like the Yankees getting trounced by the Mets and the speaker being forced to have to watch it.
"Thank God." Martin clasps his hands together briefly. "Pumpkinhead, help get the Army on board." He slides over the back of the couch. "You, let's get going."
"Come on!" The stick-man's version of 'help' seems to consist of haranguing. "If you don't hurry, she's going to catch us."
"If you don't stop arguing, I'm going to leave you," Martin snaps. He can hear the witch's footsteps getting closer. Any second she's going to throw that door open and… "Go. Go!" He slaps the back of the couch for emphasis.
"I'm going. You don't have to be so impatient about it." Amazingly, the creature moves forward, beating its wings slowly and carefully, like it's not used to having the appendages. Then again, it probably isn't. It's just in time, too, as the doors crash open and Mombi stands there, the epitome of rage, or perhaps even beyond that. He doesn't want to stick around to find out.
"Go!"
With a crash, the assemblage hits the window and begins to slide over the sill. Gravity is definitely at work, here, though. Instead of flying, they begin to drop in what could be called a calculated descent, if someone could gauge time or distance while accelerating downward at 32.17 f/s2. Martin closes his eyes tight, wondering if things in dreams hurt as badly as they do in real life. This is going to be one mother of a car-crash.
At what he judges to be the last instant, he finds himself still waiting for another instant. Then his stomach tells him they've changed direction. He forces himself to open his eyes to find out which, telling himself that it can't be too bad, that any direction is better than down. "We're flying." He feels a little giddy, like the time he absentmindedly ate all the cookies in the coffee station and drank half the coffee, too, while pulling an all-nighter. "We're actually flying. Oh. My. God. It worked."
"Help." A plaintive voice distracts him from the wonder of it. He turns to see the pumpkinhead hanging off the back of the chaise lounge.
"You couldn't help him?" Martin gives the tik-tok a look before inching his way to the stranded stick-man.
"I was preoccupied with making sure I did not fall out," the Army tells him. "You did not seem to be rendering assistance, either."
"I gotta think of everything?"
They each grab a wooden arm and pull the pumpkinhead onto the assemblage. Catching his breath, Martin looks at the two feuding parties. "Get a grip, you guys.
"I am holding on," the tik-tok tells him.
"That's not what I'm saying," Martin mutters.
"Maybe, when you're done bickering, one of you might tell me where we're going." It could he thinks, be considered an insult to assign that voice to this creature, except it's the voice of someone who has carried the team more than once, if not so literally. * Without her, they'd just be a fractious group of kindergarteners, with half the manners. She's the calm, level-headed one and when she's around, he can't help but feel safe. He'd not only follow her into Hell if she asked, but block the Devil at the door so she could get away.
"Thataway." He risks death by leaning over the edge of the couch to point at angle the creature can see. He's not sure just what direction 'thataway' is, but knows that if narrative causality applies anywhere, it applies in dreams. He'll get where he needs to go. Lack of reality will see to that.
Dawn is breaking by the time he catches sight of their eventual destination. The mountain rises forbidding and bare, and to a mind used to the coastal mountains of the Pacific Northwest, not really mountainy at all. Size-wise it might qualify, but it looks more like just a giant pile of rubble than anything else. Mountains, to his mind, should have trees and waterfalls. They should have some evidence of life on them, even if it's only wildlife. It's while he's reflecting on the self-experience centeredness of this that all hell breaks loose.
The over-burdened old ropes they'd used to tie this thing together decide that ominous creaking isn't enough and add a few snapping noises to the list. "They're breaking!" the chicken screams, "We're coming apart!"
"No!" Martin lunges as one line separates, grabbing on with either hand and by some miracle, not separating his shoulders. He's less afraid of that than the long but probably not slow drop ahead.
"Oh, no!"
He twists to see that the Pumpkinhead has made a valiant attempt to do the same at another join, unfortunately losing his… well… head in the process.
"After it!" Visions of a smashed pumpkin-head flash through his mind, looking disturbingly like the real thing. Failure here is not an option. He grits his teeth as they go into a steep dive, using adrenaline to give him the strength to yank his broken ropes back together and fashion a quick knot that he prays will hold. He's going to need both hands for this next part, because he doesn't quite trust in the tik-tok's ability to catch, let alone catch a flying squash without wrecking it. He tells himself it's just like a basketball. If he can get his fingertips on it, he's got it. The wind rushing in his ears and the distinct lack of balance he possesses standing on a pair of separating couches tell him it's not quite that simple, and that even if he succeeds it could be a moot point. He tries to tell himself not to listen. While he's more-than-once dreamed of dying, he's not quite sure what happens if he dies in a dream. He hopes he just wakes up, because he has the distinct feeling… his fingers graze the surface of the pumpkin, just enough to direct it back towards him, but the entire motion pulls him back on to the couches and the resulting impact is too much for the overburdened ropes… distinct feeling he's going to find out.
Instinctively, he rolls towards the back of one of the couches, in the hopes that the larger object will encounter more air-resistance than the small object known as his body, and thus have a slower descent. Not that - if this place uses real-world physics this time - it would matter. Free-fall is free-fall, and sooner or later terminal velocity is reached.
"I'm sorry…" The pumpkin voice sounds a little muffled. Without meaning to, Martin wonders how much mess it's going to make on his clothes when they hit. He wonders - does pumpkin stain more than blood?
The resulting impact is far less than he expected, merely rib-cage jarring instead of bone-splintering, flesh-rending, blood-splatteringly deadly. A few more thumps follow, and cautiously he looks up to see the wooden frame of the pumpkinhead sitting rather right-up on the ground, the tik-tok buried upside down in a small snow-drift and the gump's head sitting on an outcropping. The chicken flies down to land unharmed, ruffling its feathers.
"Now that was an odd experience," the Gump says, in typical Viv-like understatement.
"Uh-huh." Odd. Experience. His legs feel shakier than if he was drunk and trying to stand on a railway bridge while a train went past, something he once swore never to re-experience. Slowly and deliberately, he stands up, walking over to the man-shaped bundle of sticks and placing the pumpkin back on it. Then, moving just as carefully, he treks over to the tik-tok and pulls it upright. Only then does he drop to his knees and begin scrabbling in the snow for something he prays he hasn't lost. It's not snow, he realises as he brushes it aside, but sand. The kind of fine, gritty sand that's worse than snow, because it allows for no kind of grip against rock, and it's a long, long, long way down to the bottom of the mountain. If he wakes up, he's never, ever going to watch a so-called kid's movie again. Weren't they supposed to be the ones having nightmares? Shouldn't they be waking him up so he can go rescue them?
At the same time, he has the distinct feeling that they're being watched. Just because they are the only people in sight doesn't mean nobody's watching and or listening, after all. He ought to know the feeling: he works for the federal government. There are levels of 'watching' and this one feels like Quantico. Not only is someone observing their actions, but those actions are being reported higher up the ladder. He swears someone told Victor about it if he even blinked funny. He's pretty sure he's the only person in the history of the Bureau pulled in and interrogated about being 'up to something' when he didn't go out and celebrate New Years' Eve. If he's to be honest, it started as an interrogation and moved into a thirty-minute argument that culminated with Martin using an expression that a great many people in the Bureau used to describe Victor, but never to his face. He's still surprised he wasn't booted out after that, even if it was personal instead of professional insubordination. His father is funny that way; Martin's never quite been able to figure the man out.
His fingers close around the handle of the axe, and he stifles his sigh of relief. No sense letting enquiring minds know just how much this means to him. Better to let them think it's just a weapon.
They strap the Gump's head back onto the more intact of the couches, despite it avowing that it looks ridiculous and that it's fine, even while broken. Just like when Viv tried this with a literal broken heart, the team ignores the protests. He's not going to leave a head out here, all alone and vulnerable.
"Tell me who you are, and why you have come all the way to my kingdom, and what I can do to make you happy." The sudden, booming voice behind him causes Martin to jump. His first instinct is to crawl behind the couch and stay there, or at least use it for cover so he can reach the cliff and slowly sneak away. Instead, he turns around, shuffling guiltily while trying to hide his axe behind him. Maybe if he looks helpless, he can minimise the yelling, this time. The words drip with barely controlled sarcasm: 'happy' isn't what the voice wants any of them to be. Rather, it intimates, it would prefer them gone, but since they are here, they'd better have a damn good explanation for what is going on and it better not involve anything the unseen speaker does not want to hear. If Mombi's appearance had been terrifying, this voice is downright dreadful in that it inspires nothing but dread. They've come all this way to lose. He knows this, because instinctively he knows he can't win. Not against that voice.
"It must be the Nome king," the tik-tok mutters.
"Where?" The pumpkinhead shows pure Danny-like naivety, seeming not to realise that just because you can't see the angry man doesn't mean he can't hurt you.
"Um…" Martin decides to wing it. "Federal agent. I came here to talk to you about the personage known as 'the Scarecrow.' Is he here?"
"Not a real federal agent from the part of the world where Kansas is." The voice sounded almost amused.
"New York office. Definitely not Kansas." On the other hand, it also means he has no jurisdiction here. "And for the record, I've only known one Dorothy in my entire life and she wasn't…" he coughs. "She."
"Yes…" There are definitely the tones of someone springing a trap with that statement. "You believe I have something that does not belong to me and I should give it back."
"Something or someone, yeah." If the Scarecrow is an 'it' then possession is nine-tenths and they're screwed. But if he's defined as a 'person', then he can't be considered property and therefore should be released.
"You believe that the appropriate action for one who has taken something that is not theirs is for them to give it back? And possibly face restitution?"
Martin nods, miserably. He has a sudden bad feeling about where this conversation is going. This is sounding an awful lot like the time he accused his sister of colouring in one of his colouring books, not long after he used one of her dolls to play tug-of-war with the dog.
The Nome king starts to cackle, confirming Martin's fears.
"Brother, why is he laughing?" The pumpkinhead cowers behind him, wooden knees knocking together.
"Because…"
As the laughing grows louder, the ground begins to shake and Martin can feel it giving way underneath him. He starts to fall, even as he hears the others shouting behind him but there's nothing he can do about it.
"All the precious stones in the world are made here, for me, by my nomes. So imagine how I feel when someone digs down and steals them from me. Imprisons them, you could say. All those emeralds in the Emerald city belong to me." The voice echoes off the walls of the cavern as Martin falls past. He hits the ground with a bit of a thud, sliding across a slick floor to hit something soft.
"So you see," the Nome king continues, "I am not the thief. Your friend is the thief."
"He's not my friend!" Martin disentangles himself from the Scarecrow who looks a little surprised to see him, but that could just be the way the guy's face is painted. "I've never even met the guy. Except now, here, and that doesn't count. I was just looking for him, because they said he'd gone missing and that's what I do. On the other hand, turning the entire city to stone could be called 'overkill', and if I recall correctly, it wasn't the Scarecrow that founded the Emerald City, but the Wizard. Shouldn't you be going after him? I'm not sure about extradition treaties, but you could at least give it a shot." He glances over at the Scarecrow who definitely seems a little shocked at the lack of defence Martin seems to be offering. "Sorry. That sort of thing is definitely not my job. I quit White Collar for a reason."
"Nevertheless," says the Nome king, and the Scarecrow vanishes with a pop.
"What the hell?" Martin scrambles to his feet and glares at what looks vaguely like a face in one of the rock walls.
"I transformed him into an ornament, an amusing and beautiful ornament for my palace."
"You son-of-a-bitch. You don't just get to do that to people." He ignores the fact that he's talking to what, here, might as well be an all-powerful being. "There are rules!"
"Rules? Do you think this is a game?" The voice grows even a little harder, no easy feat for something that sounded like it was passed through a cement mixer on the way to the ear. "Perhaps your friends would like to play, too."
He hears screaming, before the others come sliding into the room. There's no sign of the chicken, however. He hopes it isn't dead. Darwinism states that omelettes are the first thing he eats if kept here forever, followed by stewed pumpkin and if necessary, roast chicken. On the sentimental side, he was actually beginning to feel a little bit fond of the bundle of feathers.
"Here are the rules." Emphasis on the word only shows the disdain. "Each of you may inspect my ornament collection. You each have three guesses as to which ornament is the Scarecrow. If you touch the right one and say the word 'Oz', he will be transformed back and you may all leave. Sound fair enough?"
No, Martin wants to scream, but the tik-tok turns to whisper, cutting him off.
"I don't think we have a choice," the Army tells him. "He has a lot of power. We cannot fight him."
"What the hell you talking about, Jack? That usually makes you more inclined to fight." If anyone is more knee-jerk anti-authority than Martin, it's Jack Malone. "This is a trap. Trust me on this."
"We're lucky he hasn't turned us to stone." The pumpkinhead leans over to add his worries.
"Not through lack of trying," Martin mutters. "Look, I'm telling you guys, anything that sounds this easy is going to turn real nasty in a real big hurry." Like when a simple statement like 'I believe Martin is capable of deciding for himself whether or not to attend Church' turned into three years of forced Sunday labour. Oh, some clever-dick might argue that it wasn't really 'forced', since he always had the option of Church services instead, but that tends to devolve into the kind of messy 'body versus soul' type arguments that he left religion to get away from.
"It is still a chance," the tik-tok argues.
"So's the Powerball, but you don't see me staking my retirement future on it!" He doesn't care if the story is supposed to be about the nobility of sticking by friends and backing the team, because when ten thousand people believe in a dumb idea, it's still a dumb idea. He knows this is a dumb idea.
"Coward," a voice grates in his ear.
"Chicken…" he says, warningly. At least he knows where it is, now.
"Chicken?" The Nome king doesn't sound too happy to hear the word. "Where is this…"
"Figure of speech. God." He remembers now what the Wheelers said about chickens being banned. He crosses his arms and glares at the others. "I'm not doing it."
"And the rest of you?" The king seems to take the rebellion of one in stride. Maybe he was counting on it. Martin hopes not.
"We accept," the Army tells him.
"Hmmm…" the king sounds pleased.
A sucking sound comes from the far wall, as thousands of hands appear in the rock, pulling it aside like wet clay. Martin shudders, involuntarily. He'd like to say it's the same sound quicksand makes, but rather it's the same sound blood makes, bubbling into a lung. He remembers fighting to stay conscious, and every now and then he wakes up from a nightmare, wondering why. Mightn't it have been better to go gently into the dark night instead of being stuck with the memories of helplessness and pain? He doesn't necessarily think about dying, but rather just blissful unawareness.
"I think the sofa should go first." It's definitely divide and conquer, then, sending in the only known member of the team not to lodge an opinion either way. The tik-tok and the pumpkinhead have committed and they fear the power of the king more than the odds they face inside. The Gump, though… it might decide to side with Martin if it had time to wait out the failures of the other two. It's easier to break the spirit of an individual than a team.
"I have nothing to touch with," it protests.
"Use your antlers." The king isn't going to fall for such an easy excuse.
"I should have quit while I was ahead," the assemblage mutters, stumping off towards the door on legs that seem to have magically gained an ability to move. Martin doesn't remember animating the legs, just the wings, tail and head. Then again, that's dreams for you. Idly, he spins his axe, watching the doomed creature go. He can hear what sounds like the rattling of bones, and tells himself it's only the pumpkinhead shaking in its boots as it wishes luck to the reluctant Gump.
"Shall we have some refreshment while we wait?" The king sounds way, way too smugly confident for someone purporting to play a 'fair game.' If he were still working White Collar, Martin would have been assembling a list of charges and calling a judge right now.
"Depends," Martin doesn't look away from where the 'door' finishes closing itself. "Who's cooking?" After all, if you're a rock, hot lead might be considered a delicacy. Martin's had enough of it to last the rest of his lifetime.
"Ah." The gravelly voice sounds part disappointed, part proud, as though sad it doesn't get to play another little joke, but impressed with the competition for figuring it out. It's a chess-player's way of thinking, and going on behind the admiration is a rapidly revised strategy session to come up with a new way to win.
"The king mentioned a risk," the Army muses as they wait. "What exactly are we risking?"
"Didn't anyone ever teach you to ask that question before you sign the verbal contract?" Martin says, snarkily. That's why he didn't say 'yes' like these two idiots. He knows the words 'there is a slight risk' translate directly to 'you're going to get hosed.' Funny how the lawyer and the strategist never want to hear that. It's disheartening the lines they fall for, every single day. You'd think Danny'd be more cynical than that, given his background. There he is, ex-abuse victim, alcoholic, grew up neglected and in the system, went through training for professional liars, and he still believes in the innate goodness of people. He doesn't seem able to make the connection: if people are innately good, there would be no reason for lawyers and FBI agents.
Take, for instance, Martin himself. On any normal, given day, he'd throw himself in front of a train to save his friends. He'll also lie, cheat, and attempt to weasel his way out of any small trouble to come his way, even if it means blaming them. Big stuff? Sure, there he's Mr. Noble if it's a career or life on the line. Dinner cheques, lost bets and cases blown on a technicality? He'll point fingers every which way on that. I may not believe in the devil, but I'm pretty sure he made me do it. Incidentally, I paid last time.
"At least I am trying…" Whatever the tik-tok is trying to do gets drowned out as the earth rumbles and shakes, probably with laughter.
"Next." The king sounds more amused and less gravelly, the voice becoming more human and recognisable. The sucking sound returns as the hands pull open the wall again.
"Pick me up," the tik-tok begins droning.
"I'm coming." There is more than a hint of exasperation in the pumpkinhead's tone. Just like his real-world analogue, he sounds tired of pulling the Army out of trouble and listening to the man complain about it along the way.
Martin keeps himself off to the side, thinking. Clearly, the Gump isn't coming back any time soon, and their loss appears to be the king's gain. If you could call becoming more flesh-like and less rock-like while in the same room as a possible axe-murderer a 'gain.' In his blind rush towards checkmate, the king seems to have forgotten one of his opponents tends to cheat. That's why he and Victor don't play anymore. His father prefers an adversary who doesn't use slight-of-hand to move his pawn five spaces up the board while pretending to reposition his knight. It's not his fault that it's the only way to beat the guy.
"So, what happened?" He contrives to sound distracted.
"He failed to guess correctly, so now he, too, is an ornament." The rock face smiles, but it's not in the least bit friendly. "Next."
"But that's not fair!" The pumpkinhead protests.
"You said you were willing to take a risk," the king points out.
Martin nods. True. He's feeling a little vindication for all those times people made him feel like his first couple of years on the job weren't really worth anything. Hell, one of the first things he learned while just an accounting student was that you didn't write cheques if you didn't know whether or not you had the cash to cover them. You certainly didn't go around handing out blank ones.
"It all sounds very fair to me," the king continues, "and my opinion is the one that matters."
"But you didn't tell us about it!" The pumpkinhead clearly has very little grasp of what constitutes the hard realities of life.
"You didn't ask." Martin and the king chorus it together, leaving the king looking a little startled. Once again, the odd man out is changing the dynamics of things.
"Perhaps you'd like to visit my fiery furnace instead." The rock-figure snaps its fingers and a small section of the cavern suddenly glows molten hot. Martin resists the urge to hold his hands up and warm his fingers. Sometimes it's not good to press one's luck too far.
"Next…" the king continues, "Pumpkinhead."
"Me?" The gourd actually contorts as the voice becomes squeaky. He then turns and shambles his way over to Martin. "Being an ornament will probably be hardest on you, brother. You're used to eating and sleeping and will probably miss them, but since I don't eat or sleep, I won't miss them."
"Is that a dig at my lifestyle habits?" Martin decides not to remind the stick-man that the flesh-and-blood member of this team has yet to agree to anything. He regrets his snarkiness though, as he realises the guy is trying to be kind and sympathetic. "Look. Things work out. They always do," he lies.
"Tik-tok's not even alive," Pumpkin seems to be looking for the worst in everything. Optimists, Martin has learned, often do when things get incredibly bleak, leaving it to the cynics to lighten things with wisecracks and the knowledge that it may now be bad, but it is almost certainly going to get worse, so looking at it that way it's not so rotten, yet.
"I have always valued my lifelessness," the tik-tok states. It's all Martin can do not to burst out laughing, because truer words were never spoken. Given the choice, Jack will always pick himself as the sacrifice, because he feels he has so much less to lose. The less he has to lose, the less ways people can hurt him. Ironically, it's that very willingness not to admit to his own life that lets him screw up everyone else's. He still can't conceive of why Viv can't quite get over the betrayal when Jack came scrambling back for his job. It's how he can blithely mess with Sam's head without even realising it.
"Look on the bright side… once your brains run down you won't be bored." Martin drops the axe-head to the floor, leaning on the handle like a cane. "And you," he turns back to the pumpkin, "won't have to worry about your head spoiling. As long as nobody knocks you on the floor, you'll be fine." He punches the pumpkinhead lightly on the shoulder. "Don't worry about me."
"I do not hold out much hope for him," the tik-tok says as the pumpkinhead goes. "He has many excellent qualities, but thinking is not one of them."
"Only to the outside observer." It's more likely that looking at the world from an angle all the time just imparts a weird perspective on things. A lot of people think Danny doesn't think, but he's better at the short con, where all you have to do is get out of sight in a crowd before the mark figures it out. Martin, on the other hand, prefers a long con, where there's a plan and the goal is something bigger. Danny's also a lucky son-of-a-bitch when it comes down to it. Somehow Martin doesn't think luck is the pumpkinhead's strong point. "Speaking of… want a hand?"
"Yes, thank you."
No sooner has Martin finished tightening the thinking key, then another rumble fills the room, confirming his suspicions about the last contestant's strong points. He turns to look at the Nome king, who has taken on distinct features. They aren't pretty.
"Next!"
"Do not worry. I am going to guess correctly."
"Yeah, and if you were wood instead of copper, I would have been decapitated by your nose just now." He knows the Army won't get it. It's not as smart as it thinks it is. Armies never are.
It trundles off and he sighs. All he can do is hope his developing plan works. Otherwise… guessing games have never been his strong point.
"Why did you come here?" The even-softer voice than before sounds genuinely curious.
"I told you."
"All this way for a Scarecrow?"
"It's my job." Martin says, but even as the words come out, he knows it's more than that. He came because things are screwed up, and he needs to figure out what's going on, and that's not just in this dream.
"Do you really want to destroy me?" His father asks.
"No." Martin shakes his head. "But I want to save me."
"And how is that so difficult? Just say the word and I can send you any-"
"No! Don't you see? That's the problem!" Even after all these years, everyone expects him to be able to pull strings and maybe even leave them hanging when he does. He's gotten away with murder on account of that misconception.
Before he can elaborate, something whispers in the king's ear. "It appears your Army has stopped moving and is just standing there."
"Ah, crap. He must have wound down. I made sure the brains were nice and tight, but everything else…" Martin sighs.
"Perhaps you'd better go in and wind him up. More appropriately this time?"
"Trust me, I'm good at winding people up," Martin tells him. "You should know." He starts out across the floor.
"And when you are there, you might as well stay and make your guesses."
Martin turns around, frowning. "I'm not playing."
"We're all playing," the man of stone tells him. "Sometimes it's just a matter of knowing for whom."
On a whim, Martin looks down at his shirt, just to see what he's wearing. It's an old one, from Quantico, the DoJ logo almost worn off, but still recognisable. A line from another story slips into his head. There is no justice. There is just us. ☼ "Yeah."
"You don't have to go." It sounds, though, that Victor would be disappointed if Martin didn't.
"Yes, I do." The words are true, there is no justice, just Martin and Danny and Viv and Sam and Jack and Elena and every other decent law enforcement officer out there, trying to make sure the world gets through another day. Maybe they can't always win, but what's the alternative? To quit the game so nobody wins at all?
There's a rumble as the stonefaced head nods, and Martin turns back to walk down the corridor. It descends deeper than the throne room, before opening up into a vast, gaudily decorated hall. Knick-knacks litter every surface, and each of those is ornate in and of itself. It looks like Better Homes and Gardens threw up over a Hollywood set-designer's view of an eighteenth century French royal palace. A phony antiques dealer would think he had died and gone to heaven if he ever landed in here. He's more than a little freaked.
The Army doesn't move as he approaches, but as he grasps the 'movement' key, he's surprised to find that there's still a fair amount of tension there. "What the…"
"Shh. It was a way to get you in here. Pretend you are winding me up, anyway." The Army whispers badly. Martin's deaf great-aunt can probably hear him, and she lives in Boca Raton. "I have one guess left, and if I fail to guess correctly, perhaps you can see what I am changed into. Then you might be able to deduce what ornament the Scarecrow is."
"Not a bad plan." Martin is actually semi-impressed. It's shades of the creative and semi-devious thinking Jack used to indulge in, before he seemed to conclude that outright breaking the rules required less effort.
"There must be something wrong with my brains. I am having difficulty guessing. It is as though I am getting rusty."
"Rust is fixable," Martin tells him. "You just have to take the time to go in and deal with things." It's a lesson he's been learning the hard way, but he thinks he's slowly getting there. "You just can't always do things for yourself. You can't get hurt if you don't feel because you're not alive, but until you feel pain, you don't know how not to do it to someone else." Is it just him, or was his last statement not only confusing, but sickly trite?
The copper man says nothing, but a single drop of something wells in the corner of its eye before dropping and the metal hand shakes just a little as it's raised.
"Hey," Martin whispers, "maybe you'll be lucky."
There is a spoken word and a flash of light, too bright to see by. By the time vision returns, the tik-tok is gone.
"Crap." He takes a deep breath. Random guessing isn't going to work, here. He just has to hope that there is some underlying pattern to the king's choices, and figure out what it is. He thinks. Contrary to popular belief, Martin's obsession with things in proper places didn't spring from nowhere, and isn't a product of being an accountant, either. Outwardly, Victor doesn't seem hyper-organised, with piles of what seem to be random papers decorating a lot of the surfaces in his office and in his study. It took him a long time to find a good secretary who knew well enough to leave well enough alone. Unlike most people who defend their clutter as 'a system', Victor's really is. Martin knows some of it. Important, but non-security issue papers go on top, with the most commonly used ones within arm's reach. Of next importance actually go on the bottom and anything that does need a security clearance goes on top of the armoire when not locked up. His dad is, after all, the only member of the family tall enough to reach. It's hard to inconspicuously sneak a peek at something when you have to stand on a chair.
He sits down on a handy sofa and begins to scan the upper shelves. The Scarecrow is - one could say - a rival. Unlike the rather single-minded and stupid Nome king of Ozzian lore, Victor values his enemies. If, in this dream, a sweet, innocent farmgirl can become a snarky son-of-a-bitch, why can't a rather one-dimensional bad-guy transform into someone far more cunning and organised?
Voices echo from up the hallway. With only the one person left, the king must have felt it unnecessary to close the door. Accusations of 'stole' and 'ruined' reach his ears. Typical. Never was anything just an accident. He always had the worst of intentions, wrecking the dinner party by being sick or getting shot. He senses, rather than hears the pause. "You know."
"Yes. He is here. And his friends."
"He's going to be the death of us."
"Perhaps." The king sounds more sanguine than in the movie. "Perhaps… not."
You want me to win. The thought comes with all the hallmarks of an epiphany. He remembers his grandfather almost reluctantly welcoming family, and more interested in the lives of his grandchildren and angling for their allegiance against his son. Victor wasn't supposed to be a federal agent, either, Martin realises. Old money doesn't do that sort of thing, except for younger sons with no seat on the board to inherit. Defiance came at a heavy price, the evidence in the form of medals locked in a box and hidden away. I ain't no millionaire's son… the song goes, but his father was. Dad could have easily hidden away in college or bought freedom from the draft more literally, but from the bits Martin has been able to put together, he enlisted.
Of course. Despite all the heartache Martin has thrown at the old man over the years, he's never made the threat so many fathers - especially those from old money - do. Never once has he threatened to leave his son destitute. It may have sounded like it at times, but he folded every time that bluff was called. Dad never kicked him out; Martin always left of his own accord.
He remembers the end of that first, rough year in New York, flying down to DC to have a confrontation, telling himself that he didn't need an appointment because if being Victor Fitzgerald's son offered privileges, surely that was one of them. He hadn't expected his father to listen. He'd expected to be told to just shut up, smile and go along with it. Danny's dig about Martin getting a free ride had hurt at the time, but in retrospect, he was right: not many third-year agents could tell off a deputy-director and get away with it. They certainly wouldn't get a greater level of respect. The more he thinks about it, the more things make sense. Dad didn't want him in the Bureau because Dad didn't want him to think it would be a free ride. And wouldn't it have been easy, if he'd been anyone else, to do just that. So easy to think that Victor somehow owed him for a miserable, abandoned childhood.
On the other hand, it was still a miserable, abandoned childhood, so he's not going to run over and become his dad's best friend anytime soon. Some things aren't easily forgiven, especially when you're a Fitzgerald and you don't easily forget. An optimist might call it character building, but if anyone says that within Martin's earshot, he's gonna punch them out.
Just because Dad wants him to win, however, doesn't mean he's going to make it easy. The old man has never made it easy. The games aren't fair, because life isn't fair. If Martin gets pummelled at basketball because Victor has the advantage of greater height and reach, well then it's Martin's problem and he should make his own advantages. There were never any consolation prizes or encouraging comments that his best was good enough. "Are you satisfied?" He remembers being asked once, as he lay on the ground gasping for air after a failed attempt to win, while Victor towered over him, barely out of breath at all. At the time it had been a taunt, and maybe in some ways it was, but another life lesson had dangled just beyond his learning curve, too. Are you satisfied? All this time he's wanted to live up to his father's standards when he was supposed to live up to his own.
He drops his gaze. He's never been one for hiding things up high, preferring to leave them out in plain sight for everyone to ignore. When he organises, it's by association rather than any standard of alphabetising or number. When he sees what he's looking for, he almost bursts out laughing. He gets up and walks over to a table, picking up a large emerald. Ruler of the Emerald City, wasn't he? Slightly embarrassed to be saying it, Martin mutters, "Oz."
The blinding flash of light happens and there is the sound of something rustling. "Oh, my. You."
Martin rubs his eyes, trying to clear the spots. "Yeah, come on. Grab anything green. Quick."
"Green?" For someone so light, the Scarecrow seems awfully dense.
"Aren't you supposed to be the smart one? Just gather up anything green you can get your hands on." If the rumbling sounds he hears are any clue, things are going to get real ugly in here in a big hurry.
"Green. Green." The Scarecrow moves off, mumbling to itself and Martin shakes his head.
He spots something else, grabs it and says the magic word. This time he's ready for the flash, but the rumbling gets worse as the Gump appears.
"Find anything green!" Martin keeps scanning the room, even as it begins to come apart, the illusion of absolute power breaking down. I don't want to destroy you, but if that's the consequence of freedom, then I don't have a lot of choice. He'll phone and apologise when he wakes up. The Scarecrow hurries over with something that turns out to be the pumpkinhead, complete with chicken.
"Let's get out of here." He swipes one last thing as the roof begins to come apart, running for the door. On the heels of the others, he doesn't quite make it. He falls and something heavy presses down on his head, something else on his legs. He can't move, he can't breathe…
"We can't sleep."
Vaguely he realises that he didn't save the Army, but that it's also a moot point with something tugging at his shirt.
"We can't sleep. Jessie doesn't like the lighting."
"No. You said we should get Uncle Martin."
Blearily, he opens his eyes to discover that he's become a piece of furniture, himself. Outside a storm rumbles, while in here Dorothy is leading a parade through the Emerald City, grinning in high-definition. Neither one, however, is responsible for his newly awakened state. "Yes?"
"You were having a bad dream," Jessica tells him sombrely, from her perch on his knees. Emma peers upsidedown at him, over the armrest.
"Uh huh." He waits for Jessica to scramble down before sitting up. "You guys do realise it's the middle of the night."
"But we can't sleep."
He sighs. He could order them back to bed like he so often was, left alone to face his fears in the dark, demanding obedience despite their fears, toughening them up and teaching them how to deal with things for themselves. Or, he can hold them close and let them hang out here, depriving him of sleep and having it their way, letting them get away with everything he couldn't. Or maybe…
"Come on." He stands up and holds out a hand for each of them. "Back to bed, you two." There is a difference between sending and taking that allows for a happy medium. This way he can tuck them back in and still reinforce the rule that night is for sleeping. And in the morning… he remembers something about a phone call he wanted to make, but can't quite remember why. And something about loyalty and justice.
Maybe he'll remember in the morning.
--
* Author's note: I loved the Gump when I first saw the movie, and reading the stories has only encouraged that. He was probably one of the more sensible creatures in Oz, like the Sawhorse but with a more evil sense of humour. Even after the assemblage was dismantled, the head remained alive, mounted on a wall in the palace, freaking people out as it suddenly spoke.
☼ Reaper Man by Terry Pratchett. I've always imagined Martin would appreciate his sense of humour.