Alphabet Ficsnippets, 'Four Letters? This Took You A Year?' Edition.
I doubt anyone remembers this, but I am working my way through a self-imposed challenge ('write a ficlet for each letter of the alphabet, each concerning two characters whose names begin with that letter') at a hilariously glacial pace. Previous instalments are here and here. I was joking when I said I'd have these finished in 2015; now I'm starting to wonder whether that prediction might have been a bit too optimistic.
Here are five more ficlets! I've only actually managed four more letters, but it's five ficlets because for some reason I wrote two for J. Fandoms represented are Uncharted, Tangled, Final Fantasy XII, Final Fantasy XIII, Super Dangan Ronpa 2, Free!, The Mentalist, Red Dead Redemption and Community.
E: Elena Fisher (Uncharted)/Eugene Fitzherbert (Tangled)
She and Nate have been separated again - a rockfall, or ‘the inevitable rockfall’, as she’s begun to think of the rockfalls they seem to be encountering on an almost monthly basis - and she makes her way as quickly as she can to the rendezvous point they’d agreed on before entering the network of tunnels, having concluded that the inevitable rockfall seemed imminent.
The meeting point is back out in the open, which she’s grateful for; Elena’s never been claustrophobic, exactly, but a person can only take so many structural collapses before tunnels start making them edgy. She jogs to the edge of the forest. Nate doesn’t seem to be there yet, which surprises her a little; he didn’t have as far to go. Probably wasting time running around in the tunnels, looking for shiny objects. He has to stop doing that; it’s going to drive her crazy one day.
She looks around, and there he is, leaning against a tree a few yards away.
Or... there he isn’t, she realises as she takes a couple of steps in his direction. It’s not Nate. It’s someone else.
The man glances up and catches her looking at him. He raises his eyebrows.
“I’m sorry,” she says. “I just... you looked familiar.”
He grins. “Maybe I look like someone you know?”
She nods. “My... partner,” she says. “Nate. Have you seen him?”
She’s startled when the man bursts out laughing.
“Oh, so I actually do look like someone you know?” he asks. “Wasn’t expecting that. Sorry, but that’s not why people usually think they know me.”
Elena frowns. What’s going on here? Now that she really looks at him, though, something does seem...
Oh! Oh.
Okay. She has no idea how to respond to this. She’s had a lot of weird experiences since meeting Nathan Drake, and this is far from the weirdest, but it’s still not the kind of thing that happens every day.
“Prince Eugene?” she asks.
“Now that you mention it, that does sound familiar.”
How are you meant to address a prince, again? Your Highness? “I’m sorry, ah, Your Highness; I didn’t realise-”
He winks at her. “Call me Eugene. And it’s fine. I’m just a little hurt you didn’t recognise me when I’ve taken the trouble to learn all my subjects’ names, Elena.”
Elena stares at him.
“Nate told you my name to freak me out, didn’t he?” she asks, flatly.
There’s a laugh, and Nate stands up from behind a rocky outcropping, his hands in the air. “Okay, you caught me.”
“Seriously?” Eugene asks, jerking his head towards Nate. “You think I look like this guy?”
“Not that much like him,” Elena says, beginning to smile. “You’re much better-dressed than he is, for one thing.”
“Elena!” Nate protests. “Where’s your loyalty?”
Elena’s feeling a lot more relaxed now; she knows where Nate is, and Eugene doesn’t really seem the type to have her imprisoned for impudence. “Anyway, what’s a prince of the realm doing out in the woods on his own? Shouldn’t you be performing royal duties or something?”
“Technically, yes,” Eugene says. “Probably. But, well, you know what they say about old habits.”
“He’s after the same treasure as us,” Nate explains to Elena.
Elena breaks into a grin. “You’re not gonna have us executed if we win this race, are you?”
Eugene smirks. “I’ll have to fight Rapunzel for it; she’ll want to have you knighted. But you seriously think you can beat me?”
She folds her arms. “We’re pretty good.”
“You’re gonna need to be,” Eugene says. “If you win, you’re invited to lunch at the palace. Almost definitely not so I can steal it back off you. Go!”
F: Lightning Farron (Final Fantasy XIII)/Ffamran ‘Balthier’ Bunansa (Final Fantasy XII)
“You can use magic,” the boy says, breathlessly. “You’re-” and then he says something quite incomprehensible.
“Could be Manadrive,” says the curiously pink-haired woman at his side. “Could be Sanctum, even if they are l’Cie.” There’s that odd word again. “We don’t have any guarantees.”
Balthier feels more than a little out of step with this conversation, but he can understand one thing that’s been said, at least. “We can indeed use magicks, as you so astutely point out,” he says. “I can assure you our licences are all in order.”
“Licences,” the woman says, tensing. “You don’t look like soldiers.”
“We are not soldiers,” Fran returns. “That may explain it.”
“Civilians don’t get Manadrive licences. If you’re going to lie, at least make sure your lies match up.”
“They don’t seem very interested in killing us,” the boy says.
Balthier raises his eyebrows. “Now, why should that be worthy of note? Are you worth killing?”
The woman folds her arms. “So I’m guessing you’re from Pulse. You’re not exactly trying to hide it; not like you dress or speak like anyone around here. If you don’t want people knowing you’re ‘enemies of the world’, you’ll want to make some changes.”
“Hard words,” Balthier remarks. “Is your blade as sharp as your tongue, I wonder?”
“I’m not going to fight you. I’m trying to stop you from getting yourselves killed. You don’t want to listen, that’s your call.”
“Appreciated, naturally,” Balthier says, “but I can’t say we call your ‘Pulse’ home. Whether we are enemies of the world remains to be seen.”
“You didn’t know who we were,” she says. “If you’re not from Pulse, where are you from?”
Balthier glances over her and her young companion, but no recognition stirs in his mind. “Celebrities?”
She gives a small almost-laugh. “Something like that.”
“We’re not entirely unknown ourselves,” Balthier says. “I take it we’re both the breed of celebrity that would prefer to involve the authorities as little as possible.”
“I’m not going to say no,” she says.
Balthier smirks. “If you’d care to follow me to my airship, we can speak a little more privately.”
-
The boy - he introduces himself as Hope - seems fascinated by the Strahl, as of course any reasonable person should be. The woman, Lightning, is less impressed.
“It’s amazing,” Hope says, examining the panelling. “What do you use it for?”
“Well, we are sky pirates,” Balthier says. “It’s rather a requirement.”
“Sky pirates?” Lightning asks.
“Pirates of the skies,” Balthier explains, smoothly, “if you find the name difficult to decipher.”
Lightning gives him a look with much the same impact as a well-cast Blizzaga. “Thanks.”
“Uh,” Hope says, looking anxious, “I think the thing is that... I mean, you said it like it’s a phrase everyone knows. I don’t think sky pirates are really something we have on Cocoon. Where are you from?”
Balthier hesitates.
“We may be somewhat lost,” he admits.
“Our magicks surprised them,” Fran says. “Do you know of a land in Ivalice where magicks bring such a reaction? Do you know of a land in Ivalice where the ground curves upwards?”
That was indeed what they saw earlier, when they tried to get enough height to establish where they were. The ground here curves gently but unmistakably upwards in all directions; it’s as if they’re on the inside of a planet, rather than the outside, which is plainly ridiculous. If they look hard enough, they can make out more land in the sky. It’s possible that Balthier needs to amend his previous statement. “We may, perhaps, be more than somewhat lost.”
-
Lightning and Hope have never heard of Ivalice, which is less than reassuring. In the absence of any indication of how to return home, Balthier and Fran conclude that they might as well lend their new fugitive friends a hand.
It transpires that Lightning and Hope are not the only travellers in their party, however, and one of their companions has little idea of how to conduct himself as a guest in another man’s airship.
“Whoa,” Snow breathes when he sees Fran’s ears, evidently impressed. “Can I touch ’em?”
Fran arches her eyebrows as she looks upon him, in the perfect expression of disdain Balthier occasionally wishes he could master. “I think not,” she says. “We are not long acquainted.”
-
The goal is a place called Eden, mysteriously suspended in mid-air, where their passengers, as far as Balthier can establish, intend to topple the government. Balthier hasn’t been in Cocoon long enough to be certain of whether the government requires toppling, but he flies them up all the same; it should be entertaining, at the very least.
“Best of luck, Lightning,” he says, as she makes for the door of the Strahl. “You’ll have to return and tell me how it goes.”
She pauses mid-stride. “Call me Light.”
It’s an invitation to familiarity; Balthier recognises that, appreciates it and intends, largely to be difficult, to turn it down. “Lightning comes with the storm. It seems a more appropriate name to me. I’ll remain as I was, if you don’t mind.”
Lightning shrugs. “Suit yourself.”
He laughs to himself as she leaves. Perhaps he’ll stay for a while, see whether there are survivors to be picked up. They’re unlikely to find more friends in Cocoon, after all; he doesn’t imagine they’ve made an excellent first impression.
H: Hajime Hinata (Super Dangan Ronpa 2)/Haruka Nanase (Free!) (note: this contains spoilers for the first chapter of Super Dangan Ronpa 2)
“Nanase!”
Nanase doesn’t respond, still floating on his back in the ocean, and for a horrible instant Hinata thinks they might have another body on their hands - but then Koizumi, who followed him out, snatches up a seashell and throws it. It glances off Nanase’s bare shoulder, and his eyes snap open.
Hinata’s relief is instantly swept away when he remembers why they’re here.
“There’s been a murder,” he says. “To-”
He chokes on the name. His legs are still shaking.
“Togami is dead,” Koizumi says. It’s strange to hear the waver in her voice; she always seems so sure of herself.
Nanase regards them in silence. He makes no move to swim back to shore.
“Didn’t you hear us?” Koizumi demands. “Someone is dead.”
“I already knew,” Nanase says.
Wait, what?
“How could you already know?” Hinata asks. “You weren’t at the party.”
Nanase’s eyes flicker towards the loudspeaker in the tree beside them. “There was an announcement.”
“You heard that?” Hinata asks. “Why didn’t you come to see what had happened?”
Nanase closes his eyes again. “There’s no water in the lodge.”
J: John Marston (Red Dead Redemption)/Patrick Jane (The Mentalist)
“I’m from the future.”
“People like you, you’re all from the future. You come to show our backwards part of the world the light?”
“No,” Jane says, “I mean this literally. I am from the future. The last time I knew what was going on, it was the year 2011.”
Marston folds his arms - very loosely, presumably so he can still reach for his frankly excessive collection of guns at a moment’s notice. “I’ve met a lot of strange folks out here,” he says, “but that don’t mean I’ve lost sight of the line between unlikely and impossible. I’m not buying your story, Mr Jane.”
“That’s all right,” Jane says, with a small smile. “I’m not really expecting to be believed.”
“So what were you doing in the ‘future’?” Marston asks. Jane has given a lot of thought to how to use tenses, given his current predicament; it strikes him as slightly unfair that Marston doesn’t seem to consider it an issue at all.
“Law enforcement. Sort of. What do you do here?”
“Kill or be killed, mostly,” Marston says. “Sometimes I play poker. Not had the best experiences with law enforcement.”
“I’m sure we can be civil,” Jane says. “But I was actually looking for an escort.”
“You expect me to escort you?”
“I’m, ah, going to say ‘want’ rather than ‘expect’. I don’t have much to offer you, but I’m probably not going to survive long on my own, if that makes any difference.”
“Looks like you’ve survived long enough to me,” Marston says.
“Yes, in the twenty-first century. You’d be surprised how rarely I had to deal with wolves there.”
Marston takes a deep, slow breath and lets it out. It is the breath of a man who has already had to deal with far, far too much in the past few weeks. “Where is it you’re going, Mr Jane?”
“I have no idea,” Jane says. “Somewhere I won’t be shot, ideally.”
Marston shakes his head. “Get on the horse. If I’m feeling generous, maybe I won’t drop you off at Thieves’ Landing.”
-
The road to Blackwater is a long one. Marston is quiet at first, but after a while he starts asking a few questions, obviously trying to work out what Jane’s real story is. As he already has Jane’s real story, it’s unlikely to achieve much, but it gives Jane an opening. Marston’s hiding something; that much has been clear from the moment they first met. Jane has always had trouble resisting a secret. Through conversation he can learn about who Marston is, about how to manipulate him, and he can then use that knowledge to make Marston talk.
When Marston eventually talks, Jane’s interest becomes a lot less idle. A wife and child taken from him, imprisoned. Jane’s been thinking about Red John since he landed in this time; taking revenge becomes tricky, to say the least, when the person you need to kill hasn’t been born yet. He hasn’t really had any goals here beyond ‘stay alive, try to somehow find a way back’. But here’s another man who’s lost his family, and there might still be hope for this one.
Maybe Jane can do something positive here.
SPECIAL BONUS FICLET BECAUSE I COULDN’T DECIDE WHAT TO WRITE:
J (again): Patrick Jane (The Mentalist)/Jeff Winger (Community)
The door of the interrogation room opens, and Lisbon walks in. She looks puzzled.
“Mr Winger,” she says, “I’ve just had a call from a former colleague of yours. He says you’re no longer an attorney.”
“Ah,” Winger says.
“Ah indeed,” Lisbon says. “Care to explain yourself?”
“Obviously there’s been a misunderstanding,” Winger says, smiling pleasantly. “I never actually said I was Miss Edison’s attorney. I said I’d been an attorney for many years, which is true, and that I was here to see her. I suppose you must have jumped to conclusions.”
“I suppose so,” Jane says, watching Winger and Edison with new interest. He picked up on the fact that they seemed closer than the average lawyer and client the moment Winger walked into the room, but he’d assumed they were just having an affair; apparently things are a little more complicated than that. Edison doesn’t seem surprised to discover that her ‘attorney’ is a fraud, although the expression of terror she’s worn since her arrest is now struggling with one of intense embarrassment. “I mean, you have been calling her ‘my client’ the entire time, so I’m sure you’ll forgive us our mistake.”
“It’s a pet name,” Winger says. “I’m just here to give my friend some legal advice. That’s allowed, right?”
“Actually, it’s not,” Lisbon says. “This is an interrogation.”
“C’mon, let him stay,” Jane says. “This’ll be fun.”
“Jane, ‘fun’ is not the top priority in a murder investigation.”
Edison makes an odd high-pitched squeaking noise at the word ‘murder’, and Winger puts a hand on her shoulder. Lisbon glances over at them, frowning.
Jane knows that Lisbon thinks this girl is innocent. She’s right, of course. He’s proud to see her relying more on her instincts.
“She needs a real attorney,” Lisbon says to Jane, lowering her voice.
“She’s accused of murdering one of the partners in a law firm at some kind of lawyer convention,” Jane says. “If she wanted a lawyer, she’d have one.”
“We can’t just let some-”
“I swear I only chloroformed the janitor!”
Jane and Lisbon both look sharply back at Edison. Winger, next to her, has buried his face in his hands.
“She needs a real attorney,” he mutters.
According to the emerging pattern, I'll probably be posting the next instalment a year from now. In the meantime, I hope you enjoy these!
Here are five more ficlets! I've only actually managed four more letters, but it's five ficlets because for some reason I wrote two for J. Fandoms represented are Uncharted, Tangled, Final Fantasy XII, Final Fantasy XIII, Super Dangan Ronpa 2, Free!, The Mentalist, Red Dead Redemption and Community.
E: Elena Fisher (Uncharted)/Eugene Fitzherbert (Tangled)
She and Nate have been separated again - a rockfall, or ‘the inevitable rockfall’, as she’s begun to think of the rockfalls they seem to be encountering on an almost monthly basis - and she makes her way as quickly as she can to the rendezvous point they’d agreed on before entering the network of tunnels, having concluded that the inevitable rockfall seemed imminent.
The meeting point is back out in the open, which she’s grateful for; Elena’s never been claustrophobic, exactly, but a person can only take so many structural collapses before tunnels start making them edgy. She jogs to the edge of the forest. Nate doesn’t seem to be there yet, which surprises her a little; he didn’t have as far to go. Probably wasting time running around in the tunnels, looking for shiny objects. He has to stop doing that; it’s going to drive her crazy one day.
She looks around, and there he is, leaning against a tree a few yards away.
Or... there he isn’t, she realises as she takes a couple of steps in his direction. It’s not Nate. It’s someone else.
The man glances up and catches her looking at him. He raises his eyebrows.
“I’m sorry,” she says. “I just... you looked familiar.”
He grins. “Maybe I look like someone you know?”
She nods. “My... partner,” she says. “Nate. Have you seen him?”
She’s startled when the man bursts out laughing.
“Oh, so I actually do look like someone you know?” he asks. “Wasn’t expecting that. Sorry, but that’s not why people usually think they know me.”
Elena frowns. What’s going on here? Now that she really looks at him, though, something does seem...
Oh! Oh.
Okay. She has no idea how to respond to this. She’s had a lot of weird experiences since meeting Nathan Drake, and this is far from the weirdest, but it’s still not the kind of thing that happens every day.
“Prince Eugene?” she asks.
“Now that you mention it, that does sound familiar.”
How are you meant to address a prince, again? Your Highness? “I’m sorry, ah, Your Highness; I didn’t realise-”
He winks at her. “Call me Eugene. And it’s fine. I’m just a little hurt you didn’t recognise me when I’ve taken the trouble to learn all my subjects’ names, Elena.”
Elena stares at him.
“Nate told you my name to freak me out, didn’t he?” she asks, flatly.
There’s a laugh, and Nate stands up from behind a rocky outcropping, his hands in the air. “Okay, you caught me.”
“Seriously?” Eugene asks, jerking his head towards Nate. “You think I look like this guy?”
“Not that much like him,” Elena says, beginning to smile. “You’re much better-dressed than he is, for one thing.”
“Elena!” Nate protests. “Where’s your loyalty?”
Elena’s feeling a lot more relaxed now; she knows where Nate is, and Eugene doesn’t really seem the type to have her imprisoned for impudence. “Anyway, what’s a prince of the realm doing out in the woods on his own? Shouldn’t you be performing royal duties or something?”
“Technically, yes,” Eugene says. “Probably. But, well, you know what they say about old habits.”
“He’s after the same treasure as us,” Nate explains to Elena.
Elena breaks into a grin. “You’re not gonna have us executed if we win this race, are you?”
Eugene smirks. “I’ll have to fight Rapunzel for it; she’ll want to have you knighted. But you seriously think you can beat me?”
She folds her arms. “We’re pretty good.”
“You’re gonna need to be,” Eugene says. “If you win, you’re invited to lunch at the palace. Almost definitely not so I can steal it back off you. Go!”
F: Lightning Farron (Final Fantasy XIII)/Ffamran ‘Balthier’ Bunansa (Final Fantasy XII)
“You can use magic,” the boy says, breathlessly. “You’re-” and then he says something quite incomprehensible.
“Could be Manadrive,” says the curiously pink-haired woman at his side. “Could be Sanctum, even if they are l’Cie.” There’s that odd word again. “We don’t have any guarantees.”
Balthier feels more than a little out of step with this conversation, but he can understand one thing that’s been said, at least. “We can indeed use magicks, as you so astutely point out,” he says. “I can assure you our licences are all in order.”
“Licences,” the woman says, tensing. “You don’t look like soldiers.”
“We are not soldiers,” Fran returns. “That may explain it.”
“Civilians don’t get Manadrive licences. If you’re going to lie, at least make sure your lies match up.”
“They don’t seem very interested in killing us,” the boy says.
Balthier raises his eyebrows. “Now, why should that be worthy of note? Are you worth killing?”
The woman folds her arms. “So I’m guessing you’re from Pulse. You’re not exactly trying to hide it; not like you dress or speak like anyone around here. If you don’t want people knowing you’re ‘enemies of the world’, you’ll want to make some changes.”
“Hard words,” Balthier remarks. “Is your blade as sharp as your tongue, I wonder?”
“I’m not going to fight you. I’m trying to stop you from getting yourselves killed. You don’t want to listen, that’s your call.”
“Appreciated, naturally,” Balthier says, “but I can’t say we call your ‘Pulse’ home. Whether we are enemies of the world remains to be seen.”
“You didn’t know who we were,” she says. “If you’re not from Pulse, where are you from?”
Balthier glances over her and her young companion, but no recognition stirs in his mind. “Celebrities?”
She gives a small almost-laugh. “Something like that.”
“We’re not entirely unknown ourselves,” Balthier says. “I take it we’re both the breed of celebrity that would prefer to involve the authorities as little as possible.”
“I’m not going to say no,” she says.
Balthier smirks. “If you’d care to follow me to my airship, we can speak a little more privately.”
-
The boy - he introduces himself as Hope - seems fascinated by the Strahl, as of course any reasonable person should be. The woman, Lightning, is less impressed.
“It’s amazing,” Hope says, examining the panelling. “What do you use it for?”
“Well, we are sky pirates,” Balthier says. “It’s rather a requirement.”
“Sky pirates?” Lightning asks.
“Pirates of the skies,” Balthier explains, smoothly, “if you find the name difficult to decipher.”
Lightning gives him a look with much the same impact as a well-cast Blizzaga. “Thanks.”
“Uh,” Hope says, looking anxious, “I think the thing is that... I mean, you said it like it’s a phrase everyone knows. I don’t think sky pirates are really something we have on Cocoon. Where are you from?”
Balthier hesitates.
“We may be somewhat lost,” he admits.
“Our magicks surprised them,” Fran says. “Do you know of a land in Ivalice where magicks bring such a reaction? Do you know of a land in Ivalice where the ground curves upwards?”
That was indeed what they saw earlier, when they tried to get enough height to establish where they were. The ground here curves gently but unmistakably upwards in all directions; it’s as if they’re on the inside of a planet, rather than the outside, which is plainly ridiculous. If they look hard enough, they can make out more land in the sky. It’s possible that Balthier needs to amend his previous statement. “We may, perhaps, be more than somewhat lost.”
-
Lightning and Hope have never heard of Ivalice, which is less than reassuring. In the absence of any indication of how to return home, Balthier and Fran conclude that they might as well lend their new fugitive friends a hand.
It transpires that Lightning and Hope are not the only travellers in their party, however, and one of their companions has little idea of how to conduct himself as a guest in another man’s airship.
“Whoa,” Snow breathes when he sees Fran’s ears, evidently impressed. “Can I touch ’em?”
Fran arches her eyebrows as she looks upon him, in the perfect expression of disdain Balthier occasionally wishes he could master. “I think not,” she says. “We are not long acquainted.”
-
The goal is a place called Eden, mysteriously suspended in mid-air, where their passengers, as far as Balthier can establish, intend to topple the government. Balthier hasn’t been in Cocoon long enough to be certain of whether the government requires toppling, but he flies them up all the same; it should be entertaining, at the very least.
“Best of luck, Lightning,” he says, as she makes for the door of the Strahl. “You’ll have to return and tell me how it goes.”
She pauses mid-stride. “Call me Light.”
It’s an invitation to familiarity; Balthier recognises that, appreciates it and intends, largely to be difficult, to turn it down. “Lightning comes with the storm. It seems a more appropriate name to me. I’ll remain as I was, if you don’t mind.”
Lightning shrugs. “Suit yourself.”
He laughs to himself as she leaves. Perhaps he’ll stay for a while, see whether there are survivors to be picked up. They’re unlikely to find more friends in Cocoon, after all; he doesn’t imagine they’ve made an excellent first impression.
H: Hajime Hinata (Super Dangan Ronpa 2)/Haruka Nanase (Free!) (note: this contains spoilers for the first chapter of Super Dangan Ronpa 2)
“Nanase!”
Nanase doesn’t respond, still floating on his back in the ocean, and for a horrible instant Hinata thinks they might have another body on their hands - but then Koizumi, who followed him out, snatches up a seashell and throws it. It glances off Nanase’s bare shoulder, and his eyes snap open.
Hinata’s relief is instantly swept away when he remembers why they’re here.
“There’s been a murder,” he says. “To-”
He chokes on the name. His legs are still shaking.
“Togami is dead,” Koizumi says. It’s strange to hear the waver in her voice; she always seems so sure of herself.
Nanase regards them in silence. He makes no move to swim back to shore.
“Didn’t you hear us?” Koizumi demands. “Someone is dead.”
“I already knew,” Nanase says.
Wait, what?
“How could you already know?” Hinata asks. “You weren’t at the party.”
Nanase’s eyes flicker towards the loudspeaker in the tree beside them. “There was an announcement.”
“You heard that?” Hinata asks. “Why didn’t you come to see what had happened?”
Nanase closes his eyes again. “There’s no water in the lodge.”
J: John Marston (Red Dead Redemption)/Patrick Jane (The Mentalist)
“I’m from the future.”
“People like you, you’re all from the future. You come to show our backwards part of the world the light?”
“No,” Jane says, “I mean this literally. I am from the future. The last time I knew what was going on, it was the year 2011.”
Marston folds his arms - very loosely, presumably so he can still reach for his frankly excessive collection of guns at a moment’s notice. “I’ve met a lot of strange folks out here,” he says, “but that don’t mean I’ve lost sight of the line between unlikely and impossible. I’m not buying your story, Mr Jane.”
“That’s all right,” Jane says, with a small smile. “I’m not really expecting to be believed.”
“So what were you doing in the ‘future’?” Marston asks. Jane has given a lot of thought to how to use tenses, given his current predicament; it strikes him as slightly unfair that Marston doesn’t seem to consider it an issue at all.
“Law enforcement. Sort of. What do you do here?”
“Kill or be killed, mostly,” Marston says. “Sometimes I play poker. Not had the best experiences with law enforcement.”
“I’m sure we can be civil,” Jane says. “But I was actually looking for an escort.”
“You expect me to escort you?”
“I’m, ah, going to say ‘want’ rather than ‘expect’. I don’t have much to offer you, but I’m probably not going to survive long on my own, if that makes any difference.”
“Looks like you’ve survived long enough to me,” Marston says.
“Yes, in the twenty-first century. You’d be surprised how rarely I had to deal with wolves there.”
Marston takes a deep, slow breath and lets it out. It is the breath of a man who has already had to deal with far, far too much in the past few weeks. “Where is it you’re going, Mr Jane?”
“I have no idea,” Jane says. “Somewhere I won’t be shot, ideally.”
Marston shakes his head. “Get on the horse. If I’m feeling generous, maybe I won’t drop you off at Thieves’ Landing.”
-
The road to Blackwater is a long one. Marston is quiet at first, but after a while he starts asking a few questions, obviously trying to work out what Jane’s real story is. As he already has Jane’s real story, it’s unlikely to achieve much, but it gives Jane an opening. Marston’s hiding something; that much has been clear from the moment they first met. Jane has always had trouble resisting a secret. Through conversation he can learn about who Marston is, about how to manipulate him, and he can then use that knowledge to make Marston talk.
When Marston eventually talks, Jane’s interest becomes a lot less idle. A wife and child taken from him, imprisoned. Jane’s been thinking about Red John since he landed in this time; taking revenge becomes tricky, to say the least, when the person you need to kill hasn’t been born yet. He hasn’t really had any goals here beyond ‘stay alive, try to somehow find a way back’. But here’s another man who’s lost his family, and there might still be hope for this one.
Maybe Jane can do something positive here.
SPECIAL BONUS FICLET BECAUSE I COULDN’T DECIDE WHAT TO WRITE:
J (again): Patrick Jane (The Mentalist)/Jeff Winger (Community)
The door of the interrogation room opens, and Lisbon walks in. She looks puzzled.
“Mr Winger,” she says, “I’ve just had a call from a former colleague of yours. He says you’re no longer an attorney.”
“Ah,” Winger says.
“Ah indeed,” Lisbon says. “Care to explain yourself?”
“Obviously there’s been a misunderstanding,” Winger says, smiling pleasantly. “I never actually said I was Miss Edison’s attorney. I said I’d been an attorney for many years, which is true, and that I was here to see her. I suppose you must have jumped to conclusions.”
“I suppose so,” Jane says, watching Winger and Edison with new interest. He picked up on the fact that they seemed closer than the average lawyer and client the moment Winger walked into the room, but he’d assumed they were just having an affair; apparently things are a little more complicated than that. Edison doesn’t seem surprised to discover that her ‘attorney’ is a fraud, although the expression of terror she’s worn since her arrest is now struggling with one of intense embarrassment. “I mean, you have been calling her ‘my client’ the entire time, so I’m sure you’ll forgive us our mistake.”
“It’s a pet name,” Winger says. “I’m just here to give my friend some legal advice. That’s allowed, right?”
“Actually, it’s not,” Lisbon says. “This is an interrogation.”
“C’mon, let him stay,” Jane says. “This’ll be fun.”
“Jane, ‘fun’ is not the top priority in a murder investigation.”
Edison makes an odd high-pitched squeaking noise at the word ‘murder’, and Winger puts a hand on her shoulder. Lisbon glances over at them, frowning.
Jane knows that Lisbon thinks this girl is innocent. She’s right, of course. He’s proud to see her relying more on her instincts.
“She needs a real attorney,” Lisbon says to Jane, lowering her voice.
“She’s accused of murdering one of the partners in a law firm at some kind of lawyer convention,” Jane says. “If she wanted a lawyer, she’d have one.”
“We can’t just let some-”
“I swear I only chloroformed the janitor!”
Jane and Lisbon both look sharply back at Edison. Winger, next to her, has buried his face in his hands.
“She needs a real attorney,” he mutters.
According to the emerging pattern, I'll probably be posting the next instalment a year from now. In the meantime, I hope you enjoy these!