[DP] Resolve
Shots fired.
I hear them from a long way off, shouting and clattering through the lab. Gunfire comes closer and closer until the door is shot off its hinges, falling with a loud crack. I can't see anything, haven't been able to see anything for a long time, but I can hear the sharply indrawn breaths, the muttered oaths, the tell-tale sibilants of High Speech over the steady rhythm of the respirator.
"Jesus," someone whispers.
"Jesus ain't here. How many are alive?"
There is a tingle of magic that makes me cringe against my bonds. "One."
Some shuffling around me and someone moves my head, then gently peels the tape from my eyes. I'm eager to see my savior, but the light is too bright. I can't make out more than a figure that crouches next to my head, leans close to me...
It's a long time before I'm aware again. My head feels simultaneously fuzzy and clear, as someone took each memory I had, examined it, shook it out, and then packed them all back in with little regard. I feel violated in a way that even the man who puts his fingers directly on my exposed vertebrae can't quite give me.
"So?" someone asks.
"She's not guilty. Barely knows more than her magic. By the time she figured out what was going on, it was too late."
"We could just kill her here. Make it an easier clean-up job. Bodies is easier than live ones."
There is an argument and I lose the thread of it as sharp, stabbing pain runs through my body. I'd gasp, but the respirator keeps my breath even. Eventually, a figure leans close to my head again.
"You never saw us. You don't know who came here. You get the fuck out, we get the fuck out. You got that?"
My eyes fill with tears. I can't move, can't see, can't breathe. It doesn't seem to matter, though. Someone else begins disconnecting me from the machines.
"You tell anyone about this, we fucking kill you, you got that? Don't fuck with Guardians. Don't break the veil."
They leave in a cloud of darkness, leaving me untied and disconnected except for the air working through my lungs.
I don't know how long I was in the fog before I straighten. We've moved back to the main roads but I'm not sure where we are. I run a hand over my head to check that the bandanna is still there, still protecting the veil from my indiscretions. My eyes are heavy in their sockets. I catch a glimpse of myself in the rear view mirror before I look at D.P.
"Banisher, mad. He felt her." His voice is quiet and distant.
He drives and I stare at the road ahead. Echoes of gunshots rattle me far more than I expected. Every time I blink my eyes, I see a splatter of red across the inside of the windshield.
Eventually, I see signs that I recognize, know that we're only a few more minutes from the shop. "What happens when someone comes questioning about what happened here?" I ask softly. D.P. and his little girl will go, leaving me to explain what happened here. I'm not ready to leave this place or the measure of comfort that I've found here. I'm not sure I'm ready to let someone like D.P. run off with a four year old girl; a strange bit of instinct that I don't know if I trust.
"They saw a Lexus, a silver Lexus."
He's a professional. I glance down at the girl, scared for her and for me. "I see."
It's on the tip of my tongue to tell him to take his car and get the hell out, but something happens to the professional then. He pulls to a stop in front of a quickie-mart. "I'm sorry... I... really... I..." He lowers his head to the steering wheel and the words don't come.
I take a deep, gasping breath, and then wipe my eyes with the heels of my hands. "Right. Alright." I rub the furrow of scar tissue on the back of my neck, take another breath, refuse to let the memories shake me any more. "C'mon. Let's take a cup of tea and get your car straightened out."
He draws a breath to match mine and nods, gathering himself. We resume the drive back to the garage while he scans outwards in tingling tendrils of Space and Mind. As he drives, I push my thoughts back, force myself to sit up straight, despite the tingling in my spine, the places where I can still feel someone's fingers knocking against my vertebrae. By the time D.P. pulls up to the garage, I've regained what little composure I ever have, although he still frowns to himself.
I clamber out of the back of my Jeep with the girl in my arms. The garage is dark and I have a moment in which I'm not sure how I'm going to juggle her and retrieve my keys from my pocket, but D.P. says, "Here. Give me her."
I hesitate and in that hesitation study him. He watches me hollowly and as much as I want to, I can't hate him, although I don't much like him, either. While killing that man shook me, it's affected D.P. in some profound way. I let him take his daughter and open the door, ushering them in before me and turning on a light once I'm across the threshold. "Tea's in the kitchen. Give me a sec."
I turn the thermostat up and leave D.P. hugging his girl and murmuring into her hair. Fuck.
The kitchen is small, but has an ancient coffee pot and a new electric kettle for hot water. Harry brought it in two weeks after I started working here and had expressed my preference for tea over coffee. It was, to me, a bizarre act of kindness and done with no fanfare whatsoever, a trait I've marked in Harry often. I shuffle through the boxes of tea I've acquired and that Harry's wife has brought in and call out to D.P., "What kind of tea?"
"Any kind, don't care... whatever you're having." His voice is soft and faint, but I do as he instructs and make two cups of Earl Gray. When I emerge, he hasn't moved from the waiting chair and his daughter is still firmly ensconced in his arms.
"Here we are, then." I don't try for a smile, but offer the tea, which he takes carefully.
"Thank you."
We sit in silence for a long time, left alone with our respective thoughts. Mine run mostly through all of the ways to encourage him to go and whether I can ethically countenance a trained killer to take care of a four year old. I can't come up with any good solutions and I've cycled through the arguments on both sides so many times that I finally give up. "I repaired the alternator and refitted it. You shouldn't have any more problems with it." So long as no one cracks it in half again.
"Good... " The familiar frown creases his face as he glances up. "Maybe I shouldn't go so soon, in case there is more."
I don't want to meet his eyes, so I look into what's left of my tea. "Is that likely?"
"He was blocked well, I couldn't get enough info to say definitely that he was alone."
"Are there others here?"
The question rings inside my head. I want to answer, but I can't talk with the tube down my throat. The Guardian isn't interested in what I have to say, though, only in what I have to think. No one alive. Something, then, occludes my vision...
I tamp the memory down as forcefully as I can manage, but not before a shudder runs through my body.
"Look at me."
D.P. has eased his daughter into the chair and come to crouch before me. I'm not sure when it happened, but his sudden proximity frightens me. I grip my cup tightly, force myself to look him in the eye.
"I don't give speeches. I know you don't like me, or what I am. I'm used to it. I take my job seriously."
There's no doubt of that in my mind, as much as I would wish otherwise. I also know that there's not a thing he wouldn't do to protect his daughter. "You scare the bleeding hell out of me," I tell him honestly.
He frowns and stands from his crouch. Something twists in his face, but he schools it to calm. "I'll stay and look into things here. I'll stay out of your way."
"What?" My fear flees as I try to work out what just happened, what he was thinking.
"I'll look into things. I can't just leave someone here with a potential threat."
I don't know how much of that is true, but I'm not willing to let it go, quite yet. "That wasn't it. There was something else."
"It's nothing. How much for the work?"
I can almost hear him say, Drop it. I wrinkle my nose doubtfully, but drop the subject. "A hundred. It'll satisfy my boss." Perhaps I'm not entirely without social grace after all.
D.P. looks at me as if appraising me, then counts out money from his wallet, folds several bills and hands them to me. It's too much, I can tell at a glance, but I don't want to argue. I shrug, put the money into a deposit bag from a drawer in the desk. "Are you going back to the Holiday Inn?" I ask him.
"Not likely, I need..." He stops and looks to his sleeping daughter, and that look it back. Don't do it, Julia. Don't you even-
I pause mid-zip and put the bag down on the desk. "I'm rooming in a house that's owned by a good woman. She has extra rooms and likes kids. It's a good place, clean." I meet his eyes levelly while my mind screams at me, questioning my sanity.
The muscles in his jaw clench and unclench. To my surprise, he doesn't put me off entirely. "Fine, keep the rest of it though."
"I-" I feel the blush burn across my cheeks and look down, count to ten. When I look up again, we're back to business. "Thank you," I tell him with as much sincerity as I can muster. "Do you want to follow me over, or shall I just give you the address?"
"I'll follow. I'd rather not leave you alone." With that he picks up his daughter and holds her close, eventually following me out into the evening snow.
I hear them from a long way off, shouting and clattering through the lab. Gunfire comes closer and closer until the door is shot off its hinges, falling with a loud crack. I can't see anything, haven't been able to see anything for a long time, but I can hear the sharply indrawn breaths, the muttered oaths, the tell-tale sibilants of High Speech over the steady rhythm of the respirator.
"Jesus," someone whispers.
"Jesus ain't here. How many are alive?"
There is a tingle of magic that makes me cringe against my bonds. "One."
Some shuffling around me and someone moves my head, then gently peels the tape from my eyes. I'm eager to see my savior, but the light is too bright. I can't make out more than a figure that crouches next to my head, leans close to me...
It's a long time before I'm aware again. My head feels simultaneously fuzzy and clear, as someone took each memory I had, examined it, shook it out, and then packed them all back in with little regard. I feel violated in a way that even the man who puts his fingers directly on my exposed vertebrae can't quite give me.
"So?" someone asks.
"She's not guilty. Barely knows more than her magic. By the time she figured out what was going on, it was too late."
"We could just kill her here. Make it an easier clean-up job. Bodies is easier than live ones."
There is an argument and I lose the thread of it as sharp, stabbing pain runs through my body. I'd gasp, but the respirator keeps my breath even. Eventually, a figure leans close to my head again.
"You never saw us. You don't know who came here. You get the fuck out, we get the fuck out. You got that?"
My eyes fill with tears. I can't move, can't see, can't breathe. It doesn't seem to matter, though. Someone else begins disconnecting me from the machines.
"You tell anyone about this, we fucking kill you, you got that? Don't fuck with Guardians. Don't break the veil."
They leave in a cloud of darkness, leaving me untied and disconnected except for the air working through my lungs.
I don't know how long I was in the fog before I straighten. We've moved back to the main roads but I'm not sure where we are. I run a hand over my head to check that the bandanna is still there, still protecting the veil from my indiscretions. My eyes are heavy in their sockets. I catch a glimpse of myself in the rear view mirror before I look at D.P.
"Banisher, mad. He felt her." His voice is quiet and distant.
He drives and I stare at the road ahead. Echoes of gunshots rattle me far more than I expected. Every time I blink my eyes, I see a splatter of red across the inside of the windshield.
Eventually, I see signs that I recognize, know that we're only a few more minutes from the shop. "What happens when someone comes questioning about what happened here?" I ask softly. D.P. and his little girl will go, leaving me to explain what happened here. I'm not ready to leave this place or the measure of comfort that I've found here. I'm not sure I'm ready to let someone like D.P. run off with a four year old girl; a strange bit of instinct that I don't know if I trust.
"They saw a Lexus, a silver Lexus."
He's a professional. I glance down at the girl, scared for her and for me. "I see."
It's on the tip of my tongue to tell him to take his car and get the hell out, but something happens to the professional then. He pulls to a stop in front of a quickie-mart. "I'm sorry... I... really... I..." He lowers his head to the steering wheel and the words don't come.
I take a deep, gasping breath, and then wipe my eyes with the heels of my hands. "Right. Alright." I rub the furrow of scar tissue on the back of my neck, take another breath, refuse to let the memories shake me any more. "C'mon. Let's take a cup of tea and get your car straightened out."
He draws a breath to match mine and nods, gathering himself. We resume the drive back to the garage while he scans outwards in tingling tendrils of Space and Mind. As he drives, I push my thoughts back, force myself to sit up straight, despite the tingling in my spine, the places where I can still feel someone's fingers knocking against my vertebrae. By the time D.P. pulls up to the garage, I've regained what little composure I ever have, although he still frowns to himself.
I clamber out of the back of my Jeep with the girl in my arms. The garage is dark and I have a moment in which I'm not sure how I'm going to juggle her and retrieve my keys from my pocket, but D.P. says, "Here. Give me her."
I hesitate and in that hesitation study him. He watches me hollowly and as much as I want to, I can't hate him, although I don't much like him, either. While killing that man shook me, it's affected D.P. in some profound way. I let him take his daughter and open the door, ushering them in before me and turning on a light once I'm across the threshold. "Tea's in the kitchen. Give me a sec."
I turn the thermostat up and leave D.P. hugging his girl and murmuring into her hair. Fuck.
The kitchen is small, but has an ancient coffee pot and a new electric kettle for hot water. Harry brought it in two weeks after I started working here and had expressed my preference for tea over coffee. It was, to me, a bizarre act of kindness and done with no fanfare whatsoever, a trait I've marked in Harry often. I shuffle through the boxes of tea I've acquired and that Harry's wife has brought in and call out to D.P., "What kind of tea?"
"Any kind, don't care... whatever you're having." His voice is soft and faint, but I do as he instructs and make two cups of Earl Gray. When I emerge, he hasn't moved from the waiting chair and his daughter is still firmly ensconced in his arms.
"Here we are, then." I don't try for a smile, but offer the tea, which he takes carefully.
"Thank you."
We sit in silence for a long time, left alone with our respective thoughts. Mine run mostly through all of the ways to encourage him to go and whether I can ethically countenance a trained killer to take care of a four year old. I can't come up with any good solutions and I've cycled through the arguments on both sides so many times that I finally give up. "I repaired the alternator and refitted it. You shouldn't have any more problems with it." So long as no one cracks it in half again.
"Good... " The familiar frown creases his face as he glances up. "Maybe I shouldn't go so soon, in case there is more."
I don't want to meet his eyes, so I look into what's left of my tea. "Is that likely?"
"He was blocked well, I couldn't get enough info to say definitely that he was alone."
"Are there others here?"
The question rings inside my head. I want to answer, but I can't talk with the tube down my throat. The Guardian isn't interested in what I have to say, though, only in what I have to think. No one alive. Something, then, occludes my vision...
I tamp the memory down as forcefully as I can manage, but not before a shudder runs through my body.
"Look at me."
D.P. has eased his daughter into the chair and come to crouch before me. I'm not sure when it happened, but his sudden proximity frightens me. I grip my cup tightly, force myself to look him in the eye.
"I don't give speeches. I know you don't like me, or what I am. I'm used to it. I take my job seriously."
There's no doubt of that in my mind, as much as I would wish otherwise. I also know that there's not a thing he wouldn't do to protect his daughter. "You scare the bleeding hell out of me," I tell him honestly.
He frowns and stands from his crouch. Something twists in his face, but he schools it to calm. "I'll stay and look into things here. I'll stay out of your way."
"What?" My fear flees as I try to work out what just happened, what he was thinking.
"I'll look into things. I can't just leave someone here with a potential threat."
I don't know how much of that is true, but I'm not willing to let it go, quite yet. "That wasn't it. There was something else."
"It's nothing. How much for the work?"
I can almost hear him say, Drop it. I wrinkle my nose doubtfully, but drop the subject. "A hundred. It'll satisfy my boss." Perhaps I'm not entirely without social grace after all.
D.P. looks at me as if appraising me, then counts out money from his wallet, folds several bills and hands them to me. It's too much, I can tell at a glance, but I don't want to argue. I shrug, put the money into a deposit bag from a drawer in the desk. "Are you going back to the Holiday Inn?" I ask him.
"Not likely, I need..." He stops and looks to his sleeping daughter, and that look it back. Don't do it, Julia. Don't you even-
I pause mid-zip and put the bag down on the desk. "I'm rooming in a house that's owned by a good woman. She has extra rooms and likes kids. It's a good place, clean." I meet his eyes levelly while my mind screams at me, questioning my sanity.
The muscles in his jaw clench and unclench. To my surprise, he doesn't put me off entirely. "Fine, keep the rest of it though."
"I-" I feel the blush burn across my cheeks and look down, count to ten. When I look up again, we're back to business. "Thank you," I tell him with as much sincerity as I can muster. "Do you want to follow me over, or shall I just give you the address?"
"I'll follow. I'd rather not leave you alone." With that he picks up his daughter and holds her close, eventually following me out into the evening snow.