(no subject)
FANDOM: LAW & ORDER UK
Pairings: None
Rating: PG+ for minor swearing
Disclaimer: I write these stories for my own entertainment and do not intend to make any profit from this story. I do not own Law & Order UK or the characters therein, although I wouldn't object to a Matt Devlin clone as a holiday gift. I'd even trade you for him - I have two wide-awake, overly-caffeinated plot bunnies who’ve decided to go back to work and are just full of ideas.
Owwwwww.
He drew in a quick breath and automatically stifled a moan at the pain in his chest. There were definite advantages to being what he was - you survived just about everything any lifestyle could throw at you. On the other hand, surviving meant you still had to deal with the lingering nerve-memory of your injuries when you returned to the land of the living and handle the blank spot in your memory that surrounded your death, while making on-the-fly plans to escape unnoticed from wherever you’d ended up when you’d ‘died’. So, as he’d been trained, he held still and took stock of his surroundings.
Cold metal under his naked body. Scratchy sheet covering him. Sharp smell of cleansing agents and only a touch of filtered light piercing the darkness. Moving his fingers slightly, he touched a cold metal wall to his right and left. Ah, yes, a slab in the morgue. He abruptly remembered what had happened. Seeing the barrel of a gun, pushing Kaden and Alesha aside and then -
Shot. Again.
This was getting ridiculous. Literally thousands of ways to be killed, only one of them fortunately permanent, and he kept getting shot?
He’d been well-trained though. Philosophy later. Practicality now. No one was supposed to know about his kind, which meant he had to get away from here without being noticed. Presumably he was in the Central morgue, surrounded by an entire building of people who knew him. Yeah, this should be easy.
Oh God, Ronnie. How was he handling his death?
Shuddering from the cold, he blinked as he twisted his head around to peer at the inside of the door. There didn’t seem to be a handle on the inside of this door. And, being naked, he didn’t have anything with which to jimmy it open, assuming he could even twist around enough in this narrow space to get the needed leverage. He’d have to wait until someone came to retrieve him for the funeral home, and hope he could engineer an escape along the way. Without, of course, hurting anyone offering honorable escort to their fallen colleague.
Modern life definitely made dying a pain to Immortals, in more than one way. It was so much easier in the old days - you just had to dig your way out of a grave.
Hearing a faint clicking sound approaching the wall of mortuary slabs, he pulled the sheet back over his face and froze in place, reducing his breathing to a shallow, nearly motionless action, recalling his teacher’s advice. “They expect to see a dead body. So long as there’s nothing obvious for them to see - like your hyperactive, panicked gasps for breath - they’ll continue to see a dead body. And that gives you time to get out of there.”
At any given moment, the London morgue was full of bodies. Odds were, whoever was coming into the room was here to check on someone else.
Unless it was time for his autopsy. He drew in a quick breath. 'Not panicking here.'
The heels stopped and there was a snicking sound as the door opened and a beam of light shone into his drawer. Then the drawer was yanked out and the sheet pulled off his face. He held still, but nothing happened. After a few minutes of stalemate, he cautiously opened one eye, just a bit - and jerked in surprise. Angie’s face - his Watcher’s face - was just inches from his own, shining in the reflected light from her torch. “Well?” she whispered impatiently. “Are you just going to lie there, or are you going to shift your arse and get out of here?”
Wait. Back up a second. His brain tried to gather itself together. His Watcher was talking to him Watcher to Immortal, not as a police colleague. “Uh, you obviously know what I am -“ Angie shook a bracelet with the Watcher symbol in his face - “yeah, Watcher, I know what you are so, not meaning to be - whatever, here, but aren’t you supposed to be neutral? You know, uninvolved?”
“Yes,” she hissed, “but I’m also supposed to help keep the rest of the world from knowing about Immortals. And since, between your wonderful teacher and the MacLeods, we figure half the Immortals already know about us, we’re now permitted - in an emergency - to step in and help our damned Immortal when they’ve been stupid enough to die in public. So shift your arse!”
Right. Watcher helping Immortal. Okay. There were still a few problems here, though. Like a lack of clothes. “Uh, Angie -“
A set of scrubs wrapped around some trainers was dumped on his stomach. “Dress. Now.”
Definitely a new side of his Watcher. He’d never pictured Angie as being particularly forceful, personality-wise. Or physically, as he was pulled sideways off the slab. Angie snorted as she watched him desperately try to clutch the sheet around him while not dropping the clothes. “Not like I haven’t already seen everything.”
Ouch. Yeah. Somehow, while working with her, he’d managed to conveniently forget that as his Watcher, she probably would have seen him in some of his more - reckless - adventures. He really hoped she’d missed that little Tower of London episode.
More footsteps. He and Angie froze, then simultaneously sighed in relief as someone walked past the morgue door and continued towards the records room at the other end of the hall.
“Would you get dressed already?”
He dropped modesty and the sheet, scrambled into the pants and jammed his feet into the trainers. He only managed to get the top partway down over his head before she yanked him toward the door. “So. How’re we getting out of here?” he asked as he tried to get his other arm into the scrub top.
“Back stairs and into the rear lot,” she whispered, opening the door a crack and peering out. “Clear. Let’s go.” And he was hauled through the door in her wake.
“Two hundred plus years and still terminally stupid,” she muttered. “Getting shot on camera. God. Didn’t you learn anything from the MacLeod fiasco a few years ago?”
“No,” he shot back, a bit miffed. “’Course I didn’t know there was a MacLeod fiasco - although given the stories Fitz told about both of ‘em, I don’t doubt there’s been many fiascos. You’re my Watcher - you know I avoid Challenges. And since you can’t be around either of them and not get Challenged at least once a week . . . Hey!” This last was muffled as Angie grabbed him, whirled around to put her back against the wall and shoved his head down into her chest. He was just about to make a sarcastic comment when a man’s voice came from the records room, “Alright there, Angie?”
“Yeah, Rob,” she replied, her right hand rubbing circles on his back while the left kept his head firmly pressed to her chest. “Just - a bit upset is all.” And she turned her head so she could whisper into his ear, “a little help ‘ere!”
He managed a somewhat fake-sounding (to his ears) sob, but apparently it was sufficient. Whoever it was closed the door, leaving them alone in the hall. He was shoved upright and drug down the hall again. “We have to move faster, here,” Angie grumbled. “Two flights of stairs, then a hallway and out to my car. I take it you have some emergency stash somewhere?”
Sword, money, new passport, clothes. ‘What is the combination on that locker?’ He bit back a yelp as his toes stubbed a stair. “Angie, slow down! Running’ll look suspicious, you know!”
“Not likely,” she answered smugly. “I do know my electronics. No cameras recording at the moment, thank you. The disappearing corpse will remain a mystery.” She stopped on the landing and glanced at him, red-faced. “Sorry,” she muttered, “but - there’s really no better way to handle this, is there.”
“Nah,” he smiled weakly, “it’s one of the perks of being an Immortal. Life sucks even after you die.”
They both started to giggle at the absurdity of that statement but a sound from the floor below - had someone just opened the morgue door? - drove them up the second set of stairs.
Surprisingly, they made it through the back hallway and out into the parking lot without any incidents. The late hour (a wall-clock read 2:36 a.m.), a ravening horde of reporters out front who required a host of officers to keep them under control, the orders of the-powers-that-be that had sent everyone available out to hunt down his ‘killers’ - put these circumstances together and you dramatically decreased the number of people in the building. As they walked, Matt tipped his head down and Angie kept an arm slung around his neck, effectively hiding his face. The few people they saw politely left them alone, his occasional sobs and Angie’s litany of ‘there now, it’ll get better’ giving the impression he was overcome with grief.
Matt didn’t want to think about how his friends would react to his missing ‘corpse’. And belatedly, he realized that not only he would be missing come morning. Angie’d have to move on, too - her late night visit to the morgue would implicate her in his disappearance. Did the Watchers have a relocation plan for her, or would he have to get used to a new shadow? She’d become a friend - he wondered if he could still keep in touch or would that violate her oath which was, let’s face it, shot to hell now. How did Joseph Dawson manage it, and would he be willing to intercede for Angie?
The back lot was dimly lit at the best of times, and tonight, only a few lights next to the building were on. More of Angie’s handiwork? She’d parked in the far corner next to the side exit. When they reached the car, he slumped down on the ground, face in his hands, still feigning the grieving friend, while she fumbled fitting the key into the lock.
And their luck ran out.
“Angie? Love, what are you doing out here?”
Oh God.
Ronnie.
“Ronnie?” Angie’s Watcher training kicked in, and she moved to meet his partner at the front of the car, while he hunched down further and wondered if he could possibly slide under her vehicle to get away. “How are you doing, Ronnie?”
“Can I help you, love?” Ronnie’s voice was strained (with grief, Matt realized guiltily) but - also suspicious. He could see a shadow stop right next to Angie, almost close enough to touch him, and realized, ‘Christ, he’s seen his partner shot to death today, anything out of place is going to set off his instincts.’
And quiet Angie sneaking out the back way with an unknown man was definitely out of place.
“No, Ronnie,” he’d never heard Angie sound so soothing, “Just a mate who’s a bit under the weather. I’m giving him a lift home.”
“You sure, Angie?” There was that stubborn, overprotective tone in Ronnie’s voice, “if there’s something I can do . . .”
Without warning, Ronnie pulled Angie around and behind him. Startled, Matt glanced up as Ronnie stepped forward, demanding, “All right, you, stand up. We’ll have no . . .”
The headlight from a passing car played across his face, and Ronnie went absolutely still. “Matty?!?” he whispered.
No help for it now. “Yeah, Ronnie.”
He was stunned to see Ronnie’s eyes roll up into his head as his partner passed out. Both he and Angie stared at their unconscious friend, then at each other. “Well?” Angie finally asked.
“Me?” he responded. “You’re asking me? I thought you were in charge of this rescue?” His voice, he realized, sounded somewhat hysterical. ‘Too many shocks today. I’ve gotten sloppy, feeling safe here as a copper.’
“They didn’t cover this in training!” his exasperated Watcher responded. “I’m making it up as I go, and I have definitely reached the end here. You’re the Immortal, how do you usually handle this?”
By not dying in public in the first place, he wanted to say, but he stopped himself. Angie was trying to help. She kept his Chronicle, she knew that, except for his first death, he’d been fortunate enough to leave most of his previous lives before he’d died in them. And when he had ‘died’ - his burials had been quick and in obscure graves from which he easily escaped. He had no experience handling public death situations, much less dealing with friends - ‘witnesses’ - who saw him after he ‘died’. A bit unsteadily, he asked, “What do other Watchers do when this happens?”
Angie paled. “We, uh, we kill them or we recruit them.” She was shaking. They both looked at Ronnie again.
“Shit,” he muttered, “the first is so not an option and the second - he’s really going to hate this.” Ronnie positively loathed conspiracies - he’d delivered an hour-long monologue on the ‘rampant Diana-murder nuts’ during their first month as partners while on a stakeout - and Matt decided to chicken out. “You’re the Watcher.”
“You get to explain about Immortals.”
The end (for now)
Author’s note: I have this on-again, off-again flirtation with the idea of Archie Kennedy (Jamie Bamber’s character in Hornblower, for those three people here who don’t know that) turning out to be an Immortal and being dumped on Hugh Fitzcairn - the two of them together would be impishly delicious (and deadly to the hearts of the female population in whatever town they visited). At last check, the word count was up to 70,000 - but it’s all unconnected scenes not yet organized into a coherent story.
Yes, I know we have Matt Devlin’s backstory as a child, and an obvious sister - but if you can manage in the digital age to keep immortality a secret, who’s to say an Immortal couldn’t co-op the identity of someone who’s passed away - especially if you have a friend of that person to tell you the details of their life! Parts of Matt’s backstory (the beatings, the bullying, the child abuse possibility in Confession) also match up with Archie’s assumed backstory from Hornblower, meaning ‘Matty’ would be convincing in discussing these situations. And the idea of Archie becoming Matt (and thus keeping two of my favorite characters alive at the same time) was irresistible.
As much as I HATE LOUK for killing Matt off, I have to thank them for waking the plot bunnies up again. And yes, I am considering a follow-up - Ronnie’s reaction to Immortals would be priceless. Also possibly injury-producing to his partner for keeping him in the dark . . .
Pairings: None
Rating: PG+ for minor swearing
Disclaimer: I write these stories for my own entertainment and do not intend to make any profit from this story. I do not own Law & Order UK or the characters therein, although I wouldn't object to a Matt Devlin clone as a holiday gift. I'd even trade you for him - I have two wide-awake, overly-caffeinated plot bunnies who’ve decided to go back to work and are just full of ideas.
Owwwwww.
He drew in a quick breath and automatically stifled a moan at the pain in his chest. There were definite advantages to being what he was - you survived just about everything any lifestyle could throw at you. On the other hand, surviving meant you still had to deal with the lingering nerve-memory of your injuries when you returned to the land of the living and handle the blank spot in your memory that surrounded your death, while making on-the-fly plans to escape unnoticed from wherever you’d ended up when you’d ‘died’. So, as he’d been trained, he held still and took stock of his surroundings.
Cold metal under his naked body. Scratchy sheet covering him. Sharp smell of cleansing agents and only a touch of filtered light piercing the darkness. Moving his fingers slightly, he touched a cold metal wall to his right and left. Ah, yes, a slab in the morgue. He abruptly remembered what had happened. Seeing the barrel of a gun, pushing Kaden and Alesha aside and then -
Shot. Again.
This was getting ridiculous. Literally thousands of ways to be killed, only one of them fortunately permanent, and he kept getting shot?
He’d been well-trained though. Philosophy later. Practicality now. No one was supposed to know about his kind, which meant he had to get away from here without being noticed. Presumably he was in the Central morgue, surrounded by an entire building of people who knew him. Yeah, this should be easy.
Oh God, Ronnie. How was he handling his death?
Shuddering from the cold, he blinked as he twisted his head around to peer at the inside of the door. There didn’t seem to be a handle on the inside of this door. And, being naked, he didn’t have anything with which to jimmy it open, assuming he could even twist around enough in this narrow space to get the needed leverage. He’d have to wait until someone came to retrieve him for the funeral home, and hope he could engineer an escape along the way. Without, of course, hurting anyone offering honorable escort to their fallen colleague.
Modern life definitely made dying a pain to Immortals, in more than one way. It was so much easier in the old days - you just had to dig your way out of a grave.
Hearing a faint clicking sound approaching the wall of mortuary slabs, he pulled the sheet back over his face and froze in place, reducing his breathing to a shallow, nearly motionless action, recalling his teacher’s advice. “They expect to see a dead body. So long as there’s nothing obvious for them to see - like your hyperactive, panicked gasps for breath - they’ll continue to see a dead body. And that gives you time to get out of there.”
At any given moment, the London morgue was full of bodies. Odds were, whoever was coming into the room was here to check on someone else.
Unless it was time for his autopsy. He drew in a quick breath. 'Not panicking here.'
The heels stopped and there was a snicking sound as the door opened and a beam of light shone into his drawer. Then the drawer was yanked out and the sheet pulled off his face. He held still, but nothing happened. After a few minutes of stalemate, he cautiously opened one eye, just a bit - and jerked in surprise. Angie’s face - his Watcher’s face - was just inches from his own, shining in the reflected light from her torch. “Well?” she whispered impatiently. “Are you just going to lie there, or are you going to shift your arse and get out of here?”
Wait. Back up a second. His brain tried to gather itself together. His Watcher was talking to him Watcher to Immortal, not as a police colleague. “Uh, you obviously know what I am -“ Angie shook a bracelet with the Watcher symbol in his face - “yeah, Watcher, I know what you are so, not meaning to be - whatever, here, but aren’t you supposed to be neutral? You know, uninvolved?”
“Yes,” she hissed, “but I’m also supposed to help keep the rest of the world from knowing about Immortals. And since, between your wonderful teacher and the MacLeods, we figure half the Immortals already know about us, we’re now permitted - in an emergency - to step in and help our damned Immortal when they’ve been stupid enough to die in public. So shift your arse!”
Right. Watcher helping Immortal. Okay. There were still a few problems here, though. Like a lack of clothes. “Uh, Angie -“
A set of scrubs wrapped around some trainers was dumped on his stomach. “Dress. Now.”
Definitely a new side of his Watcher. He’d never pictured Angie as being particularly forceful, personality-wise. Or physically, as he was pulled sideways off the slab. Angie snorted as she watched him desperately try to clutch the sheet around him while not dropping the clothes. “Not like I haven’t already seen everything.”
Ouch. Yeah. Somehow, while working with her, he’d managed to conveniently forget that as his Watcher, she probably would have seen him in some of his more - reckless - adventures. He really hoped she’d missed that little Tower of London episode.
More footsteps. He and Angie froze, then simultaneously sighed in relief as someone walked past the morgue door and continued towards the records room at the other end of the hall.
“Would you get dressed already?”
He dropped modesty and the sheet, scrambled into the pants and jammed his feet into the trainers. He only managed to get the top partway down over his head before she yanked him toward the door. “So. How’re we getting out of here?” he asked as he tried to get his other arm into the scrub top.
“Back stairs and into the rear lot,” she whispered, opening the door a crack and peering out. “Clear. Let’s go.” And he was hauled through the door in her wake.
“Two hundred plus years and still terminally stupid,” she muttered. “Getting shot on camera. God. Didn’t you learn anything from the MacLeod fiasco a few years ago?”
“No,” he shot back, a bit miffed. “’Course I didn’t know there was a MacLeod fiasco - although given the stories Fitz told about both of ‘em, I don’t doubt there’s been many fiascos. You’re my Watcher - you know I avoid Challenges. And since you can’t be around either of them and not get Challenged at least once a week . . . Hey!” This last was muffled as Angie grabbed him, whirled around to put her back against the wall and shoved his head down into her chest. He was just about to make a sarcastic comment when a man’s voice came from the records room, “Alright there, Angie?”
“Yeah, Rob,” she replied, her right hand rubbing circles on his back while the left kept his head firmly pressed to her chest. “Just - a bit upset is all.” And she turned her head so she could whisper into his ear, “a little help ‘ere!”
He managed a somewhat fake-sounding (to his ears) sob, but apparently it was sufficient. Whoever it was closed the door, leaving them alone in the hall. He was shoved upright and drug down the hall again. “We have to move faster, here,” Angie grumbled. “Two flights of stairs, then a hallway and out to my car. I take it you have some emergency stash somewhere?”
Sword, money, new passport, clothes. ‘What is the combination on that locker?’ He bit back a yelp as his toes stubbed a stair. “Angie, slow down! Running’ll look suspicious, you know!”
“Not likely,” she answered smugly. “I do know my electronics. No cameras recording at the moment, thank you. The disappearing corpse will remain a mystery.” She stopped on the landing and glanced at him, red-faced. “Sorry,” she muttered, “but - there’s really no better way to handle this, is there.”
“Nah,” he smiled weakly, “it’s one of the perks of being an Immortal. Life sucks even after you die.”
They both started to giggle at the absurdity of that statement but a sound from the floor below - had someone just opened the morgue door? - drove them up the second set of stairs.
Surprisingly, they made it through the back hallway and out into the parking lot without any incidents. The late hour (a wall-clock read 2:36 a.m.), a ravening horde of reporters out front who required a host of officers to keep them under control, the orders of the-powers-that-be that had sent everyone available out to hunt down his ‘killers’ - put these circumstances together and you dramatically decreased the number of people in the building. As they walked, Matt tipped his head down and Angie kept an arm slung around his neck, effectively hiding his face. The few people they saw politely left them alone, his occasional sobs and Angie’s litany of ‘there now, it’ll get better’ giving the impression he was overcome with grief.
Matt didn’t want to think about how his friends would react to his missing ‘corpse’. And belatedly, he realized that not only he would be missing come morning. Angie’d have to move on, too - her late night visit to the morgue would implicate her in his disappearance. Did the Watchers have a relocation plan for her, or would he have to get used to a new shadow? She’d become a friend - he wondered if he could still keep in touch or would that violate her oath which was, let’s face it, shot to hell now. How did Joseph Dawson manage it, and would he be willing to intercede for Angie?
The back lot was dimly lit at the best of times, and tonight, only a few lights next to the building were on. More of Angie’s handiwork? She’d parked in the far corner next to the side exit. When they reached the car, he slumped down on the ground, face in his hands, still feigning the grieving friend, while she fumbled fitting the key into the lock.
And their luck ran out.
“Angie? Love, what are you doing out here?”
Oh God.
Ronnie.
“Ronnie?” Angie’s Watcher training kicked in, and she moved to meet his partner at the front of the car, while he hunched down further and wondered if he could possibly slide under her vehicle to get away. “How are you doing, Ronnie?”
“Can I help you, love?” Ronnie’s voice was strained (with grief, Matt realized guiltily) but - also suspicious. He could see a shadow stop right next to Angie, almost close enough to touch him, and realized, ‘Christ, he’s seen his partner shot to death today, anything out of place is going to set off his instincts.’
And quiet Angie sneaking out the back way with an unknown man was definitely out of place.
“No, Ronnie,” he’d never heard Angie sound so soothing, “Just a mate who’s a bit under the weather. I’m giving him a lift home.”
“You sure, Angie?” There was that stubborn, overprotective tone in Ronnie’s voice, “if there’s something I can do . . .”
Without warning, Ronnie pulled Angie around and behind him. Startled, Matt glanced up as Ronnie stepped forward, demanding, “All right, you, stand up. We’ll have no . . .”
The headlight from a passing car played across his face, and Ronnie went absolutely still. “Matty?!?” he whispered.
No help for it now. “Yeah, Ronnie.”
He was stunned to see Ronnie’s eyes roll up into his head as his partner passed out. Both he and Angie stared at their unconscious friend, then at each other. “Well?” Angie finally asked.
“Me?” he responded. “You’re asking me? I thought you were in charge of this rescue?” His voice, he realized, sounded somewhat hysterical. ‘Too many shocks today. I’ve gotten sloppy, feeling safe here as a copper.’
“They didn’t cover this in training!” his exasperated Watcher responded. “I’m making it up as I go, and I have definitely reached the end here. You’re the Immortal, how do you usually handle this?”
By not dying in public in the first place, he wanted to say, but he stopped himself. Angie was trying to help. She kept his Chronicle, she knew that, except for his first death, he’d been fortunate enough to leave most of his previous lives before he’d died in them. And when he had ‘died’ - his burials had been quick and in obscure graves from which he easily escaped. He had no experience handling public death situations, much less dealing with friends - ‘witnesses’ - who saw him after he ‘died’. A bit unsteadily, he asked, “What do other Watchers do when this happens?”
Angie paled. “We, uh, we kill them or we recruit them.” She was shaking. They both looked at Ronnie again.
“Shit,” he muttered, “the first is so not an option and the second - he’s really going to hate this.” Ronnie positively loathed conspiracies - he’d delivered an hour-long monologue on the ‘rampant Diana-murder nuts’ during their first month as partners while on a stakeout - and Matt decided to chicken out. “You’re the Watcher.”
“You get to explain about Immortals.”
The end (for now)
Author’s note: I have this on-again, off-again flirtation with the idea of Archie Kennedy (Jamie Bamber’s character in Hornblower, for those three people here who don’t know that) turning out to be an Immortal and being dumped on Hugh Fitzcairn - the two of them together would be impishly delicious (and deadly to the hearts of the female population in whatever town they visited). At last check, the word count was up to 70,000 - but it’s all unconnected scenes not yet organized into a coherent story.
Yes, I know we have Matt Devlin’s backstory as a child, and an obvious sister - but if you can manage in the digital age to keep immortality a secret, who’s to say an Immortal couldn’t co-op the identity of someone who’s passed away - especially if you have a friend of that person to tell you the details of their life! Parts of Matt’s backstory (the beatings, the bullying, the child abuse possibility in Confession) also match up with Archie’s assumed backstory from Hornblower, meaning ‘Matty’ would be convincing in discussing these situations. And the idea of Archie becoming Matt (and thus keeping two of my favorite characters alive at the same time) was irresistible.
As much as I HATE LOUK for killing Matt off, I have to thank them for waking the plot bunnies up again. And yes, I am considering a follow-up - Ronnie’s reaction to Immortals would be priceless. Also possibly injury-producing to his partner for keeping him in the dark . . .