Watchmen fic: Last Days of an Unreal City, chapter 11 - Deus Ex-Girlfriend
Title: Last Days of an Unreal City - Chapter 11 - Deus Ex-Girlfriend
Characters: Rorschach/Nite Owl II
Rating: PG-13
Word count (this section): 5081
Disclaimer: Characters belong to Alan Moore.
Summary: AU. The Cold War reaches its ultimate conclusion, and Rorschach and Daniel are among the survivors when the East Coast is attacked.
Many thanks to runriggers for the beta!
Chapter Index.
===
When Rorschach eventually woke, he did not do so like a normal person; he did not fidget, or stir quietly. No, Rorschach sat bolt upright and looked around as if he'd forgotten where he was, eyes wide and unblinking, and Daniel almost jumped out of his goddamn skin.
It was as if the guy had just been reanimated. The stars were right. Rorschach wakes. Daniel swore under his breath.
Rorschach focused on him, then seemed to relax slightly.
"How're you feeling?" Daniel asked, out of habit.
Rorschach absently raised a hand to his face, but checked himself at the last second. "Tired. Fine. What time is it?"
"You're the one who's wearing a watch, not me," Daniel said. "But I'm guessing that it's probably around mid-morning. Maybe ten-forty."
"That's all?" Rorschach asked. His voice was hoarser than usual.
"Yeah, sorry. You might as well go back to sleep."
Rorschach shook his head, but still lay back down. He grabbed the blanket and pulled it over his shoulders, despite the fact that he was already fully-dressed and wearing a coat.
"Keep talking," he told Daniel.
Daniel obliged. "Well, uh, Adrian arrived back at the Veidt Building while we were gone. I managed to speak to him. He said that Nixon's dead." Daniel paused to let the information sink in; he didn't feel as if he'd been able to fully process it himself yet.
Rorschach's expression was one of tired indifference. "Who's replacing him?" he said, very quietly.
"The Secretary of Commerce," Daniel said. "I can't remember his name, and didn't ask."
Rorschach's eyes lost their focus, and he stared at something just past Daniel's left shoulder. He looked thoughtful. "Think that Secretary of Commerce is Howard Aldbridge. Unless that's the Secretary of the Treasury. Can't remember."
"You know the names of all the cabinet members?" Daniel was unable to ask the question without sounding at least slightly sardonic.
"Still pay attention to the news, Daniel," Rorschach said, and squinted in a manner that was vaguely accusatory.
Daniel changed the subject. "When was the last time you ate something?"
Rorschach shrugged, suddenly uninterested. "Last night, maybe. Fail to see how that's relevant to present conversation..."
"You're ill," Daniel stated. There was no point avoiding the matter. It wasn't like Rorschach to not eat; when it came to food, Rorschach was an opportunist, a scavenger.
Rorschach didn't argue; he shrugged again, and rolled over so that he was facing away from Daniel. "Have been ill before. Not the end of the world."
"Maybe, but your face is a mess, and things are different now, so..."
"You worry a lot," Rorschach said. "It's irritating."
Daniel felt his patience starting to wane. "I'm just trying to look out for you. Hell, you were talking about the risks of disease and infection a while back, so don't suddenly pretend that I should carry on as if everything is normal."
Rorschach pulled the blanket tighter around his shoulders, saying nothing.
Daniel kept talking: "Look, I know you probably don't like it when people show any sort of concern, and you're as independent as all hell; I don't mean to pry, or sound like a condescending asshole, or... whatever. But I don't want anything else bad to happen to you."
"Daniel..." Rorschach said, very quietly. "Not here to placate your savior complex."
"It's not like that," Daniel replied, quickly. He paused, and checked himself. "You think it's like that?"
Rorschach replied with another shrug.
"Stop shrugging at me," Daniel said. "Do you honestly think that no-one would give a shit about you unless they were doing it to make themselves feel better? Because, hell, if you do believe that, Rorschach, then I think you're getting dangerously close to self-pity."
Daniel didn't need to see Rorschach's face to know that he'd just tweaked a nerve. "Hn. You've spent the past eight years hiding in your basement. Not in a position to berate anyone for self-pity."
"Maybe not," Daniel conceded. "I just... I'm not trying to start an argument."
"Good. Tired of talking and bickering. Resolves nothing."
Daniel tried to defuse the situation with humor, but could only manage sarcasm. "Well, if talking doesn't help, then we could always try beating the shit out of each other."
Rorschach paused, and looked over his shoulder at him.
Daniel elaborated; "Y'know, like in the old comics where two heroes team up, but first they have to fight over some bullshit misunderstanding. Then they realize their mistake, exchange a manly handshake and pat each other on the back, and march off to fight the bad guys. "
Rorschach turned his back on Daniel again. He snorted.
"A proper fight would be dramatic, at least," Daniel murmured. He propped his head on his hands, and smiled slightly. "Twenty years ago, it might have even helped."
"Now we navel-gaze and have asinine conversations," said Rorschach. "Would prefer it if you just punched me."
Daniel smirked. He said nothing, but sat back and pretended to continue reading the notes on Janey Slater.
After a while, when it seemed that Rorschach had fallen asleep again, Daniel furtively left to find the doctor.
===
The infirmary was unoccupied, so Daniel loitered outside and waited. There was a camera in the junction at the end of the corridor, quite unobtrusive, and he found himself staring at it. The camera stared back.
Daniel wondered who was watching through it, if anyone.
He considered it unlikely that the cameras were monitored by staff, as that seemed like a waste of resources. Perhaps the cameras weren't even working. Perhaps they were simply there as a deterrent. It was difficult to tell. Regardless, he made a mental note to ask Adrian about them later.
The doctor arrived after 20 minutes or so. She hesitated briefly when she noticed him standing outside the infirmary door, and glanced back over her shoulder, checking the corridor behind her. When she faced him again, her expression was inscrutable.
Daniel made himself smile politely. "You busy?" he asked.
"Yes," she answered, and scrutinized his face. "What do you want?"
Daniel stepped out the way of the door, to let her inside. "My friend - you know the one with the burns? He's running a fever."
She shook her head. "I told him to go to a hospital."
"You know what the hospitals are going to be like right now. Can't you just take a look at him?"
The doctor bustled into the infirmary and began to search through a cupboard; she gave no indication that she'd heard him. "How's his breathing? Is he shivering? Is there any pus?"
Daniel followed after her. "It's fine, not that I've seen, and not really. I mean, we, uh, he's been cleaning the burns, like you said. Although..."
She turned to face him, and cut him off. "He should do the things that you normally do with a fever: drink a lot of water, take ibuprofen, get lots of rest, and so on. I've already given you antibiotics. If he was outdoors and within a certain range of the bombing, then obviously there's going to be the risk that his immune system is compromised. There's nothing I can do about that." She paused, and held his gaze as if she was psyching herself up for an argument.
Daniel realized that he actually made her nervous. It had been a long time since he'd done that to anyone.
He smiled without humor. "You really don't like us, do you?"
The doctor squared her shoulders. "I don't know what sort of work you do for Mr. Veidt, and I don't care, but you made a hell of a first impression by breaking into the building. "
Daniel wanted to correct her; he almost told her that they didn't work for Adrian. He stopped himself, and concealed his surprise behind an affectation of wry amusement. "Who do you think we are?"
The doctor resumed hunting through the cupboard, turning her back on him. "I don't know. I haven't been told anything about you."
He tried to determine if she was lying, but his bullshit-detector wasn't quite as well-honed as Rorschach's. He did know one thing, however: he could probably intimidate her into compliance, if he wanted.
He chose not to.
Rorschach would probably recover by himself, in due time, and Daniel seriously doubted that he'd appreciate being poked and prodded by medical professionals. Besides, the guy had survived so far, despite everything; hell, it probably would've taken an act of God to kill him. "Sorry for distracting you from your work," Daniel told the doctor, and started to walk back out into the corridor. He paused, and remained in the doorway to ask, "...Do you think I'm, uh, worrying needlessly?"
She glanced over to him, and her tone softened by a small fraction. "I don't know. Everyone's worried."
Daniel felt slightly useless. "Is there anything I can help you with?"
The doctor stared at him for a few seconds, then shook her head. Daniel left her alone.
===
Rorschach slept, or pretended to sleep.
Daniel opted to leave the surly son of a bitch in peace, and tried to make himself useful in other ways. Somehow, he ended up being roped into helping repair one of the building's generators, and he was unspeakably grateful for the work. The repairs took up the best part of the day, but he conducted them quickly, efficiently, and with such desperate enthusiasm that the other technicians regarded him as if he was nuts - which, to be fair, he probably was.
Still, they must have decided that he was mostly harmless, and so they set him to work on disassembling a defunct cafeteria dishwasher so that the machine could be cannibalized for spares. The work was easy and mindless, and as he was tucked away in a corner of the kitchen area during off-peak hours, no-one disturbed him.
At some point, he realized that he was being watched.
He glanced out the corner of his eye and saw that Adrian Veidt stood barely five paces away, eating from a can of fruit as he observed Daniel with clinical interest.
Daniel almost jumped out of his skin again.
"Sorry," said Adrian. "I didn't mean to sneak up on you. You looked very absorbed." He paused, and eyed the various dishwasher components that had been neatly laid out on one of the countertops. "We really have to put you to something more useful than... Whatever it is that you're presently doing."
"Adrian. Uh..." Daniel straightened his back, and looked up at the other man. "What..."
"I needed a break from herding cats," Adrian said, in way of explanation. "And I thought I'd better tell you that I've found a small airfield in Putnam where you can safely store your craft; as valuable as it is, I don't want to make you use it for relief work, for obvious reasons. I'll get someone to give you the charts for finding the airfield. There'll be a helicopter there that you can use to get back to New York." He glanced down at the can of fruit in his hands, and stared at it, distracted. "It'll probably be something like a Bell 206. Is that alright?"
"Yeah, I suppose so," said Daniel. It struck him how utterly incongruous Adrian looked in a cafeteria kitchen; the visual dissonance was compounded by the fact that Adrian was wearing a black suit, albeit with a purple shirt.
"Good. Ideally, you'd be better off flying something much larger, but I don't know how comfortable you are with cargo lifting. Someone can go over it with you when you arrive at the airfield." Adrian looked up and held Daniel's gaze for a moment, as if he'd just remembered that it was polite to maintain eye contact while speaking.
The loneliness of command was something of a cliche, but Adrian still looked tired and miserable enough for Daniel to feel a clumsy sort of sympathy, regardless. "How are things going?" he asked.
"As well as can be expected. About a quarter of the hospitals have power right now. If everything goes according to plan, ten percent of the water grid should be functional again within the month." Adrian smiled slightly. "Do you want to know something silly? We never really accounted for the smog. As most of the roads are blocked by abandoned cars, we're heavily dependent on aircraft - it's fortunate that New York has so many helipads and mooring masts - but the lack of visibility makes flying difficult at best, and dangerous at worst. Most of my people are actually getting around the city on bicycles."
Daniel said nothing, and let him talk. Granted, it wasn't as if he had much choice in the matter. Adrian allowed for very little pause between speaking.
"We have motorcycles, but... Well. Obviously, there's a very high demand for them at present; therefore, they tend to get stolen. So everyone prefers to use push bikes. It's very environmentally-friendly, I suppose." Adrian's smile broadened by a millimeter.
Daniel took a deep breath. "Do you know what the casualty estimates are for the entire country?"
"It's still far too early to say," said Adrian. "Would it matter, if you knew?"
Daniel considered it, and concluded, "Probably not. I can't really take it in."
Adrian's smile faded. "Funny anecdote: a few years ago, a Harvard professor named Roger Fisher proposed that the nuclear authorization codes should be kept in a capsule implanted deep inside the chest of a presidential aide. The aide would always carry a butcher knife. If the president ever wanted to launch a nuclear attack, the first thing that he would have to do is kill the aide. Allegedly, Fisher suggested this solution to his friends at the Pentagon, and they told him that it was a terrible idea. They said that having to kill the aide would distort the president's judgement; he might never launch the attack." He shrugged helplessly, then glanced at his watch. "I digress. I'll get someone to give you those charts."
"I, uh, okay," Daniel replied.
"If you need me, I'll either be in the operations room or my office in the penthouse - during the coming week, we'll start using the building's upper floors again. Sorry for being so terse, but I'm extremely busy." Adrian set the empty can down on the countertop, and began to walk away.
Daniel remembered something important. He spoke up quickly, since Adrian had a curious knack for not letting him get a word in edgeways. "Hey. You know the security guards that we, uh, met when we first arrived here and... Well. Would you have any idea where they'd be?"
Adrian paused, and gave him a surprised look. "The two that were injured would have been flown back out to their families. The one who's still fit to do his job should be around the building somewhere. Best to ask the security co-ordinator, as he'd know when his shifts are and what his dormitory number is. Why?"
"I wanted to apologize," Daniel replied. "For the misunderstanding." Hollis would have apologized.
"Oh," said Adrian, simply. "Hm. That was hardly your fault." His smile returned. "You're not your brother's keeper, figuratively speaking. You don't have to convince yourself that you're a nice person."
Daniel tried to figure out if that was a compliment or not. He opened his mouth to speak, but Adrian was already walking away again.
"I'll speak to you again soon, Daniel," Adrian said, without looking back.
Daniel nodded, even though Adrian didn't see it.
===
Daniel kept Rorschach supplied with food and cups of water. Rorschach irritably informed him that he was not an invalid and that he didn't need to be worried about by a neurotic bleeding-heart who had nothing better to do. In return, Daniel made an effort to be horribly patient and extra chipper, just to really piss him off.
In the late evening, one of Veidt's employees stopped by to give Daniel the aeronautical charts. Rorschach observed the exchange, then made Daniel explain what the charts were for.
When Daniel had finished explaining, Rorschach stared at him as if he was stupid, and said, "The owlship is the last important thing you own."
"Well, yeah. But that's all the more reason to keep it somewhere safe. And I don't have anywhere secure to store it any more. Plus, the fuel is going to run out eventually anyway, and at least one of Adrian's airfields would have a supply."
"May I see the charts, please?" Rorschach asked, with impeccable formality.
Daniel handed them over.
Rorschach spent a good ten minutes looking at them, then handed them back without further comment.
Eventually, the two of them went to sleep.
When Daniel woke up the next morning, the charts were gone. Rorschach blithely informed him that he'd thrown them away.
Daniel called Rorschach a pathological asshole, then went to get replacement copies.
===
Daniel postponed the flight to Veidt's airfield. He blamed it on the weather; it kept raining intermittently, although it did little to clear the air outside.
Rorschach was too irritable to sit around, and too listless to do anything productive, so he shadowed Daniel like some sort of quietly malevolent sidekick. People ignored him. It was remarkable how low-key Rorschach could be when it suited; he would simply change his posture slightly, and avoid looking at anything in particular, and voilà, he was as good as invisible. The guy had drabness down to a fine art.
For someone with the social graces of a junkyard dog, Rorschach had always been suspiciously good at reading and mimicking body language. Daniel wondered if it was a natural talent, or just something he'd learned.
Daniel was given the task of helping to cover the building's broken windows with tarpaulin, so the two of them ventured out of the basement and back into the grubby opulence of the lobby. The metal shutters were still down, so it was dark, and the flowers in the planters had wilted. The darkness improved slightly once they climbed the elevators up to the first floor; there was even a faint breeze, albeit a stale-smelling one. Daniel went inside the first office that they came to, and got to work.
A fine layer of grit had already settled on most of the surfaces near the open windows, and the room was showing early signs of weather damage. Daniel had to shoo a pigeon off one of the desks. Much like people, buildings degraded quickly when neglected.
Rorschach found a chair and sat down, shoulders hunched.
"Any new ideas regarding Pyramid Deliveries yet?" Daniel asked.
Rorschach shook his head. "Still thinking. Need to check their New York HQ. Not sure what we're up against yet. Don't like it. Feels wrong. Numerous factors suggest that this goes deeper than initially suspected. Doesn't seem like a straightforward Communist attempt to undermine national security. Too early to form conclusions."
"Well, I'll do what I can, although they need an extra pair of hands to service the vehicle pool, and I've already told Adrian that I want to help with airlifting, so..."
Rorschach just stared at him, silently critical.
Daniel shrugged at him, feeling oddly defensive. "Look, Adrian's been good to us. He's an important guy to know, and someday we might need his help." Adrian was also their best bet for providing food, decent accomodation, and possibly even a prospective income. Daniel had money in various accounts, but he didn't know how long it might be before he'd see it again - last he'd heard from Veidt's employees, the banks were still closed, as were most businesses. Everything was in limbo. "...Why do you have such a problem with accepting help from people, anyway?"
"Help is usually conditional."
"Jesus, Rorschach - this is Adrian we're talking about. It's not like he's asking for anything in return."
"That's what concerns me."
Daniel paused for a moment, and asked, "So, uh, when we... I mean, if I helped you, would you think that was conditional?"
"You're not Veidt," said Rorschach, as if Daniel was being stupid.
Daniel picked up a nail gun, and busied himself with nailing tarp to the wall around a window frame. "I used to wonder what you did think, sometimes." As uncomfortable as the tangent was, he was hellbent on seeing it through. "...For example, you used to sleep in my basement occasionally, or stop by for coffee, or use my shower, and then you just sort've stopped for a while."
"That was a long time ago," Rorschach replied, flatly.
"Well, I just wondered, that was all."
Rorschach frowned at him, pensive but cautious.
Daniel half-expected Rorschach to blame the Keene Act for everything, although their partnership had been dead in the water long before then. Daniel hadn't even been given the benefit of a 'it's not you, it's me' speech. The Roche case was the obvious culprit for their split, but that still would have felt like an over-simplification. In retrospect, Rorschach's descent into excessive violence had probably started some time around the early seventies; it wasn't as if he'd gone crazy overnight.
Daniel had given it more thought than he'd ever want to admit.
"I always figured that I must've pissed you off by asking one too many personal questions, or being over-friendly, or... something," Daniel said. Granted, their withdrawal from each other had been a mutual thing (Daniel had grown increasingly uncomfortable about spending his nights with a vicious misanthrope), but he still couldn't quite shake the belief that he'd managed to scare Rorschach away back then, somehow.
"Ridiculous," Rorschach grunted.
"Yeah, maybe." It was a ridiculous sort of relationship, though. Maybe it would be easier if I just handed him a note that read, 'do you like me?' with little tickboxes for 'yes' and 'no', Daniel thought. It wouldn't have been any less mature than the absurd way that they kept dancing around certain issues.
Rorschach had nothing else to say on the subject, so Daniel let the conversation die, and filled the silence by whistling to himself. The wind blew through the gaps in the windows, bringing some of the rain with it. He tried to convince himself that he was doing something productive; the building's upper floors would soon be used to house refugees, and a few minor repairs were required in order to make the rooms inhabitable again. It must have been about 50 degrees outdoors; perhaps not as cold as it could have been, but adequate shelter was still vital. That didn't really stop Daniel from feeling like some sort of glorified janitor, however. He could have been doing so much more.
Still, at least menial work allowed him to keep an eye on his partner. Ex-partner. Whatever.
"I wonder if it'll snow soon," Daniel murmured.
Rorschach overheard him. "Probably. Will likely cause more deaths from exposure."
Daniel focused on lining the nails in a perfectly straight row.
Rorschach kept speaking; "More people dead, more resources left for survivors."
Daniel paused, to just look at him.
"People die all the time," Rorschach said, more by way of observation than apology. "Only difference now is that many people who thought they were safe, aren't."
The comment hit a nerve that was still raw. Daniel carefully set the nail gun down on a desk. "You almost sound smug about it."
"People were warned," said Rorschach, blandly. It would have been better if he had said nothing at all.
"Fuck you, Rorschach. When I was in that hospital, I saw people who were so badly burned that their fingers had fused together. I saw people without faces. And you saw the same things. So don't start victim-blaming. Not now."
"Overreacting, Daniel. I'm not..." Rorschach began, but never got to finish the sentence.
There was a white flash.
Daniel's ears popped as the air pressure suddenly changed. It all happened very quickly. He briefly felt warmth on his face from some sort of reaction. Maybe reality folded in on itself - maybe, for a fraction of a second, two locations occupied the same point in spacetime - or maybe matter was simply rearranged, atoms stacked like a house of cards, to replicate an existing pattern. Maybe energy was converted to mass. It would have been difficult to say which explanation would have been less casually miraculous.
When Daniel's vision cleared, he saw that Laurie was standing in the middle of the room.
She bolted over to a corner and threw up.
===
The next few minutes were a blur. Daniel approached her, but she shoved him away, still coughing, and stared at him. When she realized who he was, she hugged him fiercely. She smelled of winter.
Eventually, she let him go, and Daniel led her down to the basement. Daniel didn't have to look back to know that Rorschach would be just a step or so behind him.
Laurie gripped Daniel's hand. Her fingers were cold.
He had to leave her on a bench in one of the corridors for a minute or so while he fetched her a cup of coffee, but Rorschach watched her carefully, and Daniel just had to trust the guy to not say or do anything stupid.
She seemed slightly more human once she'd had a hot drink. Eventually, her gaze focused on Daniel, and she said, with quiet amazement, "You're okay."
Daniel felt a quiet sense of relief diffusing through him, like warmth. "Yeah, mostly."
Laurie briskly rubbed at her eyes and made an effort to smile.
Her face had gained a few extra lines, as if the bitterness of decades had condensed during the past seven days, and her hair was tied back in a lank ponytail. She wore a parka coat and a pair of slacks that were several sizes too large; there was still melting ice on the hems of her pants. The absence of makeup made her seem older than before; although, strangely, the sudden accumulation of years did not make her look like her mother. She was an altogether different animal.
Daniel was expecting her to talk, but she seemed to be rationing her words. It took all of Daniel's willpower to keep from asking how she was, what was she doing here, what had happened. He didn't want to leave her alone.
Her gaze moved past him, to Rorschach, and she studied him for a moment. Perhaps she found him familiar without knowing why. Rorschach said nothing, but stared back. Things would have to be explained in due time.
"I'm not going to be here long. Maybe a day or two," Laurie said, quietly. "I need to speak to Adrian Veidt."
"He's in the building, somewhere," Daniel said. "I can take you to someone who'll know where he is." He stopped himself from asking questions; he trusted Laurie to disclose things when she was ready.
To his relief, Rorschach also kept quiet, in spite of his usual lack of diplomacy and restraint. Daniel wasn't sure how long Rorschach's patience would last, but he almost wanted to thank him for it.
When Laurie spoke again, her voice cracked slightly. "I'm sorry, Dan."
"What for?"
"I don't know," she said, and looked defeated. "I shouldn't have left."
"I just figured that Jon had taken you somewhere safe, so I was glad for that," said Daniel, and was still a little surprised by his own sincerity. He had many reasons to resent Jon Osterman.
Laurie stared down at her broken fingernails. "I've been making him try to fix things. That's why I'm here. I'm like a translator, I guess. Y'know. A go-between." She managed a small smirk. "Although, a lot of the time, I feel a bit like Jiminy Cricket."
Daniel took the empty coffee cup from her and set it down on the floor, so that he could hold her hands between his. He tried to rub some warmth back into her palms. He could have kissed her, but she still seemed so remote, the lone occupant of her own little world.
"How did Jon know where we were?" he asked, out of curiosity.
"I don't know. Maybe I tell him at some point in the future. And he sees everything. It's what stops him from teleporting people into spaces that are already occupied, I guess, and... Jesus, I don't want to talk about him right now." There was no resentment in her voice, just resignation. "He doesn't always tell me what he's doing. I had to come here anyway, so he probably wanted me to be with someone I knew. He's very kind, when he remembers."
"You okay?" Daniel said. It was a trite question, but it had to be asked.
Laurie nodded slowly. "My Mom is okay. I've been to lots of places." She met his gaze and tried to smile again; her eyes were hard and dark. "Tell me about New York."
So Daniel did. He told her about what had happened, and the state of the city. He told her how he'd survived. He used the pronoun 'we' rather than 'I', although he didn't mention Rorschach by name; Laurie could figure it out. He told her about Adrian, although Laurie seemed to know quite a bit about Adrian already. He did nottell her about Hollis, or Rorschach's suspicions concerning Jon's disappearance, or Pyramid Deliveries.
Laurie listened to him, only interjecting occasionally to ask questions; she seemed to thaw slightly, although he found it difficult to read her expression. At one point, she took a toothpick out of her pocket and chewed it; her jaw was the only part of her that moved.
Daniel still wanted to kiss her, and didn't dare. She looked as brittle as frost.
Eventually, one of Veidt's aides walked by, and Daniel made the guy stop so that they could ask where Adrian was. The aide looked Laurie up and down, and offered to escort her to Adrian in person; despite everything, he still seemed to know who she was. Perhaps they had been expecting her, perhaps not. Daniel hardly knew what the hell was going on anymore.
Laurie stood up, to follow after the aide - before she left, she gave Daniel a deeply apologetic look. Daniel still wasn't sure what, specifically, she was so sorry about, but he would have forgiven her for it anyway.
Daniel leaned back, and watched Laurie as she disappeared down the corridor. Rorschach sat down next to him.
===
Characters: Rorschach/Nite Owl II
Rating: PG-13
Word count (this section): 5081
Disclaimer: Characters belong to Alan Moore.
Summary: AU. The Cold War reaches its ultimate conclusion, and Rorschach and Daniel are among the survivors when the East Coast is attacked.
Many thanks to runriggers for the beta!
Chapter Index.
===
When Rorschach eventually woke, he did not do so like a normal person; he did not fidget, or stir quietly. No, Rorschach sat bolt upright and looked around as if he'd forgotten where he was, eyes wide and unblinking, and Daniel almost jumped out of his goddamn skin.
It was as if the guy had just been reanimated. The stars were right. Rorschach wakes. Daniel swore under his breath.
Rorschach focused on him, then seemed to relax slightly.
"How're you feeling?" Daniel asked, out of habit.
Rorschach absently raised a hand to his face, but checked himself at the last second. "Tired. Fine. What time is it?"
"You're the one who's wearing a watch, not me," Daniel said. "But I'm guessing that it's probably around mid-morning. Maybe ten-forty."
"That's all?" Rorschach asked. His voice was hoarser than usual.
"Yeah, sorry. You might as well go back to sleep."
Rorschach shook his head, but still lay back down. He grabbed the blanket and pulled it over his shoulders, despite the fact that he was already fully-dressed and wearing a coat.
"Keep talking," he told Daniel.
Daniel obliged. "Well, uh, Adrian arrived back at the Veidt Building while we were gone. I managed to speak to him. He said that Nixon's dead." Daniel paused to let the information sink in; he didn't feel as if he'd been able to fully process it himself yet.
Rorschach's expression was one of tired indifference. "Who's replacing him?" he said, very quietly.
"The Secretary of Commerce," Daniel said. "I can't remember his name, and didn't ask."
Rorschach's eyes lost their focus, and he stared at something just past Daniel's left shoulder. He looked thoughtful. "Think that Secretary of Commerce is Howard Aldbridge. Unless that's the Secretary of the Treasury. Can't remember."
"You know the names of all the cabinet members?" Daniel was unable to ask the question without sounding at least slightly sardonic.
"Still pay attention to the news, Daniel," Rorschach said, and squinted in a manner that was vaguely accusatory.
Daniel changed the subject. "When was the last time you ate something?"
Rorschach shrugged, suddenly uninterested. "Last night, maybe. Fail to see how that's relevant to present conversation..."
"You're ill," Daniel stated. There was no point avoiding the matter. It wasn't like Rorschach to not eat; when it came to food, Rorschach was an opportunist, a scavenger.
Rorschach didn't argue; he shrugged again, and rolled over so that he was facing away from Daniel. "Have been ill before. Not the end of the world."
"Maybe, but your face is a mess, and things are different now, so..."
"You worry a lot," Rorschach said. "It's irritating."
Daniel felt his patience starting to wane. "I'm just trying to look out for you. Hell, you were talking about the risks of disease and infection a while back, so don't suddenly pretend that I should carry on as if everything is normal."
Rorschach pulled the blanket tighter around his shoulders, saying nothing.
Daniel kept talking: "Look, I know you probably don't like it when people show any sort of concern, and you're as independent as all hell; I don't mean to pry, or sound like a condescending asshole, or... whatever. But I don't want anything else bad to happen to you."
"Daniel..." Rorschach said, very quietly. "Not here to placate your savior complex."
"It's not like that," Daniel replied, quickly. He paused, and checked himself. "You think it's like that?"
Rorschach replied with another shrug.
"Stop shrugging at me," Daniel said. "Do you honestly think that no-one would give a shit about you unless they were doing it to make themselves feel better? Because, hell, if you do believe that, Rorschach, then I think you're getting dangerously close to self-pity."
Daniel didn't need to see Rorschach's face to know that he'd just tweaked a nerve. "Hn. You've spent the past eight years hiding in your basement. Not in a position to berate anyone for self-pity."
"Maybe not," Daniel conceded. "I just... I'm not trying to start an argument."
"Good. Tired of talking and bickering. Resolves nothing."
Daniel tried to defuse the situation with humor, but could only manage sarcasm. "Well, if talking doesn't help, then we could always try beating the shit out of each other."
Rorschach paused, and looked over his shoulder at him.
Daniel elaborated; "Y'know, like in the old comics where two heroes team up, but first they have to fight over some bullshit misunderstanding. Then they realize their mistake, exchange a manly handshake and pat each other on the back, and march off to fight the bad guys. "
Rorschach turned his back on Daniel again. He snorted.
"A proper fight would be dramatic, at least," Daniel murmured. He propped his head on his hands, and smiled slightly. "Twenty years ago, it might have even helped."
"Now we navel-gaze and have asinine conversations," said Rorschach. "Would prefer it if you just punched me."
Daniel smirked. He said nothing, but sat back and pretended to continue reading the notes on Janey Slater.
After a while, when it seemed that Rorschach had fallen asleep again, Daniel furtively left to find the doctor.
===
The infirmary was unoccupied, so Daniel loitered outside and waited. There was a camera in the junction at the end of the corridor, quite unobtrusive, and he found himself staring at it. The camera stared back.
Daniel wondered who was watching through it, if anyone.
He considered it unlikely that the cameras were monitored by staff, as that seemed like a waste of resources. Perhaps the cameras weren't even working. Perhaps they were simply there as a deterrent. It was difficult to tell. Regardless, he made a mental note to ask Adrian about them later.
The doctor arrived after 20 minutes or so. She hesitated briefly when she noticed him standing outside the infirmary door, and glanced back over her shoulder, checking the corridor behind her. When she faced him again, her expression was inscrutable.
Daniel made himself smile politely. "You busy?" he asked.
"Yes," she answered, and scrutinized his face. "What do you want?"
Daniel stepped out the way of the door, to let her inside. "My friend - you know the one with the burns? He's running a fever."
She shook her head. "I told him to go to a hospital."
"You know what the hospitals are going to be like right now. Can't you just take a look at him?"
The doctor bustled into the infirmary and began to search through a cupboard; she gave no indication that she'd heard him. "How's his breathing? Is he shivering? Is there any pus?"
Daniel followed after her. "It's fine, not that I've seen, and not really. I mean, we, uh, he's been cleaning the burns, like you said. Although..."
She turned to face him, and cut him off. "He should do the things that you normally do with a fever: drink a lot of water, take ibuprofen, get lots of rest, and so on. I've already given you antibiotics. If he was outdoors and within a certain range of the bombing, then obviously there's going to be the risk that his immune system is compromised. There's nothing I can do about that." She paused, and held his gaze as if she was psyching herself up for an argument.
Daniel realized that he actually made her nervous. It had been a long time since he'd done that to anyone.
He smiled without humor. "You really don't like us, do you?"
The doctor squared her shoulders. "I don't know what sort of work you do for Mr. Veidt, and I don't care, but you made a hell of a first impression by breaking into the building. "
Daniel wanted to correct her; he almost told her that they didn't work for Adrian. He stopped himself, and concealed his surprise behind an affectation of wry amusement. "Who do you think we are?"
The doctor resumed hunting through the cupboard, turning her back on him. "I don't know. I haven't been told anything about you."
He tried to determine if she was lying, but his bullshit-detector wasn't quite as well-honed as Rorschach's. He did know one thing, however: he could probably intimidate her into compliance, if he wanted.
He chose not to.
Rorschach would probably recover by himself, in due time, and Daniel seriously doubted that he'd appreciate being poked and prodded by medical professionals. Besides, the guy had survived so far, despite everything; hell, it probably would've taken an act of God to kill him. "Sorry for distracting you from your work," Daniel told the doctor, and started to walk back out into the corridor. He paused, and remained in the doorway to ask, "...Do you think I'm, uh, worrying needlessly?"
She glanced over to him, and her tone softened by a small fraction. "I don't know. Everyone's worried."
Daniel felt slightly useless. "Is there anything I can help you with?"
The doctor stared at him for a few seconds, then shook her head. Daniel left her alone.
===
Rorschach slept, or pretended to sleep.
Daniel opted to leave the surly son of a bitch in peace, and tried to make himself useful in other ways. Somehow, he ended up being roped into helping repair one of the building's generators, and he was unspeakably grateful for the work. The repairs took up the best part of the day, but he conducted them quickly, efficiently, and with such desperate enthusiasm that the other technicians regarded him as if he was nuts - which, to be fair, he probably was.
Still, they must have decided that he was mostly harmless, and so they set him to work on disassembling a defunct cafeteria dishwasher so that the machine could be cannibalized for spares. The work was easy and mindless, and as he was tucked away in a corner of the kitchen area during off-peak hours, no-one disturbed him.
At some point, he realized that he was being watched.
He glanced out the corner of his eye and saw that Adrian Veidt stood barely five paces away, eating from a can of fruit as he observed Daniel with clinical interest.
Daniel almost jumped out of his skin again.
"Sorry," said Adrian. "I didn't mean to sneak up on you. You looked very absorbed." He paused, and eyed the various dishwasher components that had been neatly laid out on one of the countertops. "We really have to put you to something more useful than... Whatever it is that you're presently doing."
"Adrian. Uh..." Daniel straightened his back, and looked up at the other man. "What..."
"I needed a break from herding cats," Adrian said, in way of explanation. "And I thought I'd better tell you that I've found a small airfield in Putnam where you can safely store your craft; as valuable as it is, I don't want to make you use it for relief work, for obvious reasons. I'll get someone to give you the charts for finding the airfield. There'll be a helicopter there that you can use to get back to New York." He glanced down at the can of fruit in his hands, and stared at it, distracted. "It'll probably be something like a Bell 206. Is that alright?"
"Yeah, I suppose so," said Daniel. It struck him how utterly incongruous Adrian looked in a cafeteria kitchen; the visual dissonance was compounded by the fact that Adrian was wearing a black suit, albeit with a purple shirt.
"Good. Ideally, you'd be better off flying something much larger, but I don't know how comfortable you are with cargo lifting. Someone can go over it with you when you arrive at the airfield." Adrian looked up and held Daniel's gaze for a moment, as if he'd just remembered that it was polite to maintain eye contact while speaking.
The loneliness of command was something of a cliche, but Adrian still looked tired and miserable enough for Daniel to feel a clumsy sort of sympathy, regardless. "How are things going?" he asked.
"As well as can be expected. About a quarter of the hospitals have power right now. If everything goes according to plan, ten percent of the water grid should be functional again within the month." Adrian smiled slightly. "Do you want to know something silly? We never really accounted for the smog. As most of the roads are blocked by abandoned cars, we're heavily dependent on aircraft - it's fortunate that New York has so many helipads and mooring masts - but the lack of visibility makes flying difficult at best, and dangerous at worst. Most of my people are actually getting around the city on bicycles."
Daniel said nothing, and let him talk. Granted, it wasn't as if he had much choice in the matter. Adrian allowed for very little pause between speaking.
"We have motorcycles, but... Well. Obviously, there's a very high demand for them at present; therefore, they tend to get stolen. So everyone prefers to use push bikes. It's very environmentally-friendly, I suppose." Adrian's smile broadened by a millimeter.
Daniel took a deep breath. "Do you know what the casualty estimates are for the entire country?"
"It's still far too early to say," said Adrian. "Would it matter, if you knew?"
Daniel considered it, and concluded, "Probably not. I can't really take it in."
Adrian's smile faded. "Funny anecdote: a few years ago, a Harvard professor named Roger Fisher proposed that the nuclear authorization codes should be kept in a capsule implanted deep inside the chest of a presidential aide. The aide would always carry a butcher knife. If the president ever wanted to launch a nuclear attack, the first thing that he would have to do is kill the aide. Allegedly, Fisher suggested this solution to his friends at the Pentagon, and they told him that it was a terrible idea. They said that having to kill the aide would distort the president's judgement; he might never launch the attack." He shrugged helplessly, then glanced at his watch. "I digress. I'll get someone to give you those charts."
"I, uh, okay," Daniel replied.
"If you need me, I'll either be in the operations room or my office in the penthouse - during the coming week, we'll start using the building's upper floors again. Sorry for being so terse, but I'm extremely busy." Adrian set the empty can down on the countertop, and began to walk away.
Daniel remembered something important. He spoke up quickly, since Adrian had a curious knack for not letting him get a word in edgeways. "Hey. You know the security guards that we, uh, met when we first arrived here and... Well. Would you have any idea where they'd be?"
Adrian paused, and gave him a surprised look. "The two that were injured would have been flown back out to their families. The one who's still fit to do his job should be around the building somewhere. Best to ask the security co-ordinator, as he'd know when his shifts are and what his dormitory number is. Why?"
"I wanted to apologize," Daniel replied. "For the misunderstanding." Hollis would have apologized.
"Oh," said Adrian, simply. "Hm. That was hardly your fault." His smile returned. "You're not your brother's keeper, figuratively speaking. You don't have to convince yourself that you're a nice person."
Daniel tried to figure out if that was a compliment or not. He opened his mouth to speak, but Adrian was already walking away again.
"I'll speak to you again soon, Daniel," Adrian said, without looking back.
Daniel nodded, even though Adrian didn't see it.
===
Daniel kept Rorschach supplied with food and cups of water. Rorschach irritably informed him that he was not an invalid and that he didn't need to be worried about by a neurotic bleeding-heart who had nothing better to do. In return, Daniel made an effort to be horribly patient and extra chipper, just to really piss him off.
In the late evening, one of Veidt's employees stopped by to give Daniel the aeronautical charts. Rorschach observed the exchange, then made Daniel explain what the charts were for.
When Daniel had finished explaining, Rorschach stared at him as if he was stupid, and said, "The owlship is the last important thing you own."
"Well, yeah. But that's all the more reason to keep it somewhere safe. And I don't have anywhere secure to store it any more. Plus, the fuel is going to run out eventually anyway, and at least one of Adrian's airfields would have a supply."
"May I see the charts, please?" Rorschach asked, with impeccable formality.
Daniel handed them over.
Rorschach spent a good ten minutes looking at them, then handed them back without further comment.
Eventually, the two of them went to sleep.
When Daniel woke up the next morning, the charts were gone. Rorschach blithely informed him that he'd thrown them away.
Daniel called Rorschach a pathological asshole, then went to get replacement copies.
===
Daniel postponed the flight to Veidt's airfield. He blamed it on the weather; it kept raining intermittently, although it did little to clear the air outside.
Rorschach was too irritable to sit around, and too listless to do anything productive, so he shadowed Daniel like some sort of quietly malevolent sidekick. People ignored him. It was remarkable how low-key Rorschach could be when it suited; he would simply change his posture slightly, and avoid looking at anything in particular, and voilà, he was as good as invisible. The guy had drabness down to a fine art.
For someone with the social graces of a junkyard dog, Rorschach had always been suspiciously good at reading and mimicking body language. Daniel wondered if it was a natural talent, or just something he'd learned.
Daniel was given the task of helping to cover the building's broken windows with tarpaulin, so the two of them ventured out of the basement and back into the grubby opulence of the lobby. The metal shutters were still down, so it was dark, and the flowers in the planters had wilted. The darkness improved slightly once they climbed the elevators up to the first floor; there was even a faint breeze, albeit a stale-smelling one. Daniel went inside the first office that they came to, and got to work.
A fine layer of grit had already settled on most of the surfaces near the open windows, and the room was showing early signs of weather damage. Daniel had to shoo a pigeon off one of the desks. Much like people, buildings degraded quickly when neglected.
Rorschach found a chair and sat down, shoulders hunched.
"Any new ideas regarding Pyramid Deliveries yet?" Daniel asked.
Rorschach shook his head. "Still thinking. Need to check their New York HQ. Not sure what we're up against yet. Don't like it. Feels wrong. Numerous factors suggest that this goes deeper than initially suspected. Doesn't seem like a straightforward Communist attempt to undermine national security. Too early to form conclusions."
"Well, I'll do what I can, although they need an extra pair of hands to service the vehicle pool, and I've already told Adrian that I want to help with airlifting, so..."
Rorschach just stared at him, silently critical.
Daniel shrugged at him, feeling oddly defensive. "Look, Adrian's been good to us. He's an important guy to know, and someday we might need his help." Adrian was also their best bet for providing food, decent accomodation, and possibly even a prospective income. Daniel had money in various accounts, but he didn't know how long it might be before he'd see it again - last he'd heard from Veidt's employees, the banks were still closed, as were most businesses. Everything was in limbo. "...Why do you have such a problem with accepting help from people, anyway?"
"Help is usually conditional."
"Jesus, Rorschach - this is Adrian we're talking about. It's not like he's asking for anything in return."
"That's what concerns me."
Daniel paused for a moment, and asked, "So, uh, when we... I mean, if I helped you, would you think that was conditional?"
"You're not Veidt," said Rorschach, as if Daniel was being stupid.
Daniel picked up a nail gun, and busied himself with nailing tarp to the wall around a window frame. "I used to wonder what you did think, sometimes." As uncomfortable as the tangent was, he was hellbent on seeing it through. "...For example, you used to sleep in my basement occasionally, or stop by for coffee, or use my shower, and then you just sort've stopped for a while."
"That was a long time ago," Rorschach replied, flatly.
"Well, I just wondered, that was all."
Rorschach frowned at him, pensive but cautious.
Daniel half-expected Rorschach to blame the Keene Act for everything, although their partnership had been dead in the water long before then. Daniel hadn't even been given the benefit of a 'it's not you, it's me' speech. The Roche case was the obvious culprit for their split, but that still would have felt like an over-simplification. In retrospect, Rorschach's descent into excessive violence had probably started some time around the early seventies; it wasn't as if he'd gone crazy overnight.
Daniel had given it more thought than he'd ever want to admit.
"I always figured that I must've pissed you off by asking one too many personal questions, or being over-friendly, or... something," Daniel said. Granted, their withdrawal from each other had been a mutual thing (Daniel had grown increasingly uncomfortable about spending his nights with a vicious misanthrope), but he still couldn't quite shake the belief that he'd managed to scare Rorschach away back then, somehow.
"Ridiculous," Rorschach grunted.
"Yeah, maybe." It was a ridiculous sort of relationship, though. Maybe it would be easier if I just handed him a note that read, 'do you like me?' with little tickboxes for 'yes' and 'no', Daniel thought. It wouldn't have been any less mature than the absurd way that they kept dancing around certain issues.
Rorschach had nothing else to say on the subject, so Daniel let the conversation die, and filled the silence by whistling to himself. The wind blew through the gaps in the windows, bringing some of the rain with it. He tried to convince himself that he was doing something productive; the building's upper floors would soon be used to house refugees, and a few minor repairs were required in order to make the rooms inhabitable again. It must have been about 50 degrees outdoors; perhaps not as cold as it could have been, but adequate shelter was still vital. That didn't really stop Daniel from feeling like some sort of glorified janitor, however. He could have been doing so much more.
Still, at least menial work allowed him to keep an eye on his partner. Ex-partner. Whatever.
"I wonder if it'll snow soon," Daniel murmured.
Rorschach overheard him. "Probably. Will likely cause more deaths from exposure."
Daniel focused on lining the nails in a perfectly straight row.
Rorschach kept speaking; "More people dead, more resources left for survivors."
Daniel paused, to just look at him.
"People die all the time," Rorschach said, more by way of observation than apology. "Only difference now is that many people who thought they were safe, aren't."
The comment hit a nerve that was still raw. Daniel carefully set the nail gun down on a desk. "You almost sound smug about it."
"People were warned," said Rorschach, blandly. It would have been better if he had said nothing at all.
"Fuck you, Rorschach. When I was in that hospital, I saw people who were so badly burned that their fingers had fused together. I saw people without faces. And you saw the same things. So don't start victim-blaming. Not now."
"Overreacting, Daniel. I'm not..." Rorschach began, but never got to finish the sentence.
There was a white flash.
Daniel's ears popped as the air pressure suddenly changed. It all happened very quickly. He briefly felt warmth on his face from some sort of reaction. Maybe reality folded in on itself - maybe, for a fraction of a second, two locations occupied the same point in spacetime - or maybe matter was simply rearranged, atoms stacked like a house of cards, to replicate an existing pattern. Maybe energy was converted to mass. It would have been difficult to say which explanation would have been less casually miraculous.
When Daniel's vision cleared, he saw that Laurie was standing in the middle of the room.
She bolted over to a corner and threw up.
===
The next few minutes were a blur. Daniel approached her, but she shoved him away, still coughing, and stared at him. When she realized who he was, she hugged him fiercely. She smelled of winter.
Eventually, she let him go, and Daniel led her down to the basement. Daniel didn't have to look back to know that Rorschach would be just a step or so behind him.
Laurie gripped Daniel's hand. Her fingers were cold.
He had to leave her on a bench in one of the corridors for a minute or so while he fetched her a cup of coffee, but Rorschach watched her carefully, and Daniel just had to trust the guy to not say or do anything stupid.
She seemed slightly more human once she'd had a hot drink. Eventually, her gaze focused on Daniel, and she said, with quiet amazement, "You're okay."
Daniel felt a quiet sense of relief diffusing through him, like warmth. "Yeah, mostly."
Laurie briskly rubbed at her eyes and made an effort to smile.
Her face had gained a few extra lines, as if the bitterness of decades had condensed during the past seven days, and her hair was tied back in a lank ponytail. She wore a parka coat and a pair of slacks that were several sizes too large; there was still melting ice on the hems of her pants. The absence of makeup made her seem older than before; although, strangely, the sudden accumulation of years did not make her look like her mother. She was an altogether different animal.
Daniel was expecting her to talk, but she seemed to be rationing her words. It took all of Daniel's willpower to keep from asking how she was, what was she doing here, what had happened. He didn't want to leave her alone.
Her gaze moved past him, to Rorschach, and she studied him for a moment. Perhaps she found him familiar without knowing why. Rorschach said nothing, but stared back. Things would have to be explained in due time.
"I'm not going to be here long. Maybe a day or two," Laurie said, quietly. "I need to speak to Adrian Veidt."
"He's in the building, somewhere," Daniel said. "I can take you to someone who'll know where he is." He stopped himself from asking questions; he trusted Laurie to disclose things when she was ready.
To his relief, Rorschach also kept quiet, in spite of his usual lack of diplomacy and restraint. Daniel wasn't sure how long Rorschach's patience would last, but he almost wanted to thank him for it.
When Laurie spoke again, her voice cracked slightly. "I'm sorry, Dan."
"What for?"
"I don't know," she said, and looked defeated. "I shouldn't have left."
"I just figured that Jon had taken you somewhere safe, so I was glad for that," said Daniel, and was still a little surprised by his own sincerity. He had many reasons to resent Jon Osterman.
Laurie stared down at her broken fingernails. "I've been making him try to fix things. That's why I'm here. I'm like a translator, I guess. Y'know. A go-between." She managed a small smirk. "Although, a lot of the time, I feel a bit like Jiminy Cricket."
Daniel took the empty coffee cup from her and set it down on the floor, so that he could hold her hands between his. He tried to rub some warmth back into her palms. He could have kissed her, but she still seemed so remote, the lone occupant of her own little world.
"How did Jon know where we were?" he asked, out of curiosity.
"I don't know. Maybe I tell him at some point in the future. And he sees everything. It's what stops him from teleporting people into spaces that are already occupied, I guess, and... Jesus, I don't want to talk about him right now." There was no resentment in her voice, just resignation. "He doesn't always tell me what he's doing. I had to come here anyway, so he probably wanted me to be with someone I knew. He's very kind, when he remembers."
"You okay?" Daniel said. It was a trite question, but it had to be asked.
Laurie nodded slowly. "My Mom is okay. I've been to lots of places." She met his gaze and tried to smile again; her eyes were hard and dark. "Tell me about New York."
So Daniel did. He told her about what had happened, and the state of the city. He told her how he'd survived. He used the pronoun 'we' rather than 'I', although he didn't mention Rorschach by name; Laurie could figure it out. He told her about Adrian, although Laurie seemed to know quite a bit about Adrian already. He did nottell her about Hollis, or Rorschach's suspicions concerning Jon's disappearance, or Pyramid Deliveries.
Laurie listened to him, only interjecting occasionally to ask questions; she seemed to thaw slightly, although he found it difficult to read her expression. At one point, she took a toothpick out of her pocket and chewed it; her jaw was the only part of her that moved.
Daniel still wanted to kiss her, and didn't dare. She looked as brittle as frost.
Eventually, one of Veidt's aides walked by, and Daniel made the guy stop so that they could ask where Adrian was. The aide looked Laurie up and down, and offered to escort her to Adrian in person; despite everything, he still seemed to know who she was. Perhaps they had been expecting her, perhaps not. Daniel hardly knew what the hell was going on anymore.
Laurie stood up, to follow after the aide - before she left, she gave Daniel a deeply apologetic look. Daniel still wasn't sure what, specifically, she was so sorry about, but he would have forgiven her for it anyway.
Daniel leaned back, and watched Laurie as she disappeared down the corridor. Rorschach sat down next to him.
===