#masterversary

There was no conclusive start to their time together. For her to have marked a beginning would have meant accepting that there would be an end, a limit, a day when their time would run out. And she didn’t.

She remembered the first time she’d seen her only because she knew it must have happened. What had she been wearing? Had it been sunny outside, or had it been overcast? Was the room hot or cold? When had their eyes met for the first time?

What had she seen in her?

This is how it goes.

There’s a monster on the loose, and everyone is hiding. There’s a monster on the loose, and the story should have a hero. There’s a monster on the loose, and it should be taken down by spears and cannons the strength of dozens.

There’s a monster on the loose, and she doesn’t care about any of that.

The Midsummerman, they’d called him. He’d liked to display his victims in works of art so meticulous it almost hurt to take them down—knives and cyanide, crowns perched on bleach-white skulls, hands and wrists interlocked in a bed of flowers. Like children, asleep in the meadow.

Midsummer for his dreams. Man because that was what they believed him to be.

Sometimes, she still cursed his name in her sleep.

*

She approaches her nightmares critically, clinically, cynically, and calculatingly, and everything else that starts with a C. What does this mean? What about that? Whose face is this? This hand? This body hanging from the rafters? Are those my demons crawling from the shadows and pinning me down, or are they someone else’s? Is it a river I’m standing in, or is it a sea?

Denial is the prescription she writes herself. She’s not a doctor for nothing.

*

She’d paid attention to her in the way a person paid attention to the stones on a trail, or the turn of the stars behind the clouds.

In another world, she didn’t think she’d even have noticed her. In another one, she didn’t think she’d have been able to tear her gaze away. Maybe in yet another one, where stakes were higher but life was simpler, they’d have been thrown together by fate and accident and wild, wild circumstances and gone up in each other’s flames, and it would have been easy.

She’d bumped into her on the first day, she recalled, going around the corner. She’d spilled tea on herself—not much, just a splash—and dropped a pen. Of all her memories of the day, she had no idea why that was the one that stood out the most. The way the mind works, eh?

She’d asked questions, she remembered. Most people liked to ask questions as if they already knew the answer to them—sos and what you’re sayings and rights. She’d asked questions the way questions were meant to be asked—wide-eyed and curious and serious at the same time, taking things in and thinking about them instead of being bitter about being wrong. She thinks that’s what struck her first.

She’d listened with her eyes and her hands and her face and her body, and, when she’d looked up, she’d meet her eyes and nod. A happy nod, a solemn nod, an impish nod, but a nod nonetheless. Yes, it said, I hear you.

And then, over a body stuffed with coals in a field of withered flowers, in the midst of lights and frenzy and protocol and shouting, she’d held a shaking woman in her arms and stroked her back and sat and listened until she gave a name.

*

What do we do now?

*

There had been an expression that almost looks like loss on her face when they’d lead Van Statten away, and, not quite sure what she was doing, but doing it anyways, she took her hand and led her to a hole-in-the-wall chippy with enough actual holes in the walls that she refused to eat in the building itself (much to the disgruntlement of the woman behind the counter, who’s shouts of It’s fucking atmosphere! followed them all the way down the street and around the bend).

(Maybe that’s when it started—the two of them wandering into a churchyard and sitting beneath stone angels, her laughing as she upset the box, and laughing harder as she plucked chips from the ground and ate them, dirt and all.)

Looking back, she found herself wondering why she never left. Or, rather, why she stayed. Companionship was the word that often surfaced. Camaraderie and a mutual inability to think of anything else to do, and maybe some curiosity thrown into the mix, too.

And then, one day, on the highest bluff in the middle of nowhere, hot and sweaty and aching to the bone, the trees below lit up like a forest of flames in the light of the setting sun and the sky above burning and swirling with stars and clouds, she took her face in her hands and pressed her lips to hers, and everything felt right.

*

Is this love, she wonders at a point, or is this obsession. And who’s to say that it isn’t both.

She doesn’t know the difference.

*

It’s enough to say that not much changes, because it’s too much to think about the little things that do. Hands that linger for fractions of seconds that burn like dying suns and the smallest of smiles from across hallways and conference rooms that shouldn’t make her heart beat like there’s two of them but do. Gazes that hold her and make the hair stand up on the back of her neck and scorch her to the core. A jacket hanging on a doorknob in her flat and an old pink mug on the kitchen counter in hers. Calls that stretch far past what could reasonably be called night, except there’s a reason now, and strands of bleached blonde hair tangled up in the sheets with brown.

And the kisses. The kisses are good, too. And everything else that follows.

She mentions it offhandedly, one day, the pipes and mildew in her flat. And then, because she wants to help, or because she doesn’t have a filter, or for no reason at all, she’s asking her to move in.

There’s a moment, when she’s staring at her, where she thinks she’s put her foot in her mouth. But then she throws her arms around her, and she can feel her smiling against her lips.

Her flat sells surprisingly well, considering the nest of cockroaches in the bathroom they didn’t tell the buyer about.

*

Jack is ecstatic. When is he ever not?

If only he could know how it ends.

*

It had been unrealistic, she supposed to have expected things to be perfect then and for forever. More fanciful, still, for her to expect her to be perfect then and for forever. Smiles tended to wilt behind closed doors and laughter turn to growls, and she had the illusion of all the time in the world to see every grin twist into a scowl.

Money was one of the few things she’d never had to worry about, which was just as well. She didn’t think she’d have been able to bring herself to care.

She’d disagreed. She’d disagreed back. And then they were shouting, and then she was storming out of the flat. The slam of the door had echoed down the hallway behind her, and kept ringing in her ears even five blocks away.

She’d spent the night curled up on a bus stop bench, hood pulled over her face and arms crossed tightly over her chest, and woken to an old woman with a shopping cart tugging at her boots.

She’d given her the boots. She didn’t know why. She still thought about them, sometimes.

She’d found her like that, twisting an old coupon the woman had given her idly in her hands, in the morning, a cup of tea in either hand and a box of custard creams tucked beneath her arm.

They’d bought a purple couch.

*

Three of us against the world, she used to say. And then it was two, and then. . .

And who knew what it was, now.

*

Communication is the key to a good relationship, she’d heard someone say once. A teacher, maybe? She doubted it was any of her friends. Maybe Jack, if he weren’t so bad at giving advice, and even worse at following it.

Communion is subjective. She talks, of course she talks. It’s the one thing she’s never learned not to do. She talks and she talks and she talks, but she never says, and she doesn’t think she hasn’t noticed.

She knew her; she barely knew her. She told her everything, but she still knew nothing. They’d speak without ever exchanging a word, and she would squeeze her wrist lightly when she stood to refill their mugs. She’d answer questions until she didn’t, and she’d ask until she stopped. Ebbing and flowing, the conversations went, and that’s how they left it.

It was beyond words, in a way, and so much lesser in another. Honest. Arduous. Cryptic and impossible and, depending on how you looked at it, completely pointless. She wishes everything were so easy.

She thinks that she knew—about her, what she was and what she wasn’t—or suspected, at the very least. She’d never said anything, not with words, but she’d say it in other ways—the way she’d roll over when she would crawl back into bed in the dead of night, and silently wrap an arm around her waist; the way she’d make no comment about the plain, dark clothes that would appear and vanish in their closet without explanation; the way she’d turn the news off when she switched it on in the morning and locked their fingers together as they drank tea over the papers; the way she never said a word.

See? Communication.

*

She wished—

Oh, god, she wished.

*

There’s a house on the junction of Satellite Street and Fifth Avenue. Boards that hadn’t been there when the house had been sold are nailed across the windows on the first floor. The windows on the second floor are shuttered. Daffodils grow in the front yard, and the roof is covered in dead leaves and fallen branches.

He was tired. Tired and scared, and ready to give up. She’d time it perfectly. He wouldn’t have fought.

Except she was wrong.

Nine shots. Six hits. She still couldn't stand fireworks.

Trembling on a porch, gasping for air, spreading pools of red, and pain that was so much more than just physical. Hands that couldn’t move, a heart that couldn’t beat, and eyes that could do nothing but watch as two more bullets sunk into her heart.

*

Thump. Thump. Thump.

Theta missed the ball on the last bounce. She twisted around to watch as it went over her shoulder and into the corner. She stared at it for a moment then sighed and got to her feet.

She brushed the dust clinging to the rubber surface off and wrinkled her nose. It was something new to look at, at least.

She glanced over her shoulder. The empty whiteboard stared accusingly back at her.

Well. Almost empty.

She flung the ball at it again. It knocked off a magnet before bouncing off in the other direction. A photograph fluttered loose and slid across the floor, finally coming to a stop under the toe of Theta’s boot.

Annie Hopkins. That had been her name, the girl on the wall. Her mother had confirmed it.

She grimaced as she crouched to pick it up, and shuddered when her nails scraped against the plasticky surface of the photo paper.

She tossed the picture onto her desk and snatched up a scrap sheet of paper (at least, she hoped it was scrap). She wandered around the desk in a circle, tilting her head up to stare at the ceiling.

Had it taken her this long, before, to figure things out?

She threw herself into her seat. It jolted and she kicked the desk, sending herself spinning across the room. Her elbow slammed into the wall with a bang and she winced. The chair squeaked in protest.

No, it hadn’t. At least, she didn’t think so. It was hard to remember. Hard to put into perspective, at least. Time was fickle like that.

She balled up the paper in her hands and tossed it between her hands. Everyone has off days, she reasoned. Nothing to be ashamed of. She clenched the ball tighter in her hands and kicked off the wall, spinning back towards her desk.

She grabbed it with her free hand as she passed, dragging herself to a stop.

Off days. That’s what this was, then. An off day. Off month. Months, if you would (she wouldn’t).

Of course, most peoples’ off days didn’t involve giving funeral homes more business.

She tossed her rudimentary ball at the board. It more flopped than bounced off, crinkling as it drifted to the ground. She sighed and tossed her feet onto her desk.

It hadn’t taken her this long before. That, she was certain of.

So why the hell was it taking her this long now?

She could hardly be out of practice. That just wasn’t something that happened. Not like this, not with her. She scowled and snatched the marker pen off the table, twisting its cap on and snapping it back on again. Pop, click, pop, click, squeak, click, pop.

She bit down on the end of the cap and twirled the pen between her fingers. There was, she admitted to herself with a small grimace, always the possibility of the copycat being better than her. Small, though. Very small. Miniscule, even, if you liked the word, which she did. Not one that she was willing to entertain, though.

He wasn’t. Not the type.

It was stifling. She tugged her jacket off and tossed it to the side of the room.

Motive. There was always motive. Even when the motive was nothing, there was always a reason. She knew that better than anyone.

Chewing gum too loud. Unfortunate resemblance to an old enemy. Stupid hair.

Convenience.

Who, her? Projecting? Pshaw.

It could, suggested a small, traitorous voice at the corner of her mind sounding suspiciously like a certain bearded psychiatrist, be that, though, couldn’t it? Maybe, it suggested. Maybe. Just maybe. Maybe you’re sympathetic? Empathetic, even? Could that be possible? Maybe you don’t want to catch him. Maybe you’re on his side, just a bit, or maybe you’re worried about what comes next, or that—

She threw the marker at the board. It left a streak of black in its wake and rolled away to join the ball.

What had she done before?

The subconscious was a funny thing.

She slid off her seat and flopped to the ground. She quinted up at the ceiling, a frown tugging at her eyebrows.

She’d talked to people, she was fairly sure. Nothing door-to-door, but she had. Watched interrogations from behind the glass. Joined in, sometimes (very sometimes) (as in once).

She grimaced and pressed the heels of her hands into her eyes until she felt like they were going to burst.

Not mainly, though. Nothing as inactive as that.

No.

It must have been her second year, or maybe late in her first. Before her third, for sure. Between August and November, maybe?

Disembowelment. That, she remembered. Disembowelment. Disembowelment and bone-robbing, which hadn’t been a term before that day, and for good reason, too.

A doctor, John had said. A surgeon, Mike had corrected. A fucking sicko, Owen had grumbled. That doesn’t help, Jack had snapped.

(And that’s the thing: how do you know? How do they—how does she—fit so perfectly into the mold, this archetype, this machine, and how do they make it work?

And here’s the other thing: it doesn’t always have to be that complicated.)

Anyone who’s ever cooked a chicken can figure out how to break out a spine. Anyone with half a brain can figure out how to use a knife. But who’s going to need that many bones?

Ah. There’s the question.

It wasn’t the sort of question to be answered in an office, or at home, or in front of a board. It wasn’t the sort of question to be answered, period.

(The term ‘liquid courage’ truly wasn’t any sort of exaggeration. It had burned going down, and had burned coming up again the next morning, but, in the moment, head spinning, blood rushing, heart beating like the drums of war, she’d felt weightless, and weightless she’d stayed.)

The femur, she’d remembered, somewhat hazily, hands buried in dying, withered heat. The tear of skin and a crack like splitting wood—

Wood.

There’s the answer.

(The chairs really hadn’t been too comfortable, though she supposed they fit a certain aesthetic. Theta had left it to Jack to suggest burying the furniture to the families.)

Her phone rang and she all but dove for it, sending papers flying. “She’s a bitch,” said Martha before it had even finished ringing.

“What?”

She heard a shuffling on the other end of the line. Her phone buzzed against her ear. “Messages,” said Martha bitterly.

Theta flicked the call to speaker and dropped the phone on the desk, leaning over it and squinting down at the screen.

Her stomach turned.

“Just a gossip column, but Jack’s losing it,” Martha informed her. Her voice sounded oddly thin over the speakers, like she was whispering into a tin can. Or was that just her?

Theta waited for her to say something else. “Did you read it?” she asked when she didn’t.

“No.” Lie. Theta pursed her lips and flicked her finger up the screen. The words whipped by in a blur of black on shocking pink, like ants smudged across a page. What she did catch made her nauseous. “Any luck, it’ll be down soon.”

“Won’t be,” Theta grumbled, grimacing and pinching the bridge of her nose. Her head was pounding. “Free press.”

Martha made a concerting noise over the line. “Ask Jake to hack it?” she suggested.

Theta shook her head, then remembered that Martha couldn’t see her. “Nah,” she said lightly. “Nah,” she repeated. Her tongue felt like sandpaper.

“Fine.” Martha didn’t sound upset, Theta didn’t think. And then she wondered why she thought she would be. “You alright?”

“Hm.” Her fingertips were tingling, buzzing with something that wasn’t quite warmth, but couldn’t reasonably be called anything else, either. “Yeah,” she forced herself to say, biting out a tight grin, despite the fact that Martha couldn’t see her. “Yep. Right.”

She hung up and threw her phone across the desk. Her hands shook when she flexed them, palms stinging with pins and needles.

Fuck.

*

Really, Theta didn’t know why she was so surprised. After all, it had only been a matter of time.

Cases dragged on. It happened. It wasn’t like there was much they could do about it. Asking nicely never seemed to help.

(Theta had been asked to give an interview, once. It had gone horribly, and she was fairly certain that, had the microphone not been mysteriously unplugged, it would have been a disaster.)

She drummed her fist against the table, staring at her screen. The computer had switched itself off ages ago, but she didn’t need to see the article to quote it.

Scandalous, the writer (Claire Rook, her name had been Claire Rook. Like a side character in a children’s adventure novel.) had said. Well, if you were looking for it, maybe.

She squeezed her eyes shut and dragged her hands down her face, elbows grinding against the desk.

It didn’t matter. It shouldn’t. They’d all been dragged by the press at some point or another (Some more than others; Martha had a Google Alert set up for Jack, and Mickey had taken out subscriptions to at least three tabloids. He didn’t seem to mind—rather, he seemed to thrive on the attention).

It was a gossip rag. A gossip rag that had clearly stolen pictures from The Guardian. They were running hentai ads alongside the front page, for God’s sake.

A gossip rag that had gotten ahold of her school records what the fuck.

She hit the space bar and the screen blinked back to life.

913 hits, because this was the kind of website that counted hits. One each for Jack, Martha, and Mickey, and another nine for her. 901, then.

She leaned back in her seat, squeezing her eyes shut.

Troubled past. She scoffed. The whole thing was one badly-Photoshopped cover from being a supermarket pulp novel.

I’m not angry.

What word would you prefer?

She opened her eyes a crack and peered at the screen.

915. Fuck her.

She could, she supposed, call Koschei, if only to let him know.

Koschei.

Koschei, who had been in the article too.

There is reason to call into question the ethics of the investigation, especially when considering the presence of famed psychiatrist Koschei Oakdown in the lives of the senior investigators—

Famed. She scoffed. She could almost see Koschei’s head swelling. Hardly the word she’d use. Inobscure, maybe.

—a hidden past shared with the notorious Theta Lungbarrow herself—

She gagged and slammed the laptop shut.

Her legs were itching. She leapt to her feet and began pacing.

Bullshit. Bullshit smeared across a server and tagged as news. She scoffed and dragged her fingers over her scalp. A strand of hair got caught beneath a nail and she shuddered as she tugged it free.

Abruptly, she threw herself to the ground, then got up again, then sat back down.

The infamous raid on Satellite and Fifth—

There was hair on the carpet, too, and eraser shavings, and a bit of a broken branch she’d tracked in on her boots. She twisted it beneath her fingers until it snapped, then did it again, and again.

—in the perfect true crime setup, with Lungbarrow set to lead; but as the villain, or the hero?

She snorted, brushing her hands clean on her knees. It was almost—no, it was—laughable.

Her keys were still in her pocket. She supposed she’d forgotten to take them out.

She dragged her fingers through her hair again. Her scalp was oily; she hadn’t showered.

She jiggled her leg, heel beating the ground.

It’s the moments in between, Rose used to believe, that are the most important. Nothing planned really happens, she used to tell her. It’s the stuff before and after that decides everything.

Failure drives success. Grief drives rage.