worktodo | 011 | Saffron City

011 | Saffron City | Action;

[So here's Albert.

Since coming to Johto, Albert's seen a lot of wacky shit go down. He's seen people mutating into some kind of hideous hybrid creature from an airborne mutant virus. He's seen ledges that defy the laws of physics. He's seen dragons and dinosaurs and aliens. He's seen people who claim beyond a shadow of a doubt to be actual ponies. He's been yelled at by a teenage Viking. He's been flown all over creation on a bird with clouds for wings and carried forcibly around by a giant green sparklegrizzly and endured patently stupid roadtrips that involved caves and forests and god only knows what else. He's been taunted by ghosts. He's been assaulted with puppies. He's fallen in a really big hole.

He's survived the freaking Armageddon and still didn't let it ruin Christmas.

And now, here on the third day of this latest bout of flagrant insanity, in his quiet home in Saffron City with a brand new swimming pool sparkling in the yard and a snarling levitating three-hundred-pound flesh-eating snowflake snapping at the end of its chain near the outhouse, he is stepping outside to collect himself with a cup of coffee and a moment's peace—

...

And there is a BIG DAMN TREE TRANSPLANTED RIGHT INTO THE MIDDLE OF HIS FORMERLY PRISTINE SIDEWALK, and WHEN THE HELL DID THAT GET THERE and WHO THE HELL EVEN RIPS UP A TREE AND—

...

...

Silently, Albert sips his coffee.

Just another day in Johto, apparently.]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

No.

_{[She still has her hand on the tree and has made no further move towards him or away from him but she keeps her eyes on him all the same. It's not that she's scared or wary, because she isn't, hasn't been given a reason to be yet - that said, she's ready to be just that or anything else if he gives her any.]

[For now, she's waiting to see where this will go. It's clear this is a test of some kind and she's smart enough to know that what he's asking for is the date of her own world, but she doesn't know why and has never been one to play someone else's game just because they want her to.]}

Last time I was here it wasn't even the right year. But you're not really asking me what day it is, are you?

[Smart kid. Her file said she was a good student; it almost hurts to see it in action like this. The world needs more smart kids, and there was no reason it should've had to lose this one.]

Right. I don't care what day it is here. I want to know what day you remember it being.

[He's smart, too. Smart enough to know that if he says "you're dead", that's it, and she'll spook or she'll run, or both — and they'll all lose her again.]

It was night.

_{[She says this in a way that could be defiant if you squint - like she'll answer him, but it'll still be on her own terms. In the end though it's not irrelevant to what he's actually asking her since it means the exact date could be one or the other. It had been late and could easily have been the 22nd.]}

On February 21st.

[Oh, this poor kid.]

Yeah? Who were you out with? Your boyfriend, your other boyfriend, your dealer, or your pimp?

[No sense in pulling punches — figuratively speaking. There's no easy way into this, so no matter what he does, it's all just the warm-up for the real show.]

I could tell you who I am, but you're not gonna like to hear it.

_{[That gets a reaction. Her loose grip on the bark tenses and there's definitely something sharper in her eyes when she looks at him now. And darker, too. There's always a darkness in her and often that's what had people so allured by her. Darkness is tempting and it always would be and she knew exactly how to use that to her advantage, to pull people in and make them just as twisted inside as she was.]

[But she's not doing that now, of course. She's not aiming to, can't do that until she knows how this guy knows what he knows and why he's talking to her the way he is.]

[She doesn't answer his question. Instead she tilts her head up slightly.]}

It doesn't matter if I'll like it or not. I think you owe it to me to say.

[Just try and pull him in, sister. Just try.

See, the thing is, he loves you, too.]

I'm the guy who did your autopsy. [Beat.] The one that wasn't ham-fisted and incompetent.

[He watches her carefully.]

You're dead, Laura Palmer.

_{[And just like that the edges in her clear away and her eyes grow distant. She looks at him but sees through him; her hand falls; for a moment she looks uncertain and lost. But there's no denial about it all. Her reaction is introspective and quiet because she believes him, can't question him at all.]

[See, she always knew she would die. And moreover she always knew it was coming faster and faster. The past few days it's hung over her close enough to touch.]

[She's dead. She's been dead for years.]

[The only difference now is that it's on paper.]

[She focuses back on him and there are no tears in her eyes.]}

I know.

[This poor kid. He'll admit to a certain cynicism (a lot of it), but it's not enough to keep him from hating to ask this next question.

...and of course, he's not sentimental enough to keep from asking it, either.]

You know who did it?

[He can tell her that, too.]

_{[There it is, the reason to be scared. Her eyes widen just a bit, but it's probably something he'll pick up on regardless, and now she looks like she might cry.]

[Because she has a pretty good idea. But she's spent the past few days denying it and desperately wishing what she thinks isn't true.]

[She looks away, off to the side somewhere, and she nods. She does know: it was BOB. But who he is? She's not sure if she wants to know that.]}

Yeah. You do.

[Even without the nod of confirmation, it doesn't take a genius to read it in her expression, in the way all of a sudden she looks like some kind of baby deer caught in his headlights. She was trying to come off looking tough and standoffish but now she's just skittish and fragile, and it's so clear to see how she was trying to act like diamond when really she's just brittle spun glass.]

You wanna come sit down?

[He'll understand if she says no. Distance is good for this kind of thing; he knows that, too. It's a neat trick to keep it when his job makes him get so close to the bodies he's examining, but there's a knack for it and he knows how to use it. But this girl, she might need the real thing.

He doesn't blame her, considering the topic they're on.]

_{[She doesn't move from her spot but lifts her eyes to his face again.]}

Are you going to tell me about it?

_{[Her voice isn't weak but it's far from demanding. It's not clear which answer she'd prefer, yes or no, but that's not the point to her at the moment anyway. She just wants to know his intentions, if there are any at all.]

[See, people aren't even only as good as the things they do, sometimes. Sometimes it comes down to the things they want to do.]

[She doesn't know what this man is out to do or say. That makes him a potential danger. But just from what he knows and the fact that he still talks to her the way he does, that also makes him a potential ... she'd never say friend. But for the moment, at least, someone she might trust a fraction more than the rest.]}

Start to finish, if that's what you want. I figure you've got more right than anybody in the world to hear about it. And the girls who cross my table don't usually get the chance to hear that yeah, somebody got justice for them in the end after all.

[He leans on the railing. Regardless of whether or not they're going to do the whole production plus encore, there's a few tidbits she deserves to know either way.]

My name's Albert Rosenfield. I'm a forensic pathologist with the FBI.

_{[She's conflicted about this - does want to know but doesn't exactly want to hear, to listen. She's weighing on that, already pulled towards this man because actually, screw want, there's a need too. A need to know. And yet, it's a difficult thing for her to commit to.]

[In the end what has her take the first step towards him is the introduction. She looks ... a bit confused. That, and hanging onto that one part that was confusing is easier than tackling the big thing right away.]}

The FBI?

_{[.. what?]}

Really?

You were out with a friend the night you died. You weren't so lucky, but she was; walking back looking for help, she ended up crossing the state line. That threw the case under federal jurisdiction. Brought in our best man to handle it, too.

[Got him all excited about trees and ducks and cherry pie and everything.]

Like I said, I came on to do your autopsy. He needed answers, which meant somebody had to do the job right. That's what I do.

[Getting the job done, and doing it right.]

_{[It doesn't take Laura very long at all to piece together just who that friend was, and she looks worried about this, more concerned for her friend than her future self. But it makes sense because she knew death was coming for her. She didn't want it or anything similar to it for her friends.]

[And the girl in question is one of the few people she would actually call a friend. So there's a hint of urgency in her voice when she questions that, now.]}

Ronette. _{[The assumption, first, the certainty of it.]} Is she okay?

Pulaski. Right.

[He knows her, too. Traumatized so bad she can't speak. He's got slightly less sympathy for her than he does for Laura, though, because at least Ronette stands a chance of pulling out of it. Laura Palmer doesn't have that chance anymore. You can't willpower your way out of death.]

She's alive. Last I checked she was still in a hospital bed recuperating. She got worked over pretty bad, but she's breathing.

_{[She wouldn't want to even if she could. She hopes she's dead and buried and will stay that way. It's the only peace she's ever know, and she's so sure of it that even in the terror of knowing, if being told what happened, there's a strange kind of relief carefully touching the surface.]

[But that's just for her. Ronette was different. Similar to her in many ways, yes, but different.]}

Was it ... the same who-?

_{[BOB, her-?]}

Yeah.

[He knows she's going to ask for as many details as she can get, but that doesn't mean he's going to give as many as he knows. There's nothing just or noble about telling a shaken, abused teenager she's got about two days left to live and at the end of it she's going to be beaten to death with a hammer. She doesn't need to know that. What she needs to know is what comes after.]

She IDed him for us from the hospital. We put together a sketch of the guy and showed it to her. She recognized it, all right.

BOB.

_{[She says it because she knows it, a sudden small clarity in her mind. No one would have sketched an image of her dad. Not like that.]

[She still looks a little afraid and maybe it is because of what she asks next, but she does it with the same hint of challenge as a few moments earlier.]}

Do you think he's real?

_{[See, because it's not about whether he IS real or not. He has to be, she knows that much. But she's also known with devastating certainty that if she ever told anyone they wouldn't believe her. She's not asking about facts. She's asking about what Albert thinks.]

[That makes a whole lot of difference.]}

Loaded question, kid.

[It's one that too easily bleeds into the related question — do you know what he is. In Albert's world, the two by nature go together; if something is real, you can figure it out, take it apart, see how it works. You can understand it, make sense of it.

He still remembers how it felt when they stood there amongst the trees after this girl's father died with his head cracked open like an egg all over the jailhouse floor. He'd wanted a cigarette, and had resigned himself to fidgeting with his fingers instead.]

I saw him kill somebody. I know he hurt your friend. I can make a pretty damn airtight case on circumstantial evidence that his hand killed you, and the only reason why I'm not saying that one for certain is because the only way to be certain is to see it firsthand, and I didn't. Two people dead, one hospitalized and traumatized? That's real enough.

_{[There's a moment when she just watches him like she's assessing whether to believe him or not, and in the end, she does. He has no reason to lie to her. Unless he's indulging her somehow, telling her what he thinks she wants to hear, but he's been frank enough up until now and there's no reason that would have changed.]

[But the thing is, even if he believes it ... it matters that he does. It makes her feel like she can trust him, just a bit. But there are other things to take into account too.]

[She wets her lip in another subtle show of hesitation but her gaze is steady, still.]}

I thought the cops didn't believe in ghosts.

I believe in answers.

[It's that simple, really.]

When I come up with a better one for what I saw, believe me, I'll be on it in an instant. The guy who solved your case, he's good at answers. And he's been right enough times for me to figure out that sometimes I've just got to let him have his methods. I don't have to like 'em. I don't even have to believe in 'em myself. But I believe in the results.

_{[That's fair. You don't have to understand to believe things are true, even if just for a moment, and Laura knows this. In part she'd been asking about the rest of the force, what their explanation for something like BOB was, but ... maybe it doesn't matter what they said so long as they at least tried to understand the truth.]

[That's all she wanted, really. Truth.]

[And if this man and the one he's talking about are like this, then it seems like maybe that's what they got to in the end. It's comforting. It's terrible, too.]}

No one likes the answers.

Nobody likes cutting up dead kids to see what did them in, either. I do a lot of things I don't like. I found out a lot about you I didn't like.

[It still irritates him even now, the altercation in the morgue. Then, it had been for the more immediate, superficial reasons of having incompetent dunderheads trying to get in the way of his work. But the deeper-seated frustration stemmed from the knowledge he has now, that if they hadn't interfered when they did...]

I could've had him a lot sooner if your folksy friends down on the farm hadn't gotten in my way.

[He pauses, because he doesn't have to tell her what comes next; it won't matter to her in the long run, and it's arguably just as callous as detailing the way she died. But this time, he doesn't stop, because covering up the shame and injustice of something doesn't mean it goes away.]

Your cousin would probably still be alive if they'd have let me do my job. How's that for sentimentality.

_{[It's maybe a bit weird, but Laura appreciates that he's not trying to make his words pretty for her. People tend to either do exactly that or say things as crass and dirty as they can, but they rarely just give it to her straight like this. She likes that, even if it might have made her angry if it had been any other circumstance, because it's the way she prefers to talk to people - it's just that she never CAN.]

[But anything she might have said in response to those first few things is cut short when he brings up Maddy, and Laura's mind stops short for a moment. That ... no. Oh, god, why.]}

Maddy's dead?

_{[Maddy, who she didn't love because she didn't love anyone, but who she had loved once and who was almost like a big sister to her, who she hadn't seen for years but had said that she could call her anytime, and once or twice she had.]}

He killed Maddy?

011 | Saffron City | Action;

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