Break (Ficlet)

[abetterlie]

After this

"Anger and hate," Justine said to him once. "Severely underrated. Keeps you going. Well, not you."

But then, she hadn't known him when hate kept him going, save for those two days between the death of one father and the imprisonment of another. Then Wesley had captured her and locked her up. In a closet. He's thinking of Justine a lot these days, and how she hated closed rooms afterwards, how they drove with open windows whenever they could. He also thinks of Angel under the sea, and the question of who deserves what.

Until Darla comes, and suddenly the fact his cell is neither a closet nor a coffin under the sea and that he does have blood on his hands doesn't provide him with the same resignation any more. He wants to breathe air again, any air, even some of the more toxic fumes from volcanos back in Quortoth would do, he wants his life back, and no matter whether Harry is really okay back in Gotham or not, he wants to see that for himself.

He also wants to hurt someone for this entire situation. And there are no demons around.

(Save for himself.)

Ironically, his general passivity so far, after the first day and assorted knocked out inmates, and the fact solitary didn't cause him to confess have persuaded the administration to a change of tactics. He's put in a cell with another murder suspect awaiting trial. As opposed to many a prison movie, the man in question is neither an oversized gorilla interested in rape nor an innocent who somehow ended up in detention. He's mostly complaining about how his lawyer screwed things up and didn't get him bailed out, and otherwise looking forward to visits from his wife. The person he killed was his son's math teacher.

"She was gonna let him fail," he explains. "Bitch." Hastily, he adds: "But of course I didn't do it."

The next day, Connor is offered a more or less blatant deal. Instead of having to watch the photos of his burned family yet again, he gets to watch photos of Harry Osborn, severely beaten up.

"Now Detective Fitzgerald, she figures the two of you were in it together, for a joyride," the policeman pushing the photos to him says. "But me, I can see another scenario. Maybe the Osborn boy just had bad luck and bad timing. But not you. Look, son, I know a killer when I see one. Bet no one would get the idea of putting your pal Harry into general population again if you confessed to all the murders. I'm just sayin'."

It takes all the will power he has not to move and react until the policeman shrugs and is about to signal the end of their conversation to the guards. Then he takes a page from Faith's book. He has crossed dimensions. He can do this. The main thing is not to look back.

There are glass splinters in his hair and there might be a bullet somewhere in his shoulder, at least that would explain the blood and the stinging pain there, but half an hour later he's on the road. Another hour later, he's confronted with his first demon. Only the demon turns out to be a costume, and not qualified for painsharing. Connor is hiding in one of the many underground tunnels beneath Los Angeles, far too familiar from the past, when it hits him.

He had forgotten. It's almost Halloween.

Comments

[perfectblue.livejournal.com]

Normally she'd spend a little more time ranting at the vampires for being an offense to senses she no longer even possessed. But they were in a hurry, and vampires were hardly a challenge.

Their hearts come out of their chests so very, very easily. She was always amused at how they turned to dust last, in her hands.

The two dispatched, she turned around to see how Connor was managing.

[rude-not-ginger.livejournal.com]

The head of a tall, skinny bloke with mussed up hair poked out of the mysterious blue box Illyria had led them to.

Dust, violence, terror? Ah, the Doctor's companion must be home.

"Honestly, Illyria, I just can't take you anywhere, can I?"

[abetterlie.livejournal.com]

Connor, who in lack of stakes or blades but with enough rage and time-saving issues as motivation had been forced to improvise and follow Illyria's example - i.e. the tearing the heart of the chest approach - , turns at the sound of the new voice as the dust settles. Just for a second, he feels disoriented, hit by conflicting memories, and then he realizes why. The man talks with an English accent. The only two people Connor knew who did that were Holtz, who raised him, and Wesley. Though this man doesn't sound like either, not really.

More importantly, he doesn't sound panicked.

"Hi," Connor says awkwardly, stepping towards the man, not sure how to approach the subject of "I need to hide and get this bullet out, and then I need to get to Gotham". The part of him which is the son of Lawrence and Colleen Riley and has fake memories of manner lessons makes him reach out his (dusty, sweat and blood covered) hand in greeting. "You must be Illyria's companion. I'm Connor."

[rude-not-ginger.livejournal.com]

The Doctor gingerly took the young man's hand and blinked in Illyria's direction.

Illyria's companion?

[abetterlie.livejournal.com]

Maybe companion was the wrong expression. What was that term Illyria used to use for Wesley? Not sidekick or flunky, no....

"Her guide, I mean," Connor says, recalling it. "Um, sorry about this, but we've got the cops behind us, and I need to get rid of - Illyria said you have some sort of hiding place?"

[rude-not-ginger.livejournal.com]

Guide? When would Illyria have ever let the Doctor guide her?

Another look in Illyria's direction---she would have quite a bit of explaining to do, then he motioned into the blue box in which he was standing.

"Hop in," he said, "Illyria, if you're quite finished slaughtering the masses...?"

[perfectblue.livejournal.com]

[ooc: ahaha stupid LJ. Sorry, I would've replied, but I never got the notifs of the first set of these, and then it wouldn't load. *kicks it*]

Illyria lets the two concerned with pleasantries take care of introducing themselves. She is amused by the terms these people use. Wesley was supposed to be her guide, and yet that role had been... lost, somehow. Changed. The Doctor often called her his companion, and she preferred it to friend. They were all just words. What was to explain? She very nearly thought of Connor as one of hers, one of her chosen, similar to what Wesley was, but without the entanglements that made Wesley a far more complicated matter.

It was a similar sort of protection that she'd have given a follower. People she claimed as hers were... different, now, than they'd been.
She isn't sure she can explain that, and certainly not right this second.

"He's been injured. We required a place to fix it, and to avoid the meddlesome human authorities who have apparently chosen to meddle in affairs that I am nearly certain cannot possibly concern them."

Connor was technically no more human than she was. It wasn't as though human laws ought to apply, whatever he'd done.

[rude-not-ginger.livejournal.com]

"Let's discuss it over a cup of tea, shall we?" the Doctor made a motion to the door, and stepped inside, "Do shut the door on your way in, would you? I'd rather not have the authorities trying to come into their police box."

[abetterlie.livejournal.com]

Connor is doubtful they won't follow anyway, but steps in. And is, as is a person's wont when first entering the TARDIS,stunned. Though he has been to the White Room at Wolfram and Hart's, and has crossed from one dimension to the other, which of which are memories coming back now.

He also has the dearly bought artificial memories of another, ultra-normal Californian childhood, and that other Connor looks at the consoles and thinks: Spaceship! That's cool!

Both memory sets lead to verbalization, directly after the other. Connor, son of Angel, says cautiously: "You're not a totem of the Rach'tet, are you?" to the Doctor, and Connor Riley adds, looking around, full of admiration: "This is awesome."

He's also practical enough to realize anything that can take you into another dimension in itself will hide you from the police one way or the other, which means they're unlikely to barge in now, so he says to Illyria, very grateful:

"If there is something like a knife here, could you get the bullet out of my shoulder?"

[perfectblue.livejournal.com]

"He is a Time Lord. Gallifreyan." Illyria replies, in answer to Connor's question. "You would call him alien, I suppose, if such things matter."

Alien, extra-dimensional. Demon wasn't even a word she'd have ever applied to herself. Nor had goddess been, originally. So caught up in names and details, humans were.

To the Doctor, with a small questioning head-tilt: "There is an infirmary, is there not? With some sort of appropriate tools for the task?"

She'd never been in there, herself, but she'd wandered past it once, and it was likely still here if the ship hadn't decided to rearrange itself as it was fond of doing.

[rude-not-ginger.livejournal.com]

"Oi," the Doctor snorted, "No need to advertise, some people aren't a fan of aliens, if you remember." He gave his head a bit of a scratch in rememberance of his last situation with that. Oh, well. He told them to leave him alone, but Torchwood Four didn't listen. Now, well, they'd find their way home eventually.

"There's a sickbay, yes," the Doctor said, taking a step towards Connor and glancing at his arm, "I'll get this out. Shouldn't take a moment."

He flipped a switch on the TARDIS, getting the machine in orbit, then led the way down the corridor, "So, what did you do?" Tact was probably best in this moment, pity the Doctor wasn't that good at tact.

[abetterlie.livejournal.com]

He did a lot of things. Some of them certainly deserved getting locked up in prison for. But he's been that route before, and his mother was right, galling as this was to admit. Besides, he needs to get to Gotham; as fast as possible. So the Doctor does not get a guilt-ridden confession of past misdeeds but the equally true:

"Not what they think. My Mom and Dad and little sister died -"

Adopted family, but that's beside the point now.

"- last year, and last month the police suddenly decided I did it. They arrested my boyfriend as well, for something else a vampire did, so he can't even tell them what happened, and they just showed me photos of - anyway, I need to see him. Make sure he's okay."

Walking next to the Doctor, he's torn between looking around, concentrating on the man next to him who is still so much of an unknown quantity, and worrying about Harry.

The Doctor certainly smells slightly different from a human, though not very, not as different as Illyria. Alien. Having grown up in another dimension with just one other humanoid around, it's a designation he would have applied to himself, if he had had the vocabulary back then.

[perfectblue.livejournal.com]

She gives the Doctor a withering look. Someone comfortable around a demon goddess was hardly going to be bothered by the fact that he was an alien.

To Connor:

"The Doctor is, on occasion, a champion for humanity. Like your father, though with only slightly more regard for the actual morality system of humanity as I have."

There's a faint note of... not quite disdain. Exasperation, perhaps. Something that set them apart from her. She was no champion for humanity. Except sometimes by accident.

But implicit in the words were something else, something these more-human creatures needed. You can trust him.

To the Doctor:

"You can return him to his home after we've removed the offending metal from his shoulder?"

It was phrased as a request, but with Illyria all requests carried a bit of implicit warning as to what would happen if they were not granted.