Work Text:
Los Diablos, CA
2016
"What's with the sudden roster change?"
You bite back a sigh. "I know. You're off on Thursdays. I need you to switch this once and pick up tomorrow."
"Why?" The question is sharp and hard, and not for the first time you wish Sentinel hadn't retired yet. He would have just signed off on it. No questions, no backtalk.
"Ortega needs it. The new secretary forgot about it."
Her scowl deepens. You're getting better at reading her expressions, the more time you spend with her. At least, you hope you are. Sometimes she's as impenetrable as her own mirrored skin.
"Why doesn't he ask me himself?"
"He thinks he doesn't need it." Too stubborn, the both of them. Like someone else you knew. "I know he does."
She cocks her head curiously. "Been through this before?"
"This will be the third time." You glance pointedly at the calendar on the wall.
She follows and her bristling annoyance eases with realization. She nods. "Alright. Fine."
"Thank you."
"Tell Ricardo he owes me one," she says as she turns on her heel and storms out as roughly as she had entered.
"Tell him yourself," you call after her. You don't really care one way or the other if she hears you. Not your job to settle scores.
You wish you had the luxury to get wasted as you know Ortega will, but it's not in your cards as Marshal. Not that your guts could handle it anyway. You kill the lights and lock your office. No time for your own tortured ruminations just yet. You have one last mission to complete for the day.
Maybe you'll manage to find Ortega before he half-drowns himself in a gutter this time.
"Did you know Sidestep?"
The question catches you off-guard. Lost in your own head again. Get it together. You straighten, school your expression, and turn towards the voice. A girl, a teenager maybe? A few years younger than you were when you…
Not the time. You shake that thought loose from your head.
"I… no. I never got the chance," you admit. "But I followed her career closely. She really inspired me. Did you know her?"
"Sort of?" Her gaze falls to the bouquet of yellow tulips in her hand. A good choice, you think. Something a little brighter to offset the darkened occasion hanging over the day. "She wasn't Sidestep yet, I think. Dad said Sidestep started a while after. But she saved me when I was little. From some men who tried to take me."
"I'm glad she helped you." Curiosity niggles at your thoughts and you can't quite resist asking, "How do you know it was her?"
"I could never forget her voice. I heard it on the TV. Dad said I had to keep her identity a secret though." She gives you a hard look. "So don't ask me her name."
"I won't." You can't help the smile in the face of her seriousness. "That's very important for a hero. Thank you for keeping her secret."
"Are you a hero too?"
Breaking into this world is so much harder than you envisioned. You and Josh were so stupid back then. So blind. But there's no going back now. You made a first step at least, landing your first corporate gig. A way to get your foot in the door to join the Rangers. A new purpose in a new identity forged for you.
You just need to live up to it now. Always easier said than done.
"I'm trying to be. I want to help people like Sidestep did."
One last look at the surrounding traffic cams and all seems well. It's quiet enough for a snack break. The relief is almost instant as you bite into the first doughnut. Four more bites and it's gone. You pull another from the box as you watch the world go by below from your rooftop perch.
The city is eery tonight. A strange quiet energy in the air that sets more than just your nerves on edge. Makes them crawl really. Almost literally. The doughnuts help a little, but nothing's going to lessen that ennui of trauma that never quite healed, but everyone acts like it has.
Almost everyone, anyway.
Chen hides it well enough, but even you can see the toll it takes on him. Worry for Ortega, if nothing else. From what you've been able to gather in the past few months, Chen wasn't exactly Sidestep's biggest fan.
Ortega though…
You lick up the jelly running down your hand. Tension eases a little. Satisfies. Halfway through the dozen already. You swallow too big a bite and it goes down far too easily.
Ortega's probably a wreck. He's a wreck anyway, but it doesn't take a genius to know he'll be especially wasted tonight. There was something more than teammates there. You got a hint of it when he opened up a little after sparring with him. Maybe you'll get to the bottom of it soon.
Lovers, maybe? That would explain it. A broken heart hasn't stopped him from flirting with you though, but you aren't taking it seriously. He flirts with everything that moves. Not that you could entertain the idea, if you even wanted to right now. Still, Sidestep had to be something special. More than just for her telepathy for him to still be this torn up about her years later.
You almost wish you could have met her. Judging by the stories you've teased out, she sounded like your kind of asshole.
Your hand reaches into an empty box and you sigh. The city won't patrol itself.
It almost could though, for you.
The stone presses against your back, cold through sweat-soaked cotton. You shift and it makes no adjustment. No jibe at your restlessness. It's too quiet and too unyielding and it doesn't breathe with you and you've never missed her more.
Whoever said time heals all wounds should be punched.
Your grip shifts around the neck of your tequila and you bring it to your lips. The alcohol is warm. Burns your throat. Numbs the pain in your ribs to more of an ache than a stab when your mind wanders to the past, as it too often does.
"I thought I saw you again today."
The granite is silent, of course, and you drink again. The bottle is lighter. Your head is heavier. You lean it back against the cold stone to stare up at the sky.
Would she think it's funny? That three years later you're still looking twice at every buzzed head in a hoodie, hoping some silver eyes will look back at you? Maybe. Probably call you an idiot. She'd be right. Supposed to watch each other's backs and you fucked it all up and she's gone. Nothing's going to change that.
Maybe things would have been different if you’d told her that you—
"Here you are." A navy blue hand in front of your face. Wei, looking down at you.
You take the offered hand and he pulls you up like you weigh nothing. Fancy new joints all the way up his arm now. You stumble a bit, but manage right yourself. The bottle wasn't full when you started. Less in you than he thinks.
“Thought you’d be at Hoots.”
You grimace at that. Wasn’t pretty for either of you last year. You especially. “Didn’t make it here when I started there last year.”
He huffs a breath. Not quite what you’d call amused. He nods his head towards the gate.
"Wait, I still need to…"
You grab the smaller red bottle on top of the headstone and pop the cap on the edge. A third little chip in the stone appears and the cap clatters on the base. You turn it up, pour some out over the grave.
Wei takes the bottle when you offer it to him. Takes one single sip that makes him grimace like this is her worst offense yet. "That's disgusting."
"Yeah." You drain the rest anyway, fake strawberry and saccharine sweetness coating your throat. Thick like memories threatening to overtake you again. You set the empty bottle with the flowers you and other people left behind for her and Anathema. "Riley loved that shit."
He shakes his head and takes the tequila from you to wash the soda down. Just a sip and he hands it back.
"Come on, Ricardo. I got dinner waiting at my place."
Probably for the best. You'll never admit it, but you'd hate to be alone tonight.
Undisclosed location, NV
2016
Huddled in a shivering ball on the mat in your cell, you rub your arms and squeeze yourself in tighter. Is this bone deep cold permanent? Worse than the last time. So much worse. And no blanket for you. Not after you tore the last one into strips and tried to—
The slam of the slot by the door startles you upright, rigid, ready, but it's just meal time. The tray slides in, with a plastic cup of tasteless nutrient paste, a fragile wooden tab spoon, and a plastic cup of water. The slot slams shut and you wait for the footsteps to retreat down the hall.
Same thing, every day. Solitary tasteless torment under mind-numbing dampeners. Torture almost as bad as everything else they put you through when they drag you out of the cell. You'd kill all of them with your bare hands for a fucking burger. You'd kill them anyway, but the burger is bonus. You can dream. It's all you have left.
The calories will help though. You drag your shivering limbs into gear and retrieve the tray. Something else on it, under the nutrient cup.
An article? Why would they…?
It takes your brain a minute to process what it's looking at. You haven't seen written words in… when was it…
Oh. The article on the director's desk shortly after you got here. Charge on the cover with some vapid model. You, already forgotten. Him, moved on.
Moved… on…
The same words are on this one too. Something about the city moved on. Rangers rebuilt. From what? The Heartbreak Incident? Mass suicides. Oh. Three—
You blink. Rub your eyes. The words don't change. Immutable black on white. That. That can't be right, you haven't—
Three.
Fucking.
Years.
Ago.
They've left you here to rot for three fucking years?
There's a sound like an animal screaming you don't register as yours as you launch the tray across the tiny cell. The paste splatters across the wall, tray clatters to the floor, water soaks the article and ink runs across the floor.
Your chest heaves and you swallow around bile. Sink back onto the mat. You can't let this—
They can't break you like this. You're stronger than ever, despite or because of what they've done. Stronger than they think. You just need to bide your time a little more.
Then you'll show all of them. Rangers included.