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October 5, 2011, 4:35 P.M.
Seventeen hours, twenty three minutes, forty seconds.
Forty one-
Forty two-
Forty three-
Norman Jayden stares at the clock on his desk. His eyes squint to follow the second hand, invisible to anyone not counting the seconds. Because that’s what it's come to– counting the seconds until the symptoms subside. If he doesn’t do something he’ll cave. It’s been seventeen hours and twenty four minutes since his last dose of Tripto. A personal best, he thinks, which would feel more satisfying if there wasn’t a jackhammer going off in his skull. The small clock face starts to spin, slowly morphing into a spiral of numbers and hands. Norman closes his eyes but the sensation follows him, like he’s on a merry-go-round designed to trigger an aneurysm. For the third day in a row rain pours down into Philadelphia, deafeningly loud against the roof of the precinct. The second hand passes twelve again.
Twenty four minutes.
Norman folds his arms over the files and leans forward to rest his head. Up close the reports on Jeremy Bowles and his father are nothing more than blurry black lines across the page. It only makes his headache worse, like there’s pressure building behind his eyes. When Norman lifts his head there’s two drops of blood, already starting to wrinkle the white paper. His hand comes away from his nose stained dark red.
“Fuck. Just– fuck.”
He stands up too fast, his hands catch the back of the chair like a crutch. Blood on the paper, blood on the chair, blood starting a thin trail down his lips– cold sweat on the back of his neck. There are showers in the back locker room, and a good chance Norman will pass out trying to get there, but addicts can’t be choosers.
When he showed up here a few days ago they’d stuck him in an empty office in the back of the building and told him to sit tight. At the time he’d felt a little offended, a little arrogant; now all he felt was relief that he wouldn’t have to walk through the bullpen looking five minutes away from death. Leaning against the wall for support, Norman keeps one hand loosely shielding his nose. It’s a secluded area, but not restricted.
By the time he pushes the door to the locker room open, he can feel the trickle of blood at the bottom of his chin. Seventeen hours, some encouragement this is. By some small miracle the showers are empty, so Norman picks the furthest one from the door and trips over his shoes as he starts yanking clothing over his head. His white undershirt gets caught and brushes against the blood on his nose. His gun and ID tossed the floor with his pants, he all but crashes into the stall and yanks the plastic liner shut behind him. Norman’s head pounds behind his eyes, so hard that he sees black spots in the corners of his vision as he fumbles for the faucet handle. He pushes it all the way to the left, braces himself for the shock that will hopefully clear out whatever is in his fucking head; he must really be losing it, because the water barely feels like anything at all. He stands under it anyway, one hand braced against the wall, breathing in more water than air. After a few minutes the pressure slowly starts to ebb, enough that he can keep himself upright and scrub at the blood and sweat on his skin. The water pooling around his feet is tinged red for only half a second. Finally, Norman feels the temperature as his body starts to shake. He turns the water off and reaches out blindly to one side of the curtain for his clothes. His skin is still wet when he pulls them on.
For a blissful, proud moment, everything feels almost normal. Steady breathing, steady heart rate, no more bleeding– no Tripto. The locker room still empty, Norman slides down the wall outside and collapses to the floor with his eyes shut.
“Don’t take this the wrong way, man, but you look like a wet dog.”
Norman opens his eyes suddenly feeling so, so much worse.
“You’re not supposed to be here.”
“Neither are you. Don’t you have a killer to catch?”
Norman tilts his head slowly, enough to look at his company out of the corner of his eye. The dull ache at his temples starts again, his chest caves like someone took a vacuum to his lungs.
“This is real, you can’t be here. I haven’t used anything in seventeen hours, Jack. Not ARI, not anything.” He doesn’t say Tripto, like saying it out loud will jinx his efforts.
“Seventeen hours,” The late agent Jack Reilly hums beside him. “And yet, here I am. You must’ve really missed me.”
He smiles all too casually, like Norman’s not getting his heart broken all over again.
“Seriously, though, why are you in here? You alright?” Jack sounds genuinely concerned and waits patiently while Norman struggles to come up with an answer. He presses his fingertips to his forehead, trying to relieve the pressure in his skull. It’s not working very well.
“The shower,” he says after a few seconds. “I was in the shower.”
“Are you sure about that?” Jack’s voice seems to circle Norman’s head, in and out of both ears as he looks on with sympathy.
“Of course I’m fucking s–” Norman grabs at his dry clothing. Dry, unwrinkled, the way he’d left his apartment this morning. His hands still clenching dry cotton, Norman lets his head fall back against the wall. Under different circumstances, he’d pretend there aren’t tears pricking at the corners of his eyelids.
Jack sighs. “C’mon, Norman, you’re smarter than that. Five o’clock on a Wednesday, not one person has come in? You actually made it here without passing out? I know the symptoms, man, you should be a pile on the floor right now.”
Norman rubs a hand across his eyes. “Oh what else, the fact that I’m talking to my dead ex?”
“Hey, easy there, you can’t call me an ex if we never broke up.”
“Oh, fuck off,” Norman groans, trying to hide the smile from the corner of his mouth.
“Would you really have broken up with me? Remember, you did say I was the love of your life.”
“Yeah, and I meant it.” Norman mumbles. Jack must've still heard him, because looks pleased with himself. In his dreams, this always feels different. Hazy, more like memories than new events. It feels safer when it’s his subconscious doing what the subconscious does. Norman doesn’t feel sober. He feels sick, like he’s in a fever dream. Everything is familiar but. . . not right. He tries his best to brush it off, instead focusing on the feeling of Jack next to him again after a year. “So if I’m not here, where the hell am I?”
Jack nudges his shoulder. “What were you doing before this? Where did you come from?”
“I was doing paperwork. I put my head down— “
Norman lifts his head from the desk in his office.
The paper on the Bowles kid is spotless. Was he fucking dreaming? Dry clothes, no headache, no blood stains.
“First mystery solved.” Relief washes over him when he hears Jack’s voice. Second mystery solved. Not a dream, a hallucination. Is that what you wanted, Norman? You know this isn’t him.
“Why are you still here?” Norman asks. He blinks and Jack’s in front of him, leaning back against the desk.
“You tell me. I mean, this is kinda your thing.” He shrugs.
Norman stares at the floor and swallows any sound judgment he has left. “I don’t want you to go.” It comes out in a whisper, and it doesn’t make him feel any better. He looks up. “Tell me I have to let you go.”
When Jack looks down at him, there’s something Norman can’t read. Familiar, but not right. This isn’t him.
“And what if I don’t?” Jack says instead. “What if you could see me whenever you want?”
It’s almost insulting, the low blows coming from his drug-starved hallucination. “You think I don’t want that? You’re dead , Jack, and no matter how much I wish you weren’t, this isn’t fucking real.”
“It can be.” Norman pushes the chair backwards as Jack moves to the floor in a fluid motion, kneeling in front of him. “If you take it, I can be.”
He knows what Jack is asking him before he sees it. Jack takes Norman’s left hand in his own, pulls him forward until both their hands are on the handle of the desk drawer. Norman doesn’t move away.
“If I get clean–”
“You might see me again, for a day or two, but that’s it. Then you’ll be sober, and you won’t have this. You might have dreams, if you're lucky, but who says that’s not from the drugs, too?” Jack pulls the chair forward, inch by inch, until there’s no space between them. “Do you trust yourself to be a good profiler without this? Without me?”
Norman doesn’t say anything. His ears are ringing, the edges of his vision start to fade like the static on a television.
“You’ll lose me, again, and this time you won’t have a job to fall back on. Take it.”
Jack opens the drawer, and Norman finally pulls his hand away when his fingertips touch glass. Jack doesn’t resist, just picks the item up himself and holds it flat in his palm. An offering. They’re almost eye level now, Jack still with one knee on the floor. He can feel the way Jack is staring at him, almost violent, desperate, and Norman has to relent. It’s not real, he tells himself for the millionth time, although he’s not sure he knows what that means anymore.
“He wouldn’t say that. The Jack Reilly that I knew wouldn't say that.” Norman’s voice shakes with false defiance, but he’s not looking at the other agent anymore. The small, blue tube glows in the dark light of the office. It’s still raining.
“Well I’m not your Jack, am I?” He says cruelly. “But unfortunately for you, I’m the closest thing you’ll ever have again. And I’m telling you to take the vial, Norman.”
Something between a laugh and a sob escapes his lips before he can help it. Why couldn't it just be him?
“You’re in my head. That’s not fair.” As he says it, voice barely above a whisper, his hand is already reaching out to meet Jack’s. He hesitates enough that Jack flips his hand over Norman’s and presses the vial into his palm. He feels Jack’s free hand come around the back of his neck, pulling him down and closer. It’s familiar and comforting and not quite right, but Norman falls for it anyway.
“I know,” Jack says softly, and he sounds the way Norman remembers. “Everything’s gonna be just like it was. You trust me, right?”
He doesn’t, but he wants to, so he nods.
“Good. This is a good thing, Norman, I promise."
Sure. Eighteen hours. It doesn’t matter. Maybe I’ll get lucky– maybe this’ll be the one that kills me.
But he’s never been that lucky, and when he opens his eyes he’s completely alone, holding an empty vial that he doesn’t remember taking.