Chapter Text
Sometime in 2000
He, perhaps for the first time in his life, had arrived too late.
Right before he rang the doorbell, he had heard noises coming from inside. He was thus surprised when no one came to open the door immediately thereafter. After ringing the doorbell a few more times, he tried the doorknob to learn that the door was unlocked.
Worried, he peeked inside and was confronted with the sight of her sprawled on the floor, her thick, shiny blond hair dyed red with her own blood.
He dropped the bouquet of roses he was clutching in his hands, a gift to commemorate their first date, in his rush to give immediate aid.
While his right hand wildly, desperately searched for a pulse, his left fumbled for the cellular phone in his blazer pocket that he almost left at home for being too bulky and unwieldly.
Unfortunately, she was gone. The level of despair that he felt upon confirming her demise surprised him as he had not known her for a long time. Then he realized that his feelings were she had provided him with a respite from his dreary life. She reminded him of hope and endless possibilities. She was a splash of color against a backdrop of black and white. That was why, even if he was in Las Vegas for only a short period of time, he had surprised himself when he said yes when she asked him out to dinner.
After calling the emergency number, he crouched beside her to wait, to keep her company so she would no longer be alone in her death.
The urge to brush away the lock of blond hair that had fallen on her face was nearly irresistible, but he knew that he should not mess with the crime scene more than he already had.
She did not die peacefully. Assorted knickknacks that one tend to collect in one's home were strewn haphazardly around the woman, pieces of furniture were overturned, electronics were destroyed; all of which indicated a struggle.
(Also, the stench of death had not yet permeated the air, as it was wont to do over time.)
If only he had come a few minutes earlier, he might have been able to save her life. That knowledge would haunt him for the rest of his life.
It was only then that he noticed that her body was oddly distorted, her right arm extended, as if she was reaching out.
Reaching...
For something?
He crouched to see what it was that she was reaching for: perhaps the last object she had seen before she took her last breath.
There. Underneath the couch.
Slowly, his hand reached underneath the gray couch covered with huge cabbage roses in full bloom.
His hand closed on a small object made of plastic that let out a squeak of protest at his manhandling.
His eyes widened when he was able to bring the object out and away from the couch.
It was a three-eyed green monstrosity grinning inanely at him.
A toy.
It was only then that he surveyed the room he was in.
(He was getting soft in his old age, committing rookie mistakes. Maybe because he was too emotionally involved.)
The walls were wallpapered with pictures of her-
Her and a tiny, bespectacled, gap-toothed little girl.
A little girl!
The thought of preserving the crime scene quickly forgotten, he was galvanized into action by his new mission of finding the young child. He might be too late to save the woman but he might (he desperately hoped to) be just in time to help her little girl.
Thankfully, the apartment was small a one-bedroom unit with a kitchenette that also doubled as the dining area.
“Miss?” He called out as he stepped inside a small but clean bedroom which was almost overwhelming in its femininity.
It was obvious that whoever killed her had not yet had the opportunity to ransack the bedroom.
Then he heard it: sniffles.
Thank goodness.
“Miss?” He called again.
There it was again, the sound emanating from the closet.
“Miss?” He deliberately made his steps louder, so as not to scare the little girl. Slowly, slowly, he opened the closet door.
Scared, huge eyes greeted him; eyes that were enlarged by the thick, coke bottle glasses that framed them.
(Her eyes reminded him of a similar pair of eyes, this time steel blue, sporting the same terrified, helpless, and confused expression that assailed him all those years ago.)
A young girl, about five or six in age, was cowering at a corner of the closet. Tear tracks ran down her chubby cheeks, her pigtails were askew, and two hands covered her ears.
“Hello.” He tried to make his voice as soothing as possible, but he only succeeded in making his accent more pronounced. “Don't be afraid, young miss. Help is on the way.”
She slowly turned to him. “I'm not s'posed to talk to strangers.” She sniffed before wiping her runny nose with her sleeve.
“That's good.” Was all he could reply. He slowly lowered himself to her height so they could converse eye-to-eye.
“And mommy said that I have to hide here and be quiet until she come and get me.” She continued, breaking her earlier edict of not talking to strangers.
“Did your mother say why you have to hide here?”
“Nope,” she replied with a frown. Then, her voice dropped to a whisper. “But we always play hide and seek whenever daddy's friends visit."
“Your father's friends?”
She nodded, her lopsided pigtails bobbing up and down. "I don't like their faces. They looked mean. And they always shout at mommy. You're not supposed to shout at mommy.” Then, her eyes moved from his face to his hands, something catching her attention.
He looked down and saw that he was still holding on to the little green thing he found in the living room. He extended the toy to her. “Is this yours?”
She nodded again and immediately grabbed the toy the moment it was offered at her.
“This is LGM,” she told him. Then, almost shyly, with a small hand cupping her mouth, “I'm Felicity. I'm six but don't tell my mom I told you.”
“Alright, Felicity.” He replied solemnly. “I promise never to tell.”
“Are you her boyfriend?” She asked him.
“Oh, my.” He could only gape, wondering how much her mother told her about him considering she didn't tell him about her remarkable little girl. “No, I'm not her boyfriend.” Not yet. (And it was only now that she was gone that he realized that he had desperately wanted, no, needed to be hers.)
“Oh,” she deflated. “I think I like you. Maybe you could be her boyfriend.”
“I'm so sorry, Felicity.”
She pouted for a while before a thought occurred to her. “Mommy's going to be here any moment now.” She smiled at him, quick and bright. “She'll come get me after daddy's friends go away. You'll meet her and you could ask her if she could be your girlfriend.”
He didn't think that a little girl could make him blush but he felt the tips of his ears reddening nonetheless. He forced himself to the more important parts of her speech. “You saw your daddy's friends arrive today?”
“They're not s'pposed to see me but sometimes I peek.” She admitted. “I can be sneaky and quiet so I crawled out the closet and opened the door a little but one of daddy's friends started shouting and made my ears hurt, so I hid again.”
“I see.” Was all he could reply. Thank goodness for small favors.
They fell quiet, with Felicity playing with her little green alien, muttering under her breath.
After a moment, she turned to him to ask, “When do you think mommy will come get me?”
The question went straight to his heart.
He was at loss at how to answer her question, so he simply replied, “I don't know, sweetheart. But is it okay if I wait here with you?”
She shrugged, which he took as an assent. She seemed to be struggling with something before she let it all out.
“You talk funny.” She said after a while.
“I do?”
“Yeah.” Then, “Are you James Bond?”
Despite the situation, he couldn't help but smile at her question. His similarity with the popular character ended with the accent, a love of formal wear, and a common (former) employer.
“Aren't you too young to be watching Mr. Bond?”
She shrugged.
“No, little miss. I'm not James Bond. The name's Pennyworth. Alfred Pennyworth.”