Chapter Text
Seattle, WA
"I really think you'd prefer the pill."
And so begins the last nightmarish minute of Limetown Episode 6. And yes, it has given Alex nightmares. Hearing that last minute is agonizing, but she powers through it. Alex fears if she doesn't listen, she'll forget.
"I'm sorry for losing-"
Every time Lia's voice cuts off, Alex feels her stomach drop. And then it's over. No to be continued. No credits. It's just over.
With a sigh, she closes the podcast. It's four in the morning, and she's in the PNWS office battling another sleepless night. She's learned that sleepless nights are dull. This is also one of those nights where Alex feels the ghost of Lia Haddock's fingers tangled up in her hair. Her lips pressed gently into hers. Her back arched as Alex... it doesn't matter now. Most of the time their night at the airport Radisson feels like a strange dream.
Listening to Limetown is the only way for Alex to remember it was all real.
She remembers the day after Lia's final broadcast. Everyone in the office had tuned in; even Strand couldn't resist listening. It made the day after even more brutal. The entire office had a somber air about it, even amongst the interns. It could have been described as mourning had they known what happened to Lia. Alex spent most of the day in her office. Nic was the only one who knew about her night with Lia. Alex doesn't know how he did it, but not a soul disturbed her that day. Not even a phone call. When the last intern left, Nic came in to her office with a bottle of whiskey. They spent that night tossing around theories, emptying the bottle in their search for the truth. Nothing came of it.
Then time passed, as it is prone to do. Not even Nic could hold on to the disappearance of Lia Haddock that long, not with his own disappearance to investigate.
But Alex couldn't forget. Night in the airport aside, Lia was a journalist like her. A little ethically dubious like her, Alex thinks with a smile. Lia understood though. The need to know the truth, even if she had to risk her life and her career to get it. If it had been Alex faced with going into that cellar... she would have gone in too.
Maybe that was why she re-listened to Limetown. It started as a way to get clues. Pick up on anything that might help Alex figure out what happened to Lia. Then she listened to it a third time, then a fourth time, and eventually she lost count. Listening to Limetown now serves as a particularly torturous way to pass time during the night. And who knows? Maybe one night she'll pick up on that breakthrough clue that brings Lia back.
That's probably the insomnia talking.
Alex rubs her eyes. If she could sleep, she would fall out right on her desk. She wouldn't even need a pillow. But she's accepted for awhile that sleep isn't coming to her so she pulls out a Manila folder stuffed at the very back of her filing cabinet. There's not a label on it, but the folder is bursting with loose papers. Alex remembers one frustrated night shoving everything in there and leaving it where it's been for months.
She must really want to torture herself tonight. Alex unceremoniously empties the folder onto her desk. Her pile of notes, ranging from messy to downright illegible, stare back at her as if to say You couldn't figure it out. She never did have that breakthrough moment. Obviously. Otherwise she wouldn't be here.
But that was months ago. She was tired. Strung out. A fresh perspective might help her find something she missed earlier.
At this hour, she's tired enough to believe herself. She gathers her notes on Limetown and starts sifting through them. She throws away the unreadable papers and tacks potential leads to the wall with an obsessive dedication. Soon enough, she can't see the floor of her office. She also sees shadows in her peripheral vision, but she ignores those. She steps around the mess and continues going through her notes, even though her eyelids are drooping and she yawns every minute or so.
Somewhere between her fifteenth and her twentieth pushpin, she falls asleep.
She's in a parlor. Why it's a parlor, she doesn't know. The walls are cream, and there seems to be no ceiling. No furniture either, but she's standing in an expanse of flowers scattered across the floor. Surely that's what makes a parlor, right? It feels like a parlor, so that's what she's sticking with.
She bends down and picks up a lily. She brings the lily to her nose, staring at its white petals in fascination. Its scent is faint, like a ghost. This one will be perfect.
She steps on roses, marigolds, and other extravagant flowers in favor of more lilies. Thorns prick at her feet, but it is a small sacrifice for the perfect bouquet. Soon enough, Alex has a dozen lilies gathered in her hand.
There's a warm liquid beneath her feet. Alex looks down and sees blood pooling from the soles of her feet. If only she'd worn shoes today.
A pair of bare feet join hers.
"You started early."
Alex looks up into the face of Lia Haddock.
She's different from the last time Alex saw her. Lighter. Airier. Like she might disappear if Alex blinks. Lia eyes the bouquet. "A little old-fashioned, don't you think?"
"Lilies are traditional," Alex says dismissively.
"But they're so dull." Lia plucks up a pink orchid. "Now this one is interesting. Don't you think there's something mysterious about this type of flower?" Alex looks unconvinced. "Well, I like it."
Alex's gaze drifts lazily to the orchid in Lia's hand. Lia is already a mystery. Why does she need flowers too? Still, Alex doesn't want to argue with Lia, not when it's been so long. But orchids? Lia really doesn't know what she's talking about. Then again, she should at least have some say in the preparation of things...
Alex takes the orchid and places it in the middle of the lilies. "There."
A hum of pleasure escapes from Lia. She reaches for Alex from behind, wrapping her arms around Alex's waist. She kisses her neck. "It's just what I wanted," she murmurs.
"Even the lilies?" Alex says nervously.
"Especially the lilies."
Lia rewards Alex with another kiss, this one to the lips. Her lips tastes sweet the way the lilies smell, only her presence is vibrant like the orchid. It is an intoxicating blend, and Alex realizes Lia made the right decision. The flowers drop from Alex's hands as she turns around to pull Lia closer. Anything to close those pesky couple of inches between them.
At some point, they land on the floor, Lia kissing her way down Alex's chest. The scent of flowers washes over Alex, and the petals get caught in her hair. There's so much of everything; Alex fears she might drown in it. Her back arches as Lia kisses her stomach. Her hands struggle to find a hold on the floor, so she settles for pulling Lia back up to her, kissing her on the lips.
Alex finally has to come up for air, although Lia seems to have no trouble breathing. They lay together on the floor in blissful silence. Lia sits up, untangles herself from Alex. Alex almost asks her to stay. The words are right on her lips. She needs more; it's like she's been in a drought.
But a more important thought comes to her.
"Where are you?" Alex asks quietly.
Lia tilts her head. "I'm right here."
"You know what I mean."
Lia smiles secretively. It has the same guarded nature of the smiles she flashed Alex at the airport bar. "I gave you my card. You know where to find me."
But she doesn't. She has only the barest scraps of information to go on, and even then, she can make nothing of them. It kills her because finding things is her job. Lia is counting on her and she... she's given up. How can she break something cruel to her? Lia's smile fades and before Alex can say something that'll fix everything, she's backing away. Lia goes to the forgotten bouquet and picks up the orchid. A pained expression comes over her face.
The orchid is wilting.
"You will find me, won't you Alex?" she says in a smaller voice.
Before Alex can answer, someone yanks her by the shoulder.
"Alex!"
Alex gasps when she feels the hand on her shoulder, nearly slipping off her desk. Her eyes flutter open. Nic stands over her with a concerned expression on his face. "Taking inspiration from Strand's bunker?" he says.
Alex sits up and peels a stray sticky note off her cheek. She doesn't know if an intern put it there or she landed on it during her sleep. "Bad night," she mutters.
Her office is a flurry of papers tacked to the walls. Some of them are connected by tape since she didn't have any string. Forgotten papers lie on the floor. There's a coffee stain on the carpet from a pot of coffee she doesn't remember making. Nic stands in the middle of the pandemonium, looking flabbergasted. "Right. So is there any reason you decided to reopen the Limetown Files?"
"I don't know," Alex says with a yawn. "I thought maybe I'd see something new if I went through the case again."
"Did you find anything new?"
"Doesn't feel like it."
Alex gets up from her desk, joints sore from sleeping in such an awkward position. Her clock reads 7:17. Not the worst sleep she's gotten. She steps on a piece of paper and sighs. Her office looks like the kind of trashed that comes with a wild party, not the frantic, desperate investigation of an insomniac. She doesn't want the interns to have to clean this up. Or see it.
Nic helps her clean. As they're taking pushpins out, he says, "I'm sorry about Lia. It must be hard not knowing where she is."
"It feels like everyone's forgotten about her."
Nic is quiet which either means he doesn't agree with her and is too polite to say so or he agrees with her but still has some conflicting points. "There's just not much we can do," he says. "We don't have the resources to look for her, and the people who... took her probably did a pretty thorough job of covering up their tracks. Trust me, if a group doesn't want to be found, they're going to make sure no one can trace them."
"I know. I spent five days looking for you." She doesn't mean for that to come out as bitter, but it's been a long night.
"Alex, I'm not trying to shoot you down," Nic says. She knows that too. "But we have literally nothing to go on."
Alex swipes the Manila folder off the floor with unnecessary forcefulness. "I know that, I've been over that with myself more times than-" A small piece of paper falls out of the folder.
A small piece of paper that has Lia Haddock's name printed on the front and her phone number written on the back.
"Oh my god, I thought I'd lost this!" Alex snatches it off the ground.
"What is that?" Nic asks.
Alex brandishes the card before Nic. "Her cell phone number. I got it when we were at Audio Expo!"
"When we were...?" Blush creeps into Nic's cheeks. "Oh. You got her number?"
"I did, but I thought I lost it when we flew back to Seattle!" Alex says.
"You got Lia Haddock's phone number?"
"Yeah!"
He blinks. "Wow. Go Alex."
"So this is something, right?" Alex says.
Nic inspects the card. "I don't want to say yes but... maybe. Can I take the number down?"
"Go right ahead." Nic grabs a pen and paper and scribbles it down. "So what are you going to do with it?" Alex asks.
"I know an information specialist who might know what to do with this," Nic explains. "She's good at digging up, uh, information."
MK. Alex doesn't know her directly but through editing episodes of TANIS and Nic's very limited grasp of the Internet, she can deduce that's who he's referring to. She's pretty sure Nic enjoys the mystery of having elusive contacts.
Nic sets Lia's card on her desk. "All right, I gotta set up the recording booth. Strand's gonna be here in fifteen minutes, and he'll probably want coffee."
Right. The Black Tapes. Her other conspiracy-laden mystery. She'd completely forgotten the interview with Strand until Nic brought it up. And knowing him, he'll show up early.
"All right. I'll be down in a minute."
Alex grabs the Limetown folder and puts it back in the filing cabinet, this time closer to the front. She gives her office one final once-over. It's more or less back to its usual clutter. Though she suspects it's going to get messier in he coming weeks. Alex starts to head out when she stops at her desk.
She picks up Lia's card. The edges are worn, and the red lettering is a bit faded. But the handwritten message is still clear:
Don't let it break you.
Alex smiles. She won't.