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It wasn't that Emma thought little of Councilor Morgan in those early days. Just that she didn't particularly think of her at all.
Shallow, maybe, was the word she was looking for. Shallow words, shallow smiles, shallow personality. A pool to dip her toes in, pleasantly warm, nothing wrong with it, but soon enough it always came time to dry off her feet and search out more challenging waters. Clever minds and sharp tongues were in no short supply in their profession, so if someone were to stand out they'd need a little bit more.
She was nice enough. Pleasant. Always ready with a quick smile or a coffee in peace offering, practiced nods and well placed encouragement making her the perfect sounding board when Emma got carried away with her thoughts. One of the few attorneys Emma had faced in court that proved herself adult enough to set aside wins or losses (and losses and losses and losses) to maintain a friendly acquaintanceship. Always happy to listen, echoing your own thoughts back at you so smoothly it felt natural, the fact she hadn’t voiced a single opinion of her own not dawning on you until she was long gone.
Maybe next time, Emma would tell herself. Next time she’d prod a little, reciprocate, show Morgan that even professionalism didn’t mean things had to be so one-sided. Next time.
It always seemed to slip her mind in the moment. She just hadn’t cared enough to bother.
David Ashur changed things. David Ashur made Emma start paying attention.
She wasn’t sure why it surprised her to find out that Morgan had friends. You see someone in one context your entire relationship, one facet of their personality curated for a very specific job, and you let yourself forget that there could be any more to them. As if Morgan was no different than the adjutants, powered down and tucked away when there were no trials left to preside over. A thing made for mild small talk, gentle ribbing, and taking losses in court, nothing else interesting or nuanced underneath the surface.
Except it turned out that Evangeline Morgan was a human being, with all the long nights, favorite foods, dead end hobbies, guilty pleasure trash TV, and uncomfortable interpersonal relationships that came with being a person. Morgan had a life, an apartment, an old college friend, probably a worn out pair of sweatpants she'd been meaning to toss out for years. She’d had an old college friend who died. Who she’d been told comited suicide. Part of Emma wondered if Morgan even realized she was grieving that.
She wasn’t sure where the thought came from. No real evidence, no concrete basis in reality, but a gut instinct so strong that against her character Emma was willing to bet on it.
Piece by piece, moment to moment, between bits of testimony and the most audacious bluffs she’d ever heard, Emma was starting to realize how much of Councilor Morgan she’d overlooked. Underestimated. Written off. Emma took pride in her work, in putting the pieces together, in walking into that courtroom with every avenue explored and each piece of evidence wrung out for every drop of information she could scrape from the bone. Emma liked sure bets, no room for doubt, laying out the facts so cleanly that even the most weasley attorney out there couldn’t slither free from checkmate.
Morgan didn’t play by Emma’s rules. Morgan delighted in dancing along the cliff’s edge, waiting until someone reached out (be it to steady her or give a firm push) so that she might grab their wrist and wrench them over into the abyss. Then she'd look back at you, to the gallery and the jury, and she'd grin. A new piece of the person, an angle previously unconsidered, a rush of blood and adrenaline Emma didn’t typically associate with her time at the bench. More than cleverness, more than skill, this was a woman who played the game. And it wasn't the game Emma knew.
Nine losses, maybe Morgan was built for homicide cases. She certainly took to it like a fish to water.
The problem was, now that she had started looking Emma wasn’t sure that she could stop. Another piece, another, the jagged edges so misaligned with one another that she could hardly believe they were from the same puzzle. Every new facet painted its own picture of a woman that refused to harmonize with the rest. A woman who strong-armed her way into the scene of a dear friend's death, a woman who carried a concealed firearm with her into the courtroom, a woman who would put her neck on the line for the sake of a late friend's automated dependent. Her words, action, inflection, all a mismatched jumble of intent that only grew more confusing in concert with one another. An amalgam of ideas that Emma couldn’t parse. Information overload.
Grief manifests itself in all sorts of ways. Morgan’s involved dragging them all through a mockery of a trial twice over and nearly sparking an international incident over an illegal AI that potentially murdered its own creator.
Maybe the journal was the start of it. Who better to testify on a person’s character than their closest friends? For a man like David Ashur, the fact he was dead only served to strengthen his statements in her eyes. Emma would always put the job first, had read over the entries about the android a hundred times over to put her case together, but she was also a thorough woman. Of course she’d read the whole journal from front to back.
And if her eyes lingered on the entries about his friend Red, one might call it a professional curiosity. More pieces for the puzzle, though it only seemed to throw the whole image into further confusion than before. It was hard to picture a person like Councilor Morgan in the silhouette of a woman Mr. Ashur built through his words, opening her home wordlessly to a friend in need and biting her tongue to stifle laughter over the word manwhore.
Kindness by omission. Claiming coldhearted greed to save the life of a machine her friend once called his daughter. Maybe in the right light, in the right hand, that impossible puzzle might fit together after all. Maybe Emma needed to take the advice of he who came before her and learn how to watch the eyes.
Morgan did have very nice eyes.
Evangeline Morgan was beautiful. How had Emma not realized that before? From the start she'd known she was objectively attractive, a fact noted in passing, but Morgan was beautiful. One more thing she’d overlooked.
The attorney she met outside the courtroom was controlled in every aspect, from the sweeping motions of gloved hands to the long strands of hair clipped into her usual updo, all carefully curated to present a specific image. Her outfit crisp and professional, those clean slimming lines of her bustier, little glints of gold to catch the eye and flashes of red in the lining of her blazer and the dusting of her eyeshadow that felt like something biting bleeding through the thin veneer of civility.
There was that sharp glint of her knowing gaze, the mocking edge to a smirk, the play of her fingers through the air as if to push and pull the conversation like a conductor. Every tilt of the head was both threat and invitation, but she shined the brightest behind the bench with a verdict breathing down her neck. That’s when her ever rigid death grip on control would loosen, the flash of her fangs to cornered prey, giving Emma glimpse at the edges of a woman she’d been too preoccupied to realize had been there this entire time.
There was more honesty to Morgan in those moments than Emma had ever spotted over friendly chats and professional rivalry. Collecting the truth of her in shattered pieces and coaxed moments of honesty had become something of an addiction.
Was it just the need to overcorrect her past misjudgement, a self-inflicted punishment for underestimating the opposition? Perhaps her natural curiosity had kicked in, in all of the worst ways. Maybe she needed a new face to turn over in her mind, lest her thoughts drift back to Heartbreak and a profile she’d torn to shreds and rebuilt a thousand times over. Obsession or puppy love?
Emma was the one to invite her for coffee this time, a rarity in all the time they’d known each other but not strictly unheard of. They sat across from each other in the cafe she’d recommended, a little overpriced but just populated enough to offer the illusion of privacy. Morgan, as always, did all the right things. She nodded where it was appropriate, spoke just often enough and with a touch of specificity to prove she was listening, prompted Emma to fill the silences with a charm practiced enough to read as natural.
Once upon a time, Emma would have believed it. A wicked smile against the rim of her mug meant nothing, not when her eyes were glazed and distracted while her clothes smelled of smoke.
A funny vice in this day and age, to smoke cigarettes. An addiction you had to work for. Vaping had gone out of fashion in the last few decades, sure, but at least refills were easy enough to find at any gas station or corner store on the street. Genuine tobacco on the other hand? That was not easy to find these days, unless you knew the right places to buy, unless you were that committed to avoiding having every breath of your fix logged in the system to be accessed later.
(Emma thought that was a silly idea, to be quite honest. Did they think the state didn’t know? Think that a box wasn't checked the very first time a pack of cigarettes was purchased on their card? Tag added, advertisements shifted, insurance adjusted? The amount of fines they were willing to rack up directly correlated to their risk factor, to how pricey those fines were in the first place?)
Morgan was distracted. That much was obvious, even if she hadn’t let a drop of it show on her face. It was in the eyes. David was right about that much.
Emma was through letting these details pass her by. She let the dip in conversation hang for a moment, stifling a persistent yawn, before peering thoughtfully over at her… friend? Workplace acquaintance? Subject of study? “You’ve been quiet lately.” A blink of surprise, thoughts churning behind Morgan's expression, Emma fighting back the pleased smile that wanted to crawl lazy and accomplished across her face. “The Ikariya haven't been bothering you, have they?”
Half of an olive branch, an excuse should she want to take it, half genuine concern. Organized crime was a tricky business, and Emma couldn't imagine it was easy to get off that payroll once you'd been put on it (be it through the stick or the carrot). Morgan, however, gave a dismissive wave of her hand at the thought. “Worried about me? I had no idea you were so sweet, Emma. Nothing to lose sleep over, I’ve got that situation handled.”
“So if the Hound isn’t trying to repay your services with a slit throat,” she laid out her words carefully, a trap one had no choice but to walk into with open eyes. “What’s got you so distracted today?”
A moment’s pause, the rope snagging taunt, realization flickering under the surface that Morgan had brushed off her most believable lie. Her mug lowered down to the table between them, a gloved finger lightly tracing the rim, a mind pondering in real time whether embellishing the truth was worth the hassle. “I was thinking…” That finger paused, eyes staring down into her quickly cooling decaf, half-formed bluffs clattering to the table in favor of gambling on honesty. “I was thinking about Rogers. I was thinking about the knife.”
Huh. Emma wasn’t sure what she’d been expecting, but it certainly hadn’t been anything like that. “I couldn’t imagine you getting caught up on loose ends after your client walked. Any thoughts on our mystery murderer?”
“Absolutely not, and I don’t intend to have a single thought unless whatever poor Rust bastard ends up taking the fall asks for my services. Even then it’d have to be quite the payday, I’ve done my time as a mob lawyer and I doubt any of the Rust can hold a candle to an Ikariya salary.” Morgan gave a sigh, the type that was all for show, like she was trying to disguise the way her tone shifted more serious and thoughtful. “No, not the murders. Just the knife. You remember how Rogers kept going on up on the stand. Nonsense, of course.”
Of course. Evil, he’d said, like it would convince her an object could be evil when Emma couldn’t truly even believe a person could be. The sort of talk about boogymen and predeterminism that gave the truly depraved the only excuse they needed for their actions.
“Evil,” Morgan muttered, a mocking echo of a man who truly believed in his words. “An evil so strong it taints the world around it, infects the innocents caught in its wake, makes everyone and everything worse by the mere fact of its existence. Do you believe in an evil like that, Emma?”
Were these the thoughts that kept Morgan up at night? How unlike her.
“I believe that Officer Rogers believed it.”
Morgan hummed at the response, a little disappointed, and picked up her coffee again. Somehow it felt like an opportunity lost, a puzzle shattered, questions slipping between Emma’s fingers before she knew to ask them.
Some might call it invasive, going behind someone’s back, tracking down their favorite bar and showing up unannounced. Emma might even be inclined to agree with the sentiment if it hadn’t been such an easy thing to do. A few questions here and there, a recent whisper on the grapevine about some midtown bar it was suddenly tradition to celebrate a case at, a quick peek at their social media prominently featuring a familiar seafoam add proudly shaking drinks.
There was a certain amount of smug pride, catching the way Morgan had frozen in the doorway of Kintsugi when she spotted Emma already there having a drink. Just a moment, mask clicking back into place, greeting one another like meeting here together had always been this evening’s plan, but Emma saw it. That split second moment. It tasted like a victory, soothed over with a surprisingly tasteful selection of wine.
If you asked Emma why she’d come here, why go to all this trouble, she honestly couldn’t say. Just… something scratching at the back of her mind. A thought she couldn’t let go of, no matter how many times she’d tried to brush it away, a splinter caught under her skin at just the wrong angle. A silly thought. The type of silly that haunts you at all hours until the curiosity is satiated once and for all.
She’d just realized- all those times she’d talked Morgan’s ear off, rambling about profiling and Heartbreak and the investigation, never once had she gotten her opinion. Not really, not beyond parroting Emma’s words right back at her. At the time she hadn’t cared. It hadn’t been about Morgan, not really, she’d practically been acting as a breathing stand in for a rubber duck. Maybe she had practice with that, being friends with David Ashur. Emma hadn’t cared.
Suddenly, without warning, without reason, without prompting, Emma cared very very much. Suddenly Emma couldn’t bear going one single night longer without knowing.
“HBK?” Morgan’s tone is incredulous, her whiskey sour frozen in the air halfway between the bartop and her enticingly parted lips. “You’re still working on that one? He hasn’t killed again since his sixth, there’s no new data to draw conclusions from.”
They had, Emma knew they had, she just hadn’t found them yet. Little notes scattered across a city, waiting for her to line up the letters. “Humor me?” she asked instead, not letting Morgan bait her into that particular trap. “Focus on one thing too long and you start to spin yourself in circles, invent clues out of thin air to convince yourself you’re moving forward. A new perspective is a valuable tool, and your way of thinking things through is different enough from mine to provide unseen insight.”
In that moment, Emma had no idea what Morgan’s expression might be. Be it polite smile, bewildered gape, thoughtful frown, or that ever deadly smirk, there was no way to know. Emma couldn’t know, because every ounce of her attention was instead laser focused on Morgan’s eyes.
“Let’s assume you’re right about Heartbreak killing before,” she acquiesced, like the leap in logic was a favor she granted Emma to indulge her. “The victims’ similarities hadn’t been a trend in deaths up to that point, so that presumes the MO was a conscious choice made when they started killing with the revolver. Maybe they knew all the deaths by that gun would be tied to each other anyway, so they invented a pattern to lead the police along by the nose. A clue meaty enough to dig their teeth into, but would ultimately lead only to dead ends. Brown hair, brown eyes, they really aren’t uncommon. Just specific enough to drive us crazy, commonplace enough to be anywhere or anyone.”
“And? What does that tell you?”
“All this attention,” Morgan gestured with her glass. “The articles, the protests, the symbol, I doubt he wanted any of it. If your read about the perfectionism is accurate, I can’t imagine all this pomp is anything but irritating to him, eager to slide back under the radar and resume terrorizing all us citizens in peace.”
“Hm.”
“Hm?”
Emma blinked. “Oh, sorry, it’s just- it’s an interesting point.”
Morgan’s eyebrows raised in slow increments. “But?”
“But-” But nothing, but everything, but something about it twisted hot and breathtaking in Emma’s ribs. “I don’t think I agree. Using that gun, picking those victims, they were all choices that Heartbreak made despite surviving this long on their own. Six- Five perfect crime scenes wrapped in a bow, showing off and acting out in equal measure. Maybe they want to fade into the background, maybe the Heartbreak killings were a mistake, but what were those six murders if not someone calling out to be seen? To be known?”
Who was it that they wanted to see?
You could lose yourself in eyes so red, drown in them until there was nothing left of you, and then and only then might you catch sight of the dark thing lurking underneath the surface. Morgan tilted her head, taking a long sip of her drink. “And? Do you know them, Emma?”
Morgan was a terrible kisser.
Clumsy, bitey, like she had something to prove and nowhere productive to channel the chip on her shoulder. Awkward in a way that shouldn’t be nearly so endearing, but maybe that in itself was proof that Emma was too far gone to be trusted. Obsessed with the way Morgan grabbed for her needily, chased after her like a ghost, leaned down to meet her without pausing for breath.
And when Emma chuckled softly, pushed her back against the wall with a gentle hand, the furrow of her brow was almost adorable. “I’ve never been great at anything the first time,” she muttered, like a curse, like an excuse, like pleading wrapped tight in barbed wire so you might mistake the shame for something else instead. Emma crowded in close, peeling off that glove finger by finger, and confirmed that the second try was in fact better. And the third.
There was a callus on the knuckle of Morgan’s middle finger, unbecoming of a woman who’d only gotten her license to carry back in June.
For a few moments, swimming her way back up from the depths of REM sleep, all Emma saw was a drifting miasma of red. Pooling blood dripping down in sheets like the world's most gruesome curtains, pulsing heartbeat and flushed cheeks, an art piece of morbid yearning concocted by the only half shaken weight of sleep. A second, a breath, to peel back sleep and allow the world to settle as it really was.
Un instant.
Curtains of blood lingering and shifting dreamlike as it focused into the reality of long strands of red hair. Red eyes hovering over Emma, far closer than she’d ever seen them before, so close that even without her glasses Emma could make out every distinct freckle on her cheeks.
They lay together in Emma’s bed, warm and naked and comfortable, until she awoke to Morgan leant over her sleeping body. One hand laid lightly against Emma’s throat. At this angle, the play of soft light through her window, the twisting of shadows around their body, one might almost think there was no color to be found in those eyes at all.
Morgan could kill her. Morgan could do anything she liked, if she really wanted to.
Yet all Emma did in response was hum lightly, stretching out her limbs like a cat, blinking up slowly at the woman she craved with a relentlessness that could only be obsession. “Are you going to break my heart, Evangeline?”
Un instant.
The shifting of blankets, the moving of weight, without a word Eva pulled away to collect her clothes where they’d been left folded on Emma’s dresser. She paused to pick a hair off the pillow, to fiddle with the switch of her lamp. No, not to fiddle with it. Swiping the lightswitch with the edge of her shirt, wiping away any fingerprints.
Erasing her presence from Emma’s bedroom like a crime scene.