Continuing my thread monopoly...one last big fannish score.
Homicide/ House
rated R for death
Part one
BALTIMORE
Another crumpled working girl, the invitation of her fishnet stockings rendered macabre by her being so obviously dead.Bayliss shuddered, grateful for a burst of cold wind off the harbor sparing him too much scrutiny from Frank.Pembleton was on auto-pilot anyway, searching for tracks in the woman’s...Tim amended his thought; she was little more than a girl. Eighteen, tops. Christ. Tim felt an unwanted pang.
To distract himself, he cleaned his glasses.
Pembleton joined him and shrugged.
To fill the silence more than anything else, Tim asked “Nothing?”
“No tracks, no dents, no dings, Bayliss.” Pembleton explained. “She even still had her panties on.” It struck Tim strange that his partner would even know a silly word like “panties” but maybe being the father of a small daughter had changed him.
“Maybe Cox will come up with something,”Tim reassured.
”She better...this is what? The second this month...”
“Third,” Tim corrected, feeling satisfied in spite of himself.
“Whatever. I never thought I’d wish for a strangulation. Blood type...fibers. Bada bing.”
“Frank!”
“I’m sorry, Tim. I hadn’t realized I wasn’t being delicate enough for you...I treated you like a veteran homicide detective, not like the wide-eyed, floppy-haired rookie perpetually mourning Adena Watson. My mistake.”
Bayliss was silent, but Frank thought he noticed his partner touching his freshly shorn hair.
Dr. Cox wasn’t much help when the detectives checked in later that evening.
“Ms. Doe doesn’t appear to be murdered, gentlemen...it kind of looks like it’s not my area.”
”What do you mean?” Frank argued. “She’s dead. Of course it’s your area.”
”Her blood looks...funny. I wouldn’t be comfortable saying anything about whatever elevated this girl’s white count.”
”Why the hell not?”
“Look, fellas,” Cox explained. “By the time they get to me the blood’s stopped moving, and med school was a long time ago. Not to mention I’ve got total gridlock out there.”
“The city that bleeds,” Tim said.
“Don’t I know it...these ‘escorts’ have been dropping like flies, haven’t they?”
“Do what you can.”
“ Don’t I always?”
Bayliss blushed.
Frank contained himself until they were outside.”Funny? What kind of clinical judgment is that?”
”You’re always telling me to lead with my gut. “Tim said. “Dr. Cox is just trying to do the same thing.”
”Great. We drew the only well-adjusted cutter in town. Besides, your gut’s good.”
“Frank...I...”
“Write me a poem, Bayliss, and I’ll take it back. I swear. I’m in no mood now that we’re all alone with this body.”
”I know someone. Really. But he might not be worth the trouble.”
“If you get a psychic, I’ll shoot you.”
PRINCETON
Ah, breakfast...the most important meal of the day. Not if it consisted of cold coffee and a slightly warmer bagel while waiting for the first Vicodin of the day to work its questionable magic, no, it was not. The phone cut into House’s daily list of gripes.
He picked up. “You have reached Gregory House’s office. I can’t answer the phone right now...”
”Dr. House? I know it’s you.”
“Curses. Foiled again.”
“Well, I am a detective, sir. And that is a pretty old trick.”
House became wary. “Who is this?”
”Tim Bayliss, sir. I don’t know if you’ll remember me...”
“Extra points for the honoriffic, Bayliss. I’m fairly certain I wouldn’t forget impeccable manners like that.”
”You spoke in Baltimore...”
”Oh, now I know who you are...terribly earnest young man in the front row with an unquenchable need for strangers’ approval who asked a lot of questions and told an interminable anecdote of how your clean-freak mother wanted you to be a doctor and your daddy cut you down to size.”
Bayliss laughed nervously. “I (continued...)
( continues...) wouldn’t say it was interminable...”
“Well, you weren’t listening to it, Detective Bayliss. Therein the difference of opinion, but that’s not fair...
”
“What’s not, sir?” Tim thought about hanging up. He knew this guy was difficult, but he couldn’t have another dead girl on his conscience.
“You stopped me before I got to the puppy face.”
“I don’t have...”
“Yes, you do. But that’s not why you’re calling long-distance."
(I promise I'll finish.)
Ooh, Erika, I'm liking it.
When you mentioned Bayliss cleaning his glasses, I suddenly had an image of Bayliss and Giles both being nonplussed at the same moment, followed by tandem glasses cleaning.
They might just do that.
Tim's mother was incredibly disappointed when he didn't go to med school, btw.He might have been afraid of germs. I think that was why. So I imagined Tim's relation to medicine like mine to psych. I read a lot about psychology for a woman who *didn't* become a shrink. So an epidemiologist like Dr. House comes to town, I could definitely see him wanting to be present, in a "Sliding Doors" kind of thing.
More...
“You care about these women, don’t you?” House asked. “Even if you don’t know them and you find the way that they lived repugnant to your many sensibilities? Even if they do things that make you shake your head, like put their mouths on strangers’ naughty parts and take drugs?” As he said “drugs”, House felt his pills kick in, and thanked a God he didn’t believe in. “Why?”
“It’s who I am, sir.” Tim said simply. “And I’m not going to apologize for that.”
“Again, you mean...”
”I think we’re getting off track...”
”Oh, Bayliss. We were doing so well. Don’t start hemming and hawing now.”
Using his other hand, House thumped the desk so hard that Wilson paused on his way down the hall to see what was up. “I warned you about the dragon on level four didn’t I? It’s a real heartbreaker, isn’t it?” the oncologist quipped.
“I’m on the phone,” House said. “Long distance.”
“Those women aren’t as sexy as they sound, you know. Well, off to cheat death for another day.”
”What do you know about Baltimore?”
”About as much as any cable subscriber. Why?”
“ I think we should plan a little field trip.”
“I hate it when you look at me like that.”
“Ok, yeah.” Bayliss said. “I’m through apologizing.”
”Great. My colleague and I are thrilled to help with your science project.”
House clicked End, cutting short Tim’s effusive thanks.
“Ok,” Wilson said, “ Let me pretend I have some free will left and ask what’s in Baltimore.”
House told him.
“We have sick hookers in New Jersey, Greg. You probably know...you’d be more likely to watch COPS than I. What’s so mysterious about addiction, hepatitis, and PID?”
“The nifty crab cakes.”House said.
“Ok...if you’re not telling me, the caller must have sobbed.”
House, irritated, said “He did not.”
“Did he beg? Rumor is, you like it when they beg.”
“He called me ‘sir”. All that respect turned my self-effacing little head.’
“OK, fine. Don’t tell me. I’ll just be surprised with the Irregulars.”
Damn, erika. This is great. I cannot
wait
for the inevitable House v. Pembleton confrontation.
A very short Buffy fic, written in response to a challenge in which I was given 30 minutes to write and 15 to edit. The challenge prompt was "the blood that falls from heaven."
There came a point when Buffy had to admit to herself that being the Slayer was no longer just something she did. Being the Slayer was something she was.
Oddly enough, it wasn't some apocalypse or personal tragedy that drove the point home. It was something much, much simpler, so simple that she didn't think she could explain it to Willow or Xander.
And as for when she realized this?
The date was August 17, 1998, a hot, muggy night for patrol. She was in the woods just a few miles from campus and had stopped for a moment to see if she could hear anything unusual when she felt something warm and wet strike her cheek.
She looked up into the treetops, stake at the ready, and yelped in surprise as another drop caught her square in the eye.
After wiping the wetness from her eye, she spent a good two minutes trying to think of what kind of demon might possibly have clear blood before she realized that it had started raining.
