#and over time the kid (who's overheard their moms talking about adam late at night a few times) puts the pieces together

[unofficialadamtaurus]

Bro if we ever get a rwby next!gen, how cool would it be if Blake and Yang's kid meets and trains with an older, survived but weakened Adam post-V6 and doesn't know it's him until they find his old jacket and they realise who he is but Everything's Difference Now and ahhh!

I don't personally care for next-generation or kid-centric fics but you do you

[luverofralts]

Post Arkhelios

“Roman! Roman wake up! Roman!”

Malika held her eldest grandchild in her arms, gently trying to shake him into consciousness. He wasn’t responding.

“Mom? What’s going-”

Adam stopped mid sentence, frozen at the scene before him. He hadn’t known what to expect when he got a desperate call from his mother telling him to bring an ambulance to Factory Park, only that whatever it was, it was bad enough that his mother would actually call him.

“How did this happen? When did you find him? Is he breathing?”

Adam knelt on the ground and gently removed his nephew from his mother’s arms. He lay Roman down on the ground again, noting the significant amount of blood that was already soaking into the stone. Probing around the obvious injury to Roman’s chest, Adam tried to quickly assess the rest of the damage. There was too much blood to accurately tell, but it was his initial assessment that Roman had suffered at least one gun shot wound.

Malika wailed as he worked to find a pulse. It was unbearable to watch. She had seen crime scene photos from Abraham’s death, as Salem had “accidentally” taken the case file home from work and “forgotten” it on the table. This scene was eerily similar to that one. It very much looked like the person who shot Abraham was the same person who shot Roman.

On top of everything, the sky opened up and it started to hail.

“Get the umbrella from the ambulance and hold it over Roman,” Adam ordered. “The last thing I need is him taking more damage from ice.”

Malika did as commanded, and tried to summon her usual projection of grace and calmness. It was no use. Not when her son was doing frantic chest compressions on her grandson.

“Dial Thea’s number,” Adam ordered. “I need anyone we can spare down here.”

Malika called in the volunteer medics, and was relieved to hear sirens wailing in the distance mere moments after she hung up. She and Salem were going to have a long talk later about city council needing to hire more staff. If her grandson died because Wanda had wanted to spend less money in the budget, there were going to be consequences.

The sirens attracted interest as the medics arrived. Everyone was on edge already with the high death rate Arkhelios had developed, and everyone just had to know who had been next to die.

Malika shielded her eyes as bright camera lights flashed in the distance. Reporters were exiting vans and setting up cameras to capture the last moments of her grandson.

“Take over for me, Mom,” Adam commanded. “I need to grab some things from the ambulance and I can’t wait for help to get here.” He placed her thin, perfectly manicured hands on Roman’s chest and showed her how to push. Malika’s first reaction was to pull away, but Adam held her hands firmly against Roman. With a quick kiss on her head, he sprinted to the ambulance. “I think we got here just in time. We may be able to save him.”

Malika pushed as instructed, as Roman’s blood soaked through her coat sleeves. Roman’s blood was quite literally on her hands.

It had been a relatively quiet night at the Helios household. Lucy had been trying to learn a musical scale for school, while the boys all watched TV in the living room. Her piano practice came to a sudden end though when she heard Abe screaming.

Lucy ran as fast as she could through the halls. The TV was still on, flashing the words “breaking news” across the screen. Lucy watched in horror as the screen showed medics arriving to take over chest compressions from an inconsolable Malika.

“Is that Roman?” she managed to finally ask. “That can’t be Roman, it’s a mistake.”

The camera zoomed closer to Roman’s face as he was placed on a stretcher and then disappeared into an ambulance. His face was pale and bloody, and was far too limp for him to be alive. Nathan and Nickolas had gone silent watching the screen, looking like they were on the verge of tears. Lucy couldn’t even process what she’d seen. As much as she teased Roman, she hadn’t really thought that something this bad would happen to him. Him and Abe running away from Arkhelios was just a back up plan, one they’d never need. Now it looked like they’d been too late.

She looked at Abe, who was looking incredibly pale. He was clutching his stomach, his face tight with pain.

“I-I think I need a doctor,” he stammered. “I don’t feel so good.”

The boys ran to get their mothers, while Lucy stayed with Abe, holding his hand tightly.

The hospital in Arkhelios was very small and not very well funded. They had a small population, and prior to Abraham’s death, very few people were seriously ill or died. Elaine called for an ambulance, only to find that Arkhelios’ single ambulance was already occupied by Roman. She looked out her window and saw that the roads were completely empty, save for some people who parked regularly on the street. Everyone outside seemed to be congregating at the park crime scene, looking for answers.

“Fine. I’ll drive there myself.”

Elaine was about to hang up when she heard a familiar voice start issuing commands in the background. The ambulance was clearly available now as Malika was ordering around hospital staff like she owned the place.

“Adam! You go answer that call while I call your father. I’m sure he’s already heard about this and is worried sick.”

“I’m not leaving Roman. There is absolutely no way I’m going anywhere until he’s stable.”

Elaine was suddenly very glad that she hadn’t hung up so quickly. Roman might still pull through this.

“You are too close to this to help anyway. No one is letting you operate on your nephew. You go help that Helios boy, or Roman may never forgive you for it.”

Adam was still protesting in the background, but Elaine’s blood had suddenly seemed to stop pumping. Her entire body felt cold.

How did she know it was Abe who needed the ambulance? The office staff hadn’t once used Abe’s name. Maybe she overheard something when the hospital had radioed the ambulance for it’s status?

“Hey! Hey!” Elaine shouted into the phone, catching the attention of the hospital staff who like Elaine had been watching the chaos of the Bellamy family unfold. “Cancel that ambulance, we’re staying here. Send anyone unrelated to the Bellamys here instead. Completely unrelated to them or I’ll be suing you into bankruptcy.”

Ironman had some...history with pregnancy, and happened to have several medical subroutines installed in his operating system. He claimed that Abraham had installed them himself so Ironman could assist him with his work, but Elaine wanted no knowledge of whatever her father had been doing. The less she knew about her father’s experiments, the happier she was, considering that she was now living in the same house as where her father would have been doing those experiments. She settled the younger kids down with a movie while Lucy watched Ironman preform diagnostic scans of Abe and compute data.

“It’s just stress,” he finally diagnosed. “There’s nothing wrong with you or the baby. If you can stay calm and get some rest, I think you’ll be fine.”

True to Elaine’s demands, a medic soon arrived at the front door, and took over for Ironman. Thea Davis was the best the hospital could provide without too strong a connection to the Bellamys. She was strangely very close to Roman, but seeing as Abe trusted Roman, the hospital felt that they were within Elaine’s accepted parameters. When Thea confirmed Ironman’s diagnosis, the entire household began to relax. She gave Abe something to help him sleep (after Ironman had scanned it thoroughly) and Elaine helped him climb into bed.

She watched Abe fall asleep, standing on guard in case of another potential attack that night. What new scheme had they very narrowly dodged today?

Her mind was racing, but was also exhausted from the constant stress. How had Malika known that Abe was in distress? Why was it so important to her that Adam be the one to tend to Abe? Who was recreating Abraham’s death with Roman Bellamy and why?

Elaine sighed, confident that Abe was sound asleep and currently not in any danger. She had Ironman bring in one of the reclining chairs from downstairs, and set up her vigil by Abe’s side for the night. There was no way she was getting any sleep that night. The pictures on Abe’s desk stared at her, making her uncomfortable enough to want to place them face down. She always knew that Roman Bellamy was trouble, and she had been over the moon when he had been sent away. If only that had been the end of Abe’s romance with him. This whole situation was far gone from just disapproving families and teen pregnancy now, but Elaine had no measure for how crazy things had gotten. How much worse could it get? The Bellamys were desperate to get to her son, that much was clear.

There was one question sticking in her mind that Elaine couldn’t bring herself to answer. Had the Bellamys simply attempted to use Roman’s unrelated shooting to get close to Abe...or did they orchestrate the entire situation including the shooting to get Abe worked up and in the same hospital they would be in with Roman?

[varietyofwords]

Addendum, Part Twenty-One (Chicago P.D.)

Title: Addendum

Chapter: Glad You Weren’t As Bad a Mom (Part Twenty-One)

Fandom: Chicago P.D.

Rating: T/PG-13

Author’s Note: My biggest complain about this episode was the brief moment out on the sidewalk in front of their suspect’s house where Erin tells Jay that parents like the ones they just interviewed make her want to send a greeting card to Bunny. His reply about there being a whole section called “Glad You Weren’t As Bad of a Mom As I Thought” took me by surprise because Bunny is pretty high up on the bad list to me, and I thought Jay, at least, would be in agreement on that. So, I tried to explore why both he and Erin might feel that way given what we know about Bunny and yet don’t know about Jay’s parents as well as explain why they were missing from so many full unit scenes in this episode. This addendum is set immediately before they give Tana Meyer’s parents a visit during “In a Duffel Bag” (3x20).

The long, skinny French fry falls back onto the red, plastic tray as she pushes the small bite she managed to take into her cheek and tries to suppress a distasteful look from flicking across her face. She’s barely managed to pick at her food this afternoon, to swallow small bites of the burger and fries set out on the table before her because she should be out there. Should be chasing  leads and tracking down each person in their new suspect’s sexual history in order to check alibis and run DNA tests.

But Hank had told them to sit tight, to use the brief lull in the case to grab something to eat while he went at their suspect. Tried to ascertain why a guy from Rockford would care for a baby -- his daughter -- for two weeks only to dump her out by the Chicago lakefront; tried to ascertain why a guy from Rockford would deny knowing about the existence of his child.

“He may not have known,” her partner replies. His words startle her slightly because she hadn’t meant to utter her musings out loud, and her gaze darts up from the red, plastic tray in front of her to look at him. To take in the fact that Jay has barely touched the hamburger he ordered because, like her, he’s been too busy mulling over the few facts they have about this case.

Or, more likely, too busy mulling over how much this case has her on edge. The look that passed between Voight and him when she returned from talking to Platt about the Wisconsin Dells and the status of their victim, the decision that she and Halstead would be the first to grab lunch today while Al and Ruzek brought in their suspect was pretty much a dead giveaway about the two of them being in cahoots.

And that fact would normally piss her off, would have her insisting that she was fine and needed to stick around for when their suspect came in, but she decided to adopt Platt’s attitude of stopping while she’s ahead and take a break from sitting in a chair with photos of duffle bags and pink blankets tapped up over her left shoulder. A break from reminders that a child can be loved and well-cared for and tenderly wrapped up in a blanket one day and end up clinging to life at Chicago Med the next.

“You’d know if you had a baby,” she retorts knowing how ridiculous her words sound the moment they leave her mouth. But it’s too late for her to take them back, and Jay’s already raising one eyebrow at her and drawing out a long ‘o’ in the first word of his rebuttal.

“No, you’d know,” he pointedly reminds her with a shake of his head and a hand reaching out to pick up the fork on the right-hand side of his  tray. “There’s no sign that would tell him, hey, that girl you hooked up with, she’s pregnant.”

“There is if you don’t use a condom,” she bites back -- her tone far harsher than she intended for this conversation -- as she watches her almond milk drinking partner stab at the pitiful pieces of lettuce he ordered instead of fries.

His eyes flicker upward to meet hers at her words, and the way he looks at her is a nonverbally reminder of how he knows that. How they’ve been monogamous for months now but each still keeps condoms on their shopping list because neither one of them is ready to add a baby into this partnership. Not right now. Not when they both know Daniel will run her ragged after just a few hours when Justin and Olive bring the baby up to visit Hank later this week.

“He’d still need her to tell him,” Jay replies before popping the fork and the lettuce attached to it into his mouth. He takes a moment to chew, to let her mull over his words before forcing himself to swallow and racing to elaborate on what he means. To cut her off before this conversation -- one centered on the case, but quickly becoming more abstract -- can turn into an argument that attracts the attention of those few patrons who aren’t already openly staring at the star badges clipped to their belts. “And maybe she had a reason not to. Wanted to protect her baby from him.”

His comment causes her to pause because she knows what he’s trying to get at, knows from the sort of teasing and sort of serious look on his face that he’s thinking of the hot date she blew him off for two nights ago. Although, sitting in the stands with only watery hot chocolate and Annie’s body pressed up against her while they watched Travis’ team get their asses handed to them by a wealthier team from the other side of town doesn’t exactly count as hot in her book.

And Annie had kept Travis’ existence a secret for years in order to protect herself, her best friend, and her son from his father. A secret that Erin, in hindsight, should have kept as well for all the interest and good Charlie has taken or done in Travis’ life.

But, if that was their mystery mother’s aim here, then she was clearly keeping the wrong person in the dark because their suspect was adamant that he didn’t know and that tiny, two-week-old baby -- his daughter -- still ended up in a duffle bag with no signs of life.

“Some people just aren’t meant to be parents,” Jay adds after a long pause, and she finds herself nodding along in agreement almost immediately because he’s not wrong.

Because there are parents like Annie and Olive who rise to the occasion and get themselves and their children out of bad situations. Parents like Hank and Camille who see their children -- biological or not -- as something worth sacrificing for and are brave and kind and unselfish in all the years it takes to raise them. And then are also parents like Bunny who are sober and then aren’t, who run thorough men and  lose track of their kids in the wake of an unstable home life.

Parents who, she finds herself conceding, are shitty and selfish and weak, but don’t purposefully leave their two-week-old baby out in the cold to die. And she opens her mouth to vocalize that, to let Jay know that for all the shit her mother put her and Teddy through as they were growing about, Bunny wasn’t as bad as Baby Doe’s mother.

But the rebuttal dies on her lips because Jay’s eyes have narrowed, because he’s looking at her with that mixture of pity and frustration and concern that she sees every time Bunny comes up. A look that she has grown to loathe because she knows it means he has adopted Hank’s view about Bunny being a cancer in her, knows this conversation will end with her reminding Jay that Bunny is her mom and Jay reminding her that Bunny will never change. That the best thing she can do is cut Bunny out of her life, which is, apparently, the position he’s taken with his dad.

Not that she’s learned that information from Jay. Rather, all she’s had to go on is hints and clues and overheard chastisements from Will that are cut off mid-sentence when she approaches his and Jay’s table at Molly’s leaving her with little understanding as to the whys and the whens as they pertain to Jay’s relationship with his father.

The whys and the whens that clearly serve as the foundation of his belief that people cannot change despite the evidence they see in this job -- rarely, but enough -- showing otherwise. Despite the fact that he rides around with her -- an addict, a woman who was once a fifteen-year-old headed down a path where she was likely to end up dead or with a kid or two calling her mom before she turned eighteen -- all day and sleeps next to her at night and relies on her to have his back twenty-four seven.

“I doubt your mom and dad would have dumped a baby out by the Lake,” Erin retorts. She allows herself to push against a topic that’s been off-limits, to use today’s nightmare scenario in defense of both a parent she knows and parents she doesn’t.

There’s a long pause while she waits for his answer. One that leaves her wondering if she’s pressed on a nerve she didn’t know existed, if it’s possible that things in Canaryville were worse than those on her side of town. But Jay eventually hums out his agreement telling her that his parents would never have been as bad as their current suspect or Baby Doe’s unidentified mother. Words that she barely catches over the sound of the ringing phone in her pocket.

The flash of Dawson’s name on the screen causes her to sigh because maybe that was an opening with Jay, but the way his features smooth out and then harden as she answers the call and the way he begins to gather up their trays without waiting for to answer the phone tells her that door or window or whatever she wants to call it into Jay’s past wasn’t really open.

And so, instead, she focuses on the update -- that Baby Does’ mother has been identified as an eighteen-year-old named Tana Meyer -- and the instructions to check in with the baby’s grandparents that Dawson is giving her. Gathers up the car keys and prepares to confront the kind of parents who helped their daughter care for her infant for two weeks yet turned a blind eye when -- or worse, helped -- their daughter put their granddaughter in a duffel bag and dumped that baby like a piece of garbage. The kind of parents who are than Bunny and Jay’s parents; the kind of parents that don’t deserve to walk free while their granddaughter clings to life.

[kristinleeeeee]

HALF-CURSED.

Fair Warning: this blog has taken a turn from a sweet, happy-go-lucky crafting website to a dumping ground for half-baked “essays”.

Things keep happening in my periphery at my apartment. Things that don’t actually happen to me but make a good story. It’s like I’m just near the victim, only half-cursed with strange shit.

It started almost immediately after moving there, when we brought everybody over in the spring/summer to show off the new place. We’re talking everyone— parents, grandma, aunt, uncle, cousins… we all walked over to Someburros and at some point during dinner I mentioned to my mom that this isn’t the nicest neighborhood. At the time, she didn’t believe me. As we walked back we saw a fleet of police vehicles, which we assumed were for the apartment complex next door. But as we walk into the parking lot, we quickly realized they were for us. And the closer we got to our apartment, the more there were. There was a crowd gathering outside, but a gung-ho, younger cop who had seen too many movies ushered us sternly inside the apartment. My youngest cousin looked at me with terror in his eyes. Behind us, the “adults” came across a more calm and seasoned police officer who was a little more reassuring.

My family was able to escape the chaos but this police standoff continued well into the night. A man had pulled a gun on a woman in a domestic dispute and she had run away, while the man locked himself in her apartment, directly across from ours. Around 12AM they set off a flash bang to draw him out, around 1AM they set off another. All through the night we could hear cops yelling through a megaphone. Finally, they got him out, but it was a sleepless night of hanging out in the living room in case of stray bullets.

A few months later, I was up late at night and swore I heard the sound of gunshots— at least six. After a frantic internet search I seemed to find what I was looking for on twitter. Across the street at the sports bar a fight had broken out between to motorcyclists and one had pulled a gun on the other, shooting him several times and killing him.

Then, there was the fake out at Mills— again with my aunt and cousins around Christmas, me with an injured knee. That day was one of the first I didn’t wear my brace. My shopping obsessed cousins wanted to check out the Nike outlet store, and I went along, happy to shop. We stopped afterwards in Finishline and it was there that we noticed people beginning to run and scream outside the store. A young black guy ran in to is friends and said franticly, “there’s people shooting out there”. We live in a climate where this is entirely possible, so everyone freaked. We bolted for the back exit, employees locked down the store, and after a traffic jam, we were all in the backstage of the mall. The entire building, filled to the brim with post-holiday shoppers, filtered out into the parking lot. Kids who were separated from their friends and parents were on their phones, sobbing. Most of the time I can have a positive, pragmatic view of these situations and laugh it off, having not been the actual target or victim. But in this case, there was a moment where I genuinely feared for my life. I thought I was going to die, and for someone who is so fearful, this was actually the first time I had genuinely felt this. I knew I couldn’t run if the situation called for it. For a long time afterwards it stuck with me, like the smallest, least severe version of PTSD. My cousins went back inside to finish their shopping. All I wanted to do was be home with my dog and the people I loved. It turned out later that it was not a hoax as first reported, but a false alarm. A fight had broken out in the food court and a chair had been thrown. The bang it made when it fell had sounded like a gunshot; people scattered and spread the word.

There are a couple of things to be said about this— I think it is just so, so sad that “gunshot” is the first reaction. That people hear a noise like that and we are programmed to think, “mass shooting.” It has become so part of our lives that before logic kicks in, we believe that someone has undertaken a massacre. The second is that while it sounds like panic and fear mongering and overreaction to say that people spread the word about a shooting, I’m actually proud and extremely thankful for the way that every single person in that mall handled themselves. People made sure others knew. It wasn’t every man for himself. As we left the store, people were trying to make sure the kids got out first. They encouraged everyone to push through and hurry so we could all get out. They didn’t panic and trample, they kept their heads. It helped, probably, that there wasn’t a guy outside the store with a rifle or the sounds of shooting somewhere else, but it gave me a helping dose of faith in humanity, to go with the sad reality check that this was “normal”.

Then, a few months later, we got back to apartment drama. Or, near apartment drama. I was over at my parents’ house on the weekend, and as I drove back, I noticed a cloud of smoke in the distance. I remember having a strange thought of, “what if that’s my apartment on fire?” I kept driving closer and the smoke got thicker. It wasn’t my apartment, but it was the apartment directly diagonal to mine in the complex next door. A crowd of people was watching firefighters valiantly trying to put it out. The smoke that poured from the windows was black, and it charred the whole side of the building. I found out later that the woman inside had escaped the fire (from her cooking), but her two dogs inside had died. Given my strange thought while driving this was even sadder and stranger. That was part of it— I thought about our two dogs in our apartment and what I would have done if it had been mine on fire.

Then, today (at the time of my writing this). At 4AM, I woke up to the sound of screaming. This is a family filled apartment complex, and the people directly upstairs are a little crazy and loud. Beyond that, college kids live here, and it was Saturday night. Still, I could have sworn that I heard this girl screaming, “somebody help me”. It sounded like it was above me. I waited to see what would happen, and heard nothing. Still, I was alert. Then I started to hear voices outside my window, talking about cars and gunshots. A flashlight moved past my blinds. I peeked out to see a cop car driving around the parking lot. My dog was up and alert, growling at every sound, so I turned on all the lights in the living room and backyard. I saw the cop car driving now through the parking lot of the other complex. They must have seen my light on, because they came and knocked at the door. They told me that the girl next door had woken up to someone in her apartment and said that person fled, jumping into our backyard. I let them in to investigate. They didn’t find any signs that anyone had been there, and I told them I hadn’t heard anything beyond the screams. Of course if the guy was fast enough, in the chaos I might have missed it. They left after finding no evidence to support her story, and told me our lock system was pretty inadequate, but to not worry and go back to sleep. Yeah, that was not happening. I stayed up and could overhear another cop next door with the girl, explaining to her that they were finding nothing to support her story. I’ve heard that cops actually have to be pretty stern with witnesses to make sure they are telling the truth. She started to get upset with him and they went back inside. Later, I heard her friends come over, and they went outside to hear her story. I heard them all laughing. It was surreal. I have no idea what shock or that experience in general does to a person, but to hear her laughing about it was so strange. Myself, I’m terrified to think that there was someone in my backyard, someone who’s not above breaking into an apartment for whatever end.

It made me think too about witness testimony. Her testimony, mine… in the moment, it is so hard to focus on what is going on, and after the moment, it’s hard to recall. I could have sworn this girl was running around upstairs. I never would have thought it was the apartment next to me. I thought about that story of the people in the apartment who never called the cops when a woman outside was being stabbed, and how they could stand by and do nothing while she screamed. I didn’t call the cops. I waited, terrified of getting in trouble for calling 911 for nothing, of getting involved if there was someone violent out there. 

Mostly I thought about how my story to the cops might have discredited her. I told them I didn’t hear anything before or after the screams. When they didn’t find evidence in her backyard or mine to support her story, they pointed out that my bedroom is right next to the backyard, so I would have heard something. I felt bad that my story was making them doubt her. She sounded so frustrated and distraught talking to the third cop. And like I said, I could have missed the sounds of someone escaping, because of her screams. Why on earth would she lie about that? Still, I found myself wondering if she was dreaming, drunk, or high. Hearing her laugh about it later made me feel a little better, but her story was so specific (dressed in all black and red, head to toe, face covered, she grabbed a knife to chase him out) and she was so adamant. Maybe the mind can trick you to that extent. I can’t base my assumptions about her on overheard conversations. But the conversation I heard her have with her friends was a weird disconnect between the panic I heard in her screams and the way she described herself chasing him away. Maybe this was just bravado in front of her friends.

I wonder what I would say to her if I ever saw her around the complex, assuming this doesn’t inspire her to break her lease and leave. I wondered at the time if I should have gone over there and talked to her. I wondered if I should have explained my side of the story to her and heard her side. Or if I was a better person, if I should have supported her despite her being a stranger. Maybe it’s just me and I’m unfriendly, but we seem to live in a society so far removed from the Hollywood “Wisteria Lane” depiction, where neighbors all know each other and get together for block parties and clam bakes. We live our lives in our own circles and hardly enter anyone else’s orbit. It was incredibly strange, but I almost felt bad that my backyard existed, as a potential escape route for a crazy criminal. I questioned the placement of our lawn chairs. I felt like this experience for her was somehow my fault and that I should go over there and apologize. How weird is that?

I don’t anticipate someone like that returning, but I will get a new lock for the door. And while I settle back down into complacency, the pattern with this place may hold, and in another few months I’ll be back with another story to tell.

I don’t wish I was the true victim of any of these crimes, tragedies, or imaginary scenarios, and I definitely don’t think that I am truly cursed or even semi-cursed. I can’t help but feel strange that these things keep happening near me, like they’re happening at me and not to me. I walk away from it with simply a story, while the victims walk away with so much more.