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Title: Black Edelweiss
Series: Zeitgeist
Follows: One Giant Leap
Wordcount: 3,130
Summary: Two weeks after Claire Bennet's televised leap from the Ferris wheel, the 12th handles it's first case delving into the strange world of specials. Evidence points the investigation toward a former Company Agent, a man Noah Bennet would swear up and down doesn't exist.
Details: Minimal details due to inflation. Full warnings and details in main post.
PREV: Chapter Twenty // MAIN // NEXT: Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-One: Follow the Leader
Behind every exquisite thing that existed, there was something tragic.
—Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray
Jesus, how is this even happening...
They had successfully made it out of the garage and onto the street. Now, they were several blocks away from the station and counting, headed—Javier didn't have a clue where, and Konrad hadn't seen fit to give him any directions yet. Truth be told, Javier was almost afraid to ask. As he thought about it, though, it occurred to him that if Konrad really hadn't seen his son in as long as he claimed, and having lived as Javier's partner for the better part of the last decade, it was entirely possible—no, overwhelmingly likely—that Konrad might not know his son's exact whereabouts either.
That could complicate things, fast.
Javier's fingers gripped the wheel tightly as he fought with the idea, but after a moment he gave up with a frustrated noise, reaching into his jacket. The move startled Konrad just a little, though the only sign was a slight twitch of the hand holding the gun where it rested in his lap. Javier didn't look at him as he handed over his cell phone—keeping his eyes on the road was a welcome excuse for that—but he could almost feel the man's suspicion as he took it.
"Go into my contacts," Javier said. "Find Beckett's number and dial it."
"Why?" Konrad asked, not bothering to keep the confusion out of his voice
"Look," Javier said, glancing over briefly, and, yeah, Konrad's baffled expression was just a little bit hilarious, all things considered, "you want to find your son, we'll find your son. But that'll be easier if we don't have the NYPD on our ass—"
A thought occurred to Javier, and he frowned.
"Or Bennet, for that matter," he added. "Just...let me talk to Kate, and I might be able to buy us some time."
And he still couldn't believe he was doing this. But it would help uncomplicate things, and in the long run that would help him get Kevin back.
"And if it's really been fifty years I'm guessing you probably don't have the most current information on where he is," Javier said, sharing his earlier deduction, which Konrad helpfully confirmed by looking away. "If we ask really nicely, Kate might just be talked into doing some of the work for us."
Javier watched Konrad weigh the suggestion from the corner of his eye, saw him slowly shake his head as he relented.
"Alright," Konrad said as he worked the phone. He fumbled a little bit at first managing the touch screen—nine years behind on technology wasn't nothing anymore—but once he figured it out he navigated through Javier's contacts quickly enough. "But I control the details we give them. And if you try and pull something, I'm taking off on my own, and you'll never see your partner again."
Konrad delivered the threat tensely. Javier's hands tightened on the wheel again, knuckles white as he tried to focus past the spike of terror the words inspired. Konrad clearly knew the value of the leverage he held over them—or part of it, at least. And Javier had never mentioned anything about him and Kevin being partners, so Konrad must have worked that bit out on his own.
Javier was forced to put that train of thought aside when Konrad turned on the speaker as the phone began to ring. It was picked up almost immediately.
"Javier? Where are you?" Kate asked, and though her voice was thin through the speaker, her concern was still audible.
"I'm with—Reichardt," Javier answered hesitantly. Hostage or not, he still felting guilty for his deception in the hall. "I'm sorry, Kate, he got my gun, and—"
"Don't worry about that," Kate said quickly. "Are you okay?"
"I've got a headache," Javier commented, glancing at Konrad for a moment, "or two, but I'm fine. Look. Konrad wants to—"
"Listen, Detective Beckett," Konrad interrupted. "I'm sorry for pulling a runner, but there's some unfinished business I need to take care of before— Before you people do whatever it is you plan to do. Your detective understands why. If he cooperates—if you cooperate—I promise I'll come right back and hand myself over without trouble. Trust me as you'd trust him, and this will all end just fine."
And Konrad switched on the safety of the gun where it lay in his lap, flashing Javier an encouraging smile. Javier frowned briefly, but released a faint sigh.
"I'm not under duress," Javier offered, decoding the intent of Konrad's gesture. He paused, considering. "Or any kind of control that I'm aware of. He didn't have to take me with him, Kate. I'm willing to play along as long as he keeps his word and we get Kevin back. Do you think you can help us out with finding an address?"
He heard Kate's hesitation over the line. He really couldn't blame her. What he was asking her to do went so far past just being risky that it was insane.
"Okay," she said, finally.
Javier looked over at Konrad expectantly.
"Is Bennet listening?" Konrad asked.
"No," Castle said, cutting into the conversation. "It seems his 'contact in Chennai' is only twelve years old, and he's getting yelled at by her father for getting her involved in a murder investigation. Apparently he's promised to tear Bennet's head off, and that isn't necessarily an idle threat."
Konrad gave a surprised frown, covering the speaker with his hand.
"Who is that?" he asked quietly.
"Beckett's partner, Castle," Javier told him quickly. "It's fine."
Konrad must have decided to take his word for it, because he removed his hand from the phone.
"I'm going to give you the information on who I'm looking for," Konrad said. "You will not share it with Bennet."
"You won't trust him, but you'll trust me?" Kate asked, skeptically.
"I don't trust anyone right now," Konrad said, though Javier was somewhat confused by the brief glance the other man threw his way. "But hell no, I don't trust Bennet. If you knew a quarter of what I did about the Company, you wouldn't trust him either."
A few seconds passed.
"Okay," Kate said. "You have my word."
Konrad looked to Javier questioningly. He responded with a nod, confident not only of what Kate's word meant to her, but of how much Kevin meant to them both.
"We're looking for a Martin Andrew Gray," Konrad said, "spelled with an 'A', born to Sarah Watson in Brooklyn in 1945. He ran a watch shop called Gray & Sons, also in Brooklyn, until 1993 when he...relocated. Current place of residence unknown."
And it was more than a little eerie hearing Konrad rattle off information to Kate just like Kevin would on any other case.
"Alright. I'll see what I can pull up. I'll send it to your phone when I have it."
Konrad hung up the phone, seeming satisfied.
"I thought his name was Sam?" Javier asked, not looking at the other man.
Konrad shifted in his seat, clearly uncomfortable, but Javier didn't think the gesture as exactly guilty.
"If we want to find Sam, we need to talk to Martin," Konrad said finally. "If anyone knows where he is, it's his brother."
"You don't think Beckett could find him on her own?" Javier asked, feeling irrationally offended.
Konrad hesitated in his answer, and this time Javier thought there was a bit of guilt in it.
"If Beckett could find Samson, the Company would already have found him by now," Konrad said slowly, voice quiet. "If they had, he wouldn't be dying. He'd be dead."
There was enough grief in Konrad's voice that Javier didn't want to ask right away. He filed it away, though, in case it became important later.
They drove on in silence after that, still with no destination in mind. Several minutes later, Kate send them the information in a text to his phone. Konrad read it and smiled.
"Is Kate the roses type, or would she prefer chocolates?" Konrad asked, jokingly.
"She'd prefer to kick your ass..." Javier answered as he found himself frowning at the address of another watch shop in Baltimore.
"I am not driving to Maryland," Javier said firmly, faintly annoyed when Konrad's response was a patient smile.
"Well, you could let me drive," Konrad said, "but I'm guessing having your hands on the wheel helps support the illusion you have any control over what's going on."
Javier though he should feel a lot more insulted by the words than he did, but it was said lightly, sarcastically, and sounded just enough like the kind of jibe he and Kevin tossed at each other all the time that, even though he knew it was Konrad saying it, Javier found it difficult to be angry.
"And if we get there and it turns out Samson is still in New York?" Javier asked, managing irritated. "Can't you just call him?"
Konrad's short-lived mirth subsided.
"Martin won't talk to me over the phone," he said softly, looking out the window. "I have to talk to him in person."
"And having you waltz into his shop is going to go down so much better?" Javier asked skeptically.
Konrad sighed, looking down at Kevin's ruined shirt and vest with a frown.
"Yeah," Konrad said absently, lifting a hand to remove the stained tie. "I might be getting shot again today."
Javier weighed the consequences of asking, but finally decided that if there really was any chance of that he would just as soon not also get shot for not having the information he needed.
"Why the bad blood between you and Martin?" Javier asked as he watched Konrad unbutton the coat.
Konrad's fingers stilled. He didn't look at Javier, but after a few moments let out a weary sigh.
"I was the only father Martin ever knew," Konrad said, "but he wasn't really mine. Not by blood. His real father died during the Battle of Metz, two years before I met Sarah."
He let out another slow breath, shaking his head.
"All his life that never mattered, not to him, or his mother, or to me... Not until the day Sarah realized I wasn't aging, and I finally admitted the truth to all of them. Who I really was—what I was—and the lies I'd told them. Martin never forgave me for that."
Konrad paused, quiet for a moment.
"And when I left, Sarah made me promise I'd never come near her family again," Konrad finished, his voice edged with a tired ache. "I don't think Sam ever forgave me for that."
Konrad continued unfastening the buttons in silence, finally shrugging out of Kevin's suit coat and vest. The blood stains stood out starkly against the light blue fabric of the shirt underneath. Javier watched Konrad remove the detective's pin from the lapel of the coat before he chucked both it and the vest into the back seat. There was a faint smile on his lips as he looked at the pin before slipping it into his pants pocket.
"Give me your jacket," Konrad said suddenly.
"What?"
"My shirt has bullet holes in it," Konrad said slowly, as if he believed Javier could have somehow missed that detail, "and I'm not visiting my sons covered in blood. You probably want to get this over with as soon as possible, so I'm guessing a detour is out. If I zip it up over the front of my shirt, it should at least cover the stains."
Javier hesitated, less out of any objection than simply his mind stumbling over the insanity of the need itself.
"Or you could not, and we can probably get pulled over like this," Konrad said simply. "Then we'll really end up losing some time."
"Fine," Javier said gruffly, waiting for the next light to remove his jacket.
He passed it over to Konrad, who had the audacity to accept it with a smile.
"Just...try not to get shot again, okay?" Javier said, trying to keep himself grounded in spite of how insane it all was.
"Jawohl," Konrad responded—not without a note of sarcasm, but Javier let it slide.
He was too busy trying not to stare as Konrad zipped the jacket closed over the blood.
"Did it hurt?" Javier surprised himself by asking.
He was even more surprised by Konrad's dismissive shrug.
"I've had worse."
Javier's mind flew back over Kaito's letter, and its mention of what Konrad endured in Auschwitz, but his mind mercifully shied away from those details.
"Like that crazy scar from the picture?" Javier found himself asking instead. "Did you get that in the war?"
And this was what constituted small talk, apparently. He was on a road trip with his partner's Nazi supervillain alter-ego, making small talk because this was his life now...
"You mean my Schmiss?" Konrad asked, smiling fondly. "I got that in college."
"College," Javier managed tonelessly.
"Fencing," Konrad explained with a shrug. "I fenced in college."
And it was clearly a sign he had been spending too much time around Castle, but Javier found himself almost disappointed.
"So that's it? That's the big story behind the scar? A fencing accident?" Javier asked, a little baffled. "I mean, not that I know anything at all about fencing, but aren't there usually helmets?"
"For Olympic fencing, sure," Konrad said easily, "but for Mensur the use of sharp blades and goggles are more common."
At Javier's blank look, Konrad took it upon himself to explain further.
"In Mensur—academic fencing—the aim isn't on dodging or deflecting the blows so much as taking them without flinching. Protecting your entire face would defeat the purpose. And it wasn't an accident, really. I mean...the scars were part of the point too. And a lot of people considered them attractive."
Konrad looked aside at him with a smile, though it faded somewhat as he picked up on Javier's—well, to be honest, Javier didn't even know how he felt about the conversation. On the one hand, the subject was so far out of his usual experience that, at the very least, it wasn't likely to retread anything he had ever talked about with Kevin—Javier seriously didn't know how he might handle that. On the other hand, the way Konrad had launched so eagerly and shamelessly into the random tangent also felt very familiar to him, and that familiarity hurt in a formless sort of way Javier would have been hard pressed to describe.
"So...you just stand there and stab each other in the face, then?" Javier managed after a while, latching onto it because, ironically, the ridiculousness of what they were talking about was the easiest part of the situation for him to grasp. "That's... Really dumb."
"Yeah, I guess it is a bit," Konrad admitted, glancing over at Javier with a faint grin. "What? Did you think your generation had the market cornered on extreme sports?"
"Sounds like something you'd see on Jackass," Javier muttered, trying desperately to forget that the words "your generation" had even been spoken.
A glance at Konrad revealed the other man had raised an eyebrow, clearly missing the reference.
"Never mind," Javier said quickly, shaking his head.
The conversation threatened to hang on that, but Konrad eventually picked up its earlier thread, slowly regaining his momentum. He spoke animatedly about fencing Mensur while he studied law under his grandfather's dime in Leipzig. He was more subdued as he spoke of his acquaintance with Adam Monroe, and his introduction to the Olympic style when they sparred together at Auschwitz. And as he moved into his experiences with kendo during his friendship with Kaito Nakamura, his tone was decidedly wistful.
While it might have been better for his peace of mind to let the flow of words fade into the background, Javier listened to all of it. In a strange way, it helped him to understand. Like Konrad, Kevin had gone to college to study law on his grandfather's money—like Konrad, Kevin's grandfather had been a lawyer desperate to salvage his daughter's children from her husband's occupation.
Yet, while Konrad's father had been a watchmaker and Kevin's a cop, both men had dreamed of becoming a detective from the time they were children.
It was a startling piece of information. If that degree of similarity could be made apparent during such a short conversation—and more or less by accident—then it was possible that the two personalities were more closely intertwined than Javier had thought. Konrad's abilities were formidable—who even knew how many he had—and his traumas clearly ran deep. Nonetheless, the more he thought about it, the less Javier could believe Konrad could have created an entire person—created Kevin—out of whole cloth by mistake. Perhaps Konrad had laid the framework with the identity he set up for himself, but that wasn't the same thing.
No, the more he thought about it, the more sure Javier was. Konrad might have set the foundation, but once he had gone—retreated, vanished, whatever you wanted to call it—Kevin had been left to fill in the blanks on his own...
And he had used Konrad's memories to do it.
Not all of them, of course, and the ones they shared had plainly been cleaned up, altered—transformed. Regardless, if that were the case, it meant facing the idea that the boundaries between the two hadn't been drawn as clearly or as cleanly as Javier had wanted to believe. It meant that a great deal of what Kevin was had still been built out of who Konrad had been, and that every time Javier thought he saw some of Kevin in his interactions with Konrad, it was because he had really been seeing those parts of Konrad in Kevin.
And Konrad himself was clearly a very different person when he wasn't defending himself from Bennet and accusations of murder. In fact, as Javier sat there listening, he thought that if he let the meaning in Konrad's words fade and just focused on his voice—on the way he spoke and the way he moved while he spoke—if he didn't already know better, he might have had difficulty distinguishing this man from his partner at all.
And that thought brought with it a sick, nagging ache of dread that settled painfully in his stomach.
There was so much that Javier feared about the future he had seen—questions of which he feared finding the answers. But suddenly one question loomed heavily in his mind, pushing any other fear or thought from his mind with the sheer, overwhelming horror of what it represented. Because, now, Javier found himself remembering the man he had met in his first jump into the future. A man untouched by time, a man who could move unseen, a man who fenced with Castle, a man who had teased him with foreign endearments and stolen kisses—a man that Javier had married.
What if that man wasn't really Kevin?
PREV: Chapter Twenty // MAIN // NEXT: Chapter Twenty-Two
Author's Note: My information about state of Mensur under the Third Reich is somewhat contradictory. Some of the articles I've read state that it was abolished with the student organizations that practiced it, but others say that dueling was made legal again. Of course, my main source is Wikipedia, and I could probably do a lot better, but in the interest of not wasting a lot of time trying to wade through German websites with my shitty grasp of the language, I'll split the difference by not specifying the conditions under which Konrad engaged in the activity, and assume that if it was illegal at the time, there was a group engaging in it underground.
I don't know if underground Mensur in Leipzig was actually a thing, but people fly in this 'verse, so I can make up shit if I want. It obviously hasn't bothered anybody thus far.
That said, I don't think Javier's wrong in calling it a stupid practice—but that also doesn't make dueling scars not hot.
(Yes, I'm weird, but we knew this.)
Translations:
Jawohl - an emphatic affirmative "yes", and in this case more or less equivalent to "Yes, sir."
Schmiss - literally a "hit", "smite" or "blow", it is also used for dueling scars.
Series: Zeitgeist
Follows: One Giant Leap
Wordcount: 3,130
Summary: Two weeks after Claire Bennet's televised leap from the Ferris wheel, the 12th handles it's first case delving into the strange world of specials. Evidence points the investigation toward a former Company Agent, a man Noah Bennet would swear up and down doesn't exist.
Details: Minimal details due to inflation. Full warnings and details in main post.
PREV: Chapter Twenty // MAIN // NEXT: Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-One: Follow the Leader
Behind every exquisite thing that existed, there was something tragic.
—Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray
Jesus, how is this even happening...
They had successfully made it out of the garage and onto the street. Now, they were several blocks away from the station and counting, headed—Javier didn't have a clue where, and Konrad hadn't seen fit to give him any directions yet. Truth be told, Javier was almost afraid to ask. As he thought about it, though, it occurred to him that if Konrad really hadn't seen his son in as long as he claimed, and having lived as Javier's partner for the better part of the last decade, it was entirely possible—no, overwhelmingly likely—that Konrad might not know his son's exact whereabouts either.
That could complicate things, fast.
Javier's fingers gripped the wheel tightly as he fought with the idea, but after a moment he gave up with a frustrated noise, reaching into his jacket. The move startled Konrad just a little, though the only sign was a slight twitch of the hand holding the gun where it rested in his lap. Javier didn't look at him as he handed over his cell phone—keeping his eyes on the road was a welcome excuse for that—but he could almost feel the man's suspicion as he took it.
"Go into my contacts," Javier said. "Find Beckett's number and dial it."
"Why?" Konrad asked, not bothering to keep the confusion out of his voice
"Look," Javier said, glancing over briefly, and, yeah, Konrad's baffled expression was just a little bit hilarious, all things considered, "you want to find your son, we'll find your son. But that'll be easier if we don't have the NYPD on our ass—"
A thought occurred to Javier, and he frowned.
"Or Bennet, for that matter," he added. "Just...let me talk to Kate, and I might be able to buy us some time."
And he still couldn't believe he was doing this. But it would help uncomplicate things, and in the long run that would help him get Kevin back.
"And if it's really been fifty years I'm guessing you probably don't have the most current information on where he is," Javier said, sharing his earlier deduction, which Konrad helpfully confirmed by looking away. "If we ask really nicely, Kate might just be talked into doing some of the work for us."
Javier watched Konrad weigh the suggestion from the corner of his eye, saw him slowly shake his head as he relented.
"Alright," Konrad said as he worked the phone. He fumbled a little bit at first managing the touch screen—nine years behind on technology wasn't nothing anymore—but once he figured it out he navigated through Javier's contacts quickly enough. "But I control the details we give them. And if you try and pull something, I'm taking off on my own, and you'll never see your partner again."
Konrad delivered the threat tensely. Javier's hands tightened on the wheel again, knuckles white as he tried to focus past the spike of terror the words inspired. Konrad clearly knew the value of the leverage he held over them—or part of it, at least. And Javier had never mentioned anything about him and Kevin being partners, so Konrad must have worked that bit out on his own.
Javier was forced to put that train of thought aside when Konrad turned on the speaker as the phone began to ring. It was picked up almost immediately.
"Javier? Where are you?" Kate asked, and though her voice was thin through the speaker, her concern was still audible.
"I'm with—Reichardt," Javier answered hesitantly. Hostage or not, he still felting guilty for his deception in the hall. "I'm sorry, Kate, he got my gun, and—"
"Don't worry about that," Kate said quickly. "Are you okay?"
"I've got a headache," Javier commented, glancing at Konrad for a moment, "or two, but I'm fine. Look. Konrad wants to—"
"Listen, Detective Beckett," Konrad interrupted. "I'm sorry for pulling a runner, but there's some unfinished business I need to take care of before— Before you people do whatever it is you plan to do. Your detective understands why. If he cooperates—if you cooperate—I promise I'll come right back and hand myself over without trouble. Trust me as you'd trust him, and this will all end just fine."
And Konrad switched on the safety of the gun where it lay in his lap, flashing Javier an encouraging smile. Javier frowned briefly, but released a faint sigh.
"I'm not under duress," Javier offered, decoding the intent of Konrad's gesture. He paused, considering. "Or any kind of control that I'm aware of. He didn't have to take me with him, Kate. I'm willing to play along as long as he keeps his word and we get Kevin back. Do you think you can help us out with finding an address?"
He heard Kate's hesitation over the line. He really couldn't blame her. What he was asking her to do went so far past just being risky that it was insane.
"Okay," she said, finally.
Javier looked over at Konrad expectantly.
"Is Bennet listening?" Konrad asked.
"No," Castle said, cutting into the conversation. "It seems his 'contact in Chennai' is only twelve years old, and he's getting yelled at by her father for getting her involved in a murder investigation. Apparently he's promised to tear Bennet's head off, and that isn't necessarily an idle threat."
Konrad gave a surprised frown, covering the speaker with his hand.
"Who is that?" he asked quietly.
"Beckett's partner, Castle," Javier told him quickly. "It's fine."
Konrad must have decided to take his word for it, because he removed his hand from the phone.
"I'm going to give you the information on who I'm looking for," Konrad said. "You will not share it with Bennet."
"You won't trust him, but you'll trust me?" Kate asked, skeptically.
"I don't trust anyone right now," Konrad said, though Javier was somewhat confused by the brief glance the other man threw his way. "But hell no, I don't trust Bennet. If you knew a quarter of what I did about the Company, you wouldn't trust him either."
A few seconds passed.
"Okay," Kate said. "You have my word."
Konrad looked to Javier questioningly. He responded with a nod, confident not only of what Kate's word meant to her, but of how much Kevin meant to them both.
"We're looking for a Martin Andrew Gray," Konrad said, "spelled with an 'A', born to Sarah Watson in Brooklyn in 1945. He ran a watch shop called Gray & Sons, also in Brooklyn, until 1993 when he...relocated. Current place of residence unknown."
And it was more than a little eerie hearing Konrad rattle off information to Kate just like Kevin would on any other case.
"Alright. I'll see what I can pull up. I'll send it to your phone when I have it."
Konrad hung up the phone, seeming satisfied.
"I thought his name was Sam?" Javier asked, not looking at the other man.
Konrad shifted in his seat, clearly uncomfortable, but Javier didn't think the gesture as exactly guilty.
"If we want to find Sam, we need to talk to Martin," Konrad said finally. "If anyone knows where he is, it's his brother."
"You don't think Beckett could find him on her own?" Javier asked, feeling irrationally offended.
Konrad hesitated in his answer, and this time Javier thought there was a bit of guilt in it.
"If Beckett could find Samson, the Company would already have found him by now," Konrad said slowly, voice quiet. "If they had, he wouldn't be dying. He'd be dead."
There was enough grief in Konrad's voice that Javier didn't want to ask right away. He filed it away, though, in case it became important later.
They drove on in silence after that, still with no destination in mind. Several minutes later, Kate send them the information in a text to his phone. Konrad read it and smiled.
"Is Kate the roses type, or would she prefer chocolates?" Konrad asked, jokingly.
"She'd prefer to kick your ass..." Javier answered as he found himself frowning at the address of another watch shop in Baltimore.
"I am not driving to Maryland," Javier said firmly, faintly annoyed when Konrad's response was a patient smile.
"Well, you could let me drive," Konrad said, "but I'm guessing having your hands on the wheel helps support the illusion you have any control over what's going on."
Javier though he should feel a lot more insulted by the words than he did, but it was said lightly, sarcastically, and sounded just enough like the kind of jibe he and Kevin tossed at each other all the time that, even though he knew it was Konrad saying it, Javier found it difficult to be angry.
"And if we get there and it turns out Samson is still in New York?" Javier asked, managing irritated. "Can't you just call him?"
Konrad's short-lived mirth subsided.
"Martin won't talk to me over the phone," he said softly, looking out the window. "I have to talk to him in person."
"And having you waltz into his shop is going to go down so much better?" Javier asked skeptically.
Konrad sighed, looking down at Kevin's ruined shirt and vest with a frown.
"Yeah," Konrad said absently, lifting a hand to remove the stained tie. "I might be getting shot again today."
Javier weighed the consequences of asking, but finally decided that if there really was any chance of that he would just as soon not also get shot for not having the information he needed.
"Why the bad blood between you and Martin?" Javier asked as he watched Konrad unbutton the coat.
Konrad's fingers stilled. He didn't look at Javier, but after a few moments let out a weary sigh.
"I was the only father Martin ever knew," Konrad said, "but he wasn't really mine. Not by blood. His real father died during the Battle of Metz, two years before I met Sarah."
He let out another slow breath, shaking his head.
"All his life that never mattered, not to him, or his mother, or to me... Not until the day Sarah realized I wasn't aging, and I finally admitted the truth to all of them. Who I really was—what I was—and the lies I'd told them. Martin never forgave me for that."
Konrad paused, quiet for a moment.
"And when I left, Sarah made me promise I'd never come near her family again," Konrad finished, his voice edged with a tired ache. "I don't think Sam ever forgave me for that."
Konrad continued unfastening the buttons in silence, finally shrugging out of Kevin's suit coat and vest. The blood stains stood out starkly against the light blue fabric of the shirt underneath. Javier watched Konrad remove the detective's pin from the lapel of the coat before he chucked both it and the vest into the back seat. There was a faint smile on his lips as he looked at the pin before slipping it into his pants pocket.
"Give me your jacket," Konrad said suddenly.
"What?"
"My shirt has bullet holes in it," Konrad said slowly, as if he believed Javier could have somehow missed that detail, "and I'm not visiting my sons covered in blood. You probably want to get this over with as soon as possible, so I'm guessing a detour is out. If I zip it up over the front of my shirt, it should at least cover the stains."
Javier hesitated, less out of any objection than simply his mind stumbling over the insanity of the need itself.
"Or you could not, and we can probably get pulled over like this," Konrad said simply. "Then we'll really end up losing some time."
"Fine," Javier said gruffly, waiting for the next light to remove his jacket.
He passed it over to Konrad, who had the audacity to accept it with a smile.
"Just...try not to get shot again, okay?" Javier said, trying to keep himself grounded in spite of how insane it all was.
"Jawohl," Konrad responded—not without a note of sarcasm, but Javier let it slide.
He was too busy trying not to stare as Konrad zipped the jacket closed over the blood.
"Did it hurt?" Javier surprised himself by asking.
He was even more surprised by Konrad's dismissive shrug.
"I've had worse."
Javier's mind flew back over Kaito's letter, and its mention of what Konrad endured in Auschwitz, but his mind mercifully shied away from those details.
"Like that crazy scar from the picture?" Javier found himself asking instead. "Did you get that in the war?"
And this was what constituted small talk, apparently. He was on a road trip with his partner's Nazi supervillain alter-ego, making small talk because this was his life now...
"You mean my Schmiss?" Konrad asked, smiling fondly. "I got that in college."
"College," Javier managed tonelessly.
"Fencing," Konrad explained with a shrug. "I fenced in college."
And it was clearly a sign he had been spending too much time around Castle, but Javier found himself almost disappointed.
"So that's it? That's the big story behind the scar? A fencing accident?" Javier asked, a little baffled. "I mean, not that I know anything at all about fencing, but aren't there usually helmets?"
"For Olympic fencing, sure," Konrad said easily, "but for Mensur the use of sharp blades and goggles are more common."
At Javier's blank look, Konrad took it upon himself to explain further.
"In Mensur—academic fencing—the aim isn't on dodging or deflecting the blows so much as taking them without flinching. Protecting your entire face would defeat the purpose. And it wasn't an accident, really. I mean...the scars were part of the point too. And a lot of people considered them attractive."
Konrad looked aside at him with a smile, though it faded somewhat as he picked up on Javier's—well, to be honest, Javier didn't even know how he felt about the conversation. On the one hand, the subject was so far out of his usual experience that, at the very least, it wasn't likely to retread anything he had ever talked about with Kevin—Javier seriously didn't know how he might handle that. On the other hand, the way Konrad had launched so eagerly and shamelessly into the random tangent also felt very familiar to him, and that familiarity hurt in a formless sort of way Javier would have been hard pressed to describe.
"So...you just stand there and stab each other in the face, then?" Javier managed after a while, latching onto it because, ironically, the ridiculousness of what they were talking about was the easiest part of the situation for him to grasp. "That's... Really dumb."
"Yeah, I guess it is a bit," Konrad admitted, glancing over at Javier with a faint grin. "What? Did you think your generation had the market cornered on extreme sports?"
"Sounds like something you'd see on Jackass," Javier muttered, trying desperately to forget that the words "your generation" had even been spoken.
A glance at Konrad revealed the other man had raised an eyebrow, clearly missing the reference.
"Never mind," Javier said quickly, shaking his head.
The conversation threatened to hang on that, but Konrad eventually picked up its earlier thread, slowly regaining his momentum. He spoke animatedly about fencing Mensur while he studied law under his grandfather's dime in Leipzig. He was more subdued as he spoke of his acquaintance with Adam Monroe, and his introduction to the Olympic style when they sparred together at Auschwitz. And as he moved into his experiences with kendo during his friendship with Kaito Nakamura, his tone was decidedly wistful.
While it might have been better for his peace of mind to let the flow of words fade into the background, Javier listened to all of it. In a strange way, it helped him to understand. Like Konrad, Kevin had gone to college to study law on his grandfather's money—like Konrad, Kevin's grandfather had been a lawyer desperate to salvage his daughter's children from her husband's occupation.
Yet, while Konrad's father had been a watchmaker and Kevin's a cop, both men had dreamed of becoming a detective from the time they were children.
It was a startling piece of information. If that degree of similarity could be made apparent during such a short conversation—and more or less by accident—then it was possible that the two personalities were more closely intertwined than Javier had thought. Konrad's abilities were formidable—who even knew how many he had—and his traumas clearly ran deep. Nonetheless, the more he thought about it, the less Javier could believe Konrad could have created an entire person—created Kevin—out of whole cloth by mistake. Perhaps Konrad had laid the framework with the identity he set up for himself, but that wasn't the same thing.
No, the more he thought about it, the more sure Javier was. Konrad might have set the foundation, but once he had gone—retreated, vanished, whatever you wanted to call it—Kevin had been left to fill in the blanks on his own...
And he had used Konrad's memories to do it.
Not all of them, of course, and the ones they shared had plainly been cleaned up, altered—transformed. Regardless, if that were the case, it meant facing the idea that the boundaries between the two hadn't been drawn as clearly or as cleanly as Javier had wanted to believe. It meant that a great deal of what Kevin was had still been built out of who Konrad had been, and that every time Javier thought he saw some of Kevin in his interactions with Konrad, it was because he had really been seeing those parts of Konrad in Kevin.
And Konrad himself was clearly a very different person when he wasn't defending himself from Bennet and accusations of murder. In fact, as Javier sat there listening, he thought that if he let the meaning in Konrad's words fade and just focused on his voice—on the way he spoke and the way he moved while he spoke—if he didn't already know better, he might have had difficulty distinguishing this man from his partner at all.
And that thought brought with it a sick, nagging ache of dread that settled painfully in his stomach.
There was so much that Javier feared about the future he had seen—questions of which he feared finding the answers. But suddenly one question loomed heavily in his mind, pushing any other fear or thought from his mind with the sheer, overwhelming horror of what it represented. Because, now, Javier found himself remembering the man he had met in his first jump into the future. A man untouched by time, a man who could move unseen, a man who fenced with Castle, a man who had teased him with foreign endearments and stolen kisses—a man that Javier had married.
What if that man wasn't really Kevin?
PREV: Chapter Twenty // MAIN // NEXT: Chapter Twenty-Two
Author's Note: My information about state of Mensur under the Third Reich is somewhat contradictory. Some of the articles I've read state that it was abolished with the student organizations that practiced it, but others say that dueling was made legal again. Of course, my main source is Wikipedia, and I could probably do a lot better, but in the interest of not wasting a lot of time trying to wade through German websites with my shitty grasp of the language, I'll split the difference by not specifying the conditions under which Konrad engaged in the activity, and assume that if it was illegal at the time, there was a group engaging in it underground.
I don't know if underground Mensur in Leipzig was actually a thing, but people fly in this 'verse, so I can make up shit if I want. It obviously hasn't bothered anybody thus far.
That said, I don't think Javier's wrong in calling it a stupid practice—but that also doesn't make dueling scars not hot.
(Yes, I'm weird, but we knew this.)
Translations:
Jawohl - an emphatic affirmative "yes", and in this case more or less equivalent to "Yes, sir."
Schmiss - literally a "hit", "smite" or "blow", it is also used for dueling scars.
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This is all kinds of awesome.
Date: Sunday, 9 September 2012 02:45 pm (UTC)From:The best part (aside from the last line, which I want to roll up with in a blanket and snuggle) is this: ... he thought that if he let the meaning in Konrad's words fade and just focused on his voice—on the way he spoke and the way he moved while he spoke—if he didn't already know better, he might have had difficulty distinguishing this man from his partner at all. I'm having a hard time articulating to myself why I love that part so much, or why I'm adoring the idea that it's Konrad he falls in love with instead of Kev, but there it is. Maybe it's because the story has revealed so much of Konrad to me, and I know so little of Kevin (given that I haven't watched Castle).
I'm a little surprised that Kate didn't try to mine for information (where are you now? where are you heading? what are you going to do? what kind of help do you need? how long will you be? what should I do about your work schedule? have you told Jenny? etc.) The sort of things cops are supposed to do when there's a hostage situation. But this isn't any ordinary hostage situation. She knows Konrad used to be a cop so he knows the drill, so maybe she just didn't bother. Also, maybe she's tracking them through Javier's phone and didn't want to say anything at all that might awake Konrad's suspicions.
Amusing that Mohinder might not appreciate Bennet trying to drag Molly into locating someone like Konrad. Who knows what powers Konrad might have to strike at her? Aside from the possibility that he can't be found at all, given the Ghost's ability.
Great story. I love it!
Re: This is all kinds of awesome.
Date: Sunday, 9 September 2012 05:53 pm (UTC)From:I imagine there is a lot of unseen activity going on at Kate and Castle's end of things, I just don't know if I'll ever get a chance to look at that part of it. And knowledge of Konrad's experience—both on the force, and as a Company spook—kind of temper those activities just a little bit. As much as I like procedural shows, it's really not at all my strong point, and most of them have to compress the investigations so much anyway that I can't help but seize on the opportunity to handwave it and move on.
And realizing phone trace (either mundane or by Micah) was a potential problem to my plans, I had originally meant to have Konrad remove the battery from the phone, but finishing the fic at 6 A.M. kind of blew that plan for me, and I just forgot. I might see about reintegrating the idea later.
I had to slip Mohinder in there. Mostly to tie up Molly's ability as an option, so that Bennet can't use that trick twice, but partly just because the idea of Mohinder having dad!rage makes me giggle every time.
Molly's ability wouldn't actually be hindered by the Ghost's the way it works in my head. People have to interact with him directly in some way, and they only really lose the memory of those interactions, not just the moment those interactions took place in. That's why people who knew him still kept old memories, and why Hiro was able to remember the baseball game, even if he didn't remember Konrad being there. It doesn't make him untraceable, people just can't hold on to their recollections of him. If Molly wasn't anywhere near him, she wouldn't be effected.
But, yeah, that whole thing where she wound up in a coma probably wouldn't give Momo fuzzy feelings about the idea.
Re: This is all kinds of awesome.
Date: Sunday, 9 September 2012 06:09 pm (UTC)From:Then there's the frightening prospect of what Konrad might or might not be able to do if obstructed. Which all depends on how much info on the abilities of specials is out there. If nothing else, Kate could ask Bennet what Konrad can possibly do other than be invisible and survive bullets. Noah could shrug and explain about how New York was almost blown off the map a few years ago - remember that explosion up in the air? - and leave it at that. Kate might call off all the dogs and just trace Konrad quietly, calling every two hours or so to make sure Javier is still alive and isn't giving any code words to indicate that he needs rescue.
Edit to add: I can see Konrad cooperating with that, too, because the more he can keep Javier's friends calm and out of his hair, the easier it will be to get his business done.
Re: This is all kinds of awesome.
Date: Sunday, 9 September 2012 06:31 pm (UTC)From:One concern of mine was that, now that the murder has been handled, the Castle characters and Bennet could almost be seen as working at cross-purposes. After all, they want Kevin back, but as far as Bennet's goals of creating his "new Company" are concerned, Konrad would be far more valuable...
Thankfully, typing this out gave me more cause to think about it, and see that it really wasn't the problem I thought it was. After all, I'd forgotten my own set up. Based on Angela's dream, Konrad really wouldn't be Bennet's priority... Javier would be. Playing along would definitely serve him better toward the end of securing Javier's cooperation than attempting to circumvent their plans and trying to take down Konrad on his own.