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Title: Black Edelweiss
Series: Zeitgeist
Follows: One Giant Leap
Wordcount: 5,972
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: Interlude 19 // MAIN // NEXT: Chapter Twenty-Five
Recap: Exhausted by his ordeal so far, Javier waited while Konrad was finally given his chance to seek closure with his dying son. In a self-aware but earnest conversation, each acknowledged their past wrongs, and Samson voiced his own regrets over his choices with his own son, Gabriel. As their talk drew to an end, Samson extended his forgiveness to his father, which he followed by making an unknown request...
Chapter Twenty-Four: An Old Man Sitting Next To Me
He says, "Son can you play me a memory?
I'm not really sure how it goes.
But it's sad and it's sweet, and I knew it complete
When I wore a younger man's clothes."
—Billy Joel, "Piano Man"
It was a different nurse that came to check up on them, perhaps an hour later—as best Javier could tell, anyway, since he wasn't quite sure how much time had actually passed. She had come up beside him, waiting patiently, almost cautiously, for him to notice her presence without apparent offense at how long it took—which Javier had appreciated very much, for apart from the attention focused on his watch of the door, he was all but asleep on his feet. He had done his best to listen to her words with an apologetic, punchy sort attention, and made a promise to pass them on which she had accepted with visible sympathy.
Though it was hardly his greatest surprise of the day—Javier felt like he was being forced to readjust the scale near-constantly—it threw Javier just a little how reluctant he was to interrupt. While, for the most part, he was eager almost to the point of madness to see this whole thing finally over with, there a nagging part of him that seemed almost to want to delay. It hardly seemed to make any sense—all Javier had to do was get Konrad to the station and, finally, he would have his partner back. Yet, even as that goal seemed almost within his reach, Javier found it impossible to forget everything Konrad stood to lose.
Though Javier was dying to see Kevin again, it just wasn't in him to begrudge Konrad the last few moments he would ever have with his son.
"I'm sorry," Javier said, once he had delivered the nurse's request that they leave and allow Samson his rest.
"No," Konrad said softly, letting out a breath as he slowly shook his head. "No, I understand."
"Do you have it?" Samson asked Konrad then.
Though his voice was weak, it drew both of their attention completely. And it was in in Javier's mind briefly to ask what he was talking about, but the pain that crossed Konrad's face at the words stopped him. Konrad nodded wordlessly, taking Samson's hand in his.
"Bis Abfallen," Samson said as he returned his father's grip, lips parting in a shaky smile.
"Bis Abfallen," Konrad returned, voice tight as he mirrored the smile sadly, eyes red with the beginning of tears.
He reached out, brushing the hair back from Samson's face. And though his eyes remained on his son, Konrad turned his head just slightly so that when he spoke again Javier knew the words were meant for him.
"Cover your ears," Konrad said.
And Javier thought that maybe Konrad wanted just a few more parting words between them, and so, grudgingly, he did what he was told. However it became obvious very quickly that this wasn't exactly the case. Javier wasn't entirely sure what did happen, but some kind of strange vibration filled the room, and though he couldn't hear it—whatever it was—Javier thought he could feel it buzzing at the back of his teeth. Finally Samson's eyes lidded heavily, fluttering closed, and the feeling died down slowly, fading until it was gone.
Konrad leaned down to kiss Samson's forehead and then stood, nodding briefly to Javier. And Javier's heart was racing, his gut tight with apprehension, but finally, cautiously, he lowered his hands.
"Is he—"
And he honestly wasn't sure if he could have finished asking, not with what the question implied. Thankfully, Javier wasn't required to as Konrad slowly shook his head.
"Asleep," Konrad said softly, offering Javier a weak, sympathetic smile. "But he should sleep longer and sounder this way than with anything they could give him."
Konrad took a shaking breath as he looked over his son one last time.
"As weak as he is, though," Konrad added painfully, "it's possible he might not wake up."
Javier decided not to ask. He was sure that he didn't want to know.
Without a single word of acknowledgment or direction from either one of them they headed back to the car. Javier thought they were both eager to put this day behind them. The silence which filled the car as they began the drive back to New York was a cold, weighted thing. It hung so heavily in the air that it almost felt difficult to breathe. Watching him from the corner of his eye, Javier could see that distressing stillness begin to creep in on Konrad's energy once again, the farewell clearly a heavy presence on the other man's mind.
"What did he mean, 'like father like son'?" Javier found himself asking suddenly.
As conversation went, it probably wasn't the most sensitive topic he could have chosen, but Javier was desperate to avoid seeing Konrad withdraw into himself yet again. And though he had tried not to listen in on the conversation with Samson—and had, indeed, succeeded for the most part—those words had been familiar enough for Javier to catch easily, even at a distance. While he didn't want to pry, Javier still had certain responsibilities to his partner. There were some things he needed to know, and all those instincts that Javier was only just learning how to listen to were crying out at him that this was one of them.
"I'm...not entirely sure," Konrad said, the evasion sounding almost halfhearted as he finally made an effort to pull back from his thoughts.
"Why do I not believe that?" Javier asked skeptically.
"Because your career has left you jaded and distrusting of people?" Konrad responded, quickly.
And almost—almost—Javier thought he could feel some genuine life in the words, so he decided not to let them slide. He spared his attention from the road just long enough to level a glance at the other man that was almost a glare. He didn't know which one of them was more surprised when, after what Javier thought was a short debate with himself, Konrad gave in.
"I'm assuming you know about the ability that erases me from people's memories?" Konrad asked.
Accepting Javier's nod as confirmation, he continued.
"Then it'll make sense that afterward I managed records for the Company instead of doing field work. Back in the early Eighties, a string of murders crossed my desk. They came from all over the country, but the victims were all specials, and they were all murdered in the same strange way—and I mean strange, even by the standards of the job—so it became sort of a pet project of mine to try and put the pieces together."
Konrad trailed off, briefly lapsing into a short silence, clearly disturbed at the memory.
"It wasn't until I started looking over the cases more closely that I came across one important detail," Konrad said slowly. "A name. A name that wouldn't have meant anything to anyone but me... The first victim was a woman, slain outside a diner in New Jersey...and Martin and his wife Virginia were both witnesses at the scene."
Konrad paused, wetting his lips as he shook his head once again.
"As we'd say in the Company," Konrad said, letting out a weak laugh, "there are no coincidences. I visited Martin, and I asked him about what had happened. He didn't know the whole story, just that Samson had called, asking Martin to meet him there. Martin said he had sounded desperate—afraid. Something had Samson so scared that he had begged Martin to take his son from him, saying it was for the boy's safety. And Martin never knew exactly what happened after Samson left, but...he thought maybe Gabriel's mother might have objected to turning him over."
Javier didn't need to ask. He knew that Konrad was referring to the victim.
"Some abilities are...broken, I guess," Konrad said, slowly, meeting Javier's eye briefly for the first time since beginning the story. "I mean, any ability can become damaged, like mine has, but some are just inherently that way. They push back at a person's control, until in a way the ability uses the person wielding it as much as the person uses it. And sometimes, they take hold of a person completely... "
Konrad fell silent for a moment. He seemed hesitant to continue. Yet, after what Javier thought was a short debate with himself, Konrad eventually gave in.
"From what I've managed to piece together, I think Samson had an ability, and that it was similar to mine in some ways," Konrad said. "Not the same, though. I think he was able to copy abilities from other specials...but he had to kill in order to do it. And I think he felt himself losing control of that, which is why he chose to leave his son behind."
With this new information in hand, Konrad's earlier comments about Samson—that he would be dead if the Company had found him—now made a very painful and disturbing kind of sense. Yet, even though Konrad hadn't spoken with either of his sons in decades, with Kate's help he had still found them easily enough. And Konrad had very clearly known about his son's crimes for a very long time. If the Company had failed in finding their murderer, it could only mean that Konrad had never given them the information they would have needed to find him—
That Konrad had knowingly allowed a killer to run free.
Javier felt his stomach clench at the thought. He thought bitterly of the relief he had felt when Konrad had been found blameless in Zimmerman's murder. During his tense wait at the station, Javier had feared more than anything that it might prove otherwise. As many times as he tried to imagine laying that burden at his partner's feet, Javier hadn't been sure that he could have done it. The thought of being forced to tell Kevin that he was a murderer... Javier knew that a revelation like that would have broken his partner completely.
Now, though... Now this.
Javier didn't know how he was supposed to handle this. In allowing Samson to go free Konrad had made himself an accessory to every one of his son's crimes. In the eyes of many, that made him just as guilty as if he had taken those lives himself...and if Javier knew his partner at all, he couldn't imagine Kevin being able to see it any other way.
"I met Sam's kid only twice," Konrad said suddenly—and a bit absently—after a long stretch of silence, drawing Javier's attention away from his thoughts. "The first time was when I first talked to Martin. He was...I don't know, maybe seven or eight? He probably wouldn't have remembered me, even if it were possible..."
"The second time was after I left the Company," Konrad said, his faint smile turned a bit wry, almost bashful. "It was sort of a birthday present to myself. I swore to Sarah that I'd leave our sons alone, but Gabriel hadn't been born yet when I did, so I justified to myself that I wasn't really breaking my promise by visiting him again, just once. Afterward, I thought about trying to get closer to him, try and become a part of his life—maybe as a neighbor, at first, later as a friend. But that was in late 2001, so...I guess you know I never really got the chance to make good on those plans."
"Samson made it sound as if his son might have inherited his same ability," Konrad said, with a sigh. "It's not common, but it happens. Though, for his sake, I hope I'm wrong..."
And Javier found himself thinking of another Gabriel—of his strange, predatory energy and Bennet's resolute wariness—and wondering if the boy Konrad remembered had grown into the man he and Kevin had met at the station. Konrad's own words echoed Javier's earlier instincts on the subject—
There were no coincidences.
A few more moments passed in silence, and Javier took the opportunity to collect himself just a bit. He thought Konrad might have done the same. Though the other man was still alarmingly quiet, Javier thought he detected more...ease in it. Though Javier silently doubted that the ghosts of Konrad's past could ever fully be at peace, for now they seemed to have given up haunting him—for a short while at least. Javier found that oddly encouraging.
"And the words you said to him before we left?" Javier asked, for once honestly curious. "Bis..."
As he stumbled over repeating them, Javier wondered briefly why he was asking. Yet, despite the sadness of Konrad's smile and the tears in his eyes, as the words had been exchanged Javier had thought he saw something warm in the expression. With so much of Konrad's pain laid already laid bare before him, Javier thought he wouldn't mind seeing that again.
And as some small measure of that warmth returned to the smile on Konrad's face, Javier found it difficult to regret the question.
"Bis Abfallen," Konrad repeated softly. Fondly.
For a moment, Konrad said nothing else, watching quietly out the window. Yet, rather than empty, his silence simply felt thoughtful.
"I speak more than twenty languages," Konrad said suddenly.
He didn't say it as though he were bragging but conversationally, as if it were a detail he thought Javier should know. For a moment, Javier almost assumed it was the start of another tangent—those random digressions that, to his mind, were among the more jarring traits Konrad shared with his partner—yet, from the glance Konrad sent his way to gauge his attention, he quickly realized that it wasn't.
"Even after Auschwitz, after meeting Adam and learning about what I was, it was a long time before I realized that was a part of it," Konrad said, frowning slightly. "Adam's ability, and Ruth's, the others that followed... They always felt strange to me, foreign—other. But I'd always been good with languages, for as long as I could remember. My mother was too, so I'd always just assumed it was natural. It wasn't until Zimmerman joined the Company and began picking apart how my ability worked that I realized that my mother's talent for language was probably the first ability I ever copied."
Konrad paused, letting his head fall back against the headrest with a distant look to his eyes and a soft smile.
"I've never managed to connect with anyone the way I did with my mother," Konrad said, "and I don't think I ever will, because sometimes one language—or two, or even three or four—just isn't enough, not to tell someone exactly what you mean. You'll never fully understand what's going on in a person's head if they don't have the right vocabulary to express it—le mot juste, the perfect word—and no one language has them all."
"My friendship with Adam probably came the closest," Konrad confessed. "His long life had given him a decent grasp of several languages, but it still wasn't quite the same. My mother and I could shift between more than a half-dozen languages in the course of a single conversation. We'd discuss music auf Deutsch and in italiano, talk about art or food en français, and often we'd use English to discuss language itself..."
"Dozens of languages," Konrad repeated, still smiling softly, "and my mother liked to use them all in her endearments toward my father. 'Amant', 'caro', 'erastís'...and sometimes 'bobo', which she always meant affectionately, so he never knew it was Spanish for 'fool'. And my father only ever had one language at his disposal, but he made good use of it... He was a watchmaker, but he really could have been a poet—even if a lot of what he said was over the top, and more than a little ridiculous."
Javier was tempted to interrupt, but Konrad seemed to realize on his own that he had begun to drift away from the topic in his reminiscence. He offered Javier a faintly apologetic smile, one which swiftly turned subdued, fading quickly.
"When I began my life with Sarah and the boys, I couldn't take any of that with me," Konrad said, sadly. "I couldn't even sing them the lullabies I'd grown up with as a boy. The father they knew—Dorian Gray—was a British veteran. It wouldn't have made any sense..."
"And yes," Konrad said suddenly, interrupting himself uncomfortably, "I know the name was terrible. Adam came up with it on short notice, mostly as a joke. By the time I got around to asking him why it was so funny, it was too late to change it, not without starting over again. And I guess I thought it kind of fit. What I was doing—lying to my family—at the time I thought it was the right thing. In real life, that's not always as simple as black and white. Sometimes we're forced to compromise and accept actions that are morally kind of grey..."
Pain crossed Konrad's face then that Javier didn't want to think about too closely—he already knew far more about Konrad's life of compromises than he ever could have wanted.
"But I could get away with passing on a few phrases, claiming I'd picked them up during the war," Konrad said, finally seeming to return to the original question, "and there was one my father loved to say to my mother and my sisters and I that always made me smile. So I taught it to my sons, and even Sarah thought it was sweet, but it was kind of a mouthful, so eventually we shortened it to 'bis Abfallen'. That means 'until the fall', more or less. Which is nice enough, but what my father actually used to say was 'Ich liebe dich bis die Zahnräder der Uhr Herrgotts abfallen.'"
Konrad smiled at the memory, and it was probably one of the most sincere that Javier had ever seen from the man. And that smile, and the warmth that went with it were still there when Konrad turned to look at him, translating the rest:
"'I'll love you until the wheels fall off the Lord's watch.'"
And Javier blamed it on lack of sleep, on stress, and on the overwhelming surreality of the fucked-up nature of his situation that he didn't exactly remember pulling the car off the road and stopping them safely—in fact, it was entirely possible that Konrad had done it for him. For a moment, all he could really think about was the ringing in his ears, the pressure in his chest, and his own heartbeat pounding painfully in his head. Javier closed his eyes, resting his head against his arm on the steering wheel and tried to get a grip on himself.
"Detective Esposito?"
From the concern he heard in Konrad's voice, Javier knew without looking up the exact expression that would greet him once he did. In an impressively inappropriate moment of humor Javier let out a faint laugh, wondering if his partner's mother-henning ways were inborn, or if they had grown from the pain of an immortal who had lost too much already...
And he let out another laugh once he did look up, as his intuition was proven right.
The laughter inspired an unpleasantly familiar twist in the worried lines of Konrad's brow. He seemed poised to ask what the matter was, though hesitant to ask it. Javier shook his head, saving him the trouble, and for a while both of them were silent. Javier chose to spend that time quietly pulling himself together.
"You really are him, aren't you?" Javier found himself saying, once words even became possible. Because it was only now that it was really starting to process through his mind. "I mean, you're not, but... I can't look at you without still seeing him—not just his face, him. All the things I like about him, and the ones I can't stand—"
And Javier had been doing his best trying to keep Konrad and Kevin defined separately in his head, thinking of them as different people entirely. Because it was so much easier for Konrad to be the enemy so long as Javier remembered that, as long as he existed, Kevin was gone. Yet Javier's mind had been betraying him by inches, and it had begun with the acknowledgment that Konrad was a very different man when he wasn't under attack—he simply hadn't let himself think about who that man really was. But Javier could see it now, and it was one of those things which, once seen, could not be forgotten. In facial expression and body language, voice and personality Konrad and Kevin were painfully similar, and they weren't the same man, not completely...
But they weren't entirely separate either.
Because what Javier was starting to see was what Claire Bennet had meant—would mean—with her father's words about the similarity of their situations. Javier mistrusted his future self because he wasn't that man yet, and knew almost nothing about his life or the choices he had made. Yet, by now, Javier knew a very great deal about Konrad's life, and Konrad's choices, and he thought he knew just enough that he could imagine it—imagine who Kevin would be if his life ever came to hold the depth of regret and pain that Konrad had seen. But whatever innocence Konrad might still be said to have, Kevin had clung onto stubbornly. And if Javier really did have any influence over the future, then so help him, he was going to do everything in his power to make sure it stayed that way...
Because Konrad was Kevin, in every way but the one that really mattered.
"And I don't know what that means," Javier finished, numbly.
"I think I do," Konrad said quietly.
And though he had turned away, his expression seemed to reflect in equal measure the confusion that Javier felt.
"I know that I don't know you," Konrad said, not meeting Javier's eyes, "but sometimes I feel like I do. When you live the way I have—for as long as I have—it becomes easier to keep secrets than it is to reveal them. Trust isn't something that comes easy for me, it hasn't been for a very long time... But I do trust you. Without knowing you, I've trusted you from the moment we first met..."
Pausing, Konrad sat back to look out the front window. He let out a faint, baffled laugh, shaking his head.
"Except it wasn't the first time, was it?" he said, the words almost a whisper.
When he looked back at Javier, his expression was thoughtful, but there was an awkward hesitance to it. Javier raised his eyebrows questioningly, long past being surprised when Konrad read it with ease.
"Look, Adam hinted that we...that you and Ryan..." Konrad started, paused, his brows creasing with an embarrassed wince. "He, uh, thought we were sleeping together?"
He didn't say it as though he were surprised by the idea, rather worried that Javier might be offended. And Javier's mind froze, balanced for a stuttering moment on the edge of panic before he remembered how unlikely it was that Konrad was aware of his earlier fears. After all, though the immortal might have any number of unknown abilities at his disposal, Javier was confident enough of the man's character to know that, were that the case, Konrad would have spared them both he painful embarrassment of even asking. Yet even once the panic cooled, it still took Javier a few minutes to even draw breath, let alone answer.
"I, uh, no," Javier managed, feeling his face heat up. "We— No. We're friends. Partners. And anyway, he's engaged."
Though it was only as the words left his lips that Javier realized how incriminating that last excuse really sounded. He thought Konrad probably caught it as well, because he favored Javier with a sympathetic wince.
"Schade."
Between the disappointment he heard in Konrad's voice and the faint, almost shy smile that followed, Javier didn't even need a translation. Though his mouth felt suddenly dry, he thought that understanding should have made him feel far more uncomfortable than it did.
"Well, then what's she like?" Konrad asked, cautiously.
And Javier wasn't sure which of them he was asking for, whether it was simply honest curiosity or if Konrad were trying to keep Javier distracted before he could continue losing whatever was left of his mind. Thinking about it, Javier thought it was probably a combination of both, though as far as the second motivation were concerned, the subject left a lot to be desired. Because the last thing he wanted to do was make this nightmare any more surreal by talking about Jenny—
It wasn't a topic he enjoyed, even on the best of days.
He and Kevin had been friends for almost as long as they had been partners. Before his first jump, Javier wouldn't have hesitated to call the other man his brother—though they had easily been far closer than many brothers Javier had met. So it was perhaps a little odd, in hindsight, that Jenny had never presented as a significant blip on Javier's radar. Partly, that was because Kevin never did talk much about anyone he was seeing until it was serious—he had always been a bit old fashioned that way—but once it had reached that point Kevin really hadn't been able to shut up about her. Still, Javier couldn't remember just how long she and Kevin had been dating before he had finally gotten the chance to meet her, and though Jenny and his partner had been together for more than a year, he could count on both hands the number of times he had spoken to her at length about anything other than Kevin.
That was before his jump, of course.
That brief glimpse of their future had cast uncomfortable doubt upon his his and Kevin's relationship, leaving Javier to question their closeness to one another. During the months that followed, even though he had dismissed it as a dream, there had been several incidents where Javier had caught himself replaying the memory of his partner's lips on his. And if the hopeless snarl of fear and confusion those moments always inspired had lent an awkward dimension to Javier's friendship with Kevin, it was nothing compared to the damage done to his interactions with Jenny. Because he could half convince himself that the dream had meant nothing, but whenever he saw Jenny—or when Kevin talked about her, or when he simply heard her name—it became impossible for Javier to delude himself that the jealousy he felt could really be anything else.
Impossible to pretend that the feeling cutting his chest upon seeing Kevin propose to her had been anything but the sharp sting of loss.
And it had felt so foolish to mourn something that had never existed, desires Javier had hardly allowed himself to acknowledge let alone pursue. He had known only too keenly that it was something he would never have—could never have—even if he had.
Then, only two weeks ago, Bennet's daughter had blown the lid off the existence of specials. Suddenly, the dream that Javier had tried so hard to dismiss had been rendered a potentiality in the larger puzzle—a part of the new reality he was being forced to accept. And in the days that had followed, Javier's jealousy toward Jenny had come to carry a much bitterer edge.
Because Javier still knew far too little about his ability, whatever it was. He didn't know how much of the future it was truly in his power to change. He had no way of knowing whether the future he had so briefly touched continued to exist—or whether Kevin's fears in that future had been borne out, and whatever life they would have had together destroyed beyond the chance of ever being. The thought had hurt more than Javier ever could have imagined...
Yet, if there was one thing that hurt Javier even more than the thought of having lost Kevin before he ever knew he might have had him, it was the bitter hope that he might have him still. For while his waking hours remained focused on the larger implications of his so called talent, the thought had crept in more than once during those unguarded moments before sleep...
If the future was within his power to change—if the future he had seen might still lie ahead of him—then the possibility remained for things to turn out in his favor.
But Javier didn't need to be told how dangerous that kind of thinking was. Jenny made his partner happy, and whatever Javier might have wanted, he would never—could never—do anything to harm that happiness for his own sake, no matter how much it hurt. Javier had agreed to be Kevin's best man for just that reason—because the pain he had inflicted in trying to strike a distance between them had been more than Javier could forgive himself—and resolved to keep his mouth shut, and his opinions to himself.
Even if, at times, it felt like he might choke on them.
Now, though, the thought tickled perversely through his mind that Konrad might be the only person with whom it was safe to share those opinions honestly. After all, once Petrelli fixed all this, Kevin wasn't going to remember a word of it.
"She's, uh, blonde," Javier started hesitantly, and immediately felt a little stupid that he should start there. "Blue eyes. Pretty, I guess. I mean, she's nice looking. In that kind of...too perfect sort of way."
Javier cut himself off of that tract abruptly, because, yeah, that sounded real fair.
"I haven't really put the time into getting to know her," Javier finally admitted, wetting his lips, "so I'm sure she's got a lot of nice qualities I haven't seen. But...honestly, I think she'd make a shitty wife for a cop. Because what I have seen is that she's clingy. And pushy. And kind of high maintenance. And far too quick to accuse Kevin of cheating on her. In front of the whole station. Based on a joke. And— God, can you believe he still proposed to her after a scene like that?"
Catching himself, Javier swore internally, taking a breath before he dared look Konrad in the eye. He honestly didn't know how to feel about what he saw. Konrad was watching him with a thoughtful, bemused expression. Upon seeing Javier's discomfort, though, it turned inexplicably embarrassed, and Konrad flashed him a wry but sheepish smile.
"Adam was right about one thing," he said. "I guess I do have a type..."
And the way he tilted his head slightly at the thought was something Javier couldn't quite read... Though, if it had been Kevin sitting in front of him, Javier would have been sure he was missing something. After a moment and a short blink Konrad cleared his throat.
"Er, she sounds a lot like Sarah," he said, apparently by way of explanation. "The boys' mother."
Though it took Javier a few seconds to parse that the boys in question were the two old men he had met so very recently, once he had he couldn't help but laugh.
"I'm going to do Kevin a huge favor and not tell him that Jenny reminds you of the mother of your serial killer babies," he said, knowing as he did that it was more than a little insensitive, but he was long past being shell shocked and exhausted beyond any reasonable control of his filters.
Fortunately, Konrad didn't seem to take offense. After a soft, sympathetic snort, his expression turned thoughtful.
"It might not be a bad idea, actually," Konrad said quietly. At Javier's blank look, he clarified. "Not telling him about Sam, I mean."
"I can't even begin to imagine what any of this must be like for him," Konrad said distantly, shaking his head at the thought. "What it has to be like finding out that the past you remember never happened... But I can't help but think that, if I was in his place, learning that I'd had sons just in time to lose them both would just about kill me."
Though, thinking back over the past night and the morning that had followed, Javier couldn't help but feel that, in a way, that was exactly what had happened.
Knowing Kevin as well as he did, it was impossible for Javier to disagree. Konrad's existence alone had almost been enough to break his partner. Javier didn't like the idea of lying to his partner, but the thought of adding all he now knew—Samson and his crimes, Martin and his bitterness, the lost memories of their life as a family that Konrad had been forced to leave behind—to what Kevin was already being forced to accept about himself, he couldn't help but feel it would be too much for Kevin. Too soon, at the very least.
Trying not to think about it too closely, Javier started the engine back up and carefully pulled the car back onto the road.
"There aren't any other kids out there, right?" Javier asked, as much to push aside his own unease as to distract Konrad from his. "Because that's something maybe me and Kevin should know about."
And Javier winced slightly at his own phrasing—him and Kevin—but it would be pointless for him to either correct the slip or dwell on it for long.
"No," Konrad said quietly, shaking his head. "No, I don't think so. There weren't many loves in my life after Sarah—and none you'd have to worry about. My feelings for Kaito Nakamura were always one-sided—Angela and I always had that much in common. The last real relationship I had was with my final partner, Haram, but then I wound up taking the Ghost's ability. He tried, I tried, but...that was really the end of it. More or less."
Konrad sighed, shaking his head.
"And I've never really enjoyed one-night stands," Konrad said wearily, "but afterward it was impossible to have anything more than that. I mean, sex can be casual without being meaningless, but it's hard enough finding a connection with a stranger without the knowledge that they're going to forget about you the very next day."
Javier said nothing—there was nothing he really could say. The conversation had already lapsed too far into information he wasn't sure he really wanted. Somehow, it had never really struck him before how lonely Konrad's life must have been. Knowing about the ability that had cursed him was one thing, but it was entirely another hearing about the impact it had had on the man's life—how deep a wound it must have been. Just trying to imagine Kevin living through that...the idea broke his heart.
Yet oddly, though the topic could easily have turned maudlin, Konrad's lips curved in a faint smile.
"Though I guess there are always exceptions to the rule," Konrad said fondly. "Back in the late Sixties, just before I joined the Company there was this one woman—an actress. I think her name was Mary...or Molly?"
Konrad sighed.
"It was long enough ago that I don't remember," he said with a regretful smile, "but it would be impossible not to remember her, even after thirty years—or almost forty now, I suppose. And she really wasn't my type, but I was leaving yet another life behind, and at the time the way she embraced life was exactly what I needed."
He turned quiet a moment, staring out the window as if lost in the memory.
"I don't know if we could have worked in the long term," Konrad finally said. "Maybe if we'd met a few days earlier, and I hadn't had to leave... Then again, maybe not with all my baggage. Still, I always thought it might have been nice to meet her again someday. Even only as friends."
And Javier wasn't sure how he should feel about the awkward discomfort he felt hearing that story. Fortunately, Konrad seemed to sense it, and offered him an apologetic smile. From there, the silence in the car was drown out by music rather than conversation as Konrad browsed channels on the radio. As tired as he was, and with so much on his mind, Javier's thoughts were already full of static, so rather than being annoyed with the habit it was so much easier just to let him.
Focused carefully on his driving and keeping other, distracting thoughts from his mind, most of it fell into the background anyway, so he couldn't quite pinpoint when Konrad had begun to whistle along with the music. There was a strange, echoing quality to it—almost a buzzing sound—so that, even once he had noticed, Javier couldn't seem to recognize the song underneath. He was almost moved to ask, but his tongue felt heavy, and he realized that his thoughts—and his breathing, he noted dully, and even his heart rate—had slowed to an unusual crawl. And a desperate, helpless kind of alarm rose in the back of his mind as Javier realized what was happening, but even that felt strangely out of reach...
Finally, though, even that fear flickered and was extinguished, quenched beneath the rising static.
PREV: Interlude 19 // MAIN // NEXT: Chapter Twenty-Five
I've had this scene planned out for a very long time, so it's funny how it only now occurs to me how poorly I may have seeded this detail about Konrad's mother in previous chapters. I've referenced language several times with Konrad, and had him speaking several of them, but I'm not sure I ever succeeded in making it feel at all significant. So that part might feel a bit random.
Some of my characterizations of language are a bit cliched, but I only speak the one, so what I've got will have to do. The reason I chose English as the language for languages is there are probably few languages that could be said to hold more varied influences. Like the old quote (of obscure provenance) that likens English to a mugger that lurks in dark alleys, knocks other languages unconscious, and searches their pockets for spare vocabulary.
For Heroes fans perhaps unfamiliar with Castle, the title and quote for this chapter are a nod to this scene from season 3.
"Amant", "caro", "erastís" - French, Italian and Greek respectively, meaning "lover" or "beloved".
"Schade." - "Pity."
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Date: Wednesday, 13 March 2013 05:03 am (UTC)From:Your comments both touch on call-backs that I probably also should have mentioned in the author's note. Heroes canon is so complex, I usually go out of my way to make sure it's understood, but I usually let details from Castle slip through the cracks...
The reason you can't remember Mary is simply because Konrad isn't remembering the right name (it was forty years ago, thirty from his perspective). The real name of the woman in Interlude 12 was Martha, and specifically her words about "loving a life time in a single night" are meant to identify her as Martha Rogers, a.k.a. Richard Castle's mother, who spoke those words on the show about Castle's unnamed father.
(In other words, the memory fail is a transparent ploy to keep Javier from figuring it out, because he's a detective, and if he hears Konrad say he slept with a life-loving actress named Martha in the late '60s he's going to put the pieces together.)
Likewise, Konrad's family saying is a call-back to an episode of Castle called "Den of Thieves" (considered by Ryan/Esposito shippers the height of the show's slashiness) in which Javier was facing some past demons. Kevin had the line: "I'm your partner. That means I'm with you 'til the wheels fall off." Which Javier almost repeated to Noah in Chapter Eleven when protecting Kevin's interests. But it means something different when Konrad says it, both literally (tying it to the Gray family, since "wheels" being another word for the gears of a watch), and emotionally. Needless to say, Javier isn't sure how to handle it.
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Date: Wednesday, 13 March 2013 12:12 pm (UTC)From:You know, someday I'll watch more of Castle and have a hard time seeing the characters through any lens but that provided by this story. :)