the (irritating) mouths of babes

Who: Arden and Danny
Where: ECPD Station
When: late afternoon

After lunch with Janey, Danny had headed back to the station to find another set of paperwork on his desk. He was halfway through the stack when Johnson came through the door dragging the little spitfire behind him. Danny couldn't help but look up from Ki's file, which he'd taken a break paperwork to read through again, as if something else might jump out at him about it. Some clue that someone had missed.

Johnson spotted Danny with ease, he was the only one at a desk at this time of day and obviously had no way to get out of it with his arm in a sling. Tugging the little girl behind him by the sleeve he drug her straight towards Danny, depositing her on the chair next to Danny's desk with an exasperated sigh.

"What's this?" Danny asked, obviously not amused.

"I found her vandalizing one of the old abandoned buildings on Elm. Throwing rocks through windows and things like that. I asked her where her parents were and she just gave me lip. So I brought her in," Johnson explained.

"So your intent was to book her then?" Danny asked raising an eyebrow and reaching for the flask he kept in his sling now. At least the stupid thing had some sort of good use.

"Look McKinnon. I don't care what you do with her. Just get her out of here or lock her up. I'm done." With that Johnson strode off and left Danny staring at the young girl in front of him.

"Would you like to be arrested?" he asked her while he tipped the flask into his coffee mug.

Arden was none too happy about being dragged about in such a manner, and her eyes stared daggers into the back of the man's head, being wholly unhelpful as she let her feet drag across the station floor. She used all her mental energy to will the stupid balding spot in the man's head bigger because she had just been minding her own business and hadn't been bothering anybody just an old building until this stupid cop showed up and ruined everything and it wasn't sadism if she willed him bald because it didn't hurt and the jerk deserved it anyway. And before bothering to answer Danny Arden took a good well-deserved minute to stick her tongue out at the other cop's back when he walked away.

When she turned to face the new copper, Arden watched intently as he poured the flask, then flicked her eyes to the sling, and then observed the cop as a whole in general. An adult might have at least flicked their gaze away at some point, or pretend not to notice, or at least not stare so rudely. But Arden's curiosity spared no relief. She didn't answer for a moment, cocking her a head a bit as she scrutinized him none too shyly, letting her mind process everything and turn it over in her head. She was a child, certainly, and may not have understood everything she saw. But, characteristic of most children, Arden was more observant of details than adults gave her credit for. "What's that?" she finally asked, in a tone that demanded to know, ignoring his question for the moment in favor of shooting off one on a more interesting curiosity.

Danny closed the top on the flask with one hand, which was slightly awkward but he made the most of it. "You didn't answer my question," he pointed out, playing her game with her and ignoring her question as he tucked the flask back into his sling and took a sip out of the coffee cup. "Officer Johnson there thinks I should fingerprint and book you. Is that what you want?"

She slouched back against the chair and crossed her arms. "I wasn't hurting anybody," she muttered, half-sulking and half-glaring at Danny, "I'm not a sadist." And, with the emphasis on the last word, she was more than defensive on that point. "Nobody was using it -- half the windows were already broken anyway," she sneered, defensively, in a voice that very much said: 'Hah, so there!'. But her curiosity had fixated on a point that wasn't going to be brushed away, and she soon returned to it. "There's this old guy who talks funny and has a thing like that and he sips from it at church when the priest isn't looking. My dad calls him a drunk. Are you a drunk too?" she asked. And in her tone and her fixated gaze it was hard to tell whether the words spilled from a mouth too young to recognize the impropriety, or whether they came from an artful and spiteful brat playing innocent.

"Sadist? I didn't realize that was part of the standard grammar school vocabulary," Danny commented taking another sip out of coffee mug. "And just because the windows were already broken hardly gets you off the case for vandalizing the building. It still belongs to someone who probably doesn't appreciate you breaking the windows." Her other question bit a little, especially after Zhen's observation from previously. "I'd hardly think I talk funny enough to be a drunk." He was beginning to see what Johnson was talking about. "Who's your dad?" Danny would call the man and get him to come claim his daughter.

There was a dark frown that overtook her expression when he asked about her father, not even scratching the surface of the dark, violent storm that raged through her about the issue. Her father. The letters. Her mother. "He's probably at work or something,," she replied putting on a great show of being all nonchalant and shrugging on the manner. But Arden wasn't a very good actress, not yet anyway; and subtleties such as the scowl in her brow contradicted a 'nonchalant' shrug were lost on her. "Or so he says," she added, for a second the disturbing darkness in the child evident in how she spat out the last word. Her mother had left her. Her father, the only parent she thought she had, had lied to her. Both said they loved her. Just another lie, probably. Arden knew parents that truly loved their kids didn't act like that -- they didn't do things like that.

But as quickly as that flash of darkness surfaced it burrowed back into the girl, and Arden resumed making haughty proclamations about this whole 'vandalizing' business, "Well whoever owns it should have done something with it anyway but they didn't," she answered, voice saturated with disapproval, sounding very matter-of-fact on unbothered now that she had returned to a subject more interesting and that the girl felt she was infallible on -- whether it was warrant or not, "If I owned the building and didn't want people throwing rocks I would have put electric fences with barbed wires and dogs and traps like those in Egyptian mummy tombs or something."

The darkness in her tone caught him off guard and had him wondering what she disliked so much about her father, besides him working and not being around. "What about your mother?" he asked, hoping that might get them somewhere faster than asking about her father. "I must say though, your ideas on security would be useful for the current owner of the building. I've always found that mummy tomb traps are the best way to keep little girls out of places." And Janey wanted children. Danny tried very hard to keep his 'cop' face in place and not roll his eyes at the girl. "What's your name?"

"Well, I'm not afraid of any mummy tombs," Arden replied haughtily, although something was a bit off about it, and it seemed as if the girl was set on entirely ignoring the question. She was quiet for a long moment, still eying him intently, the furrow in her brow jumping between pained and angry, unsure what to settle on. Her mother... that was still an issue left unresolved in the girl's psyche, threatening into a black hole. And while some lines had certainly blurred with the revelation of the letters, it hadn't made anything less confusing or painful or messy... only much, much messier. "Haven't seen her," the girl finally replied with a shrug, again feigning nonchalance, only with this issue the mask was more transparent than the last. Arden's gaze finally dropped from him, resting upon the stapler on his desk as she reached over with one finger and pushed on it. And pushed on it. And kept on at it incessently as more and more wasted stapled popped needlessly out of the thing. It was difficult to determine whether the girl meant it to be bothersome, or whether the child just needed something to focus away from some unpleasant subject, but regardless of the motivation it probably got irritating as all hell.

And again, it seemed like she was dead set on ignoring him and saying nothing more -- but then she did. "But m'teacher says she works at a place called Babylon -- that's what she told Mrs. McNulty in the hallway," with that Arden flicked her eyes back to Danny, her focus the most intense yet. She hadn't been meant to overhear the conversation -- it was yet another of the many things she heard adults whisper around there when they thought she wasn't listening. Her hand still kept at the stapler, punctuating the silence with each additional click!, obviously tuning into every fidget of Danny's reaction with all her focus. The girl didn't know just what there was about Babylon, other than it was some hotel, but she knew there was something. She knew in the way the adults would only whisper it when they thought she couldn't hear, in the way they fidgeted and shut up whenever she asked about it.

Danny's good hand was halfway across the table to snatch the stapler from her knowing that someone would have his head for a stack of wasted staples when the girl mentioned Babylon. No wonder she looked so upset when she mentioned her mother. Though the girl still looked well cared for despite the torn clothes, so that meant her father wasn't completely struggling. "Well I doubt she works there anymore. It was shut down by the police and then someone burned it to the ground," Danny told her, not entirely realizing that some topics of conversation should be avoided or addressed differently when talking to a child.

Well that got the child's hand to stop, hovering in mid-air just above the stapler, her eyes widening a hair and body tensing at the answer. Other than that, the girl's reaction was unreadable, only it was some very deeply disturbed form of Not Okay. Not at all. The part about fire had all her attention at the moment, running frantically through her head even if otherwise the girl was completely still. Too still. "Did -- did people get hurt?" it came out a bit unsteady, almost whispering, almost croaking; heart pounding despite herself as the image of a fire took over her mind and the imagined, screams of people inside it. People she didn't know. A person she did. And inside was too trapped in fear and panic to adequately realize what that fear and panic meant. "... did anyone die?"

Silence. That was the first thing Danny noticed. In fact if it weren't for being a cop he probably would have completely missed the part where the girl was obviously upset and just relished in the fact that something made her stop clicking the damned stapler. "Hurt? When? In the fire?" Danny eyed her curiously at the sound of her voice, the stillness of her figure. "No, it was empty. Like I said, we shut it down a few nights before. Cleaned the place out. I was there."

It still took a moment for that to kind of sink in, and even then it didn't do much in the way of really settling the girl's nerves or fixing thing. Regardless of whatever indifference the child professed in regards to the woman, the mental -- if imagined -- image of a mother burned alive wasn't one easily recovered from. She still looked at Danny, hand still hovering over the stapler, still looking almost stricken for a long moment as that mental image kind of paralyzed her thoughts. But then, slowly, his words sunk in, and the girl tried to focus on that. turning it over. What it meant, and all that. ...even if it was still above her mental capacity to fully grasp.

"Why'd the police shut it down?" she finally asked, brows drawing in confusion, more than aware that there were some pretty big pieces she was missing to this puzzle and frustration at that fact building. Her hand finally settled fully on the stapler, fingers clutching around it, not clicking it but just holding it tightly in a knuckled grasp. Maybe to focus the frustration into there, maybe to brace herself through the confusion, or maybe just to pick it up and throw it at something. Regardless, she just held it tightly, and the irritating sharp click! was replaced by a dull thudding as she rolled the stapler back and forth upon the desktop.

This time Danny did take the stapler, or at least held it still with his larger hand over her small one. Why had the shut it down? Jackson had been trying to make a statement of some sort, but then Danny had heard rumors that the madam of the place before it went under new management, the one everyone thought was dead, was very much not dead and showed up at a charity event recently. Still, the nature of the place wasn't really a thing to be discussed with a child, at least that much Danny knew. "It wasn't run by good people."

Arden scowled at him when he took the stapler away, and it morphed into an unimpressed glare when he answered. It was a typical adult answer -- the kind that didn't say anything. The kind that just went in circles; that didn't really tell the truth. ...Which made it more like a lie in Arden's book. If, in her weird mentally unsound way, the girl had been warming up to Danny before? Well, it was gone now. "What's that mean?" she demanded, crossing her arms and sitting back in her chair, glaring at him properly.

She had a right to know. Her mom had left. She had disappeared without disappearing, walking around in the same city Arden and her dad lived in with no contact. And even if she had written letters? She hadn't called. She hadn't come by. Not at home, not at school. Not anything. She left and all Arden got were whispers about things that nobody would tell her about and now the only thing she had gotten from those whispers -- Babylon -- was supposedly gone and Arden wanted to know and this cop was like all those other adults and not telling and she was tired of it. All of it. Of stupid adults. Of lies. Of not knowing. "Tell me."

When she sat back all Danny was left with was the stapler which he moved from the edge of the desk to the blotter in front of him. He wasn't sure if he should tell her what she was asking or make one of those 'you're too young to know about that' statements or just tell her. It was her mother after all who'd been working there though, and she wanted to know. "Before, it had been a place that people worked at because they chose to. Then it got taken over by a bad group and the whole place changed." Or it kind of changed. Something like that. "We went in and shut it down, let everyone who was there but didn't want to be go. Arrested a bunch of people." Danny didn't think he was making sense, but he couldn't very well tell the girl her mother worked at whore house.

She eyed him warily, unsure whether to accept the answer or lash out, a part of her ever suspicious of what wasn't being said. Because that was the thing: what they didn't say. And she could tell that he wasn't saying a lot: the answer more or less amounted to gibberish for her. And Arden was more than tempted to call him out on it -- the girl was mentally all crouched and ready to pounce even. But, in an extremely rare moment of self-control, the child held the frustration and anger just ready to be hurdled at the cop at bay. The emotions being there, visible on the surface, was blatantly apparent. Her nails were digging into her arms and her jaw was set and tense.

But it was obvious the child was managing to not throw a tantrum, at least (even if barely). Because even if it was vague and frustrating and thus far still told her nothing, the answer was still the most she had gotten out on the subject before. And all she really knew for certain was that the place was gone now, and people said her mom had worked there, and now there had been bad people there, and... well, her wise-leaning intuition (that rarely came to surface) knew that getting the information right now was the important part; that letting the storm within her out would only ruin things. "What bad group? What change?" the girl shot off, keeping her voice level. As level as she could manage. It still came out terse, curt, unhappy and a bit demanding. ...but no tantrum, and her fury wasn't running the show at least; that was something.

Danny eyed her just as closely as she was watching him, waiting for her to snap and start throwing things. He guessed she'd get a lucky shot off and hit him in the bad shoulder which would probably mean he'd lose his cool as well. For now though they seemed to be at some sort of stalemate. As for her question he wasn't sure how to answer it. Would a girl her age understand what he meant if he told her that a crime family was running the joint? "There's certain groups of people in the town who are the biggest criminals in town. It was one of those groups that took over."

She relaxed a little bit. Or, well, kinda sorta. Her fingernails were no longer digging into her skin and some of the tenseness left her shoulders, but the intensity in her gaze didn't die. After all, hearing that the mother's workplace was taken over by criminals wasn't really the kind of news that put a child at ease. "What kind of criminals?" she asked, the anger less prevalent in her tone although apprehension became a more dominating flavor. "Thieves? Robbers?" Then, after a rare and pensive moment added, heart pounding and voice losing some of its force, "Murderers?" Because, even if the intricacies of the mafia and its operations were lost on the girl, she knew that murder was a crime. A big one. The biggest, even, as far as she knew in her world. And the biggest criminals meant the biggest crime... murder, right?

Then, as her young mind slowly, carefully combed through the beginnings of the world's devastating truths, Arden pieced things together. Scenarios, mainly. Their accuracy was suspect, as they constantly morphed and took on multiple new forms with each new detail, but they were new scenarios regardless. New possibilities. Some horrible, yes. But new possibilities nonetheless. Maybe, just maybe, one of the criminals had her mom... or something. Forced her to stay away. Because that was something a criminal would do, wouldn't it? Maybe... maybe there was a reason, and it involved criminals somehow. That forced her mom to leave, that forced her dad to keep the letters secret.

Arden couldn't piece how all that would come together, and she was aware there were a lot of holes in that theory, but she was also starting to become painfully aware that things weren't what she had thought. There were lies, and covers around everything. That knowledge stung, that there were so many lies. But it also meant that things... maybe weren't what they seemed; and they had seemed so awful, that there was a flicker of hope there as well. "When? How long?" she finally asked, a bit of a manic glaze touching her eyes as she leaned forward a bit, obviously depending on his answer for something even if it wasn't apparent what. "How long were the criminals in charge?"

"Well technically robbers and thieves are about the same thing, but yes to all of them. Murder too." It was hard, watching this little girl go through something even though he didn't know what it was exactly. He leaned towards her as well, keeping his eyes on her as he answered. "Not sure exactly. Long enough. Few months? Give or take? those sort of things are hard to pin point."

Something in the girl visibly deflated at the answer. For whatever reason, a few months hadn't been what she wanted to hear -- messed up though that was. But the deflation was brief. Because that surge of hope that coarsed through her? That had been kicked and buried and forced away for so long, wasn't going to be squelched so easily now that it had resurfaced after so long. "But how long exactly," she reiterated, something in her voice breaking, obviously frantic. "You don't know right? Maybe it was longer -- maybe the criminals were in control for longer and you guys just didn't know. Like a year, or like two years."

It was very obvious that two years, for whatever reason, was the time frame Arden was currently desperately clinging to. Her mom had been gone two years, and the cop said there were people working there that didn't want to be. So, they could have taken her mom, made her work and stay away or whatever. Made her dad hide the letters. Then again, the cop had also said that they had let the people who didn't want to be there go, but some criminals were smart. Some probably got away, stopped her mom from coming home when she had the chance or something. Maybe she put something in the letters, a code; because it didn't make sense that she would just write letters about plans and saying she loved her and things like that but still just stay away. It just didn't.

Danny frowned, shifting uncomfortably in his chair and not sure why. "We don't know, no, but I somewhat doubt it's been that long," he said trying to sound gentle even if it didn't work with his overall persona. Leaning back in his chair, he considered her for a moment before he got up, moving around to her side of the desk. "What's going on?" he asked again, still attempting to come across as gentle even if he was much taller than her now.

Arden's scrutiny was almost all wariness now; although devoid of anger and lashing out she peered at him suspiciously, unsure what to say. Unsure whether to trust him with what she was thinking. With what had happened. It wasn't a part of her story that Arden shared willingly, and now with so many things so confusing and muddled and wrong and not what she thought... she couldn't properly explain it. Especially not know, not when his words were sinking in. Not when they were squashing, warring with that hope that had flared up moments ago, removing the explanation of criminals forcing her parents actions to the harsh reality that her parents' actions may not have been forced. That they may have chosen freely to do the things they did, and she didn't know why save for the obvious: they didn't care. They didn't really love her. And that was harder to handle now, the hardest it had been in a long time. Because it came on the heels of that fresh hope, making it worse, because now it applied to both parents instead of just one.

And all of that? Even if what something she could adequately realize, and properly articulate, she wouldn't say it. She couldn't. How could she possibly admit that aloud and just make it real? So her eyes just fell away from him, and somberly sought out the objects on his desk; anything, really, to draw her away. And in doing so she noticed something that was successful on that point: "Isn't that Miss Janey?" she asked, perplexed to find the woman from church on the desktop before her.

He was going to ask her what was wrong again when she changed the subject, focusing on the picture of his wife on his desk. Reaching over he picked it up looking at it for a moment before handing the frame to her. "It's Mrs. Janey actually," he told her. "She's my wife. Do you know her?" That was a good sign of some sort. Maybe the girl knew her from church, if the girl kept her silence on who she was he could call his wife down to identify her. "You still haven't told me your name."

"Arden," she replied, getting the introduction out like it was some annoying formality taking away from the more interesting stuff. Which was exactly what it was, right now. "She's from my church," she answered, distracted with recalling the details of her last encounter with Janey, and trying to assess if it had been mean or not. Sadistic. And if she was whether that meant Janey would be one of those people in line to get back at her. But Arden, in her mind, couldn't remember being mean... not that her mind had considered her antics to be mean or unjustified before. But she wasn't exactly willing to take it on trust that any adult wasn't about something so... it was just as likely that Miss -- Mrs. Janey wasn't planning some kind of payback regardless.

Drawing her eyes away from the picture and putting the frame down she looked back up at Danny and bluntly asked, "I see her at church -- how come you're not there?" This time, she hadn't meant it to purposely make the man uncomfortable (although with her that was always hard to tell). But, in her world, Arden could have sworn that church going was mandatory -- her dad sure as heck made her go when she didn't want to, anyway.

The damned church question just kept coming up didn't it? Danny flinched a little at the question, hating that Janey herself had just asked the same thing. "I usually work on Sundays." So I don't have to go to church. "Arden is it? Should I go back to my original question about being arrested, or would you rather I just call your father and have him come get you?" If he was in a better state to drive he'd just drive her home himself, but the arm made that hard.

Arden actually shrank a little there, sinking back into the chair. Her father? Call her father? Even if she didn't know exactly what her dad would do, she didn't need to know having him pick her up from the police station would be bad. Very, very bad. The kind of bad that she felt would happen if he found out about Roy and her and the desk. "How big's the jail?" she mumbled, trying hard not to sound as anxious about that option as she felt. Arden would be, or act, gung-ho if they put handcuffs on her regardless... but honestly? The idea of being arrested made her a bit sick in the stomach. But just not as sick as, oh, her dad picking her up from here made her feel.

Danny chuckled a little at that. "I doubt it's big enough for you, little one." Danny knew that look, that one that said going to jail might be a better option than facing her parents. Looking around the station he spotted another uniform who owed him more than one favor. "Mitchell!" After calling he waved the guy over. "How about I make you a deal? We won't call your dad if you behave well enough for the office who's going to drive you home, tell him your real address to drop you off at and you promise not to wage war on anymore of the city's buildings?"

Arden scowled in distaste, "I'm not little," she corrected, annoyed. She thought about his offer, half-scowling and half-pensive as she did so. She churned the offer and options through her head, instinctively looking for the loopholes to jump through before she bothered to 'commit' to anything. "I'll behave," she finally mumbled, figuring if she just said only that it should do it. He had said 'well enough' after all, and it left the issue on warring with buildings still free. Not that Arden looked conniving here. Nope, her face was a mask of childish innocence... too innocent, maybe. But her fingers weren't crossed or anything!

...And even if she was somehow actually promising to more than she meant to? She was covered. She may or may not have had her toes crossed, after all.

"Well you're littler than I am," Danny pointed out, almost smiling at this point, which was about as close to a smile got to fitting his features. "And the other things? Real address and no more vandalism?" Sneaky as Arden might think she was? Danny was still a cop.

"Yeah, yeah," she muttered, making sure her toes were most definitely crossed before agreeing to that. In Arden's world, everyone knew fingers crossed negated any promises, and she had every faith that toes crossed would work just as well. At the moment, she wasn't actively plotting how to circumvent the promise, just trying to cover her bases. Because to Arden a promise was a Promise if one didn't have their fingers or toes crossed properly and broke it? That was just Wrong. Then, she fidgeted in the seat, anxious to hop out of it with her exit so near but, for once, actually managing to not shoot off and run out until Danny gave the get-go.

Reaching behind him on the desk Danny produced a card and handed to her. "If you need something. Or if your father doesn't believe you about being in trouble. Have him call me." The look on his face wasn't gentle or a force smile, but serious. This was the sort of thing he didn't mess around with. Mitchell was there now and Danny gave him the instructions about driving Arden home. "If she cuts up, bring her back here and we'll call her father."

Arden took the card with all the politeness she could muster, although it fell short of actually articulating 'thank you'. Ironically enough, she was too focused on actually forcing herself to behave to remember that detail. But when she heard his instructions to the other officer she scowled at him, none too pleased with the mistrust and instructions there no matter how rightly they were deserved. Jerk, she muttered petulantly, although she actually maintaining enough sense to keep that little protestation in her head. But as soon as the instructions had been given to Mitchell Arden had shot out the chair and bolted towards the exit with energy only a hyperactive child could muster. Although she stopped just past midway to look back impatiently at the new officer who hadn't caught up yet. What? Really? Arden shot him an impatient look that very much said 'come on' but didn't vocalize it, and managed to quell the urge to stomp her foot -- even if just barely.

Mitchell didn't look amused, but Danny waved him off anyway. "Go, you owe me. Just don't let her drive." He watched them leave the moved back around to his side of his desk, reaching for the coffee mug. And Janey wanted to have kids.