the medal

who: eris
where: brett's place
when: a while back

Brett was out. But then, he spent quite a lot of his time out. She was fairly sure it wasn't all business, either, that a good chunk of that time was spent simply avoiding her. She knew she got to him, even if sometimes she got to him without actually intending to. Of course, there were times she was deliberately attempting to get a rise out of him, but that was hardly the point. Her problem was that she hated being alone. And even if they didn't necessarily get along all the time, that didn't mean that she didn't want him around.

It had been a long time. Hours, most certainly, and she'd already checked over everything she could mend in the main apartment. She'd taken to doing that--mending things, because it kept her time occupied at least a little. The small sewing kit she'd gotten from Ginger, the neighbor, who thankfully didn't in the slightest recognize her, and who had a penchant for talking her ear off if she was given opportunity. Eris let her talk, she just didn't give many details about herself--which really the woman didn't seem overly interested in. From the impression given, Eris would say the woman was very lonely, didn't get much help with her kids, and simply forgot to ask about other people as opposed to anything more vindictive. It merely worked for Eris, even if she didn't give herself a whole lot of time for even that type of socializing. When the woman noticed she'd been going on about herself for a good hour without a break and then started asking questions about Brett and she's relationship, or what he's 'really' like, that was when Eris would take her leave. Being good at deflection, Eris didn't think that she even noticed when she was being dodged on questions. She let her believe whatever she was going to, which was likely that she and Brett were involved. It was easiest that way.

What she was good for though was the odd little thing Eris had need of. Like the sewing kit. She couldn't do much in the apartment. It was just your run of the mill piece of shit place, and she wasn't going to start decorating like she lived there. Besides, decorations would make the place feel all wrong, and she imagined Brett wouldn't appreciate it. What she could do was keep the place up, even if she wasn't asked to. But then she noticed they did a lot of that. Simple things that never ever got mentioned. He'd started taking over her medication. She couldn't do it herself, and he had just sort of quietly stepped in and started regulating it for her. He never said word one about it, and neither did she. It worked best that way. He left her pills out on the counter before he left in the morning, and later there were more pills left for her. She appreciated it, but had the feeling if she mentioned as much, he'd stop doing it.

She didn't know if he appreciated her efforts. Like keeping the house clean, or mending his clothes. The man did a lot of fighting now and again and it was rough on whatever he happened to be wearing at the time. So she'd started taking it upon herself to fix that. He didn't appear too enthused about going and buying new clothes, and sure as hell wasn't mending his old ones, so she did it. It was like her meds. Neither one of them mentioned it.

Her trouble today was that she was out of things to do. Even the neighbor who liked to chat til her children were screaming for attention was out for the day, and flat out--Eris was bored. She'd fixed everything she could fix, she'd cleaned as much as she could clean. There wasn't anything left for her to do. So, after sitting on the couch for quite a while, staring at his shut bedroom door, she pushed herself to her feet, and crossed to it. Hesitating outside of the room, fingertips on the doorknob, she considered what he might do if he caught her. One thing that was extremely clear? His room was His Room. As in it was off limits to her. And while she was dying of curiosity to find out what was held inside, she'd so far respected his privacy.

One thing was certain, though. She couldn't actually mend things for him if she didn't have access to them. And if he really wanted her to stay out of places, maybe he should come up with something a little better than 'entertain yourself' to keep her occupied. Of course, there were other reasons. Like she wanted to know him better than he tended to let her. While occasionally she could get him talking a little...he gave her a whole lot of not much to actually work with.

That was more the deciding factor as she twisted the knob, some part of her actually just a tiny bit surprised that it wasn't locked, even if she knew it wasn't. Pushing the door open, she looked inside. Staying there for a few long moments, she just surveyed the place from the light that streamed in from the living room. It looked about as bare as the rest of the place did, which she didn't find surprising.

Eventually, she crossed into the room, turning on the lamp on the nightstand so she could get a better look at the space. His bed was made, and there was a dresser against the wall. But really, there wasn't much in there. While that wouldn't have told other people much, it actually told someone like Eris a lot. Whoever Brett was? He didn't want anyone knowing. He didn't want traces of himself anywhere, not even his own space, not even his own bedroom, which most people considered their most intimate area in a home.

Whatever Brett had to hide? He was doing it well enough. And really, that's what it said the most to her. That he had something to hide. He needed to do a better job of it, though, in her opinion. Being he gave nothing, it meant that it came off that way. If anyone broke in, and wanted to find out about him(and they were any fucking good at their job), they'd look at his place, especially this room, and know right away that they needed to start digging. No, what he needed to do was misdirect. Put things out that people could paint their own little picture with. It wouldn't take a lot, just a little. Small 'personal' things. But with the absence of anything to go on, that would get him into trouble one day.

She looked through his drawers, which were neat, nothing special. She took out what needed mending as well, piling things on the bed for her to work on. Then she went to the closet, to start going through things there. She almost hoped that his closet would prove different, that it would give more insight into who he was, or the image he wanted to project, but it was the same as everything else. Barren, devoid of anything but neatly hung clothing that had seen much better days. Reaching up to pull the cord on the bare bulb light, she winced faintly when it came on, the bulb brighter than she had anticipated. Bright lights weren't really her friends anymore.

She started taking things down that were clearly in need of being stitched back together, tossing things out onto his bed again. It was in the process of that that she noticed there was a small shelving unit behind the clothes. On that there were a few odds and ends. Nothing really personal, but she went through it anyways. Really, it was digging through old shoe boxes that still held shoes and such that she found the small wooden box. She almost missed it, it was so well hidden, so buried. When she did find it, she picked it up, and sat down on the floor of the closet, flipping it open. It was different than anything else she'd come across, and part of her hoped she'd found something.

She found out straight away she had. Inside the box was an old medal. Reaching out, she picked it up off of the velvet lining of the case, and she turned it over on her palm. It was the kind of medal she'd never seen before, but it almost looked like a war achievement. The words were definitely burned into her mind, though.

Across the top it read: Eidolon City Police and arching the bottom: Medal of Heroism

"Jesus, Brett." she murmured under her breath softly as those words sank in. She ran her fingertips over the engraving, noting that it had to have not left the box much if at all. It wasn't tarnished or worn. She looked at it long enough to memorize it, thoughts on him, on everything. This? Changed her perspective. It altered the way she saw him, their arrangement, his motivations, everything.

He'd saved her life. For a long time, she'd viewed it as him simply not having decided to finish her off. And she'd never gotten a good bead on why. It was a stupid decision on his part, really. She knew that. If he was ever caught with her? If he didn't flat out kill her immediately and do some fast fucking talking, he was going to be just as dead as she would be. They wouldn't take any kind of explanation. He wasn't high enough up in the organization to even have points to cash in with anyone. No, if he got caught, he was fucked. So she'd always known it was a massively stupid decision on his part. And his decision to take her home with him had been even more ill advised.

No wonder she hadn't been able to figure it out, though. She'd been looking for the angle. She'd been looking for the eventual payout he'd get on having her alive. She'd been looking in the wrong fucking place, because she never in her life had met anyone who would fall under the heading of 'hero'. Apparently, she did now. Setting the medal down where it was, she had to give herself a minute. It sort of felt like she'd been hit, taken a knock to the system. It made sense now--that didn't mean she could deal with it that well. All this time she'd been waiting for the axe to drop. For him to get around to taking from her what he wanted as payment for all he'd done. But if this was the truth? Then she was going to be waiting a hell of a long time. If he'd saved her just to save her? ...fuck.

Dealing with this was harder than it would have been for almost anyone else. Eris didn't know how to deal with someone like him. And, sickly, in the back of her head, a little voice told her she did so. She knew exactly how she could exploit him. How she could twist this, turn it all in around on itself. And she really hated knowing that. About the only thing that made her feel even slightly better about it was that this meant it was about him. That she, by being in the wrong place at the wrong time for her own life, wound up in the right place at the right time for his. She served a function. Maybe she served as a little piece of redemption that he could hold onto. It made it not about her at all, and that she could deal with much better than if it had been about her.

As she stared down at the box, she noticed that the velvet on the lid wasn't flush. She reached out and with a nail, pushed the corner back in--only it didn't go back where it was meant to. There was something in the way. So, she instead pulled it down, and inside there was a folded article from the paper. Opening it up, she saw first a photograph taken on the steps of City Hall. It was clearly a ceremony, the mayor was there, a woman, a child, and, of course, Brett. Brett, who was sitting in a wheelchair, though still dressed in his best dress uniform. His best police blues. He was bandaged up, quite clearly someone who had been through the ringer. She thought she could pick out a nurse off to one side, and wondered if she'd been there to tend to him.

Scanning the article, a few things jumped out at her. One, was the main point--that he had apparently been there when the library burned. He'd stayed to pull people out. Specifically, a woman and her daughter. Her eyes stopped when she reached the name 'DiGiovanni', though. She blinked, reread it, and then went to read the caption under the photograph again, confirming that it wasn't some really ridiculous typo. He'd pulled Mrs. Mafia and Baby Mafia out of hell. Jesus. That...was something she didn't figure was good information to have. She also wondered if he knew that. The article was old, the medal was old, had he thought about it? Did he keep up with what that little girl had done in the city? Or had he buried the memory of who she was like he'd buried the medal and say, the rest of his life?

She put it away. She put it back exactly where she had found it, not wanting him to know she'd seen. That she'd pried in, found what she was looking for, and damn, it was one hell of a find. There were a lot of reasons that went into it. Some more selfish--such as the idea that if she did reveal that, she could easily see him throwing her out immediately. But it was more than that. Part of her didn't want to stick the knife in and break it off like that--and she knew it would. Part of her didn't want to poke the old wound. Even if it explained the edges of scarring she noticed on him but didn't mention. Boiled down, she didn't really want to do that to him. He was a bitter, pissy bastard, but occasionally he showed her glimpses of someone else underneath. She kept digging for it, even if it was slow going. Now she just had some form of proof that she wasn't making that up in her head.

Once upon a time, Brett Trent had been a hero cop. Now all she had to do was find out how he'd gotten from there to where he was now. Turning off the closet light and shutting the door like she'd found it, she gathered up the clothes she'd collected and headed out of his room, turning off the lamp and smoothing the blankets to erase traces of her presence. Then she set to work fixing the little, unimportant things in his life while she pondered the bigger ones she'd only just started seeing pieces of.