The Past and The Future

Who: Brett
Where: His apartment, then Gray's house
When: Late

Brett had been working all day. With the hell that had been let loose, he figured everyone had. He'd been driving today - driving and acting as muscle for one of the higher ups. Just grabbed with another guy, told to follow and drive. It had been a day that had started bloody, the O'Malleys turning on themselves, as well as suspecting outsiders. Anyone who wasn't 100% became a target.

All day, part of Brett had been waiting to become next in line. Part of him wondered if they were just setting him up for a fall. He'd worked hard, over the last few years, to make sure they trusted him, to make sure that his loyalty was considered to be without question. he'd been careful, cautious, playing the game properly, doing things that made him sick to his fucking stomach, because if he didn't, it would look bad on him.

But now, now he was taking changes, now he was very much playing with fire, and there was part of him that was just waiting to get burned.

Of course, that was a part he buried really fucking deep, that was a part that he didn't let show, not even for a moment. he covered it with his usual mask - one of anger and bluff. So, maybe he hit a little harder, maybe he was a little rougher than he needed to be, maybe his tone was much more pissy than was required when he asked a guy to 'answer the man's questions'. But it got him through the day. And got him through without the finger of suspicion falling on him. Given the day that the O'Malleys seemed to be having - especially after the word came through about Jackson's raid on Babylon, Brett considered that that was about as good as it could get.

Still, though, that nagging doubt lingered when he finally got home. It was after dark, and Brett ached after the day he'd had, the surface of his mind coated with a careful numbness after the things he'd done. He headed quietly up to his apartment - he didn't want to run into Ginger tonight, he didn't want to run into anyone. He didn't even turn on the lights as he shut and locked his front door behind him.

He stood there, in the darkness for a while, listening. His paranoia told him that someone could be here, waiting, waiting to cap him here and now, after they'd used him for the day. That it could all be one huge con, that what they'd been doing was watching him, waiting to see what he'd do.

But the apartment was silent, still. he crossed the room and flipped on the standard lamp that stood by the broken down old sofa he had in the living room, producing an inadequate yellow glow - not enough to properly light the room, but enough to check to see if there was anybody there.

There was still nothing, there was nobody - the windows were all still latched, the front door clearly hadn't been forced, there was no sign that anyone had been here. Check over with, Brett lay down on the bed in his room in the dark and stared at the ceiling. They weren't going to come for him. They didn't have any idea.

He'd known they didn't - no, he'd highly suspected that they didn't. Still, there was always that niggling doubt, and it was there still, worse in the darkness, in the quiet. Where all he had wwere his thoughts. Thoughts of the way this worked - fresh in his mind, considering the day he'd just had.

And then, vying with those thoughts were thoughts of the future. Of the possibly mad plans he'd been making. The insane, unworkable plans that were going to get them both killed. She didn't think they could do it - which meant that he had to know that they could. It could work, he could see that it could work - if he just ignored any of the doubts he had, if he pushed them all far down inside and pretended they didn't exist and confidently carried on. It was how he seemed to get through everything else. Believe it, live it, work with it and things would happen. Sometimes - somehow he could never apply that to improving his own life. There was no point in thinking about it, he was so Sure that there was no way. Not until now, anyhow. But this was less about him, and more about her.

That, of course, led onto thoughts of the box. That old, battened, wooden box that he'd appropriated from under the floorboards at Babylon, that he's hastily hidden at Gray's. That he'd left there as quickly as it could in case it contained some deadly poison. He hadn't wanted to be around anything associated with Babylon - poison it might not be, but if anyone else had found him with it, it would surely have been very bad for his health.

But now - had things changed now? The night felt so still, so dark. Not safe - Brett couldn't remember the last time he felt truly safe - but they hadn't come for him. Hadn't shown any sign that they even had considered coming for him. And his future could be in that box - that's why she wanted him to get it. Their insane plans, the start of making them real was in that box.

He'd stopped playing it safe months ago. He'd stopped playing it safe the moment he took the choice not to throw her in the river, and he'd been looking over his shoulder ever since. Strange how it was a feeling you didn't get used to. In fact, it just grew, every day. That knowledge that it could be your last. As each insanely stupid decision led to the next, but you couldn't actually stop making them, because, put altogether, build one on top of another, they started to make a strange kind of sense. They took on a life of their own, with a separate existence away from the reality of the life he was leading. Like he once again had two lives. He'd had two lives before - when this had all started, before he got screwed. The job, the undercover work, and his life as a cop. The idea that one day he'd walk back to that.

He knew better now, of course - there was no going back, and he wouldn't, not even if he was given the chance. He couldn't, not now. He couldn't do the job now. And anyway, that door had closed to him, left him with just the one life - and life he hated, loathed, lived. one which made him lose a little more respect for himself every day, a steady drip, drip, drip, draining it away.

And then there was her, was this - another existence. He'd wondered a few times if it hadn't all just been a final deathwish. He'd always beena survivor - had proved to himself the depths he was willing to sink to to survive. But this? He'd wondered if it wasn't just what he'd accused her of - a really elaborate method of committing suucide.

But, he didn't want to die. He'd never wanted to die and this was no different. He wanted this to work. he wanted that future that wasn't his present. Good or bad, he could see the potential and for the first time in three years, it felt like there was a glimmer of light. And it was coming from that box.

It was madness. He should leave it. At least for a few days. He should let things die down, wait, bide his time. Except he'd been biding his time for three fucking years now and his patience was wearing thin.

That didn't mean he should be stupid though. And this would be stupid. He needed to be patient, take his time, watch his back. But it had been so long, and this was a possible way out.

Brett's thoughts warred with themself, indecision up there as he stared at the darkened ceiling. When he finally pushed himself up and off the bed in one smooth motion, grabbing his keys and heading for the door, he hadn't even consciously made a decision until he realised that the moment in itself was the decision being made.

But still, the war about caution, stupidity, recklessness and the need for action still raged as he drove through the night, one eye always on the rearview mirror, that paranoia about being found out still everpresent. But there was nobody there, there was no one following him.

He pulled his car off the street and deep into an alleyway a couple of blocks down from gray's place, parking it up behind a dumpster and getting out, checking his piece as he started down towards the abandoned house. He walked, never run - not at the time of night. People noticed a running man, they didn't notice a guy walking at a fast pace, head down, looking like he just wanted to get home safe. He ducked down another alley, hopping over the wall into Gray's backyard, letting himself in through the back door. Again, he stopped, listened, then gave the place the once over, checking each room and finding nothing, of course. only then did he head down to the basement.

Everything looked just like he'd left it, and he gave himself a moment to really think again. But he was here now, ther decision had been made - and Brett didn't go back on his decisions. There was never any going back - only forward. He'd always been like that. Decision made, act. He didn't reconsider, he committed and he got the job done. And he was here now.

It tooka moment or two to retrieve the box from its hiding place, but then he sat back, down on the dampish mattress in the corner, his back against the wall, his knees pulled up slightly, resting the box on them. When he'd found it, it had been covered in dust - it clearly hadn't been touched in a number of years. Most of that had gone with him moving it, but the rust around the hinges, that was still there. Yeah, this box had seen better days, though the wood it was made from seemed solid enough. Good job, really, that the same couldn't be said for the lock.

Setting the box down on the floor, Brett hit the padlock a few times with the butt of his pistol until the damn thing snapped, falling to the floor with a clatter. he picked the box back up, going back to his position, sitting against the wall. Holding it at each side, he rested his thumbs against the side of the lid for a moment, pausing before opening it, highly away that, money aside, he didn't know what he would find inside. Maybe just money - she'd said there would be enough. Enough for what? To buy his a tux, sure. To put a downpayment on premises, apparently. That kinda put things in 'wads of cash' areas, as far as Brett was concerned.

He'd never been a man that had extreme amounts of money. Even over the last three years when he'd been squirrelling away what he could - before he gave most of it to Doc Gray to look after Eris. Something he'd clearly failed to do, given the stories she'd hinted at. He hadn't wanted to know the details.

But, even then, he'd never been what anyone would call rich. He'd grown up with only the basics, he'd gone to work for the city. He never took backhanders. He really didn't know what to expect from this, but he was aware that not only did he have to be able to roll with this, but he needed to learn the worth of things that were worth anything, and very fast. This money, however much it was, needed to go a long way and he really needed to not get screwed over.

He lifted up the lid. He'd see rolls of cash before - he'd never had that much himself, bu he'd seen it. Crime scenes, drug deals, robbery proceeds - he'd seen it from a number of angles, but never had any personal investment in it. Not like now, and Brett was almost surprised at how unemotional he was at the sight of this much before him. It didn't move him at all as he picked the cash out of the box and set it aside. His only thought about it was this will be enough. A certainty, a dismissal of it from his thoughts - a real anticlimax, only not, because that in itself would have been an emotion.

But there was more in the box. A small black bag with a drawstring. He pulled the neck open and cupped his left hand as he poured out some gems which sparkled in the half-light of the basement, catching what light they could to gleam at him as he poured them back. They looked real - but for all he knew, they could be pretty pieces of cut glass. He doubted it, not with them being in here. he might not know his shit, but he'd lay all that money on the fact that she did. Even if she didn't remember it all the time. The bag got set down next to the cash, resting against his thigh as he continued to look through the box. A frown crossed his face as he pulled out a broken chain holding a locket. Weighed against the money and the gems, it just seemed, well - cheap. Cupping it in the palm of his hand, Brett stroked his thumb across the surface of the thing, feeling flakes of something - rust, or possibly old, dried blood, it was hard to tell in this light and he didn't know what the locket was made of - fall away. Using the tip of his nail, he flipped the thing open, realising he was slightly disappointed as he discovered there was nothing inside.

His eyes fell back to the box, though he didn't set the locket down, leaving the broken chain entwined around his fingers, the locket itself resting against his palm as he pulled out the old photograph. He almost put it straight back, the locket too. He knew that he was firmly into personal territory now, and it felt like an intrusion. But, he had permission to look in the box, didn't he? Still - she'd told him to do so for the money. For their future. That didn't include this, her past. Because there was a girl in the photo. An girl who was clearly her - the girl that was Julia. Sitting on a fire escape, looking like she hadn't seen soap for a while - definitely not as recently as she'd seen someone's fist, by the look of the bruise on her face. CHildren should be smiling when there was a camera around. he knew that, he felt that, deep inside. Children should be smiling. And she wasn't.

He dropped the photo back into the box, and followed it up with the chain and the locket, letting the lid close them away. Pocketing the money and the bag, he hid the box once more and he stood there, in the basement, feeling the cold seep into his bones. It was more than the cold though, he couldn't shake the feeling that he'd just done the wrong thing. that he'd gone somewhere that he shouldn't. He'd seen something private. The past was the past, and it should stay there.

Shaking himself, Brett turned toward the stairs. heading out, heading forward, into the future. leaving the past behind.