Julia - The Crocker Trouble

[moonshadows]

"Okay," Dwight says in an urgent undertone once Duke's left the room, "you mind filling me in?"

"What do you mean?" I ask quietly.

"Crocker's off-limits on Vince's word. What's your play?"

Oh, that. "I'm the reason he's off-limits. I'm handling him. Yes," I say, one hand held up, "he's a Crocker and he's dangerous. I know all that, you don't have to say it."

"Then what are you doing?"

I stare at him because really, it should be obvious. "I'm being his friend. He trusts me. He likes me. He would be a lot more dangerous without me."

"You're being friends with a Crocker." He says it like I've just announced my allegiance to the Rev.

"Yes, I am!" My voice is still low, but it's kicked into pissed and I throttle it back with effort. "Don't you watch Disney movies? Outcasts with no friends turn into bad guys. Come on, I learned that from Care Bears when I was six."

The look on his face is hilarious. I wonder which movie he's imagining, and where he's casting himself.

"Fair enough," he says finally. "If you can keep him under control by playing Belle to his Beast, I'll vouch for you before your uncles turn into Gaston and Lefou. I'd rather not have him as an enemy if I can help it, and I'd rather not have him fighting us."

I can't completely stifle the giggle that image produces. "Does that make Nathan Cogsworth?"

From the look on his face, he's trying to imagine it. "Better than Lumiere," he says, shaking his head.

"Yeah, no, Duke would have to be Lumiere if Nathan's Cogsworth. But then Audrey..."

"If you disregard Chip, I can see it."

"What the hell are you guys talking about?" From the doorway, Duke looks at us like we should be up at the Freddie.

"I have to call Uncle Vince," I blurt, dashing from the room before the giggles escape and I laugh until I hurt.

 

Once I'm alone, however, the hilarity fades and leaves me really, really angry. Dave picks up on he second ring, and  I'm not sure if I'm relieved or not.

"Uncle Dave, why would Uncle Vince send Dwight to steal the box from Duke?"

"Probably because he doesn't want Duke opening the other box."

Well, isn't that interesting. "Other box?"

"Oh, yes. The one you have is the smaller one. The key in the hinge opens the larger box, but...Simon Crocker hid it before he died, twenty-seven years ago."

In the background, I can hear Vince demanding to know what Dave just said. In the doorway, Duke's asking silently if I had any luck.

"Key in the hinge," I say quickly, finger pressed over the phone's mic. "Opens a bigger box your dad hid."

He flashes me a thumbs-up and a grin and slips off just as Vince gets the phone away from his brother.

"Julia," he gasps, "Duke mustn't find out what's in the box Simon hid!"

Fuck. "Why not?"

"Because that's where he kept his tools and the journal!"

Fuck. Fuck. "What's in the journal?"

"The record of every Troubled person a Crocker's ever killed."

It's too late. There's no way to convince Duke to leave this be now, not without explaining why and that wouldn't accomplish anything good. He's going to find out. I did this to him.

"Julia? Julia?"

Numbly, I close the phone. Duke's voice echoes off the bulkheads; they're going out to find the box. Somewhere inside me, a hysterical scream is trapped and struggling to get out, but after a while it gives up.

What have I done?

 

The first few hours pass faster than I would have guessed. Duke texts me periodically, keeping me updated. Around noon, I reluctantly leave my outside perch and go fix a halfhearted lunch. Shortly after that, my phone informs me I have a call from the Herald.

"What."

"Julia," Uncle Vince starts, but the numbness has been temporarily banished and I'm not happy.

"What the hell, Uncle Vince? I thought we agreed you'd let me handle Duke! Why did you send Dwight here?"

"I didn't want him to find out about the other box!"

"Then you should have told me!" An innocent bulkhead gets punched. "I could have handled it, thought of something to tell him, some way to talk him out of trying to find it. But no, you tried to have Dwight steal it and ensured that Duke wouldn't rest until he found out!"  The bulkhead gets punched again. "It's your fault if he gets activated!"

Silence for a moment. When Vince speaks again, I can tell that he's trying to absolve himself of blame while simultaneously being horrified by the consequences of his actions. "He would have found out sooner or later."

"Yeah." Suddenly, I'm crying. Thankfully, my voice is still steady. "But if it was later, maybe I could have made it easier on him."

"Julia..."

"Love conquers all. Why was that on the inside of the lid?"

He's silent for a long moment. "I don't know."

"You activated Simon by telling him what his father did. How was his father activated?"

Again, "I don't know."

"There might have been a better way. Now we'll never know."

"Julia..." Vince sounds torn between wanting to give me a hug and being stern. "If he does become active...and you can't control him...the Guard will act."

"He's not Simon," I snap, closing the phone and flinging it at something soft.

The bulkhead gets more futile abuse while I cry out my frustration. When I pick my phone back up, there's a message from Duke. Turns out the Cape was some sort of awkward present and he thinks the box is here.

I go back outside and let the wind pull at me, waiting up high for Duke to come back, afraid of what will happen when he does.

 

 

 

Audrey methodically checks the weapons while Duke tries, unsuccessfully, to bend a crowbar. I sit across from her, withdrawn and quiet. I know too much.

Duke gives up with a frustrated snap of his fingers. “Well…whatever the hell it was, it didn’t last very long.”

“It happened right after you cut Dwight.”

No, it happened right after Dwight’s blood got on you. I bite my lip to keep the words inside and then stop and press my lips firmly together instead. No more biting my lip; I might bleed.

“Is there anything in that box that might actually tell us why?”

Audrey’s picked up the journal. I know what’s in it already – names and dates. She flips through it. “Well, maybe this ledger? There’s some…names, there’s some dates hundreds of years old, maybe it’s a…” Duke takes it out of her hands. “…Crocker family history.”

It is. But not the way she thinks. I hate that I know. Duke’s flipping through now and he stops at what has to be Simon’s entries, commenting on the handwriting before realizing whose it must be.

“My father wrote this.” He sits absently so Audrey can see.

While she reads Simon’s last entry, I frantically try to figure out wording that will let me tell Duke why I couldn’t tell him about his Trouble quick enough that it’s not a violation of his trust.

“This must be why your father was looking for Lucy Ripley. He was trying to find me.”

“But how did he even know you?”

“More importantly, why did he want you to kill me?”

Great. That’s another confession I’ll be making tonight. They stare at each other in horror while I stare at my hands, jaw clenched so tight it hurts. After a minute they say awkward goodnights and she leaves. Duke waits a minute longer and then goes to lock the door, and I pour him a drink I know he’s going to need.

He comes back and sits where Audrey had been, in front of the box, and it’s time.

“Duke?” I set the glass in front of him but take his hand when he reaches for it. “There’s something I have to tell you.”

He looks up at me, wary and slightly concerned, and nods.

“When I came back to Haven, Vince and Dave promised to tell me everything, remember?” Another nod. Deep breath. “The day you gave me a key to the Cape, they told me about the Crocker family Trouble.” His expression closes, and I grip his hand tighter, pleading silently with that motion. “It’s activated by betrayal from a family member and that’s why I couldn’t tell you. If I had...”

“It would have activated that much sooner,” he says slowly. “It activated when I learned my father had been…”

“Killing Troubled people.”

Duke pulls me into his lap and holds me painfully tight, channeling his conflicted reactions into that one action.

“When a Crocker kills a Troubled person, the Trouble is pulled out of the family and never comes back. Troubled blood will give you a surge of strength because your Trouble is…hungry for it.”

“Yeah,” he says darkly, “that’s not all it gives. That explains so much about my old man. Drugs…weren’t the only thing he was addicted to.”

That is an implication I wasn’t expecting. “You mean…”

“I’ve tried enough things to know a high when I feel one.” He swallows, waiting, but when no accusation or recrimination is forthcoming he continues, “…and I know what it feels like to come down from one, too.”

Oh. Oh. “Are you okay?” I ask almost frantically, struggling to free one hand and cupping his cheek. “Is there anything I can do?”

He turns his head to kiss the inside of my wrist. “I’m fine. No, really, it’s long gone. Just…don’t bleed on me. Okay?”

I nod and bury my face in his neck and we hold each other for a long time. He’s probably coming to terms with this information, but I’m re-evaluating actions and possibilities and making plans to be prepared for accidents. We’re going to need lots of band-aids.

He takes the drink I’d set out for him and sips at it, and I know Duke’s going to be okay and loosen my frantic grip. When he sets it back down, I start lipping at his neck. He turns his head to kiss me, the angle awkward with how I'm sitting, and groans slightly as my fingers move through his hair to find his scalp. Then his arms shift position, his legs tense, and he stands with me in his arms.

The angle is still awkward. We can do better than this. He carries me clear of the table and I lunge, pulling myself up while drawing one leg out of his arm, and twist so that I've got my legs around his waist and my arms around his neck. As an added bonus, I'm in a good position to verify that yes, Duke is headed for the bedroom.

 

 

 

"So," Duke says languidly, holding me to his bare chest with his face in my hair, "Did Vince and Dave tell you why my father would want me to kill Audrey?"

Fuck. How much can I say without saying the rest? "The Troubles come in cycles," I start, and he makes an encouraging sound. "That cycle is much more structured than people think."

"And Audrey is a part of it."

"The Troubles come back, she comes back, she goes again, the Troubles go away again. I guess Simon thought if he killed her..."

"...he could keep the Troubles from coming back." Duke thinks about that for a minute. "It doesn't work like that, does it."

No. No, it doesn't. "Nothing I've found supports his theory."

He thinks about that for another minute. "I don't think Audrey needs to hear any of this, do you?"

I lift my head to arch my eyebrows at him. "If I did, I would have told her." The fact that I held information back only until it became something Duke needed to know hovers unsaid between us, but I know he understands. He knows I'll tell him things when the time is right; he still trusts me.

"So," he says with deceptive nonchalance, "speaking of things Audrey doesn't need to know..."

"Again?" I tease. "You haven't had enough of me tonight?"

He grins back. "You're still awake, aren't you? That means I haven't done a good enough job ravishing you."

"I'd hate to have to leave anything less than completely satisfied on my employee survey." I shoot for innocence. I shoot for deadpan. I miss by a mile.

"You're my best employee," he says in a reasonable tone completely at odds with what his hands are doing. "I take your satisfaction very seriously."

I give him full marks.