3. You may be a warning of things to come.

[bestsir]

Who: Harry Goodsir and divers hands
What: La'an's postmortem and after
Where: The Milton church
When: After the Darkwalker claims its victim
Warnings: There's an autopsy. Goodsir has some PTSD. Fun for the whole family.

The unheated church basement will do for a mortuary. Someone finds a long table and Goodsir has La'an's poor cold corpse laid out on it, covered with a sheet.

He hasn't performed an autopsy—

(Twenty. I have performed on—)

—here, not yet. The deaths that have occurred so far have presented no mystery, but La'an's is something new and terrifying, and Goodsir feels he must get to the bottom of it.

[ There are a couple of prompts for Goodsir specifically, but feel free to start your own threads. ]

Comments

[friendsfordinner]

"I only asked a question," Hickey points out, with a little roll of his eyes.

There's a moment's pause before he decides to continue talking, mostly to hear himself talk.

"Whatever that is...bloody well vanished. Disappeared into thin air. Something that can instill terror with it's very presence but vanish when you try to seek it out. Just like the Arctic, hmm? Just like what we're used to."

[bestsir]

Goodsir lets out a bark of a laugh, a bitter, humourless sound.

"'Used to'. That's a funny turn of phrase, Mr. Hickey."

[friendsfordinner]

"Am I wrong?" he asks, with a fake innocence that borders on annoying. "Man can get used to anything over time. It's not good, it's not bad, it's just a fact."

[bestsir]

"I hope that I never become so inured to deaths like this," he says. There's an unspoken, implicit again. He's done this before, and he allowed himself to become angry, bitter, cold. Not again. Not now. He's not going to waste the time he's been granted with that.

[friendsfordinner]

Deaths like this? That's...new. In his quest to find the Darkwalker, Hickey never stopped to think why it might be there in the first place.

Or who it might be there for.

"I know how they died. Just don't know who. Mind filling a man in? "

[bestsir]

Goodsir realises that he doesn't remember seeing Hickey when La'an's body was found. So the man must not know.

"La'an Noonien-Singh. A young woman from a time far in our future."

[friendsfordinner]

He didn't know. Hickey's expression remains a calm neutral as he listens. La'an Noonien-Singh. Someone who he's seen around before. Nobody who he actually cares about.

Good.

He didn't want to hear that Goodsir was sewing up March or Kieren.

His tone of voice is still that carefully composed as he continues. "That thing that killed her...you know it's more than human. Dunno what it is specifically. Not yet. But give me enough time and I'll figure it out."

[bestsir]

"Confident as ever," Goodsir says, brittle. "And what will you do with that knowledge, I wonder?"

He's fairly certain that he knows. Try to approach it. Tame it. Goodsir half hopes he gets eaten by it.

[friendsfordinner]

"To start with? Learn more."

He doesn't really know why he's telling Goodsir this. Maybe because he cut open that girl? Maybe because try as the anatomist may to forget it, they've got a history. But Hickey continues the conversation with,

"It can pass through walls. It would have gotten her no matter what."

[bestsir]

"Why her?" Goodsir wonders out loud, not really expecting Hickey to have any kind of an answer. He's not sure why he's still talking, in fact, except that Hickey is here and ... there's that history. Like it or not, they have both seen certain things, know certain things.

(Even if Hickey's understanding is imperfect; at least Goodsir knows his own is and admits it.)

"Why not remove all of us at a stroke?"

[friendsfordinner]

Hickey looks at Goodsir like he's an idiot before he points out,

"You don't burn through the entire box of matches at once."

He doesn't know what that thing wants with them. Whether it's fuel for the fire, worshipers at the altar, food and sustenance. But there's one thing that's absolutely certain in Hickey's mind: this thing wants them. It needs them somehow. Because on that point, Goodsir's right. If they were truly an infestation, it would be more than this.

[bestsir]

Goodsir really hates it when Hickey has a point.

"So we're so much kindling, then. Or rations."

[friendsfordinner]

Goodsir probably hates it even more when Hickey looks so unbearably smug because he knows he has a point.

"Or both. Dunno myself. Suppose we'll learn more when the next person dies."

[bestsir]

Goodsir gives him a look.

"Pray that you're not the next victim then, Mr. Hickey."

[friendsfordinner]

"Same to you, Mr. Goodsir. The people here need a doctor. Try to stay alive this time."

As he says that, Hickey's gaze shifts as he blatantly stares at Goodsir's wrists.

[bestsir]

Goodsir looks up sharply and sees where Hickey is looking, and he feels his face go red with shame and anger.

"And you, Mr. Hickey—try not to murder anyone."

[friendsfordinner]

"I'm more worried about you than me in this regard," he points out.

But with a little shrug, Hickey turns to leave the church.

[bestsir]

Goodsir clenches his fists, determined to not go after Hickey and hit him, as that would only add credence to the man's point.

"You'll have to try harder than that," he mutters under his breath. He could try to get one last word in, but it doesn't seem worth it. So he says nothing, looks straight ahead, and waits for the man to remove himself.