Ugly Good Bad

[Meraki]

Eliza took the glass graciously and managed a few sips before she exhaled and looked up to Rhett. He collapsed on the couch and began to spitball as he always did, throwing out question after question in a stream of consciousness that Eliza had grown to be rather talented at following. There was no doubt his brain was faster than hers, his processing rate through the roof, but she took a little pride in knowing that they'd been together long enough now that she could follow without hiccup. He danced from Sylvia to Robinson to the connection between the two and all the while, Eliza kept up with small sips of her wine to ease the tension in her muscles. It certainly did not help the sickness, but it did ease all the discomfort and stress she was feeling. She figured that was the first step to getting herself well again.

Especially after everything.

"Me?" she said with an eyebrow raised, trying to process his comment, "Promising him me? You mean, promising that I'd be his somehow? Unless…"

Eliza came around the counter so she could make her way to the couch and sit on the edge of the arm. She hummed to herself as she recalled everything that had happened so far and as she did, Rhett's theory made more and more sense. "What if you're right, what if I'm just a bargaining chip? He's absolutely insane, but I know after the explosion at his house, he didn't plant that bomb. Do you remember how he acted after that? Or even after I got attacked in the alley? I thought he was just worried about me, but they all happened after he and I had spoken about something – about my file, about Sylvia – and there was genuine fear in his eyes and words when he thought I was hurt."

"He told me once that he did what he had to do, that was the only explanation he gave me for my parents' murder and I was just so blindly angry, I never thought about it."

"He has been a part of my life for, god, every single damn day since my parents died. Besides Linda, he was my only constant, all because I was what? My mother's daughter?" Eliza took another sip and continued, "It makes sense why Sylvia needs Robinson, but what's the easiest way to control a madman? Someone who was willing to kill for obsession? You appeal to the only thing that matters to them. It was my mom and now that she's gone, it would make sense that it's me. If she kills me, it's over for her."

"Robinson would not let her breathe another breath of air if something happened to me, that much I am sure of. Maybe after all of this she promised to leave us alone, that I wouldn't be collateral damage. It makes sense to me why Sylvia keeps you alive, but maybe that's my only saving grace. Maybe I'm alive because the madman who slaughtered my family obsessively loves me and Sylvia is exploiting that fully to get what she wants. As fucked up as it is, it makes complete sense."

But she remembered what Robinson had said to her, that killing her mother was the only way – but the only way to what? To gaining custody over Eliza? Or in some sick way did Robinson think he was saving her by killing her? That was a question she did not want the answer to – not one bit.

 

[Nav]

Rhett swiped his free hand across his face, sighing lowly as he thought. His brain was making connections impossibly quickly, but some pieces just didn't seem to fit. After a few agonizing moments of thinking, he sighed and gave up, shaking his head and sipping down a healthy gulp of wine. Once he pulled the glass away from his lips, he looked back to Eliza once more. "Why didn't he adopt you as a child then?" he asked; it was the only part that didn't seem to fit. If Robinson killed her family (and Rhett believed he did in some fit of passion and rage), why had he let Eliza slip through the foster system?

As Robinson, a respected police chief making decent money, he shouldn't have had any issues getting the state to agree to his appeal to adopt the child. Eliza had spent her entire childhood in foster care never having been adopted—Robinson had ample opportunity to do so, so, why didn't he? That thought nagged Rhett painfully. It was the one piece that was refusing to fall into place. Licking the corner of his lips, he tasted the tanginess of his wine lingering there.

Robinson might have been dark and twisted, but he was smart. He wasn't irrational: he had kept a job for many, many years and was popular in the city. People liked him, people trusted him… no irrational crazy person could do that. There had to be something more they didn't know, but Rhett couldn't even begin to rationalize what that could be. "I'm just struggling to understand what has kept him arm's length from you at all times, and what about the other children? The other children they found like you around the same time?"

Rhett understood why those cases had cropped up again: the point had been to keep them both distracted. It had been a good job, too, seeing as it had gotten Rhett arrested for a while. "What if it wasn't you… not to start. We know Robinson is after you, in some way, but what if it wasn't you originally? What if he didn't kill your family?" Rhett had always been such a proponent of the idea that it had been Robinson all along. Even from the moment they had met, it had been Rhett trying to convince her that Robinson, formally known as Neil, was her family's murderers. "Maybe it wasn't you, but your mother? Maybe, maybe… I don't know. It just doesn't make sense for him to murder all these families, drug all these kids, and stop with you, unless… unless he wasn't the one murdering. Maybe the murdering was someone else and maybe he just…"

"Maybe he just had an obsession with you or your mother." Rhett rubbed his forehead again, "I don't know."

 

[Meraki]

"He, uh," Eliza scratched her head, "he came back for me."

It was a story she had never really told before, not one that was of any importance anyway. She shook her head and took another deep gulp of wine. "After the murder, after they took me in and they tried to contact family, any family that would take me in, he offered to adopt me. Linda told me once, said that they called her in after it happened to keep me for a few nights, I was inconsolable. I just kept saying I wanted my mom and dad, over and over again until I fell asleep and Linda could take me from the station."

"I don't remember seeing Robinson again until I was nearly eight," she clarified, "he came to dinner once at the house, Linda had to explain who he was to me because I didn't remember, and he asked if I was happy where I was. He said he could give me a home, give me a chance, and I said no. I told the only father figure I ever had no at eight years old. He told me how much I looked like my mother. I thought he was just being nice, but I wanted a real family. I wanted a mom and a dad, a house and a dog. I wanted a yard to play in and my own bed to sleep in."

"Eventually he stopped offering, started keeping close and keeping watch instead. He would show up to my school functions, pick me up some afternoons, take me out to lunch, and all the while I thought he was just trying to be something he wasn't. But the more and more I grew, the more interested he seemed in spending time with me. But I never thought anything of it. He got me out of trouble at school so many times and when he convinced me to join the force, to go to the academy and take the exam, he told me that my mother would be proud. Never once mentioned my father."

"I know he did it," Eliza said to Rhett, "I know he killed my parents, but maybe he didn't want me. Maybe he wanted me at first because I was my mother's daughter, but the obsession didn't start until I started to grow up. Until I started to look like her more and more. We – I know you've seen these pictures of the crime scene before but look –" Eliza stood up and made her way to the entryway closet where she pulled down a small box of things Eliza had kept from childhood. She pulled out a picture she had of her mother in college, a professional shot she got before giving up her dreams and settling down. "This was my mother. Not the bloodied and beaten woman in those photographs. Look at that and tell me that I don't look identical to her. It's a black and white photo, but the only difference between us was that her eyes were green. I take after my dad in that sense."

"Maybe Robinson was mimicking another killer's style, maybe the other murders were just attempts to cover it up, but whatever the reason -- when I accused Robinson of killing my family there was guilt in his eyes. He spoke of my mother, too, so maybe that's it. Maybe it's not me at all. Not really. Maybe I'm the only piece of my mother he has left. Maybe he wants to protect that with everything he has."

 

[Nav]

"So, the other kids were either nothing more than concealments or a copy-cat."

Rhett understood a lot of things around him, most things in fact. He was intellectual in a way most people weren't, able to do the most incredible calculations and understand even the most in-depth subjects known to man. He couldn't understand criminals. Thieving out of necessity, speeding… he understood, he supposed, but murder? Never once had he had a impulse to turn on and kill someone, not even Sylvia. He probably could have killed her on the bridge; he was taller than her, stronger. He could have wrapped his long fingers around her throat and squeezed and squeezed. She knew he would never do it; it's why she felt safe when she turned her back to him.

Rhett remained on the couch, drinking large gulps of his wine down as Eliza went to fetch the picture. He hadn't known she had been keeping anything of the sort in what was his apartment, but he supposed they were objects she liked to keep close to her at all times. When she passed him the shot, he took it from her and looked it over before handing it back. She certainly wasn't joking, they had looked a lot alike—mother and daughter, without a doubt. It was impossible to know what happened between the Madisons and Robinson that led to the untimely death of both of Eliza's parents. A jealous rage, perhaps… if he loved her mother and not her, initially, it could have easily turned into a 'if I can't have her, no one could have her…' Being the cop that he was, he could have used his knowledge of ongoing cases in the city to trick other officials into believing the murders were apart of another crime string, using Eliza as drugged bait.

Somewhere, somehow, Sylvia met Robinson, discovered his situation, and took advantage.

It was hard to say how Sylvia discovered what Robinson had done and figured out how to use it to her advantage, but it didn't surprise him. Sylvia was brilliantly smart and a talented empath. Though she felt little emotion herself, she could easily read what was going on with others. What she found was a weak, lonely, crippled man and she was exploiting him for everything he was worth. As the DA, she had all the same access to the same files Rhett had; she very well could have followed the same trail he had between Neil and Robinson several months prior to Rhett. If she had been looking for someone to take advantage of, it wouldn't have taken her long to search through old files.

What she likely hadn't been anticipating was Rhett getting involved with all of it. Without him, Eliza may very well have gone on none the wiser, and how would she have known? She had grown to trust Robinson. She had been groomed over decades of time, from childhood, to trust him. Rhett would never have been able to believe had he gotten someone accusing his own father of murder, either.

"So he did it and Sylvia is using it for her own gain. She always was ambitious to move up, she took a lot of dirty shortcuts to get to her spot as DA but…" he trailed off and shrugged, "This has gone far. Farther than I ever thought her possible, even."

 

[Meraki]

"Yeah," Eliza breathed out, "it's a lot."

She had long since come to terms with the reality of Robinson murdering her parents. What she wasn't used to was thinking back to that moment, to the place in her memory where everything went blurry. It was a maddening feeling to know that the most pivotal moment in her life was nothing more than blurry memory. She remembered the crime scene photos, little glimmers of her childhood, but the clearest memory she had was the feeling of her parents being there and then they weren't. Suddenly, she was a four-year-old alone in the world and she had long since learned to deal with that feeling of being alone. She wasn't alone anymore, she knew that, but it was an uncomfortable trauma that rose in her every once in a while. That's why she had pushed her parents case down and refused to revisit it for so long.

She thought she was healing all those years, but all she was doing was postponing the inevitable. She never believed that she would find the killer or that she would ever have closure, but here she was with Robinson's name floating in her head coupled with those images of her parents. Her mom and dad, bloodied and dead on the floor, but then nothing. Nothing but blurs until the police station.

Then she remembered Linda, and that's where her story began – it felt.

She finished off her glass of wine and went to pour another, a knock at the door pulling her from her thoughts. She moved towards the door and signed for their Chinese food and brought it (and the wine) back to the couch to settle down next to Rhett. She had to clear her throat, the uncomfortable feeling in her lungs rising up for a moment. She unloaded the boxes of food and looked over to him. "At least we know not to underestimate her," Eliza said finally, "if we know she's capable of all of this, I don't think there's any length she won't go to in order to get what she wants."

"It would explain why she seems to loathe me so entirely though," Eliza laughed, "not only am I dating you, but she can't have me killed like everyone else. That's probably why they tried to kidnap me – hold me as a bargaining chip to make Robinson comply without killing me, because if I was dead she would lose all of her pull in the police department."


"Robinson might be a murderer, but he's smart. He'd do everything he could to take her down. Maybe that makes him the key to getting to Sylvia. Maybe we have to play her own game. If I'm a pawn, I'm a pawn, but so is Robinson, and something tells me that this is, ultimately, a game between you and her."

 

[Nav]

He was glad their meal had arrived because he needed a break without having to drink any more. One glass of wine had been more than enough for him and he left his empty wineglass on the coffee table. Taking his carton of Chinese into his lap, he picked through it with his chopsticks as he thought. He was still listening to everything Eliza had to say, but his eyes were trained on the food in front of him. "No, we can't keep underestimating her," he agreed, ripping open his packet of soy sauce and dribbling it over his race before taking a big bite.

He got several bites into his meal before his eyes flickered back up to Eliza and he just shrugged. "Maybe Robinson is the way to go in. He is her big contact at the police department, but we have to be careful. I fear she is quickly outgrowing his necessity now that she's working with the FBI and domestic terrorism." Sylvia was starting to get into the big leagues and once she loss her use for Robinson, she'd lose her use for keeping Eliza alive. She kept him alive because he entertained her, challenged her in a way a lot of people couldn't, but his safety wasn't guaranteed either. Neither of their safeties were guaranteed and they'd both be hell of a lot worse off if Robinson lost his value to her.

Taking another bite to distract himself, Rhett just shook his head solemnly. "I think Sylvia is trying to challenge me," he agreed, "She always used to. I think it bothered her that I scored higher than she did on the IQ test, and that I did better on the BAR exam." He smiled sheepishly, "I think she wants to prove she can beat me, but I think her endgame is bigger than me."

He had kept eating not because he was hungry, but because it gave his hands something to do, and his hands were usually nervous little buggers. He couldn't keep them still, so he met it with some sadness when his chopsticks scraped the bottom of his carton.

"But her trying to challenge me doesn't make you a pawn," he replied, "Maybe in Sylvia's eyes you're just a pawn to her, but that just means she's underestimating you. We've spent so much time underestimating her, I think it's time she starts underestimating us for once, too."

 

[Meraki]

I think it's time she starts underestimating us for once, too.

Rhett was right. They had spent so much time worrying about underestimating Sylvia that it was damn well time they took advantage of how she underestimated them. Eliza was not too proud to realize that she would never be able to go toe to toe with either of their minds, but measurable, logic-based intelligence wasn't the only type of intelligence. Eliza knew New York, she knew the streets and more than anything, she knew how to survive. Time and time again she had proven to Rhett, Robinson, and even Sylvia that she was not an easy target to take down. She was strong, mentally and physically, and while Sylvia manipulated the world to make her rise to power easy, Eliza had drudged her way through all the shit life had to offer.

She wasn't just a bargaining chip.

"Well, now that we know, we can manipulate it, too," Eliza said, picking at her food but finding that between the Chinese food and wine, she wasn't feeling particularly great. She grabbed a dumpling or two, but didn't make much of a move to dig into anything else. "I don't doubt that in her big, terrible scheme we're just that – a challenge and a bargaining chip. There's got to be a way that we can use those against her. A way that we can be part of this and not just on the bench talking strategy."

"So we just have to figure out what we're going to do next," she shrugged, setting her wine and the food down so she could pull her legs up on the couch and let a wave of coughs ripple through her, "before she gets too cozy with the higher ups and we really can't touch her. This case is dangerously teetering outside of my jurisdiction, especially if – for any reason – Sylvia goes out of state. So if she's got her sights set on Washington, we need to move and we need to do it quickly – but not blindly."

"Because if we're going to win this, if we're going to take Sylvia down, we have to be ready and more than anything, we have to act as one. Whether we're physically together or not, that's the one thing she can't touch. We can't let her."

 

[Nav]

Rhett was not foolish enough to forget about his doctor's appointment from the day earlier. She spoke of acting as one, regardless of whether they were physically together or not but that was hard to do suffering through chemo... or being dead. His thoughts wandered a moment longer but he quickly deflected them. It was only a chance and wasn't confirmed. He couldn't allow himself to think that he was already a dead man but he also had to consider the bigger picture: what would Eliza do if he was gone?

She would survive, she always did, but would she conquer. If he were gone, Sylvia would strike quickly and ruthlessly. Maybe Sylvia couldn't touch their togetherness, but cancer could. Again, he mentally shook himself and snatched up his fortune cookie. Breaking the little hard cookie into shards, he nibbled at it before peeling down at his fortune. The little words printed there made him laugh. "Don't worry, Eliza. My fortune cookie says "your good luck is in the bedroom." I think we'll be fine." He held it up for her to see, knowing he desperately had needed that small little laugh.

Back the matter at hand, Rhett popped another piece into his mouth and gave a quiet smile. "It's great that we know this but the grand question is what can we do? It's awfully difficult to waltz into a federal investigation. If we are to use Robinson as bait, we should make him unstable-- unpredictable." He tapped a finger to his lip, humming gently to himself as he thought about the day's events. "Like diagnosing you with inoperable, stage four brain cancer, for example."

Eliza was his chip and if he was going to lose her forever, or believed he would, it could be enough to tip him over the edge. It could be enough to rock Sylvia's safety net at the precinct as a man who was about to lose everything was a man who had nothing left to lose. "If we can make him believe you'll be gone, there will be nothing left tying him to Sylvia. The loyalty could be broken between them. She must know about Neil and his past. Even if she gets him arrested for it, he could be vulnerable and ready to talk."

Rhett gave a shrug and looked to the bottle of wine, considering a second glass rather suddenly. "But I don't know him well enough. You're the one who knows him better than anyone. What do you think?"

 

[Meraki]

Eliza knew that there was still this terrible dark cloud hanging over them, but they had to keep moving. If they found out he had cancer, they would deal with it as they always did, and maybe it would become near impossible to take down Sylvia after that, but Eliza cared first and foremost for Rhett. This city had given her a lot, taken even more, but Rhett gave her something she never thought she would have or deserved. He gave her strength, love, compassion, and he carried the weight of her scars and past as though it were a light fall jacket. Just barely heavy enough to feel most days. He made the small joke about the fortune cookie and she let out a warm laugh, shaking her head incredulously. "Well, obviously. Even a fortune cookie knows what's up."

The conversation quickly diverted back to Robinson and Eliza swirled the wine in her wine glass until it left little trails of color along the glass. Push Robinson? He made mention of the cancer, of lying to him, and Eliza just exhaled. It was hard to find an answer to give. "He—" she started but shook her head and let a cough ripple through her before she continued, "I genuinely don't know how stable he is to begin with. What's stopped him so far from giving up Sylvia? From blowing this whole thing open? Maybe keeping me alive, but even when the explosion happened, even after the kidnapping, he didn't turn on her. His anger wasn't even directed at Sylvia. He was angry at me."

"He was mad that I didn't listen," she recalled, "Mad that I didn't call him. Mad that you were the one I went to now, not him."

"I'm not sure what he would do if he thought he was going to lose me. I'd only worry about medical issues because I don't doubt the moment he tells Sylvia that she tries to get ahold of them. I've got a pretty hefty medical file, but cancer isn't anywhere in there."

"Unless…" she hummed, "What if the way to break him isn't pulling away? What if instead of getting Robinson on our side, we play into their hand. What is you called it in Go? Kikashi? Where you force a move?"

"I've kept Robinson at an arm's length for a while, but maybe scaring him isn't it. Maybe he don't have to make him unstable with a blast radius, but play into his loyalty. He thinks he's protecting me from afar right now, but if I work to appeal to him, if I become an active part of his life, we could build that obsession. Benefit from it. We could manage information about her until it's the right time to strike. When we've talked recently, I can feel like. There's something in him that snaps around me, he begged me not to get off the phone. He begged me to come with him after the explosion."

"And I think if he's on our side, our survival rate goes up," Eliza explained, "the only problem is no matter what we do, Sylvia's gonna catch wind of it. Unless we move fast while she's working with the government. Build that bridge with Robinson and burn it when we need it to hit Sylvia the hardest. Sylvia might be a talented empath, but I've made my feelings towards Robinson very clear. I genuinely wonder if she would see that coming – me putting aside my own rage and disgust to spend time with the man who slaughtered my family."

 

[Nav]

"Kikashi," he agreed, though he hadn't heard anyone speak that word until he had gotten mysterious phone calls with someone whispering It to him shortly before his kidnapping. Tapping his fingers against his knee in a rhythmical beat, he could only shrug a little. "Truthfully, I don't know," he admitted, "I don't know him well enough to make a judgement call on him, but what I do know is that he probably doesn't trust you right now. If he wouldn't give anything of Sylvia up when he nearly killed you, why would he give anything up when you're cozying up to him?" \

It sounded like Robinson was on high alert, if nothing else. "Right now, he trusts Sylvia far more than he trusts you, from the sounds of it. Trust like that is hard to break. Regardless of what you can do, you have not murdered with Robinson, not like Sylvia has. Murderer teams are exceedingly rare but in the few cases I have seen, the trust between two murderers working together is practically unbreakable. They trust each other entirely because they are committing the most horrific act together. They know each other's darkest secret. That is incredibly powerful."

It wasn't Rhett's attempt to discourage her or her idea, but to come to the personal realization that Robinson may not be a nut they could crack no matter what they tried. Ultimately, Rhett just shrugged a second time. "Do whatever you think is best," he concluded, "But try not to get your hopes up too much, either. Like it or not, Sylvia is in that man's brain true and entirely. That being said, if you're going to go after Robinson, maybe you shouldn't move in. Not that I don't want you here, but Robinson will never learn to trust you with me here."

"He'll be suspicious… Sylvia will be suspicious… if you suddenly start warming up to him again without a reason. You said it yourself, he's not slow or an idiot, he'll see it's a trap from a mile away. Perhaps we should break up."

 

[Meraki]

"Splitting up didn't really work too well last time. I'd rather not try it again."

She'd almost died, the two of them had to flee the state, and she had enough of jails, explosions and sedatives to last a fucking lifetime at this point. It was a decision they needed to make together, a move they both had to agree on, because Eliza was not willing to throw herself back into the fire without knowing first that Rhett was alright and second that she would make it home to him. Or him to her. There was a lot about Eliza that was rough and tough, she was a bit ragged around the edges, but after everything they'd been through, he was the only thing she was sure of in this life.

He was the only thing that ever really made any sense.

"What if we make him come to us?" Eliza asked, "What if it's a change that he wouldn't agree with? One that makes sense given everything we've been through. If Sylvia's tracking us, if they know our every move – rightfully assuming that they do – I'm sure it's only a matter of time before she knows about everything we've gone through these last few days. My hospitalization, your visit to the neurologist, our trip to Wisconsin together to meet your folks."

It was the one thing that she figured would pull Robinson out of the woodwork to try and speak with her. The one thing that made sense given everything they'd been through, but was a big step for Eliza. Something he'd want to be there for her through, something he would not agree with given his opinion of Rhett, or Diaz, or any man she had ever dated that he caught wind of. Eliza shook her head and let out a cleansing exhale.

"What if instead of breaking up, we did the opposite?" she asked.

"What if we got engaged?" Eliza turned to him and set her wine glass down, "What if after everything we've been through – explosions, terrorist attacks, kidnappings, jail – we just decided that this was the best time? That we weren't willing to wait with everything going on?"

"If you had intentions of marrying me," she said finally, "nothing's would stop him from speaking to me."

 

[Nav]

Rhett's eyebrows raised at her suggestion. It was a discussion, a back and forth, but he wasn't expecting her to pull that from her bag of tricks and he wasn't entirely sure how to respond to it. Marriage hadn't even really crossed his mind, not with everything else that was going on. It had never been anything that meant all that much to him anyways and he would never die unhappily if he had never wed another. It wasn't so much that he was unsure whether or not he wished to spend the rest of his life with her, that bit had already been made up in her mind but the idea of marriage—of ignoring the rest of the world on fire to try and pretend they could find peace was a bit ludicrous.

But she had a point.

"I uhhh.." he paused a moment, not even minding he had just stumbled because it was a big matter to discuss. "I mean, if you wanted to marry me, you could have just asked. You didn't need to veil it behind trying to crack Robinson," he replied cheekily and with a shy smile. It would raise alarm bells in both Sylvia and Robinson, that was for sure, but hopefully not the type that made them inclined to believe that it was some kind of trap. It would be an unexpected development for both of them, he imagined, and that was what they needed. Maybe it still wouldn't work, maybe Sylvia was too smart and would figure out their ploy and turn Robinson away, but short of going up to Sylvia's door and banging on it himself, he had no other ideas.

For as smart as he was, Rhett was not a manipulative man. He didn't know how to readily trick people or how to get them to bend to his will. He always just sort of happily bumbled along, working under the strict moral code of the law. Getting Robinson to crack, tricking Sylvia into believing something else was going on… those were all new things to him and he realized very early on that he didn't like it. He didn't like the deceit and the lying, though he understood why it was so important. He had hid the truth before—lying by exclusion—but he rarely outright lied to someone's face. The idea of making a sham engagement was a little dizzying to him, but he took comfort in knowing that he had all but committed himself entirely to Eliza already.

"We'll have to make it believable… and public." Maybe Sylvia would find out either way, but it would hardly be believable if Rhett and Eliza weren't out telling the entire world. "I suppose we'll just need to pretend we no longer have any interest in either of them, not Sylvia nor Robinson. Instead of trying to get in closer to them, perhaps we should ignore them for a while… keep them away. Sylvia, if nothing else, can't stand knowing she's being ignored." Of course, they risked her trying to do something dramatic to garner their attention once more, like blowing something up, but at that point… Rhett couldn't predict what she would and wouldn't do anyways.

"Perhaps if all eyes aren't on her for once, she'll make an impulse decision."

 

[Meraki]

"And it buys us some time," Eliza added onto his comment, "Some time for us to take for ourselves without guilt. Neither of us are in any shape to dive head first into anything right now, but this forces their hand, puts the ball in their court. If they approach us, either of us, then we'll know it worked. We managed to get under their skin before they can get under ours."

Marriage was a big buzzword for Eliza. She knew that it was a ploy for them to see if they could wriggle themselves under Sylvia and Robinson's skin, but marriage had never been on her radar. After all, what kind of example had been set for her as a kid? The only family with married parents that didn't rip her to shreds were her own parents, but they were killed by the very man they were trying to beckon closer. It was all a big of an emotional overload for Eliza, but it was a good plan. It was a solid plan and more than anything it enabled them to stay together. They were stronger together, smarter, because they could push one another in just the right way to come up with the best solution. So much had changed since that first day when Rhett walked into her office, blew her life open and settled the case for her to deal with.

And she had accepted the challenge too, run head first into until she nearly died.

His joke was not lost on her, and she rolled her eyes playfully. "Maybe it's just the fever talking." She teased, her laugh a warm and gentle sound. God, she felt like hell. Every time she got worked up, she forgot the way her lungs burned or the way her thoughts swam. As much as the idea of marriage frightened her to her core, at least Eliza could take comfort in the fact that it was Rhett who would be by her side. Since they started dating, he'd never let her down once. Hospital breakouts, bloodied and beaten in an alley, he was always there for her and he never once tried to change her.

He gave her the space to just be and they grew together. More, it seemed, than she initially thought.

"Making it public will be easy," Eliza hummed softly as she rested her tired head against the back of the couch, "the minute I walk into that precinct and say I'm engaged, it'll be across the city in an instant. I'll never hear the end of it, really. Shouldn't be a problem getting it to Robinson and Sylvia."

 

[Nav]

Rhett scratched his cheek, eyes on the wine glass because he was still considering taking a second glass, but despite all his consideration, he never reached to pour a second glass. He just couldn't be bothered, really. The last thing he wanted to feel was a headache from being hung-over the next morning, especially after a few days of migraine-induced hell. Instead he got up and fetched himself a glass of water before settling back down on the sofa where he had been. He sipped his water guiltlessly and lounged deeper into the cushions, getting comfortable. "I don't really have any friends to make it public with," he admitted, but without shame.

Rhett had always been the personal type… the type who preferred to stay at home and away from most people. That didn't make him unfriendly; his clients had always spoken of him with great fondness, but he had never taken well to the idea of friends. He didn't enjoy going out and mingling with people, even people he considered friends… so there wasn't really anyone to announce it to. He supposed he could tell his family, but he doubted that would make much of a difference at all. If the police department knew, Robinson would know. Something told him that anything Robinson knew, Sylvia knew. She was like a bad wiretap.

"So, I guess just the police station then. That should be more than enough to get the word out to Robinson and Sylvia."

He took another drink of his water, pulling back the entire glass before putting it back on the coffee table and sinking deep into the plush surface. "So, I guess that's it. We have our plan, then." A plan—an engagement as a plan. Marriage had never much interested him but especially not a sham engagement. It was unappealing at best, but they were talking about a city that had just been rocked by a terrorist attack… and the terrorist was elbow deep in the investigation herself. There was no time for taking the moral high ground, not when they were talking about Sylvia.

"I guess we should get you a ring, too, if we're going to make it look really real." She couldn't exactly be engaged without a ring. Rhett Wolfhart had never been a man with a lot of means. He often lived paycheck to paycheck, though he had his savings. He never thought it would be spent on a sham engagement but… that didn't bother him, really. Money was just money, it came and it went. "I'll have to pick it out though, just so there is some element of surprise for you."

 

[Meraki]

It wasn't ideal, but there was no part of Eliza that had ever imagined marriage. Sure, maybe once or twice as a kid, with flashing images of a kid or two running about underfoot, but she supposed those were thoughts everyone had once in a while. It was always after she watched some movie or saw the other students being picked up by their parents after school. It always just made her wonder but marriage had never been in the cards for Eliza Madison. Hell, a steady real-life boyfriend wasn't either. It seemed that she broke all of her rules for Rhett but did not regret a moment of it.

He spoke of buying her an engagement ring and Eliza shook her head at the absurdity of it all. If there was one thing she knew from watching movies as a kid, this was not the way one traditionally proposed, but it was all for the sake of an endgame. A world where they were able to be normal, well – not normal, but their own kind of normal. Their comfortable, little strange world they shared. "It would help, but you don't—" she stumbled over her words as she thought about her with an engagement ring on her finger. She knew it was their best plan, but it seemed like every time they moved forward there was something in her that rose up to meet it – terrible abandonment issues that she tried desperately to push down. "I mean, it doesn't have to be any sort of flashy, or – y'know."

She shrugged, hating how stupid she sounded when the topic of engagement rings flared up. "What I mean, is you don't have to go out of your way or anything," she clarified. The last thing she wanted was for him to spend too much time thinking about what she wanted when this whole ordeal was so much bigger than they were. To be honest, she didn't quite know how to process someone doing something specifically for her. It had never really happened before – save for the present she'd get from Linda on her birthday and one at Christmas – no one ever really thought of surprising Eliza, or even giving her much. She'd grown used to it, comfortable with it, but if Rhett said she needed a ring.

She guessed she needed a ring.

She set down the wine glass and brushed the hair from her tired eyes. Her head lulled back on the couch, turned just so she could see Rhett's face and she shrugged. "I really think this might work."

 

[Nav]

Rhett knew she was uncomfortable, he could see it in her face and hear it in her tone. He couldn't blame her. After all, it was just a means to a hopeful end, not an actual promise of through sickness and health. "Try not to worry about it so much," he said with a half-smile, "We won't actually be getting married. It's just a trick, that's all. It's not a commitment." Commitments, Rhett had quickly learned, where not Eliza's favorite things. To Rhett, marriage had never meant much. His own parents had been married a long time, but to most couples, marriage wasn't permanent. It was a transient, weak promise that often shattered after a few years.

It was a non-permanent solution to a permanent problem and Rhett really had no interests in it. He never really had. The idea of kids was a bit absurd for himself, as his own bloodlines came with so many issues he couldn't dare to think of passing it along to anyone else. Though smart, he had always believed the gene pool would be better off without his genetics anyhow. So on went the circle in Rhett's head, as he had never had any intention of marrying or having kids, even if he did (and he had) found a partner he wished to stay with for the rest of his life.

This was different, though. It wasn't some grand proposal to share between the two of them. It was just a scheme Eliza had come up with to dupe Sylvia and Robinson—and all of New York—for the better good. People were dying, getting hurt, and losing loved ones because of an evil gripping the city. If a single marriage could help solve the problem, then Rhett couldn't rebuke that. It wouldn't even be that much of a sacrifice, seeing as the woman he was supposedly marrying was also a woman he was madly, truly in love with already.

"Don't worry," he laughed at her gently, "I don't have the money to go out of my way." It would be nothing big or flashy, mostly because Rhett didn't have the finances to be big and flashy, but also because he knew Eliza wasn't a big and flashy woman. They had to be realistic and if she came in swooning with a giant rock on her hand, everyone who knew her would be suspicious. It seemed like it should have been an easy enough plan, but it would take some delicate forethought if they wanted to be believed. Ultimately, they still had to be the people they usually were… even though they were lying to everyones' faces.

"I hope so," he admitted, "I think we could both use a little good luck. I don't really believe in luck—it goes against logic—but I suppose I could certainly use some right about now."

 

[Meraki]

That was perhaps the strangest thing about Eliza. Even after so much loss and abuse, it wasn't a fear of commitment on her end, it was the fear that someone else would make the decision to leave. She had felt it hundreds of times over and it should have meant nothing at this point, she should have been able to brush it off and just say the world was cruel and let that be that – but Eliza wasn't like that. There was a heart under that disappointment and it ached with the want to be accepted. Marriage was terrifying because she didn't want to ruin Rhett. She didn't want to ruin whatever this was between them and while she trusted him with everything in her being, she had seen marriage do terrible things to good people. She had watched her own parents be murdered in a fit of passion because there was a man too obsessed with her mother to let happiness be the answer.

He said don't worry, but she did. She did because she knew the kind of shit this would dredge up in her and while it was their only choice, the last thing Rhett needed on top of everything else was to deal with her insecurities. That was the nasty part about them, though. They flared, every once in a while coming to the forefront and then ebbing back comfortably for quite some time. It wasn't a real proposal, but she still knew that having to put on this front would be difficult.

But she also knew that she would do anything for the sake of their relationship and their lives. She loved Rhett. Above all else, that much she damn well knew without a doubt. He was everything to her, and while marriage terrified her, there was no one else in the entire fucking world she would rather be "married" to than him.

He had all of her – all the beautiful bits and broken pieces – and he would always have her. Even if he decided tomorrow that this was all too much and he wanted to leave. She would always love him. That was what made Eliza so cold sometimes – she had left pieces of her heart with every single damn family that she had lived with over the years. She was always looking for the same thing – just looking for home.

"I think after everything the universe will let us have this one," Eliza laughed, "I've endured some shit in my lifetime, but if there's anything I've learned it's that there has to be a light somewhere."

She hummed sleepily, "I should go to bed before I make this fever worse, but no part of me wants to move."

 

[Nav]

Rhett had gone through his own waves of misfortune, by never like Eliza had. He had been bullied, teased, and humiliated most of his life through—he had had birthday parties where no one showed up and he and his mom would eat the cake alone at the kitchen table. He had been ridiculed for his weirdness and his twitches, his incessant need to tap his fingers and blurt out numbers. At the end of the day though, he knew he always had a roof to go home to, even if his parents hadn't treated him like he needed to be treated. They cared for them and their treatment of Rhett had come from a place of concern but ignorance instead of malice.

No matter what had happened to him in New York, he knew there was always a bed and space for him back in Wisconsin and that meant a lot. That was more than Eliza had most of her life through. He knew, ultimately, how good he had it growing up, even if there were people who made fun of his actions, his surname, and his existence. But he needed that victory just as much as Eliza did in that moment. He had gotten so beaten down by failure after failure and now trying to hold on to an even face while the thought of brain cancer nagged in the back of his head… it was almost too much.

If their marriage ploy failed, Rhett wasn't sure where that would put him. He was strong, mentally, but not like Eliza was. He wasn't sure how much more bad news he could handle without a little sprinkle of joy in-between.

"Probably right," he agreed, going to stand and clean up the last of their dishes off the coffee table. He barely rinsed them off and threw them in the dishwasher haphazardly before stepping back to the sofa and extending a hand down to her. "Let's get ready for bed then. I think sleep is what we both need." Too bad Rhett knew sleep wouldn't come easy to him. His mind would be too wild on the news he had received as the specialist's office that morning… about the plan… Sylvia… Robinson. He inhaled sharply and when he exhaled through his nostrils, he allowed a smile to tip the corners of his lips. He figured if he just kept smiling a little bit, he'd trick himself into believing he was still a little bit happy and optimistic.

"It'll get better once we're in bed, come on," he coaxed her gently when she explained no part of her wished to move. "I promise, bed is much better than the couch."

 

[Meraki]

It took her a while to find, but Eliza found it.


A few days later, Eliza had gone back to work and everything had started to fall back into pattern. Her hours were cut back to normal, human hours in the wake of the tragedy, and she managed to get off early enough to head to her own apartment to sift through some things. With Diaz gone, being at the precinct felt odd, and she welcomed the familiar look of her apartment even though it hadn't been touched in quite some time. Eliza gathered the duffel bag she'd brought over from Rhett's when they thought splitting up would be best, but with one addition. Something of her father's.


She didn't even know if she still had it, but she did.


Eventually she made it back to Rhett's apartment and slipped inside, peeling off her jacket and hanging it up on the coat rack. "Hey," she smiled at Rhett as she entered and moved to press a kiss to his lips, "I have a surprise for you. It's not much, but I was thinking about it at work today, and I just thought it would be nice and I…anyway."


Eliza set her bag down and thumbed through it before pulling out a small box. She opened it up and pulled it out, "I don't know if you're a watch guy or anything, but," Eliza explained as she held it out to him. It was a beautiful, vintage watch that caught the light from the sunset out the window. Eliza knew nothing of watches but her father had been in love with this one in particular. He'd told her it was the kind of watch that men with busy minds needed and there was no one who fit that description better than Rhett. "This was my father's watch. My mother's dad gave it to him when they got married."


"I know we're just doing this to convince Sylvia and Robinson, but this is what makes it real for me," Eliza explained, "If we're really going to do this, if this is going to be believable, I want you to have it. My dad said that it was a watch built for men with busy minds, so I thought there was no one else in the world it would fit besides you."

 

[Nav]

Rhett's busy mind spent the previous few days finding work. It didn't take him long, he didn't have to apply. Once a few local law firms knew that Rhett Wolfhart had opened himself up as an attorney without a firm, there were many inquiries that quickly filled his email inbox. It wasn't nearly as hard to close down Wolfhart Law as he thought it would be. He had loved his little, do-good office and he hoped desperately that someday he'd be able to reopen it again to serve the less fortunate, but he knew he wouldn't miss struggling to survive… wondering if he should spend money on groceries or keeping the lights on. For once, he decided he didn't mind a cushy job with a decent paycheck and benefits.

But perhaps that had more to do with his doctor's visit than anything else. In recent days, he had thought at great length what a serious diagnosis would mean for him… for Eliza. He'd have to give up everything: the hunt for Sylvia and Robinson, justice for Eliza's slayed family, law. He'd have to give it all up for attempted treatment or to be able to spend his remaining days in peace and happiness. He thought about Eliza's future and when he signed the paperwork at his new firm, he was glad to see the life insurance policy in his benefits package. Mortality wasn't hard for him to come to terms with, but the uncertainty was the difficult part.

Good news, bad news, ugly news… he just wanted to have an answer. Without hesitation, he wanted to say he did or did not have brain cancer, not that he may have it.

His specialist had called earlier in the day with news of a slightly abnormal blood panel, but she had assured him (again) that a low complete blood count could be accounted for by many things: illness, genetics… it wasn't something to panic about yet. Rhett wasn't panicking, but it weighed heavily on his mind all the same. Before he was properly diagnosed and would be ineligible, he took out additional life insurance against himself in Eliza's name.

Working, however, did him some good. He seemed pleased with the fact that he was back in law again, even if he wasn't in his own firm. He enjoyed taking on cases (though only a few to start), as it helped lift his spirits. It was how he managed to go home to the apartment at night and be a little brighter.

He had been cleaning up the apartment with noodles boiling away on the stove when Eliza returned. He peeked up, leaning back on his heels to watch her come in. "Hey," he greeted her with a tired smile, "I have dinner going." He was expecting their usual night routine, a kiss, dinner, bed… but Eliza came up to him with a surprise. Stirring the noodles one last time, he set the spoon down and gave her his attention.

"What's that?" he asked, looking as she fumbled with the small box. "Oh, wow." Rhett had never really worn a watch, mostly because he couldn't really afford a nice one and the cheap ones never appealed to him. The watch Eliza presented him with was gorgeous, and he very nearly declined it.

It was her father's, and he knew how few things she had of them… he almost took guilt in the fact that she was offering it to him, but then she explained and he understood. Graciously, he smiled and picked it up, flipping it over in his fingers a few times to get a better look at it. "Men with busy minds, huh?" he echoed, "I guess that is me. It's beautiful, thank you." Curling his fingers around the watch, he leaned down and pressed a kiss to her lips.

"You're in luck because I have a surprise for you, too, I finally had time to go down to the jeweler's on my lunch…" setting the watch down for just a second, he moved to his bag and pulled out the unmistakable little, white box. He didn't get down on one knee, they were beyond that, but he did step in close to Eliza so there was only a little bubble of space between them before opening the box. Inside was an engagement ring, as simple but beautiful as Eliza herself.