The Wayward Child Case

[nevegallus]

She gets the call early. It works out, because she doesn't sleep much, but she still isn't used to her phone tootling out its cheerful melody and she startles from where she's looking at the colorful strands bisecting her living room wall. It's the Second City Case overlapping the Guided Prison Job, with different strands reaching different leads. She comes back to it now and then, adding pins and threads, but right now she's just been trying to find the pattern. It may not exist yet, but that doesn't mean she doesn't try.

Still, the phone.

She steps over to it and lifts it to her ear, thumbing the green button as she goes.

“Gallus,” she greets.

“Ms Gallus,” a voice on the other side says. “I apologize for the early hour, but you told me to call as soon as I could.”

“Not at all. Charlie, isn't it? What can I do for you, Charlie?”

She thinks she knows, but she asks anyway, and she keeps her voice neutral so she doesn't give away her hopefulness or her excitement. It can't be. She can't be that lucky. Darrow can't be that kind.

“You asked me to call if we got any packets for red-headed girls named Sophie,” he reminds, and there's a beat, during which Neve stops herself from pressing And? before Charlie says, “Well, we got one this morning.”

Neve feels her fingers tighten against the phone and she nods, then says, “Thanks, Charlie, I'll be right there.”

She doesn't know what Sophie looks like, not really. Red hair, pigtails, green eyes, small for her age. That's it. But that's a head start, and she knows who to ask for better.

She hangs up with Charlie and then thumbs through her contact list for Shion.

“It's Neve,” she says when he answers. “Meet me at Parliament Street, on the corner of Watling.”

She leaves it at that and grabs her keys and coat, tossing her hair up into its twist on her way out the door. Then she grabs a cab to the train station.

Perhaps it had been unkind to give the street corner instead of simply saying ‘the train station’, but there's a part of her that doesn't want to get his hopes up. Not yet. Not until they're sure.

She stands at the corner and clasps her hands together, trying not to wring them.

Comments

[afeastofthirst]

It's an intriguing call, but Neve is perfunctory and Shion is drowsy enough not to question her further. Besides, he likes the element of mystery, excited to find out what she wants to meet for. There's a slim chance that she's found the answer, or at least an element of it, something to grasp onto that might help them get back to their respective homes. He doesn't want to hang his hat on it, but the glimmer of hope is enough to get him moving at a respectable clip. He dresses quickly and neatly, grabs his phone and his keys, and he's out the door.

It's not until he gets close that he starts to realize where he's headed, bewilderment setting in. The train is a way into the city, he tells himself. Maybe it has a clue to the way out. That's all. He can't ask for anything else; he can't let himself think of anything else.

He shouldn't, at least, and he tries to keep himself focused on their investigation, but he's still surprised at how unsteady he is when he spots Neve. It doesn't show too much, he's pretty sure, but he can't quite make himself spout off one of his customary quips as he approaches. "Morning," he says, aiming for vaguely detached instead. "You find something interesting?"

[nevegallus]

"I might have," she says, still a little cagey. It's probably itching under his skin. She can see the mask this time, and she respects it. "Walk with me."

With a gesture to encourage him along, she turns towards the train station doors and begins walking.

"I've earned a lot of contacts in the city," she begins. "Greased palms or helped them out and earned a favor or two. There's an employee here," she adds, pulling the door open and gesturing him through. "Charlie. Good egg. Quiet. Darrowian, but I don't hold that against him."

[afeastofthirst]

Hope blooms uneasily in his chest as Shion nods along. "Some of 'em are alright," he says. Get to the point is what he wants to say, but he won't. Neve has information he wants. Besides, if she's drawing it out, there's a reason. Probably she just wants to keep his hopes in check. Reasonable. Absolutely terrible, and exactly what he'd like too.

He steps into the train station. Try as he might to feign that he's unaffected, his gaze flickers all over the place, darting about in search of something — someone — familiar.

[nevegallus]

There's nobody else besides Charlie and a few people headed down to get on the train. Neve still hasn't ridden on the thing, herself. She nods at Charlie and leads Shion over to him.

"Charlie," she greets. "Do you mind if we have a look?"

"Sure. I'll go get it."

Neve turns to Shion as Charlie heads to the back.

"I asked Charlie to call me if any packets for little redheaded girls named Sophie showed up across his desk," she finally explains. "I can't say this is your Sophie, but he called me this morning."

[afeastofthirst]

Shion's breath catches in his throat, his eyes widening. He feels maddeningly vulnerable, his mask slipping away, his heart too hopeful. If he doesn't temper his expectations, he'll be crushed in a few moments, he knows that. There's no real chance of this being his Sophie. He's used to getting his way in most things, but this, her — there's no repairing what was broken long ago. It's the curse of his vampirism, to be nearly immune to the dangers of death but forever surrounded by it. He remembers too much, too many; none of them have ever been returned to him and none of them could be.

It doesn't matter so much with the others, but Sophie... That's a grief he still can't shake.

"There are lots of redheads," he says, voice rough, throat tight. His heart is racing. "And little girls. Even ones named Sophie." He wants this. He wants it more than maybe anything else he's ever wanted. He's sensible enough to know, deep down, that part of it is love for Sophie and part is selfishness — that he still feels she saved him when he only half-knew he was drowning, that she was a moment of innocence in a darkening world that went black after her. He wants that back, and he knows even if he ever did see her again, that isn't possible to retrieve. It doesn't matter. She would be enough. She always was.

[nevegallus]

Neve nods. She understands he's trying to temper his expectations, and it hurts her to see it in his eyes: the hope, the fear, the vulnerable wound of his soul laid bare at the chance that the little girl he'd hollered for that day might be here now — or worse yet, that this is a false alarm.

"You're right," she says. "But you know what yours looks like. So, what do you say? Do you think you can have a look?" She doesn't gentle her tone, both because that isn't her way and because she thinks he would hate that. But there's a softer edge than before, less businesslike. She cares about Shion. If he can't do this, she'll do it herself. She's a good enough detective, she'd find the connections.

[afeastofthirst]

"Yes," Shion says at once, little more than a sharp exhale. As much as he hates vulnerability, as prone as he is to getting his heart broken, he's never shied from it the way he should. If there's even a glimmer of a chance this could really be Sophie, he has to look. Even if there's no chance at all, he needs to be sure.

Resting his hands against the counter, he straightens his spine, his gaze serious. Those hands shake a little as Charlie returns. How stupid, he thinks. How mortifyingly human. "I'm ready," he says to Neve. "There must be an ID in there, right?" His came with his picture. Even a bad ID photo should be enough.

[nevegallus]

"Mine came with one," she says. "Seems standard fare." She takes the envelope from Charlie with a 'thanks, Charlie' and opens it. Inside is the same map, the same phone, the same money and address card that Neve had seen in her own.

Two more cards slide out onto the counter, too, a bank card and a picture ID. The ID has fallen face down, and Neve doesn't presume to flip it for Shion.

[afeastofthirst]

Shion hesitates for just a moment, but when he moves, it's fast, reaching out before he can let himself waver any longer to flip it over. When he does, everything changes.

Over the last century, his mental image of Sophie has held strong. There's some fuzziness around the edges, a little worry now and then that he's forgotten her voice. His memory is better than most, but a century is a long time even for a vampire. There's a lot he's forgotten, willingly or otherwise, a lot he's let go of because he has to keep moving, surviving. He doesn't lose sight of her. He won't. He made a promise and he'll keep it forever.

And now he knows he's right, he really did remember, because right there is Sophie, his Sophie, caught in a photo she never took. They didn't yet have color photography in her time, except the kind hand-colored by someone after the fact, and cameras never took pictures quite this crisp or vibrant. It's a marvel to him, his fingertips gingerly tracing the smooth surface. For once, he's lost for words.

His face probably says it all, wonder and relief and decades of hurt in his expression. Sometimes big feelings get held at bay to keep from crushing you, and when they're let go, they crash down all at once. This is a little of that, the weight of the grief and the joy both knocking the wind from him.

"Where is she?" he asks finally. "No one's brought her here yet."

[nevegallus]

It's a reasonable assumption, given that the packet is still here; Charlie would have mentioned more if someone had, she thinks. She shakes her head.

"There's no way to know, is there," she says apologetically. "Charlie says new arrivals usually come on the train, but it hasn't run yet today, so I think we can rule that out." She looks at Charlie. "Can we have a moment?" she asks, unwilling to say more with him lingering. Shion may not care now what a Darrow native hears, but he'll care later, most likely, and if she can protect him, she will.

Once Charlie's gone, she adds, "When the mansion showed up, you were looking for her there, and I checked East Hallow afterwards. Those are good enough places to start, I think. We can broaden our searches outward from there. If I find her, I'll call you. If you find her, you do the same. Deal?"

[afeastofthirst]

His head is spinning, but determination keeps Shion steady in spite of that. She's here. That ID shows Sophie not only alive, but human, which means that either death helped bring her back to herself or that she doesn't know she died, possibly both. Both have their challenges. He'll need to keep things to himself until he knows more. The last thing he wants is to bring her back to that place that broke her down, or to make her hurt when she doesn't need to.

"Deal," he says, now holding the ID tightly, his expression serious, even stricken, as he looks to Neve again. For all that he hides from her, he's let his guard down with her more than perhaps anyone in this city. For what she's given him now, that feels fair. "I'll take the mansion. I know it better." He tries to shake off how stunned he feels, reaching for the envelope to start shuffling everything back into it. Sophie will need these.

As he pulls the envelope against his chest, ready to start off, he stops, hesitates. "Thank you," he says. It's not something he says as often as he probably should. It's not something that's ever been quite as warranted as this.

[nevegallus]

Neve reaches and grips his elbow, warm and gently firm. She isn't an especially touchy person, and Shion likely knows that by now, but this... this is different. This requires a bit more humanity than usual.

"Thank me once we've found her," she says. The job isn't done until Sophie's been found, after all. Knowing she's in the city is just one more lead in the case.

[afeastofthirst]

That isn't enough, in Shion's opinion. That Neve really has kept an eye out for her all this time, like she said she would, is a kindness Shion doesn't really expect from people. That she's given him this chance changes everything. For good or ill, Neve has been a better support to him in this than most people he's met in his life, and she deserves credit for that.

She's also right, though. Finding Sophie matters more than anything else. He nods and flashes her a small, grateful smile. "I will," he says, all fierce bravado, and starts off. He'll find her, no matter what it takes.