Who: Dagmar and L What: Talking about the revelations L has had about Sally. When: Monday afternoon Where: Dagmar's office Rated: PG-13
It had been two weeks since L had experienced his epiphanies about Sally and the disturbing nature of her relationship with her father. Things had continued as normal, he had done all of the same things that he always did and she had as well, he had worked very hard not to let on that anything at all was different and he had not asked any questions that pressed that matter again. He had no intention of doing so until...well, he didn't really know when. He needed to get to the root of this, to confirm it and bring it out of the realm of strong speculation. Circumstantial evidence could be very compelling, but it was still circumstantial until there was some strong, reliable way to back it up. He had to get to the bottom of this business with Sally's father, and until he did, he would be able to focus on very little else.
Though he had worked so hard to be absolutely normal, his physical appearance reflected the inner turmoil. The deep shadows under his eyes had deepened further, almost to the point where they appeared to be bruises. Almost to the point where they appeared fake. He was sleeping twenty to forty minutes per night, and even those pilfered minutes were fitful at best. He dropped five pounds, which on his frame put him in a dangerous state. One hundred and ten pounds stretched over almost six feet gave him a pitifully lean look, hollowing out his features in an unattractive way and accenting his already exaggerated dark circles. Essentially, he looked awful, which was exactly why he was now curled into the chair before Dagmar's desk, surly and frustrated by having a forced doctors visit.
Dagmar, on the other hand, was calmly playing his guitar and acting completely nonplussed. Of course, on the surface he was able to act nonchalant, but he was actually extremely worried. L's behavior was hardly different, except that he was spending more time in the library and less time in the kitchens. He seemed to be processing some thought very deeply, so deeply, in fact, that he didn't have the time to eat the way that he usually ate or to sleep even as much as he usually did, which was not very much at all. During his entire time of being L's doctor, Dagmar had only ever seen him become visibly upset when the problem at hand concerned Sally. Though he knew of no serious matters concerning Sally at this time, he was more than convinced that she was at the root of this behavior, and for L's sake, he needed to find out why.
After a moment of his quiet playing, his electric kettle whistled, and he quickly put Agatha away and and pulled out two mugs and two Earl Grey tea bags. He poured the hot water into each, handing L the one that looked, quite literally, like shit, and keeping for himself the one with the nose. Even in this moment, where catastrophe felt as though it were lurking just out of sight and angst was running high, Dagmar would be damned if he didn't at least add a brief bit of humor to it all. The detective stared at his steaming pile of ceramic shit for a moment, allowed the corners of his lips to curve upward slightly and shook his head. At the moment, that was the best anyone could expect to get out of him, and really, Dagmar knew that such a reaction coming from L nearly equated a belly laugh.
After sitting for a moment, allowing their tea to steep and looking in vaguely opposite directions, the two men looked at each other and let the impending air of gravity settle over them. "Tell me," the doctor said softly, "What's going on with her?" Of course, L knew that Dagmar was aware that the problem involved Sally. In so very many ways, Sally provided the detective with a strength that he had never previously experienced. But on the flipside of every strength is a weakness, and just as much as she was a strength, she was also a weakness. Anyone who knew L would be able to see as much as Dagmar had, but there was nothing to be done.
The problem was that the detective had no idea what to tell Dagmar. He had been rehashing the conversation and the events that followed over and over in his mind, and try as he might, he couldn't see it being anything else than what it had to be. He couldn't ignore his instincts, and really, it all fell in to place in a logical way. So why was he struggling with it so? The only thing that he could think was that the thought of Sally being hurt being taken advantage of in that way; it was almost more than he could process. He wasn't at all sure why, but when he did try to process it, his brain went into a strange overdrive mode and his vision blurred around the edges. These episodes usually ended with a blinding headache, and were one of the main causes behind both his weight and sleep losses.
Several silent moments had passed, stretching on into a very awkward silence, during which both men discarded their tea bags and took turns adding honey to their mugs, and then stirred, neither of them really breaking the silence or trying to. The doctor wanted to wait for L to speak. The detective wanted Dagmar to change the subject. Surprisingly, even in his surly state, L was the first to break the silence. He imagined to himself that, when one didn't have words to describe what they were attempting to process, and one happened to be speaking to someone who's job it was to interpret the vagueities of the human mind, one might as well just give it a shot and see what the interpreter could gather. What harm could it really, truly do?
"Sally...unknowingly revealed something very sensitive to me. But she doesn't know that she revealed it to me because I....I do not think that she is aware of it at all." His eyes met Dagmar's, those normally calm, dark pools now wrought with frustration and confusion. The doctor thought that the color might have even changed slightly, but on closer inspection he was sure that it was all in his head. "May I ask you, then, what it was that she revealed?"
L narrowed his gaze as if sizing his doctor up, taking stock of the other man and weighing the potential benefits of sharing with the potential pitfalls. On one hand, he imagined that if he kept working at the problem, it would be eventually solved. On the other, at times another person's opinion could be invaluable, and Dagmar knew Sally, even if he wasn't officially one of her doctors. In the end, the detective could see more of an advantage to it than anything else, so he gathered his thoughts, and in the end, he spoke.
"I believe that her relationship with her father has gone to incredibly inappropriate levels. She mentioned certain things very casually, in such a way that I can only surmise that she has no conscious idea that there ever was a problem at all. I would like to think I'm just reading into things that aren't at all there, but I can't excuse it that way. There is something very seriously wrong, and I can no more convince myself that it is all in my head than I can ignore it utterly." His eyes fixed on Dagmar then, giving him a really hard stare, the kind that would make most people nervous, especially coming from L.
Whatever it was that he was expecting, Dagmar knew that it wasn't that. Not even remotely was he expecting that. Despite being a rather short statement, it was almost more than he could process all at once, and he was so completely shocked that it was several moments before he could form a coherent enough thought to reply. In an effort not to sit there slack-jawed, he took a sip of tea that ended up being a gulp, upon which he choked and sputtered for several minutes, finally recovering his ability to breath normally after spilling his cup and suffering through the kind of one-sided silence from L that lets you know that you certainly aren't being helpful at all with your sputtering and your theatrics, no matter if they are genuine and you really can't breath.
Finally, after everything was cleaned up and back in order and he could breath, Dagmar asked softly, "Well, what did she say?" He wasn't doubting L's ability to recognize such a thing and the detective was aware of this, and thankful as well. He simply wanted to know the details. L knew that these details would be passed along to Morticia, but he had factored that in as a risk to telling his own doctor in the first place.
After taking a sip of tea, he sighed and let his gaze fall to his toes. "She mentioned that when her family was in town, she would often share a bed with her father. Then she mentioned that her family on his side rather despised her because her mother had caused her father pain by her death and so had she, in turn, by her life. Everything she said was very nonchalant but she then complained of a headache and became very upset and curled up to my chest like a child. It was as though she had returned to the state of being a child. It was very odd. Once I began thinking about it in terms of an abusive past with her father, it made quite a lot of sense, and so did many of the other idiosyncrasies in her personality and behavior. I can not help but think that I am correct on this, as much as I....do not want to be."
It wasn't as though Dagmar thought that this was preposterous or even unlikely. In fact, it seemed, as the the detective had said, that through that lens, many things about Sally began making sense. But it was, to say the least, shocking, and Dagmar wasn't entirely sure yet how to assimilate that information.
"It's hard to swallow, isn't it?" The detective said, a ghost of a smirk on his lips, though there was no feeling in it. "Yes, L, it really is. It's unthinkable, really, and that makes it very hard to swallow indeed." They sat there in a long and somewhat profound silence which broke only when Dagmar cleared his throat and murmured, "So, the real question is, how do we test this theory? How do we find the proof?" Which was exactly what the detective was thinking, and one of the reasons that he was, in a word, stuck. He shrugged and looked away, not entirely comfortable admitting that he was at a loss.
"I think that we need to speak to Morticia about this." Dagmar said, eying L to gauge his response. "She is Sally's doctor, but she is also highly experienced and could be of significant help in this area, I think." As he spoke, he removed his French cigarettes and their black glass ashtray from his top drawer, pulling his Zippo from his pocket as well. As he lit his cigarette, L nodded slowly and replied, "I expected you to say that. To be honest, I would have rather not involved either of you, but at this point, I do not see that I have any choice in the matter."
"No choice that benefits Sally, anyway." Dagmar replied through a cloud of smoke.
"Precisely."
"And of course, you want her to get better, so you will help us."
"And you want my insight, so you will not keep me in the dark. It is a mutually beneficial sharing of information. With any luck, we will be able to help her. I am quite convinced that she is in complete denial, so it wont be easy."
"No. It really wont."
The two men stared at each other for a moment, Dagmar with his cigarette and L with his no-longer-steaming shit mug. Finally, the detective sighed and moved to stand. "So now, please call off the nurses and tell them I will try to visit more often with the cooks. And please let me know when you've spoken to Morticia." The doctor nodded, bringing his cigarette to his lips again. Looking up at L, he blew the smoke out through his nose before replying, "L...for now, don't let on that you know anything. And please make an attempt to sleep more as well." The other man nodded and slipped out the door almost completely silently.
Taking a long drag, holding that smoke in his lungs for a few seconds, Dagmar brought his forehead to his palms and sighed, smoke hitting the papers on his desk and unfurling in a bluish mass. He had not expected this. He had not expected this at all.