The Universe's Mixer

Aidan was in bad shape. On edge. Fighting urges. Bagged blood was barely keeping the edge off. He hadn't been doing so hot since Evey left him sitting on the kitchen floor. Though, admittedly, he was doing a hell of a lot better than he would have been if she'd not destroyed all of Leeloo's blood.

How many more days would he have sustained that hard drunk if he'd been left with it? If she hadn't been so insistent about finding it and getting rid of it?

He knew that he had to tell his Evey about what had happened. What he'd done. But he didn't want to see her until he was able to shake off the rest of this problem. Or at the very least, most of it. She could know the horror, she couldn't see it. He would die before she did.

In a way she already had, and he hated himself for it.

Things were always more difficult after live blood, this time though, things were damned near impossible. There had been so much. It didn't help matters that it had been from who it had been from, either. Pure life. Supreme being. Divine. Actually fucking divine. He could taste it, still. Feel it rolling over his tongue, sliding down his throat. Filling him with the sensation of invulnerability.

Residual problems had come with it, too. Aidan was absorbing information - learning things - at a rate that he'd never been able to before. His head hurt with the sheer force of knowledge cramming itself into his skull. It didn't help anything.

He needed air. He needed to get out of his apartment and go somewhere that wasn't the hospital. He had to try to go a few hours without touching any blood at all. So far he'd only managed about an hour and a half before the pain got too severe and his frenzy bubbled to the surface again. Weening himself off was going to take a long time, this time.

For once, Aidan was glad that Dean wasn't here. To see this.

Staying far from people, Aidan made his way to the docks. If he slipped, at least the people there weren't good people, mostly. Seedier types. Nobody would miss them. If he slipped.

He really really didn't want to slip.

Aidan found a nice-ish spot to sit, the bench was weathered by the salt water, grey instead of brown. But the wood was stable.

The City had told her during one of their night talks - when she spoke in the velvet darkness blanketing her bedroom, the scent of jasmine wafting in through the open window. Ted was gone. Ted had to go; it wasn't that the City wanted to send him away. He had to go. For his own sake. But it still hurt. Beauty couldn't do much but cry, and the City went quiet after that.

The next morning, she felt strung out and sore, as if she'd spent the night on a rocky hill instead of the softness of her bed. She cashed in one of those vacation days she'd learned about and spent the day in the spire of her cottage library, a book on her knee and her eyes far away out over the park.

It took weeks for her to grasp that she had lost the man she'd thought of as a father. Finally, when she could endure the ache long enough to entertain the idea, she dressed carefully and hailed a cab to take her across the City to the mansion she'd spent terror-filled days within, the mansion that had served as a haven - not because of its security, but because Ted had been here.

She knocked on the door three times and waited on the steps.

Charlie stared at the empty spot on the bed beside him. Jennifer had gone into work; he'd stayed home. He wasn't needed; he wouldn't be needed for a while.

He managed to get out of bed, make his way downstairs, fix a little breakfast for him and the horse, and find a spot on the couch. There was an empty spot on it that could have been Ted shaped. Horse didn't fit in it at all, even if he did look as if he wanted to try. Eventually Horse gave up and went to find the cats.

The detective--strike that--the ex-detective still wasn't sure where he had messed up. It wasn't as if he'd killed someone, or set someone on fire. He was pretty certain that the only things that died had been his wallet and the balloons he kept blowing up by shooting water into open clown mouths. He'd finally won Jennifer the damned octopus/shark hybrid, a octoshark. The pair had had a very lengthy discussion on what it was actually followed by what to name it. No consensus had been reached.

Charlie did wonder if not enjoying the festival had been the order he'd broken that lost him his job. He was suspended until the inquiry had been completed, and when he returned, he would be demoted. He'd be back on the beat; oddly that part didn't bother him. What bothered him was that he'd lost his partner. Jennifer wouldn't walk the beat with him; she wasn't even a cop, so they couldn't do that to her. In fact, if they asked, if the powers that be asked, he'd have claimed he'd somehow seduced her and it was all his fault. He'd never let her take the fall and lose her position. She was a damn good special agent after all.

"Maybe we shouldn't have kicked those kids out of the tunnel of love car to ride it again. But, I did get a little under the shirt over the bra action." He said to the goldfish swimming round in the little bowl on the table. Jennifer had won it for him rather easily, and they'd decided to call it Tedly.

"Then I got some no clothes action when we got home, but you saw that. Did you see that? I hope we didn't offend; you'll probably see more of that." Charlie hoped Tedly would; for a brief moment, he wondered if Jennifer would lose interest in him now that he wasn't her partner and a detective.

"This is going to be very interesting."

The weather in the City was pretty much always perfect. There were days with rain, but they were still mostly warm. But there were still seasons. In fall the leaves fell (the trees were never bare, though), in winter there might be some snowflakes (never anything like the one great storm where the City had gotten carried away), and summers were warm and sunny and nobody had school.

Still, this year, the City felt like celebrating spring. Not any particular holiday. Just spring in general. There were new people around, there were couples in love, and it wanted to have a great big party for everyone.

Overnight, it set up the great festival. Streets all around the park were closed off so that people could walk around without issue. The park itself was expanded to over twice the normal size. A great clearing was made in the center, stretching from one side to the other. There needed to be lots of room.

Through this clearing the City placed tents, stands, and tables. These were filled with food and wares of all types. There were representatives for all the popular shops, as well as some that nobody had ever seen there before. There were stands for balloons for the kids, too, free of charge. And flowers absolutely everywhere. Woven into the stands themselves, laying on tables, set up in vases, growing in every patch that the City was sure nobody would accidentally step on them. Colorful ribbons, some as large as crepe streamers, also decorated everything. The City wanted as much color as it could possibly get.

At one end of the clearing the City placed a small carnival. Rides, games, everything it could think of. Even a petting zoo, though some of the animals within weren't typical farm animals that usually went in petting zoos. At the other it placed a few stages for performances. Concerts, plays, musicians. The stages were all contained within their own invisible sound barriers, as to not disturb one another, but the noise from all could be heard on the main promenade.

It put signs up all over, put notices in mailboxes, ads on the radio, commercials on television, and even made Candy and Frank talk about it on the morning news.

The celebration would go from sunrise to midnight. At sunset, the City would have a bonfire, complete with a pig roast and s'mores. At that time, it would move the park closer to the water, creating a beach between for the bonfire to settle on.

Ted made his way to the house that he shared with Charlie, Lucy-Belle, The Horse, Jake, and sometimes Jennifer. He was hoping to see somebody there that he knew. Hoping beyond hope that he might get some news of Jo that was contrary to what he'd discovered in his phone. He needed to shake off the tea he'd sat at with Eddie, and maybe warn Charlie about that guy.

The door was unlocked as it always was, and Ted discovered the living room a little in disarray. As if somebody had been looking for something and then put everything back without caring much what it looked like.

He saw the envelope immediately. It was a flowing script that spelled out his name. Not Charlie's handwriting, nor Jen's. It was thin, so whatever was within couldn't be more than a page long. Ted opened it and sat down to read.

Dear Ted,

I'm terribly sorry about this, but you were never supposed to return. I'd sent you back to your home in California because it was time. Because you needed to go back. You don't have a place here in The City anymore. I suppose you accidentally got scooped back up when I was running my other errands. Perhaps you hadn't made it all the way back yet and I intercepted you in transition, or maybe I pulled too hard when I was trying to net the others. Any which way that it happened, it wasn't intentional and it can't stand as is. I'm afraid if you stay, something bad will happen. You'll be used up, or perhaps killed. You stumbling upon Edward Nigma just proved this to me.

I really am sorry. I'm going to have to send you back again.

This time, though, I'll let you say goodbye to Charlie. You have until 4:30 pm today. Then you'll be going home. I can't wait longer than that, unfortunately.

Regretfully,

Thomas Townsend.

PS - I'll let Beauty know as well.

PPS - I want you to know that Jo is back where she belongs, too. As is Maxine.

PPPS - What does PS stand for?

PPPPS - I really am sorry, Ted.

- TT

"Post script." Ted sighed. The letter in hand, he sat on the couch and looked at his watch. It was currently three thirty. He had an hour left within the walls of this strange place. He hadn't been meant to come back. The City was going to send him home to California, which didn't feel like home at all anymore.

He pulled out his phone and found Charlie's number. He wasn't quite up to talking, so he opted for text. His fingers played over the buttons for a moment before he keyed out the words telling Charlie that he should come home, that it was important and a little urgent, but not an emergency. And to bring a pastry from that one shop that they knew about.

Ted didn't suppose he'd ever get a pastry like those again, so he might as well have a final taste.

She was used to her and Charlie missing one another in their day. Sometimes he got up way before she was even willing to entertain the idea, and sometimes she got called on their day off to go look into something at work. They were partners, and they had the same cases, but occasionally they had different aspects to look into.

Of course, it had been a few days this time, and she was missing him a lot. She felt like she'd not seen him in much longer than just a couple of days. Something in her heart ached as if it had been months since she'd last laid eyes on her boyfriend. Or longer. Jennifer couldn't escape it. She attempted to go through her normal routine, but the sensation lingered. The fact that she wasn't finding Charlie didn't help.

Jennifer sat at the island counter in the kitchen, wondering at the emptiness. Ted wasn't here, none of the strays that they'd picked up were here. The horse was here, which was a bit of a comfort, but the horse had been aloof with her. Stopping to acknowledge her briefly as it moved from one room to the other, and giving a bit of a huffy snort, but nothing else. Not even trying to persuade her to give an apple.

Her phone had been M.I.A. for a few days, too. She'd been walking to the station to see if anything needed to be done, sometimes waiting for Charlie to show up - which he hadn't. She'd been roaming around looking. All of it had been fruitless. Well, now she was going to stay put. She was going to stay in this house until Charlie came back. If the City was keeping them apart on purpose, she would find a way to punish it. Somehow. If the City had taken him from her, she would find a way to take something from it.

She figured that if she was going to stay inside, she could at least try to find her phone. Jennifer began the search out by the pool, then in the living room, where she discovered Jake and Lucy-Belle; then back into the kitchen, all producing nothing. Finally, Jennifer headed to Charlie's room. If the phone wasn't here, perhaps it was back in her own semi-abandoned apartment. But she'd look everywhere in the room first. Even between the mattresses. It would be a disaster after she was done with it, she knew. The kitchen and living room had not Hurricane Government, why should the bedroom?

Time. Time was an issue. Time was always an issue unless time wasn't, but usually time was an issue. There was a time when time wasn't a problem, other than finding how to spend it. Time as a commodity; time was valuable. Ticktock and they don't stop?

Charlie Crews was a little confused. His mind tumbled over and over on time. Now and then it would hit on memory, and even on loss with acceptance and gain. He didn't understand what exactly was going on, but that really wasn't a new feeling. The confusion was a little new; he usually had an idea of what he didn't understand or know.

He woke up in an empty cell, feeling a little like he'd gone on a bender, which wasn't what he normally did. Not usually. He took a deep breath, cleaned himself up with some things in his office, and headed out. He had to find answers and to start to straighten out what exactly the question was he needed to answer. He also felt the need to find Ted and Jennifer, and a few others.

So, with the need identified, he decided to go walking. While driving was more fun, walking didn't hurt. He'd been a beat cop once, and with some of things he did, he wouldn't be surprised if he was demoted to it again. He'd just walk the streets until he found an answer, or a question.

By now, The City had watched many of its denizens celebrate this thing called 'Christmas' and it was beginning to understand it better. It was a time for fir decoration. A time for singing songs. A time for creamy or apple flavored beverages. There were also presents.

The presents were the most interesting things to The City. It understood that the presents were designed to be special. To be meaningful. To express care. And The City did care about its people. Very much.

This year, it decided that it would participate in this 'Christmas.' And it wanted to participate in a big way.

A Douglas Fir sprung up overnight, positioned in the heart of The City. It was huge, dwarfing most multi-level buildings, bedecked in oversized copies of the decorations that previous and current citizens had used on their own trees. The Christmas star dwarfed the moon in its brightness.

But what to do for presents? The City had seen that presents were supposed to be personal. They were supposed to be something that made sense for one to give to the other. But The City did not know how to give presents in this way. It tried to calculate what would be right for every citizen - and failed. At last, it decided that it would grant one wish to each citizen. Just one. And it would do its best to fulfill it in a personal way.

Jo had suspected for days that Ted was missing. His number had disappeared from her phone and when she tried to dial from memory, she had gotten a 'number not in service' error message. When she stopped by his work, nobody had seen him for days. She needed to call Charlie to confirm, but she was a little afraid of putting that last nail in the coffin. She would rather hang on to the hope that Ted was still here and avoiding her for some reason.

The tipping point came when she saw the news report. Ted's name wasn't among the list, but there were a few other familiar names.

It was then that she realized that she wasn't the only one who'd lost Ted. She'd been selfish in avoiding Charlie perhaps. And now it seems that he'd lost Jen too.

She didn't bother with calling. If it was her, she probably wouldn't be answering her phone even if she did need the company. She didn't know Charlie well enough to know what he would or wouldn't need but she thought that the best thing she could do was try. She thought that it was what Ted would want her to do.

She actually made arrangements for a sitter for Maxine and then she took off. She picked up a pizza and a bottle of wine-she thought that Charlie was more of a wine than a beer guy. Then she stopped by the house and rang the doorbell. She just hoped that he was home.

Ted managed to get himself untangled from everything that was going on in the mayor's office. He helped them find a suitable candidate to take the position of deputy mayor so that there would be somebody in the hot seat - that wasn't him - until a full mayor could be elected. After that, he stopped being so helpful. He just directed everybody toward the new deputy mayor. Though, once in a while, he did answer the deputy's questions. It was only fair.

It was easy enough to get Charlie to agree to the dinner for the four of them. Ted said that he'd have stuff brought in, so that nobody had to cook anything, and everybody could just relax and have a good time. It felt weird to throw a get together for four people that was essentially catered, but he figured that if he was going to be the custodian of all Charlie's money, some of it should at least be used.

The dinner wasn't anything formal. Ted just had on a pair of slacks and a polo shirt. He fully intended this to be a completely relaxing evening that got him back in touch with his friends, and his girlfriend. And perhaps ended in the pool.

He stood with the horse in the living room, waiting for Jo and Jen to arrive. The table in the dining room was set - he'd had to buy a table - with nice plates and glassware. The food was being readied in the kitchen. Ted thought that Charlie was still upstairs getting ready.

Charlie was good at hiding his anger. He was very good at hiding it when he didn't want people to know he was angry. He didn't always have time to give into it. Of course, he could be very strange and a little eccentric - he had the money at one time to be called eccentric. He had someone he needed to speak to, and he was going to start getting answers.

"I'm going to talk to one of the lab techs; then, I need to see you. Find that file if you can." He left the message for his partner. He needed to know that she was kept up to speed. He hadn't exactly told the message box all the information - he needed to see her face to do that. Beauty's story wasn't one he would keep completely to himself, not when it came to his partner and things that needed to be done.

The detective didn't stop to have a conversation with anyone, not like he usually did. He headed straight to the lab where he hoped Tech Morgan was working. He had a few questions; he also wanted to borrow the tech's computer for a little private searching.

They had gals. They had jobs. They had money and lives. It seemed that they were set.

Charlie wondered if they were. If they were truly set.

Rather than keep wondering, the City detective left a message for his housemate join him for some dinner. They hadn't talked much lately, and he wanted to revisit how life was going, where it was going. He wanted to know that Ted was doing well.

Unfortunately, as it was bound to happen, the plans were ruined by a crime. It wasn't a difficult one; Jennifer and Charlie had discovered the truth, solving the case in record time. The butler actually did do it. The case kept Charlie away from one of his longest best friends, and Charlie wished all the other cases that came across the desk he shared with Jennifer were solved as easily and cleanly.

The detective stood in the kitchen and stared into the refrigerator. What did he want for breakfast? Should he see if Ted was around to have the conversation over breakfast instead? Was that milk fresh? What did 42 really mean?

Jack still didn't have any clue as to who had tried to kill Fred. That concerned him and it was getting to the point where he knew she wanted to get out of the hospital. He couldn't blame her, and he was sure that while he'd kept the news reporters out of it, it was no longer a secret that she was alive. He'd known that was a possibility upon telling Dinah, but he couldn't in good faith allow her friends to think she was dead.

Jack knew that he needed to try a different tactic to see if he could keep her safe. So he picked up the phone and dialed one of the few detectives in the City whom he had spoken to personally and who he trusted.

Charlie Crews. He found the number easily and hit the send key. Jack didn't like asking for favors, particularly in his position. But for Fred, he would.

Charlie: Crews. Yes?
Jack: Detective Crews, it’s Jack Heart. I have a favor to ask of you.
Charlie: Mayor Heart. What can I do for you?
Jack: I have something that I’d like you to look into. Someone’s tried to kill a friend of mine. Do you have the time to take on another case?
Charlie: I will see what I can do. I’m working on something, but I can definitely give it a look.
Jack: I’ll fax over the information. Anything you could do would be appreciated.
Charlie: Send it to my phone. Phones do that. Phones can do anything, you can even talk on them. Not talk talk, but talk text talk. Send the info, Mayor.
Jack: Thanks, I’ll do that. She’s important to me, so I appreciate the help.
Charlie: Protect and serve, Mayor Heart. I’ll check on your friend, and see what I can do to help.
Jack: Thanks again.

Jack hung up the phone and used his own phone to pull up the information he had on the case so far and sent it over. He just hoped that Charlie would be able to help.

----

Charlie read over the info; his jaw tightened a little. Someone shot some poor woman and burned her place down? He would look into it while he looked into other things. Someone had just made an enemy. He would find the person, and he would make sure they were punished. Of course, he had a long list of people to punish. A very long list.

Wash was flirting with Beatrice again at a diner he managed to relocate. She was humoring him. The city had made her to look in her mid 50's, robust build and dyed blonde hair frizzled around her like pipe cleaners.

"Rawr. You come back with two pancakes and I'll give you a big tip," he said with a wink. She just rolled her eyes and then shook her head at Wash's whistle.

She might have been a one dimensional character, but it was all Wash could do to distract himself from...himself. This was Wash being a hermit, you see.

He took a long sip of hot black tea and savored the social moment for a while. It gave him temporary happiness. A small jolt to a happiness junkie.

( Charlie had been looking for something to eat... )

Charlie sat at his desk and stared at the files before him. He hadn't told his partner about his meeting with a comic book hero, not yet. It wasn't that he was hiding the information, but it felt odd to come right out and say it. Actually, for the detective, that wasn't overly odd; he just didn't know how to say it without hurting her feelings.

They'd had other cases to look into, and he'd heard from some department somewhere about his partner's data usage. He wasn't aware such things were monitored. He leaned back in his chair and rocked a little. Charlie didn't think Jennifer was keeping something from him; she'd just not mentioned it yet. Then again, they weren't the types to demand to know every little thing about the other's doings. He continued to rock in his chair for a moment before getting out of it.

Moving from chair to fridge then back, he settled down with an apple and a bottle of water. This required some thought, some consideration..some peanut butter. Probably.

The Batman watched this ginger-headed detective for three days and nights, establishing the man's routines and haunts, learning more about the man from his actions than from the facts he and Alfred uncovered about him. The man had been falsely accused, had served years of time for crimes he'd never committed. He'd come out of prison life and re-assimilated himself back into the police force. All these facts buried in the banks of his computer served as an excellent frame of reference -- but to know the man, to know if he could be trusted, to know if he could be used, required far more investigation.

At the end of the third day, when night settled in around the building where Charlie Crews worked, the Batman found himself waiting on the roof for the most of the building to empty, for most of the traffic to die. When it did, he dropped soundlessly onto the fire escape just outside the window closest to the office of the man he'd been surveiling. It took no time to move silently through the hall to the doorway of the office where Charlie Crews worked.

There were no fewer than five places for the Batman to disappear; it's why he chose this particular place to make his first appearance. But now was no time for hiding. Instead, he stepped silently into the office and waited for the man to turn. He was careful to keep his gloved hands open and relaxed at his sides.

Work.

It was the one thing that he could do and fall into without worrying about what other people thought of him. It was normal for people to think that forensics guys were strange, and that anybody specializing in blood was an extra bit off, so Dexter took it in stride. When you could spout off about directional spatter and the differences between a swipe and a wipe, you knew that people were going to stop listening pretty quickly unless it was a part of their job to hear what you were saying. Kids didn't find it entertaining at Parents Day, and it wasn't exactly a thing you could turn into a party trick.

People expected him to be abnormal, but quiet. Dexter could do abnormal but quiet. He could even do professional. Professional was easy, especially when the subject matter was something so close to his heart. Blood didn't always calm him, sometimes it made him more antsy, set him on edge. But it was always, always, something he knew about.

His lab was already set up for him when he went in. Like he'd never left. The officers he passed nodded at him, as if he'd never left. There was mail waiting on his desk, samples sitting at his equipment, and files waiting in a tray, as if he'd never left. Dexter began to wonder if he had, in fact, ever left. Perhaps there had been another him while he'd been gone. Maybe he'd replaced this Other!Dexter. It had happened to Deb, why not him? Maybe he would get scores of people who began to talk to him about the things that they'd done together, and he'd have to inform them that he wasn't the same man. He wondered if that would suck as much from the telling end as it had from the receiving end.

Dexter sat on his stool and began to sort through the mail. He didn't get a lot of mail at work. Forensics Quarterly, The Forensic Examiner, and Forensic Magazine being some of that. As well as second-opinion letters answering queries he'd sent out. They were sometimes required by the courts.

Charlie was a good partner. A very good partner. Oddly enough he'd make this sort of trip even if he and his partner hadn't become so very close. He cared for her, and was more than willing to take on any task she might have. He was up to the challenge. Thankfully, this particular challenge would have a very happy ending...eventually.

Jennifer had said that she needed some things from the store, and realizing he did as well, he'd offered to pick up whatever she might need. She hesitated at first, but the way he just nudged her now and then about it, she finally relented. When he finally got the list, he read over it and then nodded. He'd have it for her that evening when he came over. Yes, sometimes he stayed at her place, so it really wasn't that difficult. Of course, he added a few things to the list that he thought she might appreciate.

He stood in front of the boxes and stared. He wasn't lost in which one to get, so much as thinking about the varieties that were available.

"They don't taste like strawberries." He held one box in his hand, not at all ashamed of how it might sound. "And, do you really need glow in the dark?"

Charlie stood in front of a store, staring into the destroyed glass. His head tilted slightly as if he weren't sure what he was looking at. Actually, he wasn't. Why had homicide been called in? Was he just homicide here? Was he more generalist here?

The jewelry store had been robbed, or at least broken into. He had been called in with his partner to investigate, and he wasn't convinced that this was the best way to spend their time. Of course, they could do the job, and possibly do it well. Yet, they had other cases to solve. He glanced around to see where his partner had gotten off to. He had told her about the strange young woman in the park, and he had placed the question to the agent on whether or not picking flowers was murder or not. Was it the same as picking fruit? He was possibly still waiting on an answer.

"I should call Annie. Annie could talk to the jewelry, see what it saw." It was an idea. He also needed to talk to Annie about the watch. There had been a report of a missing watch that had caught his eye. He needed to see the watch again. He also needed to check on the young woman who'd not had much experience with ice cream.

"We need to watch the security tapes." He finally spoke to a nearby uniformed cop. "Ask if anyone saw anything." Jennifer would probably have more answers.

Christine needed fresh air and really wished to be away from the manor for only that reason. After all, she was happy there, but she could not stay locked up all the time. It would not be good for her. She had to live and take time for herself to just relax and a walk was often the best way to do so. Well, when one had a lot to think about. Plus it kept her body moving and although she had taken to continuing her dancing in a few rooms in the manor, whichever suited for the particular dance, it wouldn't do to only stick with one form of exercise. Or so she had been told.

She left the manor after quickly passing on to those who worked there that she would be back soon and assuring that she did not need the car. Though she knew there was a chance she would get lost since she was still not entirely sure of what there was here and where everything was situated. If she got lost then surely Erik would send the car to find her? Even if that did go against the purpose of walking. She just had to hope that she would find her way around. And the longer Christine relied on the car, the longer that would take.

Soon, Christine found herself at the park. That was certainly a nice place to end up in and she was incredibly eager to spend some time there before leaving. She kept walking, not feeling the strain on her legs at all, until she found a part in the park covered with flowers. Smiling, she knelt and ran a finger along the stem, contemplating picking one.