Loose Ends (PG) Challenge 149 6/18/13

[darkstarrising]

'Out of the Past' was one of my favorite Moonlight episodes for a number of reasons, including having a really nasty villain. What surprised me at the time was Mick revealing himself to Beth at the end of the episode, one of Alex's better scenes in the series.

This story is one variation of 'filling in the blank' between the end of the second episode and the beginning of the third. Originally, it had a slightly different bent, and I wasn't happy with it. This challenge allowed me to rework it a bit.

As always, I don't own any of the characters, but do enjoy playing with them.

The two quotes from the episode are respectfully acknowledged to David Greenwalt, who wrote 'Out of the Past'.

Loose Ends

Mick’s voice over

Lee Jay Spaulding.

I was afraid that two-faced bastard would come back to haunt me someday. Lee Jay was unfinished business, a loose end that should never have lived to see the inside of a prison, let alone walk out of one a free man. I’d hoped that someone on the inside would do us all a favor and finish what I started. Too bad that didn’t happen.

Lee Jay was the kind of guy that gives men a bad name and prison only made him worse. Back in the day, he was little more than a charming hustler, latching on to vulnerable women who’d fall for his lies. They saw only what he wanted them to see, a strong man who’d care for them. When he’d bled them of their money and anything else he wanted, he turned his strength against them. Maybe a few lucky women escaped before it was too late. I know of two that didn’t.

Killing those women wasn’t enough for Lee Jay. He was a cocky, twisted sonofabitch, making his victims take the blame for their own deaths. Nothing ever stuck to him, not until I came around. But I was cocky, too, and didn’t understand just how dangerous a man he was. I’m a vampire. What the hell could he possibly do to me?

Twenty-five years later, I found out.

Lee Jay emerged from prison a more charming snake than ever before. He’d conned an unwitting woman into writing the a book about the ‘truth’ of his wrongful imprisonment. I don’t know if the people who bought his story were just gullible or truly desperate, hearing his mantra as encouragement to stand up for themselves:

‘I'm better than you. I'm stronger than you. And I'm going to win.’

I heard those words for what they were - a challenge - one I damn near lost.

Fortunately, Lee Jay took a bullet without getting the revenge he wanted – killing me for putting him in prison. But he got something almost as good – having me scramble like a rat to stay alive and out of jail. If that’s the price for sending him to hell, it was worth it. Glass half-full, right?

Josef may see things differently; Lee Jay raised awkward questions about my uncanny resemblance to the PI who put him away 25 years ago, making Josef more than a little worried. After tonight’s events, I bet he’s both pissed and worried and honestly, I can’t blame him. Too much light on any of our kind is never a good thing, especially when cops are involved. The day Lee Jay walked out of prison, a carefully woven tapestry of lies about my ‘life’ started to unravel, leaving more loose ends than is healthy for someone like me.

Damn. The blood I scored on the way home is gone and I’m still a mess. I’m tired and don’t really want to face Josef right now, but spending the night with a body full of silver buckshot is even less appealing. In the end, pain trumped pride and I called the man who was either going to save me or stake me. Knowing how pissed he was, I wasn’t sure which it would be.

It seemed to take Josef forever to show up. Maybe the pain made it seem that way or maybe it’s the beginning of my punishment for letting things with Lee Jay get so out of hand. I’m near exhaustion when Josef finally walks through the door and I sink to my knees, a bloody penitent.

“So, this is what you call handling things?” My friend’s face is impassive, his manner cool.

Shit. I’m in a lot more trouble than I thought.

“Josef..”

“Shut up, Mick. We tried things your way and look what happened. Now we’re going to do things my way.” Josef heads for the kitchen to gather what he needs to remove the buckshot. At least he brought my stash of blood back with him. Maybe he’ll cut me some slack when he sees how badly I’m hurt.

“Can you stand?” My friend’s voice is softer now, but anger still smolders in his eyes as he helps me to my feet. “I’m going to cut your shirt off. Just hold still.”

Once my shirt had been peeled away, Josef assesses the damage. “Jeez, looks like someone used you for target practice. Just how many times did you get shot?”

“Twice. Silver buckshot.”

“That explains why nothing’s healing. Seems your friend did his homework.”

“Not my friend.”

“Sarcasm, Mick. Any idea if Spaulding shared his knowledge about you with his merry band of cutthroats?”

This wasn’t an idle question on Josef’s part. He was trying to understand the degree of damage control he was facing.

“Doesn’t matter. All dead.” The blood I’d taken earlier had done all it could. The silver was still poisoning me, and my body began to shake. “Josef…”

“What about the woman Spaulding abducted?”

No slack, not yet.

“She….she didn’t see anything. Ran away. Doesn’t…doesn’t know about me. About us.”

Satisfied that torch bearing mobs weren’t imminent, Josef began prying the silver pellets out of my body and none too gently. So far, I’ve heard ten hit the metal dish.

“So, who helped you with that poignant statement of innocence you broadcast? Or need I ask?”

“B..Beth.”

“Anyone else?” Josef is probing for more than buckshot.

“Her boyfriend…”

“Great. Another reporter?”

“No…lawyer … DA’s office.”

Josef’s hands still and the silence is telling. After a few seconds, he finishes removing the pellets and hands me a glass of blood. “Christ, Mick. Bad enough you’ve got a nosy reporter friend, but one with a direct line to the DA? You should have taken care of her when I told you to.”

“If I had, I wouldn’t be alive.”

“Meaning what?”

“I didn’t kill Lee Jay. Beth did. She saved me.”

I thought that revelation would make Beth appear less dangerous in Josef’s eyes. Seems he and I see things a lot more differently than I thought.

“OK, that makes her an even bigger threat. Don’t you see, Mick? For whatever reason, that woman is drawn to you and she’s not the type to back off until she finds out everything she can about you. She’s the proverbial moth and you’re a god-damned bonfire. Put some distance between you or someone's going up in flames.”

I look away, knowing the worst is yet to come.

“What aren’t you telling me, Mick?”

“Beth knows.”

“Knows what, exactly?” Josef’s eyes flash as he goes back into damage control mode. If I can’t convince him that Beth isn’t a threat, he’ll have her taken care of, regardless of what I want. But how do I convince him of something I’m not sure of myself?

“She knows about me. Nothing, no one else.”

Josef simply stares at me, stunned at how unfazed I am, so I try to explain how Beth followed me back to my apartment, worried about my injuries. “I couldn’t move fast enough, Josef. She saw me vamped out. She saw me drink blood.”

“And then?”

“She left.”

“Just like that?”

“Yeah.”

“Where is she now?” Josef’s voice is deceptively calm. He really is pissed.

“I don’t know.”

Josef erupted at this admission. “You let her leave here and you don’t know where she’s gone? Christ, Mick, what if she ran off to her DA boyfriend?”

“She didn’t.”

“And you know this, how?”

I find myself struggling to give my friend an answer he can believe, one that will keep him from ordering Beth’s destruction. In the end, I tell him the truth, at least the part I’m willing to admit.

“Remember the night I destroyed Coraline? The little girl she’d taken…that was Beth. That night was the first time she saw me as a vampire. That’s the reason she’s drawn to me.”

Now it’s Josef’s turn to struggle and he collapses into a chair. “This just keeps getting better and better. Does Beth remember you?”

“No. Not yet, anyway. She said she’s seen me in her dreams about when she was taken. That’s why she didn’t run screaming out of here. She’s not afraid of me, Josef. She doesn’t understand why, but she trusts me.”

Don’t hurt her.

I don’t say the words, but Josef sees something in my eyes. “Mick, I know you have a soft spot for humans, but if Beth does remember….”

“Then I’ll deal with it.”

“How? Like you’ve dealt with everything else so far?” Josef rises and takes out his phone. “Listen, Mick. Beth isn’t a scared kid anymore. Whether she trusts or remembers you from back then isn’t what’s important right now. What is important is whether we can trust her.”

“What are you doing?”

“I’m putting some of my people on your blonde friend. If she even looks as though she’s going to expose you….”

“I'm telling you she won’t.” I can be a stubborn SOB when I want to.

So can Josef, only he’s better at it. “Listen, Mick. Forgive the choice of words, but there’s a lot at stake here. If Beth betrays you, she betrays us all. I won’t let that happen.”

This isn’t just my friend speaking. This is Josef as the head of community doing his job – protecting us.

“Let me talk to her…”

“And say what? Sorry about the blood and fangs, Beth, but I’m really harmless?” Josef pours himself a glass of blood and downs it in one shot, signaling just how worried he is. “You know that’s not how it works, Mick. The humans we’ve entrusted with our secret know and accept that we’re anything but harmless.”

“Beth knows I'm not harmless. She knows I’d have killed Lee Jay if he hadn’t gotten the drop on me.”

“Not good enough, Mick. Anyone is entitled to kill in self-defense. If Beth is to be trusted, she has to accept that you’re not her personal knight in shining armor. You’ve got to tell her the truth about who and what you are, ugly as it may seem. Maybe you won’t be so attractive when she finds out you once killed for the sheer hell of it.”

‘We’re not so different, really.’

Lee Jay’s words taunt me and there may be more truth to them than I care to admit. We both told ourselves that it’s our nature to kill, all the while showing the world a civilized, human face, a façade to hide who we really were.

Monsters.

But that was then. Maybe Lee Jay was so damaged that he couldn’t change, but I could. All because of a little girl who trusted me to protect her so long ago. Now I have to protect the woman she’d become and convince Josef that she’s not a threat. Beth isn’t a loose end to be dealt with; she was and is my salvation. Without her, I’m truly lost.

“That was a long time ago, Josef. I’m different now. You know I want to make up for things I did in the past.”

Whatever Josef saw in my eyes caused him to relent. “Yeah, I know. Professional do-gooder now, with morgue blood a vampire’s version of a horsehair shirt.” Josef put away his phone. “Listen, Mick. I’m still going to keep an eye on your blonde friend, but I’ll give you a chance to prove she’s trustworthy. Now hit the freezer and get some rest. You look like hell.”

After Josef leaves, I crack open the bottle of 25 year old single malt that Beth gave me. Right now, I’m going drink to a world with one less monster in it then crawl into my freezer and let my body heal. Deep down, I know Josef’s right; I have to tell Beth the truth about who I am and who I once was. How do I do that without freaking her out? Not a clue, but for her sake and mine, I’ll have to find a way.

[allegrita]

Oh, man. This is just wonderful. Completely believable, and a perfect transition from the end of OOTP to the conversation between Mick and Beth at the beginning of Dr. Feelgood. Up till now, I always thought that Mick's quick glance down the hall was to check for reporters or cops... but after reading this story, I'm thinking maybe he was giving a quick sniff to see if Josef's guys had followed Beth up to his place!

“So, this is what you call handling things?”

I love this. It's absolutely perfect Josef. Short, direct, snarky, authoritative, and pissed off... but with a strong undercurrent of concern and true friendship. The whole conversation between them rings true. Josef's first priority is to protect the community. Mick's is his determination to protect Beth. And Josef's love for his friend makes him give Mick the opportunity to do that.

I just love that Mick opened the bottle of Macallan after Josef left. Beth permeates this story without actually being there, and her gift is the perfect way to draw this little inter-episode episode to a close.

I'm so glad you decided to finish this story.

[francis]

This is just marvelous. I can't believe they didn't film this!
This is the Josef we know and the Mick we know and the Beth we know. I love it!

[librarian_7]

This is well done. (Then again, it's from dsr, so, duh, of course it is!) A lot of people have written on this topic...heck, we even had a challenge on it, way back when. And it's interesting that everyone seems to think one of Mick's first actions would be to call Josef for help. I've always wondered if that was influenced by the scene in Sleeping Beauty where Mick pulls bullets out of Josef's back...

Anyway, I did love the dialogue. It seemed entirely natural and in character for both.

[jen]

Fabulous!

This was perfect!!! Totally in character for Mick and Josef and it fits wonderfully with what we saw.

Wonderful answer to the challenge!!!

Thank you!!!

Jenna

[MickLifeCrisis]

Yes I could see this conversation happening just as you described. Lots of great lines in this. And it fits perfectly between the two episodes.

Great job! Thank you!

[Lucy]

This is the mortar that puts the episode together....

[BlueEyedMonster]

Wonderful end to my favorite episode. Brava

[drbell]

Absolutely fabulous....do more episode endings please........

[cassysj]

This is amazing. I can totally see and hear Josef saying every word. Mick knew the old man would take it badly but he couldn't wait any longer for help.

[Moonlightsonata]

Another really good story. Thanks DSR.

[darkstarrising]

Thank you all, ladies and like francis, I wish they had filmed something like this. At the beginning of the series, I felt that Josef was a stronger character, the acknowledged leader of the LA vampire community. By the end of the series, I felt that this aspect of his character had unfortunately been diluted a bit.

[GuardianAngel]

Yum, yum, DSR.

This was a serious scene but I couldn't help but to smile through it. It was so....them. I felt like I was watching a lost scene of Moonlight. *HUG*

I really liked that Mick put things together so quickly and got that even though she was not aware of the whys and hows, Beth instinctively trusted him. And I think Josef put her infatuation with Mick very well:

For whatever reason, that woman is drawn to you and she’s not the type to back off until she finds out everything she can about you. She’s the proverbial moth and you’re a god-damned bonfire.

I think that Josef is beginning to get it here that Mick is a bit of a moth himself and Beth's got her own bonfire going. As much as he's driven to protect the community he's intuitive enough to realize that 'taking care' of Beth will put a serious dent in his and Mick's relationship.

I'd never really put much thought into it but of course Mick would have needed help that night. No way he was going to get silver buckshot out of his own back.

Thank you. This was a little slice of heaven.

[BlueEyedMonster]

Love it DSR . I adore pissed off Josef and you have made his voice and face so clear in my mind.

Mick knows he did wrong but his up most concern is for Beth

[darkstarrising]

GA - Thanks! Having you say this felt like watching a scene from Moonlight is a wonderful comment

BEM - Thanks! Glad that this sounded true to you