Missing Time (Alchemist / Thalia Trimble One-shot)

Studying him, Thalia isn't completely convinced that this is really the best thing for Lang, mental health-wise. But judging by the level of obsessive determination she's reading in him, if she turns him down, Alicia will provide him with the next name down on the list she has undoubtedly put together, and... well, frankly, there are a lot of investigators out there who aren't great with delicate cases like this that require a lot of tricky maneuvering and finesse. If Lang ended up with someone who wasn't a good fit for this case, things could end up very messy for all concerned.

And hey - this is what she does.

"All right," she says, grabbing a file folder of her own from her bag and opening it up. She places it on the table, facing Lang and Alicia. "This is my standard contract. You can take it home and look it over, or have your attorney okay it first. My retainer and fee schedule is on page two."

Lang is already reaching for it, though his hand pauses as Thalia speaks. "My attorney. Right. I'll get old Dewey, Cheatham and Howe on it right away," he says with a short laugh as he takes the folder and begins scanning the contract.

He angles it so that Alicia can also see it, but he doesn't wait for her to catch up before he moves on to page two. His eyebrows dart up, and he raises his eyes to look over the top of the folder at Thalia. "You weren't kidding about it being expensive."

She chuckles, smiling. "I try to prepare people for it, and it still surprises them. But yes, I was serious. What I do takes a lot of leg work, but it also requires... creativity. I have to use a lot of imagination to overcome unexpected obstacles, and sometimes that means throwing money at them. And of course, my fees reflect the contacts and specialized areas of knowledge I've built up over the course of my practice."

She takes a bite - her first so far - of her banana cream pie. So good. "But even so, my rates are pretty competitive. I aim to be compensated according to my competence, not to gouge people."

As she enjoys the banana cream pie, Thalia takes a look around the diner. It was sparsely populated when she arrived and it has cleared out even more now. The young couple appears to have finished up and left mid meal. Their food is only half eaten and you think you see a jacket they left behind. Odd behavior in general, but even more so when you glance outside.

The sky has darkened considerably. Thick grey clouds block out the sun, but it has not yet started raining. It looks like the breeze has picked up as well. There is no doubt that a storm is coming.

The only remaining patron in this area is the elderly man that was here with his wife and grandson. He is now alone. There is no sign that anyone else was ever with him at all. The high chair is gone from the end of the table. There are no plates or drinks on the table at all, despite you distinctly remembering them all enjoying ice cream just before Lang and Alicia arrived.

You study the man a minute longer while Lang reads over the contract. Wasn’t he wearing khaki pants and a wool sweater before? You find it hard to believe you could remember his appearance so incorrectly. His dark three piece suit is very distinctive, and you are unsure how you missed the bowler hat laid out on the table.

The man stares dead ahead at the other side of his booth. He is unnervingly motionless. Almost like a wax figure.

"Do you have any kind of payment plan options?" Alicia brings your attention back to the table. "Obviously a retainer is required now, but there is no telling how long an investigation like this could take or how much this could end up costing in the end."

"Hm?" The effort to tear her attention away from the quick-change artist in that other booth is greater than it should be, but Thalia manages finally to look at Alicia and play back her question in her head. "Payment plans, yes. Page three has three different options. I have also been known to renegotiate to more favorable terms once a history of payment compliance has been established.

"Basically, if the case is going somewhere and you've been holding up your end, I'm not going to walk away and leave you hanging. If money becomes a problem, we'll work something out. I've even been known to barter services, if it comes to it."

She can't help glancing back at that strange guy across the room, and again out the window. "Was a storm predicted today? I can't believe I hadn't heard about it."

Lang sees Thalia’s attention wander, and he follows her look over his shoulder at the curiously empty room. "Is it closing time already?" He frowns curiously at the changing weather outside. "I thought the paper said it was going to stay clear overnight. Who knows with the weather?"

He goes back to looking over the contract, turning curiously to page three.

The man across the diner finally moves. He lets one hand rest upon the table and starts to rhythmically tap four fingers, one by one. He does it again and again. The sound of it seems to carry all the way to your table as if it has been magnified. Just as suddenly as he started, he stops. At that very same moment a strike of lighting lights up the sky. It is followed by a thunderous crack that rattles the windows. The sky opens up. The few people that remain on the street run for cover from the oppressively heavy rainfall. Yet no one makes way for the diner. Even those that were right outside its doors when the rain started.

1 - 2 - 3 - 4. Fingers start taping again. Much closer this time. You both turn to look at Alicia. Her eyes are wide and focused far away, yet at nothing in particular, as her fingers tap out that rhythm on the table. "Thank you for the meeting, Thalia*. I will let you and the Alchemist finish up your discussion." She practically crawls over Lang to escape the booth and starts walking toward the door.

"It's Tuh-LEE-uh," Thalia says automatically, then, "What? Wait, who's 'the Alchemist? Where are you-- Where's she going?'"

The last part is addressed to Lang.

Alicia, in her haste to get out of the booth, knocks the contract out of Lang's hand, and he scrambles to try and make room for her to get out.

"Alicia, what... hey! Ow! What the heck are you..."

She elbows him in the jaw, and he's squished awkwardly up against the seat back. As she clears the booth, Lang rearranges his limbs and glasses and starts processing what's going on. It ain't easy.

"I'm a... chemist. Nobody's an alchemist, unless they're completely off their rocker."

He clambers to his feet and starts after Alicia. "Leesh, what's going on? Where are you going? It's pouring down rain outside!"

Alicia doesn’t respond. She keeps walking at a steady pace right out the door and into the rain. You watch in shock and confusion as she casually strides across the street through the torrential rainstorm while making no attempt to even shield herself from the rain. When she reaches the car, Alicia takes her seat and stares out the front window with a blank expression on her face.

"Another young lady gets away from Dr. Thomason." The old man has stopped tapping on the table that you are now standing right next to. He turns to you and gives you a smile that is both pleasant and unnerving.

Despite all the strangeness happening elsewhere, Thalia is mostly fixated on the strangeness happening within her booth. She is looking down at the contract that was knocked out of Lang’s hand as Alicia fled. She picks it up and flips through one blank page after another. All of the notes she has taken on the case are gone as well. She flips through every page just to make sure but the notebook has nothing of what she wrote during this meeting.

"What... what's going on?" Thalia's voice is a strangled whisper. She'd taken lots of notes, meticulous ones. She doesn't doubt that, even with the evidence to the contrary staring her in the face, because it's what she always does during a meeting. It's part of her process; getting everything down in writing is deeply ingrained in the way she approaches her work.

Her heart is hammering in her chest, the blood whooshing in her head. She looks up to see Lang standing by the booth where the weirdo with the stupid hat is sitting. "What's going on?" she repeats, loudly this time. She means to be forceful and challenging, but there's more tremor in her voice than she'd like. She slides out of the booth and starts to approach Lang's position.

Lang is still staring out the door at Alicia when the old man speaks. He responds absently, his face bent into a mask of confusion and hurt and... well, double confusion. Maybe even triple.

"Yeah, that's nothing new...

Slow to catch on to the fact that the man's addressing him by name, he does a double-take and whirls on the man. "Wait... how do you know who I am?" Confusion turns to suspicion and anger. Having just recounted the painful events of the past few months, he jumps to what seems a perfectly logical conclusion. "Who are you? Are you from Lloyd? You come to finish me off too?" he snaps.

The smile fades from the old man’s face. He reaches into his jacket and your pulse starts to quicken as you prepare yourself for the end. He pulls his hand back out and holds it out like a gun. "Bang!" He drops the thumb on his finger pistol and laughs. "Have a seat, Lang." He indicates the other side of the booth across from him.

Thalia takes a few steps before it hits her. It feels like her muscles are made of lead. It takes everything she has just to lift her foot from the ground and move forward a few inches. She might as well be wading through a pool filled with molasses.

"No, I’m not from Lloyd Laboratories, Lang. I do love that that is where your mind went though. Science was never my forte and I sometimes make mistakes with your kind. I'm glad to see I was right after all. I knew you had that drive deep down inside you somewhere."

The man tips his hat up so Lang can get a real good look at his face. The rubber like skin stretched so far it looks like it is going to tear. The man gives off an aura of a trustworthy grandpa mixed with the Devil himself.

"You want revenge for what Lloyd did to you. They took away everything you ever cared about. So why are you here? Why are you entrusting this task to someone else when you know that you are more than capable of taking care of it on your own. Well maybe not on your own, but we’ll get to that. Why are you doubting yourself, Lang? Is it the tights? Because those aren't mandatory; as much as the Warden would like them to be." He rolls his eyes.

Thalia’s muscles return to normal all at once. The sudden shift in ease of movement causes her to fall flat on her face and she continues to slide across the linoleum. She squeaks across the floor before coming to a stop right at the old man’s feet. He looks down at her like she is a bug that he is about to squish.

"So it is pronounced, Thalia? Good to know. I suppose you can join us as well." There is considerable amounts of annoyance in his voice. He looks at you with curiosity. "I do have a few questions for you, but I believe Lang is first on the menu."

Lang's eyes widen as the man shows his face and he has to bite down on his lip to keep from screaming. He tries to back away, but finds that he's rooted to the spot.

"What are you talking about?" he says, not much more than a whisper. "Take care of it on my own? Of the accident? The cover up? I'm no detective. Alicia was help-- oh my god, Alicia! What did you do to Alicia?"

As Thalia arrives (is forced to arrive?), he drops to his knees, one hand on her shoulder, one offered in assistance. "Thalia? Are you all right?" He looks up at the rubber-faced... man isn't the right word, but it's the only one he can summon. "Why are you doing this? HOW are you doing this?"

Thalia feels so far out of her element that she couldn't find it with a periodic table. She accepts Lang's assistance to get to her feet, nodding vaguely to answer his question. She's breathing hard and fast, and it has little to do with the exertion of trying to get through... whatever this old guy had done to her just now.She can't even fathom what is going on, but she takes his use of "on the menu" as a threat against her client. Her not-yet-client. Her client-to-be.

Okay, an innocent man in need of help who's already been victimized terribly.

She steps in front of Lang, driving him back a step or two from the booth. "This man is under my protection."

She waits a beat and thinks, I really just said that. Yep, that's a thing that I said. So glad Cyn isn't here for this.

The elderly man sits patiently as Lang riddles off question after question. A wide smile spreads across his face when Thalia comes to Lang’s defense. "You should really be taking notes, Lang. This is exactly how I want you to be acting from here on out. Now please have a seat. Both of you."

You seemingly have no choice. Your legs carry you forward no matter how hard to try to fight. Lang slides into the booth first, followed by Thalia. "That’s better. Now we can have a civilized conversation like adults. And don’t worry about Alicia. She’s doing just fine." He turns his head to look out the window and both of you follow his gaze.

Across the street Alicia has turned to face the diner. A sickeningly wide smile is plastered across her face as she excitedly waves to you. "See. Just great." He snaps to get your attention back to the booth, but out of the corner of your eye you can tell that Alicia is still manically waving.

The man gets serious and leans forward. His eyes lock with Lang and he says, "Look me in the eyes and tell me you’ve never wanted to be a superhero. Tell me you’ve never dreamed about running around at night in a costume and bringing evil to justice. Saving the damsel in distress! Using science to make the world a better place! Tell me Lang! If you’ve never had any of these desires then we’ll stop this discussion right here. Just like that. You can go outside and get in Alicia’s car" she is still waving like a crazy person "and we’ll act like we never had this conversation. But you can’t do that, can you? You know you want all of those things. You were born to be a superhero. It is your destiny."

His voice becomes magnified as if it were echoing from a loudspeaker. "Ladies and gentlemen, I proudly present--" He spreads his arms wide and claps his hands together. Thunder cracks and lighting strikes just outside the window. For a split second Thalia sees Lang in full costume. By the time she blinks, he is back to normal. "THE ALCHEMIST!!!" Cheers from unseen spectators roar deafeningly for a solid 10 seconds before the man snaps his fingers and they suddenly stop.

Lang looks around in confusion as the cheers sound. Actually, it's not just confusion. It's fear at finding himself completely unmoored from reality. Fear of what inexplicable power this inexplicable man has over time and space. Fear of just how distressingly accurate his words are.

"This is the most ridiculous thing I've heard, and I work with some pretty outrageously delusional people," Lang says aloud. "I'm a chemist. Sometimes a good one. I'm no superhero. I'm out of shape and absent-minded. I just want to know what happened to my wife and son. And I want those responsible to face the justice they deserve. No one should ever have to go through what I went through and never get the answers they deserve."

The longer he goes on, the angrier his voice gets. His fists clench at his sides with increasingly impotent fury.

"For you to stand -- okay, sit there -- and mock me like this, who knows HOW you're doing it, I... I..."

His shoulders slump.

"I can't do a god-damned thing about it. And it makes me sick to my stomach."

The man across the table from you eats up every word you are saying. As you get madder, his smile widens. It is not your rage that excites him. That is clear, somehow. It all vanishes, however, when your shoulders slump and you admit you can’t do anything about it.

His head drops and he sighs. He brings his gaze back up to you after sulking for a moment. This time he wears a tired expression. "You are selling yourself short, Lang. Didn’t you feel it just now? The power surging inside yourself? You are fueled by the need for justice. The greatest superpowers in the universe are no match for that. And on top of this gift, you have that big ol’ juicy brain. Smarts mixed with determination and a reason to fight the good fight. You got it all, baby."

His eyes flick over to Thalia. He nods his head in her direction and talks about her as if she is an inanimate object. "Look at this woman, Lang. Just another nobody like you. Sure, she’s got some skills and some know how, but no superpowers to speak of. She doesn’t let that stand in the way of doing what is right. She stood up for you. For you! A pathetic little man she just met who currently isn’t even willing to stand up for his slaughtered wife and child. If she can find it in herself to do that with no tangible benefit to be gained from the act, imagine what your amazing brain can muster up knowing that justice for your family is on the line."

Thalia’s power does not detect any attempt at deception in what this man has said about her. It is clear he does not know about her powers. He is seeming omniscient about every fact of Lang’s life, but has now made two clear mistakes in regard to Thalia. How to pronounce her name, and the fact that she actually does possess a superpower.

The man’s gaze remains focused on Lang as if he is all that matters in the world. He brings his hands together on the table and leans forward in eager anticipation of what he has to say. It is as if the rest of the world is background noise to him right now. All that matters to him right now is Langford Thomason.

As Thalia's fear and panic begin to recede and she begins to actually think again, she takes note of the disparity between this strange man's seeming omnipotence and his incomplete knowledge of Thalia, including his apparent ignorance of her superpower. Well, Cyn calls it a superpower; Thalia thinks it's a bit anemic for that label... but it is definitely not a natural ability that other people have.

If, as he's suggesting, Lang is a dormant superhero, that suggests this guy can spot such people. But not, it seems, Thalia.

"Hey, quick question," she says, forcing herself back onto his radar. "If I'm just a mortal plebe, the equivalent of dirt on the sole of your shoe, why am I awake and witnessing this little meet and greet? Why didn't you just animatronic me like you did Alicia and the rest of the customers?"

"Look, you can go straight to whatever hell you crawled out of if you think for a second I'm not willing to stand up for my wife and child," snarls Lang. "I am doing all that I can within the confines of the law. If I go outside that, I am no better than the bastards that made this happen. You say I can be a superhero? Fine. Prove it."
"Yeah, Mr. All-Knowing Weirdo. Let's have a little more information and a few less insults."