James Delray was twenty-six years old, and wearing the same black suit he'd worn to his own wedding, eight days ago. His wife was sitting on the hard wooden pew next to him, wearing a tasteful black dress that had not been made for funerals, though it blended in well enough. No one blamed either of them: they had caught a last-minute flight back from a honeymoon in Venice to be here in time. She smoothed its hemline lower to her knees, self-consciously, as Chief Myers walked to the front of the room.
The podium was small, made of the same light golden wood as the pews. There was a microphone permanently attached to its top. Cynthia Myers was dressed in a black suit: black pants, gray shirt; the black coat was left unbuttoned over the slight swell of her stomach. Her own husband gave her a supportive nod from where he sat with their other children, in the pews. She took one disdainful look down at the microphone, and then used exactly one finger to tilt its receiver down towards the wood. She was the former Captain of the Mutant and Mutant Related Crimes Task Force. She was the current Chief of Police at the Central Park Precinct. She was pregnant, and she was angry. She didn't need a microphone.
"They were good men," she began, her voice hitting the back of the church like the shock wave of a building collapse. "They were good men, and they gave their lives on the principle that to do otherwise was to consent to what this city is becoming. They were good men who will be remembered, like the others who made that decision before them. I knew them all. Gerry; you never said much, but you kept us all sane with those calm words you did say. Vinny; you got a shot into the asshole's eye. Damn good for you. Marie; the Lord believes in you, hon, even if you never believed in him. He'll keep you safe. Roger; you made that damn coffee machine work when no one else could. Tony; you were right--I did cheat at cards, at the Christmas party. Lucia; you have a beautiful daughter, and I swear, my husband and I will be the best Godparents you've ever seen. Watch over us all, because we'll do you proud. Jose..."
The list went on. In the back row of the church, Rupert Kelley sat with his arms crossed, and his eyes closed. He knew them all, too. Some for years, some for weeks--one, and only one, had joined the force after he had retired from it. He'd met her at the inter-Precinct soccer tournament. She was a dead shot. Twenty-one years old: she'd played in both high school and college, but there weren't any professional teams for women to move on to. He'd talked to her briefly after the game. A nice girl, if young, in more ways than one. She would have been a lot older if she'd survived this. Then again, not many people can walk away from having their brains exploded out the back of their skulls.
"They were good men," Cynthia finished, her tone as cold as the barrel of a gun on a January stakeout; "and I'm getting damned tired of standing up here, giving this speech." Her steps off of the stage were measured and unhurried, but still managed to make the crowd in the rows she passed lean away from her, like they'd been struck with the backlash of her tidal wave.
Other speakers followed. Rupert didn't stand. Neither did James Delray. His new wife kept fretting with the hemline of her dress, as her husband turned into the same granite that all the other NYPD members in the room were becoming. They sat through the wake without moving; they blinked, they breathed, only unconsciously. They had sat in these seats before, so often that they each had their own habitual spot staked out for themselves and their families. Today, many of those spots were empty. Those who were left turned to a harder stone than ever. They were veterans: veterans of funerals. Veterans of this wordless rage. Veterans of this growing sense of defeat that seemed to put steel into their spines: everyone who was going to quit the force already had. Everyone that was left was a veteran, in this mess until the day they died.
At least, that's what Rupert had thought. James Delray leaned against the side of the church next to him after the service, without a word of greeting. He'd left his new wife somewhere back in the milling, consoling crowd. The clouds overhead were a spotty gray that couldn't make up their minds on whether to rain or snow, so they'd been doing a little of both since the morning. Right now, it was rain. There was no overhang on the side of the building. Rupert didn't seem to care. The two men stood there, side to side and backs to wall, for several long moments. Then Rupert said, "I wish I smoked. I feel like I should be doing something. Anything."
And James replied: "I'm quitting the force."
"Oh. The wife?"
"Yeah."
Another few minutes passed. Rupert leaned his head back into the sky. The rain was coming down in a stinging mist--each point was a pin-stab of cold against his face. He closed his eyes, and dared it to come. Naturally, it started to snow. "Not guilty," he said, brushing a snowflake off of his nose, and turning an almost vacant stare towards the younger officer. "We had her in a camp, and we didn't kill her. We had her on trial, and we hand her a 'not guilty'." Isabel Duskmoor. Rupert didn't need to say the name: she was infamy itself, in their circles. And now she'd picked up a homicidal little friend to go on her killing sprees with her; one that could change his size, and didn't seem concerned with such petty matters as bullets. And that was to say nothing of the rest of the mutants in this city. "What can we do with the freaks?"
James' answer was quick and succinct. There was a scar through his lips that ran up to his left ear; a trophy from the Mansion raid, worn proudly. It pulled and stretched as he spoke: "We do the same thing to them," was the answer, "that they do to us."
Silence fell between the two men again. Their shoulders and hair began to gather a light dusting of white. Rupert batted it off with short sweeps of his hands. "Are you serious?"
"Yeah." No hesitation. His wife's voice called, from the front of the church. James Delray pushed off the wall, shoving his hands into the pockets of the suit pants he had worn to his own wedding, eight days before. He cast a final look Rupert's way. "We'll talk again," he said. And then he went back to his new wife.
"Yeah." Rupert agreed simply, looking up to the sky again, his head settling against the side of the building. The flakes of white were actually quite beautiful, as they drifted down.
Naturally, it started to rain.
((ooc: Continued in
Clip-On Ties.))
