The Road Home

[abrightboy]

Raylan's loose ends had been tied in Kentucky and Malcolm's were as tantalizingly close as they'd ever been. He and Raylan made the trip to New York with the intent of discovering the fate of the girl in the box, so they could head down to Miami without... baggage.

They would have to start with the revelation Jessica and Ainsley had made to Malcolm right before Raylan was shot, sending Malcolm back to Kentucky: that Eve had infiltrated the Whitly family to learn more about the Surgeon's victims.

Malcolm let them into the New York loft - a space he considered theirs now, more than his, since they decided they might weather the hurricane season there after moving to Miami - smiling as Sunshine tweeted greetings. Once the door was shut behind Raylan, he opened the door of her cage. Ainsley would have fed her diligently, but nobody would have let her out to fly. Sunshine took off across the loft and Malcolm grinned, watching her go.

He looked at Raylan. "We can still bring her with us when we leave, right?"

Comments

[abrightboy]

Malcolm stepped into the cell behind them as they rushed Martin, who put his bloodied hands up as soon as they drew near him, easily acquiescing to being steered to sit on his cot while one of the guards checked the one on the ground. Malcolm paced tightly in the corner by the bookshelves, careful not to cross the red line.

Martin had done this damage tethered and cuffed.

“Thank god you were still around,” Martin tells Malcolm and Raylan, looking up at Raylan bright-eyed. “I was viciously attacked.”

[tinstar]

As Raylan followed in, his hand pushed his jacket aside and rested on the butt of his gun, ready to use it if needed. Any civility that Raylan had previously in his face and eyes were gone, replaced with a cold hardness that wasn't here to fuck around.

"That's well beyond self defense," Raylan said with no hint of kindness or understanding in his reply. He shifted only to move out of the guards way, eyes locked on Martin.

[abrightboy]

Malcolm watched warily from his corner.

Martin shrugged a shoulder. “Put it on my tab,” he said breezily. He canted his head slightly. “As much as I’m sure you’d love an excuse to shoot me,” he added, holding up his bloody but cuffed hands and wiggling his fingers. “You wouldn’t shoot a man who’s restrained.” He levels his gaze past Raylan’s shoulder to Malcolm. “In front of his son.”

Malcolm took an unsteady breath, his eyes on Martin, then he walked swiftly out of the cell, leaving the guards cleaning up, one of them standing by with his taser at the ready while they worked.

“REMEMBER WHAT I TOLD YOU, MY BOY!” Martin shouted after him.

[tinstar]

Raylan's eyes didn't move. He waited until all the guards but the two that were waiting to take Martin cleaned up were left.

"Ya know, I don't think he'd have a problem with it." Still, Martin was, on the books, correct. Raylan couldn't shoot a man in cuffs. But got he wanted to.

Instead of saying anything else, Raylan lifted his eyebrows slightly and turned to leave out of the room, hand falling back to his side as he left the dog in its pen. He could walk out of here. Martin couldn't.

Raylan caught up to Malcolm on the way out to the car, jogging a little to catch up and hook him gently by his arm. "Hey, hey, slow down."

[abrightboy]

Malcolm was clenching and unclenching his fist, stopping as Raylan bid him to, but looking around wildly before his gaze actually settled on Raylan’s face.

“What the hell is happening?” he whispered urgently, his expression distraught. “Who can just walk into a cell in Claremont to kill a high profile prisoner?”

[tinstar]

"Someone who'd really like to see Martin dead, is who. Considerin' who we were talkin' about, that makes me think Endicott, but how would he have known?"

The skill of getting into the building wasn't something Raylan was too concerned about. A good hitman, a little slight of hand - you could get in most anywhere if you did it right. But hitmen didn't send themselves.

"C'mon. Let's get you home and we can work through it." That steady hand guided Malcolm back towards the car.

[abrightboy]

“Eve,” Malcolm suddenly says from the passenger seat as Raylan’s car glides through traffic, Malcolm’s eyes watching the buildings pass blankly. “We don’t know what she actually knows or who she’s talked to about it.”

[tinstar]

"Invite her to your apartment. Tell her that Martin told you something as the hook, that the girl escaped, but keep that till she's actually inside. She loves her sister as much as she says she does, she'll hustle on over," Raylan bet aloud as he weaved them in and out of the traffic, checking his mirrors to the point of paranoia.

Spoiler, he was paranoid.

[abrightboy]

Malcolm fishes his phone out of his pocket and dials, but it rings and rings and then goes to voicemail.

He looks at Raylan. “She’s not picking up.”

[tinstar]

"What do you wanna do," he asked with a glance over. He wasn't here to get in Malcolm's way, he was here to help. This was Malcolm's turf.

"We can drop back by her office?"

[abrightboy]

Malcolm was anxious. It made him fidgety. He fidgeted his phone from hand to hand, then nodded. “Yeah. Yeah, let’s go see what she knows.”

He flexed his hand on his leg the whole ride, practically jumping out of the car before it came to a complete stop, pounding on the elevator call button in her lobby.

[tinstar]

That was the better choice, in Raylan's opinion. If someone was coming to tie up loose ends, Eve could be next, even if she didn't know anything.

Raylan hurriedly shut off the car and followed Malcolm inside, staring up at the Elevator floor indicator. Why did he have a feeling they were going to end up running up stairs?

"Remember to breathe," he reminded softly.

[abrightboy]

Remember to breathe. It was such a small thing. And it was everything. His eyes fluttered shut for a moment as he drew a deep breath, then released it, then opened his eyes to look up at the floor indicator. When the elevator door opened, he stepped in, waiting for Raylan to join him before pressing the door close and floor buttons repeatedly until the elevator got moving.

At Eve’s floor, he swept down the hall and past the receptionist to open her office door, but she wasn’t there. He turned and looked at the receptionist, who was looking at him with shock and annoyance.

“Where is she?”

“She left right after you did,” she answered testily.

[tinstar]

There were going to be aggressive cuddles and a bath for them in the future, after the day was done. The comfort he could offer was bare right now, only him standing stoically next to his fiancé through whatever came next.

"Where'd she go," Raylan asked the receptionist calmly, eyebrows lifting. "Martin Whitly just had an attempt on his life and I've got good reason to believe that she is being targeted. We need to know where she went."

One finger gestured out towards the planner on the Reception's desk, his tone gentle and plying, urging her to help them.

[abrightboy]

She looked at Raylan with trepidation. “It’s personal time,” she stammered. “She didn’t say where she was going.”

Malcolm, shifting his weight back and forth anxiously, leaned forward. “Did she say anything at all?”

She blinked at him. “She said she wouldn’t be back until Friday.”

Malcolm wrung his hands and looked at Raylan. “Is there any way he can put out a BOLO on her car?”

[tinstar]

Raylan was already on the phone by the time Malcolm finished his question, walking away with a few strides as he started setting up the Bolo Malcolm was just asking him for. Raylan nodded at the question and stepped back towards the secretary.

"What kinda car did she drive? Year, Make, model, color?" Any information that he got from her or Malcolm was relayed shortly before his phone was tucked away and he was gesturing at the receptionist again.

"I suggest you close up shop, forward her calls to her answering service, go home and lock your doors." He looked at Malcolm. "C'mon."

[abrightboy]

Malcolm followed without hesitation, jogging a little to keep up with the Marshal’s purposeful strides, fidgeting restlessly in the elevator.

“Are they going to call you if they find it?”

[tinstar]

"That's kinda how BOLO's work," he replied, impatiently, however stoic, watching the elevator number tick down.

"For now, I'm takin' you home." Secure entrances and exits. A goddamned drink while his mind wheels spun. "Someone's tyin' up loose ends."

[abrightboy]

Home?

“You don’t think we should be out… beating the streets?” Malcolm asked, though his tone suggested he had doubts as to how that would even work. Raylan knew him well enough to recognize he was spitballing in his helplessness. “Or. I don’t know. Heads?”

[tinstar]

"Beatin' the streets," Raylan echoed, looking over with a confused but slightly amused twitch of his features. "We aren't street cops and right now, we got no real information." He shifted a little, body turning towards Malcolm, the starts of, anywhere behind closed doors, an embrace.

"You need a break and quite frankly, I need to get you behind secure doors in case you're next." A beat passed. "You realize you could be the next target, right?"

And Raylan wasn't going to let that happen on his watch.

[abrightboy]

Malcolm frowned. “You think he already knows that Dr Whitly told us something?” he confirmed. “…But by that logic you’re a target, too.” And that did not sit well in his stomach; he brought Raylan into this. He was the only reason Raylan was within ten feet of it. His brow creased. “Maybe you shouldn’t have come,” he murmured, all the wind out of his sails.

It took a lot to make him want Raylan to be anywhere that wasn’t beside him. It took a lot to make him consider dropping a case he was obsessed with.

“Maybe we should have just gone to Miami.”

[tinstar]

"Your visits to Martin are documented; My bet is they assume he's already told you somethin', prior to our visit today," he laid out reasonably. "My bein' here has no real connection outside of today's visit. And even if that wasn't the case. I've still got an active list of people that wish me six feet under, Malcolm. Men badder and madder than what I've seen today."

He was always, technically, in danger. That was part of what Malcolm had signed up for.

Raylan took a deep breath as the door opened, drawing him away from whatever else he might have said.

"Let's go home. No world in which I wouldn't'a come. If we keep goin' is up to you, but that doesn't eliminate the danger you're already in." Malcolm should know Raylan well enough by now to know that he wasn't the type to fold up and leave a known threat hanging in the air if he could help it, but this was Malcolm's show and Raylan would let him direct it, protecting him from whatever might come.

[abrightboy]

Malcolm had assimilated the dangers of Raylan’s job and life: the things that made him who he was, all complex and messy but still kind. He hadn’t prepared to be the danger to Raylan. Still, maybe his cowboy had the right idea. Go home. Step back. Breathe. Think.

He nods and takes a deep breath, looking up at Raylan as the elevator stops.

“Right. Yeah. Perspective.”

[tinstar]

Raylan nodded and guided Malcolm back out into the car, eyes and head on a swivel and insistent of rushing Malcolm into his seat. Yes, the Marshal was on high alert and the same protective herding was used to guide Malcolm upstairs into his apartment. Throwing both locks and the chain, Raylan stalked his way into the kitchen where he took off his hat and dropped it on the counter with a deep breath.

"We'll give the Feebs a few hours to sort out who the unlucky bastard was who lost his eyes. I'mma call the office," he started, pulling out his phone to pace out into the middle of the apartment. "Have them run down anything they can find out about Nicolas Endicott. Inside fourteen hours, we'll have enough information for our next move."

[abrightboy]

Malcolm wrings his hands, shifting his weight back and forth before actually pacing, though never far from Raylan. He’s supposed to be doing… something. He’s supposed to be useful. Fourteen hours. An eternity when he’s walking the razor’s edge of his anxiety.