The Lengths That I Would Go To

[abrightboy]

The killer was moving around the country. Malcolm Bright could see the pattern, but he wasn't working for the FBI these days and they weren't exactly taking his calls. Short sighted of them, but they did fire him on suspicion of being crazy. The NYPD's jurisdiction was New York. With the killer beyond its borders, they handed it upwards and left it at that.

Let it go, Bright, had been Gil's sage advice. You can't catch every killer in America single-handedly.

Challenge accepted, some part of him retorted, though he'd only nodded mutely and forced a smile. Gil knew he hadn't simply let it go, but he wasn't going to have him followed to stop him doing anything stupid, either. He didn't have the will or the resources to keep tabs on Malcolm Bright 24/7 and Malcolm Bright knew it.

His mother, on the other hand, had extensive resources, so he simply didn't tell her he was leaving town. He did arrange for Ainsley to feed his bird, so the truth would come out eventually, but he'd be several states away by then.

He rode the bus. There was something oddly comforting about the anonymity of being in a crowd of strangers who had no interest in him whatsoever. He stared out the window and watched the country go by. When he stepped off the Greyhound in Lexington, Kentucky, he walked to a nearby hotel and checked in, then headed straight to the US Marshals office. There was no point in trying to talk to the FBI. If he was going to stop a killer from killing again, he needed someone in law enforcement to listen to him. The pattern suggested the next murder would happen in one of the rural communities around Lexington and it would be precipitated by a young woman's disappearance. He needed law enforcement with local knowledge, specifically.

He wandered into the Marshals' offices in a tidy three piece suit, charcoal grey with a burgundy tie perfectly knotted at his collar. He got a few suspicious sidelong glances but nobody asked if they could help him. He cleared his throat.

"Um, hello? I'm wondering if there's anyone here I can talk to about murder." He held up his hands. "Stopping murder, specifically, not... like... smalltalk."

Comments

[tinstar]

So long as the man didn't move, Raylan and Tim held their spots, far enough away to not be any more intrusive and close enough to be effective if needed. They'd both been trained; they both knew that yelling or 'helping' would only make 'Nick' more nervous and amped up.

They were well powered muscle and perfectly fine with that. Had Malcolm not been there, Nick would have already been down.

[abrightboy]

Nick looked from Malcolm to the cops and back again.

"Who are you?" he gasped.

"I told you. My name's Malcolm." He showed both sides of his empty hands. "I'm not a cop." He tilted his head towards the room Nick had run from. "She hurt you, didn't she? You wanted everyone to know what she did." A beat as he assessed what Nick's face told him about his guesses. "You wanted her to know what she did."

"It wasn't ANYTHING to her!" Nick screamed. "She dropped me like I was NOTHING!"

[tinstar]

Oh, they didn't like screaming. "Hey, hey," Raylan said gently. "Easy does it."

All Nick had to do was make one wrong move and if Raylan didn't tag him, Tim would.

Just drop the gun.

[abrightboy]

Malcolm turned one raised hand towards Raylan and Tim. The yelling was okay. The yelling was just fine. He kept his eyes on Nick.

"She hurt you," Malcolm said. "I understand. It's hard, when you feel like everybody judges you without taking the time or effort to see you. But, Nick. I see you. And you've hurt people too."

"She made me to that!" he shouted, gesturing towards Malcolm with the gun, but not really aiming it at him.

"I know she made you feel like you needed to do that, but those people... you made them hurt, not her. Is that what you wanted? Is that who you are?"

Nick looked around, like he was searching the air, desperately, for an answer.

"Nick, all she sees of you right now is a monster who hurts people."

"NO!" he screamed.

"Yes," Malcolm said calmly. "But you can change that. You have the control. It's your choice. You can show her that you're better than she thinks you are." He tipped his fingertips towards the ground. "Put the gun down."

Nick stared at him, his grip on the gun flexing.

"Put it down, Nick. This all just... got out of hand, right?"

"It got out of hand," Nick murmured uncertainly.

"We can help you. Let us help you," Malcolm urged him.

Nick stared at him another moment then slowly, slowly bent and set the gun on the ground.

[tinstar]

The Marshals watched the conversation continue, only twitching slightly at the lift and fall of the gun but neither of them were trigger happy, so the profiler got the space he needed. Now without hostages and with a wall to his back, Nick only had a couple of choices under such freely focused attention.

"Kick it away," Raylan instructed. They weren't out of the woods yet.

Raylan felt twenty times better after Nick did just that, kicking the gun towards Malcolm with a scuff of his foot against the floor. As soon as it was clear, Raylan was moving in, holstering his gun in favor of his handcuffs that hid far too well under the suit jacket he wore. "Hands behind your back," he continued, cuffing the suspect swiftly as Tim came in, hand out to Malcolm for the piece as his other took Nick under the arm.

"Not too shabby, New York," Tim praised in his short, to the point way before starting off towards the exit, leaving one slightly irritated Raylan to eye Malcolm in all his subtle smug victory.

"You ever get between me and a suspect again, I swear to God I'll shoot you myself," he said, the words growling a little with his frustration, both at Malcolm and Tim's unhelpful praise, before following suit. "Civilians with civilians. Would you have pulled that shit if we didn't have backup?"

[abrightboy]

"No you won't," Malcolm said with absolute certainty at Raylan's promise to shoot him.

He fell into step alongside the taller man as they headed out. At Raylan's question he canted his head slightly. "I don't carry a gun anymore," he reminded the marshal. "That 'shit' is all I have to pull."

[tinstar]

Malcolm's certainty was only confirmed by the sharp look Raylan gave him; the only acknowledgement he'd give the correct rebuff.

As they stepped towards the light, the two women they'd saved were standing with Rachel by the towncar, no doubt waiting for EMT's and closest PD to arrive.

"And what about them?" Raylan asked, finger gesturing in their direction. "If Rachel hadn't been here, would you have let her die for chasing someone like him?"

[abrightboy]

Malcolm looked up at Raylan.

"No, of course not," he said earnestly. ”It's all about them. But when they're going to live, we have some responsibility for what we make them live with."

[tinstar]

"I think they mighta been just as fine, had it gone the other way," he returned, following it with a sift suck of his teeth before adjusting his hat and moving forward. They should probably go make sure the women were okay.

The ambulance arrived shortly and once the ladies were loaded onto it, Tim slid into the seat of his impressive looking SUV.

Rachel sidled up to them with a reluctantly approving look. "That could have gone much worse." A beat passed. "Good job, you two."

Raylan gave her a wry smirk, the kind that softened and wrinkled his features, as his head tipped down in the slightest acknowledgement.

Rachel turned her attention to Malcolm. "Art will want to get a statement from you before you leave. We can give you a ride back to Lexington, if you like?"

[abrightboy]

Malcolm smiled at the praise, then frowned faintly at the question and looked at Raylan.

"Are you not going back there?"

Malcolm tended to stick to what he was comfortable with when he could.

[tinstar]

"I am, but I thought I'd stop by the house, set it right before heading back up. Make the trip down here a little more useful, not that saving two lives ain't enough. You're welcome to hang around with me til I go, if you want."

Raylan just figured Malcolm would be happily eager to get his stuff together and go back home to brief poor Lt. Arroyo on why he had gone down South to begin with.

[abrightboy]

"I'll come give you a hand!" he said enthusiastically, heading for Raylan's car, which still had his bag where he'd tossed it in the back seat. He looked over his shoulder at the marshal. "And we saved three lives," he corrected, emphasizing the point by pointing a finger in Raylan's direction.

[tinstar]

There was the slightest release of tension and Raylan found himself smirking with a wholly amused look at the sudden injection of raw enthusiasm. He looked at Rachel, finding her to have the same kind of expression before she nodded at him and turned away.

"You betta bring him back, Raylan," she warned, earning a sheepishly amused look at her as he adjusted his hat and headed towards the car. Malcolm was looked at from under the wrinkles of his forehead as he opened the door to the car.

"I think that third one is all yours to claim," he said before sliding into his seat and closing the door, starting the car and waiting for Malcolm to finish getting in before he started turning and driving them out, leaving the crime scene for the local PD to take care of.

It was the good part about his job; all he had was paperwork once the bad guy was caught.

[abrightboy]

"I saw it as more of a team effort," Malcolm said, settling into his seat and looking out the window. Then he relented and looked at Raylan. "Gil gets mad when I do it without adequate backup," he admitted.

[tinstar]

"Only because we had the cuffs and you stopped us from talking it down and possibly shooting him ourselves," he pointed out as they moved back towards the main road, close behind Tim's car. Tim, Rachel and the suspect turned right; Raylan turned them left and back up onto the blacktop.

"He's right to. We're not in a particularly safe line of work, and that guy coulda just as easy put two in your chest. I get wanting to get your guy-" If anyone did, it was Raylan Givens. "- but nothing gets achieved if we're losing good people. You can protect and save people without putting yourself in the way of the bullets."

[abrightboy]

"Most killers feel pushed to murder. It's a small percentage of them that get off on it. Hurt people hurt people, Raylan. Saving his targets from becoming his victims was the priority - it's always the priority - but someone like him needs help. He wasn't born this way. Something made him like this," Malcolm insisted. "Stepping in front of him was a gesture of trust that he wasn't used to and it made him hesitate. I knew it would. He didn't go around shooting people. He would only do it if he couldn't see any other way." He looked at the marshal. "I don't have a death wish, if that's what you're worried about."

[tinstar]

"I don't know, you haven't met the level of stupid and greedy people can get down here." He hadn't heard Malcolm mention the third kind of killer - the ones who caged it as business and truly felt no remorse, no trauma - just money. Maybe they'd fall under the 'feel pushed to'.

There was a reason Raylan was not in the psychology field.

"How are you so sure you're right?" If Malcolm really didn't have a death wish, which Raylan wasn't completely sure he believed in totality, confidence seemed the only other option.

[abrightboy]

"I could see it on his face," Malcolm told him. He looked over again. "I'm kind of good at this," he said matter-of-factly.

[tinstar]

"Until the day you're wrong," Raylan debated, fighting the slight curl of amusement at the way Malcolm had stated himself.

"And the US Marshal's service might not be as well dressed but we are trained, ya know. We don't shoot people on sight... Most of the time." The concession was given with a faint wince of acknowledgement.

[abrightboy]

"Giving someone a chance to drop their weapon isn't the same as what I do. And if I'm wrong... then that's on me, in the end. But he was never going to put that gun down because someone shouted at him that he had to or he'd be killed. He was in crisis. He wasn't thinking with his brain. He needed his emotions to tell him that it was okay to put down the gun."

Strictly speaking, what Malcolm did could be considered manipulation. He looked at the person in front of him and judged what buttons had to be pressed to make him comply. And Malcolm was good at it. It was just lucky for everyone that he came at it from a place of compassion.

"He couldn't do that if he felt threatened. He could only do it if he felt safe."

[tinstar]

"We do more than that, if the situation allows." It was just that, a lot of the time, it didn't. "But you're right, it still ain't on the level of what you do."

He wasn't here to undercut results, just question how Malcolm got there.

"'Course, he didn't much care about the suffering, trauma or pain of the woman he killed. Real kind of you to afford him the consideration." And that was the part that Raylan didn't get, but he was a Punisher type. It was to be expected.

[abrightboy]

"No, he didn't. But I'm not the same as him."

And not being the same as a killer was very important to Malcolm. Very important.

He took a breath like he was going to add something, then didn't and looked out the window.

[tinstar]

Raylan wasn't young enough, dumb enough, thin-skinned enough or insecure enough to ever think he was anywhere in the same ballpark as the guy they'd just picked up.

"There is a middle ground, ya know. Several shades of it," he said, glancing at Malcolm briefly, since it was never smart to take your eyes off the road for too long. "Because I'm sure as shit not the same as him either. He might not have gotten off on it, but he used a life for his own purpose and interior design. That's not just being emotional. He didn't have to do that - he coulda just gotten his girl, but he wanted to be cruel."

[abrightboy]

"I'm not disputing any of those things," Malcolm clarified. "I'm just trying to explain how and why I do what I do. I know it's not... standard operating procedure. The sheriff was the last straw that got me fired from the FBI, not the first. They liked the solve rates I got them. They did not like my methods or my opinions on theirs."

[tinstar]

Raylan grunted a note with a barely there bob of his head. So long as the facts weren't being disputed, Malcolm was free to have whatever opinion he'd like.

"They're more widely seen, more scrutinized. Also rule hard-ons. Only some of which are applicable everywhere. There's a reason that no department ever wants to work with them."

Raylan glanced at him again, wondering what the other trouble he caused the FBI might have been if a punch was the last straw.