[Santo - The Beach]

[walk_ins]

[master post]

You have to walk down a ramp to get to the sand. The ramp stretches over sand dunes, with sea oats dotting them, blowing in the near-constant breeze. On the same level as the ramp: a boardwalk, dotted with places to get sketchy-looking fried food, to try your luck at a number of games of chance, to watch performers, to ride roller coasters of the future!!!!

When you walk down the ramp, it's all white sand and blue water. Down about half a mile is a pier that juts out several hundred feet.

It's a nice beach. Not too crowded.

Comments

[simon_doctor]

Pause.

"My sister. She was ... part of a government-funded experiment. Masquerading as an Academy for the gifted."

It's been a long while since he's told this over.

"She managed to get word to me, in code, that they were hurting her, and ... I broke her out."

He shrugs. "That was the part they didn't like."

[still-a-cop.livejournal.com]

Charlie shakes his head.

"No, that doesn't seem like the kind of thing that would make you a lot of friends." He seems calmer now.

The water is the same. The water doesn't change. The water isn't imperceptibly... off.

[simon_doctor]

Not on Santo it isn't; their moon is very close to the size of Earth's.

"So they charged me with kidnapping for that, and they charged us both with murder, later."

A beat. "Those were the fraudulent ones," he adds.

[still-a-cop.livejournal.com]

A moment's half-smile. "Good ones to be fraudulent about. Maybe the best ones."

[simon_doctor]

Simon glances away.

"There were people murdered," he says, low and pensive. "Just, we weren't the ones who did it."

[still-a-cop.livejournal.com]

Charlie doesn't flinch.

Instead, he takes in a breath. In, and out.

He's connected here, too.

Another breath.

"It happens."

[simon_doctor]

Simon's eyes flick to him.

"Murders?"

[still-a-cop.livejournal.com]

"Yeah." It's more quiet than before. "More often than you'd think. Where somebody gets blamed. And they shouldn't."

He pauses.

"That's what I'm gonna do. In a couple months. I'm gonna be working in the homicide division."

[simon_doctor]

Me too, the man said. From the other perspective.

It's too soon to draw a conclusion from that, but speculation isn't conclusion.

"So, solving murders."

[still-a-cop.livejournal.com]

"Fighting crime," Charlie agrees, raising his head. He can feel the wind on his face.

[simon_doctor]

"It's a good thing to do," Simon agrees.

Someone down on the beach is flying a kite; he can't see where the string ends, but the bright sail of the kite itself is dancing in the air eight or ten yards away.

[still-a-cop.livejournal.com]

"The public took notice."

Charlie says this after a long moment.

"So it -- you were kind of high-profile. You could say. You were famous."

[simon_doctor]

A very small grimace.

"In a way, yes. Making it a high-profile case was the only way to be sure we wouldn't get swept under a rug somewhere."

[still-a-cop.livejournal.com]

"You worried somebody's gonna recognize you while we're out here?"

[simon_doctor]

"Not ... especially. It could happen, but ... being recognized is a matter of a minor annoyance, not a threat to our lives."

He looks around at the sun and sand and water, and smiles a little.

"Which makes it very much an acceptable risk."

[still-a-cop.livejournal.com]

"Yeah."

Another half-smile. "It's worth it."

[simon_doctor]

Simon gives him an inquiring look, but doesn't say anything.

[still-a-cop.livejournal.com]

And for a while that silence stands -- long enough to let the sounds of creaking machinery, of footsteps on wood (or what passes for it), of gulls, of people talking.

"I haven't talked about it," Charlie says. It's abrupt. "I don't know. It's pretty new. I mean, the thing itself wasn't new but being out, that's new. And it was big enough that it was on the national news, because even I got to admit that a cop doing that -- a cop -- that's news. My lawyer, she's the -- I talk to her. Or she makes me. She asks. And I try not to lie. I mean, as a general rule, because that's bad and it only hurts me, but Connie -- that's Constance, her name's Constance -- I bet you'd feel like you owe her too. If she did for you what she did for me. She knows.

"But that's the thing. National news. Nobody knows who I am. Here. They don't know. Nobody will know."

[simon_doctor]

Very, very quietly: "Know what?"

Though he can guess, by now.

[still-a-cop.livejournal.com]

He's got to find a way in.

This is the first time he's talked to somebody who didn't know.

"I used to own a bar," he says.

I am in this moment.

"With this guy. We grew up together. Tom. His name was Tom Seybolt. And he had a wife. And a daughter and a son. And they called me Uncle Charlie. And I had a wife. And I was a cop most of the time. Most of the time." His voice is even. It's coming with obvious effort.

"Tom, and his wife, and their son were murdered. Their daughter -- I haven't found her. Not yet. And I -- "

He makes himself take a breath in, and out.

"I need a drink. Is what I need. But I better finish it because I started it and so it goes like this. Twelve years. Maximum security prison. State, not federal. Solitary. Cop put away for a triple murder, I don't know what else anybody was gonna expect, and it wasn't behavior, you know? It was me being a target. And then -- after I --

"Constance. She -- looked at my case, and she -- she saw the, the discrepancies -- and. DNA evidence. It didn't match. She got it reopened and I got out. After twelve years. Divorced, after the first four. Mom's dead. And I got my job back. Part of the settlement. Only I got the promotion and now I get to fight crime."

Before Simon says anything: "There was some Zen in there, too. Is that still around?"

[simon_doctor]

And it's --

Twelve years.

There's more of it trying to hammer at him -- divorced hits hard, as does Mom's dead -- but that's the part his mind keeps repeating: twelve years.

In solitary confinement.



Twelve years.



Simon takes a breath, and says "Yes, that's still around. Buddhism in one form or another is the most prevalent religion in the settled worlds."

[still-a-cop.livejournal.com]

Charlie knows he's getting worked up. He hears, in Constance's voice: Where did you go?

I'm still here, he answers.

The word for his smile is fragile.

It's also sincere. "That's good. Almost as good as flying cars."

[simon_doctor]

He has no idea what to say.

"Are you a Buddhist?"

[still-a-cop.livejournal.com]

"Kinda. Ish. Not a real religious one, though. I don't wanna be bald. And I like hot dogs. And if enlightenment's gonna come like a thunderclap anyhow -- " Charlie shrugs, a jerky movement.

He could say, It's a tool to keep me together. You're the medical professional, so maybe you could tell me whether or not you think I'm kind of crazy. I do. He doesn't say that.

[simon_doctor]

Simon has experience with one or two kinds of crazy.



"How long has it been since...?"