Ghost In The Shell Fan Fiction / Ghost In The Shell: Stand Alone Complex Fan Fiction ❯ Death in the Shell ❯ Chapter 5

A/N: The following chapter will contain thoughts of what Eve and Roarke's friends are thinking when they find out about their disappearances. It will also include Roarke's explanation on why he so readily accepted Eve's truth.

Also since there's going to be a lot of Ghost talking what you're reading means that the cast is talking via their ghosts.

Standard Disclaimers Apply

Chapter 5

While Eve and Roarke continued their investigation with The Ghost Organization, news broke about their supposed disappearances by Channel 75's Nadine Furst after she broadcast Eve's Leave of Absence letter to the city. The star reporter who had become Eve's personal friend, had been doing a series of interviews with people who were connected to Eve's past cases to give their reactions of her being suspended by Chief Tibble and Commander Whitney. Naturally the reactions to Chief Tibble and Commander Whitney suspending Eve Dallas were very negative on her superior officers, which led to some of residents of the city to display favorability for Eve Dallas to receive a clean return to the NYPSD.

But when word leaked out about Eve Dallas delivering a borderline resignation, reaction had been immediately heartbreaking to Eve and Roarke's friendship circle.

Mavis Freestone had been bawling her eyes out in between drinks of tea, she knew her boyfriend Leonardo had been by her side on the couch trying his best to comfort his singing angel.

All she wanted to do was cajole Eve into getting ice cream, to let her best friend know that she had her back and that she didn't want Eve to shut her out after losing her badge. When Roarke told her that Eve was ready to consult with a lawyer and didn't want to be disturbed, Mavis thought that they would follow through with her fantasy to sue the entire city.

But when news broke of Eve's 'resignation' and her disappearance with Roarke, she broke down in front of the screen displayed at their living room. When Leonardo caught her very vocal grieving, he helped her to the couch and fixed her tea laced with a soother.

"I wanted to help her, Leo." Mavis said in between sobs, "I didn't want her to shut me out. Not like this."

Leo could tell she was very depressed by the way she used his real name and not one of her many nicknames for him.

"It's probably nothing to worry about, Mavis," he replied while gently stroking her back. "She probably just needs time to figure out who and what she is."

"I know Leo," Mavis agreed in between sobbing hiccups. "But she could've called me to let me know she was okay, to not make me worry about her."

"I promise you, she'll be fine, baby." Leo replied when Mavis began a fresh wave of sobs, "You know Eve Dallas doesn't give up without a fight, she's probably out planning revenge on Whitney and Tibble, or maybe even her main suspect in that case."

But when that didn't cheer Mavis up, Leo decided it was best that he let her sleep early tonight and she didn't object to him offering a Tranq to her. It made her cry to an eventual sleep in his warm and muscular arms. If Leonardo knew his woman, if she ever found out that Eve was alive, she'd be ecstatic, but she'd also spring Trina on her just to piss her off out of spite. That would definitely teach Eve a lesson on what happens when you start shutting out a friend.

***

When Peabody received word of her trainers letter, Feeney recommended her taking the day off because both of them knew that she wouldn't have made it through the day after hearing her boss just up and leave like that. She became a cop to help people the way a Free-Ager would've done as opposed to just living the Neo-Hippie life style. Peabody especially wanted to model her career after Lieutenant Eve Dallas after hearing of her many cases being closed alongside her reputation as a clean, honest cop with a very mild temper if you ever crossed her.

But now that source of inspiration for Peabody just up and left the NYPSD without much explanation other than a letter requesting that she didn't contact Eve. It didn't stop her from trying to contact Summerset via his mansion link, but he wouldn't budge when he told her that Roarke and Eve went Off-Planet to tend to a matter at the still developing Olympus resort and that was all he was able to answer on that matter before ending the call. Instinct told her to try and call Roarke, but her heart told her that it was no use and that all direct communication sources to Eve and Roarke were blocked.

So that night Peabody decided to call Charles Munroe up to have a shoulder to cry on. The licensed companion ended canceling his nighttime appointments to attend to the woman he called a special friend. Naturally, Peabody had already done her share of sobbing on Charles' chest and just leaned on him via her own personal couch to listen to the deep quiet. As far as Charles was concerned, if talking wasn't required tonight he'd completely understand. After all, the story with Eve and Roarke had been playing on the news all day so practically everyone in the city knew it.

"I just can't believe it, Charles." Peabody finally said after two hours of silence. "I can't believe she'd abandon us like that."

"Why do you think she abandoned you, sugar?"

"Captain Feeney and I were willing to let her back in the case if she ever made the choice to go rogue," Peabody finally got off the couch having a strong need to talk out her feelings. "We all had this feeling that she would've picked herself back up and fought these accusations against her. I was more than ready to jump into the fight with her if she gave me the go-ahead. But now she's gone without giving us a word of good-bye and her case has been taken by some United Nations group that no one even remotely heard. And quite frankly, Charles, I'm real pissed off at her!"

Her scream at the tail end of her speech opened a new wave of sobs coming out of her. Charles just stroked her back and waited for her to calm down so he could say his piece.

"Do you hate her all of a sudden?"

"I should hate her," Peabody replied between sobs. "I should tell her that if she wants to abandon me like that, then maybe she could find another Aide and maybe a make a new friend out of her. I should tell her to just get fucked in the ass by a dead tree bark."

"But?" Charles asked unflinching.

"But what frustrates me is that I don't," Peabody sulked. "Maybe it isn't me, I know it isn't me, it's them. They took away what made her because of some bullshit scandal and maybe her leaving is just her way of telling Whitney and Tibble what happens when you lost the best cop you've ever had."

"She cares about you, sugar," Charles said after Peabody cuddled with him again. "There might be a good reason why she left the way she did, she cares about this city too much to leave it and you permanently."

"How would you know?"

"We don't know where she really came from, other than being found in Dallas, Texas. But if there's one thing certain about a born New Yorker, is that she may not be from here but she got here as fast as she could."

That broke Peabody in a more positive way as she felt the headache disappear and the tightness of her gut loosen by all that laughing coming out of her throat. If there was one thing that was certain, you could take the girl out of the city, but you could never take the city out of the girl. With that thought in mind, she and Charles decided to finally eat dinner at a nice casual place. Charles had no problem paying for dinner that night.

***

Like a sixth sense, Eve and Roarke felt their friends grieve for them being missing when they began to enter a seedy hotel room in Chicago that Eve was having dreams about. On their way to Chicago, Roarke had begun talking to his wife about traveling back to the streets of Dublin to look at the same exact spot where his birth father Patrick Roarke met his violent end which robbed Roarke his own chance to carry the kill himself. There had been a light disagreement from Eve, who thought it wasn't a thing to regret, but Roarke countered and told her that a piece of his violent self was still inside him. But after falling in love and marrying the love of his life, Roarke realized that in the end, he came out the real winner instead of his drunk abusive father.

Earlier in the evening, Eve and Roarke talked with a retired detective who was investigating murders that were similar to Eve's. It took some initial hesitation from the detective, who didn't know about the Ghost Organization badge, but knew a cop when he looked at Eve. Long story short, when a droid threatened his pregnant wife and five year old son, he couldn't take his retirement and quit that case fast enough. When the conversation was over, Eve knew that even if she were to close the case, the Chicago ex-cop would never return to the job, he rather stay retired than to have someone threaten his family again.

"You know I gotta ask, Roarke," he heard Eve say which broke him out of his thoughts. "Motoko was right, you had every right to be angry at me for lying to you about my past. You even had cause to throw me out on my ass when I wasn't being a truthful spouse to you, but you accepted my story so quickly. Why?"

Seeing as how they had a moment to slow down and have some proper alone time, not counting their sexcapades from last night, Roarke decided to make their drive back to the private airport a little bit slower than usual. "It was because she brought back the cop in you, Darling Eve."

"The cop back in me?"

Roarke nodded, "Prior to you waking up from that dream, Dr. Mira had come to visit you when you were sleeping off your grief."

"She had a way for you to help me, didn't she?" Eve asked in the warmth of Roarke's car.

"She told me if you kept closing yourself off that there wouldn't have been a way to reach you and that it would've affected our marriage together."

Eve lifted a brow. "There's no way you would've allowed that to happen."

Roarke nodded in agreement. "If you had grieved a little longer, I was going to piss you off as way to get you back. But that morning after I saw you wake up, there was something different in your eyes, and it wasn't grief."

"And I'm very sorry for startling you like that," Eve began to say and raised a finger to cut off Roarke's objection. "When I remembered Motoko calling me 'little one', I guess the grief of losing my badge hit me so hard that her comforting me in my dream reawakened the cop in me, like you said."

"And that's why I accepted your story, Darling Eve. Your life after Dallas may be different than what was on record, but in the end, you're still my cop. My love. My life and I wouldn't trade anything for you." It was a good thing Roarke had the car on autopilot for the rest of the trip so that way they wouldn't get in a wreck from Roarke sharing a gentle kiss with his wife to reaffirm his feelings.

Eventually Roarke's car hit the private airport and was already ready for their return trip to New York, both Eve and Roarke couldn't escape the car fast enough to leave the freezing cold.

When they settled in his private jet, Roarke noticed a news channel on the screen displaying a story about Eve's 'letter of resignation' and their 'disappearance'.

"I didn't resign!" Eve screamed at the airplane screen. "I gave Whitney and Tibble a letter of absence."

"The press can spin anything, Darling Eve," Roarke reminded her. "I thought you'd let them run that story as cover for our joining The Ghost Organization."

"I know, Roarke," Eve agreed with a heavy sigh. "But don't tell me you're watching this and thinking of our friends watching this. I can't imagine what Mavis will let Trina do to me when she finds out that my disappearance was a lie."

"Well you did make her leave the mansion in a huff because you didn't want to share your secret with her after all."

"And I still don't want her to know, Roarke." Eve looked at Roarke with pleading eyes. "Our silence is for her protection, for Peabody's protection, for the protection of New York City as a whole."

"Why must you bring the entire city into it?"

"Because I know Motoko and Batou, Roarke. Whatever case they want me to help them with after closing this one, I'm having a strong feeling that whatever case they're working on might be a big enough threat to bring our city to it's knees. Who is it and why, I don't know yet and if we don't solve this current case Roarke, it may be the end."

"Then we better not waste anytime," Roarke agreed and ordered the pilot to fly them back to New York as fast as he could.

Roarke's jet began to take-off from Chicago after he and Dallas got settled in the plush seats and took some coffee from the personal flight attendant.

Hey Lieutenant, I got something for you. Eve heard Ishikawa's voice on the Ghost-Link.

What do you got?

Ishikawa: I pulled up some connections for you. Cagney and Friend have been in the same class at Harvard Medical along with Vanderhaven consulting at the center in London sixteen years ago along with the Paris center four years ago. Both Wo and Friend served on the same board and worked the same surgical floor at Nordick in 2055 and it turns out Wo continued to affiliated with that clinic to this day. Friend regularly consulted at the Drake where Waverly is attached, and has been attached for nearly ten years.

Roarke: You can definitely follow the pattern deeper and connect the dots. Every one of them meshes in some manner with another. Links to links. I imagine you can expand and find the same incestual type of relationship in the European centers.

Eve: Ishikawa, see if you can do a match and find other names.

Ishikawa: Already on it, Lieutenant. But I also found something interesting on Tia Wo, aside from consulting with Nordick, I pulled up a schedule from her computer, she makes her daily rounds until four and ends her office consult at four-thirty. Closes her office at five, and has a six o'clock dinner with Waverly and Cagney, we haven't confirmed if she kept that appointment just yet, but we did find that her next day had an empty schedule with only one meeting by Dr. Bradley Young.

Eve: What do you know about him?

Ishikawa: Well if you think Roarke is a genius at the comp stuff, I'd say Bradley Young is a close third, with me being in second place. He was a child genius who graduated Princeton at the age of fourteen.

Eve: Genius geek

Ishikawa: Precisely. He added the med-lab and found another niche. Happily laboring to develop those new mousetraps. I'm no profiler here but even I find him a socially stunted, massively intelligent introvert with sexual phobias, an acute arrogance level, and an inherent predilection for taking orders from authority figures even though he considers them inferior. But that's not exactly the cream of the crop, Dallas.

Eve: What is it, then?

Suddenly data began to show up on Eve's PPC and when she read the dates of Bradley Young's whereabouts at the time of the murders, she wanted to dance around the jet plane. The thirty-six year old teenaged genius was visiting every single city on every single date the murders happened.

Eve: Major, if you're getting this, is there anyway we can get him into interview?

Motoko: We can do more than that Dallas...we can get him to sing.

Eve's eyes widened: By we you mean...

Motoko: If you want in on the interview, just say the word.

Eve pondered how she wanted to handle this, almost everybody around the world heard of their alleged disappearances along with her practically resigning from the NYPSD.

Suddenly some gears started turning around in Eve's mind: What if we could make Bradley really believe in ghosts.

"Oh I think I can make that happen, Lieutenant." Motoko whispered audibly as she and Batou snuck through the organ labs of Dr. Wo via their thermoptic camouflage.

Batou: 36 year old genius, who still lives with his mother, and probably has enough balls to tell her that even she sucks.

Motoko: He's going to find out very quick what gender has the bigger balls.

Nothing more was needed to be said as Batou and Motoko moved through the office quiet as a mouse. It didn't surprise the two when they saw the thin and tall man with bleached wheat hair and pale grey eyes, doing what he needed to do and mumbling to himself about how he was better than Dr. Wo and Waverly and yet he was stuck being a chief research technician.

For Batou and Motoko, the element of surprise was so well baked, the Major couldn't resist the temptation to cut in the middle of Young's rant to say "Well if you think you're better than them, why not study to be a doctor yourself?"

That was the only thing Bradley heard before the sudden tranq pricked him in the arm, not a lethal dose, but it was enough to knock him out and take him back to Ghost Headquarters without any problems.

It was such a smooth operation for the husband and wife leaders of The Ghost Organization, that even carrying Young's body to the black unmarked cargo van made it look like Batou was carrying a basket of freshly baked bread. But when they loaded Bradley into back of the van, they didn't count on what happened next.

Ishikawa: Major, we got a problem.

Motoko: What is it, Ishikawa?

Ishikawa: I've been trying to contact Dr. Dimatto while the Lieutenant and Roarke were in Chicago, I just got word that she was attacked and has been transported to a medical center.