a simple loss

[sideways]

Title: A Simple Loss
Rating: PG
Genre: Modern
Wordcount: 1014
Warnings: Death. Brief mentions of child abuse.
Summary: In which there is no foster home, no Don or Liz or Faith, because Alex's story is over before it began.
Remarks: origfic_bingo prompt - AU: alternate history/continuity.

“Damn,” Snowden says, and then, because one word didn’t seem to be enough, “Damn.”

It’s far from the messiest scene he’s witnessed, even in these first months—far, far, so far from it—but it’s a grey morning that looks to be the precursor to a grey day, and after a third check-up the engine in his car is still making the strange noise, and there’s the tiny naked form of a dead boy curled in the alleyway next to a broken bottle and a dumpster spattered with pigeon droppings.

He wants coffee, but he’s cutting back on those, so he tries to want something else instead. Tea. A nice glass of cool water.  It doesn’t work.

Doug Kelly is pacing around the edges, scuffing his toes lightly against the ground with his shuffle-walk, squinting at everything like he’s sizing up the best angle for a postcard shot. Welcome to Illinois. He looks up when Snowden speaks, and Snowden guesses some sort of coffee-deprived discomfort is visible, because he looks for a moment longer and says, “You get used to it.”

“Really?”

“No.”

Surprise twist right there, he thinks, but what comes out is a noise that sounds like a sigh trying to be a snort, and it’s embarrassing enough to be a reason to keep his mouth mostly shut this time ‘round. He can take a hint from his own larynx.

Wright gives them a limp flap in hello as she sidles past, hands already wrapped up in rubber and bag bouncing off her left thigh, and he pulls a hand out of his pocket long enough to wave back. Kelly moves to let her by, then follows behind, lifting his feet carefully now. He likes to wait close, likes to get the facts as soon as possible.

Hovering doesn’t change the fact the coroner needs a few moments to check the body, though, so Snowden keeps his distance. All the better to keep observing the scene, he supposes, for all that it seems less appealing today than it usually is. Sometimes he almost likes these moments best, the pause before they know anything for certain, when there just might be some explanation for this that isn’t human cruelty. The moment of absorbing the entirety of the scene, before it breaks down into shreds of evidence and snapshot moments that are turned over and contemplated so many times it becomes the act of fitting the worn edges of a centuries old jigsaw puzzle together, even when it’s only been a week since that first sighting.

Not so much today. The bubble is still there, but it’s as fragile as the thin body and as grey as the sky above. There are no stark blood splatters to draw the eye, save what has painted its way through blonde tufts of hair. Nothing to make the scene stand out, replay itself in dark rooms, drive you to give a warning to your children when you get home again. Maybe that’s what is leaving his nerves unsettled. It’s uncomfortable to watch, like he’s intruding on something that was never meant to be seen; not even hidden, necessarily, just swept quietly to the side. A life no one was meant to remember had been among them, let alone disappeared. Easily forgotten in its stillness.

Movement sweeps back in when Wright rocks back on her heels, and he looks over at the same time Kelly straightens expectantly.

“Mostly superficial,” she announces, “but there’re some older marks, older scars, more serious stuff. Definitely had a broken bone or two in his time.” She glances up at Kelly, gives her head a little shake. “More than a little scrapper like this should have.”

“Abuse,” Kelly summarises, and that single word is success and failure in one, because in an instant they’ve got a strong lead on a suspect but the kid’s here now and maybe someone could have done something about it before he ended up curled and dead in an alleyway.

“Need to do a proper examination first, of course, but I’d say the cause of death is head trauma.” Wright runs gentle fingers in a line through the stiff hair, flakes of blood fluttering free like cherry-flavoured dandruff. “Skull’s caved here. Might have been a strike, but the shape of it…I’d say it’s likely the kid fell, hit his head.”

Once again Kelly takes up the narrative, like they’re playing a gruesome game of red robin for Halloween, and Snowden almost wishes they’d stop except, of course, this is the job. This is just the job. “A fight gone bad? Kids hurt themselves all the time, but maybe they figure someone will notice what you did. They panic, dump the body in a hurry, and take anything that might help us trace him back.” Then he sighs, reaching up to pluck at the back of his collar, shifting the tag around as he always does when tired and irritated. “Or hey, maybe he wanted to be a stuntsman when he grew up and spent his time jumping off the roof, and he’s got loving parents waiting for us to tell them some lunatic stole his clothes. I shouldn’t get ahead of myself.”

“Always look on the bright side,” Wright murmurs in agreement, and signals her assistant to bring the body bag over.

And just like that the bubble has passed. Kelly is stepping back towards him saying, “We’ll need to get an identity soon as possible, find out who he belonged to,”, and there’s a clip-snap as someone takes a photo of something, and the sound of the stiff body-bag zipper is harsh and loud and grating. He can see his future. Interviews and paperwork and, if it all works out, a court case. It’s a rare few jobs that lead you to hope for a court case.

He doesn’t know whether to hope for parents that hit or parents that lost. He still can’t have his coffee.

“Yeah,” he says, and pushes his hands down so that his knuckles brush the seams of his pockets. “Damn it.”