After Before and After

Conclusion: Chapter 2

December 22, 1993. 8:21 AM.

It was an eerie feeling being back at the Chatham County Juvenile Courthouse after the trial had officially concluded. Even though Ralph spent the better part of the last year here, somehow being back now after it was supposed to be over felt wrong.

To his surprise, it wasn't any less busy than it usually was. The main entrance with all the check-in desks was just as busy with young kids in arraignment suits as it was back when Ralph was one of them. Today, he dressed nicely, but not in a formal suit. Jeffery called their attire 'semi-formal.' Apparently, the expectations were lower if you were only there to support someone else who was in shit with the law. Ralph's attire was supposedly less important now that he graduated from defendant to boyfriend of the convicted.

The Langley family arrived sometime after the Merridews and their lawyer did. Jack and Paige were already in a deliberation room talking strategy when the Langleys checked in, for the first time as visitors. Ralph continued to feel unsettled and out of place, even though his future no longer rest on what he did and said under this roof. He was free of this place. Wasn't he?

If that were really true, he probably wouldn't have been walking down to Courtroom 4 right now.

Ralph was surprised to see who was sitting in wait outside the doors of the courtroom, though he probably shouldn't have been surprised. Of course Roger's sentencing hearing was scheduled back to back with Jack's. So of course he was here too, waiting to see where Judge Eldeson would decide to incarcerate him for the rest of his youth, if not the rest of his life. Jeffery must've recognized him too, because he pulled Ralph closer to him protectively when his own eyes fell over the Conroy family. Unlike the Langleys, the Conroys were all dressed in formal suits and blazers.

For them, this was just another day of the same hell Ralph stopped going through six days ago.

When Jeffery excused himself to go find the Merridews, Laurie excused herself to use the washroom shortly after. In what would've been a brief amount of time, Ralph was left alone in the empty hallway with Roger and his family.

Ralph kept his head down on the bench he sat upon and watched his legs kick back and forth. He tried not to let the guilty-of-felony-murder-thing make him more afraid of Roger Conroy than he was before. It wasn't like anything had really changed, had it? Roger was always guilty. What difference did it make now that everyone else knew it too?

Then it hit him, and it immediately sent shivers down Ralph's spine: What difference it made was that Roger had nothing left to lose.

"They decide to punish you after all?"

Ralph lifted his head as his chest tightened suddenly. The sound of Roger's bone-chilling voice had that effect on him ever since the island, and it never went away, not even for a moment.

"No" Ralph made himself look at Roger as he answered. The older boy had snuck up on him somehow, had gotten up from his side of the room and made his way over here unnoticed. Perhaps, Ralph had been trying too hard not to notice him. "I'm here to supp--"

"No, don't tell me" Roger cruelly chuckled a little, "of course you're here for him. God, I still can't believe he got with you after all that. You must be good as shit in bed, Langley. Are you good as shit in bed?" he asked as mockingly as one could in a voice that only had one tone: flat and harrowing.

"Leave me alone, Roger. We're not on your island circus anymore. You don't scare me" Ralph bravely insisted. He wasn't about to admit it, but knowing that the courthouse was being protected by armed guards was the only thing making him brave enough to talk back to a monster like Roger.

Roger just laughed, but it was quick and low, more like a humorous scoff. "Not yet anyway" he smiled, and it was an awful thing, that smile. Right then, Ralph considered barging into Roger's hearing to beg the judge to lock him up for good. There wouldn't be a safe person in Georgia with Roger Conroy, pure blooded psychopath, walking free.

"Whatever" Ralph rolled his eyes, using all his energy to try and come off as nonchalant as possible.

Roger was about to walk away, Ralph saw it out of the corner of his eye, but then he stopped.

"Y'know, I should've given them more. I should've told them everything" Roger considered aloud.

"What?" Ralph lifted his head to question. He hated the idea of playing Roger's game, but his curiosity had been peeked.

"About you and Jack. I tipped off the prosecution about your little love fest. I knew they wouldn't believe me without evidence, so I used my mom's old credit card and hired someone to get it for me. It was so easy, the guy said, you two were shit at being discreet in public" Roger confessed.

It took longer than it should've for Ralph to realize what Roger was talking about.

The photos Dana Barnes ambushed him with on the stand. The public outing of his and Jack's relationship, not only to the influential jury, but to Evan Merridew. Roger hired the P.I. to follow them around, not Barnes or anyone working for her.

There was only one thing left that didn't add up.

"Why?" Ralph asked, heart heavy and full of an anger he forcibly tried to bury away for the moment.

"Why what, dumbfuck?" Roger spat back.

"Why go through all that trouble? What was in it for you? Why did you go so far out of your way to try and sabotage our cases? Do you really hate me that much?" Ralph questioned as his blood boiled.

"You?" Roger scoffed dismissively. "This was never about you, moron. I don't care about you."

"So Jack" Ralph concluded, though still quite confused. "You wanted to hurt Jack. But why---"

"He undermined me" Roger rudely interrupted, "he accused me of purposely throwing him under the bus in the Flag State interviews. He beat the shit out of me for it. He thought he could fucking mess with me. He thought he was the one I should be afraid of. Well I fucking showed him, didn't I?"

"You know about his dad" Ralph stood up so he was level with Roger now, his protectiveness over Jack masking his fear of the boy in front of him. "You knew that his dad would've killed him over this if he had the chance. Killed him, Roger. Not yelled, not punished, not disowned. Killed. And you did it anyway, all because of that stupid fight you two had back in January that wrecked both your faces for a few weeks?"

"Nobody fucks with me and gets away with it" Roger snarled in a frightening voice, which was to say, his normal voice.

"His sister is moving him out of the only home he's ever lived in because of what you did."

"Don't care" Roger shrugged boredly. He stepped back slowly, his dark eyes intently on Ralph still. "I hope that today they decide to lock Jack up with me. We'd make great cellmates, don't you think? We could turn the entire juvie into our own little world. Make our own rules, or have none at all. Doesn't that sound like fun? Until the power gets to his head. Then of course, I'd have to slit his throat with a shiv in the communal shower."

Roger turned around after he finished talking and didn't look back as he made his way over to his brother and parents. Ralph felt blindsided once again, and physically sick to his stomach. He'd been unpleasantly shocked far too many times in this wretched place. And it was still happening, even though it should've been over. Too many public humiliations, too many unhappy surprises, too many publicized secrets that were supposed to stay secret.

Ralph just wanted this day to be over. He just wanted to go home, his real home, and to bring Jack with him. He wanted to never step foot in another courthouse again. He wanted his life back, or at the very least, the rest of it, the part that hadn't been ruined by the trial and the island. His future.

It had to be better than this, even if only because it couldn't possibly get any worse.