The Bolt from the Blue (Working Title)

Chapter 19- Madrid

John couldn't phone the police or Sam would know that he wasn't trying to move on. And besides, that could lead to a court case where the question of how they'd known it was Veronica would come up and then an unfortunate spotlight would be put on Sam. Veronica couldn't know this, couldn't be allowed to know anything about Sam- if she ever got within an inch of him, John swore to himself that he'd snap her neck with his bare hands.

He sat at his desk; his impromptu sick day had been met with an overwhelming air of inevitability. Everyone in the office, save Alex and Lorna, seemed to be both fascinated by and slightly afraid of John- it was very obvious he was on edge and going through something, but some people seemed to be under the impression he'd actually snapped. When he stood up from his desk, he saw some people flinch. He wanted to explain that he wasn't dangerous, he wasn't violent, he wouldn't hurt them, but announcing to this to the entire room seemed to detract from its credibility in his mind. His first day back, he'd put in a request to speak to Lorna, planning to very thoroughly chew her out and spit her back onto her own office floor, but three days later she was still avoiding him. He thought about just marching in there and demanding she speak with him but for the moment he was quite content to just try and figure out how to expose Veronica to justice.

John was not a detective, but he'd worked with quite a few during his time on the force: he tried to approach the problem the way he'd seen them do it. The deduction, the consideration, the million different pieces of clockwork in their brain all whirring in unison unwrapping the mystery from the enigma and then reducing that mystery to nothing more than a sequence of events and coincidences.

But he worried that he just wasn't as intelligent as the detectives. They were so singular, so focussed, so dedicated, so quick and sharp and observant; John was none of these things. He didn't have the mental agility to approach a problem from every angle- he couldn't even reach most of the angles. He'd written down all the facts he knew as well as every possible permutation of Veronica's secret that he could think of, and he'd still only filled half a page. John's best plan was still to try and trick Sam into guessing the answer while not letting his boyfriend know that he, John, was still obsessing over this and had in fact gone to confront Veronica a second time. At that moment a shadow fell across John's piece of paper and he instinctively moved to cover it from sight with his arms, he craned his neck and saw Daria towering over him, the strangest expression on her face that John had ever seen. She was staring very intently at his desk and he looked down to see that the only word still visible was 'Veronica'- he turned back to stare Daria down. He wondered if she'd even dare to ask. She met his gaze for a few seconds, and then walked away, her lower lip quavering just ever so slightly. John knew her too well- she was going to go and cry in the cubby by the drinking fountain. His first instinct was still to run after her, but he wrapped his feet around the legs of the chair to force himself to stay seated.

Almost immediately, Alex was baring down on him, "What did you do?"

Rather deftly, John managed to slip his scribblings underneath his mousepad, covering the motion by making it look like he was swiping the cursor. "I don't know what you mean," he was nowhere near as good at affecting nonchalance as Sam.

"Daria just ran off to cry on the third floor."

"She can do what she likes," and then John added bitterly, "she outranks me now."

"What did you say?" Alex's voice was cold steel pressed to his throat.

"You heard: nothing."

"Then what's written on that piece of paper?"

John should have known he couldn't be secretive. "That's my business."

Alex arched an eyebrow, "Are you going to go and check on her?"