Six AM

Chapter One

When, after a moment, the set of knuckles rapped on the door a second time, Ethan scooped up his heavy heart from the depths of his chest and rose from the bed for the first time in days. He still wore that torn, bloodied, burned blue sweater in which he had completed the trials, or, tried to. As he walked past the bathroom, the man who glanced back at him from the mirror was someone completely unrecognizable. Swollen, dull eyes peered beyond greasy black bangs, and stubble wild and overgrown shrouded his face like a mourning veil. The bandages on his arm were rolling at the edges now, and the yellow they had been a few days ago was festering into a splotchy brown. He didn't want to know what the ones on his chest looked like. He wasn't going to check.

He walked to the front door in the low light of morning, turned grey by the clouds while the rain on the side of the house echoed and mimicked Ethan's footsteps as he walked across the wood floor.

Opening the door, he braced himself for the first human interaction he'd have since he got the news.

"Ethan Mars?" A man's voice said, it was softer and higher with kindness. His shoes were black and shiny and warped from the constant autumn rain. The hem of his black dress pants looked permanently mud-stained.

Ethan kept his eyes down. "Yeah?" The word fell out like a statement. Another journalist here to get the story on his son. Another cop here to try and get any more clues or leads to the Origami Killer. "Look," he sighed, "I told my story to the press and the police already. If you're looking for information, I don't have any more to give."

"I'm not here about your son, Mr. Mars, " the man with the black shoes explained. "I'm filling in for Lieutenant Blake since he's been suspended after accusing you of being the Origami Killer. I'm agent Norman Jayden, FBI. We've met before."

Ethan's eyes tracked up to the face of the man in front of him. "Oh, agent Jayden," he iterated with sudden recognition, "I'm sorry, I didn't realise-- please, come in. It's pouring buckets out there."

"Thanks," Jayden said with the comfortable matter-of-factness he was so keen on. Ethan held the door for him as he stepped into the hallway and hung his rain-soaked coat on one of the pegs in the hallway.

"Can I make you a coffee?" Ethan asked, already making his way into the kitchen. He'd been around cops more in two years than most people would in their entire lives-- from Jason, to the divorce, to now-- and still Ethan found himself buckling under his nerves when he was around one. He had just set his hands on the coffeemaker when Norman answered.

"Oh, no, thanks, Mr. Mars. But it's nice of you to offer."

Ethan sighed tensely through his nose. The coffee maker was a common ground, an escape. Whatever Jayden was here about could be interrupted when the coffee was done. Any situation, about his son whose name hurt to badly to say anymore, or Grace, who hadn't returned his calls since the reports came out, could be paused while Ethan got up, retrieved clean cups, and poured the coffee. The smallest break was enough to breathe away the horrors before they all got too overwhelming.

"What are you here for, Agent Jayden, if not for more information on the Origami Killer?" he asked patiently, trying to keep a calm tone to his voice as he walked slowly back into the living room.

"Well it's like I said, I'm just filling in for Blake. The investigation is closed now seeing as the rainy season is coming to an end. The killer won't have time to take another victim with less than a week projected forecasts." He looked to Ethan and sensed his tension in his body language and expression. His hands looked like fists in his pockets and he kept his eyes focused on nothing in particular on the floor. "I'm here," Norman continued, slowly and with a softer tone in his voice, "because someone called the station to report that they hadn't seen you leave the house in a few days. They hadn't seen lights on, or any movement, or anything. They tried calling you a few times and you never picked up." He pursed his lips briefly and his ice green eyes melted with sympathy. "They were concerned that you had killed yourself, Ethan."

"Oh," Ethan replied, wondering why the statement didn't have more of an effect on him. Somehow it didn't seem that surprising, or out of reach.

Norman hesitated, hoping that Ethan would say more. He's thought about it, he concluded in a heartbeat, though he didn't want it to be true. Suppressing a stutter, he probed "Is that all you have to say about it?"

Ethan looked over his shoulder into the kitchen. The chalkboard by the window still had his handprint on it from when he began to erase it but had stopped partway through. All that remained was spatterings of letters, still visible through the mottled black and grey. It was one of few artifacts left over from what life was like before. "Do you have any children, Agent Jayden?" he asked, turning to face him again. His brow furrowed with emotion and his lower eyelids drooped with fresh tears.

Norman shook his head. The verbal "no" would have dropped to his stomach like a brick.

"Then you couldn't understand," Ethan insisted, "you couldn't possibly understand that all the light has gone out of my life." He sniffed suddenly and pursed his lips, struggling to maintain his composure. "I appreciate everything you tried to do for me, really, I do. It wasn't your fault I was put in that cell, and he wasn't found in time." His voice quavered more, then dropped to a near whisper. "I told them I was the only one who could find him. I told them I loved him. I told them I should have been a better dad."

"I can't express to you how sorry I am for Shaun's death," Norman said calmly and slowly took steps towards Ethan. "We did the best that we could do in such a limited time. I'm sorry we couldn't have done more." He put his hand out as if to place it on Ethan's arm. Surveying more closely the burns and cuts and bruises that painted his body still, Norman let his hand fall apprehensively back to his side. "Driving into oncoming traffic, getting yourself electrocuted, having Carter try and beat a confession out of you... and all for Shaun? That's one the most self-sacrificial, most selfless lengths a father could go for his son. Most parents would say they'd do that for their kid, but you... you did it. I still think that makes you the best dad there could be." His ice green eyes pressed the point into Ethan's empty blue eyes. He pursed his lips and nodded shallowly, if not to confirm the point to Ethan, than for himself. "I'm glad to see your neighbors suspected wrong of you," he concluded, and broke their gaze to pull a business card out of his pocket. "If ever you need anything, you know who to call."

He looked in his face once more before walking to the hall and lifting his cold, damp coat from the peg it hung on. Ethan stood where he left him, paralysed and wordless. It wasn't until after the door had closed that the tears fell, slowly at first, and then washed the name on the business card to a fuzzy, muddy mess.