x x x

Killing Time

x x x

Disclaimer: The usual, I don't own anything, nobody said I owned anything, you can't prove I own anything.

SPOILER WARNING: CONTAINS SOME SPOILERS FOR DEXTER SEASON 2, AND THE TORCHWOOD EPISODE COUNTRYCIDE.

x x x

Chapter 1: "You Are Not Alone"

x x x

Europe isn't so bad. A cruise, even. Have to keep up the pretense of enjoying myself, after all.

With Lila out of the way, the best part is over, really.

And now we're making port in Wales. Lila's 'British humor' had insinuated it was a terrible place for tourists, but who am I to take her advice? The cruise company certainly didn't.

I'm already bored. Germany was a waste of my time, and Spain had been horrible.

Maybe I should look for something more interesting, with this stop.

I've got two days. Probably shouldn't waste them.

x x x

The tourist office could barely call itself that.

Outdated posters, local newspaper cuttings from three years ago. If I were to be paranoid about it, I'd think someone didn't want me here.

Considering my past, perhaps paranoid is best.

Just as I'm turning to leave, a young man appears from the side door. He looks stressed, and in a bit of a rush. "Sorry, sir, we're closing." he says, without even looking at me.

He's shuffling papers, attempting to tidy the untidiable mess on the desk.

"I won't be a minute." I say quickly, "I just wanted a recommendation on good bars in the area."

The man pauses, looks up at me. He must have noticed the accent, his demeanor changed in an instant. Professional mask sliding into place. To a layman, it had always been there.

When he meets my eyes I see suspicion. Discomfort. He knows there's something off about me. But then he rattles off a list of 'good' and 'half-decent' pubs, clubs and bars around the bay. A picture of professionalism and calm.

But I still see it in his eyes.

I thank him, and leave. No sense wasting both our time pretending to care, or pretending not to be the monster he clearly saw I was.

I check Google Maps. Find a bar he didn't name.

Not good. Not half-decent. Hopefully I'll find someone worth my time there.

x x x

It's refreshing to see not all British people can recognize my 'dark passenger'. That terrible secret I try so hard to hide. Then again, they all seem equally false and overly polite, just like the man in the tourist office.

Good manners are so hard to find, that's what they say. Well apparently not here.

Even in the not good, not half-decent pub. The doorman is firm, but still employs 'please's and 'thank you's and 'have a nice night's to all around him. It's easy to see his real self is more interested in sports and bar fights, but still, he wears manners like a cloak.

They all do.

It almost feels like I'm not alone.

Almost.

The bar is crowded, the lights too low. It's hardly a conductive work environment, even for a monster like me.

Still, we all make do with what we have.

I take a seat at the bar and order a drink. Local beer. Never let it be said that I don't try new things occasionally.

My tools are in my backpack, which sits next to me on the floor of the bar, shoulder-strap wrapped around my ankle to be sure. Hidden beneath a pile of innocent enough clothing and a local map I picked up at the tourist office, which is no doubt out of date. If I find the need, I won't have a problem finding the time.

Of course, research is the key. It's very hard to catch a killer in the act, and without that I may have to do some legwork.

Would be worth it to relieve the monotony.

I watch those around me carefully. The long stare of one who isn't watching is a practiced art. To look right through others, but still see them. They don't give me a second glance.

Except for one.

"Looking for someone in particular?" Another American accent. Small world.

"More a type, really." I reply, with a practiced air of distraction. I don't look at him yet. If I do he might stay and get chatty.

I hate chatty people latching onto me when I'm working. In the office, in the field... or in the killing field.

It's all just noise to me.

The other man chuckles. Great, now he's not going to go away. He thinks I was joking.

"Any chance I could help?" he suggests. I can hear a solicitous tone in his voice. He wants something from me, though I can never quite tell what. Everyone wants something different.

I look at him, meet his eyes.

Perhaps he could help. I can see the darkness in him, the killer instinct, blazing through what anyone else might call innocent baby-blues.

A second look tells me he's about six feet tall, works out, and... is carrying a gun under his coat. In Britain.

Either police, or very brave and stupid.

The latter would be nice.

I shrug, "Anything's possible."

"I'm Jack Harkness. And you are?" He offers me a hand to shake, a slightly too-charming smile across his face. It's hard to tell if he's like me and hasn't quite mastered the point where showing emotions becomes too much and a bit creepy, or he's genuinely an enthusiastic and extroverted person.

I accept the offered handshake. His grip is firm, but not aggressive.

"Rudy Cooper." What possessed me to use my brother's name? I must not be thinking clearly tonight.

"You don't sound local." Jack asks.

"Neither do you."

He chuckles again. Do I detect a falseness in the amusement? It gives me some hope that it might be worth getting to know him better.

"Yeah, I'm not from around here." he admits, "Then again, sometimes it feels like I've been here forever." An odd intonation. Was that wistful? Interesting.

"I'm just visiting for a few days." I concede. I don't like to lie unless I need to. It makes it easier to keep track when I do.

"Maybe I could show you some of the sights."

It's strange. I don't usually notice when someone's flirting with me. Not until it gets pointed out openly.

This man isn't being any less subtle than those I usually overlook. Yet it seems so blatant to me.

There's even a scent in the air. Almost... alluring.

Maybe if I had emotions.

"I think you might have misinterpreted what I said earlier."

Perhaps I said that a bit too quickly. He's giving me a suspicious look now. Calculating. I don't like that kind of look. It never leads to anything good.

"So... I'm not your type?" he asks, almost sly.

Now I didn't say that. I'm just using a different definition of the phrase.

"You're flirting with me?" I only ask for clarification. Jumping to conclusions never helps anyone. He nods, completely unashamed. "You're not my type, in that context. I'm sure we have other things in common, though."

He sits back, almost amused now. "Like what?"

Way to put my foot in it. What do I say to that?

But then suddenly, he looks up past me. Something else has caught his attention and, if his expression is anything to go by, his eternal loathing.

I don't turn to look. I'm more subtle than that. "What?" I ask.

Jack seethes with anger. It's like every fiber of his being wants to destroy what he just noticed behind me. If his line of sight is still on it, it just went and sat down in the corner, instead of approaching us.

I know the feeling I see in his eyes. It's righteous anger. I can't feel it myself, but I can recognize it clearly enough.

I lean forward, and place my hand on his right arm. The hand that had twitched briefly towards his gun a moment ago. "What is it?"

He seems to only just notice I'm still here.

But then he shakes off the anger, and hides behind a mask of smiles, "Just someone I know."

"What did they do?" I ask bluntly. No point hiding the fact I saw it. A child would have seen it.

He gives me a wary look, but then shrugs, "They're meant to be in prison."

Oh now, Jack Harkness, you have my complete attention.

"What for?"

He shakes his head, "It's a long story."

"You can tell me."

There's a strange way people like me have of reassuring others. I've never fully understood, but I think it might be the calm I project.

He doesn't seem so sure. Still, with a sigh he concedes to my well-practiced hopeful yet harmless expression, "A few weeks ago, I helped bring in a group of people who deserved to be locked away forever. Hell, in most other countries, they'd have been executed. She was one of them."

She. Interesting. I wouldn't have guessed, then again I try not to make assumptions, I'm an equal opportunities serial killer.

"What did they do?"

"Killed dozens of people. Waylaid them on the side of the road, and abducted them." I sense an 'and'.

"And...?"

"And butchered and ate them."

My eyebrows rise in surprise, but that's probably far less of a reaction than Jack expected. Cannibals. I've never killed a cannibal before. It might be therapeutic. Get the images of Lila's artwork out of my mind.

"You don't look that shocked?"

"I've heard of worse."

This was true. In my opinion, killing children is worse than killing and consuming adults. I've developed a scale, it helps me to prioritize, if I find more than one potential target at a time.

Now he looked extremely skeptical.

"I work for the police, in the US. Homicide. I do the lab work." Why do I feel the need to explain myself to this man. To justify my reaction?

"She probably got released because she played the innocent card. She fooled two of my team with it when they first met her."

I risked a glance over my shoulder, and saw precisely one female patron in that corner. Alone, with a wide berth left around her, probably due to her glare that could send most normal people running.

Good thing I'm not normal.

Looks like I've found my victim for the weekend.

x x x

Helen Sherman wasn't hard to find. She had been taken into police custody a few weeks ago. Three weeks and five days, to be precise.

Five arrests made, but Helen cried spousal abuse, unwilling accomplice, afraid of what her husband would do, etcetera. While it is truly a tragedy of our world that those words are so much more often true than false, Lila wasn't the first woman I've met who could spin the perceived persecution of her gender to her advantage.

And it looks like she won't be the last.

Dental records are so useful. I wonder why the arresting officers didn't look into it in more detail.

They had the evidence, they just didn't run the comparison. I'm not even in that line of forensics, but I got a positive match in under ten minutes.

Helen is as guilty as her husband.

x x x

The address Helen is staying at is listed with the local police department.

It's in a quiet neighborhood, mostly empty apartments. It's almost like she wanted me to do this. Well I certainly don't want to disappoint.

It's all so simple, so routine. So quick.

I sneak up behind her, wire around her neck until she passes out.

Prepare the kill room. I choose the kitchen. It seems appropriate, and it has a dining table just the right size for her body.

I pin up printouts of her known victims, downloaded from the police database. There are quite a few, though she's hardly my most prolific playmate.

I cut her cheek, and take my blood sample before she wakes. I don't feel like dealing with whimpers or cries of pain tonight.

I only want the kill.

She groans as she comes to, and begins to panic when she sees where she is. I take the cotton wool out of her mouth.

"Who are you? What do you want?"

"I think you know what's about to happen."

I produce a meat cleaver from the plastic-coated counter. It's sharp enough, with the right weight behind it a single blow should decapitate cleanly. I'm growing to like the thought of poetic justice. Not only do I kill the killers, but now I do so in ways that fit their crimes.

First Brian, hung up to bleed out in his own kill room.

Santos Jimenez with the chainsaw.

Now this.

I really should make it a habit. Help to protect against my M.O. being found out again.

"You're going to kill me?" she asks, surprisingly sanguine.

I smile. A false smile, but a smile all the same. "It's nice to have a calm and rational conversation with a victim for a change."

She tries to spit at me. I don't think I'm going to get that rational conversation after all.

"We're all just meat in the end." she declares with anger.

"And I'm sure if I had feelings, I would be happy to inform you that every scrap of meat on your carcass shall be fish food. Eventually. Non-biodegradable bags, helps keep things clean, you understand. Still, not suitable for human consumption."

She looks positively hateful. I'm not sure if she genuinely believed she was top of the food chain and deserved to eat people and get away with it, or if she believed we were all monsters like her, and eventually another monster would consume her flesh as well.

On the bright side, at least a monster did catch up to her.

Eventually.

"Any last words, Helen?"

I hold the cleaver to her throat, ready to strike. Already anticipating the kill. Don't make me wait.

"It was worth it."

That's... disappointing.

Still I don't plan to stop now. I raise the cleaver high, and swing it down to her neck with full force.

I was right. Clean decapitation. Smooth stroke, very neat.

Blood spurting up the walls. It's good I plan ahead.

It takes ten beats, gradually weaker with each one, for her heart to stop.

And then I begin to clean up.

x x x

I tear down the last sheet of plastic, the one covering the door.

How did I miss that?

The door is wide open.

And Jack Harkness is standing in the doorway, watching me with... fascination.

"I'm not going to complain." he says, with a shrug of almost disinterest. "I would have done something worse to her."

"Worse than killing her?"

What can I do about him? He's a witness, I don't usually have those. Last time I did, my psychotic ex-girlfriend blew him up.

But then I killed her, so where do I get another miracle like that?

Perhaps he deserves it, as well?

But I need to be sure.

"I'd make her forget everything she ever was. It's just as irreversible, and sometimes downright funny."

"Seems like a poor use of society's resources." I mutter with distraction. I turn to finish cleaning up.

Jack doesn't seem like he's interested in stopping me.

After I finish packing away the tools and body parts, he approaches.

The room looks like it hasn't been touched. Spotless. "You're efficient. I like that."

I've always been a very neat monster.

The way he's looking at me now. It's the same way he looked at me in the bar. I notice the flirtation again.

I turn away and busy myself with checking that everything is in order.

"If you're considering eliminating the witness..."

"I would have started putting the plastic sheets back up."

"It wouldn't have done you any good."

"Why not?" I ask, turning to watch him carefully now. Does he think he can overpower me? Physical size and muscle mass suggest perhaps he could, but I am stronger and more agile than I look. Years of training will do that to you.

"It seems to me, you have a secret you don't want getting out."

Well duh. And I give him a look to say as much.

"Well so do I."

Is he laughing at me? He's not making the sound, but all the facial expressions seem to say it.

"You're like me, aren't you?" I ask.

"A killer?"

I nod.

"I once was. I've kind of given that up. Found better things to do with my life."

"Is that even possible?"

"You sound hopeful."

I shake my head, "I've always assumed this was a part of who I was, and always will be."

"Is it a need, a compulsion?"

"Yes."

"Then no, I doubt you can get past it. I've known people who killed for the thrill, for the need to take a life. It's not the same. For me it was a job. A job I enjoyed, certainly, but not for the same reason as some of my co-workers. I got paid to ensure that people who needed to die did so in a timely manner."

I can't help but smile. He really does seem so much like me, but there's something in there hiding behind the monster. I just can't see what it is.

"Why did you do it?" I have to know.

"They deserved it."

I'm almost disappointed. The thought of two kills... and he had seemed like such a promising possibility. Still, I should be satisfied that Helen Sherman is no longer free to hunt for innocent victims again. At least I did something worthwhile with my weekend.

But I see what he's hiding now. A conscience. A soul. Something real, something he feels. Not like my code.

I wonder why he tries to hide it.

I glance over my shoulder at the bags containing the parts of Helen's body.

"If you'll excuse me..."

"Of course, you have a body to make disappear. I won't interfere." He turns to leave.

He's really just going to walk away.

And I'm going to let him?

"It was nice meeting you..." He hesitates. He's asking my name again. Even though I gave him an alias last night.

"Dexter."

He smiles and nods, "Nice meeting you Dexter."

And just like that, I'm alone again.

x x x