September

Foxglove, igitalis Purpurea, a bell flowered plant commonly used in medicines to treat heart failure. However, consuming any part of the plant undiluted or even in a tea, can do similar yet unregulated. This, also commonly, leads to heart failure. 

Grohm approached the body, once again in the same pose with the same flowers, however now she had the remains of animals. And the message was loud, and oh so clear. 

Child of God, Eat them whole. The phrase written on an old book page and stapled to her chest as her innards spilled from her torso and led out like a wedding train.

Michael pursed his lips, he stood with folded arms and his weight settled to his left.

The two stood side by side in silence, staring at the crude and satire display before them. It felt campy and overly set up, not half as artistic as before. The body was old, the flowers had wilted, blood ceased to seep from the open wounds.

And all the while, tension was thicker than the coagulate.

Grohm inhaled and pried his eyes off the body, and onto the ground. “Elizabeth is in the car.”

Silence.

“She uhm.” He paused, searching desperately for some way to phrase his thoughts.

He couldn’t just say Oh we didn’t have time to drop off! No, he wouldn’t buy that even if it were the truth. However in reality, in honesty, Elizabeth wanted to watch from afar what Michael did, his process. She wanted to watch and witness how Michael gathered what he needed to catch her father.

Even though, had it not been for him giving up, Dr.Stevens more than likely would have evaded them. Granted, he had Dr.Grohm’s help.

Michael closed his eyes and took a long, deep, irritated breath.

“Doctor.” He finally spoke.

“Yes?” Grohm’s voice was calm, smoothed and prepared to be berated and battered down. He had crossed a line, and he feared it would take more than an apology to mend the blurring edges he worked so hard to break through.

“What do you mean, Elizabeth is in the car.” He turned his head, with a look that Grohm hadn’t seen before. It was a smile on the surface, but from the drop in his chest to his stomach, he was smart enough to understand that it wasn’t, a smile.

“I came here straight from-”

“You came here straight from shopping. Shopping of which-” Michael felt a heat in his throat as his voice raised. He inhaled and grabbed Grohm by the arm and pulled him close.

“You crossed a line Doctor. You crossed a serious fucking line- She can’t be- Looking at this!” His voice was hushed in a gruff and aggressive whisper. “She’s still getting through what happened, do you honestly think it’s smart to be bringing her to a fucking crime scene?” 

Grohm cleared his throat, his feelings conflicted. He felt his heart in his chest and his pulse in the veins of his arm, Calm he reminded himself. Calm.

“This isn’t the place to be arguing about-” He glanced to the car, then to the officers and forensics that gawked over the body. “This isn’t the place to be arguing about a child.” 

However, this was not the right thing to say.

Michael’s jaw clenched, the muscles constricting visually. He exhaled roughly through his nose and leaned in. “This isn’t the place, for a child, period.”

Grohm and Michael stood like that, hand gripping into the doctor’s arm, inches apart and shoes touching. From afar, from the passenger seat in Grohm’s car, Elizabeth stared with her cheeks resting in her hands.

She furrowed her brows, she hadn’t really seen the two interact or even be in the same room together. Did they always argue? Or was this simply a passing quarrel? For a moment, she even thought it to be something completely different. When he grabbed his arm and pulled him in, for a moment, she even thought the two to be rather close. 

Surely not though.

Surely.

She watched in silence, leaning into the dash and setting her arms against it. Her gaze, stare, was heavy. It always was, when she stared, when her eyes fixated on the back, you could feel it. In a dark room, you would know she is there by the weight of her presence. 

Perhaps it was her upbringing in the past months. Or perhaps she always had that sting in her eyes. However right now, she stared through the windshield through her lashes and words that they might’ve said ran rampant through her head.

It was her entertainment.

Her amusement.

Michael exhaled and let Grohm go. His brows furrowed and his lips a thin line. “The body.” He started and motioned his hand to Cali, whom stood staring at the two with a strained expression from a few feet away.

“She’s about a week into decomp.” Cali approached with hesitance. “Her heart is missing along with her uhm…” She swallowed down an audible lump. “Her Esophagus.” Cali blinked and held her eyelids down tight with each flutter. 

“And the flowers?” Michael raised a brow. If he could focus on the crime scene he could forget about the rising and writhing waters between himself and Dr.Grohm.

“All the same as last time only…” Cali looked through what she had written down.

“Only?” Grohm folded his arms.

“The Foxglove, was placed in her heart and in her throat. You can uhm, see it when you look in her mouth.” Cali looked physically ill, as if these recent ‘mock crimes’ had been creeping into her as they did Michael.

The three stood there, a bad and bitter taste in Michael’s mouth. “Foxglove is a medicinal plant.” He eyed Grohm for confirmation.

“It, is used in medicines, but it’s not- medicinal.” He swallowed, he could feel the simultaneous pull and blur between himself and Michael, as if he could read that these crimes were directed to get under Grohm’s skin. Directed and designed, to fuel the paranoia, to fuel the creature that they all knew was itching beneath him.

“It’s used in heart medications in controlled amounts, however if it’s not taken medically-” Grohm rubbed his hand over his mouth and raised his brows momentarily. “It can cause heart failure, ultimately killing the consumer.”

“Kind of ironic.” Cali muttered as she stared at the list she had written down. 

“Very.” Michael said in a huff as he passed the two and stood closer to the body, staring at the trail of intestines, lower and small, splayed out with an immense amount of thought and planning.

Cali leaned in closer to Grohm. “What did you do.” She said in a hushed tone that came through her teeth in a hiss. 

Grohm was well aware of Cali and Michael’s relationship, he had spoken about it in passing during sessions. He was aware of Michael and Margot’s relationship too. He cleared his throat and inhaled “I may have crossed a boundary. Not to fret however, I’m very good at groveling for forgiveness.” He leaned in at the end, that slight and almost devious smile that crinkled the corners of his eyes returning to him. Yes, he was very good at groveling.

Cali’s nose scrunched and her brows furrowed. “Let me ask again,” She paused, inhaling till her lungs couldn't take in any more air. “What, did you do.” Her voice had suddenly calmed, it was stern and clear that she wasn’t going to let it go whatever he had done. 

Grohm held his arms tight to his chest and let his smile fall a little too gracefully. “Elizabeth.” He stated, gaining a sharp eyebrow raise from Cali. “She’s in the car.” How many more times would he need to say this? He understood it wasn’t preferable for her to be present but it wasn’t entirely his fault! Had he had things his way she would be dining in his home, with him and… Oh dear.

Suddenly he had an epiphany, staring at the crime scene. Those lethal plants that mocked him like he was a king’s comic. Home, something personal to him, something he could go back to a rest. Home, home was where she was, home was where they would return to.

Return to…

“Dr.Grohm?” Michael stood staring at Grohm for a solid minute, both he and Cali sharing looks of immense judgment as each second passed. And then those seconds turned to minutes.

“Yes- uhm- Yes sorry, what…What did you say, Michael?” His voice, cracking into something small and skittish. 

With a raised brow and a scoff Michael spoke once more. “I asked what the flowers meant, their individual meanings. You never gave them to me.”

“Yes- Yes well that’s because-”

“Because they’re ‘Jumbled’?” Michael folded his arms. He felt something change, the poised and elegant man now fraying and stumbling over his words.

It felt off.

It felt, wrong.

And Elizabeth could see it too. That something was off, that something was wrong. Not only she could, but Cali could, and if Hanes were still on scene and paying attention to the two men, he would have noticed as well. It left a sour taste in Michael’s mouth as they played their now customary game. The back and forth now lackluster and tense.

Michael watched as Grohm and Elizabeth shared a few words from afar. Leaning against his car with a complete scowl, though unintentional, was enough to catch Cali’s attention. The two had been sharing looks rather the whole time since Grohm arrived on the scene. These last few scenes had seemed to weigh on the doctor, his facade was cracking, and for some reason that made something rumble and boil over inside of Michael.

“He crossed a line.” Michael spoke with folded arms and a clenched jaw. “He’s muddying the waters of Colleagues and…” He paused, thinking over his words as his brow furrowed “Something else.”

Elizabeth huffed. “He just, bought me a few things.” In her defense, that’s all he did. He took her out, and made her feel like a teenager. Something she craved for once again. But now, looking at Michael, she was reminded she had to grow up sooner rather than later.

“He’s my therapist.”

“He’s more than a therapist, that’s clear.” She scoffed with an exasperated smile.

“And what is that supposed to mean?” He raised a brow, he let out a deep breath with flared nostrils and a rising temper that seemed to grow shorter with the days that passed by.

“Nothing.” Elizabeth smiled with just the right amount of sarcasm. She was, as she is, a child. A teenager still going through the motions of being a blooming person, still unsure of who or what she was.

Michael was quiet, for a long time he was quiet. The two leaning against the dark green car, with a tension in the air that seemed to solidify their dynamic. They wouldn’t be like father and daughter, they wouldn’t be a guardian and their guarded. No, they were more akin to siblings with a vast gap in age. They didn’t sugar coat, Michael didn’t know how to sugarcoat. 

However, it was in this silence, and the stare that Grohm gave from the corners of his eyes, that Elizabeth could see it before her. She knew everything. She peeled back that layer of professionalism and sneered at the truth that laid before her.

And then they silently got in that dark green car.

And she, and Michael, would start this new chapter, with a new wardrobe of clothing, new toiletries, a new bedroom with fresh sheets and comforter. All of which was still warm from the dryer.

She would lay her head on that pillow, tomorrow, she would walk into that building full of people her own age and she would take it with pride. She would take the comments and picking at her skin with confidence. She would make it through, she, would see it through.

But would Michael?

Sitting at his desk, and thinking over the copycat, how they mocked the pieces of art- no, the crimes, and everything they stood for. Art? Why did he think of them as art? Why did his heart want to run his fingers along the edges of open wounds and feel the moss and petals fold under his touch? He swallowed down, and rubbed his eyes.

But did this help? No.

Because when his eyes fluttered open, through long lashes he found himself in that field again. Heaving and coated in thick dark blood, it was cold, he could see his breath under the dismantling glow of the moon. The fog resting over the grass disturbed by his feet, which were bare. He waited there, waiting for that creature, with it’s rotting pelt and exposed skull.

He waited, he waited until he felt his fingers and feet go numb. And then, he could smell it.

He leaned his head back, letting the smell consume his lungs. Only, when nothing followed, when the feeling of scratching inside his bones didn’t come, when the feeling of claws ripping and tearing at him didn’t arrive, it almost felt worse. As if a routine had been thrown off.

His head lifted to look before him. Along the treeline, he saw the breath. Huffing and puffing like the wolf, something of a distance had formed. And for one reason or another, Michael stepped toward it. As if he craved it, as if he wanted to feel the shredding and cutting at his organs, he stepped closer. This time, it was He who closed the gap. It was Michael who closed the distance.

There they stood, face to face, and Michael reached out. He felt the squirming of bugs and larva under the fur, he felt the ruffle of feathers sparse through hair. He stared at the antlers, long and winding like tree branches, and he didn’t turn away.

Something was off.

Something was wrong.

But it wasn’t Grohm. It was Michael.