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selenakAka, the muse for some of the remaining prompts returned. For ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
violaswamp. Six Degrees from Darla (Angel the Series) to Dexter Morgan (Dexter). Spoilers for season 2 of Angel, mild spoilers for season 1 of Dexter and one by implication for season 2.
Investigations
I. DeEtta Kramer is small - petite, Kate’s mother would have said, and her father would have snorted and muttered something about pretentions – and has the kind of porcellain features that make Kate feel clumsy by comparison. Not right now, though. Right now, Mrs. Kramer is trembling, as she tearfully describes how Angel murdered her husband right in front of her. There might be a small voice of doubt in Kate – he’s many things but not stupid, and surely, he wouldn’t have killed the guy in front of this woman, or would have killed her, too? But she surpresses it. This, at last, confirms all her suspicions and gives the rage in her finally a justified target. She promises DeEtta Kramer she will make Angel pay. DeEtta’s eyes glitter with tears as she says: “Thank you, detective.”
Less than a minute later, DeEtta Kramer is gone, disappeared as if she had never existed.
II. “If you’re a real cop, you can spot killers, Katie,” Kate’s father used to say. “It’s the look in their eyes. Something is missing. Something human.” But Kate’s father used to say many things, and a good deal of them turned out not to be true. She doesn’t blame herself for not realising the woman pretending to be DeEtta Kramer was a serial killer with four centuries of a track record, for not sensing the inhumanity in Darla. What she does blame herself for are the deaths of the real DeEtta and her husband Stephen, who were killed several days ago in order to make their house available, and of an unemployed actor named Daniel Zoblowsky who apparantly took the part of Stephen Kramer because he sorely needed the cash. Nobody else will remember them; three more victims in a city that produces more dead on a nightly basis, even without counting the supernatural cases. Kate might be as crazy as her colleagues think she is, as pathetic and obsessed. But she will remember. She goes to the funeral of the Kramers, and pays for that of Daniel Zoblowsky because no one else will. And she knows: if she was a better cop, a real cop, she would have prevented this from happening.
III. After Kate tries to kill herself and is saved against all the odds, she decides she has been given another chance. She travels for a year, and then she goes back to being a cop. Not because of her father, or even because of Angel. Because she feels she still owes a debt to the Kramers and Zoblowskys of this world, to help prevent more of them getting killed. Not in Los Angeles, though. But she wants to be somewhere warm, because months in various climates that make three days without rain look like too much to ask for made her homesick for the sun, and since her life in Southern California left her with a decent command of Spanish, she decides on Miami.
IV. Kate gets transferred to Lt. LaGuerta’s unit because of the spectacular death that hit the headlines everywhere, and every cop gossips about. “Man, they must be cursed, that bunch. Or crazy, or both,” says someone in Kate’s old district. “Seriously. First one of their officers dates the Ice Truck Killer and then one of their detectives turns out to be the Bay Harbor Butcher! Jeez. Are you sure you want to work there?”
She could have said something about her own less than stellar record, but Kate these days keeps her head low and doesn’t argue with anyone. It’s easier this way, and allows her to do what she came here to do, discreetly. She doesn’t think the Ice Truck Killer and Bay Harbor Butcher thing is a coincidence, either. She’s just not sure whether it has anything to do with vampires.
V. After a month of getting to know LaGuerta and her people, Kate has just about given up on supernatural theories regarding that district’s connection with serial killers. Then the lab tech’s girlfriend shows up one day to whisk him away for lunch, and Kate freezes. It’s her, unmistabably her: DeEtta Kramer that wasn’t, Darla. She knows this face, this petite figure, the easily produced aura of vulnerability and the hidden menace underneath. The fact the woman is standing in daylight doesn’t mean anything; so did Darla then, and Kate let it fool her.
It takes all the discipline she has, but Kate somehow manages not to produce the stake she has hidden in her drawer and ram it into the woman’s heart. She doesn’t even move towards her. Instead, she strikes up a conversation with Mazuka, who is unable to keep his mouth shut even when there isn’t a female collegue to hit on. Kate learns that this woman is indeed Dexter Morgan’s girlfriend, Rita, single mother with two children and a dead, divorced husband who was in jail for abusing her. This means records, and Kate looks them up as well. There she is, photos taken on the day she finally called the police, battered; on the same evening, as it happens, that Darla and a brunette named Drusilla killed every shopgirl in a boutique and the owner, and then moved on to kill twenty five lawyers of Wolfram and Hart. Kate remembers the date very well. She let those deaths happen, too.
Not the same woman, then, no matter how alike they look. Of course, the record could be faked, or some memories could have been altered. Kate has seen these things happen. She has a choice now, again: go after Rita Bennet until she finds something to prove her suspicion, or let it go.
VI. It’s Bowling Night, first time Kate has been asked to come along. Everyone relaxes and unwinds, even the uptight lab guy, Dexter Morgan. She doesn’t ask him about his girlfriend. Kate has made her choice. The past is the past. There are new people to protect, here; she can’t allow herself to obsess about anything but this, ever again. Still, when she finds herself next to Dexter, it’s a bit tricky to find casual subjects to talk about. He doesn’t seem to be that good at chit-chat, either, despite his presence here. “So what made you become a cop,” he finally asks, and the fact that this is the default question for the socially awkward makes her give him a rueful grin and reply with the truth: “My dad, originally. Pretty much a cliché, huh?”
“Hey, same here,” Dexter says, and returns her grin. He’s good looking in a boy scout kind of way, but there is something odd about his eyes, Kate thinks. The smile doesn’t quite reach them. Then again, she knows all too well how mixed an affair the memory of one’s father the cop can be.
“It became something different later,” she says, dropping the smile and getting serious.
“Again, same here,” Dexter Morgan returns, still smiling. “Guess we’re all just walking, talking clichés.”
“Guess we are,” Kate says. Later this night, she’ll excuse herself and go over the records of the Bay Harbor Butcher again. Something doesn’t add up there, and maybe it’s a vampire, and maybe it isn’t, but whatever it is, she’ll pursue it based on evidence, not obsession. For now, she’ll continue bowling.
violaswamp. Six Degrees from Darla (Angel the Series) to Dexter Morgan (Dexter). Spoilers for season 2 of Angel, mild spoilers for season 1 of Dexter and one by implication for season 2. Investigations
I. DeEtta Kramer is small - petite, Kate’s mother would have said, and her father would have snorted and muttered something about pretentions – and has the kind of porcellain features that make Kate feel clumsy by comparison. Not right now, though. Right now, Mrs. Kramer is trembling, as she tearfully describes how Angel murdered her husband right in front of her. There might be a small voice of doubt in Kate – he’s many things but not stupid, and surely, he wouldn’t have killed the guy in front of this woman, or would have killed her, too? But she surpresses it. This, at last, confirms all her suspicions and gives the rage in her finally a justified target. She promises DeEtta Kramer she will make Angel pay. DeEtta’s eyes glitter with tears as she says: “Thank you, detective.”
Less than a minute later, DeEtta Kramer is gone, disappeared as if she had never existed.
II. “If you’re a real cop, you can spot killers, Katie,” Kate’s father used to say. “It’s the look in their eyes. Something is missing. Something human.” But Kate’s father used to say many things, and a good deal of them turned out not to be true. She doesn’t blame herself for not realising the woman pretending to be DeEtta Kramer was a serial killer with four centuries of a track record, for not sensing the inhumanity in Darla. What she does blame herself for are the deaths of the real DeEtta and her husband Stephen, who were killed several days ago in order to make their house available, and of an unemployed actor named Daniel Zoblowsky who apparantly took the part of Stephen Kramer because he sorely needed the cash. Nobody else will remember them; three more victims in a city that produces more dead on a nightly basis, even without counting the supernatural cases. Kate might be as crazy as her colleagues think she is, as pathetic and obsessed. But she will remember. She goes to the funeral of the Kramers, and pays for that of Daniel Zoblowsky because no one else will. And she knows: if she was a better cop, a real cop, she would have prevented this from happening.
III. After Kate tries to kill herself and is saved against all the odds, she decides she has been given another chance. She travels for a year, and then she goes back to being a cop. Not because of her father, or even because of Angel. Because she feels she still owes a debt to the Kramers and Zoblowskys of this world, to help prevent more of them getting killed. Not in Los Angeles, though. But she wants to be somewhere warm, because months in various climates that make three days without rain look like too much to ask for made her homesick for the sun, and since her life in Southern California left her with a decent command of Spanish, she decides on Miami.
IV. Kate gets transferred to Lt. LaGuerta’s unit because of the spectacular death that hit the headlines everywhere, and every cop gossips about. “Man, they must be cursed, that bunch. Or crazy, or both,” says someone in Kate’s old district. “Seriously. First one of their officers dates the Ice Truck Killer and then one of their detectives turns out to be the Bay Harbor Butcher! Jeez. Are you sure you want to work there?”
She could have said something about her own less than stellar record, but Kate these days keeps her head low and doesn’t argue with anyone. It’s easier this way, and allows her to do what she came here to do, discreetly. She doesn’t think the Ice Truck Killer and Bay Harbor Butcher thing is a coincidence, either. She’s just not sure whether it has anything to do with vampires.
V. After a month of getting to know LaGuerta and her people, Kate has just about given up on supernatural theories regarding that district’s connection with serial killers. Then the lab tech’s girlfriend shows up one day to whisk him away for lunch, and Kate freezes. It’s her, unmistabably her: DeEtta Kramer that wasn’t, Darla. She knows this face, this petite figure, the easily produced aura of vulnerability and the hidden menace underneath. The fact the woman is standing in daylight doesn’t mean anything; so did Darla then, and Kate let it fool her.
It takes all the discipline she has, but Kate somehow manages not to produce the stake she has hidden in her drawer and ram it into the woman’s heart. She doesn’t even move towards her. Instead, she strikes up a conversation with Mazuka, who is unable to keep his mouth shut even when there isn’t a female collegue to hit on. Kate learns that this woman is indeed Dexter Morgan’s girlfriend, Rita, single mother with two children and a dead, divorced husband who was in jail for abusing her. This means records, and Kate looks them up as well. There she is, photos taken on the day she finally called the police, battered; on the same evening, as it happens, that Darla and a brunette named Drusilla killed every shopgirl in a boutique and the owner, and then moved on to kill twenty five lawyers of Wolfram and Hart. Kate remembers the date very well. She let those deaths happen, too.
Not the same woman, then, no matter how alike they look. Of course, the record could be faked, or some memories could have been altered. Kate has seen these things happen. She has a choice now, again: go after Rita Bennet until she finds something to prove her suspicion, or let it go.
VI. It’s Bowling Night, first time Kate has been asked to come along. Everyone relaxes and unwinds, even the uptight lab guy, Dexter Morgan. She doesn’t ask him about his girlfriend. Kate has made her choice. The past is the past. There are new people to protect, here; she can’t allow herself to obsess about anything but this, ever again. Still, when she finds herself next to Dexter, it’s a bit tricky to find casual subjects to talk about. He doesn’t seem to be that good at chit-chat, either, despite his presence here. “So what made you become a cop,” he finally asks, and the fact that this is the default question for the socially awkward makes her give him a rueful grin and reply with the truth: “My dad, originally. Pretty much a cliché, huh?”
“Hey, same here,” Dexter says, and returns her grin. He’s good looking in a boy scout kind of way, but there is something odd about his eyes, Kate thinks. The smile doesn’t quite reach them. Then again, she knows all too well how mixed an affair the memory of one’s father the cop can be.
“It became something different later,” she says, dropping the smile and getting serious.
“Again, same here,” Dexter Morgan returns, still smiling. “Guess we’re all just walking, talking clichés.”
“Guess we are,” Kate says. Later this night, she’ll excuse herself and go over the records of the Bay Harbor Butcher again. Something doesn’t add up there, and maybe it’s a vampire, and maybe it isn’t, but whatever it is, she’ll pursue it based on evidence, not obsession. For now, she’ll continue bowling.
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Date: 2008-02-16 08:17 pm (UTC)Thank you!
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Date: 2008-05-13 05:53 pm (UTC)I reviewed all episodes of the second season and several of the first, and there are two essays about aspects of s1, all of which you should find under the dexter tag...