fic: Eric Foreman and the Mysterious Case of the Postcard Killer

[rubberbutton.livejournal.com]

Title: Eric Foreman and the Mysterious Case of the Postcard Killer
Rating: PG, Gen
Words: 2,000
Notes: #194. Ever since his ex said "For your birthday, I'm breaking up with you" Foreman's been surprisingly down. Character A tries to cheer him up.

THURSDAY, MAY 31^st, 2:16 PM

Foreman strode into the diagnostics conference room. House had clocked out an hour ago, leaving the fellows with the heavy lifting of a battery of time-consuming tests that required the more unpleasant body secretions. Cameron was in the lab now, waiting for the latest batch of results, but Chase was present, bent over an article that may or may not have pertained to the case.

“Here. This is for you,” Chase said, without looking up from the page he was reading and brandishing a piece of paper in Foreman’s general direction.

Foreman took it uncertainly. It was a cheap, pale brown paper towel—doubtlessly one from the dispenser beside the sink. There was writing, he realized and his heart sank as he recognized the neat, cramped handwriting.

Eric,
For your birthday, I’m breaking up with you.
            -Tia

His girlfriend. Ex-girlfriend. He crumpled the towel and tossed it into the trash can.

Chase finally looked up, his expression slightly guilty, as if he’d just broken up with Foreman and wasn’t just the messenger. “She said she’d called...”

Foreman nodded once; she had called. Five times in the past two hours, actually. He’d assumed she’d only wanted to bitch about the date he’d broken for tonight. He’d already told her he had to work.

“You talked to her?” Foreman asked, subdued.

“Well, sort of. It was more like she talked at me, but, yeah, words were exchanged.” Chase winced at the memory of the tongue-lashing he’d received in Foreman’s place.

“I can imagine,” Foreman said, his tone nearly apologetic. “Is Cameron back with the Epstein-Barr results yet?”

“No.” Chase shifted uncomfortably, rubbing a greasy streak on the tabletop. “Are you okay?”

“Yes, I’m fine,” Foreman snapped irritably.

“Because if you need to talk...”

“I don’t and if I did, you would be the last person I’d want to talk to. So spare me your Counselor Troi routine.”

“Sure, no problem. Excuse me.” Foreman felt a momentary twinge of remorse at Chase’s obvious offense.

“I’m going to go check on those results, you keep doing...whatever it is you’re doing.” He left before he could catch the wounded expression this time.


FRIDAY, JUNE 1^st, 1:28 PM

Foreman watched the TV listing slowly scroll down the screen; he’d been watching the TV Guide Channel for the past forty-five minutes. There wasn’t anything on and he wouldn’t have the energy to focus on it if there were. The end table beside him was covered in a scatter of abandoned journals he’d given up trying to read. He’d already tried to sleep, too, but though he felt exhausted, his mind kept turning over and over in worried circles. There was no use in staring at the back of his eyelids. And he kept coming back to his break up with Tia, despite his efforts to avoid that subject. It was stupid to think about it—it’d never been a serious relationship and he’d been thinking about ending it himself, anyway.

He got up and went out to the kitchen, hesitating over a half-empty bottle of Merlot and instead getting out the bottle of Jack Daniels stashed under the sink. He poured himself a generous portion and watched it slosh against the side of the glass before downing it. He poured another and took it and the bottle out to the living room and setting it within easy reach on the coffee table.

He was still in good enough condition to make it to the door when someone knocked loudly, but not without steadying himself with the back of the couch once. Chase stood there, hands shoved deep into the pockets of his trousers. He looked distinctly unhappy. Foreman imagined he was wearing a similar expression.

“House insists he needs you now. You’ve turned off your phone.” That last bit took on an accusatory timbre.

Foreman misbalanced and grabbed the doorframe to steady himself, trying to cover it as casual leaning. “Right, tell him I’ll be in shhhortly.”

Chase’s look was suspicious. “Are you drunk?”

“No,” Foreman scowled. “I had a few drinks.”

Chase leaned in a bit and his eyes widened. “You reek. You’ve practically got alcohol oozing out of your pores.”

Foreman pushed Chase way self-consciously. “I’ll be fine in an hour, all right?” As Chase stepped back, Foreman turned the gesture into a pleading one. “I’ll come in then.”

“No.” Chase’s mouth twisted unhappily. “Look, don’t come in. Go to bed; I’ll make up something to tell House. You should get some sleep and come in tomorrow.” He sighed shortly. “You won’t be useful before then anyway.”

Foreman fought the urge to argue—Chase was right. There was no way he’d survive a DDX in this condition, let alone contribute. And House would never let him forget it, either. That was what really decided him; he nodded.

“Thanks,” he muttered.

“No problem,” Chase said. “I’m sure you’d do the same for me.” Foreman could tell Chase didn’t believe that any more than Foreman himself.

“Good night,” he managed and shut the door.


WEDNESDAY, JUNE 6^th, 8:36 PM

Foreman peered through the tiny window into his mailbox to ascertain that there was actually mail within. There was; he sighed and fit the tiny key into the finicky lock. With a delicate twist-and-jimmy, he pulled the door open, retrieved the assorted envelopes and shut it again with a metallic snick.

After a quick look at the nearly constant out-of-order posted on the aging elevator, he took the stairs. His foot falls were automatic and he let his attention skim over the envelops in his hand—bills, mostly, and the American Neurological Association’s newsletter. At the bottom of the stack, however, was a postcard. That was interesting; his family and friends weren’t the postcard sending kind.

He flipped it over to read the message only to find that there wasn’t any. It was blank. The postage stamp was a picture of pink azalea flowers. The postage mark revealed both that it had been sent locally and that it had taken the post office four days to process it and get it here from the downtown center. No wonder everyone used email—it probably would have been faster for the sender to walk it over here.

Foreman turned the card back over, looking for some clue to the sender’s identity. The front was a photograph of a white sands beach made blinding by the bright sun, young men and women in bikinis that were testing most decency laws partied along the shore. Lime green script in the corner proclaimed “Ft. Lauderdale, The Place to Be Spring Break 1993!”

That wasn’t exactly a help. He let himself into his apartment and set the rest of the mail on the kitchen counter to be dealt with later. He turned the card over, but it refused to yield further information. The address was written in smudged blue ink; the handwriting nearly illegible. It was distinctive but not familiar. Irritably he tossed it in the trash. If some joker was playing a prank on him him, he wasn’t going to give them the satisfaction of a reaction.

He heated some leftovers and sat in front of the TV, flipping through the channels without actually watching any one. Half way through dinner, he got up and went back to the kitchen. Reaching into the trash he recovered the card, shaking off coffee grounds with a look of disgust.

The card was as blank now as it had been earlier. Maybe some kind of invisible ink? He turned it under the light, looking for some kind of resin or variation across the surface that indicated hidden writing, but it was even and unmarred, except for the new coffee ground stain. He looked again at the picture on the front—for some kind of message in the pattern of the waves, the faces of the cavorting co-eds. Still nothing.

His fingers drummed against the counter top, his frustration growing. Conceding a temporary draw, he stuck the postcard to the fridge with a magnet. He’d figure it out in the morning.

SATURDAY, JUNE 16^th, 10:54 AM

Foreman still hadn’t figured it out by the weekend and the problem had compounded itself. There were four postcards lined up on the fridge and a fifth had just arrived in the mail. He glanced at the back out of habit but it was blank as he’d expected. The ink was black, but in the same scribbled hand.

The front was an art print, something vaguely familiar, a ghostly woman awash in a gown of geometric gold. He checked the back, unable to remember back to the one art history course he’d taken as an undergrad. Porträt der Adele Bloch-Bauer, Gustav Klimt.

Foreman considered this in conjunction with the “Sheep of the British Isles,” a picture of Old Faithful and a “Constellations of the Northern Hemisphere,” which actually glowed in the dark. Foreman stepped back, examining the row and waited for the pattern to jump out at him. No pattern emerged. He rearranged them and considered again. Nothing. there was no pattern and it was driving him crazy. Were they some sort of romantic overtures? Threats? They seemed neither romantic nor threatening, but there was something about this anonymous attention. He’d be the first victim of the Postcard Killer.

Then again, maybe not.

He tried putting the first letter of each card into some sort of anagram. He got out an atlas and connected the dots between locations—disregarding the constellation one—but only ended up with an erratic trapezoid. He leaned against the counter and studied the refrigerator instillation.

He had a long weekend ahead of him.

TUESDAY, JUNE 26^th,  7:13 AM

By the end of the month, Foreman had not figured out the mystery, in fact, it had grown. Now not only was he getting postcards in the mail, but was also finding them in other odd locations—on the steps of his apartment, under the windshield wipers of his car, tucked in pages of a magazine left at the Nurses’ Station. These weren’t addressed, they could have been meant for anyone, but Foreman found the circumstances too suspicious to really believe that.

Foreman stopped in the foyer of PPTH, pressing himself all stealthy-like to the wall just next to the sliding doors. He could just see his car, just sitting there, waiting to be post-carded.

After fifteen minutes, his secret agent bit was quickly getting old. Resolving to investigate later over a coffee break, he retreated to change into his scrubs.

“Hey!” Foreman yelled, entering the locker room and seeing a figure fiddling with the lock. He was tired of having his lunch stolen.

The figure—Chase, Foreman realized with surprise—jumped  and twisted around to face Foreman, his expression as guilty as sin. “Oh hey, Foreman.” He stuffed his hands in the pockets of his lab coat quickly. “You’re here early.”

“Yeah,” Foreman answered. “Obviously here earlier than you expected.”

“I don’t know what you’re on about,” Chase said, making an effort to pass by Foreman.

Foreman grabbed Chase’s elbow to prevent escape and held out his free hand. “Give it here.”

Chase frowned and looked down at the hand on his arm, gauging the amount of force needed to free himself; Foreman tightened his grip. Chase sighed shortly and rectangular card into Foreman’s palm. Foreman let him go to study it, while Chase rubbed his arm with an excessively wounded expression.

“This is a postcard of a duckling sitting on a St. Bernard,” he said, his voice somewhere between incredulity and annoyance.

Chase nodded. “I thought it was funny.”

“You’ve got to be kidding me,” Foreman managed, looking from the postcard to Chase and back.

“Aw, come on, everyone loves ducklings,” Chase protested.

“No, I mean, you’re my secret admirer?”

“Not admirer,” Chase replied, shifting his weight from foot to foot sheepishly. “More like secret...friend.”

“’Secret friend’ isn’t an improvement.” The edges of the page were frayed and its dye had faded, the well-worn creases in the paper spoke of much use and Foreman wondered how long Chase had been holding onto it. “What is this, Chase?” Foreman demanded.

“I just wanted to make you feel better.” Chase shrugged a little helplessly. “You’re a pain in the ass when you’re lovelorn and stuff.”

Foreman blinked. “And you thought postcards and cookies were going to fix that?”

Chase tucked his hands into his pockets again and smirked. “They did.”

Foreman thought about it and realized to his surprise that Chase was right. What with the obsessing about the mystery gifts, he hadn’t had time to obsess about his ex. “I...uh, thanks,” he said finally.

Chase nodded, “No problem. That’s what secret friends are for.”