all the angels

December 10th, 1992

Alicent closes and locks the door behind them as Rhaenyra stands awkwardly in her foyer, hands in the pocket of her jacket as she spins on her heel to look at Alicent. Alicent who, since stepping foot into the house, has just been standing at the threshold with wide eyes and saying nothing. She’s far too focused on the fact that someone is in her house—not just anyone, but Rhaenyra. Rhaenyra, who she barely knows. It’s overwhelming. She feels unclean. She immediately removes her jacket and hangs it on the hook by the door and toes off her shoes, keeping them neatly on the rack she keeps. It’s empty save for her pair. 

“If you could please take off your jacket and shoes,” Alicent finally speaks, shuddering slightly. 

“Yeah, yeah,” Rhaenyra mutters, watching Alicent with careful eyes. Alicent knows how a detective’s mind works—Rhaenyra is probably staring at her, interpreting her body language, trying to figure out what is so wrong about having someone in Alicent’s house. She won’t figure it out, no one bothers to figure it out. Even so, she knows Rhaenyra will spend the rest of the evening trying. 

She watches as Rhaenyra shrugs off her jacket and places her shoes very carefully on the rack beside Alicent and for the first time since Rhaenyra entered the home, Alicent takes a deep breath. She closes her eyes, counting to three in her mind before opening them again, trying to steady her breathing. “Would you like something to drink? I have… coffee. And water. Or whiskey, but that might be for after we watch these tapes.” 

“Alicent… do you have a problem with having people in your house?” Rhaenyra asks the question Alicent has been dreading, her voice casual as she rolls her sleeves up to her elbows. Alicent’s eyes stick to the easy way she undoes her cuffs and folds them up, redoing the buttons without even really looking at them. Rhaenyra has strong forearms, Alicent is realizing, she can see the lithe muscle lingering beneath the surface. A side effect of the training everyone is required to accomplish before they become an agent, Alicent figures. Most of them get in the habit of maintaining a firm physique one way or another. 

“Coffee or water?” Alicent asks instead, pushing past Rhaenyra into the kitchen, flicking on the warm yellow light. Her house is newer but not new, a remnant of the seventies and it shows in the plethora of wood paneling and warm-toned cabinets. Alicent likes it. Likes the manufactured warmth in a place that is always so cold. 

“Coffee,” Rhaenyra answers, following her into the kitchen and leaning against the wall of the rounded archway that separates the living room and kitchen. “Will you answer my question now?”

“I do not like people in my space,” Alicent answers, her voice strained as she puts on a pot. She focuses her gaze on her movements so she does not have to look at Rhaenyra. She can feel the woman’s eyes boring holes into the back of her neck and she refuses to meet such a piercing, curious gaze. “No one has been in here. My space is very… it is important to me that my space is maintained and that it is mine.”

She finally turns to see Rhaenyra nodding thoughtfully, arms crossed as something seems to click in her mind. “Wait… no one has been in your house ever?”

Alicent shakes her head. “My space is my own. I’ve been told I have… control issues.”

She knows why—she never bothered with therapy, therapy makes her feel more crazy than she already is. She’s already far too aware of everything that is wrong with her, she doesn’t need to pay someone to repeat it back to her. As a child, her space was violated again and again and again. As an adult, she can make sure that does not happen. Which means Alicent does not let anyone in. Anyone. 

“You’re very off-putting when you want to be,” Rhaenyra comments as Alicent watches the coffee begin to drip into the pot. The smell fills the kitchen almost immediately and Alicent relishes in the small comfort, trying to ground herself as nails dig into the counter. She has a slight flashback—nails digging into the wood of her door, sometimes ripping clean off in her haste and violence. Alicent shudders.

“Thanks. You’ve told me that before,” Alicent huffs, her gaze turning to the wide window behind her sink. It’s snowing outside, a new layer of white overtaking the last one. Alicent likes the snow. She hates the summer now. She’s hated it ever since July. “Could you go wait in the living room? Please don’t touch anything, just the couch is fine.”

“Of course,” Rhaenyra mumbles, her voice distant as Alicent listens to her leave. As soon as the woman is gone, Alicent takes another deep breath, head hanging, watching the coffee. Alicent closes her eyes tight enough to start seeing stars before allowing herself to open them again. 

She gets down two mugs from the cabinet—she really never wanted to buy more than one, but the mug she wanted came in a set which means now she has two. Only one of them has ever been used, until now. She washes them both under the warm water of the sink, just in case, before drying them off with a clean towel as the coffee finishes brewing. She pours two mugs and places the pot down with a shudder, preparing herself. 

“I drink mine black, but there’s milk in the fridge, just let me know if you need some and I can get it for you,” Alicent says as she walks back out to the living room where Rhaenyra is sitting straight up on the couch, hands folded in her lap. She appreciates that Rhaenyra listens to her, that she’s being as mindful as she can be. It’s small, but it’s nice. It’s probably more than she deserves. 

“Black is fine,” Rhaenyra nods, taking the mug eagerly as Alicent pulls out a coaster from the coffee table drawer and places it on the end table for Rhaenyra. She’s acutely aware of Rhaenyra watching her every move, but she’s trying not to think about it. 

Alicent’s coffee goes untouched as she reaches for the tapes, sitting down on the carpet in front of her cassette player. She reads the labels Harrold provided carefully, finding the one that covers the hours of seven to nine on Monday night.  

As soon as the tape is in and the television is on, Alicent turns, patting the spot on the carpet beside her. A closer look will be good and she needs the second pair of eyes. Rhaenyra looks unsure, but at Alicent’s insistence, moves towards the carpet. She sits cross-legged, her knee bumping against Alicent’s and she sucks in a breath at the touch. 

The image flickers to life—a nearly static image of the parking lot. Nothing moves except for the falling of the snow. 

“What time did we leave again?” Rhaenyra asks, gripping her coffee mug carefully in her lap. Alicent watches it, making sure she doesn’t spill.

“Eight, I think,” Alicent says, but she feels unsure. “I know it was before nine. I don’t know. This one should be it.” 

She fast forwards a little bit until the time in the corner reads around 7:45. Her eyes search the frame for any movement, chin resting on the remote as she watches. There’s nothing yet, but Alicent doesn’t fast forward again. She and Rhaenyra just watch the tape in stark silence. Watching the snowfall is making her anxious and she wonders if her eyes will begin to craft images, if she’ll see something that’s not really there. 

At 8:17, there’s a flicker of movement, just barely in the frame at all as if something was pressed up against the door. That must be what the two of them saw just before leaving. Rhaenyra grabs her arm, seeing the same thing she does. Alicent swallows the lump in her throat, trying to be okay with Rhaenyra touching her. Her skin burns beneath her shirt and she begins to itch. 

“That’s just the same thing we saw,” Alicent huffs, annoyed. She stands up, hands on her hips as she begins to pace around the living room, reaching for her coffee even though caffeine is probably the worst thing she should be having right now. “They had to have been deliberately avoiding the cameras, sticking to the bushes and trees and finding the blind spots.” 

“Fuck,” Rhaenyra breathes out, watching on the camera as she and Alicent enter the frame. The snowfall on the screen makes it difficult to make out anything super distinct anyway, landing on the camera and blurring the frame. Alicent should have known they wouldn’t be so lucky as to catch their killer on camera. Or killers. Alicent hasn’t forgotten about that theory, hasn’t allowed herself to let go of it yet no matter how she wants to. Rhaenyra keeps watching the tape as Alicent continues to pace around the living room.

“I just don’t know what they gain from watching us,” Alicent sighs, undoing her ponytail and redoing it. 

“Why do you do that?” Rhaenyra asks, looking away from the footage.

Alicent pauses, a hand still adjusting her hair. “Do what?”

“Your hair,” Rhaenyra comments, nodding towards her fixing her ponytail. “You’ll undo it just to redo it when you’re thinking. Why?”

“I don’t know, I just do. Stop asking questions about me,” Alicent spits, pausing in her pacing to reach for her coffee once more. God, she needs a cigarette. 

Rhaenyra hums, turning back to the screen and sipping her coffee. “I like to know things about my partner. Besides, you have a ridiculous culmination of nervous tics, it’s interesting. You act surprised, like we aren’t detectives.”

“I am not a mystery for you to solve, Rhaenyra,” she huffs, feeling far too observed. She hates it. She hates feeling like a cell beneath a microscope, a mouse in a maze. “We have a very real serial killer to catch, I think you can focus on something other than why I undo and redo my hair while I’m thinking.” 

When she looks up, Rhaenyra is already looking at her. She feels scrutinized beneath her gaze, like an experiment. She snaps, “What?”

“You interest me, Alicent,” Rhaenyra whispers, sounding far too earnest. More earnest than Alicent knows what to do with. 

Something catches Alicent’s eye on the tape. She snaps, pointing at the screen. “There. Go back.” 

Rhaenyra whips around quickly, reaching for the remote Alicent had abandoned and rewinding the tape. It’s 8:35 and the two of them have already pulled away in Alicent’s car. Barely there at all in the corner of the screen is a flash of something, Alicent can barely make it out. She stands, bent over so her face is practically pressed up against where the screen is paused on the flash. It’s difficult to make out and it’s certainly no full figure that’ll give them an apt description, but it’s proof. 

Alicent plays the tape again, watching it play out. Footprints form in the snow as the figure walks off screen, cloaked in what looks like a thick black jacket with a hood pulled up. It’s not the most helpful thing in the world, in fact, it’s fairly useless, but Alicent grabs the nearest pad of paper and writes down the time anyway. 

“Do you think they’re just trying to scare us?” Rhaenyra asks, “I mean, there’s no way they’d be able to actually get into the offices, not without being let in. The only thing I can think of is if they walked around to our window and tried to get a look at our board, but I don’t know if there’s any footage of that. 

“There’s a chance they were there to kill us,” Alicent breathes out, turning to face Rhaenyra with her hands on her hips. “Whoever it was could have very well been there to kill us, Rhaenyra.” 

Rhaenyra just sits there with her hands back against the carpet, leaning back and looking up at Alicent. “Why back off? Maybe they didn’t realize we’d both be there, but that seems like an oversight. Clearly, if they’d been tracking our behavior at all, they’d know we don’t go many places without each other these days. I don’t know, this is all… odd.” 

Alicent nods, “You can say that again.” 

“You know—” Rhaenyra begins, rising to her feet and taking her mug of coffee with her. She’s getting more and more used to the image of Rhaenyra in her home, of having someone else here. “I apologize if my questions make you uncomfortable, Alicent. You strike me as someone who doesn’t get questioned often.” 

“I’m not,” Alicent confirms, crossing her arms and heading over to the couch. Rhaenyra doesn’t move, just watching her. “You say I interest you, why?”

“You’re a fascinating person,” Rhaenyra says, tilting her head. “Do you know that? There’s something about you, a piece of you I just can’t figure out. You remind me a lot of the person we’re looking for, are you aware of that?”

“Are you implying I’m the killer?” Alicent asks with a scoff. It would be easier if she was because then at least she’d know who fucking did it.

Rhaenyra shakes her head. “Not at all, but you understand them, don’t you? A prodigal son, returning. You hate that you crave it, the faith. Why did you go to the church that night? Real answer.” 

Alicent just stares at her, hands folded in her lap and eye twitching. “I could… feel that something was wrong. I was standing here, in this room, staring at my case files, staring at images of these mutilated corpses, the notes, all of it and I knew there was something I was missing. Something new for me to find. All I could think was that if I was better—if I hadn’t stopped saying my prayers, if I hadn’t stopped going to church then maybe I would be able to figure this out. It… I don’t know how to explain it. Most people just assume I’m crazy.”

“Well, you might be crazy, but that doesn’t mean you’re wrong,” Rhaenyra says with a shrug, finally standing up from the carpet and going to sit beside her on the couch. “You’re definitely the most… odd partner I’ve had, but your mind is… you’re something else, Hightower.”

Alicent hums, propping her chin up on her palm as her elbows brace against her lap. She turns to face Rhaenyra, asking, “Is that supposed to be a compliment?” 

“Well, you’re the best agent I’ve ever worked with, so yes.”

“We haven’t even solved the case yet,” she huffs, turning to look at the paused screen in front of them. “At this rate, we’ll have at least five new bodies before we do. Nothing has ever stumped me this long. I don’t know what’s wrong with me. I feel like I’m just… waiting for them to reveal themselves.” 

Rhaenyra nods. “It’s… a frustrating one. And I’ve only just gotten started on it. But I think we can figure it out. Look, let’s just—let’s just take a moment. Think about something else.” 

Alicent scoffs, rising from the couch and reaching for the remote before shutting off the television all together. She heads back into the kitchen, dumping the coffee out of her mug before opening her liquor cabinet and grabbing out a bottle of whiskey, subsequently pouring a healthy amount into the mug. She brings the bottle out into the living room, motioning for Rhaenyra to hand her the empty mug. 

Alicent places the bottle down, sitting on the couch—this time facing Rhaenyra, tucking herself into a cross-legged position as both hands wrap around the mug and she takes a sip. “Will you tell me why you left New York? Did it have something to do with the Bureau?”

“Not… exactly,” Rhaenyra sighs, every part of her body tensing up. “It’s not as fucked up as my partner getting brutally murdered, but I was… seeing someone. My… superior.”

Alicent hides her surprise behind a sip of whiskey. “And?”

“She was older,” Rhaenyra adds, chewing on her lip as she looks anywhere but Alicent. “And had a husband. It was… not the healthiest relationship of mine. She threatened to have my badge if anyone found out about us, but every time I tried to put an end to it, she would threaten the same. So, I was a little trapped.”

“Until you put in a transfer?” Alicent asks, tilting her head. 

Rhaenyra grimaces, “Well, her husband found out and told me he would bash my head in if he ever saw me again. She was fired and I asked to leave New York. It’s—it’s fine, I mean, I was the one that started things between us. It’s my fault.”

“Rhaenyra,” Alicent reaches out, a hand finding Rhaenyra’s thigh through her pant leg. She isn’t sure why she feels the need to comfort Rhaenyra, but the woman’s unease is becoming her own and she needs to do something about it. “It wasn’t. It wasn’t your fault.” 

The woman just shakes her head, taking a hearty sip of her whiskey and averting her gaze. After a moment, though, her hand rests atop Alicent’s, wrapping her fingers around hers. Alicent shudders at the touch, but doesn’t dare pull away, Rhaenyra’s eyes finally meeting hers. “Thanks, Hightower. And I appreciate you being cool with the whole, you know, women, thing. Most people I’ve worked with couldn’t stand the fact that I was a woman, let alone slept with them, too.”

Alicent can’t help but blush, pulling her hand back and wrapping it around the safety of her mug once more. “Oh, it’s—there are bigger things to worry about. I’ve never cared much about stuff like that.”

“Have you ever… dated?” Rhaenyra asks, leaning back and drinking what’s left of her mug. “Like, at all?”

“No,” Alicent shakes her head. Rhaenyra’s eyebrows raise and Alicent finds herself rolling her eyes. “No, I was never good for it. I can see the look on your face, I’m not so Catholic as to save myself for marriage, I have had sex, it’s just… terrible.” 

Alicent lingers on her brief affairs—back when she was young and in the academy, her colleagues would invite her out to drinks, mainly out of courtesy more so than them actually wanted to spend time with her. Men would approach her at bars and she would go home with them because it was better than sitting and nursing a drink around a group of people that called her a freak behind her back. She never let them see her undress, not fully. And she never let them touch her, not outside of the obvious. She didn’t seek out sex any longer. She never really sought it out in the first place. 

“I used to feel that way,” Rhaenyra laughs, reaching for the bottle of whiskey and pouring herself a little more. Alicent watches her—the glint of her watch in the lamplight, a strong hand around the bottle, lips wrapping around the edge of a mug. “Then, I just started having sex with women.” 

Alicent drums her fingers against her mug, contemplating. She’d never thought about it from that angle. Of course, she couldn’t. Not for herself. Alicent was not Rhaenyra. She could never possess the ease nor the confidence with which Rhaenyra carried herself. “I suppose that’s one way to go about it.” 

Rhaenyra just looks at her for a long moment before a slow laugh begins to bubble out of her, escalating from a gentle chuckle to a real fit of laughter. It’s not long before Alicent can’t help but join her, overtaken by the contagiousness of it. The two of them sit like that—mugs of whiskey on the couch, just laughing. 

When she regains her composure, Rhaenyra says, “You’re not so bad, you know. Quirks and all.” 

“I’ve spent the last thirty years being called a freak behind my back and to my face, you don’t need to say fake things to me, Rhaenyra,” Alicent sighs, pouring herself another glass of whiskey. She undoes her hair and this time does not put it back into a ponytail. Rhaenyra’s eyes trace her movements, watching every curl fall into place. 

“I mean it,” Rhaenyra shakes her head, looking at Alicent as if she were being ridiculous. “You don’t get into this business if you’re not at least a little bit of a freak, you just don’t bother to hide it.”

This causes Alicent to bark out a laugh. “If only you knew the things I was really hiding.” 

“Tell me one, then,” Rhaenyra asks, tilting her head. She stretches out one of her legs until a socked foot brushes against Alicent’s thigh. If they drink any more whiskey, Rhaenyra will have to stay the night. Alicent doesn’t make a move to stop either of them. 

“My mother died when I was twelve,” Alicent admits. “My father was a religious zealot, he believed God was punishing him, that he had been too lax with his children and so God took his wife, the mother of them. He was already firm before, but something changed after she died. In all of us. That’s why I stopped going to church after he died. It was forced upon me for so long, but I felt… I felt like as long as he breathed, he’d still be watching me, he’d know if I hadn’t been. He’s gone now, but sometimes…” She drifts off, thinking about the night she’d found David. “Sometimes, I can still feel his eyes on my neck.” 

“Jesus,” Rhaenyra breathes out, just staring at her. “I can see why you want to figure out this case so badly.”

Alicent comes back to herself, shaking herself out of it as her eyes meet Rhaenyra’s. She places her mug on the table and takes Rhaenyra’s from her as well. Their fingers brush as she does so. “You shouldn’t drink any more if you want to make it back to your motel.”

“Hey, Alicent,” Rhaenyra’s voice is soft, so soft, as she reaches out and grabs Alicent’s wrist, forcing the woman to look at her. “Thank you for telling me that. I like… I like when you let me get to know you. When you don’t make me figure it out myself.”

She tries to muster up a smile, but it feels forced as she gazes down upon Rhaenyra. “I’m not… I’m not someone you want to know, Rhaenyra.”

“I beg to differ.” Rhaenyra’s grip on her wrist is firm, but not forceful, thumb brushing gently against her skin. “I like you, Alicent. And I’m not lying when I say that. I think… I think after this case is done, I’d like to continue to work together.”

Her statement catches Alicent off guard, something unknown fluttering in her stomach. Usually, most of her partners were simply biding their time until they could get another assignment. David was the only one that stuck around and Alicent had a feeling that had more to do with the fact that he viewed her as eye candy more than anything else. She still hasn’t forgotten the way David’s wife had looked at her at the funeral. A chill runs down her spine when she thinks of it now.

“Thank you, Rhaenyra,” she breathes out, the words surprised yet still earnest. “I think I’d like that as well.” 

Rhaenyra lets go of her, rising to her feet and heading for the foyer to grab her jacket and shoes, sensing that Alicent is softly trying to kick her out. She thinks she should feel more disturbed by the fact that Rhaenyra manages to read her better than anyone she’s met, but she doesn’t. It’s almost… endearing. Rhaenyra is careful with her, more careful than most, but not in the way most are—like they’re afraid of Alicent, keeping her at arm’s length. 

“And thank you,” Rhaenyra says again, one hand lingering on the doorknob. Alicent stands in the living room, arms at her sides, watching her go. “For letting me into your space.”

“Goodnight, Rhaenyra,” is all Alicent says. 

Rhaenyra opens the door and Alicent meets her in the doorway, nodding her goodbyes. She watches, scanning the yard as Rhaenyra heads to her car, creating new footprints in the snow-covered walkway. Alicent stares out at the darkness and prays it does not stare back again. She watches as Rhaenyra gets in her car, headlights slicing the dark with two shining beams. She stares until she disappears down the street. Alicent peers into the darkness once more, once more to be sure, before she slams the door and locks it. 

Her space is her own again, as it always has been and always will continue to be. Yet, she looks at the two empty mugs on the coffee table, paired with a half-empty bottle of whiskey, and an odd sadness begins to strike her. Alicent pushes it down and begins to clean.