all the angels

December 15th, 1992

Alicent stares straight ahead, everything around her reduced to white noise—not even static, just a steady drone in her mind drowning everything else out. She thinks Rhaenyra might be speaking, but she isn’t sure. All she can hear are memories. 

(“You look just like your mother in certain lights,” her father would say sometimes, affectionately but only after a drink. After two, he would get angry again, his expression would harden and he would utter, “The whore.”) 

(“You can’t leave,” a teenaged Alicent begged her older brother—spots still on her face and tears down her cheeks. 

“I have to, I’ll come back,” he promised—he always promised.) 

(A door slams. Again and again. Her bedroom door, lock turning. Rhaenyra leaving through the front door). 

“Special Agent Hightower? Alicent?” Rhaenyra’s voice cuts through her haze, just barely—as if Alicent were underwater. It comes through again, sharper this time, “Alicent.” 

“Apologies,” Alicent returns to herself, only slightly, blinking out of her stupor. There’s a cup of coffee in her hand she doesn’t remember grabbing. She tries to think if she remembers waking up this morning, looking down at her outfit—that’s right. Rhaenyra. This morning she had woken up with Rhaenyra in her home. Alicent skews her gaze into her now, trying to focus her eyes and coalesce where she is now with the events of this morning. She clears her throat, remembering her frustration as it all floods back to her now. She works to keep her voice professional. “All right, Special Agent Targaryen, let’s go.” 

Rhaenyra fixes her with a look as if to say ‘really?’ but Alicent doesn’t relent. The one lesson her father taught her that actually stuck was how to hold a grudge. It’s not so much that she cares about Rhaenyra’s family line or what she uses it for, it’s that she didn’t tell Alicent. Right when Alicent was finally beginning to open up to her—something Alicent has never done with anyone in her life until now, she drops that and Alicent feels as if the floor has opened up beneath her. She knows Rhaenyra can’t help who her father is, of course Alicent understands that, but after all they’ve shared, she can’t believe Rhaenyra let that little truth slip through the cracks. 

Alicent just opens the door and steps into the room where two young girls—very nearly identical yet not quite—sit at a table and stare at them. Off to the side is their aunt who will be supervising and whose appearance is really the only reason anything they get from these girls will be admissible in court. 

“Hi, girls,” Rhaenyra greets warmly, pulling out one of the chairs and settling down. 

Alicent, however, remains on edge. She stands by the door, listening to the telltale click of it shutting behind her. Hairs on the back of her neck stand on end and she grips the coffee in her hand so tightly she begins to see dents in the paper. The girls are both looking straight at her.

Rhaenyra notices, her eyes darting between the girls and Alicent before turning to the twins. “I’m Special Agent Targaryen, this is my partner Special Agent Hightower. You might remember us, we spoke to your father—”

“We know you,” one of them—Alicent thinks it might be Adelaide, but she isn’t entirely sure. “Our father didn’t like you very much. Thought you were weird.”

She’s still looking at Alicent—Alicent who hasn’t managed to get a single word out which means maybe Richard Gould is onto something. It’s nothing Alicent hasn’t heard before. Rhaenyra takes over and even though she’s angry with her right now, Alicent is relieved. “Your father is precisely what we’re hoping to speak to you two about today—”

“Are either of you affiliated with Father Lawson?” Alicent asks, the question tumbling out of her before she’s entirely aware of herself even speaking. She takes a step forward, arms still crossed where she leans her weight on one leg, half behind Rhaenyra’s chair and still not daring to take a seat. She remembers that day in the church, the way Father Lawson looked at her, the way he seemed to know exactly what to say to set Alicent off. “The priest at your church—”

“It’s not our church, it was our whore mother’s,” the other twin, Rochelle, speaks up, rolling her eyes and drumming her fingers against the desk. She’s been the antsier one ever since they walked in, Alicent notes. Adelaide has simply been sitting calmly with her hands folded in her lap, though now she glares at her sister. “What? It’s true. Father Lawson is not a properly Godly man if he was having se—”

“We are aware of the affair your mother was having with Father Lawson,” Rhaenyra interjects their small squabble with a sigh, holding up a hand before turning partially back to Alicent. “But we are here to talk about your father—”

Alicent sits down at the table, her chair making a harsh scraping noise that has everyone in the room wincing save for her. “Your father mentioned the two of you have since grown averse to attending church, was this because you knew, or at least suspected your mother’s affair? Or, perhaps, did you feel disconnected from it for another reason?”

Prodigal son repeats in Alicent’s mind over and over and over. Someone desperate to return to the faith, desperate to once again be embraced by the arms of the Father. She searches for that in either one of them, maybe even both.

“I never really believed in it,” Rochelle answers first, crossing her arms and avoiding Alicent’s gaze. “I only went because my mom was really set on us being some nuclear family that sings in church on Sundays. Addy cares more than me.”

Beside her, Adelaide bites the inside of her cheek, staring down at the cracks in the aged table as if the object will answer for her. “I’d like to believe there’s a higher power. Maybe our mother had time to seek forgiveness before she died. Maybe I’ll see her again. One way or another.”

One way or another. Alicent notes down this particular use of language, pulling a pad of paper outside of her coat pocket and writing it down. Rochelle locks onto this immediately, “What are you writing? Isn’t this interrogation being recorded anyways?” 

“I wouldn’t worry too much about what I’m writing,” Alicent hums, clearing her throat. She writes down a couple more notes of nonsense to throw the girls off, make them nervous. “So, your father has little impact in your going to church? It was your mother who pushed religion onto you?” 

Rochelle goes to answer, but Adelaide places a gentle hand on her arm, taking the lead. “Our father has a… complicated relationship with religion and I think that’s why my sister and I ourselves are a bit wary of the whole thing. He was… very intense about certain things—”

“What things?” Rhaenyra interjects, but Adelaide ignores her. 

“I know you think our father has something to do with this, but he’s a holier man than he seems. We see things—more than he knows. When your parents fight as much as ours, you learn to make your footsteps quiet, make yourself unheard. He looks big and tall and he has his guns on the wall, but he wouldn’t do this,” Adelaide finishes, her voice steady and her eyes focused on Alicent’s intense gaze. Alicent writes down another phrase—footsteps unheard. She thinks of the crime scene with no tracks, the poppy on her front door step. The hairs at the nape of her neck remain standing. Something is off about all of this, Alicent just can’t quite figure out what it is.

“I think everyone wants to believe their father incapable of atrocities,” is all Alicent says in response. “How often did you girls go hunting with your father?”

“All the time as a kid,” Rochelle answers, shooting a look over to her sister. Part of Alicent wishes she were closer with Gwayne, that she could see these gazes passing between siblings and understand what they might mean but as with most aspects of human connection, she finds herself at a loss. “Not so much anymore, he was actually thinking about selling his guns.” 

“We’d take home a lot of meat for winter,” Adelaide answers. “It gets real snowy here as I’m sure you’ve seen and those roads in these small towns can be a bitch. Easier to have all your meat in a giant cooler hung out to dry, right?”

“Right,” Alicent affirms, tongue in cheek as she continues writing–half notes, half nonsense. The last thing she wants are the girls picking up on things that pique her interest. Though she knows technically they are here under suspicion of their father, Alicent isn’t totally convinced these two have nothing to do with it. There’s something off about them—though Alicent supposes someone could say the same about her. Still, she knows when she has a bad feeling. “Well, if my partner has any questions?” 

Rhaenyra looks at her, biting the inside of her cheek as she considers Alicent. Tension laces her gaze, her jaw tight despite the relaxed way she leans back in her chair. She’s clearly still irritated with Alicent from this morning, but they have bigger things to worry about. They likely won’t have a chance to interview these girls again—certainly not with the eagle-eyed aunt in the corner who has, thankfully, stayed quiet even though her expression speaks a thousand words. 

“So, your father was skilled in preparing game, then? Did he pass this skill onto the two of you?” Rhaenyra asks, a sigh falling from her lips as she forces her gaze away from Alicent. Beneath the table, Alicent begins to pick at her cuticles, trying not to wince at the slight sting and the rivulets of pain it shoots through her. She listens carefully to Rhaenyra’s voice, the way she changes, the tone she assumes. It’s so different from Rhaenyra, from the Rhaenyra Alicent has become familiar with. She can feel her eye starting to twitch, her hands craving a cigarette—God, she should have never started smoking again. 

(“Watching you… shoot a deer without blinking and then light up a cigarette is probably one of the hottest things I’ve seen someone do.”)

Alicent squeezes her eyes shut and tries to will away the memory, the burn it left on her, and she hears Rochelle asking, “Um—is she okay?” 

The conversation pauses as all eyes on the room land on Alicent—Alicent who is currently trying to blink away memories of Rhaenyra calling her hot and taking shallow breaths, craving a cigarette, and something feels wrong. Rhaenyra meets her eye and under the table she reaches out, motioning towards the hand Alicent had been carving up with her nails. A peace offering, Alicent thinks with a quiet huff. She stares at Rhaenyra, unblinking, unsure whether or not to take it. Then, something in Rhaenyra’s gaze softens and Alicent caves. She nods—barely there, barely anything and Rhaenyra envelops Alicent’s hand with her own under the table, squeezing gently until Alicent’s hand is settled against her own thigh, Rhaenyra’s on top.

“She’s fine, do you mind answering the question?” Rhaenyra turns back to the girls, keeping her hand there—over Alicent’s, over her thigh. She hates how much it calms her, how much Rhaenyra seems to understand exactly what it is she needs and Alicent doesn’t deserve it—she’s done nothing to earn this, she’s been terrible. 

“Excuse me,” Alicent breathes out, pushing back against her chair, stealing away from Rhaenyra’s touch. 

“Alicent—” Rhaenyra lets slip before she can help herself, reaching out for Alicent, but stopping just shy of touching her because of course she wouldn’t try to hold Alicent back because she knows Alicent would hate it because she knows Alicent, she knows Alicent, she knows—

Alicent clears her throat where she stands by the door, “Go ahead and finish up on your own, I just—thought of something. Want to look into some files from the case before it leaves me. Thank you, girls, again, for coming to speak with us. Special Agent Targaryen will take it from here.” 

She leaves the room before anyone can argue, taking a deep shuddering breath as soon as makes it out into the hallway. Only to come face to face with Mysaria looking her up and down. 

“What?” Alicent snaps, straightening up and struggling to regain her composure. 

“Those girls you have in there,” Mysaria nods towards the room, peering in through the window of the conference room. “I recognize them from somewhere.”

“Their father is a POI in this bible thumper case,” Alicent explains, surprised that Mysaria is speaking to her. Usually, the two of them only speak in passing and half of the time she’s looking at Alicent like she’s mad (as most of their co-workers do except for Harrold who simply smiles politely when she has episodes). “Their mother was one of the victims.”

Mysaria just tilts her head, arms crossed as she shakes her head. “No, no, something else. I’ll look into it, get back to you if I remember.”

Alicent just nods, still eyeing Mysaria quizzically as if waiting for her to sneer or make a jab at any moment. Maybe having Rhaenyra around has mellowed Alicent out enough that her co-workers are willing to treat her like a regular person—doubtful, but Alicent can hope. “Thanks.” 

She stares back into the conference room for a moment, arms crossed and swallowing around the lump in her throat. Something still feels wrong, but less so now that she’s had some air. Alicent heads back to the room that contains all of their information on the case, pacing around in front of the board until something, anything starts to make sense. 

After a while, she just slumps into a chair with her head in her hands. She’s a good detective, a great detective. She should have this figured out by now, but she feels as if she has absolutely nothing at all. All she has is a dead partner, a reinvigorated smoking habit, and—

Rhaenyra comes through the door, tossing Alicent’s notebook onto the table and causing the woman to jump. “What was that?”

Alicent groans, not in the mood to do this, not right now. She turns away from Rhaenyra, standing up once more and pacing the room without saying a word to her. “Oh, so you’re not talking to me again? Are you seriously still this mad over this morning?”

“Yes, Rhaenyra, I’m still mad over this morning,” Alicent shouts because it’s easier than the truth. She swallows, her voice feeling hoarse. She can’t remember the last time she raised her voice, not in any real sense. She was always taught to be quiet, to be told there were consequences if she wasn’t. 

“So, I pulled a few strings, fine, but it got us a word with the girls—”

“The girls don’t know shit, Rhaenyra, no one knows shit and we’re going fucking nowhere with this,” Alicent huffs, still pacing around the room. She undoes her ponytail and does it up again. A second time. A third.

“Okay, Alicent, Alicent, would you just stop?” 

Alicent stops in her tracks, hands frozen over her ponytail for a fourth time, eyes narrowed at Rhaenyra. Her voice is steadier when she speaks this time, “Rhaenyra, we’re going in circles. We have nothing but personal testimony and no one was talking. We don’t have any more arrows pointed at Richard Gould than we did this morning, we are going fucking nowhere and another body is going to drop and—” 

“Alicent,” Rhaenyra’s voice is soft as they stand across a table from one another. Still, Rhaenyra’s simple, low-tempered call is just as effective as if they were standing right next to each other. Alicent shivers, trying not to think about the hand on her thigh. “There’s something else. Something you’re not telling me.”

Her eye twitches as she shakes her head. “There’s not, Rhaenyra, you’re just trying to do your cool guy detective thing where you pretend you know more about me than you do, but you don’t because no one—no one knows me. I’ve made sure of it and thank you for this morning because it really reminded me how much I would like to keep it that way. I have to go call another fucking florist or something.”

She starts to walk around the table so she can head for the exit, just needing to get away from Rhaenyra because Rhaenyra is a stark reminder that Alicent is an ungrateful, undeserving shroud of a person that is only going to run Rhaenyra off just like she has everyone else in her life. Even her own brother never came back for her. Alicent thinks that says enough about what sort of person she is. Just like her father, a part of her brain sneers at her, you’re just like him. 

“Alicent,” Rhaenyra repeats, standing in front of the door to block her exit. Her arms reach out, bent at the elbow and hovering around Alicent’s arms, not quite touching her. “You’re not—you’re not difficult to know. You know that, right? Just because no one has tried, doesn’t mean it’s impossible.” 

“Where’d you get that from? Terms of Endearment?” Rhaenyra just fixes her with a look and Alicent sighs. “Rhaenyra, I don’t want—I can’t have this conversation right now. What did the girls say?” 

“If I tell you, will you let us have this conversation?” 

Alicent straightens up, grabbing the back of a chair so she doesn’t find herself reaching out for Rhaenyra. “I’m guessing you’re not really going to give me a choice.” Another look. “Fine.”

“They played coy about the hunting stuff—claimed it had been a while, they’re fuzzy, I don’t believe it too much. I’m not accusing them of murder or anything, but it seems like they definitely came in here with a plan and I think Adelaide is the brains there. Rochelle’s smart, too, but she’s impulsive, so her sister draws her back into place,” Rhaenyra explains with a sigh, hands on her hips as she pushes her blazer back slightly. “I’m not… settling on anything, but if we were looking for two killers, they’d make a damn good pair. The only thing that hinders that is—”

“They’re young,” Alicent finishes for her, pushing past Rhaenyra—allowing their shoulders to brush slightly as she does so—standing in front of the board with her eyes crossed. “I mean, a typical profiler would put a killer like this in their forties with the sort of matriculation we have here. One or both of those girls would have to be incredibly smart or just—some sort of sociopath and I didn’t get that from either of them.”

“Could be three killers.”

“Now you’re just being ridiculous,” Alicent huffs, shooting a bored look over to Rhaenyra who just shrugs with a small, teasing smile. “A plan like this is too complex for three killers to pull it off as flawlessly as it’s been done—more heads means more differing opinions, more chances to mess it up. No, if we’re looking at more than one person, it’s going to be a ringleader and a henchman. Someone who gives instructions and someone who follows.”

“Like Adelaide and Rochelle?” Rhaenyra quirks an eyebrow.

“I don’t know.” Alicent hates how the words feel on her tongue. “I find it difficult to believe Father Lawson doesn’t know anything about this. There’s no way he’s—”

“That weird just for fun?” Rhaenyra offers. “He’s definitely off, but you know, priests in a small town…”

“Rhaenyra.”

“I’m just saying,” she huffs, shrugging off her blazer and tossing it around the backs of one of the chairs. “Okay, I told you my thing, now let’s talk Alicent, I mean it.”

“There’s nothing to talk about, I just—I wish you’d told me, but you didn’t and we can’t change that and it got me thinking, that’s all,” Alicent says the words so quickly, it almost comes out as one single breath, but Rhaenyra doesn’t seem deterred. “Stop looking at me like that. We’ve barely been working together for two weeks, Rhaenyra, you don’t—you don’t know me. Lots of people knew me for two weeks and then decided they wanted nothing to do with me. You’re not—you’re not different, not in the way you think you are.”

Except she is. She is and Alicent knows it, she just doesn’t know why. Alicent’s job isn’t to know the why of things. It’s to know the who. Now, Alicent knows the who, but she can’t figure out the why. Rhaenyra sits on the edge of the table, hands braced against the mahogany as she stares at Alicent. She scrutinizes her in a way that makes Alicent believe she can pin point each and every spot in which Alicent tells a lie. 

“How many partners have you told about your father?” Alicent meets her question with silence. “How many have you let touch you? How—you know it, Alicent. We’re friends, the sooner you admit this, the sooner you can stop feeling bad about it.” 

“I don’t have friends.”

“Right, you don’t, you have one. That would just be a friend, singular. You have a friend, Alicent,” Rhaenyra retorts, rolling her eyes softly. She holds out a hand, palm up and Alicent just stares at it. With a sigh, Alicent places her wounded hand in Rhaenyra’s and she sighs. “Have you always done this?”

“When I get nervous or stressed, yeah.” As she answers the question, she feels shy, stupid. It’s a habit she developed as a child that stayed with her, much like many other things that happened to her as a child. “It’s not a big deal, Rhaenyra.” 

Rhaenyra just looks at her, turning Alicent’s palm over in her hand and inspecting it. She aches to yank it away, but she’s too grounded in the calloused yet gentle touch of Rhaenyra’s hands. She’s spent a lot of time observing Rhaenyra’s hands—her fingers are long, but not overly thin, her knuckles smooth but her palms calloused. Alicent wonders where she got calluses like that in line of work—if she lifts weights, or does some other work with her hands. Alicent thinks back to watching Rhaenyra build the furniture for her house and her stomach blooms with unfamiliar warmth. 

“It’s fine,” Alicent whispers, her voice gentler now as she pulls her hand away from Rhaenyra’s—not yanking, not tugging, just Rhaenyra softly letting her go. 

“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you about my father,” Rhaenyra finally says, her eyes darting up nervously to meet Alicent’s. “Our relationship was… never the best. He always wanted a son and I think he resented me for not being one. I don’t think me dressing in boy’s clothes helped him feel better about that either.”

The last part is said with a huff of a laugh, a vain attempt at a joke to cover up Rhaenyra’s own discomfort. She clears her throat, settling into one of the chairs and avoiding Alicent’s eyes. “He was never very… cool with the whole woman thing. God, he’d be so embarrassed if he knew what I got up to in New York—”

“What happened in New York wasn’t your fault, Rhaenyra,” Alicent cuts her off. She reaches out, just about to place a hand on Rhaenyra’s shoulder. She hesitates, unsure if that’s a line she can cross. Rhaenyra’s shoulders shake slightly and Alicent gives into the small, puny desire, letting her hand settle against the fabric of her button-up. “She was your superior, your married superior, it wasn’t your fault. You know that, don’t you? It’s not.” 

When Rhaenyra looks back up at Alicent, her eyes are rimmed with red. She places her hand on top of Alicent’s and squeezes it softly. “I know that, Hightower, but that wouldn’t have swayed him. Never cared much for the truth, just what things looked like from the outside. Ironic, for someone who started off as a detective. It doesn’t matter. He’s dead and now he’s some legend around here and—yeah, I’m going to use the privileges that affords me because he made my life hell most of the time. He… he did love me, though. He said it as he was dying and that was probably the only time I actually believed him. Anyways—that’s why I didn’t tell you. Our relationship was shit and then he died. I don’t like to talk about him.”

“Rhaenyra, do you know who you’re talking to?” Alicent chuckles softly, keeping her hand there on Rhaenyra’s shoulder. She wonders if it burns for her the same way it does for Alicent. She wonders what that might mean—(again, the why haunts her, haunts her along with every other ghost in her peripheral floating through the ether of her psyche). 

“You told me not to bring up your father,” Rhaenyra whispers. 

“That was this morning, I’m feeling a bit more lenient now.”

“I don’t think you’ve ever been lenient a day in your life.”

Alicent rolls her eyes and pulls her hand back, stepping away from Rhaenyra. She crosses her arms in front of the board yet again, just because it gives her something to do. Rhaenyra stays sitting and oddly, Alicent is grateful. There’s been too much touch today, too much of something Alicent cannot name. Against her better wishes, her mind can’t help but flit back to her dream—the good part, with Rhaenyra’s arm against her, her warmth at her back. Alicent can’t imagine herself being so okay with something like that. She allows herself to steal a glance back towards Rhaenyra—who is, of course, already looking at her. Always looking at her. 

“Maybe we should just call it a day,” Rhaenyra suggests, running a hand through her hair and wiping her eyes when she thinks Alicent turns away. She can still see it out of the corner of her eyes, but she pretends not to for Rhaenyra’s sake, busying herself with adjusting a slipping photo on the board. 

The photo catches her eye, furrowing her brow as she looks at the Leona Gould crime scene photos. In all the photos they have of the woman prior to her death, one thing is consistent as is with many women of her… type—a cross necklace. Alicent remembers it because it was studded and a bit larger than the average (if Alicent were a bit snippier, she would have called it gaudy). 

“Rhaenyra,” Alicent says, walking over to one of the boxes they keep in here, pulling out photos of Leona. “What do you notice about these?”

Rhaenyra stands up, taking the photos from her and filing through them. “Am I supposed to notice anything other than the fact that she looks like every white suburban catholic lady in the country?”

“The necklace, she’s always wearing that necklace.” Alicent points to it in each and every photo.

Rhaenyra catches on before Alicent says the words, looking at the photos from the crime scene, the close up photos of the body. “No necklace.”

“Our killer finally slipped up,” Alicent hums. “They did the thing that gets every serial killer nailed down.”

Rhaenyra nods, arms crossed and bumping her elbow slightly with Alicent’s, a newfound energy in her expression. “They kept a trophy.” 

“I mean,” Alicent hums, pacing around in front of the board as Rhaenyra just watches her, “Of course, there’s a chance that since she was killed outside of her home, it simply fell off and wasn’t found at the scene because of the snow, but… there’s a chance. I think there’s a chance the killer took this off of her but why this one in particular?”

“She was the only one, besides Elia, that was still actively religious, but Elia—I doubt she would have been the type to wear a cross that big, that noticeable. In all her photos, it doesn’t seem like she wears anything at all, just like the rest,” Rhaenyra pores over the photos more while Alicent paces, trying to make sense of it, trying to cut out all the reasons there wouldn’t be a cross necklace sitting in the hands of the killer as they speak. “The only one photographed with and without a necklace is Leona. It has to be purposeful. The way she was killed—it’s not the sort of tussle where a clasped necklace comes undone. If it was a point of contention, we would have seen contusions on her neck and—Alicent, I think our killer took a trophy.”

Alicent turns around to look at Rhaenyra, a strangely elated laugh that seems to surprise the both of them falling from her lips. “A trophy. If we can find that necklace, we can find a killer. We’re—we’re one step closer, right? This is a step?”

Rhaenyra grins at her and nods, “This is a step.”

Before Alicent realizes what she’s doing, she’s reaching for Rhaenyra and pulling her into a hug—maybe it’s the relief of finding something in this case that’ll help them instead of wandering around like chickens with their heads cut off, maybe it’s because of their conversation from earlier, but she hugs Rhaenyra. Rhaenyra freezes, clearly unsure what to do with her hands before eventually settling with her arms around Alicent’s neck in a loose hold. 

Alicent pulls back, keeping her hands on the small of Rhaenyra’s back—selfishly, for one, lingering moment—before stepping away entirely and clearing her throat. “Um, just to be diligent we should check the scene again and double check with local police to make sure they didn’t find anything. Let’s do that first.” 

“Right,” Rhaenyra nods, her cheeks flushed strangely pink as she reaches for her blazer and shrugs it over her shoulders. “We’ll drive to Litchfield tomorrow, cover our bases.” 

“Right.”

A heavy silence passes between the two of them and Alicent can’t shake the notion that she’s messed something up. Still, she offers Rhaenyra a pursed lip smile as she leaves the room, the click of the door echoing against the confines of Alicent’s mind. She sighs, leaning against the edge of the table as she looks at their board, hands braced against the wood next to her as she contemplates. They need to find this necklace. And soon.