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Post by Kate Donaghy on Oct 15, 2016 20:08:25 GMT -5
Kate hated her job sometimes. This was one of those times. The report she received this morning was bad, but Paige's news was worse. Being lead on this case meant that it was up to her to deliver the news personally, but she really didn't want to.
She sent the owl to Dorian to come by when he had the chance, it was urgent and involved Christine. She didn't expect she'd have to wait long.
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Post by Dorian Humbert on Oct 16, 2016 0:13:03 GMT -5
Upon receiving the owl, Dorian dropped everything and headed to the Ministry. Kate's message was vague, so he doubted she had any good news to share, but perhaps there were new developments that could shine a light on where Christine had been taken.
He approached Kate's office and Mary, Kate's secretary, greeted him. "Just a moment, Agent Humbert." Mary poked her head into Kate's office, spoke briefly, and then came back to meet Dorian. "Go on in."
Dorian pushed open the door and stepped inside. He attempted to appear professional, but eagerly asked "have there been any new developments with Miss Mikaelson's kidnapping?"
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Post by Kate Donaghy on Oct 16, 2016 0:33:01 GMT -5
Kate steeled herself for the storm to come. She hated to do this to the man while his partner was still in the hospital, and the girl in question was still missing, but more than being her job, she had developed a rapport with the auror and he deserved to know the truth.
She gathered the file on her desk as he came in the room.
"Dorian...I...Here." she said handing him the file.
Inside the file it showed pictures of Christine with her family and at school. It also had her real last name, Montgomery, and her real age, 17.
I was going through her file to notify her family, but the ends didn't match up. I had an MLE officer look into it. He went to the Avalon and the Mikaelson suite she was using belonged to her uncle. Christopher Montgomery. Montgomery Shipping. Apparently she's a Montgomery. One of those Montgomeries."
Kate didn't add that she knew why Christine had lied, that she knew Dorian and Christine had been having an affair, and while it wasn't public knowledge, and Kate would never say anything, it was still going to come up.
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Post by Dorian Humbert on Oct 16, 2016 0:59:22 GMT -5
Dorian took the file she offered and opened it. He was greeted with pictures of Christine and he felt a tightening in his heart. But then he realized the pictures didn't make sense. He set the file on Kate's desk and spread the pictures out. A family photo. A picture of Christine at her home. A school photograph, dated only last year. It would have been taken only 2 months after she left him in Egypt. He was searching frantically for her, expecting to find her body beaten and broken abandoned somewhere, while she sat and smiled for a camera in Hogwarts.
As Kate explained, Dorian sank into one of the chairs in front of her desk. Christine was 17. The woman he...the girl he loved was but a child. Dorian felt ill. "No, this is wrong. You've got the wrong information," he said, still staring at Christine's Hogwarts photograph. She couldn't be 17. Her last name wasn't Montgomery. She wouldn't have lied to him.
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Post by Kate Donaghy on Oct 16, 2016 1:14:16 GMT -5
Kate gave him a look, pitying in nature, though she tried hard not to pity him. She knew that wasn't the look anyone wanted to receive. Still she pressed on, if betrayal was the worst of it that would be fine, unfortunately it wasn't.
"There's more Dorian." she said taking a deep breath, "I had a victim come in today. She said that M kidnapped her. From her story I believe it was him. She said that she wasn't alone with M, there was another woman with her, but she was already... she was dead Dorian."
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Post by Dorian Humbert on Oct 16, 2016 1:46:53 GMT -5
No. There couldn't be more. It was impossible for there to be anything else. A ringing sounded in his ears as Kate laid out the information plainly. The sick feeling in his stomach traveled to his throat, though he pushed it down. The room began to sway slowly.
"No!" He yelled angrily through the tears that formed in his eyes. "That's impossible. You're wrong!" He was on his feet again, he didn't know when he had stood but he was yelling and standing now. "This isn't Christine," he insisted, shoving the file toward Kate. "She's not dead! You've got the wrong information. You're wrong! Christine's not dead!" His chest was tight and his vision blurry with the tears that had not yet fallen from his eyes. The ringing was deafening now.
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Post by Kate Donaghy on Oct 16, 2016 2:00:48 GMT -5
Kate cast a quick silencing spell on the room, and close the blinds just before Dorian started yelling. She'd do what she could to save him from interoffice gossip, since she couldn't save him from much else.
"I'm sorry." she said a hollow feeling in her gut. "I'm so sorry."
She didn't know whether to move forward and hold him or leave him alone to his misery.
After a moment she spoke again, "We have aurors now, combing the woods and other locations where he might have...left her."
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Post by Dorian Humbert on Oct 16, 2016 2:17:34 GMT -5
They wouldn't find anything because it was impossible for Christine to be dead. Impossible. Kate was wrong. The file was wrong. The other victim was wrong.
He would prove it himself. "Where are they searching?" he asked in a panicked tone. He would go there, find the other dead girl, the girl who was most certainly not Christine, and prove them all wrong.
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Post by Kate Donaghy on Oct 16, 2016 2:24:25 GMT -5
"The woods, public areas, anywhere he can either dump a body, or make a scene." she answered candidly. She caught his tone then and realized what he intended to do, "Dorian, I don't think you going out there is the best idea right now." she said with caution.
He was unstable at the moment, he could end up hurt or worse. Besides there was something else.
"Her family...they've been called down to the Ministry. They're on their way here."
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Post by Dorian Humbert on Oct 16, 2016 2:56:58 GMT -5
He was turning to leave when Kate stopped him. Christine's family would be here soon. The family to the 17 year old, not-dead girl he had been sleeping with for over a month. It didn't matter that she was of legal age; she was still a child, a school girl. How did Kate expect him to sit in a room with the Montgomerys and listened to her lie to them about Christine's supposed death, knowing he was the one responsible for her kidnapping in the first place.
The ringing in his ears was giving him a headache and the room's sways had turned into violent pulsing and spinning. His skin was on fire. "What do you intend to tell them?"
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Post by Kate Donaghy on Oct 16, 2016 3:06:00 GMT -5
"Just what we know. That she's missing, that she was in witness protection, but...until we have a body, I'd like to keep Ms. Owen's testimony private." she said.
"Look Dorian, I'm truly sorry to spring all this on you, I just... I thought you'd want to know how the investigation was going. I understand there was a personal relationship involved and I'm sorry."
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Post by Dorian Humbert on Oct 16, 2016 12:51:59 GMT -5
"Until we have a body..." The words hit him like a ton of bricks, although he still could not believe it. He felt the sick coming on again, but continued to fight against it. The ringing and violent spinning were relentless. His skin was being peeled from his body by invisible flames. Dorian was dying.
"May I have a moment?" he asked, trying to keep himself from falling to the floor, or tearing apart her office, or possibly both. It was a strange request, but he couldn't walk out of here in this state and he didn't want her to play witness to his weakest moment.
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Post by Kate Donaghy on Oct 16, 2016 14:04:25 GMT -5
"Of course." she said walking past him toward the door. She could see the struggle the man was trying so desperately to hide, and her heart truly ached for him. She wanted to apologize again, but there were no words.
She had nothing left to give him except privacy. On a nod she left her office.
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Post by Dorian Humbert on Oct 16, 2016 14:36:16 GMT -5
He waited until Kate had shut the door behind her; his skin burning, his head pounding, his heart twisting. As soon as the latch clicked into place against the door jam Dorian let out a painful wail as the sensations that had been eating at him finally overtook him. He cried harder than he thought humanly possible, struggling to breath against the constraints his body placed on him. He roared into space, cursing the heavens and himself. His fist was bloodied from where he repeatedly punched the cold stone floor in an attempt to fight off the pain that waconsuming him.
He languished in his pain, he didn't know how long he had been alone. Time was meaningless when your soul was being ripped in two. Finally he pulled himself to his feet, sore internally and externally. His breathing was ragged and his head was throbbing. But there were people coming, people who had more right than him to feel their world crashing down around them. People who knew the real Christine, for he certainly didn't. Christine's parents deserved to be met with a face of bravery and strength, not of one that could give them no hope. They needed the hope, at least for a little while.
He used one of the charms Christine had perfected in her last few weeks of life. It masked the pain, the sorrow, and the despair that he felt. But those feelings were still present inside him. At least Christine's parents would not see them. Kate would not see them.
Appearing composed, Dorian opened the door and stepped out of the office. Kate was waiting for him. "Are the Montgomerys here yet?"
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Post by Kate Donaghy on Oct 16, 2016 15:08:20 GMT -5
Kate was at the vending machine trying to decide between a salty or sweet snack, though her mind was far away. She felt helpless and impotent to stop this madness. Finally she returned to her office with cookies and chips, where Dorian was waiting for her.
"Not yet. Her brother actually works for the Ministry, he should be here soon."
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Post by Dorian Humbert on Oct 16, 2016 16:21:52 GMT -5
Kate had obviously called Dorian in much earlier than he would be needed, in order to give him time to cope with the dreadful information she needed to give him. Amidst the grief and anguish, he appreciated this kind gesture. If only it had been enough to make him feel the way his charm made him appear.
"Her brother?" Christine had spoke of her family, of course. Dorian knew of her mum and father, her brother, even her uncle who she would travel with when she was a girl. He hadn't realized that when she was a girl was so recent. But Christine had never mentioned that her brother worked at the Ministry. It made sense now of course, knowing that she had deceived Dorian about who she was. But the shock that he may have been unwittingly working alongside the brother of the girl he was having an affair with was unnerving. Dorian prayed silently that the man worked in a completely different department, having nothing to do with the MLE or the Auror Department. Someone he wouldn't have to face regularly.
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Post by Kate Donaghy on Oct 16, 2016 17:04:17 GMT -5
Kate chewed on her lip a bit, looking uneasy, "Geoffrey Montgomery is her brother...which means she's related to the Ferreras." the Ferreras were practically an auror family. Cara Ferrera was Lillian Montgomery's (Christine's mother) sister. Cara was married to Mathieu, their two sons Roland and Cyrus were also aurors. Mathieu's brother Judah was an auror as well as his son Hayden. There was no way Dorian wouldn't face all of them at one point or another.
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Post by Dorian Humbert on Oct 16, 2016 23:08:32 GMT -5
If not for the vanity charm he had used on himself, Dorian would have gone snow white at the mention of the Ferreras. There was an interoffice joke that only a fool would dare cross a Ferrera for fear of the whole lot of the them raining down hellfire, but only a total moron would try to hit on one of them. Dorian, apparently, was that moron. Luckily the vanity charm held and the only visible sign that showed how Kate's words had affected him was his grip tightening around the edge of the secretary's desk.
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Post by Kate Donaghy on Oct 16, 2016 23:20:55 GMT -5
Kate was surprised there wasn't more of a reaction, but pleased. She worried for her fellow auror, but it wasn't his fault Christine was taken, it was no one's fault except the sick son of a banshee that took her.
"If you don't want to stick around for this Dorian, I can handle it alone."
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Post by Dorian Humbert on Oct 16, 2016 23:51:23 GMT -5
Dorian was tempted to take Kate up on her offer, but it wasn't right to leave her to do this alone. And besides, if he wasn't here working there was no telling what Dorian would do now that he knew the truth. The safer option was to stay with Kate and keep himself busy.
"Thank you, but no. The family deserve to know what happened and if I can answer any questions to try to ease their mind, then I must." He prayed the charm would be strong enough to withstand the ordeal.
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