[Arrow] "Laying the Groundwork" (PG-13)
May. 18th, 2013 11:53 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
mtxref_ficAuthor's Note: Written for < lj user="comment_fic">'s Author’s choice, author’s choice, To destroy something, you don’t start at the top. You slide in through the foundations and tear it down from the bottom up. Set pre-canon, and featuring Malcolm Merlyn in the days after his wife's death.
His friends and relatives told him that going to the Glades was a mistake, that to do so served only to pick at the scabs in his heart and soul, reopening wounds that had barely started to heal. But wounds needed lancing before one could cleanse them, the better for them to heal properly.
Merlyn stood on the sidewalk, inches from the spot where Rebecca had died, where the police had found his wife's body. Rain sluiced down in sheets, pounded on the black canopy of his umbrella, banged on the roof of the warm car that idled by the kerb, awaiting him.
This was where Rebecca's heart stopped being, where half of his life ended. The mugger had taken two lives that night, the life of her husband as well as her own. She had spent her time here working among the denizens of this place, among their rundown dwellings, trying to help better their lot. And what had they given her in return? Oh, Rebecca had spoken glowingly of the successes she had had, the women she had protected, the children she had helped, and it proved she had spent her time and his money well.
But for these deeds, she had paid with her life. This place to which she had given so much had taken everything from her. This place had torn a hole in his world, had snatched the ground from beneath his feet. She had been his strength and light, the one who had reached into his cool and orderly world and given it warmth and color. She had shown him that all his achievements in business and his clever dealings meant little if he had no heart. She was the huntress who had made him her prize, when he had thought himself the one doing the pursuing. He felt nothing now, only pain in his heart, a blade through his soul.
Well then, if the foundations of his life had been shaken apart, let the same happen here. Letting his umbrella sink behind his shoulders, he raised his head to look up at the buildings around him, the pitted walls of the aging brick buildings, the tenements and the tatty ground-floor shops with rooms to rent above them, the rusting hulks of warehouses, dimmed by the rain. Let it all fall down, let it all be wiped from the face of the city. What was the saying? Kill them all and let God sort it out? Let the mass of the unjust pay the price of his wife's death and let them pay in the same coin. Let their loved ones feel the same sense of loss as he. Let justice be done, even if the Glades had to be destroyed. Perhaps then his wounds -- and the city -- would be cleansed and no one else in Starling City would endure the same sorrow. How he would achieve that he did not know, not in this moment at least, but realizing this undertaking would keep his mind and heart occupied. It would keep him from dwelling on Rebecca's death, and while it could not replace her or fill the void that she left, it would give his life a purpose, and it would assure Tommy of a future with fewer shadows.
"Mr. Merlyn?" a man's voice called from out the rain. He snapped back to the here and now before him, turning to follow the source of the sound, turning to the now open window of the waiting car, his driver, Jamison, leaning over to peer out in concern. "Sir, are you all right?"
Merlyn lifted his umbrella. "I will be now," he said. "Right as rain, as the saying goes," he added, with a dry cough of a laugh.
"Not my place to question, but you might want to get back into the car, before you catch your death in this rain," Jamison said, with professional concern and deference.
"I'll take that on advisement, but for the first time since Mrs. Merlyn's death, I feel alive," Merlyn replied, turning back to the car.
His friends and relatives told him that going to the Glades was a mistake, that to do so served only to pick at the scabs in his heart and soul, reopening wounds that had barely started to heal. But wounds needed lancing before one could cleanse them, the better for them to heal properly.
Merlyn stood on the sidewalk, inches from the spot where Rebecca had died, where the police had found his wife's body. Rain sluiced down in sheets, pounded on the black canopy of his umbrella, banged on the roof of the warm car that idled by the kerb, awaiting him.
This was where Rebecca's heart stopped being, where half of his life ended. The mugger had taken two lives that night, the life of her husband as well as her own. She had spent her time here working among the denizens of this place, among their rundown dwellings, trying to help better their lot. And what had they given her in return? Oh, Rebecca had spoken glowingly of the successes she had had, the women she had protected, the children she had helped, and it proved she had spent her time and his money well.
But for these deeds, she had paid with her life. This place to which she had given so much had taken everything from her. This place had torn a hole in his world, had snatched the ground from beneath his feet. She had been his strength and light, the one who had reached into his cool and orderly world and given it warmth and color. She had shown him that all his achievements in business and his clever dealings meant little if he had no heart. She was the huntress who had made him her prize, when he had thought himself the one doing the pursuing. He felt nothing now, only pain in his heart, a blade through his soul.
Well then, if the foundations of his life had been shaken apart, let the same happen here. Letting his umbrella sink behind his shoulders, he raised his head to look up at the buildings around him, the pitted walls of the aging brick buildings, the tenements and the tatty ground-floor shops with rooms to rent above them, the rusting hulks of warehouses, dimmed by the rain. Let it all fall down, let it all be wiped from the face of the city. What was the saying? Kill them all and let God sort it out? Let the mass of the unjust pay the price of his wife's death and let them pay in the same coin. Let their loved ones feel the same sense of loss as he. Let justice be done, even if the Glades had to be destroyed. Perhaps then his wounds -- and the city -- would be cleansed and no one else in Starling City would endure the same sorrow. How he would achieve that he did not know, not in this moment at least, but realizing this undertaking would keep his mind and heart occupied. It would keep him from dwelling on Rebecca's death, and while it could not replace her or fill the void that she left, it would give his life a purpose, and it would assure Tommy of a future with fewer shadows.
"Mr. Merlyn?" a man's voice called from out the rain. He snapped back to the here and now before him, turning to follow the source of the sound, turning to the now open window of the waiting car, his driver, Jamison, leaning over to peer out in concern. "Sir, are you all right?"
Merlyn lifted his umbrella. "I will be now," he said. "Right as rain, as the saying goes," he added, with a dry cough of a laugh.
"Not my place to question, but you might want to get back into the car, before you catch your death in this rain," Jamison said, with professional concern and deference.
"I'll take that on advisement, but for the first time since Mrs. Merlyn's death, I feel alive," Merlyn replied, turning back to the car.
