Not Her Joseph, Not His Rhiannon
Joseph had steadily been working on making connections and getting to know people off the beaten track, none of those closer to him than the guy who ran a small diner a few blocks away from his pool hall.

He'd been going to it quite regularly for the last couple of weeks, discussing the happenings of Chicago and everything else, including trading information for money. It helped to know people in this town, aided Joseph in keeping as much trouble away from his doors as he could. He wasn't about to delve back into a world he'd made the conscious effort to leave behind. For himself and for whatever future he had with Rhiannon.

A couple weapon trades here and there for people weren't about to drag him that much deeper into the Hell he was sure he was destined for at the end of his life. "Hey Paul," Joseph greeted as he slid onto a stool and smiled at the man behind the counter.

"Joseph," Paul said with a warm smile. "You managed to get some time away, huh?"

"Finally," Joseph shared with a laugh before he tugged his sleeves upwards to expose the tattooed lengths of his forearms, drumming the tips of his fingers against the top of the counter.

Paul caught his fidgeting behaviour and rolled his eyes. "If you're that desperate for a cigarette you can smoke."

Joseph chuckled and ducked his head, long dark hair slipping out from behind pierced ears. "You're a fucking star, Paul." He rummaged in his pockets and pulled out his cigarettes along with his silver zippo. "How're things?"

"You come and go as you please. Don't you?" On the sidewalk, Rhiannon stopped and let the sea of people flood past on either side, like current in a river. Their voices, their smells, the things they spoke about were so carefree and scandalous that the words burnt her ears. It reminded her of a carnival of gypsies she saw as a girl before they, too, were purged.

This was, as Warner told her, a mad world. Despite its wrongness, she wanted to experience the backward vibrancy of it before they saved it. This Rhiannon Lee was similar to her doppelganger in one regard, which she kept to herself. She often dreamed of dangerous missions, like submerging herself in the culture of their enemy, experiencing its inner workings as if she belonged to it and then, once she understood, taking them down. It would be like hitching up a sleeve, slowly reaching into a house of cards, and pulling an Ace from the delicate framework. There were stories of Inquisitors who infiltrated dens of Fugitives. But those missions, which she found so fascinating, were often left to men to accomplish. Women were more easily corrupted.

She walked a ways farther and went into a diner. A chalkboard listed more 'specials'. She read over the plain handwriting and frowned. A 'hot dog'? Visions of her childhood pet, a St. Bernard creatively dubbed 'Bernie', danced in her head.

"Excuse me, sir?" she called to the counter man. "May I ask what... what are the ingredients of a hot dog?"

Joseph was mid-conversation with Paul when she walked in, exhaling a mouthful of smoke as the other man turned to the questioning woman.

"Are you serious?" Paul asked, turning his eye to the woman who did look oddly out of place. He chuckled a few moments later and rubbed at the back of his neck. "You're probably better off not knowing or you'll never eat one."

It was only when Joseph caught a glimpse of brunette hair that he turned his head and immediately did a double take because there was Rhiannon and yet it wasn't, she had weird clothes on and she didn't hold herself the same way. She looked like his girlfriend, but everything else was wrong.

Not that it stopped him from turning to face her. "Rhi?"

Unfortunately, she was quite serious. Paul's answer didn't give her confidence in the ingredients. Assuming that the entree did contain dog meat, she adopted a crestfallen look. What kind of place was this, that allowed demons to wait tables but served up family pets? Perhaps there was a shortage of chicken and swine.

"Yes?" Perhaps because she was distressed, she answered without thinking much of it. Her proper name lent itself to the same nicknames no matter where she went. Her brows furrowed and then her eyes went large. "Joey?" She gaped for longer than was polite. It was an effort to avert her eyes. She managed only to look at his arms instead. The permanent ink. He looked like a sea pirate. Rhiannon's face grew redder by the second.

Joey?

If Joseph looked taken aback by that nickname coming out of those lips that would be because he was, very taken aback.

He wet his lower lip, tasting the lingering nicotine. "You're not-" He stopped himself, not entirely sure where he had been going with that train of thought. "That's an interesting outfit you have going on there, Rhi. Not exactly what I'm used to."

For a moment, he thought that some other weird nutjob had sprung out of the woodwork and done something to Rhiannon again. "Are you alright?"

"Me?" Rhiannon looked at his eyes. She was incredulous. It became difficult to breathe in the tight confinement of her uniform. "Are you?" It was more of an accusation than a question.

Ignoring the vendor of household canines, she inched towards him. A button on her black uniform scratched the counter. "I don't understand." She lowered her voice. "How did you come to be here... before me?" Before the rest of us, she meant to say, but thought wiser of it. She watched his Adam's Apple, the way necklaces rested against his collarbone. Too, the colorful pictures drawn on his bare arm. She hadn't seen so much of Joey's skin exposed, except through a tear in his uniform shirt. It was improper to look. She couldn't help it. She wanted to pull it up and search for a scar. "Have you lied to me?"

"Excuse me?" Joseph repeated, wondering if they were working at cross purposes or something. None of this was making any sense whatsoever.

Joseph lifted a ringed thumb and ran it over his eyebrow, trying to figure out what was going on. "Did the old freak get to you again? I thought he was taken care of."

He finally put his cigarette down and exhaled smoke, rising to his feet to approach her. "What's going on, gorgeous?"

She wasn't used to being approached -- or spoken to -- with such familiarity. She veered away. "They told us you died." She took great pains to keep her voice down, ladylike, and also to keep it from warbling. Their affairs weren't the business of anyone else, and crying was an activity in which Inquisitors did not engage. It was weak, and if he had deserted the cause and come here, letting everyone think him dead, then he was weak, too.

"From the injury... a bullet." Rhiannon looked at his stomach. Well she remembered the night he was shot. The squad brought him to a physician, but hours after, they said he was gone. The hole in her heart felt large enough to swallow the moon. They were friends. "Did they pretend you were dead and let you leave us? Why?" Her mind wanted a reason not to be angry. Perhaps it was a scouting mission, secret, an infiltration from which he didn't return. Perhaps he was there to pave the way for them, but if so, Joey didn't seem to know it. How could anyone have known where the fugitives would go?

Joseph was having a very hard time processing all of this, ignoring the way his stomach twisted uncomfortably when Rhiannon veered away from him, like she couldn't stand the thought of him touching her.

Something was clearly not right, something was very wrong.

"I've been shot plenty of times," he said. "But I'm not dead. Hell, having my throat nearly ripped wide open didn't kill me, what makes you think one bullet hole in my stomach would?"

His brow furrowed and he itched to pull her into his arms and soothe away whatever pain she was in and then find the asshole who did this to her and make them fix it before he put a bullet in their skull. "Baby, what's going on?"

Joseph's dark brown eyes implored Rhiannon to talk to him. "Did he or somebody else get to you?"

"Who is he?" Rhiannon asked. She searched his face for clues. Her own cheeks scalded from the nicknames. Baby. Gorgeous. Oh, to be called such intimate things! It wasn't done in mixed company, not even between the married Inquisitors, though she sometimes saw them looking at each other with impropriety. A funny feeling stirred in her chest. She pulled herself back on task.

"No one's... gotten to me," she insisted. "I'm here on a mission, with the others. We arrived from London two days ago. We've been scouring the city, looking for the ones who escaped. The demons and the..." She looked at the door, as if expecting an Inquisitor to walk through it any second. She hissed, "If they find you here, they'll make you for a betrayer. You know the punishment is death." She chewed her lip and stepped closer. "Shall we go somewhere to talk?"

London? What the hell?

Joseph reached up to scrub his fingers through his long hair and then nodded his head. "Yeah, I think we probably should."

Hopefully in private he might be able to get a better read on her, try and figure out what in God's name was going on. "After you, beautiful." And no he wasn't about to stop calling her such intimate things just because she apparently blushed at them these days.

"I..." Rhiannon fumbled for an appropriate response. Her fingers twisted together. She should scold him. She found herself at a loss, with the distinct impression that walking in front of Joseph might garner herself a pat on the rear end. After a moment when neither of them moved, she walked to the door and stood beside it. She tipped her head and whispered, "I await your escort." It wasn't as if she never opened a door for herself but, under heightened fear of scrutiny, felt it best to observe social norms.

"My escort?" Joseph repeated, wondering if his face read as openly as his voice did. It probably did. Nonetheless he lifted a hand and opened the door, tipping his head as if to say 'after you'.

It wasn't like he didn't open doors as it was, but this was a little on the weird side.

He was going to kill whoever it was that had done this to Rhiannon, slowly and painfully.

Once outside, she wasn't sure in which direction to walk. At random, she turned right and walked on the inside of the sidewalk. "Please. I can't stand obfuscation. If you know of what I speak, don't be... Evasive." Rhiannon couldn't help but look him over again. She had only seen Joey -- better known as Inquisitor Tropiano -- in uniform or training apparel. The sloppiness of what he wore astounded her, as did the expanses of exposed skin. He was tanned. It stunted her other feelings that bubbled up.

She thought of the man in the pawn shop. How he looked familiar, but wasn't the acquaintance from home.

"Do you?" Rhiannon asked in earnest.

Joseph folded his arms across his chest, subsequently pulling the material of his shirt tight across his biceps. "I don't," he admitted with a shake of his head. "Look, Rhi, I don't know what's going on here, but I'm really fucking concerned."

And he couldn't help himself, he reached out to smooth a wayward strand of dark hair behind her ear. "Talk to me, baby, let me help."

She didn't hold or talk much like the woman he knew and was head over heels for and it was confusing the hell out of him. "You called me Joey earlier, you've never called me that."

She stopped walking. "I... I always called you that," she protested, but the force had gone out of it. "You called me Rhi and I called you Joey. We were friends." She swallowed and looked at his shoes. "You're not... I would say you've lost your memory, but you haven't, not completely. You remember me, just wrongly. You didn't come from the Inquisition, did you?" The confusion of it gave her a headache. "And you know I'm not..."

"I don't even know what the Inquisition is," Joseph admitted. "I was born and raised in New York, I've never set foot in England."

Italy, yes. England, no.

His brow drew together and his head tilted to the side, meaning the sun caught on the side of his neck, highlighting the scar present around his throat. "Why am I getting the feeling that I'm talking to you, thinking you're somebody else?"

Rhiannon looked up and saw it. Her mouth fell open. "Oh my god." Before she thought better of it, she reached up and touched the scar. She snatched her fingers back. "I'm sorry."

Embarrassed, she pulled a tight sleeve down over her palm. "I am someone else. I mean I'm Rhiannon, but I'm not from here. When I came here, I hadn't realized there'd be... copies."

Joseph lifted a hand to rub at his throat more self consciously than normal. "It's alright. Like I said, it didn't kill me." He breathed out slowly and realised he was itching for another cigarette. He figured screw it and went about lighting himself one.

"Copies?" He repeated, lifting an eyebrow. "So, you come from somewhere else? I mean, beyond the 'Oh, I'm from London' thing." Wow, talk about mind blowing. Belatedly he realised he owed her an apology. "I, uh, sorry about earlier, I happen to be dating you, but here, you know?" If that made any sense in any way whatsoever.

He flicked ash aside and caught the corner of his mouth with his teeth. "I thought you were her." If he was freaked out by the idea of alternate realities and copies he was doing a good job of not showing it.

She nodded, but had difficulty getting her eyes above his shoulders. "And I thought you were him." The realization that he was not 'Joey' sank into her, like an anchor falling in water. "He's dead. I'm sorry, that's a terrible thing to tell you."

Rhiannon looked up and watched him smoke the cigarette. She quelled the overpowering urge to hug him, the other Joseph. "And we... you and Rhiannon, I mean... you're..." She felt her throat constrict around the word. "Intimate?"

It was weird, the thought of another alternate version of yourself. Weirder still when you considered how strange you felt at the news that they were in fact dead. "As long as it was quick." He shrugged his shoulders and took another drag from the cigarette, exhaling the smoke from the corner of his mouth.

"Intimate?" He repeated, a look of amusement creeping into his eyes and over his face. "That is definitely one way of putting it."

"Oh." Rhiannon's tongue pressed into her cheek. She put a hand to her chest. "Excuse me." She searched the front of his shirt for her dignity and of course came up short. The harder she tried to regain composure, the worse her brain ran away from her. This man had as good as seen her naked. Furthermore, if she let her mind wander, it wasn't an unpleasant thought.

"May I?" She reached for his cigarette and awaited permission. She did not smoke, but had a peculiar notion it would make her feel better.

Joseph gave a soft laugh at her reaction to his sharing of information and then eyed the cigarette, passing it over. "Knock yourself out." He shifted a little as a couple people wandered past them on the way to someplace else.

It was strange, he was so used to the Rhiannon he knew and loved that this one was a shock to his system.

"I'm guessing coming here must have been one hell of a culture shock."

Awkward with it, Rhiannon took the filter between her fingers and inhaled. The smoke burned all the way to her lungs. She coughed and her eyes watered. "I'm afraid I'm still caught in that stage," she said, fighting down another rattle of her lungs. "Thank you." Confused as to why anyone would make a habit of these, she handed the cigarette back. Vices weren't encouraged in the Inquisition.

"Would you like to see something?" Rhiannon pulled a chain from inside her collar. A silver locket dangled from it. It was oval and engraved with scroll work. She pressed the latch and it opened. "This is my brother," she said, referring to a photograph on the left. "And there's you."

Joseph spared her a sympathetic smile when she coughed as she did. "That always happens with the first drag." He tipped his head as she pulled a locket from inside her collar and he stepped closer, holding it in the palm of his hand, taking a long hard look at his alternate self.

"Wow," he muttered quietly. "That hair on me, it's really short." And the guy in the photograph looked nothing like him even though they looked exactly the same, there was something missing in his eyes.

"I'm guessing you guys were close friends?"

"Mm, quite." Rhiannon tipped her head to look at the photograph while Joseph did. "I joined the--" She caught herself and then decided to hell with it; the cat was already out of the bag. "The Inquisition along with my friend Connor. It's a group dedicated to eradicating the supernatural." She looked up at Joseph. "We met there. He was... well, he didn't care that I was a woman. He thought me just as capable, if not as physically strong as him."

She held the locket in her open palm. "He was very loyal. Happy, too." Rhiannon looked at his eyes. "You both smile with your eyes. Well, obviously."

"Eradicating the supernatural?" Joseph repeated, wondering if this Rhiannon had any idea how wrong that sounded, especially when the Rhiannon in this world was part demon because of being the Slayer that she was. "Can I ask why?"

He glanced back at the locket and tilted his head, giving the photograph of his other self another look over. "Yeah?" Joseph asked, looking up at this alternate Rhiannon through his lashes. "That's good to know, that the other me wasn't a dick."

Even if he had bought into the idea of eradicating the supernatural.

Rhiannon's mouth fell open over the use of coarse language. "No, he most certainly was not a... dick." Saying the word felt strangely liberating. She glanced at him to see if he judged her for it, noticed how close he was and cleared her throat. She closed the locket and slipped it inside her collar. Its weight fell between her breasts, and she was quite aware that he'd just been holding it.

"He was a very good shot," she added, shaking her head to dismiss it as a throw-away comment. "Certainly dedicated to the cause. You asked why, but to me it seems obvious. They are the bad element. Demons are dangerous and murder humankind. The sorts of people that consort with them, no better."

Joseph knocked the edge of his thumb into the filter of the cigarette and then lifted it to his lips to draw in another mouthful of smoke. When she said what she did his eyebrow arched. "That's a real narrow-minded view you have going on there," he pointed out. "The world is never that black and white, never."

He blew out smoke and scratched the tips of his fingers through his hair and over his scalp. "I guess looking at the world that way makes for an easier life, but talk about limiting yourself."

"So what made you feel the way you do about the supernatural element? A lot of personal experience with the not so pleasant aspects or is it just a general view shared by yourself and the Inquisition? You know, the mass believes it so I believe it as well."

He had no idea why he was stood here debating this Rhiannon's views, but he felt a need to say something, especially when it sounded so... outdated and Hitler'ish.

Speaking of... "You ever heard of Hitler?"

Rhiannon's brow furrowed. "Who?"

She searched back through all the things he said and found them disturbingly accusatory. "Forgive me," she said. "I don't mean to argue. But your implications are... unkind... and I can't brook such disparaging remarks. First..." She coaxed a strand of hair behind her ear with a gloved hand. "Mine is not an easy life, and you know nothing of it. Second, I feel this way about demons because I have seen the damage they do. Entire towns set upon by marauding packs of them... People torn apart by their brutality and their sadism. I have slain the victims of those attacks, newly risen as abominations themselves. History is full of worse stories. A near apocalypse in Rome, for instance."

A car drove by. Rhiannon looked at it suspiciously and then continued. "You ask if I've personal experience with them. Surely, not every policeman in your world has been a victim of crime, nor every soldier a casualty of war, and yet he takes up the cause, does he not? Because it is the right thing to do. A self-sacrifice. And it is never easy."

She pulled on the snug hem of her shirt, which felt as if it tightened while she spoke. "Would you tell me why you're sympathetic to the supernatural? Did you have a... personal experience?"

Rhiannon's brow furrowed. "Who?"

She searched back through all the things he said and found them disturbingly accusatory. "Forgive me," she said. "I don't mean to argue. But your implications are... unkind... and I can't brook such disparaging remarks. First..." She coaxed a strand of hair behind her ear with a gloved hand. "Mine is not an easy life, and you know nothing of it. Second, I feel this way about demons because I have seen the damage they do. Entire towns set upon by marauding packs of them... People torn apart by their brutality and their sadism. I have slain the victims of those attacks, newly risen as abominations themselves. History is full of worse stories. A near apocalypse in Rome, for instance."

A car drove by. Rhiannon looked at it suspiciously and then continued. "You ask if I've personal experience with them. Surely, not every policeman in your world has been a victim of crime, nor every soldier a casualty of war, and yet he takes up the cause, does he not? Because it is the right thing to do. A self-sacrifice. And it is never easy."

She pulled on the snug hem of her shirt, which felt as if it tightened while she spoke. "Would you tell me why you're sympathetic to the supernatural? Did you have a... personal experience?"

"Apparently not," Joseph muttered with a shake of his head. "You might want to look him up whilst you're here."

He angled his head to watch her closely and the way in which she spoke of her convictions, finding it oddly reminiscent, but he couldn't quite put his finger on why. "Right thing, yes, I agree, but I'm not sure I agree with the feeling behind your particular cause." Joseph flicked ash aside and then took another long drag. "It sounds too black and white for my tastes."

"Personal experience?" Joseph queried, lips tugging into a small smirk. "Yeah, you could say that. I know a lot of good people, human, demon and special alike. I personally don't feel any of them need to be eradicated for simply being different from me."

He was silent for a moment. "Would you consider yourself a good person?"

Rhiannon crossed her arms and looked leftward at the street. "I... well, I try to be," she said, sounding less sure of herself. It was easier to defend a cause than to defend herself, knowing she was full of fault. "I'm not a saint. I think... uncharitable things sometimes. But I do believe that trying to be a good person means you're on the right path, so long as you are sincere."

Uncertain of his motivations, she looked at Joseph. She shifted her weight from foot to foot. "Why?"

Joseph shrugged. "I'm just curious, that's all." He exhaled smoke then dropped the cigarette to the ground, pressing the heel of his boot into the glowing embers to rub them out.

"And what happens if what and who you hunt are just trying to be good people? What then?" He stepped in, just close enough to be in, but not invade her personal space. "As nice as it is to believe in a black and white world it doesn't really exist. Not every demon or supernaturally gifted person is evil. Think about it."

He reached into his back pocket and pulled out his wallet, counting out a couple bills. "Here," he said as he presented them to Rhiannon. "For a hotdog. And to answer your question about its ingredients? It's made out of pork, beef, chicken or combinations of them. I have a feeling you might have thought it was made from an actual dog."

Joseph tucked his wallet back into his pocket and pulled out another cigarette, lighting it a few moments later. "God, you look so much like her." He chuckled softly and smoke escaped the corner of his mouth as he spoke again, "It was... interesting meeting you."

He stepped back and turned on his heel, heading back in the direction of the pool hall.

Rhiannon stared at the money in her hand. She was confused. Why had he simply walked off from her? Did she say something that offended him? He wasn't a demon -- she was sure of that -- so she couldn't understand why it mattered to him, what she did for a living. It was an honorable profession, third only to medicine or the church. She watched his shoes walking in the other direction, the retreating back of a man who was identical to one of her dearest friends.

She wet her lips. "Wait! Joseph!"

Hurrying along the sidewalk, she tried not to cause a scene. "Is her name like mine? Your girlfriend... Rhiannon Lee?" If so, she could search the computer network for her doppelganger. It was a morbid curiosity, one she might not explore, but she wanted the option. "What does she do for a profession?"

Joseph stilled his step and turned to face this version of Rhiannon and nodded his head. "Yeah, that's my girl's name." Rhiannon's profession? Well there was a tricky one to answer.

"She's an artist," he settled for at this particular moment in time. "A really good one at that." It was clear in how Joseph spoke about Rhiannon that he was proud of her.

"An artist?" Rhiannon's face registered surprise. "My brother's an artist." Either it hadn't been passed to her in genetics, or the ability was never encouraged. She was better with mechanical things, though she supposed both abilities required dexterity. "Thank you." She nodded and searched his shirt.

She hesitated. Her arms moved restlessly, it becoming clear that Rhiannon was indecisive about what to do with them. Finally, she grew brave and reached up to hug Joseph. She hadn't asked permission, which was extremely bold, but if this was the last time she'd ever lay eyes on him, she needed to do it. Holding onto her old friend was both painful and a balm to her heart.

"I missed you." She squeezed his shoulders and pressed a kiss to his neck. "Goodbye." The Inquisitor retreated and gathered her wits. The crinkled money was still in her hand, though she'd forgotten about it.

Joseph hadn't been expecting the hug, but found it was easy enough to lean into it, even going so far as to rest a hand on the small of her back. He said nothing when she said that she'd missed him and just closed his eyes at the kiss to his neck, quickly reminding himself that this wasn't his Rhiannon.

He looked at her for a long moment before leaning in to drop a kiss on her cheek. "Goodbye, Rhiannon." Joseph stepped back and offered her another smile, lifting the cigarette to his lips.

As he was walking away he pulled out his phone and thumbed a message to Rhiannon about her having a doppelganger in town.

****


"Hey beautiful, I just ran into your doppelganger. Says she's from another reality, totally different from you. Also? From the sounds of things there's a group of them. Thought you should know. x."