Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

THE FIRST REPORT

It started with knocking. That’s all I can really remember. The house I was in, the people who may have possibly been screaming for them not to take me, they are a myth to me. As I was ripped from my bed and taken, I could no longer remember who I was or where I was from.

The days that began my life, or at least the time I now remember as my life, are just as important to me as where I am now. I remember standing and shaking, huddled in a line with 33 other candidates. To be fair, they told us we were just out of high school. There must have been a lot of mind wipes and retraining done to us before we were ready to be trained, because it was December, according to the clock on the wall.  December 13, to be precise.

They came down that big line, telling each person their name, and how old they were. I stayed in my place, weak kneed and silly looking in my over-sized shorts and shirt. I had long hair then, and they had made me put it up in a ponytail. The man in the leather balaclava and the cape looked at me.

“27, 17 years of age. 8 months and 24 days.”

Listening to them, it was obvious that I was the youngest out of all of them. I was probably the most scared and shaking out of all of them too. In the beginning, I only had my number. They ranked us with them. Maybe it was worst to best, maybe it was best to worst. To this day, we still don’t know for sure what it was. As 27, I hoped it was worse to best, but for all we knew, it was just random. I just happened to be standing on that spot in the line. In the end, I guess it didn't really matter.

I was moved in with three other girls. We weren’t in barracks, more like glorified cages from the zoo. The abandoned mine had better living facilities than we did. I can still remember the room, the sounds of the others breathing as we all pretended to sleep. We were in this small windowless room, with hardly any furniture. There was a desk, a chair, a four drawer dresser, and a lamp. We only had one bed, and we had to share it. There was a cot, a pile of cushions, and the floor.

Being a secret police officer wasn't easy then, and it still isn't easy now. All of your life is commanded by schedules and rotations. We set up our first rotation ourselves. Bed, Cot, cushions, floor. We changed places every night, trying to keep comfortable and well rested. We used to try sharing the bed, but the horror terrors were too much. It was not fun waking up to your bed-mate attacking you as you really did attempt to sleep, and sleep never came willingly.

Our training was also set up with the same rotational feel. Physical training, studying, lectures, tactical maneuvers, soft ball training. There were a lot of other things we had to learn. We spent most of our time becoming stronger or studying, to be honest. We were all kind of dumb.  That’s the problem with retraining and mind wipes. In forgetting some things and being forced to forget others, they made us for get a lot of stuff by accident. It was weird, forgetting basic math and reading and writing. It was frustrating, remembering being intelligent and having to relearn the alphabet at the same time. It’s probably why it’s taken me almost four years trying to write out this, our story.

I survived, but not all the candidates did. Some never made it to the actual training. We don’t know what happens if you fail out or are removed from the programs. We don’t know what happened to the ones who didn’t die.  14, she snapped. She would bark and howl and yammer on and on. 28, he was a big tough, looking guy. That was until he started crying two days in, then he couldn’t stop. 33 died pretty early on. None of us like talking about how. 5 was one of our roommates. She quit. We don’t know what happened to her, and honestly, I don’t think we want to know. 9 died in gun training. He was an idiot. After that, we quit paying attention to the dead. We were far too focused on trying to stay alive.

My unit was assigned around the same time that summer started up. It was 8 of us put together there. 12, 24, 31, 6, 15, 20, 29 and I were put together, but we weren’t together. We were still in our own little cube cells. After that, no one else mattered to me. It’s not like I didn’t care. I would have, but there’s something about training that strips you of your potential to care. I ended up being alone in my room, but I still rotated through what we had to sleep on, because I couldn’t sleep on the bed every night. It was then that the horror terrors really started. I guess the aloneness started all of it, like it was the trigger that my heart had been waiting for the entire time. For the first time during the weekly check-up, I was labeled as “DAMAGED.”

That diagnosis was the kiss of death in training, and maybe literally. While I had been good at many things before, the title just started to make me suffer. That was when 15 noticed me. He supported me as well as he could. He tried picking up the slack for me. I still managed to get by, but the threat of being forcibly removed from the program always loomed overhead.

15 then gave me something I hadn’t been expecting. One night, I returned to my cube cell and found a radio on my dresser. I wasn’t supposed to have one, but it was there, and it made me smile. I turned it on, hearing the familiar comfort of the random number station, and the other normal Nightvale stations. I found his voice that night, echoing back from times I could never remember again. It was so comforting to me. I curled up in the pitch black under the covers to the sound of him speaking.

Cecil

Gershwin

Palmer.

He was the reason I could sleep easily, without dreams and without nightmares.  Every night, I slept to the sound of his voice. It was dreamless sleep. I was soon changed back to “UNDAMAGED” which the men in the suits simply nodded at. They let me go back to training. However, in the end, it ended up not helping. Sleeping forever was so easy compared to training that I never wanted to wake up. I would just lay there, not caring about training or anything. Nothing was important. It didn’t take long for me to go back to DAMAGED, and it didn’t take much for 15 to start noticing me again. It was so terrible, for him to come in the morning and get me up out of bed. I would just cry for the longest time as he got me dressed and ready. He refused to let me give up. He even put my hair up in ponytails and put my socks and shoes on. Forget being 17 or maybe 18 then, I was like a four year old.

It wasn’t easy for him, and it wasn’t easy for me, but one day, I realized that him coming every morning and making me get up was good for me. I looked forward to getting ready with him, brushing my teeth down in the bathroom together or him making sure my shoes and combat armor were on right. I started helping out with him too, making sure that his guns were cleaned properly and that his knowledge of siege tactics was correct. He was sort of horrible at siege tactics. It was actually kind of nice. He would stop by my room every morning. Some days, I was still in bed, others, I was bouncing and ready by the door and ready for the day.

It didn’t take long for me to go back to UNDAMAGED. As long as he and I were together, we were fine.

In addition, something even better happened. 15 and I started getting closer. He and I were partners. In sparring, he and I were unmatched, and always sent each other to the infirmary afterwards. He was better in rifles and other firearms, but I could beat anyone in siege tactics. No one could ever defeat my virtual strongholds and no one could stope me from beating theirs. It was nice, that he and I were on a team. A few months before our final tests, we were all moved into barracks together.

There were eight of us, and we were the premiere force of the Secret Police Academy. There were two other girls who made it as well. We actually were stronger than the males at times. We all had beds and faces and numbers then. We all were individuals, with the light streaming in through the windows. The light hurt after so long in the dark. I ended up wearing sunglasses. They say that retraining does things to you. I guess to me, it was the birth of these amber eyes of mine. They sucked in light, and it hurt. I had to learn a lot through the shield of aviator eyes. That’s me. The girl with the flaming red ponytail and the orange eyes and the fire that can’t ever burn.

The training got tougher, but by the time that our trials came around, hell was inside of us. It was spent in simulations with live ammo, spent in siege breaking and defending. 15 and I luckily got paired up, but it wasn’t easy. The horror terrors started up again, and I wasn’t alone this time. 15 and I ended up sleeping in the same bed, as if having another heart beating faster than safely was enough to quell the terrible fear welling up inside at night. We did not sleep peacefully, but we did sleep. On nights in the field, we took turns on watch, keeping contact as the other slept. It was clear that 15 and I would one day be partners.  We had to do this together, or not at all.

That is what being a Secret Police Officer really is. It’s incredibly lonely, together.

I am Officer 27 of the Nightvale Secret Police, and this is my story, and the story of the people I follow.

Chapter Text

THE SECOND REPORT

In the end, only six of us ended up graduating from our program. We were given the ability to choose a new name for ourselves at that time. 15, he chose immediately. He was Ben. Mark, Roxanne, Austin, Joanna and I all graduated together. I didn’t really have a name. I couldn’t decide on one. They said that that was actually pretty normal, but to this day, I’m not sure. Everyone else had a name, all I really wanted was clarity.

I know that it’s probably dumb to wish for a thing like that, but as we got assigned to our different stations, it became clear that that was what I wanted the most. I was the graduation speaker for our group.

As is tradition, no one was invited and no one was allowed to hear what I said. That missive is mine and mine alone. I will hold onto those words for the longest time. Even when I got sent to filing, and Ben was assigned in the same office working phone calls. Roxanne and Mark got sent to the abandoned mine shaft. Austin was sent to help out with training. Joanna was sent to work at the hospital. We don’t ask why.  Ben and I, we were together. He would answer phones, and I would write up the police reports and file them.

“27, public service announcement. Alligators can kill your children.” Ben stated one day from the phone, sighing.

“15, Information Request. Why do you sound so…concerned?” I asked back, tilting my head and looking over at him.

He shrugged, as if that could actually answer all the questions he’d ever have, as if that just dismissed the need for a solid answer.

“27, I’d like to report that I wish that I could call you by a name.”

“15, I’d like to report that I have yet to find a name that I want.”

“27, I’d like to notate that you are …”

“I’m what?”

I turned to face him, and he looked up, lightly blushing. He sighed, then shrugged.

“Nothing. You should get back to work. The mayor’s having another press conference today, so that means that you’ll end up with a ton of new paperwork.”

“You act like that’s a surprise.” I told him, turning my head away.

“Listen… when you get a name, you’ll tell me, right?”

“Of course, Ben. But…I’m still 27 to you, right?” I asked.

“Does it matter that much?”

“Yeah. It does.”

I turned back to the filing cabinet. There were no more questions, no more answers. There were only filing cabinets filled with endless reports.  I sighed, pulling out the newest stack of nonsensical reports-

“Is this… Cecil Gershwin Palmer’s?”

“He recently got assigned an entire team to just follow him. You know, rotations and everything.”

My heart started hammering at the idea of him, being alive and out there. I flipped open the file and saw him. Sweater vest, thick glasses, third eye closed. His purple eyes blinked out at me, and I felt my heart skip a beat. He gave me a wink from his photo, and I felt my face heat up.

“Oh, Cecil…”

“He’s not what I imagined, to be honest.” He said, grinning.

“What do you mean?”

“The way you go on about him, you’d think he was some sort of star.” He teased.

I took the opportune moment to grab the nearest object and throw it straight at his stupid head. How dare he tease me about Cecil. It wasn’t like I was in love with him. I mean, I loved Cecil, but only from afar. I knew that I wasn’t going to date Cecil or something. Ever. I just needed him around my own existence.

“He’s pretty human. He sounds so…lonely at times.” I added. “Stars aren’t lonely like that.”

“Of course they are.”

“How would you know?”

 I could feel myself getting angry and frustrated at him. He shrugged a bit and didn’t elaborate on whatever it was he was thinking. I wish he did. It would have made things so much easier between us. He never did.

I turned back to the filing cabinet and opened up R for Radio Hosts. I quickly filed him in, in front of Leonard Burton. I sighed, then turned back to Ben. “What are you doing tonight?”

“Going for a run. Do you want to come?”

It had been a long time since he and I had spent time together out of this office. It had been so hard moving away from all of them. When we were put into our new barracks, they gave us all bunks at our various locations, and I was alone again. I didn’t want that, I wanted to be back in with him, but they were separating us based on Gender, and there was only one female female in the entire office. The Sheriff himself had moved me into this new room. It was …lonely. Luckily for me, I still had my radio at night, and Ben in the morning. Ben in the morning was probably the greatest thing. Without him, I wouldn’t bother waking up at all.

I stretched, and looked at him. “Do you want to listen to NVCR with me tonight?”

“You mean Cecil, right?” He asked dryly. “Yes, 27, that sounds like the most fantastic thing ever. I would love to hang out with you and listen to you gush and drool over his voice. His smooth, sonorous voice. How could I not want that?”

“You didn’t have to be a jerk about it.”

I tried not to sound hurt about it, but I wasn’t as good as everyone else from keeping my emotions unheard. He sighed, barely loud enough for me to hear him. Eventually, he got up from his desk and started helping me file reports. It’s like we could almost communicate by just breathing. His eyes searched my shades, and I shrugged.

“Why do you wear your dress blues every day?” he asked.

“I was told by the Sheriff I could either wear the field uniform or the dress blues. I figured I’d wear these while I had the chance. You know field workers never get to wear their’s out and about.”

“True. You have a point with that.”

“Yeah. I think he fancies me. What a dumb thing to do.”

“Or a really smart thing to do. Also, why did you use the word ‘fancy’ like some pretentious Anglophile?”

“Sorry… I just reread the Harry Potter series.”

He laughed at that, then quit laughing long enough to remind me that books are dangerous. I laughed as well. Things were so clear around Ben. There was no need for clarity around him, because I felt safe and secure with him. If I could stay with him or by him, then chances were that the two of us could actually survive this crazy world. If he was by my side, I knew that the two of us would not let Nightvale kill us.

I let out another heavy sigh as a dark blue envelope shot out of one of the filing cabinets. Another interdepartmental memo, I assumed. It was addressed to me, so I went ahead and slit it open.

“Shit.”

“What’s wrong?”

“The Sheriff wants to see me. Now. We’ll talk later.”

“Alright. Good luck.”

“Yeah.”

We didn’t hug or say goodbye, even though we knew that most people who went to that office didn’t come back to where they were before. I gulped, walking out into the hallway, adjusting my shades. Hopefully, I was going to make it back. 

Chapter Text

THE THIRD REPORT

I don’t like being called inside the Sheriff’s office. It’s not even that remarkable, even with the unicorns in it. Or Pegasii. Whatever they are and the plural of them correlates to being. It’s not intimidating to stand in there amongst rainbows. He, however, is intimidating. For starters, no one’s seen his face ever, at least not since he’s become sheriff. Even then, the people who selected him to be sheriff said that they don’t know what his face looks like, or what his chosen name or number is. He’s tall, really tall and muscular. He fills out most of the desk he sits behind, bulging shoulders surrounded by flowing red cape. He always wears this and carries his iron scepter at all times. The blood stones glint in it. He tented his fingers as he looked up at me from behind his aviators. It’s unnerving. He is unnerving, to be honest. 

“27, It’s come to my attention that it has been 90 days since you graduated from training. You have yet to choose a name since then.”

I sighed, running a hand through my hair. “Sir.”

He looked at me as I hesitated, then motioned me to continue talking to him. There wasn’t really an easy way to explain myself to him.

“I…can’t find a name for what I have. I don’t know what I want. I only know what it is that I need,” I admitted finally.

“And what is that?” He probed, leaning forward.

“Clarity. What I am doing in this world. I need to know why I am and why I am here and alive in this Nightvale.”

He let out a hum, leaning back in his chair and turning to the side. It almost sounded like a laugh. Almost, but not quite.

“You must have been really driven before you came into my program. Would you prefer field work over your office job?” he offered.

“Of course, sir! I enjoy the office, I enjoy Ben and Tracy and Talia and Terrence and everyone in there, but I didn’t train all this time to be put in an office to sort paperwork and type public service announcements that are almost completely unnecessary.”

He nodded his head at me, and I felt myself flush in embarrassment.

“How old are you now?”

Shit if I knew. I shrugged my shoulder.

“Almost 19? I think I’m almost 19. It’s hard to remember, sir.”

“Your birthday is June 14. When you turn 19, you can go. You can start doing field work instead of office work. Not a day sooner. We’ll have you on watch. You’ll be given a citizen to follow. However, you need to have a name in order to continue on in the program. Is that understood?”

“Sir.”

I could feel myself deflating. I wanted to cry, I wanted to curl up. There was no fixing me this time, because I couldn’t just choose a name at random. I needed a reason to live, not a name to have.

“If I can be so bold to suggest, you already suggested a name that you seem rather fond of.”

I looked at him, tilting my head this time for him to go on.

“I think Clarity is a beautiful name for you,” he informed me.

“Oh.”

I felt my face heat up because this is not what I wanted. I didn’t want this person in a mask to tell me I was beautiful. I didn’t want any of that. I just wanted to be loose and free to get out of the office.

“That’s all, Clarity. Dismissed.”

“Sir.”

I turned and got out of his office as quickly as I could, stuck somewhere between walking too fast and running too slow to get out of there in time. I wanted to go back to the one person who just felt right and okay in all of this. I needed to get back to Ben.

I made it into the office, and he looked up at me, phone in his ear as he listened in on who knows who doing what. He immediately set down the receiver, and came over to me. He had this look on his face and he bit his lower lip, but all he did was hug me.

“My name is Clarity, because that is what I need.”  I informed him, sighing.

He just held me close, his chin on the top of my head. He smelled like sweat and deodorant. It wasn’t even nice smelling deodorant. Just the kind that keeps you from sweating like a pig all day. And that’s pretty good. He finally let go of me, and roughed up my hair, not that it needed it.

“You’re going to be fine, 27. Better than fine. What else did he talk to you about?”

“Me getting reassigned in June. I’m going to get out of the office and do fieldwork then.”

“Guess I better get used to the idea of you not being around then. Not going to lie, it’s not going to be as fun without you here.”

“Oh yes. Filing paperwork is the highlight of my life. It really turns me on, Ben. It makes me feel so hot and tingly all over. Papercuts.”

“That’s the best part of working here. I don’t think any other office goes through Band-Aids at the speed that we do.”

“It’s the record for most Band-Aids used by any one office in the entirety of the force.”

“You singlehandedly smashed the record, 27.”

“You knocked the filing cabinet over, Ben.”

“It was an accident.”

“You yelled timber.” I reminded him, laughing.

“Oh.”

“Yup!”

“Right. Sorry.”  

He seemed apologetic, or maybe just nervous. I smiled at him, patting his arm.

 “Let’s get back to work. Then, we can go on a run and have dinner. After that, we can listen to Cecil.”

“How romantic, getting to hear you swoon over other men…”

Chapter Text

THE FOURTH REPORT

Today, reportedly, is my 19^th birthday, though I can never be fully sure. I am still in my dress blues, though I shouldn’t be. The sheriff told me not to wear the normal suit. It should bother me, that he told me not to wear the field uniform on today of all days. However, instead, I am focusing on the fact that I am too nervous to really care.

Today, I am finally getting my first field assignment. No one has given me any information. The last two days, I have been filing massive amounts of paperwork instead of talking to anyone.It was easier, focusing on P.S.A's about how potholes are a danger to cars, and the sun is hot.  I am not even sure what I am supposed to do. There is no manual about how to actually do field work, if you want to know the truth. There is nothing that tells you about how you are supposed to follow someone out there. I am now actually a nervous wreck of a human being, far more than when I was labeled "DAMAGED" during the early training days. 

He, the sheriff, that is, finally came out of the office, navy blue folder in his hand with the all seeing eye of Nightvale on the cover. He smiled at me, I think. The area around where his mouth should be moved slightly. It was weird, thinking how he could just walk out of any office anywhere. He had been up on the cloud all morning, and I have been down here in the basement of Play Ball’s Facilities for far too long.

“You are now allowed to use writing utensils. You are now allowed to record events as they actually happen. You are allowed to think again.” He informed me.

“Sir?” I asked, holding out my hand for the envelope. “Should I change into my field uniform?”

“No,” he said, handing me the thick package. “There will be no one able to identify you. You will follow this person of interest between the hours of 10 AM and 5 PM. Afterwards, you will report back here immediately and file your observations for the day. Do I make myself clear?”

“Sir.”

He handed over a light blue notebook next, as well as several slightly cylindrical objects with lids on them. I’ve learned since then that these are actually pens, one of the objects in the Museum of Forbidden Objects. It feels so weird knowing that I have them and can use them at any time.

“Take some time getting reacquainted with these items.” He added. “We’ll get you one of the cars ready for you. That way, you can follow him more easily and more accurately.”

“Alright, sir, thank you, sir.”

I finally received everything. He shook my hand, and was off. I don’t know where he goes besides his office, or what he does every day, nor do I want to. I took my folder and notebook, clutched them tightly to my chest as I went back to my own room. I was ready to figure out who I was following.

My hands were shaking by the time that I got back to my bed, sitting down and finally slitting open the envelope. I pulled out the folder, purple in color as I stared at it. It was heavy in my hands, thick, and smelled faintly of vanilla. Who was in here, that was so important that they had an individual officer following them? I quickly opened it up, almost spilling the contents onto the floor. He was there.

There were his thick rimmed glasses, his strong jaw, and his hair, lightly brushing against his eyebrows. He had a way of hunching over his microphone and soundboard that was like no other. He had a specific way of drinking coffee as well, that just made sense if you thought of him in that context. He was perfect to me, because I knew that I would never be able to reach out and see him and talk to him. He was a star that was meant for someone else, and just like a star, he was cold and lonely.

Cecil

Gershwin

Palmer. 

My heart skipped several beats, and I took a few deep breaths, reminding it to do his job. Beat heart, beat.  He glanced at me from his photo, and offered me a slight smile.

I lay on my bed, getting out some paper and practicing writing with one of these pens. It was a bit harder than I thought, but I could read what I wrote. I got up, getting out the trench coat that had been given to me on my first day working. It was too big on me in a way that I would never be able to fill it up, but that didn’t matter. It was mine. I put on my trench coat, my shades, and readjusted the headset on my head. Opening my door, I went out into the hall, and turned it on. The familiar comforting white noise surrounded my head in that moment, and I felt maybe, maybe, I would be okay.

“27, this is 15. You on?” he asked, his voice so comforting.

“27-E, reporting in.” I announced, heading to the parking lot. Being stationed at Play Ball!, so we actually had a parking lot. It was too bad, I really missed the unicorns. Pegasii. Whatever they were.

“Parking lot 4-E, purple sedan. Keys are taped to the left front tire. Good luck out there, 27. I’ll be listening in.”

“Thank you, 15. I will report to you if anything goes astray.”

“I’m making pizza tonight. Would you like to come over and listen to Cecil with me?” he asked.

“That sounds lovely. I’ll be there later. I’m going to mute myself for now, while I’m on assignment.”

“Alright. Over and out.”

“Over and Over and Out again.” I responded, smiling into the microphone.

Finding the car was actually pretty easy. Life was pretty easy when you had people in it who seemed to want to care and help you. I was excited that I still had those people around me. I found the keys and climbed in, running my hands over the smooth, faux leather seats. My car, my assignment. A part of me really wished I could say My Cecil, but events were about to be put into place that would shape not only his future, but by far extension, mine as well. Elsewhere, someone else was about to get a new assignment.

A new scientist came into town that day.

Chapter Text

 Report 005-A

He sleeps till about 11 o’clock. It was easy to see him, outside of his window from my perch in the tree. I didn’t really bother trying to hide. Protocol said not to even bother doing something so silly. I was allowed to be seen by whoever I wanted to. It was part of the package deal of following someone with such a high score on our person of interest warning scale. When he wakes up, he rolls over with his face down in the pillows, stretching out his feet and legs first. His dog actually is the one who wakes him up first. From what I can understand, this is the mobile broadcasting unit, or Mobu. Mobu is a cute thing, looking more like a great dane than anything else. If you know, a great dane was a Mobu. Mobu 4.0, to be exact. I’m not sure what happened to the other Mobus. I don’t think I really want to know either. I have a lot of knowledge that no one is supposed to have, so I'm okay with not learning more every now and then, especially pertaining to Nightvale. 

He eventually gets up and moves to the bathroom, flannel pajama pants hung low around his body. He sleeps shirtless, and for a guy who only works at the radio station, his toned figure could put some of the Secret Police office workers to shame. I leaned in, but the door shut, and I couldn’t get around. There were no windows there anyway. I sighed, taking out my handheld transmitter, switching my headset back on and pointing it at the window. I leaned back against the core of it, lazily kicking my feet back and forth. 

I could hear him brushing his teeth. I waited patiently, then looked down at the ground. There were several scientists passing below, excitedly murmuring about how the lead scientist was going to be arriving today. They would start studying Nightvale as soon as he started assigning them to tests. I smiled to myself.

“A new scientist arrived in town today,” I murmured, thinking of how he could say it on the radio.

“Huh. New scientist? I wonder what he’s going to do here.”

“Study Nightvale, of course, Cecil.”

“That sounds…neat.”

I smiled to myself, leaning back and listening below. The new scientist is apparently named Carlos. I have no idea where he’s from, or what he looks like, just that he is. I wonder what a man like that has to do in Nightvale. Inside, Cecil is getting in the shower. Outside, I am enjoying the late morning sun for the first time in years. I am okay with this, as I feel at ease for the first time in a long time.  I can hear him turn off the water, the sound of the towel on his skin. I can hear him, getting dressed then brushing his hair. I can hear him using the blow dryer.

I wonder briefly what he will do next, when I finally hear the bathroom door open. I can go back to recording my notes and musings some other time. For now, I must watch Cecil Gershwin Palmer. He looks at the covered mirror in his apartment for a while, as if being able to see himself anyway, even though there is no possible way to actually see himself. I smiled at that, as he adjusted his tie. His sweater vest was so vibrant. He got so dressed up for a job where no one could see him. I find this the most fascinating fact of all. He could show up in sweat pants and an old holey shirt, and no one would ever know the difference. I wouldn’t have known the difference until today.

He gets his keys and his wallet, petting Mobu on the head before heading out. I find it odd that he doesn’t take him with him, but that means nothing. I wait for him, using the transmitter to listen in on him as he makes his way down the stairs. He’s silent, except for his light footsteps, and then, sporadic whistling. The stairs whistle back.

It makes me smile. He doesn’t sound so lonely when he’s whistling. I wait for him to come outside, and finally he does, I leave my perch in that tree, shimmying down. I wait for him to get past me, before I start following him down the road. He looks to the new dog park that the city just built, the high fences finally revealed to the public’s eyes. He quickly looks away from it, but I do not. I decide to stare at it, because I am allowed to know about it now. I know what’s inside there, but all I do is shudder. It is better to pretend that I do not know, along with everyone else. I know that may sound terrible, but for once, I regret knowing the truth. It’s probably why so many of us went mad in the end. The price of knowledge is that you no longer get to live in ignorant bliss.

I turned back to watching Cecil, taking in the way that he walked, how he led almost with his shoulders instead of his feet, and how his arms swung. I smiled, watching him as he walked. I liked the way that he walked, I decided. It was confident, and inviting somehow. It suggested that he should be walking with someone always. He was heading towards downtown. He easily passed through people, and other various citizens, as he made his way into Rosalita’s coffee shop. He was greeted by a lot of the residents by name. they ignored me, as they always ignore the secret police. It was when I wasn't ignored that I knew something was wrong. I felt the others behind me, in that moment. They were men in suits from a “vague government.” I knew exactly who they were, and I knew that they were dangerous. I decided to walk beyond Cecil. They were following me, not him. I turned into an alley a few streets beyond, and quickly climbed a drain pipe. I hid on a fire escape, halfway in someone’s home. They looked around, trying to find me. I leaned against the windowsill. There were two of them. The one who wasn’t short spoke first.

“She’s gone. I wonder who she’s following.”

“We have her description. Long, waist length red hair, blue trench coat. Secret Police Officer 27. She was tailing an individual. She’ll be easy to find again,” stated the one who wasn’t tall. “She’ll be watched.”

I waited as they left, then shimmied out of the window again. It seemed that the apartment I was in wasn’t occupied. Who knew why the window was open that day, but I thank whoever left it open. It was just an empty bed room, smelling faintly of vanilla. I watched them turn the corner, then flipped on the headset.

“Ben.” I whispered out, not wanting to say his number.

“Hello? Is someone there?” he asked. I sighed, then switched my headset back to mute. I got onto the railing, jumping off and reaching out for the drain pipe that had gotten me up there. I felt my hand connect with it, and as I slid down, I lost contact with it, and went hurdling into the dumpster below. The sickening crunch of breaking glass alerted me that I had not gotten through unscathed, closely followed by the burning feeling that definitely let me know I was hurt. I climbed out of the dumpster, and was aware that there was blood all over my lower leg.

What a fantastic first day.

I cleaned up as well as I could, stopped the bleeding by willing my blood to congeal, and went back to my assignment, buttoning up my trench coat. I was cautious as I made my way back to Rosalita's. Luckily for me, they seemed to have lost me for now. Walking in, I saw that Cecil was already eating breakfast, and I had no idea what it was.

“I’ll have what he had.” I told the barista.

 He nodded, touching his newsboy cap to me and brushing his sweater vest, an indication he has received my order. I fished out my money, trying not to look at the tinged blood on the notes. My blood is not normal. Most blood is not normal. Mine is hued. I regret it, to be honest, having non-standard blood, and working pain receptors, especially at this moment in time. After paying him, I took my food and drink, sitting down at a table near Cecil. I was close enough to see him, relaxing in an armchair as he dined. He was eating a ham and cheese croissant, and his drink was…vanilla macchiato. Apparently, I was going to associate Cecil with the smell and taste of vanilla, and probably for a very long time.

I ate silently, listening to him, the sound of his fork on his plate, him sipping his coffee. He wasn’t a quiet eater, but that didn’t bother me. It sort of gave me comfort, like jumping off the third floor of a building and landing in the dumpster was worth it. He was worth protecting. He was so real and tangible, far away and close at the exact same moment.

“I wonder who the new scientist is…” He murmured.

The door opened up, and I looked up, hand going down to my blow dart holster, as if the two men would be back. I clutched it, and sighed audibly when it was just old woman Josie. She, of course, was also a person of interest, mainly because she was just so entertaining and fun to be around. I saw her follower outside in a truck, staying at a distance, transmitter recording what she was saying. 

“Cecil!” she said, hobbling over with her cane. “Cecil Gershwin Palmer, look at you!”

There was a distinct patting sound as she touched both his cheeks, and I smiled to myself.

“Josie! How are you!”

He half got up, hugging her, and she wrapped her arms around him, then patted the seat. He sat back down and she sat close to him, whispering conspiratorially enough for the secret police to still be able to hear her from a distance. How polite.

“I… have been visited by the angels, Cecil! There were a ton of ‘em! Ten feet tall, and you know what, there was even a black one! They came to my house over by the car lot. You remember where I live, right?” She asked.

“Of course, but Josie, angels don’t exist. You must remember that.”

“They changed that old porch light for me. Look.”

She picked it up out of her bag, and I stared. It was still glowing faintly, blinking on and off.

“It was the black one. What do you think I can get for it? Money’s a bit tight, and I want to enter the Bridge Tournament this week.”

“I’ll tell the people tonight, alright-“

He stopped talking and I looked at him, where his cheeks were red and blazing. His third eye blinked in surprise as he took in the person outside, and I turned as well, my heart skipping a beat. The person had black hair, curling slightly, with a touch of grey around the temples. He had a strong jaw and teeth like a military cemetery. I felt myself gasp. Cecil stared at him, hand over his heart as he stared.

“Oh, Josie, who is that?” he asked, staring at her.

“No idea, but he must be the one with all the lab equipment. They just rented out the place near Big Rico’s.  Apparently he’s giving a press conference soon, at 1 PM. You should go to it. I made corn muffins. They aint the same, the angels took all my salt, but they aren’t too bad.”

“Josie! That’s almost now! I have to go and get ready!” He jumped up. “I just have to know his name. A scientist, here, in Nightvale! Neat!”

“Sonnie, there are a lot of scientists here in Nightvale.”

“But none like him!”

That, I knew the sound of that. That was complete love at first sight, though I don’t think he knew it. He hurried through his macchiato, then offered an apology to Josie. I waited for him to be out the door before I followed him, casually walking down the street. The men who were not tall or short were nowhere around me at the moment. That was a good sign. I needed to ditch what I was wearing, and the uniform of the secret police entirely. They were after me, which meant that by extension, they were after Cecil Gershwin Palmer. I went to my purple Sedan, and got in, sliding off my blue trench coat. There was so much blood on it. I paled looking at it, then realized I might just be paling from blood loss. That was a definite possibility as well. 

I dug through the back, then took off my corset, as well as my shades. I peeled off my tie and button up shirt, sitting in just a tank top and navy blue skirt. My blue tights were stained to hell with hued blood, but there was nothing I could do about that. Luckily for me, Nightvale wasn’t short on terrors. Citizens were always wandering around covered in blood.

I set aside my blow gun and reached into my pockets, pulling out my beat up converse. Along with that, I took out a knife. I took a deep breath, flipping down the visor, and took it to my ponytail. I loosened up my hair, getting it near my shoulders before starting to hack it off. It was gross looking, and really painful as the serrated edges just yanked on most of it.

I looked around the car, and when I saw that they weren’t there, I got out, leaning against the Sedan and starting to mess around on my phone as I waited. I was about to embark on something no other secret police officer had. I was about to go truly undercover, and Cecil must never find out who I was. Not if I truly wanted to both report on him and protect him from the vague yet menacing government agency that I only knew too well.

Chapter Text

REPORT 005-B

Unfortunately for me, my change in appearance meant that I was unable to properly watch Cecil while he was back in his apartment. It left me uncomfortable, knowing that on my first days, I already had lapses in my attention to him. It didn't matter that I had left him to protect him, I had failed my job. He finally reappeared, and I watched from my new position. He had Mobu with him this time, and I waited for the pair to get in his car (and what a nice car it was too, he even had all of his hubcaps, the number one disappearing item in Nightvale) before I finally got into mine. I started the engine and buckled up as he started his own car. He pulled out into traffic, and I managed to get out only a couple of cars behind him, but that was okay. As long as I could see him, I’d be fine. I’d have to put some more of my skills to use later when he was at work. I’d have to personally bug his car, not just the standard bug that was in every car in Nightvale.

He pulled into the high school parking lot, and as he went down one row for a spot, I went down the next, pulling into an empty spot. The high school auditorium was always being used for press conferences, no matter who wanted to hold one. It was rather nice at times, but it could be a bit dull. Especially when the giver just goes on about species types of marigolds. I turned off the car, unbuckled, and got out, shutting the door softly behind me. Now, I had to find Cecil again and soon. Something passed close by me, colliding with my knees and barking.

I am vaguely aware and notating the fact that I squeaked, then deposited my already hurt ass onto the sidewalk behind me. A large wet nose was suddenly in my face, licking my cheeks. I tried pushing off the dog, but just succeeded in giving him access to my face instead. 

“Oh, darn, are you alright there, citizen? Mobu, down, down Mobu! I am soo sorry, I have no idea what’s into him.” 

I looked up, and those eyes were staring into mine. There was no hiding it. They were looking right into mine, framed behind thick rimmed glasses. This was not a photo. This was the real Cecil Gershwin Palmer. He held out his hand to me, the other firmly keeping Mobu at bay.

“I’m fine. Just my dignity’s a little hurt.”

I took his hand- Cecil’s hand- and instantly knew that everything that I had been thinking before then was true. I was never going to fit with Cecil in a way where he would acknowledge me. It was okay, in that moment. I smiled at him, and he lifted me back to my feet.  He was so far away, and touching his hand didn’t feel right at all. I knew I would probably get yelled at later by the Sheriff, but at this point in time, the rule book to being a Secret Secret Police officer was completely out the window.

“I’m Cecil. Are you new in town?”

“Yes! I’m Clarity, I just moved here from Desert Bluffs!” I said, trying not to panic.

“Desert Bluffs. Ugh. No wonder you wanted to move here.”

“Oh. Oh yes. Nightvale is so much nicer!” I squeaked.

It was weird, and hard, having to actually develop an undercover role. So far, I don’t think any Secret Police Officer has in the past. I smiled at him, and brushed my hair out of my face. I really needed to stop squeaking before he thought it was actually a habit of mine. He looked at his hand and frowned.

“Oh, you’re bleeding! Here, come to my car, a radio host and Nightvale Boy Scout is always prepared!” he motioned to his car, and I followed him.

“It’s nothing. I fell earlier too. I’m in such a klutzy funk today.”

“Well, we’ll get you patched up. Do you have a job here yet, Clarity?”

“No. Not yet. I’m sure I’ll find something to do.”

He patted the trunk of his car, and before I could figure out what he wanted me to do, he picked me up and set me down on the trunk.

“I’m quite good with kids, I have this niece who is just adorable and she gets bumps and scrapes all the time,” he told me as he pulled the first aid kit out of the back seat.

Cecil was comparing me to a small child. He was comparing me to a small, bumbling child. I felt myself flush as he came back around the car, setting it next to me and opening it up.

“I’m 19.” I told him, laughing a bit. “Not really a child, if I say so myself. I just fell this morning is all.” I informed him.

His third eye looked up at me as his other two got out the bandages and some water. He took my hand, starting to rinse it. It stung, and I managed to not rip my hand out of his.

“Working pain receptors and everything," he commented, watching at the automatic pain reflex.

“Yeah. It could be worse. I just get to feel things like sunshine, and warmth. I get to feel the cool sensation of another person’s skin. I’m pretty sure it’s still good being able to feel. Imagine if I wasn’t able to feel those things. I’d be feeling so sorry for all the others that don’t have working pain receptors.” I informed him.

He let out a hum, bandaging up my hand finally and looking towards my blood stained tights. I simple shoved off his car, straightened out my skirt and started walking.

“Thank you for your help, Mr. Palmer. I’ll be seeing you around, I assume.”

He laughed, then hooked elbows with me. Mobu was right next to me, nosing my hip and side a lot. I felt so uncomfortable, I needed to get away from him. I could see the other members of the secret police lazing about, and I tried to brush him off. I had to, before my cover was blown or worse, the two men saw me again. 

“I’m sorry, I need to go. I have an interview.”

“What kind of interview?” he asked. “As a radio host, I always try to get as many interviews as possible.”

“The kind that I’m running late for I am so sorry bye.”

With that, I did the only thing a compromised under secret police officer could do. I ran away from him, and before he or Mobu could catch back up with me, I saw my escape. It was the same truck that had been at Rosalita's this morning. I pole vaulted my way into the bed, and I wasn’t really surprised to find another secret police officer there. He sighed, patting my arm as I rolled into him. 

“Been a while, hasn’t it, 27?” he asked.

“Austin?” I couldn’t exactly be sure, what with the cape and the balaclava and all. It was really hard to tell these things sometimes.

“The one and only. How have you been? When did you cut off all your hair?”

I rolled over so I was on top of him, and put my hand over his mouth. I think that’s where his mouth  was.

“Shh. I can’t explain anything. I’m on detail, I’ve been compromised, and my hair was cut this morning. I accidentally ran into my person of interest.”

 I uncovered his mouth and scooted off of him, leaning against the gate of the truck. He sighed, sitting up as well.

“I’ve been given Josie. She’s in there right now. Who do you have?”

“Cecil.”

“Oh, man. He’s a good one. Why do you say you’ve been compromised, anyway?”

“The man who is not tall and the man who is not short, do you remember them?”

He nodded his head, flipping off his headset.

“Yeah, I do.”

“They were following me this morning. I had to ditch the uniform and go back later like this. He ran into me, and I panicked. I told him my name and he started asking all these questions…”

“Hey, it’ll be okay. I’m currently living next door to Josie. She sees me like twice a day. It’s fine. We’ll just have to get you a job at play ball like everyone else. You’re fine.”

“So I’m not a total fuck up?”

“No more than me. Or Ben. How is he by the way?” He asked.

We watched the entrance, and he handed me a balaclava as we saw people approaching. I ducked down, pulling the leather over my face and putting a cape around my bare shoulders. He grinned, then offered me a fist bump.

“He’s the same as ever. Moodier than usual.”

“Has he asked you out yet?”

I snorted, then shook my head.

“We’re just friends, Austin.” I got out of the truck.

“Hey, you’re bleeding. Do you want to borrow some pants?”

“Why do you have extra pants with you?”

“This is my truck. Got it for my assignment.”

“I’ll be fine.”

I dipped below the edge and took off the mask and cape, tossing them in. I did however, grab a plain black jacket, blowing a kiss at him as I took it.

“We’ll have to chat sometime,” I told him. “I’ll see you around.”

I took off towards the auditorium and slipped in the back. I sat off in the corner, and scanned through the crowd until I could find Cecil again. He was sitting next to Josie, nibbling on one of her corn muffins. He seemed pretty nervous, looking in the corner at the team of scientists gathered in the back. I took this moment to pull on the jacket, pulling the hood over my head. I smiled in relief as it blocked some of the light out of my eyes, finally. Here, I couldn’t write down my report, so I got my phone out to type in what was happening.

I heard others start to file in, and glanced into the corner, seeing them, the man who is not tall and the man who is not short. I froze up, until a white haired boy with a buzz cut sat next to me. He was paler than I remembered, probably due to being under the balaclava for so long. His face had lost a lot of the color he had had before.

“You weren’t kidding. I saw them go by in the parking lot, and decided that you might need some back up,” he told whispered, leaning closer to me. “Are you alright?”

“I’ll be fine.”

My phone started going off, and I shifted down out of their line of sight. He wrapped an arm around me, and I smiled at him as I leaned into him. I looked down at the messages.

"You stole my jacket, you jerk," Austin said, tilting his head to read along with me. 

BEN: WHY IS YOUR HEADSET OFFLINE.

BEN: SERIOUSLY, 27, THIS IS BULLSHIT.

BEN: YOU NEED TO REPORT IN.

Austin glanced down, then slid his hand and turned on his less conspicuous headset.

“This is 12, in with 27, reporting in.” he said. “15, calm down, she’s fine.”

Well, as long as he was the one lying to him, I couldn’t be upset. I leaned back and sighed.

“She and I are both in the room with them, that’s why, you dingbat. No, she took off her uniform. Fine. I’ll tell her. No, let her finish her shift! She can’t succeed if you do that. Quit being jealous that we’re in the field and you’re still in the office, Ben.”

He switched off his headset, and I looked up at him, raising an eyebrow. He had sounded completely frustrated. 

“Lover’s Quarrel?”

“Shut up shut up shut up he was trying to come here and pick you up, okay?” he said. “However, this isn’t about us. This is about the other people and our job. It’s about Josie and Cecil. We have to monitor them first. He needs to remember that.”

The new scientist in town went up to the podium, and started tapping on the microphone. He let out a deep breath, then smiled. I watched Cecil stiffen up as he watched him, all nerves and ceaseless commentary to Josie. She patted his arm, but for now, my attention was back on Cecil Gershwin Palmer. It was then that Carlos finally spoke. He was so nervous looking.

“Um, yes, hello, I am Carlos, and I am a scientist. I do not study plants or people or earth, I am here to merely study science. I have come to Nightvale, as it is one of the most interesting towns in the US. Together, with my team of scientists, I plan to find out exactly what is going on here. I want to find out why constellations disappear frequently overhead, why there are so many helicopters out in the scrub lands, and why Nightvale is the center for violent seismic activity. These are all things that are true about this place. In fact, just this morning, my team and I discovered a house that doesn’t exist! It seems like it exists, of course, it looks just like the two identical houses on other side of it. It would make more sense for it to be there, but it’s not. We performed experiments on it to prove that it wasn’t there. We’ll be going back later to try knocking on the door.”

He let out a shaky breath, and at that time, so did Cecil. Carlos hurried a goodbye, then nodded his head as some sort of thanks and dismissal before heading off to the side. I waited for a while, before Cecil got up and trudged out, not going and talking to Carlos. I made sure that the people from the vague yet menacing government agency were busy as I got up and went out after him and Josie. Austin trailed along beside me, arm still over my shoulder. He laughed easily, and I smiled up at him. It was then that Cecil turned to talk to each other, and he spotted me again.

“Clarity! You did go to the meeting after all! And who is this tall, handsome devil?”

He came over, and shook Austin’s hand.

“I’m her boyfriend,” he said firmly, grinning.

“Well, I’m going to say that your interview went quite well then!”

“Austin, deary, how are you?” Josie asked, hobbling over. “Oh, girlfriend? Is this the one you’ve been talking about, who might move in with you?”

“Might. She and I are talking about if we’re ready for that commitment. Josie, this is Clarity, Clarity, this is Josie.”

“Austin, this is Cecil.”

Austin, this is trouble, I thought in my head as I tried to figure out a way out of this. There really was no way out of this mess. This was a complete and utter catastrophe. I let out a heavy sigh, then smiled.

“Are you alright, dear?” Josie said, putting a hand to my forehead.

The action startled me. It was so caring, so motherly, that all I could do was stiffen up. Behind her, I saw several angels, moving back and forth. They were whispering to each other, and all I could do was nod.

“I’m just tired. It’s been a long day.” I added.

Mobu came up, and sat down in between us, wagging his tail and licking my injured hand. I smiled at him, and Cecil, and Josie and Austin and I just kept smiling because inside I was panicking.

“We better be off,” Austin said, and I felt his arm tense around my shoulders.

“Bring her to bowling league!” Josie said, and he nodded, starting to steer me off.

I felt shaky, and I felt like I was going to fall apart. Nothing could prepare Austin and I for what happened next, however. He led me towards my Sedan, when we noticed that there was already a figure leaning on it. Ben stood up, and pointed to the passenger side. Austin hugged me, and patted my back.

“I’ll talk to you soon, okay?” he added. “Until then, take care.”

“Okay. See you for date night at bowling league.”

“Until then,” he whispered, and he left.

 I got in the passenger seat, and did my best not to look at Ben. If only I didn’t have to face myself either. 

Chapter Text

Report 006

“You are, without a doubt, the most reckless, self-absorbed, idiotic officer that we have on the force.” Ben seethed, his hands clutching the steering wheel so hard his knuckles were more purple now than the white they had been minutes ago. I didn't even know they could turn that color. “Blood everywhere, headset offline, and nowhere to be found. No uniform, no cover, no way of us knowing you were hurt- what were you thinking?”

“That I had to protect Cecil.” I told him, staring straight ahead. “I don’t know why those two men are so interested in finding out who I’m following, but it can’t be good.”

“What two men?” He asked, glancing over at me.

“The man who is not tall and the man who is not short. You remember them, right?” I asked, leaning back.

 It felt like I was on fire. I couldn’t get comfortable at all, and that worried me.

“They’re following you.” He said, not bothering to hide the disbelief in his voice.

“To see who I’m following. They aren’t interested in me particularly. They’re interested in the targets of the Secret Police.”

“That’s so hard to believe, Clarity.”

“27.”

“Whatever,” he said, his voice sounded so dismissive.

I felt like I had been slapped. I sat up again, staring at him.

Something felt like it was snapping between us, and I wanted to run before it could. I had to escape. 

“Pull the car over.”

“No.”

“If you don’t I will jump out,” I said, unbuckling.

I wasn’t dealing with this. My voice had jumped up an octave already, and I could only feel panic and claustrophobia in the car at that moment. He locked the doors and I unlocked them. He barely got the car locked again as I tried opening the door. I unlocked it, and he whipped into the shoulder, locking them again hurriedly. He grabbed onto my arm as I went for the lock again.

“We can talk when we get back to base, Clarity.”

“I’m 27 to you, I’m not Clarity. You promised that I’d still be 27 to you, just like you’re 15 to me.” I told him.

My voice was weird and edgy, and I couldn’t seem to catch my breath anymore. He looked at me, and for some weird reason, I started crying. They just bubbled up, hot and stinging on my cheeks and in my eyes. He wiped them, getting rid of the inky texture before it could stain my cheeks too badly. It was so dumb that I was crying, I was so dumb for crying. I didn’t ask for any of this, and if I did, I regretted that choice more than anything else. I regretted becoming part of the secret police. 

“Hey, hey. I’m sorry, alright?” he said, reaching over and brushing my hair out of my face.

 He paused, then looked at the car, then looked at my hair again. I stared at him, and he pulled his hand back, finally pushing down my hood. I was not calming down, and this was only making things worse. I jerked back, getting out of his grip.

“Holy fu- 27, what in hell-“

I sighed, pulling my hood back on my head, taking several deep breaths in and out.

“They knew it was me because of my hair. I thought this was the easiest way to hide myself,” I told him.

He stared at me, then the road, then at me again. He sighed, then leaned back.

“Okay. I am not going to panic. Or worry. I’m just going to drive us back to the station, park, we’re going to get you cleaned up. Then, we’re going to go out to dinner, at the Arby’s. I’m going to buy you dinner. After dinner, we’re going to go outside, and sit and talk because I want to know what happened. We can sit in the parking lot and listen to Cecil Gershwin Palmer and whoever else you want to.”

“Alright,” I managed, wiping away more tears. It was really starting to hurt to sit down.

“Alright,” he echoed.

He got back into traffic and drove, looking a bit more relaxed than before. It wasn’t much more relaxed than before, but it was a start. We stayed quiet the entire way back, and when he got out at Play Ball! he came around and opened my door for me. I got out, walking past him, and he stopped me, scooping me up and carrying me inside.

“I’m not four," I complained.

Maybe complaining wasn't the right word. I was really whining at that point in time. 

“You’re not, but you’re still two years younger than me; you're the girl I woke up every morning in training. So there’s that. Also, there’s blood in your hair and all over you. I’m making sure you’re get properly cleaned up before I take you out. I’m taking you to the infirmary.”

“I don’t have to do anything. You can’t make me do anything I don’t want to.” I informed him.

“I’m hoping you cooperate just this once,” he said.

“Not on your life." 

I leaned against him. He had been one of the tallest in the program, I was hoping that retraining had affected my growth and that the foot between us would shrink down at some point. All the others were at least half a foot taller than me. It’s why I wore the heels all the time. He carried me in, setting me on the infirmary table. I wiggled out of my shoes and tights, then laid down facedown, revealing my cut up leg. I was around 5'3," most of the other short people failed out. It was survival of the tallest. I had just pushed through that in the days of testing. He got out his supplies, then leaned over me, running a finger over my calf. 

“How did you accomplish this? There's glass in your leg. 

“There was a dumpster. After about two stories on a drain pipe into broken glass.”

He sighed, and I felt him getting to work. There was definitely the sound of glass hitting the metal table. I winced, and gripped on the edge of the table, trying not to jerk. He dug in deeper, and I felt myself jump, before he swore to himself.

“I forget you have working pain receptors,” he said. "You should have said something."

“Fully functional,” I reminded him.

“Gonna give you a shot now.” He said. “That way, you don’t have to feel the pain.”

“Alright.”

I still trusted Ben with my life, even if he overstepped his boundaries every now and then, acting more like a baby sitter instead of a fellow officer. There was a gentle prick, and I felt myself getting drowsy as the pain medicine started to take hold. He went back to work, the only reminder he was working on my leg was the soft plinking of glass hitting the table.

“So. You had quite a day then?"

“You said dinner, then interrogation,” I reminded him.

He let out a sigh, and I heard the sound of sizzling as he sterilized the wounds. That would have been interesting to watch. It would have been quite a lot of white froth from the sounds of it. I felt him wipe off the wounds, then start bandaging them up.

“Glad you numbed the pain. That would have been hell.”

“I think you landed in a frat party. That would explain the amount of glass in you.” He added.

 He started feeling over the rest of me, pulling up my tank to treat my back, and I sighed, closing my eyes and letting him work. He eventually made it up to my head, and he asked me to sit back up. It felt hard to comply, but I did, and I heard the gentle snipping of scissors. It took a moment to figure out that he was fixing my hair.

“It looked really bad,” he explained. “It’s so weird, I swear it was orange, but now it looks blood red.”

“You’re weird,” I informed him, and he snorted at me.

“Good comeback.” He told me, coming around to the front. I closed my eyes as he snipped away at my hair. He finally stopped, brushing off all the bits he had just cut. He then turned his attention down to my hand, undoing the bandages that Cecil did.

“Who fixed you up?” he asked.

“Cecil?” I could hear my voice just jump, and he shook his head.

“Well, he did a good job, at least,” he said. “That means you and Austin are going to spend quite a bit of time together, huh?”

He sat next to me on the table, and I leaned onto him. My head felt thick, and I was having trouble concentrating. I focused on his chest, feeling the rise and fall of air in his lungs, and hearing his heart beat. 

“It was only because Mobu 4.0 knocked me over,” I informed him. “And Austin and I aren’t going to be spending that much time together. He follows Josie, so mainly he sits in the Car Lot and listens to her watch T.V. I have Cecil. Cecil, who is always on the move, and always working. Who, I’d like to add, was unwatched for a while because you picked me up early,” I reminded him. “Why are you so concerned about Austin?” I asked.

“He’s going to make a move on you.”

“Well, good for him, though now thanks to his big mouth, I have to pretend I’m dating him-“

I yelped as he squeezed down on my hand, and tossed him a dirty look. He mumbled an apology at me, and I sighed. He poured the disinfectant over my hand, and we both watched it quietly. He eventually bandaged me back up, then ruffled my short hair.

“Go change, and I’ll go change, and then I’ll take you to Arby’s. Meet me in the call center, okay?” He asked, as if hoping that I wouldn’t say no.

“I’m not actually dating him. He’s been wanting to ask out Mark or Roxanne since training, so you don’t have to worry,” I added. “Just like the Sheriff is never going to really ask me out.” I slid off the table, a bit unsteady, but refused to have him help me up. I got out of the room and down into my barracks. Opening up the closet, I pushed past the uniforms. Dress blues, our undercover ops, the Play Ball! uniform and the PT uniforms were what I ran into first. I sighed, stepping up into the closet. I didn’t have normal clothes, didn’t feel the need for them. I eventually found the outfit I was looking for.

After having us there for over a year in training, they gave us one outfit from before. Mine consisted of skinny jeans with rips in them, a purple and black striped shirt, a pair of old, beaten converse and a red jacket. I quickly got dressed, then went back down to where I was supposed to meet Ben. I stepped into the call center, and looked around. Not being here for an entire day had made the place seem foreign. There was an issued warning about the ghost cars, finally ready to go out with ATTN: NVCR on it. I sent it through the fax machine so he could get it in time for his show. The report from yesterday was on the wall, of the howling at the post office, accompanied by a picture of the Racist Tracker.

On the desk, however, was Cecil’s folder and my photo next to it, looking somber in my dress blues. Underneath it was a report about Teddy Williams. I lifted it up, starting to read about how they had overheard a ball drop beneath Lane 5, crashing down into a deep underground city. Attached to it were several photos of vague yet menacing people in suits from a shadowy government.  Ben cleared his throat from the door and I blushed, looking up at him. He motioned for us to go, and I put the files down.

“Are you going to be replacing me soon?”

“The new class graduates next week. I’ll stay in filing long enough to train them, at least. They’ll bring up some young, scared thing who can’t stand on her own two feet.”

“You should knock a filing cabinet on her too. It was such a great way to really get into the work. It was so nice getting into the work that way, you know.”

“Oh, shut up. We’ll take my car this time, okay?” he asked.

“I love the jeep.”

“I know.”

He led me out to the parking lot. It was weird, thinking of Ben as a foreign entity, but that was what he had become to me. He was no longer my Ben. I was no longer just 27, I was Clarity. He helped me into the jeep, which was well appreciated. I sat down gently, and leaned back, closing my eyes and buckling myself in. He had the top down, like usual in the desert. He got in as well, and I heard him start the engine and buckle up.

“Curly fries and moz sticks, right?” he asked.

“Right. And a soooda.”

“Soooda for one officer 27. Do you want to eat outside too?” he asked.

“That’d be nice,” I said, sitting up, looking at him.

The light was fading finally. I glanced at the clock, aware that there was no point to it. According to the clocks in Nightvale, the sun was setting early. The sun was most likely setting at the right time, we just didn’t have properly working clocks. The one in my room was starting to coo on its free time. I watched the sunset, I watched Ben silhouetted by it. He smiled at me, and we finally pulled into the Arby’s parking lot.

I didn’t talk to him as he got our food, just silently trailed after him into the Arby’s, and back out. We sat in his jeep, silently eating. I leaned against him. He didn’t end up interrogating me that night. He just let me enjoy the lights above the Arby’s. He turned on the radio, letting me listen to Cecil Gershwin Palmer, who was possibly the most important person in town.  The night was clear, and as the hues lit up the sky, we were lit up as well, and we understood the lights above the Arby’s. I won't tell you what they mean, because if you ever get out here to see them, you will understand their game. 

“A friendly desert community where the sun is hot, the moon is beautiful, and mysterious lights pass overhead while we all pretend to sleep…”

Chapter Text

REPORT 007

I had to start following Cecil at 10:00 AM in the morning, so after a late night out and getting my body cut by dumpster glass, I wasn’t too thrilled at the knocking on the door at 7:30 in the morning. I got out of bed, fully expecting Ben, and the ability to yell at him for waking me up, but I wrenched the door open to find Austin, dressed in a black button up and light washed jeans. He smiled at me, leaning down.

“Wow, you really do sleep till someone comes and wakes you up. Good morning, Girlfriend.”

I glared at him, because that is an emotion I am capable of at this early in the morning. I slammed the door in his face, but he stopped it with his foot, coming in.

“Huh. Wow, I forgot how boring these barracks are. You haven’t decorated at all,” He commented.

“Yes I have,” I told him, digging out my jeans and shirt from yesterday.

 I’m not sure if it was just him, or just due to the pain in my lower leg, but I really wanted to kick him.

“Wanted posters don’t count as decorating, Clarity. We'll get you some good ole posters of the Spiderwolves to go up on your walls.”

I rolled my eyes, and grabbed my toothbrush. Maybe I really wanted to punch him.

“What are you doing here, anyway?” I asked, finally able to question him. There was no excuse for him being here this early in the morning.

“Taking you shopping. You can’t be undercover if you only have our uniforms and one solitary outfit.”

I grumbled, then pointed to the door. He needed out of here so I could become a functioning citizen without his snarky ass around.  

“You, go bother Ben and the others in Central. You go there, I shower and bathe and there better be some damn coffee waiting for me on the other side of this shower, you got it?”

He nodded his head, and I simply pointed to the door again, telling him to go. He left, and I got my shower stuff together, heading down to the communal showers. I got undressed, taking time to cut off and undo the massive amounts of bandaging over my legs.

“Someone had a rough start to their first field day.”

I let out a squeak, straightening up and crushing the towel towards me. Tristan smiled as she made her way towards the showers, laughing.

“Looks good kid.” She said, winking, and heading off.

I decided to take the stall the furthest away from her, hurriedly showering, hurriedly dressing, and hurriedly getting the fuck out of there as I practically skittered back to my own room, where, thankfully, Ben and only Ben was waiting. He laughed a bit at me, and I let out a shaky breath.

“There are far too many people in my morning who are not you before coffee,” I said quickly.

To me, it sounded like one word, but he nodded, holding up my drink. I took it, wrapping my arms around the cup, and breathing out a sigh of relief. He didn’t really talk, just patted me on the hair.

“Guess I don’t have the honor of putting it up in a ponytail anymore. I thought you might want some help getting your leg bandaged back up,” he explained.

“Yeah.”

I took off my pants and sat on my desk. He sat in the chair, and started checking the cuts. He murmured apologetically as I twitched, and he started bandaging it up. He and I didn’t ever really need to talk. We never really did, to be honest.

“So, Austin came to pick you up and take you shopping?” he asked.

I briefly wondered how long would it take the edge to leave his voice, and for us to go back to being friends. I needed him as my friend in life.

“Yeah. I mean, he has a point. Can’t really do this undercover thing if I can’t even get out of my uniform, you know. I just. Kind of wish it was you instead of him and I. I know that sounds dumb, but that’s what I want.”

He smiled to himself, and finished taping up my leg. He looked at my hand, then bandaged it back up as well. I slid off the desk and got dressed again. He nodded to the door.

“I have to get back to the center- Tristan is late-“

“She was in the shower.”

“Oh? Oooohhh you poor thing.”

Sudden understanding came over him. Tristan had this nasty habit of hitting on everyone. Everyone had been the target of her massive flirting from day one. He hugged me, and I hugged him back.

“I’ll walk back with you, I just needed to drop off my stuff and grab my keys and wallet.”

“Well. Before then, I guess I thought I’d give you your surprise. It turns out that the secret police had an unused surveillance apartment in the building across from Cecil’s. This means that it’s pretty much paid for, and I figured you might want to move into there.” He explained.

“Away from base, and from you.”

“Yeah.”

“That’s a terrible plan. You and I are partners-“

“Were partners.”

He didn’t mean it to sound bad, I could hear the pain in his voice as he said it. I sighed, leaning into his back. He squirmed a bit, and I straightened back up. I grabbed my things, and my coffee, then followed him down to Central. I sipped my coffee as Austin looked around. He waved at me coming over. He took the cup from my hands and set it down, so I did the only thing I could think of.

I kicked him.

I kicked him, then sat down on the desk, sipping my coffee. Ben laughed, and so did Tracy. Austin looked confused, of course, and Tracy put up his hands. I had put up with too much bullshit this morning already.

“All hail 27, the mistress of coffee and caffeine-“

“Oh, hush,” I said, blushing.

The guys would be guys and Austin would have to wait.

“The shops open at 9, Clarity-“ Austin said.

“It’s 8:15 AM. The shops have 45 minutes, and my coffee gets at least ten,” I informed him. “Oh, and after work today, Ben and I are going to move me into my apartment.” I added. “A girl from Desert Bluffs needs her own home, you know.”

“Own apartment? How did you swing that?” Austin asked.

“I hooked her up with one of our observation apartments. We have two in the building. She’ll be able to keep a better watch on Cecil there. Can’t believe she said Desert Bluffs though.”

“I panicked,” I said, poking Ben. “Austin, haven’t you asked out Roxanne yet?” I asked him.

“What. No, no. Um. She and Mark started dating.”

“Ouch.”

I slid off the desk, then went over to Ben, hugging him.

“See you at five?” I looked up at him, and he laughed at me.

“See you at five. I’ll meet you outside of your new apartment. I’ll have to explain to the landlord that you aren’t a 12 year old.”

I rolled my eyes at him, punching him on the shoulder. With that, Austin and I went out, and I looked back at the building. My entire life was there, my entire knowledge was there, and the only anchor I really had in this world was left behind. Nightvale seemed so huge to me, in a vast desert, but it was only increasingly vaster as I separated myself further from Ben.

Austin looped an arm around me, and I shrugged him off. I climbed into his truck on my own as well, easing myself down into the seat. It hurt a lot, to be honest. Sitting, standing, I felt on fire most of the time. He got in, looking at me.

“It looks like I tried running through a food processor,” I reminded him, buckling up as he started the truck.

“Right. Sorry,” he said, starting the truck.

We drove to the mall in silence, then he looked at me.

“Am I allowed to hold your hand? If  we’re going to hold onto this game of pretend, then I can’t just not hold your hand or stuff like that.” He added.

I shrugged, then nodded my head as I got out of the truck. He turned off the engine, and I waited till he came around. He took my hand, and all I could focus on was how foreign he felt to me.  Everyone was foreign to me in this town now. That was what I knew without any doubt. He led me in, and I looked around, blinking.

“Woah.”

“What? Oh that’s right. You don’t actually remember being to a mall, do you?”

I shook my head, looking at the expanse of stores around me. I blinked in surprise, then looked to him. He laughed, then let go of my hand.

“Remember, you are supposed to act natural. They have a mall in Desert Bluffs, so try to control yourself. We only have time to go to a few stores.”

“I want clothes with zippers.” I informed him.

“What? You’re going to look like punk-teen trash.”

He looked disgusted by the idea, and I nodded my hand.

“I am teen trash, you idiot. I’m the baby, remember?”

He sighed, then pointed. I looked down, seeing the sign reading HOT TOPIC. This was going to be fun. I couldn’t wait to show Ben later. I laughed, deciding to leave him. He could pout about whatever he was going to pout about. I was going to have fun being undercover for the longest time. Life in Nightvale may be looking up after all. 

Chapter Text

REPORT 008

Five o'clock finally hit that day, and it didn't matter that I was sore, tired, and just wanted to curl up. There was a lot of pain going through my leg and back at that time. I got out, sitting on the warm trunk of the car as I waited for Ben to show up. It was easier just relaxing, trying to soothe some of the pain shooting through my leg. It would have been nicer to lounge about in shorts, but I didn't need nosy neighbors to ask why I was hurt. It wasn't always easy living in a hot desert community, after all. He pulled up in Tracy's truck and got out, whistling as he looked at me. I was probably in too many zippers, my shoulders to bare in comparison, but all I could do was blush then, tucking my red hair behind my ear and probably pouting at him. I looked then at the pile of second hand furniture in the back of the truck, blinking in surprise.

“Clarity, you look…well. You look like you belong in Nightvale now.” He grinned, going around to the bed of the truck. “You’re on the third floor, okay?”

“Alright. We can order Rico’s for dinner after, alright?” I told him. "And, where did all that come from?" 

“Alright. As for that mess, I scrounged up what I could. Some was going up for auction, others were just in storage around base. Tracy tossed in some money, so we could get you a couch." 

"That was really nice of him." 

I got off the trunk and went over to him, and he opened the bed of the trunk. He pulled out an end table and I took it, and he grabbed a chair.

"How are you holding up?" he asked, looking at me.

"Hurts, but it's going to." 

"I brought pain meds for you too. I'll give them to you as soon as I find them, okay?"

"Thanks."

We luckily had an elevator, or else this might have been even worse than it was. By the time that he and I got his truck and my Sedan unloaded, The sun had already screamed into sunset, and we were sweaty and tired.  I felt like I was on fire, and he found the pain meds for me. We just sat on my couch, leaning against each other. We didn’t really talk, but he and I barely ever had to. we were just able to understand each others needs. I had already ordered dinner from Rico’s and it was on its way when the buzzer went off in the apartment. I got up, and went over to it, looking at Ben apprehensively. The pizza shouldn’t have been here yet. He stood up as well, pulling out his blowdart holster.

“Who is this?” I asked, pressing to call.

My own hand went down to my blow gun, sitting easily on my hip. 

“It’s Austin. Can I come up to see my girl? I got a housewarming present~”

He was practically singing. I sighed, running my hand through my hair. What an annoying jerk. He just came over without asking. 

“Yeah yeah. 3-E. Don’t trip.”

I released the button, and balled up my fist.

“Can I kill him?” Ben asked.

I stared at Ben, and he shrugged back. I sighed, then shook my head, sitting back down on the couch. I leaned against him, and he wrapped his arm around me. He looked at me, and I looked up at him.

"How did he even get the address?" I asked.

"Must be why he tried picking you up at base. I left him alone in command with James. He must have gotten the address from him."

"He's not going to have anywhere to sit," I added.

We hadn’t gotten lot of furniture for me, let alone anyone else. The salary of the secret police kind of sucked, to be completely honest. I didn’t even have a bed at this point in time.

“We’ll buy you a bed when we can, okay?” he offered, ruffling my hair.

“Sorry, I went kind of crazy buying clothes this morning. I’ll return them tomorrow and get a bed instead.” I told him.

“Hey, no, you need clothes to fit in. We’ll figure out how to get more money for you. Your salary comes in on, what, Friday?”

“Yeah. Friday.”

"You and I will save up little by little. It's no big deal." 

"You don't need to spend your money on me. You don't get that much either."

"I want to," he told me.

There was a knock on the door and Austin opened it up. I really should have locked the door. It would have been nice. He grinned, holding up a box. I raised an eyebrow, and he sat down on the other side of me, plunking it into my lap. I opened it up, staring at the hand-knit blanket in my hands. It smelled like cat, and something else I couldn’t quite place.

“Josie had me bring it over when I told her today about how you had gotten an apartment. Said she couldn’t make it over herself, but figured you wouldn’t mind if I dropped it off when I came over to visit,” he explained. "A guy just has to visit his girlfriend on move in day!" 

I pulled it out. It was made of dark oranges and tans, with streaks of yellow. I unfolded it, and saw that it was a motif of Desert Bluffs. I smiled and laughed a little bit, then set it inmy lap.

“It’s perfect.”

“-ly Hideous. Apparently she won a contest with it for best scenery captured or something? I’m not sure. I think she just wanted it out of the house,” Austin said, leaning back. “So what are we doing tonight?” he asked.

“We” Ben stated, “are about to do the same thing that 27 and I do every night. You see, she and I go on a run- replaced by lugging this furniture up here- then eat dinner, then we listen to NVCR and usually she falls asleep to Cecil.”

“Sounds boring,” Austin said. “How about some government approved television?”

“Don’t own a TV,” I informed him.

“Lame.”

“Listen, this is what we do, okay? Every night since we were put in the same barracks, she and I have listened to Cecil.”

“Jeez, fine, tonight we’ll listen to Cecil.”

I could practically hear the fire going off between them. The two of them were not ready to back down on this issue. Clearly, it wasn't going to end anytime soon. I was almost relieved to hear the buzzer going off again.

"Big Rico's, Delivery for Clarity and Ben, apartment 3-E."

I hopped up from my place on the couch and practically ran to the door.

"I'll be back soon."

It came out again, all in one word. I took my time getting down the stairs, pulling out some crumpled bills. It was my night to buy dinner. I saw the delivery guy, leaning in the doorway.

"Hey. Wow, you look like someone I know." he said. "Weird."

"Oh? Who's that?"?

Did he know me? Could he know who I am?

"Oh, some girl from Desert Bluffs. She graduated a year ahead of me."

"Ah. Sorry, can't be me then. I graduated from Nightvale."

"Weird. You look just like her."

I handed him the money, and he and I both averted our gaze as a hooded figure approached us. I opened the box and the figure took a slice.

"So um. What's your name?"

"Oh. I'm Frank."

"It's nice to meet you. Hopefully, you can deliver here again."

"Looking forward to it!"

I finally went back upstairs. I sat down the pizza on the table and flipped the box open as I took the seat back between them. The room was still way too tense for my liking.

“So. Josie and Cecil," Ben said.

“And Carlos.” I reminded them.

“Carlos isn’t important,” Austin said.

“I think that that’s going to be up for debate. The two men are interested in him as well, you know. That means that he’s going to be a very important person. Ben, he’s going to need a team as well to follow him.”

“We’ll see,” said Ben. “There’s a good chance if he raises enough alert he’ll be given a team as well.”

“You should be on it,” I told him.

I don’t know why I wanted that. I wanted him out in the field to, so he wasn’t foreign to me. I didn't like that Austin seemed to be trying to actively replace him in my life. I was friends with both of them after all. Ben was my best friend.

“If I’m in the field, who’s going to watch your ass?” he asked.

“Tristan will probably love to cover both our asses,” I said dryly.

He stared at me, then chuckled. I smiled finally, giggling, and he leaned over, putting his head on my shoulder. I giggled into his chest, and Austin let out a weak chuckle.

“I’m sorry, who’s this Tristan and why are you laughing at him covering your ass?”

“I’ll hook you up on date with him.” I said, snorting into Ben’s shirt, which further sent us into giggles.

Sometimes, we were very serious. I think in the end, it was good that we had these little moments of happiness. The thing about Nightvale is that it is a dangerous place. Nightvale itself can kill you, but in order to tell our story- the story of the secret police, I needed to include the good before the bad. Things were about to change entirely for us. Before, the three of us had been relatively safe. That itself was going to change, but the three of us would have this one night to ourselves.

I think I lied when I told you that this was our story. It’s never been about us, and it won’t be about us. This is really a story about them. It’s about Cecil and Carlos and Josie. It’s about so many others. We are merely the pawns set forth by the city council and the secret police. I won't even really be the main character in my story, because even in the retelling of it, it's not going to be about me, because I was never living for me.

In the end, that night we did eat pizza from Big Rico’s, and we did listen to Cecil talk. It wasn’t the same as the night before, where Ben and I watched the lights above the Arby’s. There was no profound finding of truth. There was only following Cecil Gershwin Palmer, and the mysterious lights that passed ahead as he and I pretended to sleep.

I am Officer 27, and I am Clarity.

Chapter Text

Report 009

Days passed by, and I found myself falling into the same pattern as Cecil Gershwin Palmer. I’d wake up at 9, and then get ready. I’d sit in my window, watching his apartment. I could see into his room from here, and the rest of the place. He still always woke up near 11. I would be dressed and ready, looking like I had just come in from a morning run. At this point in time, I would head downstairs, and go over to Rosalita’s with him. Every morning, he got a vanilla macchiato, and I got an iced coffee. He and I rarely talked at breakfast. I just didn’t have to hide the fact that I was also at breakfast. He and I would then head back to his apartment on some days. Well, he would go back to his apartment. I’d go off to mine, pretend to be job hunting or something.

The other days were more interesting. Following Cecil during his life as a radio host around town was always fun, and slightly dangerous. As late June hit, I had survived potholes that ate people, road spiders, tar rain, and spontaneous combustion. We spent so much time investigating what was happening in Nightvale. It was nice experiencing Nightvale for the first time in my memory, even though Nightvale was terrifying. It would have probably been completely enjoyable if it wasn’t for the constant worry. Money was always a problem. Ben helped with what he could, but between the two of us, we never had enough. I didn’t have a bed that month at all. I slept on the couch, or just put the cushions on the floor. It was hard sleeping, to be honest. Being alone in the barracks was one thing. Being alone in an apartment wasn’t easy. I didn’t need a lot more than what I had,I barely spent my time in the apartment except for when I was sleeping, and I  just needed a few hours every now and then. 

I didn’t know where I could apply that could keep me close to Cecil Gershwin Palmer, that I knew wouldn’t interfere with my watching of him. Eventually, I gave in and I applied to work at NVCR. It was a dangerous gamble, and Cecil seemed surprised, but with a bit of tweaking to a false resume, we made it so that I had worked in filing at Desert Bluffs radio station. Surprisingly, they went ahead and just gave me a real job in filing, not just an internship. The pay sucked, but from 5:30 pm to 8:30 pm every night I took a shift in filing and fielding calls. It wasn’t a lot of money, and it felt like I would never have enough to get by. Some nights, Cecil would come in, and I’d hand him public service announcements and notifications from the secret police. Reports that I knew passed through Ben’s hands earlier in the day.

Life in the unexpected was starting to become expected and routine. The constant danger and unexplained became accepted. However, as July 1, 2012 rolled around, I came home from my night shift to find something rather unexpected. It turns out, that I was not prepared for everything.

“SURPRISE!”

I dropped my bag at the door, standing there in a red sweater vest and slacks, blinking in surprise. Ben and Austin stood in front, with what was clearly a real bed. I grinned, looking at the two of them. It seemed that they got the entire office crew together, from back when I was working in there. I looked to Ben, then to Austin.

“Bed.” I stated.

“Yeah, yeah. Ben finally said how you had nothing proper to sleep on, so maybe you and I could test it out later?” Tristan asked, batting her eyelashes at me. “I mean, I’d love to break it in with you.”

“Nope.” I said. I laid down on it, and felt a hand playing in my hair.

 The touch alone let me know it was Ben. That touch was comfortable and warm. That touch was familiar. For the first time in weeks, Ben wasn’t foreign to me. He and I had been growing so distant by accident. He was so busy in filing, and I was busy being Clarity. I had been living in a world that didn’t have room for Ben anymore. He sat down, and so did the others. The bed was awkward in my living room, but the closeness that I felt to them was perfect. It was what I needed more than anything else at that moment.

“Ben told us how hard you’d been working,” Tracy told me. “We figured we owed you a proper birthday present anyway.”

I lifted my head back up, looking at him as well as Ben. Ben looked away from me, but I could still see the smile on his face.

“Anything good in the news today?” I finally asked, sitting back up and looking at them.

“Well, Hiram McDaniels is on the loose. We put out more notices today.” Tristan said.

She scooted closer to me, sighing.

“We almost had him last night. He barely escaped security. Thanks for passing it along to Cecil to be on the lookout for a literal five-headed dragon,” Ben added.

“Told them to contact you directly,” I informed him. “Congratulations, you’re getting closer to field work after all.”

“Yeah, yeah-“

“Attention all units. Attention all units on and off duty. Please stand by for orders.”

The room instantly filled with static, and I could hear the lack of breathing in the room. I sat up, and we all looked at each other. Austin turned up his radio.

“Please be advised- reports of a glow cloud have been reported in outer Nightvale area, towards John Peter’s Corn Crops. All units available respond.”

“Time to go to work,” Tracy said.

They all stood up and I did as well, going to my room and digging out my field uniform.

“Let’s go.” I said.

I started getting dressed, and the others started getting ready to head out as well. Most of them left before me, until it was just Ben and I. I pulled the balaclava over my face. He took my hand, and we left as well, heading down the streets.

It’s multi-colored hue shifted as if it sensed us coming, and changed to a violent orange shade streaked with purple. I could hear it in my head. It was like a low humming sound. He went into his jeep, and I climbed in with him.

“Can you get to Cecil?” he asked.

“Of course.”

“You’ll need to update him on the situation. You can be informant tonight. That means you’ll also need to notate everything that happens as well, just in case.”

I nodded my head, gripping onto the cage as he started driving. There was no point in buckling up. We would need to get to work immediately. The just in case was obvious between us. In case none of us get out alive.

“It’s heading towards Old Town Nightvale,” I told him.

“We’ll get there.”

We spent the rest of the drive in nervous anticipation over what would happen when we got there. I stayed quiet, until a dead armadillo landed right in my lap. Ben swerved, and I screamed. The wheels lifted, and I was instantly thrown out and left behind on the pavement. I was instantly hit with a dead crow this time. Shaking, I got to my feet, looking for Ben. His Jeep was down the road, and I limped towards it and him. He was flat on his back, arms spread out wide.

“Ben.”

My ears were ringing, but he must have heard me. He was getting back to his feet, and he looked over at me. His arms went on my shoulders, and I could feel him trying to look into my eyes. I smiled at him, then started walking.

“We have to get to the others,” I told him. “After that, we can worry about your car.”

He nodded his head, and we kept on. There were a line of civilians and police, and on the back of a car, there was a body bag. I got out my pen and paper, looking around, and started notating the scene. Ben went over to the bag, and unzipped it.

There’s something about body language in a person you understand. There is something familiar, subtle hints to what is right or wrong. Something was very wrong in that moment. He looked over at me, then motioned me over. I’ve never seen such a somber hand motion before in my life. I found myself moving towards him, though it was hard to. He pulled back the bag, and Joanna stared back at me. I looked up at him, and he zipped the bag back shut. I called into the station after making sure my voice synthesizer was on and my headset was recording.

“Cecil? Cecil. This is the Secret Police.”

“Oh, hello!”

“There’s a glow cloud moving in from the west. John Peter’s told you earlier. I’m calling in to let you know to report the glow cloud. It’s changing hues, constantly, and it’s humming and whistling. It’s such a low whistle.”

“I’ll be sure to do that, officer.”

“Officer 27, of the secret police, at your service. There’s already one dead. We can’t just stop town whenever someone dies though, can we? We just have to keep moving on.”

He hesitated, and I could feel the tears coming down my cheeks.

“I agree with you there, 27. Are there any other instructions?”

I watched as a fellow officer starting screaming at the glow cloud. Was it Roxanne? She was screaming at it, shrieking and waving her arms.

“I dunno, try screaming and running at it to see what it does. Maybe that way we can figure out what it wants or what it’ll do.”

I hung up my phone, and saw that Ben was waiting. I nodded my head, heading out. We went quickly, heading out towards it.

We kept running, and soon, we were in the heart of Old Town Nightvale, in a hail of dead animals. I wanted the Glow Cloud to pay for killing my family. I wanted it to feel the same pain that I did. I screamed at it finally.

“WHAT DO YOU EVEN WANT FROM US? WHY ARE YOU HERE? WHY DID YOU HAVE TO KILL HER?”

We ran past the White Sand Ice Cream Shop as a large sound hit the earth. It reverberated, and I felt my knees give out. It was humming. The humming and whistling was louder. It was like a song. It sounded so friendly, so welcoming and inviting.

It was hostile.

The thought clicked into place, and I heard screeching fill my ears and head. I curled over, puking onto the ground in front of me. I looked up, head swimming and eyes watering-

Chapter Text

Report 010

I could hear the sound of shuffling around me, though I don’t know why. I was laying on something hot and sticky, and didn’t really want to get up or move. I don’t want to move. Someone stopped walking next to me.

“I have another one here! Designated 27!” he called out.

There were hands on my shoulder, and I tried rolling onto my back, but he stopped me.

“Easy, easy.  No sudden movements. 27, do you remember what happened?” he asked.

I finally opened my eyes, looking at him. He was also in a thick balaclava, and had on a white hospital coat as well.

“No. I mean. I think we flipped the car?”

“Okay. Anything else?”

“My friend’s dead. I remember that.”

“Did you hit your head?” he asked, feeling along my spine.

“I hit my entire body, so probably,” I responded.

He patted down my side.

“Are you aware you’re bleeding?” he asked.

“It’s a new hobby of mine. I think it brings out my eyes.”

I pushed him over, then sat up. Instantly, the urge to throw up overwhelmed me. I pushed him aside, then promptly emptied out my empty stomach onto the pavement. I sat there dry heaving until he managed to get me calm again, strong arms holding me up.

“We have a tent a block over. Can you walk?”

“I don’t fucking know.” I told him.

“How bad is the pain?” he asked. “I mean, do you have working pain receptors?”

I laughed bitterly, then staggered to my feet. He was quickly up and beside me, holding onto my arm to make sure that I wasn’t about to fall. He sighed,  then got my arm around his shoulder. I followed him, letting him support me.

“I’m 19. Designated Rook at graduation.”

“I’m 27, chosen name Clarity since graduation,” I told him. 

“It’s good to meet you Clarity, or it could have been. Which department do you work in?” he asked.

“Field, and Central.”

He nodded his head, turning us down a side street. Some officers were already piling the dead, and others were attempting to clear the street. There were civilians nearby, some helping, others simply wandering around looking lost. Ben’s jeep looked like a testament to the night, overturned and scraped up. There were gauges in the concrete from the heavy metal biting into it. It was surrounded by dead animals still. We stopped, staring at it, and his hands tightened around my waist, causing me to yelp.

“You were in that thing?” He asked.

“Technically, I got thrown on the first flip.” I mumbled. “But Ben and I were in that thing together.”

“How the hell are you alive?”

“Maybe I’m already dead,” I told him.

He started walking again, leading me into the tent. I didn’t really look around at first, but he eventually had me sitting down.  He got onto my mask, slowly peeling off the mask, and eventually my face was free. He touched my cheeks, frowning, then ran a hand through my hair.

“You’re mainly covered in abrasions on your head, but we need to look at the rest of you. You could have broken bones as well.”

“Alright.”

“Try to relax.”

His words probably would have made sense to me if I hadn’t taken the moment to start looking around. I had wanted to make sure that I was okay, but I wanted to see who wasn’t okay. I needed to take account of the dead around me, or the injured. There, on the far end, was the familiar shape and height of Ben. I ignored Rook, getting up and limping over to him. He turned, looking up at me, perfect lip cut and abrasions on his face. He was in a sling, and his leg was in a splint as well.

“Clarity.”

He said it so strangely. He sounded so tired, and I didn’t know what to do.

“Clarity, you need to rest. You need to relax,” Rook tried to convince me, but I didn’t care. I sat down on Ben’s bunk, and he winced. He must have been really hurting, knowing that he didn’t have fully working pain receptors. He patted my arm with his good arm, and I swore. He sighed, then nodded towards Rook.

“This is my partner, she’s fine here. We’re used to it here.” He told him. “We always are better together.” He added.

“Yeah. I can see that. I’ll have to check you out here. Ben, we’re going to move you to the hospital as soon as we can. Clarity, if you will, I’d like to check you now.”

I nodded, going silent as I took off the outer layers of the uniform, sitting in just the pants and a tank top. He ended up splinting my arm and bandaging my ribs, explaining to me that I needed to go to the hospital as well for x-rays and proper care. I simply shrugged, then waited.

I waited till Ben was evacuated out to the hospital before leaving, getting dressed back up in full uniform. I was one of the last to leave, and Rook gave me a ride home in his sedan. I got out and went upstairs, going into my apartment. I wasn’t even sure if he and I had actually said goodbye, or if I had just gotten out of the car and started walking. The bed was still in the living room, and all I wanted to do was flip it or destroy it. I wanted to puke with how it made me feel. This should have been Ben and I, curled up on it, trying to sleep while the night was looming overhead. I didn’t know what to do, so I simply went and sat in the shower, letting the water wash over me. I didn’t even want to change anymore. I only wanted to be able to hold someone. I needed to feel secure, and I didn’t.

When the water was cold and I was shivering, I finally got back up, peeling off the wet clothes and boots, drying off and finding something I could wear. I got dressed in shorts and a tank top, bandaging myself back up and pulling on a navy blue jacket. It was really Ben’s, and I wanted that at least. I looked in the thin mirror, looking at my bandaged up legs and arms. I had scrapes and scratches all over me. I looked like hell. Finally turning away from the mirror and stumbling back into the living room, I sat on the couch, curling up in the corner before finally deciding sitting here was just as dangerous as earlier. I got up, slid on my shoes, and walked out of the apartment. I wasn’t even sure if I had my wallet, but I didn’t care, I just wanted out. It’s not like the police would arrest me, I was one of their own.

The night was clear and vibrant, but I felt cold and hollow, as if someone had scraped out all of what made me feel okay and safe in Nightvale. Cecil couldn’t even help now, his show was already on when we had gone out to do whatever it was. Why were there so many dead animals? Why was there so much death? I was surrounded by it, I was involved in it down to my core.

“Clarity?”

The voice that so often managed to calm me at night cut through me, and I looked up across the street. Cecil was standing there, with Mobu next to him. I stared, and stared.

“Clarity, are you alright?”

“’m fine, just out for a walk. It’s nothing.”

I turned and started walking, the numb feeling back. I heard the leash hit the ground, and then felt something brush against me. I stopped, looking down at Mobu. He nosed me again, getting the side of my knee. How could he just demand affection like that? How was it his right? He nosed me again, pressing into a sore spot from the crash, and I collapsed into the pavement. He wormed his way under my arms, and before I knew it, I was aware I was hugging him and sobbing. Tears racked my body, and I felt like puking. There was no saving Joanna. She was dead, and she would not come back. I felt strong hands touch my back, then held my shoulders in place. He sighed, then pulled me up to my feet.

“Sitting on the ground and crying isn’t going to do anything, Clarity. It’s time for you to get up. You can’t sit there forever.”

“I don’t care. It’s not worth it right now. I don’t want to get up. I don’t want to stand. I want my friends back. But hey, we can’t stop every time a death occurs.”

I stood up, and he turned me around so I was facing him. I realized then that Cecil couldn’t fix everything like I wanted him too. He wasn’t a hero, and I wasn’t protecting the hero. He was just Cecil, radio host, and I was just dumb Clarity. I was 27, the girl who couldn’t protect what mattered to her most.

He hugged me, making shushing noises in my ear.

“Come on, let’s go get you a hot chocolate. Would that help?”

It wouldn’t, but I nodded my head anyway. It was in his voice, that he understood what was going on, and that while I couldn’t speak, my pain was no less than anyone else’s, but it was not great enough to disrupt everyone else. He wrapped an arm around my shoulder, leading me down the street. Mobu trotted next to me, keeping me safe.

I still felt the tears sliding down my face, and everything still hurt.

“What happened?” he asked.

“I don’t know. We were in old town Nightvale when it happened. I had no idea what was going on, I woke up on the road. My friend and I flipped our car and after that-“

We found one of our friends- our family- dead in a body bag on the side of the road, surrounded by officers. She had been killed by something. What was it?

“We don’t know after that.” I finished lamely. “I woke up on the concrete, and there was a doctor trying to figure out who should go to the hospital and who shouldn’t. It’s all really confusing. I don’t understand anything anymore.” I told him, sighing.

“Well, it must have been scary, whatever it was.”

“That’s just Nightvale, isn’t it? This town could kill you if it wanted to. Every day, you may or may not die. Some of us may be absorbed into something else. Some of us won’t be able to remember.”

“But everything is left with the smell of vanilla,” Cecil said.

“What?”

“The glow cloud. Whatever it does, or did, leaves behind no trace, except for the sweet smell of vanilla, barely there. It’s barely noticeable at all, to be honest. I almost missed it.”

I wanted to point out that that was what he smelled like, but it was kind of pointless. Cecil was surrounded by vanilla most of the time. It was familiar, it was comforting. He guided me into the coffee shop, and sat me down. Mobu put his head in my lap, and I let him. He nosed at me until I petted him. No one questioned the dog, or me, the girl who was scraped over pavement and sitting in the middle of a coffee shop.

Cecil came back, and set a mug in my hands. I looked to him, and he smiled at me, sitting across from me. I tried smiling at him, but instead took a sip. I raised an eyebrow.

“How did you know I liked white chocolate?” I asked, feeling suspicious.

“I didn’t. The barista did, however. I’m not sure how they seem to remember favorites. He knew that you liked it, and suggested I get it instead.”

I looked to the barista, and he smiled, waving at me. The shape seemed familiar, but the face seemed foreign.

“Maybe the sweater vests and newsboy hats give them super powers,” I said, nonchalantly. “Maybe they can really read our minds, letting them know what we really want.”

“Maybe. You never know. I know the people of dark owl records have abilities.”

That didn’t really surprise me, to be honest. Dark Owl Records were strange, even by Nightvale standards.

“Anyway, Clarity, I was wondering if you could watch Mobu for me tonight. He’s a bit needy when it comes to attention.”

“I- Sure, Cecil. I will.”

“And try to make it through the rest of the week without bleeding,” he said, sipping his coffee.

“No promises made I can’t keep, Mr. Palmer.”

“Please, just Cecil between friends.”

“Cecil? How do you know what to say? I mean, when I was crying.”

He laughed a bit, then pulled out his wallet, flipping it open to a picture. “This is Janice. She’s going to turn 9 soon. We’ve had good days and bad days together. Mainly good days. I’d do anything for her, you know.”

“I’m sure you would,” I said, looking at the small girl in the wheelchair. He smiled, shutting his wallet and sliding it back into his pocket. I sipped the hot chocolate, questions trying to form in my head, but they didn’t. I sighed, then looked at him. He looked at me with all of his eyes, and I looked away. There, outside, were the men who were not tall or short. I felt my heart speed up, and my hand started shaking. I drew back into the chair, and saw that they were looking elsewhere. My heart was hammering loudly in my ears. I couldn’t take this, I couldn’t do this. They moved on, however, so I could as well.

“Clarity, are you okay?” Cecil asked.

“I’m fine. Just seeing ghosts,” I told him, going back to my hot chocolate. I pulled the hood over my head, and pulled my feet up with me. “I’m going to be fine.”

“That’s good,” Cecil said. “Look, I got to run, I was hoping of running into Carlos.”

There it was. His lip quirked up, and I smiled, then let out a little laugh.

“You go on. I’ll be sure to watch Mobu. I’ll bring him with me to work tomorrow night.”

He got up, then ruffled my hair. He left me there in that coffee shop, and I finished my hot chocolate. I got up, then took Mobu’s leash in my hands. The two of us went out into the night, and I was glad that I was able to survive another night in Nightvale.

Chapter Text

Report 011

Recovery. It was the step between getting injured and functioning again, and I wasn’t sure if I could handle it. I went into the hospital, and found my way down to Ben’s room. He seemed happy to see me, which was good. It was easier with Ben, even if it wasn’t so easy being with him at that moment.

“What’s that?” he asked, as I came in.

“Um. This is Mobu, the Mobile Broadcasting Unit II from the station. Cecil made me want to babysit him.”

He sat up, and I let Mobu go over. He nosed Ben’s hand, and Ben petted him.

“Is it a dog or a robot?” He asked.

“It eats pizza. A lot of pizza. It ate half a pizza.”

“It’s a broadcasting unit.”

“It’s still cute. So what if it broadcasts and eats pizza. You broadcast and eat pizza too,” I reminded him.

“Good point. How are you feeling?” he asked, patting his bed.

“Sore. In pain. I’m going down to our ward later to get checked out. Pretty sure I broke a rib. I was sucking air last night, it really hurt.”

He patted my arm, and I sat down on the edge of his bed. He pulled me into him, and I looked over his body as we touched shoulder to shoulder.

“You’re going to be laid up for  a while, aren’t you?” I asked.

He nodded his head, and I put mine on his shoulder.

“Broken leg, bruised everywhere, a couple broken ribs, a fracture in my skull, a broken arm. I’m glad I got hurt more than you though. I can feel some pain, but you, you’d feel all of the pain,” he explained. “I don’t think I could have handled you in that much pain all the time.”

“No wonder you always sound so miserable.”

“What?”

“Well, you’re a huge pain in my ass, 15.”

He shoved me, and I shoved him back.

Later, I would find out that I had three cracked ribs, a fractured wrist, and a concussion. That was easy compared to everything else. I would keep working, keep training, and keep following Cecil. The latter was the most important in the group of things I had to do. For me, keeping Cecil safe always trumped everything else that was going on. He was important.

I probably should have told Ben that the man who was not short and the man who was not tall had started following me again. That might have changed how things are now. However, I have to get these reports in order. I owe it to Nightvale to do it in order.

I had to recover mainly alone. I preferred it. Mark stopped by, as well as Roxanne, but I didn’t want to stay or hang out. Terry didn’t really come around either. Austin tried to, but I found myself ignoring him. I didn’t want to see him or talk to him. I wanted to suffer alone in some atonement for what happened to Ben.

Cecil was there along the way. He let me keep Mobu, not knowing that the real dream that had shattered involved him. He was nothing more than just a radio host who had a calming voice. However, I couldn’t not listen to him at night. I couldn’t get away from Cecil Gershwin Palmer, or him talking about Carlos the Scientist. Cecil was some sense of normalcy in the strange. Days passed, and I spent most of my nights with Ben in the hospital. He and I would do paperwork together, we would sit in silence, and of course, we would listen to Cecil. He made sure I was connected to him, touching him in some way, but I didn’t mind it.

He was soon released to go back to work, and I had to return to my pretend life. It was days of following Cecil, nights working with Cecil, and then evenings spent listening to Cecil. It wouldn’t be till weeks later that I started to realize that things involving Cecil were not as they seemed to be, and that danger in Nightvale came from all sorts of places.

Hiram McDaniels was still on the loose, but luckily Ben was back in charge of the case, and it was pretty easy to find a five headed dragon. He could run point on that even with a broken leg. My arm was healing fine, and I was getting used to the whole constantly in pain thing. The only thing that I didn’t look forward to was pretending that I was with Austin. Austin loved to pick me up from work or take me bowling with Josie and Cecil at the bowling league. I thought it was annoying. We were too close to who we were following. Mobu was nice, however. I even managed to get him dog food, and he slept with me in my bed every night. He sometimes emitted low static hums and turned on music on the nights when the nightmares were worse.

Life moved on. There were still posters around town to market Radon Canyon. The post office was still closed. The library was unknowable, life was moving on. There were boy scouts mandated in, there were girl scouts mandated in.  Life picked back up and moved along much like life in Nightvale did. It wouldn’t be till late one night that things started changing again. That I would realize that night what my real relation to Cecil Palmer would be like. He saw me as a lost child, but I would realize the truth. Even though I was 19, even though I was young, I knew something that he didn’t know. It was right after training, and when the Nightvale City Council announced another retraining session at the school to make sure the normal citizens did not know too much. 

Chapter Text

REPORT 012

“Clarity, can you stay late tonight? I have a ton of memos to give out, and that coupled with contract negotiation season is really stressing me out. I need some emotional support.”

“What?”

I looked up from my desk, shuffling the important (and not so important) notices from the police, city council, and citizens into a pile. I should have been leaving soon. Ben was actually going to go out to dinner with me for the first time in two weeks. Cecil looked over me, from my awkward arm cast and how I still had to hold myself a certain way so I didn’t collapse from pain emanating from my rib cage. He let out a smile, his third eye going towards the entity that I understood was where management was. Whatever they were.

“Contract negotiation season! You can try sorting out whether you want better wages, or health coverage, or whether we should close up the bottomless pit in the break room, those sorts of things.”

“I didn’t know we were allowed to negotiate our contracts,” I told him.

“Well, I don’t know if we’re really allowed to, but you can come and shout requests with me at the door.”

I set down the next notice I had  about the new stadium being built next to the Waterfront, and checked my phone. Ben would be waiting for me to pick him up. I sighed, then shrugged.

“Yeah, I can stay. I can’t always stay, Cecil. You know that, right?”

“I know, Clarity! Now, we should order pizza and drink coffee, you can hang out with me in my booth!”

I smiled, then shook my head. Cecil may have wanted that, but there were lines that I knew not to cross. I didn’t want to intrude on him in his own world. He glanced to the doorway.

“Suit yourself, I’m going to go look at my contract and see what I can get this year. You should go over yours as well.”

I went to the filing cabinet and pulled his contract, handing it to him. He murmured a thanks before turning and leaving the room. I sat down at the desk and pulled out my phone, dialing Ben.

“Hey 27.”

“You sound better today,” I told him immediately.

The edge of exhaustion had finally left his voice. He sounded better. He let out a little laugh, then I heard a door shut.

“You sound better too. When are you getting here?”

“I…that’s the thing. Apparently it’s contract negotiation season or something here, he wants me to stay for the show.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah, I’m sorry. Usually, I would just politely decline but my replacement watch isn’t here yet and he asked for me to stay.”

“Are you getting to close?”

I could hear the hesitation in his voice, and I spun my chair around, and then looked up at the ceiling. It wasn’t like the question hadn’t crossed my mind.

“I think I’ve always been to close, Ben. I can’t distance myself now, however. I really did want to go out tonight. I miss the two of us being able to sit down and talk. I want to have dinner with you, and soon.”

He sighed, and I could hear him sit down, followed by the breathy thing he did when trying not to show he was in pain.

“You better. Tomorrow night, okay?”

“Okay.”

I hung up as an intern entered the room. This one was Jerry. He smiled and waved at me.

“Do you have the papers in order for Cecil?” he asked.

“Sure do. Everything from the seven day outlook to the campaign to pick up litter around town is in there. No flag, goes in the bag. Red flag? Run! Even things like the Nightvale Daily Journal Notification.”

“What’s that about? He asked.

“They’re cutting back copies of the newspaper and putting milk in the kiosks on Sunday.”

“Weird.”

He flipped through them, and nodded his head. He then looked back at me.

“You’re here late tonight.”

“Well, Cecil wants me to stay! All for contract negotiation season.”

“Really?”

“Yeah. Plus he’s got Lyme disease right now, so he probably could use the extra support.”

It was weird to be here. From what I understood, Cecil was usually just here with one intern and management during his show. I got up, going out into the hallway and looking down towards management. Jerry stuck his head out from behind the doorway. The two of us looked at the ark door with frosted glass, and the shapes behind it. I hadn’t been in it, and to my understanding, no one else had been in there either. Jerry and I looked in each other, then looked back at the tendrils moving back and forth behind the glass. Whatever they were, they were definitely large and had several extra appendages at the least. We both turned away.

“I better get these to Cecil. You have a good evening, and let me know if anything of importance or interest comes up!”

“Sure.”

It wasn’t too hard to get blueprints for any of the buildings, and I had made sure to get blueprints on the station. Management’s office didn’t make sense. Cecil and I had talked it over before, but I hadn’t contributed to the fact that the office didn’t make sense at all. It was about the same size and space of Cecil’s recording booth, but for some weird reason, seemed much bigger to the staff who happened to be working there.

I stuck my head back out the door.

“Jerry, Cecil, I’m going out for dinner. Can I bring you back anything?”

“Coffee!” Cecil called out.

Jerry stuck his head back out.

“Can I get some Arby’s?”

“Sure.”

I left, getting my keys and wallet from my desk on the way out. I heard a honk, then turned to see Austin there.  I scowled, then kept walking. He got out of his truck and came over, grabbing onto my waist. Instantly, I was on the ground, rolling in pain.

“Oh, oh shit, Clar, I forgot about your ribs-“

“Fuck. Fuck. Get off, get away.”

The urge to throw up was back and stronger than ever. Having nerves that worked seem to not be a great thing right about now.

“I’m sorry I just wanted to take you out to dinner, I thought I’d surprise you.”

He tried holding onto me again, and I pushed him off, laying on the sidewalk.

“Are you going to be okay?” he finally asked.

“I’m going out and getting dinner for Cecil and the intern. Please let me do my job. I’m working late tonight.”

He stepped back, and I got up. He still looked upset with himself, or maybe with me.

“Please, just go home, Austin. I don’t want to eat dinner with you tonight. We’re not really dating. You have to remember that.”

“Right. Yeah. Not dating, you and your precious Ben-“

“He and I aren’t dating. I’m not dating. I have zero interest in dating anyone from the squad. Will you get over yourself?”

I started walking, and he grabbed onto my arm, wrenching me back. My fist instinctively swung, contacting with the right side of his face. It sent pain jolting up, but I just kicked him as well, getting him onto the pavement. I straddled him, shoving his face onto the concrete.

“Don’t touch me. Don’t look at me. Don’t pretend we’re together anymore. We’re ending our fake relationship. You are not anything. Joanna is dead, Ben is wounded, and you- you don’t have a damn scratch on you.”

I got up, going and sitting in my car, hands shaking. I locked the doors, shutting my eyes and trying to regain some sort of calm over what had just happened. This was not the time to be worrying about me. I had to come back to Cecil. I had to make sure that Cecil was safe. I started the car, driving off and heading off to get dinner.

By the time I got back, my nerves were settled and the show was starting. I gave Jerry his dinner and then went into the recording booth, putting the coffee down on his desk. He had just started reporting on the new stadium. He smiled at me, gave me a thumbs up, then I backed out and went down to the break room where Jerry was.

“Are you going to negotiate?”  he asked.

“I would plead for new bloodstones.”

Like always, Mobu came over as I opened my own dinner up (why would I buy someone else dinner and not grab my own?) so I offered him a few fries.

“You and that dog really get along.”

“Yeah, I guess. I’m just watching him for a while. He belongs to the station.”

“Still. Mobu’s a good boy.”

“He steals the covers.”

His ears went back, and at that point in time, we heard the tell-tale noise of an envelope being shot out from underneath management’s door. Jerry and I both got up, and he went and picked it up. Cecil’s name was written in what appeared to be blood across of it. I stood back, letting the intern do his job as he delivered it into Cecil. He quickly switched to the seven day outlook as he read over it. Jerry came back, and the hallway was silent again as he started.

“Maybe we can turn on the box so we can here the report as well?” I asked.

He scoffed, then shrugged.

“If you want to, but you know, he’s 100%-“

“Into Carlos. Jeez. I’m not in love with him.”

I went over and flicked the switch, Cecil’s voice filling the break room around us. I didn’t sit back down, choosing to eat standing up. It really helped deal with the intense pain that I was feeling everywhere. Jerry looked at me, as the two of us listened to Cecil explain the drive to clean up litter. The phone started ringing in the main office, and I went over, picking it up.

“Hello, NVCR? This is Carlos. We’ve discovered that books are suddenly not working.”

“Really? Wow. Do you want me to pass that on to Cecil?”

There was a slight hesitation on the other end.

“Yes, please, tell him that there’s a poignant meat smell and sparking involved. It’s very important.”

“Anything- Oh, shoot, hold on, the police line just lit up-“

I changed the calls over, putting a line underneath the first one as Jerry came in.

“NVCR,” I stated.

“27, this is Ben. Look, books aren’t working. We’re using lethal gas and there’s been some biting from the books as well. We can’t get anything to work.  Tell Cecil to get the word out.”

“Thanks, Officer, we’ll pass it along.”

I switched the calls back over, feeling guilty, as the City Council line lit up as well.

“Sorry, I have to cut this call.”

“It’s okay, just know that we’re trying to figure out the nature of this problem. We’ll call you when we sort it out.”

“Thanks.”

I switched the lines again, and heard the city council start speaking. It was weird, listening to all of them at once.

“Books are dangerous. This has not changed. Books are inadvisable. They should not be kept in private homes.”

I scribbled this all down, and then handed the memo off to Jerry as the City Council hung up. More lines were pinging, and I got about answering them as best as I could, Cecil’s voice starting to report on the situation as I answered and hung up systematically.

 Oh God, the world was ending. My life was over. Austin was going to come after me. The world was only in pain. There was darkness. I was a failure. I was a failure, and I would never be able to protect Cecil Gershwin Palmer. The phone started ringing. It was just one phone, and I knew for sure it was the Sherriff telling me that I was going to be sent back to the typing pool. I would never be in the field again.

I answered it, all confidence gone.

“H-Hello?”

“Yes, is this Nightvale Community Radio?”

“Y-yeah. This is that.”

“This is Larry Leroy. Look, there’s a creeping fear going through town right now. It’s pretty bad. First, there’s this mild apprehension. Like your skins off or something. Then, it’s a growing worry. You’re worried about everything. Then, you get this feeling that you’re going to die. You are going to be dead soon. Thought I’d worn you.”

“Oh God, the roof is going to cave in I need to go warn Cecil.”

I hung up, but I didn’t move however. I had the memo and pen in my hand, and Jerry stared at me, snatching it and sprinting off towards Cecil. I opted to huddle under the desk to cry. It seemed safer there.

The phone rang again, and I picked it up, pulling the whole thing under the desk.

“Nightvale Community Radio.”

“Hey, listen, your precious scientist is getting his hair cut.”

“What?”

“Yeah. It’s looking terrible. It’s getting buzzed off or something.”

“What?”

Jerry came in, looking at me.

“Clarity, Carlos is getting his hair cut.”

“Carlos is getting his hair cut right now?”

Cecil appeared immediately, headset still on. I was listening to him report.

“Yeah, its getting shorn.”

“His hair is getting shorn.”

Cecil grabbed onto me, hauling me out from under the desk.

“Telly the Barber’s just destroying it.”

Cecil looked at me, as he started reporting right then and there that Carlos was getting his hair cut.

“Telly the Barber did it.”

I hung up the phone, as Cecil angrily made his way back to his studio. Jerry looked at me, and I looked at him. The news switched to Traffic as he and I stared at each other. I sat back down, sighing.

“So. What now?”

“I don’t know. Mild panic?”

“You’ve already been through that. So have I.”

“Is it always like this around here?” I asked.

“Usually, no. The chaos usually happens outside, and we report on it from the safety of the office,” he explained.

The lights flickered overhead, as several envelopes shot out with rapid succession. Jerry and I both wen into the hallway, where we picked up the envelopes. There was one for each of us, and I took mine and opened it, quickly scanning the contents as Jerry went off to deliver Cecil’s and read his own.

WE KNOW WHO AND WHAT YOU ARE

YOU ARE THE CURSED

THE FORGOTTEN

YOU ARE WITH OTHERS

WE SHALL TOLERATE YOU FOR A WHILE LONGER, 27

WE SHALL NOT LET YOU INTERFERE

CECIL MUST BE TERMINATED

I felt my heart stop. Management started whipping around again, and I stood my ground in the hallway. Terminate Cecil? I may have been ordered to follow him, but I knew that protecting him was my main goal.

“Make your voice heard to whatever it is that lies in wait behind that darkened office door.”

“Dear Management,” I whispered, reaching behind my back and pulling out my pistol. “You can kindly go screw yourself if you think that I’m going to let you harm a single hair on Cecil’s head,” I informed them.

 I took off my sweater, and then kicked off my heels. The gun felt awkward in my injured hand, but that didn’t matter. I didn’t have a choice besides to fight for Cecil. The thrashing got more violent as the pre-recorded ad for Big Rico’s Pizza came on. The lights flashed again, but I wasn’t scared. I didn’t have to worry about what was going to happen to me. I would take down management if I had to.

“Clarity!”

Jerry’s voice caused me to turn as he went wide eyed. There was a click behind me as the door for management unlocked. I heard the doorknob turn, and the door creaked open.

“And now, sweet, sweet listeners…the weather.”

It kicked on as Jerry ran forward, grabbing my face as I tried to turn to see what it was that came up behind me. He pushed me into the office and came in after me, locking the door to the hallway.

“What the hell do you think you’re doing!?”

I was screaming.

“ME? YOU’RE THE ONE WITH A GUN!”

“ITS MY JOB TO HAVE A GUN NOW LET ME GET TO CECIL-“

I tried to get past him, but he gripped my arm and through me on the ground.

“No, no, not you, don’t go.”

“It’s my job to go.”

“You’re a desk jockey! What can you possibly do?”

“I’m officer 27-E of the Nightvale Secret Police,”I informed him as I got up, brushing myself off.

“What?”

“Yes, I’m an officer, I’m undercover to follow Cecil, so please, let me do my job.”

He hesitated, then unlocked the door but didn’t let me past.

“You run straight to Cecil,” he told me.

“Fine.”

He leaned in, and kissed me.

What?

He pulled back, then looked at me, nodding his head.

“I wanted to make sure that I got to kiss a pretty girl before I died.” He informed me, darting out into the hallway.

He slammed the door shut behind him, and I heard the lock click again. I shook the knob and tried unlocking it, but nothing happened. There was a screech, followed by quick scuttling footsteps. I needed to get out of the room.

“Hello, Radio Audience. I come to you live from under my desk, where I have dragged my microphone, and am currently hiding in the fetal position,” Cecil said.

I panicked, throwing my pistol through the window and climbing out, making sure to grab it. I ran around the building, and shot the window out in the control room outside of Cecil’s booth. I knocked out the glass, and climbed in the window. I holstered the gun and went into his booth. Apparently, he had already said goodnight to Nightvale. I shouldered my way into the door, and went to the desk.

“Clarity.”

He looked up at me, and I didn’t know why I couldn’t handle this. I drug him out from under the desk, and pulled him through the doorway.

“Come on, Cecil, you have to be strong, you have to be strong for Nightvale.”

I pushed him towards the window, and he looked at me. I shoved him again, and he climbed out the window.

I climbed out after him, spilling out onto the grass. He sat there beside me, staring at the building. He looked at me, and I looked at him before closing my eyes.

“Jerry’s dead,” I told him.

“I know.”

I stood up, and looked at Cecil.

“He died for us, Cecil. He died, and you and I lived.  So you better live up to the fact that someone threw his life away for us.”

With that, I stomped off. Cecil would have to save himself for the rest of the night. I was going to find Ben now, and try to forget all about how Cecil hadn't saved his Nightvale. 

Chapter Text

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I walked home the night that Jerry died. I didn’t care that I had a car, or that I was hurt. I walked despite the blood, heels, and pain that I was feeling. I just wanted out of there. When you’re a secret police officer, not everything is easy, but being a Nightvale intern was no easier than that. The screech of tires in the periphery of sound that I was experiencing didn’t make me stop, it didn’t make me look. For once, I wanted it to not be my problem. I wanted it to be someone else’s concern instead of my own. I wanted that with all of my still beating heart.

His didn’t beat anymore, and the last thing he said was to me.

The car whipped in front of me, clipping my hip and sending me to the ground. Anger flickered briefly in me, and I wanted to get angry. However, in that moment in the dirt, I didn’t want to. For the first time in my memory of Nightvale, I shut my eyes and looked down. Even if the car seemed familiar to me, even if it could have been someone I knew, I didn’t care. I laid down in the dirt, closed my eyes and just wished for it to go away.

The door to the car opened, then it shut. Most car doors do. Footsteps went away, then came closer. Maybe they would leave again. In this case, they just stopped.

“27.”

The voice was close, then something touched my hair. A hand, warm, ran through my hair. There was warmth against my side as something pressed against me, a grunt as a figure sat down next to me. I didn’t move; I didn’t want to move.

“I was listening to the radio,” he said, his voice edged with hesitation and exhaustion.

I didn’t have to be told it was Ben, I inherently knew it was him. His voice had the hints of pain in it from his injuries, but it was filled with concern and worry. I had done this to him. I could hear the anxiety and could feel it knifing into me.

“Jerry died,” I finally informed him.

“I know,” he said, as he rubbed my back. “We can go to his funeral.”

Rubbing of the back seemed to be a frequently used comforting tool. I wondered how many times it would happen to me in the future, or how many times it had happened to me before.

“You aren’t allowed in the break room. Besides, we don’t have a body to bury anymore. We probably will never have a body.”

I sounded as hollow as I felt. I should have told him a lot of things. I should have told him about Austin, I should have told him that station management knew who I was as well. The thing about hindsight is that there is always clarity in it, and that is when things get dangerous. Then, however, I was the lost child in the dark, howling at the moon.

“27. Clarity.”

“I don’t want to be in Nightvale anymore, 15.”

He sighed, playing with my hair.

“I know, I know it’s hard but-”

“Nightvale is beautiful, Ben, but it can kill you. I know that.”

“Well, I won’t ever let it kill you.”

He eventually picked me up, and I curled into him, letting him hold me for a while. Whatever the Secret Police had stolen from us was not completely gone.

“Just promise you won’t let it kill you along the way, Ben,” I added, clinging to him.

“I promise, 27.”

My memories of what had happened that evening and many evenings are a haze. The thing about living a town that could kill you is that most nights are lost in the past. I wish that I had started this earlier, for I’m afraid of what I’ve missed over the years. I wish that the fear of the city council or hooded figures hadn’t stopped me from recording what would end up being the most important stories in Nightvale at all.

That night, I had lost a hero, but I had gained understanding of the fact that your heroes are not really heroes. They’re just alive, like you, like me, like us. 

The days were probably spent mainly with Ben after being so alone. Mobu was still with us, a constant in life and I found myself getting happier as Ben and I got closer.

The life of a secret policer officer revolves around work. It’s either spent in specific locations that you may never leave. Tristan hardly ever left our hospital, and Ben hardly ever left central. Those in the abandoned mines hardly ever left the abandoned mine, and those at Play Ball! rarely ever left Play Ball!. Such is the way of Nightvale, and much of the world. However, with him unable to properly work, me improperly able to feel, I remember that the two of us started living outside of Nightvale’s offices.

I remember moments, though, moments that seemed almost stolen. It was at night, he and I laying close in the dark as I listened to Cecil Gershwin Palmer. He was not a hero, and I began to understand that it was okay. A hero did not need to exist, and it was his other qualities that had always helped me fall asleep. It was his constant, soothing voice, that really made the difference. I had never needed him to be my hero, but I was understanding that he needed me- not as a hero, but as a constant as well.

Ben made sure that I wasn’t alone, that I could exist and function and be okay again. There were days where I needed him to pull me out of bed and get me dressed, there were days when I needed to help him fall asleep, curled in the dark around each other. This was not love, this was symbiosis of a nature that was needed to survive. He needed me, I needed him. That is the cyclical part of Nightvale. He looked at me, hands squeezing mine. Our nights were moments that I need to cling onto at this time, because I am running out of time, and I am running out of time soon. There’s still too much to cover between where we are and what I still need to cover.

I wish I could have given a more accurate account of his story- Ben’s, and Cecil’s too, but Ben and I both now understand that we are out of time.

I’m sorry Nightvale.

Right, but before the end, I need to tell you the middle. I need to tell you the parts about Cecil, Ben, the others, and the PTA Meeting.