Chapter Text
Entanglement
Chapter 1
kateandharvey
“ The gods never let us love and be wise at the same time.” -Publilius Syrus
Vera Bennett sighed as she toed off her shoes and listened to the clink of her keys as they dropped into the dish by the door. She made her way to the fridge, grabbing a chilled bottle of Pinot and stretching her short frame against the counter to reach the wine glasses on the top of the cupboard shelf. Motherhood had brought about so many things, one of which being bottles that now sat in the much lower shelf of the cabinet that once held her precious stemmed glasses. She smiled softly as the alcohol flowed into the round glass, thinking of her little Grace. While Vera loved her girl to pieces, she did enjoy the rare quiet night in her home. The brunette moved slowly to the living room couch–side stepping colorful toys that would loudly announce their presence if she bumped them–and gracefully lowered to the cushion, tucking her right leg under her.
Taking a sip from the red liquid, she closed her eyes and inhaled the silence deeply. While Jake Stewart was not a perfect person, he was a good father and Vera trusted him with the thing most important to her tonight. They had only been completing this arrangement for a few weeks, and tonight was the first time that Vera did not feel a nausea in her stomach as she kissed her little girl on the forehead with a promise to see her on Monday.
It had been almost four months since the explosion at the prison, and it had taken at least one for things to even feel remotely normal in her life again. She struggled to process what had happened. The violence itself was difficult enough to swallow, the prisoners and guards that had suffered or even lost their lives, but to think that it was all caused by someone she thought she knew, someone she thought she trusted, was too much. For not the first time since the night of the explosion, Vera wondered, just what was Ann thinking?
Thinking of Ann made Vera think of her hands around her neck, so willing to do whatever it took to keep her secret buried. In some twisted way, Vera knew that Ann was not necessarily wrong in her attempt to silence her permanently– as the young mother had always fought for the greater good, even if it meant putting a friend in jeopardy; no matter how much she would have deserved it.
At the thought, Vera scoffed. “The greater good, ” she whispered, bringing the glass of wine to her lips yet again. The phrase made her think of her former mentor, and her own justification for everything she had done. Thinking of Joan, her thoughts then jumped to the former governor’s tall and broad form, grabbing Ann from Vera and quickly snapping her neck. Many nights, Vera felt that the night of the explosion was much of a blur, but there were moments that she could see clearly in her mind, like an old BluRay playing in slow motion.
“A child needs her mother.”
Looking out the sliding glass door to the backyard, Vera took in the raindrops ghosting the glass like they had the answers she was searching for. What was that? A child needs her mother. She shook her head, her eyes taking in the way the leaves had turned up to gather the water that fell from above. Vera had heard the words greater good from her former mentor on many occasions, none of which had ever made sense to Vera, but if she knew who Joan Fergusion was before the explosion, before the head injury, before she was Kath Maxwell, she definitely did not know who she was after.
The Joan Ferguson that Vera knew was cold, heartless, unfeeling. She was a murderous psychopath at worst and a murderous lunatic at best. Either way–Vera choked out a laugh because nothing was truly funny–she was a murderer . Yet, even with that information in her brain, the young former Governor struggled to meld the pieces of what she knew of Joan Ferguson with the one that stopped her in court, saved her from Ann, and so gingerly placed her hand over Vera’s own.
While Vera would not deny that she was traumatized that night, no amount of trauma could have invented the way that Joan looked down at her before she walked away.
It was all so confusing, as there was a time that Vera felt that Joan cared about her, but so much time–and pain–had passed that she was convinced before the night of the explosion that it was never real, it had all been a plan of master manipulation, and sometimes she had herself convinced it had never happened at all.
When she lifted her glass for another sip and found it empty, she hoisted herself off of the couch and back to the kitchen to pour another glass. It would have to be her last one, she decided as she poured, because there was nothing good that could come from drinking and thinking of the complexities of Joan Ferguson.
Leaning her rear against the counter, Vera took another sip, arms crossed, and deep in thought. Sure, Joan had saved her and left her with some odd reference to her being a mother that did not conjoin with what Vera already knew in her mind, but even more confusing than Joan’s actions had been her own.
Vera had said nothing about what had happened to Ann Reynolds or what Joan had done for her. The chaos of the night had provided her with no probing questions or interest in details– Will and Jake were relieved to see her, to know she was okay, and that was enough for them in the moment. After that, it was checking for inmates and staff, finding out who was accounted for, who wasn’t, and who they had lost. Vera gave herself leeway for the evening of the bomb, she allowed herself to believe that it was too crazy, too energized, too hectic a time to bring up what she had been involved in and what she had seen. However, in the weeks following the prison explosion, with Joan Ferguson’s face among every news channel and her name coming from every reporter’s mouth, Vera had still said nothing.
Ann and Lou’s involvement had been revealed through paperwork and recordings, thanks to Novak for locating Winter’s phone, but Vera had not mumbled a peep about Ann’s death or the way she escaped the building. Everyone believed that Ann had perished in the explosion, and Vera was fine with that being the way it was.
She rubbed her temples, starting to feel a light buzz from–she glanced down–almost two glasses of wine on an empty stomach and sighed. Vera did not know where Joan Ferguson was, and even after the first two months post-explosion, when the news outlets had begun to quiet and the prison was being slowly but meticulously rebuilt as if nothing had ever happened in the first place, she still wondered .
Try as she might, she still wondered what had happened to Joan. She shook her head. No, she didn’t wonder what had happened to Joan. She wondered what had happened to the new Joan. The one that was partial Joan Ferguson with her sharp mind and quick thought and evil ways, and partial Kath Maxwell, with her probing eyes and kind words and gentle hands.
Vera Bennett would not let Joan Ferguson hang in the prison yard, so it should not be surprising that she found herself worried about the Joan/Kath mix that had saved her life. Still, she scoffed at herself and her ridiculousness. Taking in the final gulp of wine from her glass, she set it in the sink and ran a hand down her tired face. Fleetingly, she wondered how many more weeks would pass until she could stop the thoughts of the former governor from invading her mind. She was fine all week. She worked. She took care of Grace. She cooked, cleaned, and bathed herself and her child. Even after a warm shower, with Grace silent in her bed and her own naked legs pushing under fresh sheets, she did not have the thoughts of Joan Ferguson invading her mind. Yet, the very second that she was alone, she could do nothing but replay the night of the explosion over and over again in her mind.
It was crossing the four month mark, and Vera wondered if it would be six months that would end the thoughts, the same way that she had hoped for one, two, and three months to do the same. Her naked feet padded across the kitchen as she yawned and shook her head, hoping the physical action would end her thinking for her. Moving throughout the house, she picked up the discarded toys in the living room she had expertly avoided, closed the blind that covered the large glass door that she had watched rain drops from, flicked off the lights that were on, and moved toward the hallway and the safety of her bedroom.
If she was going to spend yet another night trying to solve the complexities of a potential psychopath and confirmed murderer, she might as well do it from the comfort of her sheets after a warm shower that did not need to be timed to Grace’s hunger or diaper change.
Her right foot had just started its pace from the cool kitchen tile to the cushy comfort of the hallway carpet when there was a soft knock. Vera’s eyes darted to the front door, but in the glass frame around it, she saw no shadow. Moving slowly toward the door, she heard the same knock again, but it was louder now, allowing her to make out that it was knuckles on glass. Her head whipped around to look at the now blind-covered back glass and the tall figure she could see as a shadow beyond it.
Hesitatingly, she moved toward it, having the fleeting thought that the tall figure seemed familiar. She shook her head at herself, because this figure’s body language screamed nothing but uncertainty that Vera could feel even through the glass and the blinds–surely nothing could be more different from Joan. She almost laughed at herself for being so ridiculous, reminding herself that she needed to stop drinking wine, stop obsessing over the explosion, stop thinking of Joan fucking Ferguson.
She reached forward to move a panel of blind so she could see the figure outside of her door, and when she looked at the figure lightly illuminated by her backyard light, she swayed on her feet.
While this was not the first night that Vera had been lost in thought about Joan fucking Ferguson, it was the first night that Joan Fucking Ferguson was standing outside of her door.