Work Text:
The articles all had a title along the same lines. "Gentleman Sleuth Solves Case"; "Blanc Comes Through for Baffled Police"; "No Mystery Too Strange for World's Greatest Detective".
They all told a story along the same lines, too. "After a final standoff following identification by Blanc, the killer of the 33 year old glass blower was taken into custody by police. She is currently awaiting trial for murder, attempted murder, and resisting arrest."
The differences were in how much they mentioned the 33 year old glass blower or if they focused more on the macabre details of the act itself and the fractured mind of the killer who carried it out. Otherwise, they were fairly uniform, as if following a released statement from a source in the police department.
Only a small, local paper out of Battle Creek, Michigan got close to what actually happened. "Killer Nearly Kills Again: Famous Detective Caught in Crosshair." That article read something like, "Famous Investigator Benoit Blanc was shot yesterday following an investigation into the murder of a 33 year glass blower native to the area. The detective was used as a hostage to make demands for escape. After a 3 hour standoff against the police, [the killer] surrendered herself into their custody and now awaits trial. Blanc is currently undergoing treatment for his injuries, but doctors say that he is stable and responding well."
None of the papers mention a cup of tea that shattered on a kitchen floor after a phone call was answered. None of the papers mention the plane ticket with the exorbitant price tag so as to get a non-stop flight at the last second; or the bag that wasn't so much packed as stuffed with the closest articles of clothing that the traveler could reach. They don't mention the knee that bounced the whole way there, the voice that said few words for fear of choking on pent-up emotion, or the shaking fingers that kept making mistakes and had to retype the address of the hospital four times into the Uber app.
They also don't mention the desperate request at the front desk of the hospital, the name given through trembling lips and the hurried question at the appearance of a doctor.
"How is he?"
They don't mention how terrifying those three words were, how an answer was needed while also dreaded.
They couldn't know the legs that gave out, that dropped their burden into a chair at the bedside of a man whom some called "The World's Last Gentleman Sleuth" and whom another called "love". The papers would never describe the tears that ran down a trembling chin; the fingers that clutched a cold hand while a shaking voice pleaded to see blue eyes again.
In the end, a nurse was the only one who knew. The only one who saw the grin from the chair-occupant as consciousness returned to the man lying in the bed. Unlike the writers of those other articles, she wasn't looking for a story or a statement. She just happened to be making her rounds, checking the machines with her back turned to the room when a small, thickly accented voice said, "Phillip? Darlin'? I can't begin to tell you what a pleasure it is to wake up to your handsome face, but did you know your shirt is on backwards?"