Suicides were always the hardest to deal with. It wasn't the sickeningly selfish and pathetic reasons that usually constituted the self-murders that got to her; it wasn't the overwhelming amount of time it took to straighten the issue out in the courts; hell, it wasn't even the chilling scars the killers bore from the act. What bothered the officer Seren, what made her despise dealing with suicides to the point of physical sickness, was the pity she felt for the killers when they broke down. There was something in the way they wept, the way they begged for life—for it was nigh inevitable that they would eventually beg to be let back into the world of the living—that she just couldn't bear without letting her professionalism drop. Headquarters had learned, after the first few suicide cases they'd assigned her, that she got too emotional to handle things with any shred of logic...

And so she couldn't understand why they'd suddenly dropped a case in her lap now.

“Name?” Seren's voice, just like the small office room in which they sat, was dry of mirth and monotonous, her usual enthusiasm gone. She kept her eyes on a point far past the killer, not looking at her and not bothering to look through the case file on the gray table that could have easily given her the information she sought.

“Viviette Bellerose.” The woman was soft-spoken and calm, but Seren had dealt with one of those before; the way they came in made no difference. They all ended up the same.

“Age?”

“Twenty-four.”

There passed a long moment in which the only sounds came from outside the office door. Neither of the two women moved in their chairs.

“You're young,” Seren commented, wanting a drink but knowing she'd be punished if she opened a bottle indoors. Headquarters was like that. Her eyes remained somewhere on the white, undecorated wall.

“I suppose.”

“Hm.” The officer allowed herself to tap the case folder once or twice against the table, then sighed, finally lowering her gaze to look the papers inside over. Although the killer's dark form was on the edge of her vision, she refused to look. “So, do you know what you're going to tell them?”

“I'm sorry?”

“The court.” Her eyes skimmed one page, then another, searching for a particular something. “Do you know what you're going to tell them?”

“About...my case?”

“Well, that, and why you think they should give you a second chance. You represent yourself here, you know.”

“Oh.” There was a note of confusion in the woman's voice, heightened with her next words. “Well, no. I...haven't really thought of what to tell them, except the truth.”

Seren raised an eyebrow, a harsh smirk curling one end of her lips; she turned another page in the case file. “The truth isn't really going to get you another chance, kid, sorry to say. Not here. I'd suggest doing some serious bullshitting between now and the hearing if you want the judge to sympathize with you.”

“Why?” That note of confusion had magnified. The officer pressed her lips together, restraining herself from saying anything insulting.

“Well, you want a second chance, don't you?”

“No.”

It was Seren's turn to be confused. She stopped skimming through the case file. “What?”

“I killed myself. Why would I want to go back to living?”

Instead of replying, the officer resumed her scan of the papers. It had been a day since Headquarters had detained this woman; she would have figured the resolute phase had passed by now. It didn't really matter if it hadn't yet, since, she reassured herself, suicides always went from resolute to remorseful, but it did surprise her. Most killers like this began to regret their murders mere hours after being taken in. She'd never seen or heard of one lasting more than, oh, half a day.

But where was that case summary? That's all she wanted to see. Whatever reason Headquarters had for suddenly shoving a suicide case onto her plate, she could deal with it as long as it was over quickly. It being over quickly, though, required that she see the case summary to find out what sort of suicide was being dealt with and what court she was being sent to; at the rate it was going, she wouldn't even be able to call in the bailiff before the woman started bawling. At the very least the killer wasn't trying to have a conversation, but damn, they'd gone to annoying lengths to hide the case summary this time. In fact...She turned another page, only to find the back cover of the folder. In fact, this time it seemed the idiots in the filing room had failed to include the case summary at all.

“Those morons!“

As she spoke, there came a knock at the office door. Startled, Seren glanced up, catching sight first of the other woman sitting in front of her—her head was bowed, so she didn't see more than dark hair and a glimpse of pale skin—then of the man peeking through the window, dressed in red uniform. The uniform marked him as an official of the courts, but she didn't recognize him; nevertheless she nodded for him to come in.

“My apologies, Officer,” He said as he entered, his voice deep but smooth. “But I was sent by His Grace the Judge Richter to pick up the suicide.” His gaze flicked down to the killer's form for a moment, then back up to Seren's own. She raised her eyebrows, checked a clock on the wall nearly hidden by a tall filing shelf, and made a noise that was vaguely surprised.

“It's not even one. There's still an hour before I have to call the bailiff in, and I'm far from done here. Are you sure you weren't sent to pick up a different suicide?”

“Quite, Officer. His Grace was very specific.”

She frowned. “But I don't know what court she needs to be sent to yet. There wasn't even a case summary in her file.”

“No, I imagine there wasn't,” Replied the man with a smile, chuckling. “And she's being sent to Court Five. Please, His Grace seemed to be in a hurry...”

The man's words circled in her head, repeating themselves. “Wait, what? What do you mean, you imagine there wasn't?” She paused for a split second. “Court Five isn't even a suicide court!”

“No, it isn't.” The man's smile had turned cryptic, now, and even more amused. “Please, if you would like to see the case you may come along, but I really must get back to His Grace.”

Seren stared at him for a long moment, then stood, dropping the case file onto the table and brushing her black uniform free of any dust that might have caught onto it while she sat. She didn't look at the killer, but from what she could see out of the corner of her eye the woman hadn't yet moved, hadn't even yet raised her head.

“Kid,” She said, a tone of caution dominating her voice. “Come on.” Her gaze stuck on the red-uniformed man, half-glaring, half-weary. “I don't want to see the case, but I do want to know what's going on. You don't exactly seem very keen on telling me, so I'll just ask the judge himself.”

“As you wish,” He replied, inclining his head towards her.

“Alright,” Said the killer, standing. That tone of confusion Seren had originally heard from her was still there. “Am I going to have to present my case now?”

“Yes,” Replied the man without hesitation. He turned and strode out the door without another word. Seren scowled, but followed, allowing the other woman to go before her. She would rather have gone in front, but it was Headquarters policy when escorting criminals that the criminal always be in plain sight, so she was stuck trying to find a way to see without really seeing the woman. Suffice to say, it didn't work very well. In the course of the few minutes it took for them to traverse the bleak halls and corridors of Headquarters, Seren was able to discern without really wanting to that by the lack of any scars, the killer hadn't slit her wrists; that by the lack of a hole in the back of her head, she hadn't shot herself; and that by the long white nightgown she wore, there had been a bed involved in the suicide, or it had at least taken place during the night. Of course, there were a multitude of other methods that could have been employed, but she couldn't see the woman's front so it was hard to tell, and she really didn't want to know in the first place.

“What's going to happen to me?” The killer asked suddenly, breaking the silence between the three as they walked. Her confusion had vanished, now replaced with uncertainty and perhaps even fear beneath that.

Seren waited for a moment, but when the red-uniformed man didn't reply she sighed, “What do you mean?”

“After this trial. What's going to happen to me?”

Again, Seren waited, and again, the man didn't reply or give any indication he was even listening. She scowled at his back, past the curls of the killer's dark hair. “Well, that depends on if you're found guilty or not.” She dared not say the word 'innocent.' Innocent suggested that what the woman had done hadn't been wrong, and that was far from true. “If the judge doesn't sympathize with your case, you'll be imprisoned. If he does...Well, I suppose you'll get a second chance.”

“You suppose?”

Without thinking, the officer replied off-handedly, “Tells you how many cases are usually judged that way, doesn't it?”

This was met with silence, and Seren bit her tongue, mentally cursing herself. She was going to get in trouble one day for her habit of speaking out of place, she just knew; but Annon be damned if it wasn't true. In all her years of working for Headquarters, nevermind the comparatively short amount of time she'd spend working with suicides, she couldn't remember a case in which the judge had ruled in favor of the killer. She had no idea whether such a ruling warranted a second chance, a simple release, or something else entirely.

“I don't want to go back,” She heard the other woman whisper. This time, the officer followed the trend started by the red-uniformed man and pretended not to hear. In her mind she reassured herself, once more: suicides always came to regret what they'd done. Always. Just because this one was lasting a little longer than the others didn't make her any different. She didn't deserve pity. She didn't. She—

“We have arrived,” Announced the man, interrupting her thoughts. He'd stopped in front of two very large double doors, the number '5' set clearly above them, two white-uniformed guards stationed on either side. Turning towards Seren, he smiled the same strange smile he had before they'd left the office and said, “Officer, please, take a seat in the audience or wait in back of the courtroom. The suicide and I must enter through the side.”

She raised an eyebrow, crossing her arms. “Why can't I go back there? All I want to do is ask the judge what's going on.”

“I'm afraid he might not be able to see you before the hearing.”

Seren threw her hands up in exasperation, shouting, “Why didn't you tell me that in the first place?! I already said that I didn't want to see the case!”

“My apologies, Officer.” Despite the man's expression of sorrow, his voice was deadpan. “Please, though, stay for the hearing. I assure you your questions will be answered there.”

She didn't even bother responding, storming past the killer and him to push open the doors to the courtroom. The audience seats were mostly empty, save a scattering of interns and hearing regulars; she took a seat near the back, far enough away that they wouldn't try to start a conversation with her. And here she'd been thinking she'd be able ask the judge about the case and be done with it. It figured; things were never that simple.

The first to enter the courtroom some minutes later was the killer, her head bowed but back straight as she walked to her place behind the Criminal's Stand. Seren didn't look at her, but she heard the rest of the court go silent, a sign that the hearing would soon begin. The white-uniformed bailiff came next, then the recorder, and then the red-uniformed man standing off to the side. A tenseness grew with each passing person, as though the court was holding its breath, waiting; indeed, Seren found that in response to the tenseness she herself had begun to hold her breath, and so it came as both a surprise and a relief when the blue-robed judge finally entered the room and she exhaled.

His name was Richter Baasch, and she knew him primarily as a murder judge.