Author's note: Watchmen belongs to Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons; I'm just borrowing the characters.

Yet another fic written for the Watchmen kink meme on livejournal, although there is no porn. The prompt: "ADRIAN/LAURIE, AU where Dan's dead with Rorschach and the rest of New York, and Laurie has no idea her old friend is the one behind the carnage. As creepy-realistic as you can make it - him wanting her to be his miserable trophy wife beard type person out of desperate loneliness, and her being unnerved but nonetheless falling into it 'cause she's got no one else."

Thanks to my beta, Mongie.

This is probably going to end up being three or four chapters long.

i.

Adrian sits at his desk, gazing at the familiar skyline of New York and wondering how it will change once his plan has been enacted. He regrets the devastation the city will suffer at his hands; he has lived here for years, and although he doesn’t consider this place home, he has become rather fond of it anyway. But it is a necessary sacrifice.

The phone rings, interrupting his reverie. It’s the head of his creative team; the creature is ready, and the team will be leaving the island later today. Of course, the man on the other end of the line has no idea that he will never reach the mainland. Another necessary sacrifice.

Glancing down at the pile of papers cluttering his desk, Adrian sifts through them with disinterest. He needs to get back with the toy people about their proposed changes to the line. It’s a mundane task, considering everything else that is on his plate at the moment, and he doesn’t look forward to it. Instead, he doodles an arrow pointing to the first of November on his planner. It is a meaningless date for most people now, but soon it will live forever in the hearts and minds of those lucky enough to survive. He includes himself in their number, even though he will be the cause of the desolation.

No, Adrian thinks as he scribbles another arrow in the box reserved for the first of the month. Not the cause, not really. I’m the doctor, excising the cancerous tumor of war from the body of mankind. My ultimate purpose is to save, not to destroy.

He suddenly remembers that Laurie’s birthday is in the middle of November, and he pencils in a note to call her. Adrian doesn’t pause to wonder if she’ll even be alive to celebrate.

ii.

Laurie doesn’t want to believe it, although the fragments of truth have been obvious ever since she was a little girl. It is only now that she has finally managed to fit the pieces together, forming a ragged patchwork quilt of her past that has no discernible pattern or purpose.

“Eddie Blake is my…is my…”

She screams until her voice cracks, and then she hammers her fist against Jon’s perfect clockwork castle until it shatters, the pieces raining down around them. “Not him,” she whispers hoarsely. “Please, not him.”

“Laurie?” Jon sounds more emotional than he has in years, and that only makes the band constricting her chest tighten more. Now he is concerned, now when it is almost too late…

“Take me to California. I need to speak with my mother about…” Laurie chokes and can’t force the rest of the sentence out. She doesn’t know what she wants to say, anyway.

Some things are just beyond mere words.

iii.

After Jon leaves Laurie at her mother’s condo, he goes to New York City. His mind is usually so clear, but now the edges are blurred and out of focus. He doesn’t know why he’s here, except that he is meant to be. It feels slightly wrong to him somehow, as if it’s not supposed to happen exactly like this, but he knows that is ridiculous. His every footstep is predetermined. He blames the strangeness on the overload of tachyons fogging his vision.

The devastation is incredible. Skyscrapers have crumbled into heaps of debris. Bodies fill the streets. If he was still human, Jon is sure that he would be on his knees weeping at the scene.

But he is not human any longer, and so he goes to Karnak to play out his last hour spent on earth, for that is how his future is scripted.

iv.

Daniel is waiting for someone to tell him that it’s all a joke – an elaborate, sick, completely tasteless joke – but no one is laughing. Millions murdered by Adrian, of all people?

It’s preposterous.

It’s...true.

Now the smartest man in the world has formed an unlikely alliance with the most powerful man in the universe, and they both say that they all must remain silent or the deaths will have been in vain.

Rorschach doesn’t hesitate. He simply tells them that they must be joking, that he will not compromise, that people must be told, and then he strides out of the room. He doesn’t run; he doesn’t even hurry. The man’s gait is as confidant and deliberate as it has ever been.

Dan has a decision to make, and quickly. Does he side with his old partner or with the most prolific mass murderer of all time? There’s no choice to make, really. He studies Adrian and Jon for a brief moment before calling for Rorschach to wait for him.

They are together again, partners once more. The pair walk out of Karnak, preparing to tell the people of New York City – the entire world – what has truly happened here.

Together, Rorschach and Daniel come to a stop when Jon calls out their names. Together, they both square their shoulders as the glowing man raises his hand.

And, together, they meet their fate in the snow.