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Broken Wings	By : Anubis Category: G through L > Law & Order Views: 3452 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: I do not own Law & Order, nor any of the characters from it. I do not make any money from the writing of this story.

Chapter List
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            “Morning Detective.” Huang said without looking up as the detective opened his office door.
            “Yeah....” Munch scowled as he closed the redwood door behind him quietly.
            “Why don’t you have seat and we’ll begin.”
            “You’re the one running the show.” Munch said as he slipped into the chair in front of the doctor’s
desk.
            “Why don’t we begin with the accident yesterday.”
            “Two car accident, no fatalities as far as I’ve heard. The rest you can read for yourself in the
reports.” Standing up, “if that’s all I really need to get some actual work done.” Munch lied.
            “Please seat down, Detective. I read the reports, now I want you to tell me what wasn’t in them.”
Huang said as he pulled a pad of paper and a pen.
            “I don’t know what you’re talking about, everything’s there.” Munch said stubbornly crossing his
arms.
            “Yes the facts are spelled out, but what I want to know is what you didn’t put into the report. What
you didn’t tell Cragen.”
            “I think that we’re on the wrong side here. You should be the one getting your head examined, not
me.” Munch said looking over the rim of his glasses.
            “Let’s begin with that, shall we?”
            “Begin with what?”
            “The glasses, Detective Munch. According to your file, your eyesight is fine and you don’t need
prescription glasses.”
            “And your point being?” Munch shivered as the psychiatrist’s eyes bore into his.
            “Why do you feel the need to hide behind them?”
            “I’m not hiding anything.” Munch lied.
            “Detective, it’s perfectly normal for a person of any age to feel that they need a security blanket. But
what I want to know is why you feel that you need to conceal a part of yourself.”
            “You make me sound like some sort of criminal, maybe I should just turn myself and get it over
with.” Munch snapped defensively.
            Seeing that he wasn’t getting anywhere with his current approach, Huang switched subjects. “Has
anyone ever accused you being paranoid?”
            Munch snorted in reply. “ Of course I am, I’m still alive aren’t I”
            Seeing that his patient wasn’t responding, the psychiatrist tried again with a different approach to the
subject at hand. “Why don’t we discuss you now?”
             “I don’t like talking about myself.”
             “Why is that?”
“Because I’m more interested in everyone else.”
             “Are you afraid to discuss yourself?”
             “The only time that I get scared is when people get scared, Huang. Because when people get
scared, the first thing they sign away is the rights that every person takes for granted.” It looked like he was
moving, but in reality he was standing still.
             “So, people scare you?”
             “A person is a highly intelligent creature and makes intelligent choices. People, sadly, are the
stupidest creatures to ever live and are willing to jump off a cliff just because someone was pushed off. So I
guess you could say only the stupid ones scare me.”
            “So you have trust issues.”
            “Is this the part where I’m suppose to break down and tell you what a rotten childhood I had?”
            “Was it?”
            “You head doctors are all alike, you think that all life’s little problems stem from childhood.” Munch
grunted as he shook his head. “Fine, my childhood. It was great. Next subject.” Huang had found his
kryptonite and he knew it too, but Munch wasn’t about to go down without a good fight.
            As he was living the doctor’s office, Munch shuddered. Time was running away from him, running
faster then he could catch it. His scars were starting to show through the mask and one day the mystery that
he had been harboring would be exposed. The demons he had been concealing in the recesses of his soul
would claw their way to the surface and night would fall. He would see their judgement in their eyes and
then he would know.
            Munch understood how a Mexican jumping bean felt as adrenaline pumped wildly through his veins.
He tried to disassociate himself with the unbridled surge of memories flooding his mind. The meeting with
Huang had broken through the invisible fortress between the events of his present life and the life he had
attempted to bury deep inside of himself. Munch wasn’t sure what direction his life was taking him, but he
did know that it would be forever changed.
            Three weeks had crept by since his abrupt charge into the blazing minivan that was heralded by a
phantom call and he felt a surging sense of relief pumped through him as the glass door of the federal
building closed behind him with a soft sigh. He started for his partner’s car parked across the busy
Manhattan street. His mind was consumed with events past as he crossed the noisy street and slid into the
passenger’s seat of the Sedan.
            His nerves were on fire as adrenalin pulsed through his veins. The elevator doors slid open and he
drew a deep breath before proceeding Fin onto the floor. He cautiously stepped into the squad room and
watched. He watched the activity of the bustling room with the wonder and hunger of fresh rookie. Though
he had been absent from his desk for but a day, he fully realized just how much he had missed it. With the
first steps across the threshold, he had left the hallway and found himself home once again.
            He understood what it felt for a wild cat to be ripped from its natural habit to only be set free to
run back in the wilderness. A uniformed officer brushed past him as he stalked towards the captain’s office
with Fin hot on his heels. He could feel Benson and Stabler’s gaze following him as he navigated the
labyrinth. Perhaps he had been imagining it, but he had felt as though every eye in the bullpen had been
burning into his back as he stepped into the Captain’s office. “Captain,” his voice sounded gruff to his
own ears.
            Cragen glanced up from the ocean of paperwork crowding his desk long enough to wave him to a
seat. Behind him, he could feel Fin leaning against the wall and watching the events unfold. “Huang
called yesterday,” Cragen’s pen continued to scratch across the paper in front of him as he spoke. “He’s
cleared a couple of hours each day for the week for you’re sessions with him. You start Monday.”
            “With all due respect, I’m sane enough to know that I don’t require the good doctor’s services.”
            The scratching of Cragen’s pen stopped as he turned his full attention onto the errant detective.
“Sane men do not charge into burning vehicles and rescue teddy bears. Sane men do not bit and kick
rescue workers, city employees who risk their lives as much as we do, because they are bent on rescuing
stuffed animals. Sane men use their common sense and relay on their own survival instincts rather then
throwing themselves in front of the charging train.
            “What you did was beyond stupidity and beyond suicidal. I really would love to know what was
going through that melon three feet above your ass, if anything at all.” Cragen leaned back and waited for
a response.
            “I don’t have an explanation, Captain.”
            Cragen snorted disdainfully, “don’t step back in this office until you do.” He waved his hand in
dismissal.
            His protests died unuttered as he meekly shuffled from the office, effectively cowed. He shot his
partner a traitorous glare before passing over the threshold. He smiled weakly back at an overly cheerful
Elliot Stabler as Fin marched him past. There were occasions when he felt the desire to slap the other man
silly for being so cheerful most of the time while the world pissed itself away and he decided that it was one
of those days. He suppressed the urge and coerced himself to make past his lonely looking desk.
            Munch ignored Fin and slipped out of the passenger seat and hurried upstairs to his apartment. As
the door clicked softly closed behind him, he was relieved that his partner had respected his unspoken
wishes to be left alone. Leaving his clothes in a trail behind him, he stumbled through the darkened
apartment to his waiting bed and into the waiting embrace of sleep. Within minutes his labored breathing
slowed and he slipped under the Sandman’s influence.
            His eyes fluttered closed as a desperate voice whispered urgently in the back of his mind. As sleep
began to overcome him, so did the dreams that brought the memories to his vulnerable mind. Snowflakes
skittered slowly from the night sky as his first moans softly into the silent darkness of his bedroom. Terror
began to haunt the features of Munch’s face as he tossed and turned beneath the sheets of his bed.
            Smoke filled his lungs as the heat seared his flesh and tears began to fall down his face from his
stinging eyes. He doubled over coughing and sputtering as the smoke burned its way down his throat and
into his lungs. He looked down at his hands and stumbled backwards as he watched the flesh on his hands
and arms melt. A cold sweat gripped his soul as the melting flesh dripped onto the bubbling black river
beneath him.
            His skin crawled as though it were a blanket woven of ants clothing his bones. His stomach churned
as the fathomless abyss erupted into a world of red-orange flames He felt his legs give way beneath him
and the cold asphalt rushed up to greet him. A plaintive whimper croaked into the mirthless night, “please.
Not this again, I don’t want to see this again!”
            The road beneath him melted, slowly swallowing him up to his waist. Munch clawed at the
unyielding earth beneath him, frantic to escape the events that were unfolding before his eyes again. He
squeezed his eyes shut and tugged at his ears in a futile attempt to prevent the memory from reclaiming its
hold on him once again. Blood curdling screams echoed in his head as an invisible force pried his eyes
open and the story began.
            His eyes fluttered closed as a desperate voice whispered urgently in the back of his mind. As sleep
began to overcome him, so did the dreams that conjured the memories. Snowflakes fluttered to the earth
outside his bedroom window as the first moans were stolen from his lips. His breathing quickened as he fell
deeper into the siege of the night. The first heartfelt groan summoned the demons from their hiding places
and the old monsters were quick to scamper from the shadows.
            Smoke filled his lungs as the heat seared his flesh. The tears stung his eyes as he stared in horror,
watching the skin of his hands melting like molten wax. He could hear them screaming, crying and begging
for mercy with each new beat of his thundering heart. The smell of blood perfumed the abyss, mingling
with the stench of fear pouring from every breath his lungs. A cold sweat engulfed his soul as he stumbled
backwards, falling into the void.
            His fingers desperately clawed the empty air around him, searching for an anchor in this dark Hell.
The voices had slowly faded away until solitary voice called him from beyond the despair. A stray ray of
light tentatively reached into the chasm, beating back the horrors. His stomach churned as a face
gradually formed from the strands of illumination piercing the forsaken realm. His voice cracked as a
plaintive whimper escaped the mirthless world. “Please, not this. I don’t want to see this!”
            He felt his legs give way beneath him as gravity brought him crashing to the cold asphalt. Color
gradually filled the spectral looming before his petrified form. Slowly, a face framed in auburn hair came
into focus and dead blue eyes stared into his. “It wasn’t my fault, it was only suppose to be a joke!” The
pensive face before his remained unmoved, as the flesh slowly melted. He held up his hands as though to
ward off the memory, falling further into denial.
            Looking through the cracks of his fingers, a squeal of fear slipped from his lips. The face
combusted, morphing into another’s. He hung his head, unable to meet the eyes of his new assailant. From
the corner of his eyes, he saw disappointment flash in his father’s eyes. “Please, God make it end.” He
squeezed his eyes shut and tugged at his ears in a futile attempt to wake himself from Hell that constructed
for himself. Blood curdling screams echoed in his head as an inevitable force pried his eyelids open,
forcing him to relive the past. “Please........” He begged as an alarm blared in the distance.
            He jerked awake, cold sweat pouring down his lean frame and drenching the bed sheets. Past hurt
flashed in his eyes as he stared, unseeing at the darkened bedroom ceiling above him. Frantically he
struggled with the ever constricting material, desperate to breathe. Loud sobs racked him as his fingers sunk
into the smooth cotton of the bedspread. His body trembled as the material cocooning him ripped, freeing
him of it’s embrace. Wrestling with the material, he tumbled from the wet bed onto the hard floor below.
Tears streamed down his face as he sobbed into the heavy silence of his bedroom. The webbing of the
drenched bedding wound around him, chaining him to the bed.
            Clawing at the tattered remains of the sheets, he smacked his thigh against the bedframe.
Whimpering like a wounded puppy, he crawled on his belly to the bathroom. He gasped for air as his elbows
drug him across the cold floor of the Spartan room. His stomach muscles clenched, tightening until he was
forced to curl into a ball. He rocked himself back and forth, letting the tears fall freely from beneath his
closed eyes. His breathing slowed and slipped into a steady rhythm as sleep over came him once again.
            He felt himself going under and a choir of angels’ voices rising above the thunderous white static
in the dark realm. The void was shattered as a great blast of light penetrated his weary world. He winced
as distinct and individual sounds sharpened and colors blazed out at him all around him. He felt himself
fall as gravity rocketed back to life in this forsaken world of his mind’s creation.
            “Are you chicken or something?” He heard his adolescent self taunt from the shadows at the edges
of the light.
            “I’m just as brave as you are, Johnny!” He winced as her soft voice shrieked nervously back.
            “Well, what’s stopping you JoAnna?!” He winced as the voices’ owners came into focus. His body
shook as the haunting landscape came into an abrupt focus. He wanted to scream and run away, but a
morbid fear forced himself to watch and relive.
            “Fine!” JoAnna said as she stomped past the smirking ten year old boy. Her pigtails swinging
haphazardly against her back as she marched up the steep, rocky drive. Arrogant determination gradually
gave way to fear as adrenaline screamed through her body.
            Johnny smirked as he watched the nine year old tom-boy stalk up the overgrown driveway towards
the looming Lattin house. From his place on the side of the highway, he could see the top two stories of the
condemned house. The moonlight shined coldly back at him from between the rotting boards nailed across
the broken windows of the cold house. “Predictable,” Johnny mumbled to himself gleefully as JoAnna
came to a jerky stop at the bottom step of the abandoned house.
            A cool Atlantic breeze wound its way by him and up towards the old house, leaving a trail of goose
bumps racing down Johnny’s spine in its wake. Johnny carelessly leaned against a rotting stump next the
rundown mail box, oblivious to the splinters of wood spiraling to the ground at his feet. “Give her a minute
or two before I go and rescue her.” Johnny snorted ass he cracked his neck with a sigh. He glanced up at
the house and did a double take. “What the...?! She’s completely bonkers!” Johnny gawked at the deserted
spot in front of the old Lattin house.
            His stomach lurched as a shadow passed by the only unboarded window on the ground floor. For a
moment, Johnny was able to convince himself that it had been JoAnna that he had seen. A persistent,
nagging voice reminded him that the shadow had been too tall to be his little cousin. Unable to remain in
the secure embrace of denial, Johnny gulped as he found himself stumbling up the steep drive.
            Johnny’s heart drummed in his ears with each step that his newly automated feet took. Adrenaline
pulsed through him as he seemed to float towards the decaying pile of rubble on the hill. Sweaty palms
quickly turned to ice sd his hands closed around the large brass door knob. His breath quickened as the
door knob gave one last rattle and the weather battered door screeched as he slowly swung it open.
            Moonlight washed into the fathomless darkness of the abyss within and dust fell from the ceiling as
he jerked the door wider as he squeezed into the house. The floorboards creaked beneath his weight as
Johnny crept through the endless darkness. His heart throbbed in his head as the ceiling above him
creaked and moaned with the passage of stampeding feet fleeing towards the back of the house.
            Chewing on the inside of his cheek, his eyes darted from side to side in indecision. A scream echoed
through the dusty, dry abyss of the never ending ocean of darkness. Hyperventilating, Johnny turned
abruptly and fled the desolate house. Leaving the decrepit front door rocking back and forth in the summer
breeze, he leapt from the crumbling porch to the ground. An involuntary cry slipped from his mouth as the
harsh ground torn through his jeans and the tender skin on his knee.
            Stumbling and tripping, Johnny flew down the long drive and back down to the highway below. The
palms of his hands stung as the wind whipped past them during his flight. Tears streamed down his dirt
smudged face as he tumbled down the last few feet of the driveway. Oblivious to the bleeding cuts and
scraps, he stumbled blindly onto the asphalt and into the piercing lights of an on coming car.
            He wept as the vision faded and he was alone once again in the thunderous static of nothingness. If
he could turn back time and find a way to take back the horrors of his past, he would find a way to heal the
wounds cut into his soul. He would have the strength to end the nightmares once and for all. He sank to his
knees as wept for his lost innocence and for the boy that he once was. He grieved for his cousin and felt the
shame that accompanied guilt.
            Munch snorted awake to the sound of his alarm clock wailing from its stand on the other side of the
bed. Rubbing the bridge of his nose, he slowly unfolded his protesting body and stretched his cramped
muscles gingerly. He stumbled into his bathroom as the alarm clock continued to serenade him. Washing his
face, he stared at th pale reflection watching him in the mirror.
            A heavy sigh escaped his lips, “just look at yourself! You’re falling apart and everyone knows it,
Johnny.” He smirked at the sound of his childhood nickname, the nickname that JoAnna had given him. He
shook his head sadly before turning the faucet off and sweat coated shirt off his back. Balling the material,
he lazily tossed it into the overflowing hamper in the corner and stepped into the shower.
            He huddled beneath the grey blanket in the backseat of the Main State Trooper’s car. Johnny
shivered as he watched local firefighters battle the blazing flames engulfing the Lattin house. The once
seducing waves of the North Atlantic lost their allure as he waited breathlessly as the firefighters fought
the losing battle for the old house. As he watched the rotting house collapse in on itself he realized that if
he wasn’t going to go to Hell before, he was going first class now.
            Johnny couldn’t understand why the state troopers were standing back alongside the highway and
not in the house searching for JoAnna. He squirmed in his seat until his face was pressed up against the
cruiser’s windshield. He gnawed on the inside of his cheek nervously as he watched the enigmatic flames
leaping into the chilly night air. Fear gave way to a crushing wave of guilt as more and more of the
desolate house was consumed by the ravages of the fire. He closed his tearing eyes to the sight of his aunt
and uncle clinging to each other at the edge of the searing heat.
            Puffy eyes stared back at him from the bathroom mirror. Sighing, he turned on the faucet as he
reached for the electric razor. Looking back, he realized that he had spent his life making up for one night of
blatant cowardice. He had donned the uniform and earned the gold shield out of guilt for the fate that had
befallen his cousin, JoAnna. In its own way, he reasoned that the job gave him the opportunity to redeem his
ten year old self. His father had tried to reassure him that as young as he had been, running had been the
correct course of action. Though the gruff words had been meant to comfort and sooth his troubled mind,
he felt the full weight of the guilt to this day.
            Rain drizzled from the grey sky above the cluster of the black blossoms encircling a freshly dug
grave. Three dozen mourners clung to each other as Rabbi Goldberg solemnly spoke. Fresh tears fell down
their well-worn path down their pale cheeks as a veil of silence fell over them. JoAnna’s parents clung to
each other as though to draw strength from one another. New sobs erupted in the somber atmosphere as
the plain coffin was gently lowered into the saturated ground below.
            “Why does God call unto Him the young and innocent, while the rest of us are left upon the earth
to suffer their passing? JoAnna will never know the sorrow that accompanies the loss of a loved one and
yet she’ll never know the joy of the birth of a child of her own. She will never experience the harsh cruelty
that the world bestows upon us all. JoAnna has stepped before us and entered paradise, she has taken her
place beside our Lord and will know the joys and wonders of His kingdom. Joanna is not lost to us, but
rather she has been found by our Father. One day, we all shall be reunited in Heaven above and we shall
rejoice.
            “Though her earthly body is no longer amongst us, her spirit will forever be with us. Upon the day
that we join Him, there will be such a rejoicing of the spirit that no living soul has known and we shall
walk with Him and JoAnna in the kingdom of His creation. Our Father calls the young unto Him at such
an early age to spare them the suffering that life would have brought them had they been condemned to
remain on earth. Such sicknesses of the mind and body, those forged by the hand of Man, bring only great
suffering until the soul that they afflict. It is better that our Lord call the young to him, then allow the
Devil his victory in their sufferings.” Rabbi Goldberg bowed his head and began to pray in Hebrew. As the
prayer wound down, the mourners slowly filed past JoAnna’s coffin and dropping a single white rose upon
the common casket that she lay within.
            Johnny found himself alone next to the freshly covered grave long after the others had departed.
He wanted to cry; to grieve for his cousin like the rest of his family. Yet the tears refused to fall. He could
feel the biting of his nails digging into his palms through the numbness of his mind. Johnny watched as the
last few fragile shreds of his innocence crumble away as the grave diggers dumped the last shovel full of
moist earth on the grave. He sank to his knees as remorse assaulted him, oblivious to the spreading
dampness collecting on the legs of his suit pants.
            Bowing his head, Johnny quietly promised that he would search the four corners of the globe until
the end of eternity for her killer. Leaving the cemetery, he began to lay the foundation for a course that
would carry him the rest of his life and the ending resulting in JoAnna’s killer being brought to justice.
Though young as he was, Johnny knew that he was standing at the foot of the mountain and that justice the
just beyond, at the foot of that hill.
            Absently scratching his chest, he wandered the length of his Spartan apartment. For a moment he
entertained the thought of having a cat, but quickly dismissed the notion. With the hours that he always put
in, the cat would quickly come to the end of its tether and file for divorce before going on a killing spree.
Though he wasn’t concerned about the rodent population that resided within his building, he wasn’t fond of
the idea of discovering decapitated mice lying around his apartment. He reasoned that if he ever got
desperate enough to endure a whining female in his castle again, it would be easier on his heart to find
himself another wife. Sitting on the edge of the bed, he was oblivious to the world around him. He decided
that he Fates had conspired against him and decreed that he should forever be alone.
            Lying across the bed, he stared up at the ceiling as the wheels in his mind turned. He had appeared
every telephone pole and street sign in JoAnna’s hometown with fliers, begging for their help. Days had
quickly evaporated into months and the fliers yellowed with age, were torn and smudged with the same
passage of time. With time he had grown older and wiser, but he could never truly forget what he had over
heard the medical examiner tell JoAnna’s parents.
            Sighing, he pushed the thoughts of his cousin and the nightmare from his mind. After all, he was the
one that was suppose to be superman strong. It wasn’t dark yet, but it was getting there.

A/N

Uh-oh, looks like the skeletons are starting to escape the closet......Thanks for your kind reviews, I not sure
when I’ll get the next chance to update. But the story is long from finished AND it will be finished.

Boundlight and Smurf

            Thanks for your patience and your reviews.
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Broken Wings