Dead End (by timydamonkey)

Disclaimer: I don't own Heavy Rain; I'm just an overenthusiastic fan.

Author's Note: So I basically wrote this because I wanted to experiment with a few things… ultimately, how to portray a character whose personality can adjust (Jayden/Madison in this case), how Blake would react to women suspects if it'd be different at all, and because while Heavy Rain is a great game, it's fairly linear in that you can't really explore the 'dead end' routes (like interviewing Madison could well be)… and I also like to see how much characters will say and what they won't.

This takes some liberties with the game story but nothing huge. It's set after Fish Tank and replaces the very beginning portion of the On the Loose chapter ideally, though it may have to knock some of the times back a little… in fact this knocks the story slightly AU due to what it does to On the Loose (and knocks the time it takes place back a little), but it's nothing huge.

Anyway, babbling over, hope you like it! :)

Madison Paige, it turned out, was booked into a motel not far from her house.

It wasn't the best lead to follow up, Jayden thought, considering if she'd been there at the same time as the killer, she'd have to be excellent at hiding, but maybe she could provide a wider context. It didn't add up. Paco Mendes had been killed by the Origami Killer… but he hadn't seemed like such a huge lead, yet he must have known something…

He felt a headache coming on. He did his best to ignore it; he figured that distracting himself from it could put him out of commission for a little while.

It was as he was sitting pondering all this in his drab little office (and every time he was in there, he was tempted to put on ARI just to inject some life into the room) that Blake strode in without knocking.

"Hey, Jayden, where the hell you been?"

He'd have liked to think that it was Blake's tone that led him to say, "I was following up a lead." He was sick of Blake's implications that he spent his whole time sitting at his desk being a bureaucrat, although it'd probably have been better for his health and his nerves. Either way, him sitting at his desk made him look inexplicably guilty.

"What leads are there to follow up? I thought we're supposed to be a team here!"

Blake's idea of teamwork seemed to involve completely ignoring him in favour of interrogating people to the point where you had no idea if their confession was sincere or not. His headache was only increasing, and he raised a hand to wearily rub at his forehead.

Blake wasn't done, either. "And what's left to investigate? We've been over this, Jayden. Unless you know where Ethan Mars is?"

Jayden didn't. The man had vanished from his house, and then seemed to have quietly disappeared. He supposed it made sense since they'd started flashing news reports around about the family since the son's disappearance; he could probably get around well enough provided he didn't give his name. He shook his head.

"I'm still not convinced about Ethan Mars – and even if it is him, we've got next to no evidence. It'd be laughed out of court. Chasing up other leads may at least pull up some evidence, and I've been chasing up the killer's car."

Blake folded his arms. "And where, exactly, has that got you?"

"Through to a Paco Mendes – and I think we're going the right way, as he was dead when I got there, and there's a strong link to suggest the perpetrator is the Origami Killer." He hoped that pointing this out would wake Blake up a little; he may not have especially liked the man, but it made for an easier investigation if there was more than one person and they actually cooperated rather than working from completely different theories.

"Sounds like you got yourself a dead end," remarked Blake. "So maybe you could use your 'amazing technology' to track Ethan Mars, so we can get this case over with."

Damnit, Blake, Jayden thought, but aloud he said, "I've got one other lead. There were signs somebody else had been there very recently – a journalist. I need to find out what that was about."

"A fucking journalist?" Blake grumbled. "Skulk around anywhere for a story." He grasped hold of the door handle, then raised an eyebrow. "Well, you coming? The sooner we clear this up, the sooner we get back to the real investigation."

Jayden blinked. "You're… coming along?"

"I hate meddling journalists," Blake offered in explanation, and turned and left. Jayden sighed, already regretting informing Blake but there wasn't much else he could have done; he was intended to work with them, not against them.

He'd just have hope this turned into more of a lead than it seemed to.

"You'd better fill me in!" Blake shouted from outside of the office. Jayden clenched his fist.

It would, he thought, be a miracle if he got through this without tripto.

Standing outside of room 201 at the motel where Madison Paige was staying, Jayden started to have second thoughts. In all honesty, it wasn't a great lead – but it was all he had.

He just wished he'd stopped pondering it over earlier, and that he could have left before Blake arrived. His temper was hardly saintly, and time was really running out now.

Well, there was no point regretting it now, he supposed. He knocked on the door.

"Coming!" said the voice inside, and if it sounded a little confused, he couldn't blame her.

The door opened, and Madison Paige poked her head out of the door, eyes widening in surprise. "Expecting someone else?" He asked her, curious.

"No," she said warily. "I just don't expect a knock on the door when I'm staying at a motel. Why are you here?"

Blake butted in, not in the mood for idle conversation before even the pleasantries. "I'm Lieutenant Carter Blake and this is Norman Jayden from the FBI." They flashed their identification at her. "We'd like to ask you a few questions."

Her eyes settled on Jayden's face for a moment, brow creasing in confusion before she seemed to come to a realisation. "You're that FBI profiler!" He supposed it wasn't a far stretch to assume the FBI being here wasn't a regular occurrence, and she was a journalist – hadn't he himself heard Perry at that press conference, confirming his presence? She seemed to have picked up on it very quickly, though. He nodded.

She looked resigned, for some reason, so Jayden pressed ahead with, "What time were you at the Blue Lagoon?"

"The Blue Lagoon?" she asked, startled.

"Just answer the question." Blake was glowering.

"It was… around eleven, I think? Why? Is something wrong?"

Madison Paige seemed a very guarded woman - that much was clear. As a journalist, she knew how to deflect questions – but with Blake there, there wasn't much hope of that. Still, if she kept being so vague… "It wouldn't seem to be a regular hang out for a journalist," he offered instead, hoping the new direction might convince her more than trying to interrogate it out of her.

She laughed, but didn't sound as if she found anything humorous. "Well, you know… tough job. We all have to let our hair down once in a while." She grinned at them.

"You don't seem the hair letting down type," Jayden observed.

"I'm flattered, but I just wanted to go and dance and get my mind off a few things."

Except that being present in Paco Mendes' room meant more than that. He was glad that he seemed to be getting results, so of course this was when Blake said, "Shit, is there a point to this, Jayden, or are you here for casual conversation?"

Well, Jayden thought, she'd be a better conversationalist than Blake. He shot him an irritated look instead, and decided that whatever Blake thought, he'd try and broach the subject in his own way rather than going too fast and messing up.

"And that involves dancing for the big boss, does it?"

Her face crinkled in disgust. A neutral expression quickly replaced it, but Jayden had seen it. He really knew something was going on when she said, "Ah… it's a little embarrassing, but we had a time I'm sure he won't be forgetting any time soon."

"Yeah, he'd be a hard time forgetting anything from the grave," Blake retorted.

She sat down heavily on the bed. "What?"

"Blake!"

"We don't have all the time in the world, Norman. A kid's probably drowning as we speak, and you don't know how to get to the point!"

For a man determined to arrest people with only circumstantial evidence to their guilt, Blake seemed inordinately concerned about Shaun Mars. So was Jayden, as it happened; but even though they were working against a time limit, sometimes things needed to be done delicately. Unfortunately, he'd been stuck with a partner to whom it seemed delicacy was a foreign concept. It was just his luck.

Madison was still gaping. "Did anything odd seem to be going on with Paco when you met him? Was he acting oddly?"

"Not really… He was a creep, but he's just naturally like that when it comes to women, but he's all bark and no bite."

"Did you see anything unusual when you left? Was he getting ready to see somebody, maybe?"

She shrugged helplessly. "We… weren't really on talking terms," she said nervously. "I wouldn't know."

Blake, who'd been pacing around, turned to look at her. "And what were you doing instead?"

"It'd be impolite to say." Jayden didn't particularly want to translate that one, evasive as it was.

"What's impolite are people interfering with a police investigation where somebody's life is at stake!"

"Blake?" It seemed that recently he couldn't even go five minutes without exploding about something. Blake was also, unfortunately, a master at the art of ignoring people when he wanted to be.

Blake strode over to her and practically knelt down to get right in her face, an unpleasant specialty of his. "You see, something's been bothering me… there was a woman I didn't get a good look at, but she looked a lot like you… on Marble Street. So why don't you cut the bullshit and tell us why you're swanning around crime scenes?"

Jayden was actually startled at Blake's observation – not just that he recognised Madison before he did, but that he'd apparently gone around his tunnel vision concerning Ethan Mars to do so. She did look similar, come to think of it, and he kicked himself for not realising it, being too caught up in having fought the Origami Killer, being alive to tell the tale, and determined to use the opportunity he'd been given.

It might have also been to do with the withdrawal. Focusing so hard on not tripto didn't really make him the person most aware of their surroundings. No wonder he kept getting beaten up. He was a mess.

"I don't know what you're talking about."

"Oh, I bet we can pull something up."

Madison pursed her lips – impressive when staring into the face of Blake. She was clearly a strong willed woman, and he found it difficult to picture her with the Paco described in his criminal record. He wouldn't have thought she'd have put up with it for a second.

"I really don't know what you're trying to insinuate," she said.

"Where is Ethan Mars?"

"I don't-"

"You're a journalist," Jayden put in calmly, glad that at the very least Blake hadn't raised his fists yet. "You should be well informed as to who he is and how he's related to this investigation."

"I know about him from the news, but I don't know him."

"Journalists not doing research on the story of the year?" Blake snorted, making it clear exactly where he was finding holes in her story.

"Research doesn't tell you about anybody." Madison was affronted. She looked at Jayden. "I researched you, and what I get is the facts, but nothing about who you really are."

So Madison Paige was trying to figure out Ethan Mars? Remembering the woman who'd been supporting – more like dragging, really – Mars around, he knew it had to be more than that, and Blake had obviously come to the same conclusion. He gripped her wrist tightly, and she let out a startled cry.

"Listen up," he began, "I really hate these-"

This time, Jayden sprung into action. "Blake! You can't do that!" Not that Blake seemed to mind casually tearing around the rulebook as he went, but he didn't really know how else to protest it. "Calm down!"

"Huh." Blake pulled back, which in itself was an achievement, although he still looked disgusted. "Don't treat us like idiots: we're not." He strode over the sliding door to the balcony, and eyed Jayden up, daring him to make a comment about his unusually obedient nature. "I'm getting some fresh air," he said, then opened the door, strode out, and shut it harshly behind him. He was going to be soaked when he came back in, Jayden mused wryly.

He eyed Madison warily. She was rubbing her wrists, but had been watching Blake. She turned to him as he asked, "Are you okay?"

"He is a psychopath," was her reply instead.

She didn't know the half of it, either. For Blake, this seemed to be unspeakably mild. Still, Jayden thought it'd be unprofessional if he started talking of Blake's mental state with people – they were supposed to be working together, and in that case it just wasn't something that you did.

"I didn't see anything," she reiterated. "I can swear this all night if I have to, but frankly it's a waste of everyone's time." She looked worried about the prospect of having her night taken up by this, but it really couldn't be long. The hours Shaun Mars had to live were ticking down alarmingly as the water levels rose – they simply couldn't afford to waste extensive time on anybody at this point.

"I have one more question."

"Fire away." She couldn't have sounded more unenthusiastic, but, he supposed, it was late.

"Does the name John Sheppard mean anything to you?"

For a moment, Madison seemed to completely freeze. It had caught her firmly off guard, it seemed, and it was blatantly obvious that she had recognised it.

"Nothing," she replied distantly.

That told him all he needed to know. She was hiding it for some reason; he'd just have to figure out why. Her even apparently knowing the name of the apparent Origami Killer alone was a huge worry. Maybe she was an accomplice… but then, that hardly seemed to fit, although it might explain her presence with Mars: preying on his desire to rescue his son…

"Jayden!" Blake called. He sounded startled. The fact that something had Blake sounding like that was intensely worrying.

"I think that's everything I need. Thanks for your time."

Her smile didn't quite meet her eyes, but she said, "No problem."

Politeness – something that had been a rarity lately.

Blake re-entered the hotel room, giving Jayden a significant look. "Good, you're done, now we can get moving. We've been here way too long."

He nodded tersely at Madison, barely a goodbye even for Blake, then moved quickly towards the door. Feeling slightly awkward, Jayden matched his pace. He could feel his hand beginning to twitch a little. God. Not now. He could suppress it. He'd managed it this long…

"What's wrong?" he managed to ask, trying to force his focus onto what was going on outside rather than with his own body.

Blake gestured towards an old car in the car park they'd just descended into. A sense of foreboding flooded Jayden.

"Beautiful view from that room," said Blake.

"I didn't think you'd appreciate it."

"When a suspect walks right into our hands, I can appreciate it."

He couldn't mean… It took a moment for Jayden to find his tongue. "You don't mean…?"

And with the answer, Jayden suddenly found himself wishing he'd just taken the damn tripto:

"Ethan Mars is here at this building," announced Blake, "and once our backup gets here, we've got him."

Author's Note: I'm not quite sure I've managed to catch the tone of the characters. :/ Still, practise makes perfect and all that – can't expect to be great on a first go. Hopefully I'll grow into it.

Is it just me or are there some serious time discrepancies between the events of Sexy Girl and On the Loose? How does that work exactly, can Madison teleport? Sorry for the knocking time off other than that.

Reviews appreciated, and hopefully I'll have time for some Heavy Rain fic soon, I have quite a few ideas for various characters… probably Ethan next up.