A SON'S LOSS
Author’s Notes: (Movieverse) What is below is partially a missing scene and partially a delving into my idea of Hellboy's thoughts during a portion of the first movie that has no dialogue. This is all leading up to one of my favorite scenes in this film. According to my word processor, this story is exactly 1,000 words (not including the title or author’s notes).
Disclaimer: Characters belong to Mike Mignola and Dark Horse Press for the original comics; and to Guillermo del Toro and Sony/Revolution Studios for the 2004 first movie.
A Son's Loss
As he sat on the roof of the building, watching over the woman he loved and that Agent John Myers having coffee together, he munched on the chocolate chip cookie the young boy sitting next to him had just handed him. He couldn’t believe that this kid had just tried to give him advice on romance; after all, he was almost sixty years old and that kid only nine.
He reached out with his left hand and picked up the half-finished glass of milk that was resting on the parapet of the building where he was seated, but placed it back down untouched.
“Hey, who’re those guys?” As the boy’s voice interrupted his pensive thoughts, he leapt up and swung around toward where Liz and Agent Myers had stood up from the park bench at the arrival of two black sedans and a group of obviously frantic Bureau personnel.
He could barely hear the agitated agents from his high vantage point, but could make out that one of them was saying something like, “Professor Broom, he’s…” but couldn’t hear the rest. He definitely heard Liz cry out, “No, not him!” and his heart almost stopped at the anguish in her voice.
Liz, John Myers, and the other agents then piled into the two sedans and drove off.
“Something’s wrong,” he muttered aloud and then took off, forgetting all about the young boy who had plied him with his mom’s homemade cookies and his own naive advice on love. Leaping over the same roofs that he had used when he followed Liz on her ‘coffee date’ with Agent Myers, he made his way back ‘home’ a lot slower than the two sedans.
Thinking back on this later, he found it just a bit ironic how he noisily hurried in through the front entrance not that long after he had quietly snuck out the ‘back way’. Not at all long in terms of actual clock time, but just long enough for that ‘something wrong’ to be something forever regretted; knowing that he could never turn back that clock and make another choice.
There were a lot more agents than usual milling about the aboveground lobby that contained the concealed entrance to the Bureau’s underground headquarters. It didn’t help his sense that something was really wrong when he overheard one of them whisper, “Oh, Lord, its Hellboy.”
His heart skipped a beat, but he managed to swallow his anxiety. “My father, where is he?”
“Red, he’s… he’s… in his office.” The certainty that ‘in his office’ was not what the agent had originally started to say didn’t dispel his growing anxiety. It was also not hard to notice that none of these agents were looking directly at him, especially not the agent who had just spoken.
He positioned himself over the huge BPRD logo in the middle of the floor. “Send me down.”
“Red, I don’t…” started the guard behind the desk who had control of the hidden platform elevator.
“Section 51, now.” The way he almost whispered it was more frightening to them than the menacing growl he usually used when upset or angry.
Even though he never mentioned this to anybody, he had always hated the way the un-sided platform seemed to descend into a kind of bottomless abyss, usually choosing to focus his eyes straight ahead rather than looking down or peering into the many levels of glass-sided offices that fronted that space. This time, ignoring his usual vertigo, he looked around during the descent and noted that even those offices where various agents and researchers worked far into the night were empty, if still illuminated.
He then peered down into the lowest level, which comprised the corridors of Section 51, and quickly looked away again; the roiling of his stomach due more to noting the veritable crowd of Bureau personnel standing around outside of the library that functioned as Trevor Broom’s office rather than the typical giddiness of the ride down.
He never remembered leaping from the platform before it got all the way down to the bottom or pushing through the press of men and women who had stopped whispering among themselves at his sudden appearance in their midst. The library’s carved golden oak doors stood in stark contrast to the cement walls of the corridor. There were two security guards standing before them.
Without a word, the guards pulled open the doors and allowed him to pass in. It seemed that the office was even more filled with people than the outer corridor. Some of these were people he knew, such as FBI liaison Tom Manning standing with his arms crossed against his chest and the other Bureau agents standing with him. Others were strangers, but he recognized them as forensic examiners.
Everything seemed to happen in slow motion as he walked further in, allowing him to catch a small glimpse of what these men were examining. He barely noticed that these examiners backed away as he approached the body that lay face up in front of the office’s central fireplace; nor did he notice that he was probably disturbing their carefully placed numbered cards.
Part of him wanted to turn and run out of the office, refusing to acknowledge what lay before him on the deep red carpet, some of that carpet now a deeper red than the rest. Yet, his feet continued slowly to carry him forward; and he fell to his knees before the man who had once lovingly wrapped a demon ‘baby boy’ in a blanket and fed him Baby Ruth candy bars.
For what felt like a long time, he knelt there and looked deeply into his father’s strangely calm face. All of his recent petty anger at this man drained away and along with it went everything else he had thought of paramount importance earlier that evening.
He now wanted nothing more than to again be a child warmly wrapped in a blanket, held protectively in arms that were forever stilled.