Series of Unfortunate Events One-shots, What-ifs, and Drabbles

What If? Book the Eighth

Hey, it's Queenie. So this chapter is a B99/ASOUE crossover. Let me know if you like it!

(B99 is Brooklyn Nine-Nine, a show about cops.)

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"Klaus, come on!" Violet whispered. "I know you're miserable. I am too. But we have to get away from here!" She put Sunny down to rest her own back for a moment.

"I can't believe they were right there... Everything we wanted, Vi!" Klaus wept. "A peaceful, safe life with Hector and Isadora and Duncan. Now we're in the middle of the desert, alone, and the whole world thinks we're criminals, that Olaf is dead... I can't take it, Vi! I want to go home!" The thirteen-year-old leaned on his sister heavily. "Violet, I don't know what we're going to do."

"I know." Violet fought back tears herself. "But nowhere is home. We have to get away from here before people find us and call the authorities."

"Angcono," Sunny said, suddenly. Her siblings turned to her in shock. She meant, 'the authorities are better than Olaf. If they have us in custody, he can't hurt us anymore."

"Sunny, I don't understand," Violet told her youngest sibling. "You want us to give ourselves up to the police?"

Much to her siblings' surprise, Sunny rose unsteadily to her feet, then spoke. "Olaf is bad!" Sunny argued. The use of regular words shocked Violet to the core. Her baby sister really was growing up. Her first steps... her first real sentence...

And the rest of her life would be spent on the run, or in prison.

But Klaus saw a glimmer of hope. "I think Sunny's right, Vi," he remarked. "We're alone, a two-year-old, a thirteen-year-old, and a fourteen-year-old, on the run, in the middle of nowhere. Olaf will murder two of us, kidnap one, steal our fortune, then kill the one he kidnapped. At least we know what the police will do with us. At least we'll be together. At least we'll be alive."

Violet thought it over. "Klaus... Sunny... I love you two more than anything in the world," Violet said finally. "I don't want either of you to ever be hurt again. And this running... this fear... the control Olaf has over our lives..." Violet sighed. "You're right. Let's find a phone and call them ourselves. We can show we're innocent by giving ourselves up. We'll show we have nothing to fear from a trial. And maybe the police will trust us. We are children."

Half an hour later, police vehicles surrounded their position at a phone booth they had found in the wilderness. 

"Keep your hands where we can see them!" An officer called.

A tall, black police officer came closer to Violet, gun aimed at her chest. She flinched and stepped in front of her baby sister. "They're children," the officer said. He lowered his gun and waved other officers closer. "Detectives?"

"These are the perps?" A woman asked gruffly. "Veronica, Klyde, and Susie Baudelaire are kids?"

"Terry doesn't like arresting kids," a man- presumably Terry- remarked.

"P-please, officers, the Daily Punctilio got their facts wrong," Violet stammered. "My name is Violet, and these are my siblings, Klaus and Sunny. My sister is accused of m-murder. Th-the Daily Punctilio said that S-susie Baudelaire- really Sunny- killed someone, b-but she didn't do it. Please believe us," Violet said desperately. "We're so afraid."

"The baby is younger than Nikolaj," Another man said, softly. He nudged another man. "Look, Jake, she can barely stand up."

"Captain, Charles is right. Doesn't it seem a little off that the one accused of murder is the baby?" the man named Jake asked.

"We should at least question them before arresting them, Captain. They don't seem like they're about to run away." A woman said finally.

The first officer who had spoken- the captain- nodded. "My name is Captain Raymond Holt, Violet. We have a few questions for you," the captain told Violet. "Your sister has been accused of murder, you say. Can you tell us why that is?"

Hesitantly, Violet told the captain their whole story. How Olaf had tried to marry her, then how he killed Uncle Monty and Aunt Josephine, how he'd hypnotized Klaus, impersonated a gym teacher, kidnapped the Quagmires, and framed her sister for murder. She was crying by the end of her story.

"What do you think, Detective Peralta?"

"I think she's probably telling the truth," Jake Peralta replied. "Look at her."

"And she and her siblings called us, Captain. They gave themselves up," Terry added. "Why would they do that if they're guilty? They could've just kept running, but they didn't. That has to count for something."

"I have to agree with the two of you." the captain turned to Violet. "Ms. Baudelaire, I'm going to bring you and your siblings back to our precinct. Then we'll talk further."