Disclaimer: Dick Wolf has not seen fit to give me Goren and Eames. I don't know why, I wasn't going to do anything with them besides lock them in a room with me and a lot of chocolate syrup…oh. Right.

A.N.: Title is from the lyrics of the Repo! The Genetic Opera song "Things You See in a Graveyard." Already you can tell what a happy story this will be.

She was back.

She was back and it was like she never left, the searing pain in her wrists and shoulders and the maddening sweat-trickle down her arms and how she could hear her every breath so loud it echoed (dizzy) in her head maybe I never did leave, maybe this whole thing these two years all the after was a dream a hallucination and that thought was a hand crushing her throat, bile rising with the burning storm of her panic and it all smothered trapped inside her, crushed down inside her skin by the gag and the blindfold I have to wake up I have to wake up I have to wake up

(wake up)

But it was different.

No wet hacking, no whimpering baby-talk pleas, no

mmph mmph no no aaaaa ooo mmaaa--mommy plll aaaaaaaa aaa no--

rustling of the plastic curtain like dead skin on rusted rings (kshkl kshkl kshkl

Kshlskhlskl---)

Just a scraping.

Knife against stone.

Shikt! Shikt! Shikt!

A dry little cruel laugh of a sound.

It wasn't the nightmare.

Shikt! Shikt! (stupid little Eames, this is what you get, stupid little bitch) Shikt!

Over and over and over.

(this is the real nightmare)

This was real.

What, did someone tape a 'kidnap me' sign to my back or something? and she clung to this thought, because it was a good thought, a sane/calm/smart/funny/tough thought, an Eames thought, and most important of all it was a thought that was not ohmygodimgonnadieimgonnadieimgonnadie--

Huuuh-huh. Huuuuh-huh. Breathing. Heavy. In-out in-out closer closer and louder. Huh-huh. Huuuuh-huh. Huh-huuuuh.

A wheezing, impatient chuckle. Familiar

(familiar)

Cold! The flat of the blade stroked her cheek, but Eames was prepared and bit her lip against her gasp, not that it mattered because the gag--slash! And it was gone, and that was different too--

(trickle trickle blood down her cheek where the edge grazed her and every molecule of it makes a sticky desperate sound)

The icy metal of the knife was warming to her flesh. It teased at the edge of her mouth, seeking entrance, and she pressed her lips shut because if she was going to die she'd be damned if she was going to make it easy and go down without a fight and she would not cry, she would not cry, shewouldNOTcry--

The chuckle again. Suddenly the blade jerked up, sliced through her blindfold--another flash of pain bright and quick--which fell away. And--

"Ta da!" Clapped his hands together and then spread them wide, eyes bright and eyebrows waggling, grinning like he'd unveiled a double chocolate birthday cake with extra frosting.

Of course. Familiar.

(of or pertaining to the family)

Declan.