Hello all! Here's a little appetizer I promised while yall wait on me to continue FEAR: The Awakening. This is kind of an experiment. I really loved the character Col. Vanek. I was sad when they told us so little about him. So, I decided to make a little fic making up some history for this character that practically doesn't have any lol. I will continue The Awakening, don't worry, but I'm waiting for FEAR 3 to come out before I do. Sorry to keep yall you to all who have continued to follow my fics! Much love to all of you for your favs, alerts, and reviews! I hope you enjoy this! Please read, review, but most importantly, enjoy! :3
AN: I decided to say that they didn't hire Vanek to head security until after the first synchronicity event. I couldn't figure out when they were claiming he joined ATC but this seemed to make the most sense to me. So that's what I'm going with. This won't play a factor till chapter 2 but I'd thought I'd give you all a heads up. Also, this has been heavily edited though I may have missed a few spots where I decided to be more vague with the passage of time. Sorry for any confusion that may cause. ^^;
FEAR and it's characters don't belong to me. Please don't sue. Also, this is just a fan fic, it does not reflect my personal views on certain matters.
Enjoy! :)
Vanek had always been a calculating man, but this…This he had not anticipated. Every moment of his life had been meticulously planned out ever since he was old enough to think for himself. That being the case, why was he here, now, like this? Pacing anxiously in a waiting room with a wedding band around his finger only a few months old?
She hadn't known.
How could she not? How was that even possible?
Vanek laughed bitterly to himself. Perhaps if he had been more careful it wouldn't have mattered. But even at his age, it seemed, he was still capable of making stupid, careless mistakes. He had known her, once. They had been close once. But that had been ages ago—a lifetime ago—before the military, before the Marines. Nostalgia had gotten the best of them that night. He had been lonely. So had she. And he was drunk. And she was oh so beautiful. No…that had not been a good combination. It led to things, things unplanned…It led to this…
He'd been kicking himself ever since they arrived—no—ever since she had told him, those few months ago. He had married her on the spot, promised to provide, to care, to protect. She accepted out of fear, knowing what lay ahead. For too long she hadn't known, hadn't done the necessary things, hadn't stopped the unnecessary. When he didn't hear from her for some time he had just assumed, assumed everything was alright, that the unthinkable hadn't happened, that they had dodged a bullet. But he was wrong, naïve in thinking that such things were fool proof. They had both been naïve, and perhaps he didn't know her past as well as he had thought. And now the child would pay for it, for their foolishness.
…Premature...
What have we done?
Vanek buried his face in his hands. This wasn't supposed to be happening. But here he was, waiting, waiting to be allowed to see her…to see them…
He had jumped when he felt a hand touch his shoulder. It was the doctor, one of them—they all looked the same at this point. It was time, he had said. He was allowed to see them now. Vanek followed him, more terrified then he had ever been in his life. He had fought wars, Vanek. The doctor assured him this would be no different, a war in and of itself, one that would require him to fight, all of them, to fight.
But it wasn't one you could fight with a gun, Vanek had told him, with guts and wits alone, and that's all he knew how to do.
"Guts and wit you'll need tenfold," the doctor told him. "She'll need them too, for the fight…You'll have to give them to her."
Vanek had looked at him quizzically, not comprehending.
"My wife?"
The doctor shook his head as he held open the swinging doors for Vanek, the ones that led him to the room where his child now laid, not resting, not resting.
The hospital had seemed so quiet 'till that moment, when the nurses parted to show him his child, laying in an incubator connected to more tubes then he would ever want to count, and suddenly the swinging doors suddenly became deafening as they swooshed back and forth.
"Your daughter."
"What?"
"Your. Daughter."
"My…daughter?" the words felt alien to him as they all but fell from his lips. Vanek, one of four sons, Vanek, one of many Marines, Vanek, the man only close to one woman not fifty feet down the hall, was father to a tiny, tiny baby girl.
He walked over to the incubator, trying to get a closer look. The nurses and doctors were still working furiously, doing for her what her body couldn't yet. The doctor had told him what all had been wrong with her, what all had happened because she had not received the proper care early on, because she had been exposed to things she shouldn't.
"What we did to her…"
"—that's not what I—"
"I know…but it's true all the same…"
"This…happens…even when everything is done right. It still happens. It's no one's fault…It just…is…"
But Vanek hadn't been listening. He didn't want to believe him. He couldn't let himself. Maybe they weren't to blame, maybe the doctor was right. Vanek was sure that he was, but that wouldn't stop him from blaming himself for this, all of this. He had to think that if he had been more careful he could have kept this from happening, otherwise he was—in his eyes—more useless then he would ever care to admit.
"She's a fighter," the doctor had said.
Vanek turned to look at him, studying him, looking for the lie he had undoubtedly learned to comfort patients in situations like these, the hopeless looking ones. He was surprised when he didn't see one.
"She's sick…"
"Very…" the doctor said flatly.
Vanek nodded, understanding.
"But she still has a chance…"
Vanek looked to him again.
"Look at her," the doctor said, motioning to his daughter.
He did. She was thrashing, trying to at least, grabbing at the tubes her face contorted, angry looking, determined looking. A knot began to form in his throat and in his chest as shock gave way to grief.
"I don't think she likes being told she can't do something," the doctor said over Vanek's shoulder.
Vanek had laughed, bitterly but still. It sounded like something he had heard before, like something he would do.
"What are her odds?"
The doctor shifted, clearing his throat. Vanek watched him closely now, anticipating. "There's a very good chance that with intensive care she can still make it but…your daughter has…other complications…"
"Meaning?"
"The smoking, the drinking, the other…teratogens…have caused…problems…How severe is not completely certain at this point…" he said grimly. "Have you spoken to—?"
"—yes…"
"And she understands—?"
"Yes, she quit the moment she found out…"
"Good, good…"
A dead hush fell between the two men, uncertainty not being an easy subject to discuss, especially when a life was involved. The doctor read off a list of complications, potential and otherwise. Vanek couldn't comprehend them all, this not being his area of expertise. The doctor assured him, however, that they would do all they could, that his daughter still had good odds. Vanek believed him, choose to, had to, for her. In that moment, staring down at her frail and tiny body, he vowed that he'd see to it, make damn sure she got everything she ever needed. She would never go without. Not while he still breathed.
Vanek turned to the doctor, thanking him for his help, both current and future. The doctor was smiling at him, a strange expression on his face. Vanek cocked his head slightly, an unspoken query.
"I know that look," he said, still smiling. "You'll be fine. All of you. I can feel it."
With that, he walked away, returning to his duties, having spared all the time he could afford.
Vanek was escorted out of the room, told to check on his wife. He did, not knowing what else to do.
When he arrived in her room she was sobbing, shaking. He sat on the edge of her bed, tried to hold her, to comfort her, but she pushed him away, wanting none of it. "I can't", she kept saying over and over, like a twisted, broken mantra. And Vanek hadn't known what to say. He tried to reassure her, telling her all the doctor had said, about their daughter's odds—good odds, he had said. But she was hysterical, beyond hysterical.
She screamed at him to get out, throwing the ring he had given her at him, cursing him. The nurses rushed to her side, pushing him out, assuring him that she was just in shock and that she would come around once she had rested and calmed down.
But she never did. Months passed and she never did, even as their daughter made leaps and bounds, taking the hospital by storm, Vanek always at her side. The doctor, the one from the waiting room, Meisner, Lance Meisner, said he had never seen anything like it—said that he had been right more so then he had even realized.
Yes, Vanek's daughter was a fighter. And a damn good one at that.
They stood there one day, Vanek and Meisner, watching her as she slept peacefully for once, on her own, unaided.
Meisner scratched his head, laughing slightly. Vanek turned to him, looking at him quizzically. "It's like she was never sick," he said, smiling. "It's like someone just said 'Get better' and she did. It's a miracle Colonel Vanek, nothing short of a God given miracle."
Vanek smiled, turning back to watch his daughter, feeling as though he could breath too, easily, for the first time in ages.
"What have you decided to name her? You and your wife?" he asked.
Vanek frowned, the mentioning of his wife no longer a welcomed topic. Perhaps he should have anticipated this, the marriage having been a thing more out of duty and honor then love—romantic or otherwise— but since when did romantic love always make a lasting bond? He had meant what he had said that day. Perhaps she had not.
Almost as if he could read Vanek's mind, Meisner cleared his throat, the rumbling hiding an unspoken "I see".
Moments later the doctor had left, having been needed elsewhere. Vanek hadn't cared though; he preferred to sit alone with her, his daughter, having done so through those hellish nights when every moment was an uncertain thing. He had been there, not leaving, through nearly the entire thing, the hospital staff only occasionally being able to force him out to make him sleep. But he'd be back the next day, hours later, coffee in hand with a look that dared them to move him. They never did, having been smart enough not to try.
He sat there, watching her sleep, when suddenly she opened her eyes, bright blue orbs staring up at him, and she smiled. She knew.
Vanek smiled, shaking his head watching her as she smiled, reflexively or not he didn't know. But she seemed happy now, healthy, and that's all that mattered to him anymore. He hadn't pictured himself a family man, his own been a far cry from perfect and loving, but the little tyke had won him over with her tenacity. And maybe there was some old truth still left to the saying, "It's different when you're there", at least for him if not his "wife".
As he watched her take in the sights and sounds of the hospital, whatever it was she could actually see and hear, he had remembered something, a time back in his earlier years of military life, of the Marines. He remembered a civilian in some jungle that's name he couldn't recall anymore. She had helped the mismatched batch of men. Marine or not they had still been green, and her help had made their lives easier, saved one or two of them no doubt.
Jack they had called her, though why he didn't know, but she had always had their backs, wanting peace for her village, believing them capable of bringing that peace. One of the men had joked, the jungle cowered at the name of Jack, and perhaps it had. Vanek remembered there wasn't a damn thing she couldn't do, couldn't get out of or around, couldn't find or destroy, recover or see. She was invisible in that damn jungle, unstoppable. He had been damn glad she had been on their side, damn glad.
Looking down at his daughter he laughed, she reminding him so much of that little civilian girl, Jack. And then it dawned on him—Jackie. "What do you think?" he had asked her. "Eh? Jackie?" And she had smiled, laughed even, and then he had too. And so it read on her certificate, Jackie J Vanek, weeks later, when they left the hospital, just the two of them, his "wife" having run off somewhere, not wanting anything to do with a child that could potentially be sick for a life time. Richard Vanek had preferred it be just the two of them though and he believed, from the smile on her face, that his daughter, Jackie, agreed.
