Note: I don't usually publish here, but it's my birthday so I thought, what the hay! What better way to celebrate than with some Swaisy? There are quite a few Swaisy enthusiasts over here, which makes me giddy with glee.
What follows is from Daisy's p.o.v.. The background information that Lance and Daisy bring up in this story has been better developed in other stories I've written on livejournal. In truth, I've created a whole fanciful Swaisy world that can be found in the internet ether. ;)
This scene takes place after the Season 4 episodes The Cinderella in the Cardboard and Mayhem on a Cross.
Shades of Gray
Daisy gazed at her sleeping boyfriend's face—soft and relaxed—his cheeks a little rosy. She was tucked under his arm on his couch, his gray cat, Knox, asleep in her lap. Though Knox was fully grown, he was a tiny gray cat with delicate white socks. Like most cats, he was disdainful and had only reluctantly curled up on Daisy, because it was a chilly night.
Indeed, all the males of the house were slumbering thanks to the soporific sounds of a National Geographic program on Australian Aborigines. The upper-class British narrator droned on. Daisy was somewhat interested in learning how the story turned out. A reporter from the UK was on a walkabout with several ebullient adolescent Aborigines. Instead she flicked off the television.
She moved to kiss Lance on the lips, and he stirred. Her motivation, however, was not to seduce but to awaken him. Knox hopped off her lap angrily and headed for the adjacent chair in a feline huff. Daisy felt fleeting regret and then annoyance for letting the cat get the better of her emotions. Cats were so controlling.
"Mmm," Lance said puckering his lips for more. Daisy reached over and switched on the dim lamp to Lance's left. He shielded his eyes, though they did not open.
"What happened to Dodgy McPodgewodge?" he asked sleepily, eyes still closed.
"You mean David McIvers, the reporter? On the walkabout?"
"Mm, hm," Lance mumbled, clearly uninterested, but humoring her. He traced his finger along her bra strap inside her shirt.
"I dunno, I turned it off, babe." She was beginning to feel irritation that her boyfriend wouldn't open his eyes. Her impatience with Lance had actually been mounting for several weeks now, and she could no longer keep it from infecting her tone.
Lance opened his eyes and a familiar smile spread over his luscious lips. Daisy recognized it as Lance's 'I hope I'm going to get lucky' smile. She, however, found him easier to resist than usual tonight.
"Down boy," she said, holding him at arm's length, reminding herself vaguely of the moment they had first met when she had charged him like a tiny bull, and he had stopped her with his hand on her forehead.
Lance frowned. He was very sensitive, and she sighed, knowing she had to proceed with caution.
"Can we talk about something?" she asked him warily.
The truth was, something had really been bothering Daisy about Lance lately. First, he had accused her of cheating on him after Booth and Dr. Brennan had seen her in a bridal shop trying on a dress for her cousin with her cousin's fiancé. Lance hadn't even considered an alternative explanation and had initiated a break up until she had set him straight. She understood why he had been upset, but she had felt a little betrayed that he could have believed she was a cheater even for a fleeting moment.
Then, the following week Lance had shown up on Daisy's doorstep late at night, looking very pale. It was midnight and his knock had scared her roommates, who complained about it to her the next day. She had kept asking him what was wrong that night, but he merely said that he needed to be close to her. He had climbed into her bed shivering, wrapped his arms around her, and laid his face on her chest. They hadn't said anything, but for nearly an hour Daisy had felt his tears trickle down her skin onto the sheets.
Frankly, his moods were almost erratic. Ever since that night, he had been alternating between being distant and morose and being falsely cheerful. Daisy was no shrink, but she knew a thing or two about human psychology, and she felt certain that there was something going on. What's more, she and Lance had been dating for months, and he had never explained the gruesome scars that lined his back beyond informing her that his biological father had abused him prior to being adopted at age 6. Didn't she have the right to know her boyfriend better than anyone else? Isn't that what love is?
Love. They had dropped the L-word a month ago. Daisy was beginning to feel more deeply about this man than anyone she had ever been with. But if he wouldn't open up to her, then maybe she was fooling herself about their staying power.
"What is it, Dais?" Lance asked, taking her hand gently. He was fully awake and regarded her with a sobered stare. After all, Lance was attuned to human behavior. Daisy knew that he knew that she was being serious.
She was brought back to the moment by his calm and soothing voice—the classic shrink voice.
"It's just, we've been dating for months, and it's great. We have so much fun, the sex is ah-maz-ing!" Lance smiled weakly at this. "But, well despite your job as someone who talks about other people's problems all day, you seem hesitant to open up to me. Do you not trust me after what happened at the bridal shop? Do you think I'm going to leave you?—I'm not going to leave you!" she declared passionately.
Lance responded by smiling again a little sadly to himself, as if he'd known that this moment would come.
He looked deep into her eyes and said, "I've been moody lately. I'm sorry."
She nodded.
"I'm not quite sure how to say this. I don't want to alarm you." He paused for so long that she thought he was not going to continue. Then he changed course. "I'm really happy in this relationship. More happy than I've ever been with anyone else." He eyed her closely, as if to see if this made her uncomfortable.
"I feel the same way, Lancelot." As she said the words, more than ever she knew them to be true. The feeling of intense love emboldened her. "Lance, why were you crying last week when you came over so late? What are you afraid to tell me, baby? You can tell me anything. It won't change how I feel about you." Daisy saw on Lance's face that he was unsure as to whether or not he could believe this.
He stood and crossed the room to his piano, putting his hand on its smooth, brown wood. He caressed it abstractly, then turned back to her. "I'm depressed."
"You're depressed?" she parroted. She was thinking, so you're sad.
"I'm not just sad," he said reading her mind, "I suffer from clinical depression—major depressive disorder. I'm sorry." His face fell. "It's back."
Lance looked so desperately unhappy that Daisy decided that it was time to confess something herself. "Lance, you don't have to be ashamed. I…I've told you a lot about my dysfunctional family over the past few months. How they're super religious and not very good about expressing emotions. How they love to play the guilt card and ride me and my siblings in everything we do. I, um. I've mentioned a bit how obsessed my mom is with body image, and really my dad, as well. My mother has been yoyo dieting her whole life, my dad is always making comments about how this woman is fat and ugly or this woman is thin and beautiful."
Lance looked at her from the piano and bit his lip.
"I was bulimic for 7 years, Lance. I got counseling my senior year in college and since then I've been recovered…for the most part. I still struggle with food everyday. When my therapist said that I was improving, he had my family come into a session with me. All my dad would say was, 'What is all this nonsense about Daisy needing counseling? She knows she's beautiful and thin.' He just could not get his thick mind around the fact that I had been making myself sick all these years." Daisy sighed.
Lance looked reluctant to move, but he finally came and sat down next to her. He didn't touch her, but said, "I'm sorry you've had such a hard time." As she looked at him, she realized that he really meant this. He felt deeply for her and his eyes looked watery.
"Lance, whatever you need to do to get through this time, I support you. Well, as long as it's not shooting up heroine or something! If you need to see someone, or take something for a while…I of all people understand."
"I don't want people to know about this. I'm afraid it will ruin my reputation as a psychologist."
"Why? Because you actually know what people are going through when they come to you in pain? I think that makes you a great therapist."
"I'm such a hypocrite, Daisy. I advocate not medicating except in extreme situations, and yet I've been on antidepressants three times in my life."
"In extreme situations?" she prodded.
At this, Lance pulled up the arms of his long-sleeved t-shirt to reveal his wrists. Because he had drawn her scrutiny to the tender flesh there, she noticed one tiny, faint scar on each wrist.
"How many times?" she asked, wondering if she was in danger of losing her boyfriend to self harm even now.
"Just once, when I was in high school. I had severe suicidal thoughts again in college, but I had enough self control by then to check myself into a safe place."
"Was there a triggering event?" Daisy asked.
"Yes, in each case. Do you really want to know about this stuff, Daisy? You won't be able to wipe this out of your memory when I'm done telling you."
She nodded and took his hand. She had to admit to herself that she was frightened about what she was going to hear.
"In order for you to understand the person I was as a teenager, you need to understand the child I was before I met my parents. Before I was adopted. You've seen the physical relics of what my biological dad did to me, but the invisible scars affected me much more. My father was violent as far back as I can remember—to me and my biological mother. She finally took off when I was…around 4. She didn't take me with her," he said bitterly. "I later learned that she joined the circus!" he said, followed by an almost maniacal laugh. Daisy sat in shock.
"Things really escalated then. My father became lonely and…perverse, you might say." Lance was eerily calm, though Daisy could already guess where this was going. She couldn't look at Lance while he told her. "He touched me. It started more innocently, like he would try to comfort me after he beat me. But…I'm sure you don't need to hear the details. Anyway, it was the sexual abuse more than anything that really messed with my head."
Daisy willed herself to look back at the man she loved. What on earth did one say in this situation? She considered, 'I'm sorry,' which seemed like a pathetic response.
"You don't need to say anything," he said, reading her mind again. He exhaled deeply and put his arm around her, holding her. Then tears erupted from her eyes, making her feel worse. Why was she crying? It was Lance who had been through hell.
"Often children who are victims of abuse become party to a cycle of abuse. I played out the role of victim in my childhood and teenage years over and over. I was bullied terribly. On one particularly horrible occasion, after having my clothes stolen in the locker room and being urinated on by a group of boys, I tried to take my own life. Of all things the things I've done in life, I'm most ashamed of that. The fact that I gave up on my parents. They were so hurt. I don't know how they forgave me."
"We forgive the people we love," Daisy said weakly, allowing the tears to flow down her cheeks. Lance was still oddly composed. Daisy hoped that maybe telling her about his past was cathartic for him, like extracting poison. She hoped she wasn't making it worse.
He continued, "In college, I became severely depressed after my first girlfriend dumped me. We had sex, she saw that I was damaged goods, and she never spoke to me again. I had a nervous breakdown and left school for a semester. My parents came to Toronto and stayed with me for a while. And when I was strong enough, I finished college." One of Daisy's sniffles was audible, and he squeezed her a little tighter.
"Right before I came to work at the FBI, my parents passed away, as you know. And that was the third time I medicated. I was so afraid that I would break down in the middle of starting my new career. You can't imagine the sense of irony I felt, practicing psychology on my own for the first time and at the same time, battling depression and popping Paxils. I was a joke. That's when I first met Dr. Brennan and Agent Booth. And believe me, they thought I was a joke, and they didn't even know they were being seen by a crazy shrink!" Lance laughed bitterly.
"Stop," Daisy said, suddenly feeling angry. "You are not crazy, you are not a joke. You are an excellent psychologist." She was almost hyperventilating. "You've been through more in 24 years of life than most people could stand over a lifetime. Give yourself some credit!" She had pulled away and was almost yelling at him.
Lance's mouth hung open.
Daisy tried to soften her voice this time. "Was there a trigger this time? Why the resurgence of dark thoughts now?" She swallowed. "Was it my fault? You thought I was betraying you like the other people who have hurt you."
Lance's face melted into one of his classic pouts, and he gathered Daisy back into his arms. She allowed him to.
"Daisy, your love has brought me a great deal of joy. This is not your fault. It's no one's fault. I just cycle through these seasons of pain…and well, that night that I came over late upset? You asked me what was wrong?" Each sentence was a question, so Daisy nodded. "Dr. Brennan saw my scars."
"What? How?"
"At that concert we went to where Murderbreath cut his own throat, Dr. Brennan ripped off my shirt to use as a compress."
Daisy's eyes widened at the strange revelation.
"Apparently she told Booth about it, and they…well they confronted me about it in a way. Dr. Wyatt also correctly interpreted a number of truths about my childhood after reading my book. All this stuff happened at once, and it brought up a flood of feelings again. I hate to think that Dr. Brennan and Booth imagine me as weak."
"You think that they would find out about your childhood and think you are weak?" she shook her head in disbelief. "I'm sorry, baby, but you have a warped view of things. The fact that you've come out the other side of all of this and still devote your life to helping people—that makes you the strongest man I've ever met. I'm sure Dr. Brennan and Agent Booth would agree that you are admirably resilient. Lance, somehow after all of this you manage to be optimistic, playful, cheerful. You care deeply about humans even thought they've let you down horribly. How do you manage this?"
Lance smiled dimly. "Well, I have had and still have a lot of great people in my life. Chief among them, you. Speaking of you, did we just gloss over your own suffering? I'm so sorry to hear about your struggles with your body."
Daisy wiped the tears off her cheeks. "Honey, I think this relationship has enough baggage to fill a freight train."
"Does that make it too heavy?" Lance asked with concern.
"Maybe our baggage cancels each other out, and we can be free of the past together," Daisy offered.
"Maybe," he agreed hopefully.
"What do we need to do for you right now?" she asked him seriously, gripping his hand, which had grown a little sweaty.
"I just…need to wake up in the mornings, get out of bed. Breathe. Feel the sunshine, laugh with you. I'll be ok. I've come a long way, even in these past two years. I feel a lot more emotionally stable then when my parents died."
"Ok. But don't think for one moment that you're going to go through this alone."
Lance looked at her. "I love you, Daisy." Knox somehow took this as a sign that he was being called upon and in one leap traversed the space from the chair to Lance's lap.
Daisy looked at man and cat and wondered what this conversation meant for her relationship with Lance. She wondered if they'd move on as if it never happened or if everything had changed. She snuggled up against Lance and pet Knox absent mindedly. She felt that no matter how much she knew about Lance, he'd always be somewhat of a mystery. But it was in part his complexity that made her love him. Life with him would never be boring.