A/N: First-person viewpoint.
DISCLAIMER: I do not own any of the characters or ideas created by Anthony Zuiker, Carol Mendelsohn and Ann Donahue. I borrowed them for the entertainment and amusement of my audience.
SUMMARY: I was trapped in a nightmare from which there was no awakening.
SPOILERS: All Access (2x21)
GENRE: Drama
RATING: PG-13
DATE COMPLETED: October 5, 2012
::~*~::
Don left the room, closing the door quietly behind him. Visually, I barely even noticed him leaving, but the absence of his reassuring and comforting presence that had filled the room was even more evident as it left with him. He had seen that the questions were becoming more and more difficult for me, not because I couldn't answer them—most of them I could—but because each question he asked, I was forced to relive it, again and again. I was trapped in a nightmare from which there was no awakening. Tears flowed freely over my cheeks, dripping onto the printed hospital gown I was wearing. The worst part...I couldn't remember half of what actually happened.
::~*~::
I was so strong. Everyone had always remarked just how strong I was. I could be tough when I needed to be, but I could also be gentle and compassionate. I could hit a moving target from two hundred yards away, and I could drop a suspect after a half mile chase if I needed to. No one was supposed to be allowed to touch me without my permission. Somehow, Frankie had changed all that and I had been powerless to stop him.
Sliding off the bed, I tiptoed over to the bathroom. Locking myself inside, I suppressed a shiver as a vague memory of the last time I had been in a bathroom surfaced in my mind. Rushing to the toilet, I flung up the cover and proceeded to empty the contents of my stomach into the bowl. Not much came up and I wasn't too surprised. I couldn't even remember the last time I had eaten. It seemed like so long ago.
Collapsing to my knees on the floor, I kept a firm grip on the toilet seat as wave after wave of nausea wracked my weakened body. The cool linoleum flooring underneath me counteracted the feverish heat of my body. When the nausea finally passed, I fell to the floor in a heap, embracing the cold beneath me. I didn't care that I was lying down on the bathroom floor of a hospital. As strange as it sounded, I found the sensation soothing.
Lying there, I savored the peace and quiet that surrounded me, though, deep down, it terrified me. As I lay there, I could feel memories slowly start coming back to me, still in bits and pieces. Tears came to my eyes again as I started sobbing uncontrollably, not caring who, if anyone, heard.
Somewhere, in the back of my mind, my CSI training was struggling to be acknowledged. You are strong, it said. Get up, Stella! Trying to ignore it, I rolled over onto my side. I gasped as my swollen cheek touched the cold floor. The shock sent a ripple thru me. I am strong.
Bracing my hands against the floor, I struggled to push myself up into a kneeling position, but the strength was not there. My feeble attempt failed and found me flat on the floor once again. At that moment, soft noises from the other side of the bathroom door reached me. Part of me wanted to cry out, desperate for someone to help me, hold me, tell me everything was going to be okay. Another part, however, was embarrassed that anyone might see me in this deplorable state. Without thinking, I jammed a fist into my mouth to keep from screaming...in fear? in pain? in anger? I didn't know.
The soft noises escalated into raised voices of alarm. I could hear my name being called out. A pounding followed on the bathroom door. I continued to lay on the floor, my teeth biting into the flesh of my hand, my eyes closed tightly against the world around me. Unfortunately, the world of hospital beds, and fluorescent lighting, and doctors in pristine white lab coats was replaced by a world far darker. A world where my home, my sanctuary away from humanity's worst, had been violated in the most brutal manner possible. The wire was cutting into my wrists and ankles again, slowly cutting off the circulation—he had pulled it so tight! My heart was beating wildly in my chest as my fingers, slick with my own blood, dropped the razor blade I had savagely ripped out of the cartridge. Hope, small glimmer though it was, shined upon me as my bonds broke and I scrambled out of the tub, striving to put as much distance between it and me as possible. Footsteps, slow and methodical, echoed from the other side of the door. As if the glimmer of hope had somehow been a mistake, I felt terror wash over me. I stumbled behind the door, trying to make myself as small as possible. Seconds seemed to stretch into minutes and then into hours as the footsteps slowly drew nearer. I was going to die. The thought came unbidden and despite my attempts to focus on saving my life, a part of me had already decided it wasn't going to happen. I was so unnerved by the betrayal of my thoughts, I almost didn't see the doorknob turn and the door begin to open.
I jumped on his back. I thought of nothing else. I kicked, I punched, I bit...I struggled with every fiber of my being.
"Stella!"
How dare he! How dare he disguise his voice! How dare he pretend to be someone I trusted, someone I cared about! How dare he try to deceive me! Shutting out his voice, the voice he had somehow stolen from someone so dear, I clawed, and scratched at him, twisting my body as he grabbed me and held me tight in his embrace, carrying me out...
...of the bathroom. "Stella!" The voice was loud, commanding, demanding that I answer him.
I screamed at him, begging him to stop hurting me.
"Stella!" The voice came again, but instead of repeating my name, it said, "Frankie's dead! He's not hurting you!"
My eyes snapped open as I stopped fighting my assailant. To my dismay, Mac and Don were there. Mac was holding my wrists tightly in his hands, but he quickly relinquished them when my eyes opened. A look of horror I had never seen on his face before scared me to no end. As if he knew his expression was troubling me, he shook it away, settling into the Mac that I was more accustomed to, though deeply shaken. He took a step back as though fearful he was intruding upon my personal space. I wanted to reach out to him, whether through gesture or word, and bring him back to my side, but I had not the strength to lift my hand and my throat felt so raw that all I could manage was a groan of pain. The last thing I truly remembered was lying on the bathroom floor in my hospital room.
Looking past Mac and Don, my breath caught in my throat as I saw the bathroom door barely hanging on by its bottom hinge. That's all I needed to see to know what had happened. Tears leaked out of the corners of my eyes and I turned my face away from the men standing by my bed, where Mac had set me down. The scratch marks on Mac's arms and neck truly testified of what I had done. While I had been trapped in my black memories, screams echoing against the plain bathroom walls, they had broken the door down. Mac had lifted me up in his arms, struggling to keep hold of me as I fought him every step of the way. My hands curled into fists, my nails digging deep into the palms as I wished I could take back the marks on Mac's skin. If Frankie hadn't been dead already, by my own hand no less, I would have beaten him to death with my own bare hands. Because of him, I had hurt my best friend.
I heard a shuffling behind me and the barely discernible sound of the door opening and closing. I hoped they had both left. I didn't want them to see me like this, broken, bruised, a mere shadow of what I always was to them. Somehow I knew someone was still there. After the struggle in the bathroom, I'd be lucky to be left on my own for a while. This thought was confirmed by the sound of someone settling into the chair by my bed. I didn't need to look to know it was him. His hand slipped into mine and while I immediately tensed at the contact, I forced myself to not shrink away. His hand tightened around my own, not in a controlling grip, but a reassuring one.
I couldn't do it any longer. Before I could stop myself, a sob exploded from my lips and suddenly my entire body was convulsing in waves. In one fluid motion, he was on the bed beside me, pulling me into his arms, whispering that he was going to be there next to me through it all. Despite the tears streaming down my face, I smiled briefly as I let him hold me close. He wasn't promising that everything was going to be alright—both of us knew that eventually things would return to a semblance of normality—but, he knew that wasn't what I needed or wanted to hear right then. I just needed to hear that I wasn't going to be alone. And, in that moment, I knew I wasn't.