Standard Disclaimers Apply – they aren't mine.
Dig Deep
It never stopped.
It was like the prickling edges of insect feelers poking beneath his skin. Scratching, probing, incessantly. Seeking for the weak places as they tried to get out.
Was this how Sandra felt?
For a time, that thought plagued him. He hadn't known. He'd done that to his wife? Granted, the Haitian had taken her memory to save her life but if he'd known that it would do /this/ to her...
But why hadn't she mentioned it?
If he hadn't been able to identify the source of this horrific sensation, if he couldn't combat it with logic and the knowledge of just how the Haitian worked, he'd of been confiding to her.
When he woke up in the middle of the night, tears streaking for things he couldn't remember in his dreams, he would have turned to her. He would have been unable to keep from voicing /something/ in an effort to find expression for what he couldn't find words for.
The Haitian. This was his work.
As it was? He had to shift into his wife's embrace silently.
She must have thought he was just being stoic. When she woke up crying, she had a tendency to murmur out bits of memories. A verbal way to pull Claire close and combat the uncertainty of their only daughter's fate.
Adopted daughter. She was just their adopted daughter.
Claire.
Claire...
"... she's always been such a good kid," Sandra had whispered to his shoulder, "Do you remember? When she'd asked about her parents and we told her to wait .. what you said...?" She chuckled, "...she was so grown up ... and they were such pills..." She pressed her forehead close and he could feel the warmth of her tears.
"...I remember..." he lied.
He did remember.
Sort of.
He remembered Claire asking and all his alarm bells going off. But he couldn't recall exactly what he'd thought. He'd known that they needed to hide her real origins from her but...
The actions he made, he understood. Contacting the company for the fake bio-parents and watching the awkward interactions that resulted, also understood.
However, any time he tried to focus on exactly what he thought or felt... It was like gasping for breath.
Breath that wasn't there.
Breath that was never there.
"...tell me more..." he'd murmured to Sandra, voice tight. She'd held him and gathered herself. She was such a wonderful woman. Such a beautiful woman. Everything good, bright, innocent and silly and somehow wise ...
He'd endangered his family by not watching the Haitian more closely. He'd risked everything by trusting one of 'them'.
Damn it, he could have sworn he'd learned his lesson with Claude...
... scratch... scratch... those feelers pressed forward in mass, maddeningly.
"... when you got her that bear from London? And Jester-boo tore it apart... do you remember how hard she cried? She thought she'd let you down..."
"...she..."
"...and you pulled her aside and said that she was your Claire-bear." Sandra hiccuped. "Even...even after she got into high school, she never did that annoying teenager thing and ... made you give up that nickname..."
"...no. She didn't."
"...the two of you... like peas in a pod... don't you think I didn't know you both talked behind my back sometimes..." Chuckling, crying. For Sandra it was so often the same thing now.
He was starting to shake and he clutched at his wife, unthinkingly. A drowning man to a life line. Her hands were on his arms. Firm. Solid.
She pulled back to look at him, eyes dark in the moonlight.
"It's alright, honey..." she whispered, "I know... I don't know what happened between you two in the past few weeks, but... don't blame yourself," her hand ghosted along his cheek. "We will find her. We'll get our little girl back. We'll hold her and...and... tell her how much we love her. And we will never /ever/ let her go again..."
He forced a smile for her and quickly hugged her again. Hiding his face. Hiding another lie. "...I know. We will."
Our little girl.
His stomach rolled.
That was the difference.
The Haitian had dug up strings of memories from his wife, his son. A few branches from a strong tree with thousands, millions of branches.
But to him? The mute had pulled up a network... a network that went so deep and so extensive that he couldn't even tell where it began or ended.
The Haitian did this to protect himself? To protect his plans for stealing Claire from the organization?
Just how far back did those plans of his go that the Haitian felt the need to dig out so many memories? The more Sandra talked, the more Lyle talked, the more he discovered.
Why couldn't he remember how he felt when Claire had started cheerleading this year? What could that possibly have to do with the Haitian's betrayal?
It made no sense.
He found himself choking again. Choking on emotion that seemed to spring from no where.
Claire helping him pick out his glasses...
"You look like my Dad..."
Her dad...
The words just...
echoed... in the emptiness.