Chapter 4: The Much Needed Talk - [15th - 30th April, 2013]

Summary:

Where hypnosis fucks Jordan up.

Chapter Text

Chapter 4 - [15th - 30th April 2012]

The next few days were pure torture for Jordan. Most of his days were spent in awful confusion and not because he remembered what he wanted to remember. That was actually the problem.

Hypnosis was supposed to help him remember what it was, what may have happened in his past that was silently fuelling his anger towards Lydia. It was disconcerting to say the least but it was more frustrating to know that the psychologist heard everything he said when he was in a state of hypnosis but he didn't remember any of it and although it has only been three sessions, he was feeling exposed and vulnerable.

The deputy sat at his desk in the sheriff's station, trying to go through some old files that Sheriff Stilinski had offered him. Crime rates have gone down considerably over the last few weeks and he really needed to get busy or he feared he was going to go out of his mind.

He refused to think about anything except work for the past few weeks. It was three weeks since he last spoke to Lydia and he wasn't close to finding out what his problem was. Oh how he wished this could be a supernatural problem so he can get some help from others but this had to do with his past and...

... And he really really shouldn't be giving into his thoughts. He shook his head and rubbed his palm across his face tiredly. He wouldn't be shocked if saw he now had gray hair at his temples.

And that's when it hit him. A wave of surreal energy that had him jumping from his seat, the chair toppling over loudly but the man just stood still, his eyes staring straight ahead of him, unblinking;

The flashes started with him, at an age where he was certain he was not older than three years old.

Jordan stood there, frozen and gripped with terror as he saw the man whom he was quite certain was his father, pull out a gun and aimed it at the petite woman, her face streaked with tears as she wore a look that suited smeone who had given up. He watched as his mother was shot to death by his father, who then turned the gun on himself and stood frozen still for hours just looking at the bloodied and lifeless bodies of his parents. A cry tore through the room and it seemed to jerk the three year old out of his shock as he run through the pool of blood to open the closet and right there on the floor, wrapped in a woolen blanket with the letter "M" written on it's blanket, was a little baby. Helpless tears shot into his eyes as he looked around the apartment, unsure what to do to stop the baby from cryng and finally, as if deciding it was best, the three year old Jordan, totally disregarding the blood on the floor, made his way to his parents.

He was found asleep on the bed, in between the bodies of his parents, curling up closer to the lifeless body of his mother with his baby sister tucked between them. This fatal incident was the last event in a chronic pattern of domestic violence, substance abuse, and chaotic living. The boy lay there for a while before the door was kicked in and loud noises flooded the apartment.

Then arms were prying him away from his mother but he didn't let go of his sister and after several failed efforts, they stopped, allowing the boy to cling onto his now calm sister.

When Sheriff Stilinski heard the noise from outside, he assumed goodheartedly that it was just an accident probably caused by the intern sent to him from Beacon County a few months ago. The young man was a nervous wreck all the time anyway.

But after several calls of "Parrish? Parrish! Hey man, are you okay?" he couldn't keep such a blind eye and ear to it and walked out to see the deputy, face ashen and pale like he just saw several ghosts, the nervous Tim standing a safe distance away, looking even more agitated than he did on a normal day.

The sherriff grabbed the younger man by the shoulders, shaking him gently at first and then intensified the jerks till he saw some recognition in the other's eyes. "Hey. You sure you're okay?"

Parrish nodded in agreement, a little absentminded and jerky as his eyes roamed around the room. His hands were held out in fromt of him like he could still feel his sister in his arms, eyes darting down to his feet to check for the blood but there was none. There was no blood.

He looked up at the sheriff then blinked again. "Yeah. Yeah sir I'm fine but can I have an hour break? Something I need to take care of."

"Uh sure. There's little work to do anyway." The sheriff muttered, pulling away from the younger man and watching as he effortfully tried to walk calmly out of the station.

"What was that about?" Tim whispered dramatically from beside the sheriff.

"I don't know but whatever it was, it wasn't good."

He barged into the office he knew too well, the woman who occupied the chair behind the desk just looked up at him briefly then went back to what she had been writing although she did not ignore him because before he could say anything else, her words cut across the room to him from where he was still standing at the door.

"From the look on your face and your body language, I'm guessing that you remembered some of your repressed memories?"

"I want it to stop." Was all Jordan said. He wasn't sure he could handle all the emotions welling up inside him. He couldn't handle it and none of those were pleasant.

"I told you before we started the procedure. When you open the can, the worms come out. People don't repress good memories, Jordan." She says calmly, pulling away from her desk and stepping around it to the chair she sat in for their sessions. "And we can stop our meetings anytime you want but I can't guarantee the memories would stop. In fact I can tell you with extreme confidence that they'll get worse. If there are more repressed memories, they'll all find a way to the surface. Using hypnosis is you literally breaking down all your brain's defenses. I told you all this before we started."

He sighed, slumping against the wall, palms cupping his face as the emotions he had kept in check the whole ride over welled up to the surface and he broke down on the therapist's floor, curled up in the way three year old him had, against his mother's body.

He would have loved for them to stop but they didn't. No of course not. Over the next few days, all he did was remember. Everything and anything. He really felt like death boiled over and close to depression all over again.

The aunt who took custody of Jordan wanted him to just forget what he had
gone through, but his nightmares and
behavior showed that his memories
were sad and frightening and as espected, she got frustrated really quick.

As it turned out, his childhood was filled with many memories. There were the normal memories of playing with his sister, cousins and friends, going to the movies, and hanging out at the mall. Most of his memories were of a loud angry household. His most vivid childhood memories and dreams were of his aunt screaming at him, calling him names, and putting him down.

Occasionally, she would spank them. When she did, she would be so angry that
she would lose control. When she would get angry with them, she would yell and call them names, purposely being hurtful.

His first such memory was when he was 5 years old. They were getting ready for church and he was unable to find one of his shoes. When he told his aunt, she yelled and screamed that he had misplaced the shoe on purpose so that he wouldn't have to go to church. On the way to church, she continued by telling him that he was the devil and had nothing but evil in him.

Another memory occured when he was in the fourth grade -or at least according to the dream-, he went to a new school. For the first four or five months, he was picked on and bullied. When he told his aunt, her first response was to ask him what he had done to make them pick on him.

It was about this time that he began to believe that he was less than, not as good as, other kids. When he woke up from that dream, he couldn't shake of the feeling and a part of him feared he may have carried that feeling into adulthood, and still fight with it till date even without realizing it.

In the back of his mind, he was very aware that this was not what he had signed up for. He had just wanted to understand his sudden darker feelings towards his girlfriend and was instead burdened with memories of the past that he truly had mixed feelings about.

On one hand was the fact that he felt these memories were robbed of him and he deserved and had the right to know them but on the other hand was the fact that knowing these things were slowly breaking him down, tearing him apart in the most painful ways. Especially because he still had a vivid recollection of seeing his father kill his mom then himself without even seeing that Jordan was also in the room, or that that baby had been hidden away from him.

He had researched, taken all files about that case from years ago. Crack. Cocaine and marijuana and a whole list of shit that his father had been on. Typical, and presumably, he had no idea what he was doing. None at all.

The next memory flash he had was on a night out in town, eating chinese. It was a day during the summer before seventh grade and he was working on a puzzle when a friend called. He had gently asked his aunt to ask her if he could call him back later because he was almost finished.

She did as he had asked, but after she hung up the phone she flew into a rage and told him what a twat he was and that he would never have any friends.

He wanted to think that because he repressed that memory, it had no effect whatsoever on him but he looked at his life over the years, at least the bits of it that he remembered, and looked at the half empty box of noodles in front of him as well as the fact that he was eating alone and realized that he still carries that with him.

In spite of all the memories, he still had none on where his sister was. These events were not as rare as it would
appear. His aunt would often yell, scream and put him down. By his early to mid-teens, it was routine. It was part of
his day.

The only upside to his anutie's rages was that she wouldn't speak to him for a few days afterward. The silence was calming. He enjoyed it while he could.

The odd part of the memories and dreams was that amidst the profuse sweating and heaving breaths, as well as the real pain he felt after recalling them, he had no hatred at all towards the woman who had played a part in ruining his life. He had no hatred for his father too and that brought about the fear that he was not emotionally open.

It certainly did not help that the psychiatrist had asked him the same question the next day at therapy lessons.

He was still trying to soak in the question as he was supposed to give her an answer at their next session when the rocker happened. He had opened a case file about teen drug abuse that had ended terribly and had flashes of a time in his life when he himself did drugs and drank. Junior high and high school.

And so did she. Melody. That was her name. Melody Parrish, his little sister. Heart pounding in his chest, his pulse racing and his eyes burning with moisture, he followed this particular memory till it ended. Right in the place it usually ended. Prison. She was sixteen and in prison and he was eighteen and being taken to a psychiatric who prescribed antidepressants and anti-anxiety
medication.

Everyday was a struggle with self-esteem and everyday afterwards, he fought to believe he was not the person his aunt said he was.

It must have been sometime during the time afterwards when his body or brain had decided that his sister was one more painful memory that needed to be repressed.

When he came to, the sheriff was standing across his desk with a worried look on his face and that was when he felt the moisture on his cheeks. Oh god he hated this. So much he couldn't stand it. He opened his mouth to explain but the older man just held up his palm in a stopping gesture.

"You don't need to give me an explanation. You owe me nothing. You do owe yourself some rest and you're going to get it by my order and don't come back to work until you have whatever you're dealing with, in check. This is law enforcement and I need you in tip-top shape. Uh-uh. Don't argue with me. Tim's here and the pack is too. I'm sure we can hold down the fort here for a while. Now wipe your face and Tim will drive you home. TIM!" he called, the other guy entering the room in a bustle of limbs that reminded him too much of someone he couldn't remember.

She has had enough of the avoidance. She just couldn't handle the cold shoulder Jordan had been giving her since she had shown Walter to the pack and she knew for a fact, because Scott, and Walter, had told her that Jordan hadn't been angry or opposing to the idea of helping the other boy so for the life of her she just couldn't comprehend why he was still being cold to her and not returning her calls and text messages.

It seemed as though the deputy was fine with everyone except her and she really could not accept that so taking the firm decision after a time out in the town and knowing full well that it was a school night and her boyfriend was a little critical about her staying out late on school nights when there was no emergency.

Well, to her, when your boyfriend was ignoring you without any valid explanation, it was a certain emergency. She sighed deeply, pushing the glass door to the station open and stepping inside, her eyes darting instantly to Parrish's desk only to find it empty.

"If you're looking for the deputy, I drove him home a few hours ago because the Sheriff asked me to." Someone said from behind her and if he hadn't said those words, perhaps she would have taken a moment to wonder how long it had been since she was last there. Apparently long enough to miss the new addition to the law enforcement family.

"Why, couldn't he drive himself?" She asked, turning to face the other guy.

"He has kind of been out of it lately." He shrugged nonchalantly, stepping around Lydia with a pack of files in his arms. "I guess today was the boiling point so Sheriff Stilinski asked me to drive him home and told him not to come back till he was fine. You're Lydia, right?"

"Uuh yeah. How do you- I mean..."

"I'm an intern here. I used to live in Beacon County but when I was posted here, I hired a single room apartment a few blocks away. Pretty cheap too so the way I see it, everyone -namely me- wins." He finished, finally flashing a smile at the strawberry blonde bombshell.

"Yeah that's smart. I guess I'll check up on Jordan then." She says, her tone friendly as she smiled and turned away, heading back out as the worry seeped back into her system.

Her heart was still pounding loudly when she pounded on Jordan's door fifteen minutes later and kept pounding till the deputy, looking groggy, eyes swollen and red-rimmed and wearing his pyjama pants and bare-chested, opened the door.

She didn't allow him to say anything when she shoved him aside and walked into the apartment. "I'm not going away until you tell me what's going on. Did I do something so wrong that you hate me now?" She asked, a part of her dreading that he would respond in the affirmative.

"What, no. Of course not. I'm just tired and really. I just want to rest for a long time." Parrish replied, locking the door behind him before following Lydia back into the room.

Something in his tone might have done something to Lydia because when she turned around, she didn't wear the determined look she had when she had walked in but instead, one of worry. With a sigh, she stepped close to her boyfriend to cup his cheeks in her tender palms, the pads of each thumb brushing on their respective cheeks. "When was the last time you took a rest?" She asked instead although she wanted to ask what was going on.

"Well, technically, I was resting when you started pounding on my door." He muttered lazily.

"Alright, get in bed, I'll make you some soup and uhh... maybe a hot bath and some towels okay?"

The man blinked. Then blinked again. No, of course he hadn't expected the offer. Mostly because he always thought Lydia was terrible in the kitchen because she always gave that as an excuse to not cook for the pack. That aside, the comfort and pampering was a welcome change to his constant migraines over the last few weeks.

Sometime during the night, hours after Jordan had fallen asleep, Lydia did too.

When she woke up, she was tucked under the sheets in Jordan's bed and the man was sitting propped against a pillow on top of the sheets.

"Do you know I wanted to be a prison guard when I was growing up? I mean by 18, that was my dream. My sister was locked up in prison by then so I'm guessing that was a motivating factor about that. Maybe I also liked the fact that it was a job filled with danger because yes, the guards have clubs. Yes, they're outside the bars. But even if they're extremely careful, things still happen. In 1971, a riot at Attica claimed the lives of 11 guards, 32 inmates, and caused serious injury to 89 others (four of them guards). In 1980, at New Mexico State Prison, seven guards were beaten, stabbed, burned or raped. Somehow they all lived. Thirty-three prisoners, however, did not.

These are just the big incidents that get national attention. In maximum security, every day is an adventure you won't hear about on the news. Danger is always one angry con away. The numbers work against you. There are guard shortages in correctional facilities across America. How about a proportion of 15 guards to 1,136 inmates? These were the numbers in New Mexico State Prison when all hell broke loose." The young man said casually as if talking about the weather.

She didn't know where he was going with that. Hell, she didn't know why he was starting this whole conversation and a... a sister?! She had no idea. He never mentioned her and she just always assumed he was one of those people who were broken inside and just barely holding the pieces together and the last thing she wanted was to be the reason he broke to many bits.

"And before I went into the army, I wanted to be a presidential guard. It was more of an obsession at some point, I think. And again, I'm guessing it was because of the danger involved in that. I mean just imagine; You're the leader of the most powerful nation in the world and make decisions that may not always be popular. As the highest-profile person in the highest-profile country, you are a target for political assassins, madmen, and malcontents. And a select few among them take an extreme step: They attempt to end your life. The president of the United States is an extremely perilous job, more so than you might expect. Look at the numbers. Four presidents were assassinated: Abraham Lincoln in 1865, James Garfield in 1881, William McKinley in 1901, and John Kennedy in 1963. In addition, there were near-fatal attempts on six other presidents: Andrew Jackson in 1835, Teddy Roosevelt in 1912, Franklin Roosevelt in 1933 (as president-elect), Harry Truman in 1950, Gerald Ford in
1975, and Ronald Reagan in 1981. Do the math. There have been forty-three U. S. presidents and ten of them have been attacked. Four succeeded in killing their targeted leader, and two others in injuring him. In addition, there were other attempts that were foiled before the perpetrators got close enough for "near-miss" status. These ten attempts are only the highly publicized ones we know about."

And at this point, Lydia was sitting cross-legged on the bed, facing her boyfriend who looked really absent. She was stunned. Not because of anything else but with the ease with which he recalled the events as though it was a part of his daily routine to say them and it was the most normal thing in the world.

Parrish blinked, shifting in bed till he was focused on her again. "You're probably wondering why I'm suddenly bringing these up." he muttered.

Lydia shrugged her shoulders, going for an air of nonchalance and not quite achieving it. "Yeah among other things. Yes. Yeah I am." she finally whispered.

"That's because I just remembered them. I saw a psychologist a while back. Some things were just not adding up in my life so I opted for hypnosis and since then, memories keep flooding in. I can barely stop my nails from clawing out my face." The last words were said on a gasp. "I just..."

"...Don't have to do it alone." Lydia chipped in gently, shifting closer to him and cautiously as though approaching a lion. "You've got the whole pack. And most importantly, you've got me. And I'm not going anywhere okay? I'm not going anywhere." She managed when she was close enough to pull him in for a hug.

Jordan practically melted against her as she wrapped her arms around him and even though it seemed he was done with the tears, he did break down utterly, the words pouring out before he could stop them as he recountered his past to her.

She spent most of wednesday in bed with Parrish, her palm rubbing his back and fingers occassionally running up to tangle through his hair as she looked down fondly at the sleeping man. A part of her brain was still processing all that he had said while the other was reaffirming the respect and love she had for the man.

She had been thrilled when Jordan had asked her to join him on his last session and of course she had agreed. It was a monday and they had driven over for the one and half long session, the two saying goodbyes and thanks before parting ways but not before the psychologist slipped her a note that simply read; [Come see me tomorrow. Alone.]

she did, and the woman wasted no time in going straight to the point. "If you're in the live theater of combat, death is all around. Your ticket can get punched from all sorts of projectiles. Bullets, bombs, missiles, or you can get maimed. Landmines, booby traps, snipers are only some of the ways you can meet
disaster and none of them are pretty. Usually, you never see it coming. It can come from friendly fire or those who may or may not be friendlies. In Iraq, as was often the case in Vietnam, the front line is not necessarily on a traditional battlefield, but often on the street, where you don't know who your enemy is until it's too late. Your government may decide to use chemical warfare (such as napalm and Agent Orange) in complete disregard of your own well-being. Slowly, you start to realize the crippling truth; you're a pawn and you're expendable for the greater cause. The duress of killing and watching people get killed can get to you. If the conditions are continually savage, or you're fighting in places where you don't even understand why the enemy is the enemy, other things can break you down. You can be your own worst enemy. In Vietnam, one soldier who was interviewed said that of the nine men in his patrol who died, five of them were from overdoses. Of course, how dangerous the soldiering is depends on how close you are to the action and its intensity. For example, if you're a cook in an army training center, the risk of getting burnt from inadvisably picking up a hot potato doesn't compare with a medic who marches into fire as a noncombatant, to save the lives of the fallen. Elite units like Delta Force, the Navy Seals, and private mercenary units all get nods for extra risk. U.N. peacekeepers, operating under Byzantine rules, suffer the fate of being unable to defend themselves, despite being shot at. Ditto the medics. They're
not looking to kill, just to save lives. But to the other side, they're still the enemy." She paused, tapping the back of her pen against the pad as she watched Lydia from across her, studying her body language and continuing when she saw her realize where she was going with this particular train of thought. "So do you understand what I meant by him being a lot more fragile than you thought? He is fit and strong and firm but that was before he remembered his past. Now everything changes and he has to rebuild himself. Are you sure you can handle that? Even wives are known to be unable to stand this phase so no one would blame you if you-"

"I'm not leaving him if that's what you're asking. And no, this has nothing to do with pity or obligations. I love him and he's a part of me in a way that's hard to explain. And no, I'm not pregnant or any of the reasons people have to stay with others. I'm staying with him because I want to and I know if the situation was reversed, he wouldn't budge. I'm a lot tougher than you think."

"Well if you have decided, then all I have to say is good luck. You'll need it and a lot of prayers. Of course that all depends on how strong, mentally, deputy Parrish is." The psychologist finished with a gentle smile, standing up and offering her hand for a shake.

Lydia smiled back at the woman, taking the offered hand and saying her goodbyes before stepping out of the office and to the parking lot.

Like it or not, she had made a decision. And she intended to see it through.