A/N: Yeah, this story is still going. I realize that I'm essentially the George R.R. Martin of fanfiction right now (meaning only that people probably think I'm going to die before this concludes), but I haven't given up on it, and for the first time in recent memory, I actually have time to dedicate to it! I have most of the next chapter done, and many pieces of the future written and waiting to be tied together. So if you're still here after all this time, I'm glad to have you! Hope you keep enjoying it!
Chapter 8
Holiday
"It's coming on Christmas
They're cutting down the trees
They're putting up reindeer
And singing songs of joy and peace
Oh, I wish I had a river I could skate away on."
- Joni Mitchell, "River"
Christmas felt every bit as weird as they had all expected it would.
Estella worked hard to put on a face of good cheer; she smiled and decorated and turned the radio on to the obligatory holiday-only station. She went out bright and early the morning of Christmas Eve to purchase a towering specimen of a Christmas tree and drag it back to the family room, where she insisted everyone help hang lights and ornaments. Not even Race was excluded, whom she had worked hard to give a wide berth since their argument the night before. The air between them thawed slowly as the day went on until they were able to exchange a few words without giving off the impression that it was physically painful. The rest of the family studiously avoided acknowledging the tension.
"You don't have to do this," Jessie had protested weakly, knowing that this frantic attempt to throw together a holiday celebration was not for anyone's benefit except hers.
"It's Christmas!" Estella exclaimed, reaching out to cup Jessie's cheek. The girl grimaced uncomfortably. "Of course we do! You're home in time for your favorite holiday - it's a miracle."
Even though the holiday cheer was forced, Estella's smile at that moment was not. Jessie couldn't bring herself to break her mother's heart and explain that she couldn't think of anything she wanted less than this sham of Christmas spirit.
So Benton called a local diner to deliver them a generic holiday dinner special, Race hung some lights around the living room, Hadji wrapped gifts, and Jonny made cookies. And Jessie watched awkwardly and pretended like she was familiar with these fake family traditions.
They celebrated on the night of Christmas Eve, as they always had. Estella gathered everyone in the living room after they had finished eating their delivery dinner, and it was actually impressive how many gifts they had managed to throw together in such a short time.
The whole thing was Jessie's nightmare. It was meant to make her feel welcome, but the only thing anyone seemed to be interested in was watching her for a reaction. The sidelong glances, the subtle check-ins, the references to "miracles" and "blessings" . . . it all made her want to scream.
As usual, they drank eggnog and watched a Christmas movie before the gift exchange. Jessie spent the first part of the movie staring through the TV screen and pretending not to notice everyone glancing at her every few minutes to see how she was doing. When she couldn't handle it any longer, she excused herself for the bathroom and instead ducked out the front door to get some air.
The snow was falling again, the perfect picture of winter in northern Maine: frigid, frozen, silent. The fresh coat of white reflected the small light from the porch, and Jessie watched her breath turn to fog in the air before her. She felt like she was going to explode if she had to spend one more minute enduring the tense gaze of her family. The quiet of the outdoors was a welcome change.
She wasn't sure how long she was outside before the door opened behind her. She jumped at the sound, but was relieved to see it was only Hadji, slipping out as quietly as she had and closing the door behind him with every bit as much stealth.
They stood for a long time without talking, long enough for the snow to pepper their heads, for the below-freezing temperatures to settle into Jessie's bones like a curse, causing her to shake involuntarily. She didn't move, the physical discomfort preferable to the emotional one awaiting her within.
"They are not very subtle, are they?" Hadji asked at last.
"Huh?"
"Race, Estella, Dr. Quest. They are trying their best, but they spend all of their time putting together these elaborate semblances of normalcy. It must be hard to sit through."
"I just don't know how to give them what they want," Jessie whispered. "I can't be the person they're looking for."
Hadji seemed to think about that for a moment. "I do not think they know what they want," he said thoughtfully. "I think it feels as false to them as it does to you."
"They want me to be the kid they lost," Jessie replied simply. "But I can't. I didn't even know I was lost, and even though I don't remember anything, I sure as hell don't feel the same. And I don't want to sit around a Christmas tree singing Jingle Bells."
"Do you know what it is that you do want?" asked Hadji gently. Seeing her quizzical look, he went on. "They are grasping at proverbial straws, and they know it. But they do not know what you need them to do. Perhaps if you could tell them, it would be help the situation."
Jessie nodded thoughtfully, a shiver running down her spine. She realized Hadji had a point. "I don't know," she said finally.
"Think on it," Hadji encouraged her with a smile. "I believe they would be open to your suggestions. They want quite badly to help."
At that moment, the door opened again and Race peeked his head out. "Kids? What are you doing out here? It's colder than an ice age in Siberia, come inside. Movie's almost over, we're going to do gifts next!"
Race's enthusiasm was perhaps the most obviously feigned of all. Jessie and Hadji exchanged a glance and a small smile, following Race inside without another word. As Jessie shut the door behind her, she found herself still thinking about Hadji's question.
When the movie had finished, the Christmas charade continued. Estella turned on holiday music softly in the background while Benton brought out a plate of warm chocolate chip cookies and Race insisted they all gather around the tree. As everyone was getting settled, Jessie watched as the twinkling rainbow of lights bathed her family in an oddly-colored hue and she took one bite out of a cookie before setting it aside, remembering yet again that she no longer cared for the sweet taste she once loved.
Traditionally, they would each take a turn opening a gift, going in a circle until they had finished. As she had dreaded, Estella smiled broadly and looked to her. "Would you like to go first, honey?"
Their eyes all looked to her yet again and Jessie wanted to run in the opposite direction. She thought back to Hadji's words on the porch. "Can I . . . not go first? Please?" It was worth a shot.
Luckily they were every bit as eager to please as Hadji had anticipated. Estella looked surprised, but nodded immediately. "Of course, dear."
So Jessie breathed a sigh of relief as each of her family members took their turns first, each selecting a gift and unwrapping it, thanking the giver and exchanging hugs. The gifts were, for the most part, clearly thrown together hastily – most homemade or generic, but the sentiment was kind. Benton had given Jonny a newly finished QuestWorld augmentation to play around with, and Race a gift card to the auto parts shop he frequented. Hadji surprised Benton with a note, explaining that he had completed the research on a project Benton was overdue to finish. Estella had given Hadji a book on the philosophies of the Aztecs.
Meanwhile, Race had given Estella a surprisingly beautiful white gold bracelet made of dozens of tiny chain links woven carefully together – simple, elegant, a perfect fit for her taste. The thoughtfulness of the gift in the wake of their blowup left a long beat of awkward silence, but her smile of gratitude was genuine and no one dared remind them of how angry they'd been only a day before.
And finally, their eyes returned to Jessie. She avoided meeting anyone's gaze and moved forward to grab a small, perfectly square box that was only about the size of her hand and was wrapped so poorly she assumed it had to be from Jonny. She pulled the lid from the box and found herself looking down at the backside of a Polaroid photograph. A few words in Jonny's messy lettering stared up at her: Not everything has to be different.
She flipped the picture over and found an old image of her and the boys making silly faces into the camera in front of a mountainous backdrop on one of their journeys. Jessie smiled, but before she could raise her eyes to Jonny's to thank him, the memory struck her like a flash.
Her fingers touched the edge of a picture. The photograph had been crumpled and smoothed and was beginning to wear through at the crease points, but its image was still clear: a young boy with brown shaggy hair and a crooked smile like Jonny's petting a shaggy dog in front of a classic suburban home. The air around her felt stale and old, her arms and head ached, and a hauntingly familiar voice came to her: "Does that look familiar, Jessica?"
It had lasted only a split second, but felt every bit as real as the world around her in the present. It disappeared as quickly as it came, leaving her gasping and staring once more at the familiar and innocent present Jonny had given her.
"Jess? Honey, what is it?"
Jessie could tell by the tone in her mother's voice that it was not the first time she had asked the question. When she looked up, she found her family wearing identical frowns of concern.
"I –" she started, choking on the word. "I think I remembered something."
"The memory modification may be breaking down."
"So soon? Would he have been so messy?"
The house had grown dark and the night had grown late, the clock having just carried them out of Christmas entirely. The kids had gone to bed some time before, but the adults sat up watching the fire die and clutching mugs of cold, burnt coffee.
Benton shrugged helplessly. "I wish I could offer better perspective. The fact is we know next to nothing about the nature of Jessie's memory loss. I feel confident that it was intentional, that there are manufactured barriers involved – but trauma plays one hell of a role, too. And I have no idea what strategies he used to help the process along, it's like nothing I've ever seen before."
Jessie's initial excitement over the memory had quickly given way to frustration over its simplicity – it simply wasn't helpful in piecing things together. It had, at least, been easy to analyze; as soon as Jessie described it, Race knew that the picture must be of Sampson's son. Which confirmed what Jessie had already known: that the cold voice she couldn't shake was that of her captor.
When it became clear that the memory could yield nothing more and Jessie's frustration was visibly mounting, Estella had tried valiantly to steer the family's attention back toward Christmas and the rest of the gifts to be opened. The effort had failed, and the kids headed off to bed not long after.
"Is it going to continue?"
"If I had to guess . . . yes," Benton answered slowly. "Forced or traumatic, if the memories are close enough to the surface that they can be triggered by related stimuli, it will probably keep happening. Whether that means a glimpse here and there over the course of years, or a slow flood of all her lost time coming quickly is anyone's guess."
"Makes me suspicious," Race said flatly. "She hasn't even been back two weeks! Sampson wouldn't have gone to all the trouble of blocking her memory just to let it come back this easily."
"Unless it's what he wanted," Estella finished the thought. "But what does he have to gain?"
"The man's a sadist; could be as simple as wanting to keep torturing her," Race growled darkly, clutching his mug so tightly that he knuckles blanched. "Paired with the Post-Traumatic Stress . . . her memories are basically forcing her to relive things."
"Let's not jump to conclusions," Benton urged gently. "We simply don't know enough to form theories. It was a small, simple memory; it could be nothing for all we know." At Race and Estella's looks, he conceded, "It could also be intentional. But the fact remains that we don't know. Which is something I'm working on."
The haggard pair of parents simultaneously looked up at him with confused curiosity and Benton sighed, not wanting to give them too much hope in case it proved to be false.
"I've been spending some time looking into brainwashing and memory modification," he explained slowly. "I've done some work in this area in the past, but I'm interested to see what's developed since then. I hope it might provide some clues to whatever Sampson may have done to Jessie." He looked at them intently. "But I can't make any promises. I sincerely have no idea if it will lead to anything, but . . . I will not stop looking."
"Of course, Benton," Estella said with a smile, reaching out to squeeze his hand. "Thank you."
Race had focused in on a different piece of Benton's dialogue. "Brainwashing . . ." he repeated slowly, frowning.
"The two are known to be linked," Benton acknowledged slowly.
"You think he programmed her?" Race demanded.
"I don't think anything at this point. I'm a scientist; I need a lot more information before I have any sort of hypothesis."
"But it's a possibility." Race was not asking.
"We both know that."
"What do you mean, 'programmed'? To do what?" Estella asked, looking bewildered. She had stayed mercifully far away from some of their more sordid past encounters.
There was a long beat of silence as the men exchanged a dark look. "Anything," Race said finally.
New to the concept though she was, Estella was nothing if not sharp. The men watched as the pieces clicked into place behind her eyes and her lips grew flat and tight. "Well," she said, "I guess that research you're doing is pretty important then, Benton."
"Indeed. In fact, it might be best for all of us to stop musing about things and try to get a good night's sleep so we can actually be productive in the morning."
Silent as a cat, Jessie rose from her listening perch halfway down the darkened stairwell and padded softly back up to her room before the adults could find her eavesdropping. She shut the door behind her with the softest of clicks and leaned against it, staring out the sliding glass door on the other side.
Programmed.
She knew what that meant, had been around for some of the Quest team's earlier encounters with it. She knew how sinister it could be, how difficult to detect; it was perfectly possible that Sampson had embedded some sort of latent programming deep inside her that she would never know was there until it was too late. And her newfound scrap of a five-second memory didn't do much to shed light on all the other mysteries three years could hold. The thought was terrifying in its plausibility.
She already had a hard time trusting her family. Now she would have a hard time trusting herself, too.
