The Tegan Chronicles 3
Silent Screams 10:
The Child Inside
General Hammond sent a military forensics team out to Tegan's house. He didn't want to get civilians involved if this was some military conspiracy group, or worse yet a Goa'uld running around the planet. When they showed up in uniform, one of Tegan's neighbors ventured out onto his porch, "Hey?"
"Can I help you?" Colonel O'Neill looked in his direction.
"Yeah, are you looking for the redhead?"
"We are," He crossed the yard and met him halfway. Sam was a few paces behind having sent Cassie home with Janet.
"There was a really odd delivery truck parked outside her place for about an hour today. I've seen it pull up in front of her house every day for the past two weeks."
"Can you describe it for us?" Sam stepped forward.
"There," He tended to his arm while admiring his handy work. "You don't look so much like my wife any more."
It shouldn't bother her in the least, but something about having a pair of scissors sticking out of her leg, and her beautiful red hair sheered from her head and lying in piles on the floor unsettled her. "You're one sick…"
"You just keep telling yourself that, you're the one who killed my wife. I loved her!" He picked up an aluminum baseball bat that was tucked inside the duffle bag.
She braced herself just as the cool metal connected with her upper arm, the loud pop echoing in her ears. She some how knew it had broken in the same exact spot it had when Nirrti was trying to get information. She inhaled the scream that threatened to escape. She wasn't going to give him the satisfaction. She knew he wouldn't kill her until she had suffered, and if she didn't let him see her pain she just might live long enough to be rescued. She wasn't making any promises to herself though, and instead let the pain pull her into that dark oblivion where she was numb.
Hours had passed and they were still looking for the van the guy had described as turkey-shit lavender, that purple-bluish color you see in bird poop. Sam was pacing in Janet's living room, Daniel and Teal'c were seated on the couch and Jack was staring aimlessly out the window. They'd followed every lead they had. Now they were just waiting to see if the military search teams turned up anything.
"You're going to wear a hole in the floor, Sam." Daniel looked up.
"He's right." Jack turned to face her. "Save your energy for when they find the van."
As soon as the van was located they would be called in as the recovery team since they had the best intel against possible alien captors. It didn't help slow her pace in the least. She wanted to be out there now, doing something, anything.
She felt the crushing in her chest pulling her back to the surface of conscious thought. It was hard to breathe, she jerked her head up as her eye lids snapped open. "Can't breathe."
"That's how I feel every morning I awake to someone beside me that isn't my wife, my love."
"Becky?" She struggled to speak as he pushed his work boot deeper into her chest using the wall behind her as leverage.
"Alison." She'd never heard him say her mother's name. She only knew it from seeing her birth certificate. "I never loved Becky, she was merely a distraction."
"You're hurting me."
"Good." He leaned in pressing more of his weight against her sternum. "This is only a fraction of what I have felt everyday since you were born."
She wasn't sure if anything in her chest had been fractured by his weight, but she knew when he pulled his foot away that was going to change. She took a deep breath as he kicked the chair around with his foot, the baseball bat slicing through the air. She felt it slam into her chest, toppling the chair over. She remembered hearing that same chair topple many times as a child, only this time she was still in the chair instead of suspended above it. He reached down and engulfed her neck with his massive hand. Her neck had since grown but the effect was still the same. He tightened his fingers until her face turned purple and her eyes rolled back in her head.
"They've found the van." Jack closed his phone. "It's an hour from here in front of an abandoned warehouse."
"Why don't you just get this over with and kill me?" Her head was throbbing again, but this time it was where it had bounced on the concrete floor earlier. She found herself abruptly pulled into an upright position.
"Because you haven't suffered enough."
"I didn't kill her, and you know it. I was a baby, she chose to give her life so that I could live." She'd read part of her mother's journal while she was locked in the attic over summer break when she was ten.
He held his hands over his ears and started shouting. "You killed her."
"You know I didn't. How could I?"
"Shut up!" He backhanded her again, her already swollen lip splitting open even more. "You killed her."
There was the sound of banging metal as the door behind him flew open; he spun to see where the commotion had come from while reaching for the gun in his pants. Tegan used what strength she had left to tip her chair forward toppling it into the back of his knees effectively dropping him to the concrete floor. Ignoring the pain of the shifting scissors she yelled out, "He's got a gun!"
"If you know what's good for you," Jack spoke as he stepped on the gun that had slipped just out of his grasp. "You won't move."
"I'm calling local PD," Sam announced when she recognized Tegan's father and knew it was no longer a matter of national security.
Teal'c picked Tegan up chair and all, while Jack used the remaining duct tape to secure her father. Within five minutes Officer Ripley and his partner arrived on the scene. "You two don't know how to stay out of trouble do you?"
"You caught the call?" Sam smiled at her friend.
"Yeah, lucky me."
"Can you take her statement? We need to get her to the infirmary on base."
"I can call for a bus," Ripley offered.
"That won't be necessary, Sam can get her to the base infirmary before a squad can get her to the hospital and we have a doctor waiting for her." Jack hoped he wouldn't have to explain the situation anymore than that.
Once they'd taken the photos they'd need to convict Tegan's father Jack used his field knife to cut the duct tape free from the legs of the chair. Sam did her best to stabilize the scissors in her leg afraid they may have breached a major blood vessel before Teal'c carefully lifted her and carried her to Jack's waiting truck.
General Hammond stood silently watching as Sam jumped out of the truck's cab with Teal'c scrambling out from the extension. They helped Janet load a bald Major Kiser onto the gurney, she appeared broken and he had to look away.
"I think she's in shock," Sam locked eyes with Janet. "She's got a pair of scissors embedded in her left thigh, and she's not using her right arm at all. "We didn't even try to remove the duct tape."
Janet snapped into her professional role, this wasn't the time or the place to be anything but Dr. Janet Fraiser Chief medical officer. She looked to Marcus, and the other medic standing beside him. "Let's get her to the infirmary. I want an IV of lactated ringers hung wide open, and warm blankets. We'll work on her labs and assessing any internal injuries as soon as we get her stable."
General Hammond listened as her voice trailed off down the corridor before looking to Sam. "Where's Colonel O'Neill?"
"He stayed behind to help with subterfuge." Sam ran a shaky hand through her hair.
"What happened?"
"Doctor?" General Hammond stepped into the infirmary.
"I'll be out in just a minute, sir." She turned to Marcus, "Give her 15mg meperidine IV push. And keep an eye on her respirations. I'll be back in a few minutes."
"Yes ma'am."
"Doctor, how is she?"
"Well she's got a nasty laceration to her left thigh, which had fabric shreds and hair in it. I managed to clean it up and close it. Her right humerus is fractured; luckily it was a pretty clean break. I've reduced the fracture and immobilized it as best as I can. I won't be able to cast it because of the location of the break." She flipped open Tegan's chart not that she needed any help remembering the injuries. "She's got several fractured ribs, and a hemathorax. Basically she's bleeding into her chest cavity from the trauma she received. If it gets much worse I'm going to have to do a needle aspiration. I suspect she's got a mild concussion, she's not talking, but she does have quite a goose egg."
She paused and shook her head, "I managed to get most of the duct tape off. The rest of her physical injuries are minor."
"Physical injuries?" Colonel O'Neill turned away from the small window in the door to face her.
"Yes sir, as I said she isn't talking. We know very little about what she went through." Janet closed the chart and looked at Jack before continuing. "We saw what kind of mental torture Nirrti tried to put her through using her childhood memories, I have a feeling this incident has just added more fuel to that fire."
"What are you trying to say Dr. Fraiser?"
She looked at General Hammond for a minute, "That it's going to take time sir."
"Very well doctor. I trust that you will let me know when she can return to active duty."
"Yes sir," Janet watched as he walked away before turning to Sam and Teal'c who'd remained quite. "Where's Daniel?"
"He's reading Cassie a bedtime story," Jack looked over as he rounded the corner. "Well, he was."
"Hey," Daniel jogged up to the group. "Cassie's asleep in your quarters."
"Thank you Daniel."
"How's Tegan?"
"I'll let Sam fill you in. I need to get back in there." She canted her head to the infirmary doors. "And before you ask, no visitors. Not tonight."
She'd drifted off, an effect of the pain medications Janet had been slipping into her IV port at regular intervals. She opened her eyes and found her self transported back to the cold basement of her childhood. She was ten again, and instead of spending this Christmas alone in the relative warmth of the abandoned boarding school corridors, she was locked away in the dungeon like a three-eyed creature of the night. One of her teachers had come in early after Thanksgiving break to find Tegan playing hopscotch in the halls, she'd made it her personal mission to be sure Tegan didn't spend Christmas alone. If she'd only known what kind of hell she was making for the girl, maybe she would've left well enough alone.
The door leading to the basement opened and closed before she could catch a glimpse of who was there. Whoever it was left behind a plate of cold congealed canned dog food, it was her Christmas dinner. She was supposed to be thankful. Instead she poked at it with her finger and placed it where her father would step in it the next time he came in.
She heard a creaking sound, and jumped. Her eyes flew open as she realized it wasn't the basement door. Janet was there in a second and put a comforting hand on her uninjured shoulder. "Sorry, I was moving your IV pump."
Janet searched her eyes watching as the fear slowly dissipated. It wasn't something she was used to seeing any where on Tegan, and it tore a hole deep inside her. "How are you feeling?"
Tegan looked away staring off into the distance. Janet stood with one hand on the bed's side rail, staring into those lost pools of green for several minutes. She didn't know what to say, how to break through. She sighed, letting her shoulders drop ever so slightly before she turned. As her hand started to drift from the side rail she felt a panicked grip on her fingers. She turned back to see the fear evident in her eyes. "It's ok. I'll stay."
"Hey," Paige put a hand on Janet's shoulder. "You need to get some rest, I'll sit with her."
"I," Janet hesitated, but knew there was nothing more she could do for Tegan who was once again sleeping thanks to the medications she'd been slipping in her IV port. "Alright, wake me up if you need me."
Rather than reminding Janet she went to medical school too, she just nodded. She was still sitting there a few hours later when Tegan woke up. "Hey T, how are you feeling?"
She stared listlessly at Paige for a few minutes before looking down at the sling and swath immobilizing her arm. She gingerly licked the laceration on her swollen lip before resting her head back and closing her eyes.
Janet made her way through the double doors of the infirmary with Tegan's latest chest x-rays in her hand. She looked up immediately spotting an empty bed where Tegan had been less than ten minutes ago. "Thompson, where's Major Kiser?"
"She was," He looked up surprised the bed was vacant, "just there, ma'am."
"Tegan?" Janet tossed the films onto a nearby bed and started to panic just as she spotted the slightest movement on the opposite side of the bed. She rounded the corner and saw Tegan on the floor trying to hide under the bed.
She had pushed herself as far under the bed as the mid beam under the motorized hospital bed allowed. In another situation Janet might have found it funny, instead she just saw a frightened child in an adult body.
"I thought I told you to stay in bed?" She knelt beside the bed and spoke quietly. "Think we can get you back in bed?"
"Hey, what's going on?" Paige walked over.
"Could you give me a hand getting her back in bed?"
"Sure."
"Colonel, I don't know what to do." Janet sat behind her desk having left instructions that Julie keep a close eye on Tegan. "She's still not really responding, and aside from the fact she'll barely eat anything she's stabilized enough that I can't see keeping her here."
"Do you think she'd do better in a more familiar environment?"
"I'm hoping, I just don't know."
"I'm willing to let Cassie stay with me if you think she'd do better at your place." Sam put her offer on the table, "And anything else you need."
"I just don't know what's best right now. I want to try it, but I don't know how to explain the situation to General Hammond."
"I'll take care of it. You're technically supposed to be on downtime anyway, we all are." Colonel O'Neill stood up. "I don't think it's going to be a problem, but I'll let you know."
"Hey," Sam looked across the small office at Janet after Jack had gone. "It's only been thirty-six hours since we found her, she'll get through this."
"I hope so Sam, I really do."
That afternoon Janet helped Tegan get settled in the living room. A yellow and orange tie dyed bandana Cassie had bought her adorned her hairless head.
Janet stood up and stretched her back. She watched as Tegan stirred but seemed to settle, while debating just jumping in the shower and leaving her to hopefully sleep on the couch. Deciding against it, she slipped into the kitchen and picked up the phone.
"Yellow," Jack answered his phone.
"Colonel it's Janet," She opened the fridge and checked the date on the milk.
"Hey Doc, what can I do for you?"
"I was hoping you could come by and sit with Tegan for a bit while I get a shower." She didn't bother to tell him that she would've called Sam except she and Cassie were at the movies.
"Mind if Teal'c comes along?"
"Not at all Colonel."
"Give me forty-five minutes I need to make some calls and a stop on the way."
She thanked him and hung up the phone. As she walked back into the living room she noticed the couch was empty. She let out a sigh, "Tegan?"
She quickly checked the front door that was still dead bolted, before doing a thorough search of her den/office to make sure Tegan wasn't hiding under the desk or behind her potted plant. Even though reasoning told her Tegan wasn't capable of folding her lithe five foot ten body small enough to hide behind the overgrown fern.
She was ready to expand her search to the upper level when she noticed the door to the coat closet in the hall open the slightest bit. She rested her hand on the knob, "Tegan? Are you in here?"
The diffuse light from the hallway flooded the small space as Janet pulled the door open. Tucked into the back corner and wrapped around her injured arm was Tegan. She looked up at Janet with that deer caught in the headlights look.
"Oh Tegan honey," Again Janet felt that pang that was tearing a hole somewhere deep in her soul. "It's ok."
She moved a pair of rain boots out of the way and crawled under the coats to sit next to her friend and patient. "I'm not going to hurt you, you're safe here."
Tegan buried her face in her knees, a coat knocking the bandanna from her head in the process.
"Colonel O'Neill and Teal'c are on their way, you know they wouldn't let anything happen to you."