"Did you find anything?" Garibaldi asked as soon as Susan came in the door, bags in hand.
"That I did a little too good of a job cleaning." Susan had been halfway hopeful that she would have missed something of Talia's when she went through her quarters in the aftermath of the Control disaster, had been hopeful enough to risk sneaking down to her quarters to search, but there wasn't a thing. The best she could do was to gather some underclothes she thought might work, along with a couple of outfits, toiletries, and her nightclothes so she wouldn't have to sleep in her funeral attire again.
"It gets worse." Garibaldi said with a grimace. "I did some checking while you were out, and pulled up Talia's credit account. I thought maybe I could at least get the money transferred to her mother. Psi-Corps has already put a hold on it."
"A…." Susan dropped down on the couch, glad they weren't trying to have this conversation in the bedroom where Talia might pick it up. "Bester's stealing Talia's money? How is he managing to do that? Can he be arrested for that?"
"Unfortunately not." And that had been a kick in the teeth, after the lovely image of Bester being carted away had danced through his mind. "It's the whole "The Corps is Mother, The Corps is Father" thing. A whole lot of telepaths leave all their property to the Corps and Bester somehow had a will from Talia doing the same thing."
"She left everything to them?" Susan looked at Garibaldi with obvious confusion. "She didn't trust them. I know she didn't trust them. Why would…."
"It was old, from before she came to the station. It mentioned tokens for Taro Isogi and Jason Ironheart, who are dead and ascended beyond the need for money, so it's got to be at least that old."
"But they can still use it?"
"Unfortunately, yes, unless something newer shows up, and if there was something newer, I have a bad feeling it either vanished with all of Talia's things, or it's with someone who's afraid to stand up to Psi-Corps and turn it in."
"So Talia's basically left with a penny after almost thirty years as literally her only possession." Susan stood and moved to the bedroom door, looking in and barely holding back tears. "What in the world is she going to do when she recovers?" And there was no way that she wasn't going to believe that Talia would recover, but when she did…. No money, the clothes on her back weren't even hers, no place to live or job. "You know," she said as she felt Garibaldi joining her in watching Talia sleeping. "I wished she wasn't Psi-Corps, but somehow it never occurred to me to think about what she would do if she wasn't. They wouldn't have let her get any non-telepathy related skills, wouldn't you think? What in the world is she going to do?"
"We'll think of something. She'll be okay. You know, the two of you are welcome to stay here. Trying to cook for one, I always end up with leftovers that keep going to waste because things always end up going crazy before I can reheat them. Having three to feed might actually end up saving me on my grocery bill."
Susan nodded, and smiled slightly, forcing the feel of the tears back as they watched Talia. "It's probably cultural heresy, but I could cut out vodka, and avoid Londo like the plague to keep from getting stuck with his bar bills. That would help." Replacing Talia's entire life, that would take awhile, and Susan didn't want to imagine how much money, but surely they could fix this. And Talia would have them and her mother if they could come up with a way to get her out there. That would have to help, wouldn't it? They could fix this.
Before either of them could think anymore about the situation, there was a light moan from the bed.
"Talia?" Susan hurried in with Garibaldi right behind her and dropped down onto the bed. She started to reach out a hand, but then pulled back, afraid. Talia's brow was drawn, her eyes twitching beneath the lids, pain almost radiating from her, pain and fear, and she was afraid a touch might add to that.
"We probably ought to have given her something before now." Garibaldi was kicking himself as he got the bottle of left-over pills and then a glass of water from the bathroom. And maybe they ought to try to get Talia to take another of the antibiotics, too? It probably couldn't hurt.
Talia twitched as Garibaldi carefully eased himself down on the bed on her other side. "Corps is Mother, Corps is Father." she murmured.
Susan and Michael looked at each other in horror, remembering the ranting of the monster that had almost killed their Talia.
"No. That thing wasn't in there. It… Talia?" Garibaldi called her name as she twitched again, shaking her head almost like she could hear them and was agreeing that creature was gone.
"No! No, Abby, no! Don't touch me, don't touch me, don't touch me!" Talia's eyes flew open, and before her friends could react, she jerked back, pressing herself against the head of the bed, curling into a ball, trying to make herself as small as possible. "Get out, get out, get out! Mama says no touching like that! Get out, get out, get out! Please get out! Mamamamamamamama!" Pain shot down her shoulder, and she gasped for breath. She could feel rather than see movement on her sides, and she tried to curl in on herself more, tried to make herself so small they couldn't see.
"Talia…" Susan looked at Garibaldi, not sure of what to do. Talia wasn't seeing them, was caught in some sort of memory, but how in the world did they get her out of it? If they touched her….
"Her shoulder." There was blood on her shoulder again, and they had to do something, even if it was the wrong thing. Michael motioned for Susan to try to get hold of Talia while he picked up the pills and water. Trying to sedate her was the only thing that he could think of to do. Whatever was going on with her mentally was going to have to wait until they could repair the physical damage.
"No! Please no!" Talia cringed as Susan wrapped her arms around her and held her tight to keep her from moving. "NO!"
"Talia, it's okay. It's okay! It's Susan and Mike. You're okay!" Talia's heart was pounding so hard it felt like it was ready to burst, and tears were running down the telepath's cheeks. "Talia, it's okay! Wherever you think you are, you're not there anymore, I promise. You're here with two people who love you more than anything and who just want to help you. You're safe, you're safe, sweetheart. Whoever hurt you isn't here. We won't let them hurt you again. Just try to take the medicine, alright? It will make you feel better, I promise."
They weren't sure if Talia was any more aware of them than she had been at first, but she let Garibaldi coax the pills, first the pain pill and then another anti-biotic down her, and she didn't try to move again as they examined her shoulder and used more towels and pressure to control the bleeding.
"If that reopens again…." Susan murmured several minutes later when after several blood-soaked towels they had got the bleeding stopped. How much blood could Talia actually lose without her life being in serious danger? "We need to close it somehow."
"I have a needle that might work." Garibaldi said after a moment's thought. "Another thing my aunt sent me. I don't know what she thinks I might be cooking here but it's for sewing up birds."
"Does your aunt think you're going to be cooking things that might try to escape?" Susan asked. Putting stitches into Talia's shoulder, she cringed at the thought, but what else could they do? If she had another nightmare, or flashback, or whatever that was, and restarted the bleeding again…. "Get the needle, and I hope you have thread to go with it."
Cooking twine, and the bottle of alcohol as a disinfectant. Sooner than either of them wanted, they had the necessary equipment together. "Which one of us is going to do this?" Garibaldi asked as he looked up from threading the needle.
Susan looked at the needle like it was a poisonous snake. "I tried to sew once. I was ten. There was much bloodshed, not all of it mine. Please tell me you have some clue how to do this."
"On a bird for cooking, but it couldn't be much different, right?" That was it. Just remember the bird, and don't think about the fact he was going to have to do this to someone he really liked, who was probably semi-conscious. He waited until Susan moved back into position, where she could hold Talia and keep her from moving before picking up the needle. He closed his eyes for a second, before forcing himself to move, pushing the needle into flesh, barely avoiding jerking as Talia gasped in reaction.
"Talia?" Susan called her name. "It's okay. We're just fixing your shoulder for you. I know it hurts, but Mister Garibaldi knows what he's doing, and we'll have it fixed in just a minute. You're going to be okay, I promise." She reached out and stroked her hair, and it was all she could do not to risk at least attempting to make some sort of mental contact, to make sure Talia realized that she was being taken care of, not tortured. But she was very much afraid that might make things worse. "You're going to be okay." She tried words again. "The two of us love you, and we're going to take care of you. You're going to be okay. Talia?"
She felt something, something inside of her head, and when she looked up, she realized Mike could feel it too. "Talia?"
"Susan, Michael." Her eyelids fluttered, but didn't open fully, and her speech was starting to slur as the pain killer took effect, but at least it seemed like Talia was back in the present again.
Susan nodded. "It's just us. You just try to go to sleep again, alright? You're going to be fine, I promise."
"You felt that, didn't you?" Garibaldi asked, as soon as he had the stitches in Talia's shoulder tied off, and bandages over the wound again. He had had Talia in his head before, when she scanned him after he was shot, and somehow he could tell it was her again, even if the touch was entirely different.
Susan nodded. "But she wasn't scanning us."
"More like she was wanting to feel and make sure it was us." He didn't like the thought of a telepath in his head, but that touch and Talia, that was definitely an exception.
"Who was Abby?" Susan wondered as she moved from the bed and went to sort through the clothes from lost luggage, to find a clean outfit to change Talia into.
"I think she was the one I mentioned, the one Talia said who scanned her and made her feel warm and safe when she first came to the Corps. The name sounds right, anyway."
"Abby. How hard do you suppose it would be to track her down?" Susan asked as she turned with another pair or the blue pajamas. Thank goodness whoever had lost their luggage had brought along multiples. "I have plenty of leave time, and I'm thinking of a few little accidents right now."
"We could lure her here and arrange a tour of the station reactors. That might be a perfect idea for Bester too. Or an airlock malfunction. Has Miss Connelly complained about any airlocks lately?" They were going to fix this, first Talia, and then they were going to fix this so whoever hurt her would never be able to touch her again.