A/N #1:I have some very sad news - it's been announced that the next season of Flashpoint is going to be its last. =( It's so frustrating when shows like NCIS and CSI: Whatever keep getting renewed, but Flashpoint has to end so soon. I'm just glad they'll have time to wrap everything up and give some sort of closure for all the characters' story lines.

A/N #2: On a... still somewhat depressing note, the title for this chapter came from Laurie Halse Anderson's amazing young adult novel Speak, which I highly recommend for all ages.

Chapter Twenty-Five: Speak

Half an hour after receiving the hot call at the station (during which she'd experienced some of the worst leg cramps of her life, much to Will's amusement), Keira found herself standing beside Wordy, listening as he questioned the mother of the teenage girl who was preparing to jump off the roof of their seven-story apartment building.

"I know you're afraid, ma'am. I know you're upset," Wordy said consolingly, watching as the woman buried her face in her hands and sobbed. "But we need you to try and tell us what you think is going on with your daughter. If we can figure out why she's up there, we'll be able to help her better."

Greg was already on the roof, trying to stall the poor girl while the others were handling the rest of the job: establishing a perimeter around the scene, talking to witnesses, getting in touch with the local high school, and—in Spike's case—digging up all the records available on Alice Brown, the teenager in question.

"I just don't understand," Ms. Brown gasped, her chest rising and falling unsteadily. "There's nothing wrong with her. I don't know why she's doing this. She's always—she's always been so normal—" Her voice broke on the last word.

Keira shifted uncomfortably: the apartment lobby was starting to feel claustrophobic. She suspected that, as the token female police officer in the room, she was expected to somehow comfort the woman while Wordy questioned her—but she'd never been good at that sort of thing, and right now she wished that she had been given something else to do.

"Has she been under any stress lately? Anything going on at home, school? Bullying? Relationship problems? Friendship problems? Eating disorders?" Wordy inquired.

Ms. Brown shook her head in bewilderment. "N-No," she stammered, wiping at the corners of her eyes. "Nothing's going on here, her grades have been the same as always, and I just had a meeting with her guidance counselor last week—sh-she would have told me if there was any bullying."

Keira couldn't help but raise her eyebrows at that. What the hell do guidance counselors know about anything? she wondered in disgust. Especially now, when it was so easy to bully someone via texting or the internet—which didn't take place in an environment controlled by teachers and administrators. It wasn't something visible, not like shoving a kid into a locker. And that wasn't even taking into account all the shit some of the students had to deal with at home, where they were really on their own. None of her guidance counselors had ever noticed any of that.

Luckily, Ms. Brown didn't see Keira's skeptical expression. "A-Alice isn't in a relationship, either," she continued shakily, "and her friends are fine. I-In fact, she just went to a party with them this weekend.'

"A party?" Keira interjected, straightening. "What kind of party?"

Wordy shot her a quick look, but didn't intervene.

"J-Just a party," Ms. Brown replied, her eyes narrowed in confusion. "I-I mean… well, you know, I-I assume it was the usual teenage party, with… with alcohol, and all that, but—she won't be in trouble, will she?" she asked anxiously.

"No, ma'am, we're not here to punish anyone," Wordy assured her. "All we want right now is to get your daughter back to you, safe and sound."

"Can you give us more information about this party?" Keira asked sharply, irritated by the tangent. "When was it? Friday or Saturday?"

"S-Saturday," Ms. Brown answered, blinking rapidly. "I don't… I don't understand—why does it matter?"

"And have you talked to her since then?" Keira pressed, driven on by memories of a different party, a party she should never have gone to.

"Well, n-not really," Ms. Brown admitted, flushing. "She… She had a bad hangover, and stayed in bed all day. And, well, you know how it is… I've had some bad hangovers, myself, so I let her sleep it off. And then she had school this morning, so…"

"So, you haven't spoken to your daughter since she came back from this party?"

"I—where are you going with this?" Ms. Brown demanded, looking askance at Keira.

"Keira, maybe you should let me—" Wordy began, but Keira cut him off.

"What I'm going with this is," she told Ms. Brown, trying to be patient: "if you're right, and nothing's been going on with her—no bullying, nothing at home, no friendship or relationship problems, no eating disorders, or any of that"—And that's a big 'if,' Keira thought to herself—"then something must have happened recently to trigger her. You said she went to a party, and that she didn't get out of bed the following day. Maybe it was just a hangover, but I'd rather be safe than sorry. Do you know the names of any of the friends she was with that night?"

"Uh… uh, yes," Ms. Brown replied, blinking rapidly. "She w-went with Jenny. Jenny Montgomery. They're—they're best friends. Jenny lives in the same building as us."

Keira's eyebrows shot up. "Is Jenny here right now?" she asked.

"I… She should be," Ms. Brown answered faintly. "Th-They always walk home from school together."

Keira quickly patched into the line Will, Sam, and Lou were using as they questioned bystanders. "Hey, have you guys found anyone by the name of Jenny Montgomery?" she asked into the headset, hoping that the answer was a nice and easy "yes."

What she got instead were three separate "nos."

"The M-Montgomerys live on the fourth floor," Ms. Brown offered. "They're the fifth door on the left, number nine."

"I'll go up there," Wordy volunteered. At a nod from Keira, he jogged off towards the stairs.

"Do you have Jenny's number, in case she's not around?" Keira questioned Ms. Brown as Wordy disappeared.

"I, uh…" Ms. Brown began digging around in her purse, though her hands were shaking and it was a full minute before she resurfaced with her cell phone. "I-I have her mother's number. Is that okay?"

Keira nodded, and Ms. Brown tried to busy herself by browsing through her contacts. Soon, however, her lip trembled and she dropped her phone back into her purse. Keira braced herself for it, and less than a second later it came: a loud wail of despair, an explosion of terror and helplessness that wracked the woman's body with sobs.

"I-I-I d-don't under—understand," Ms. Brown cried, choking on her grief and frustration. "W-Why would she d-do something like this?"

Keira winced, wishing she had something better than a stockpile of cliché phrases. "That's what we're hoping to find out," she managed; yet it was a hideously inadequate response to a woman whose world was unraveling all around her, and she couldn't help but think that Donna would have been much more suited to the task. But Donna was in the command truck, which meant that she and Ms. Brown were stuck with each other.

"Why can't I go to her?" Ms. Brown demanded, her voice rising to a hysterical pitch. "Why won't you let me see her?"

"Because we don't know how seeing you is going to affect her," Keira explained patiently, though inside she felt as if she were reciting from a textbook. She was slipping away from Ms. Brown, detaching from the woman's anxiety, ready to build walls around herself if necessary. "Depending on how things go, Sergeant Parker might ask her if she wants to talk to you—but only if he thinks it'll help. Sometimes the kids get even more upset when they see their parents, no matter how supportive the parents are."

Ms. Brown let out a low moan and curled in on herself, overcome by tears once more. Keira silently watched her, not knowing what else to do. She thought of Jules, who was much better at this sort of thing: she always seemed to have something to say, her voice firm and yet gentle at the same time, which put the subjects at ease and calmed them down enough to function. Keira hoped that more experience on the job would help her in this regard, because right now she didn't have a damn clue.

It felt like an eternity of Ms. Brown's sobs had passed before Keira's headset crackled again. "Guys, I've got Alice's best friend with me," Wordy announced over the main line, his voice heavy. "She's saying that Alice was raped at a party this weekend. A football player named Justin Kemp. He didn't keep quiet about it, either. According to the friend, a bunch of kids at school today were calling her things like 'slut,' 'whore,' etcetera."

Keira froze, barely registering the collective intake of breath from the others. Ms. Brown, oblivious to the news and still weeping in her chair, suddenly seemed a million miles away.

For a few seconds, no one said a word.

"All right, I've got Justin Kemp's records in front of me," Spike announced, audible typing noises in the background. "The guy lives at 14 Landsdown Street. He doesn't have any priors."

Ed's voice came through. "Spike, send the address to Lou's phone. Lou—happy day for you, you get to make the arrest. See if he can tell you anything else before you get the handcuffs on. Greg, how's it going with the girl?"

Greg sighed and reported, "I haven't been able to make any headway with her. She's been moving closer to the edge the entire time we've been talking, and I can tell she's starting to escalate: she's getting paranoid, having trouble breathing, and she keeps telling me to leave her alone. I don't think I'm the best man for the job—in fact, in light of what Wordy's told us, I think the best man for the job is a woman."

Something cold settled in the pit of Keira's stomach. If Greg decided to let her cut her teeth as a negotiator on this case, of all cases… Please pick Donna, please pick Donna, please pick Donna, she silently begged.

This time, when Greg Parker's voice came in over the headset, he was only addressing her. "Keira," he asked somberly, "are you up for this?"

Keira was trembling when she met Parker on top of the roof. She was half-afraid that she'd faint, vomit, or both—and the knot in her stomach tightened painfully when she saw Alice. A diminutive teenager with mousy brown hair and skin as pale as snow, she was half-turned towards the edge and shivering in the cold air. She looked like someone who would blend into the walls in her high school, someone whose name wouldn't have been recognized by half her classmates until a popular jock was suddenly calling her a slut.

"All right, Keira, how are you feeling?" Greg asked her in an undertone.

"Fine, sir," Keira lied, hoping that he wouldn't see how much her hands were shaking.

He did. "Don't be nervous," he told her in a fatherly tone—or what she imagined was a fatherly tone, though nothing remotely close to it had ever been directed at her. "I'll be right there on the line, walking you through it. Just remember: you're not here to judge her story, or to tell her if she could have done something to prevent it from happening. What Alice needs is someone who will believe her, someone who will tell her that she's not alone and that she can get help. Connect, respect, protect."

"I know," Keira said, taking several deep breaths. She wasn't religious in the slightest, but now was as good a time as any to start praying. Please, don't let me screw this one up, she begged whomever was up there. It wasn't just the fact that Alice's life was hanging in the balance, though that alone was enough to make her break out in a sweat—it was also the silent pressure of all her teammates, including Will, listening in through their headphones. Alice's responses might not come through to them perfectly, but everything she said would be crystal clear.

"Good luck," Greg told her, before retreating into the shadows.

Keira was left to slowly advance further out onto the roof. "Hi, Alice," she called out, trying to sound as non-threatening as possible.

"Don't come any closer!" Alice yelled back, her voice wavering as she looked uncertainly towards the edge of the roof. "I just want you people to leave me alone!"

"All right, I'm staying where I am," Keira said, holding up her hands as if in surrender. "Alice, my name's Keira Ford. I'm a friend of Greg's. We're both worried about you."

Even from a distance, she could see Alice rolling her watery eyes. "Yeah, right," she retorted, glaring at Keira. "Do you get paid less if I jump off this thing?"

In any other situation, Keira would have laughed. Right now, all she could manage was a wry smile. "Not to my knowledge," she replied. "Greg and I aren't the only ones concerned about you, though. Your mother's really worried about you, Alice"—the girl stifled a sob—"and so is your friend Jenny."

Alice froze. "Y-You talked to Jenny?" she stammered.

Keira could barely hear her over the wind, but she didn't want to ask for permission to move closer—not yet, anyway, not when she had so recently promised to stay put. "We talked to Jenny," she confirmed, struggling to maintain a balance between loud and gentle. "She told us about Justin."

Alice's face crumpled with misery, a heart-wrenching prelude to the choking sobs that escaped her seconds later. Keira felt a sharp spike of fear, but the girl didn't move closer to the ledge; instead she kept crying, her entire body shaking with grief.

Keira had never met Justin Kemp before, but all of a sudden she wanted nothing more than to castrate him with a pair of scissors. An extremely dull pair of scissors.

"Alice, I'm so sorry you had to go through that," she said, her voice wavering. "I know how awful you must be feeling."

Alice couldn't speak, she was crying so hard.

"And what the kids at school said—that makes it even worse, doesn't it?" Keira asked, a lump in her throat.

Alice nodded, her chest heaving as she gulped desperately for air.

"I know it seems like you're alone right now," Keira said, torn between visions of repeatedly slamming Justin Kemp's head into something (preferably made of concrete) and memories of a long-ago party. And then that moment, the too-late moment when she had realized…

Focus! she yelled at herself, struggling to maintain her grip on the situation.

"I know it seems like you're alone," she repeated, swallowing, "but you're not. Your mother and Jenny are worried sick about you. And I… Well, God knows I'm probably not your favorite person right now; but I really want to help you, Alice. I know what it's like—"

"No, you don't!" Alice yelled at her, finally recovering her voice. "You don't know what it's like to hear everyone saying that—that you were asking for it o-or that you should be g-grateful someone like him w-would go after s-someone as ugly as you—"

"She's right, Keira," Greg muttered in her ear. "Every survivor has their own experience. You don't have to understand—just respect what she's going through."

Keira wanted to scream at him. I do understand, you jackass, she thought, trembling with rage. I understand more than you could ever fucking imagine.

Composing herself, she told Alice, "You're right. I don't know what it's like to hear those things—"

"See?" Alice demanded, stepping backward. Keira wouldn't have been surprised if, for a split second, her heart actually stopped. "You don't know what it's like. None of you know. And now you're up here, telling me that you understand and that you're sorry for what I've been through when you don't have a clue. Just leave me alone!" She staggered away from Keira, her feet mere inches from the long drop.

In a panic, Keira called, "Alice, wait!"

And, miraculously, Alice stopped. "What?" she snarled, looking almost wistfully over the edge.

"When I told you I didn't know what it was like," Keira began, her heart pounding as she inched closer and closer to something she had been avoiding for years, "I meant that I don't know what it's like to face that kind of humiliation at school. But I do know…" She faltered, her thoughts in so much turmoil that she could barely speak. How could she tell Alice, when before she had only told Jason? How could she tell Alice when it wasn't just Alice who would find out, but every last one of her teammates… including, especially, Will?

If you don't connect with her, the unbidden warning came to mind, you might lose your only chance at saving her.

I can't do this, another part of her protested. I can't let them know what happened to me.

Then you might as well take out your gun and shoot her, the first voice retorted, because she's going to jump off that building if you don't do something right now.

"You know what?" Alice demanded, her frustration visibly mounting when Keira didn't respond. In a flash, Keira recognized the expression on her face: desperation. Throw me a line, she was silently pleading. Give me a reason to stay.

"Keira, are you there?" Greg asked her, his voice sounding as if it were coming from another continent.

And Keira understood, in that instant, that she would have to destroy her life in order to save someone else's.

"I know," she began unsteadily, locking eyes with Alice, "what it's like to be raped."

For a moment, there was utter silence as the walls started to crumble.