Author's note: Apologies for the delay in the story. I have not been well, not Corona virus thankfully, but not well. Then work got in the way of writing and I have only felt like looking at this tonight. Here is the next chapter which I hope allows you to get back into the story.
Previously… Thomas has finally convinced Juliet to speak to a counsellor with him.
Now…we see how that meeting goes.
Thanks for reading
Chapter 15
Thomas was getting more nervous by the minute. He was sitting in a small counselling room that he'd already decided had serious design flaws. The first, and to his mind the worst, was the lack of a window. It was a box that reminded him of a cell in HPD headquarters. The second was the close proximity of the chairs. Three had been set out and he could already sense a problem with how close Juliet would have to be to him.
The doctor had arranged this first session. Juliet was already here, speaking to a female counsellor down the corridor. Then, if she chose, she'd come here and join him. The doctor had set it up this way so that she could choose when, and if, to join him and, he supposed, whether she did actually enter the room.
Suddenly, he could hear a commotion down the corridor as what sounded like a table flipped over and a door slammed. Given his training, it wasn't surprising that he was one of the first people to enter the dark corridor. What was surprising, however, was that he ended up with a very irate Juliet in his arms as she ran from the room she'd been in.
"Hey, Jules, calm down. What's wrong?"
Juliet whipped around in his arms. "You're here!" She then looked back at a young woman who was standing outside a room further down the corridor and yelled, "Now, was it so difficult to tell me where he was when he was right down the corridor?!"
"Higgins? What's going on?"
Juliet looked back at Thomas and he could see how upset she was. "I thought this was supposed to help! I thought I had the choice!" She took a step back, out of his arms, then wrapped her arms around herself, trying to give herself some comfort.
Thomas was worried. Juliet was looking around her wildly and his heart went out to her. "It will help and it is your choice. Tell me what happened." Thomas resisted reaching for her. The fact that she was shaking and flinching didn't bode well.
"Tell that to her! She wanted me to go over it, to relive it. I told her it wouldn't do any good." Juliet turned from Thomas to look back at the woman. "And it didn't! Can't you see that it didn't?!"
"Higgy, look at me," Thomas said quietly. Juliet turned and backed up against the wall, eying him warily. "Maybe talking about it has made it harder, but it will help."
"NO! Not on my own! All I see is him. All I feel is him."
"Me..." Thomas quietly pressed.
"NO! I know it was you but you're not that person. I can't do this on my own. I don't want to be stuck there without a way out." The tears that she had held at bay now began trailing down her cheeks. Her fingers, that had been fiddling with the hem of her shirt, reached out towards Thomas.
Thomas couldn't hold back from her anymore and he grasped her fingers and pulled her towards him.
The woman who'd been watching them carefully but hadn't wanted to interrupt, now came closer. Holding a clipboard to her chest, she carefully stated, "I don't recommend contact at this stage."
Thomas turned to her, while keeping Higgins close to his side. "What's the problem, doctor?"
"Ms Higgins needs to face this event. She needs to discuss it, to discuss the impact it has had, and she needs to move past it. She'll struggle to do that if you're constantly there."
Thomas began to let Juliet go, trying to do what the doctor wanted him to do, but Juliet held on even tighter.
Thomas tried to think what to do for the best. "Doctor, perhaps you could talk to both of us for now, help us to understand what your plan is. At least let Higgins get out of the corridor."
The doctor looked between the two, noticing the death glare that Juliet was giving her and Thomas' conciliatory look, and nodded. She guided them into the room Thomas had been in, and pointed to the chairs, inviting them to sit down. Thomas let Juliet pick the chair she wanted. Unsurprisingly, she chose the one in full sight of the door. A quick escape if she wanted one. Thomas sat down beside her, keeping his fingers linked loosely with hers.
"Mr Magnum, my name is Michelle."
"Aloha."
"As you know, Dr Duncan has filled me in on your situation. It's rather an unusual one but I hope that I can help you both. Juliet, can you explain why you left the other room?"
Juliet bristled. Having just screamed at the woman after running out of the room, and then having already explained it to Thomas, she didn't want to cover this ground again.
Thomas squeezed her fingers. "Please, Jules. Just try to tell me what happened."
Juliet deliberately turned away from the counsellor, something that didn't go un-noticed by Thomas, who worried that this counselling session could be over before it started. "I told you out there," she began scornfully, then her voice got quieter as she leaned towards Thomas and, almost whispering, said, "She wants me to talk it over… in detail…"
"That's a good thing, Higgy. Why are you so upset?"
Juliet looked down and started playing with Thomas' fingers. She followed each finger slowly and turned his hand over. "You see, I'm not worried when you're here. I can touch your hands, have you hug me… But when I think about it, I get so scared."
Thomas waited a beat for the counsellor to jump in and say something but a quick glance at her suggested that she wasn't going to. In fact, she had sat down, made herself as comfortable as you could on a plastic chair, and was beginning to take notes.
So, he focussed back on Juliet and tried to encourage her to speak to him. "Maybe you need to talk it through to make the fear go away. At least a little bit."
"She wants me to do it when you're not here. I don't want to do that."
"Well, I'm here now, so do you want to talk about it now?"
"It goes away when I'm talking to you or when you're here."
"Well… it's good that you're not scared with me, but maybe that's the best time to talk." Thomas was making it up as he went but he figured that if he said anything really wrong, the counsellor would jump in.
Juliet kept fidgeting with the hem of her shirt in one hand and Thomas' fingers in the other. "You didn't know who I was… I kept trying to tell you I wasn't her but you didn't know me."
"What did I do, Juliet?"
"We were on the ground... you were… you were holding me down…" Juliet looked up at him. "I got really mad at you." She smiled sadly. "I thought you were being an arse. It was cold and you wouldn't let me up."
"Why didn't you get up?" Thomas asked quietly. Although he'd asked the question before, he couldn't really understand why he had no injuries and she had so many.
She unconsciously reached up to touch her head and said quietly, "You pushed me down so quickly, my head slammed against the floor. You gave me a concussion."
"I'm sorry."
By this time Juliet was locked in the memory and she didn't acknowledge Thomas' apology. "You kicked me. My ribs were broken. I... I couldn't get up. You were my friend. I... I couldn't fight you. I let you do this…"
"NO!" Thomas said sharply, causing Juliet to jump slightly and pull her hand away from him.
Thomas quickly continued in a lower voice. "Higgy, you didn't let this happen. You just told me you were concussed and had broken ribs. You were on the cold concrete and couldn't get up. This was me, not you."
Juliet nodded, although the tears began to fall again. Thomas reached over and wiped one away with his thumb, and Juliet took his hand again. "I don't want to remember that Thomas. I only want to remember this man, you, not the one who did that to me."
Michelle interjected quietly, "They're one and the same man, Juliet, and you'll only get through this if you fully accept that."
"I don't know how… I don't want to remember him there… I just want him here, now."
Thomas again waited for the counsellor to speak and was surprised when she didn't, so he continued. "I was already there, Higgins. I was with you three weeks ago before this happened, when the dogs chased me up the beach and you were laughing. Do you remember that? I'm here after it and, God, I'm so proud of you being able to sit close to me. But I was there. It was me. You don't have to be afraid of that man. He won't come back…"
"Mr Magnum, you can't promise that…" Michelle jumped in, but Magnum kept going.
"Yes, I can. I don't fully understand why I attacked Higgins but I do know that in my mind at the time it wasn't her I was attacking. I've been alone lots of times with Jules and I've never even thought about attacking her, let alone actually doing it. Juliet knows that I could have easily taken any feelings out on my ex-girlfriend when she came to the island but I just didn't feel the anger then.
Now we know the risk, I can tell you something. There's no way our friends will let me hurt her like that again." He squeezed Juliet's fingers gently. "And then, Michelle, there are the dogs. Those hounds of hell won't let me hurt her."
"Mr Magnum…" Michele started carefully, "You had a PTSD episode caused, the doctor thinks, by a severe concussion. Is this the first concussion you've had since returning from Afghanistan?"
Thomas looked at her, slightly alarmed. "No… Wait… Are you saying this will…?"
"I don't know. No one knows for sure. The doctor believes you're unlikely to slip back to the same hallucination but…"
"I could again if concussed…"
"Have you ever had a repeat episode previously?"
Thomas considered the question seriously and looked to Juliet, who was also keen to hear his answer. "No… There've been a few times when I thought I was there… but generally I'm…" He hung his head then cleared his throat. "…beaten, I suppose, ready to give up. I know Rick and Nuzo found me one time – it was before I moved to the Nest – and my main aim that time was to give myself up. To end it all."
"But you can remember all previous episodes?" Michelle asked, still taking notes.
"Yes… even the nightmares... but yes, every episode."
"And you've never been violent in any of them?"
Again, Thomas thought for a moment. He had to be completely honest here, that much he understood. "Yes. Once. It was while we were still in Germany. I needed to find the guys and I punched a corpsman to get to them."
"Did you think the nurse was someone else?"
"I don't think so… Maybe to begin with… But after a few minutes, he was just a guy stopping me getting to my team."
Thomas could see the counsellor considering his words. "Dr Duncan has consulted with other experts in PTSD and laid out your personal experiences. He believes you're unlikely to have a repeat of this episode, but no one can guarantee that. Under normal circumstances, I believe Ms Higgins would be safe with you. But the extent to which you're alone with her, or allowed to be close to her, must remain with her. My main question for you is whether you've faced what you did to her. You need to hear the whole story, Mr Magnum. She deserves that."
Thomas again focused his whole concentration on Juliet. "I know, can you tell me, Juliet?"
Juliet twisted his fingers again and took a deep breath. "What if you look at me differently? I'm damaged..."
"No!"
"Yes!"
"No!" Magnum stood up, the plastic chair skittering across the floor in the tiny room.
"Mr Magnum!" Michelle stood up to face Thomas. "You have no right to tell Ms Higgins that what she feels is wrong. You may not agree with them but her feelings are important. Ms Higgins' feelings need to be acknowledged and she needs to be helped with how to deal with them. What she doesn't need is you telling her that her feelings are wrong. Ms Higgins felt powerless during the attack. You can't now take the power away from her own feelings. You, as a former POW, should understand that."
Thomas backed down. He nodded slightly to Michelle then very quietly said, "I'm sorry, Juliet." He then turned to face Juliet and saw that she'd curled herself into the foetal position on the small chair. He knelt down in front of her but made sure he didn't touch her. "I don't like you thinking of yourself that way and I really wish you didn't feel like that, but I'll listen to you and try to help you realise that that isn't how I see you."
Thomas righted his chair and sat back down. He put out his hand, inviting Higgins to once again take hold of his fingers. He made eye contact with her and smiled in encouragement.
Juliet reached out and held the tips of his fingers. "In my mind I'm not damaged, but in my nightmares, my fears, my dreams…"
Thomas gently rubbed her fingers. "Jules, dreams and nightmares are the worst…." He smiled gently at her, trying to show that he knew how bad a nightmare could be. "I think telling me will help you.
It won't change how I feel about you, except to be so proud of you and so sorry that I did this to you."
Juliet nodded and began to speak quietly, continuing to focus on Thomas' hands in hers. "I didn't think you'd do that to me… I didn't think you'd…"
"Name it," Michelle said quietly. "Don't hide from it. It can't hurt you."
Juliet nodded, took a deep breath, then whispered, "I wasn't expecting you to… to rape me." She squeezed Thomas' hand tighter, and looked at him. "Your hands have always helped people… helped me. I've seen you use weapons, swim for miles, and they brought me back to life…" Juliet paused, lost in memories, before coming back to the present. She once again looked away. "I didn't expect them to do that… You grabbed me." She reached up to her chest, to her breasts, laying her fingers where his had been. "You bruised them… You weren't tender or loving… You wanted to hurt them." Juliet looked Thomas squarely in the eyes. "You wanted to hurt me."
Magnum dropped his head, then looked back up, the tears flowing down his face like they were flowing down Juliet's. "What did I do next?" he asked quietly.
"You told me I was a liar, that I deserved to be punished. You were on top of me..." Juliet fidgeted with his fingers. "You had both of my hands in one hand and you... you ripped my T-shirt with the other. I was cold… so cold… It was so dark. I couldn't see you, but I could hear you breathing, feel it on my skin."
Juliet shivered at the memory and then retreated away from Thomas. She dropped his fingers and curled back into the chair, trying to get away from him. She cried out, "Why did you do that? Why did you have to punish us that way?" and then bolted for the door.
Thomas watched as Michelle followed Higgins, resisting everything within him to follow her. He let Juliet go because he couldn't answer her questions, he had no idea why he had needed to punish Hannah and therefore Juliet that way so he stayed and hoped that Michelle would be able to help her. They hadn't even got to the point of the actual rape before Juliet had run out the door. He sat with his head in his hands; it wasn't just Juliet who struggled to use that word. He was a rapist. Nothing he could ever do in his life could ever hope to make up for the fact that he'd done this to her.
Hearing the door open, Thomas was surprised when he looked up and saw Juliet standing in the doorway. "Hey," he said. He didn't get up and approach her, as he didn't want to scare her, but instead sat up and looked at her searchingly. "You okay?"
Juliet nodded. "I need to finish this."
"Okay..." Thomas said warily, a little unsure how to react, given her cold demeanour and the complete change from the emotion she'd shown mere minutes before.
"Do you want a couple of minutes? Maybe get some juice or coffee?"
Juliet shook her head as she waited for the counsellor to come back into the room. "No, I want to keep going. Michelle has decided that I'm stubborn but I told her you already knew that."
Thomas smiled as he nodded. "Come, sit down then."
Juliet moved past him and re-took his hand as she sat down. "I know you don't know why you did what you did. It doesn't matter really. What matters is what happened."
Thomas took a deep breath. "Yeah." He watched as Juliet twisted his fingers again. "Tell me what I did next."
Juliet looked directly at Thomas and began strongly. "You started to choke me, had your hand around my neck." Her fingers left his and trailed up her throat. "You turned my head away… Part of me was glad… I didn't want to remember your face…" Her voice then broke after being so strong when she'd started. Thomas waited patiently while Juliet struggled to get her emotions back under control, not wanting to interrupt her. He was so proud of her as she regrouped and continued.
"You ripped off my shorts, my underwear… You forced my legs open with yours. You… you were ready, I wasn't."
"Did I…" Thomas couldn't ask the stupid question that was on the tip of his tongue, 'Did I hurt you?' Of course, he had. He pleaded with his eyes for her to answer the obvious unasked question.
Juliet nodded, incapable at that moment of speaking. She took a deep breath and found her voice. "The doctor says I'll heal, but you did tear me."
"Did I…" Thomas took a breath. "Did I use protection?"
Juliet shook her head. "No."
"Oh, God… I'm clean, I promise…"
"I know. The navy released your records to Katsumoto when you were first here."
"Good." Thomas sat looking at Juliet and then his eyes widened. "What about pregnancy…"
Juliet's tears began again.
"Juliet? Higgins? What is it?"
AN: I know a cliff hanger; I promise not to leave it too long. I hope! Stay safe and well out there.
