Author: Sirius
Disclaimer: See Part I
Author's Note: After a kind review, I realized that the formatting was a little unclear. Thoughts and dream sequences, etc., are in .
Chapter Summary: A dream and a clue… if they can find it.
11pm, same night
Charlie sank onto the bed in what was informally considered his room in the Residence, looking for something to do to take his mind off the constant edginess he felt now. Why isn't he trying anything? I need to draw him out; as long as I'm here he'll stay quiet… they'll stay quiet. Thoughts going around in circles, he pulled himself off the bed and made his way to the desk to grab the notebook resting there. Opening it, he looked over the information that he had put together from the letters.
Ron hadn't been able to show him the profile – not because the AIC was protecting him, but rather because there were some rules that couldn't be broken… at least, not right now. The entire realm of what was and was not permissible to show family members during an on-going investigation was hazy, at best, and Ron didn't want to take any chances on doing anything that might set this guy loose on a technicality.
Charlie had talked informally with Deena's friends at the public service, and had asked if she'd said anything to them about not coming to the party. When he'd gone back to the Residence that day, he'd written down everything he could remember. Those statements lay on the page in front of him, words almost taunting him with the knowledge that there was a clue there, if he could just see it.
Dara: Deena called from Andy's cell phone, said that Andy wasn't feeling well, that she was going to drop him off, drive home, and bring the car back to him the next day.
Wait a minute. He paused as he realized something that should have occurred to him before. Deena was driving? When they were found, she was in the passenger seat. What made her stop the car?
Dara: Deena said they were stopped at a light when she was calling. She hung up when the light turned green.
Deena knows to keep the car doors locked when she's driving anywhere late. No bullets fired at the car, the gas tank was still half full… How did this happen? What got her out of the car? A small thought started to gnaw in the back of his brain. It's not possible he thought, brushing it aside and changing into a pair of sweatpants before sliding into bed… in the hopes of getting some sleep tonight.*****
He was walking with Zoey, her smile lighting up the day around him. The sun and smell of roses told him that it was spring, and they were in the Rose Garden. He lifted her hand to his mouth, smiling at the way the sunlight shone off the ring he had given her.
In a room not too far down the hallway, Zoey smiled in her sleep.
He sat with his father the night before the wedding, Jed Bartlet doing his best to get Charlie to sleep without taking him out to get soused. A quiet talk, a frank – and nerve-wracking, for Charlie – discussion of the women in their lives. Jed could see the love shining in his son's eyes – Charlie would never be less than that to him, now.
The next day – the wedding. Sun shone bright in the Rose Garden. The Press, he ignored as a necessary evil. The public had to have its `Great American Romance,' right? Its real-life fairy-tale? Josh stood at his side, and he knew that Donna would be helping Zoey. He hoped someone had made her have some breakfast. He saw her standing at the end of aisle… and she took his breath away.
Then, the scene changed.
Was it night or day? How could he tell when he was stuck in the dark and there were no windows?
Down the hall, the First Daughter tossed and turned in her sleep, terror filling the tiny sounds that came from her as she lay caught in the dream. Gina – hearing the noise – knocked softly, and then entered without disturbing her charge. She watched, worried, as her young friend struggled against demons the agent couldn't see. Gina debated the merits of waking Zoey, but decided against it and stood a silent watch. If it looked like she was going too deep into the dream… then, Gina would wake her. Until then, she needed all the sleep she could get.
Where's Zoey? He looked around and couldn't see her, couldn't see anything. Something, somewhere, opened a little, allowing into the room a tiny crack of light. He still couldn't make out what was happening – nothing showed within the light save a small patch of cement – but at least it was a break in the darkness. It might allow him to find his place in… wherever this was.
He slid a hand into the light and saw it gleam red. His blood? Hers? Someone else's? He struggled for breath, but knew that he had to get out of here.
Where was the door to this room? The little light was no guide, providing the barest of reference points for his position. He felt his way around until he reached a corner, and turning, followed the length of the wall. When he came to the next corner, he followed that wall. It was in the middle of the third that his hands found a crack in the wall – a door?
He made a mental note of the door's location in terms of the light, and continued to explore the room. He paused as he felt something cold and yielding under his hands, and remembered whose blood stained his hands. It belonged to them both… both.
The fingers of his left hand traced over raised rope burns on his right wrist, knowing that his other wrist bore matching marks. He knew if he looked that there would be bruises on his ribs, and that some would be broken, that he was probably bleeding internally, losing his life drop by drop in a way that no one could see. But the blood on his hand… his was from cuts that he had instinctively tried to see to. Hers… hers was from holding her to him, when they had finally let him go. Trying to stem the flow of blood, listening to the breath rattle in her lungs as their captors laughed.
A tiny gleam of light off something familiar… and a recognition as his wife died in his arms…
Zoey screamed, sitting up in her bed, shaking and pale; it was only Gina's assurance that it was just a nightmare that kept other agents out of the room, and she wasn't prepared for her charge to jump out of her bed and run down the hall the short distance to Charlie's room. I should have been expecting that she thought.
The agent outside Charlie's door made no move to stop the First Daughter as she burst into Charlie's room, absent-mindedly catching the door before it could hit the wall. Gina followed only two steps behind, but unlike Zoey, stopped at the door. Her eyes flashed in rage as she looked on Charlie, and, tossing a glance at William, she could see the other agent felt the same.
The young man was tossing and turning in his bed, muscles tensed with either rage or readiness to fight a perceived threat. His fists were clenched so hard the knuckles were white, and his body – bare to the waist – was covered in sweat. Unknowing, he cried in his sleep, the tears soaking the pillow as he struggled against an unseen foe.
Gina, for all that Zoey and Charlie were friends as well as protectees, didn't know what to do now, and she realized that she didn't need to do anything. Zoey – hearing the whispers that Charlie thought were screams – climbed into the bed and curled herself around him.
"I'm here. I'm here."
Charlie's eyes snapped open, and his gaze locked with hers. Gina, having not yet moved, could see the look in his eyes – a man sentenced to a lifetime of hell had just been granted a reprieve. He whispered Zoey's name and held her tightly to him as the adrenaline rush drained away and his body shook.
Gina closed the door and gave the young couple the privacy they needed to recover from what had just happened. She shared a look with William and said, "No one disturbs them. I'll talk with Ron and see if Eagle will let his aide sleep in a bit." William nodded in agreement as Gina took up a post on the other side of the doorway, and made a mental note to get in touch with Butterfield as soon as he came in.
In the room, the two held each other, unable to sleep or speak through the long night ahead, Zoey haunted by the image of the tormented Charlie in the room, and Charlie tortured by the memory of holding a dying Zoey. Trying to forget the dream, he pushed to the back of his mind the thought that there was an important detail that he needed to remember.
TBC…
