Unexpected Suprises
Disclaimer: Same as before
A/N: Here is the next chapter, as promised!! Oh, and there will be some moments of brief graphic language, so I apologize beforehand for anything that might be offensive. There will probably be an epilogue so, keep reading!!
Chapter 9: The Past Revisited
Lindsey couldn't believe her eyes. That couldn't be who she thought it was, but her heart was telling her that it was.
"Suprised to see me?" he asked in a demented voice, a gun pointed at her head. "I thought you would be. You haven't changed much since over the past few years. You're still as pretty as I remember, but I wonder..." he let his voice trail off, but as he did so, Lindsey found hers.
"You wonder what, Declan?" She spat his name back at him with such animosity that Declan had to take a step back. She was tired of letting him scare her. All of these years, he had gotten to her, and now was no different. She was terrified, but she refused to let him know that.
"I wonder if you still taste the same." Declan looked at her with a twisted hunger in his eye. She was visibily shaking all over now, and she couldn't do much to stop it. Declan just laughed at her. "I noticed that you seem to have found a replacement for me with that British nerd, what's his name?...Oh, yeah...Nigel. Well, does he know about you and me? Does he know that you're used goods?" Declan asked viciously.
"Yes, he knows what you did to me, and I am NOT used goods." Lindsey said, her voice cracking and her tears threatening to fall down her cheeks.
"Is that what he told you? Well, the bastard is more patient than I thought. He's only after what I was after, Lindsey. That's all you're good for," Declan said, laughing at her. "But, I must say, you were GOOD," with this last word, Declan began to eye her eagerly.
Lindsey shivered under his hungry eyes. She wondered where Nigel was, and then a horrible thought came to mind. "What if Declan's right?" Lindsey wondered. "What if Nigel really does only want me for that? I mean, what else am I good for?" Lindsey asked herself, and the tears that she had been biting back broke and streamed silently down her face. "No, Lindsey, Nigel isn't like that, and you know it. Nigel loves you. It's taken you so long to believe that, don't let this bastard make you believe otherwise." She finally convinced herself that Declan was just trying to get to her. "You RAPED me! You didn't love me! Nigel loves me, and he would never hurt me. He isn't a COWARD like you are!!" Lindsey said, spitting the insults at him like bullets. She was through letting him manipulate her mind.
Declan locked his jaw. He was not too happy about what she had just said. He walked up to her, held her to him with his free hand, and forced a kiss on her. She tried to pull away, but he was too strong. He pulled back just far enough to look at her face. "You Bitch," he muttered, and with that he brought the broad side of the gun across her face, knocking her out.
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"Uh, Syd...I can't get the door open." Nigel said. He was obviously embarrassed. Sydney just gave him a warm smile. Then she put all of her weight into the door. It wouldn't budge.
"It's locked from inside the theatre!" Sydney stated incredulously. They were locked inside the lobby of the theatre.
"Someone must have locked them while we were outside," Aaron said. Nigel got a really sick feeling in the pit of his stomache. "It couldn't have been Lindsey. She doesn't have any keys," Aaron said, quickly discrediting the thought that they all were thinking, but didn't want to believe.
"Then, Lindsey's alone with whomever..." Nigel didn't want to finish his sentence. He immediately turned toward the doors to the theatre. They could see the inside of the theatre through the glass doors. They had tried breaking the glass, but they couldn't. "Damn safety features." Nigel muttered.
"There has to be another way out of here!" Sydney stomped in frustration. She searched her brain trying to figure something out. Suddenly, something that Lindsey said came to her mind."...trap door...the preservation team must have borded it up..." Remembering those words, Sydney remembered some of her own theatre history classes. "AHA!!" Sydney yelled, startling Nigel and Aaron. Nigel was sick with worry and didn't look too good.
"What is it, Syd?" Aaron asked. "Did you figure something out?" Aaron knew it sounded stupid, but it was the only thing he could think to say. He too was worried...about both Lindsey and Nigel. He also noticed that Nigel wasn't looking to healthy.
"We found that room through a trap door. That allowed the actors to give the illusion of disappearing and reappearing. Well, they had to have another way of getting back on stage besides coming up the same trap door, which means there are other exits, or in our case, entrances to that understage area. Now, I remember from my theatre history that these "exits" often times were outside the theatre. So, let's find one." Sydney had a smile on her face.
"Syd, alot has changed about this landscape over, oh, say, the last 2000 years!!!!!!!" Nigel stated with a biting tone.
"Yeah, like a lobby was built..." Sydney said still smiling. She saw realization dawning on both Nigel and Aaron's faces. They all three looked at each other before jumping up and scanning every fraction of the lobby in which they were contained.
"Just hold on, Lindsey." Nigel thought. "Please, God, let her be okay. Don't let anything happen to her," Nigel silently prayed.
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Lindsey woke up with an incredible feeling of pain on her face. She was laying on a dust covered ground. It took her a minute to remember where she was...and who she was with. She slowly sat up, and as her eyes focused, she saw Declan gently turning the pages of an old book. This suprised her because Lindsey didn't know that Declan could be gentle with anything. She saw bits of the wall on the ground, and realized that he was holding the 2000 year old book...the reason she was here...the reason she met Nigel...NIGEL!! She suddenly began to panic with worry about him, Sydney and Aaron. Declan heard her stir, and turned to see her awake.
"Good Morning, beautiful." Declan said sneeringly. He saw her eyeing the book. "Yeah, she's a beauty too, isn't she? Thanks for finding her for me." He said. He gently put the book in an airtight bag, and placed it in a bag near his feet. He walked over to her, as she sat herself upright and leaned her head against the wall. She felt like her head was going to explode. The look in his eyes didn't make her feel any better.
"What did you do to Nigel, Aaron, and Sydney?" Lindsey asked, dreading the answer. Declan just laughed.
"I didn't kill them, don't worry...but, they won't be coming to save you anytime soon! I've only gotten half of what I want, and I intend to get the other half right now." Declan said with a demented look. He crouched down to force a kiss hard against her lips. She tried to pull away, but he just grabbed her wrists and gripped them with such ferocity. Then she understood. He was the one that had attacked her that night in her apartment. He was the one who was pretending to be Nico, and most importantly, he was the one who almost killed her cousin. Declan pulled back from her.
"You're the one who attacked me in my apartment! You almost killed my cousin!!" she screamed. Declan looked at her as if she were stupid.
"Lindsey, for someone so intelligent, you can be completely thick sometimes," Declan uttered. "I'm a bit disappointed that you didn't figure that out until now." But, he didn't say anything else. He just dragged her from the wall onto the ground. She hit her head again, and she was almost rendered unconscious again, but it just dazed her a bit. She heard him unzipping his pants. She tried to move away from him, but she couldn't. Her limbs just wouldn't obey what she was telling them to do.
"Oh, God! He's going to rape me again." Lindsey thought with tears falling down her cheeks. "Well, if this is the way it has to be, then, so be it, but I WILL NOT let him ruin my life this time." Lindsey tried to convince herself. She wasn't doing a very good job. Her silent tears turned into sobs as Declan turned around to her. With one quick movement, Declan was on top of her forcing harsh kisses down her neck and up to her lips. Lindsey tried to fight and push him away, but he just hit her everytime she did.
"Haven't you noticed that I like the struggle?" Declan asked her as if she were stupid. "The more you fight, the more agressive I get. It turns me on." Declan just sneered at her. He looked her up and down. One of her legs, which were trembling uncontrollably, were sticking out of the slit in her skirt. He reached down and started to caress her leg, almost in the way a lover would. She flinched at his touch on her bare skin. He looked at her with a crazed look on his face, and ripped her skirt from the slit so that he exposed her underwear. Lindsey was still a little dazed from all of the blows to her head she took, and before she knew what was happening, Declan had begun to violate her. This time it was different. He was more harsh and violent this time.
Lindsey had flashbacks, but just closed her eyes, and started staring up at the trap door, looking at how the light entered the room. Anything to try to shut out what was happening to her...again. Nigel wasn't going to want her now. She thought about the first time she had wanted to make love to Nigel. That was the night that they had first translated all of the riddle. She stopped him when he started tugging at her bottoms, but instead of violating her, he stopped. He just held her all night. She thought about Nigel and about how she might have lost him forever now. All because of Declan. He had climbed off of her now, apparently finished. She suddenly became aware of her shirt being open and a harsh pain below her waist. She tried to lift herself off of the floor and lean back against the wall, and as she did so, she noticed a small puddle of a dark, thick liquid on the ground where she had been laying. She dipped her fingers in it, and held it up to the light. Blood. Lindsey passed out yet again when she realized that it was her blood.
Declan was standing now, fixing his trousers and shirt. He heard a slight whimper behind him and turned around to look at Lindsey. She had passed out. He too noticed the blood. "Damn." he thought. "I didn't know I was that good." With a smile he turned around only to stare straight down the barrel of his pistol.
"Drop this?" Sydney asked as she readied the pistol to fire if she had to. She immediately recognized him as Nico. Sydney glanced behind at Declan and saw Lindsey, and the state she was in. A rage filled Sydney like she had never felt before. "You sick son of a bitch," Sydney almost whispered. Declan just smiled.
"Yeah. Nigel really should have hit that when he had the chance...she was GOOD. I'm glad I got to hit that again." Declan just laughed this horrible laugh. Sydney had had about enough of him. She kicked him square in the jaw, knocking him out and causing him to fall to the floor. She ran over to Lindsey, to check on her.
"Lindsey? Can you hear me?" Sydney asked as she pulled her shirt closed and took her jacket and laid it over her to cover her. Lindsey opened her eyes and looked at Sydney. She wasn't scared because she knew those soft touches weren't Declan's.
"Sydney?" Lindsey croaked. She tried to sit up, but the pain in her head and below her waist was too much for her. "I'm so sorry. Declan...he just..." Lindsey began saying in a panic. Sydney tried to calm her down, but it didn't work. "Nigel...I'm so sorry...He's not going to want me now...I've lost him..." Lindsey said sobbing uncontrollably. Sydney stared at her in disbelief. This guy must have really screwed her up.
"Lindsey, Nigel isn't going to love you any less. He's been worried sick about you." Sydney said pulling the girl into a semi-hug, careful not to hurt her. She heard Nigel and Aaron bustle in.
"Sydney, there you are...where's..." Nigel's question trailed off as he saw a pair of legs sticking out behind Sydney. Then he saw the blood. He quickly glanced up at Sydney with a paniced look on his face. "Oh, no..." Nigel said as he ran over to them. He saw Lindsey's face and had to fight back a sob. She was horribly beaten. He went to push a few strands of hair off of her face, but she flinched under his touch. "She's scared of me..." he thought. "Lindsey, I'm not going to hurt you. I promise. I love you." he said gently.
"Nigel, I'm so so sorry. It's all my fault. Declan, he...he.." and with that, she started sobbing again. Nigel couldn't believe what he had just heard. Declan...the guy who raped her the first time.
"Who is Declan?" Sydney asked. She had heard her call him that earlier and wondered why. She had put two and two together and figured out that this Declan guy must have raped her before because he said "again" right before she knocked him out. Nigel explained everything, all the while he held Lindsey's head in his lap and comforted her. Sydney nodded in understanding and turned to look at Declan laying on the ground. He was coming to, but he took a nasty blow to the head. Aaron took the gun and pointed it at him. Aaron was hurting on the inside too. He had known Lindsey forever, and she had never told him. Now, this guy was here and Aaron wanted nothing more than to pull the trigger, but no, that would not be punishment enough for him.
"Lindsey, this is not your fault...nor was it the last time." Aaron said sympathetically, not taking his eyes off of Declan. Sydney had just finished phoning an Ambulance and the police. Within a few seconds, they heard sirens in the distance. By now, Declan was wide awake, and Aaron had made him get up and walk over to the trap door. He and Sydney were going to take Declan to the police. As Declan passed Lindsey and Nigel, he looked down at them.
"Nigel, buddy...you don't know what your missing...you should have hit that when you had the chance." Declan sneered demonically. Nigel saw red. He had a look of hatred in his usually kind, gentle eyes that Lindsey had never seen before. He gently lay Lindsey down on the ground and looked at her. Then he looked up at Declan and was about to stand up to harm Declan, but Lindsey reached out to touch his arm. Nigel looked back down at her, and his eyes immediately softened.
"Nigel, please don't. He's not worth it." Lindsey whispered. Nigel couldn't hold back the tears any longer. He picked her back up and cradled her yet again.
"Oh, Lindsey. I love you so much." Nigel was now weeping openly. Aaron and Sydney took this as their cue to take Declan up to meet the police.
Lindsey just looked at Nigel's eyes. They were full of love, compassion, and...hurt. Hurt? Lindsey felt so badly. She felt like this was her fault. But before she could say anything, Nigel started.
"Lindsey, love, I'm so sorry. This is all my fault. I should have never left you alone." he stammered. Lindsey stared in disbelief. He was hurt because he felt like this was his fault. Lindsey knew then that Nigel really did love her. Declan was wrong. She cried silent tears.
"Nigel..." Lindsey began. She looked up at him and carressed his cheek with her hand and brushed the hair away from his eyes. He turned into her hand and closed his eyes. He kissed the palm of her hand and held it to his cheek. "This is not your fault. You couldn't help this." Nigel opened his eyes and looked at her.
"I'm never going to let anyone hurt you again. Lindsey, I love you so much." Nigel said.
"I love you too, Nigel." Lindsey said. She began shivering violently. Nigel realized that she was going into shock. He looked down and saw a huge stain across Sydney's coat and all over the ground around Lindsey. It was growing.
"Oh, no! She's still bleeding!" thought Nigel. He looked back up at her face, and Lindsey was unconscious. Just then, the paramedics arrived. Sydney had reentered the room and took Nigel away from Lindsey so the paramedics could do their work. She lead him comfortingly away from them and out of the trap door. He rode in the ambulance with her holding her hand the entire way. He sat outside in the waiting room at the hospital until the doctor told him what was wrong.
"Nigel, she's going to be okay. She lost a lot of blood, but she'll be just fine. Our main concern now is her ability to have children. There was much damage done to her internally. We repaired as much as we could, but even if we were successful in abling them to function again, there will still be a vast amount of scar tissue, making it extremely difficult for her to get preganate. I feel that she will be able to have children, but she will probably need to seek outside help, and her pregnancy will need to be monitered very carefully." The doctor looked very solomonly at Nigel.
"Does she know this?" Nigel asked. Lindsey loved children, and he knew that she wanted them one day.
"Yes, I've told her this already. But, I thought that you should know too. She told me I could tell you. You may go in and see her now." The doctor patted Nigel on the shoulder and gave him a week smile. Never in all of his medical career had he seen such a malicious act of rape. She was lucky to be alive.
Nigel walked into the room to see Lindsey sitting up on the bed. She was bruised from head to toe, the bruises more noticable against her pale skin. "Lindsey?" he spoke softly. She looked over and smiled softly. Even the huge bruise on her face didn't keep her smile from making her look beautiful. He could tell that she'd been crying. Her smile quickly faded when she saw the look on Nigel's face.
"I suppose the doctor told you." she said very quitely. Nigel nodded. Lindsey just hung her head and looked away from him. She couldn't face those pain filled eyes...not just yet. "Then I suppose that you don't want to see me anymore." She said with pain and tears in her voice. Nigel just let his mouth gape open. He couldn't believe this.
"Why would you think that?" he asked. Lindsey turned to look at him.
"I know how much you wanted children, and I may not be able to give them to you. You deserve someone who can give you what you want, Nigel." Lindsey looked at him with tears in her eyes.
"All I want is you." he said. "Yes, I would love to have children with you one day, but even if you can't physically have them yourself, we can always adopt. Lindsey, I love you." He had grasped her hand and held it tightly. Lindsey didn't know what to say.
"I love you, too." She cried and they embraced. Nigel pulled away after a minute and pulled something out of his bag. He handed it to Lindsey.
"What's this?" she asked. She opened it up, and saw the 2000 year old book. Her eyes lit up, and that familiar fire she used to have in them was back. She looked at Nigel in disbelief.
"I thought that you might want to look at it before it goes to the museum. You did, after all, find it. You deserve it." Nigel looked at his girlfriend with so much love, Lindsey almost fainted yet again.
Lindsey left the hospital a week later and returned home. Jen and Jake tried to make a fuss over her, and Aaron insisted in taking vacation leave to come help take care of her, too. He knew that as much as Nigel, Jen, Jake, and Sydney wanted to take care of her, they were needed at school. Eventually, Lindsey made Aaron go back to work and finally got everyone to stop fussing over her. Well, everyone except Nigel, that is. She just wanted to live the rest of the year out in peace...and that's exactly what she did.
A/N: I'm so sorry it took me so long to update this. But, there will be an epilogue chapter, so it's not quite finished yet!! Just one more chapter to go!!! =) Thank you to all of my reviewers, and don't forget to R&R yet again!! =)
Disclaimer: Same as before
A/N: Here is the next chapter, as promised!! Oh, and there will be some moments of brief graphic language, so I apologize beforehand for anything that might be offensive. There will probably be an epilogue so, keep reading!!
Chapter 9: The Past Revisited
Lindsey couldn't believe her eyes. That couldn't be who she thought it was, but her heart was telling her that it was.
"Suprised to see me?" he asked in a demented voice, a gun pointed at her head. "I thought you would be. You haven't changed much since over the past few years. You're still as pretty as I remember, but I wonder..." he let his voice trail off, but as he did so, Lindsey found hers.
"You wonder what, Declan?" She spat his name back at him with such animosity that Declan had to take a step back. She was tired of letting him scare her. All of these years, he had gotten to her, and now was no different. She was terrified, but she refused to let him know that.
"I wonder if you still taste the same." Declan looked at her with a twisted hunger in his eye. She was visibily shaking all over now, and she couldn't do much to stop it. Declan just laughed at her. "I noticed that you seem to have found a replacement for me with that British nerd, what's his name?...Oh, yeah...Nigel. Well, does he know about you and me? Does he know that you're used goods?" Declan asked viciously.
"Yes, he knows what you did to me, and I am NOT used goods." Lindsey said, her voice cracking and her tears threatening to fall down her cheeks.
"Is that what he told you? Well, the bastard is more patient than I thought. He's only after what I was after, Lindsey. That's all you're good for," Declan said, laughing at her. "But, I must say, you were GOOD," with this last word, Declan began to eye her eagerly.
Lindsey shivered under his hungry eyes. She wondered where Nigel was, and then a horrible thought came to mind. "What if Declan's right?" Lindsey wondered. "What if Nigel really does only want me for that? I mean, what else am I good for?" Lindsey asked herself, and the tears that she had been biting back broke and streamed silently down her face. "No, Lindsey, Nigel isn't like that, and you know it. Nigel loves you. It's taken you so long to believe that, don't let this bastard make you believe otherwise." She finally convinced herself that Declan was just trying to get to her. "You RAPED me! You didn't love me! Nigel loves me, and he would never hurt me. He isn't a COWARD like you are!!" Lindsey said, spitting the insults at him like bullets. She was through letting him manipulate her mind.
Declan locked his jaw. He was not too happy about what she had just said. He walked up to her, held her to him with his free hand, and forced a kiss on her. She tried to pull away, but he was too strong. He pulled back just far enough to look at her face. "You Bitch," he muttered, and with that he brought the broad side of the gun across her face, knocking her out.
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"Uh, Syd...I can't get the door open." Nigel said. He was obviously embarrassed. Sydney just gave him a warm smile. Then she put all of her weight into the door. It wouldn't budge.
"It's locked from inside the theatre!" Sydney stated incredulously. They were locked inside the lobby of the theatre.
"Someone must have locked them while we were outside," Aaron said. Nigel got a really sick feeling in the pit of his stomache. "It couldn't have been Lindsey. She doesn't have any keys," Aaron said, quickly discrediting the thought that they all were thinking, but didn't want to believe.
"Then, Lindsey's alone with whomever..." Nigel didn't want to finish his sentence. He immediately turned toward the doors to the theatre. They could see the inside of the theatre through the glass doors. They had tried breaking the glass, but they couldn't. "Damn safety features." Nigel muttered.
"There has to be another way out of here!" Sydney stomped in frustration. She searched her brain trying to figure something out. Suddenly, something that Lindsey said came to her mind."...trap door...the preservation team must have borded it up..." Remembering those words, Sydney remembered some of her own theatre history classes. "AHA!!" Sydney yelled, startling Nigel and Aaron. Nigel was sick with worry and didn't look too good.
"What is it, Syd?" Aaron asked. "Did you figure something out?" Aaron knew it sounded stupid, but it was the only thing he could think to say. He too was worried...about both Lindsey and Nigel. He also noticed that Nigel wasn't looking to healthy.
"We found that room through a trap door. That allowed the actors to give the illusion of disappearing and reappearing. Well, they had to have another way of getting back on stage besides coming up the same trap door, which means there are other exits, or in our case, entrances to that understage area. Now, I remember from my theatre history that these "exits" often times were outside the theatre. So, let's find one." Sydney had a smile on her face.
"Syd, alot has changed about this landscape over, oh, say, the last 2000 years!!!!!!!" Nigel stated with a biting tone.
"Yeah, like a lobby was built..." Sydney said still smiling. She saw realization dawning on both Nigel and Aaron's faces. They all three looked at each other before jumping up and scanning every fraction of the lobby in which they were contained.
"Just hold on, Lindsey." Nigel thought. "Please, God, let her be okay. Don't let anything happen to her," Nigel silently prayed.
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Lindsey woke up with an incredible feeling of pain on her face. She was laying on a dust covered ground. It took her a minute to remember where she was...and who she was with. She slowly sat up, and as her eyes focused, she saw Declan gently turning the pages of an old book. This suprised her because Lindsey didn't know that Declan could be gentle with anything. She saw bits of the wall on the ground, and realized that he was holding the 2000 year old book...the reason she was here...the reason she met Nigel...NIGEL!! She suddenly began to panic with worry about him, Sydney and Aaron. Declan heard her stir, and turned to see her awake.
"Good Morning, beautiful." Declan said sneeringly. He saw her eyeing the book. "Yeah, she's a beauty too, isn't she? Thanks for finding her for me." He said. He gently put the book in an airtight bag, and placed it in a bag near his feet. He walked over to her, as she sat herself upright and leaned her head against the wall. She felt like her head was going to explode. The look in his eyes didn't make her feel any better.
"What did you do to Nigel, Aaron, and Sydney?" Lindsey asked, dreading the answer. Declan just laughed.
"I didn't kill them, don't worry...but, they won't be coming to save you anytime soon! I've only gotten half of what I want, and I intend to get the other half right now." Declan said with a demented look. He crouched down to force a kiss hard against her lips. She tried to pull away, but he just grabbed her wrists and gripped them with such ferocity. Then she understood. He was the one that had attacked her that night in her apartment. He was the one who was pretending to be Nico, and most importantly, he was the one who almost killed her cousin. Declan pulled back from her.
"You're the one who attacked me in my apartment! You almost killed my cousin!!" she screamed. Declan looked at her as if she were stupid.
"Lindsey, for someone so intelligent, you can be completely thick sometimes," Declan uttered. "I'm a bit disappointed that you didn't figure that out until now." But, he didn't say anything else. He just dragged her from the wall onto the ground. She hit her head again, and she was almost rendered unconscious again, but it just dazed her a bit. She heard him unzipping his pants. She tried to move away from him, but she couldn't. Her limbs just wouldn't obey what she was telling them to do.
"Oh, God! He's going to rape me again." Lindsey thought with tears falling down her cheeks. "Well, if this is the way it has to be, then, so be it, but I WILL NOT let him ruin my life this time." Lindsey tried to convince herself. She wasn't doing a very good job. Her silent tears turned into sobs as Declan turned around to her. With one quick movement, Declan was on top of her forcing harsh kisses down her neck and up to her lips. Lindsey tried to fight and push him away, but he just hit her everytime she did.
"Haven't you noticed that I like the struggle?" Declan asked her as if she were stupid. "The more you fight, the more agressive I get. It turns me on." Declan just sneered at her. He looked her up and down. One of her legs, which were trembling uncontrollably, were sticking out of the slit in her skirt. He reached down and started to caress her leg, almost in the way a lover would. She flinched at his touch on her bare skin. He looked at her with a crazed look on his face, and ripped her skirt from the slit so that he exposed her underwear. Lindsey was still a little dazed from all of the blows to her head she took, and before she knew what was happening, Declan had begun to violate her. This time it was different. He was more harsh and violent this time.
Lindsey had flashbacks, but just closed her eyes, and started staring up at the trap door, looking at how the light entered the room. Anything to try to shut out what was happening to her...again. Nigel wasn't going to want her now. She thought about the first time she had wanted to make love to Nigel. That was the night that they had first translated all of the riddle. She stopped him when he started tugging at her bottoms, but instead of violating her, he stopped. He just held her all night. She thought about Nigel and about how she might have lost him forever now. All because of Declan. He had climbed off of her now, apparently finished. She suddenly became aware of her shirt being open and a harsh pain below her waist. She tried to lift herself off of the floor and lean back against the wall, and as she did so, she noticed a small puddle of a dark, thick liquid on the ground where she had been laying. She dipped her fingers in it, and held it up to the light. Blood. Lindsey passed out yet again when she realized that it was her blood.
Declan was standing now, fixing his trousers and shirt. He heard a slight whimper behind him and turned around to look at Lindsey. She had passed out. He too noticed the blood. "Damn." he thought. "I didn't know I was that good." With a smile he turned around only to stare straight down the barrel of his pistol.
"Drop this?" Sydney asked as she readied the pistol to fire if she had to. She immediately recognized him as Nico. Sydney glanced behind at Declan and saw Lindsey, and the state she was in. A rage filled Sydney like she had never felt before. "You sick son of a bitch," Sydney almost whispered. Declan just smiled.
"Yeah. Nigel really should have hit that when he had the chance...she was GOOD. I'm glad I got to hit that again." Declan just laughed this horrible laugh. Sydney had had about enough of him. She kicked him square in the jaw, knocking him out and causing him to fall to the floor. She ran over to Lindsey, to check on her.
"Lindsey? Can you hear me?" Sydney asked as she pulled her shirt closed and took her jacket and laid it over her to cover her. Lindsey opened her eyes and looked at Sydney. She wasn't scared because she knew those soft touches weren't Declan's.
"Sydney?" Lindsey croaked. She tried to sit up, but the pain in her head and below her waist was too much for her. "I'm so sorry. Declan...he just..." Lindsey began saying in a panic. Sydney tried to calm her down, but it didn't work. "Nigel...I'm so sorry...He's not going to want me now...I've lost him..." Lindsey said sobbing uncontrollably. Sydney stared at her in disbelief. This guy must have really screwed her up.
"Lindsey, Nigel isn't going to love you any less. He's been worried sick about you." Sydney said pulling the girl into a semi-hug, careful not to hurt her. She heard Nigel and Aaron bustle in.
"Sydney, there you are...where's..." Nigel's question trailed off as he saw a pair of legs sticking out behind Sydney. Then he saw the blood. He quickly glanced up at Sydney with a paniced look on his face. "Oh, no..." Nigel said as he ran over to them. He saw Lindsey's face and had to fight back a sob. She was horribly beaten. He went to push a few strands of hair off of her face, but she flinched under his touch. "She's scared of me..." he thought. "Lindsey, I'm not going to hurt you. I promise. I love you." he said gently.
"Nigel, I'm so so sorry. It's all my fault. Declan, he...he.." and with that, she started sobbing again. Nigel couldn't believe what he had just heard. Declan...the guy who raped her the first time.
"Who is Declan?" Sydney asked. She had heard her call him that earlier and wondered why. She had put two and two together and figured out that this Declan guy must have raped her before because he said "again" right before she knocked him out. Nigel explained everything, all the while he held Lindsey's head in his lap and comforted her. Sydney nodded in understanding and turned to look at Declan laying on the ground. He was coming to, but he took a nasty blow to the head. Aaron took the gun and pointed it at him. Aaron was hurting on the inside too. He had known Lindsey forever, and she had never told him. Now, this guy was here and Aaron wanted nothing more than to pull the trigger, but no, that would not be punishment enough for him.
"Lindsey, this is not your fault...nor was it the last time." Aaron said sympathetically, not taking his eyes off of Declan. Sydney had just finished phoning an Ambulance and the police. Within a few seconds, they heard sirens in the distance. By now, Declan was wide awake, and Aaron had made him get up and walk over to the trap door. He and Sydney were going to take Declan to the police. As Declan passed Lindsey and Nigel, he looked down at them.
"Nigel, buddy...you don't know what your missing...you should have hit that when you had the chance." Declan sneered demonically. Nigel saw red. He had a look of hatred in his usually kind, gentle eyes that Lindsey had never seen before. He gently lay Lindsey down on the ground and looked at her. Then he looked up at Declan and was about to stand up to harm Declan, but Lindsey reached out to touch his arm. Nigel looked back down at her, and his eyes immediately softened.
"Nigel, please don't. He's not worth it." Lindsey whispered. Nigel couldn't hold back the tears any longer. He picked her back up and cradled her yet again.
"Oh, Lindsey. I love you so much." Nigel was now weeping openly. Aaron and Sydney took this as their cue to take Declan up to meet the police.
Lindsey just looked at Nigel's eyes. They were full of love, compassion, and...hurt. Hurt? Lindsey felt so badly. She felt like this was her fault. But before she could say anything, Nigel started.
"Lindsey, love, I'm so sorry. This is all my fault. I should have never left you alone." he stammered. Lindsey stared in disbelief. He was hurt because he felt like this was his fault. Lindsey knew then that Nigel really did love her. Declan was wrong. She cried silent tears.
"Nigel..." Lindsey began. She looked up at him and carressed his cheek with her hand and brushed the hair away from his eyes. He turned into her hand and closed his eyes. He kissed the palm of her hand and held it to his cheek. "This is not your fault. You couldn't help this." Nigel opened his eyes and looked at her.
"I'm never going to let anyone hurt you again. Lindsey, I love you so much." Nigel said.
"I love you too, Nigel." Lindsey said. She began shivering violently. Nigel realized that she was going into shock. He looked down and saw a huge stain across Sydney's coat and all over the ground around Lindsey. It was growing.
"Oh, no! She's still bleeding!" thought Nigel. He looked back up at her face, and Lindsey was unconscious. Just then, the paramedics arrived. Sydney had reentered the room and took Nigel away from Lindsey so the paramedics could do their work. She lead him comfortingly away from them and out of the trap door. He rode in the ambulance with her holding her hand the entire way. He sat outside in the waiting room at the hospital until the doctor told him what was wrong.
"Nigel, she's going to be okay. She lost a lot of blood, but she'll be just fine. Our main concern now is her ability to have children. There was much damage done to her internally. We repaired as much as we could, but even if we were successful in abling them to function again, there will still be a vast amount of scar tissue, making it extremely difficult for her to get preganate. I feel that she will be able to have children, but she will probably need to seek outside help, and her pregnancy will need to be monitered very carefully." The doctor looked very solomonly at Nigel.
"Does she know this?" Nigel asked. Lindsey loved children, and he knew that she wanted them one day.
"Yes, I've told her this already. But, I thought that you should know too. She told me I could tell you. You may go in and see her now." The doctor patted Nigel on the shoulder and gave him a week smile. Never in all of his medical career had he seen such a malicious act of rape. She was lucky to be alive.
Nigel walked into the room to see Lindsey sitting up on the bed. She was bruised from head to toe, the bruises more noticable against her pale skin. "Lindsey?" he spoke softly. She looked over and smiled softly. Even the huge bruise on her face didn't keep her smile from making her look beautiful. He could tell that she'd been crying. Her smile quickly faded when she saw the look on Nigel's face.
"I suppose the doctor told you." she said very quitely. Nigel nodded. Lindsey just hung her head and looked away from him. She couldn't face those pain filled eyes...not just yet. "Then I suppose that you don't want to see me anymore." She said with pain and tears in her voice. Nigel just let his mouth gape open. He couldn't believe this.
"Why would you think that?" he asked. Lindsey turned to look at him.
"I know how much you wanted children, and I may not be able to give them to you. You deserve someone who can give you what you want, Nigel." Lindsey looked at him with tears in her eyes.
"All I want is you." he said. "Yes, I would love to have children with you one day, but even if you can't physically have them yourself, we can always adopt. Lindsey, I love you." He had grasped her hand and held it tightly. Lindsey didn't know what to say.
"I love you, too." She cried and they embraced. Nigel pulled away after a minute and pulled something out of his bag. He handed it to Lindsey.
"What's this?" she asked. She opened it up, and saw the 2000 year old book. Her eyes lit up, and that familiar fire she used to have in them was back. She looked at Nigel in disbelief.
"I thought that you might want to look at it before it goes to the museum. You did, after all, find it. You deserve it." Nigel looked at his girlfriend with so much love, Lindsey almost fainted yet again.
Lindsey left the hospital a week later and returned home. Jen and Jake tried to make a fuss over her, and Aaron insisted in taking vacation leave to come help take care of her, too. He knew that as much as Nigel, Jen, Jake, and Sydney wanted to take care of her, they were needed at school. Eventually, Lindsey made Aaron go back to work and finally got everyone to stop fussing over her. Well, everyone except Nigel, that is. She just wanted to live the rest of the year out in peace...and that's exactly what she did.
A/N: I'm so sorry it took me so long to update this. But, there will be an epilogue chapter, so it's not quite finished yet!! Just one more chapter to go!!! =) Thank you to all of my reviewers, and don't forget to R&R yet again!! =)
