DISCLAIMER: I don´t own ´em, wish I did but I don´t. No I don´t mean to
break any laws or anything by doing this so please, please spare the life
of a poor and struggling would-be author.
AUTHOR´S NOTE: This one is, I think a bit longer than the rest but hopefully it won´t be too much of a dissapointment. Keep those comments, good and bad, coming ´cause they do actually help. Thanks a lot!
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What one needed to understand was that it wasn´t that they wouldn´t treat Katya like a human being, it was the fact that such an extraordinary talent could not possibly be left in the hands of one. Humans are flawed creatures, and so something so perfect would never be found inside a flawed casing. That was the reasoning behind it all. It was a matter of choosing between the greater good and the welfare of a single individual, the choice was simple, and there wasn´t much to debate about it really.
This was the way Mr. and Mrs. Sonns looked at life in general. Their families had always been involved with the finding, raising and caring of healers. Mrs. Sonns´mother herself had even helped by housing five healers during her lifetime. It was something like a family tradition to them. They had been preparing all their lives for this, they had never left "the community", they´d always kept low profiles, they even agreed never to have children of their own, for the sake of "the community".
"The community" was what they called the system into which healers where brought up. It consisted usually of five to ten families, all living and working together in an isolated area. Most marriages where arranged, so that the family traditon may be held up. Of the families, only two have the right to ever take in healers and raise them. The rest of the families are in charge of making sure healers always have plenty of people to help. The price for even seeing a healer was very high, but it was also worth it, after all, there wasn´t anything a healer hadn´t been able to cure yet.
To take in and raise a healer meant holding all power within your grasp. Because of the problems this brought, only one healer was ever put to use at a time, the minimun age difference between one and the other had to at least be 17 years, so that only one family profits from the healer at a time. Healers are also very well educated, the illusion of them being "just people" is too important, they must not be found out by anyone outside "the community" and those they provide a service too. Secrecy is very important for two reasons, one, outsiders might take them for research instead of healing, and two, outsiders might set healers free. It is very important that healers remain with their "family" all their lives. They are never allowed to leave "the community" property, they do not socialize and they do not make any choice over their own lives.
The only possible exception to this was when healers were hard to find, if there wasn´t a new healer found in 25 years, then "the community" often opted for trying to produce a healer. It was the only time when a healer ever became part of a family by marriage. Children were expected immediately and would only stop when one was born a healer. According to "the community", the chances of producing a healer child was almost fifty percent, so usually there were no more than two to four children per healer. Those who were born to the healer without being one themselves were taken away, raised in other adoptive homes and later married to some other healer. These children were taken in and raised to serve "the community".
It was a perfectly closed system. In fact, according to the Sonns family, it was perfect period. That was until the day that Peter and Margaret Sonns became the proud "parents" of a six year old named Katalina. Katalina was always too independent for her own good, she even insisted on calling herself Katya, she never reffered to herself otherwise and most times didn´t even answer to her full name. At first, the Sonns believed that she would grow out of it and soon understand her true purpose on earth, but she never did and was almost too much trouble to bear. It was about a year after she was adopted that the Sonns decided to take in another child, a normal child, to see if that would calm down the girl. It didn´t, she immediately grew very attached to the two year old boy, but she still refused to do her duty. She was still a child and not yet allowed to heal major injuries or illness, but she still had plenty of work to do. Katya was nine years old when the Sonns lost all patience for the girl and began taking harsher measures.
At first all they did was lock Katya in a closet. She would sit there all day and all night, and the following morning when she was taken out, she still refused to obey. The Sonns soon realized that what was needed for the girl to work properly was the proper use of force, against someone else. The girl seemed overly fond of living things and people around her, so the Sonns started locking up her adoptive brother in the closet instead. She started working better, but still not good enough. After the beatings started, Katya soon became the best healer the Sonns had ever seen. Yet it seemed she was still too rebelious and whenever she could she would sneak out of her home, wonder along the property and hide out all afternoon, along with her brother. The Sonns rose again to meet the challenge, they simply began beating and locking other children she was fond of, ones who did not live in her house and so she had little opportunity to sneak them out as well.
It was at this point that Katya stopped fighting them. She was quiet and quick, just as a healer should be. She didn´t refuse orders and she did not sneak out anymore. She was still extremely angry and as a result she often did not do as good a job as she could, and so the beatings on her brother never really stopped. The Sonns had no problems with this, the boy was not their own flesh and blood and it was, in the end, for the greater good. Life was settling back to normal when one night, Katya started sneaking out again. It was only the third time they had caught her, but everyone suspected she had been sneaking out for a very long time. They´d had patience, thinking that her own brother would soon beg her to stop leaving the house. They soon found out it was the boy who often convinced her to go.
It seemed to the Sonns that the more they beat the boy, the worse Katya worked. They where just about to relieve her of her duties as healer, wait for her to grow up a bit more and marry her off, when an opportunity arose which they could not pass up. It seemed a very important man living in New York City was dying. This man learned of Katya and her unusual abilities and in a moment of desperation went to see her. The Sonns were more than happy to promise Katya´s services for a price. The man payed the standard fee and promised his frienship to "the community" if he was cured. He was, of course, and soon the Sonns were in a position of great power, many people in the "higher levels" of society soon heard of the girl and she began making more money for "the community" than any other healer before.
The Sonns were incredibly proud, and rich, but Katya refused to do her duty. It was at this point when things started crossing the line. Katya was caught one more time sneaking out of the house, this time with not only her brother, who was five, but with her cousin, the daugher of Mrs. Sonn´s sister. Katya had just turned 10, she only knew it because she had found her adoption papers, after spending so much time locked up inside the closet. She knew practically everything about the Sonns, she didn´t have much else to do in that closet but read whatever papers she could find, by the little light that came through the crooked door. It was on this day that Katya realized that the people she was living with were truly beyond evil.
It being her birthday and all, her little brother had decided to make it a special day. He helped her sneak out early in the afternoon, it was the best gift he could give to Katya. They had been out all afternoon and it was getting dark already, but they didn´t really care. They had taken Katya´s cousin along only because the three year old girl kept following them, and if left behind began making noise. It had been a good afternoon, they´d gotten on the strongest horse out in the paddock and ridden him bareback all the way to the other side of the property. Afterwards they´d walked all the way back and when the house was in sight they´d climbed a tree and sat on the highest branches. Katya´s cousin slowed them down quite a bit but they managed just fine in the end. When the sun had already set and only the last failing light of the afternoon was left, the Sonns realized Katya was gone, as well as the other two children.
They started looking for them, but it was no good. They didn´t know how long they had been out and they could be anywhere in the property at that point. After three hours of searching they finally gave up, it seemed to Katya they might have a chance of getting away with it when it happened. Her little cousin, who suddenly woke up after falling asleep between the other two, started crying. Everyone heard it and it didn´t take long for the adults to find the three children up on the tree. It also didn´t take them long to get them down. Once on the floor however, the problems continued. It was the first time Katya ever attacked another person.
She was being held by her "mother", her brother was being pushed into the house, and her cousin was being carried to her own home. Katya decided she´d had enough, she grabbed her mother´s hand and bit it, hard. She was immediately released and she ran to her brother, took his hand and pulled him out of their "father´s" grip. She ran blindly into the darkness. Since they knew they couldn´t actually outrun anyone, they opted for hiding. Katya and her brother did not count on the grownups being vile creatures at that moment. Instead of looking for them, the Sonns did what always worked best with the girl, they decided to pick on somebody else. The only other person there Katya cared about was her little cousin.
At first they only held her, squeezing her little arm until she began kicking and screaming, but all too soon it turned into something else. The toddler wouldn´t shut up and so Peter Sonns slapped her, hard. Very hard. Blood started coming from the childs lip and nose, but still Katya did not come out. In her head, the three year old would get a beating, nothing more, if she played it right, she could run away right then and there, with her brother. In the mind of a ten year old child, that seemed like the most logical course of action. She did not move from her hiding place.
Peter Sonns started loosing his patience, as he often did, only this time it was worse. His head started throbbing and all he could hear was the crying three year old, all he could feel was frustration as he realized this healer was no good, all he could think of was the fact that he needed to fix the problem...now. Maybe if he´d thought it through he wouldn´t of acted that way, but by the time he realized this it was too late. He picked up the little girl by the neck, and dropped her. Something cracked and the child only screamed louder and louder, Peter Sonns´ headache suddenly exploted. He saw nothing and felt nothing, except the awful need to silence the child and get Katya back into the house. He watched the girl he´d just dropped on the ground, unmoving but screaming, he faced her, he stretched his leg backwards and thrust if forward with all the force he had.
It was no different than kicking a soccer ball. The bundle lifted off the ground and rolled away. The child was still, Katya came out running, she was furious. But Peter Sonns was not done yet, he walked over to his now uncounscious niece and made a ball with his fist. The impact against the girls head crached his wrist. Pain shot through his arm but it seemed to him it had happened to someone else, as if he was just a spectator. Katya reached the body and he grabbed her. He pulled her away, the ten year old screaming to be let go, she fought with every ounce of strength she had, she only stopped when she felt her little cousin´s mind go out forever.
She was dragged into the house and instructed to heal Peter Sonns´ injury. She did so, with all the hatred she could hold. Her brother was found shortly after, he was deathly white and refused to speak, eat or even drink for several days. It was only when he was almost dying that they where able to feed him. He recovered, but was never the same again. Neither was Katya. She didn´t speak and she didn´t refuse anymore, not even when she herself was sick from healing so many people. After that, she never spoke another word for five years, except to her brother and even that was in hushed whispers. The silence was bliss for the Sonns, who buried their niece and never spoke of it again. In their minds it was a lamentable casualty, but it was, in the end, for the greater good. "The community" thought so too, not even the girl´s mother seemed to heartbroken. For the next five years, Katya didn´t speak and only worked. She felt horribly guilty, she felt she had killed her little cousin with her own hands. She saw no point in fighting anymore if it only got people she loved hurt or worse. It all changed when she met Sean.
A horse had run away, and Katya was sent to get it. She was a healer, and so, naturally handling any sort of animal, especially horses. She couldn´t complain about it, it was unbearably hot outside and she was sent out when the sun was burning, but going to find the horse on the extensive property meant she would be free for the entire afternoon. It wasn´t too hard, the horse was found and put back in the stalls in under an hour, but Katya suddenly realized everyone expected her to be gone the entire afternoon. She pushed back her guilt for the first time in five years and took off. This time she didn´t stop until she reached the fence at the end of the property. She´d already walked for about two and a half hours.
She was about to turn back when a voice stopped her. She turned around and she saw a boy, not much older than her on the other side of the fence. He was tall and had kind eyes. He was an outsider, with no clue as to whom he´d just met. Katya came close to the boy and poked into his mind. He never took his eyes off her. Katya decided to trust him, he had lost someone too. His parents had just died a few days before. They spent the rest of the day together, Sean on one side of the fence, Katya on the other. Sean did most of the talking, Katya hadn´t talked to anyone but her brother in five years, and she felt very strange. When it was getting dark and Katya turned to leave, she found herself wishing she didn´t have too. Her feelings soon overpowered her and she found herself making almost daily trips to the fence to meet Sean.
They soon became friends, and soon Sean crossed the fence and would walk with Katya along the edge of it. He never backed away when they touched. Everyone else she knew, even her brother, did Katya started trusting Sean, even confiding in him, about how they treated her, about how they beat her brother. She never told him why, but she knew it didn´t matter to him. He understood her and truly believed that no matter what she did or did not do, nothing justified what she went through. Six months after she met Sean, Katya awoke one night, she sat upright in bed with one single terrible thought in her head: she was pregnant.
In six months the Sonns had not caught Katya sneaking out once. This was mostly because they truly believed she´d changed and she had been assigned to work with the horses, which meant she spent a lot of time, nearly unsupervised, alone. All this would change if they found out she was pregnant, not because they´d care much about the child, but because she was "breeding" without permission. The first person she told was Sean, he was shocked, but told her that it might be a mistake. Katya knew it wasn´t, she was a healer, and healers always felt any change, no matter how little, in the atmosphere around them, needless to say, they instinctively knew about anything that happened within them. She was sure, and she was also sure she could not stay where she was if she was pregnant.
In the face of all this Sean had surprised her. After a couple of days he simply walked into the property, all the way to where Katya lived. He knocked on the door and proceeded to tell Mr. and Mrs. Sonns about Katya being pregnant. She didn´t even know Sean was going to do this, he´d promised her he would do nothing. Everyone in "the community" was in shock. Sean believed he could begin to make amends by offering to marry Katya and to move in with her. Mr. and Mrs. Sonns accepted only because they had no choice in the matter, but after the child was born and it was determined that it was not a healer, things started changing.
"The community" was desperate, Katya was the last healer they´d been able to find. The one they´d raised before had been married off, but she never had any children and she died very young after trying to heal a woman who was dying of pnemounia. The woman lived, but the healer died. A few months later Katya had come to live to "the community". For a while during Katya´s pregnancy, the families thought they might have a chance at another healer, the age difference would suffice, it being off only for about a year. But the child born was not a healer. In an act of desperation, it was decided that Katya must have more children, but not with the same father. The healer previous to Katya had been adopted with a brother, a twin. He was not a healer, but he had married and had adapted well to life inside "the community". He had one child, a boy named Tom. He had healer genes inside him. Tom and Katya were the same age, it was decided Katya must have children with Tom.
The matter was more easily said than done and Sean resisted from the beginning. Katya did too but her opinion did not matter, it never did. It took over a year and a half, but finally, Sean was given a substancial amount of money to take his daughter and leave. It was the only time his prescence was ever acknowledged as anything other than a nuisance around the "community". He was given enough money to make sure he never told anyone about Katya and what she was. It was all going as planned, until Sean took the money and left, with Katya. They wanted to go after them, they had to get the healer back into the place where she belonged, but it was too risky. They could not afford to involve outsiders, and they had never payed much attention to the boy. All they knew was that his name was Sean, and that he was no older than 19. They´d never even bothered to learn his last name. Despite all the centuries of holding power and for all their conexions, "the community" and the Sonns suddenly found themselves unable to bring back the healer.
It was a disastrous time. They immediately began searching for another healer but there were none to be found. The Sonns were disgraced within "the community" and their right to raise healers was taken away from them. They could no longer even find people to take to the healer, they were allowed to stay withing "the community" property only because they knew too much. The search for Katalina Sonns was never abandonded, but they knew she called herself by her married name, she was for all purposes lost, until one night there was a terrible accident in a small road. The news called it the "weirdest case being investigated by the NYPD". As Peter Sonns heard the story on the news, he new it was Katya. The condition of the boy, Sean Hovens, was because Katya had tried to heal too many too soon. Peter Sonns had smiled to himself, he was getting his healer back.
After that, the hospital was put under surveillance. They might have been in shambles, but their connections were still strong and they put them too good use. It didn´t take too long for the girl to show up, regretably, the police showed up too, as well as the FBI. It was the day Katya Hovens was taken into custody that she was supposed to be picked up and taken back to "the community". Now with the police quickly learning about what she was and what she had done, it was getting more and more difficult to get to her. The only chance they had, was to wait and see if she was released, and once the investigation was concluded, then they would make their move. All they needed to do was be careful, and plan all their moves very, very well. The first thing Peter Sonns did was find out who Katya still saw from her past, it was a short list and the only person who still knew anything about her was Dr. Pierce. The Sonns talked to him, and they knew he was hiding something. They also knew there was nothing to worry about, he would tell them in time, they had too much influence behind them.
As expected, Dr. Pierce did break, he arranged to meet the Sonns in their home, he had two weeks of vacations saved up. The Sonns suggested he take them, and Dr. Pierce accepted. It would soon be over, they would have the healer back and everything would be back on track, all they needed to do was be patient for a bit longer.
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Katya awoke with a start. She opened her eyes only to find total darkness around her. She was breathing hard and sweating, her heart was racing and her hands were cold, clamy and trembling. As she settled back against the wall she whispered one single word before she even realized it, "Kaia.". She closed her eyes, trying to force the tears back, but they wouldn´t, finally she opened her eyes and let them fall.
It was always the same nightmare, her birthday. She shuddered at the memory, she was now sitting less than 100 meters from where it had happened. Probably not much farther than where she was buried. She heard movement to her right and remembered who it was that she was sharing this space with. She straightened up and dried her tears, as if they could of seen her. She took a deep breath and calmed down. She thought maybe no one had noticed when there came a voice, it was Agent Scully.
"Kaia? Your daughter?" she asked. There was some concern in her voice, still Katya wasn´t entirely prepared to let perfect strangers into the worse memory of her life. After a few moments of silence she finally answered.
"No.", the answer surprised Scully. She had clearly heard Katya call her daughter´s name. She´d obviously been restless for a while, Scully figured it was a nightmare, but she had no idea how far she was or if it even was wise to rouse the girl in this situation. Silence began to settle again, but then Katya´s voice broke through once again, "My cousin...the one they killed...her name was Kaia. I never saw her cry until that day...", she took another deep breath and when she exhaled it was shaky. Scully knew better than to press the subject, she only hoped Det. Eames did as well.
Eames did know better than to press it, but this new information was making her head spin. Forgetting for a minute that this girl was claiming to be some sort of phsycic healer, she was plainly saying that she had witnessed a murder when she was ten years old. Eames tried to picture what it would be like to have witnessed that and still have to live with the murderer for another seven years. She couldn´t. She began to understand that it was irrelevant whether this girl was or not phsycic, she had been through a lot, and she was important enough for these people to risk kidnapping two police officers, one of them a federal agent. Eames got to her feet but didn´t move. They´d been locked in there for many, many hours, she still couldn´t breath properly (in fact she swore it was getting harder and harder by the minute) and all she could hope for by now was that someone would find them.
That was, in fact, the thought on everyone´s mind at that moment. It was pretty clear to them that they would not be touched unless absolutely necessary, they were on their own, but they were also trapped inside a hole with a door they could not open. It was a bit frustrating. After a few more minutes of silence Katya spoke up again. She couldn´t take the silence anymore, she could barely take the darkness. Her mind kept wondering to Sean and if she fell asleep all she had were nightmares. She decided she needed to talk, even if the other two didn´t want to.
"When Sean first came here, I thought maybe things would change. It´s not like you mean too, but when you live with a person for so long, you do kinda get to appreciate them. Even after my father killed Kaia...I couldn´t bring myself to fully believe he was all that evil. It was only when they tried to buy Sean off that I actually became convinced. We took the money and ran, I left everything here...I didn´t regret it though, only thing I would do different, I would of taken my brother along. I don´t know what happened to him, if he´s even still alive, or well..." She smiled even though the others couldn´t see it. She stood up and started pacing again, "He always made me laugh. He never thought we should give into them. It was like it was the two of us against the world, and he never believed we wouldn´t win."
"And you know I still don´t." The voice came from somewhere above them. They looked up, there was something sticking inside from one of the windows near the ceiling of the structure. They couldn´t actually make out any forms, but Katya held her breath for a second. She knew that voice!
"Eli!" She said. Relief was evident in her voice, "What the hell are you doing up there? You´ll get caught!"
"Caught big sister," replied Eli, "Is not something I´m fond off, so it´s not something I´m planning on doing," he dissapeared for a second but then came back, "Look I´m gonna try to get you out of here, but it won´t be easy we saw what they did to you but we´re gonna try anyways so just hold on."
Katya was confused, "What do you mean "we"?"
Eli half chuckled and cleared his throat, "Well eh...that´s kinda what I wanted to see ya about..uhm, well it´s a long story really but ah...while you were gone things happened and they found..."
Katya didn´t need to hear what it was they found. She already knew what it was, her voice dropped and only Scully and Eames were able to hear her, "Another healer.", she looked back up, "Eli...don´t worry."
With that the figure at the top disappeared. All the relief that Katya had felt just a moment ago seemed to have of gone and been replaced with the same panicky feeling as before. She started pacing again, after a while Eames lost all patience with her, if she wasn´t going to tell them what "they´d" found then she´d just have to ask herself. It took a few tries but she finally managed to step in Katya´s path, she was so occupied thinking about other things to notice until she slammed into Eames. Katya was startled and stood perfectly still, Eames cursed under her breath at the pain that shot through her entire body, when she recovered enough she questioned the girl.
"Who found what?"
Katya didn´t hesitate to answer this time, "Another child. Another healer. I don´t know who but not the ones who raised me, they probably had their rights revoked." She didn´t explain and continued pacing, but Eames was not done yet.
"And why didn´t you tell Eli or whoever not to worry?"
"Well it´s quite simple Detective. Eli is going to help us get out of here, and then we will take the child away from here." Her voice was hardened by resolve. Eames was about to argue against that but it would be of no use. It was insane to try to get out of there! And with a small child too? Eames couldn´t take more than a few steps without the pain being too much to bare and Scully couldn´t even stand! It was ridiculous, yet Eames couldn´t help but feel a small ray of hope at the possibility of this actually working.
AUTHOR´S NOTE: This one is, I think a bit longer than the rest but hopefully it won´t be too much of a dissapointment. Keep those comments, good and bad, coming ´cause they do actually help. Thanks a lot!
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What one needed to understand was that it wasn´t that they wouldn´t treat Katya like a human being, it was the fact that such an extraordinary talent could not possibly be left in the hands of one. Humans are flawed creatures, and so something so perfect would never be found inside a flawed casing. That was the reasoning behind it all. It was a matter of choosing between the greater good and the welfare of a single individual, the choice was simple, and there wasn´t much to debate about it really.
This was the way Mr. and Mrs. Sonns looked at life in general. Their families had always been involved with the finding, raising and caring of healers. Mrs. Sonns´mother herself had even helped by housing five healers during her lifetime. It was something like a family tradition to them. They had been preparing all their lives for this, they had never left "the community", they´d always kept low profiles, they even agreed never to have children of their own, for the sake of "the community".
"The community" was what they called the system into which healers where brought up. It consisted usually of five to ten families, all living and working together in an isolated area. Most marriages where arranged, so that the family traditon may be held up. Of the families, only two have the right to ever take in healers and raise them. The rest of the families are in charge of making sure healers always have plenty of people to help. The price for even seeing a healer was very high, but it was also worth it, after all, there wasn´t anything a healer hadn´t been able to cure yet.
To take in and raise a healer meant holding all power within your grasp. Because of the problems this brought, only one healer was ever put to use at a time, the minimun age difference between one and the other had to at least be 17 years, so that only one family profits from the healer at a time. Healers are also very well educated, the illusion of them being "just people" is too important, they must not be found out by anyone outside "the community" and those they provide a service too. Secrecy is very important for two reasons, one, outsiders might take them for research instead of healing, and two, outsiders might set healers free. It is very important that healers remain with their "family" all their lives. They are never allowed to leave "the community" property, they do not socialize and they do not make any choice over their own lives.
The only possible exception to this was when healers were hard to find, if there wasn´t a new healer found in 25 years, then "the community" often opted for trying to produce a healer. It was the only time when a healer ever became part of a family by marriage. Children were expected immediately and would only stop when one was born a healer. According to "the community", the chances of producing a healer child was almost fifty percent, so usually there were no more than two to four children per healer. Those who were born to the healer without being one themselves were taken away, raised in other adoptive homes and later married to some other healer. These children were taken in and raised to serve "the community".
It was a perfectly closed system. In fact, according to the Sonns family, it was perfect period. That was until the day that Peter and Margaret Sonns became the proud "parents" of a six year old named Katalina. Katalina was always too independent for her own good, she even insisted on calling herself Katya, she never reffered to herself otherwise and most times didn´t even answer to her full name. At first, the Sonns believed that she would grow out of it and soon understand her true purpose on earth, but she never did and was almost too much trouble to bear. It was about a year after she was adopted that the Sonns decided to take in another child, a normal child, to see if that would calm down the girl. It didn´t, she immediately grew very attached to the two year old boy, but she still refused to do her duty. She was still a child and not yet allowed to heal major injuries or illness, but she still had plenty of work to do. Katya was nine years old when the Sonns lost all patience for the girl and began taking harsher measures.
At first all they did was lock Katya in a closet. She would sit there all day and all night, and the following morning when she was taken out, she still refused to obey. The Sonns soon realized that what was needed for the girl to work properly was the proper use of force, against someone else. The girl seemed overly fond of living things and people around her, so the Sonns started locking up her adoptive brother in the closet instead. She started working better, but still not good enough. After the beatings started, Katya soon became the best healer the Sonns had ever seen. Yet it seemed she was still too rebelious and whenever she could she would sneak out of her home, wonder along the property and hide out all afternoon, along with her brother. The Sonns rose again to meet the challenge, they simply began beating and locking other children she was fond of, ones who did not live in her house and so she had little opportunity to sneak them out as well.
It was at this point that Katya stopped fighting them. She was quiet and quick, just as a healer should be. She didn´t refuse orders and she did not sneak out anymore. She was still extremely angry and as a result she often did not do as good a job as she could, and so the beatings on her brother never really stopped. The Sonns had no problems with this, the boy was not their own flesh and blood and it was, in the end, for the greater good. Life was settling back to normal when one night, Katya started sneaking out again. It was only the third time they had caught her, but everyone suspected she had been sneaking out for a very long time. They´d had patience, thinking that her own brother would soon beg her to stop leaving the house. They soon found out it was the boy who often convinced her to go.
It seemed to the Sonns that the more they beat the boy, the worse Katya worked. They where just about to relieve her of her duties as healer, wait for her to grow up a bit more and marry her off, when an opportunity arose which they could not pass up. It seemed a very important man living in New York City was dying. This man learned of Katya and her unusual abilities and in a moment of desperation went to see her. The Sonns were more than happy to promise Katya´s services for a price. The man payed the standard fee and promised his frienship to "the community" if he was cured. He was, of course, and soon the Sonns were in a position of great power, many people in the "higher levels" of society soon heard of the girl and she began making more money for "the community" than any other healer before.
The Sonns were incredibly proud, and rich, but Katya refused to do her duty. It was at this point when things started crossing the line. Katya was caught one more time sneaking out of the house, this time with not only her brother, who was five, but with her cousin, the daugher of Mrs. Sonn´s sister. Katya had just turned 10, she only knew it because she had found her adoption papers, after spending so much time locked up inside the closet. She knew practically everything about the Sonns, she didn´t have much else to do in that closet but read whatever papers she could find, by the little light that came through the crooked door. It was on this day that Katya realized that the people she was living with were truly beyond evil.
It being her birthday and all, her little brother had decided to make it a special day. He helped her sneak out early in the afternoon, it was the best gift he could give to Katya. They had been out all afternoon and it was getting dark already, but they didn´t really care. They had taken Katya´s cousin along only because the three year old girl kept following them, and if left behind began making noise. It had been a good afternoon, they´d gotten on the strongest horse out in the paddock and ridden him bareback all the way to the other side of the property. Afterwards they´d walked all the way back and when the house was in sight they´d climbed a tree and sat on the highest branches. Katya´s cousin slowed them down quite a bit but they managed just fine in the end. When the sun had already set and only the last failing light of the afternoon was left, the Sonns realized Katya was gone, as well as the other two children.
They started looking for them, but it was no good. They didn´t know how long they had been out and they could be anywhere in the property at that point. After three hours of searching they finally gave up, it seemed to Katya they might have a chance of getting away with it when it happened. Her little cousin, who suddenly woke up after falling asleep between the other two, started crying. Everyone heard it and it didn´t take long for the adults to find the three children up on the tree. It also didn´t take them long to get them down. Once on the floor however, the problems continued. It was the first time Katya ever attacked another person.
She was being held by her "mother", her brother was being pushed into the house, and her cousin was being carried to her own home. Katya decided she´d had enough, she grabbed her mother´s hand and bit it, hard. She was immediately released and she ran to her brother, took his hand and pulled him out of their "father´s" grip. She ran blindly into the darkness. Since they knew they couldn´t actually outrun anyone, they opted for hiding. Katya and her brother did not count on the grownups being vile creatures at that moment. Instead of looking for them, the Sonns did what always worked best with the girl, they decided to pick on somebody else. The only other person there Katya cared about was her little cousin.
At first they only held her, squeezing her little arm until she began kicking and screaming, but all too soon it turned into something else. The toddler wouldn´t shut up and so Peter Sonns slapped her, hard. Very hard. Blood started coming from the childs lip and nose, but still Katya did not come out. In her head, the three year old would get a beating, nothing more, if she played it right, she could run away right then and there, with her brother. In the mind of a ten year old child, that seemed like the most logical course of action. She did not move from her hiding place.
Peter Sonns started loosing his patience, as he often did, only this time it was worse. His head started throbbing and all he could hear was the crying three year old, all he could feel was frustration as he realized this healer was no good, all he could think of was the fact that he needed to fix the problem...now. Maybe if he´d thought it through he wouldn´t of acted that way, but by the time he realized this it was too late. He picked up the little girl by the neck, and dropped her. Something cracked and the child only screamed louder and louder, Peter Sonns´ headache suddenly exploted. He saw nothing and felt nothing, except the awful need to silence the child and get Katya back into the house. He watched the girl he´d just dropped on the ground, unmoving but screaming, he faced her, he stretched his leg backwards and thrust if forward with all the force he had.
It was no different than kicking a soccer ball. The bundle lifted off the ground and rolled away. The child was still, Katya came out running, she was furious. But Peter Sonns was not done yet, he walked over to his now uncounscious niece and made a ball with his fist. The impact against the girls head crached his wrist. Pain shot through his arm but it seemed to him it had happened to someone else, as if he was just a spectator. Katya reached the body and he grabbed her. He pulled her away, the ten year old screaming to be let go, she fought with every ounce of strength she had, she only stopped when she felt her little cousin´s mind go out forever.
She was dragged into the house and instructed to heal Peter Sonns´ injury. She did so, with all the hatred she could hold. Her brother was found shortly after, he was deathly white and refused to speak, eat or even drink for several days. It was only when he was almost dying that they where able to feed him. He recovered, but was never the same again. Neither was Katya. She didn´t speak and she didn´t refuse anymore, not even when she herself was sick from healing so many people. After that, she never spoke another word for five years, except to her brother and even that was in hushed whispers. The silence was bliss for the Sonns, who buried their niece and never spoke of it again. In their minds it was a lamentable casualty, but it was, in the end, for the greater good. "The community" thought so too, not even the girl´s mother seemed to heartbroken. For the next five years, Katya didn´t speak and only worked. She felt horribly guilty, she felt she had killed her little cousin with her own hands. She saw no point in fighting anymore if it only got people she loved hurt or worse. It all changed when she met Sean.
A horse had run away, and Katya was sent to get it. She was a healer, and so, naturally handling any sort of animal, especially horses. She couldn´t complain about it, it was unbearably hot outside and she was sent out when the sun was burning, but going to find the horse on the extensive property meant she would be free for the entire afternoon. It wasn´t too hard, the horse was found and put back in the stalls in under an hour, but Katya suddenly realized everyone expected her to be gone the entire afternoon. She pushed back her guilt for the first time in five years and took off. This time she didn´t stop until she reached the fence at the end of the property. She´d already walked for about two and a half hours.
She was about to turn back when a voice stopped her. She turned around and she saw a boy, not much older than her on the other side of the fence. He was tall and had kind eyes. He was an outsider, with no clue as to whom he´d just met. Katya came close to the boy and poked into his mind. He never took his eyes off her. Katya decided to trust him, he had lost someone too. His parents had just died a few days before. They spent the rest of the day together, Sean on one side of the fence, Katya on the other. Sean did most of the talking, Katya hadn´t talked to anyone but her brother in five years, and she felt very strange. When it was getting dark and Katya turned to leave, she found herself wishing she didn´t have too. Her feelings soon overpowered her and she found herself making almost daily trips to the fence to meet Sean.
They soon became friends, and soon Sean crossed the fence and would walk with Katya along the edge of it. He never backed away when they touched. Everyone else she knew, even her brother, did Katya started trusting Sean, even confiding in him, about how they treated her, about how they beat her brother. She never told him why, but she knew it didn´t matter to him. He understood her and truly believed that no matter what she did or did not do, nothing justified what she went through. Six months after she met Sean, Katya awoke one night, she sat upright in bed with one single terrible thought in her head: she was pregnant.
In six months the Sonns had not caught Katya sneaking out once. This was mostly because they truly believed she´d changed and she had been assigned to work with the horses, which meant she spent a lot of time, nearly unsupervised, alone. All this would change if they found out she was pregnant, not because they´d care much about the child, but because she was "breeding" without permission. The first person she told was Sean, he was shocked, but told her that it might be a mistake. Katya knew it wasn´t, she was a healer, and healers always felt any change, no matter how little, in the atmosphere around them, needless to say, they instinctively knew about anything that happened within them. She was sure, and she was also sure she could not stay where she was if she was pregnant.
In the face of all this Sean had surprised her. After a couple of days he simply walked into the property, all the way to where Katya lived. He knocked on the door and proceeded to tell Mr. and Mrs. Sonns about Katya being pregnant. She didn´t even know Sean was going to do this, he´d promised her he would do nothing. Everyone in "the community" was in shock. Sean believed he could begin to make amends by offering to marry Katya and to move in with her. Mr. and Mrs. Sonns accepted only because they had no choice in the matter, but after the child was born and it was determined that it was not a healer, things started changing.
"The community" was desperate, Katya was the last healer they´d been able to find. The one they´d raised before had been married off, but she never had any children and she died very young after trying to heal a woman who was dying of pnemounia. The woman lived, but the healer died. A few months later Katya had come to live to "the community". For a while during Katya´s pregnancy, the families thought they might have a chance at another healer, the age difference would suffice, it being off only for about a year. But the child born was not a healer. In an act of desperation, it was decided that Katya must have more children, but not with the same father. The healer previous to Katya had been adopted with a brother, a twin. He was not a healer, but he had married and had adapted well to life inside "the community". He had one child, a boy named Tom. He had healer genes inside him. Tom and Katya were the same age, it was decided Katya must have children with Tom.
The matter was more easily said than done and Sean resisted from the beginning. Katya did too but her opinion did not matter, it never did. It took over a year and a half, but finally, Sean was given a substancial amount of money to take his daughter and leave. It was the only time his prescence was ever acknowledged as anything other than a nuisance around the "community". He was given enough money to make sure he never told anyone about Katya and what she was. It was all going as planned, until Sean took the money and left, with Katya. They wanted to go after them, they had to get the healer back into the place where she belonged, but it was too risky. They could not afford to involve outsiders, and they had never payed much attention to the boy. All they knew was that his name was Sean, and that he was no older than 19. They´d never even bothered to learn his last name. Despite all the centuries of holding power and for all their conexions, "the community" and the Sonns suddenly found themselves unable to bring back the healer.
It was a disastrous time. They immediately began searching for another healer but there were none to be found. The Sonns were disgraced within "the community" and their right to raise healers was taken away from them. They could no longer even find people to take to the healer, they were allowed to stay withing "the community" property only because they knew too much. The search for Katalina Sonns was never abandonded, but they knew she called herself by her married name, she was for all purposes lost, until one night there was a terrible accident in a small road. The news called it the "weirdest case being investigated by the NYPD". As Peter Sonns heard the story on the news, he new it was Katya. The condition of the boy, Sean Hovens, was because Katya had tried to heal too many too soon. Peter Sonns had smiled to himself, he was getting his healer back.
After that, the hospital was put under surveillance. They might have been in shambles, but their connections were still strong and they put them too good use. It didn´t take too long for the girl to show up, regretably, the police showed up too, as well as the FBI. It was the day Katya Hovens was taken into custody that she was supposed to be picked up and taken back to "the community". Now with the police quickly learning about what she was and what she had done, it was getting more and more difficult to get to her. The only chance they had, was to wait and see if she was released, and once the investigation was concluded, then they would make their move. All they needed to do was be careful, and plan all their moves very, very well. The first thing Peter Sonns did was find out who Katya still saw from her past, it was a short list and the only person who still knew anything about her was Dr. Pierce. The Sonns talked to him, and they knew he was hiding something. They also knew there was nothing to worry about, he would tell them in time, they had too much influence behind them.
As expected, Dr. Pierce did break, he arranged to meet the Sonns in their home, he had two weeks of vacations saved up. The Sonns suggested he take them, and Dr. Pierce accepted. It would soon be over, they would have the healer back and everything would be back on track, all they needed to do was be patient for a bit longer.
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Katya awoke with a start. She opened her eyes only to find total darkness around her. She was breathing hard and sweating, her heart was racing and her hands were cold, clamy and trembling. As she settled back against the wall she whispered one single word before she even realized it, "Kaia.". She closed her eyes, trying to force the tears back, but they wouldn´t, finally she opened her eyes and let them fall.
It was always the same nightmare, her birthday. She shuddered at the memory, she was now sitting less than 100 meters from where it had happened. Probably not much farther than where she was buried. She heard movement to her right and remembered who it was that she was sharing this space with. She straightened up and dried her tears, as if they could of seen her. She took a deep breath and calmed down. She thought maybe no one had noticed when there came a voice, it was Agent Scully.
"Kaia? Your daughter?" she asked. There was some concern in her voice, still Katya wasn´t entirely prepared to let perfect strangers into the worse memory of her life. After a few moments of silence she finally answered.
"No.", the answer surprised Scully. She had clearly heard Katya call her daughter´s name. She´d obviously been restless for a while, Scully figured it was a nightmare, but she had no idea how far she was or if it even was wise to rouse the girl in this situation. Silence began to settle again, but then Katya´s voice broke through once again, "My cousin...the one they killed...her name was Kaia. I never saw her cry until that day...", she took another deep breath and when she exhaled it was shaky. Scully knew better than to press the subject, she only hoped Det. Eames did as well.
Eames did know better than to press it, but this new information was making her head spin. Forgetting for a minute that this girl was claiming to be some sort of phsycic healer, she was plainly saying that she had witnessed a murder when she was ten years old. Eames tried to picture what it would be like to have witnessed that and still have to live with the murderer for another seven years. She couldn´t. She began to understand that it was irrelevant whether this girl was or not phsycic, she had been through a lot, and she was important enough for these people to risk kidnapping two police officers, one of them a federal agent. Eames got to her feet but didn´t move. They´d been locked in there for many, many hours, she still couldn´t breath properly (in fact she swore it was getting harder and harder by the minute) and all she could hope for by now was that someone would find them.
That was, in fact, the thought on everyone´s mind at that moment. It was pretty clear to them that they would not be touched unless absolutely necessary, they were on their own, but they were also trapped inside a hole with a door they could not open. It was a bit frustrating. After a few more minutes of silence Katya spoke up again. She couldn´t take the silence anymore, she could barely take the darkness. Her mind kept wondering to Sean and if she fell asleep all she had were nightmares. She decided she needed to talk, even if the other two didn´t want to.
"When Sean first came here, I thought maybe things would change. It´s not like you mean too, but when you live with a person for so long, you do kinda get to appreciate them. Even after my father killed Kaia...I couldn´t bring myself to fully believe he was all that evil. It was only when they tried to buy Sean off that I actually became convinced. We took the money and ran, I left everything here...I didn´t regret it though, only thing I would do different, I would of taken my brother along. I don´t know what happened to him, if he´s even still alive, or well..." She smiled even though the others couldn´t see it. She stood up and started pacing again, "He always made me laugh. He never thought we should give into them. It was like it was the two of us against the world, and he never believed we wouldn´t win."
"And you know I still don´t." The voice came from somewhere above them. They looked up, there was something sticking inside from one of the windows near the ceiling of the structure. They couldn´t actually make out any forms, but Katya held her breath for a second. She knew that voice!
"Eli!" She said. Relief was evident in her voice, "What the hell are you doing up there? You´ll get caught!"
"Caught big sister," replied Eli, "Is not something I´m fond off, so it´s not something I´m planning on doing," he dissapeared for a second but then came back, "Look I´m gonna try to get you out of here, but it won´t be easy we saw what they did to you but we´re gonna try anyways so just hold on."
Katya was confused, "What do you mean "we"?"
Eli half chuckled and cleared his throat, "Well eh...that´s kinda what I wanted to see ya about..uhm, well it´s a long story really but ah...while you were gone things happened and they found..."
Katya didn´t need to hear what it was they found. She already knew what it was, her voice dropped and only Scully and Eames were able to hear her, "Another healer.", she looked back up, "Eli...don´t worry."
With that the figure at the top disappeared. All the relief that Katya had felt just a moment ago seemed to have of gone and been replaced with the same panicky feeling as before. She started pacing again, after a while Eames lost all patience with her, if she wasn´t going to tell them what "they´d" found then she´d just have to ask herself. It took a few tries but she finally managed to step in Katya´s path, she was so occupied thinking about other things to notice until she slammed into Eames. Katya was startled and stood perfectly still, Eames cursed under her breath at the pain that shot through her entire body, when she recovered enough she questioned the girl.
"Who found what?"
Katya didn´t hesitate to answer this time, "Another child. Another healer. I don´t know who but not the ones who raised me, they probably had their rights revoked." She didn´t explain and continued pacing, but Eames was not done yet.
"And why didn´t you tell Eli or whoever not to worry?"
"Well it´s quite simple Detective. Eli is going to help us get out of here, and then we will take the child away from here." Her voice was hardened by resolve. Eames was about to argue against that but it would be of no use. It was insane to try to get out of there! And with a small child too? Eames couldn´t take more than a few steps without the pain being too much to bare and Scully couldn´t even stand! It was ridiculous, yet Eames couldn´t help but feel a small ray of hope at the possibility of this actually working.