They hit the street, walking towards a small park about six blocks from
where Lifeline had grown up. Neither one of them says anything, but you
could see the tension crackling between the pair. They both make a special
effort not to touch the other one.
They find an unoccupied picnic table away from prying eyes. He sits down across from her, not looking her way.
"I need to explain what the heck is going on between us, little fox. And I need to discuss with you where we're going from here."
She looks at him and sees how hard he is shaking. She reaches out and takes his hands, helping to still their trembling. She'd never seen him this nervous before. He'd always been the calmest one out of the entire medical group no matter what happened.
This was starting to make her nervous. Actually, she was past nervous, it was starting to creep her out.
"While we were at that convention in Atlantic City, the medical center where it was being held was taken hostage by a group of terrorists. How much of it do you remember?" he asks.
"Up to where I was coming out of the bathroom stall after they'd separated us and something hit me across the back of the head, twice. When I still didn't go down, they injected some kind of sedative, I guess it was, into my arm." She starts rubbing her arm where it had happened. "Freaking idiot hit the vein, and that's the last I remember. Well, until the dreams, that is."
"What dreams?"
"After that, I started having these weird dreams about you doing things to me. Things I knew that you wouldn't dare to do." She blushes in embarrassment as she recalls what happened in those dreams.
He squeezes her hand. "In those dreams, was I... forcing you to have sex with me?" he asks, quietly.
She reddens even more, closes her eyes and nods, ashamed of remembering what went on in those dreams. He sighs heavily, and takes a deep breath.
"It wasn't a dream, sweetheart. God knows that I didn't want to do it, but it was a case of them or me, and I didn't want you to be hurt as much as you had been in your past. They might have had who knows what kinds of diseases, and they all had the cold-blooded killer look about them. They had a gun to my head, Kit. I didn't want to do it. They forced me to do it. I tried to make it as painless and as pleasurable as possible for you as I could."
"Somewhere in the back of my mind, Captain, I knew that. After the drug wore off and I came awake enough to know what was actually going on, I went into shock, didn't I?"
He nods. "And there's something else, something very important that I have to tell you. This is why I have to know where we're heading in our relationship."
He pauses and she looks at him. He is staring at an ant pile on the ground near the table. "What is it? What's wrong?"
"Kit, when I climaxed, I was planning on pulling out and spilling myself on the floor or the cot, but they wouldn't let me. Whenever I tried to pull out, the leader put his boot on the small of my back and forced me to stay inside you. He forced me to spill my seed inside of you. More than once. There's a good chance that you're pregnant with my child now."
She sits there, stunned, and audibly swallows.
"I know that you can never forgive me for this, and I am so sorry, little fox. I'll never regret anything as much as I do this. I figured that when we got back to the base, that you would ask for a transfer to another unit, and I can't blame you for that. I know that you probably don't want anything to do with me, now, after what I did. All I ask is that if you do ask for a transfer, that you keep in touch. The only thing I can say is that it just wouldn't be as lively there without you."
"Well, as you can see," she spoke softly, "I was in no condition to do much of anything when we got back to the base. And believe it or not, Lifeline, I do forgive you. It wasn't your fault. You didn't do it because you wanted to, but you did it in order to make it easier for me. You may have had to rape me, but it was done under duress. I don't blame you, Captain. I blame them. In fact, I was kinda glad it was you, and I still am. It could have been much, much worse. Thank you."
He looked up sharply at her as she forgave him and then thanked him for what he had done. He didn't think she would be able to. She saw the relief in his eyes as she forgave him and she knew that her gut instinct to trust this man was once again right.
"I feel so bad about it. I mean, the whole time you were crying and pleading with me not to do what I was doing. It broke my heart to cause you so much pain, and to know that I was the one causing all of it. I knew when I held you up at the beginning, that first time I tasted you, that you had been raped somewhere in your past, and I knew that it was going to cause you to go into shock again. I just didn't realize how far until I saw how deeply you pulled into yourself."
"Well, at least I'll be where you can keep an eye on me and I can keep one on you."
He chuckles. "That' s true. There's also something else very important that I have to tell you." He sobers quickly and so does she. "If you are carrying my child, the odds are high that there's more than one. I'm half of a pair of twins. I have an identical twin brother, Everett. And according to your birth records, you're what they call a 'missing twin'. Your twin sister was stillborn."
She sits there in silence for a moment, digesting this important information. He squeezes her hand.
"Tessa, Kit, if you are pregnant, we will definitely get married, no doubt about it. I'm not going to let any child of mine be born a bastard."
She turns her head and looks off into the distance. "Um, Sir, I'm not certain that that would be the best option. I need to think about it. I'm not sure that I could deal with marrying a guy just because I was pregnant with his child. My mother made that mistake, and my father wound up leaving her not long after I was born because I wasn't what he wanted when I was born. I wasn't a boy. And because of that, she hated me with a passion. To her, I was worth nothing more than the dust beneath her feet. To this day, I still feel like I have to work to be accepted by anyone. I don't want to bring a child into that type of situation. I know how painful that it really is. I know how hard it is to deal with the teasing, taunting, pointing and laughter."
A look of surprise and sudden realization comes into his eyes. "That explains a lot of things. Why you shied away from Tommy and I when you first got there, why it took a while for you to get used to all of us. It explains why you never ask for help. You've never had anyone that you could depend on, have you?"
"No, Sir, I haven't. There's more to the story. The reason I am so solitary is not because I think my scar sickens people. It's because I'm terrified of them. Growing up, I was physically, mentally, emotionally, and worst of all, sexually abused by people that I was supposed to have been able to trust. My own mother pimped me out like I was some kind of whore when I was only five or six, and then she sold me to a guy down the street as a sex slave when I was seven. I ran away quickly after that. That's why I like to be alone. That's why it takes so long for me to trust someone. That's the reason I go ballistic if you guys sneak up on me."
He curses under his breath, comes around the table, sits next to her, and pulls her close to him, hugging her hard, trying to give her a little of the comfort and peace that she had never had growing up. Some wall inside of her cracks and disintegrates, and she loses control of herself. He feels her begin to shudder as she starts crying on his shoulder. He holds her closer to him and rocks her like the small child she might have once been as she finally releases all the pain and sorrow that she'd been hiding all her life.
"I'm so sorry," she says as she leans back away from him, wiping her eyes with the sleeves of her sweater. "I didn't mean to start blubbering like a baby on you."
"It's alright. I don't mind. If it made you feel a little better, then I'm happy to let you do it. And the next time you call me Sir off base, I'm really going to have to get back at you. Off base we have the same rank. Neither one of us outranks the other. My first name is Edwin. Use it." He checks his watch, frowning as he notices the time. "Are you hungry? We can go get some lunch if you want."
She shakes her head. "No, I'm not hungry. In fact, just the thought of food turns my stomach."
"I'm not that hungry either. Come here." He takes her hand, gets up and moves over to the shade of a group of trees. He sits down between the roots of one and leans back against it, tugging on her hand, drawing her down into his lap, and holding her close to him. For a little while, they just sit there, enjoying the sun and warmth of a beautiful day.
"Captain, why are you doing this?"
"Doing what, little fox?"
"Why are you being so nice to me? I mean, you're treating me like I matter, like what I think or feel matters. Nobody's ever done that."
"That's part of the problem, Kit. You don't have any faith that anybody thinks you matter. Most people around you don't know what a treasure they have in their midst. A big part of the problem is that you're so small and quiet, everybody forgets that you're there. You need to speak up when you have something to say. Even if nobody else listens, I will. I can't promise to do anything about it, but I will at least promise to listen."
He bends his head, his ice blue eyes locking gazes with her silver-green ones, and kisses her, softly at first and as she responds, deepening it, slowly. When they finally surface for air minutes later, he is breathing heavily, and her breathing is just as shallow as his is deep.
"You know, Kit, I've had a crush on you since I first saw you on the base, carrying that box of baby foxes and dodging the boys playing paintball. That's when I started calling you Kit, and I gave you your codename of Vixen. For more than one reason. One, was because of the fact that you were hand raising those fox kits, and the second was because, pardon the pun, I thought you were quite foxy, myself."
She groans. "That one really sucked, Captain. I didn't see you that first day, but I do remember having a crush on you when you ran past me to the injured when that bomb had gone off on the base a few days later. We had a saboteur, and I had seen the person drop the package and run, so that was my first priority. After I had tackled him and knocked him senseless and let Chuckles have him, I went back to help with the wounded and the casualties. When you reached around my waist, grabbed me and pulled me away from one of the bodies, I knew then that I had a crush on you. Especially when you twisted behind me to make sure you landed underneath me. Later, after you said that you didn't mind the injury too much because it was such a beautiful woman that had done it, if looks could kill, you'd have been six foot under in something less than four-tenths of a second. I gave you my patented glare of doom, and it didn't even faze you. Remind me to do something about that one of these days."
After their shared confessions, they both felt a lot lighter, as if some of the weight of the world on their shoulders had disappeared. They walked back to his parents' house hand in hand, and laughing and joking like they were old friends.
They find an unoccupied picnic table away from prying eyes. He sits down across from her, not looking her way.
"I need to explain what the heck is going on between us, little fox. And I need to discuss with you where we're going from here."
She looks at him and sees how hard he is shaking. She reaches out and takes his hands, helping to still their trembling. She'd never seen him this nervous before. He'd always been the calmest one out of the entire medical group no matter what happened.
This was starting to make her nervous. Actually, she was past nervous, it was starting to creep her out.
"While we were at that convention in Atlantic City, the medical center where it was being held was taken hostage by a group of terrorists. How much of it do you remember?" he asks.
"Up to where I was coming out of the bathroom stall after they'd separated us and something hit me across the back of the head, twice. When I still didn't go down, they injected some kind of sedative, I guess it was, into my arm." She starts rubbing her arm where it had happened. "Freaking idiot hit the vein, and that's the last I remember. Well, until the dreams, that is."
"What dreams?"
"After that, I started having these weird dreams about you doing things to me. Things I knew that you wouldn't dare to do." She blushes in embarrassment as she recalls what happened in those dreams.
He squeezes her hand. "In those dreams, was I... forcing you to have sex with me?" he asks, quietly.
She reddens even more, closes her eyes and nods, ashamed of remembering what went on in those dreams. He sighs heavily, and takes a deep breath.
"It wasn't a dream, sweetheart. God knows that I didn't want to do it, but it was a case of them or me, and I didn't want you to be hurt as much as you had been in your past. They might have had who knows what kinds of diseases, and they all had the cold-blooded killer look about them. They had a gun to my head, Kit. I didn't want to do it. They forced me to do it. I tried to make it as painless and as pleasurable as possible for you as I could."
"Somewhere in the back of my mind, Captain, I knew that. After the drug wore off and I came awake enough to know what was actually going on, I went into shock, didn't I?"
He nods. "And there's something else, something very important that I have to tell you. This is why I have to know where we're heading in our relationship."
He pauses and she looks at him. He is staring at an ant pile on the ground near the table. "What is it? What's wrong?"
"Kit, when I climaxed, I was planning on pulling out and spilling myself on the floor or the cot, but they wouldn't let me. Whenever I tried to pull out, the leader put his boot on the small of my back and forced me to stay inside you. He forced me to spill my seed inside of you. More than once. There's a good chance that you're pregnant with my child now."
She sits there, stunned, and audibly swallows.
"I know that you can never forgive me for this, and I am so sorry, little fox. I'll never regret anything as much as I do this. I figured that when we got back to the base, that you would ask for a transfer to another unit, and I can't blame you for that. I know that you probably don't want anything to do with me, now, after what I did. All I ask is that if you do ask for a transfer, that you keep in touch. The only thing I can say is that it just wouldn't be as lively there without you."
"Well, as you can see," she spoke softly, "I was in no condition to do much of anything when we got back to the base. And believe it or not, Lifeline, I do forgive you. It wasn't your fault. You didn't do it because you wanted to, but you did it in order to make it easier for me. You may have had to rape me, but it was done under duress. I don't blame you, Captain. I blame them. In fact, I was kinda glad it was you, and I still am. It could have been much, much worse. Thank you."
He looked up sharply at her as she forgave him and then thanked him for what he had done. He didn't think she would be able to. She saw the relief in his eyes as she forgave him and she knew that her gut instinct to trust this man was once again right.
"I feel so bad about it. I mean, the whole time you were crying and pleading with me not to do what I was doing. It broke my heart to cause you so much pain, and to know that I was the one causing all of it. I knew when I held you up at the beginning, that first time I tasted you, that you had been raped somewhere in your past, and I knew that it was going to cause you to go into shock again. I just didn't realize how far until I saw how deeply you pulled into yourself."
"Well, at least I'll be where you can keep an eye on me and I can keep one on you."
He chuckles. "That' s true. There's also something else very important that I have to tell you." He sobers quickly and so does she. "If you are carrying my child, the odds are high that there's more than one. I'm half of a pair of twins. I have an identical twin brother, Everett. And according to your birth records, you're what they call a 'missing twin'. Your twin sister was stillborn."
She sits there in silence for a moment, digesting this important information. He squeezes her hand.
"Tessa, Kit, if you are pregnant, we will definitely get married, no doubt about it. I'm not going to let any child of mine be born a bastard."
She turns her head and looks off into the distance. "Um, Sir, I'm not certain that that would be the best option. I need to think about it. I'm not sure that I could deal with marrying a guy just because I was pregnant with his child. My mother made that mistake, and my father wound up leaving her not long after I was born because I wasn't what he wanted when I was born. I wasn't a boy. And because of that, she hated me with a passion. To her, I was worth nothing more than the dust beneath her feet. To this day, I still feel like I have to work to be accepted by anyone. I don't want to bring a child into that type of situation. I know how painful that it really is. I know how hard it is to deal with the teasing, taunting, pointing and laughter."
A look of surprise and sudden realization comes into his eyes. "That explains a lot of things. Why you shied away from Tommy and I when you first got there, why it took a while for you to get used to all of us. It explains why you never ask for help. You've never had anyone that you could depend on, have you?"
"No, Sir, I haven't. There's more to the story. The reason I am so solitary is not because I think my scar sickens people. It's because I'm terrified of them. Growing up, I was physically, mentally, emotionally, and worst of all, sexually abused by people that I was supposed to have been able to trust. My own mother pimped me out like I was some kind of whore when I was only five or six, and then she sold me to a guy down the street as a sex slave when I was seven. I ran away quickly after that. That's why I like to be alone. That's why it takes so long for me to trust someone. That's the reason I go ballistic if you guys sneak up on me."
He curses under his breath, comes around the table, sits next to her, and pulls her close to him, hugging her hard, trying to give her a little of the comfort and peace that she had never had growing up. Some wall inside of her cracks and disintegrates, and she loses control of herself. He feels her begin to shudder as she starts crying on his shoulder. He holds her closer to him and rocks her like the small child she might have once been as she finally releases all the pain and sorrow that she'd been hiding all her life.
"I'm so sorry," she says as she leans back away from him, wiping her eyes with the sleeves of her sweater. "I didn't mean to start blubbering like a baby on you."
"It's alright. I don't mind. If it made you feel a little better, then I'm happy to let you do it. And the next time you call me Sir off base, I'm really going to have to get back at you. Off base we have the same rank. Neither one of us outranks the other. My first name is Edwin. Use it." He checks his watch, frowning as he notices the time. "Are you hungry? We can go get some lunch if you want."
She shakes her head. "No, I'm not hungry. In fact, just the thought of food turns my stomach."
"I'm not that hungry either. Come here." He takes her hand, gets up and moves over to the shade of a group of trees. He sits down between the roots of one and leans back against it, tugging on her hand, drawing her down into his lap, and holding her close to him. For a little while, they just sit there, enjoying the sun and warmth of a beautiful day.
"Captain, why are you doing this?"
"Doing what, little fox?"
"Why are you being so nice to me? I mean, you're treating me like I matter, like what I think or feel matters. Nobody's ever done that."
"That's part of the problem, Kit. You don't have any faith that anybody thinks you matter. Most people around you don't know what a treasure they have in their midst. A big part of the problem is that you're so small and quiet, everybody forgets that you're there. You need to speak up when you have something to say. Even if nobody else listens, I will. I can't promise to do anything about it, but I will at least promise to listen."
He bends his head, his ice blue eyes locking gazes with her silver-green ones, and kisses her, softly at first and as she responds, deepening it, slowly. When they finally surface for air minutes later, he is breathing heavily, and her breathing is just as shallow as his is deep.
"You know, Kit, I've had a crush on you since I first saw you on the base, carrying that box of baby foxes and dodging the boys playing paintball. That's when I started calling you Kit, and I gave you your codename of Vixen. For more than one reason. One, was because of the fact that you were hand raising those fox kits, and the second was because, pardon the pun, I thought you were quite foxy, myself."
She groans. "That one really sucked, Captain. I didn't see you that first day, but I do remember having a crush on you when you ran past me to the injured when that bomb had gone off on the base a few days later. We had a saboteur, and I had seen the person drop the package and run, so that was my first priority. After I had tackled him and knocked him senseless and let Chuckles have him, I went back to help with the wounded and the casualties. When you reached around my waist, grabbed me and pulled me away from one of the bodies, I knew then that I had a crush on you. Especially when you twisted behind me to make sure you landed underneath me. Later, after you said that you didn't mind the injury too much because it was such a beautiful woman that had done it, if looks could kill, you'd have been six foot under in something less than four-tenths of a second. I gave you my patented glare of doom, and it didn't even faze you. Remind me to do something about that one of these days."
After their shared confessions, they both felt a lot lighter, as if some of the weight of the world on their shoulders had disappeared. They walked back to his parents' house hand in hand, and laughing and joking like they were old friends.