Cade brought me to a part of the Citadel I didn't know existed. On the third floor next to the medical center behind multiple doors that required a keycard to enter, there was another hidden medical facility.
There was a desk with a nurse behind it that stood up as Cade and I walked in.
"Is this our new resident," one of them asked.
"Yes," Cade said handing over a folder with my name on it. "She has already been screened for outside items."
"Thank you," a tall male nurse took the folder and began to read its contents. "I see there was no blood or urine analysis done yet."
"I have left that for your capable hands," Cade said. He then looked in my direction. "I am sure you will make a speedy recovery."
The nurse motioned me to have a seat in a blood drawling chair. He rolled up my left arm sleeve and tied a rubber string around the top.
"That is some crafty needle work," he said looking at the dotted scabs on my left arm. "I am sure this little blood draw will be nothing. "
After taking 4 small vials of blood, he handed me a cup for a urine sample and pointed toward a door that had a small bathroom in it.
"Just leave it on the sink," he said. "I'll collect it afterwards."
After I came out of the bathroom I was greeted by another nurse who said she would give me the grand tour of the place. She leads me behind the reception desk through a door that opened up to a large room. The room had a large counter which had several medical staff behind it facing a common room with 5 other people wearing orange jumpsuits. They stood up at attention when I entered the room.
"Stop that," the nurse said to them. "There is no chain of command in here."
They sat back down but continued to place their attention on me.
"This as you see is the common area," the nurse said. "There is a small kitchen with snacks over there. Bathrooms, male and female down the hall as well as the dormitory which is coed.
"You'll have your meals brought to the common area three times a day and you will be expected to attend all group sessions at the times posted on the whiteboard over there. Participation in these sessions isn't mandatory but suggested..."
My head started to ache again, and I caught my balance.
"The first few days will be rough," she held on to my arm spotting me from falling over. "The toxins leaving your system will not be pleasant feeling. You can miss the sessions until you feel comfortable again."
She looked around at the other patients.
"Everyone here has gone through some type of withdraw, so they know what it feels like." She said. "You are in a good place, Sentinel. With good people don't be afraid to ask for help if you need it.
When she left a dark-haired woman named Jody came over towards me.
"The first days are going to suck," she said to me. "You'll spend most of your time in bed."
I followed her back to the dormitory that had 10 military cots lining the walls. At the foot of each cot was an opened footlocker that had jumpsuits, undergarments, and socks in them.
"These cots are free," she said pointing at 2 cots that were underneath 2 large windows. "No one like sleeping next to someone and these windows have a hard time keeping the cold out. But they are all yours."
"If you need anything," she said. "Just ask… water, milk… Nuka Cola…. Someone will get it for you. Believe me when I said you are going to feel like shit for the next few days."
On the wall next to the door there was a full-length mirror. I was able to see my reflection for the first time in months. I could see why Arthur showed disappointment in my appearance and Cade couldn't look me in the eyes. My eyes were bruised along and I had a cut on my lower lip which was swollen. As I got closer, I saw that my eyes were bloodshot.
The first few hours weren't bad at all. I was able to walk around and talk to the other patients. They all told me about their stories on how they got addicted to chems. Most of them had some form of PTSD or just couldn't cope with the things that they have seen. Chems was an escape for them.
Dinner was typical mess hall food prepared by initiates and squires. Meatloaf, mashed potatoes, carrots, and a fruit cup. I had no problem eating it.
"Enjoy your last meal for a few days," one of them joked at me as I ate.
The others giggled.
Before a 9 pm lights out, we each stood in line for our nightly does of Addictol.
I felt tired and welcomed sleep.
Two of the guys whispered to each other before falling asleep and soon I drifted off too.
Sometime in the middle of the night is when I felt a sharp pain in my gut. It emanated through my bowels. At first I thought it was just gas and I tried to push a fart out. A little bit of air came out and gave some relief. Then my stomach felt really bad. I needed to run to the woman's bathroom.
In the nick of time I got my jumpsuit down and sat on the toilet is when I literally exploded. The pain was excruciating. After about 20 minutes of emptying of what I thought was my entire dietary tract, I began to feel better. I headed back to the dorm only to stop halfway there and run back to the bathroom. I couldn't stop what was coming out. It just kept going. I was tired and exhausted, and I just wanted to lie down, but I had invisible chains keeping me on the toilet. I reached back every so often to flush the matter that was pouring out of my body. It felt like hours that I was sitting on the toilet. I wanted to collapse on the floor. Instead, I turned around and straddled the tank with my legs and rested my head on the cold white porcelain tank. I fell asleep.
"I wish I thought of that," Jody came into the bathroom seeing the position I was in. She handed me some water. "You need to keep hydrated."
"Thanks," I said opening the bottle of water and taking a sip. My gut made a loud noise as the liquid hit my stomach."
"I just collapsed on the floor and woke up in my own…" she stopped. "..well, you know."
"When does it stop," I asked.
"Honey you are just at the beginning," she chuckled.
I didn't find the humor in it.
The next few days I spent in bed tossing and turning that coincided with cold sweats. When I was finally able to go to group talk sessions, the others welcomed and congratulated me for getting past the worst of it. Greg, the person in charge of group meetings was a recovering addict himself. He was in a science scribe outfit and always carried a clipboard to take notes whenever it was someone's turn to talk. I wasn't asked to speak the first couple of sessions, just observe to see what was expected of me.
"And what about you, Sentinel," he looked at me after someone had finished their story. "What was one of the worst days of your childhood?"
"My childhood," I thought for a while. My childhood couldn't compare to the others in the group. Mine was easy compared to theirs.
"Well…" he said after a few moments of silence.
"I guess I was around eleven," I began. Everyone's eyes were finally turned on me. "It was the summertime and a friend and I were walking to a pool to go swimming."
"A pool," Jody interrupted and looked at my pipboy. "You had a pool in the vault, must have been nice."
"I didn't grow up in a vault," I said.
"She's from before the war," Joey, another one in the group corrected her. "She was in a cryo-vault."
"So you're over 200 years old?" Jody asked.
"Yeah, I guess so," I said. "Can I continue?"
Everyone nodded.
"So, my pre-war friend and I were walking to the pool." I continued. "I remember this day because so many things happened that could have made everything different…. anyway, so we were just walking, and these two other girls went riding past us un their bikes going to the same pool. I knew this because they had towels draped around their necks. One of them yells at us. 'Goody, goodies.'
"What's a goody-goody?" Greg asks.
"It's someone who does everything right," I said. "They never do anything bad."
"That doesn't sound so bad," Greg responded.
"Well, it is." I told him, "because it means you always follow the rules and listen to what grown-ups say."
"Again… it doesn't seem like a bad thing."
"I looked at my friend and I said, Let's get them." I continued.
"You were going to get them for calling you a goody-goody?" Greg asked.
"Yes," I said. "I wanted to make them know I wasn't that kind of person."
Greg shook his head with skepticism.
"My friend wasn't a fighter," I said. "When I ran after the girls on their bikes, she didn't run with me. But I watched as the girls turned back and saw me coming after them, they sped up and I couldn't catch up to them. I laughed and turned around to go back to my friend, but she was gone. There was just a blue car driving down the street in the other direction. I called out for my friend, but there wasn't a reply. I didn't know what to do. I couldn't go to the pool alone. So, I went home."
"That doesn't seem so bad," Jody said.
"But it was bad," I said. "Because I didn't go to my house, I went to her house to ask her why she just left. But when I knocked on her door, her mom answered and asked me where Stacy was."
"Stacy was your friend," Greg asked.
"Yeah," I said. "I told Stacy's mom what happened, and she pulled me into the house and ran towards the phone. I couldn't understand why she was so panicky. I mean she called the police. I though it was because I ran after the girls, but when she got off the phone with the police, she called Stacy's father at work and yelled that Stacy is missing. I thought she was overreacting. I mean, I thought any minute now Stacy was going to come walking through her front door. But the next people to come to Stacy's door was the police. They asked me what happened, and I told them. Then they started asking me about the car that I saw, the make year and color, but all I knew was that it was a blue car. I started getting scared and tears started filling up my eyes, because I then realized that maybe Stacy was taken."
"Did they ever find Stacy," Greg asked.
"No," I said, as tears filled up in my eyes. "And I think, if I hadn't gone after those girls… maybe she wouldn't have been taken."
"Stop right there," Greg said standing up. Everyone turned and looked at him, I was wiping the tears from my eyes. "If I only did…blank then none of this would have happened. How many times I have heard that."
"But it did happen," Tom another patient said.
"Exactly," Greg said looking at me. "And it's not your fault that Stacy was kidnapped; it was the person in the blue cars fault. He was probably watching the two of you or following the girls on the bike just waiting for the time to strike. He thought about it for days, it wasn't a matter of if it was going to happen it was when."
"It should have been me," I said, "I would have fought back or yelled or something."
"No," Greg interrupted, "You don't know that. He could have hit her over the head, I am pretty sure Stacy fought back too."
"She was so nice," I said crying again. "Her parents didn't deserve to go through that. I helped them put missing person posters up everywhere, hoping that someone might have seen or heard something. But nothing. When I graduated from high school, her parents came to my graduation, because Stacy and I would have graduated the same year. They came over and talked to me and told me the wanted to thank me for all I have done over the years with helping them find Stacy. They gave me a card with a check in to help with my college. But every time I was saw them, I blamed myself for what happened. I never cashed the check."
"That is great that you helped her parents through a rough time in their lives," Greg said to me. "What you did meant something to them. And even though you probably didn't realize it at the time, you were helping yourself cope with the situation, by putting up those posters. I want all of you to think about what you did to help rectify that horrible day in your childhood."
"What if we didn't do anything help fix it," Jody asked.
"You must have done something," Greg said. "I am sure all of you didn't hang posters but even the smallest thing could have helped. And if you didn't do anything, Jody, think of something that you could do so that horrible thing can't happen to anyone else again. You are all here right now, alive and breathing and that is not because of anything wrong that you have done in the past, it's because you have done the right thing to get you here."
"So we should just continue to step on other people to keep us alive," Tom sarcastically said.
"No, you should never use people like that," Greg said and the look on his face wasn't too sure if he was serious or not. "Just give yourself credit for all of the good that you have done and know that there are just some circumstances that are beyond your control."
"… the serenity to accept the things I cannot change; courage to change the things I can; and wisdom to know the difference." Joey another recovering addict recited.
"Exactly," Greg said. "Now, I think that lunch is just upon us."
