Chapter 10
Coping
Six weeks. To be more specific and precise, six weeks, four days, nine hours, and...thirty minutes. Niles didn't know if it was lucky that he had a watch or not – it kept him punctual for any meetings he had to attend with Lane these days, but at the same time it reminded him exactly how long Miss Babcock had been gone.
It wasn't like it appeared that was about to change any time soon, either. He called Lane practically every day, venturing on the side of demanding to know where they were with the investigation and search warrant that the detective kept insisting she was waiting for.
Waiting. That felt like a cop-out, if he'd ever heard one. If it had been his responsibility, he'd have marched straight to that judge's office and demanded the warrant there and then, by now.
Miss Babcock could be in that bastard's house, just out of reach, and the only thing keeping her from freedom was a sheet of sodding paper!
It made his blood boil, to even think of it...
What hurt the most about that was, deep down, he knew he wasn't angry at Lane. He was really angry at himself, for allowing things to get this far. If it hadn't been for his bloody prank, none of this would even be happening!
And, just to rub salt in the already open and bleeding wound, he was useless when it came to trying to make anything better!
He tried to relieve some of the built-up adrenaline (and distract himself from the hurt and self-hatred) by re-cleaning the kitchen, but it was no use. There were only so many chores he could do in the mansion whilst waiting for Lane to give him another update (before he called her, yet again). Because no one felt like doing much around the place, it meant that messes were small – if they were made – and easily cleaned up right away.
He'd even started to run out of imaginary stains to wipe up, and he was certain that he was near to peeling the enamel off the tiles with how much and how hard he was scrubbing them...
He needed to do something else. Something useful, that he knew a butler could do...
That was when it struck him, and he let the cloth he'd been polishing the counter to a high sheen with drop from his hand, into the sink.
No one had been to Miss Babcock's apartment in weeks. Chester had been with them, so no one had seen any need to go over!
The place would be in serious need of cleaning. That was definitely something he could do. And he wasn't going to wait for permission from Mr Sheffield, either. He didn't feel like he could wait, before he grabbed his keys and jacket, and headed out the door.
The traffic was light on the way, but it felt endless and the streets seemed to wind more than they had ever done before. Cabs and cars, buses and bikes all seemed to get in his way whenever he was trying to move, and he could've sworn that he should've come to the right turning at least two streets ago...!
It was close to making his head spin, but he knew had to focus. He was going to the penthouse for a reason, and he wasn't about to be put off from his task by how complicated it felt to get there. It was only his sense of urgency, making everything feel like it was taking longer than it actually was. His own mind was just acting against him in yet another way...
His sense of timekeeping was relieved when he finally pulled into the parking lot of Miss Babcock's building. Once he'd parked and switched the engine off, one more quick look at his watch told him that he'd arrived in the exact same amount of time as he always did, emergency or not.
Having a stupidly fine-tuned sense of urgency really was a kick in the trouser furniture...
He got out of the car, locked it up, and began to head towards the building's next level. That was where the lobby was, as well as the elevators. On the way, he began rehearsing what he was going to say in his head if Miss Babcock's doorman or her neighbours decided to stop him and ask about how the case was developing.
Thankfully, he didn't bump into any of Miss Babcock's neighbours, and the doorman merely tipped his hat when he went past him, towards the elevators. Good – he wasn't in the mood to have any form of interaction with other human beings. He wanted to be alone with his thoughts.
He rode the elevator in silence, clutching at the spare key to C.C.'s apartment in his left hand, and soon enough he was slipping it into the lock and turning it two times before twisting the handle and pushing the door open.
Although he'd been there to clean the mess he'd found when Miss Babcock had first gone missing, there still was a staleness in the air – a distinct smell of abandonment and disuse. He supposed it was only natural, but it depressed him greatly.
It was yet another reminder that she was not there.
Not there, and possibly never coming back...
It made him (briefly) wonder what the point of everything was, but he dismissed that notion from his head. The point of what he was currently doing was to make him feel useful.
He had to be the one to do something about cleaning up. This was something he had control over, and could keep him a little more occupied until more information became available.
It could keep him sane, until he knew what was going on...
Not wishing to breathe in any more stale air, he went to the windows and opened them all.
Encouraging a breeze through the room was the first step to getting the place seeming like a home again already. He left the air to travel through the apartment and clear it out (most of it, anyway), and went into the kitchen to see about getting some cleaning utensils.
He knew that Miss Babcock herself would never touch the things, but they had to be there – for emergencies, or for when her hired cleaner couldn't bring her own.
He found them under the sink, pulled them out and, after checking the use by dates on the cans and packages, set to work. He started with the kitchen – countertops (all made of the finest marble money could pay for), windows, floors; they all were scrubbed thoroughly until they shone. The fridge was next (after he'd gotten rid of the spoiled and rotting food inside it, of course), and the cooker and dishwasher followed.
He cleaned until there was a distinct smell of lemon pledge impregnated to the air around him – the hallmark of a job well done, he'd learnt back when he was still a trainee butler.
He then moved on to the living room. He still remembered (with a certain amount of disgust) the fateful morning he'd walked in to find an empty apartment and dog shit-galore on Miss Babcock's expensive carpet. It had taken him several days (and industrial quantities of Resolve carpet cleaner) to get everything back to some sort of normality. He'd talked to Stewart about it, and in record time the man had had the entire carpet pulled up and replaced by even better and more expensive carpeting. Still, vacuuming a carpet, no matter how new or clean, never hurt no one.
By the time he was finished with it , the entire thing was as soft and fluffy as it had been the day it was put down. He couldn't help but think at first that it was almost as though no one had ever walked on it, but he quickly dismissed that.
He didn't like thinking that no one had ever walked on it. That could lead to the implication that no one ever would walk on it, either, and it hurt deeply to think that that could be the case.
He much preferred the image of Miss Babcock in her nicest pyjamas, waking up on a weekend morning that she didn't have to be in at work and padding into the living area to put the television on...
Alive and unhurt. At home and comfortable. Safe.
He imagined that until it began to hurt as much as knowing the truth. That was when he moved on, to look for something else to work on.
The dining room came next. It took a lot of reaching over and a large amount of polish to get the table buffed to the same high sheen he had managed to achieve in the kitchen. The chairs and the ornaments all followed, and the floor also received a vacuuming unlike any it had ever had.
If circumstances had been different, he would have shown all of this work to Miss Babcock and perhaps implied that he should come over to clean for her more often...
But that wasn't going to happen. He knew she'd never allow such a thing.
If...when...if...she returned, he wouldn't be welcome in her home anymore. Not that he could blame her – it had been his own stupidity what had caused this whole mess to begin with. In his eyes he was just as guilty as the bastard who had taken her.
He'd never be able to make it up to her. He could try, yes, but he was pretty sure that nothing he ever did to try and redeem himself, would amount to the damage he'd caused. Still, that didn't necessarily mean that he had to give up trying – he owed her, and he planned on trying to repay his debt however way he could. Presently, he was doing so by moving on to clean Miss Babcock's study.
He wasn't surprised to find it in disarray – piles of assorted papers sat atop practically every flat surface, there were a number of empty coffee mugs scattered all over the room, her extra pair of reading glasses were out of their case, still sitting on top of the last document Miss Babcock had been going through…
There even was a pair of Miss Babcock's pumps carelessly discarded beneath her desk!
It all was proof that this was the study of someone who, when they'd left, had planned on going back.
Pushing past the painful churning in his stomach, he set about seeing what he could straighten up about the place. The coffee mugs could definitely go – they wouldn't be of any use where they were, and a couple of them were on their way to forming their own brand-new ecosystems.
He took them away to the kitchen as quickly as possible, washing them out and putting them back in the cupboard. He then returned to the rest of the chaos in the room, and began to work out just what he would do with it all.
He didn't know how many of the papers even applied anymore – some of them could be for the now-cancelled musical, for all he knew. They definitely wouldn't be needed again, unless Miss Babcock kept a record of absolutely everything...
He knew she wouldn't appreciate it (therefore making it detrimental to his efforts) if he threw everything out without asking her, or letting her check it over first. The best he could do was neaten up the piles. So, he picked them all up to dust around and underneath them, and then got all the piles stacked back where they were – all straight, present and correct.
He even re-angled the last document that her eyes had been on, and he traced the words of the paper lightly with his fingers. He knew what the document was talking about, and how important it would all be for the company, but it wasn't as thought any of it mattered anymore.
All that mattered was that she'd been reading it, using the glasses that he folded back up and left on the desk for their owner to hopefully return to. He then picked up Miss Babcock's shoes – a pair of black leather Louboutin heels. They were a favourite of Miss Babcock, and he remembered she'd used them the day before she'd gone missing…
Niles sighed as he lined them up by the study's door. He would give everything he had and would ever have to go back in time to that day; the day of his heart attack. He would have done things differently – for a start, he would have thanked her for having saved his life, and he would have confessed to loving her. He would have begged her to stay, and warn her not to get on any car that wasn't hers or a cab.
He would have protected her…
But he hadn't, and everything that was currently surrounding him – her shoes, furniture, glasses – was a stark reminder that she was not there. It was a damning reminder that this was his fault.
Niles had to shut his eyes tightly and huff out a strangled cry. He was overwhelmed, even if part of him felt he had no right to be.
That was the part of him that had the thought – the hateful truth, really. It knew that he had no right to be in agony over something he had caused in the first place.
Yet he was anyway. And that only made him feel even more guilty, knowing that he wasn't having the right reaction – any ordinary, non-selfish person would have gone away with their misery. They wouldn't have tried to get involved with looking for the search.
They'd be perfectly aware that they'd already done enough.
And yet, there he was. Still trying to get involved, like he was some sort of hero, instead of a villain in this story.
At least he was getting his penance for it. That was the best outcome there could be for him, really – he deserved the pain he was feeling, and to have to spend his time trying to make up for something he'd never be able to...
But he still had the guest room, the bathroom, and Miss Babcock's en-suite bedroom, left to do. Even if it was barely part of his punishment completed and he was already feeling like falling to the floor and letting the ground swallow him whole, he wasn't going to leave the job undone.
He resumed his cleaning then, trying to shake the heaviness that seemed to have latched to his heart with outstanding determination. He chose to work on the guest room next – there wasn't much to do in there apart from vacuuming, changing the bedlinen and dusting the furniture.
Come to think of it, he'd never been to her guest's room before. Much like Miss Babcock herself, the room had a sober kind of elegance about it – white carpeting covering the floor, modern Scandinavian-style furniture, walls of a classy off-grey colour, and tasteful decoration here and there. He noticed there was a rather sizeable painting hanging atop the chest of drawers, clearly occupying pride of place – it was a Monet, if he wasn't mistaken.
It was during moments like this when Niles was remembered of just how rich Miss Babcock was. How powerful and influential she was.
She was a giantess among mortals – one that had worked her way up in Showbiz on her own merit. She'd had to prove herself worthy in an industry dominated by men, and by way of wrestling a few egos and cutting a number of rivals down to size, she'd made it to the top.
It was hard to think that such a woman was currently being held against her will…
He didn't imagine she'd have gone quietly – if he knew Babcock (and he did), she'd have put up an almighty fight. She'd have fought until the very end.
He shook his head again, trying extra hard to get that thought out. He had to stop thinking of the word "end". It was too...final, and had too many negative connotations attached to it.
The worst being that they'd never find her, alive or...not...
He must have vacuumed the room to the same quality as everywhere else in the place, and then gone over it again to really make sure. It was either that, or he was so determined to get free of the thought that he tried twice as hard to distract himself from how much the pain stung in his chest and behind his eyes...
It wasn't fully working, though. He could feel himself growing heavier with every step that he took, and the tears were threatening to spill over onto the clean carpet.
But he refused to mess the place up again on any level. He was trying to make it up to her, not let his pain overshadow everything else that was going on!
He left the room before it could happen, and he went to go and clean the bathroom. At least he could wash his face in there, if he needed to. And then he'd clean the evidence away...
The main bathroom was just as elegant as everywhere else in the penthouse, and mostly clean, considering that Miss Babcock probably kept all of her personal products in her en suite bathroom.
It didn't help that she probably rarely had guests - the soap left in the dish looked untouched, underneath the fine layer of dust covering both it and everything else. The toilet paper hadn't even been started, either.
That did nothing to assuage his guilt. Not only had he driven the producer into the clutches of an evil monster, he'd probably succeeded in making sure that she felt more alone than ever...
He wondered if she knew there were people out looking for her. He hoped that she did – it might give her something to lift her spirits, and the determination to survive until they had found her.
She was a fighter anyway, that had already long since been established. But the knowledge that she wasn't alone could give her that extra push...
His own spirits lifted for a second, but then took another nosedive as he realised that even if she did know there were people out looking, she wouldn't care if he was one of them.
He'd done far too much to her – was still doing, indirectly, through his part in the situation she was currently in – for her to ever think that he cared about her enough to want her around. Why should she, in return, think about or care that he wanted her back?
That was, if she believed that he wanted her back. There was plenty of apparent evidence that he didn't, and out of all the people who'd seen them interact in the past, how many would believe him when he said he did?
The people who knew the truth would almost certainly be in the minority.
He finished cleaning the bathroom fairly quickly after that thought. He didn't end up needing to use the sink to wash his face – the tears wouldn't come, as much as the guilt and the anger hurt.
He had more important things to worry about, at any rate.
There was only one place left in the penthouse to see about clearing, and he wasn't going to let it go without because of his own stupid, useless feelings that had no bearing on what was going on.
Her room.
In all of the years he'd known Miss Babcock, he'd never been allowed into her private space. He'd been allowed into her living room on the rare occasions he'd had to either pick up or deliver important paperwork that needed signing from Miss Babcock or Mr Sheffield, but he'd never stayed more than a couple of minutes, and she'd never asked him if he wanted to sit down for a moment or have something to drink. Not that he would have stayed, even if she had asked him to. Back then he'd still been too busy trying to one-up her to actually try and show his feelings for her in a more positive and healthy way.
It was simply one of those times were it became painfully obvious that hindsight was twenty-twenty, and that he'd been the biggest fool to ever walk this Earth for not having behaved differently around her.
He remembered that, in the privacy of his room, he'd dreamed of being in her room many a time. Usually his fantasies would entail them being clinched in a tight embrace in bed as they made love, or them spooning and sleeping peacefully, like any other loving couple.
That was in stark contrast to his current reality – opening the door to an empty and silent room.
He had avoided going into Miss Babcock's room on the other occasions he'd come to her home after she'd been abducted, but as it was becoming evident the more he looked around, her room was in desperate need of a good cleaning.
The bed was unmade, there were a number of dirty clothes heaped up in a small pile in the far left corner of her room, there were even more dirty coffee mugs stacked on top of her night-table, and a pair of light-blue satin pyjamas were lying on the floor, just next to her bed.
For a moment, all he could do was stand there and look at it.
This was the place that she'd woken up that morning, only to never return to it that night. She'd left it exactly as she intended to find it – she might have even been looking forward to going to sleep that night, safe and sound...
Instead, she was in an unknown location. He had no idea if she was even able to sleep, or if she was in too much pain to even try...
It was getting close to him being in too much pain to even try.
His heart attack hadn't even hurt as much as this. But he knew it didn't matter - he had to swallow that hurt back, and get on with the job he was there to do.
Even if the gravity felt heavier in this room than anywhere else he'd ever been. He almost collapsed as he bent over and reached down to start grabbing the clothes, intending to put them in the hamper so they could go in the laundry.
That practical line of thinking was the only thing that could keep him going. It forced him to think of something other than the pain.
But he knew he was weakening, even still...
That's why he chose to leave her pyjamas on the floor while he cleaned the rest of the room. He didn't think he could bring himself to pick it up without collapsing. He was very careful not to step on it when he did her bed, and he was also meticulous about it not being touched by the vacuum when he was cleaning the carpet around it.
It was nearly three hours (during which he'd rinsed the dirty mugs, washed, dried and ironed her clothes, and exhaustively cleaned her en-suite bathroom) until Niles had to face the fact that he could no longer delay picking up her pyjamas.
The one item of clothing that, to him, was a testament to her being missing.
Sighing, he set to do it, but he soon found he needed to perch on the side of her bed in order to pick up the garments – otherwise, he feared his shaky legs would not hold his weight. Especially when he felt like he was lifting two half-ton weights rather than a two-piece pyjama.
What he wasn't prepared for, however, was detecting her scent coming from her pyjamas. And not just any scent – her natural scent, when perfume was wearing off and mixing with her personal smell.
It filled his heart with the ghost of a kind of warmth he knew would only become real when it was her, really her, he was breathing in, not used clothes that had lain on the floor of the comfortable penthouse, in a comfortable life, that she had been snatched from nearly a month ago.
But, at the same time, there was pain.
Nearly unbearable pain.
And it was that pain that finally broke him. Like a dam bursts under the pressure of too much water, the cement of its thick walls cracking and splitting open to let the water burst through, so too did his eyes painfully close and let forth the tears that had been building since the moment he'd stepped foot in that apartment.
It didn't take more than a few seconds for him to dissolve into sobs after that. And they were awful, loud, hideous cries - noises that Niles had never imagined he could make. That any living thing could make!
He didn't want to be a living thing anymore. Not when he had been the start of all of this, and his continued existence was an insult to Miss Babcock and her loved ones. If he had been the one to disappear, or to have never even been born in the first place, then everything would've been alright!
She would have gone about her life, in one instance not caring that there wasn't a butler-shaped hole in the mansion she'd called her workplace, and in the other not knowing at all that there might once (in some time or place) have been a man named Niles Brightmore, who loved her with all his heart.
He didn't know how, but the next thing he'd realised, he'd fallen onto his side so that he was lying on the mattress, holding the pyjamas to his face and wetting them with his tears.
The sheets and the pyjamas were cold, and soft in the way a human body wasn't, but it was all he had. And it was comfortable.
Part of him wished he could simply close his eyes and imagine that they'd fallen asleep together; no one had been taken against their will, the other wasn't missing them with such force that it felt like their soul had been ripped from their body, there was no investigation going on that could take years or grow cold or turn up the worst possible news.
There was only them, with their arms wrapped around each other, in the bliss of a relaxed afternoon. Perhaps they'd been out that morning, had coffee, and decided to take a nap. They'd exhausted themselves bantering and laughing and joking, and he'd been able to tell her he loved her, and there was no pain and nothing was wrong.
"I am so very sorry, C.C.," he whispered into the fabric, "This is all my fault."
The silence that followed his words was damning. Damning and, to some extent, final. It really brought home just how powerless he was. He could hope for the best and devote his time and effort to finding her, but when push comes to shove, it all came down to luck. Luck of her kidnapper making a mistake or luck of her managing to run away from where she was being kept.
Either way, he was powerless.
And he had no way of being anything else.
He didn't know how long he stayed there. He didn't really care, either. The entire world could've moved on without him and it wouldn't have mattered one iota.
If it wasn't moving for her, he didn't want it to go on for him, either. Day and night, mealtimes, and what rest he could get were all rapidly becoming meaningless anyway. He thought he might as well just turn to stone where he was, frozen forever in time as New York City carried on and rapidly forgot that he'd ever once been there.
But just as he thought to close his eyes and just let it happen (slipping away with something of hers in his arms felt better than nothing at all), a buzzing in his pocket forced him to open them again.
His phone. That blasted thing that kept him tied to an investigation he was desperate to hear more from, and yet still felt too useless to be a part of.
Nevertheless, sighing and reaching into his pocket, he pulled it out and answered.
"Hello?"
"Mr Brightmore, it's Detective Lane."
In his heightened emotional state, it became very easy for part of his mind to bitterly ask what she could possibly want. Everything had been so slow (glacier pace, was more like it), the pessimist in him couldn't think that there might be anything new to talk about at this point.
He'd been set up for so much hurt and disappointment throughout, he didn't want to open himself up to any more.
But at the same time, he knew he needed that information more than anything else in the world. If – and the pessimist in him stressed the word if - it was good news, it could mean the beginning of the end for the worst nightmare he'd ever had.
So, he had to listen. He didn't think that he could make it as far as sitting up yet, but he could listen to what the detective had to say.
"Hello, Detective Lane," he didn't really try to hide the fact that he had been crying. She'd either hear it or she wouldn't – neither outcome mattered to him. "How can I help you?"
Again, the notion of actually being able to help came back to him as ridiculous. He hadn't done anything that would actually make a difference to anybody, and he was sure that he wouldn't in the future.
And yet, he'd said it anyway. He'd always end up saying it, even if he knew there was no point because he couldn't.
Not that that seemed to matter to Lane, "There's nothing that I currently need your help with, Mr Brightmore–"
Surprising no one, Niles thought to himself sardonically.
" –but I know that you've been waiting on updates for this, so I thought it best to tell you that I have just received the warrant to search the property of one Mr Thomas Jones."
She...she finally had the warrant?
Niles felt himself slowly rising back up off the mattress and he felt his spirits lift a little bit back off the floor. Not all the way, but it was enough to give him hope.
Hope that they would find something. Some sort of incriminating evidence in the house, which would either lead to an even more thorough search, or maybe to them even finding C.C. herself!
Then they'd arrest the bastard, and she could come home at long last...
The thought nearly overwhelmed him all over again, even if he didn't want to get his hopes up. He couldn't help it, in a sense - it had taken so long to get to the moment they were in that he'd placed a lot of expectations on it.
And that led to him having a number of questions. Again, all born from his eagerness to see the case closed and the producer found.
Found, and safe.
"You finally have it?" he asked, sniffing a little. "What happens now? Do you get to go in and search the property right away?"
"Not right away," replied the police officer, "We want to take him by surprise — fall on him when he's least expecting it."
"That sounds... reasonable," Niles said, "Will it be soon?"
He couldn't help asking — after weeks of practically no advancement, he found his patience was little. They had to act fast, so that the bastard wouldn't be able to hurt Miss Babcock no more. They had to act fast, he knew, before his temper got the best of him and he barged into the house himself.
"Tonight," said Lane — the steely edge to her voice was evident. Ever-present whenever Lane was working.
The pessimistic part of Niles was now just hoping that she was working hard enough.
He had to hope. This could mean the end of the nightmare if so.
"Good," he said, again letting out a breath which probably spoke of his relief at having something finally happening.
"I will of course update you on the outcome of the search," Lane replied. "But for now, I think that's about it. Unless there's anything else you'd like to know?"
There wasn't for the time being, so after a quick goodbye, Niles hung up and left the detective to get on with her work. He had all he needed to know for the time being.
The hope, no matter how small, allowed him to finish off cleaning the last of C.C.'s bedroom. Afterwards, he took one last look around and imagined her coming home to find it spotless. To find it warm, welcoming and clean...
He didn't know if they'd find her that time. He couldn't hope that much, no matter how hard he wanted it to be true. But as he took one last, lingering look before closing the front door behind him, he knew he'd come back to clean the place every time it needed him to, until its owner returned.
He hoped she'd like it, whenever that moment finally came.
Fear had, up until very recently, not been part of C.C. Babcock's vocabulary. Having been a self-sufficient individual since a very young age, C.C. had always been of the opinion to tackle things head on, regardless of how challenging or difficult the situation might be.
That had been the secret to her success. Not that she wasn't familiar with failure (because she was), but she'd learn how to bite the proverbial bullet when she had to, pick herself up and move on. The way to the top wasn't smooth – it was an uphill climb, filled with impossibly steep slopes, sheer drops, and slippery pathways. Many a time she'd taken a nosedive, scraping her palms and knees until they were bleeding, but every time she'd found it in her to rise up again.
Every time someone had even tried to put her down, she'd dig her heels in and stand her ground.
Every time… until now.
Never in her entire life had she imagined that someday she'd be in this position. Never in her life had she imagined that she'd suffer from a fall that she simply couldn't recover from.
A fall so great that it still hurt in her deepest being.
Four days it had been since… the event (she found it easier to call it by that name rather than by its true one) had happened. She knew because Thomas had brought her dinner every night, and he'd relished in what he perceived as his artwork.
She hadn't been able to sleep more than a few hours – truth to be told, she didn't even want to sleep. Because, every time she closed her eyes, she relieved the horror. She relieved the moment that bastard had decided to take everything from her, whether she'd wanted it or not.
She felt dirty. So very dirty. Even dirtier than she'd been before her shower. The grime, and the filth and the sickness were inside her, and she had no idea how to get it out.
It hurt too much to move a lot, both inside her still and out. She only did when she absolutely had to, like when Thomas brought the food. She didn't want to give him an excuse to say she wasn't obeying him and beat her, or to say that she obviously wasn't hungry and then have him eat it in front of her.
The rest of the time, she stayed where she was. On her mattress, on the floor, and wishing that the cold, hard floor would let her just sink into it until it swallowed her entirely.
That kind of abyss had to be better than the one she was in, and couldn't escape from.
She didn't even have the will to answer back to Niles, and all the talk that he'd been giving ever since she'd been thrown back down there. If she couldn't even do that, how could she possibly get out of where she was?
How could she live to face what she now was?
"You are no more and no less than you ever were," the voice argued back to that thought, clearly annoyed by her insinuation but also trying to remain soothing at the same time. "You mustn't forget that. It won't do you any good, and you need every bit of strength that you possess - and I know it's there - to keep going. Because you have to keep going, Babcock."
Keep going...
That was a laugh.
What did she want to keep going for? To continue living in this Hell on Earth? To be Thomas' little tot until he broke her entirely? It didn't sound like a promising prospect, and frankly, if this was going to be her life then she'd rather have no life at—
"I am stopping you right there!" the voice said (practically barked), making her flinch, "Don't say idiotic things! You and I know that you have plenty of things to live for—"
"Shut up!" rasped the producer, unable to tolerate his imagined words. She couldn't help but pressing her hands to her eyes — she could feel a fresh wave of tears coming. "That's bullshit and you know it!"
"It is not!" the voice insisted. He sounded more authoritative than ever, like he had all the answers when he couldn't possibly. "You have every reason to live, and being where you are now does not take any of them away!"
"Doesn't it?!" she hissed back, wanting to do nothing but curl up so tight that she disappeared into nothing. Much like she had apparently done to the outside world. "The things you say I should live for aren't exactly helping me down here, are they?!"
She knew that there wasn't anything he could say to that. Nothing that normal people could want to live for meant anything where she was. And especially not after what had happened to her...
"They can, if you'll just let them," the voice tried again. It sounded softer this time, but just as trying. "Think about all the things that you know you could live for. All the people you know you could live for, and would argue with you like I'm doing, to help you get back on your feet..."
Even if it had gotten around having nothing to say to her thought, what the voice had said felt like something of a laugh, as well. She didn't want to exist, let alone think, and the idea that there was anything she could think of which didn't hurt to have in her mind was remote.
It became even more remote when she thought of people. None of them would want to see her like this...
"Oh, very well then — if you don't want to think, distract your mind." it said, "And if thoughts of those who love you come up, welcome them. Let them comfort you in the dark. Let them be the light you so desperately need..."
C.C. didn't reply to that either. But still, she listened. As much as she'd like to deny it, she knew that the voice (a voice that, ultimately, was a creation of her own mind) was right. This was her own will to live speaking. It was still there, dimmed and weak, but it was there still. There was a part of her (a huge chunk of her) that simply didn't want to go on, but there was fight in her still.
She didn't know how much longer it would last for, but she had to rely on it, and hope for it to be enough to endure the horror. Thomas had done his very best to break her beyond repair, and he had almost succeeded. She was broken, there was no denying, but she still had hope. She had to have hope.
Otherwise she'd go mad.
Nevertheless, she couldn't bear to think of her loved ones. Not for long, at any rate. The thought of her parents, her brother, Niles or the Sheffields, cut her deeper than she cared to admit, and thinking about them would only make the longing worse.
She could, however, tolerate thinking about their names and the feeling they evoked in her. It was hard to explain, but the thought of the words Daddy or Noel were soothing. She wasn't ready to think about them per se, but their names were a good start.
"See? That's better thinking already," the voice was softer now, and it made her feel...not happier, but certainly calmer. "It doesn't have to be too much – just enough to keep you on the right track. And you have made an excellent start, right there..."
C.C. didn't feel like she'd made that much of a start, if she was honest. But if the voice had said it was good, then she supposed she at least had to try and see what she had done as being something good.
"Ah, see? Now you're listening to me," the voice was probably joking a little to try and keep the positive reinforcement going. "You can be strong, even after this. All you have to do is keep going, with these new thoughts..."
New thoughts. C.C. hoped that they'd stay as wanted ones, and not develop or dissolve into anything else.
But she also knew that she'd never get anywhere if she didn't try. She'd never find out if they turned out to be good or bad thoughts, and she'd be stuck even more than she already was.
She had to try. And there was no time to practice like the present.
Slowly, C.C. eased herself up and off of the mattress and half-walked half-crawled to her table. Thomas had left her a few new crossword compendiums that she'd refused to touch, but considering what the voice had said, perhaps perusing them didn't seem like the worst of ideas. If it helped distract her mind from the horrible memories of what had happened to her the other night, she was more than willing to give it a go.
Every movement hurt, every breath was agony, but the moment she found herself sitting in her chair, she felt a sense of accomplishment washing over her. Not to mention it briefly brought her out of the near-constant remembering of her...of...of the event.
She immediately looked to the things on the table, steering clear away from the thought that had almost developed in her head. The books were within easy reach, and she grabbed the nearest one and the pen that had been tossed in with them to start on the first page.
The compendiums were all easy crosswords – much simpler than she was used to doing. Not that it really mattered so much, seeing as it was the only kind of puzzle she had access to and she couldn't exactly ask for anything else. And some of the answers were difficult enough to get her thinking about the clues...
She'd finished three and started a fourth before she began to wonder how long she'd been working on them. It had been more of a distraction than she'd imagined it would be at first...!
"Perhaps you should look for something else?" the voice came back to suggest. "You don't want to run out of too many things at once..."
That was a point. She didn't know how long it would take to get any new entertainment, so she'd have to ration the crosswords carefully. And if just a couple of them had kept her occupied for a little while, then there had to be something else there that would help just as much...
She cast her eyes over the table, and nothing really caught her interest until her gaze landed on a book of knitting patterns.
She reached over (ignoring the ache it gave her to do so) and pulled it towards her, flicking through the items that could be made.
Again, nothing caught her interest until she let the page flip over to the instructions for making a scarf. It looked like it took a long time. She did have wool, too - she'd just never thought to use it. There were needles there, too...
She could make it, one square at a time, and then...then what?
Well, if she was thinking positive, she might as well go all the way. She'd wait with it, to see if she ever got out of that place.
After thinking briefly of a name, she chose the blue wool to get started, and told herself that it was because it matched his eyes.
That was all she dared to think, and that was what she'd do. She'd make the scarf and do her crosswords, and hold fast throughout whatever came next.
She flattened the page out to read it as she went along, getting the wool set up along with the needles.
She'd do it, she told herself, just to see if she could give her real voice of hope the gift she'd made for him.