A/N: Hi guys, thanks for being patient with me. I know it's been some time since I updated this, and you have my apologies. A young woman I worked with, one of my students who was more like a sister to me, passed away unexpectedly on the 8th of August at the age of twenty-five. Over the past eight months I spent hundreds if not thousands of hours with her in the hospital. She went through hell and came back every time. She successfully made it home three times, but none of them for very long. I honestly thought we had more time, but I think everyone probably feels that way about their loved ones. She was very special to me and I miss her more than words can express. Today is her memorial service and I think I'm writing to try and help me process everything.
Anyway, thanks to everyone who reads/reviews/favorites/follows. It makes me feel so pleased when I know you're enjoying a story.
Hopefully more will show up sooner.
Enjoy!
Leo watched the new girl at breakfast. They all ate their meals in the same common room together, the same room where they all attended group therapy and took part in "recreation time" and tried to participate in calisthenics in the morning. For the most part the other residents of the "whacky shack" (as Leo had heard one of the techs call it) ignored each other and tried to stay as quiet as possible. They'd all developed some sort of quiet respect for the room and the situations therein.
The new girl was breaking all of those rules.
Leo didn't like it.
She came in under duress, chirping and whimpering, being guided by the nice tech. Leo thought his name was Trip, but he had a tendency to forget a lot of things.
The girl screamed and yanked her arm away from Trip, then bolted across the room and dove under one of the tables.
"That's MY table."
Leo watched as John Garrett broke out of the breakfast line, dumping his tray on the floor in his haste, and strode towards "his" table. The bigger, stronger man grabbed the table and jerked it towards him. In a fast moment Leo saw the new girl's hands go up, as though to protect herself.
"Tell her that's MY table," Garrett ordered, looking at one of the techs. "It's MY table."
The nice tech – Trip – moved towards Garrett. "I'm sure Skye didn't realize it was your table, Mr. Garrett."
Garrett hefted the table up and tried to throw it across the room. Leo was pleased to see that Garrett's reflexes were dulled by years of psych meds, leaving him slow and clumsy. He saw his opportunity.
He darted across the room, swift monkey tricking stupid lion, reached down beneath the table, and carefully knelt down in front of the new girl. Her eyes were panicked and wild, hands clamped over her ears.
Terrified wildebeest, Leo thought. He reached out a hand. "C-c-come with m-m-me," he said. "Find you breakfast. No. I will help you find …"
He'd thought it was the perfect sentence, right up until the new girl screamed, seized his hand, yanked it towards him, and bit him.
Definitely not a wildebeest.
Jemma walked into chaos in the dayroom. John Garrett was shaking a table for no good reason. Trip was trying to comfort Leo, who was making angry Scottish noises while holding his hand – his bleeding hand?! – covered in a white napkin.
Bobbi Morse, the recreational therapist, was kneeling in the corner, speaking softly to someone. Above it all Jemma could hear a sound she'd come to recognize –
Skye.
"What happened?" Jemma asked Trip.
"Brought her in here for breakfast. She sat under Garrett's table. Garrett got mad. Leo tried to help. Skye bit him," Trip said.
Though the situation was anything but positive, Jemma was pleased he was still using the short sentences she'd asked for the day before.
"And what's Bobbi doing?"
Trip shrugged.
"Okay," Jemma said. "Thank you for trying to help, Leo."
"She… she… b…b-b-b-bit my hand!" Leo protested.
"Yes. And Trip will take you to the clinic and get you a bandage."
Leo looked up at her, tears streaming down his face. "And a lolly?"
Jemma had to smile at that. "And a lolly."
He wasn't a child, none of them truly were, but Jemma knew that sometimes following stressful situations, it wasn't the worst thing in the world to have a bit of sugar. It was strange that Harry Potter and the cure for Dementors was part of Jemma's treatment plan, but she liked to think she was an unconventional doctor. Hence the big jar (plastic, of course) of lollipops on the counter near the nurses' station.
Jemma carefully approached Bobbi Morse. The tall, lithe woman was one of the best therapists Jemma worked with at Shield Memorial. There was something about Bobbi that inspired trust in others.
It didn't seem to be working on Skye, though. The autistic girl had her hands over her head, palms towards her face, flapping her fingers and looking up at the lights through them. Skye's breathing was quick and her expression troubled.
"Skye," Bobbi was saying as Jemma approached, "I'm sorry about what happened."
Skye gave a small huh, but gave no other sign of recognition.
Jemma knelt down next to Bobbi. "Good morning, Skye."
The doctor slid the "yes" and "no" cards out of her coat pocket and handed them to Skye.
Skye breathed in sharply, grabbed the cards from Jemma, and tore them into shreds. Then she screamed at Jemma and Bobbi, stood up, and bolted from the dayroom.
Doctor and therapist turned to watch the dark-haired girl go. Jemma got to her feet and followed Skye out into the lobby.
Room too big. Too big. Too big.
Skye's eyes jerked around the front room. There were no spaces. The nurses behind their glass cubicle couldn't help. The nice boy with the kind eyes would never talk to her again, people don't talk to those who bite them. The nice tech was gone. The man with the table…
"Skye. Listen. Feel that?" The snake voice seized the back of her neck.
Pain like a red hot coal slammed into her shoulder and she screamed. No, Mom. No.
Dad. Stop. Stop. Make it stop. STOP!
Her thoughts jerked to a standstill and she froze in the hallway, her hands clenched at her side. Words were getting blurry, the room was spinning, and the ceiling was pushing down on her chest.
Dad. Dad. Dad, you PROMISED!
She screamed and began beating her hands against her head. Stop. Stop. Make it stop.
The pain blossomed into a fireball and she got down on the floor, crawling towards the wall. She was dizzy and confused and her shoulder boiled, spilling pain over into her body.
Someone touched her shoulder and Skye wailed in their direction, the pain jolting fire into her arm, her chest, her veins. Through her tears and confusion she saw Jemma, and she reached up with her free arm and grabbed Jemma, pleading in babbles for the doctor to make the pain stop.
"Skye," Jemma said. "Skye, you have to breathe."
The pain got bigger, like a vacuum sucking all of the air out of the room, and black spots danced at the edges of Skye's vision.
Make it stop. Make it stop. Doctor. Doctors heal. Doctors help.
"Not all of them," the snake whispered into her ear.
Skye couldn't breathe, she couldn't see; she was nothing but pain and anger and desperation. Her grip on Jemma's shoulder loosened and the world fell away in a blurry, Impressionist painting sort of way.
Detective Lincoln Campbell reentered the crime scene, looking around for his partner. "Lance? You still here?"
"In here," a voice responded from the living room.
Lincoln crossed into the other room, seeing his partner, Lance Hunter, moving around, gloves on his hands, looking at various pieces of evidence.
"Anything new?"
"Not a bloody thing." Lincoln was still unsure how Lance, a Brit through and through, had made it onto an American police force, but he wasn't complaining. Lance was dedicated and had a wicked sense of humor, which made him a great partner. "Tell me you've got a lead."
"Got the names of our two victims," Lincoln said, holding up his file. "That help?"
"It's something," Lance said. "Be even better if you've got the reason they're victims. Or better yet, that Cal guy's head on a stick."
"Hey, hey, easy now," Lincoln said. "We don't know if he's guilty."
Lance rolled his eyes.
"His daughter needs him," Lincoln said. "It's in our best interest to find him."
"And jail him."
"If he's guilty."
"Let's move on, mate," Lance suggested. "Tell me about the vics."
"Yeah." Lincoln opened his file. "Vic number one is Robert Gonzales. Fifty-seven years old, no priors. Address in Bakersfield Heights. Wife Camilla. Worked as a high-level executive at a medical equipment supplier."
"A little old for a B&E."
"I don't think this was a B&E," Lincoln said, looking up.
"Thought that was what we were going with."
"That changed after all this," Lincoln said, and handed Lance the file full of information on Cal's daughter.
Lance let out a whistle as he paged through it. "Bloody hell. What kind of sick bastards do this to a child?"
"She's a broken doll," Lincoln agreed.
"We need to find her dad," Lance said.
Lincoln rolled his eyes, but Lance was still looking down at the folder.
"Vic number two is Tomas Calderon. Thirty-eight, again no priors. Divorced, no kids, not in contact with his ex-wife. Lived out by Glass Lake, in that fancy subdivision… uh… Winddancer Park. Owned a firm devoted to creating and implementing high-tech security systems."
"What were they doing here?" Lance looked up.
Lincoln had to agree. The house Cal Johnson and his daughter had shared wasn't rundown, and it wasn't in a terrible neighborhood, but it could probably be best described as "comfortably shabby." Everything was neat and tidy; some of it looked secondhand, but the things in the house that clearly belonged to the autistic daughter were high-quality and well-maintained.
"We got any other background on these guys?" Lance asked Lincoln. "Like, what they might be doing here? How they're connected? What they wanted from a guy who does medical transcribing from home?"
Lincoln shook his head. "I've got the experts back at the station running them through all the programs. Whatever they were doing here, we'll find it."
"You meet the daughter?"
"No. Only through that information."
"Hmm." Lance put his head back down, burying himself in the information.
Lincoln moved down the short hallway to look in the bedrooms, snapping on a pair of gloves. He wasn't sure if there was any other evidence the crime scene folks had missed, but he needed to see for himself. And there was something about standing in the scene and the surrounding rooms that helped Lincoln focus on the scenario, to open up his mind to all the possibilities.
The father's bedroom was typical male, at least in Lincoln's experience. Blue, spartan furnishings, dark wood. Bed neatly made. Slippers perfectly matched at the side of the bed. A glass of water on the bedside table. Next to that, a mystery novel, well-worn.
Nothing to suggest the man who lived in this room was anything more than a father, a quiet and comfortable man who liked a quiet life.
Lincoln sighed and crossed the hall to the daughter's room. It was brighter in there, the walls a light lavender. On the wall by the door was a series of pictograms in a long vertical line on a purple piece of tag board that had been divided into two sections. The left side said "To Do" (the pictogram a piece of paper with scribbly lines on it) and the right said "Done" (the pictogram a person, seen from the neck down, showing hands in two different positions). Lincoln supposed that must be sign language, and he was impressed that a simple pictogram could express so much. At the top was a picture of the daughter – Skye, he reminded himself – and the legend "Today." Each pictogram was attached to the board with Velcro, so that each task could be moved as it was completed.
There were a few cards under the "Done" heading; Lincoln figured they must have been the tasks completed on the day of the murders, before everything went to hell. Bathroom. Wash Face. Clothes On. Brush Hair. Fold Pajamas. Make Bed. Eat Breakfast. Brush Teeth.
The day went on and Lincoln had a hard time imagining a mind so fragmented that a rigorous schedule like that was helpful. On a whim, he pulled the schedule from the wall, taking an envelope packed with other pictograms that had been stored in a basket hung just above the schedule as well.
Poor kid needs some stability.
"What just happened?" Dr. Coulson demanded as he burst into the treatment room.
Trip and Mack had managed to lift Skye to a gurney and bring her into the room. Even in her unconscious state Skye writhed back and forth, one hand clawing frantically at the left side of her shirt.
"She's been het up since this morning," Mack answered.
Jemma glared at him.
"She has been agitated, sir," Trip said.
"Does she need a sedative?" Dr. Coulson asked.
Jemma shook her head. "It's been proven that sedatives can often have the opposite effect on patients with autism. I don't want to agitate her any further."
"Hey, guys, not to…" Trip trailed off, and Jemma and Dr. Coulson turned to look at him. "What is this?"
Skye's terrified clawing had finally slowed, but she'd managed to yank down the collar of her shirt, exposing red claw marks and something else, something pulsing just below the surface of her skin.
Jemma leaned in, hesitantly putting her fingers to the raised bump. It was the size of a walnut, pulsing hot, hard under Jemma's gentle touch. "It feels like a subcutaneous port for intravenous fluids. Like the ones they use for administering outpatient chemotherapy," she said after a few seconds. "But there was nothing in her notebook…"
An electrical charge rocketed up her arm and she jerked back from the gurney. "What on earth…?"
"What is it?" Dr. Coulson leaned over.
"It… it shocked me," Jemma replied, her heart pounding.
Dr. Coulson moved in, taking Skye's wrist in his. "God, she's cold."
"Except for right here," Jemma said, indicating the raised bump. "It's hot."
"Her pulse is very low, and…"
Dr. Coulson's words were cut off as Skye let out a scream, her back arching, and sat up, her eyes wild. She reached out for Jemma, babbling, and then shoved herself up and off the gurney, tumbling to the floor. Skye stood, her hands out as though she was drunk or on a tilting ship, searching the room as syllables tripped from her mouth.
"Skye? What are you looking for?" Jemma asked hesitantly. "What do you need?"
Skye brought her hands up and slapped her head, hard. Her vocalizations increased in speed and volume, and she frantically looked around the room.
Have to make them understand. Board. Board.
Computer. Type. Type.
NO!
She slapped her head again. There had to be a way to make them see. To understand.
At last her eyes lit upon the whiteboard in the corner, used for team meetings. She bolted over to it and grabbed one of the markers. It took her shaking hands a long few seconds to get the cap off the marker, but eventually it was freed and she tossed it to the floor.
Her hands were wobbly as she brought them up to the board.
Not good. Not good.
Best we have.
Type?
NO!
She pressed her hand to the board and began moving it, the marker trailing streaks of bright blue scribbles. Skye forced her hand to slow down.
Like Dad says. Practice.
Stable. Stable.
Make the letters. Each letter.
D.O.N.T.T.O.U.C.H.
M.O.M.S.A.Y.S.
She turned to Jemma and Dr. Coulson and the good tech and the bad tech and tilted her head, the marker still bobbing in her hand.
They understand? They understand?
"Skye, no one understands." Her mother's snake voice wrapped around her neck like a scarf she didn't want to wear.
The thought pulsed through her from her shoulder to her belly and she dropped the marker to the floor.
Jemma stepped forward and took Skye's hand in hers. "Okay. We won't touch it."
They understand. They understand.
Sleep now. Sleep now.
Skye smiled at Jemma, her first real smile in what seemed like years, and climbed back up on the gurney. Like a docile child she curled herself into a ball, put her hands over her ears, and slipped away into sleep.