A/N: Please Read! At the end of this chapter is a strong scene dealing with the issue of Survivor's Guilt. The scene is just one of many plausible reactions one can have and is the one I have chosen for this story. Please know it is not my intent to hurt, belittle or mock anyone's experience with this issue.
Special thanks to Imaguestage a.k.a. Rogue989 and prplerayne for their insightful discussions and guidance throughout this chapter.
Thanks to MariaLisa for the encouragement, support and complete honesty at all times.
The Survivor Within
Punch, kick, hit, scratch and bite but if you can't touch my heart
you can never make me bleed. – Sally Jetson
She stared… razor wire… gray brick… standard issued orange.
The guard waved her through. Lights blinked, buzzers sounded, doors clanked.
She hastily scrawled her name in the visitor's log and then she was in, perching on the edge of a cold, unforgiving metal chair, staring through bullet-proof, shatter-proof but not emotion-proof plexi-glass, at him.
His face was as she remembered it; twisted into a sneer, a smear of perspiration across his forehead. It was his voice as he spoke into the phone that drove the chill into her bones, causing blackness to tunnel in on her.
"I've been waiting for you, Lind-say."
She asked the obvious question, unable to stop herself, "What made you think I'd come?"
He adjusted his position so that he was closer to the glass, holding her dazed eyes with his hypnotic, gleaming ones.
"Because I know you."
"You don't know me." she spat out in disdain, recoiling; the hold momentarily broken.
"That sounds like you want proof." The insinuation was thrown down as a gauntlet.
She swallowed a pocket of dry air as he continued.
"I've been watching you… watching you ever since…"
"Ever since when…" she pushed out hurriedly.
He shifted back, fingers drumming casually on the counter. "Why don't you tell me?" Slyness echoed in his voice like a snake slithering through the grass. "C'mon Lind-say… when did you first notice me?"
Her hand fisted in her lap as her mind clicked through memory after memory but when her brain dead ended she changed the subject, "Why did you take the plea bargain? I thought you would want to have your day in court."
He ignored her question. "You didn't notice me soon enough though, Lind-say….did you? Tsk, tsk not soon enough to save your sister."
This time, when he leaned closer to the barrier beckoning her with his free hand, she responded like a puppet on a string. A bead of sweat broke free and rolled down his nose.
"But it was soon enough to save yourself, wasn't it?"
The scenes began to play behind her glazed eyes: head spinning, body aching, his sneering face closing in, hands gripping, bat swinging.
"Until tomorrow, Lind-say."
The phone clicked and she saw the world outside herself again, the standard issued orange momentarily filling her view and then disappearing.
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The glare of the sunlight blinded her as her body followed her feet while her mind struggled with the remnants of the memories. She collapsed against the hood of the car, the searing cold of the metal soothing her heated forehead, her hands squeezing into tight fists.
Breathe Lindsay, breathe.
"What? No, No," her voice wobbled when she felt the hands on her shoulders.
"It's me," his voice hovered in her ear; quiet, reassuring. "C'mon." He turned her gently into his chest, wrapping his arms around her, a hand stroking the back of her head, the other curling, low, on her waist, his lips pressing to her forehead.
"I'll take you home."
"No!"
She arched back, hands braced against his chest, luminous eyes wide with haunting determination.
"What?"
"I can't leave…not yet… not until tomorrow."
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He hadn't asked for explanations as he had helped her into the car. He had just kept a wary eye on her drawn features as he drove. Everything was happening on the inside and he wanted to reach in and pull it to the surface so he could understand; so he could know; so he could help her; but that would have to wait until they were some place more private. He drove past the run of the mill hotels along the interstate into town, to an establishment that harkened to a bygone era.
He figured this must be what a mountain lodge should look like as he took in the great prong horned sheep's head mounted above the massive stone fireplace in the lobby. After securing a room he guided her with a deferential hand to the room, softly clicking the door closed behind him.
Only a slit of light sliced across the room from between the drawn curtains. She stopped at the edge of the bed; he paused right behind her, inhaling her scent, so giddy to be in her presence again but reluctant to touch her, hesitant to tip the balance of her emotions in the wrong direction.
And then she broke. Her arms wound fiercely around her trembling body. She began to fall but he caught her and lowered her gently to the bed, harboring her in the circle of his arms, determined to be her anchor.
He was not aware of how long she sobbed, only of the wretched pain emanating from her body in shuddering wave after shuddering wave. When she calmed to relative stillness he brushed her hair back and murmured into her ear.
"Ya, all right?"
She nodded and turned in his arms, burrowing into his body her breathing becoming deep and even in mere moments. He succumbed soon after, finally able to regain the sleep he'd lost since the last time he'd held her in his arms.
When he awoke the room was dark save a skewed square of light seeping from underneath the bathroom door. He sat up and stretched his arms above his head, twisting to work the kinks from his back. He flicked on the bedside lamp. It cast a soft glow about the rustic interior; he was distractedly wondering if the fireplace really worked when he heard the shower stop.
She emerged, moments later, dwarfed in a white terry-cloth robe that emphasized the glittering darkness of her fathomless eyes. She positioned a knee beside his thigh and straddled herself across his lap. His hands dropped to her waist; she cupped his face and bent her head to hungrily capture his lips. His breath left his body as the fire shot immediately to his groin. She released his lips only to suck in more air before relentlessly attacking them again, rousting his tongue into the fray.
Her hands freed his shirt and yanked it up and over his head, dislodging his glasses which he just managed to rescue and toss to the table as her hands scrabbled at his belt buckle, finally jerking it into releasing, her fingers nimbly unsnapping and unzipping.
"God Linds," he groaned as her hands found their mark, his hips bucking in response.
His hands, acting of their own accord, pushed the robe off her shoulders, his lips following suit. But when she increased the intensity of her stroke, his fingers dug into her shoulders; his forehead nestled into the crook of her neck unable to focus on anything but the exploits of her hands. It had only been a couple of days, but he felt like it had been years.
Messer, you are such a guy! You should be talking to her.
She bent her head intent on the task at hand when he wove his fingers into her dampened curls lifting her head to eye level with his.
"We need to talk," he whispered tightly.
"No!" she declared as she adjusted her position so that she was straddling him once more, and this time it was skin to skin.
"Lindsay… stop…" Never in his life had he uttered more contradictory words.
"No, I won't stop… I need this!"
She curled a hand around the back of his neck, pulling him atop her as she fell backwards. He propped himself onto a forearm, trying to put some distance between them as he looked into her burning eyes, startled at the possessed vacancy he saw there.
"Fuck me, Danny," she throated.
"What?" His brow knitted in puzzled shock. He wasn't above a little dirty talk now and again, but the rawness….this wasn't like her.
She pushed his jeans down below his hips, coiling her legs decisively around his waist.
"C'mon Danny, I want you to fuck- me-!" Her voice took on a demanding, animalistic tone.
She thrust her hips upwards, his body betraying him as he grappled to hang on to coherent thoughts.
"Lindsay, I don't want to do it…"
"What do you mean?" Her eyes narrowed in suspicion.
He pulled up his jeans with one hand, licking his lips to give himself time to frame his words just right.
"I mean not like this… there is something going on with you. We should talk."
She scrambled out from under him to stand stiffly in front of the fireplace, swaddling the robe about her small frame.
"I don't see why we should we talk," she threw over her shoulder.
"Because you need to work through this Lindsay, you can't keep it inside, it'll make you bitter and twisted."
"Why should we talk about my problems when you can't or won't talk about yours?"
Damn, I deserved that didn't I?
He approached her, wanting like crazy to touch her but worried that it would push her back inside… at least, for the moment, she was talking…he didn't want to lose that.
"What happened today… at the prison?" he asked gently.
She ignored the question; instead she let her robe drop to the floor with a silent thud; she turned, spreading her arms along the mantle behind her, cocking a hip and propping a heel on the hearth.
Fuck, she was sexy as hell and making this as hard as the tightness in his jeans.
"C'mon Messer; I know you know how to show a real looker of a broad a good time!"
He flinched as Roselli's words lurched into his mind.
"C'mon, Messer. I 'member you used to hang with broads who knew how to party, real lookers too…"
He could swear that she had chosen those particular words on purpose.
She dropped her arms, swaying her way towards him, sliding her arms around his shoulders, and reducing the space between them to nothing but air as she painfully raked her nails down his bare back.
"Ouch, Lindsay!"
She caught his bottom lip between her teeth; nipping it roughly; drawing blood.
"Lindsay," he warned through clenched teeth as he gathered her wrists in one hand, holding them to his chest.
"What; don't you like it rough?" she brazenly mocked with a careless toss of her hair.
"That's not it, Lindsay! You're trying to push my buttons and I'm not sure why but I deserve to know why."
"You deserve? You deserve? Maybe I am exactly what a washed-up baseball player like you deserves!"
"That's it, Lindsay!"
Still holding her wrists with one hand, he snaked his other arm around her waist, lifting her and dropping her brusquely onto the bed.
"Is that how you want it, Lindsay? Is hurting me going to make you feel better about yourself?" he ground out as his jeans hit the floor and he crawled on top of her. He grunted as he entered her without preamble.
She groaned in masochistic pleasure, wrapping her legs around him; her eyes sharp and focused as he rocked into her. He tangled his hand into her hair arching her head back as he nipped the tender flesh on her neck.
"Yes, that's how I want it," she affirmed with another deep groan.
"Is this how you think I want it….how I deserve to be treated…or…," he lifted his head to look directly into her eyes, "is this how you think you deserve to be treated?"
She defiantly turned her head away but he clutched her chin and turned it back.
"Huh Lindsay? Answer me! Do you think you deserve to be treated like this?"
"Shut up and fuck me, Messer!" she snarled as she curled her hands around his biceps and cruelly dug her nails into the rigid muscles.
He pushed her knees to her chest, thrusting deeper. She winced out a small, "Ouch!" through clenched teeth.
"Admit it! It hurts!"
She closed her eyes and bit her lip as she thrashed her head from side to side in response.
"Open your eyes Lindsay! Admit it, it hurts doesn't it?" He clutched her chin again, forcing her to look at him.
"No! No, it doesn't hurt! I like it this way! This is what I deserve."
She started to tremble violently but he couldn't back down… not yet… he couldn't risk her shutting down again… he had to keep pushing her to talk, to get her to admit it; aloud to him; but most of all to herself. This was the only way.
"What do you think you deserve?"
"I deserve to be treated like a worthless human being!"
"Why Lindsay, why? Tell me why!"
"Because I… because I am..." A tear escaped from the corner of her eye and dropped to the pillow. His heart broke.
"Why Lindsay? Why do you think you're worthless?" he uttered the words praying that these were the ones that would finally break her because he couldn't take much more.
"Because… I…. should have died… oh God I should have died… not Laurel." A deep, shuddering cry racked her body. "He meant to kill me, not her… if… if… I hadn't insisted that she…if I had only noticed sooner…she'd still be alive."
"I should have been the one that died." The exorcising wail tore from her body as the cleansing tears broke.
He quickly pulled out of her and tenderly gathered her to his chest, cradling, soothing, sheltering.
"It's okay Lindsay, just let it out… just let it all out. That's only way through this is to let it all out."
He rode each emotion with her: anger, pain, grief and finally loss. He tried only to think of her but he couldn't close off the guilt; the guilt that he had been angry and that he had pushed her too hard. He had never wanted to hurt her only to help her. He prayed that she would forgive him for what he had done, for how he had broken through to her.
Finally she quieted and he could bear it no longer. He tipped her chin with a finger yearning to make a connection.
"Lindsay," his voice hoarse, "Forgive me." He touched his forehead to hers, threading his fingers through her hair, praying that it would not be the last time.
She tenderly touched her lips to his.
"For what?" her voice soft and raspy.
"For you know… you know… forcing you."
She palmed his chest, pushing back to get a better read on his face.
"No."
"What?"
"I won't forgive you for forcing me to admit how I feel. You knew what to do. You helped me."
He dropped his hands to her shoulders gripping them tightly; almost too tightly, for she winced slightly.
"That's just it. I didn't act out of helpfulness… I acted out of anger. I was angry at you for saying those things about me… to me."
"I was angry too and I goaded you… I knew what I was doing… But I knew you wouldn't hurt me."
"But it wasn't right that I reacted… I should have had more control."
"I didn't need control, Danny. I needed someone who wasn't afraid, someone who wouldn't back down when it got ugly…"
"But how can you want to be with me now if I can lose it like that."
"Danny, when did your anger change?"
"What do you mean?"
"You weren't angry with me the entire time… what changed it for you?"
"Once I… I… was inside you and… and you moaned… in pleasure."
"And if it hadn't been pleasurable… for me, if I had said no, if I had given any indication whatsoever that it wasn't what I wanted or had changed my mind, what would you have done?"
"Lindsay, I would have stopped, I swear… I would never…," realization seeping in. "I would never force you, Lindsay; never!"
"I know that, and I trusted you Danny and I still trust you," her hand cradling his jaw, her eyes glistening on her admission, "You didn't fail me, not in the least."
"Thank God, Lindsay, because I can't lose you," the darkened blue of raw need reflecting in his eyes, "I… I… love you," the words barely slipping past the emotion lodged in his throat.
"I love you too," she murmured, burrowing into the sheltering warmth of his arms as they tightened around her.
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A/N: I have somewhat resolved this on an expedited timeline to move the story along but in reality is takes years to recover from Survivor's Guilt if at all. My heart goes out to anyone who has or does struggle with this pain and grief. Sincerely, SJ