A/N: This chapter sort of knocked the stuffing out of me. I believe that there will be two chapters more. Please tell me what you think. I'm so grateful to be writing this with such a great community of readers. Sheila
The Darkest Time
Chapter 6
He lay in his bed, eyes awake at the ceiling. The events of the last couple of days were a blur; he couldn't remember the last four consecutive hours he'd slept. Images kept flashing through his head.
The last two days had been spent talking Pepper into coming home, and he saw very little of her through it. She seemed so uncomfortable around him, and so Rhodey and Sister Rita did most of the work.
Lester did, indeed, have a fractured skull, and the sheriff danced around the idea of arresting Pepper for attempted murder most of the first day, but Tony had put his considerable influence into getting Pepper a whole firm of lawyers. By the end of the day, the D.A. had closed the file.
The biggest discovery had been that the mysterious psycho was actually a local psychiatrist named Sikko. The man had fled, but, in addition to law enforcement, Tony threw a crack team of private investigators into the mix. Tony considered jumping in as well, but his notoriety and talents did not lend themselves to the minutiae of investigation.
The quiet of his home felt deafening to him now. It was only a few hours earlier that he'd brought his miracle home. Pepper was wary and scared, and spent most of her time with Rhodey. Bringing her to the Stark mansion seemed to be the best solution. Tony had to have her close plus the idea of leaving her alone at her apartment was more than he could stomach. Initially, they tried to convince Sister Rita to come down with her, but Sister Rita couldn't be budged. For Pepper's comfort, Tony installed Rhodey in one of the empty bedrooms.
Tony heard movement out in the hallway, and he sat up. Sleeping was what he really needed right now, but delicacy of having her back was too much for him. As miraculous as it was to find her, it seemed very fragile as if she could disappear again in the blink of an eye. Indeed, that was happened just six weeks earlier.
He got up and walked quietly down the hallway. At the end, there was a door open with a light on. He waited, breathing slowly, but after several minutes no one emerged. He walked up to the open door looked in. It was one of the bathrooms, and there was Pepper curled up on the counter next to the sink with a framed photo in her hands. She stared at the picture, and then glanced into the mirror again and again. He thought it best to leave her in this, but his pajama bottoms brushed against the door and it creaked. With a gasp, she looked up.
"I'm sorry, Pepper. I…heard a noise. I just wanted…to make sure…."
Her hair was pulled back behind her ears, and for the first time, he saw her whole face again. Her cheekbones were gaunter than he remembered, and the bruised skin around one eye was barely in contrast to the shadow under the other. She turned the photo toward him. "I'm really supposed to be this person?"
The photo was of Pepper smiling widely, wind blowing her strawberry curls away from her face. Tony had always been a thief of sorts, capturing pictures of Pepper whenever her spirit really showed. The mansion was dotted with little portraits like this, and the old Pepper had long since ceased hiding them.
Tony stepped forward carefully, and reached for the photo. "This is you."
She looked in the mirror and shook her head. "I don't see it."
"The woman in the picture is sure of herself, confident, happy. She knows who she is. I believe she still exists within you, but you're hurt and confused right now. Sikko and Lester did that to you. They stole your memories, and they treated you…badly."
She cocked her head at him. "Why?"
He looked down. "I have enemies, Pepper. They know they can hurt me by hurting you."
She shook her head. "No, I mean why me? Why is all of this happening to me? At best, I'm ordinary; at worst, I am the things Lester said to me. No one looked at me. No one cared about me. Why does one of the richest, most famous men in the world come to find me in a private plane and then install me in his palace? What are you going to do with me?"
Tony was stunned. It had never dawned on him that she could see his actions as anything other than a rescue. She didn't trust him any more than she did Lester, and while he felt wounded, he knew that six weeks of abuse had taken its toll. "Pepper, I just want you to be you again. I want you to be happy and confident and funny again. You were very important to me, and I want you back."
She narrowed her eyes. "And I do what for you?"
He sighed deeply. "You help me with…everything. I trust you before all others. You keep me sane. You take care…More importantly, you care about me, and I care about you deeply…I want you to be strong and happy again."
"I don't know what any of that means." She wrapped her arms around her knees tightly and looked down.
Tony nodded. "It's too much. I'm sorry. I don't know how to do this, Pepper. I am so filled with…hope and excitement, and I keep pushing too hard. I'm doing everything wrong."
She let her hair fall back into her face. "Can I go back to bed now?"
"Of course, you don't need my permission ever…for anything. I won't bother you…Again, Pepper, I'm sorry."
He stood away from the door so she could jump down and trot away from him. He sighed deeply and dropped his head. When he raised it, he looked in the mirror, and realized for the first time that the only thing he was wearing were a loose pair of pajama bottoms. He cursed. The nakedness of his soul showed inside and out.
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Sikko sat on the stale smelling motel bed, and opened his laptop. He cleared his throat, and waited for the man in the dark hood to emerge.
Determined to get in the first word, Sikko barely waited for the connection to begin before he launched his explanation. "Sir, everything is going according to plan."
The dark hood shook his head. "You not only didn't destroy Pepper Potts, but you have reunited her with Tony Stark. Your mission has failed."
"No! This is part of the plan. Stark thinks everything is okay, but he now has to deal with her memory loss and the psyche damage that has been inflicted."
"We have abandoned plans to take California's Gold Reserve."
"I have been promised a cut of this! You can't do this! You're impatient. This, I understand, but you haven't given me a chance. I have not finished my work here."
"You're finished with us. I fully expect you to be in the hands of the authorities within days, if not hours. Do not attempt to contact us again."
The screen died before Sikko could protest. He slammed the laptop shut and paced. Staying ahead of law enforcement was taking all of his energy currently, but soon he would be settled, and he would show everyone the extent to his power.
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He looked over the balcony railing and saw her 100 feet below. She sat in the sand, barefoot; staring out into the surf. Behind her, Happy stood about 20 feet behind, looking uncomfortable in a full suit. Above, helicopters hovered in the distance. Tony glared at them, but they stayed in the air, like several pesky houseflies.
"Mr. Stark! Mr. Stark! Please come back in. Mr. Stark!"
Tony turned around, and remembered the group of people gathered around the conference table. Rhodey came to the door. "Get in here, Man. These people can't just sit around all day watching you stare daggers at paparazzi in heliocopters."
"They're too close!"
Rhodey looked out and shook his head. "They are not. They are at least half a mile away. Just like the injunction said. So get in here already!"
Tony reluctantly disengaged and followed Rhodey back into the conference room. A woman at the head of the table looked at Tony over the top of her glasses. "I realize you are paying a lot to have us here, but this is going to be a waste of time if we can never have your attention."
Tony bowed slightly. "Of course, Dr. Fishel, you are absolutely right. I'm just anxious about her being out there with the paparazzi so close."
She pursed her lips. "Sit down, Mr. Stark. I am sure Miss Potts will be fine out there."
Tony took a seat and ran fingers through his windblown hair. "Right. Right. Okay, please tell me you have good news."
"We really don't have any news. We've done tests, and can confirm that she lost her memory through a combination of psychotropics and hypnosis. We believe that she can regain some if not all of her memory again with time."
"But how long will that take? She's so…uncomfortable. She doesn't know who she is. She doesn't recognize the people who care for her."
Dr. Fishel took a deep breath and looked him in the eye. "Mr. Stark, there is no magic answer. It would be one thing if Miss Potts merely had her memories taken, but she was also placed in an untenable situation. This was a confident, healthy woman who knew her own voice, and she was put in an environment where her only access to identity was to that of a powerless woman. Worse, she was disregarded as useless and meaningless. The symbolism of the imagined scar, and the fact that no one noticed that it didn't exist on her face for 6 weeks is deeply disturbing. There was no where to go, no one to reach out to; there was nothing to ground her in the notion that she had any value at all."
Tony nodded. "Right. We'll just have to wait."
She swept the room with one hand. "And you are not helping. Your impatience is slowing down this entire process."
"What do you mean?"
"While we can appreciate your desire to have her healthy again, you carry an edge; an anxiety that she quickly be able to regain her place in your life. She can sense it. She needs to come to herself on her own, not because you want it so very much for her."
"I am doing the best I can to give her space." Tony shifted uncomfortably in his chair.
"She can feel your stress. She knows you are anxiously waiting for her to re-emerge as this person she once was. It's too much pressure."
"You just tell me what she needs, and I will make sure she has it."
Fishel sighed. "She'll need intensive psycho-therapy. Her memories have already begun to emerge, but it's confusing. She can't be an abused wife one day, and then turn into a vital member of a billionaire dollar company the next. It will take time before it all snaps into place again."
"I understand."
Fishel took her reading glasses off. "And you should prepare yourself for the new Pepper Potts. She may return to 'normal', but this experience has shaped her and changed her forever. She can be healthy again, but she will never be an exact replica of who she was. A big part of this for you is letting go of the old Pepper Potts, and making room for the new Pepper."
Rhodey could feel the anger building in his friend, and he moved his chair closer to Tony.
Tony stared at the wall behind the doctors for a moment. "Is that all, Doctor?"
"One more thing, Mr. Stark. We believe that your exposure to trauma from this experience was quite significant as well. We would recommend treatment for you too."
"Okay." Tony got on his feet. "Thank you for your time. Jarvis will see you out." Tony exited before anyone could respond.
For a moment, everyone was silent. Then Fishel turned to Rhodey. "I couldn't see sugarcoating it for him. I realize that it's a lot for him to digest. Please tell me that you heard what we said. He will need someone in his life who can walk him through this."
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Pepper moved form program to program on the TV. It was the latest suggestion from her therapist. She needed distractions from the work of regaining her identity. Memories were trickling in, and she needed to find a way to be patient about the pace of it.
It was such a scattered process. Memories would come, disconnected to context, and she would find herself lost as to meaning. The other night when he appeared at the bathroom door in his pajama bottoms had been the first time. It was the titanium heart. She saw it on his chest, and remembered him asking her about her hands. She remembered the nervousness she felt when he asked her to help him replace the heart. She remembered how it felt inside his chest, and the joy she felt when the new heart clicked into place. The emotions that went along with it were so strong that the bathroom was suddenly too small for the both of them. She'd jumped off the counter at the first opportunity and disappeared into her bedroom again.
This morning, it was different memory. She was lying in bed sobbing. There was a news report on Tony Stark's disappearance in Afghanistan. Officials had concluded that Tony was dead, and the search had been suspended. The sorrow in this memory was so profound that her face was again wet with tears. The intensity of this memory and the first one confused her. This didn't feel like memories from a relationship that professional or even platonic. Yet, Tony insisted to her that it was. The man could have any woman in the world. Settling for a lanky, freckled girl with a crooked smile seemed highly unlikely.
She clicked past show after show, disgusted with the lack of real content on television, when she passed a video of Tony. She surfed back to it in time to hear an announcer say that the True Hollywood Story of Tony Stark and Pepper Potts would continue after the break. After commercials, the show began with a video montage of her and Tony in close contact. The narration reported years of speculation about a secret marriage or possible affair, and then finally the speculation that she might be paid for intimacy by the billionaire. There was blurry video shot from a distance of Pepper on the lower deck of a large yacht, sunning herself in a bikini. On the top deck, Tony, dressed in white, is clearly staring down at her.
The breath left her body for a moment. She scrambled for the remote, and when she wasn't able to turn it off immediately, she threw it at the TV hard. The end of the remote buried itself in the screen. She heard running footsteps, and turned to find Tony breathing heavy. "What happened, Pepper?"
She got off the couch and backed away from him. "You're trying to manipulate me. You're just like Lester and Sikko."
He shook his head. "I'm not, Pepper. I promise you. Please tell me what happened."
Her face screwed up. "You said I worked for you. You said we were friends. On TV…I just saw a show that claims…that I was your prostitute."
His shoulders dropped. "Oh Pepper, you can't watch TV. This is no way to heal. It's the media. They don't understand us. They have been making lurid claims for years."
She started shaking. "No more lies, Stark. I mean it. I have had it up to here with being played by every male I encounter."
"Pepper, it's not true."
She pointed at him. "I told you to stop lying. I've had enough. I know it's a lie because I am starting to have memories, and they are not the memories of an employee, I'll tell you that."
Tony stepped forward. "You're starting to remember?"
She backed away from him in concert. "I remember when you disappeared in Afghanistan, and everyone thought you were dead. I remembering the crying and the sadness and the not eating and the not sleeping. I remember feeling like my life was over. I remember wanting to die."
"Pepper, the docs said that your first memories would probably be your most intense. I'm so sorry. I never knew…I was so busy trying to survive that I didn't have time to think about what it must have been like for you."
"Who am I, Tony?! Why did I care for you so desperately?"
He sat down gently into the couch. "Pepper, listen to me. I'm not lying about this. Our relationship was complicated. Nobody understood it, but it worked for us, and we didn't care what anyone else thought."
She relaxed against the wall. "I can't hear that. I need something to be simple right now. No more lies. No more games. Tell me something real."
Tony worried his lip for a moment. "I know how you felt when I disappeared in Afghanistan. This is what happened to me when you disappeared: no sleeping, just sadness…and drinking…and wishing my life was over. That's real, Pepper. That's from my heart."
"Did you love me?"
He nodded. "Very much, but we never talked about it. I was not the kind of man you deserved, and we both knew it."
"I was never your prostitute?"
He shook his head. "God no, Pepper. Never."
She closed her eyes. "I can't make sense of this. I'm not extraordinary, but you are. Why did I matter to you?"
For a long moment, he was silent. Then he stood. "Do you still feel the scar on your face?"
Startled, she reached up and felt for it. "I don't know."
He walked up to her slowly. "Can I touch your face?"
Her breath quickened, but she nodded. He reached up and traced a line across her face. "There is no scar. It was never there. They stole so much from you, but I believe you're going to get it all back. I am so tempted to tell you everything that makes you special, but I can't make you feel it. I need to give you the space to find it on your own."
He left his hand on her cheek, and just looked at her. She might not be the same in every way, but she was Pepper. More and more, he knew she was coming home. Her shallow breathing quickened again. "Why did you wait so long?"
"I don't understand."
"You were gone three months."
"I was in captivity, Pepper."
She ducked away from him. "I remember that I didn't trust that you came back as fast as you could. I knew that if something intrigued you, you would follow it. The suffering that was happening to me; I knew you wouldn't think about it. It would all about you."
"Pepper?"
A sob rose from deep within. "And even when I knew that you were in captivity that whole time, I was angry because it's a pattern, you knew. It didn't matter that it wasn't your fault. And then I find you, and all you want to do is eat a cheeseburger and set the world on fire. Silly old Pepper with those tears running down her face could certainly wait."
"I'm sorry."
She rubbed at her eyes. "What fascinates Tony is what matters. Tony is off on another adventure. Tony can't be bothered to remember birthdays. If you let Tony get too close, he'll get bored. Tony always gets bored. Tony doesn't have real emotions."
"You're remembering more." He stepped back.
Sobs caught her breathing and she struggled. "If I was really that important to you, you would've tried harder to be a better man. That was always the truth, wasn't it? Oh God, its like a flood washing through my head: the feelings, the teasing, the resentments."
"Okay, Pepper, it's going to be okay. You have to slow down, Honey. You're hyperventilating."
She turned and stumbled for the stairs. "I have to get out of here. I can't breath."
He caught her arm, but she pushed him away. "Don't touch me, Tony. It's coming too fast now, and you're making it worse."
At the top of the stairs, she turned to him once more. "I can't just turn back into this person again in the blink of an eye. And maybe I don't want to. It seems to me that the old Pepper put up with way too much."
Tony grabbed his cell, "Rhodey?...I don't care what you are doing. I need you here…She's remembering too much, and the feelings are too intense, and being around me isn't helping…I mean it, Buddy. We need you bad."
He slid down the wall and sat on a stair. "I won't come near you, Pepper. Just slow down. Put your head between your legs."
She let herself sit down, and dropped her head. After a few moments, her breathy sobbing slowed.
Tony felt his breathing trying to match hers. "At the risk of not saying the right thing, I want you to know that…you made me want to be a better man. I did take you for granted. There is no doubt, but you also changed me. You've changed me a lot. I'm still changing and growing because of you…Our relationship has been a dance between us for a long time, and neither of us knew how to take the final bow. Neither one of us knew."
She looked up at him with puffy eyes. "Please don't tell me anymore right now. There's too much."
Rhodey came around the corner, and found them both slumped against the wall, like they had just run a marathon. He knelt in front of Pepper. "Are you okay?"
She reached for him. "Please take me away from here."
Rhodey pulled her into a hug, looking at Tony over his shoulder. "It's okay, Pepper. I'll take care of you."
"I'm so sorry." Tony didn't even attempt to rise.
Rhodey shook his head. "They told you not to push."
"I tried."
"Well, you didn't do a very good job, did you?" Rhodey put an arm around her shoulders, and led her away from him.
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Next chapter on Saturday, I think.