SPOILERS: through season three

NOTES: Thank you, PurpleYin, for the beta! Please, no mention of season four spoilers in reviews.

DISCLAIMER: The 4400 and all things associated with it belong to other people.

DESK, PART 5

RECOVERY I

When she woke, Diana found herself quarantined, alone in a padded cell. The medical staff, none of whom she recognized, wouldn't let her see anyone, not even Ben or Maia. Her response to this situation was slow, as she gradually came out from under the effects of the drugs they'd given her for the pain of her wound. But once the drugs wore off, her reaction was intense and unrelenting.

Life without Ben was unbearable, and she wanted to die.

She would have ended her life, had they given her the chance, but they didn't. There were no curtains on the frosted windows with which she might hang herself, no sheets on the mattress, either. The glass of the windows and door wouldn't break, nor would the mattress or padded walls tear so she could choke on the material. Some days, she didn't get off the mattress, so they had to give her a catheter and sit with her while an I.V. provided her miserable body with fluid. Others days, she couldn't keep food down, and she'd vomit it all into the drain in the floor. But always she felt weak and insubstantial and found herself crying at the drop of a hat.

It wasn't so much that she missed Ben's love and affection but that she couldn't soothe the relentless need to be with him. Yet no matter how she begged and pleaded to see him, they always told her no. He was a 4400 and a criminal, and his power to influence people was like an addiction. The doctors said so, and they treated her recovery as such, though with perhaps a bit more stringency. There was no easing off this dependency, and cold turkey was killing her by inches.

April proved to be the most helpful. She visited often, even before Diana was moved to a normal room. She offered more empathy and understanding than Diana felt she had any right to receive. Of course, as April often reminded her, she had already survived the misery Diana was unwillingly living through, so no one could better understand what Diana was experiencing. Then again, April had escaped the hell of losing Ben by becoming a 4400, herself. Diana didn't have that option. Even so, just knowing that someone else knew, that someone else shared in the intense feelings that pulled at her like the tide, it made her suffering a tiny bit bearable and gave her a tenuous hope--that and the promise she could see Maia once she was better.

Guilt over how all this was affecting her daughter, that she was not there for Maia during this trying time, was the one feeling she had that was unrelated to Ben. Although they assured her Maia's recovery from the effects of his power was quick and almost effortless--and that guilt was not a foundation upon which to build recovery--she worried about Maia and felt cheated of every day she was without her daughter.

Once Diana was capable of modest levels of reasoning, April began filling her in on Maia's life. Since NTAC's lawyers couldn't find a way for Marco's temporary custody to stick, April had claimed responsibility for her niece. It was difficult for Marco and April to try jointly caring for Maia while living in different places, so Tom had offered them a solution. In order to give Maia as much stability as possible, Tom invited Maia, April and Marco to live with him until Diana was ready to be released. That way, all three could take turns accommodating the girl's needs.

Although the Carmichael Academy was not happy about discovering Maia's entrance to their school had been due to the influence of a 4400's power, they chose to be decent about it. Because Maia had already impressed her teachers in her few weeks there, they decided to let her stay. She'd even joined the art club. Diana tried to feel good about her daughter's success, but part of her felt cheated and anxious--Was Maia better off without her?

Thoughts like that kept Diana in the mental ward even after she'd recovered enough to leave her padded cell, but at least she was allowed to see her daughter. The first time she was able to hold Maia in her arms, she was moved to tears and hung on for a good five minutes. It seemed to embarrass Maia, but Diana couldn't help herself.

Maia visited five times a week. Sometimes April or Tom would visit with her, but never Marco. During those times when Maia was alone, she established herself as the most liberal fount of information Diana had access to. From her daughter, she had various suspicions confirmed--that Ben was a foreign 4400 who'd had his features altered; that he'd been sent to become involved with her in order to gain access to Maia; that he was the one who'd handled the correspondence involving the resignation of her field agent status, and that Nina had begun her own investigation into Diana's resignation. What she hadn't suspected was that Marco had been the one who had convinced Nina to look into it, that their first conversation after her return had started the wheels spinning in his brilliant, thoughtful mind.

Unlike Sid, Tom and Diana, Marco had noticed that all of the email messages about her resignation had been sent after midnight in Spain, so it was logical to assume someone else there had had access to her laptop after she'd gone to bed. Ben was the obvious choice. The damning blow in the case against him had been a failed attempt to have someone steal the blood from Diana's medical exam. Phone records had eventually confirmed the would-be thief had been in contact with Ben. During his interrogation, the burglar unintentionally revealed hints about Ben's power. Based on that information, combined with the test results from Diana's blood, the Theory Room had come up with a plan to get around Ben--simple latex gloves. Since Tom had been exposed, he'd been kept out of the loop. That had left Marco and Garrity as the next agents in charge, and, of the two, Marco had been the obvious choice to cause a distraction at the wedding.

Looking back, she couldn't help but wonder how she had never suspected Ben in any way, had never listened to her intuition when things he'd achieved had felt off. Even after her doctors assured her that, being under his influence, she could have walked in on him with a smoking gun and thought nothing of it, she couldn't help but feel inadequate. She had invited a man bent on controlling her daughter into their house and into their lives. How could she not feel responsible?

She also felt sheepish about focusing so much suspicion on Marco. Again, her doctors told her it was all a part of Ben's manipulation of her thoughts, that he'd given her a scapegoat to distract her...not that the prospect of having had so little control of herself was reassuring. She reasoned that giving responsibility of Maia over to Marco was the ultimate sign of her faith and trust in him, but if she couldn't ask him how he felt, how could she be certain?

One day, when Maia was visiting by herself, Diana decided to test a theory. While scanning over her daughter's latest drawings, she picked up a sketch of a familiar little sports car. "So...who drove you, today?"

"Marco." Maia didn't often talk about him, despite that he was one of her three substitute parents, though Tom and April usually schooled the conversation away from Diana's ex-boyfriend.

"And how is he?"

Maia looked up from the sketches she was rearranging and gave her mother a long hard look, as though gauging Diana's sincerity. At last, she shrugged and turned back to her art. "Okay, I guess...tired, though. He and Tom work a lot." She paused to look at her mother again, then set the sketches aside. "But even though he's really busy, he always has time for me. He helps me with homework and plays video games with me...and he listens to me."

"You like talking to him?"

Nodding, Maia tried to hide a wry smile. "He's easier to talk to than Tom and has better advice than Aunt April."

Diana couldn't help but grin at the truth of her daughters words, as well as the shrewdness behind it. "What do you talk about?"

Once Maia started talking about him, memories of Marco skittered about Diana's brain like leaves in the wind, bringing with them inciting recollections of stability and security.

"I wonder why he never visits with you..."

Maia snorted. "You said you hated him, and he was saving your life at the time."

Although Diana's own memories of the incident were fractured and uncertain, it seemed Maia's were crystalline.

"I...I wasn't myself at the time." It was a poor excuse, but a valid one.

"You sure sounded like you meant it."

"Do you really think that's why?"

"How would you feel if-" Maia cut herself off, her eyes dropping to her hands.

"If what, honey?"

She shook her head. "I promised not to mention him."

"If Ben said he hated me?"

Maia nodded. For her, it seemed, the comparison was obvious.

"I'd feel pretty bad." The confession hurt more than she'd thought it would, but it finally made her seriously consider the feelings of someone besides herself, Maia and Ben.

Looking up, her daughter's gaze was honest. "I wish you'd married Marco, instead."

"I couldn't..." She'd never given Maia an honest answer about why Marco had suddenly dropped out of their lives.

"Why not? He's nice and funny, and all he's ever done is help us." Maia hadn't completely outgrown her childish whine.

"It's complicated."

"That's what he says." Looking down, Maia pulled out another sketch of Marco's car and traced the lines with her fingers, a sad, thoughtful expression on her face. "I'm sorry."

Confused, Diana asked, "About what?"

"...telling you about marrying Ben."

Reaching across the table, Diana took away the sketch so she could hold her daughter's hands. "Maia, even if you hadn't told me, it would have happened, anyway. That's what he came here to do."

"I guess." Tilting her head, Maia looked up through her lashes. "But...I feel like...I lied to you."

"Why would you say that?"

"Because..." She closed her eyes, and her bottom lip began to tremble. "Because..." It was more of a hiccup than a word.

Diana moved around the table and took her daughter in her arms. "What's wrong, sweetheart?"

"I didn't look!" she sobbed. "I liked what I saw in my first vision and...I didn't look past that. I should have seen..."

"It's okay, Maia." Brushing the tears from Maia's face, Diana lifted up her daughter's chin so they could look eye-to-eye. "It's not your fault. Ben influenced you, too. He didn't want you to see anything bad that related to him, so you wouldn't have seen what was going to happen."

"But I'm the reason he came here..." Her voice was pleading. "I'm the reason this happened to you!"

"Maia!" What could she do but hold her daughter as she cried herself out? "It's okay," she murmured, "It's not your fault."

Her daughter's confession caused her maternal instincts to kick into high gear, overpowering her own feelings of self-doubt and uncertainty. How could she feel anything but loathing for the man who had made her daughter feel this way? In assuaging her daughter's fears, she uncovered a hidden reservoir of determination and tapped into it. The sooner she recovered and was back with her daughter, the better it would be for both of them.

Watching through the window as Maia left the hospital, she saw Marco meet her daughter halfway along the path to the visitor parking. She found herself oddly mesmerized as he took the girl by the shoulders and bent closer, apparently scrutinizing her face. In response to something he said, Maia shook her head then nodded and threw herself into Marco's arms. Ignoring the stares of the people passing by, he returned her daughter's embrace until Maia had settled down enough to let go. After another couple of nodding responses from Maia, he took her hand, and they disappeared through the trees that hid the parking lot.

No matter the reason, she had treated Marco poorly for a very long time. Along with the burning desire to be a mother to Maia, again, a smaller spark of intent ignited within her. She had made amends with her sister, and it had given her the strength to liberate herself from the worst effects of her recovery. But how could she make amends to Marco if she could never get him in the same room? Somehow, she had to find a way.