Mind of a Fanatic
Chapter 18
The physical therapist shut the door on the sound of her patient venting her rage. She turned to see Lt. Caine approaching.
She stepped into his path. "Good morning Lt."
"Good morning, Jodi. Am I late?" He asked.
An anguished cry echoed from inside Calleigh's room. She's either in agony or hysterical. Dear God, what's happened to her?
He moved to step past Jodi.
She stopped him with a hand on his arm. "Don't; you can't help her right now. If you go in there...it's not going to help. You'll only make matters worse and she'll just resent you for it."
Pain and guilt seized Horatio's heart hearing Calleigh's cries. "But she's …"
Jodi shook her head. "No. I've seen this plenty of times before. She's confused and scared and incredibly angry right now. She's a person that has gone from total independence to complete dependence and even though it's only temporary, she's not dealing with it very well. She's not seeing the progress she's made. All she can see is that she still needs help to do even the simplest things. She knows that her current condition wasn't caused by an illness or a random accident, but by a deliberate set of actions that she had no control over."
Jodi broke off as an almost primal scream of rage exploded behind the door. She saw Horatio wince visibly at the sound. Sometimes rehab was rougher on the friends and family than it was on the patient. It was a different kind of hell to see someone you cared for in pain and constantly angry; she'd seen relationships break under the strain.
"Do you hear that?" She asked. "That's how angry she is right now; how angry she's been since she had been abducted. Being in court yesterday brought everything to the surface and now she's dealing with it." Jodi stuffed her hands into the pockets of her lab coat and rocked back on her heels slightly. "I heard that Monica pulled her permission for Calleigh to leave the hospital for a few days. She said that she overtaxed herself and Monica wanted her to rest up a bit before going back. How did she take the news?"
"Not well at all." Horatio shook his head and tried to ignore the sounds from behind the door. He still couldn't believe that Calleigh had turned her back on him, had shut him out. She had stiffened when he tried to say good night. She wouldn't suffer his touch. "I expected her to yell and get angry, but she just shut down. It was almost as if it had crushed her. She rolled on her side and wouldn't talk to me."
"It did crush her, Lt." Jodi said quietly. "It made her return to a feeling of uselessness that she had been fighting and that made her angry. She lashed out at me when I went in to get her."
The screams of rage had now collapsed into heartbroken sobbing.
"She'll be fine, Lt. Caine." Jodi reached out and put a hand on his arm. "Calleigh has to work it out and vent everything before she can move on. Don't worry, she's as mentally sound as she's ever been; she isn't having a nervous breakdown – although God knows she's entitled to one. She just has to release all the pent up emotions that have arisen since the beginning of her ordeal."
Horatio cleared his throat. I don't want to say this, but her mental health may depend on it. He looked at the closed door with such pain in his eyes that Jodi had to look away briefly. "I can't stand hearing her like this. I should probably call the union shrink."
"I don't think so," Jodi shook her head. "Not unless Calleigh is normally a little unstable or asks for it. Why put it on her record? Why make it any worse than it has to be? What she's doing is normal; she'll be fine once this little meltdown blows over.
"I'll take your word for it," Horatio said, glancing at the door. "Are you sure I can't go in? It's hard to hear her and not do something to help her."
"Going in there and trying to make it better is only going to re-enforce those helpless feelings. Take a walk; go get some breakfast in the cafeteria and come back in a couple of hours." Jodi said confidently. "She has the remote for the nurses' station. She'll call when she's ready."
Horatio shook his head, fiddling with his sunglasses. It was killing him not to go in and take her in his arms and comfort her. "I can't do that. I can't leave her like this. I don't have the heart. What if she …"
A loud crash sounded and Jodi smiled. Ah, progress.
"That, Lt. is her anger venting again; she just used her legs to kick the wheelchair into the wall. Brilliant! She's not as weakened as she thinks she is and that just proved it. She'll realize it later and it'll give her some hope. If you don't want to leave, then stay, but stay out here where she can't see you. She needs to do this alone. She'll call. Don't go in when she does. Let me; I'm the one that broke the final thread. The nurses will know not to enter when she calls and send for me."
"And if she doesn't?"
"She will." Jodi smiled crookedly. "She's too stubborn to do otherwise; now if you'll excuse me Lt. I have to go brighten someone else's day."
"CSI Delko, why, by the time Rescue arrived, were you found holding CSI Duquesne?" Powell asked. This was the third time he had asked the question in an attempt to trip Eric up. "Do you have feelings for her?"
"After I finished processing CSI Duquesne and all the immediate surrounding area, I released her from the manacles she had been locked into. She had been badly beaten and was in a great deal of pain." Eric clenched his jaw. Powell was trying to make his and Calleigh's close friendship into something it was not. Sure, he loved Calleigh, just not romantically. He trusted her with everything in him; his life had been in her hands more times than he could count. She was his best friend. "We're cops, she's my partner; I tried to give her what comfort I could before Rescue could arrive and get her medical help. And, even if she was a random vic, I would have done the same thing. No one deserves to have comfort and support denied them when they need it most."
"You didn't answer my question." Powell raised his eyebrow. "Do you have feelings for CSI Duquesne?"
Eric fought the urge to throttle the man and took the direction that Bartlett and Duke were covertly, yet frantically signalling to him. He took a deep breath to keep his voice civil.
Dupree is on trial here, not me and certainly not Calleigh. What's this idiot trying to do? "Calleigh Duquesne and I have been friends for about ten years. We have been partnered countless times and have had our lives solely in the other's hands. I trust her with my very life and I know she trusts me with hers. If you're asking me if I love her, I do. She's my closest and dearest friend and I love her as much as if she were my own sister. We've seen each other through some very rough spots and never once has our relationship turned romantic and I resent that you're trying to make it that way."
Eric glanced over at the prosecution table to be rewarded with the look of two very satisfied attorneys.
Horatio watched through the small window in Calleigh's door, heartsick, as Calleigh rode her emotional roller coaster. She would alternate between bouts of primal rage, screaming it to the world, and anguished, heartbroken sobbing and keening that pulled at his soul and made him ache, too. Sometimes she'd lapse into silence, staring at nothing before starting all over again.
The cycle went on for hours before she lapsed into a final silence that evolved into a long nap on the floor. Horatio wanted to go in, scoop her up and put her on the bed where she would be more comfortable, but didn't, remembering Jodi's words. He didn't want to destroy any progress Calleigh had made; she meant too much to him.
Finally after an hour or so, Calleigh woke. She lay quietly for a moment before reaching for the call button.
Jodi picked her up and put her in the wheelchair. She stroked her patient's hair. In a kind voice she asked "Do you feel better now?"
Calleigh nodded, her eyes still a little reddened from her crying. "Why did you let me go through all of that? Why alone? I was...I was..."
"Furious, terrified and a million other things that you don't have names for? I know." Jodi knelt in front of Calleigh and took her hands. "I understand; I really do. You had to work through it alone. I did."
Calleigh was confused. "What?"
"When I was 17 I was in a car accident and I lost the use of my legs for a while. My spine had been fractured and no one was sure I would ever walk again. I had been on the fast track to making the Olympic figure skating team. I was an athlete; it was unacceptable for me to never walk again. I had to skate. Once the fracture healed I started physical therapy." Jodi took a deep breath. "The first few days were horrible. I couldn't even stand up with help. The one pound weights they attached to my ankles to help me rebuild my strength could have been a ton each. I couldn't move them. Competition season started and I tried to watch and cheer on my friends, but it was too painful and I got angry. I felt completely useless. I refused to go to P.T. anymore. I gave up. Thankfully, my physical therapist knew what I needed and she forced it out of me like I did today for you. I let everything go; all the fear, rage and helplessness that I was feeling. When I was finished, I did feel better. I went back to therapy. It wasn't any easier, but I worked like a demon and within a couple of months I was walking to the rink to watch practices. Within the year I was back on the ice. I missed my chance at the Olympics, but I entered college knowing what I wanted to do for the rest of my life." She stood up. "So you see, I do understand."
"I guess so," Calleigh said, wiping a tear from her cheek. Jodi's story touched her deeply. She felt bad that all that training on the ice went nowhere, but she was glad that she had Jodi that day.
"Do you want to see something?" Jodi asked, taking off her lab coat and rolling up her left sleeve, revealing a nice bruise. "You did that when you slapped my hands away."
Calleigh's eyes were huge. "I did?"
"Yep. And how did the wheelchair get all the way across the room? When I left you, it was right by your feet."
A look of understanding dawned on her features. "I kicked it, I think."
"Damn right you kicked it." Jodi grinned. "They could hear the noise halfway down the hall."
"I kicked it. Jodi, I kicked it!" Calleigh's face lit with a brilliant smile, the first one since before her captivity. She laughed. "I kicked it!"
"Yes, you did. Now are you ready to get to some real work so you can get your butt out of this chair?" Jodi asked with her own laugh. She waved for Horatio to enter.
"You bet."