Well, PV is back! Interesting first week, huh? Seems the residents haven't gotten over that night any better than they have in this take : ( At least now I don't have to feel so bad about torturing David and Bianca, though.
I think a little therapy's in order for PV today...
####
He did not shave his face every morning. His hair was approximately one inch longer. He no longer wore baseball caps or the blue jersey with the red C and the number 34: his favorite.
His eyes were the same.
Even in the dark, when only a streetlight lit them up, they were still that soft brown she liked. They were warm, although she knew logically that eyes could not be warm.
Lily had recognized them before he stepped away from the café table, into the light.
Seeing him was not part of her plan. Her routine. She had come to the cafe at her designated time of 7:45 PM. Since the café closed at 8:00 PM, the timing of her arrival was impractical. Her need for the fresh-baked bagels was strong, though. The treat remained one of the few impracticalities she had ever practiced in her life.
The man standing before her was another.
"Hi," he said. He was kneading his hands like the baker might handle bread dough.
"Hello." That was the correct response to his greeting. She wanted to say more, but she could not. Then, she remembered the other proper thing she could say. "I am sorry about your brother. He was a nice man, and tall." She bit her lip and looked away. Those were the only facts she knew about the man who had been her brother-in-law. But they were not the right facts.
"Yes, he was. On both counts." His voice was not loud or mad like it was sometimes when she first met him. It wasn't higher and sweet like it sounded when they knew each other better. But it was still light. "Thank you…thank you for caring."
He got quiet, which made her look his way again. A strange feeling traveled all around her, but it did not make her jittery or cluttered up and confused on the inside, like so many things did. Like he did, at one time.
Lily could not be sorry about her first husband, because he was the first person who had made her want to look.
To feel.
"Lily, I have wanted to tell you something for a long time, and I don't know if I ever said it…right before."
The first chill of the night air nipped her. She wrapped her scarf tighter around her neck.
When she saw him begin to take his jacket off, she backed away.
"I'm sorry," he said. His hands had fallen to his sides. "That's what I wanted to say."
A frown was on his lips and on his brow. She now knew what that meant. "I did not mean to hurt your feelings." She needed him to understand. " I did not want a coat."
"It's okay." His lips turned up again, but just as quickly turned back down. He could still confuse her. "I'm sorry about a lot of things. Most of all, I'm sorry that I lied to you."
"You were afraid of being you again." She was not certain why she said that. She had not prepared it.
Every line on his skin cleared. The effect made him younger. "Yes, I was. "
"Sometimes I'm afraid, too." She had always known the physical effects of being scared: sweaty palms, shaking limbs, an increase in heart rate and breathing, paleness.
Now she knew the other effects.
"Are you afraid now?"
"Yes," she admitted.
"Don't be afraid. Just be you. It will always be enough."
That should have confused her, but strangely, it did not.
He smiled. "Goodbye, Lily."
She returned the gesture. "Goodbye, Jonathan."
She watched him fade away, in conjunction with the open sign on the café.
Her routine was broken, and it was okay.
She was okay.
####
She thumbed through Brooke's notes, frowning at the woman's less-than-stellar handwriting Really, for a journalist and businesswoman… The content, however, made her smile. This just might do. Now all they needed – although it was the most important aspect—was the go-ahead.
Observing the clock, Erica surveyed the inventory on the table, which consisted of exactly two dog-eared paperbacks, three magazines with the closest release date of about the time the president took the oath of office, and a half-empty cup of coffee. She imagined the caffeine sliding down a dry throat like cold oil, providing comfort just as cold. Perhaps it had been abandoned as a doctor walked out and -
The soft tap jolted her.
"Jack!"
She brought a hand to her chest with the required dramatic flourish. Surely to let the suited man now towering over her know that he should never sneak up on someone.
Surely not the calm her racing heart.
When she felt the weight of the papers in her hands, however, every pretense – every lie within a lie – disappeared,
"Thank you for coming," she offered genuinely.
His response was that slight head tilt paired with the too-brief curve of the lips: his trademark. Clearing her throat, Erica arranged the papers. Each fumble sent off a tiny trill of sandpaper symphonies. Finally, the documents settled into a calm, orderly rank-and-file, courtesy of the slightly steadier hands now gripping them.
"These are the reason for our meeting, I presume?"
She nodded. "In a sense. You should know that I have also requested Brooke English's help….on the public relations side of things."
His slight eyebrow lift said more than a few interrogations ever could. The effect must have worked wonders in the courtroom. It certainly did outside.
"I know," she said, answering a question he did not ask. "But the woman can do something right on occasion. After all, she hired my daughter. And her audience reach is -"
"You don't have to explain, Erica," he said with a subtle, perfectly infuriating smirk. "Brooke is a wonderful woman…" He bit the tongue for her by adding quickly "….and a competent professional."
"Yes, I suppose."
And that would hopefully close the discussion on Brooke English and center it on someone far more important at the moment. She had already provided Jack with the basic details over the phone, and she knew that this case would fit ideally into his new legal focus. If anyone could help Ali, it would be her one always-constant.
It would be Jack.
"Erica, I do have to warn you that taking on the insurance companies is never a walk in the park. I need to be absolutely certain that this family understands that."
"That's why you're here." She gave the blank, white walls one final appraisal and head shake, mentally filling them with color. With life. "And that's why I'm here."
She would sit beside Ali in the support group, as she always did. They would talk about school. She would gently tease the little girl about that boy in art class she blushed over. They would drink some of that unfortunate punch, listen to the sometimes sad and sometimes humorous stories, and - most of all - they would celebrate being 'survivors.' Routine had never been her strong suit, but this well-worn ritual made her smile reappear. It broadened when she saw their group leader.
The smile was not returned.
The petite gray-haired woman had paused outside the door.
With somewhat less verve than usual, Erica approached. "Hello, Renee."
"Erica, It's nice to see you." The tone suggested it was anything but, which was unusual considering Renee was truly one of the most genuine people Erica had ever met, and – given her wide and ever-morphing circle over the years – that was saying quite a lot.
"We should wait for Ali before we start the session. You know that little girl, she always has to -"
"Erica, I have something to tell you, all of you."
The woman looked towards the group gathered inside - the group still missing its brightest addition. When Renee's eyes made the slow trek back, Erica slowly shook her head, but the mounting cotton inside did not clear. It only multiplied. She backed away until she met familiar resistance. "No." The word, too, was familiar. Automatic. The most useless of weapons.
"Ali's mother called me earlier today. I'm so sorry, Erica, but Ali passed away this weekend."
Gathering ever-resistant breaths, Erica made one simple declaration – "You have been misinformed" – before turning, pushing that resistance away with composed force, and walking blindly to the blank white surrounding. Enveloping. Underneath her feet, the sandpaper crumpled.
Thundered.
####
The kid wasn't going to make it easy, and she presented a complication Bianca really didn't need right now. But weren't complications the story of this place? Complications in the form of faces carved with fear, resignation, desperation so deep that the fall seemed endless, and – yes - defiance.
She had created this refuge as a safe haven for just those complications, and she couldn't lose sight of that now.
"If you rat me out to the cops, then you've gotta explain what 'you' and your 'partner' were doing there. Something tells me you don't want to do that."
The girl pushed her dark hair back, tucked it behind one ear, and tried like mad to keep that smirk in place. When the lock of hair fell again, Bianca wanted to push it back herself.
She also had about a thousand questions swirling through her head right now. Those questions had only increased about a hundred-fold since Yasmin had dragged their peeping tom into the warehouse.
Instead, Bianca held back the mother and the reporter, and allowed the negotiator to take charge. "I brought you here because you looked like you could use a helping hand, and a full stomach."She grinned as the girl stopped chewing the roll she had stuffed into her mouth. "It's okay, I've seen worse table manners in my time."
Puffed cheeks bounced back to a normal structure. The girl took a long swig of water, and Bianca thought for a moment she would lapse back into the silent spell she'd gifted Yasmin and her with on the way over.
"I know they'll call the county. They have to." The girl looked around her as if men with straitjackets and nurses with hypodermic needles were lurking behind every doorway, waiting to tag-team her.
"Nothing will happen that you are not comfortable with happening. I promise you that."
"I've heard that before."
The words were barely audible, but Bianca heard every syllable.
"Don't worry," she said. "I have an 'in' with the head of this place. She can be a bit difficult, don't get me wrong. But ultimately, she tries to follow her instincts." Bianca pulled back. She remembered just how valuable – and so fragile – a commodity trust could be. "There are warm beds and warm food here, and the company's not that bad either. I need to go take care of something. I am going to trust you to stay, OK?"
The girl considered the question. "You gotta take care of that loudmouthed manhandler you were with?"
The question caught her off-guard, but she smiled. She liked this kid. "Maybe." Bianca could have asked for a response to her own question, but instead she turned it into a statement. An olive branch. "I trust you to stay."
The girl rolled her eyes, but she did not look away.
In fact, if Bianca tilted her head and squinted just right, she might have even witnessed the hint of a smile twitching at the girl's lips. She nodded and redirected her chair toward the exit. "I'm Bianca, by the way."
The lack of a response she expected. For some crazy reason, she still trusted the girl, though.
Other things, not so much.
Stealing from a crime scene and counseling a young girl as the looted contents weighted your pockets…well, that was a whole other box of complicated.
One she intended to open in short order.
####
The not-so-carefully arranged stacks of blocks, the markers, and the scissors always reminded her of a kindergarten class for kids taking their first steps into a world that could ultimately crush them. She knew the doc would say this was one of the 'negative thought patterns' that hindered her progress. But in their own ways, they were all children again: relearning life, so that they could get on with the business of fully living it.
Natalia used the red marker to make a rather respectable if not shaky facsimile of the first letter in her name. The fully living part - that she understood. That she strived for everyday.
The problem was that, even as a cop, she had always relied more on her instincts than the nice little logic puzzles: the clues. So when it came to this cognitive behavioral therapy, or whatever fancy term they were using for it these days, she wasn't exactly buying what they were peddling.
The rewiring and strengthening of the brainwaves through habituation - she wanted to leave that to her current partner, who had just finished explained the concept to her in much greater, and more tedious, detail.
Lily Montgomery couldn't have been more different from her. And her particular 'developing life skills' were a major contrast from Natalia's. She sensed, however, that these differences were precisely the reason the doc had paired them together in this latest session. So, analytical Lily would help her with her 'cognitive restructuring' and she in turn would help the overtly sensory-aware girl with 'exposure therapy.'
For now, Natalia's entire world now centered on connecting two slanted lines. Just make a straight, horizontal line and be done with it. But no amount of holding the pen steady or crushing its body until her fingertips numbed could make that connection.
And another one of those 'negative thoughts' was hurtling toward her without abandon. She stabbed it with the pen.
"I can't do this!"
Her partner stepped in, battled it all with science. "The circuits in your brain were not destroyed. They were only damaged. Therefore, they just need to be made stronger through repeated use."
"Guess I'm just the little engine that could."
"No, trains are not relevant to our exercise."
Despite herself, Natalia chuckled. "You're right. I just have to fr...cr…'think'" – finding the word brought validation, and another small chuckle – "I can do this, and then I'll do it."
She took the advice. She let all of the 'could nots' and 'should nots' slide away. She relaxed. Focused.
And she made the connection.
It was her smallest, and largest, victory in a long time.
It was a start - a start she shared with the smiling girl who took unexpected hold of her hand.
Her own celebration forgotten, Natalia waited for Lily to uncatch herself from the moment and pull away.
The girl's attention did focus on her hand after a few moments. Natalia could feel the fingertips on her knuckles stiffen, then, finally, settle.
It was a start for both of them.
"I touched someone else's hand recently. It was nice."
The deep blush that accompanied Lily's confession told Natalia a few things about the source of that hand-touching. "And you would like to touch this person's hand again?" she asked with a smile.
"I want to…I want to touch my lips with his lips."
It was a good thing Lily did not have a mirror to her face right now, given her dislike of the color red.
Natalia sucked her lip in to keep the grin from breaking free and nodded. "I see," she offered.
"I do not want to process or organize or analyze the variables. I want to feel." The grip on Natalia's hand strengthened.
Natalia, with no tremors in sight, placed her other hand over Lily's. "Then let that be your guide."
When the girl finally looked up again, her own smile had broken free…
Only to be quickly recaptured. Lily's brow creased as she focused on something behind Natalia. Puzzled, Natalia turned to the source of Lily's redirected attention. A muted TV flickered on the wall. Two men were shaking hands, obviously basking in silent applause. The older face with the less sincere smile she recognized immediately as Adam Chandler. The other one, though…
Natalia turned back to Lily. "Don't you work with him?" she asked.
The girl's ever-changing face confirmed that Lily Montgomery could already feel… a lot.
Maybe too much.
####
He knew where to find her not because she would need a quiet place, but because she would need a place where she could command. Contemplation and pleading were never Erica Kane trademarks.
When he rounded the last corner, however, the sharp retorts were only faint echoes. The phone was still in her hand, frozen halfway between its owner and the floor. Jack retrieved it before it could continue the rest of the journey. He met no resistance.
"Erica." He touched a shoulder that did not tense. Did not fight. "Maybe we should go inside."
She did not look at him, but rather through him, at some unseen fixed point. "They….they confirmed what that woman said."
"I'm sorry." And there it was - a familiar fallback thrown upon the endless pile of like-minded conventions that had become second-nature in this town over the past year and a half.
"Don't be sorry, Jack." A dim, bright smile appeared, washing away – or perhaps amplifying – the temporary paralysis. "You wanted to go inside, right?" She showed off the door to the chapel as if it were the answer to every sweepstakes…or every trapdoor. "You wanted to go in and count our blessings and maybe ask for a little peace, love, and understanding. Or maybe we could light one small candle and hope that somehow it'll light the way."
He looked towards the door and shook his head. "No, I just think that someone else needs to hear…to know."
She took the phone back and stuffed it into the nearly forgotten purse. Her hand lingered before pulling out a small bottle.
"You see this?" She rattled the orange container, rendering the tiny words on it into a blur. "This is our magical talisman. It conquers the nausea, the exhaustion, the desire to just curl up and – it conquers everything just long enough for us to take the stage, put on the show. But guess what? Magical things, talismans, protection…none of it lasts." The hitch in her breath, in her resolve, did not stop her. "The lesson I've finally learned is to never step off the stage, because what's left out there, in here -" She stabbed a finger towards the chapel door… "that's the real lie…the real punch line."
Over the years, they had embraced in joy, sorrow, passion, tragedy. When he took her in his arms this time and felt the tears soak into his shoulder, he realized that he didn't have the talisman, or the answer.
All they had was now.
The words were matter-of-fact, quiet. The whisper might as well have been a shout. "The treatments are not progressing as they had hoped. They…they want to talk with me about intensifying the radiation…and about the next step."
Jack held her more tightly. Held on for dear life.
####
She wasn't stalking him, not exactly.
Aside from Jesse, who was seemingly indisposed at the moment, he just happened to be the only person wearing a badge in this town that she trusted.
Witnessing said trustworthy cop enter a room on the psych ward of PVH didn't deter her. After all, the fact that half the town, including herself, wasn't signed up in a private room was something of a minor miracle.
Bianca watched from a distance as a sporadic stream of visitors disappeared into the same room. The only commonality among the individuals rested in their diversity. The secretary with the bun of gray hair and the pinched cheeks. The dressed-down young man with the scruff and the glasses. The older gent with the cane and the haunted eyes to match.
And the detective who turned the archetype on its head, whose scars did not create a beast but illuminated a soul full of the only kind of beauty that ever really mattered.
She could wait out here, or maybe just 'bump' into him on her way to some fabricated appointment. Maybe even drop the documents that could very well change everything with an 'oops' and a shrug. Something compelled her forward,, though, past the too-quiet corridors that refuted the hustle and bustle of a busy hospital.
The steady staccato of voices stuttered and stopped, until only one remained. She opened the door and listened.
"I don't think they really understand. They think it's like a movie that you're just replaying in your head over and over, stuck on rewind. And like a movie, you get full-on color and even 3D effects. You get everything. Sensory overload, and it just gets to be too much. But that's…that's not really how it goes. At least not for me. I don't get the full picture, never get the full picture. Quick cuts, like somebody's got the blindfold on and I'm looking past my nose, past the dark for that one bit of light, But I'm not just blindfolded. Gagged, too, and I'm breathing so hard it feels like I'll never catch up. And sometimes, there's no picture at all. Just…sounds. Smells. Tastes, and not the kind you get after a good meal, but after you've relieved yourself of that meal. That goodness. When I get those snatches, I want them to get snatched right back. Before, with…with the explosion, with the things I saw over there, it was blood and body parts in some jigsaw puzzle and light so bright it could cut you in two, in a flash. The kind that'd make you wish, beg for the dark. And the funny thing is, I never felt the pain – they say hell's fire is so intense that you can't feel anything, that hell itself is just this numbness. I believe that… Now, the stuff I can't get out of my head is the same: the same blood, shouts, flashes, pleading eyes. Except this time it's all surrounded by 500 dollar liquor and clinking glasses and furniture you never dare put your feet on. It's all surrounded by celebration. But, in the end, it's the same. You're not the hero, just the spectator. A while back, I watched while my fiancé had a seizure on our kitchen floor…I watched while her father did what I couldn't, what I never can seem to do…"
"You can't save them."
It was only when the somber faces turned toward her that she realized the words were her own.
The speaker did not bristle at the interruption or continue the story. When Brot's eyes locked with hers, he simply nodded.
She remained in the back for the rest of the meeting, listening to other stories. Some she couldn't comprehend. Some too familiar. All of them too much.
The group's counselor did not call an immediate end to the meeting after everyone had spoken. Bianca knew that the pause, the stall was for her benefit. A silent invitation. She politely declined by showing herself the door.
"Thanks for saving me in there. I was beginning to run a little low on material."
She shook herself from the haze, surprised to learn from a quick glance at the clock in the corridor that ten minutes had somehow escaped her notice.
What she did notice, however, was the man she had sought out standing beside her, a dry smile on his face. She readjusted her chair to face him. "I get that," she said. "I've been to enough of these meetings, not recently, but I know after a while your supply of feelings exploration begins to run a little low."
Brot watched as a nurse wheeled a slack-jawed young woman by them. The nurse smiled. Her companion likely never would again.
"Does it get any easier?" he asked.
She sighed, contemplating the question. "Sometimes you think it does. I think we all understood every word you were saying in there, because we get it. We've lived it, and maybe we get through it by reliving it. And we think we've got it in its safe little locked-away box, until something happens…"
"That blows that box to hell," he supplied, surprising her again with a small chuckle. "Bad pun, all things considered."
"Gallows humor, I get that." She surprised herself by smiling.
He nodded, pushing his hands in his pockets. "I know you do. We both got thrown back into the pit that night, and we both lost something. The whole town lost something, and I think sometimes this town's got one prolonged bout of PTSD."
"We've just gotta find our own way out."
"Damn the consequences?"
"Maybe." It was the only answer she had left.
"Or maybe to save anybody else, we've got to save ourselves first."
Bianca cocked an eye at him before they both burst into light laughter. "Words of wisdom from Dr. Sterling's book?"
"I cannot confirm or deny," Brot said, lifting his hands. "But cheesiness and cliches aside, maybe I'm starting to believe it."
"Believing has its place."
"I could use a little help putting the theory to the test next session."
And its time. "Maybe some other time," she said.
"Time's never too late."
Except that wasn't true. Not true at all. Ryan was the latest proof of that, and it was his image that refocused her on what she had come to do.
Not think. Not ponder or feel.
Act. Make it matter.
Bianca reached into her coat. "Brot, I have something you need to see." Wrapped her hand around the envelope and the disk that might very well reveal Ryan's true murderer.
She weighed the options again before pulling the stolen evidence out, leaning forward, and offering one final appraisal: "First, though, I'm gonna need your word that you won't arrest me."