Chapter 11, enjoy!

Warnings: None

A lot of world building here on someone's side! Guess who?!

Unbeta AF

Can You Keep A Secret?

Chapter 11

That Is A Mouthful

"Your friend is very ill," Heidi said to Stephanie, as she sat in an armchair, sipping tea, beside Stephanie, "And I do not mean physically, she is very mentally ill, Stephanie," she set her tea down and looked to Stephanie, "The only thing you can do is to be there for her, I am sure Carlos and his men, along with that agent will get her the professional help she needs."

Stephanie looked down at her trembling hands, thinking about the last week. When she had woken up and found blood on her, she thought it was hers, but now, she had come to find that it was Brittany's blood on her. Maybe she was sleeping walking, but there had been a lot of serious conversations happening, after that night.

Alejandro never left her side, the only time he did was when she went to the bathroom and that was making sure all the sharp and glass objects were taken out of them. After that silent rampage, most of the breakable things in Brittany's bathroom were gone. She also was in an almost catatonic state, staring out the window, curled up in a ball. Stephanie wondered if she even slept at all. She had stopped eating food and Alejandro had to force meal replacement drinks down her throat. She was wasting away in front of them and there wasn't much they could do.

"Heidi, I remember, that day Alejandro came to us, telling us about how he found Brittany in the bathroom," Stephanie started, "I woke up covered in blood, her blood…was that…you?"

"I'm sorry Stephanie," Heidi said, looking over to the woman, "Your friend needed saving, I sensed it, I did not mean to take over you, but it was the only way to save her. I will not do that again."

"She could have died that night?" Stephanie asked, a hand coming up to her mouth, "How?"

"I do not want to say, but it would have been self-inflicted," Heidi said, making Stephanie whimper in shock, "It is okay now, she's safe," Heidi placed a hand on Stephanie's knee but Stephanie shook her head.

"She's not safe! She's so broken, so damaged, we both went through the same thing, it's like, we're traveling on the same path but in different directions! I'm getting better, I want to go out and see people and be with my family. She barely clings to sanity! It's not fair!" Stephanie whispered, angrily and Heidi gave Stephanie a look and leaned back in her seat.

"She's racked with guilt, low self-esteem and self-hatred, Stephanie, she did things in that place that I don't think you're aware of, I am sure that newspaper article, with Vanessa calling her out and slut shaming her, would not have helped, if she had access to the media," Heidi said to Stephanie, who slowly nodded her head, "She is ill, between her time in the bunker and the masses out for her blood, sanity is luxury she is not able to get. But she does have the luxury of having a supportive friend like you. Slowly work your way back to her, even if she does not speak now, she will, when she is ready."

"Agent Jeanne was so racked with guilt," Stephanie muttered, folding her arms, "Like it was all her fault Brittany spiraled the way she did."

"The only people at fault here are Barton Wilkes and Vanessa Wilkes," Heidi said, as she picked her tea cup up, "Barton for what he did to you both and Vanessa for not preventing something she had the power to do."

"Bastards," Stephanie muttered and Heidi nodded her head, the two falling back into silence. Stephanie looked over to Heidi and said, "So, just go and talk to her…"

"Even if she doesn't respond, you talking about trivial things will help her, I promise."

(~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~)

Alejandro had been scared, when he found Brittany in the middle of her bathroom, with glass and mirror shards around her, bleeding from cuts. He hadn't heard the rampage, it seemed and he could have kicked himself in the ass for his lapse of judgement. He had left Brittany alone, after Jeanne left her in the room, thinking she would be fine. She had locked the door, telling them she just wanted to take a moment for herself. He had heard nothing, nothing and when he went in to check on her, that night and found the blood in the bathroom, he had to act fast.

He carried her out the bathroom, grabbed the first aid kit and cleaned her wounds, before wrapping them and using some of his Unmentionable gifts. He had the power to heal others, but it wasn't the gift that that led the Agency to him, no that would have been his odd photogenic memory that could take bits and pieces of broken memories and reform them into whole memories. He was a walking Wikipedia, if he had to give him a nickname.

He worked on her all night long, and when she woke in the morning, healed from all her wounds, he asked her what happened and all she told him was that she was a monster and hadn't tried to communicate sense that statement. What had happened to this woman? He remembered pulling a large mirror shard from her hand, had she thought of…?

That very morning, Alejandro spoke about what had occurred to the rest of the team. They had all been shocked, Stephanie had broken down into tears and had to be looked after. Brittany had been making so much progress, what caused her to break?

The answer had been given to Alejandro from Jeanne, who looked guilty at the current state of Brittany. She promised Alejandro she would look into outpatient intensive mental programs for the woman, doctors who could be driven to the house. Alejandro just told Jeanne to hurry with that promise, the longer Brittany's mental illness went unchecked, the more danger she was in.

Alejandro read the notes Jeanne had given him and found that they had been Brittany's written statement to Jeanne about her time in the bunker. Her accounts were heart wrenching, it made him leave to go throw up and it made him hate the Wilkes even more. She experienced things, went through things and that Wilkes bitch had the nerve to go media and proclaim that the 'Little Lamb,' had been wiling to her husband's sick wants, that Brittany had been just as bad as him to want to be fucked by him. He was glad a medical doctor, in the field of psychology, who helped POWs and captive victims, rebutted Wilke's statement by saying Stockholm Syndrome and Lima Syndrome were the suspects in the reason why both Barton and Brittany behaved in the way they did.

'I did a lot of it, to protect Stephanie,' Brittany had written, her handwriting was shaky, 'If I submitted, he wouldn't hurt her as badly but somehow…it all started to feel good and Mister was nicer to me too.'

Brittany was a victim, plain and simple, but she couldn't see that, all she saw was a woman who fell in love with her captor, who was just as sick and deranged as he was. Alejandro would see to it that she stopped seeing herself in that light.

For now, the woman was in an almost vegetative state, staring out the window, not moving, he made her get up to go to the bathroom, he forced her to drink those meal replacement smoothies and he wiped her down and cleaned her bed sheets. Jeanne spoke about hiring a private nurse for the woman, if she didn't get any better, but Alejandro told Jeanne to hold out on that idea, until they were out of all ideas.

With her being the state she was in, Brittany's new eye color had been exposed and Alejandro lied and said Brittany told him about some strange pigmentation disorder the doctor told her she had and it only affected her eye. They never did do further looking into with her abilities, but they will when she came out of this state.

"Knock-knock," Alejandro looked up to see Stephanie in Brittany's doorway, holding a book, "I just wanted to spend some time with Brittany," she waved the book around, "I wanted to start reading a book to her, 'The Golden Compass,' she absolutely loves this book, you can go take an hour to yourself, I'll keep watch over her, I bought my own snacks."

Alejandro smiled to Stephanie and said, "Sure, you enjoy yourself with her, I'm going to freshen up and talk to Carlos."

Alejandro walked out the room and went to take a long shower. Afterwards, he went downstairs to talk to Carlos who asked about Brittany but nothing had changed. He ate in silence and looked to his brother and said, "I told Brittany about my, oddities."

Carlos raised an eyebrow and asked, as he sipped green tea, "Is that wise? I thought all that business was on a need to know basis?"

"Yeah, well," Alejandro said, cryptically, "I think she needs to know…"

They spoke for a bit about their family, well Alejandro did, Carlos was tight lipped, still burning from his mom and dad for shipping him off to his grandmother's and forgetting about him. Alejandro was a bit shock that Stephanie was hired to be Rangeman's PR manager, but he shook it off and told Carlos the hiring might be a good thing.

An hour later, the man was heading back up to Brittany's room and found Stephanie crouching in front of Brittany's form, whispering to her, telling Brittany she loved her and that she would always be around for support. She also told her to take her time getting better, after all, they weren't going anywhere any time soon.

"Thanks," Stephanie said to Alejandro, picking up the book and her snack mess, "I hope you enjoyed yourself too!"

"I did," Alejandro said, to the woman as she walked out, "Congrats on the new job, by the way!"

"Thanks," Stephanie looked a little flustered before scurrying out of the room. Alejandro walked over to the other side of Brittany's form and paused, seeing her form trembling slightly. In the position the woman lay in, only her right eye was uncovered, and that strange colored eye was shaking, the pupil blown away, as though she was having a seizure. Brittany's gift might not be just affecting him, she might be able to see everyone's past and it seemed like she saw something in Stephanie's past.

He crouched down in front of her and placed a hand on her shoulder, as she trembled, her breath coming out in short, noiseless pants and he was worried when blood dribbled out of her nose. He wiped at the woman's noise and paused, hearing something, a voice, it was a woman's voice, mixed with static, and she was repeating something, over and over again.

"blue roses….blue roses…blue roses….."

(~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~)

"This is ridiculous," Diesel said to his father as the man unrolled a weathered scroll, "This is out family tree?"

"Yes, it's the original one, the one that has the first of us," his father said, sliding his finger to the very top, to a name written in ancient language, "What language is this?"

"Gaulish," His father said, tapping on the name, "Vercingetorix Xanthus Gario….our ancestor, born in 379 BCE, died in 24 BCE-"

"He was 350 years old?!" Diesel yelped, looking to his father, who shrugged, "That's impossible! Come on now, this must be fake!"

"Our family has secrets, Diesel, did you not pay attention in your history tutoring sessions, after your 10th birthday? No, well, not surprised, you always did have your head in the clouds," the man muttered and he followed the line down, all the way down to the current family tree line, which held Diesel and his two sisters name, along with his cousin, "Now, let's see here, you and your cousin, your births are a rarity, you know, in every generation, only one male is born, except for….five times, the years, 215, 800, 912, 1450 and 1763 and now you, only one male is born, to carry on the Gario name, I wonder what happened during these years, I wonder what's happening with you, could it be because of the woman we guard?"

"I don't know," Diesel said, looking down at the scroll, "What I do know is that…this doesn't really help me, we're of Gaul descendant from someone whose name is a fucking mouthful! Yay! I hope we helped sack Rome a few times."

"Most likely did," his father muttered, rolling the scroll up, "Go look in the family library, I think we have some things from old family members, I know a Swiss Anthropology group or something of the sort, wanted to borrow some books, but we had to chase them away, family secrets-"

"Stay within the family, I know, Dad," Diesel said, rolling his eyes and walking away, "I'll go check it out, maybe, I can find something."

The Gario Estate was the oldest one in the country of Switzerland, possibly all of Europe, tucked away in a national park in the middle of the Swiss Alps. It was vast spread of land, with trees and mountains surrounding the sprawling mansion of old, hiding it away from prying eyes and those will ill intent. Diesel, his sisters and his parents lived here, it was tradition for the male of the Gario family to live in the mansion, seeing as there was only one. Their duty to protect the living corpse, as Diesel had called her, once, outweighed the desires to travel and live anywhere else. Hell, even Diesel, who ran off from his destiny, had no home, he surfed couches, lived in hotels, but never had property of his own. Though he scoffed at destiny, it still made him refuse to plant roots anywhere else.

Now here he was, in the vast library, his fingers trailing over the spines of books, looking for something. Most of the books were written in Gaulish and Diesel could punch himself for not paying more attention to his grandfather, when he tried to teach him the language.

"This place sucks," Diesel muttered, pushing a book back into its place, "Sucks balls, sucks balls."

He had been in here for hours, looking for something he could understand, but nothing, nothing was showing up and he was getting frustrated. Fucking destiny can kick itself in the fucking te-

'Thump!' Diesel turned his head and looked down another aisle of books too see a leather bound book, sitting in the middle of the aisleway. It looked brand new, spanking brand new and it was blank. Strange, in this book crypt, everything was old, and either written French, German or Gaul.

The man picked the book up and opened its pages, finding it blank. Now this was weird as fuck, Diesel thought, about to close the book but stopping short as letters began to form on the pages, shaping into words, English words.

'So, you are the next one to attempt to do what I couldn't do….' The words read and Diesel frowned.

"Do what?" he whispered, more to himself, than anything but he stopped short as more words appeared on the pages of the book.

'Why, to save Gleti, of course,' the words said, 'the one who lays in the crypt I built for her, the first of the Gario; Vercingetorix.'

"Maybe, I shouldn't have eaten those stale chocolates," Diesel whispered, but nonetheless, he tucked the book under his arm and left the library."

(~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~)

Heidi let out a grunt of surprise, falling backwards into the field of roses, her eyes wide from shock and surprise. She had not expected the still woman to use her gifts on Stephanie, nor did she expect her to bypass Stephanie and hit her instead! My, now that was some power, the ability to see the past, a gift many a historian would love to have.

She sat up in the field and rested her forearms on her knees, breathing softly, trying to get her bearings. What had that woman seen to shake Heidi up? Heidi herself had been in this state of being for so long, memories of old had long sense been forgotten by her, but not permanently gone, it seemed. She was curious now, she wanted to know what Brittany had saw, she wanted to see pieces of her past. She was almost desperate for it. For so long, she had slept in nothingness, she wanted to reclaim her identity.

Just who was Heidi, anyways?

TBC….

*Vercingetorix Xanthus Gario is ancient gaul. Vercingetorix is Gaul for "great warrior king. Xanthus is Gaul for 'yellow or blond' and Gario is actually Gario-Celtic, which had been a tribe from the Alps in Europe. Gleti is an African Goddess of Moon and Stars. I had to do a lot of digging for this stuff, lols.