Chapter seven – Dissolution
"It's impossible. It's impossible, Hank."
"It's a brothel, Joy. Pure and simple. Half the people there – and all the children – are there to sell themselves to the other half. It's how they all come together, and Talbot's is at the centre of it... That is how they do business, that is how they meet, having perverted sex in the sun."
There are times in our lives when we realize that we have shared our days with something monstrous; that we have joked and chatted with and made excuses for and even stood up to defend what is beyond defending, beyond excusing, beyond forgiving. That was what Hank Summers and his two women were facing that incredulous late spring evening.
For Joyce, the nightmare had begun an hour earlier. She expected Hank to be gone all week-end, cultivating his company contacts and having a good time; when out of the blue he rang up, saying that he would be there in half an hour to an hour, that he had dreadful news to discuss, and that he was sorry, but he had asked Rosario to be there too.
"Are you KIDDING me? Taking her to our own home? Hank, I've let you get away with murder, but this is too much! Just too much!"
"Joy, LISTEN TO ME! This is not about you. And it's not about her. It's about Buffy and Enrique. The children are in danger. And it's a bit about me too. I am so shattered that I absolutely don't want to have to discuss the same shit... the same HORROR... twice. Once with you and once with her. No thank you!"
After a while, Joyce had given in. As she so often did. She felt ashamed of herself this time – she saw Rosario as no better than a little tart, and really had no desire to look at her face again. And when she came to her door, Joyce let her in without saying a word. Rosario seemed about to say something once or twice, then thought better of it.
Then Hank came and started talking to them, abruptly, without preparation or build-up. And her world turned upside down again.
Rosario listened with her mouth agape, and was the first of the two to react. "I did not realize it was so widespread..."
"You knew?" asked a horrified Joyce.
"Not to say knew. But everyone who worked for the company knew there was an occasional rotten apple... Your husband tried to get a man sacked for downloading child porn last year, wasn't it? We knew that with so many children working in their TV and movie serials, you would have predators trying to get involved. I did not realize, I never imagined, that they were so deep inside management."
Hank just nodded his head, with a bleak expression on his face. "I've walked out. I couldn't bear it, and I let it show. Now they'll make me pay for it. But the first thing is we've got to get the children away from their reach."
"Well... Enrique is in La Mancha with his grandparents, luckily. We'll just have to inform them that the visit is going to become permanent. I'll probably get back there myself... I can't see myself having much of a future here in Los Angeles."
"But what about Buffy?"
"Buffy cannot stay here, Joyce. All the time, yesterday, today, I was thinking of that damned school and of her so-called friends and of how they talk about 'hooking up' with people like Tony Stark. After what I've seen Madison say and do... I think we've just got used to things we should not. I don't know how we should have brought up a child, but I'm sure this isn't it."
"I don't think Buffy would do that. And I think I can tell you with certainty that she has been getting away from the cheerleader gang. The murder of that girl Cassie shook her a lot."
"Well that's a good thing, I guess. If we can say that the butchery of a young girl is a good thing. I don't know, but I do think we must get Buffy away from here. I can tell you this: I recognized at least half a dozen kids from her school at Ross' place. Joyce, she is not safe there. Especially now. If they hadn't been after her because she is underage and pretty, they would be now because they would want to hurt me."
"Do they really care that much?"
"You'd be surprised. I saw so much hate in ' eyes, I was afraid I could be murdered on the spot. And Madison's mother, too. People don't like to be found out."
"And, ," Rosario broke in, "they would expect him to think like they do. They would be afraid he would blackmail them. So they would be after our children just so they had something else to blackmail him with."
Joyce placed her head in her hands. She felt close to collapse.
"We might all be going to Spain. I have had a couple of fairly serious offers from European producers since 'Arizona' was a hit over there."
"Now wait a minute!"
"Joyce?"
"Spain? What would I do in Spain? I don't speak the language, I don't know the country, and I have no friends. I should give up my work and basically go be the house servant of a man who followed his girlfriend home? And what about Buffy? You want to take her away from all her friends, that's bad enough, but away from her country and her language? If you are worried about bad influences on her, can you think of a better way to make her angry and lonely? Oh no, Buffy stays here, and so do I."
"But you must see..."
"By here, I mean in the USA. There are plenty of places we can go that are not Hollywood. Besides, it's not just our choice."
…...
"Jacob?"
"Speaking. "
"This is Joyce. How are you?"
"Not all that well. Joyce, why are you calling? Is anything the matter with Buffy?"
"Not exactly. The thing is, Hank and I are breaking up, and he is probably going to live in Spain... with the woman... who is now... his secretary."
"Joyce, I'm really sorry to hear that."
"I'll deal, Jac, don't worry. This is not about me. I am just wondering if, since circumstances are changing, you would not want to have more to do with Buffy? I'm keeping her with me, but I will probably be running a full-time business, and I think she might like her father to be more involved in her life."
There was a silence.
"Joyce, I did not want you to know this yet. Remember that cancer I was operated for? It's back, and this time it's personal. I'm going to do my best, but I can't realistically count on more than a couple of years of efficient life. And there is something I have to do before I go."
"Oh, Jacob! I'm so sorry!"
(In a softer tone) "Thank you, my dear. We all have to go sooner or later... and in the military, you are more aware of it than most. I don't mind dying. But as I was saying, there is something I absolutely have to finish before I go."
"What?"
"You remember that I'm chairing the board of inquiry over the Hulk affair?"
"Yes, of course."
"Well, it's been Hell from day one. I've been fighting my colleagues and the authorities. Everyone wants to whitewash the affair, and I've been practically going on by myself with a lawyer and a few investigators. I intend to complete the investigation and publish the results before I die, because if I don't, nobody will."
"OH dear God... Jacob."
"I will be glad to see Buffy more often. And so will Sam, I'm sure. But I cannot offer her a pleasant household, Joyce, not when I'll be fighting cancer all the time. And I have a duty to finish this investigation and publish it before I die."
"I am sorry to hear that, Jacob. And if there is anything I can do to help you, I swear on my sister's grave I will. I may not have been much of an in-law or a friend, but I admire you for what you are doing and I am on your side."
"Joyce, maybe you weren't told often enough, but you are a wonderful woman. You have nothing to charge yourself with. I may well take you up on your offer. If I hear from Hank, I'll tell him to his face that he is a fool. And I'm sure that you will be a wonderful mother to Buffy, even alone and working."
Joyce had to wipe a few tears off while she rang off.
…...
"Sir."
"Come in, O'Neill."
Colonel Jackson H. Seirce, head of the Deep Space Telemetry Unit, was a man who cared for his subordinates. Perhaps too much – it was hard to understand how such a mild and inoffensive person had managed to annoy so many superior officers and end up in what was still regarded as a career black hole. But on the other hand, if anyone else had been in charge of DST when Jack O'Neill was kicked downstairs there, Jack O'Neill might soon have been dead. It was his careful monitoring and personal support of this known suicide risk that had got the former Spec Ops man through the horror and guilt of the death of his only son. And even now that a few years had passed and Jack had gone back to looking fit and not constantly depressed, Seirce still worried about him.
"We have had a request from SHIELD. They know you are an expert in targeted operations, and they are mounting one on American territory that simply has to go right."
"American territory, sir?" Like other people with secret service backgrounds, O'Neill was used to considering the homeland outside his preserve, as it legally was.
"SHIELD are a law enforcement authority, Jack. They have jurisdiction over the homeland – in fact, that's their main remit."
"But if they want someone with my record..."
"...then they must trust you to know how to act on American soil, and not to kill everything in sight. And so do I, for that matter."
"That is a compliment, sir."
"Good, because the next thing I say may not be. O'Neill, I am sending you out to do a job and come back alive. I shall be frank: I don't want to think that I am sending someone out to commit 'suicide by perp.'~
"Sir?"
"When you were sent here three years ago, you were at the bottom of your life, in a situation of despair that not many men ever experience – your son dead by your gun, your wife gone, your career destroyed by indiscretions caused by grief. In reality, Jack, you were on suicide watch. Now you look a lot better, but I want your word for it that you will run no stupid risks and will perform this job as you would have four years ago."
Jack blinked. He had never heard Seirce, a rather hesitant man, speak so bluntly and so curtly. He suspected that the man must have worked himself up to it. And he had not realized that he had been to some extent on suicide watch. Looking back, he could see the signs, but at the time he had not been aware of it at all.
"Sir? I appreciate your frankness. And speaking as of now, I may say that I appreciate... that I'm grateful for... the work you put into keeping me going. But that's not a problem any more."
"You are sure?"
"A lot of things have changed, sir. I was wondering whether to tell... I've had a date with my ex-wife last week."
"Oh?"
"We've both been near the edge, and... when we met again... we sort of concluded that we hadn't been very fair to each other. We hope to get remarried... Maybe we can even invent a few new cracks about it."
"That would be pleasant too... So I can call SHIELD?"
"Yes, sir."
Colonel Seirce lifted his phone and called for Major Hill. "Hello, Major? Yes, it's the overpaid Chair Force weenies here..."
O'Neill raised an eyebrow. It sounded as if Seirce was making Major Hill regret her loud-mouthed remarks of a few weeks earlier. If mild-mannered Jackson Seirce was so ready to remember unfortunate episodes and pay them off, that would help explain why his career had been blocked. He noted he would have to smooth Maria Hill; nothing could be worse than starting a mission with leading officers nursing resentments.
...
As Seirce arranged for O'Neill's absence and transfer, it occurred to him that there was another person in his command whom this would touch. It had not taken long for him – and, indeed, for every member of Deep Space Telemetry - to become aware of the state of Lieutenant Carter's feelings. Seirce, who had no children of his own, had come to like the brilliant, headlong, hard-working, vulnerable young subaltern, with an almost paternal affection; he could see her enormous potential, and had a jealously concealed dream that one day she might become a star and acknowledge him as one of those who had helped her. And he had always been rather unhappy about her helpless love for O'Neill. Not that the man had been anything but decent about it. Seirce had watched their interaction for several months. O'Neill, under his jackass manner, clearly knew what was going on, and acted exactly as an Air Force officer should have. He treated Jacob Carter's eldest with jocose courtesy, as was his way, putting up with the occasional defensive rudeness that was her way to cope with her feelings, and still doing nothing to encourage her. But Jackson Seirce remembered enough of his twenties and thirties to know that love was an unreasoning beast that fed on impossible dreams. He was sure (and he was right) that in her private moments, Lieutenant Carter would have been spending half her time daydreaming and making up scenarios for her and O'Neill to come together; and he realized that the news that O'Neill and his Sarah were getting back together would have a devastating impact. It would be the death of all her dreams.
So it was. He asked her for a talk, took her outside in the lovely late spring weather, and told her that he knew how it was with her, and that he had some bad news. And he watched her, when he explained the news, physically jerk, as if she had been struck by a bullet.
He could imagine all the rest – the lonely tears behind a locked door in her room, the desperate sense of futility, of failure, of having something vital ripped from your soul – the intolerable need for the impossible. He had done the best he could for his subordinate, but there was nothing the Air Force or any other institution could do about the agony of thwarted love; except, perhaps, grant her, when asked, all the leave time she had accrued and not used yet. She would be away from the base for over a month, except for an emergency. It was absurd, on the face of it, that this unremarkable military installation should be something almost sacred for Samantha, a mountain of sacred and agonizing memory; but right now, the best thing for her was to be anywhere but where everything reminded her of Jack O'Neill.
The next day he watched her ride out of the base on a huge Harley Davidson, and inwardly wished her well. And so it was that Samantha Carter could not be reached during the final crisis of her sister's adopted family.
…...
For a week after Hank's disastrous visit to ' place, and two days after Sam Carter had ridden out of Bird City Air Base, Buffy Carter Summers was detained under Californian mental health legislation for burning down her high school gym.
