winter just wasn't my season
Phoebe Donovan woke up bright and early this Saturday. She is usually lazy about such things on the weekend, but today is different. Today she is excited. Bean has come up with a fabulous idea and Phoebe intends to help
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"Yes," she says. "Many times before. It's been... awhile though. I think-"
She pauses unsure of where she's going with this but realizing that it's necessary. It's been a very long time since she felt that way herself but she can remember it. Endless nights and days. The questions. That question especially which always seemed impossible to answer.
"I think this city... what happens in it, the people in it... it has a way of getting you to think things, feel things that you shouldn't have to, that you'd never imagined asking yourself before but here you are," she says and gives a a soft, sad sigh. "Wondering them. Thinking them. Feeling... whatever it is that perhaps you even swore to yourself you'd never feel." A desire to kill. A burning, endless hatred. A darkness. A helplessness and a hopelessness. She remembers feeling those emotions too while thinking that question, tightness in her chest, driven to walk along the sidewalks at any hour of the night for the simple hope that air might clear the head, the heart long enough to give a moment's rest.
Martha knows that it's more than this city, that there are people living in this city that never get hit with that tightness and that question but there are bound to be enough with what's seen, what's experienced here.
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She stops.
Gotham was terrible and beautiful, all at once. Gotham was filled with crime, but it was hopeful, too. Hopeful in a hopelessly miserable way that never let her live anywhere else. It was gritty and unrelenting and dirty but it was alive.
She wants to feel alive again. Closing her eyes she knows it's there, close enough to reach, close enough to touch. It would be easier if it remained untouched. Rachel latches on to it despite that. She is not here to do what it easy. To admit the weakness, to admit she is lost, to admit there is a certain kind of darkness in her now, too--it isn't easy. It hurts.
"Something's missing," she answers in a whisper. "Something's missing...inside, and this time I don't know how to get it back. I just know that I really need to get it back."
On her own. No one else can do it for her. No one else should.
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A sinking feeling travels from her chest deep into the pit of her stomach like a tight, wound up ball of metal. Her heart beats a little faster for a moment. Something's missing inside. She closes her eyes as it hits her.
I can't be who I was before- and I refuse to be- in love with the dark.
Just act like you can handle it. You'll be fine. Have them in the day, be whoever at night. Just don't lose the one thing that makes you you anymore.
It's a flood of memories, of thoughts, of feelings endless and sweeping over her as she stands in front of Rachel, forcing her eyes open again and remaining steady despite the flood, despite the sight of her. There's something in her expression that breaks Martha's heart for her. She reels back the emotions, allowing only concern and her love for Rachel as a friend to filter through before she presses her hand against the woman's arm and squeezes. Strength and stability. Keep her grounded. Keep her here in this moment at the pier.
"Rachel... I understand if it's difficult to answer me, but... what's happened?" She wouldn't be surprised if Rachel didn't answer her completely but she has to ask. She has to ask because she's felt that way before about having a part of her missing it and needing it back or risking losing everything... and the journey to getting to where she is now was so delicate and fragile like a thin bridge between two cliffs. It's easier to fall off than remain balanced on it.
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She can. She still can. She knows it. She does, it's so hard to remember right now.
Now when it's dark, now it's back in the very front of her mind, and Rachel pictures it so vividly. Feels it so vividly. Christopher Clark gripping her hand as he kills, so she can feel every second of it. Forcing her hands on bodies of murderers, serial rapists, demons, every kind of criminal she's ever prosecuted.
She nearly vomits again, as she did in the bathroom before she found herself on the pier. Martha's hand on her arm isn't enough to keep her from feeling it. The concern and the love that floods into her helps calm her some, but first she needs to--
"I'll tell you, just can you--"
Rachel fumbles with the bracelet again. Her hand is shaky and she can't work the clasp. It won't come off. It won't.
"Can you please get it off?"
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Martha reaches over with incredibly steady hands and unclasps the bracelet, slipping it off of her wrist and pulling it away from her. How many times did she have to hide in the year that never was? How many people did she watch die? How many times did she feel fear and trepidation but still manage to close a wound with steady hands because steady hands were needed. It's not about any strength that she had. It's about what was necessary. There was no other choice. No other option.
It's the same here.
Steady hands are needed to remove the bracelet so her hands are steady.
She presses her hand against Rachel's arm, again, squeezing tightly and looking up at her face. She won't turn away. Her heart breaks for Rachel's sake but she won't look away from the pain in her face even if it would be easier for them both if she did.
"It's off," she says as if Rachel needs the confirmation when she can see and feel the difference.
"It's alright," she says even though it isn't.
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It's off, and she knows the moment it is because Rachel can breathe a little easier. She trusts and loves Martha and knows the weakness will not be used against her like it was before.
If she was in the right frame of mind to truly express the gratitude she feels, she would. What she says next, instead, is said in a clinical sort of manner. She's not in a trial, she is not in cross examination, but that is the way she knows best.
"I was taken by a man named Christopher Clark two weeks before the plagues. He sent me books to the hotel shortly after I arrived. He poisoned me and took me for seven days. All I did was say hello one day and be his friend. He did not want to be my friend. To this day, I don't know what he wanted."
Seven days she went missing. Seven years Bruce was gone. Rachel made him go away. Rachel made Robin go away, too. She does this, she does. Now it's been done to her.
It's her mother's bracelet. It was later engraved with Rachel's name. She shouldn't want it off so badly. It shouldn't be tainted but it is. So many things are tainted now. She feels tainted now and she loathes it.
"Every day was a new game, and I wish I understood. Some things are not meant to be understood. That doesn't change the fact I long for it."
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Why does this keep happening? Why?
Different story. Different person. Different details but in the end, it's the same basic idea and how many people in this city have suffered at the hands of someone? Tied up and taken and forced to suffer through whatever a kidnapper needs or wants them to feel for their own personal pleasure.
She reaches for Rachel's hand instead of speaking and squeezes tightly while she fights past a lump in her throat. A part of her suspected it seeing Rachel look the way she did, how able Martha was able to relate to that missing piece part of what she said. Most of her hoped that it wasn't true.
"Rachel, I'm... sorry. It doesn't make any difference or make it any better at all but I am. And it's not going to be easy to hear this but it's..." Martha takes in a deep breath and squeezes her hand again. "It's important to talk about what happened to you, to let it out. Not let it fester within you. I don't-"
She bites her lower lip, focusing on the sharp pain to keep it all in the right context.
"We should- This isn't the best place to talk about this, but-" Martha swallows and sighs and God, sometimes she hates this city. "I don't know exactly what you're going through, what you're feeling. No one can know what you're going through exactly because what happened to you is unique to you, but... almost two years ago now I was kidnapped, taken, and tortured. If there's anyone who can begin to have any idea..." It's her, and she came out alright on the other end. "I want to help. If you'll let me."
Because in the end, it's a choice, and in the end, it's not a journey that can easily be managed alone.
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Of course something similar has happened to Martha. This bitterness isn't yours, either. It doesn't matter that she is a good person dedicating her life to save the lives of others. It doesn't matter.
She can't begin to explain how little it matters now. She hasn't told anyone, anyone the details of what occurred in that room. Rachel locked it up along with many other things and she knew it wouldn't work.
Rachel squeezes Martha's hand in turn. It's solid and real, unlike the dream that led her to the pier. No, this is not the best place to talk about it. There is no good place to talk about it.
"I'm sorry, too." Her voice cracks, and she stares out at the water as she whispers it.
"I don't know what will help," Rachel answers, a painful and honest truth. She doesn't know if there is anything that can. "I always used to know. Once. I...used to."
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She takes in a deep breath, keeping her hand in Rachels, trying to think of how to explain this, how much she should say about what happened to her. It's all very difficult and complicated and painful. She doesn't want to accidentally imply that they have some kind of special connection because they'd both been taken against their will, both been locked up, both suffered helplessly. She doesn't want to imply that her pain or situation is anything like Rachel's when it can't be. Different kidnappers. Different people. Different reasons.
"And it's important to talk about it even if you can't talk about it with me, even if you never tell it all completely. Even bits and pieces. I couldn't- I wouldn't have gotten through it alone," Martha says, softly. "I was so close to- When I looked in the mirror I didn't recognize myself, and it took me a long time to accept that what happened changed me as much as I tried to fight against it. What happened to me opened a part of me I didn't know I had, and a very smart man once told me that I could either let that become me or turn it into a tool that I could use, let it be a part of me. It took me a long time. Still. But that's... where I am now- I'm not the same person that I was before it happened. I can't be, neither can you. That doesn't mean that he's won. He hasn't. It's just the truth of the matter."
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Rachel knows it's true. She's known it all along but hearing it spoken out loud gives it a finality it didn't have otherwise. She mourns that person she was that she'll never be again. The core of her will never change, not if she has anything to say about it. But the Rachel Dawes that stepped out of the Rift in early July is not the same Rachel Dawes that stands next to Martha Jones now. It'll never be hers again.
It's horrible. It's unfair and it's horrible and it hurts so much.
"That man is very smart. I'm grateful you had him there. I'm grateful you weren't alone. I'm grateful for the person you are now, here, this very moment."
A range of emotions take a hold of her--sadness, despair, anger, anger, anger--and they are staggering. She covers her face before dropping her hands away.
"Okay. Okay. I--I trust you. I trust you and I know I can--" Rachel knows it does no good to rationalize what couldn't possibly have a reason. "He took me to a room plastered with crime scene photos. He'd give me unsolved case files to look over. He knew my Rift ability, and he used it against me. He'd hold my hand as he killed so I could feel it. He'd force me to touch murderers, serial rapists, demons, some of them children and--if I was stubborn and refused, he would make me sorry. Every day he'd make me sorry."
She holds her neck as another sharp pang is welcomed at the crowding of her ribcage.
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"Oh, Rachel." Her voice is so soft, helplessly distant for a moment like learning about what happened to her friend feels like a punch in the gut. It takes her breath away, and she squeezes Rachel's arm tightly before letting go and wrapping her arms around her in a tight hug that she won't pull away from even slightly.
Something sharp and painful pricks behind her eyes. Tears never do any good but the emotion is forcing them to her eyes. Anger and pain and sympathy and heart breaking for her.
How dare someone get pleasure from their attempts to destroy them. How dare they.
What can she say? What on Earth could she say to this woman to make it better? There's nothing. There are no words that will fix this. She knows that. Feeling better comes with time and with loved ones surrounding you and not cutting yourself off from your emotions or stifling what happened as though it never did. God, it comes with time. Delicately. You either feel better or you end up feeling nothing at all because no one can live in a constant state of pain this deep. It doesn't stop her from wishing, from hoping with every fiber of her being that she could do something definitive to help, to keep her from falling.
"And he never gave you a reason?" Yes, that's anger seeping helplessly into her voice. "Not that it matters I suppose... in the end... In the end it's all the same reason. They want to destroy you because they enjoy it. There's no understanding that can be had from that sort of reason."
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She isn't easily frightened. Rachel hasn't been scared of any of the men she's prosecuted. She wasn't scared when nearly facing her own death. She fears for the people she loves and how easy it is to become someone else. She isn't afraid of dying, and some nights, especially nights like these, she's certain that's her fate.
Knowing what it's like to be a killer, a rapist, a torturer of children. Having those emotions inside her until she confused them for her own--that is terrifying. Christopher's own physical retributions whenever Rachel defied him isn't as haunting as the darkness she felt in each and every one of the people he forced on her. Every blow to her skin, the gripping of her neck, it doesn't compare to knowing how lovely one thinks it is to make a person bleed, the glee at the crushing of bones, to steal the breath and heart of an innocent person and she can't, she can't--
When Martha finally wraps her arms around her, something inside snaps. A sob forms in the pit of her stomach and she wants so badly to just release it. Let go, Rachel. Let go.
She doesn't. She shakes quietly and holds on just as tightly, but she doesn't let go. Rachel is not ready for that. Not yet. Not with this woman, who has suffered so much and done so much for her.
"And you," she adds, her heart breaking further at even trying to imagine someone hurting this woman she's come to love so much. "You don't need to tell me anything. To rehash something like this when you've overcome it, I'd never--I'm just--so sorry. It makes no difference. I'm sorry for what happened to you."
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She closes her eyes when Rachel hugs her back, holding her tightly. It's the only way she can really speak to her, to say You're not alone. You don't have to be alone with this.
Martha only pulls away when Rachel speaks and only pulls back enough to look up at her face. She shakes her head.
"I know I don't need to but I want to. If something good can come of what happened to me, it needs to happen, and I-" She winces and locks her jaw because she hasn't mentioned this to anyone. "I suppose too that I'm afraid if I pretend like I don't still think about it at least once a week still... I-" She shakes her head. "It's a slippery slope. I understand what it's like to be tied up, unable to move, completely helpless, and at the mercy of some psychotic bastard who enjoys- who enjoys causing you pain so much that behind the constant suffering, you can feel their enjoyment too and it makes you sick. And you don't think that anyone should be able to feel so much and still- ...I wanted so badly to die. I... did die, and I was angry- I hated what had taken death away from me."
Martha shuts her mouth trying to force the words back. She didn't want to get into details about what happened with her, not because it's too difficult to talk about but because this isn't about her. This is about what happened to Rachel, what was done to her, and forced upon her. The anger comes back quickly.
"I understood there are a very limited number of people who can understand what it's like. How it tears you down and wears you out and separates the pieces and makes new ones and creates holes, missing parts in yourself, and I'm grateful for that but- I've never spoken with someone who was on the same end of it as I had been. Not recognizing yourself sometimes. Lost. I swear to you. There's still hope as difficult as that will be to believe in your darkest moments. There's still hope and it belongs to us as much as it belongs to anyone else in this world."
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With every fiber of her being she longs to go back to the day before it all happened when she was happy and whole. She longs to have taken a different route that day in the park, but she didn't. She chose her path and it's lead her down a tumultuous and painful road. She must live with it.
She forces her gaze to remain on Martha as the woman explains what was done to her. How many testimonies containing so much abuse has she heard? It never gets easier. It never should. "You can always come to me. For anything but especially for this. I don't understand the exact same way because it's different for everyone but the fact remains something was taken from us when it should have never been taken. It does make you sick. It fills you up with...with poison of your own and it feels wrong."
"I don't remember if I felt that way," she confesses, voice dropping back to a whisper. There's no judgment in her to be found. Not tonight. Not with Martha. "He'd poison me with neurotoxins when he wanted me quiet and the last few days are hazy. He hit me and grabbed me by the throat and in that moment--I'll never forget his eyes before I closed my own and woke up someplace else days later. It was hard, nearly unbearable to be forced to live with this man for a week after everything he did. But it is harder to admit that there were things about him I understood, parts of him that had drawn me to him in the first place. Because what does that say about me?"
Your position now is delicate. The plagues aren't hovering over her and there isn't anything else she can throw her energy into. There's only her, and she needs to accept what Martha is saying because it's true.
Her hand slips into Martha's again. Her hand is steady. Surer this time. The panic is subsiding. It's still there but it's faint. "But we survived. For reasons that are still unknown to me, we're here and I understand what you're saying. I do."
"Why do we fall?" Her smile is tearful when she looks at Martha again. "Alfred asked Bruce that question one day. He asked me that very same question years later. We fall so we can learn to pick ourselves up.Hope is so important to me, Martha. I am not Rachel without it. You're going to have to remind me of that for a little bit."
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"It feels wrong. It is wrong but we'll never, ever be rid of it which is why we have to turn it into a tool. Or they will win. Win everything." She understands that there's no way they can go back and take the victory that having her for a week gave to her kidnapper, torturer but Rachel Dawes does not have to be defined by that moment, forever molded into whoever he'd most like to see her become.
She quiets wincing to think of what must have been going through her head, to have even less control than Martha did who was never once drugged so that even her mind was not her own.
She also spent much less time, less than a day but enough time for three people to try to wreck her in their own way. Enough time for it to feel like a lifetime. And in those moments it worked. There was no Martha Jones. There was pain, constant and unending. There was only pain as her blood filled the bathtub literally threatening to drown her.
"It doesn't say anything bad about you. Not at all. These people who does these things..." Martha takes in a deep breath and shakes her head. "We're all capable of great darkness and great light. You can sit on the very edge of it and realize that you're capable of doing acts worse than you'd ever considered before. If the situation was only slightly different, if some variables were moved and set around in a certain way... These people have long since fallen over the edge and become what can only be qualified as monsters but they were once human and in the end, they'll have things they still share with us and things about themselves that we will be able to understand. And because we have enough faith in people despite what we've been through, what I'm sure you've been through even before you met him, monsters can still wear their masks and their smiles, and we can still believe them because if we don't, we lose something more vital. We stop connecting to the hundreds of people who smile and mean it."
Martha squeezes her hand when it slips into hers again. Reassurance. She's here. Panic or steadiness.
"I believe in life that we have to make our own reasons, our own purpose or risk being drowned by what we don't know. Perhaps we should both be dead considering everything, and by everything I mean not only this, but we're not," Martha nods at her and then smiles sadly. "I wish no one had to understand but regrets are rather useless things. Doesn't quite keep me from having them at times."
Her smile widens though there's sadness in her eyes, too. Her chest hurts at the look on Rachel's face.
"Alfred sounds very wise. You both do," Martha says with a fond smile and a swell of happiness in her chest that reminds her how glad she is... that she was able to save him. "I'll remind you of that as often as you need and even when you don't need. For as long as I know you, I'll be telling you that there's still hope even when I'm struggling to believe it myself. I promise."
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Turn it--"Yes. I can do that. I need to... use it as motivation, to keep me going, to keep me fighting, to learn to control this--" she motions to her hands, and how she hates her hands now, "whatever it is, so I am never forced into someone else's mind ever again. We are more than what happened to us. We're defined by something greater and it's time--it's time to stop reacting and start acting again."
Maybe everything that has happened since she was taken by Christopher Clark right to the very moment the plagues ended is all for the best, in the end. Not what's right for her, but what is right. That's what matters, isn't it? That's what love is. That's what sacrifice is.
Maybe she needs to travel down this path alone.
"I said something like that once." Wistfulness returns because it reminds her of that person, that person she was before all of this happened. That person she keeps looking for in every dream and every corner and every action. It's blurry. Fading. "I said it to them because I needed them to keep hoping, wanted them to believe the way I did. Maybe because even then, I loved them. I said there was malice in the best of men and virtue in the worst of them. I said so many things."
But what did I know?
An empty laugh chokes her. "Alfred is indeed very wise. I am not. I now have my own share of regrets. Enough to know better. That doesn't quite stop us, does it? The heart, it is at times an unreasonable, stubborn instrument. Even when it's broken. Even when reason itself tells you otherwise. It still hopes and it's the most painful and wonderful thing I know."
She's tired and she's vitalized, all at once. She's old and young, both at the same time. She's hopeful and she's hopeless, and she doesn't know how it is possible.
"We'll take turns to remind each other, then. For as long as we can. For as long as we're here. I promise that myself. Thank you." Rachel smiles again, ignoring the brightness in her eyes. "Thank you."
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