Challenge #40
Title: In Quietness There is Strength
Author: Padawan_aneiki
Rating/Pairing: PG/None
Summary: A response to Bi-Weekly Challenge #40
In Quietness There is Strength
“I wouldn’t go in there if I were you...”
The voice trailed away as Freya McAllister leveled an icy glare at the orderly giving the warning, before silently pushing past him to open the door. Brendan Dean had finally been rescued. She wasn’t about to let some candy-striper to stand in her way. Even if the “candy-striper” in question happened to be a five-eleven or six-foot man trained to subdue violent patients.
Tsk, tsk. That poor kid’s mind is shredded. The thought came into Freya’s mind and she looked up from where she’d just begun to open the door. It wasn’t the nearby orderly, but one of Brendan’s doctors further away perusing a chart. Brendan’s chart, she knew instinctively. We’ll be lucky if he remembers his name by the time this is all over with.
Freya swallowed tightly, resisting the impulse to lash out at the physicians and tell him just what she thought of his prognosis, and simply pushed open the door. Standing there a moment, she took in the simple white room, a single bed, a sink and a toilet. Little more than a cell with a little more space to pace around in, really.
Brendan was on the bed, sitting with his knees drawn up and his head down, packed as tightly as he could get into the corner the bed was situated in. He didn’t move, didn’t acknowledge Freya’s presence even after she carefully cleared her throat and called out his name. The doctor’s tsk, tsk echoed in her mind as she drew in a slow breath and carefully approached her partner.
“Brendan?” she tried again, her voice soft and gentle. “Brendan, it’s me, Freya.” Quietly she eased down onto the other end of the bed to sit.
That got a reaction; Brendan’s head shot up at the motion of the thin mattress and he tried to shrink further into the corner if it was possible. Hazel eyes hollow and ringed looked up at her in utter panic. His mouth opened just slightly but no sound came out.
He’s locked inside himself, they’d said. He hasn’t said a word since he arrived. They pumped enough psychotropic compounds into him to seriously alter his brain chemistry; we don’t know if he’ll ever completely recover.
She’d denied the grim outlook, of course. Patel and Kunzel had both looked like someone had kicked their puppy and Terri Merriweather had actually paled in shock. Their thoughts were too frantic, too worried, too stunned for Freya to process and she’d simply tuned them out. Her own determination was that somehow, she had to bring him back. Bring Brendan back to himself...to all of them.
Freya sat very still, holding the wild-eyed gaze, without speaking for several moments. Brendan blinked, and watched her warily, but gradually when no pain was forthcoming, relaxed ever so slightly. It was the tiny break she was looking for. “Brendan, I’m Freya. Do you remember me?” She kept her voice calm, despite feeling anything but calm. Very carefully, she opened her mind to him the smallest bit.
Dean’s thoughts were a maelstrom. They battered her mind in rapid succession, but at the forefront of those thoughts were the twin desperations of tell him nothing and hang on, hang on, hang on. Muddled in between were waves of anxiety and fear, and fragments of hallucinations and strong impressions of pain. His hands twitched where they were clasped around his knees once more. He stared at her, blinking and silent, but his expression was far from blank. A tight swallow convulsed his throat before he dropped his head back to his knees, a shudder traveling through him.
He did not look up again. Freya stayed with him for fifteen minutes before she was chased out by the doctor and the orderly, and she left the waiting room trying not to cry.
++++++
Brendan opened his eyes slowly and looked around the room. The details blended into the white noise that he’d cocooned in; it was just a place, they meant nothing. He blinked a little as he realized the light was brighter and a ghost of a smile appeared briefly. Sunshine...It was real sunshine, and diffused as it was through the window pane it didn’t make his head hurt.
Cautiously, he sat up and pulled the blanket up, wrapping it around his shoulders. It seemed like it was never warm enough, he could never get warm enough. Memories of a cold floor and dripping water floated to the surface and Brendan cringed as they wiped away the brief pleasure of sunshine. He pressed himself into the corner. The solid surface at his back was familiar, and he tugged the blanket close.
The soft click heralded the opening of the door, and Brendan immediately hung his head, not looking. He didn’t know why he didn’t want to look, but anxiety crammed up into his throat and he swallowed. Someone was coming and he didn’t want them to come.
“Do you want me to go?”
The voice was soft, feminine. Brendan didn’t look up. This same person had come and talked to him before. Always soft, always quiet. She would sit on the end of the bed and look at him, and sometimes he looked back, sometimes he hid his face. He didn’t know how often she had come, but today he looked back. She asked again if he wanted her to leave.
Brendan swallowed and tightened his grip on the blanket, but in the end he made a tiny little shake of his head. He didn’t know why, but he wanted her to stay. A smile blossomed on the woman’s face and she approached him slowly, sitting on the end of the bed like she did every time she came. He watched her. “Hi, Brendan,” she said now. “It’s me, Freya.” She watched him. Something flickered in her eyes.
Freya. Her name was Freya. Brendan blinked and frowned. Nebulous thoughts coalesced for a moment.
Not...possible.
A slight frown crossed the pretty face, and Brendan looked away, a slight shiver.
“It’s okay,” Freya said softly. “I’m real, I’m here. We got you out...you’re safe.” They were reassurances she had spoken before. He looked up, and in that moment hope and fear and pain dashed across his face-and his mind.
Fr...Freya? Really? Hesitantly, a trembling hand poked out from beneath the blanket, and Brendan reached out uncertainly. The moment her slender hand took his, made actual contact, he nearly pulled away. He could feel his heart hammering in his chest and he pulled in shaky breaths.
But he didn’t let go. The hand was real, solid, not imagined. She was really here.
“Yes, Brendan, really,” Freya said, smiling warmly at him.
He hadn’t wanted anyone to come, but when it came time for her to leave, he wanted her to stay.
++++++
Freya walked down the hallway toward Brendan’s room. It had been two weeks now since Brendan had emerged from detox so deeply withdrawn into himself. He had yet to speak, and his thoughts were still a jumbled mass of broken images. He was easily distracted, but yesterday he had smiled at her for the first time when she’d stepped into the room.
Today when she opened the door, she was startled to see Brendan not on the bed, where he’d been huddled in the corner every day, but sitting on the floor in the middle of the room. He was cross-legged and still facing the door, not trusting it to keep out strangers. But his eyes were half closed, a half-smile on his face as he sat there...like a cat, content in the sun.
Hazel eyes popped open instantly and Brendan’s body tensed, ready to flee to the corner until he saw who had come, and he smiled. Freya did too.
“Nice day today, isn’t it?” she commented, motioning to the square of sunlight that Brendan was sitting in.
Hi, Freya. It was like a bomb, and Freya slowly knelt down before Brendan. He looked at her, puzzled by the shock on her face. Uhm...
“It’s okay, Brendan,” Freya smiled broadly and reached over slowly to touch his arm. He flinched at first; he always flinched first, but then relaxed into her touch. “I was just surprised you remembered my name.”
You’re real. They said...they... Brendan’s thoughts faltered, and he dropped his head. Freya squeezed his arm gently.
“They told you they killed me?” Freya asked softly, and the dark head jerked up sharply, hazel eyes looking at her in anguish.
Yes.
It was the first direct indication that Brendan knew who she was.
“Well as you can see, and feel...” she squeezed his upper arm again very gently. “I’m alive and well, and right here.”
Glad.
Freya pulled her hand away, and moved carefully until she was sitting on the floor beside her partner. She watched as hazel eyes drifted partly closed in the sun. Gradually the lean frame shifted, and the dark head rested against her shoulder.
++++++
Brendan was pacing nervously back and forth when Freya next visited; he barely spared her a glance as he hugged his arms to himself as if to keep warm. His thoughts were a flood of images and memories...tell him nothing! Over it all was the heavy throb of a headache and a barely-concealed fear that pulsed along with it.
“Brendan?” Freya ventured softly, and for a moment Brendan continued the agitated pacing. Suddenly he stopped dead in his tracks and looked at her desperately.
They want me to tell them what happened. He watched her expectantly. From the beginning of their visits, he had simply accepted that Freya could respond to his thoughts, had trusted her implicitly. Now he looked at her nervously, one hand raking through hair that was in perpetual disarray and then returned to pacing. Can’t...can’t do that, can’t... The refusal stumbled all over itself in his mind and he shook his head slightly.
“Hey...hey...” Freya stepped into Brendan’s path as he turned around, and put both hands on somewhat trembling shoulders. “Hey, Brendan...” she soothed and finally hazel eyes flicked up at her, pained and uncertain and disturbed. “Listen to me, okay?” When at length he nodded, she continued. “You’re giving yourself a headache, so just slow down a little.” Freya reached up and brushed back a stubborn lock of hair that wanted to flop in Brendan’s face; it was a little longer than normal after his captivity.
The wince that traveled his face at her touch confirmed it. Yeah, hurts a bit.
“Come on, over here.” Freya gently tugged at his arm and led him back to the bed. “Lay down and rest a little while and I’ll see if I can scare up some Tylenol or something for you.”
Brendan sat stiffly on the side of the bed and swallowed, looking toward the opaque square window and fidgeted. Can’t sleep. Don’t want to sleep.
“I didn’t say you had to sleep,” Freya soothed and she reached over to gently rub a hand along Brendan’s shoulder. “You just need to unwind a little or you’re gonna make yourself sick.”
I can’t go back there, Brendan’s mind murmured out of the blue. If I tell them what happened... His thought trailed off in a wave of anxiety, and Freya continued to move her hand along his shoulder.
“If you tell them what happened, you’ll remember it all. Everything,” she finished, and knew what that meant for Brendan Dean. It wasn’t just an account, or a recollection. Brendan’s phenomenal memory meant it would be every single detail. She didn’t blame her partner for not wanting to go there.
Yeah, Brendan’s thought, soft and disturbed, slipped in.
Freya’s hand shifted from his shoulder to his hand, clasping it in a sudden idea. “What if you didn’t have to go there alone?” she asked softly. “Would you tell them then?”
I...I don’t...I don’t know, Brendan hesitated, and for a moment looked as if he might fold himself back up in the corner again. Freya squeezed his hand reassuringly.
“You wouldn’t have to go there alone,” she said quietly, studying his still-too-pale face intently. “Let me go with you. That way if you don’t want to say anything, you don’t have to, and I can tell them...for you.”
Brendan froze in place, and his hand tightened around hers. Freya squeezed his hand gently.
It’s...not pretty, he warned her, and suddenly broke the eye contact that he’d let Freya maintain. Some things... Something dark and ugly flitted through his memory briefly but just as quickly as it appeared, he quashed it down; the only thing he could do.
“We’ll go slow,” Freya promised, and she pulled her hand back, reaching up to brush fingertips lightly against his temple. “I’ll talk to Michael. Okay? But right now, just get some rest, and I’ll have the orderly bring you some Tylenol.”
Brendan didn’t move, simply stared out the window, and the tight, taut control on his memories fairly vibrated like a plucked string. Freya waited quietly, letting him come to it on his own. Finally the lean figure stretched out on the bed, and hazel eyes flicked up to meet her gaze once again. Okay.
++++++
Brendan slowly paced, clenching and unclenching his fists. There was still so much left. So much to say, and after all this time he couldn’t seem to make his voice work. As if keeping the silence would protect him from all that had happened, somehow make it unreal, a fantasy, or a bad dream.
He knew it wasn’t just a bad dream.
Give it time, Michael had said. Of all those who listened to Freya’s voice explain things, it was Michael who encouraged him most, oddly enough. It was as if he’d completely understood the place Brendan had driven his battered mind into, and knew that place could not hold Brendan’s mind captive forever.
Brendan was tired of waiting.
The door opened behind him, and he stiffened involuntarily. He knew it was Freya, knew she’d come to help him again, knew that down the corridor in another room with comfortable chairs Michael was waiting for them. He knew they were waiting for him to speak.
“Brendan?” Freya’s voice, soft, gentle. Always gentle, as if afraid of breaking him, like glass. Brendan clenched his hands and squeezed his eyes closed, determination radiating from him like electricity. “Michael’s here...we just...”
“Stop.” The word was out, like a bomb, and suddenly Brendan’s shoulders sagged wearily. Freya was beside him in an instant; she put her hands on his arms, steadying him and looked up into his face, silently...hopefully. Brendan drew a shaky breath. “Just...stop,” he whispered now and his disused vocal chords made his voice crack. He smiled now, just a little. “It’s my turn to talk,” he said, and reached up to cover the hands on his upper arms. “Thanks, Freya.”
The healing had begun.
Author: Padawan_aneiki
Rating/Pairing: PG/None
Summary: A response to Bi-Weekly Challenge #40
In Quietness There is Strength
“I wouldn’t go in there if I were you...”
The voice trailed away as Freya McAllister leveled an icy glare at the orderly giving the warning, before silently pushing past him to open the door. Brendan Dean had finally been rescued. She wasn’t about to let some candy-striper to stand in her way. Even if the “candy-striper” in question happened to be a five-eleven or six-foot man trained to subdue violent patients.
Tsk, tsk. That poor kid’s mind is shredded. The thought came into Freya’s mind and she looked up from where she’d just begun to open the door. It wasn’t the nearby orderly, but one of Brendan’s doctors further away perusing a chart. Brendan’s chart, she knew instinctively. We’ll be lucky if he remembers his name by the time this is all over with.
Freya swallowed tightly, resisting the impulse to lash out at the physicians and tell him just what she thought of his prognosis, and simply pushed open the door. Standing there a moment, she took in the simple white room, a single bed, a sink and a toilet. Little more than a cell with a little more space to pace around in, really.
Brendan was on the bed, sitting with his knees drawn up and his head down, packed as tightly as he could get into the corner the bed was situated in. He didn’t move, didn’t acknowledge Freya’s presence even after she carefully cleared her throat and called out his name. The doctor’s tsk, tsk echoed in her mind as she drew in a slow breath and carefully approached her partner.
“Brendan?” she tried again, her voice soft and gentle. “Brendan, it’s me, Freya.” Quietly she eased down onto the other end of the bed to sit.
That got a reaction; Brendan’s head shot up at the motion of the thin mattress and he tried to shrink further into the corner if it was possible. Hazel eyes hollow and ringed looked up at her in utter panic. His mouth opened just slightly but no sound came out.
He’s locked inside himself, they’d said. He hasn’t said a word since he arrived. They pumped enough psychotropic compounds into him to seriously alter his brain chemistry; we don’t know if he’ll ever completely recover.
She’d denied the grim outlook, of course. Patel and Kunzel had both looked like someone had kicked their puppy and Terri Merriweather had actually paled in shock. Their thoughts were too frantic, too worried, too stunned for Freya to process and she’d simply tuned them out. Her own determination was that somehow, she had to bring him back. Bring Brendan back to himself...to all of them.
Freya sat very still, holding the wild-eyed gaze, without speaking for several moments. Brendan blinked, and watched her warily, but gradually when no pain was forthcoming, relaxed ever so slightly. It was the tiny break she was looking for. “Brendan, I’m Freya. Do you remember me?” She kept her voice calm, despite feeling anything but calm. Very carefully, she opened her mind to him the smallest bit.
Dean’s thoughts were a maelstrom. They battered her mind in rapid succession, but at the forefront of those thoughts were the twin desperations of tell him nothing and hang on, hang on, hang on. Muddled in between were waves of anxiety and fear, and fragments of hallucinations and strong impressions of pain. His hands twitched where they were clasped around his knees once more. He stared at her, blinking and silent, but his expression was far from blank. A tight swallow convulsed his throat before he dropped his head back to his knees, a shudder traveling through him.
He did not look up again. Freya stayed with him for fifteen minutes before she was chased out by the doctor and the orderly, and she left the waiting room trying not to cry.
++++++
Brendan opened his eyes slowly and looked around the room. The details blended into the white noise that he’d cocooned in; it was just a place, they meant nothing. He blinked a little as he realized the light was brighter and a ghost of a smile appeared briefly. Sunshine...It was real sunshine, and diffused as it was through the window pane it didn’t make his head hurt.
Cautiously, he sat up and pulled the blanket up, wrapping it around his shoulders. It seemed like it was never warm enough, he could never get warm enough. Memories of a cold floor and dripping water floated to the surface and Brendan cringed as they wiped away the brief pleasure of sunshine. He pressed himself into the corner. The solid surface at his back was familiar, and he tugged the blanket close.
The soft click heralded the opening of the door, and Brendan immediately hung his head, not looking. He didn’t know why he didn’t want to look, but anxiety crammed up into his throat and he swallowed. Someone was coming and he didn’t want them to come.
“Do you want me to go?”
The voice was soft, feminine. Brendan didn’t look up. This same person had come and talked to him before. Always soft, always quiet. She would sit on the end of the bed and look at him, and sometimes he looked back, sometimes he hid his face. He didn’t know how often she had come, but today he looked back. She asked again if he wanted her to leave.
Brendan swallowed and tightened his grip on the blanket, but in the end he made a tiny little shake of his head. He didn’t know why, but he wanted her to stay. A smile blossomed on the woman’s face and she approached him slowly, sitting on the end of the bed like she did every time she came. He watched her. “Hi, Brendan,” she said now. “It’s me, Freya.” She watched him. Something flickered in her eyes.
Freya. Her name was Freya. Brendan blinked and frowned. Nebulous thoughts coalesced for a moment.
Not...possible.
A slight frown crossed the pretty face, and Brendan looked away, a slight shiver.
“It’s okay,” Freya said softly. “I’m real, I’m here. We got you out...you’re safe.” They were reassurances she had spoken before. He looked up, and in that moment hope and fear and pain dashed across his face-and his mind.
Fr...Freya? Really? Hesitantly, a trembling hand poked out from beneath the blanket, and Brendan reached out uncertainly. The moment her slender hand took his, made actual contact, he nearly pulled away. He could feel his heart hammering in his chest and he pulled in shaky breaths.
But he didn’t let go. The hand was real, solid, not imagined. She was really here.
“Yes, Brendan, really,” Freya said, smiling warmly at him.
He hadn’t wanted anyone to come, but when it came time for her to leave, he wanted her to stay.
++++++
Freya walked down the hallway toward Brendan’s room. It had been two weeks now since Brendan had emerged from detox so deeply withdrawn into himself. He had yet to speak, and his thoughts were still a jumbled mass of broken images. He was easily distracted, but yesterday he had smiled at her for the first time when she’d stepped into the room.
Today when she opened the door, she was startled to see Brendan not on the bed, where he’d been huddled in the corner every day, but sitting on the floor in the middle of the room. He was cross-legged and still facing the door, not trusting it to keep out strangers. But his eyes were half closed, a half-smile on his face as he sat there...like a cat, content in the sun.
Hazel eyes popped open instantly and Brendan’s body tensed, ready to flee to the corner until he saw who had come, and he smiled. Freya did too.
“Nice day today, isn’t it?” she commented, motioning to the square of sunlight that Brendan was sitting in.
Hi, Freya. It was like a bomb, and Freya slowly knelt down before Brendan. He looked at her, puzzled by the shock on her face. Uhm...
“It’s okay, Brendan,” Freya smiled broadly and reached over slowly to touch his arm. He flinched at first; he always flinched first, but then relaxed into her touch. “I was just surprised you remembered my name.”
You’re real. They said...they... Brendan’s thoughts faltered, and he dropped his head. Freya squeezed his arm gently.
“They told you they killed me?” Freya asked softly, and the dark head jerked up sharply, hazel eyes looking at her in anguish.
Yes.
It was the first direct indication that Brendan knew who she was.
“Well as you can see, and feel...” she squeezed his upper arm again very gently. “I’m alive and well, and right here.”
Glad.
Freya pulled her hand away, and moved carefully until she was sitting on the floor beside her partner. She watched as hazel eyes drifted partly closed in the sun. Gradually the lean frame shifted, and the dark head rested against her shoulder.
++++++
Brendan was pacing nervously back and forth when Freya next visited; he barely spared her a glance as he hugged his arms to himself as if to keep warm. His thoughts were a flood of images and memories...tell him nothing! Over it all was the heavy throb of a headache and a barely-concealed fear that pulsed along with it.
“Brendan?” Freya ventured softly, and for a moment Brendan continued the agitated pacing. Suddenly he stopped dead in his tracks and looked at her desperately.
They want me to tell them what happened. He watched her expectantly. From the beginning of their visits, he had simply accepted that Freya could respond to his thoughts, had trusted her implicitly. Now he looked at her nervously, one hand raking through hair that was in perpetual disarray and then returned to pacing. Can’t...can’t do that, can’t... The refusal stumbled all over itself in his mind and he shook his head slightly.
“Hey...hey...” Freya stepped into Brendan’s path as he turned around, and put both hands on somewhat trembling shoulders. “Hey, Brendan...” she soothed and finally hazel eyes flicked up at her, pained and uncertain and disturbed. “Listen to me, okay?” When at length he nodded, she continued. “You’re giving yourself a headache, so just slow down a little.” Freya reached up and brushed back a stubborn lock of hair that wanted to flop in Brendan’s face; it was a little longer than normal after his captivity.
The wince that traveled his face at her touch confirmed it. Yeah, hurts a bit.
“Come on, over here.” Freya gently tugged at his arm and led him back to the bed. “Lay down and rest a little while and I’ll see if I can scare up some Tylenol or something for you.”
Brendan sat stiffly on the side of the bed and swallowed, looking toward the opaque square window and fidgeted. Can’t sleep. Don’t want to sleep.
“I didn’t say you had to sleep,” Freya soothed and she reached over to gently rub a hand along Brendan’s shoulder. “You just need to unwind a little or you’re gonna make yourself sick.”
I can’t go back there, Brendan’s mind murmured out of the blue. If I tell them what happened... His thought trailed off in a wave of anxiety, and Freya continued to move her hand along his shoulder.
“If you tell them what happened, you’ll remember it all. Everything,” she finished, and knew what that meant for Brendan Dean. It wasn’t just an account, or a recollection. Brendan’s phenomenal memory meant it would be every single detail. She didn’t blame her partner for not wanting to go there.
Yeah, Brendan’s thought, soft and disturbed, slipped in.
Freya’s hand shifted from his shoulder to his hand, clasping it in a sudden idea. “What if you didn’t have to go there alone?” she asked softly. “Would you tell them then?”
I...I don’t...I don’t know, Brendan hesitated, and for a moment looked as if he might fold himself back up in the corner again. Freya squeezed his hand reassuringly.
“You wouldn’t have to go there alone,” she said quietly, studying his still-too-pale face intently. “Let me go with you. That way if you don’t want to say anything, you don’t have to, and I can tell them...for you.”
Brendan froze in place, and his hand tightened around hers. Freya squeezed his hand gently.
It’s...not pretty, he warned her, and suddenly broke the eye contact that he’d let Freya maintain. Some things... Something dark and ugly flitted through his memory briefly but just as quickly as it appeared, he quashed it down; the only thing he could do.
“We’ll go slow,” Freya promised, and she pulled her hand back, reaching up to brush fingertips lightly against his temple. “I’ll talk to Michael. Okay? But right now, just get some rest, and I’ll have the orderly bring you some Tylenol.”
Brendan didn’t move, simply stared out the window, and the tight, taut control on his memories fairly vibrated like a plucked string. Freya waited quietly, letting him come to it on his own. Finally the lean figure stretched out on the bed, and hazel eyes flicked up to meet her gaze once again. Okay.
++++++
Brendan slowly paced, clenching and unclenching his fists. There was still so much left. So much to say, and after all this time he couldn’t seem to make his voice work. As if keeping the silence would protect him from all that had happened, somehow make it unreal, a fantasy, or a bad dream.
He knew it wasn’t just a bad dream.
Give it time, Michael had said. Of all those who listened to Freya’s voice explain things, it was Michael who encouraged him most, oddly enough. It was as if he’d completely understood the place Brendan had driven his battered mind into, and knew that place could not hold Brendan’s mind captive forever.
Brendan was tired of waiting.
The door opened behind him, and he stiffened involuntarily. He knew it was Freya, knew she’d come to help him again, knew that down the corridor in another room with comfortable chairs Michael was waiting for them. He knew they were waiting for him to speak.
“Brendan?” Freya’s voice, soft, gentle. Always gentle, as if afraid of breaking him, like glass. Brendan clenched his hands and squeezed his eyes closed, determination radiating from him like electricity. “Michael’s here...we just...”
“Stop.” The word was out, like a bomb, and suddenly Brendan’s shoulders sagged wearily. Freya was beside him in an instant; she put her hands on his arms, steadying him and looked up into his face, silently...hopefully. Brendan drew a shaky breath. “Just...stop,” he whispered now and his disused vocal chords made his voice crack. He smiled now, just a little. “It’s my turn to talk,” he said, and reached up to cover the hands on his upper arms. “Thanks, Freya.”
The healing had begun.