WHERE: Rachel's Office WHEN: After this discussion WHAT: Rachel has some of Grey's files; and so the mystery of Grey's background begins STATUS: Complete VIEW WARNINGS: allusions to medical experiments
Her office was quiet and distraction free. Clutter was kept to a minimum, there appeared to be a rhythm and order to the organization, and even the desktop background on her computer was generic enough to have come with the system when it was purchased for the office. With the few exceptions, Rachel tried to keep her life away from the Regiment out of here â unfortunately, more and more, this place was overtaking every facet of her life.
There wasnât much outside of Regiment anymore. Even Connor, technically, was forever tied to this place now, too.
Fortunately, none of that was currently on her mind. Rachel had ordered the archival documents from their superiors weeks ago, and only recently had all the information from Cheshire arrived. She was going to have to pass the files on Costa, Dalley, Sinclair and Theriot onto their respective handlers; all of the files were, not surprisingly, quite thick.
Finding Greyâs â that was proving to be a unique challenge.
The door to her office was ajar so that, when the agent arrived, she could enter without having to knock or wait to be let in. Typically, Rachel left it open on purpose; if she needed or wanted privacy, it was shut and locked.
That the Cheshire facility had even relied on hard-copy patient files was a bit strange to Rachel; and it made searching through multiple folders something of a daunting task. Many Supers had gone through their doors.
Hearing some feet shuffling outside the door, Rachel glanced up and looked out to see Grey through the sliver of her open door. The handler smiled, and beckoned the agent to come inside.
They were all together now.
It loosened something in Greyâs chest, knowing that Danny and Clara were with them again. That the five of them were facing the same things in the same place again. It was when they were strongest, together. She was sure it would help Victor stabilise better.
She worried some about that, about how stable theyâd stay, about the Handlerâs using that against them. Rachel didnât seem to be trying to hold things over her. Rachel seemed to want her to feel⌠okay. Settled. Sheâd been worried about being told she couldnât stay with Vic and Kat, that sheâd need to sneak in, that there would be punishments. Part of her wanted to know what they would be, get it over with. If she knew what was coming, she could prepare herself for it.
So far, the other shoe hadnât dropped, and she hadnât spoken to Kat about testing the limits. She knew it would be her or Kat, they wouldnât let the others do something like that, although Vic might later, it would be unintentional for the most part. Most of the things he did were just for fun, even if they wound up being cruel.
Shuffling outside Rachelâs office, she waited to be waved in, even if the implication was that she could just enter. âHello Miss Cohen.â She still wasnât sure what the script was for these instances.
âYou can call me Rachel,â she replied to the agent. It wasnât the first time sheâd told her that, but Rachel also didnât think itâd be the last. The bit of formality wasnât something she hated anyway, regardless of wanting her agents to feel relatively comfortable in their relationship with her. Sometimes strict boundaries were necessary â so far, Grey hadnât needed those as much as Rachel had anticipated. Given the file theyâd sent from Maine, Rachel had been expecting many more complications.
She pushed away from the desk and got up so that she could move the empty chair next to her own; there wasnât any reason to have Grey sitting across from her like they were in a principalâs office. They were trying to figure this out together, after all.
Well, insofar as Grey wanted to uncover her past. Rachel had hoped that the mere possibility of discovery would be encouraging â it hadnât occurred to her that Grey might have considered it virtually impossible.
The handler took her seat and gestured for Grey to take hers. âIâm honestly surprised how many hard copy files they kept; makes it a little more tedious to search through, but I imagine weâll find what weâre looking for eventually. I guess it shouldnât be shocking they wanted to make sure that some trails couldnât be followed, especially by people who didnât work for them.â
Taking the seat, not bothering to refute using her handlers first name, it might stick eventually, but so far, Grey defaulted to Miss Cohen purely because it felt like it could become a test she failed. She disliked those.
âComputers can be hacked. By outsiders or supers. It is not safe for facility to have access available for outside eyes.â It took a while to understand that the Cheshire facility was running off the books tests, it was likely some people knew. It had to be funded somehow, but those who came never seemed to understand they were being handed over for brutal tests and experiments.
âPaper will burn.â Grey was sure that was what was meant to happen when Cheshire was raided. They just didnât have the right system in place. âThey kept our files?â She had to admit to being curious, although she didnât know how much she should want to know. Katâs parents put her in there, Vicâs grandparents put him in there. Clara⌠it was hard to tell if she was better or worse off in the medical facility or not.
âDoes it ⌠Is mine informative?â Did her parents want her out of their lives? Did she have parents? Did she have a given name? There wasnât a trace of memory about any of her family, outside what she made, she didnât have memories of them. She wasnât sure if she was ready to feel like she had a connection to names she read in a file either.
âVery true,â Rachel admitted. âI may just be feeling a little bitter since soft copies would be easier to search. Câest la vie, I suppose.â
In front of Rachel was a small pile of folders â the ones sheâd already combed through, none of which had any information on Grey. âIâm sure that was the goal. Honestly, I canât believe this much paperwork made it out of that place unscathed. Usually places like that, as soon as a raid happens, the first thing they do is torch the evidence. The agents who led the siege must have gotten to these very, very quickly.â
She was a little surprised that the supervisors in Maine hadnât gotten their hands on this to share them with Grey. Or, conversely; they had, but they hadnât trusted her with the information discovered.
âI think they kept them â Wraiths â in case they could be useful down the road.â For better or worse, Rachel didnât want to think too hard on that one.
Does it ⌠Is mine informative?
Rachel reached for the top drawer and opened it to withdraw a thick folder; the only name attached to the file was Subject 12. She tentatively handed it over to Grey. âThereâs some redacted information in it. Like you said, no other name beyond your alias, âJane Doeâ, and the designation they assigned you. The rest is a rather thorough documentation of tests you underwent while you were held there.â
She leaned back in her seat, watching Grey carefully. âThe funny thing is; all the other files Iâve gone through? They all have admission paperwork. The who, when, and all that. Your file doesnât have any of that, which leads me to believe that thereâs more in here â ,â she gestured at the desk behind them, covered in several neat boxes filled with patient files, âThatâs strategically not attached to âSubject 12.â I was hoping you could look at what is there, though; see if thereâs anything thatâs out of place or doesnât make any sense?â
It had taken Grey a while to realise that âJane Doeâ was a name given to people with no identity, it honestly had taken Kat telling her it wasnât her name, it was a misname, just a placeholder. Sheâd hoped it would be who she was, a link to something, but there hadnât been anything to link to. Not even Vic could find anything in her memories, because they werenât there.
She could worry about the Regiment having files on all of them later, information about what they did and what had been done to them, that could all come later. For now, maybe it wasnât a bad thing. Although it seemed like there wasnât anything new.
âThey liked notes on the tests, those were always thorough.â The medical team there were more likely scientists than actual doctors, at the very least they liked to test things, run experiments, Grey just tapped her finger against her knee, thinking about those.
A lack of admission paperwork didnât really strike Grey as odd, although she wasnât sure how procedures worked, so it wasnât unusual that she didnât see the links there. But Rachel did, which apparently meant something, âYou believe they left things out⌠on purpose?â Which could imply she was there for different reasons.
âI am not sure how much help I could be. I do not know of anything before Cheshire.â Looking through files might lead to answers, where she came from, how she ended up in Cheshire, why she didnât remember any of it. Very little made sense to her. âI can try?â But Rachel appeared to be going out of her way to try and find something of a life that Grey had left behind, help her put some pieces together from who sheâd been. Even if it wasnât who she was. And Grey wasnât sure it was right to pass that up.
âHmm, yes. It seems so. Thereâs -- ,â Rachel paused. She looked over Grey carefully, almost curiously; she wasnât an easy-to-read individual. âA lot of notes on your tests. They subjected you to a lot of those.â Although her voice was even, she could feel something inside of her constricting; anger, hatred, disgust. Rachel had seem some troubling and deplorable things done to agents during her tenure with the Regiment, but after leafing through some of the files from Cheshire? She was grateful that Regiment existed, in all its faults, if it had put a stop to something like that.
Rachel nodded. âI do. Itâs already strange that thereâs redacted information in your file; but to omit paperwork altogether?â She shook her head. âIâd almost say that it was accidental, if every other file Iâd gone through didnât seem to have the complete set of information. That you have missing pieces is -- conspicuous, to say the least.â And it was times like this that she missed her days on the force.
She offered Grey a small smile as she handed her Subject 12âs folder. âIâd appreciate your help. I know this may not be⌠well, easy,â in any sense that phrase entailed, âBut Iâm hoping that together, maybe we can start to fill in some of the holes. And anytime you want to stop, Iâll respect that.â
But she was banking on Greyâs curiosity and hoping that the Super would be as invested as Rachel was to uncover what had landed Grey in Cheshire to begin with.
Grey did her best not to think about the tests, how long it took for anyone to properly know what her power was or how to use it. The first time her skin had been ripped off had been painful, even though thereâd been no blood, because she was pure steel underneath it, the pain had been agonising. It took a while to understand that if she did it herself, it didnât hurt.
Submitting to tests had been an attempt to minimise her own discomfort, even if sheâd been unaware of the invasiveness of them at any stage. âUnderstanding requires experimentation.â It was the explanation drilled into her at least. Even if she wasnât sure why theyâd need to understand her ability.
But Rachel had a point. It was odd to be the only one with missing information, with redacted bits and paperwork going missing, especially if they kept thorough files on everything else. Accidental, it would be more likely that other files would have some missing paperwork too, a lazy file clerk, but this was a single incident, which drew attention. Running her fingers over the block printed âSubject 12â on the white label of the folder, Grey flipped it open to see the contents.
Realistically she knew everything that could be in there, sheâd lived through it all, so she knew what theyâd done to her. She shouldnât be surprised by anything. Although the initial medical file seemed to indicate sheâd been injured when sheâd first arrived. âI had a broken arm, when I was there. They did not know how I had done it.â Neither had she, since she hadnât remembered anything before waking up in the facility. There were lots of black lines through the medical file before it turned to more details on experiments and different attempts to make her mimic things.
Understanding requires experimentation.
That sounded like a marching order well memorized and internalized. Although her expression didnât convey the sympathy she felt for Grey, it bubbled beneath the surface. âBut somebody must have known â for you to end up there, of all places.â She hadnât been forced into the care of Regiment, but instead was tucked away in a shady medical facility trying to weaponize Supersâ powers.
âA broken arm, hmm?â Rachel pursed her lips. Sliding away from her desk, still in her chair, she reached the opposite desk and opened one of Regimentâs boxes stuffed with case files. If there had ever been any rhyme or reason to their organization, it was long gone; all the files were now stuffed in however they might fit. Apparently, the Regimentâs archivists didnât think it would be worthwhile to organize this information carefully.
Rachel picked through the box, allowing Grey to quietly glance through her file. While most of the files â like the one belonging to Subject 12 â there were several which were thin and sparse. Her initial instinct was that this owed to a short tenure at the facility, but now she was beginning to wonder if there werenât some more nefarious tracks being covered up in the process.
The handler wheeled back over to her desk with a stack of incredibly thin folders on her lap. âNot sure how likely it is that many people showed up at Cheshire with broken arms,â she noted. âIf there is a legitimate admission package for you, they may have separated it from the rest of your file. Seems like a lot of work, thoughâŚ,â she pursed her lips again. It did seem strangely conspiracy theory-esqueâa little too tinfoil-hat for her likingâbut given the shadiness of this place, she wasnât willing to rule it out.
It hadnât ever really struck her, that she shouldâve known someone who put her there, some reason why the Cheshire facility was the place she ended up. Her memories around that time were hazy at best. Flipping the pages of her own file, remembering each of the experiments, what they were supposedly for, when it got to the stage where she finally began to understand these things were not for her good, Grey frowned at the pages.
She knew she was out, that her life was different now. And while she wasnât sure that Regiment wouldnât be similar, there hadnât been any attempts so far to cause discomfort and involuntary element changes.
And Rachel seemed to want to help her, not hurt her.
âI could be a Jane Doe. In the files. They may have put my medical record previous to my testing record.â She wasnât sure if Cheshire Medical had even been a legitimate medical practise. She didnât know how they worked their paperwork. âTo limit the chances of connection, treating the incidents as separate people, in a facility full of nameless people?â Because there had been deaths, and bodies, and people who never came back from experiments.
Covering up a person they didnât want someone to find wouldnât be terribly difficult.
I could be a Jane Doe. In the files.
The thought had occurred to her, but it was a frustrating one. Especially since, as Grey pointed out, it expertly limited the chances of anyone making possible connections with her real identity. And someone, clearly, had gone to lengths to do exactly that.
Describing Cheshire as a facility full of nameless people â Grey wasnât wrong. Rachel was beginning to wish sheâd been part of the team to raid the facility, to put an end to it all, though she was fully aware that wouldnât have done a single thing for the people who had been trapped and tortured there.
âHmm,â she sifted through some of the files in her hands until she came across one of those Jane Does â no other name appeared on the file.
Rachel flipped it open and poured over the sparse amount of paperwork which, at least, did include an admission slip for an Unknown Woman, Unknown Age.
A patient with a broken arm.
âWhat about this?â Rachel asked, leaning over to show Grey the folder. âDo the dates match up? I know you probably donât have an exact date of when you woke up there⌠but maybe an approximation?â
It wouldnât really surprise Grey to know that Rachel had the same thought; probably one of her earliest thoughts when she realised that Greyâs file was different. The woman seemed like a keen mind, she was intelligent, focused. Grey found that it was a little easier to follow the womanâs instructions, she didnât seem to have ulterior motives.
So far, Rachel had been nothing but accommodating and kind to her.
Checking the dates on the file, Grey tried to think back. Sheâd been with the Regiment for about two years now, sheâd been out of Cheshire for just a few months before they were all caught, trying to remember when sheâd been in Cheshire was the difficult part. She couldnât go by her own birthdays -she didnât know them, or how old she really was, sheâd had to measure time by Kathryn and Victorâs ages.
âThat would about match upâŚâ She couldnât tell to the months, but looking over the injury details, she was sure thatâs what they called her break, when sheâd woken up with no memory and confused. âDoes it say about my head injury?â Or would that be too easy. She had stitches along the seam where her head was busted open, a fracture. But her arm had been the only thing theyâd really paid attention to at the time.
Rachel retrieved the folder back and glanced through the admission slip another time, finally catching sight of something that might check out â âThere are mention of stitches, but not what the injury was⌠also strange.â Though, to be fair, nothing about Cheshire, or Greyâs confinement there, was normal. âIt also mentions a concussion andâŚ,â she smiled, not because of the subject matter, but because she felt a little closer, âPotential memory loss.â
Feeling somewhat victorious, Rachel set aside the rest of the files and laid this one out on the desk in front of them both.
Her smile, soft as it was, didnât last much longer.
âThereâs not a whole lot else in here, just a documentation of the casting and some medication. ButâŚ,â Rachel flicked through the sparse papers in the file. âThereâs no procedures described for future testing, no results, and not a discharge or death certificate. If this isnât you, whoever it is may as well have vanished off the face of the earth.â And given what Grey had already said about the facility, that wouldnât be too surprising.
Rachel plucked out the admission paperwork and narrowed her eyes. Jane Doe. A date. Injuries. And a contact name.
âDo you recognize the name Elizabeth Dare? Was she someone whoâdid someone by that name ever visit you?â
It seemed very likely that this was her, the odds of someone having the exact same injuries and difficulties to follow, and not having a full file themselves, that was questionable. She was sure there were odds on it, numbers that made it like one in a million or something, but she would stick with just very unlikely. Rachel seemed to agree.
Although she thought it was possible that Cheshire had made someone disappear, if things had gone wrong somewhere, they wouldâve done anything they could to hide the evidence, even if that was disposing of someone without letting anyone know. They didnât want attention or questions. But surely it would be entirely impossible to completely make a person disappear. Which meant, most likely, this was her sheet.
âElizabeth Dare.â The name didnât bring any kind of familiarity, it wasnât like it sparked any recognition in her. Sheâd been told, in Maine, that familiar things might bring back pieces of her memory, but nothing had so far, and Grey didnât think that was likely to change.
âIt does not sound familiar. I do not remember having any visitors.â Could Elizabeth Dare be a relation of hers? Someone who signed her in, imagining she was getting treatment? Or more likely to keep her away, since no one ever visited afterwards. âCould that be a relative?â
Sheâd never considered having family before, it was a construct that didnât seem real to her, with no memories of them she had nothing to miss. The notion wasnât settling her too greatly either.
Rachel was disappointed, but not surprised, that Grey didnât recognize the name. It was a little too much to hope that they would have left something so significant when theyâd gone through so much trouble to keep her identity a secret.
I do not remember having any visitors.
Something about that, too, struck Rachel somewhere deep. Perhaps they would dig into this and discover that Grey didnât have anyone to visit her, but she doubted it. Otherwise, her identity wouldnât have been shrouded. Nobody did that unless they were hiding an individual from people who cared.
âMaybe,â Rachel replied. âBut it could also be a pseudonym. Iâm thinking itâs likelier that this person was involved in checking you in, or acting as an intermediary in case any news about you got out.â
Rachel shut the file. There wasnât a whole lot else to get out of it â but she would keep it close by, and under lock and key, in case there was something else she could get out of it.
Leaning back in her seat, Rachel folded her hands over her lap. âWhat would you think about that, though? If it was a relative? Or if by finding her, we could maybe find some relatives?â
It would work to keep information about her funnelled in a particular direction, keep everything where they wanted it. Whoever they were. It struck Grey as very odd that there was such subterfuge around her placement in the facility when no one else had such drastic actions taken. There would always be people like Kathryn and Claraâs parents, people who would wish away the problem and deal with it in some other manner.
But Elizabeth Dare could be the person, fake name or not, who subjected Gray to the whims of the so called doctors at the medical clinic. And maybe finding her could find answers. It was a lot more than Grey had just a day ago.
She wasnât sure she wanted Elizabeth Dare to be a relative. The confusion in how she ended up at the facility clearing up with answers that a relative, a family member put her there, she wasnât sure she wanted that. Although it wasnât really about want anymore. âI have never had anyone but my friends, they have been all I have known since I can remember.â She had no emotional connection to the concept of family, to the idea of a mother or father or potential siblings. There was no tangible feelings she could cling to there.
âBut it could give me answers about who I am. Where I came from.â And maybe Elizabeth Dare wasnât a relative, but she might lead to some, people who wouldnât have put her in that place, people who had been looking for her, missing her. Maybe there were people out there who had love in their hearts for her like she had for her friends. âI think I would like to know if I have parents.â Even if they would be like Kathrynâs parents and turn out to be behind putting her there, ot maybe not, there was a chance.
At this stage of things, Grey felt she had to take it.
They have been all I have known since I can remember.
It certainly made why Grey was so determined to spend time with them whenever she could, so much to the point where she seemed to spend more time in their rooms than she did in her own. Their bond reminded Rachel a great deal of Sandyâs with her friends; none of it was particularly healthy. If she thought Grey might benefit from it right away, sheâd try to initiate a relationship between her and one of the members on the psych team. Maybe, eventually, they could go that route.
âItâs good that you have them,â Rachel remarked. It wasnât lip-service. While their relationship was demonstrably unhealthy, it had likely proven to Grey that she could trust people; it probably went a long way in building a somewhat trusting relationship between the two of them, in the end. âAnd theyâre lucky to have you.â
When Grey decided that she wanted to push forward, Rachel smiled softly and nodded. âThen Iâll do what I can to help you get those answers. It may take some time, but weâll try to get to the bottom of all of this. How you got there, why, where you come from. All of it.â