Who: Teja Jansen, Marco Medina What: Reunion, as promised When: Jan 31, evening Location: Seattle Adjustment Center, Room 348 Rating: PG-13, character death Status: Complete
The ceiling was dotted with little paper hearts - origami, that was the word for it - and he watched them dangle in the air like wind chimes. Dream catchers. They couldn't catch this nightmare because this nightmare was real.
Marco's head rolled to the side, eyes focusing on the door. How long had it been since they'd left him here? How long until they let him out? Would they, ever? After what he'd done, he wasn't so sure.
Better stay locked up. Safer for everyone.
A voice inside groaned. She deserved to see, don't be such a pussy.
It was her last stop, the final check on her list before she could return to her new home and her husband. A guard followed behind her every step, a protocol demanded. She knocked on the door and stepped inside and appraised the patient, bound to his bed by the standard restraints. It wasn't a requirement to see him, her restraining order was still in effect. She could have assigned Watts to see him and been done with it. But she wanted to see him. It wasn't an option. "Good evening, 348."
"You knocked," Marco pointed out, ignoring the greeting. She was back to looking like a doctor, no longer a woman. Just a thing with a white labcoat and hard eyes. "Very polite of you. Very nice."
He rolled his shoulders and heard the joints crack from being in one position for too long. "What do you want, Lady Macbeth?"
"Just to talk. Martin?" Teja turned her head to the guard who stepped into the room, placing an arm on the man's forearm. "Remove the restraints and wait outside."
"Dr. Jansen-"
"It's all right." she interrupted, her voice soft but her expression left no room for negotiation. She leaned against the far wall as she watched the guard head toward the bed. "I heard you saw your wife."
"To see implies looking. I didn't look. I had my eyes closed the whole time I was there." It was a lie. He could remember the pink rather vividly. Just like the flower pots. Just like the blood. But he hadn't gone there to 'see'. He had gone to be seen.
The guard moved towards him and undid the bonds, visibly displeased at the order. He couldn't grasp what it was about this woman that made everyone fall into line. Maybe it didn't matter anymore.
The leather slipped free of his wrists. Marco didn't move.
"I heard you made quite a mess while you were there." Teja noted, her tone amused. The guard stood, restraints in hand, and walked to the door. Seeing the man hesitate, she nodded and stepped away from the wall. "Thank you, Martin."
She was going to send her only protection away and - what? Cut him up into little pieces and feed him to the dogs? Marco felt his lips quirk at the visual and on some level knew that was entirely fucked up. "I put on a show," he murmured casually.
Teja smirked and crossed her arms. The guard's shadow made a dark line through the light of the door's partition window. "Some show, too bad you didn't get to go through the finale. Why'd you go, hmm?"
"To see her." It was contradictory evidence but this wasn't a trial and she wasn't a lawyer. He wasn't sure who she anymore. His eyes returned to the ceiling, trying to erase her from his field of vision. "How she lived. Who she lived with."
"And the knife?" she asked, crossing over to the desk and leaned against it. Not quite sitting down, but it was more comfortable than standing. It didn't matter that it made her stand that much closer to the bed and the man laying on it. She needed to prove she wasn't afraid.
He smirked and the smirk became laughter and the laughter died off in his throat at the sound of her shoes on the bare floors. "What do you think? I was going to cut her wedding cake?" He couldn't help the bile from spreading into his words. It was justified.
"You could have killed them, you know." she pointed out, slipping her hands into her labcoat. It was just an idle chat between a counselor and her patient, not a stalker and a defenseless woman. "You wouldn't have ended up here."
Part of him was screaming at her, pulling her hair and gouging her eyes out with his bare fingers. They were like egg yolks. The rest... the rest lingered in bed, his eyes closed and his hands balled into fists. "That would've been a waste of prime genetic material, wouldn't it?"
"Most likely, but I don't have their file on me to confirm. Did it help, seeing them?" Teja asked, the part of her training to work through a patient's mind stepping to the forefront of her own.
"Much." Except it hadn't, not at all. It had just brought back the memory of what he done and what had been done to him and the disgust he still felt lingering under his skin. "Reminded me what it's like to be cheated. Used." He slid a look her way. "Bet you know all about that, don't you, doc?"
"No. What does it feel like?" Teja asked, tilting her head to the side. "You can sit up or move around if you like, you're not bound to anything."
Wrong, he wanted to say. He was chained to himself. Couldn't escape that if he wanted to. Not any other way... His hands slid over his stomach - sunken, hollow - and pet in the middle. Fingers picked at the bandages around his wrists. "It feels... like stones."
"In your stomach? Or your head?" She crossed over to the bed and sat on the bed. Glancing over her shoulder, she could see the guard bristling. "A weight."
Marco met her eyes between fanned fingers. Why was she so close? What was she playing at? "Pit of your stomach. Behind your navel. Between the intestines and the pancreas."
Constriction of the diaphragm. More a physical discomfort than pain. Instead, she smiled. "I see. Did you feel that way before or after you visited them? Or me, for that matter."
"I don't remember what happened after." In both cases, he meant and figured she knew it already. He lost time. It escaped between his fingers like sand grains. Moments lost. Here, there. Outside and inside his little cell.
"You weren't in control." she stated, nodding. "Do you remember what we talked about?"
"You're going to have to be more specific," he countered, bitter and showing it. "I've been talked at a lot in the past six months."
"You told me, or your other half did, I'm not so sure," she started, looking over at him with a cant of her head, "but it was stated that if ever we were to meet again, one of us would not leave alive."
He dropped his hands, laughter bubbling out of him in fits and starts. "That's right... that's right, I said that." Did that mean she was going to kill him? Oh please, oh please.
"Did you mean it?" It was an innocent meaning question, the answer as double edged as anything.
"Ah..." And that was the question, wasn't it? With her on his bed like some heroine in a romance novel, after the war, after the injuries - 'did you mean it' like he'd asked her to marry him before leaving for the front-- "Yes.," he smiled, dazed and confused. Forgetting, if only for a moment, the gravity of what he'd done.
"I see." Teja stood and moved back to the desk. He barely moved, it was almost disappointing. "Did you say that to scare me, or do you wish to die?"
"I want you to die. How about that?" He wanted her to cower and turn to dust. Right then and there. "Think there's any chance?"
"Here I am, here's your chance." She turned and shrugged as she leaned against the desk. "What's to stop you this time?"
He watched her back, the curve of the shoulders, the ponytail and the stiff collar and sat up slowly. Tempted. so tempted just to try. She's baiting us. "Get out."
"I'll leave, but that doesn't mean I won't disappear." Teja glanced over at him, stepping away from the desk. "You say you want me to die, but I don't think you mean me. I'm sorry, I won't help you."
Clever, clever, Lady Macbeth. "I wouldn't worry. They took my knife." My pride. My mind
"They didn't take everything, man can be his own best weapon if resourceful." she pointed out with a faint smile. "Tomorrow you will be tranferred to the chamber for three days, just to reacquaint yourself."
The chamber. He had memories of the dark, but that was all. Was that when the voices started? Was that when he stopped counting the days and demanding he be released? Marco leaned back onto the bed, on his side this time, hands pillowed under his neck, pulse drumming against his fingertips. "Then you'll see me tomorrow."
"I'll look forward to speaking with you again, Marco." she said as she turned and walked to the door. The odds of them allowing her back in the room with him was low, but she had ways of making them change their mind.
Marco clicked his tongue as he watched her go, sincerely hoping - praying - that wasn't the case. He didn't want to see anymore. He didn't want to explain himself anymore. His reasons. His feelings.
You're just sick of it, aren't you? I'm sick of it too. Talk, talk, talk all day long. Put your brain in a vise and shrink it until there's nothing left. You feel it, don't you? The pressure against the temples?
The dull ringing in his ears.
Fists curled in the sheet, tugged it down a little. And then a little more. And a little more until he wasn't on the bed anymore and somehow, in the space of seconds, he was standing and his hands wrapped around the sheet... He looked around in confusion, unsure as to how he got there or how it was possible that the Doc had left so quickly.
There was another pause, another lost minute and he was having difficulty breathing, someone pulling tightly on the noose around his neck. He tried to call for help, to break free, but it was his own hand tugging the sheet tighter - and tighter and tighter - until he couldn't breathe anymore and his lungs burned. He tried to scream for her aid, that woman who wanted him dead as much as he wanted her. He tried.