A/N Another short chapter, but an important one, I think. As always, you guys have all my love! Thank you for sticking with me, despite all of the tragedy, all the writing that was directly a result of late night binges, and everything that makes this story tragically imperfect, just like me. Thank you!
One and Half Years Earlier...and Five Days Later
Everything was blurry, and she found her memories slipping away. She remembered being shackled to a table. She remembered flashlights, remembered her captor running, remembered yelling for someone to get her out of there. She remembered crying, remembered a man in a bulletproof vest with FBI emblazoned across it saying that he had her, that everything would be okay. After that, it was all sirens and white coats, blankets and oxygen masks and bandages. It was gurneys and OR's and anesthesia, and then she was lying in a room with FBI agents with her.
There was Abigail Hodgekins and Stephen Miller. They said they were sorry, sorry about what happened and sorry they had to ask her so many questions when she was barely getting better. Everyone was sorry.
She was hooked up to an IV that was filled with some kind of pain medication, and more bandages than she had ever seen in her entire life were wrapped around her legs, her arms, her stomach—it was all surreal.
Maybe she was just dreaming. She had done that before, when it was really bad—she had gotten good at finding a "happy place" and burying herself there.
Another FBI agent walked into the room—a young guy, and immediately she shrunk back. But she didn't recognize him, not that that necessarily meant much. She found herself covering herself as best as she could, her arms hiding her chest and immediately scooting to the side of the bed, poised to run, despite the fact that she was hooked up to an IV.
In her mind, she knew she couldn't live like this, like everything and everyone was an imminent threat. But she also didn't know if she could live any other way.
Yet the man made no mention of it, instead cautiously approaching the seat to the side of the bed, purposefully keeping his hands out as he sat down, showing her he wasn't going to hurt her. She felt her stomach lurch—he was treating her like a wild animal. Is that what she had become?
"Hey," he said. "I'm David—"
"Have you found Sadie and Hannah?" She said, her words running together as she tried to get the question out as fast as she could.
The officer's face turned white. That was the only answer she needed.
But it couldn't be. Too much had happened. She had done too much.
The hospital room didn't seem so safe anymore. And just like that, that feeling of surrealism, that feeling that rescue wasn't possible, that this wasn't possible, came crashing down. Here it was. The other shoe.
Sadie and Hannah were dead.
All of a sudden, she couldn't breathe. She began gasping for breath, her hands closing in on themselves and locking themselves there in her panic.
"Hey, hey," David said, at her bedside immediately, his hand resting on her arm. She flinched, and he withdrew just as quickly, biting his lip. "I'm sorry. Just—breathe, okay?"
She chuckled bitterly, her eyes squeezing shut. Just breathe? For what? What was there for her anyway?
She felt a panic in her gut, like there were thousands of emotions that were waiting to be spilled out, bubbling over when it finally hurt too much to keep them all in. But perhaps the worst part was, in all of her agony, she couldn't bring herself to feel more strongly than she ever had before, couldn't muster a special moment that would be isolated to this horrible memory. Despite the fact that her entire world was burning, the intensity of her emotions were nothing she hadn't felt before, nothing that she hadn't lived through. The worst part was despite the fact that it was Sadie and Hannah, there was a part of her, a part of her soul that was used to it.
They didn't deserve this. They deserved tragic poetry and the kind of wailing that would be unlike anything anyone had ever heard. It felt like she was tarnishing their memory (their memory, because they weren't there anymore, and she had failed, a phrase that was echoing over and over and over...). She was the only person in the world who could be so devastated, and yet she couldn't give any more of herself, no matter how hard she tried.
What had they gone through? Would she see their bodies? Had they been tortured? Did they feel like she had betrayed them? (Had she betrayed them, somehow?) Were they scared? Did they die still thinking she was going to save them? Did they hate her for not saving them?
Finally, the sobs began to overtake her, her shoulders shaking, everything coming down upon her. The tears streamed freely down her face, and David stood to the side, watching her and feeling utterly helpless. What exactly could he do for the girl who had walked through hell? He didn't, of course, know the exact nature of Anne's relationship with Sadie and Hannah—it hadn't really been known prior that there even had been a relationship—but it seemed sacrilegious to question her about it then. Instead, he moved his chair closer, tears falling down his own cheeks of their own accord. For a moment, even in her blurred vision, she saw this, and she sniffed, trying to stop the never ending flow.
They held each other's gaze for a moment, until he finally dropped his eyelids, his eyes refocused on the floor. "I know I don't understand," he said, his voice barely above a mumble. "But if you need to talk—you, you can."
"I've been talking all day," she said bitterly. Although in truth, she couldn't be entirely sure that she had, as time had run together and she had no idea what day it was, let alone what time of day.
He bit his lip, just shaking his head. "No, not to answer questions. Just to talk. To say whatever you need to say."
She looked at him for a long moment, her head tilted to one side as she saw the genuineness in his voice. Slowly—very slowly—her hand crawled over to the other side of the bed, and he, just as slowly, rested his hand on top of hers.
And then she started sobbing again, the entirety of what she had lost being played in her mind all over again.
A/N When my Grandma died (who I had been very close to), one of the things that seemed incredibly painful to me was that I couldn't feel any more agony than I had felt before. I was still trying to climb out of severe depression, and since there was very few lower points than wanting to kill myself, I found that I couldn't be any more sad than I had been. It felt like I should have been, and a part of me felt like I had tarnished her memory. This is where I drew my inspiration for Anne. But the truth is, what separated my Grandmother's death from those nights when I when I thought that perhaps it was better to end it, was my love for my Grandmother. I honor her memory not by my sadness, but by my love.
I don't know if this will help anyone, but if anything, I just want you to know you are not, nor have you ever been alone.