ten_fwd | it's the only way i can escape }{ OPEN

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it's the only way i can escape }{ OPEN

(( OOC: potential content warnings all over this for mentions of horror game content, telepathic violation, telepathic control of another, sexual harassment, death, etc. Basically, the doctor is not having a good month. ))

The only good thing to have come of Zelien was the ability to deal with horrific and traumatizing events as they happened. Afterwards is another story. Beverly had thought that being able to deal with the events themselves meant that she could deal with everything Q conjured up for them because it was over. She thought she would be fine.

She was wrong. She was so wrong.

The thing Zelien had yet to teach her was how to deal with the aftereffects of trauma. The nightmares flare again, worse than what Q had offered them recently, and even shadows make her twitchy. Memories, fears, anything traumatic that her mind could conjure up, it did. People might not want to be around her this month. She startles at the slightest movement and sometimes her instinct is self-defense, protection, because her mind remembers Zelien and the cultists, the soldiers who jeered, leered, called, and harassed.

The nightmares have her wrestling with the sheets, memories of Jev the Ullian -- was that his name? Have they been here yet? Does she need to prepare for that? -- or Ronin, different contexts, but both violations of her mental self. Of course, both lead to other nightmares of her husband's dead body or some Victorian man about 35 years old not only forcing her into his bed, but forcing her to enjoy it. Sometimes Wesley dies in place of Jack and she wakes up sobbing. Sometimes Jean-Luc's lifeless body haunts her, the Borg come in to take over the ship yet again, or the entire crew is systematically murdered to torment her. The last to die is always Jean-Luc because her subconscious mind knows that his death will haunt her the most. These and others cause her to bolt out of her quarters in the dead of night out of sheer, blind panic, heading for somewhere she can feel safe.

Most of the time, she can be found in a corner of the Arboretum. Here, she is either asleep, though it's a fitful sleep that she wakes easily from and often in a state of terror; sitting with her hands over her ears and eyes squeezed shut against that feeling of panic; or sitting with her knees tucked up to her chin and a dead look to her eyes while she stares straight ahead. When she isn't there, she might be in the holodeck, using a program of an open meadow. No walls or buildings will be in sight, not even that new cabin that she would so love normally. She remembers so clearly those buildings on that campus, remembers the sights and sounds and smells of the acid. Stomach acid. Like the buildings were alive and trying to eat them all. At least the meadow means nothing will be eating her alive. When she isn't in either of those places, she's likely in the gym, practicing Mok'bara to meditate and calm her nerves. Intruders might want to make their presence known before they startle her. Beverly is back to being twitchy and that means nothing good will come of it. What she needs are distractions, as many as possible, and people who are willing to work with her trauma.

She'll get better over the course of the month, but in the beginning and middle, she is not doing well at all.

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The joke gets her a dry smile back; they both know which of the two options it is, but Finnick's not going to be the one to say it. But Finnick doesn't judge her. For all he can make a split-second assessment of a room, a situation, a sound, the edginess of a victor and the survivor of a second arena giving him reflexes so sharp they can seem unnatural, he does understand.

He's been there, times when he knows he should be watching the exits, assessing the crowds, being aware of his surroundings and any potential threats but finding himself completely unable to do so.

He shrugs, taking a couple of steps closer.

"If it can give me an edge."

It's the closest he's come yet to admitting the truth that he's still, partly, in training for the Quarter Quell's arena, just in case. Edge or not, he'd still accept, in truth, because he knows the value of this sort of give and take of skills. He'd taken an archery lesson from Katniss before the Quell though he'd had no intention of picking up a bow, because it gave him a chance to learn more about her.

"How's not thinking about it going for you?" he asks, softly. Because that's just as important, if not more so. Because, whatever people in Panem might think, sympathy and compassion are qualities he has, in large amounts, for the people on whom he chooses to bestow them.

It's really unnecessary to point out which option it is at this point. That answer is obvious to both of them, as is Beverly's casual avoidance of anything that could really explain what she's going through. Finnick stands a greater chance of getting her to loosen up than most, but the problem is always the difficulty in putting words to anything.

So she just shifts back to the first stance and waits for him to copy. "It's always useful, though I wouldn't suggest challenging a Klingon until you've had some practice," she jokes, moving into the forms smoothly, but slowly enough that Finnick can follow her.

Partway through, she offers him a soft but sad sort of smile at his question. It's a good question, an important one, though not one she has an easy answer to.

"I'll get back to you on that," she answers softly, more of a real answer than one might think. Her careful avoidance means that she isn't doing as well as might be expected or hoped for. "I'm sure it would be better if I could get a few peaceful moments in my head." But her mind keeps working overtime, exhausting her with the nightmares and memories and fears to the point that she has to keep herself doing something. Hyper focus on something so that she can't spare any brainpower to anything worse.

He hasn't told Beverly that he was in a second arena when he came here, so she doesn't know what he might have to protect himself from. How he might need to fight, for the revolution, for his life, for Katniss and Peeta and Beetee and Johanna, if he ever returns to Panem. He also hasn't told her that he's not just a victor, but a Career, as well, that he was trained as a child to fight and kill and that he's kept up training and practice ever since so he's still just as good as he ever was.

"I'll keep that in mind," he says, lightly. He doesn't bother to point out he's not about to go picking fights where they're not needed; the truth is that he doesn't know what fights might be coming in his future, and he'll take whatever preparation he can.

He mirrors Beverly's movements, and he's good at it, following her through the motions with a smooth sort of competence born of the comfort in his own body that a life of physicality has given him.

It's less the movements that he's here for, though, than it is Beverly herself and her well-being. He doesn't reply to her at first, though the thoughtfulness in his expression says that he's heard her.

"Hard not to think about it when you can't do anything else," he eventually agrees, his voice gentle. "You try to get through the day knowing the night's not going to be any better, wondering if it will ever be easier."

The words are simple, the tone matter-of-fact; if it weren't for the content of his words, they could have been mistaken for chit-chat.

That he understands, though, is plain in the soft sadness in his eyes.

He knows.

It had been a joke, an attempt at one, rather than an accusation. It was a way to deflect from her own worries and fears, the troubles plaguing her mind. She appreciates that he takes it lightly enough, even without knowing more about his life.

Instead of stopping when they reach the end of the pattern, she begins it again, more to give herself a chance to think than anything else. He does understand and she knew that before he even replied. Before the words were spoken, she knew. It still means something to hear.

"Hard to find something to distract yourself enough with," she admits. "It never quite works. There's always something that's eating at you."

A sigh escapes her as she closes her eyes and settles further into what they're doing.

"Close your eyes and it's still there. Bury yourself in something else and it's still there. Sleep? Why should you try when you know you'll just wake up screaming because the walls are closing in on you or you're losing everyone who actually matters to you."

He's not sure what losses Beverly might have known in her past, other than the husband she'd been mourning at the party, but he does know the feeling she's talking about, the agony of getting to sleep only to find that fear has followed him there. And he's known losses, too, losses so staggering it's only having Annie left that lets him hold together as well as he does.

"It's not always that bad," he says, gently, his eyes still focused on her as his body echoes hers in movements, repeated now, a little less alien because he's done them once before. "You're so caught in it, it seems like it will never get better, but ... it does."

Not that it's easy to believe that, even when he's lived it himself.

He doesn't say that the darkness is still there, waiting to come back. He's fairly sure Beverly already knows, and that she doesn't need to hear it, if she doesn't.

"You just have to get through it, try to hold together."

Loss follows her around like a lost puppy. At times, she wonders if that will be her entire life, just loss after loss after loss. Sometimes it gets better. But now, after Zelien and after being brought here... Now she wonders how it will end. Being sent back to her timeline would mean even more loss. Somehow, she is beginning to think that it just won't stop and that worries her more than she can say.

"I know," she says with a soft and weary sigh. "It always has in the past. It just takes a while. And for some reason this one seems... much closer. Easier to pull up and remember the horrors."

That darkness will always be there. Always. Just like the holes in her heart where she's lost Jack and Odan and Nana and so many others she considered important.

"It's the holding together that's hard," she admits after another minute. "But that's why I'm here. Somewhere that isn't the loneliness of my room." Where her thoughts beat in on her like drums, hammers even. Here, where she can focus on something else, have someone to talk to who will help her move past it all.

"What do you usually do when you can't sleep?"

"Sometimes it's like that."

Traumatic experiences, fear, danger, are all commonplace to the people of Panem, but Finnick's known more of them than many other people, because of the Games, because of Snow, because of the beds he's been forced into. And he knows that not all pain is equal. Some, he can shove away, ignore for long enough it seeps into something deep inside him rather than forcing itself out into the open. Some stays close, always there, always ready to remind him.

"When I came here, I was in the arena again. Victors, we're supposed to be immune, but this year, for the anniversary of the Games, they reaped from the victors."

His voice has gone distant, and so has his gaze. He stops speaking for a moment, then he refocuses, and his lips tighten before he looks away.

"I know what you mean about it being closer."

Maybe it's because he knows the cost of the Games to the people who survive them now. Maybe it's because he'd known the people who'd died, one of whom he'd killed, this time. Maybe it's the horror of the jungle arena, the loss of Mags, the betrayal of the compact with the victors by sending them back into the arena, but something makes the Quell burn brighter in his nightmares, both sleeping and waking.

He breathes in, out, and gives her a strained smile.

"Sometimes I write. At home, I'd go running or sit on the beach. Or tie knots. Over and over again until my hands hurt and I can't think about anything else."

His smile flickers out. "If it's really bad, I talk to Annie. I don't like waking her up, but ..." His voice is almost a whisper. "Sometimes I have to."

Their role reversal just keeps going. Beverly reflects a little on it with slight amusement. Usually, she would be the one giving him whatever reassurance and support she could. This time, he is doing that exact thing for her.

A frown of concern creases her face as she listens. They had each talked a little about their traumas, shared experiences that made them the way they are. Still, there's always more. There's always something else, something worse. The Quarter Quell seems worse insomuch as something can be worse than one trip into the Arena.

"I taught a few people Mok'bara while I was there," she says slowly, in answer to his words. "The meditation helped, but it wasn't perfect. I've already had a Klingon in here tell me that."

In all fairness, it's true. She's very sloppy right now as far as Klingons are concerned. As far as her own mental capacity is concerned, at the moment she is doing as well as she can. She's taking it one step at a time, at her own pace. No one else's.

"I have Fatima to talk to when we cross paths. We both remember everything we experienced, all of those horrors. It's... easier with her. Easier to convince myself that it's real. That everything actually happened and being here isn't some kind of... of dream." She runs a hand through her hair, letting her gaze move around the room for a minute.

"When I first woke up here, I was convinced that it was a trick, that none of this was real. It took being told by my best friend that I was safe for it to really sink in." Some days she reverts back to that first mindset. Some days it's too hard to convince herself that this is real. Right now is one of those times.

If she ever sees Q again....

He understands what she's saying about Fatima, not just because he can see what she means, but because he's felt it himself. Being a victor of the Hunger Games is to be uniquely a victim of that same loneliness, a loneliness made of the arena and the fact that only one person ever came out of it alive until Katniss tore the rules apart. All of Panem watched what they went through, but each victor had always been alone until then.

It's one of the reasons Finnick was so close to Mags, to Annie, because a mentor is the closest thing to someone else who's been through it with a victor. To everyone else, it's just a story. Just television.

"It's like that for victors, too. Especially here. In Panem, everyone saw what happened to us. On tv. It wasn't real to them. And here, people can barely believe the Games happened, let alone what happened to us."

So many things tie the victors together it's little wonder he's stuck close to Annie (and Johanna, while she was here), tried to befriend Lacey, Peeta, Katniss. It might not be much, but it's all they have of Panem.

Not that any of them necessarily want to hang on to Panem, but it's made them who they are.

"I'm not surprised," he says, quietly, his clear green eyes sad as he watches her. "When I first got here, I was sure President Snow had taken me out of the arena." His smile has no amusement in it. "I thought I was going to be tortured and killed."

"It hard," Beverly agrees softly, "to go through something like we have and not wonder what's real and not real." Fatima had told Beverly that she had started to think Zelien was all just a dream when she had come here. Fatima had been here for so long without anyone else who knew and a Beverly who had never been there at all. It was hard to blame her for wondering.

"I'm glad that neither of us has to deal with that right now. For what it's worth... this is real. It took me a while to actually believe that." And now she feels that she has to convince herself all over again. So much for her progress.

"There were children in Zelien, too," she continues, a frown crossing her face as she remembers Kaede. "I was trying to teach one and protect her at the same time. It was terrible by itself, but I don't think it really compares to anything in Panem." Of course, that doesn't mean much of anything. Zelien was still terrible for an adult, and horrific for a kid. "There's something to be said for the people you go through something like this with."

He's quiet, for a moment. He knows exactly what Beverly means. In the middle of the night, he's used to the whispers from Annie asking him what's true and what's not, what is really happening and what her mind has tricked her into believing. That was before they wound up here.

Beverly's reassurance, though, helps, in a way. It's enough to prompt him to voice things he's never really dared voice here outside the secret whispers for Annie or Katniss where nobody else could hear.

"I still watch everything I say. We're all so used to assuming the Capitol is listening. They spy on us, they bug our houses, no victor can ever really be themself unless they're so far out to sea they might be safe."

For a moment, his expression flickers, like Beverly's had, and his green eyes are a little too bright.

"No child should have to go through anything like that. Not Zelien, not the Games, not living with that sort of fear."

Borderline treasonous words, if the Capitol really were listening, but ... it's a step. A little more honesty when he's been able to show so little.

Beverly can only guess at how that feels, barely imagine what living like that would be like. In a way, it reminds her of the Borg, only with a twist. The Borg were always one. There was no need for privacy, so there was no privacy at all. But Beverly could still remember what it was like to bring Jean-Luc back from that, to watch as he struggled with himself. He rarely talked about it, but from what they knew, the voices... not having those voices was as strange as having them so suddenly.

There was nothing to keep to oneself. All was known. And then it was gone.

She shivers involuntarily before turning to Finnick, her eyes hard. "No, they shouldn't," she agrees, her voice practically turning to stone. "No one should. Not a child, a teenager, or an adult. And that's why I will do anything I can to help you and keep you safe -- you, Annie, and everyone else from your world who went through that."

Even if she has to take them through her hell with her to the universe she is from, they will never again know the horrors of Panem. Not if she has anything to say about it.

"Whatever it takes to keep you safe, I will do. Starfleet will have a field day with it in my universe, but I will bear the consequences."

Temporal Investigations would have her head and Guinan would be displeased, not to mention Jean-Luc's sense of duty, but Finnick and Annie especially are worth that risk.

In a strange way, there's always been something reassuring about Beverly's horror. In Panem, most people were too afraid to show their feelings as openly as she does. It had been different the last few months before he'd come here, when people were angrier, more rebellious, but Beverly's anger is something that wouldn't have been spoken publicly for fear of the Peacekeepers, of Capitol spies.

It makes it a little easier to accept some of the things he's still struggling with: that what Snow had done to him was a horrific betrayal, that it's natural for it to have harmed him. Of course, he hasn't told her about the shame, the self-loathing that come from what he's done and what's been done to him and what he's allowed to happen, the darkness that his experiences have stirred in his mind, but ... her outrage and her sympathy make him feel a little less like he has to pretend around her.

So the harshness in her voice is reassuring, and he trusts that it's real, more than he would have done all those months ago when he first met her.

The corners of his mouth turn up, just a little.

"You'd take us with you back to your ... reality?"

She nods seriously at his question, well aware of the repercussions of even suggesting it. She might be facing something as high as a court martial for it, but after everything she has experienced, after knowing what little she does about Panem, she will go down fighting for these people who deserve so much better than to go back to such a place as that.

"If it came down to it, yes," she affirms. "It will be easier if Q keeps you here, but if there's even a hint that something will change, I'll do whatever I can to ensure that you stay with me."

She will protect them in any way that she can, Temporal Prime Directive be damned. Starfleet can deal with it; she will never let these Panem survivors return without a fight.

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it's the only way i can escape }{ OPEN

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