cook_the_rude | Third session with Kate Barlow

Third session with Kate Barlow

After two impromptu sessions with Kate behind the stables, Dr. Hannibal Lecter has organised a small office for himself in Milliways. "I would feel better for your sake if there were no chance of anybody happening upon us as we talk," he explains when he collects her from the stables. "A psychiatrist's office must be a safe space, with no interruption, where the patient can let go and emerge, safely fortified to meet the world again, after catharsis."

When she follows him, she will find the office upstairs, near the library, in an area of the non-linear rooms section that feels more business-like because of that location; it is small but functional, with clean-lined modernist furniture made of pale wood contrasting with the 18th and 19th century prints of horses, maps and cityscapes in ornate frames that adorn the walls. There are two comfortable chairs with end-tables, a small book-case, and a pale leather couch. There is a small drawing table with two straight-backed chairs that, at this moment, holds nothing but a flower arrangement. There are two doors, one slightly ajar to reveal a tiny pantry kitchen, the other firmly closed, with a covered lock that clearly labels it a bathroom door, lockable from the inside.

There are two floor-length windows obscured by pale, gauzy blinds, at the bottom of which a balcony is visible, and beyond its grate, the lake area, with a view to the stables, the garden, and the forge.

A tall carafe of cool water, two glasses, and a box of tissues in a metal holder are set out.

"Please take a seat, Kate," Dr. Lecter says.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only | Expand All

Kate steps through the room slowly, taking it all in. She can count the number of times she's been alone in a room with a man who wasn't her lover on one hand. There's always going to be a level of discomfort anywhere in the bar; it settles in the knots of scarred flesh she carries, and makes her fresh skin crawl. The guns on her hips help. Casing a room as soon as she's inside does, too.

"S'a lovely space. S'got quite the view."

She gestures to the window, smiling faintly. At his invitation, she turns around and moves toward the couch. The setting may be different, but she's steadily acquainting herself with the routine. Every week, a little more comes out.

"Thank you," Dr. Lecter says. "I asked for the generic atmosphere of a therapist's office here. My own at home looks quite different, but I brought the prints."

Pause, while he settles into one of the comfortable chairs.

"Shall we begin?"

"I like the prints. They're more like home than any other artwork I've seen 'round here. An' if this is generic, I'd love t'see what your office at home looks like."

She laughs softly. By her opinion, this is quite opulent.

She tucks her hair behind her ear and folds her hands in her lap, nodding almost imperceptibly.

"Yes. M'ready."

"Tell me about what happened since our last session when you told me about your partner Tommy and September 11th, and your first flash-back when he talked about it," Dr. Lecter begins. "Did you have any more experiences like that?

She hesitates.

And nods.

"Yes. Ah, I mentioned I went t'a friend's world t'help. The Wasteland. It was — violent, an' an awful lot like Texas, if I'm bein' honest. But the weapons an' people there were — they were unlike anythin' I've seen before. After the fact, I started seein' things in my nightmares from there."

"Ellen's world," Dr. Lecter nods. "Go on. Tell me what happened in the Wasteland. What was so nightmarish about it?"

She takes a deep breath, and starts by recounting the facts of the mission. What happened there, and along the trip back to the Citadel. Once she's finished, she explains how it affected her.

"At first I jus' thought I was tired. I'd had a terrible Christmas, Tommy wasn't speakin' t'me, an' I wasn't feelin' myself. I usually have nightmares 'bout Green Lake, an' — Refugio, Goliad, other places back home where I've seen an' done things ... Anyhow. The dreams started turnin' into visions of Evergreen Mills. The weapons they used, seas of scorpions, blood, an' people dyin'. An' the event here: red skies, monsters, an' a hole swallowin' everythin' up.

"We were successful. We did everythin' we was s'posed t'do. An' it was — it was scary, I admit. Some things were awful unsettlin'. I jus' didn't know how badly it affected me till I got back here."

Dr. Lecter had been listening the entire time, sometimes nodding or making small encouraging noises. "Does it feel as if one thing were piling onto the other, making your state worse with every iteration?" he asks.

She purses her lips, nodding slowly.

"Yes. Yes, I'd say that's 'bout right."

"There is something I'd like you to do next," Dr. Lecter says, voice very quiet. "Please understand that you can stop any moment you want to, but I will ask you to keep pushing somewhat beyond where it feels comfortable."

She takes a deep breath, but there's no denying the way she tenses up as he speaks. She knows where this is heading.

"All right."

"I will give you a book, with journalists' pictures from September 11th, the event your partner Tommy told you about," Dr. Lecter announces. "Pictures that were published in magazines and newspapers at the time. I would like you to look at them, and with each page, tell me how anxious you feel, from 1 being normal, to 10 being in full panic mode. Can you do that?"

"Oh, I don't know — "

She pulls back a bit, brow furrowed. It wasn't her experience, her world; it feels almost like an invasion of his privacy. Like she's wedging herself in somewhere she doesn't belong.

"D'you really think that'll help me with my — my own experiences?"

"The mere narrative set off your first flashback," Dr. Lecter points out. "So, working backwards, it might well do so."

He has a point.

She purses her lips in thought, but after only a moment she has to concede to his expertise. She nods, once.

"All right."

He gets up and fetches a book from the book case. It's a large format book of photography, with the iconic moment of the second plane hitting on the cover.

He hands it to her.

She takes it gingerly.

He'll note the wariness in her expression, as if he's just handed her a snake that could bite at any moment. However, without another word she opens the book and starts looking through the photos.

They're — awful. Some are more horrifying than others, but they're all disturbing on a deep level just for the fact of being real. This honestly happened.

And Tommy was there.

"Three."

As she turns the pages, the numbers will go up.

Dr. Lecter watches very, very quietly.

There are the usual still-horrible pictures turning up with every article or newscast about the WTC -- the burning towers, smoke in the streets of Manhattan, millions of pieces of paper on the breeze, fire-fighters going up the steep emergency staircase that the employees of the firms in the towers are rushing down. There is one rare picture, though, of falling bodies.

Kate covers her mouth when she gets to that last picture, eyes shut against the horror.

It takes her a moment.

"Eight."

Dr. Lecter puts his hand on the book, as if to keep her from turning the page.

"Stay with the picture," he says, quietly, watching her very closely. "Give me the book when you feel it rising towards nine. We don't want to go further."

She squeezes her eyes shut tight, and takes a deep breath.

She opens them. Looks at the picture. Tries to make out their faces. Their ages. Imagines herself there. Like Tommy.

Bile burns the back of her throat.

Tears sting her eyes.

She pushes the book toward him.

Nine.

He takes the book.

"That was very good, Kate," he says. "Very brave. You are doing very well at this."

He offers her a tissue, putting the book aside so she doesn't even have to see the cover any more.

Is she doing well at this? As with almost everything up to this point, she can only take his word for it.

Her movements to take the tissue are measured. She's staying very still, eyes closed, just concentrating on sitting. Breathing. Feeling the ground beneath her feet.

Tommy's murmured half stories into her ear; she's woken up to the sounds of him dreaming, the frenzied movement of his eyelids during a nightmare. But to see the things he saw that day — destruction and suffering on such a scale she can't wrap her mind around it — it takes all her will not to cry.

"You can cry if you want to, Kate," Dr. Lecter says quietly. "You are safe here. No need to leave before you've collected yourself."

She shakes her head, slow and slight.

She can't. She won't. Tommy would never stand for her crying over him. Her eyes are glassy when she reopens them, voice choked, but she will not cry.

"I jus' don't understand how things like this could happen."

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject