They didn't live far
from the community center, which was where their meeting was held. The
doctor liked to have his meetings in comfortable, neutral places, where
the attendees didn't feel like they were being kept under a microscope
for observation. And it helped alot. The first meeting had been at the
doctor's office, and that had just been an awful meeting. About a dozen
words were said that night. That's when the doctor chose to move the meeting
place. The meetings had been extremely successful then.
When the young couple
reached the community center, the lot was empty except for two cars. One
they recognized as being the doctor's, the other must have been the new
members.
"I guess we're not
late," the man said to his wife. She nodded in agreement and together they
walked into the building.
From the classroom
where their meetings were held, the couple could hear voices. One was the
deep, masculine voice recognized right away as the doctor's, the other
a higher, but serious, feminine voice. So the new member was a woman, at
least the group would be slightly more even: four guys, two women. Where
was that arrangement familiar from? The woman wondered to herself.
"Hello," the woman
said as she and her husband entered the room. She hung up her coat and
purse on a hanger, then went over to the new woman. She was tall, blond
hair, blue eyes...familiar from somewhere...why couldn't she remember?!
"I'm Cassie."
The other woman looked
at Cassie, something flickered through her eyes. Recognition perhaps? "Cassie,
don't you recognize me?"
Cassie shook her head.
"No, I'm sorry...you do look familiar to me, but I don't remember where."
"I'm Rachel. Don't
you remember me?" Rachel was concerned. How could Cassie forget her best
friend, her maid of honor?
"Rachel! Long time
no see!"
Rachel looked up to
see her cousin, Jake, standing protectively next to Cassie. "Hi, Jake."
Cassie looked from
her husband to the new woman. "Jake, how do you...we know her?"
Jake took his wife
by the shoulders gently. "She used to be your best friend, Cassie. She
was with us..."
"Don't say it, Jake,"
Cassie warned.
"Okay, but she was
there. And she was your maid of honor in our wedding?"
Cassie felt tears of
frustration begin to sting the back of her eyes. She knew why parts of
her life were blocked out, some stupid defense mechanism, but why had she
blocked out an entire person?
Jake noticed the familiar
signs of Cassie nearly reaching her breaking point. There was only so much
she could handle now. "We'll be back in a moment, Rachel, Doctor," he said,
and ushered Cassie out of the room quickly.
"What's wrong with
Cassie?" Rachel asked Doctor Greenway.
"She's suffering from
selective amnesia, I'm afraid," Doctor Greenway said gently. "It's a personal
defense mechanism. She couldn't cope with many things that happened, so
she blocked them out."
"But why me?"
"I can't answer that,
Rachel. The mind works in mysterious ways."
"Hey, hey, hey, Doctor
Greenway! The fun has arrived!" A man said as he swaggered into the room.
But he stopped dead in his tracks when he saw Rachel. "You. What are you
doing here?"
Rachel smirked slightly.
"And it's nice to see you, too, Marco."
"Why are you here?
We all thought..."
"That I was immune?
Not in the least."
"I suppose you're the
reason Cassie's out in the hall nearly hysterical?"
"Why am I getting the
third degree?"
"I just wanted to know,"
Marco said, sitting down across from her. "I'm sorry. I shouldn't have
started accusing you like that. It's just...well, I don't understand it
myself."
"Do any of us understand
why we're here?"
Both Rachel and Marco
looked up to see the newcomer to the room. He was tall, with tousled dark
blond hair and piercing hazel eyes. Eyes that never changed from their
raptor-like glare.
Rachel literally felt
her heart skip a beat before it restarted, beating twice as frantically
as ever. It was all she could do to keep her voice semi-steady as she greeted
him. "Hello, Tobias."
He walked into the
room, guardedly. He sat down next to Rachel, but stayed as far away from
her as he could while still being in his chair. "Hello, Rachel," he said
flatly. Rachel was about to say more to him, but Cassie and Jake came back
in, his arm protectively around her shoulder. Doctor Greenway nodded to
them in greeting and indicated they could sit down.
"I'd like to welcome
you all to tonight's meeting," he said warmly. "As I'm sure you know, we
have a new member, and you all apparantly know eachother already. However,
it's standard procedure for a new member to introduce herself, and tell
us a bit about her, and why she's here." He nodded to Rachel, "It's all
you."
Rachel looked down
for a moment, and unconciously smoothed her slacks. Dammit, Rachel, she
told herself, you have to stop doing that! "Uh. I guess I'm here 'cause
I'm OCD and PTSD." She said the last part in a rush, like she didn't like
to admit that, which was true. She still saw her disorders as weaknesses
that could possibly have been prevented.
"I don't think we all
caught that," Doctor Greenway told her. "I know it's not something you
like to admit, Rachel. But we're all extremely supportive here, right?"
he said that last part to the rest of the group, who all nodded.
"Okay, fine," Rachel
sighed. "I'm OCD and PTSD."
"Both?" Tobias asked.
Rachel just nodded. "I'm...I'm sorry."
Rachel shrugged. "It's
not like you could have done anything to stop it. And I guess it's not
my fault either."
"It's not, Rachel,"
Marco said emphatically. "Trust me. For once I'm being serious here. I've
been there, I've got PTSD, too."
"As do I," Tobias admitted
quietly.
There was an awkward
silence before anyone else spoke. "I'm...I've got selective amnesia," Cassie
finally admitted. "My mind just sort of...blocked...out entire parts of
my life." She looked pleadingly at Rachel. "That's why I didn't recognize
you. I'm sorry, Rachel, but I honestly don't have any memories of you.
A few vague ones from my wedding, but otherwise, nothing. I feel so awful...I've
never blocked off an entire person before. And I don't even understand
why!"
"None of us understand
why, Cassie," Jake told her reassuringly. "Not just you. We were some of
the strongest kids on Earth, yet when we hit adulthood, that need to be
strong all melted away."
"Are you going to tell
us why you're here, Jake?" Doctor Greenway asked.
Jake looked down sheepishly,
like he was embarrassed. "My problem's nothing, really."
Cassie put a hand on
her husband's knee, "Jake, it's not 'nothing', and you know it."
Jake sighed. "I have
depression. Plain, simple, every day depression."
"Not plain, simple,
every day depression, Jake," Doctor Greenway corrected. "Yours is different.
Most depressions don't require therapy, simply medication. However, all
of you had similar experiences during the invasion, correct?" There were
nods around the room, although all were very slight, "I thought it would
be best for all of you to be able to get together to discuss it. If possible,"
he added to Rachel and Cassie. "Rachel, it's customary for everyone to
share something positive that happened during the past week. Whether it
was overcoming an obstacle of some kind, or just a positive event. Marco,
why don't you start, Rachel can finish if she'd feel comfortable doing
so."
Marco nodded. "I went
the entire week without being paranoid. Untill tonight, anyway," he added,
looking away from Rachel.
"What do you think
brought it on tonight?" the doctor pressed.
"I think it was seeing
Rachel again. I'm sorry, Rachel, I...I couldn't help it. You just suddenly
reappeared and Cassie was outside...I didn't mean to, honest."
"I--I'm sure you didn't."
Rachel started to smooth out her slacks again.
"You still did well,
Marco," Cassie assured him. "It's the longest you've gone before."
"Yeah, it is...but
it's still stupid that I blew that tonight."
"Marco, it's really
not your fault," Rachel said. "You couldn't help it, just like I can't
stop this damn obsession with getting the wrinkles out of my slacks." As
if to emphasize her point, she smoothed them again.
Doctor Greenway looked
to Jake. "Would you go next?"
"Um...well, I managed
to go all day yesterday without thinking I was a worthless human being."
"Hey, that's great!"
Marco told his best friend. The others all agreed with him, congratulating
Jake. All of them had had bouts of depression and knew how hard it was
to over come it, although none had it as bad as he did.
"Cassie?" Doctor Greenway
prompted when the congratulations for Jake were finished.
"Well...I remembered
something this week," she said quietly. "It...it wasn't all that plesant...it
was...that first night. When we met..." she sighed, "I don't even remember
his name. Ax's brother?"
"Elfangor," Rachel
supplied quietly. She didn't like to remember, either, but she had the
memories. They were there to stay, whether she liked it or not.
Cassie's lighted up
and she nodded. "Yes! Elfangor! Elfangor-Sirinal-Shamtul." She looked extremely
proud of herself, like a kindergartner who'd gotten the gold star for citizenship.
"What did you remember?"
the doctor asked.
"The four...five of
us, I guess," she corrected with a glance at Rachel, "We were walking home
from the mall, and decided to cut through the construction site. On the
way through, Tobias saw Elfangor's crash. And we were given the morphing
power."
Tobias nodded. "Yeah,
that's what happened, Cassie."
"The details are sketchy,
I can't tell you anything more. But I'm getting better, right?"
"Right, Cassie," Jake
said reassuringly.
The group's attention
turned to Tobias. "I'd rather not talk about this week," he muttered.
"Any particular reason
why?" Doctor Greenway asked gently.
"I just don't," Tobias
snapped. "It's a choice whether to talk or not, isn't it?"
"Of course it is, Tobias,"
the doctor told him, then he turned to Rachel, "Would you like to tell
us anything?"
"Something positive?
Nothing positive happened this week. I started my medication so I feel
like crap, and I haven't seen the slightest change in the damn OCD!" She
looked down, embarrassed, and once again smoothed her slacks. "I'm sorry,
it's the medication. It hasn't exactly made me a happy-go-lucky person
this week."
"That's all right,
Rachel," Doctor Greenway assured her. "Unless somebody would like to say
something else, why don't we call it a night and we'll meet again next
week?"
The members of the
therapy group nodded their assent silently and without a word gathered
their things and left. As he usually did, the doctor stayed after for awhile,
finishing his notes on what had happened at the meeting. Perhaps it hadn't
been such a good idea to reunite the group without some warning. The four
original members knew eachother fine but the addition of the fifth was
an unstable element that needed to be stabilized before the entire group
fell apart.
A/N: We certainly have a cheery group! Will they be able to stay together, or will having to face eachother again simply drive them farther apart? Find out eventually in Traumatic Events III!!! (Sorry, I'm drinking a can of pop [don't give me that look, I'm from Michigan! What else should I call it? Soda? Uh-uh!] with lots of caffeine in it and it's making me say weird things)