From: Coast2C@aol.com
Date: Tue, 30 Apr 1996 21:23:51 -0400
Message-ID: <960430212113_387217461@emout12.mail.aol.com>
Subject: Convergence:  Part 14 of 25

Convergence
by
Dana Anderson

Part 14 of  25      (Author's Notes and Disclaimer found in Part 1) 

*               *               *               * 

Al left the Imaging Chamber and checked with Ziggy to find out 
where Jenna was.  When Ziggy informed him that Colonel Tyler 
had left the complex dressed in athletic gear Al sighed.  There were 
worse ways for people to purge anger and frustration.  His third 
wife, or was it his fourth?, used to throw things at him; usually 
heavy, breakable and expensive things.  Al briefly considered going 
after Jenna, then decided that he would allow her the space to 
breathe that he would probably relish in the same circumstances.  
There would be plenty of time later to express his appreciation for 
her rescuing him and Sam from their predicament.

Al spent the rest of the day on paperwork and popping back and 
forth to the past.  Every time he visited Sam it was easier to talk to 
him.  Both of them relaxed completely and forgot to mentally review 
every statement, editing any personal or potentially provocative 
material, before speaking aloud.  The sense of relief Al felt 
translated into a cheerful whistle when Sam leaped and Al left the 
Imaging Chamber for the last time that day.  Al checked his watch; 
it was six p.m.  "Ziggy, where is Colonel Tyler?" Al asked.

"Colonel Tyler is in her laboratory" Ziggy replied.

Al nodded.  Jenna had taken her run earlier.  He hoped that if she 
had a plan for an evening workout, it would require a partner.  Al 
got on the elevator and stopped at the level where Jenna's lab and 
their offices were located.  He sauntered down the hall, still 
whistling.  When he drew closer to the lab, however, his whistling 
and his step faltered.  

The music that was emanating from the walls was not, as usual, the 
pounding exuberance of rock and roll.  It was opera; a dark brooding 
dissonance with singing that sounded like a lament from hell.  Al 
advanced to a point where he could just see into the lab through the 
first glass partition.  

Jenna was seated in a low, wheeled desk chair and leaning so far 
back Al thought she might tip over at any moment.  She was staring 
at a whiteboard that was covered with mathematical and scientific 
notation.  Every few seconds she threw a handball at the board.  It 
would hit the smooth surface, occasionally smearing a character, 
and bounce back.  Jenna was catching the rebounds without really 
paying attention, as though she were participating in some 
instinctive behavior rather than an elective activity.   Her eyes had a 
vacant look.  

Al swallowed with difficulty.  *What the _hell_ is going on in 
there,* he wondered, *and how long has she been sitting there like 
that?*  Just as he worked up the determination to enter the lab and 
confront her, Jenna failed to catch the most recent rebound of the 
handball and it hit her smack in the middle of her forehead, leaving 
a smear of blue and green dry erase marker ink on her skin.  She 
blinked and leaned forward in her chair, shaking her head.  Jenna 
looked up at the ceiling, her mouth moved and the awful cacophony 
of the music ceased.  

She rose from her chair and limped painfully over to the corner of 
the room.  Jenna stooped over slowly, keeping her right leg in an 
awkward and unnaturally rigid position for the activity she was 
attempting, and retrieved the handball from the floor.  As she 
straightened up and turned she brought her left hand up over her 
head and released the ball in the fluid motion and practiced ease of a 
perfect hook shot.  Al watched the arc of the ball's flight as it nearly 
reached the ceiling, then fell with a solid plunking noise into the 
wastebasket in the far corner of the room.  "Nothing but net!" came 
the exclamation, just barely audible to him through the partition.

*Okay,* Al thought, *so she does throw stuff.  But at least she isn't 
throwing stuff at me.*  As he continued on to the door, he saw Jenna 
approach the whiteboard.  She stopped two feet away from it, 
crossed her arms in front of her and began another perusal of the 
writing.  Al knocked on the door.  

"Come in or go away," Jenna shouted without turning around "it's 
all the same to me."

"I hope you don't really mean that" Al said as he entered.

"Oh, sorry Al" Jenna replied, turning around.  "I thought you were 
the janitor.  You don't usually knock."

"You usually have rock and roll blaring so loud it wouldn't do me 
any good to knock" Al reminded her as he walked over to where she 
was standing.  He looked the whiteboard over, recognizing the 
meaning of some of the equations and puzzling over others.  
"Something I can help with?" he asked.

Jenna shook her head and then turned to him.  "Something no one 
can help with" she answered.  "It's a dead end."  She grasped the 
small of her back in her hands and began to stretch the muscles that 
had cramped up from remaining in one position in the chair for too 
long.  She miscalculated the strength available in her right leg and 
her knee buckled.  Al caught her before she fell and supported her 
while she got her feet under herself again.

"What's wrong with your leg?" Al questioned her.  "And don't tell 
me you overdid your run today, that's just the tip of the iceberg."

Jenna looked at the floor for awhile.  "I'd rather not talk about it" 
she said finally, in a quiet voice.

"Like I preferred not to discuss what was bothering me this 
morning?" Al challenged.

Jenna's glance snapped up to his face to assess his mood.  She was 
relieved to see mild amusement there.  "Touché" she acknowledged.  
"So, you and Dr. Beckett kissed and made up?"

"Please," Al grimaced "not right before dinner.  I'll lose my 
appetite."  Then his expression became serious.  "And don't change 
the subject.  I asked you about your leg."

Jenna regarded him for a minute or two and saw that he had no 
intention of letting her get away with another evasion.  "All right" 
she said "I'll tell you.  But if you're concerned about your appetite, 
we'd better have dinner first."

Al began to object to what he thought was a delaying tactic, then he 
saw the warning in her eyes.  Neither of us will feel like eating 
afterwards, her look said.  Al nodded and swallowed.  "Okay, after 
dinner then" he decided.

*               *               *               * 

They both skimped on what was normally their lightest meal of the 
day.  While they sat over soup and crackers in the cafeteria, Al filled 
Jenna in on the success of her mission to get him and Sam to talk to 
each other.  

"I thought you yelled at Sam merely for the shock effect," Al said 
"but you were really mad, weren't you?"

"I guess you could say I was a little on the irritable side" Jenna 
agreed.  

"What set you off?" Al asked.

"It's pretty obvious your friendship means a lot to both of you and I 
hated the idea that I was the cause of your argument" Jenna sighed.  
"I don't ever want to come between you and Sam, Al" she confided.  
What she was thinking, but couldn't bring herself to say, was that 
she never wanted to put him in a position where he would feel he 
had to choose between them.

"Our argument might have involved you," Al reasoned "but it wasn't 
_because_ of you.  And the only time you came between us was to 
appeal to our better judgment, which was quite a stretch.  Whatever 
gave you the idea that Sam and I were reasonable and intelligent?" 
he asked with amusement.

"I guess I should know better than to listen to speculative gossip" 
Jenna replied, with equal mirth.  She was very glad that her 
interference had produced the result she had hoped for.

"I think I'd like a smoke with my after dinner coffee, how about 
you?" Al asked.

Jenna hesitated, realizing this meant a change of subject as well as 
location.  Finally she nodded and they rose from the table.  They 
went to Al's quarters, made a pot of coffee and went out onto the 
balcony with mugs full of the stimulating liquid and supplies of their 
favorite vices.  They both lit up and relaxed into their chairs, 
exhaling the first satisfying streams of smoke in unison.

The light from the living room was bright enough for them to see 
each other clearly and Al settled his gaze on her face.  Jenna was 
obviously struggling for a beginning to her tale.  *She doesn't look a 
day over twelve years old with that helpless, unguarded expression 
on her face,* he thought.  *I wonder how old she feels?*  Jenna 
shifted restlessly in her chair.  Al knew that she was in pain.  She 
had limped badly on the way here, even though it was obvious to Al 
that she was trying desperately to hide the extent of her suffering.  

Al had offered her some aspirin, but she had merely shaken her 
head.  "I'm allergic to just about every pain medication in existence" 
she had said, with genuine regret "except hard liquor and I'm not in 
the mood for a drink."  He couldn't quite understand the rationale of 
that remark, but accepted her decision.

Jenna took a sip of coffee from her mug and placed it back on the 
small table that stood between them.  She met Al's regard with a 
questioning glance.  "Are you sure you want to hear about this?" she 
offered.

"No, I don't want to hear about it" Al replied "but I want to know.  I 
want to understand."

"I can tell you what's wrong with my leg and how it happened and 
then you'll know.  I can't promise you'll understand.  I can't say that 
I do, even after all these years" Jenna warned him.  She saw that he 
was firm in his intention to hear what she had to say, so she sighed 
and began.

"There are three healed breaks in my right leg" she said.  "My ankle 
was broken when I was four, I had a greenstick fracture just below 
the knee when I was five and a torsion fracture in my knee when I 
was seven."  Jenna paused for another sip of coffee.

"How many of them were set professionally?" Al inquired.

Jenna kept her eyes locked with his as she took a drag from her 
cigarette.  She squinted one eye against the smoke which curled up 
into her face, but he could still see the curiosity in the other eye.  

*She's wondering why I suspect that some of her injuries might not 
have been treated properly,* Al thought.  He didn't offer any 
explanation for the source of his question and Jenna ultimately 
decided it was pointless to wait for one.

"The ankle and the knee were treated by doctors.  My mother 
splinted the greenstick fracture and locked me in my room for six 
weeks to hide the fact that I was hurt" she responded.

"Your mother was responsible for all those injuries, wasn't she?" Al 
asked.

"Yes" Jenna said and then, anticipating his next question, 
continued.  "She broke my ankle by hitting me with a piece of 
firewood.  The greenstick fracture happened one of the times she 
pushed me off the back porch.  The torsion fracture in my knee, 
well" Jenna exhaled a stream of smoke along with a sigh, 
"sometimes I had a little warning.  She would get this look on her 
face or in her eyes when I was in for it and if I had a chance I would 
run.  That time she caught me, but lost her balance.  She was 
twisting my leg in her grip and my knee was smashed against the 
edge of the coffee table by her body when she fell."

Al felt the churning of his meager evening meal in his stomach.  
*Good thing I paid attention to her warning,* he thought.  *I'd hate 
to have a full meal bouncing around in there right now.*  Al had 
seen and experienced some of the most vile torture imaginable as an 
MIA in Vietnam, but somehow this was worse.  She had been an 
innocent little girl, brutalized by the mother who was supposed to be 
the most nurturing person in her life.  *It's the element of betrayal 
that's really disgusting,* he thought, *and the sense of wrongness; 
that this just wasn't the way things were supposed to be.*

"Which break causes you the most trouble?" Al asked.  He was 
wondering if there was anything that could be done, at this late date, 
perhaps surgery, that might alleviate some of her problems.  "Or is it 
a combination of all of them?"

Jenna studied his face in silence for a while, as though gauging his 
ability to accept her answer.  "The breaks, in themselves, I can 
tolerate fairly well.  They only start talking to me in damp weather 
or if I run too often or too far, a combination of the impact and the 
exercise I guess.  It's my right hip that causes the most trouble." 

"Your hip?" Al echoed.

Jenna nodded slightly, still watching his face.  "It's been dislocated 
nine times.  And before you ask, it's only been treated professionally 
twice."

"Your mother dislocated your hip nine times?" Al was incensed.

"No, only seven.  The other two times happened later.  Once a limb 
has been dislocated it doesn't take the same effort to force the bone 
out of its' socket as it does with a healthy joint" Jenna explained.

"The two times it was treated professionally, those were the later 
times?" he inquired.  Jenna nodded.  "Your mother," Al went on 
"she couldn't hide the fact that you had a dislocated hip.  What did 
she...I mean how..." he couldn't seem to finish his question.

Jenna had a bleak expression and her face was very pale.  She lit 
another cigarette and gave Al a long opportunity to withdraw his 
partial question.  When it became clear that he had no more 
intention of ending the conversation here than he had of completing 
his question, she went on slowly and painfully.

"She would carry me up to the attic where there were some very 
convenient rafters.  She tied my hands together behind my back and 
then tied a rope to my right ankle.  She would toss the rope over a 
rafter, hoist me up off the ground, tie the rope off and leave me there 
until the weight of my hanging body pulled the socket over the top 
of my thigh bone" Jenna answered.

Al ruthlessly suppressed the urge to vomit.  He picked up his coffee 
and took a few small sips, desperately hoping that he could urge his 
throat to work in the proper direction.  When he felt the pressure of 
his gorge begin to subside he leaned back and fumbled for another 
cigar.  "How long, I mean, did she leave you there for a long time?"

"Time is relative" was the only answer Jenna gave him.

Al knew what she meant.  A minute in pain could be an eternity, 
release from pain could be fleeting.  Then something else occurred 
to him.  At first he thought he wouldn't be able to ask the question, 
but he couldn't stop now.  He had to know everything.  "You didn't 
say she gagged you.  She must have.  You would have screamed, you 
wouldn't have been able to help yourself.  Someone would have 
heard you, even from the attic."

Jenna shook her head slowly and carefully.  "She only gagged me 
the first two times.  After that I had learned the value of silence."

A horrible memory surfaced in Al's mind.  It was his own mental 
voice, ordering himself to be silent.  "Be quiet, don't make a sound" 
he whispered.

"You'll only make things worse" they said in unison, staring into 
each other's shocked expressions.  Their eyes locked as the phrases 
repeated themselves over and over in their minds.  Suddenly they 
both vaulted out of their chairs and leaned over the wall of the 
balcony and heaved their dinners over the edge.  

When Al recovered, he saw that Jenna was clutching grimly to the 
wall with her hands; her legs too weak to support her in her 
condition.  He leaped to her side and helped her into the bathroom.  
Al reached into the cabinet and produced two toothbrushes and some 
toothpaste.  They shared the sink, Jenna leaning over from her seat 
on the toilet and Al standing to one side.  When they had removed 
the worst of the taste from their mouths and both of them had a 
chance to rinse, Al tossed the toothbrushes into the trash and helped 
Jenna back out onto the balcony.  He lit a cigarette for her and 
retrieved fresh coffee before he reseated himself in his chair.

"So," Jenna said "you've been there, too.  Kind of makes you feel 
like a participant in the torture, doesn't it?"

Al reignited his neglected cigar.  "I don't think anyone who hasn't 
experienced it would believe how guilty it makes you feel, to tell 
yourself not to scream about what's happening" he agreed.

"We were right, though" Jenna said.  "Making a noise always made 
it worse.  Silence was our only defense."

Al nodded as he remembered grown men who had never learned 
this.  Most of them died because they couldn't stop themselves from 
crying out.  How could a child of four or five learn, and put into 
practice, such extreme self denial and control?  He looked at Jenna 
and thought about how extraordinary she must be, to have developed 
that level of mental discipline as a mere baby.

Jenna returned his gaze.  "Sometimes being a survivor really sucks" 
she said.

"Most of the time I think it beats the alternative" Al replied.  

"Yeah," Jenna agreed "most of the time it does."

They smoked in silence for a while until the chill of the desert night 
drove them inside.  Al helped Jenna undress and get into bed.  He 
put his sexual appetite on hold and gave her a long and gentle 
massage.  By the time he had patiently kneaded the tension from 
every bunched muscle in her body, Jenna had drifted off to sleep.  Al 
was surprised at the release and satisfaction he felt at his 
accomplishment.  *Maybe Sam's right,* Al thought, as he lay down 
next to Jenna and shifted into a comfortable position.  *Maybe sex 
isn't always the ultimate experience you can have with a woman.*  

He just hoped there wasn't anything more intense for him to 
experience with Jenna than simultaneous vomiting, though.

*               *               *               * 

End Part 14 of 25