Work Text:
The calendar on the wall said October, and the chilly weather, paired with the leaves out of the window he stared out, proved that.
But the last thing Charlie remembered was a clearly humid afternoon in May in St John’s.
Five months.
Charlie sat on the floor of his living room, back pressed against the sofa. Everything looked the same as he last remembered it. His view, too, of the ocean was the same.
But he was far from the same.
He was no longer the Charlie Hudson who sat on this sofa in May, telling Sarah he had to go and find his brother, that he would be back before she knew it.
He stood up, his eyes meeting his own in the circular mirror that hung beside the front door, somehow still shocked as to his appearance. He was thin – gaunt, really. His skin was so pale, he would not be surprised if he was mistaken for a cadaver if he walked outside the house.
If.
He tried every single day to walk out, to feel the fresh air on his skin, fresh air that he had been denied for those months, but he never even made it to opening the door.
He continued to stare at himself in the mirror, looking at the cuts, scrapes, and bruises that had now begun to heal, and his nose that would always be just a little crooked.
He just sighed and sat back down, lost in his thoughts.
“Charlie?”
Sarah’s voice was soft, and he knew that she was doing so for his benefit, so as not to startle him.
As if he were an injured, defenceless animal.
He didn’t look up instantly, but took an interest in Rex, who was lying just a few feet away, head on his paws, watching Charlie intensely.
For some reason, Rex was the only living thing Charlie could tolerate near him.
“I bought you a blanket,” she told him, shuffling carefully towards him, “It’s cold in here.”
She took a more confident step forward, almost at Charlie’s side, but no sooner did Sarah place the blanket on his knees, instinctively placing her hand on his shoulder, when he tensed, scrambling off the sofa and pressing his back against the wall.
It was a primal reaction, a reaction born of the months where touch only meant pain, and nothing else.
He slid down, curling into a ball, a terrified noise tearing from his throat. Memories from his period in captivity flooded him, and for a moment, he was back in that room, four pairs of hands on him, a needle stuck in his neck, before a hood was zip-tied around his neck, and he couldn’t remember much from the next couples of hours, except for the aching in his body that told him that those hours were far from pleasant.
“Don’t…” he begged, mumbling something else before Rex wordlessly trotted towards the Detective, nudging Charlie’s elbow, whining softly. Charlie’s hyperventilating slowly disappeared as he peered over his arms, eyes wide open, the memories slowly giving way to reality. He saw his partner, Rex, itching closer, before nudging against his face. His eyes flickered up, fixating on Sarah’s heartbroken face, noting a tear tracing down her face.
“Sarah,” he gasped, burying his face in his hands.
This wasn’t working. None of this was working.
It’s been worse, hasn’t it?
“I’m so sorry, oh God, I’m sorry,” he stumbled over his own words, shakily getting up to his feet, wanting to walk towards her, but his feet refused to move from the safety of feeling the wall against his back.
“Don’t,” Sarah responded, a little louder. She stayed where she was, not wanting to trigger Charlie any further.
“Don’t apologise, not your fault… I shouldn’t have… I’m sorry..”
“I… I can’t… can’t stop it,” Charlie said, voice breaking, looking down at his shaking hands, “I know you don’t mean me harm, but I… I can’t… I…” he trailed off, shaking his head, feeling like a total failure.
Therapy was supposed to help.
The medication was supposed to help.
So far, the closest to help was Rex, and even then, he wasn’t foolproof.
Sarah watched him, chest aching.
She remembered the phone call three weeks ago from the embassy in Bogotá – "We found your Detective." Confused and combative. But alive.
She had been on a plane within the hour.
When she got there, Charlie was in the hospital, heavily medicated and restrained to the gurney, mumbling incoherently, so badly beaten and bruised that Sarah selfishly thought that perhaps it would have been more merciful if her darkest fears had come to fruition and he had perished.
At least then he wouldn’t have been in pain.
They couldn’t move him for a week, not until it was safe enough to fly him post-surgery and treat the most critical of his injuries. Her heart broke as he begged one of the doctors to end it when his memories washed over him the day he was flown back home, back into her care.
“You were gone for five months, Charlie,” Sarah said gently, “after who knows what happened, with enough injuries to last every single officer in our department a lifetime. You don’t need to explain, and you certainly don’t need to apologise, Charlie.”
“I hate this, Sarah,” he managed to shuffle to the sofa, picking up the blanket that Sarah had been trying to give him, careful of his still healing hand as he threw it over himself, “I hate not being able to… to hold you.”
He looked up at her, his raw vulnerability shattering her still broken heart into smaller shards.
“You know, I remember the plane,” he confessed, and Sarah let out a gasp of surprise at that statement.
He hadn’t told her that.
“You were sedated, Charlie, out cold. How…?”
“I… at times I could feel and even hear things. I do remember floating,” he looked at her hand, wishing he could hold it again, “I do remember feeling safe, you know? For the first time in a long time, I wasn’t afraid. And I think that’s because I felt you, Sarah. You were holding my hand, right?”
Sarah felt another wave of tears wash over her.
He remembered, and he felt her.
For those hours of flight, while he was kept unconscious with sedatives, she had allowed herself to hold his hand, to let herself be close to him for the first time in months, knowing full when that once he was awake, it would be a while before she would be able to be this close to him again.
“Yes, it was me. It was selfish of me, Charlie… I just wanted to hold you again.”
“I wanted to squeeze back, I wanted to talk to you,” he reached out a hand toward her, fingers trembling in the empty air between them.
“I want to touch you back now, Sarah,” he choked out, “I want nothing more to grab your hand and be me again, but… I can’t… It’s not working… I… I don’t want to lose you.”
“You are not going to lose me, Charlie, and I don’t want you to think that. You’re in recovery, Charlie. And if it makes you feel better, I can see an improvement already,” she told him, and it was the truth – the first day she settled him back at home, even being in the same room as him would have forced Charlie to retreat into his mind for far too long. Now he was coming out of it quicker, and he was letting Rex closer and closer to him.
“Yeah?” he asked, his surprise at her comment genuine
She sat down at the far end of the sofa, keeping her distance, letting her hand rest on the edge of the blanket that was draped over him.
“Yeah.”