fandom_clinic | FH Clinic: Thursday

Nadia finally managed to get up the guts to go talk to Dr. Pevensie in the middle of the afternoon. Things hadn't been getting better on their own, after all, what with the fiddling and twitching and attacking Joxer. . . .

She should probably at least give it a try. After all, what could it hurt? Even if it didn't help?

She knocked hesitantly on the door.

Susan rose and opened the door, then opened it wider when she saw the girl standing on the other side. "Nadia. It's good to see you. How are you feeling?" She glanced at Nadia's arm, then back up to her face, hoping the girl was willing to come in and talk for a while.

Nadia's good hand was busy rubbing the side of her neck. "Um. Okay. I think. Sometimes?" She stepped hesitantly in the door. "I thought I'd try. Talking. See what happens."

"I'm glad you're here," Susan said, waving her in, and carefully watching Nadia, hoping the cozy surroundings would help the girl relax. The fountain that had fascinated River was on again, and the Christmas cactus on her desk was blooming, a riot of red against the calm tones of the office. "Have a seat anywhere. We can talk about anything you want, really. Have you ever seen a counselor for anything before this? Do you have an idea how this works?"

Nadia shrugged, fidgeting a bit before finally sitting down on the edge of one of the chairs. Her eyes flicked around the office quickly, almost hibitually, taking in the atmosphere, lingering for a few moments on the cactus.

"We were supposed to . . . just little sessions and things when I was in jail and in training, but Roberto just kind of kept skipping that part. So, um, no." She noticed she was rubbing her neck and purposefully dropped her hand back into her lap. "But I thought, 'what could it hurt?'" Small laugh, then seriously: "Um, it doesn't hurt, right?"

"No," Susan said seriously. "It shouldn't. It might be upsetting, and a little frightening, after we've been working together for a while. Emotions can be scary. But it should go at your pace, and no one else's, and not be anything you can't handle. If at any time you truly can't cope with what you're feeling, you can call a stop." She smiled a little. "Basically, what I thought we might do today is just talk. About how you've been feeling, and if you're up to it, what you've been through recently. If you decide to stay with the therapy, we'll probably do a number of things. Biofeedback to help you control your reactions. Desensitization therapy, to decrease your anxiety. Maybe one or two other things. I promise I'll explain each thing, what it does and what its purpose is, before we start. Okay?"

After a moment, she asked, "Who is Roberto? And what kind of training was this?"

Nadia should have seen that coming. Well, at least she hadn't asked about the jail thing. "Senor Roberto Fox. He was a government agent in Argentina. He recruited teenagers with a lot of potential for espionage and trained them." Never mind that he hadn't actually been training them to work for the government, like he'd claimed he had been. "I was one of his recruits."

"So you've been educated in espionage techniques. Fighting, cryptography, counter-intelligence." Not very unlike Marty, then. "Did you enjoy the training? Did you go on any missions for Roberto?" Who should be shot for not keeping a better eye on Nadia's mental health. Why, why must the governments of the world take the young to do their dirty work? Because they were malleable and adaptive, of course. But it made it so much harder to undo any damage the work caused them.

"All of that, yeah. I was really good at it, too. I actually--" Nadia paused, looking up from where she'd been looking at the cactus. "That was this last summer, by the way. That might. . . . be important. I left Fandom. I was gone for five days. But I was in Argentina for a year, doing the training." She shrugged her good shoulder. "But I only did one mission for Roberto. It . . . didn't go very well."

So, time displacement issues then, too. "How old are you now, Nadia? For your experience, not what it still says on your transcripts." Susan leaned her head on her fist. "When you say it didn't go well, what do you mean by that? By whose standards? Yours? Or someone else's?"

"I'm seventeen. Give or take. I don't know when my birthday really is, so I'm never sure." Her voice went a bit cold. "And I'm the only one who was on that mission who survived. Including Roberto."

"I see," Susan said quietly. "So, you were the sole survivor of an espionage mission this summer. You came back to Fandom after five days for all your friends, but a year for you. You were injured in a troll attack this last weekend." She cocked her head. "All of that would be stressful enough to give anyone anxiety or nightmares. But from what you said in the clinic, I believe other events occurred recently?"

"Two weeks ago," Nadia answered quietly. "Do you know El Professor? He doesn't have a name, just calls himself the Mariachi." Nadia went on without waiting for an answer. "Some men from Mexico wanted to kill him, but they had to get him out in the open first. So they . . ." Her hand reached up to rub her neck again. "They took me. From the Isle of Ikea. To get him to come to them."

"I've met him at staff meetings, but haven't spoken to him at any length," Susan said, watching Nadia's neck-rubbing motion. It seemed a definite indicator of stress; she had been rubbing it when she came in, gradually relaxed, then begun the nervous tick again. "Kidnapping could definitely trigger episodes of PTSD, even when the person taken is treated well. Loss of control. Threats. Uncertainty." She watched Nadia carefully. "Do you feel up to talking about it in any detail?"

Nadia nodded slowly. All those things, uncertainty, loss of control, that was all true.

That and the cold.

"I don't remember much, really. I was waiting for Pippi outside the store, and this van pulled up . . . I fought back, but they drugged me." She forced her hand down from her neck again. "And kept drugging me. For . . . I guess it was two days. I almost managed to escape -- that's when I dislocated my shoulder the first time, I think. I'm not sure. I jumped into the water -- they had me on a boat -- and they pulled me out." She shivered subconciously. "After that, I just remember being cold and scared, until Professor Next appeared, and they got me out."

"Thank you for telling me this, Nadia. I can see that it's difficult for you." Susan noted the shiver, and subconsciously shuddered herself. A horrible ordeal, made worse by Nadia's previous and subsequenct experiences. "The drugging could also go some way toward explaining your current symptoms; you were in no condition to be fully conscious of what was happening to you, and your mind is trying to fill in blanks that simply can't be resolved fully on their own. This is all normal, for what you've experienced. I know it may not seem that way-- especially with the training you've had, you may be thinking you should be able to handle this."

"I--" Nadia paused, her eyes snapping back to the cactus. "Yeah. Not just the training, though. It's happened to me before."

Susan frowned. "You've been drugged before this? When?" And now she was very, very glad she hadn't mentioned anti-anxiety medications to Nadia yet. The whole concept might be completely problematic.

"There aren't many people who know this. At all, not just around here." In fact, most of the people Nadia knew that knew about it were on the island. "I . . . I spent the first five years of my life in a lab in Russia. The doctors would inject me, I don't know how often, with a chemical that made me hallucinate and write." She took a deep breath. "I was pulled out by an American agent and taken to Argentina. I guess that's when I thought about being an agent, myself." She couldn't stop herself from fidgeting, but forced herself to continue. "Then, two years ago -- last year, Fandom time, a man claiming to be my father came. He tricked me into going with him, and he drugged me, too."

Much more complicated than a case of PTSD following a kidnapping, then. "And I would think your recent kidnapping would bring up a lot of bad memories from the past, then. Not to mention whatever reactions you were having to what they drugged you with." She sighed. "There are anti-anxiety medications that can help with PTSD, but I don't think I'll be recommending any for you. I wasn't certain your experiences were severe enough to justify it, and now I'd be too worried about a counter-reaction."

Susan studied Nadia a moment, then asked, her voice as gentle as she could make it, "You said a man claiming to be your father. You don't believe he was telling the truth? You never knew your father?"

"I never knew either of my parents. After the lab, I was taken to an orphanage. Until that man came, I would have told you my parents were dead." Nadia's eyes roved over the office again. "And I don't know what I believe. He . . . knew things about me. He told me about my mother, knew about the lab, said he'd been looking for me for a long time. When he left, he gave me a letter. It said that there was another Nadia, an older one, who was sick, and that finding and drugging me was the only way to save her."

The number of emotional conflicts that could arise from that kind of incident required a flowchart to keep track of. "Did you talk to anyone about this at the time? Did you receive medical attention, to make sure you were all right?"

"I was scared," Nadia admitted. "I never went to the clinic, or anything. Walter found me afterwards and brought me home. He wouldn't leave me alone until I seemed to be better." She shuddered again. "And this is something that only Walter knows about for sure. After . . . I don't know if I was still drugged a little . . . I was convinced that I was dangerous. I--I tried--"

Even now, with a year and a half between herself and that April, she couldn't put the word to it.

"I'm glad you had such a good friend to take care of you," Susan said softly. She watched the girl struggle with her admission, and made a guess as to what had happened, her heart aching for Nadia. "Anything you say here, Nadia, stays inside these walls. And I've been doing this a while. Anything you tell me, I won't judge you for it."

"I've never had a friend like Walter, before." Nadia's voice had gone very soft. "If it hadn't been for him, I wouldn't be here. I wouldn't be anywhere." She took another deep breath, her shoulders shaking. "I tried to swim out to sea. He pulled me out."

"Because you thought you were dangerous. And you were depressed." Susan picked up the box of Kleenex from beneath the table, and offered it to Nadia, wanting to reach out, but knowing it might be a mistake at this moment. "You were ill, Nadia. After what you'd been through, your actions really aren't that surprising. There's no shame in it." She waited until Nadia was a little more composed to ask, "Have you wanted to try again since that night? Or thought about it, but pulled back from the idea?"

"No." Consering how hesitant her tone had been, that one syllable had surprising force. "I promised Walter that if I did, I would talk to someone. But I never have. And I've never regretted that Walter pulled me out."

Patients lied by reflex and design, but Nadia was both so emphatic and so logical about the subject, that Susan decided to take her statement at face value. "I'm glad. And I think, then, that it was a temporary aberration, not a symptom of something deeper." She smiled at Nadia, and said, "You're dealing with the kind of things that hardened combat veterans would find overwhelming, Nadia. It's no wonder you're having difficulty managing your emotions and reactions. The hardest thing to believe after something traumatic happens is that you're safe again. That you don't have to stay in flight-or-fight mode. Your body and subconscious are trying to keep you alive, long past the time those reactions are appropriate. We just have to retrain you to recognize when you're safe, and convince the rest of you to react accordingly."

Nadia thought about how she'd been fidgeting because of the snow. Twitching and tensing when people touched her.

Attacking Joxer. . . .

"How?"

"Part of it will be increased body awareness and control, through those biofeedback techniques. Slowing down your reactions to give you time to evaluate what's really happening to you, and recognize if it's a threat, or something that you can control. Then giving you the tools to calm your pulse rate, your heart rate, your breathing, so you don't trigger off an episode because you're upset. Emotions are triggers as powerful as sensations."

Susan cocked her head. "Another part, if you want to do so, would be going over what happened to you during the times you were kidnapped, here, in a safe environment. Remembering the details and emotions, giving you time to process it when you're not in a fight for your life. So you can minimize your associations with those events, and not react by reflex when something intense but unrelated reminds you of them. There are a number of other techniques, but for now, I think those are the two most likely to help."

The biofeedback things sounded like they would be useful for an agent as well as for dealing with . . . everything. And the talking. . . .

"I'd like to try."

Susan kept her sigh of relief inaudible, and gave Nadia a warm smile. "I'm glad. Shall we meet again next Thursday, and start work on the biofeedback? And discuss any symptoms you have during the upcoming week, and what triggered them. If you could keep track of the physical triggers, as well as emotional ones, we'd know where to start our talks."

Some of the tension in Nadia's body dissolved, as well. Like making the decision itself was a weight off of her.

"What kinds of things are symptoms, though? I'm kind of hoping to not be firing a gun or anything next week."

Susan tilted her head. "Flashbacks, anxiety or panic attacks. Dissassociation-- feeling separated from what's happening around you physically and mentally, possibly at the same time you're reminded of some detail of your kidnapping. Overreaction to emotional stress-- inappropriate levels of anger or fear, or depression, for the situation in which you're experiencing them. I think that's more than enough. Don't worry about keeping exact track. Do the best you can. We have the time to take this slowly. Okay?"

"Disassociation . . . like, feeling like your hands aren't yours, or you're just watching what's in the room . . . things like that?" Nadia swallowed. How long had she been feeling things like that? She wasn't sure she could remember. "Okay. I'll try."

"Yes," Susan said gently. "Things like that. Is there anything else you want to ask me, before we end our talk?"

Nadia thought for a moment. "Are you Peter's sister?"

Susan smiled, surprised but amused. "Yes. Technically, he's my older brother-- eleven months older. Because I'm from 1962 and he's from a few years after 1941, though, I ended up older than him here in Fandom. It was quite a shock to meet him here when he enrolled in May."

Nadia nodded. "There was a student here, last semester, Sydney Bristow? We found out that we were half-sisters. I think that was weirder for her than it was for me, because she thought she already knew all about her family. What's it like? Being a sister? I didn't know Sydney for very long."

Susan looked thoughtful, and ignored the little clench around her heart, remembering her own Peter and other siblings. "You always have someone to talk to, who understands a great deal more of what you mean than anyone else. And someone to play with. But you also have someone to fight with quite often. Peter and I don't seem to do that here-- our lives have become too different, we don't have the same conflicts, and I'm of course a great deal older. But when our brother visited over Parents' Weekend, he took a great deal of delight in tormenting Peter about everything from his girlfriend to his position back in Narnia." She studied Nadia, and asked, "Are you still in contact with your half-sister? Does she know what your supposed father did?"

Nadia shook her head. "We have the same mother. Not father. And I don't have an address or anything for her." If she did, she'd give it to John, for starters. Just to cheer him up. "We didn't really get to talk much, but I liked it when we did. I'd never had a family before, you know?"

Add in abandonment issues, possibly, and the usual identity crises of an adolescent without any family ties, to the rest of Nadia's difficulties. "I understand. And I'm sorry you're not still in contact with her. One of the things that helps people dealing with what you've been through is a strong support network. It sounds like you at least have the start of that, in Walter and Marty. Let them know whatever you're comfortable with when it comes up in our sessions; the confidentiality clause for our sessions only applies to me. Don't be afraid to ask for their help, or tell them when things get too much for you."

Nadia nodded. She was pretty sure Walter, at least, would be grilling her for details, later, if only to make sure she was actually okay with it. "Do I get to be normal, eventually? Or is it all just going to be . . . there, lurking in the back of my head?"

"It gets better. Enough better that you won't have to worry about day-to-day interactions," Susan said reassuringly. "Yes, another trauma, something extreme, might trigger off your current problems again." She looked Nadia sympathetically. "Your experience isn't 'normal', Nadia. It's extraordinary. And with that comes extraordinary effects. But yes, I do think you'll be able to live your life without having to worry every day again."

Yeah, she'd never really been normal. And to think, that's what she'd wanted when she came to Fandom in the first place.

"Okay. Thank you, Dr. Pevensie."

"You're welcome. And I'll see you next week, Nadia."

". . . Definitely." Nadia stood slowly. "And . . . I like your office."

FH Clinic: Thursday

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