The Box III

CONTENT:
Rating: Mature
Flavor: Drama
Language: some
Violence: some
Nudity: none
Sex: none
Other: phobia trigger warnings still apply

Author's Note:

This is the final chapter. Sorry it took so long to publish. I blame my Brain. I wanted to rewrite the chapter, and it was finished, so... totally its fault!

The Box III

===#===

It was just a rat.

Thea stared down at it, not really registering it at all. She needed to get the arrow out of the thing. She seized it in her left hand, placing her fingers so the shaft passed between them, then pulled the arrow from the head end. The fletching came through the body with some twisting and a good yank.

She inspected the vanes. The feathers had folded down to pass through the narrow hole and then resumed their shape without too much of a problem. Flecks of clotted blood remained stuck to them, however. She ruffled the vanes with her thumb to clear them, but it would take a bit of cleaning and care to make sure they weren't gummed up.

It might be easier to cut the things apart to get the arrows free. Of course, there would be more blood that way, but at least it wouldn't be on the arrows. She tossed the carcass back into the basket and set the arrow on the patio table, then glanced over her shoulder. Malcolm was a few yards away, in shorts and T-shirt, scrubbing out the box. He had the hose out, and it would be a simple thing to spray down the patio once he was finished.

Thea wiped her hands on a rag, then pulled out her folding knife. She extended the blade and set to work.

===#===

Malcolm should have varnished the box; it would have made it easier to clean. He hoped they wouldn't need it for very long. At least the physical act of cleaning let his mind settle. He'd been having nightmares almost as bad as Thea's. He also accepted it as due penance for what he'd done to his daughter. And for being so much weaker than the true Masters in Nanda Parbat. Though he knew he was doing the right thing, he couldn't shake the feeling of guilt. Penance suited his mood right now.

Thea walked over, wiping her hands on a rag. He didn't look up, but only watched her from the corner of his eye. She didn't say anything.

"All done?" he asked.

She nodded woodenly, staring off across the yard.

"Did you have any trouble?"

"No." She shook her head in the same manner.

"Good." He shut off the nozzle and sat back on his heels. He looked up at her, rubbing his cheek with the back of one hand. "I think you will find that there is a box inside your mind. A box where you can lock away all your fears, your emotions. It will leave your rational mind free to deal with any situation that arises."

She didn't answer. She didn't look at him. She'd been like that since last night. At dinner, then at breakfast, she hadn't looked at him, hadn't spoken to him. It was as if she denied his existence.

"How do you feel?" he asked.

She only shrugged, and turned her head away.

"It's okay if you feel angry. Even if you hate me," he said slowly, realizing that the strength he tried to give her came with a price. Love would suffer for it, but he was willing to sacrifice that, too. "I understand. I hated my Master for weeks after my ordeal."

He stared down at the wet grass, watching the pulse and gurgle where the hose nozzle leaked. It was mesmeric... He didn't notice when Thea settled to the ground, her long legs folded under her. When he glanced up, she was there.

Her eyes were shadowed, like ice within a cave, but at least she was looking at him. "So what happened?" She seemed willing, now, to learn from him.

Malcolm looked down at his hands. He could see the strength in them, feel it. Yet it was hard to begin. He took a breath. "I've always had a morbid fear of drowning. I didn't like swimming, or going on boats..." The sparkle of water caught his eye as it ran along the edge of the upturned box. It dripped down in chaotic rhythm. He interrupted its flow with his hand, let the water trickle across his palm. "When I was a child, I was even afraid to go bobbing for apples." He lowered his hand with a faint breath of a laugh. "It all seems so stupid, now."

Thea sat still on the grass, her hands on her knees, listening in silence. Like a student kneeling at the feet of a teacher.

"They would hold me down, force my head under the water. And I would fight, like an animal."

It took four of them, grabbing at his wrists, his shoulders, his neck. Malcolm could twist out of their grip, throw them off. They defended themselves, but did not strike him back. His teacher paced slowly to his side. He gestured at the waiting washtub. "Into the water."

Malcolm turned, faced it, the cold steel, the clear water. He wanted to obey, but his legs froze, and he just couldn't.

Then the Teacher's walking stick cracked across the back of his legs, and he fell to his knees. The others were on him in an instant, bending him over, forcing his head down. "No-!" His cry was cut off as the water slapped his face, invaded his mouth and nostrils. He thrashed to get away from it, but the hands held him down.

"No matter how many times my Teacher told me that it was my fear that robbed me of my breath, that if I just held still, I would be fine... No matter how many times I told myself that... I would just panic and lose all control."

The water was a cold implacable force, pressing against him, suffocating him. He struggled to move, to get away, his lungs burning, his heart hammering, trying to squeeze the last dregs of oxygen from his blood. Then the hands holding him down pulled him back. The water released its hold reluctantly, clinging, running down his face, running from his hair. He gasped for air, coughed as water droplets were sucked into his throat.

He could hardly hear his Teacher over the wheezing of his breath, the rushing of blood in his ears. "Fighting is not how you will conquer your fear. Face it. Embrace it."

"Teacher," he panted, "I... I can't."

"Again."

"No-!"

"One day, they must have spent hours forcing me under... I was exhausted. But they wouldn't stop." His voice went a bit hoarse. He swallowed to wet his throat. "I actually felt something inside me snap. I didn't fight; I didn't care any more."

He was cold, shivering, soaked to the skin. His knees hurt on the unyielding stone floor; his shoulders ached from pushing back on the men who held him down.

"Teacher, please... I can't," rasped from his throat. "No more." He couldn't take any more.

He was weak.

"You must embrace your fear."

They wouldn't stop, and he couldn't fight them. He closed his eyes, he went limp. He let them drown him.

Now, instead of slapping his face, the cool water stroked him, soothed him. It closed over his head and shut out the sounds of the temple. It left him cocooned in his own little world, where he could hear his heartbeat. It slowed. His eyes drifted open. He watched the patterns of light and shadow play upon the floor of the steel grey wash basin.

"I know that sounds like a bad thing, to lose that survival instinct, but that's not what happened," he said. "When I didn't fight, my heart didn't pound, my muscles didn't burn up my oxygen. I just didn't need to breathe so desperately. I remained calm."

Cool serenity filled him. He could still feel the pressure of air locked within his lungs, but not the urgency to breathe. He felt weightless, drifting...

Then there was a light touch on his shoulder. "Arise," came the water-muffled voice of his Teacher.

"Fear no longer ruled me. I could control it."

Thea contemplated this. Her eyes cleared. Then she asked, "But you were still angry?"

He took another breath. "To prove the conquest of my fear, the Master told me to breathe the water in."

Her jaw dropped as she tried to imagine. "What did you do?"

"I didn't want to. I was afraid all over again. 'Master,' I said. 'I'll drown.'"

"Breathe the water in."

"Master... I'll drown."

"Then you have learned nothing, conquered nothing, and your fear still rules you."

Malcolm looked down at the placid water in the basin. This one was a wooden half-cask; the bottom was dark, like a deep pit. His heart thumped. "What if I can't?"

He felt the demon's hand on the back of his neck. "Then I will hold you down until you have no choice. No choice, no control. And you will die."

He took a breath, held it, and bent to the water, not waiting to be pushed. He remained in control, at least that much. He opened his eyes, but saw only the blackness. His heart raced, though he tried to still it.

All he had to do was embrace death.

Surely the Master didn't intend for him to die. It was only a test.

The hand on his neck weighed heavily.

Malcolm struggled fiercely, not against the demon's hand, but against himself. His body refused to bend to his will.

"Dad..." Thea's tentative voice penetrated his thoughts. Her cool, shadowed eyes sought his own. "What did you do?"

He licked his lips. "I learned exactly how painful it is to drown."

"My God."

Of all the foes he'd had to face, in all the training and sparring and testing - this was the strongest: himself. My will is all. Survival meant nothing if he wasn't in control.

Breathe the water in.

And he did.

Water ripped into his nasal passages, his windpipe, burning with cauterizing intensity. His throat seized, choking him like a chain wrapped around his neck. The world was spinning; he came upright, whether helped by the demon's hand or an implacable force against it, he never knew.

He twisted on the hard stone floor. His lungs heaved, and a spray of water exploded from his throat. As soon as they were empty, they desperately sucked in more air, but his nose was still blocked with water, and every gasp brought more of the burning liquid spattering into his airway. He coughed harder, then retched, and his stomach heaved and expelled more water.

He collapsed soon after, black sparks dancing in his vision, his lungs tearing themselves ragged.

"They took me to the infirmary to recover," he said, exhaling slowly now that the ordeal of retelling the episode was over. "I was there a few days." He met her eyes again. "That's when I learned another very important lesson. Not only could I face my fear, but I could survive it."

"That's worse than..." Thea's eyes roamed past him to the still-dripping box. "Than the rats." Her voice was a near whisper. She snapped her attention back to him. "You could have died."

He nodded. "Rats won't kill you, Thea. I think you learned that. It's the fear. When you freeze up, or panic and lose control, or when you scream and alert your enemies... It makes you turn back when you should go on. It makes you hesitate when you should act. It makes you weak."

She looked down at her hands a long moment, wringing the bloodstained cloth. He hoped she learned from what he'd told her. She licked her lips. "So... in order to prove this control over fear... I have to do it again." By the time she finished, it was no longer a question. She realized it fully. Her eyes went back to the box.

"Yes," he told her gently, but implacably. Still, his weakness made him waver. "Not right away. It will take some time to-"

"Don't tell me." She looked back to him. "Don't tell me what you're doing or when it's going to be. Just call me when it's ready."

"So you'll do it?" He was, frankly, surprised.

"To learn to live my life without pain, and without fear? Of course I will." She got to her feet. "That's the definition of happiness, isn't it? That's what I want."

A weight lifted from Malcolm's shoulders. He smiled softly. "You truly are my daughter."

===X===