Disclaimer: I don't own RvB!

Warning! I don't call it 'traumatic backstory' for nothing. Doc got the short end of the stick. A lot.

Episode 62: Traumatic Backstory GO!

Another day of training done, the Agents of Project Red gathered in the Phantoms' underground base. "Alright, Doc. Spill. What shadows lie within your psyche?" Marley said, pinning the purple armored medic in place with her flinty eyes. Doc whined softly, carding a hand through his short sandy brown hair.

"Do I have to?" he asked. Marley's eyes narrowed and Niner came up behind her, the dark skinned pilot giving him a flat look.

"You once told me your parents abandoned you when you were ten and you lost your house to creditors within a week," she said evenly. Dex flinched, his gaze on the medic becoming assessing rather than merely curious. Kai gasped faintly, Red growled, Al went unnaturally still, Tucker gave an odd keening sound while his head made a slow descent to the back up table that had been brought in after the last one met an unfortunate end. Caboose just looked around in confusion while Rick laid a hand on the medic's shoulder. The ex Freelancers winced at the man's tough break but didn't react beyond that. They'd been through so much worse in the Project that they were a bit too desensitized to traumatic backstories.

"Admitting you have a problem in the first step to fixing it," Marley said clearly. "Talking through your issues is the logical second step. So," she grabbed the back of her usual chair and dragged it around in front of her, siting backwards so she could rest her chin on her crossed arms as she leaned in toward the medic. "Let's hear it, DuFresne." The man in front of her sighed and seemed to deflate a little.

"It started when I was young," Doc began, voice soft and low. "Before my parents abandoned me, they didn't try to hide they didn't really like me. No-one liked me very much, to be honest. They all thought I was 'weird' or 'creepy.' When that was all it was, it was fine."

"You say that like one day, that wasn't all it was," Marley prodded. Doc's lips curled into an unfamiliar shape. It almost looked like a sneer.

"Because you're right," he said coldly. "One of my classmates in second grade decided that he didn't like my emotionless face, so he punched it. The emotionless mask I'd crafted to protect myself shattered and I lashed out."

/*/

No-one had expected little Frank to snarl after the hit. No-one expected him to growl and return the punch tenfold. It took the teacher almost a full minute to respond and pull Frank off the sobbing and bloody Eric. "Don't touch me," Frank hissed with such venom, the teacher nearly dropped him. Everyone nodded as they took a large step back from him.

"We're going to have to take this to the principal," the teacher said weakly. Frank just shrugged, his face once more smoothing itself out.

"That's fine," he said tonelessly. "Not like I expected to get away with this."

/*/

The gathered soldiers took a sharp breath before releasing it in a synchronized hiss. "Little Frank was kinda creepy," Dex said. "Seriously, I've got chills dude!" Doc gave a half shrug.

"That was just second grade," he said ominously. Dex groaned and Rick muttered about alcohol allowances while Eagle sighed.

"The call home to your parents made things worse, didn't it?" he asked quietly, returning the room to near unnatural stillness. Doc nodded.

"Dad was furious, mom scoffed and knocked back another shot of what may have been vodka. She didn't really care what I got up to but dad..." he trailed off and shook his head. Watching him revisit those times, the Teams felt like they were seeing a completely different Doc.

"Dude... not even my dad was that harsh, and he tried to force me to be something I'm not," Rick whispered. Doc... no, this wasn't Doc. This was Frank DuFresne. Frank shook his head a little, eyes clearing somewhat.

"I haven't even gotten to my abandonment yet," he said softly, a wry smile completely devoid of any sort of humor twisting his lips. A shudder ran through the assembled fighters. They weren't so sure they wanted to hear this story.

"Go on, DuFresne," Marley prompted, ruthlessly squashing her own unease. "I know it's hard, re-dressing those sores, but it has to be done. You tried, I can tell, but you were just a child and no-one cared to help you. So you buried them. Wrapped them in dry gauze and ignored them until the pain faded into background noise and you could move on. But the time has come to treat those hurts so you can finally be free of them." Frank's still distant eyes landed on her, met her own flinty gaze, and he nodded.

"That night I didn't sleep, scared of what he'd do. But even with that, I couldn't stop getting in fights at school. Eventually, I got a reputation as the delinquent with a hair-pin trigger."

"Now I'm curious as to how that changed," Dex said, pulling himself out of the impressive back-bend he'd been in since Doc had implied things got worse after second grade. "Because you also said you chose track because it was the least competitive sport you could find. In high school. In my experience, people don't make that kind of turn around within a year or even two." Doc gave him a wry smirk.

"Well, the few people who had tolerated my emotionless mask left me when I started getting in fights to release the tension. That I understood. I could even understand the teachers choosing to pay me as little attention as possible. So I tried to join some form of martial arts group to have somewhere I could vent without hurting anyone. Without feeling pressured. That didn't go too well. I'm not too sure how it happened, but somewhere along the line, mom got involved. I guess she'd gotten one too many calls about me fighting. Regardless, she scolded me for fighting at school."

/*/

He was in fourth grade when he got home and his Mamma yelled at him for fighting, told him only bad boys fought, and forbid him from doing anything like that again. He didn't like being scolded, by his Mamma. "I promise I'll be good, Mamma," he told her.

"See that you are, whelp!" she barked back before tossing a rag at him. "Now polish the silver! My husband is having some very important clients coming for dinner and I want everything to be perfect!"

"Yes, Mamma," he said, keeping his head down and moving to the hutch where the good silver was kept.

He didn't fight back after that, no matter how many times he got hit, because his mother had finally paid some kind of attention to him. When his schoolmates figured out he wouldn't fight back, wouldn't stand up for himself, they called him a coward and hit him harder. Still, Frank couldn't handle being called nothing but a wuss and a coward, being asked if his reputation was a sham, so he plastered a smile on his face. He went back to being the weird, creepy kid who didn't react like a normal person. Being weird or creepy was better in his mind than being nothing but a coward or getting scolded by his Mother who had finally decided to give him some form of attention. Besides, he was told that good boys and girls were supposed to smile and help others and say nice things. So, if Mother wanted a good son, he should smile right?

/*/

Dex stood up forcefully and began to pace. Kai watched him with concern. She'd never seen him this agitated before. "That's sick," he hissed. Marley nodded, noticing that Frank's eyes weren't just distant, they were as hollow as his previous laugh. The faint smile on his face was so wrong, so fake, so dead she wanted to puke. Still, her earlier words held true. The medic needed to get this off his chest, needed to flush the wounds left behind by his parents and whoever looked after him once the people who brought him into the world had left him alone in it so that he could finally have some measure of peace.

"That... is not what a mother is." Surprisingly, it was Kai who gave that proclamation. Dex nodded.

"We may not have had the best example of what a mother is, but we know what one isn't. Mrs. DeFresne was not a mother," he said with a tired sort of anger. Frank chuckled mirthlessly.

"Still think I'll be the cause of my own destruction?" he asked. A muscle in Dex's jaw twitched while the rest of the BGC watched him in mild concern.

"Partly," he said. "I'm beginning to see why you're a 'conscientious objector' and the worth you can bring, even without a weapon or the will to use one. However, until Marley gives you as clean a bill of mental health as any of the rest of us..." he shook his head. "I'm not saying you're going to crack as soon as the bullets start flying or your first patient dies because we're past that point already. I am saying that you were broken from childhood and while you've done an admirable job of patching yourself back together, your broken pieces are more obvious than ours. O'Malley taking up residence in your head didn't do your patch job any favors," he said. Kai hugged her brother's arm and laid her head on his shoulder, drawing comfort from his strength as much as offering comfort with her love. Frank's face was unreadable, but he was clearly out of practice hiding the emotion in his eyes. Marley could see he appreciated the acceptance and acknowledgment Dex had just given him.

"I agree with him," Rick said, sitting with as much ease as could be expected for the unusually dark and serious discussion. "Most of the blame for your destruction would be laid at the feet of your parents and teachers, but some of it would be laid at your own as it was your own choice to step forward into a situation which stressed your psyche to the point it shattered." Dex nodded.

"But even then, I would respect your choice," the weapons expert said. "I still think this... brute force therapy session I guess... is a very good idea and will go a decent way toward ensuring you don't destroy yourself." Marley regarded the man, and indeed his whole team, with pride. They really had come a long way.

"Thank you, Dex," Frank said, allowing a smile when the man nodded back to him. "Things... got worse after that," Frank said. His comrades, minus Marley who was holding eye contact with the empty medic, shared looks. They really didn't know if they wanted to hear the rest of Frank's backstory.

"Go on, DuFresne. Tell me what happened next," Marley prompted, voice as even and dispassionate as she could manage.

/*/

Word got out that Frank DuFresne had stopped fighting and started smiling because his mother told him to. He was given the title 'mamma's boy.' At first, he wore it with pride. It meant he and his mother loved each other. Then the reasons for his reputation as a fighter, that dark and cynical side of him, spoke out. 'She doesn't really love you,' it whispered. 'Shut up,' he told it firmly. For a year, he struggled to believe that his mother loved him, that he wasn't a waste, that the whispers in the hall weren't true. Then his parents left him. There when he went to bed, gone when he woke up. He'd called their work numbers, but no-one had heard them discussing any plans to move. Frank tried to keep up with school and the housework, but within a week of his parent's leaving, creditors came for their possessions. Turned out, both elder DeFresnes had outstanding debts racked up through loans and gambling. Since they'd taken everything of value with them, the creditors took the property for the bank and sent Frank into the foster system. "What happened to his parents?" he heard one foster mother ask.

"Skipped town in the night," the case worker answered. Frank hated that phrase. That's what their employers had said the second time he called. 'They're gone kid. Skipped town in the night.' Everyone said that, once he'd lost the house. Ha! Bet they didn't want a no-account looser like you for a son anyway!' That's what a few of the older kids had said. And it hurt, deep in his soul, it hurt. Still, he buried that hurt, the anger it brought, and focused on being a 'good kid.' No-one would want a kid that was always getting into fights after all. Finally, he got shipped out of the group home. His foster parents weren't too bad, really. They liked that he smiled, that he looked at the bright side of things.

But part of him didn't.

Part of him was angry.

Part of him was bitter.

That part of him wanted to rage at everything, to tear down the world and drag all the happy-go-lucky idiots down into the dirty reality of life.

So he let what he couldn't repress out with the use of passive aggression. He joined track not only because it was the least directly competitive sport he could find, but in an attempt to run from his problems. And he got good at it. He got to the point where he could insult someone without them noticing. He got to the point where the school asked him if he wanted to be their representative in races. But he'd been burned by competition, by fighting, too many times and he turned it down, ran away, every time. Somehow, he made it to med school. By that point, he'd successfully buried his anger and bitterness, hidden the worst aspects of himself away in a deep, dark, pit in his mind. He was Frank DeFresne, the happy-go-lucky idiot who always saw the best in a situation and tripped his way through life. Then he got kicked out of school and decided to join the army.

/*/

"I'd heard they offered schooling, training, and figured I had nothing to loose," Frank said, looking rather spent. "Turns out, it was just more people to get abandoned by."

"What happened to your foster parents?" Marley asked softly.

"Dropped me like a piece of hot lead as soon as I turned eighteen and they no longer got checks to provide for me," he answered.

"When did you become a student of fung shuie?" Rick asked.

"College," Frank answered. "Not that it did me much good. Annoyed my worse roommates though, so that was something."

"You had horrible roommates on top of all the other skits in your life?" Rick asked, seemingly the only one with the energy, or wits, to speak. Frank's lips twitched in what might have been a smile.

"Yeah. Figures, right?" he asked weakly. Marley let out a long, slow breath.

"Well. I think I have a better idea of how to help you now," she said. "First, we're going to have to talk to Dark!Frank. That part of you that I'm fairly certain O'Malley woke up. Then, we're going to see if we can't re-integrate him into your psyche." He gave her a flat look. "But, of course, we can do that another time. For now, and I know this isn't much, I don't think you're completely useless and have always acknowledged that you had a strong mind. Until now, you haven't had something to apply that mental strength to that wasn't repressing the darker aspects of yourself. That's what I want to help you overcome."

"Thanks, I guess," the medic said. Marley smiled gently at him and stood to leave, then stopped as a thought occurred to her.

"Do you want something to put you under? Just for tonight, so the demons in your head don't come screaming?" she asked. "I don't have a Dreamless Sleep potion, but modern medicine isn't too far off." His smile was a bit stronger as he shook his head.

"Thanks for the offer, but you were right. It's time I faced these demons and made peace with them," he said. Marley nodded in acceptance and left the medic standing alone in the 'conference room.' With a heavy sigh, Frank made his way back to Blue Base. When he got there, he saw the rest of the team sitting in the 'living room' with popcorn, soda, and a classic comedy series on the TV. He blinked and saw an empty space between Tucker and Steel on the couch.

"Sit down, Frank," the swordsman said, "we saved you some," he added, holding out a fresh bottle of soda. Frank came closer and saw a full bowl of popcorn on the table, right in front of the empty seat. He felt a smile tugging at his face as he moved around the sofa.

"How'd you know I was there?" he asked.

"Your confused stare," Tucker said, then chuckled and rapped his knuckles on his discarded helmet. Frank could see the doorway reflected in the gray visor. "Red Team aren't the only ones learning, ya know." With an amused huff, Frank sank onto the couch and pulled the popcorn into his lap.

"So. What are we watching?" he asked, taking the soda Tucker tapped against his head.

"Dude, I don't even know," Tucker said, feeling a flush of relief when he noticed Frank's smile had widened when he took the soda. "Al pulled it up. Said something about it being a teen comedy from when you were in high school."

"Huh. Didn't really have much time for TV in high school. Too busy running," the medic admitted. Tucker shot a look at Al and got the barest of nods in return.

"Bout time you got caught up then," the A.I said, deceptively casual. Frank nodded, then jerked his head around as the comment registered fully.

"What?"

"You ever see that one show with the dogs? Paw Detectives or something like that?" Tucker asked.

"Um... no," Frank answered.

"Oh! I did! Detective Milkbone is best doggo!" Caboose cheered enthusiastically.

"We'll watch Paw Detectives next," Al said with a nod. Frank turned back to the screen, just a little overwhelmed that the Blues had just added an activity seemingly for him. Steel leaned over and whispered in his ear,

"Welcome to Blue Team, Frank."

They all pretended not to see the tears that silently slipped down their medic's cheeks as their acceptance began to heal wounds he'd almost forgotten he had.

/?/

A/N: This... I'm sorry. It took two different attempts to get this written. And it turned out as one of the darker chapters I've written for this story.

Red vs Blue backstories man...