Fic: [Haller] Integration

[x-legion.livejournal.com]

People ask me how I keep all Haller's personalities straight. The answer is, uh . . . lots and lots of off-camera writing to figure out who the hell everyone is and what backstory I'm working around. This is a half-fic I wrote at some point last year about David's fusion with Jemail; chronologically, it takes place the day after the first journal entry shown in Five Against One.



Eleven seconds. He'd managed to hold himself together for a whole eleven seconds. In that handful of moments he'd stood up, walked to the bathroom, locked the door behind him, and gotten over to the sink. By the twelfth he was throwing up everything he'd ever eaten, and it still wasn't enough.

Oh god. Oh god. He was vaguely aware of the heaving in his gut, but it was a distant shadow compared to the too-heavy weight in his head. What did I do to him. What did I do. What did we . . .

#Son.# The presence in his mind was tinged with concern. #Are you all right?#

Charles' mindvoice twitched him back into some semblance of reality, and he looked up. It was a mistake. Mirrors were bad at the best of times, and this was far from that. He raised his eyes to the already unrecognizable reflection and met the two staring back at him. One blue, and one brown.

Both. We're both out here. He's -- I'm both and we--

He clutched his head and spun away, and the sound that came out of his mouth was like nothing remotely human. The stress was worse than anything he'd ever imagined, worse than when he was fighting to keep himself outside, worse than when he'd had to pull and hold the full weight of David's shattered psyche away from him, worse than worse than worse than

#Son,# Charles repeated, more forcefully now. #David, listen--#

"~Leave me alone!~" he screamed, and realized the words were Khaliji. He was on the bathroom tiles. He couldn't remember the impact, only that he'd been falling. Was still falling. "David's not here right now," he giggled hysterically. "We're having an episode--"

#Listen to me: you must calm yourself.#

Tearing. He was tearing apart. He curled himself around the unbelievable agony and prayed to every god he'd ever heard of that the pain would kill him, drive him insane, anything if it only meant this would stop-- Calm myself? The thought spun wildly, adrift and directionless.

"WHY DID YOU LET US DO THIS TO ME?" The shriek came out of nowhere. Jemail didn't cry. David didn't scream. He was doing both.

David, he thought desperately, trying to find some kind of control, David was -- the calm one-- He screamed again as the conflict sent another spasm through his skull oh god who am I

#Listen to me.# The force of the contact hit him like a slap in the face -- a blow so unexpected it actually succeeded in bringing him back to his senses. #Yes,# Charles continued, more calmly now, #David was the calm one, and now, you are as well -- if you allow yourself to be. Breathe, son. Listen to me. Do not try to become anything. Do not make yourself into anything. Do not be a meditator. Do not become enlightened.#

The words reached him. Something stable. Something he could hold on to without feeling like it would break him apart. He seized on the thread and clung like a man drowning. "When you--" his voice cracked. Start again. "When you sit, let it be. What you walk, let it be. Grasp at nothing. Resist nothing."

#Resist nothing,# the voice in his mind echoed.

The psychic contact wasn't just communication -- Charles was holding him. The man was with him, protecting him, fighting with every fiber of his being to prevent whatever he had become from rending itself in half. He was dangling over a precipice, and Charles' hands were locked around his wrists.

I'm going insane, he realized. Then: It's not enough. He knew the truth of the thought even as it came to him. Charles didn't have the strength to pull him up. It was everything the other man could do just to hold on. For all his power, the professor couldn't save him from this.

But--

It's enough . . . to give me a chance to climb . . .

Slowly, painfully, he began to inch his way back. Let it be. He breathed in once, then out again. And again. Let it be. Focusing only on the task before him, probing for footholds as he raised himself up fraction by excruciating fraction. Repeating those three words to himself over and over. Let it be, he thought. Let it be. That, and only that. Let it be. Let it be.

It seemed to go on for an eternity. The strain must have been unimaginable, but through it all Charles never loosened his grip, never showed one sign of stress or pain. Simply held him, taking his weight while he found his way back from the edge -- and, when it was time, helped him over the rest of the way. As he collapsed on the ledge he came back to himself, curled in a ball and soaked with sweat and urine, but stable. As stable as I get.

"Ajahn Chah?" he muttered as Charles withdrew. His voice was far away, but audible. "Was it . . . that bad?"

A smile in his mind. #You were quite agitated. My options were rather limited.# A wash of profound relief belied the wryness of the tone; he realized with astonishment that the professor had been seriously alarmed. The thought made him ashamed.

"Con . . ." His throat was raw from bile and screaming. "Confusing me into calming down?"

#Something like that.#

"That's . . . cheating. Buddhism's -- cheating." But he couldn't deny it had helped. It had given him something to focus on. Something both David and Jemail had known.

#However, you have just used the first-person singular pronoun, have you not? No# the psychic hand that interrupted his automatic attempt at analysis was soft but inexorable, #do not think too deeply on it. This state of existence is still new to you -- any effort to dissect and allot your reactions will only increase the tension you feel.# He could sense Charles smiling slightly in his mind. #What you are experiencing is the after-effect of barely mended telepathic surgery, son. Please, do not test your sutures.#

He thought of the chasm and laughed bitterly. "Don't think. About that. Right."

#Distraction though it may have been, I was also offering sound advice. Do not try to be anything. Or anyone, for that matter. Let your actions -- and thoughts -- come as they will. None are right, and none are wrong. They are simply yours.#

It was easier said than done, but he knew Charles was only trying to help him. #Okay,# he whispered back.

#Remember, son: this, too, shall pass. And now,# Charles added with gentle humor, #do you feel you are prepared to leave the washroom, or shall I call for Jean's assistance?#

Absurdly, he felt himself starting to blush. "I can do it," he said, although he suffered a moment of doubt as to the truth of this when he tried to get to his feet. He had to grab the sink to keep himself from falling again. He could sense Charles waiting patiently as he fumbled with the lock; the telepath was already moving himself out of the way as the door opened.

"So mature," he muttered vaguely, weaving a little. He knuckles tightened on the doorframe. Charles repositioned his wheelchair until he was within reach of his student's arms.

"The reaction was quite understandable," Charles assured him. He gently pried one of the boy's hands from the frame and placed it on his shoulder. "And now, son, you are in desperate need of sleep."

Sleep. "You stopped," he said abruptly. "Using my name." A shiver ran through him. Because we're not him anymore.

Unsurprisingly, Charles sensed the nature of his thoughts. "You are still David Haller," he said firmly, "just as you are still Jemail Karami. To use either name is to call your attention to the disparity between the two parts. This, too, will heal in time, but ultimately I believe it best if you are the one to decide what you now wish to be called."

The suggestion brought another wave of nausea. "Later," he croaked, almost losing his feet again. "Please." He didn't think he could survive anything more.

"Later," Charles agreed. "For now, just rest."

He stumbled to his bed, feeling weaker than he could ever remember. His body seemed to be moving disjointedly, as if thought and action weren't syncing up right. The only solid thing was his hand on Charles' shoulder as the telepath slowly wheeled alongside him, supporting him. He lowered himself to the mattress with legs that were already beginning to falter, neither willing nor able to undress first. Old memories stirred.

"Familiar," he murmured as Charles helped him pull his feet onto the mattress. "Should be . . . too old for this."

"One is never too old to require help, every once in a while. Nor," the man added with a smile, "to offer it."

Something was -- different. Something new, but familiar at the same time. The realization bolted him upright, all fatigue forgotten.

"My telepathy, I can--" his breathing hitched with the words he could hardly dare to think, "I can feel it." But I can't, he thought numbly. Jemail was the telepath. David couldn't . . . I could never . . .

He had used it. He hadn't even realized. Telepathy was so instinctive for a part of him that he hadn't even thought about it. Now, for the first time in almost ten years, here it was -- as right and natural as breathing.

It was too much. He was crying again, and this time it wasn't in pain. It didn't make any sense. He'd only used the power once, and the experience had been nothing but horror -- how could losing it have hurt so much? Yet now the sudden return of it was almost more than he could bear.

Moving calmly, the older man pushed him back onto the bed. "The power was always yours, son," Charles told him, giving him a brief squeeze on his shoulder. "In this, at least, things are as they should have been. However, that discussion is for another time."

He nodded numbly. Sleep. Don't think. He lay back and closed his eyes, trying to clear his mind. "To be empty means to be alive, to breathe in and to breathe out." Breathe in, breathe out. "We cannot be alive if we are not empty. Emptiness is impermanence, it is change. We should not complain about impermanence, because without impermanence, nothing is possible." Rote memorization, easily summoned. Safe, solid thoughts.

He could feel the ghost of Charles' approval in his mind. "The Digha Nikaya?"

"Thich Nhat Hanh." Beneath the reassuring mantra he could feel things still settling in his head. The worst were the same events now recalled from different perspectives -- few enough of them pleasant from even one point of view, and several immeasurably worse from two. Cold dread began to build in his chest. "I'm going to dream."

"No, you shall not. Not tonight." They were the same words from that first night all those years ago, and just as full of the same quiet, comforting certainty. In his mind Charles said, #I am very proud of you, son.#

More tears, this time of relief -- and gratitude. Am I ever going to stop crying? he wondered distantly. Focus. He stretched the familiar, unfamiliar power towards the man beside him in a tentative brush of awareness. The feeling it conveyed was too complex for mere words, so he settled for only two.

"Thank you."

Comments

[vazjr.livejournal.com]

Jeezus, don't you people EVER get tired of making your fans cry? This is awesome, as has been the game and its players since the inception. Thanks.

[http://users.livejournal.com/_bounce_/]

Wow. That's really impressive. Also, very scary.

[x-legion.livejournal.com]

I figured it should be appropriately disturbing, since brains aren't supposed to do that.

On the bright side, now it's probably easier to see where Jack's tantrums were coming from.

[x-legion.livejournal.com]

Thanks to you too.

[http://users.livejournal.com/_bounce_/]

Ooooh, yeah. Jack makes even more sense now.