Chapter Text
Ice tore the covers off her bed desperately and stood up gasping, while blindly stumbling across her room for the light switch. She flipped it on, and her breathing slowed and her shaking lessened. She slid against the cool wall until she sat with her legs pulled up against her chest, her arms wound around herself tightly. Ice tilted her head back to rest against the wall, not daring to close her eyes.
After a few minutes, once her body began to realize it wasn’t in mortal danger, she stood up and staggered back to her hotel bed. She sat on the edge of it, her head in her hands as she contemplated what to do.
She looked at the clock on the bedside table. 7:03 A.M. Ice pinched the bridge of her nose before sighing shortly and standing up resignedly. She quietly treaded to the bathroom door. She found herself once again grateful that her and Briggs did not have to share a hotel room.
Ice walked it to the bathroom, shut the door as quiet as sin, and flicked the light on simultaneously. The dark was still too much to handle alone.
She stepped over to the shower, and turned it on to let it heat up before she stepped inside. She took her pajamas off, shivering in the coldness of bare skin. She gingerly stuck a hand into the water stream, testing its warmth. A little too cold. She adjusted the knob and stepped in.
As she began washing, she thought. How was she going to greet them? Would they treat her like she had never left, or would she have to mold herself in again?
Ice clenched her eyes tightly. The water was too hot. She adjusted the knob.
She washed herself, trying to tune out her thoughts. She had had enough of them for the day already. Ice scrubbed her face as she considered the possibilities of the day. She went over countless scenarios of how it would play out. She did her best to push out the worst ones, but they always found their way back into her mind.
Ice turned off the shower, grabbed her towel to dry off when a sharp knock sounded on the door.
“Time to go,” A familiar male voice said. Special Agent Tanner Briggs, her boss and supervisor. Plus her legal guardian. Ice responded in acknowledgment to his statement, and dried and changed into her day clothes quickly before exiting the bathroom. She didn’t bother with her makeup, she could just do it in the car on the way. Her hair she had stopped caring about long ago. As long as it was short, she was fine.
“ETA?” Ice asked Briggs as she stepped back into her hotel room, where he had let himself in and stood impatiently checking his watch.
“9:15.” He responded, brushing past her to open the door. He walked out, not needing to check to know Ice was following right behind him. “Would’ve been 9:10, but we were a little slow this morning.”
And of course, by we, Briggs certainly meant Ice. Her time in the shower ruminating had taken more time than planned. Ice berated herself internally for such a lack of self-control.
“We can make up for it if we don’t stop for breakfast in the lobby,” Ice suggested, keeping her tone even and measured. She didn’t want to sound too eager to please.
“No need. It’s not a case, we can afford to be a few minutes behind today. Besides, we haven’t eaten since yesterday afternoon,” Briggs responded instantly, as if he knew what she was going to say.
Ice chewed the inside of her lip guiltily. Once again, by we, he had meant her. Ice had refused to eat once they were on the plane to Virginia, and was too tired to eat dinner when they had arrived at the hotel. She didn’t bother responding to Briggs, or starting up a new conversation. He wasn’t much one for small talk, and Ice had too much on her mind to qualify as a nice conversation-partner.
Instead, she chose to keep the silence and go through her current plan she had devised while wasting time in the shower. Say hello. Smile. Hug, if the mood is right. Greet Cassandra Hobbes, don’t be off-putting. Observe the relationships between everyone, see if anything has changed. Begin casual conversation, avoid tense topics. Don’t talk about what happened on the case.
To Ice it seemed foolproof. She had ran through all the other scenarios, and this was the one that appeared to generate the highest success rate. Everyone would be pleased.
“Are you certain it’s for the best that we don’t tell them what happened?” Briggs asked, breaking her out of her thoughts. He handed her a paper plate from the stack on the hotel lobby’s counter. She met his gaze. He was holding himself rather awkwardly, the bruised shin still hurt to put full weight on. It made his hip slightly out of line with his spine, it would make his back ache for weeks even after his leg healed.
Ice didn’t tell him this, of course. He wouldn’t have listened anyways.
“I’m sure. It would only create unnecessary worry. I’d like to avoid that for as long as possible,” Ice responded, breaking the tense eye contact to grab a pair of forks and hand one to him. He favored his left hand for the utensil, since the right was more steady, so that was where the plate sat. Briggs didn’t respond. He didn’t need to. They’d had this conversation multiple times already during their travels back. Ice was sure she’d hear him ask at least one more time on their hour long drive back to her home in Quantico. Home.
It’d been so long since she’d been able to call someplace home. Three months away on a confidential FBI case left an uneasy sense of uncertainty in where she’d end up sleeping in the night. Often, she never did sleep. There was simply too much to be done. There always was.
Ice was able to take her time eating with the knowledge that when Briggs decided it was time to leave that she could finish her breakfast in the car. Briggs hated when people had food in his car, but as of late he had seemed to complain less when she brought some in. She supposed he was grateful she was eating at all again. It made Ice feel a little guilty to know her habit had made an effect on Briggs, and once she noticed that it had, she had taken action immediately to rectify that mistake.
Briggs tapped his watch twice with a pen, indicating it was time to go. Ice stood up, picking up the last danish from the plate and placed the rest in the trash can near the hotel’s exit doors on their way out. Briggs did likewise. She checked her watch, it was 8:20. She sighed. Briggs had let her spend too much time eating in the hotel. Out of guilt, most likely. Ice didn’t want to make Briggs feel like he owed her anything, and decided to behave perfectly for the rest of the trip to make it up to him.
“Gas?” Ice asked politely after she and Briggs had settled in the car. Briggs started it and glanced at the fuel levels. He shook his head and put his right arm on the back of her chair as he reversed the car. His elbow was bent a little more than was generally comfortable, he had a tight muscle in his side that restricted his arm’s full movement. He slept on it wrong. Ice chewed her cheek to stop from mentioning it, but Briggs caught her in the act.
“Spit it out,” He sighed, facing forward in his seat and turning the wheel. He had figured out Ice’s tick for when she had something to say far too quickly for her comfort.
“Your side has a tight muscle. You slept on it wrong,” Ice muttered, looking out of the car window. It wasn’t a question. Briggs hummed in acknowledgment to the statement.
“That’s why it’s so sore,” He mused absently, merging onto the highway. He glanced at Ice, a concerned look masked behind his blank slate of a face. She pretended not to notice the look. She’d gotten far too many of them since she’d gotten back from… the case.
In the blink of an eye all of the memories came back. She could feel the ropes digging into her wrists and ankles, the smell of the drug-soaked rag across her face. The feeling of the hands, the pain. The knives. The darkness. She was still in that room, she could never get out, they wouldn’t ever let her-
Ice closed her eyes. She opened them a moment later, breathing slowly through her mouth. She rubbed her wrists methodically. There was nothing there. She was in a car, heading home. She was with Agent Briggs. She wasn’t in the room. She was heading home.
Ice repeated the words in her head until the lump in her throat dissolved and the racing of her heartbeat lessened. She was still looking out of the window, but had finally started seeing what was out there. It was familiar landscape, the green valleys and winding rivers. The forests that had begun to turn yellow and orange in her absence. Ice had always liked fall. It was a good season. She was glad to spend it at home again.
A large part of her hoped she’d never have to leave home again. Ice didn’t trust what happened outside of home anymore. There was too many unknown variables, too many things that could go wrong. Home was easy to understand, she knew what would happen. She could keep the peace at home. Keep everyone safer. Home was better.
Ice’s eyes drifted slowly closed as her thoughts dwindled into nothingness. Her mind slipped away from her as she fell into a shallow dream. She was swimming in a large body of water, which was unnaturally still. Not even a ripple from her body’s motions to keep her above water. The uneasy feeling in her chest built up, making her lungs feel like they were being squeezed gently. Ice looked around herself in a circle, but there was nothing but flat water to see for miles. The tightness in her chest grew, and Ice noticed that the water was slowly rising. But she wasn’t rising with it. No matter how hard she kicked her feet and flailed her arms, she couldn’t move upwards. She was stuck at the same level she was when she’d arrived. In a flash, before her head went completely under the water, something grasped her ankles and pulled her underneath the surface.
Before she could scream, a voice broke through her nightmare. “-arrived, Ice.” Briggs said, startling Ice awake. She blinked hard, and rubbed her eyes before responding.
“What?” She asked, looking out the window by squinting her eyes against the bright sunlight shining through. As soon as she had looked though, she realized what Briggs had said. They’d arrived. Home.
The peace that had been staying with Ice throughout the entire journey back had left with the sleep in her eyes. A creeping vine of anxiety had taken root in her chest, twisting its way up her lungs and throat. She wasn’t ready. How could she ever be ready? Ice felt the cold dread of seeing her peers- no, her family again- seep into her body. She couldn’t do this.
“We’re home. You slept through most of the drive. I didn’t bother waking you,” Briggs repeated, turning the car off and grabbing his small bag. He unlocked the car, and stepped out after opening the door. Ice followed suit, feeling like a robot completing orders.
She wasn’t sure how her body was moving when her mind was screaming at her to run. Once Ice had grabbed her bags from the trunk, Briggs headed to the front door of her home. She hesitated for only a second before following after him. She was never very good at saying no. Briggs put his keys in the lock, twisting it in sync with Ice’s gut. The door opened, and Briggs walked in. Ice followed. She always did.