AU: Beautiful (Rhea)

[Dr. Sean Neville]

Say what one might about Sean Neville’s flaws; he was a devoted partner. He had never stood in the way of Josh’s political ambitions, in fact, had encouraged the attorney to do whatever he felt was right in terms of affecting change in government. That had paid out from Josh’s perspective (and from Sean’s vicariously), even if it meant that they had less time to spend together. Political obligations had to take precedence.

That put a damper on their weekly lunches together in the middle of the week, and it also meant that sometimes Josh didn’t come home in time for supper.

However, his partner had canceled a meeting this afternoon, prolonging his lunch break. Josh had promised to order in for the two of them, and all Sean had to do was make it over to City Hall.

It was difficult to turn down that type of invitation.

As soon as Sean had finished with his last session of the morning, he had informed Yvette that he would be out for lunch and to call his cell phone if there was an emergency. Otherwise, he looked forward to spending some time with his partner mid-afternoon.

However, spousal privileges had failed to kick in, which brought him to the security line and metal detectors, along with everyone else who wanted to enter City Hall.

[Rhea Hartman]

It was Rhea's day off. Her her half-day off anyway; she was working tonight at the fire department. But they so rarely got calls on the graveyard shift that this mostly meant cleaning up the firehouse, playing a few rounds in the ongoing, communal Risk game, and sleeping in the bunkhouse rather than her apartment. She'd had no intention of coming in to work at all, but that morning a slope shifted in the debris of her living room and surfaced paperwork that she should have taken to the courthouse last week.

She got a free pass through security but stopped to talk with Marthis, a guard hired fresh from the college summer holidays. Traffic in and out of town hall wasn't exactly bustling, and their discussion paused only when Sean stepped up to the gate. As he walked through, the metal detector beeped shrilly and flashed red over the gate. Mathis, jumping forward with all the nervous attention of a new hire, began, “Sir, would you please—” before Rhea interrupted.

“Don't worry about it, he's fine,” she said. Mathis hesitated for a moment, then nodded and waved Sean through the gate. Rhea exchanged a few more pleasantries with the guard, then gathered up her papers. “I should get going. Good to see you, Mathis.” And with a parting smile and nod, she headed out from the security booth and towards the modestly domed ceiling and shiny oak floors of the city hall lobby.

[Dr. Sean Neville]

Although Sean was, perhaps, the last person in all of Pilot Ridge who would carry a weapon (with the exception of Josh), the metal detector still caught him in its machinations. That was his own fault. He had so few interactions with metal detectors that he tended to forget about them in his daily life until confronted with them. He’d followed basic protocol by emptying his pockets of his cell phone, keys, wallet, and pocket change, and by removing his ring as instructed, but it could have been his belt. Or even his shoes. Depending on how sensitive the detectors were, they could occasionally pick up stray elements from men’s dress shoes.

Whatever the cause, he’d been prepared for a brief pat-down.

Before progressing that far, he heard someone vouch for him, and he looked over to see Rhea Hartman encouraging him to be let through without further precautions. He appreciated the gesture, more so when the guard heeded her instruction, and he was told to have a nice day and go on through. After thanking the guard, he made his way through the lobby towards the elevator.

No elevators were on the main floor, which made for a wait. By the time the elevator arrived, Rhea had caught up with him, and he offered her a nod. “Thank you for your help.”

[Rhea Hartman]

In the two years that Rhea had worked at the Hammel institute, her interactions with the daytime staff had been infrequent. As a recruiter, she spent most of her time traveling and working with new students and their families. The first time she properly met Sean Neville had been at a staff retreat, where they were seated next to each other for the semi-formal dinner.

They had discovered in about two minutes that their pool of shared experiences, interests and opinions included the weather and the mediocre chicken dinner.

Both spent the rest of the evening talking to the neighbor on their other side. And yet they kept ending up paired together at Hammel events, probably as some secretary's idea of a joke. Chaperoning the camping trip, staff team building exercises, at the annual budget meeting. Rhea did not miss his company when she left. He had never been anything but cordial towards her, and she'd always been polite in return, but talking to him was like slotting a quarter in a benevolent, white, liberal platitude machine.

She nodded in return. “No problem.” Any of the other security guards would have let him through without her prompting, but Mathis was new.

[Dr. Sean Neville]

Sean prided himself on his manners and his ability to be professional and polite with everyone unless given a reason not to be. He differed from his partner, in that he didn’t believe that being friends with everyone around him was necessary or a virtue, but that was the result of both his greater social maturity and his stark introversion as opposed to Josh’s all-consuming extroversion and occasionally poor impulse control. He took no offense when he failed to click with other people.

He and Rhea had failed to click more than most. He didn’t mourn that, as it was simply an aspect of life. Despite both being meta-humans and the two years when they had both worked for Hammel, they had very little in common otherwise. Few similar life experiences, few similar mannerisms, and certainly few similar opinions about anything: society, politics, philosophy, life’s priorities...

He’d wished her well when she’d left Hammel to find another career, and they’d never crossed paths since. He had no reason to work with the police in daily life, and he’d been fortunate enough not to require the services of the volunteer fire department.

Not wanting to drag out his gratitude for her help, he instead said, “It’s nice to see you.” Which wasn’t a lie, because he was glad to see that she was doing well.

Then he arrived at the elevators at one end of the lobby and pressed the call button.

[Rhea Hartman]

Rhea smiled politely in return. “You as--”

The world crumpled.

Rhea was lifted off her feet and slammed against the wall. Then there was only the roar, and as stone cracked, shuddered, and descended, darkness.

The sound didn't completely stop. There were, in the distance, screams, and the rumble of settling debris. But the ground stopped rocking. Rhea was half buried by uprooted floorboards and choking on dust, but she ripped them free and staggered to her feet. The elevator, she thought dazedly. Inside an elevator was the last place you wanted to be in an earthquake, but the shaft was one of the strongest parts of a building. Her luck to be standing outside of it had saved her life. Their lives. Sean. Mathis.

Her brain locked into gear. “Sean, can you hear me?” she shouted, as clearly as she could through the miasma of dust. She began rapidly pulling back floorboards and rubble, scanning for signs of blood as she did.

[Dr. Sean Neville]

Sean had had his attention on her for the purposes of their conversation, but, with the sudden tremble of the ground beneath them, he’d been thrown off balance. Having grown up in New York, and then attended school in Vermont, before moving back to New York for another fifteen years and then settling once more in Vermont for the past twenty five, the psychiatrist had no experience with earthquakes. Yes, they happened occasionally in this part of the country, and there had been that one a few years back. However, that had originated in Washington D.C. and the aftershocks along the East Coast had been fainter the farther north and south they’d traveled; Vermont had barely felt anything.

He’d quickly lost his perch, and despite trying to brace himself, had been unable to do anything of the sort. Instead, he’d been tossed to the ground by the sheer force of the motion, and rubble and debris had quickly followed. More than he’d expected, because the floor had collapsed beneath him, creating a hole.

Yet above him, he thought he could faintly hear a voice. Rhea. She’d been next to him.

“He-” He coughed and then wheezed; that had been unwise. Preserving his breath, he reached out with his telepathy. Under here.

[Rhea Hartman]

The first time Rhea faced a penalty kick from the goal, she froze like a deer in headlights.

Her teammates were stunned. Their loud, popular, ball-hogging star had let the ball roll right past her. They lost the game. It was a bitter day for the Sweetwater Elementary Raptors.

As soon as they sat down in the car, Rhea burst into tears of shame and frustration. Daniel tried to comfort her, she shoved him, he pushed back, their baby sister started crying, and their mother turned around in her seat to roar them all into submission. For several minutes the car rocked on its wheels in the parking lot.

It was a silent, miserable ride back to the Navy base. Sentenced immediately to her room, Rhea threw the door shut, body slammed her bed, and buried her face in her pillow. She had barely started pummeling it into shape when her mom opened the door.

Rhea would follow in both her parents' footsteps when she joined the military. Georgiana Hartman was a towering, lanky woman, with two missing fingers and tendons like steel cables. She sat down on the bed. Rhea ignored her at first, then reluctantly crawled into her lap.

“It's not your fault, Dee,” her mother murmured.

“Yes it is,” Rhea mumbled. “I'm supposed to win. And then Coach Calkins made me the goalie and I just—I just freeze up like an idiot.”

“You're not an idiot,” her mother replied, scratching between Rhea's braids. “Everyone freezes up at first.”

“The other goalie didn't.”

“That's because she's practiced more than you. When you're scared, unless you've trained to know what to do, almost everyone makes mistakes. Even after they've practiced, some people still freeze up when bad things happen.” She pressed her daughter's hand to her mouth. “It's nothing to be ashamed of, baby girl.”

Twenty-five years later, Rhea understood what her mother had meant. It wasn't courage that let her pull people out of burning cars, or lack of it that made bystanders stare dumbfounded. It was the momentum of a hundred past crises, filling the gap when her brain stopped working and carrying her limbs through their job anyway. After fifteen years, she had learned to ride the terror and adrenaline. The debris parted under her hands like water.

Maybe a foot below the level of what used to be the floor, Rhea spotted a head, shoulder and arm. She shoved aside a final stone and reached down with a ripped sleeve held in her fist. She pushed up her matching one so she could say, slowly and clearly, “Take this, and put it over your mouth. Don't try to move more than you have to. Are you in any pain?” The fear of spinal injury or puncture wounds pressed strongest on her mind, either of which would make it life-threatening to move him.

[Dr. Sean Neville]

Sean’s background experiences differed greatly from Rhea’s. He hadn’t played organized sports as a child; it hadn’t been emphasized in his suburb aside from baseball, and, after manifesting his telepathy, he had found the mere notion of team sports beyond him, so low on his list of priorities and interests. Instead, he swam and he gone sailing with his father during the summer. As a middle-aged man, he still went sailing in the nice weather (although one could hardly call that a sport) and he did calisthenics and light jogging with Josh.

He had never been a competitive person.

His world revolved around collaboration. His world revolved around discussing feelings and memories and emotional baggage. Talking out problems and working towards sustainable solutions. He saved lives through fighting suicide ideation and drug addiction and by pulling people back from the brink of despair.

He had never run into a burning building.

But he had participated in disaster drills. In medical school and then at the hospital during residency, there had been mass disaster drills. At Hammel, they had them occasionally as well, and he had never enjoyed a single one of them. He acknowledged the importance of being prepared, of course; he had been a Boy Scout after all.

His medical training and calm demeanor made him remain where he was, without struggling against the debris. He could still feel his legs, and mentally he ran through each sensation, checking for pain (dull aches, nothing more) or numbness or complete loss of sensation. Any evidence of massive energy.

He kept his breathing as calm as possible, so that he didn’t use up the pocket of oxygen too quickly. He coughed despite that, since he was inhaling debris; so he tried to breath only through his nose and not his mouth.

He waited.

Eventually, he saw light, and, despite not having been buried for hours or days, it came as unexpectedly bright, and he shut his eyes briefly. He didn’t struggle against the sleeve, instead did as she told him to and pressed it to his mouth. It helped.

Just some aches. Nothing acute. No tingling or numbness.

Telepathy was easier than speaking aloud.

[Rhea Hartman]

Rhea resumed shifting rubble as soon as Sean took the ripped cloth for his mouth. She moved with rapid care, working from his shoulders down. As she pried debris aside, she continued to speak in the level voice of a field medic. "That's good to hear. Can you wiggle your toes for me?"

Three feet of plywood twisted, splintered, and cracked free. "Shut your eyes." The weight on Sean's hips lessened and dust poured in, but the cloth kept the worst out of his nose and mouth. "Tell me if you have any trouble breathing, and I'll come help." She snatched at a memory from one of their drudging conversations. "Can you tell me about the last time you and Josh went sailing?"

Aftershocks, fire, injury. Emergency personnel spread thin. Lack of resources, possible rioting. Hours to days before concentrated relief arrived, depending on the area affected. The chance of aftershocks and fire topped her list of most immediate threats that she could effectively address. They waited in the staging area of her head, ready to shift to center focus as soon as the present task was finished. She hardly noticed that Sean communicated directly into her thoughts rather than speaking aloud. It wasn't relevant.

Rhea pushed aside floorboards and the last major barrier appeared, a slab of marble sheeting that jutted out of the rubble like a broken bone. Sean had half a leg tangled underneath it. "Alright Sean," Rhea said as she found her footing. "We've got one more rock." She took an edge in each hand. "I'm going to lift this, and then you should be able to move. I need you to pull up your legs, and then stand up against the wall if you can."

[Dr. Sean Neville]

An old adage went that doctors made the worst patients. Sean tried to combat that stereotype by using his occasional stubbornness for good, and by allowing his innate senses of pragmatism and cooperation to mitigate what remained of his stubbornness. This worked to his advantage in this situation, since he could accept that Rhea knew what she was doing, and he was patient enough to wait.

When requested, he wiggled his toes. From the action, he could feel the individual toes, convincing him that he wasn’t paralyzed. I feel them, he projected telepathically, so she would know the results and that she needn’t worry about having to lift him out of the debris once she had cleared enough of it for him to fit through.

Then, when warned, he complied and shut his eyes. He could feel the dust and smaller bits of rubble hitting his face and getting in his hair, but he kept the sleeve pressed against his mouth and nose while taking as steady breaths as he could manage. So far, so good, he projected.

But for the impending danger and the very pressing concerns, he might have smiled at her attempts. She was doing her best to keep him engaged mentally, which was appreciated if not strictly necessary. We went out the weekend after his birthday; it was a clear ride but a bit chilly. They had enjoyed the day and then made love after returning home late that afternoon, although the telepath didn’t mention that part. It was the least he could do.

At her last instruction, he nodded and confirmed through telepathy, I’m ready when you are.

[Rhea Hartman]

The greatest enemies in an emergency were time and hysteria. Rhea didn't blame anyone for it--panic was the natural reaction when you had shards of a car door sticking through your arm. But she was thankful that she didn't have to deal with a frantic memory manipulator in addition to a dozen tons of shifting rubble.

"That sounds like a good time," Rhea said as she pushed aside a few last rocks to free the marble slab. She scanned the rim of Sean's hole to check for loose debris. "It's always chilly out there. Even in Hawaii, Daddy made us bring coats when he took us out on the ships."

She could feel blood coagulating beneath her fingers on the jagged marble. She'd checked--the scrapes were nothing that would get in her way. "Alright. You're doing great, Sean. On the count of three. One, two, three!"

She pulled. The orange core of the force burned in her thighs and spread through her back, shoulders, and arms. Rocks clattered to fill shifting holes, and Sean felt the weight lessen, then disappear. The marble slab trembled inches above his legs. Ropes of muscle stood out on Rhea's dusty arms, and she barked, "Move!" through her clenched jaws.

[Dr. Sean Neville]

Sean was also thankful that he didn’t have to deal with a frantic memory manipulator in the midst of all of this. Although nobody around them had any reason to know the intricacies of his powers, he felt confident in the assessment that, if they had known, then they, too, would feel grateful that his panic mode consisted of becoming more patient and focused as an instinct, rather than losing all perspective of the situation or all control over his powers.

It’s always at least ten degrees colder out on the water, he agreed. He warned people of that when they went sailing with him for the first time, so that they could dress accordingly.

But for her question and attempts to distract him, ironically by focusing his mind, sailing would be as far from his thoughts in this situation as could be.

With her direction, Sean pushed himself up, using the perch to pull himself out of the pit and onto sturdier ground. His stomach ached from exerting muscles that his lifestyle typically didn’t require used, but he would deal with that when he was out of the pit, and when she no longer had to hold the giant rocks back. As soon as he was clear, he scrambled out of the way, so that she could drop her burden.

Once again, he pressed the sleeve to his mouth as a filter. Thank you. His mental voice contained the same genuine gratitude that his vocal cords would have had he used them instead.

[Rhea Hartman]

The burning in Rhea's shoulders and fingers climbed from orange to red as Sean scrambled free. Her breath hissed between her teeth, but this part was familiar. She did not think "How long until," she just endured second by second and waited.

The red had begun to streak with black when Sean cleared the edge of the debris. Rhea released the marble slab with a gasp. It thudded back into the mess, and the clatter of shifting rubble started up again. "Shit!" Rhea breathed as she scrambled back over sliding rock. Part of Sean's hole was collapsing, and it took half a minute before all was still again. Rhea exhaled and bent over with her hands pressed to her knees. She should have let the rock down gently, but her palms still zinged with pain.

You had to keep the momentum going. Rhea allowed herself a few deep breaths before standing back up. "You're welcome." She turned her head to look around the rest of the room for the first time.

Half of the modest dome overhead had collapsed. The eastern side of the room was a slide of rubble and roofing. She harbored no hopes for anyone who had been caught underneath it. The hall on the western side looked clear enough, and she could hear shouting from that direction. Between them, past the strangely untouched metal detecting gates Sean had passed through minutes ago, she could see a square of dusty daylight.

First things first. She glanced over Sean for unevenly dilated pupils or bleeding, then took him by the shoulder. "Let's get out of here," she said, aiming to skirt the wall around to the door. Her mind flicked through options. If Sean got the first aid kit out of her car, she could head back in and look for more survivors. It would depend on what the situation outside turned out to be. But at the moment, she thought her search and rescue skills would be more valuable than her emergency medical training. "How do you feel?" she asked Sean. "Careful on the rocks."

[Dr. Sean Neville]

Sean coughed a couple of times once he was out of the pit and on sturdier ground, a combination of the dust particles that had managed to get through or around the makeshift mask from her sleeve and from the exertion. He held up his other hand, gesturing that she needn’t worry about him and that he would be fine.

Once the coughing subsided, the telepath took a moment to look around his surroundings, his mouth drawn into a tight line behind the sleeve. This was every bit as bad as one might expect, surely deserving of the word “disastrous.” More importantly, he didn’t know where Josh was, and he closed his eyes briefly, reaching out to try to find his partner’s mind amongst the loud sounds of panicked thoughts all around them.

In turn, trying to focus through that began a familiar throb in his temples. He would have to get closer in order to be more useful, and, until then, he’d spend every second worried about Josh.

He sighed, opened his eyes, and swallowed once to clear his throat. “I’ll be fine. How do you feel?” He might have been trapped in the pit, but she was the one who’d had to pull him out.