The Four Things - Chapter One

Everyone who originally read this story: I'm going to post it exactly how it was on the site without making any corrections or anything. I'll probably be updating this story pretty soon, since I reread it and had a million other ideas.

~A

A/N – This story is called The Four Things, it’s about William (gee, who woulda guessed?) Beckett and the usual disclaimer applies. I don’t know William Beckett or any other TAI guys. This story is totally fictional. Also be warned that it has very mature themes (I feel like a movie reviewer).

Thanks for reading and reviewing (if you choose to do so – please do). You guys are always awesome that way.

Chapter One

Here he was again like the night before and the night before that, fingers clinging to her bare skin, and hot, disgusting breath spilling out of his mouth and onto her neck as he panted with excitement. She had tried fighting him off, but it was a useless fight. And then there was the matter of the rent. They hadn’t been able to afford it for the past two months, and this was the only way of repaying him even though she was disgusted. She was disgusted with him and with herself for not fighting him harder. Fear clung to her every thought as she remembered that it was almost time for Walter to come home from work. Working the late shifts in the factory brought him home at almost dawn, and brought in barely any pay.

“Hey,” she breathed, trying to push the heavier man off of her, “You need to leave, my husband will be home soon, and if he finds you here, I don’t even know what will happen.”

“Shut up, bitch,” he pushed her back down onto the mattress and held her down with a group of fat, sweaty fingers.

She shut her eyes, trying to shut what was happening to her out of her mind. It wasn’t working. He was still on top of her and she was still paying the rent with the moves that her hips made, although she actually moved as little as possible during the nightly acts, it was his forceful hands that moved her hips for her.

She tried to think of how it all started and it came to her in flashes with each movement the landlord made. A few months ago when the rent check was short and there was no money in their account, the landlord had come with an eviction notice when her husband was at work. Panicked and not thinking straight, she offered him “whatever she could do to help”, not realizing that it was sexual payment that the sick man had in store for her, and instead thinking that he would probably only want her to do some cleaning around his house, and possibly some cooking and laundry when he called for her the next night. Instead, he took her into his bed and painfully raped her. That night, she cried herself to sleep with her husband lying next to her, feeling too dirty and too ashamed to tell anyone about what had happened. After all, who would believe a woman in a man’s world, which was what it was in 1931? They would blame her and say that she was “asking for it” or at least that’s what she thought in her twisted head.

In between the silence that gripped the night, and the heavy breathing escaping her landlord’s lips, a clicking sound brought her back to the present: the key turned in the lock of the front door and the entrance to the little third floor apartment slammed shut, signifying Walter’s return home from work. She tried with all her might to push the heavy man off of her but failed. He didn’t seem to care if he was caught at all. The only thing that mattered for him was if he came.

The bedroom door opened and in stepped Walter, his long brown hair shimmering in the moonlight that seeped lazily through the open window, and his pale skin seeming to glow white. He took in the sight in front of him with a mixture of anger, betrayal, and surprise: his wife in bed with another man. Always known as a soft, gentle man, and never as harsh or violent, Walter tried to examine the situation without judgment, but the anger got the best of him before he could properly do that. He ran to the bed and pulled the fat man off of his wife, realizing with horror that it was the landlord from the first floor. The landlord with the smirk on his face. Walter wanted nothing more then to wipe that sickening smile off of the man’s lips and at the same time remembered his rifle under the mattress on his side of the bed. He reached in and pulled out the small gun and watched with a sick sense of glee as the man’s face went into a horrific state. “Walter, no!” he could hear his wife scream out to him in the back of his mind, “Put the gun away, honey.” He let out a callous laugh as he thought about the situation: his wife was trying to stop him from killing her lover. He laughed louder as he pulled the trigger and the bullet ripped through the fat man’s heart. Then he turned to his wife, giving her one last angry look before pulling the trigger again.

*****

Micaela woke from her nightmare in a cold sweat. It had been the same thing for over a week now. Every night she dreamt that she was some housewife in the 1930’s who was cheating on her husband with the landlord so that she could pay the rent. And just as her husband discovered her with the landlord and was about to kill her, she woke up panting and sweating. She looked over at her clock and noticed that her alarm was set to go off in a half hour anyway, and decided to get up rather then risk having the dream again.

*****

“You know that dream I told you about? Well I had it again last night,” Micaela said to her best friend Paige as she grabbed a seat in the lunch room putting her tray down in front of her.

“The one with the psycho serial killing husband?” Paige asked, taking a bite into her club sandwich and trying to pretend like she didn’t drop lettuce out of her mouth as she spoke. She had never really been a very coordinated eater, often joking about not having good hand to mouth coordination.

Micaela nodded, “Yeah, it’s really freaking me out, because the same thing happens in it every time.”

“You know they say that you’ll always wake up before you die in a dream, and if you die in the dream, then you’ll die in real life,” Paige picked up a piece of bacon that had fallen out of the bread and onto the plate, and shoved it in her mouth quickly.

“Thanks Paige. That’s an encouraging thought.”

“So what are you ladies talking about?” George, a mutual friend of theirs sat down next to Micaela.

“Death by dream,” Paige answered him, “Mica’s been having a dream that she’s about to get murdered by a jealous husband.”

“Really?” George’s head snapped around to Micaela, “You know they say if you die during a dream that you die in real life. I don’t know how they would prove that because it’s not like anyone’s lived to be like, ‘yeah I was just dreaming about dying when I died’, but it’s some food for thought.”

“Yeah, thanks George. I knew that already,” Micaela sighed popping a French fry into her mouth. She finished her lunch quickly and then headed up to her office to check her email, which was something that she did every day right after lunch, to check for any new admissions. Today the little envelope flashed in the bottom of her screen and she clicked on it, bringing up the new census, and sure enough she had an admission. She looked at her watch, checking to see if she had enough time to do the assessment on her patient, and deciding that she did, she grabbed the paperwork and headed down the hall to his room.

As she walked into room 314 and looked at the tall man sitting in a wheelchair, an immediate surge of recognition hit her. She knew him from somewhere, but she couldn’t place it. “Hi, I’m Micaela,” she said, holding her hand out to him, “I’ll be your Recreation Therapist while you’re here at Maguill Rehab.”

He shook her hand, “My Recreation what?” he asked uncertainly, a response that Micaela was used to.

“Recreation Therapist. That means I’ll be working with you to get better, but instead of doing different exercises and ADL’s, uh activities of daily living,” she specified what ADLs were after seeing the confused look on his face, “like what Physical and Occupational Therapy will be doing, we’re going to have fun and do stuff that you like to do, and attach goals to those things so that you can get better.”

“That sounds pretty cool,” he nodded, “I’m William.”

“Nice to meet you, William. Do you mind if I do a quick assessment about your likes and dislikes?”

He shrugged, “Go for it.”

“Okay, we’ll start off with your diagnoses. I could check your medical chart, but I’m sure you can probably tell me what’s wrong.”

“Yeah, I was in a car crash. My left leg and left arm are both broken in multiple spots. That’s why I’m in this dumb chair. You can’t use crutches when your arm is broken too. And to make it worse, my body is taking super long to recover and my doctor’s worried that if I don’t get help soon, I’ll loose abilities in my hand and foot forever. Hence the rehabilitation. Basically, the whole thing really blows.”

Micaela nodded and took down the notes on the assessment sheet. She asked him some background questions about his occupation, lifestyle, relationships, and religion and found out that he was a musician with lots of close family and friends and a girlfriend who he proudly showed her a picture of (“This is my Jamie. Isn’t she gorgeous?” a huge smile plastered across his face). Now it was time for the fun questions, “So what do you like to do Will?”

“I love music. Playing it, listening to it, writing it. Everything about it,” a serene smile flickered across his face as he said this and she could sense how much music really meant to him.

“Do you play instruments?”

“Yeah, lots of them, but most often I play piano and guitar.”

“Well that’s great; both of those will be good activities to help with getting the motor skills perfected in your hands again.” They continued the assessment and Micaela learned all about William’s interest and helped him develop treatment goals and set up times for therapy sessions. Lastly she posted a calendar on his bulletin board. “This is our activity calendar. I’ve circled the sessions that you should attend based on your goals, but basically you can attend any group that interests you.”

“And what groups do you run?” he looked at her with a smirk that stretched to his eyes.

“Mine are the groups highlighted in orange.”

“Well I guess I’ll see you this afternoon at…” he looked at the calendar, “The Sassy Stitchers? What are the Sassy Stitchers.”

“A knitting and crocheting group that’s mostly just girls sitting around gossiping.”

“Well, maybe I’ll see you then.”

Micaela smiled to herself, not daring to laugh out loud, cause what if William really got off on knitting or crocheting? Making fun of patient’s hobbies was a huge no-no in her business. She said goodbye to Will and headed out the door, meeting a tall blonde who she recognized as Jamie, Will’s girlfriend, from the picture he showed her earlier.