Madam President

Special Chapter 2

Warning: The SC has DARK themes that others may find disturbing. You may not proceed reading this, and just stay on the happy bubble of Madam President's ending. :))
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Life goes on.

Days move forward and nothing changes. Freen feels nothing below her knee, remembers nothing before first waking. Nothing outside of these dreadfully bland walls and that solid, unyielding door.

Rebecca's always stiff when she comes home. Moody, exhausted. She'll slam cabinets in frustration sometimes so hard it makes Freen jump.

When they fall asleep at night she'll pull herself to the furthest end of the bed and curl away, refusing to touch or talk or engage at all. It's lonely, even just laying beside her.

Freen doesn't remember her. She doesn't remember how they met, how they ended up here.

If she loved her.

All she knows is she shares a bed with a stranger every night who has done nothing to ease the trepidation that gnaws like a rat at the back of Freen's mind.

She doesn't even mean to say it. Wasn't thinking about it, certainly wasn't planning on broaching the topic like this. Not after so long and so much discomfort between them. Yet the words bubble out of her like steam racing to escape a boiling bog.

"Will you tell me about the accident?" she asks while they sit and watch television, like that isn't the most important question of her life and one they both have avoided for days.

She's waited and waited with the question stirring within her begging for release, and now it's out there. And she can practically feel the shift in the air. A tension cloud falls heavy over them.

"What do you want to know?"

It's spoken like a question but feels like a warning. Nevertheless, Freen pushes on.

"I- I don't know. What happened, I guess. What I was doing, why I can't remember."

The green light above the door flickers suddenly off, casting the room in darkness. After a moment it flickers on again, and she sees Rebecca staring at it with an intensity Freen can't understand.

She anticipates continued avoidance of her question, maybe some annoyance. She does not expect Rebecca to leap up from the couch with such force she nearly knocks the table over.

"Why are you asking so many questions, Freen?" She yells.

Yells.

"I told you your memory will come back! I told you you were in an accident! I don't need to fill in the details!"

Freen feels small, and scared. Rebecca is pacing their tiny living room and she's so angry Freen starts to shake and stutter out a response only to be cut off.

"I slave away all day for you! And when I want to come home and just relax you give me the third degree? God, Freen!"

Any response on Freen's part is cut off by her stomping to their bedroom and slamming the door hard enough to shake the television. The green light flickers for another few steady beats before going out.

Freen stares at the door, thinks of her bruised body, and trembles.

Rebecca comes out a few hours later looking cowed, and Freen is thankful. She wasn't ready for a fight.

"I'm sorry about earlier," Rebecca says, "I just get so upset thinking about how bad your accident was. I care for you - so much, and it hurts to even talk about it. Please, don't ask me again."