Stockholm Syndrome

Old Love

(A/N: 3211 words! You dudes deserve it though after the 3 1/2 month long wait. Enjoy my faithful readers! :3)
[You may need to read the previous chapter 'Primeval' for a re-cap... Oh goodness]
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Rosemary
Surely you can understand? I looked after him. Nursed and reassured him for years of mine and his lives. And Ian appears and suddenly none of that matters anymore. I mean, I know it's given me freedom. But instead I feel guilty for laying that immense responsibility, that burden, on him instead of I. I know Max has feelings for me. I've recognised that much within his actions towards and regarding me. But before him, there was Joseph. There was pain and sorrow mixed with a kindling of an old love. And it's that love that he has forgotten. Forgotten what it meant to us, to me.
***
"Rosemary, you are not to play with that boy again, do you understand me?" "But Professor, he wouldn't hurt me. Sometimes he hurts himself, but he said he'd never hurt me." Randel's tall, dark form had towered over me as a small child. His poisonous influence still did as an adult. "I don't care. Stay, away, from him." Perhaps I should've heeded his warning. I did try to, for a while. But all I could think about was how lonely that boy was without his brother. They had taken his brother away from him a few weeks ago and nobody had seen him since. I had tried to reassure him that he would soon be returned to him, but neither of us truly believed my hopeful lies. Eventually, my resolve to follow Randel's orders crumbled when I heard the boy crying one night. I crept out of my room and down the cold corridors, bare feet freezing on the icy flagstones as I padded to his room. He called it a cell, but I thought of it as a room so it seemed less harsh. My nightdress offered little comfort to my small form in the frigid patches of blackness between extinguished braziers. I reached the door and tentatively unlocked it with the keys I had stolen from the Professor's office. Pushing the door open, I heard the boy cry out in fear. I closed it behind me and reached out, finding his trembling form in the darkness.

There was a horrible smell all around us. I found the matches I'd previously hidden in the corner of the room and lit the brazier on the wall. It threw much needed light over the surroundings. I heard a whimpered word of thanks and turned to the older boy. My eyes widened as I found the source of the smell. He was covered in blood. His body had been cut and there were stitches around his face. They looked like skin grafts. I tentatively sat down beside him and reached out towards it. I softly brushed my fingertips over his tearful eyes. "When was this done to you?" He looked at the ground. I saw a dog-tag around his neck, like what they make prisoners wear. I supposed he was now. 'Joseph' it read. "Earlier. They took me to the lab again." I nodded. He'd told me about the lab before. It sounded like a horrible place from how he's described it before. I shuffled closer to him, hugging him. He winced, but acknowledged the hug, his own wiry arms going around my smaller form. The stench of blood made me gag, but I refused to let it move me from his side. And it was at his side I would stay for the years to follow.
***
Over those years he changed. One day, he only had to undergo a small operation, but Randel didn't use enough anaesthetic and it traumatised him. I found him cowering in the corner of his cell. The stem cells they were implanting in his brain accelerated his overall growth and he was nearly a foot taller than me then, his height often increasing by inches in a week. I had knelt down before him and gently coaxed him to his feet. I had taken his hand and guided his staggering, shivering form down the dark corridors to my room. I opened the door and gently nudged him inside. I had been reading up on medical subjects and watched Randel operate on Joseph occasionally, when I could stomach it. I sat him down on my bed and lit a few candles, illuminating our surroundings. I lifted up his shirt and saw messy stitching on his stomach. I frowned. Usually Randel was meticulous and even obsessive over perfection with operations. Either he was very distracted by something or someone other than him had made these incisions. This wasn't right. Joseph quailed under my gaze, whimpering and trying to cover his injuries.