CBC - Origins

Part One - Strap Yourselves In  (by: Darrin ©06/2005)

Terry glanced up as Dino entered his office, the two of them looking grimly at each other.

"Any word from Darrin?" Dino asked.

"No, not in the half hour since you last asked," Terry replied.

Dino sighed. "This is ridiculous. We need her. What the hell happened in LA?"

"Dunno, mate. When she left, everything was fine. But you saw her when we picked her up at the airport. It was like she was a ghost. I've never seen anyone that depressed. At least no one who wasn't cargo, y'know?"

"You need to get her back on the case, Terry. I don't need to remind you how important this contract is."

"No, you don't. I'm doing what I can. But every time I talk to her now, we end up in a screaming match that has her running to her bedroom, slamming the door in my face and crying like her heart is broken."

Dino looked at him accusingly. "What did you do, man? You promised me you wouldn't fuck with her!"

"Don't give me that shit. I haven't. We've been on a coupla dates, that's all. Same as you. I told you, something happened in LA and she won't tell me."

"Jesus Christ. We're both fucking good at what we do, we can't get one broad to 'fess up?"

"You know sheilas, Dino. They don't talk unless they want to."

"Well, turn on that Thorne charm and get her to tell you what happened. We need her."

With that, Dino left Terry's office. Terry sat back and wished he had a solution. Truth was, he had turned on the charm. Even found himself seducing Darrin although he knew it was a bad idea. Never fuck where you work, he'd promised himself. After Tecala, that was a promise he had no intention of breaking. But Darrin... He was attracted to her, that was certain. He was hoping the consulting job she'd been brought in for would be over soon so he could act on it. He knew his actions had caused her a lot of confusion, knew she was attracted to him as well, and knew that she had gone to LA as much to get her head together as to sort out her apartment and other loose ends now that the job was taking months instead of weeks.

Whatever had happened while she'd been away had to have been devastating for her.

Terry pulled up his emails and saw that there was a lead in San Diego that needed to be followed. He decided to book himself and Darrin on a flight, to combine business with pleasure... A pleasure he hoped would get her to tell him what had happened. He booked the Lear jet for the weekend and left Darrin a voice mail giving her the details. Then he went back to work.

~*~

Saturday morning, Terry met Darrin at the private airport where they boarded the Lear and settled in. On other flights, she had spent the preflight time working furiously on her laptop. Terry's wasn't the only project she had in the works, but it was taking up more and more of her time now so that her other clients were being communicated with only through email. Terry watched her now as she sat looking out the little window and was shocked to see a tear trace its way down her cheek.

"To hell with this," he muttered under his breath and undid the seatbelt, moving to sit next to her. "Darrin, this has got to stop. Tell me what happened in LA."

She took a deep breath and spoke absently, like she didn't even realize she was spilling her guts out to him.

"Terry, you ever been in love? I mean a devastatingly perfect love that happened so fast and yet was so right, so real, you had no choice but to just go along for the ride? Someone who completed you, someone you just simply couldn't live without?"

Terry thought for a few moments and had to finally admit, "No. But I want it to be that way. I want to meet someone and know instantly that she's the one for me."

Darrin turned to him. "So imagine meeting that someone and two days later it's like they had never existed." She turned back to the window and continued speaking, more to herself than to Terry. "But you still have the memory of him holding you and kissing you and telling you how he can't live without you. That he'll come with you just to be with you because he can't imagine life without you at his side." She fetched a deep, tear-filled sigh. "Wouldn't that hurt you so much that you couldn't do anything but long for him?" There was a beat and then she added so softly, Terry could barely hear her, "I haven't had to acknowledge hurt on this level for so long. I didn't know there could be anything worse."

"Worse than what, luv?" Terry said gently.

"Worse than being betrayed by family." She laughed bitterly. "Betrayed. That's a good euphemism for what they did to me." She choked back a sob and Terry took her hand. He knew there'd been something horrible enough in her past that had caused her to disown her parents and two siblings, that had come up during her background check. He had a better idea now what that had involved.

"Luv," he whispered.

"No, I can't. Please don't make me." Then she sobbed again and Terry pulled her into his arms and held her as she wept. As they took off, he heard her whisper, "Almost complete. I was that close and now it's gone." His heart ached for her as he could only imagine what that meant.

~*~

The hours ticked by. Terry had moved back to his seat across from Darrin to work on a few documents and let her rest. He couldn't stop the growing feeling that something was about to happen, though. With each passing hour, his instincts were demanding attention, from the hair on the back of his neck raising irritatingly, to the pit of his stomach raging with anticipation. He got up and moved to the front of the plane meaning to talk to the pilots. Before he could knock on the door though, a voice came over the intercom.

"Mr Thorne, please make sure you and your passenger are buckled in. We're heading into some serious turbulence."

Terry turned to go back to Darrin and the plane jolted, forcing him to call out to Darrin to buckle in and dropping into the first row and doing the same.

That's when all hell broke loose.

~*~

Darrin opened her eyes slowly. The first thing she realized was that she couldn't hear anything. The second was that her head hurt bad. She moved slowly back up into a sitting position from being hunched over her lap, the seat cushion from the chair beside her clutched in her hands. As her hearing returned, so did what had happened, coming back in bits and pieces. The plane bucking so violently that Terry had dropped into the nearest passenger seat instead of making his way back to her, shouting for her to buckle up. As she had, the plane bucked again, this time going into a steep dive. Hearing Terry shouting again for her to grab the cushion and prepare for a crash landing.

Then she remembered that she'd heard a very calm voice directly in her ear.

Do not worry, my dear.

After that she remembered being thrown forward and hitting her head on the seat back in front of her. Then it all went black until now.

She looked around. It was smoky and dark and she couldn't make out too much but when she looked forward, she gasped.

The front end of the plane had been completely sheared away and she couldn't see anything but forest through the opening left by the devastation.

"T-Terry?" she called out, her voice sounding as weak and terrified as she felt. There was no answer. Just the quiet sounds that come from a forest late at night. She tried to remember the steward's name that had been waiting on them and finally came up with it. "B-Ben? You th-there?" Again, no answer. She wasn't prepared to accept she was alone. They were unconscious or couldn't hear her. That had to be it. She would go find them and everything would be okay.

Darrin got out of her seat gingerly, anticipating any sudden pain indicating an injury greater than the cuts and bruises she already had. Her head was throbbing and a hesitant exploration revealed a deep cut that had stopped bleeding on its own. From the dried blood, she assumed she'd been unconscious for a number of hours, but nothing else appeared to be wrong with her. She headed towards the galley, picking her way along what remained of the aisle, stepping over the debris caused by the crash.

She did find Ben. He was lying face down near the galley entrance. She steeled herself to nudge him. He didn't move. She pulled away from him with a little cry of fear. She'd always had this unreasonable fear of dead bodies and being this near one with an increasing certainty that she was alone with it, brought on a panic attack. She scrambled back down the aisle until she felt dew-covered grass beneath her fingers. That stopped her progress but not her hyperventilating herself into passing out.

~*~

As soon as the forward motion of the plane had stopped, Terry sat up and examined his surroundings. That brought a sharp pain into focus for him. When the bulkhead had come flying at him during the crash, he'd tried to deflect it, but knew from how it hit him, he'd probably have at least cracked a couple of ribs, if not broken them. From the feel of it, though, he felt they were intact, just cracked as hoped for. He unbuckled and stood, turning back to call to Darrin.

"Oh, fuck." The plane had split at the wings. And the back section, with Darrin in it, was nowhere in sight.

He went to the pilot's cabin and was greeted with two dead bodies. One had been a good mate and Terry patted him on the shoulder. "Cheers, mate," he whispered. He pulled the radio and tried to reach help, transmitting on all frequencies his mayday, but there was no response, not even static. "Radio's dead too, mate," he told the pilot with a touch of gallows' humour. He reached for his cell phone. No luck there either, no signal. He turned it off to conserve battery power.

He headed back to what was left of the plane and slowly put together a pack, extra battery, plenty of water and any rations he could find in the section of the plane left to him. "At least Darrin got the galley," he said to himself. As ex-SAS he could survive in a forest as lush as this, but there would be no way Darrin would know how to. Hopefully she and Ben would be able to hang on until he could get to them.

Walking frustratingly slowly due to his injuries, he set off on the easy-to-follow trail his section of the plane had left to find Darrin.

~*~

Darrin came to with the dripping dew from the top of the sheared off section of the plane dripping onto her face. She had no idea how much time had passed, except for the sky looking like it might be graying and her urgent need to pee.

Ben's body was blocking the lav door.

She rocked back and forth, weighing the option between having to move Ben's body and peeing in the dark forest where there were creepy crawlies. She'd just never realized how many deep-seated fears she had. Chiding herself for being stupid, she walked a short way to a nearby tree and recalling something she'd read, grabbed a rock and dug a small hole, relieving her aching bladder while avoiding touching anything as best she could. Once she was done, she went back to the gaping hole of her section of the plane.

She flat out did not know what to do. She peered into the aisle way, just making out the silhouette of Ben's body. She felt so very stupid, as stupid as she always had been. Maybe it was the talk of her family right before take off that brought all the memories back just then, but Darrin couldn't think of anything but how her father had laughed when her mother had caught him and just turned her back and walked away. How he'd finished and left her to feel used and violated and stupid for believing that if only she'd tell someone like her mother what was happening, it would stop. She could see him, turning in the doorway and laughing that derisive laugh.

What she didn't put together was that she'd been without food or water for over twenty-four hours now. That she was in a very depleted state both physically and mentally. That the shock of what had just happened to her was settling into her mind and body.

So when Ben's corpse stood and began laughing at her the same way her father had, derisively laughing at her inability to take care of herself, incapable of the most basic survival instincts, she believed it was real and began screaming.

Her screams rang through the forest for hours.