A/N: All right, because I'm going to be busy tonight, you all are lucking out and getting chap. 18 early in the day ... I hope you enjoy it!

Hopefully this will answer a few questions you all have been positing over the last few chapters. Remember, everyone heals in their own time ... whether they're four or 21.

Thanks to Leiasky for being so awesome - oh, and for beta-ing too!

Keep those comments coming ... they're like a cool breeze on a hot day!

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A NEW DAY, ch. 18: Emotional Release

***

Simon was anxious to speak with his mother. After calling the hospital and having to send the staff tracking her down, he waited now with barely contained nervousness for her to appear before him on the screen.

It had been almost a month since they had rescued Rylee and while Simon and Kaylee’s initial relief at knowing she was safe had outweighed just about any questions or concerns they’d had, for Simon, his questions, his need for answers, was quickly on the rise again.

And he needed an answer to this – he needed to know, just as he needed air to breathe or food to eat what had happened to his father. Simon wanted to believe he had died in a spectacular explosion, his body blown apart and scattered to the winds, even while another part of him believed he was suffering somewhere, his agony prolonged and torturous. But regardless of his belief, he needed to know the true outcome.

With a wink, the screen blinked off from its idleness and Simon watched as his mother’s concerned face faded into view. Smiling to him sadly, she said, “Hello, Simon. Is everything all right?”

Nodding once, he told her, “Yes, we’re all fine here, thank you.”

Noting his clipped tone and determined set to his jaw, Regan cocked an eyebrow to him and asked, “Are you all right?”

Not wasting any time, Simon held her gaze and asked firmly, “What happened to father?”

Regan inhaled sharply at his question. She had honestly hoped she’d never have to tell him, hoped that in his relief at getting his daughter back, Simon would just forget about his father and all he had done. It had been a naïve hope, one borne of a mother’s desire to protect her adult son, but one she’d clung to nonetheless.

As Regan’s struggle to tell him became clear, Simon lowered his voice a bit and told her, “Mother, I must know.”

Swallowing several times to get her voice working, Regan lifted hollow eyes back to the screen and told him coldly, “He’s gone, Simon. That’s all you need to know.”

Shaking his head fiercely, Simon told her, “No, I need to know how and why and who. I need to know that he suffered.” His eyes were blazing again with that barely contained rage that Regan had seen only a handful of times.

Frowning to him, she said, “No, son, you don’t. All I can tell you is that he died, painfully.”

Gasping at her admission, Simon breathed, “Who? Who did it?”

With an even colder stare, she told him, “It doesn’t matter, just know it’s done. He will never hurt you or this family again.”

Simon held her cold gaze, searching her eyes, her face for some hint of what had truly transpired. While he had thought that he needed to know all the details, Simon was surprised to find the weight that had been pressing down on his chest ease just a bit at the news that Gabriel Tam was indeed dead.

Unwilling to let it go so easily, Simon did tell her, “I will want to know, all of it, someday.”

With a sigh, Regan’s eyes again filled with pity as she told him, “And someday, maybe I’ll tell you. But right now the only thing you should be concentrating on is your family, Kaylee and my beautiful grandchildren.” Leaning towards the screen, she told him firmly, “That’s what’s most important, Simon. Don’t lose sight of that.”

Returning her gaze with an intense one of his own, Simon assured her, “Don’t worry, mother, I won’t.”

***

Alicia arrived to Rylee’s room and found the girl already coloring. Lying on her stomach with her face towards the open door, the four-year-old had opened her sketch pad and scattered all the pencils around her, her feet kicking in the air as she bounced them lazily against the bed.

“Good morning Rylee.”

Looking up at her entrance, she smiled slightly, a fairly big step in their relationship and murmured, “Good morning,” before again dropping her eyes to her work.

Approaching her and sitting down in the chair at the bedside, Alicia tilted her head a bit to get a look at the girl’s latest piece of art. Noting that it was again a swirl of colors, this time in decidedly more pastel shades, Alicia frowned.

“Rylee?”

The girl again turned big, brown eyes to her and Alicia couldn’t help but smile. She was the spitting image of her aunt, but there were moments, like now, where she could fix the young woman with a gaze that was decidedly her father’s.

Regarding her quizzically, Rylee spoke before Alicia could. “You loved him.”

Blinking quickly, Alicia had to think a moment to decipher the girl’s meaning. Realizing her thoughts had been on Simon, Alicia blushed a bit and told her softly, “Yes.”

Still looking to her with wide eyes, Rylee cocked her head to the side and said, “But not anymore.” Pausing for another minute, she seemed to think on something and then added. “You’re happy now, in love with someone else.”

Reaching out a hand and covering one of Rylee’s with it, Alicia held her gaze steadily and said, “Yes, that’s right.”

As the two women held the intense gaze for another minute it was Rylee who finally dropped the look, again absorbed in her coloring. Regarding her for a moment more, Alicia finally asked, “Rylee? Can you draw something special for me?”

Looking up expectantly, she shrugged a bit and said, “I guess. What?”

Smiling at the girl, she said, “Well, I’d really like to see a picture of your family. Can you draw that?”

Reluctantly, Rylee sat up on the bed and with measured movements laid out all of her colored pencils in neat rows. When she was done, she again turned to regard Alicia and said, “No. I can’t.”

“Why not?” Alicia watched the little girl’s body tense at the thought and she knew that something, some memory was fighting to push its way to the surface, some memory involving her family and she was doing everything in her power to keep it at bay.

It was at this moment, as both of them were locked in a silent battle of wills that River entered. Still unable to walk for any length of time she had wheeled herself to the room and stopped in the doorway, regarding the tense scene before her with interest.

Rylee, having felt her aunt approach now uncurled her legs from underneath her and met her at the door, giving her a light hug. She would have crawled up into her lap if she hadn’t known just how painful that would be for River. “Hi Aun’ River.”

Hugging her back, River met Alicia’s concerned gaze over the girl’s shoulder and murmured, “Morning sweetie. How are you?”

“Shiny,” the little girl said without hesitation, leaning against the wheelchair and staying as far away from Alicia as possible.

Noting her hesitation, River looked back to Alicia and greeted her finally. “Good morning.”

“Good morning, River. How are you feeling?” Alicia watched Rylee curiously, trying to determine when and how to again broach the subject of family with the little one.

“I’m fine, thank you. The doctors think I should be able to get out of this wheelchair in another couple of days.” River looked back to her niece’s sullen face and finally decided avoiding the awkwardness would not fix it. “Hey, Ry? What were you and Alicia talking about, before I got here?”

Shrugging again, the girl murmured, “Nothing.”

“I think it was something.” River knew that Alicia, acting as the unbiased third party could not push the girl in this way, but River had no professional concerns to limit her. “Why won’t you tell me?”

Sighing, Rylee did not look back at her as she circled around the side of the bed and crawled back on top of it. With another heavy sigh, she reached sullenly for her paper and a few pencils and started to draw. “Fine,” she sighed, her voice quiet.

Glancing from River to Rylee and back again, Alicia said, “Well, thank you Rylee, I really appreciate that.” Watching the girl intently for another moment, she said, “I think your aunt and I are going to talk for a minute. We’ll be right outside, okay?”

“Okay.” The four-year-old did not look up as the two women quietly left the room.

Closing the door behind them, Alicia moved to a seat across the hall and River followed her, waiting for the psychiatrist to speak her mind. “She’s blocking memories of her family,” the woman confided with no prompting. “Do you have any idea why?”

Sighing, River’s gaze drifted back to the closed door as she thought of all their family had been through in such a short span of time. With a grimace, she looked back to Alicia and said, “It wasn’t the best of times, even before she was taken.”

“How so?” Alicia asked, leaning back to listen.

Rubbing a tired hand over her eyes, River realized she didn’t even know where to begin. Did everything start with her miscarriage or Keller’s unexpected appearance? With Simon’s gunshot wound and near death or Kaylee’s difficult pregnancy? The list of possible complications seemed endless.

“Simon’s wife, Kaylee, she just recently had twins. I think my mother may have told you that.” River watched the woman closely, looking for an adverse reaction to this news. But with true professionalism, she simply nodded and River continued. “Well, when Kaylee was first pregnant, we, the crew and all of us, we were grounded. I was …” River’s voice died away as the pain of her baby’s loss again hit her.

Noting her distress, Alicia sat forward and squeezed the younger woman’s hand. “Just take your time,” she told her.

Nodding once, River swallowed back more tears and finally managed to get out, “I had just suffered a miscarriage and I needed some medical attention, so we’d gone to stay with some old friends.”

Alicia’s eyes watered at River’s admission, her own mind instantly circling to her new baby, the one that was just starting to grow inside her. Pushing these thoughts away, she tuned back into River’s soft voice and watched as the girl pulled herself together with startling speed. “Well, we were there and things were going pretty well, until ….” Meeting the woman’s eyes again, this time with a bit of anger raging, River told her, “Well, I think you may remember Keller?”

Inhaling a sharp breath through clenched teeth, Alicia’s face instantly hardened at the memory of her duplicitious friend. It still irked her, even after all these years that she could have been so foolish, so trusting of such a conniving and scheming jerk. “Yes, I remember Keller,” she managed to get out.

“Well, he found Simon, found all of us and he tried to kill Kaylee and the children. Simon was shot saving them.” River’s eyes again filled at the memory and she had to pause, the memory of Simon’s pain and Kaylee’s anguish cutting her just as sharply so many months later. It was even worse because she knew that now, unlike then, she wouldn’t have been allowed to worry at his side or try to help her brother back to health. Now, he would just as soon watch her rot than allow her anywhere near him.

Alicia forced herself to blink away a few tears of her own, realizing with embarrassment how incredibly unprofessional she was acting. Despite her history with this particular patient’s family, she should be able to maintain a level of detachment. But whether it was her own hormones, raging now as her body changed to create a new life, or just the pain and agony that played across the incredibly young girl’s face sitting before her she would never know.

“Was he badly injured?” she finally asked, noting that River hadn’t quite collected herself.

Nodding once, River swallowed hard a few more times and then said shakily, “Yes, he had to have a few surgeries and things did not look good for a while. We had to take him to off world to get better treatment. Kaylee and Daniel and Rylee all went, but it was a very difficult time for Rylee. She was just starting to adjust to her abilities and a lot of very scary and dark emotions were raging around her. I can’t even imagine how awful that was.”

Thinking back to the girl they had left alone in her room, Alicia tried to puzzle together this new information with her current behavior. “And you think it’s these residual feelings or memories that are causing her distress towards her family now?”

Turning a puzzled expression to her, River asked, “Don’t you?”

Alicia stopped for another moment to consider this new information. It was possible, yes, that Rylee’s fear for her family or of them, was born of this traumatic time, but Alicia knew there was something else, something River wasn’t sharing that might present an even clearer cause for the child’s trepidation.

“When we talked, a few days ago,” Alicia began quietly, pulling River’s teary gaze up from her lap. “You mentioned that you and Simon are estranged right now, right?”

Nodding once, River could not trust her voice. Just the thought of her last few conversations with her brother caused an uncomfortable lump to rise in her throat and a dull ache to settle in her heart.

Watching as River’s face blanched at the mention of her brother’s name and the way her hands shook, Alicia guessed she might be onto something. “But before this, before Rylee’s abduction, you and Simon were very close, correct?”

Smiling slightly at those happy memories, River nodded once and felt some of her sadness wane. “Oh yes.” Looking to Alicia with the same impossibly wide eyes as her niece, she told her earnestly, “He gave up everything, for me, literally. We’ve never been at odds before.”

“But you are now?” Alicia asked, wanting to be sure she was clear. “Since Rylee’s abduction?”

Frowning at her, as River had still not been able to make the connection, she said, “Well, it started before that, pretty much right after the miscarriage.”

Confused, Alicia asked, “Why? How could Simon have been upset with you then?” The Simon River was describing to her now did not mesh with the man she’d known.

“It’s when I first told him I wanted to have a baby and I didn’t care about the consequences.” River said the statement in a quiet voice, surprising even herself by admitting it so readily.

Her face coloring with compassion, Alicia asked, “Oh, River, I’m so sorry. Did the miscarriage … I mean, are you …?” She honestly did not know how to ask the question and so she stopped, realizing rather late that it was really none of her business.

“No, it had nothing to do with the miscarriage.” River’s voice was unbelievably heavy. As Alicia watched her try and lift her head to face her, she saw as the young woman struggled with a weariness she had not seen only moments before. “It had to do with my time at the Academy.”

Her brow furrowing, Alicia was very sketchy on the details of River’s time at this phantom-Academy. She knew that whatever had happened there had been decidedly bad, but other than that, the details for her were few and far between. About to ask her to elaborate, both women’s heads snapped towards Rylee’s door when they heard a terrified wail coming from inside.

Rushing forward, Alicia made it first, entering the room and finding the child standing on her bed, screaming, piles of shredded drawings scattered at her feet and on the floor.

Moving to her side, Alicia called to her, “Rylee! Rylee, sweetheart, you need to calm down.”

Glaring at her quickly, she stopped crying long enough to bite out, “No,” before again starting to scream. So, it was River’s turn to give it a shot.

“Rylee, enough!”

Startled into silence, Rylee dropped to the bed, falling to her knees and casting more shreds of paper to the floor. Rolling over to her niece’s side, River rested a comforting hand to her back and watched as the child tried to control her sobs.

“Rylee, sweetie?” River’s voice was soft and low, a direct contrast to the harsh tone she had used only moments before. When the little girl refused to look at her, River leaned forward in her chair and wrapped her arms around her trembling form.

Alicia watched them for a moment, her puzzlement over all that had transpired still growing. Now, with curiosity, she picked up one of the many drawings at her feet and uncrumpled the paper. Turning her back to River and Rylee, Alicia studied the hastily made drawing with a furrowed brow. It was the girl’s family, there was no mistake about that. But it wasn’t a happy drawing at all.

Square in the middle of the page was a box with a triangle on top that could have only been a house, while the sun was shining down from the top righthand corner. In front of the house was Rylee, and another child, Alicia was guessing her brother and they were holding hands. Next to them stood a woman with a decidedly circular stomach and Alicia smiled a bit as she assumed it to be the girl’s pregnant mother.

But her father … Simon was not standing with the rest of his family. Instead his image was far off to the side and back, placed among a few trees the girl had scribbled, while River was lying at the bottom right hand corner of the page, red flowing from her stomach and ‘x’s over her eyes that could only signify death.

With newfound concern, Alicia turned her gaze back to regard the two wounded girls in the room with her, trying to determine just how worried she should be over this new development.

***

It was much later that day, after River and Alicia both had managed to get Rylee to open up a bit, that Alicia left the room with a weary sigh. Heading out into the hall, she stopped abruptly as she ran into Regan who was no doubt coming to check on both her daughter and granddaughter.

“Good evening Alicia,” she greeted her, her tone warm, a smile on her features. “How did everything go today?”

Sighing again, Alicia gave her a small smile and said, “As well as we could have hoped. It’s a long, slow process, Regan.”

The older woman blinked back a few tears and Alicia kindly averted her gaze, giving Regan time to collect herself. Finally, she cleared her throat and said, “I take it you’re heading home for the evening?”

“Yes,” Alicia said smiling to her again. Truthfully, she was starving, the need to eat for two surprising even her in its intensity.

“Well, have a nice evening, dear,” Regan said, reaching forward to give her a peck on the cheek, before heading into the room.

Alicia nodded once and turned to go when a sudden thought struck her. Remembering her emotional conversation with River from earlier in the day, the questions she had harbored all those hours ago came flooding back and with little thought, she turned back to Regan.

“Regan?” Waiting for the woman to give her her full attention, Alicia asked, “What can you tell me, about what happened to River? At the Academy?”

Inhaling sharply, the older woman’s eyes clouded again with tears and regret. “Not a lot,” she answered truthfully her voice quiet. “Not as much as Simon at any rate. But I suppose I know enough.” Her tone had turned bitter and Alicia winced at the noise.

Stepping towards her, she placed a light hand to the woman’s arm and said, “I’d like to know.

Puzzled as to why, Regan looked into the girl’s eyes and saw sincerity and genuine concern reflected there. With a final sigh, Regan took her hand and wrapped an arm around her shoulders. “Well, I’ll do my best dear, but I can guarantee, you’ll regret knowing.”

Guessing that were more than true, Alicia allowed Regan to lead her down the hall and listened intently as the older woman, the guilty mother, began to tell the tale of her daughter’s torture.

***

“Hi Aun’ River.”

River looked up from the book she’d been memorizing at the sound of her niece’s little voice. Looking to Jayne as he carried the girl into the room, she smiled widely at him, wondering how exactly he knew she needed to see her.

Reading the thought from her, Rylee stated, as Jayne sat her on the edge of the bed, “He isn’t a reader. He just knew.”

Reaching for his hand, River pulled him to her and kissed him lightly and then looked to her niece. “Yes, he always seems to know what’ll make me feel better.”

“Because he loves you,” Rylee said in the sing-song voice.

“Yes,” River told her, looking back into his blue eyes, even as they continued to stare at her face. “Because he loves me.”

Still holding one another’s gaze, Rylee looked from her aunt to uncle and then back again, recognizing the looks they were giving each other as she had seen them between her parents plenty of times before. “You’re not going to get all mushy, are you?”

Laughing lightly, River looked to the girl and pulled her forward, wrapping her in a hug. “No, but I might get mushy with you,” she teased and then proceeded to kiss the girl all over her face and hair, getting a hail storm of giggles from her.

After a few moments, River and Rylee were again sitting in quiet, the smiles still wide on their faces, when Rylee turned to her aunt and said softly, “Aun’ River, I really want to go home.”

Smiling sadly at her, River ran a hand through the girl’s long hair and told her, “I know, baby, but we’ve got to make sure you’re okay first.”

Nodding her head urgently, she turned her large, imploring eyes to her aunt and said, “But I am. I’m okay, I can go home.”

River wanted to agree with the child. In truth, she wanted to go home as well, see her new niece and nephew, see Daniel and Kaylee and Simon, if he would even look at her. But River and Alicia had discussed Rylee’s treatment briefly in the past few days, since they’d had their own discussion about River and Simon’s estranged relationship and both women agreed that the only chance Rylee had for a full recovery was to stay on Ariel until she was truly ready to face what she’d gone through. As of right now, that hadn’t happened.

Looking into her big eyes, River blinked back a few tears and told her, “Rylee, you know that me and your uncle Jayne and your grandma and Ally, we only want you to get better right?”

“Yes,” the girl said sullenly, crossing her arms over her chest and pouting mightily.

“Well, baby, the only way that’s going to happen is if you talk to Ally about what happened while you were with those men. I know you don’t want to and I know it’s really scary, but you can’t keep pretending it didn’t happen.” River continued to run her hands through the girl’s hair, trying to read her through her confusion.

With a sorrowful expression etched into her features, she looked back to River and said quietly, “You do.”

Inhaling sharply, River looked quickly to Jayne and then back to her niece. Barely able to breathe, she whispered, “What?”

“You pretend it didn’t happen all the time.” Rylee’s voice was still quiet, but growing stronger and she sat up now, pulling out of her aunt’s touch. “You don’t ever want to talk about it, so you don’t. And daddy, he never made you, because he didn’t want to talk about it either. So how come I have to?” Her voice had risen in pitch and she was crying now, big, heavy tears that rolled down her cheeks in steady streams.

Her small body trembling, even as River reached for her, Rylee shot a hard and cold look to her aunt and whispered angrily, “I want my mama an’ daddy. I want them to love me ‘gain. I wanna go home!” Her voice had risen in volume as she’d made her demands, and with teary eyes, River watched her niece stand on the end of her bed, her fists clenched at her sides.

Unable to contain her sadness or her fear another minute, she finally turned her head up to the ceiling and screamed. “You wanna know what it was like? It was awful! I hated it! I hated those men! I hated grandpa Tam! I hated every minute, every needle!” The girl’s face was bright red, but even as Jayne reached to pull her down, she jerked away from him, causing the bed to rock slightly.

Looking up to her with tears in her eyes, River reached for Jayne and stayed his hand – Rylee needed to do this. She needed to rage and River was going to let her.

“They wanted me to kill Danny,” she told them, her chest heaving with sobs as she lowered her eyes back to her aunt and uncle. “And then they wanted me to kill mama and daddy and the new babies.” Darting her eyes between them, she finally whispered, “And then they wanted me to kill you.”

Her body convulsing with anger and tears, Rylee sunk back to her knees and looked to her aunt. “And when I said no, they hurt me again. They kept sticking me with needles.” Rolling back the sleeve of her shirt, she thrust out her forearm, laying bare for River and Jayne to see the dozens of pinpricks dotting her skin. “See? Needle after needle. I hate needles!”

River’s tears fell now, as she watched her little niece, such a sweet and innocent girl, cry through her pain. Raising her weary eyes to her aunt, she said in a hoarse voice, “I wanted it to stop. But they wouldn’t stop. I wanted to go home and they wouldn’t let me. I was cold and alone and scared all the time. I don’t want to be cold and alone and scared anymore aun’ River.” Crawling towards her, Rylee fell exhausted against River’s chest and even as she winced at the extra pressure on her wound, she held the girl tightly. “I want my daddy, Aun’ River, please? And my mama. I just want to go home.”

And then she cried some more. Heavy, hard tears that shook her body and River’s and River held her tight. Jayne circled around the bed and held them both, his own disbelief at Rylee’s outburst quickly dissolving as he watched River struggle to come to terms with her own sorrow.

After Rylee’s sobs had subsided, River pressed a kiss into her hair and told her, “You’re not alone anymore, baby. And we’re going to go home.”

With another sigh of exhausted relief, Rylee was asleep against her in minutes. And then River looked to Jayne with her tearful eyes, her arms still tight around the girl, and with her own wail, turned her head into his strong chest and cried.

***