She finally fell asleep toward dawn. He stayed as still as he could, counting the hours until it would be dawn at the Refuge. He couldn't quite talk himself into disturbing them, especially as she was fine now.

About mid-morning her eyes opened and he smiled into them, forgetting that he'd gotten pummeled the night before. His worry and fear for her had driven the pain away entirely.

"Good morning."

Her smile was tentative and shy as she took in the state of his face, her eyes going wide.  "Oh, I'm so sorry," she said, touching him gently.

"They're nothing. Don't worry about them. How are you?"

"Scared," she said without thinking, "and confused.  How are you?"

"Quite the same, actually. Do you think you could take some breakfast? Either here or with your family?"

"Some tea maybe.  I'm really not hungry," she said.

He communed mentally with Edwards for a moment then turned his attention back to her. "I'm going to call Stephen and Marc when it is late enough at the Refuge. They .. they made some suggestions the other evening. I'd like you to hear them."

Panic flared in her eyes, clawed at her nerves.   "Suggestions?" she said after a moment.

"Well," he replied carefully, "both Dinah and Doni have been through somewhat similar things. They tried to tell me you might have more difficulties than I expected. They won't be judgmental or surprised. And perhaps they can even be helpful. Particularly Dinah, who feels she can't do enough to thank you for what you did for her."

She worried her lower lip, watching him.  Then she nodded her head.  "Alright," she said, looking at the damage she'd done to his face.  

"We're just going to talk. No one is going to force you to do anything. I'll make sure of that."  What else might be said was lost when Edwards knocked on the door and walked in with a tea tray. He took one look at Ian and stopped dead in the center of the room. Then, swallowing, he walked in and set about putting the tea tray on a table and arranging things as if nothing whatever were amiss.

"Thank you Edwards. Please tell Mr. and Mrs DuBois we'll join them a bit later."

"Certainly, your lordship."  Edwards turned and was gone.

She fled to the bathroom, only barely restraining herself from running.  She stayed there as long as she dared, struggling with herself.  Then she flushed the toilet, washed her hands and face and went back to the bedroom, accepting the cup of tea Ian offered her with a soft thank you. 

He eyed her for a moment or two as he helped himself to a cup. "We'll figure out something, Betty Jo. I promise you that I don't blame you one bit. You've been through something horrible and ... and I'm so sorry it was because of me."

She looked looked up at that, startled.  "You think this was because of you?" she asked.

"At its source. Collins wanted to hurt me, so he said. And he knew hurting you would hurt me."

She met his eyes for a second and then sought courage in the middle distance out the window.  "I don't think..." she began and then stopped a moment before trying again.  "It wasn't just...just about hurting you." she said.

He watched her for a time then said, "No. But that's how it began."

-------
The three of them zapped in following Ian's phone call. The call hadn't been all that detailed beyond. "Uhm, are you free?" Given that it was Ian any plea was of some concern.

They zapped in on the patio that overlooked the fields behind Avery House. Jonah and Libby were there, sitting a bit off to the side. Ian had been sitting holding Betty Jo's hand, possibly to keep her there, but he stood when they zapped in.

"Oh, uhm, hi, Ian," Marc carefully amended, rather than say, "Oh, nice shiner" which had been his first thought.

Ian frowned at him.  Then turned his attention to the others. "Dinah, good to see you. Stephen. Please have a seat. We were enjoying the weather."

"It is nice," Stephen said and opted for a seat near Jonah and Libby. 

Dinah made polite sounds, and picked a chair where she had an unobstructed view of Betty Jo's face and the number she was doing on her lower lip, and the white knuckles of the hands she was holding together in her lap.  Then she inched it a bit nearer to her without making it obvious.  She was already not liking this.

"Can I get you drinks?" Ian asked politely, and busied himself with doing that leaving Dinah sitting near Betty Jo. Marc wandered over to talk to Ian as he poured.

Dinah switched seats without a qualm and took one of Betty Jo's hands in hers giving it a reassuring squeeze, letting her senses reach outwards.  "We can run away together," she whispered.  Betty Jo's eyes flew to meet hers and Dinah almost reeled at the terror under the rigid control.  Dinah held her eyes and whispered, her voice even lower, "I swear nothing is going to happen that you don't want to happen, even if I have to hurt them all."

Betty Jo's lips relaxed a bit and she nodded. 

Dinah smoothed a strand of hair away from her face, keeping the movement and the act slow and easy, her hand always visible as it moved towards Betty Jo.  "What do you need, right here, right now to make this easier?" Dinah asked.

Betty Jo's mouth trembled and she looked down at her hands.  "To not have done that to him," she said finally, her voice choked.

Dinah nodded.  "Yeah I can imagine.  Want me to get Doni to come and fix it?  Or would that just make it worse?"

Betty Jo nodded.  "It...I mean if he wants, but it wouldn't...it wouldn't help," she said.

Dinah nodded, registering the words and the feelings and thought if she had the chance she'd clobber Ian for leaving her exposed and humiliated like this.  Then she looked up and caught his eyes on Betty Jo and it occurred to her that he'd meant it in totally the opposite way, as a statement that he understood, that he wasn't blaming her.  So she just nodded.  "I know.  Every time I sock Marc.  I will never understand how he puts up with it or how come he's never just socked me back in self defense."

That brought Betty Jo's eyes back to hers, and an easing of the feelings pouring out of her.  "He just took it," she whispered, remembered horror clear in her voice.  "And never...he never...he just tells me he's sorry, that it's all his fault."

Dinah nodded and held onto the hand in hers that was trembling like a frightened bird trapped in a cage.  "When I got back," she said, "I kept having dreams, horrible dreams and I'd wake up screaming.  And the worst part was that because of the bond Marc felt every bit of it too, experienced it and he just kept holding on to me while I'm pounding on his back with my fists, hysterical.  He just held on to me, night after night."

"Night after night?" Betty Jo repeated.

Dinah nodded and looked up as Marc and Ian came back.  "Night after night."  She gave Betty Jo's hand another squeeze and moved back to the chair she'd chosen.

Ian sat down next to Betty Jo, and gave her a worried look. "Was this a mistake," he asked her quietly. "I'll send them home if you like."

"No, it's...it's okay," she said.  "I'll be okay."

"You know what?" Ian said. "I've never doubted that."

Marc had taken the seat beside Dinah. "Any ideas on how to help her?" he asked.

"Well, she's terrified.  And feeling humiliated because of his face.  Can you get Stephen to get her parents out of here?"

"Sure," Marc replied and got up and sauntered over to where Stephen and Jonah were talking. He began talking to Libby and the four strode off toward the fields, seemingly intent on exploring the just budding gardens. They were gone perhaps 5 minutes when Marc zapped himself back to the patio.

Dinah sat and watched the shadows roll across the fields, while Ian and Betty Jo spoke in low private tones.

"So... what's your idea," Marc asked Dinah as he pulled her to her feet and wrapped her in his arms.

"I don't know what happened.  I mean I know he grabbed her.  I know his kid almost killed her.  And I know you said the first thing Ian did was remove some spells that were on her.  I'm guessing about anything else but I'm assuming Collins somehow forced her to act like she wanted him in front of Ian.  Whatever it was...What has Ian told you about what happened?"

"Pretty much nothing.  He's not the sort to seek affirmation by sharing secrets. I wonder though...  I might be able to get information from him now. I'm not sure he'd say much in front of you or Betty though."

She nodded absently, still thinking.  "Do something for me first.  Ask him what the spells were.  And get ready to catch her if she faints."

"Now, with her here? And I doubt I could catch her before Ian does."

"Yeah, 'cause I'm thinking he didn't tell her and she doesn't know about them, so it doesn't matter if he doesn't answer or hedges.  As for catching, you're expecting it, he isn't."

Marc pulled Dinah to her feet and moved both chairs in closer.  "So, Ian, what sort of spells were on Betty Jo when you removed them?"

Ian frowned, obviously reluctant to say.

"It might help her to understand some things," Marc suggested with a raised eyebrow, ignoring Betty Jo's worried frown.

"The usual.  A spell that made sure she couldn't leave," Ian replied watching Betty Jo out of the corner of his eye.

"And?" Marc asked, acting as if he were oblivious to Betty Jo's reactions.

"A compulsion spell," Ian replied reluctantly.

"Compulsion? To do what?"

Ian's face went hard."That she do anything he wanted her to. Anything."

Dinah watched Betty Jo go rigid, all the color draining from her face as she swallowed convulsively, unable to catch her breath.  She absorbed the onslaught of feelings and images as they consumed Betty Jo and she asked, her own voice strangled, gripping Marc's arm like a vice, "Do it and want it, to like it?"

Ian closed his eyes. "Yes, want it. It isn't enough just to do it. But to want to please him, that's what the spell was centered around."

Dinah never took her eyes off Betty Jo and yelled before Ian finished, "Catch her!"

Marc caught her gently in his arms. "Dinah," he said to Ian who looked murderous, "believes in tough love."

Ian glowered at her.

"She doesn't have the first frigging clue.  She thinks it was her, that she...that it was all consensual," Dinah snapped, unrepentant.  "Look, you can beat me up later.  For now, put her to bed and get her parents to sit with her.  We need to talk about what to do next."

Ian stalked off, carrying Betty Jo tenderly in his arms, still looking furious. "So she's blaming herself for being aroused?" Marc asked once they were safely gone.

"It's worse than that I think," Dinah said watching Ian walk off.  "It was like she was addicted to him, she craved him, she'd have done anything he wanted to have him and she did...but..."  Dinah shook her head and helped herself to Marc's drink.  "She's more terrified of being raped than anything else she can think of.  She doesn't see this as rape.  She knows Oman was rape but thinks she can't remember it, only it's just that she refuses to remember it.  Oman...she was drugged so she couldn't fight, she couldn't resist.  With Collins she thinks she should have but she didn't, that she didn't because she didn't want to.  And they're getting all mixed up together because she's comparing them."

"Ah. And Ian is thinking he's dealing with her trying to get used to the idea she was raped and it's different."

She nodded.  "Betty Jo feels like she betrayed him and did it with his enemy, that she helped his enemy hurt him terribly and that she did it willingly.  She's terrified if he finds out she'll lose him.  And he's being all British and stiff upper lip I guess or something so they aren't talking about it.  It's like today with his face.  She feels absolutely humiliated about it and then having to sit here with everyone here and him here and all of us seeing what she did to him, it was killing her."

"Well, I doubt she'd have felt better if he'd hidden it. Then it's a secret and secrets have power. Still.. He's never going to be all touchy-feely, Dinah. She's going to have to get used to the closed in Brit in him. But we do have to find a way to get her to see - and him to see - what happened."

"I'm not blaming him.  It's just an example of how they're at cross purposes."  Dinah leaned her forehead against him, quiet for a moment and then she grimaced.  "Yeah, getting him to see it will be a piece of cake compared to her.  You better figure out how you're gonna make her sit still and listen." 

'Oh making her sit still and pay attention is the easy part. Getting her to forgive me afterwards, that's the hard part."

"What's the hard part?" Ian asked as he walked up to them. "She's in bed, Libby is sitting  with her. Jonah is trying to decide who to kill first, you or me. I've no idea where Stephen is."

"He can take care of himself, or Marc can tell him it's safe to come back now.  Up to you." Dinah said.  "May I be rude and ask for a drink, while suggesting you bring the bottle?"

Ian nodded and went and did bring her the bottle and three glasses.  He sank down into a chair looking haunted.

Marc poured for the three of them, shoving one glass under Ian's nose. "I can make her relive it."

Ian looked up and anger flared in his eyes. "No."

Dinah looked at her glass wondering if she had the right words to explain.  Then she shrugged inwardly, reflecting that the worst that he could do to her was turn her into a frog.  She was pretty sure if he did Marc would eventually make him change her back.  "I'm sorry for doing it the way I did.  But it was the only way I could think of."  She looked over at Ian.  "She doesn't believe she was raped.  She believes she consented, that she betrayed you, that she helped Collins hurt you because she craved him physically and that she had control over the craving.  So I'm guessing that what happened to your face was her fighting Collins now that she could, not understanding that she literally couldn't then."  She swallowed some scotch.  "That's the simplified version.  There are complexities I'll get to later.  But the result is she's terrified if you find out she'll lose you.  She thinks maybe you already do know and she's already losing you."

He put his head in his hands. "I have no idea how she can possibly think that."

"If she's already feeling guilty," Marc offered, "she's interpreting things that you mean one way, an entirely different way. You need to talk to her Ian. Admit all those feelings you always bury."

"But the good news about that is that it's not the first thing that should probably happen," Dinah said.  "The other piece of good news is she doesn't have to relive it.  She just has to realize that it was rape, physically, emotionally and mentally.  The bad news, unfortunately, is there's nothing worse she could imagine happening to her so she's convinced herself she doesn't remember Oman, even though she's comparing the two events."

"And we can't just let her.. get over it?" Ian asked, frowning.

"She won't just get over it, partly because she's trying to get over something that didn't happen and not what did." Dinah said.  "She trapped in it now and it will only get worse."

Ian nodded miserably.

"And don't go blaming yourself. I'm the expert at that. Look. We've all got enemies. Just do everything to keep her safe now."

Dinah let the silence lengthen, thinking over what she'd seen and felt when she'd been monitoring Betty Jo's emotions.  "Ideally, she's willing to cooperate or prefers cooperation to the alternative.  So we need an alternative she'd dislike more."

Ian looked up.  "Such as?"

"Hurting you," Dinah said bluntly.

"My main psi power is coercion," Marc explained. "I can get her to see it. Just to begin to look, and then I think she'll put it together. She needs to do it herself though. If I just coerce her toward everything that would be counter-productive. But she's hurt you, and sees it on your face every time she looks at you. So we might as well use it as best we can to get her to agree to begin."

"Once she puts it together she has all the choices there are about how to handle it.  Right now she has no choices at all.  He might as well still have her," Dinah said.

"Well, it's entirely up to her. I'm not going into the business of telling her what to do. If she says no, it's no," Ian replied, his face showing that it was a line he wasn't going to cross.

They waited until she woke up on her own, late in the afternoon and had eaten something, cajoled by her mother.  Then her parents left and Dinah, with Marc and Ian had gone to see her, to explain.  Dinah sat on one side of the bed, holding her hand, sending her reassurance and love with every breath and left the hard work to Marc and Ian to start with. 

When she looked to Ian to see his opinion, he merely said, "It is entirely up to you. If you choose to do it, then that's fine. If you want to wait, or not do it at all, that's fine too."

"I hope your nose survives," Marc offered lightly.

Betty Jo flamed scarlet, tears filling her eyes. 

Dinah plucked a kleenex from the box by the bed and handed it to her.  "It sounds hateful, but it's the risk you're taking if you go on like this."

She wiped her eyes, and then started shredding the tissue.

Dinah watched her for a minute, felt her absorbing it.  Then, "you don't have to do it alone," she said looking at Marc for a second.  "I can be there with you if you want."

"Do you want Ian here too, or would you prefer him not to hear and see it?" Marc asked kindly.

Betty Jo crumbled the kleenex in her fist and looked Ian.

"However you want it, Betty Jo," was what Ian said.

She took a deep breath and firmed her jaw.  "You're hating this, aren't you?" she asked.

"Yes. Perhaps not in the way you think, however.  I don't want you to regret me learning something and then never be able to forget that I know it."

"And if you're there," she said steadily, "I don't have to tell you later."

"I see. In that case, if you want me to stay, I am more than willing to do so."  He hesitated.  "And either way, I'm not about to let this ... I mean to say... I love you," was all he could get out in front of Dinah and Marc.

"Oh, well done, Ian. Perhaps there's hope for you yet," Marc grunted.

Dinah scowled at Marc.  "Do you guys want some time to yourselves first?"

"Nope," Marc replied. "I'm good."

Dinah narrowed her eyes.  "I didn't mean you, jack ass."

"Oh," Marc said. "I see. Yeah, let's you and I get a drink."

Betty Jo giggled and watched them leave.  Then she shifted further up on the bed, looking at Ian.  "I love you," she told him.  "I'd rather die than hurt you."

He walked over to the bed and sat down beside her, taking one of her hands in his and lifting it to his lips. "Don't do this if you aren't sure it's a good idea."

"There isn't a better one that I know of," she said. 

He looked down at her hand as he stroked the back of it with his thumb.  "It won't change how I feel about you."

"I should just start trusting you more," she said.

He looked up at her in surprise.

"If I did, I'd never have thought it might."

"Have you been worrying about that, really? If so, please don't. I love you. There's the only explanation and the total one."

She nodded, holding on to his eyes.  "But you see it's changed how I feel about me, so I can't understand how it hasn't changed how you feel about me."

"I can't help you there. I don't think love is logical."

She smiled.  "No, apparently not and I'll be grateful for that for the rest of my life."

He leaned in and kissed her tenderly. "Shall I bring them in now? I'd like to get this over with. So we can put it where it belongs. In our past not in our present or our future."

"Me too," she said.

He nodded and got up to bring in Dinah and Marc.

"Are you ready, Betty Jo? I'm going to enter your mind, and drag up the memories. They won't be pleasant and you might want to avoid them. But we're going to look at them anyway," Marc explained. "Secrets never do anyone any good. Better to face them, face things in the full light of reason."

She just nodded, holding onto Ian's hand.

She gasped as Marc's consciousness rushed into her mind. He wasn't trying to be subtle. He wanted her to know what he was doing and where he was looking. He wanted to reassure her that he was only interested in this instance, nothing else. So he dove right into her memories and, since they were so traumatic, they were right there too look at.

Then suddenly it was like she was there again. A man appearing out of nowhere and she... She taken.

She surfaced from the drug in a room she didn't recognize.  The realization that she was naked was followed by the one that said her feet hurt, her body ached and her head was pounding worse than the morning after the one time she'd ever gotten seriously drunk.  She lifted her hand to forehead and realized she was tied to the bed.  The thought dried her mouth, and made her dizzy.  It sent her heart racing, and she was suddenly looking around for Jolie.  She could smell a man's sweat and the rancid odor of recent sex.  She closed her eyes for a moment and concentrated, trying to remember and she couldn't. 

Then she separated out the aches, identified their sources and fear twisted her stomach, making her gag, making her whimper in fear, wondering if, thinking perhaps that this was still Oman.  But if this was Oman where was Jolie?  She retched again as the fear grew, turning her head, not wanting to choke on her own vomit, tears of helplessness rolling one by one into her hair.    She closed her eyes tight willing away the sensation of hands on her skin, rejecting the images of men on top of her, inside of her and said the word that Julian and Ian had promised would save her, that would get her out of here. 

When nothing happened she almost screamed, tearing frantically at the bonds that held her, struggling until she was drenched in sweat, exhausted and losing the fight against panic.  She let herself cry then, great gulping sobs that made the pain in her head return and become blinding.  Then the light clicked on overhead, blinding her in another way and a voice she knew was speaking to her but she couldn't see him.

"I must apologize for not being here to greet you when you woke up," Collins said.  "You seemed so tired after we were first reunited that I felt you would be better for a nap.  I just couldn't help myself, having been dreaming of that moment since last we met."  He stepped over to the bed, wrinkling his nose.  "It's no wonder you have a headache my love," he said and waved a languid hand removing them both from the room and putting her down on another bed in another room.  "Would you like a shower first my love?  Or do you trust me to love you anyway?"

She cringed back away from him, shaking her head, looking around for something, anything to help her.

"Ah," he said, "I see you do and that pleases me so much.  And bodes so well for our future, darling.  Because pleasing me is what will please you, I know."  He smiled at her, a smile as languid and complicated as the motion of his that brought her here had been.  Then he bent forward, brushing her hair away from her face and smiling as she whimpered, clinching her teeth to keep them from chattering. 

"Still I think I'd prefer you just a bit tidier," he said and made another complicated movement with his hand while the other grabbed a wrist and pinned it above her head.  As she froze at the touch he grabbed the other and did the same.  "I know you want to touch me my love, to pleasure me as you know how to do so well, but this time it is my turn to pleasure you," he told her, looking in her eyes.  Then he bent his head, kissing her brutally, explicitly, using the shock and pain to force her mouth open, the pressure to hold her head in place, and using his weight to keep her body pinned as she struggled under him, writhing to get free.

His clothes disappeared and he used his knee to force her legs apart giving her the only opening she had.  She brought her knee up fast, as hard as she could and square into his groin and screamed as her knee hit not him but some sort of barrier.  Then she screamed again as he entered her and fainted.

He'd tied her up again while she'd been unconscious and was sitting in an arm chair near the bed watching her, smiling faintly.  She smelled him before she saw him, the same smell of sweat and stale sex, making her gag.

"Tsk, tsk, darling.  We can't have you so upset as all that.  It quite ruins the pleasure I mean you to have in pleasing me."  He looked her over critically and smiled.  "But I can fix that, my love.  And I think I shall."  Then he stood and approached the bed, standing over her, naked and erect and began to intone in a language she didn't know, using words that made no  sense.  He was still intoning as she felt something weighing down her eyelids, forcing them closed.  And she took the sound of it back down into unconsciousness never knowing he finished the spell by raping her again.

Marc released her then, feeling sick himself. Ian looked emotionless, but was, Marc figured, frozen in shock more than anything else.  He looked down at Betty Jo who was hanging onto Ian sobbing.

"I'm so sorry," he said.

Dinah, pale and trembling, touched his arm, shaking her head.  "She can't hear you," she whispered, "and they don't need us anymore."

Marc nodded, wrapped Dinah in his arms and winked them out and home.

Ian could find no words. All he could do was hold her and pray.

She held onto him as the only safety in a world that made no sense, her face pressed to his neck, shuddering against him, hearing the same great, gulping sobs she'd cried then.   She held him while the memories shifted and resettled, configured anew.  Gradually the sound of his voice murmuring against her hair found a pathway through and into her conscious mind and she felt the sobs start to ease.

"It's over now. You're safe," was his mantra. He said it over and over, willing himself to believe that it would always be true. That even if she went back to work, he'd somehow find a way to make it be true. He stroked her hair and held her, almost afraid when her sobs began to ease. Then, when they ended, he pushed her away enough so that he could see her eyes.

"I love you."

She could only nod, letting the words sink and settle among the memories, start to blunt the edges, having no idea how she'd ever be able to let go of the hold she still had on him.   She wanted to tell him how grateful she was that he loved her and couldn't get the words around the trembling inside of her.  So she nodded again instead and let herself drown in his eyes.

How long they just sat locked in each others arms, neither of them remembered, but finally they both fell asleep, and this time it was dreamless.

It was dark when she woke, still held securely against him.  She lay there for a while, listening to the soft regular huff of his breathing, memorizing the relaxed cast of his features, and monitoring the slow, regular beat of his heart.  She closed her eyes for a moment and breathed in the scent of him, moving her nose closer and pulling it deep, unlocking all it's subtlety and richness.  Then she focused on, noticed, realized the way each inch of him felt on her skin, and all the different textures of him, mapping all of the sensory knowledge of him she could gather against all the other catalogues of him she'd made right down to the one she'd made the night before she'd left for Las Vegas.  She found and resolved all the differences and knew she'd never go back to the work she'd done before. 

She shaped the thought in her mind, held it, owned it as her own and then set it aside.  And when it was gone and the only thing left in her mind was him and all her love of him, she let her hands move softly, gently on his skin, feeling the warm life of it under her palms as they moved, lifting and falling with the contours of his muscles, spreading her fingers wide so she'd miss nothing and watched his face.

His eyes flew open and she watched as they adjusted to focus on her.  He met her eyes and waited. She could see some fear there, worry, but there was hope too.

"Hullo," was what he said.

"Hi," she said, her voice as soft as the flow of her hands, gentle as the smile she didn't have to search for curving her mouth.

"What are you doing?" he asked, seemingly bemused as her hands explored him.

"Touching you, remembering, learning, loving you.  I'll stop if you'd like, but I'd rather not."

"I hope you never stop."

She smiled again, as gently as before but with something else, filled with promise and possibility.  "Then I shan't," she said.  "Would you mind if I kissed you?"

"I've been hoping you would." His lips met hers eagerly.

She traced his lips with the tip of her tongue, letting it linger on the cut there, absorbing the faint, aching taste of blood and then moving on, following the molded shape through each curve and dip.  She explored the inside of his mouth, finding and making her own all of it.  She let her lips drift then, feather light over his face, caressing each bruise, then down again back to his mouth, feeling the warmth under her hands on his back become hotter, the muscles harder, and she pressed closer to him in response.

"Are you sure," he asked. "We've got all our lives. I can wait if you need to."

"I need not to," she said.  "But I can wait if you'd rather."

"No, I want to make love to you, to make love with you, to erase those memories and to treat you the way you should be treated."

"And that's what I need.  To make love to you, to make love with you, to erase the memories and to treat you the way you should be treated."