Kennedy's Redemption (The Protectors 3)

“I haven’t seen Kenny in a few days and thought I’d check up on her is all. She’s closed off, quiet, and keeps things close to the chest. But we’ve sorta become friends. Or at least, I thought we had,” she finished quietly.

“We’ve kept her busy,” Linc said with a smirk gracing his lips.

“You have a problem with shutting your mouth today, bro?” Creed snapped, ready to throttle his twin… with a paring knife.

“It’s cool, just treat her right. She deserves it more than anyone I know. I don’t know what she went through, but I know enough to figure out it was bad.”

“How did you two meet?” He found himself curious.

“She didn’t tell you?” Shaking his head, she smiled. “The market. A few weeks after she came. Something happened and she had a flashback I think. Anyway, I helped her out,” she explained. Not realizing that he was burning to know what happened to make her have a flashback, he could feel his blood boiling. If someone had touched her, he’d kill them.

Seeing Creed’s rage fighting to the surface, Linc saved him by responding, “Huh, interesting. You know where she goes so early in the morning?”

“Florence?”

“Yeah we got that, but why?”

“She didn’t tell you?” At their head shakes she simply said, “Then you need to wait and find out,” before taking off to finish her run.

“Fucking women.” Linc shook his head, not quite laughing but wanting to.

“Fucking women,” he agreed. Because really that pretty much summed up the frustrating gender.

·?•? ?•?·

Nearly late for her appointment with Dr. Schroder, she ran a stop sign three blocks away. With horns blaring she yelled her apologies. Which if she thought about it was really pointless since she was half a block away, and unless they were Spiderman, they wouldn’t hear her anyway. Parking her little Mini Cooper, she climbed out and rushed to the front of the building. With a quick nod to the security at the front desk, she slipped into the elevator.

Four floors later and she was just barely on time.

“Good morning, Miss Maxwell,” Dr. Schroder greeted her with his usual smile while handing his receptionist a file.

Smiling, she followed him into his office. While she sat down in her usual spot by his window, she could feel his eyes on her. “What?” she finally snapped.

The huge smile spread across his face was puzzling until he said, “And there she is.” Sitting down at his own desk like usual.

“There who is?” Genuinely confused, she didn’t understand what he was getting at.

“You don’t see what just happened?” Tilting her head quizzically, she waited for him to continue. “Well, first of all, you smiled today. You’ve never done that before.” He pointed out. “And just now, you snapped at me. Kennedy, you’ve never shown me anything but a lost and scared woman. Today, I’m seeing not only someone who is, at least, starting to become happy but someone who is ready to open up.”

He watched her as she thought about that. Was she happy? Was she ready to open up?

Pulling out her sketch pad and pencils, she opened it up to a clean page. Looking out the window, she wasn’t sure what to do. She knew she needed to talk about her emotions, about what happened, but reliving it wasn’t something she ever wanted to do. However, because no one knows what happened to her, she felt like she was lost in a sea of darkness. Every time she found herself smiling, she always wondered when the darkness would swallow her whole again.

Blindly reaching into her bag, she pulled out her journal that she’d been writing all her inner thoughts in since she started coming to see the doctor. Looking at it, flipping through the hundreds of word-filled pages, she wondered if it would help to share some of it with him.

Placing it on the table beside her, she started to draw. At first it was shapes and lines, nothing solid. But the more her hand flew across the page in sweeping lines and arches, she realized she’d drawn two pairs of eyes.

Creed. His eyes ran so deep she sometimes felt like she was looking into his soul. He was hurting too. From what, she didn’t know. But the shadows were there, easy to find once you got to know him.

Linc. Laughing and joking. Always trying to bring her out of her shell. He had demons lurking deep inside though. He wore his heart on his sleeve, and any time he could make her smile or laugh his entire face would light up with pride.

She admired them both for their strengths. For stepping into the roles they’d been given in life. She knew they’d had a less than ideal upbringing— a shitty mother followed by crappier foster homes, one after the other. It’s sad that it was a typical story in America for many kids.

Heartbreaking really.

Without thinking she spoke, “They brought me back from the edge you know? Even when they weren’t there, they were. When they left a piece of me died. I never thought I’d find it again.” Looking to the doctor she waited for him to tell her some bullshit crap about a person not having that kind of power over another, but he didn’t so she continued. “Then they came back. They’re here. I keep waiting to wake up and find them gone but they haven’t, and I find myself thinking they’ll stay.”

“What’s you biggest fear where they’re concerned, Kennedy?”