Chapter Text
Amber’s eyes grew wide, and she took a step back.
“Violet, your father–”
“Yes, yes, I know all that bull you told me. He went to Afghanistan, but never came back.”
“Violet–”
“He is literally sitting in our house. Right. Now. And after fourteen years, I found him. I actually know who my dad is, Mom. Chris, or Dad, at this point, went to Afghanistan. He took trips to Iraq. The timeline fits perfectly with what you said; he never came back because he was working for a company that had no outside affiliation. And then he was sent to that asylum for four years, which matched up perfectly with how much you tried to contact him, but never got an answer.”
Amber opened and closed her mouth, sighing instead. She glanced off to the side, putting a hand up to her chin.
“Does he know?” Violet asked.
Her mother paused.
“No, he doesn’t. But Violet, that was a long time ago. He didn’t even know I had you before he left.”
“Then why can’t he know now?”
Amber looked at her.
“How did you even figure this out?”
Violet looked at her like she was crazy.
“Are you kidding me? Look at me, and then look at him. Can you not see the resemblance? I mean–for crying out loud–you had sex with h–”
Amber held her hand up, grimacing as she shook her head.
“That’s enough. We’ll talk about this later. I will talk with him, see if he has any sort of reaction to all of this.”
Violet swallowed, saying one last thing before she left her room.
“What was he like? When you first met him?” She asked, grabbing her mother’s attention once more.
Amber lingered on the doorknob, turning back to face Violet.
“He was sweet, and he was just like you when you were younger.”
She pulled a small smile.
Violet screwed her brow, nodding her head.
“Okay.”
“Put some ice on that bruise, it’s going to swell,” Amber said before she left the room.
~
Chris sat on the couch, continuing to think to himself.
He heard the click of a door, and saw Amber coming down the stairs.
He looked at her, noticed her. Wondered why he found her so familiar. He dug through his memory, but bits and pieces of his past felt like digging a never ending hole. Her name struck, but he couldn’t find a reason why. Like he knew her before.
She glanced at him before she broke eye contact.
Amber stood straight as she went into the kitchen, grabbing her purse and things.
Violet made her appearance, walking down the stairs and putting the home phone back down on the receiver. Amber murmured something close to her ear, seeing her reaction of surprise as she looked at her. Violet nodded her head, a small smile on her face. He saw her murmur an ‘okay’ before she kissed her daughter on the cheek.
“I’ll be back tomorrow morning. You boys be good,” Amber called as she walked out the door.
Both the twins waved their goodbyes, Chris merely grunting in response.
Violet went to work in the kitchen, grabbing several pans and a pot.
“What are you cooking?” One twin asked, looking up from his writing.
“Some dinner. Maybe some mashed potatoes, gravy, spaghetti,” Violet replied as she grabbed her ingredients from the cupboards.
“Do you need help?” Chris asked.
“No, I’m okay. I do this all the time,” Violet replied.
She had a smile, but one that didn’t reach her eyes. Chris took notice of this, only glancing away to break eye contact.
The phone suddenly rang, everyone’s attention looking to it.
Violet quickly grabbed it over the counter, standing over it awkwardly as she answered.
“Hello?”
She paused, breathing a sigh of relief.
“Glad to hear you’re okay. Thought you left us hanging,” she replied, still leaning over the counter.
She made a disgruntled face.
“Come over?”
Walker perked, listening and watching her.
She paused, listening.
“To talk about what?”
Her eyebrows then shot up in surprise.
“Oh, okay. S-Sure, we can do that, but my mom just left the house. Do you want to park in the garage?” She asked, standing up straight.
“Okay. Y-Yeah, we can do that,” she replied finally, glancing over Walker.
She paused, while she was looking at him.
“See ya then. Bye.”
She pulled the phone away from her ear, hanging up the call.
“Who was that?”
“Yes, who was calling?”
Violet sighed, putting the phone back down.
“Paul Marion,” she answered.
“Marion’s coming over?” Chris asked.
“Paul?” Rick asked as he entered the room again. “What about him?”
“He’s coming over, and said he wanted to meet you.”
“Meet us? After the shit he put us through?” Rick exclaimed.
Violet flinched at his voice, recollecting herself.
“He is. He said he wanted first-hand accounts of what it was like inside the asylum, for all of us,” she explained.
“How do you know he’s not lying?”
“What if he just wants to gain your trust?”
Both the twins’ questions were true, but Chris himself couldn’t wonder why he was so interested in them suddenly.
“If he was really still with the company, he wouldn’t be asking to hide his car in the garage,” Violet answered firmly.
It was maybe an hour before there was a knock at the door.
Violet had just finished making dinner, before she answered the door.
“Hey, glad you could make it,” she greeted before she gestured for the stranger to come in.
Chris watched as he saw that familiar face, worn with age, and his stupid yellow tie he wore.
Marion proceeded to look around, before his eyes fell on the others gathered around the kitchen table. He had a folder under one arm.
He wondered if he was keeping true to his word.
“You’re just in time for dinner,” Violet replied, trying to break the awkward silence between them.
“Oh, that’s sweet of you, but I don’t want to intrude more than I have to,” Marion replied, trying to straighten his suit jacket.
“What’s the rush?”
“Somewhere more important to be?”
Marion flicked his gaze towards the twins, looking at them and their odd appearance. He gave a small “huh,” before his gaze fell to Walker.
Walker just stared back at him, thrumming his fingers on the kitchen table. Marion nodded, walking over to Walker and offering his hand.
“Walker,” he said. “Good to see you again.”
Chris just looked down at his hand, before he glanced at Violet. She nodded for him to shake his hand, giving him a look. He rolled his eyes, shaking his hand, before squeezing more tightly than he should’ve.
“Good to be back,” he muttered.
“Well where’s my handshake, buddy? Did you forget about ole Rick?” Trager said, gesturing with his own hand.
Marion looked at him.
“Jesus Christ, what the hell happened to you?” Marion said, his eyes scanning over the skinny frame of Trager.
“I’ll spare you the details, but let’s just say my experience in that place they called an asylum wasn’t a happy one,” Trager replied.
Marion just looked, his brow screwed. He cleared his throat, trying to change the subject.
“Right, well, um, how about we talk about this over dinner,” he replied.
~
The interviews started, one by one, each person interviewed separately from each other, so that Marion could get a first hand account of each person’s time inside.
First it was Eddie, then the twins (they wanted to be interviewed together), Trager, Walker, and then Violet. Violet waited in the guest room with the others, impatient as she bounced her leg. They all waited as Marion was interviewing Walker.
“So to what purpose are these interviews for?” Eddie asked suddenly.
“Evidence.”
“To use against the company.”
“And with any doubt, they’ll retract everything we said with their fancy ass lawyers. Probably say we’re ‘mentally ill’ and ‘have it out for Murkoff’,” Trager said sarcastically.
~
“So how would you describe your time in the asylum?” Marion asked, a tape recorder playing in front of him.
Chris huffed, folding his hands on the table.
“Harsh…barely liveable…little food, water. Things like that,” Chris said, his voice quiet.
“And what did they do to you?”
Chris thought back to his time within that godforsaken place. All the memories of war mixed in with the memories of the asylum.
“It was like I was a prisoner, rather than a patient,” Chris started off saying, staring off to nowhere. “I was sedated most of the time; chemicals they would spray into the room.”
He bounced his leg under the table, a hint of his anxiety rising remembering the situation.
“Before I…completely lost it, I remember the experiments. The things they would do to us, to me. They’d force tubes and prod me with IVs while they tried to…use me for the morphogenic engine.”
“Morphogenic engine?”
“The thing they used to create the Walrider; a machine that amplified and created lucid dream states. My eyes–”
He cut himself off, trying to collect himself.
“My eyes had cataracts, because of the machine.”
“But your eyes are fine now. You look like you haven’t even taken a bullet to the face,” Marion pointed out.
Chris scoffed, rolling his eyes.
“Right, I can thank Glick for that.”
“Go on. What happened that night when everything went wrong?”
“I don’t know, but I just…remember people in uniform, blood, yelling; it’s all a blur to me.”
“When you say people in uniform, do you mean Murkoff security?”
“Yes.”
Marion sighed, leaning forward in his chair.
“What about after? Anything happen?”
“Everything was a blur, going through the motions. I see bits and pieces, but everything’s cloudy. At one point I blacked out. And then when I woke up, the girl…Violet…was on the floor, unconscious.”
“And what happened after that?”
“She woke up. Screaming, yelling, crying.”
“She was afraid of you?”
“Yes, I would think so. She slapped me in the face to try and get away from me.”
Marion sighed, stopping the tape recording.
“Everything you’ve said so far can be accounted for with the others’ claims. Minus Violet,” he said. “I’ll talk to her, and after this, I’ll be gone for the next few days.”
“I’ll go get her,” Chris replied, standing up.
“Wait a second,” Marion stopped him. “I have a question for you.”
Chris rolled his eyes.
“What?”
Marion paused, standing up with his hands on his hips.
“You never had any…past relationships you mentioned before, even before when you were working with Murkoff.”
“No…” Chris replied, inquiring for more info.
“You and that kid look alike. Why’s that?”
There it was.
Chris merely shrugged, thinking back in his memory.
“I don’t know,” he answered, crossing his arms.
Marion pulled a smile, looking down.
“Yeah, right. Bring her down here, and I’ll be out of your hair,” Marion replied.
He nodded in response, going upstairs to fetch Violet. He opened the door, seeing her sitting on the bed in the guest bedroom, her hands folded neatly together, waiting patiently. Just like how he used to do.
He gestured out the door.
“You’re up kid,” he said to her.