In Darkness

"Can you see them?" Sophia whispered.

"See who Sophia?" the man asked.

"Can you hear them?" she breathed.

"Sophia there's nothing there."

He moved to stand in front of her, worry clear on his face. "What is it?"

"Ric, I'm pregnant."

Sophia halted in the doorway. She shut her mouth, which had dropped slightly, and diverted her gaze, hoping he hadn't noticed her staring. He was... well, he was gorgeous, was what he was. How could she even get through an interview with this man?

"It's over now, Sophia, you're safe. You will always be safe." He held her protectively, soothing her fears, calming the terrors which haunted her dreams.

"You're Sophia, right?"

She looked up at the man, a faint flush blooming across her face.

He looked down at his notes. "Sophia Wyse? Here for the Divination position?"

"Och," she replied softly, "aye."

His lips pressed against hers, an beaming smiling spreading across his face. "We're going to have a baby? I'm going to be a father?"

"Sophia Wyse, would you make me the happiest man alive and be my wife?"

A hand moved to rest atop her heart. "Och, aye!" she exclaimed, tears springing to her eyes. "Wi' all me heart, aye."

"Ric..." Sophia breathed softly, waking to the sound of her own quiet voice. And then she hurt, making it impossible to determine whether it was the return of her memories or the pain which caused the tears to escape her eyes.

Gasping, she brought her hand to her right side, fingers brushing over the raised scars through the slashes in her clothing. She'd been healed, then, but seemingly only enough to stop the bleeding, not the pain nor the scarring. "Bloody hell," she choked out.

Sophia looked about her surroundings but all was darkness. Someone was there, though, she could sense them. Someone whose current circumstances weren't so different from her own.

"Hello?" she called softly, levering herself painfully up into a sitting position. "Who's there?"

The voice had been going on and off for hours now. Muttering to herself - words she supposed she should not hear, but were traveling to her through some form or another.

There was a time, she supposed, when such a voice, a new voice might have brought the woman hope.

But she had long since given up on hope. Hope had been lost around, two months, maybe three?

It had to be nearly four now.

And four months of captivity had left Kallie with nothing but a low simmering, bitter determination. As the noises continued from the other room - the other cell - Kallie continued to chisle away at the wall. More marks added, and other names too.

Brock, Eli, Julian, Elena, Ev-

"Nobody," she called back to the voice. "Here I am nobody - perhaps even out there I am nobody. The world has probably forgotten about me by now - left me for dead. Perhaps the world never remembered me at all."

Tilting her head in her own darkness, she frowned slightly, "But I supposed, since you asked, Kallie will do. Kallie Nikkala."

"The minister?" Sophia asked in surprise. "An' jist how long have ye been here, then? T'would seem th' Ministry's been keeping yer captivity a secret. Though, I suppose if they hadn't 've, there'd been panic."

Hand finding the wall, she pushed herself up to her feet. It took far more energy than she would have liked.

"Th' name's Sophia, Minister. Sophia Chaos." The name, her name, rolled naturally off her tongue for the first time in months, and Sophia couldn't help a small smile. "I'm nae really aneone 'cept tae my family, out there. I'm jist a professor. It's my husband that's important."

She slowly paced the boundaries of her cell. "I can tell ye this, however: ye havenae been forgotten."

A smile crossed her face slightly. Brock kept his head. Even if they weren't finding her, at least they were keeping her ministry under control. Thats all that really mattered anyways. As long as the ministry was fine, someone keep watch, then it didn't matter what happened to her.

"Three months, three weeks and five days," she intoned her finger running across the marks on the wall, she hadn't needed to count them to come up with that answer. "And no one's really noticed? Good. They want panic. We can't give them what they want."

She listened to the other woman, nodding her head. She knew that name, "Chaos. They've taken the headmasters wife?" The cogs in her brain started to move slowly. "I attended your wedding you know... your husband must be beside himself, never knew a man more besotted."

"Maybe it would be easier to be forgotten."

"Your people have done remarkably well at keepin' it under wraps," Sophia confirmed. "It wouldnae been easy."

She nodded, almost as though concurring with the Minister's unspoken thoughts. "I recall. I was very honored by your presence," she said. Pausing, she frowned unhappily, then continued slowly along the stone wall. "Aye, that he would. It hasnae been th' best of years fer him.

"Ye're wrong," Sophia responded without hesitation. "It isnae easier at all. Bein' forgotten is a bit like dyin'. It strikes th' heart, which is then forced tae continue beatin' through the pain." This, she knew, for she had seen it in Ric's eyes every day of the past sixth months when she met his gaze. It had been painful to see before her memories had returned; now, it hurt all the more keenly.

"Ye shouldnae be talkin' in such a manner, anehow, lass," the Scot admonished kindly. "We arenae stayin' here. By an' by, we're getting out an' home."

The slight smile that had grown at the meantion of her kidnapping being kept secret grew again, "Yes well, I always knew my people were good, very good, and almost anything they put their mind to." even if they didn't know that themselves.

"It was my pleasure," it amused her to be having such a mundane line of converstaion in such a bleak and serious place. "It was a lovely wedding."

Memories flashed through her head, thoughts, worries that she hadn't allowed herself for years floating by her. People who she was sure figured she'd forgotten about them.

She wondered what they'd say... if she could say that she never had. It wouldn't matter anyway.

"I suppose, I meant... its easier to do the forgetting, than to be forgotten. Such a double edge, that one. One one side, it can go so fast, and the other... it can drag on for... forever."

She wasn't entirely sure she was making sense. But then again, it had been so long that she talked to anyone who made sense, anyone that wasn't attempting ot play with her, taunt her into losing her cool, that perhaps she had an excuse.

"Strenght, fight. Thats a good thing to have. I still have it... somewhere; I know it may not seem like it but... I can feel it hiding. You're right. We will get out."

Somehow.

"We're not getting out,"


Alise's voice cracked through the darkness, a rusty blade cutting the silence around her. Her English was childish at best, but it didn't take a genius to figure out who was talking and what about. Her Russian was harsher than necessary, but felt right upon her tongue as if all of the anxieties she felt alone, waiting in the web of darkness for something to happen, were released.

The murmurs of comfort were muffled through the singular vent in the room. A singular pin of light gleamed against the metal, bright, too bright in the complete darkness. She knew this meant there was a hole in the wall, an escape, but didn't dare to bother.

She could almost feel the hound creeping from her imagination into the lighted space, waiting. Growling. Hungry.

She sat adjacent from the vent, watching as if she were actually involved in conversing. In her mind, the three were chatting about pleasantries and politics over a cup of tea. The sugar would slowly dissolve from her spoon, tumbling like grains of sand into the abyss of her drink as she listened to the two. Maybe speak of the English one's wedding, even if Alise couldn't contribute very much to the group. Reality wasn't as kind.

"We're gonna die here," the Russian stated, stacatto, "Die filthy and broken."

Curling her knees to her chin, a child scolded by the absence of light, Alise's emotions over powered her voice, leaving it broken and cracked. "We're not getting out of here."