agirllost

Kim's been writing out her memories, sorting them into "real" and "not real".

It's much easier now, even if certain images will never leave her head, she knows they never happened.

At least, she knows why they happened now. How things changed, why she was stuck there...and she knows that her dad's not dead and that Chase isn't a terrorist.

She still hasn't been spending much time in the bar, but she might go down at some point.

Slowly she's been able to get used to being around people again - but she craves silence more than she ever has before.

'You know the man in that chair wasn't your dad, stop thinking about him,' she commands her mind, but it's no use, she doesn't think she'll ever be able to erase that memory.

He looked at her not with fear but with resignation and the man standing near her, his hand touched her hair and she'd wanted to run but she couldn't move and...

'Stop thinking about it. It's not real. It didn't happen. Stop.'

She holds a few strands of hair in front of her eyes, looking at the color and hating it all over again. 'Need to get hair dye,' she thinks.

She wakes up and is alone. But that doesn't cause her any fear, she sometimes prefers being alone now. At least, if she's alone she doesn't have to think or try to figure out what's real. She can just lie in bed and pretend the rest of the world doesn't exist.

A small part of her knows that she should *not* feel that way, that curling up in her room is not a way to deal with problems and that for most of the people in the bar she only has one set of memories, but she doesn't know how much longer she can take her dreams. She meant what she said to Chris, having no memories would make things so much easier.

And she wouldn't have the nightmares anymore, the blood-soaked visions she can't escape, because she remembers standing in the supermarket and how the person behind her suddenly screamed and grabbed their nose. They were hemorrhaging and then other people followed suit, the virus spreading like wildfire.

Kim is immune and she pictures trying to help the woman and whoever else was hurting and the CDC arriving fast and waiting for her test results as she sat with her back against the customer service cage.

Then, other calls began pouring in and when she was finally free to go, that's when the men came to her door.

But part of her remembers none of that happening at all.

Kim's sitting in her room. She can't reconcile her memories with the truth or if it's not truth she doesn't know what it is.

Ryan both dead and alive. Tony both alive and dead. Chase recovering or in jail and her dad either working in DC or a wanted terrorist that she saw murdered in front of her.

She shivers at that thought. The images might never leave her mind, but Tony said he saw him. If her dad was haunting her, it wouldn't make any sense for other people to see him or talk to him. Especially not in the way Tony was describing.

However, if he is alive, or at least not a figment of her imagination, he would be here now that she's alone since Chris went to get something. But, he's not and if he's not...and Tony saw him...she isn't sure what's going on. But, if he was haunting her, he wouldn't exist in a place, he would just appear...

A little voice in her head says, 'Go see if he's in his room'.

She closes her eyes, trying not to cry because really, she...if he's not there, if he's dead, really dead, there are so many people she suddenly can't trust.

But she has to know. So she opens the door, really looking at her surroundings for the first time in days and she goes.

Kim's sitting by a lake. 'The lake outside the bar' she knows instinctively. A dark haired woman sits next to her and puts her arm around her shoulder.

"Mom," She wraps her arms around her, "You're back."

Teri brushes the hair off her face but doesn't say anything.

"My memories of the bar...of things that happened here, they're real?"

Teri smiles and nods.

Kim holds her tighter, "That doesn't seem possible. I remember all these other things."

Teri strokes her hair gently.

The lake in front of them turns into a watercolor.

"You painted that," Kim whispers. "I remember watching you paint it... I..."

'He tried to change the future but he failed' she hears as a whisper in her mind.

"Is Dad with you?"

Teri looks at her sadly and shakes her head.

"Where is he?"

Finally, Teri speaks. "Sweetie, he's right behind you."

Kim turns her head to see a stained hand on her shoulder. She looks up and her dad is there, but half his head's gone and the blood is dripping down his arm.

"I'm so sorry, sweetheart."

She stares at him, her mind blank with horror. "Why...why aren't you with mom?"

"Sweetie, he knows where he's going after he leaves."

He nods and drops of blood hit her cheek.

She looks from her mom to her dad and starts to cry.

Kim wakes up sobbing.

[OOC: Warnings for violence, drug use and general scariness]

Kim wakes up in darkness. She feels the ground moving underneath her and realizes that she's blindfolded.

'Oh God'.

She stifles a scream, 'don't panic,' she thinks. But that's a hard command for her mind to follow, especially when this brings up so many bad memories.

Her heart's pounding and her head aches. She feels tape over her mouth and her hands are restrained behind her and she forces back a wave of nausea. She breathes through her nose, but she knows it's too fast, knows that she needs to calm down but hysteria is creeping around the corner.

'How did I get here?'

At least answering that will stave off the panic attack. She remembers walking out of a bar and then...nothing.

No, there's something, a vauge recollection of being hurt (beaten, her mind supplies).

She feels the impossibility of her situation. She knows this can't end well. If they accidentally picked her up, fighting them would give them an excuse to hurt her more. If it wasn't accidental...her stomach turns at the thought.

She feels herself stop moving and there are footsteps outside and her legs are free but she doesn't know how many there are or where they even are and she didn't wear the gun.

Hands around her arms and she's being pulled through a door and down a walkway and then a flight of stairs and she feels herself being pushed onto a chair. Her head rocks forward and back and she lets out a soft moan of pain behind the gag.

She can smell sweat and blood and...a man's cologne?

Her hands are untied and her left hand is seized in a powerful grip. The blindfold is removed and when she looks up she can't stop herself from struggling.

Ramon Salazar is standing in front of her.

She's seen his picture in files, she's read reports of what he's done to people who cross him and he's looking at her in a way that makes her skin crawl.

"We just have a couple of questions and then you're free to go." His accent is softer than she expected.

He leans forward and pulls the tape off her mouth and she flinches at the thought of him touching her.

She doesn't say anything. She just looks at him.

"Jose," he says and her pinky is forced back, too far back and she hears the snap before she feels the pain.

"Shall we try that again?"

Her heart's racing and she's trying not to focus on her hand.

Salazar looks at the man standing next to her and another finger breaks. She tries not to scream but she tastes copper from where she bit her lip.

"Where did you get the money?"

She continues looking at him and decides it's okay to speak since she has no idea of the true answer and this isn't a matter of national security. "What money?"

He laughs and lights a cigar, "The money in your bag,"

"I don't know."

He wraps his hand around her throat and holds the lit end of the cigar near her eye. "It's a simple question, where did you get the money?"

She tries to think but can't remember and the lack of memory suddenly frightens her because it's a gap she can't explain - she has a sudden flash of watching a dark haired woman paint near a lake - but the money just seemed to have appeared. She's starting to have all these strange flashes of memory or hallucinations. How could she know what it felt like to kiss Tony? She has this odd image of her parents together and knows that she must have snapped.

Instead, she stares at the ash, knowing that if she doesn't say something Ramon will blind her.

"Why do you want to know?" she whispers.

"Because it's my money. And it's missing from an account that only three people knew about,"

"I swear I don't know how I --"

He glared at her with flat eyes, "Do you know what your father used to do to people who lied to me?"

Before she could move, he crushed the cigar against the back of her hand and this time she did scream, feeling the heat eat through her skin and knowing for certain that there was no way out.

She looked around at the men with guns and wanted to cry.

"I don't know anything I swear I don't know..." Her hand is making her forget any other pain she had or ever had experienced

Her right hand is cuffed to the chair and against her will she tries to pull away.

"You've heard from him?"

"No,"

"I don't believe you."

"I'm not lying, I haven't heard from him, I swear that I haven't..." Another finger breaks and she can't stop the tears.

Salazar's hand grips her chin and forces her to look at him. "Do you think I'd really take the word of a Bauer? You're a liar, just like your father."

She glares at him through watery eyes, "You have no idea what my dad's like," she whispers.

He laughs, "I think you're the one who doesn't know him," He places his hand on her knee and squeezes gently, "But you will."

Someone hands him a syringe and she struggles to get away.

"Addiction is bad enough, but addiction when so many dealers have died of the disease? Not a kind fate. "

"Please, I don't know anything, I came down here to find him, I haven't seen him I..."

He's too close to her, his breath against her ear, "I could tell you what your father used to do for a fix..."

She feels his hand on her throat and he's pressing down and the world's starting to get dimmer.

'I'm going to die here,' But it's more of a shock when she realizes a quick death is the only way to keep from experiencing more pain.

He lets go and she falls forward, gasping for air. The syringe is still in his hand.

Two days later and Kim's managed to piece together some notes. She knows she needs to leave the room, but she feels safe with the gun and the money and her files.

Slowly, things are starting to come together. And she's having memories she hadn't had before, confusing her with their clarity.

She remembers being at Tony's funeral.

It's a memory that knocks her back for a moment, because it never happened, but she sees Michelle standing at the graveside and Ryan with his hand on her shoulder and what the hell, Ryan's still alive?

Another memory -- seeing Chase being led away bruised and broken and seeing her dad standing there in a white bloodstained shirt.

That never happened either. But she felt the betrayal and hurt of Chase being a terrorist and horror at what her dad did, even if...

She closes her eyes, no, these aren't her memories.

Most of all she remembers the dead and dying, watching the news reports about the quarantine zones, her worst nightmares come to life. And the rumors started that her dad was somehow involved, that he'd turned and his name was soon all over the news as a co-conspirator. She hadn't wanted to believe that it was true until those men came to her door...

She rubs her head, what men?

They had guns. And badges. She remembers running into her bedroom and grabbing the weapon her dad insisted she have for safety and sneaking down the fire escape, because she'd claimed she was just running to the bathroom and the rest of it's a blur.

Chloe's friend Andrew had known where to get fake ID. Chloe was an unlikely ally but she couldn't believe that what they were saying about Chase was true. Andrew was a conspiracy theorist. He was convinced the government was hiding something...

Kim blinks because that memory wasn't *there* an hour ago, but suddenly she remembers Andrew telling her to get to Canada before they closed the borders.

She remembers sitting in her Ford and waiting on the long line. She knew they were testing at the border, the guards were all wearing decon suits. Her heart was racing and she checked her nose and mouth, but there were so many people around and even one of them had the virus...

They barely looked at the passport, much more concerned about the test results.

Once inside the country she started traveling East. It's hard being in Toronto and not looking up her grandmother's family. But she doesn't want to put them in danger, isn't even sure what the danger might be, and she's running out of East.

She fears it's like that movie, where if you spend too long in a changed world the one you remembered fades from your memory.

'I need to pack' she thinks and quickly does so, putting everything in the two suitcases she's found. After the room is clean (and some small voice in her mind tells her to wipe down all the surfaces she touched) she puts the laptop bag over her shoulder and turns off the lights. But it feels like she's inhabiting someone else's life and she's afraid that she might never get back to hers.

Before she leaves she tries the bathroom door one more time, but she only sees the inside of a hotel bathroom, not her friends and family. She forces herself not to panic, but she remembers Meg telling her about her friend and the thought of spending years in this place is the most frightening one she can imagine. She shuts the door again.

"Please let me back in," she whispers, leaning her forehead against the door.

But when she opens the door she knows the truth, she's trapped outside. She doesn't know how long she was here before, but she knows that she has to go before someone, anyone finds her.

The virus's almost contained. It may be safe to try and re-enter America soon.

Even if America's dangerous, the thought of seeing it again is almost comforting.

She picks up her bags and exits the hotel room.

[OOC: Kim sees the door and decides to go home for a few hours]

Kim expects to find herself back in the woods. Instead, she's in a dark room. The ground is soft and she fumbles for a light. She thinks she must be in her house. But when she finds the light switch she sees an unfamiliar room and a silhouetted skyline that she doesn't recognize.

She quickly runs back to the door and opens it but instead of a bar she sees...a bathroom.

"No," she whispers trying to stay calm. "This isn't right."

She sits on the bed and turns on the TV, hoping it provides some answers.

"Authorities say that the viral epidemic that has swept through the US is almost contained. Some cities, though, they warn, will not be safe for another few months."

Tears fall down her face and she doesn't try to stop them. No. It's not possible. She picks up the remote and goes to the next station but her hands are trembling.

"The architect of the attacks, Stephen Saunders, is now being held in Guatanamo Bay. Sources say that authorities are questioning him about an antidote."

Kim turns off the TV, aware of the silence, and hugs herself tightly. Something's gone horribly wrong.