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Mason spoke to her from the doorway, not wishing to startle her, her voice calm and gentle. She looked at the ebon haired woman with patience and concern very clear on her face, entering the room and pulling a chair over by the bed, sitting down by her.
Constance glanced up as Mason called her name, wiping her face on the sleeve of her shirt, a terrified look on her face. She backed further into the headboard, her sapphire eyes widening with fright.
"It's me, Mason."
Recognition dawned as Constance focused on her visitor, and she buried her head against her knees again, wrapping her arms over her head. "God, don't look at me… no one should look at me any more."
"Constance, why shouldn't anyone look at you?"
"Because it hurts. It always hurts," she answered, her words wavering between a whimper and a snarl.
"Am I hurting you by looking."
Constance took an abrupt breath, whispering, "No."
"Good… then you can look at me too, can't you?"
She sat up quickly, rapping her head on the wall behind her, looking at Mason with dull calm. "Of course. I can do anything you like."
Mason blinked a few times, startled by the change. "Hey, this is nice, we can have a conversation… watch your head though, or it'll hurt, and them I'll have to stop looking." She smiled. "You can? Great… fist thing to do is relax."
A complex series of expressions slipped across Constance's face – bitterness, anger, hurt… fear towards the end, though it was quickly masked. "Yes, of course. I apologize." She smiled in return, relaxing. "I'm not usually this emotional."
"Oh… there is nothing to apologize for. You went through some awful things. Why does it hurt for people to look at you, Constance?"
"It reminds me of what I am. I had something to cling to, a purpose before… but now?" She half shrugged, letting the mask slip again as her lower lip trembled, remembering Lucille's words to her during her interview. "There is always something new to learn, I suppose. Change is inevitable."
"What was your purpose before?"
"Information gathering." Bitterness crept into Constance's voice as she spoke, and she frowned, closing her mouth tightly.
"That doesn't sound like a purpose you really loved… What do you really want, Constance?"
"To be free. I don't want to be a burden on anyone. I am."
"You right now feel like you're a burden, because you're having a lot of stress and depression... it's not that unusual after someone has been through what you have. But you'll recover; I can already tell you will. And you won't be a burden then. So that's something to work toward."
"Oh yes, I suppose it is." Constance glanced at Mason curiously, suppressing any other emotions. "What do you know of what I've been through?" She spoke this very softly, in a highly non-confrontational tone.
"I haven't been told all. That you were…" Mason paused, having difficulty broaching the subject, firstly, because she had conflicting feelings about it, secondly because it was socially taboo, and thirdly because she didn't know how Constance would react to it. "That Sinclaire was permitted to hurt you as some kind of sick reward, and, that he tried to kill you last week. That is what I've been told. I can imagine there was more, but not really what it's like, to be in your place. Not very well. I've talked with a lot of women who've had analogous situations, though... that's what I'm basing what I said to you on."
Constance nodded distractedly, almost as if not interested in the answer she was given.
Mason considered her reaction, noting her disregard for it, asking softly, almost as if wondering aloud, "That isn't what you wanted to know?"
Constance glanced at her, a rather penetrating look, studying her face while she spoke. "Oh, you don't ever want to know what it was like to be in my place, Ms. Weston. No, I don't think you do." She shook her head, dismissing the thought, forcing a jovial smile. "Yes, that is what I wanted to know. Thank you." No. She wanted to know if Mason had been a victim, like her. If Mason was an equal, as Constance saw equality. Apparently not.
"You can call me Mason… and… no, I am sure I don't want to, not like that. I wish no one knew those kinds of things." She wore a look of fierceness as she spoke, returning to a more soothing mien once the words were past.
"One cannot choose one's fate, but one can do their best to survive. I shouldn't complain – Sinclaire wasn't trying to kill me. He was trying to humiliate me. Killing would have been a messy afterthought."
"Why did he want to humiliate you?" Mason found herself, oddly, holding her breath awaiting the answer.
"Why does a sadist do anything? For a reaction – to see how far a person can be pushed before they turn into a sobbing heap on the floor. Some people enjoy taking life and crushing the will out of you." As Constance spoke, something in Mason's eyes caught her fast - a change....
As Mason considered Constance's response, something about her changed, transforming inside her as if light shone in a dark place... very subtle but evident in a lightening of some of the darkness in her eyes. She nodded, the fierceness showing through again. "Is that why you were crying? He pushed you too far?"
Constance studied Mason closely, noting her response and storing it away, her demeanor changing subtly to fit her new perception, her new concept of who Mason was. She smiled softly, rearranging herself on the bed, stretched out, resting on her hip, but still propped up slightly against the wall. A pose of invitation, where the prior pose had been of withdrawal. "Oh yes. That's why I was crying."
"What do you call the opposite? Someone who likes to take the sobbing heaps and turn them back into people?"
Constance smiled to herself, possessed of some internal mirth, the shade of her eyes deepening ever so slightly as she leaned forward, resting on her fingertips. She chuckled softly, catching Mason's glance and holding it. "A social worker? A saint?"
"Ahh. Maybe those terms fit." Mason paused, then she asked, "Will you let me?"
"Put Humpty Dumpty back together again? Take the shattered remnants of a once bright and gracious youth, now beyond caring, and bring her back to caring? I'd be delighted, Mason."
"If you mean that… what's the first thing you'd need?"
She breathed an answer before thinking about it. "Forgiveness…" Constance looked up, startled with the candor of her reply, but quickly regained her composure, smiling. "Someone to understand."
Mason nodded, thinking over the double answer. "What did you do wrong, Constance?"
"Oh, I'm pretty sure I misplaced my halo about the same time I lost my hymen, Mason. Wrong is highly subjective – I did what I was told."
Mason used her empathy, and guessed... used her intuition, and knew. "You were asked to do things you knew were wrong, and you had no choice but to do them. Sometimes you even enjoyed them, or part of you did. That made it worse. Mostly they were humiliating and you wanted to go cry but you couldn't. That you could stand such humiliation and not crumble... meant you were bad?"
The answer was spoken very softly. "Strength is a funny thing; sometimes the price of withstanding is greater than being made of glass."
"You survived… and what was the price?"
"Thirty pieces of silver. Not much, by today's economic standards."
"You betrayed someone?" Mason paused for a long while, guessing at Constance's complexity. "Nicholas?"
"Myself. Anything and everything I've ever cared about"
Mason whispered, trying to put what she was hearing into words. "To stand up for what you cared about would have meant your destruction. So you paid the price… and if you betrayed yourself… then you need forgiveness and understanding from yourself."
Constance shivered slightly, a flush of excitement coloring her cheeks. "Yes. Isn't it delicious? That's the one thing I can't do."
Mason looked into her eyes. "If I had done that… betrayed my principles, and you, because it was the only way for me to survive… would you be able to forgive me?"
Constance met Mason's eyes a second time, a warm, yearning light filling them. "No, but it wouldn't stop me from wanting to. I wouldn't want you any less."
"What… what do you want from me?" Mason spoke in tentative tones; she was dying to know, yet was suddenly, frighteningly aware that the woman lying in front of her was the most beautiful human being she'd ever been this close to.
Constance's lips drew upward into a half smile, half pout as she studied her visitor's reactions to her words. "Nothing you aren't willing to give. Love, perhaps."
Mason nodded, choosing her words carefully. "I care about you and Nick very much already. It's almost like you're family."
She nodded, accepting this answer. "You can comfort me in other ways then. I am very grateful for your friendship, Mason. It's been a long time."
Mason smiled. "I'm certainly not a saint, but I guess I'm kind of a social worker… but I really want to help you. I'll do my best. And yes, it's nice to have a friend."
"It's always good to have friends. And you are a saint, in your own way." Constance sat up, wrapping her arms around Mason in an affectionate hug, lingering a bit longer for the pleasure of her yielding warmth. Mason hugged her in return, feeling like maybe she helped… hoping anyway.