“Look, the Sargent Major was wanting her to know.” Sabine said for the fourth or fifth time, she wasn’t counting.
“It’s too soon. What good will come of it? None, I tell you. I didn’t sit in that bed with her working through all of this, hiding in town, just to have some guy screw her up by pushing too hard too fast. If she wanted to know something, she would have asked. She didn’t until he opened his big mouth!” It was Casey all over again. She wasn’t going to lose another friend because somebody thinks they need to face their trauma!
“The Sargent Major wants her to know so she knows she doesn’t have anything to fear from Frickel ever again! Hell, look at everything he has done! He put his own daughter at risk for Paige!”
Andrea cut her off.
“Let’s talk about that! What kind of father puts his daughter in harm’s way like that! Especially knowing the parallels! There’s some father of the year! ‘Hey, this chick that looks like my daughter got the hell beat out of her! Let me get my daughter to come down here and antagonize him!’ Who the **** in their right mind does that!’ Andrea was in full roar now. “So now this guy wants to pull a mind **** on the chick that looks like his daughter by showing her this horrible footage when she is just now coming to grips with being attacked and surviving! So, tell me again how it makes sense!”
Sabine wasn’t sure what to do to defuse this but she had to try. She hated upsetting Andrea anyway and this seemed to be about more than Paige.
“Andrea, we have to tell her something. She knows she was attacked. She knows Frickel isn’t on base any more. She also knows she isn’t on base. She is worried about more attacks from the darkness. If we show her the footage of Violet disassembling Frickel, she will know he is never jumping out of the bushes at her again! By telling her how far the Commander and the Sargent Major were willing to go on her behalf might go a long way towards her being able to trust and have faith in someone again! You have no IDEA how much just that one person willing to risk it all to help you, to BELIEVE in you, makes a difference!” Sabine tried to pull her temper back, but now her passions were ignited as well.
“You don’t even know some of the things they have done to try and help her, and us! Hell, they could have checked the block, thrown Frickel in the brig until the normal command staff returned, with all his political connections, it would have probably ended with it being all Paige’s fault and Frickel getting a medal for beating the **** out of her!” Sabine was in full rage even thinking about it, but now it was her. The trial, the persecution, when she was the victim, not him. The Master Chief in the back of the courtroom, willing her to hold together on the stand.
Andrea was still adamant.
“It’s too soon to go into this with Paige! I’ve seen what ruin it can lead to. It could break her. I can’t lose another friend like that!” In her mind, it was Paige in the shower stall, the sheet tight around her throat instead of Casey. She couldn’t deal with it again. Junior High felt like a long time ago, but sitting in the bed with Paige brought that horrible summer back in all its crystal clarity.
Sabine didn’t give an inch. “We have to tell her something, even if we don’t show her the videos. She deserves that much. The Commander, the Sargent Major, Veronica, and sure as hell, Violet earned it. We owe them. Paige needs to be told.” During the last part, Sabine was stripping down. She changed into running shorts and a tank top. “You and Henrik can talk it through. My vote is we tell her. It’s not like she went out and did evil things. It’s about telling her how much people went to bat for her. I’ll be in the barn getting some exercise.” She walked out of their bedroom without another word, leaving an angry and frustrated Andrea on the bed.