20 Dec 2000
Chapter six - the first hypnosis session.
kumi ^_^
DISCLAIMER: All Gundam Wing characters are property of Sunrise, Bandai Visuals, Sotsu Agency, and Asahi TV. This work is not written for profit, but for entertainment purposes only.
PAIRINGS: 6x5/5x6, 13x6/6x13, some very mild 4x9
WARNING: AU/modern day San Francisco; implied yaoi will turn to yaoi and eventual lemon in later chapters
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT: To Alfred Hitchock who directed the incredible film, "Vertigo."
"Dreams are the Royal Road to the unconscious."- Sigmund Freud
"Zechs? They're ready for you now. Why don't you come on back." Hilde smiled flirtatiously at the blond man and then walked him to Treize's office.
"Thanks," he said nervously to Hilde and then peered into the dimly lit room where Treize stood talking to a slightly older woman. "Zechs, hello," Treize murmured and gestured his client further into the office. "This is Dr. Pitelli. Dr. Pitelli this is Zechs Marquise."
The two shook hands and the psychologist said, "Nice to meet you, Zechs, but please, call me Carmen. I'll be the one handling your session today. Let's sit down over here, shall we?" She gestured to the sofa and an arm chair that stood next to it. Zechs took the arm chair.
"I... I don't really understand," the blond man said, looking up at Treize. "Why aren't you doing it?"
Treize walked over and sat on the couch next to him. "Because I think we'll get more reliable memories if someone who doesn't know much about you or the events of that day does the session."
"That's right, Carmen added. "You see, Zechs, hypnosis *can* be a good, clinical tool for getting a person to relax and focus on the memories for an event. Sometimes, it you can focus on the memories you have, without distraction, other memories are cued by those and you can retrieve them again."
Zechs frowned thoughtfully. "I guess that makes sense, but I still don't see why Treize couldn't do it."
It was Treize who answered. "The danger of hypnosis is that both the hypnotist and the client can bring expectations to the session. I might have certain theories as to what happened, and even if I try not to, I might unconsciously lead you towards certain answers, even if they're not true."
"But I wouldn't lie," Zechs said, somewhat defensively. "Even if you told me something happened I'd know what reality was and I wouldn't agree with you."
"That's where hypnosis is different from other states of consciousness," Carmen joined in. "People under hypnosis often have a very strong urge to... well, 'please' their therapists - to say the things they think will make their therapists happy. It's called 'being a good hypnotized subject' and it can be a very powerful influence on what people say. And yes, many people *do* agree with things that never happened while their in trance. It's not at all unusual, especially for certain types of people."
"So," continued Treize, "it's best if the person conducting the session is someone who can be impartial. There's less chance of leading questions on her part, and less chance of you feeling the need to be a good subject on your part. Does that make sense?"
"Yes," Zechs said, still frowning. "Yes I suppose so. I can see myself trying to please you..."
Try as he might, Treize could simply not ignore the wave of heat that passed through him at those words. He felt lightheaded, wanting to wrap his arms around the younger man and hold him for a long, long time. /This is *not* a good sign... maybe I should talk to Anne about this.../
"All right then, why don't we begin," Carmen said calmly. "Treize - if you wouldn't mind?"
"Of course," he answered, having to tear his eyes away from Zechs, who was looking at Treize the way a child would a security blanket that was being taken away to the laundry. He stood and gave Zechs's shoulder a squeeze. "You'll be fine - really." Then he left the room and entered the small observation cubicle that lay behind his office wall. He could see the two people inside but was completely hidden from them. A discreetly placed microphone allowed him to listen in on the session.
"Now then," Carmen was saying, "I want you to get completely comfortable, Zechs. Make sure you're in a position that will allow you to relax completely. Would you prefer lying down or sitting up?"
"Sitting up I think," Zechs said and he wriggled a bit before saying, "all right."
"Good, now, as I said before, hypnosis is really just an alteration in consciousness and it involves two things: first - you should be very relaxed, which you're starting to do now and that's good. Second, you should become intensely focused, absorbed if you will, so that your thoughts can center on the events of the day in question without the distraction of anything else."
"Is this where the dangling pocket watch comes in?" Zechs asked dryly.
Carmen laughed. "I'm *Carmen*, not Rasputin," she said. "No, we'll use a candle." Zechs noticed then the slender white candle on Treize's table and he watched as Carmen lit it. "I want you to keep your gaze focused on the flame of the candle - there's nothing mystical about it - it just serves as something for you to concentrate on."
Zechs nodded and turned his eyes to the flame of the candle.
"All right then," Carmen said, her voice dropping just a bit lower, "I want you to think of a beautiful place, one of the most beautiful places you've ever dreamed of..."
Treize watched for the next ten minutes as Carmen led Zechs through a guided imagery exercise meant to relax the client and help them into the trance state.
"Now," Carmen said after the imagery instructions were over, "I'd like you to focus on your left arm. You will notice that it is becoming very light, much lighter than your right arm. Do you feel the difference, Zechs?"
"Yes," Zechs replied, his voice even deeper than usual, his eyes closed , body relaxed.
"All right, now you will notice that your arm is so light, it is beginning to float upwards."
After another five minutes, Carmen had gotten Zechs to let his arm drift up until it was at the level of his shoulder. "Do you feel any tension in that arm, Zechs?" she asked. "any tiredness?" Even though he'd had his arm in the air for a long time, Zechs shook his head. "No," he said calmly.
Carmen turned to the mirror on the wall across from them and nodded - a signal to Treize that she believed the trance to be deep enough. She got Zechs back into a comfortable position, arm down and eyes open, and then began her interview.
"Can you tell me why we're doing this today, Zechs?" she asked.
"I've been having nightmares, about my lover and the last day we spent together. Treize - Dr. Khushrenada - and I have talked about it, and there seem to be parts of the day I can't remember."
"Well," Carmen said, "it is possible that if you concentrate on that day, and the events which occurred during that day, you may be able to remember more of it. Would you like to try that?"
"Yes." Treize could see Zechs head-on from where he was, with Carmen sitting with her back to the observation window. If he had thought the blond man lovely before, he was now close to breathtaking and Treize was struggling to determine why. Then he realized that he had never seen his client so relaxed and content.
"We'll figure this out, Zechs," he murmured to himself. "I want you looking like that most of the time."
Carmen had led Zechs through the first part of his day at the mission, and was now they were talking of the time he and Wufei had been in the church.
"So, you are sketching and Wufei is beside you, reading a book..." she encouraged.
"Yes... he read them cover-to-cover, those mission books... but it's taking a long time to finish my sketches, and he's restless. That's strange... because he was usually quite content to sit and meditate..."
"What is he doing now?" Carmen asked, leaning forwards a little towards Zechs.
"Talking," Zechs answered, his tone one of surprise. "I didn't remember him talking to me before..."
"Can you hear what he's saying?"
A small frown crossed Zechs face. "N-No... I can't make it out... wait - he's getting up... he's walking up the main aisle -" He stopped abruptly ad blinked his eyes several times. Then, shaking his head a bit, he murmured, "That's strange."
"What is?" Carmen asked.
"I saw him walking up the aisle of the church... and the next thing I saw he was standing next to me and... we're walking out into the cemetery..."
"So you remember nothing about where he went, or when he was walking back to you?"
"No," Zechs said, still looking calm.
Independently, the clinician and Treize made notes, but then Carmen pushed on. "So, ae you two out in the cemetery now?"
"Yes," came the quiet reply. "It's warm... everything's so peaceful... all the little crosses, and the flowers. I'm sketching some of them - the crosses I mean."
"And what is Wufei doing?"
"Holding my hand," Zechs said, and smiled warmly, without any self-consciousness. "Then he says he wants to look at the Indian Monument, so I keep sketching , except now I'm sketching him. I love doing that..."
Carmen reached over to the table and picked up a pad and pencil. She handed it to Zechs. "Can you try to draw what you're seeing now, Zechs?" It was a gamble, she knew. SOmetimes people came up with fairly accurate drawings, sometimes completely outlandish ones, and sometimes the act of beginning to draw was enough to bring a person out of trance. She knew, however, from what Treize had told her that Zechs was as comfortable with drawing as he was with talking, so she had come prepared.
Zechs took the pad and pencil without any protest or sign of surprise and stared straight ahead, or inward, perhaps, to some mental world of his own, and began sketching, his hand moving smoothly and surely across the paper. Once in a while he would smile, but then the smiling stopped abruptly and, as Carmen watched, he began to draw another figure in the sketch. He had just gotten a head and some shoulders down, when he stopped altogether and reached for a lock of hair, which he twisted around his fingers, in a slow, rhythmic way.
"Zechs?" she asked softly. "Are you back with us?"
He blinked rapidly. "Yes... another one of those strange time warps. I remember seeing Fei at the monument and then he was standing next to me and I was telling him I wanted to go..."
Treize couldn't see the picture, but from Carmen's reaction to it, he knew that Zechs must have seen something else in the cemetery that he wasn't remembering right then.
Carmen guided Zechs back through the church and out onto the patio. "What are you seeing now?" she asked.
"The colonnades... I love them. They're one of my favorite parts of Mission architecture." He stopped speaking and smiled, "Fei always says that I get mushy when I'm walking through colonnades... maybe he's right... I'm grabbing his hand and he's grinning at me for being so brave."
"Do you walk all the way down to the end?" asked Carmen.
"Nearly... I want a good look at the big pepper tree that's in the middle of the patio - it's hundreds of years old and huge. I was thinking I might try to sketch it, although I'm a lot better a manmade structure than I am at natural structure."
"So, do you sketch the tree?"
"I'm thinking about asking Fei if he can give me the time to do it... and then - he jumps, like he's surprised at something, and - he's looking up, at the bell tower - now he's running back the way we've come... 'FEI???" Zechs shouted, his eyes going wide, giving Carmen a shock at the unexpected sound. Treize stood up, staring through the window apprehensively.
"Come back!" Zechs said, as if he were calling to someone, "Fei what are you doing? What's wrong? Ah, God -"
"Zechs you're only watching this, remember?" Carmen said calmly but firmly. "It's not really happening. You're just remembering this - no need to be frightened. Can you tell me what you're doing now?"
"Running," Zechs answered in a worried tone. "Running like hell to catch up with him, but he's so much faster... now we're in the church, and I'm running up the aisle. He's going to the stairs... the ones that lead up... I... I really don't want to go up there."
"I know it feels uncomfortable, Zechs, but you have *nothing* to fear. You are looking at this as it happened in the past... if it gets to be too much, you can always stop. Now, would you like to try to go up those stairs?"
Zechs's expression was still fairly calm. Just a slight frown crossed his face." Okay... I'll try..."
"That's it," said Carmen, warmly, "just keep going up... what do you see?"
"Fei," Zechs whispered. "Standing right there, only a couple of feet from me and I'm at the top of the stairs..."
"What does the room look like?"
"Thick adobe walls... whitewashed. No furniture but there's a metal candelabra suspended from the ceiling. There are windows, not closed in but open to the weather. Thick, thick casements..."
"And what is Wufei doing now?" Carmen probed.
"He's..." Zechs hesitated, giving another slight frown. "There's..."
When he didn't go further, Carmen waited a moment and then said, "What is it Zechs? What's there?"
"Someone... Fei's yelling, but... I can't hear what he's saying. The light's there."
"Light? What light, Zechs?"
"It's in my eyes... can't think when that happens..." The blond man closed his eyes and waved a hand in front of his face. "Don't like it... makes it hard to think..."
"So someone is there with the two of you?" Carmen asked, as Treize scribbled furiously in his casebook. "Is it someone you know?"
Zechs shook his head and waved his hand again. "Too much light... now Fei's talking to me... yelling really... I'm trying to say something but it's hard with that light in my eyes."
"What is Wufei saying?"
"'No... please don't... don't come up here... stay away, Zechs... No..."
Again, Zechs's eyes went widened a bit and he just sat, staring ahead of him, into the mirror on the wall across the room. His hand went up to his hair again and he sat, motionless and silent. It gave Treize a shiver, to see how completely frozen he was. But it had gone far enough. He flicked the small switch on the intercom system.
"Carmen, I think this is as far as we want to go right now. I really don't want him going into any of the discovery of the body stuff at this point, so it's best to stop here."
"Carmen looked towards the mirrored window. "I agree - he's getting near the edge anyway. I don't want to push him. I'll bring him out of the trance - why don't you join us?"
End of Chapter 6
(:./kumiko/rr6)
