Season of Terror
by Tigger
Copyright 2002, All Rights Reserved

Chapter 9: Student at the Brink - Opportunity and Crisis

First, a piercing, three-pitch tone, several decibels above the threshold of pain, nearly deafened Jane, then an oddly metallic feminine voice added unnecessarily, "Your call cannot be completed as dialed.  All circuits are currently busy.  Please hang up and try your call again later."

For several moments, Jane could only stare at the receiver clutched tightly in her white-knuckled hand.  "Damn them," she finally whispered at no one in particular before repeating the words again, louder.  Then, she felt herself crack and she began to sob.  "Oh, god, Will," she cried, not even hearing the electronic beep that signaled a phone too long off its hook.

"Is there anything I can do to help, Ms. Jane?" a soft voice asked, breaking through Jane's misery. She looked up to see an elegantly dressed vision standing in the doorway, looking at her uncertainly. 

*My God, is that Victor. . .I mean, Victoria?  Why, she's . . . she's lovely.*  "Vic. . Victoria," Jane managed to get out before adding, "What are you doing here?"

Jane watched as her suddenly different student glided into the study. "That's why," the girl said, pointing one pink-tipped finger indicating the devastation pictured on the small television Jane had been watching. "I need to talk to you about something I heard on the radio." 

Jane considered that for a few moments and then moved over behind her desk.  "Sit down, Victoria, and tell me what you want," she ordered. *Whatever this is, I don't want to deal with it right now,* she thought.  With an extreme effort of will, Jane settled herself in her chair and focused on her student. Obviously, Victoria wanted something quite badly if she would willingly brave the study to seek her teacher out. *But I have no choice, do I? Perhaps dealing with whatever is bothering her will give me something else to think about - for a few moments, anyway.*  

The girl sat, quite properly, too, Jane noted, and turned to face her guardian. There was something different about her, too, an openness in her eyes that Jane had never seen before. "The radio said the Red Cross needs blood donations," Victoria began quietly, "They especially need O-negative - the Universal Donor blood-type because of the emergency stuff they're having to do at. . .at . . . the, well, at the Towers." She paused for a moment and Jane watched the girl gather herself. "I'm O-negative and I would like to give." 

Jane felt her mouth fall open in shock. She hadn't known what to expect, but even so, that had been the last thing she would have anticipated from this student. *Heavens, from ANY student.  'Hey, Aunt Jane, let's go down town and give blood, okay?'  WHAT IS GOING ON INSIDE THAT BLONDE HEAD!?!*  "I see," and then she finally managed to ask, "Why?" 

"Because they need the blood," Victoria repeated in a tone Jane thought was just a bit sharp, "for them." 

Jane followed Victoria's gesture only to feel the tears burn anew as scenes of a smoking Pentagon wall filled the screen. "It really hurts you," Victoria said with a perception that surprised Jane, "What's on the television. Did you. . I mean. . ."

"Did I what?" Jane asked softly. 

"Know someone who might. . might be in there?" 

Jane wondered why the girl would even care, but smiled when she saw the discomfiture that bespoke the girl's own surprise and real interest. *Maybe she really does want to know.  Why not tell her? That much isn't a secret.*  "One of my gir. . uh, students, works in the Pentagon," she finally admitted. "I haven't been able to reach he. . him or . . . his family. The phone circuits are overloaded and I couldn't get through. Now they're asking non-essential calls to New York and Washington be curtailed." 

"They said that the part of the Pentagon that was damaged was mostly empty - on account of it being renovated," Victoria said, offering encouragement as best she could. 

"I hadn't heard that," Jane admitted, too focused on her worries to notice, let alone correct Victoria's grammatical error. "Are you certain of that?" 

"As much as I can be. I know I heard that at least twice on the radio." Jane nodded, and then Victoria asked, "Was. . . your student, that is, in the Army?" 

"No," Jane answered with a shake of her head. "Marines, actually." 

"There's a difference?" Victor's voice asked.

"According to the Marines, there is a world of difference, child," Jane replied, a single brow lifted to show she had not missed THAT verbal gaff. *Given everything that is going on today, I'm surprised she is doing as well as she is. We can let that one slide, I think.*

Silence grew between the two as the repetitious and unchanging reports of destruction, disbelief, terror and growing anger sounded from the television. After several minutes, Victoria did begin to fidget in her chair. "Ms. Jane? About my request?" 

"To give blood? I must ask you again, why do you want to do that? Is this some scheme to get out of your skirts, Victoria?" Jane demanded baldly, her eyes fixed on the girl to see how she reacted to the question.

"No," her student replied with an aura of calm that surprised Jane even more. "It's not a scheme or anything else. I just need to . . . to do. . SOMEthing!" 

"Really? Well, I am sorry, but I'm afraid that is out of the question," Jane said with what she hoped was some semblance of her usual sharp tones. *Mostly because there is no way you'd be anything but very effeminate, even in your trousers and I won't have you humiliated when doing something that selfless,* she added mentally before continuing. 

"But the newscasters said they really need the blood!" Victor's voice protested. 

"As I told you after our little trip to the mall, you're in skirts until I decide you've earned the privilege of trousers." The vivid blush on her pupil's cheeks told Jane just how clearly Victor/Victoria remembered that recent experience. "A stipulation, I hasten to add, to which you agreed quite readily just this very Saturday, in fact." 

"I know that, Ma'am," the girl said softly. "That's why I dressed so carefully. I don't think anyone would question me dressed like this. We could go and give blood right now. No one would have to know that I'm. . .that I'm anything other than what I appear to be." 
"I see," Jane said, somehow keeping the utter shock she was feeling out of her voice, "but I don't think that will work. I'm fairly certain that they, that is, the people who would be taking and using your blood, would need to know you are really a boy under that girlish finery. When they will test your blood, they'll find male hormones instead of the female ones they expect.  The Red Cross might well have to discard otherwise perfectly acceptable blood. That would be a sad waste." 

"So?" Victor's voice cracked through again, but he pressed on as Victoria. "We just tell them who and what I really am once we're inside the clinic where they take the blood. I can do that. I WILL do that, Ms. Jane!" 

*Amazing,* Jane thought shaking her head, *I really think she means that.  She'd most likely recant at the last moment, but right now, she actually believes she means it.  That alone heralds a change in attitude that can only be positive.* However,  Jane replied, "No, you will not.  I do not choose to have it become general knowledge that some of my students are . . . 'troubled.'  That would cast unwarranted aspersions on prior students and those to come after you.  We must solve your problems without harming others in the process.  And I believe your experiences this previous weekend demonstrated the futility of you trying to appear masculine?"     

A stubbornly determined frown lined the prettily made-up face. "If that is what's required, then that's what I'll do!" At Jane's challengingly lifted brow, Victoria continued. "I'll go to a clinic, dressed just like I am right now. I'll tell them I am a really a boy who's being punished by being made to wear girl's clothes, but . . . " 

"But?" *ah- HA! Here it comes.  'Couldn't Miss Marie hide the girlish parts, Ms. Jane?  Just until we get back?' or some such plot.  I'm almost tempted to accommodate her, but I'd have to watch her like a hawk.  And she still might slip away.  I just cannot risk it.*

"Well, I sort of figured you must know someone in the medical field - in case I got hurt or sick, you know? Someone who could take my blood, fill out the paperwork correctly, but not give away my secret?" 

A thoughtful look crossed Jane's drawn features, but "I'm not sure that would work," was all she said. 

"Would you at least check, please? And if that won't work, then I still want to donate the blood they need, Ma'am, even if it means admitting to. . .," Jane saw the child had to swallow hard before she could continue, "to being a boy who likes to wear girl's clothes and stuff . . . or to being a boy who's being punished by being made to dress up like a girl." 

*There is someone,* Jane thought of Nora Bedford, her nurse friend who was part of her little circle of helpers, *But she may be too busy for such things just now.* 

"I see," Jane finally managed as her own emotion-fogged brain tried to make some sense of this unanticipated development. *Hyperbole or truth?  Can Victoria actually realize what that would mean to her future? The potential harm she might suffer if it became known she crossdressed?  Surely not.* In the end, all she did was ask, "Why?  You're telling me that you would break your cover just to give blood? Again, I have to ask why?"

For the first time since Victoria had stepped into the room, her emotional control slipped and having slipped, shattered altogether. Jane watched as the girl-boy again swallowed hard and closed her eyes tightly to fight against the need to cry, but it was a losing battle. "Because. . . because. . ." 

"Because why, child?" Jane prompted as she handed the girl a tissue. 

"BECAUSE I DON'T WANT TO BE LIKE THE ONES WHO DID THIS!!" she burst out and then bolted from the room, slamming the door behind her.