My Split Conference

I hate mental patients.

You know, I didn't even think it'd be like this. I see these patients all the time, or I used to at the least. I'd treat them, bounce them out, try and help them, or just give up and send them off to the psych ward. It's pretty weird to be on the other end of it.

The mental patients, that is.

But now I can't sleep at night because of the doors. I can't stand the light. Every time I'm not with Dr. Cox, it just starts this endless process of breaking back down again until I'm back in the room with him and I can be strong again.

I can't explain why this is even happening, but I know that every expression that crosses his face, I can read more clearly then I ever have before. I have all this rationality in my mind telling me why that is, why I have to feel him near me, and why I feel like I'm slowly going crazy.

That last one is there because it's probably true.

I'm tired of people hovering over me. I'm tired of opening doors making me sick. The worst thing is that stupid psychologist, looking at me like I'm some invalid victim and glaring at Dr. Cox like he's the one who did it.

That's the scariest thing, is that she has the power to take him away from me, and I can't handle that right now. I just can't.

And then I'm back in that stupid room all over again, I can't get away from it. And on some level, I don't want to get away from it. It's why I hate the opening doors so much.

If I'm in the room with…well, I guess by now I can call him Perry, huh? And some part of me wishes I could tell him about it, and grumble about what it took to get us on a first-name basis.

But if I'm in the room with him, and when all the lights are off, and all I can really see is his pale face and feel his fingers tapping against mine, then I know I'm safe. There's no thought to it, not like right now when I'm alone in my room.

I hate that Carla's been trying to keep our visits so paced. But I'm not sure I should trust Dr. Moron that we should keep up with whatever it is we talk about.

Joke's on her. That's why we don't talk. We don't have to talk about it; we know what happened.

And there's another thing. It's not just me anymore, it's not just him, it's us or we. And Perry knows it too.

God, it's weird to call him Perry.

Still, I can't stop thinking about the first night we even got nabbed in the first place. I remember exactly what happened, and it keeps playing in my head like slow-motion. The weeks after it are just as slow, like some horrible car accident that I could've stopped from the beginning.

If I'd just looked before I opened that goddamn door…

But then the shame comes back too. If I had looked, this never would have happened. If this had never happened…I wouldn't have Perry now. I can't find it in myself to be sorry for that.

But everything else just piles on top of it. Every time I see him though, it all slips away from my mind, and it's just me and him. I don't have to worry about Thomas anymore, I don't have to think about Dr. Taylor, I don't even have to glare at Carla anymore.

I can't go on like this; I know that. But Perry helps a little bit. He knows, and he understands. I don't think I'd have made it this far without him there. Every time I go down that road, something uncomfortable starts blipping in my stomach, and the memories of that awful night in the bathtub come back.

Acceptable's still the word for what happened between us that night. But something else is there and I can't put my finger down on it. It's horrible, whatever it is, but nice all at the same time, like something uncurling in me that's been there all along.

He's scared of the doors opening too. He wants that godforsaken bathtub back just as much as I do sometime. I keep falling through the days as they go by, like they're not even real anymore. It's like time doesn't exist here anymore then it did while we were in that bathroom.

It all started with that painful mistake at the beginning, and now it's a double-edged knife, slicing through me again and again. If I hadn't made that mistake, if I'd go back and do it again and stop everything from happening, everything would be okay.

Jordan would be able to walk, and she wouldn't be stuck in a hospital bed.

I'd be back to normal, goofing around with Turk and Carla, taking a verbal beating from Perry and a physical thrashing from Janitor.

And Perry would still be Dr. Cox.

It's the last one that I don't want to change, and there's so much that had to happen for that to commence.

He gives me the strength to keep going on, even though I don't know if I want to try anymore. I just know that touching him feels better, it makes some of the fear go away, and I don't want to be anywhere else but in a dark room, reading his expressions and feeling his hands against my skin to let me know that I'm not alone.

I'll keep breathing for him; I've already accepted that. It's like the thumbs-up he always gives me.

It's my thumbs-up.

XXXXXXXXXX

My Silence-Perry

I hate talking.

No one but JD seems to get that. Christ, I can't even call him girls' names in my head anymore, and some part of me knows that if I started doing it now, it'd only be something to make me think I was normal again.

JD knows about everything; he knows what I'm keeping inside and only letting him see. Christ, it hurts so much sometimes. The memories of what I've done, the feelings coming up because of it that I don't even want to touch, and the possibilities of what could still be out there.

I'm always cold now, and it doesn't take a doctor to tell me that my right hand's going to be next to useless no matter how well they repair the bones in my wrist. Returning to medicine is going to be a miracle.

That hurts the most. All my life, I've known I was going to be a doctor. It's all I've ever known how to do. It's all I've ever wanted to do. And now it's going to be taken away from me too.

Without it, I'm just a broken man in a dark room and a blue hoodie that I can't let go of anymore. And all of this pain, all of this hurt, is who I am now. It makes me wonder who I was before it all happened.

God, I sound crazy.

But JD's still there, he still believes somewhere that we're going to be okay. He knows that he'll still be there when the lights come on.

Christ, I hate lights.

Every time someone opens my door, I can't stop feeling sick, and there's some terrible thing clawing away until I can't even taste my own breath anymore. I keep holding on because I know JD's going to be there with me as we try to get better.

Not that Dr. Moron is being much help. She looks at me like I've done something wrong, like she knows what I did to the kid. What I had to do to make sure we both stayed alive.

My face is still burning red over it, I still feel sick, and I still have other feelings about it that I don’t want to think about, because the more I think about it, the more I’ll try and take it apart to figure out why JD says what he does about it, and why it makes me feel more and more okay every time he says it.

And the kid…he just keeps telling me that it wasn't that bad, and all I can think about is that it means he was either…somewhat…okay with it, or that he's lying through his teeth because it hurt as badly when Thomas…

Christ, I can't think about that or I'll scream.

I'm losing something, I know I am. I'm losing the strength to keep holding onto JD anymore, but I can't stand to let go of him. Something scary and weird happened; shifted while we were in there, and now I can't go five minutes without knowing that while I'm wishing he was in here, he's in the other room still listening to the memory of my heartbeat and wishing he was here too.

I've seen him do it in his sleep. He'll put his head to my chest, and tap his fingers against my side to the beat of my heart. All I know is that when he goes away, I'm back to being alone and it's like he did die in that bathroom.

And all I want to do is just keep holding onto him, to know that he tastes defeat in my mouth just as much as I taste it in his. I remember the feel of his mouth, scared and horrified at Thomas, but holding onto me just to make sure that we were both alive and real.

I hate it when he's not in here.

I don't know who I am anymore. That bastard took away everything that made me who I am, and then broke us both down to the core. And now I have to build back up from the inside out just to feel normal again.

And the only times I ever feel normal anymore is when JD's sitting in front of me and giving me different looks to let me know that we're going to be okay. I have to give into him then; that pale look on his face and his hands sitting on the one of mine that's not been destroyed…that stare rips everything back to shreds.

I know that I'll keep carrying on. God's not kind enough to just strike me dead with a lightning bolt up my ass.

I don't know when I started needing the kid this much. It may have even started years ago when I first met him as a scared intern. The only comforting thought I can at least give myself is that I now know he needs me just as much as I need him.

It's like the silence to me. He knows what my silence means, I know what his stands for. And it's my silence; every minute of quiet time that passes by, we both know that we're going to be okay.

JD's all I need right now, and he'll probably save me from myself. I never said I wasn't selfish, after all. The silence means that he'll keep understanding me, that I'll keep understanding him, and that no one else can break it.

It's my silence.

XXXXXXXXXX

My Story-Jordan

I hate my mother.

Most people say stupid little things like that without a thought because Mommy-Fugly wouldn't let them go to the movies, or wouldn't let them stay up that extra five minutes they wanted to finish the scary TV show that'd give them nightmares.

But I truly, fully, and honestly hate my mother.

Anything I’ve ever wanted in life, I couldn’t have. I won’t say she didn’t provide the things every child needs, but there was one she never gave to any of us growing up. The one thing that any kid needs to have a normal childhood and grow into a regular adult.

She loved us; I’m sure of that. But not the way you’re supposed to love your children. She had children because she wanted that suburban dream of a husband, 2.5 kids, a big ugly dog, and a white picket fence.

I hated our big ugly dog.

And I was grounded for a month when that stupid big ugly dog was finally put down, and I wanted to have a party. Even at twelve, I had a smart mouth and a good wit. I put that smart mouth and good wit to notebook paper, and it worked.

But that was something else I wanted too badly for her to let me have it.

Hell, why do you think I even married Perry in the first place? She thought we were compatible. And I’ll even agree to that, because what that old bat doesn’t know won’t hurt her. What I don’t know, however, will inevitably hurt me.

I wanted too much to try and have that normal, happy family. In the end, it nearly destroyed who Perry was, who I had striven to become. I was finally at a place in my life where I could be somewhat happy without my mother there to ruin it all.

And then Ben died.

Christ, that still hurts to think about. I’ll always remember that Perry took it so much harder, and I’ll even remember the funeral; the blank way he kept staring around and the incoherent mumbling DJ was concerned about.

That stupid kid; he seems to be the only one Perry ever listens to.

Even at the funeral, who do you think was on Perry’s other side? Not his sister; I never thought she would be though. That overbearing bible-thumper wasn’t coming near Perry that day; even I knew that.

But it was DJ. I remember feeling his hand on Perry’s shoulder.

After Ben died, it was a while before either of us were right again, and then we had Jacky to focus on. The more we raised Jack together, the more we realized that we were on the fast-track to giving Jack the same kind of childhood that we had. We never wanted that for the children we knew we’d have to please an image that we’d never measure up to.

That’s why the arrangement works so well. Perry’s married to his work; I’ve never quite understood it. I’m grounded on raising Jack with a little help here and there from Perry. I sleep with whom I choose, and I do it discreetly.

And it was never a problem, not until Stick, that is.

That goddamn blond screwed everything up. It would’ve been easy if she’d said she knew how I felt, or tried to make me feel better. It wouldn’t have been so hard if she’d just offered quiet sympathy, or even empathy; take your pick.

No, she just stared at me with this horrible, understanding look on her face that let me know she knew exactly how I felt without saying a word. How she’d play with Jack and his toys, telling him stories…

Christ, Jack…the thought of him staying with my mother makes me so sick. The thought that follows after is something I want to ignore, but I can’t. I’d rather Jack stay with Blondie then my mother at this point.

And none of this would even be an issue if my stupid legs would just work. I know they know how to move, but no matter what I try, they just won’t.

I can’t stop staring at them. They look like if I wanted to, I could just swing them out and walk out of this hospital right now.

But of course, they don’t move.

And somehow, I even think I blame my mother for that too. All my life, if I’ve wanted it too much, she somehow found a way to snatch it from me. I wanted to write, she told me to throw away my notebooks.

I wanted to divorce Perry. She told me to get a marriage counselor (Perry knocked him in the teeth before I could).

I wanted Blondie to stay with me. I’ve little doubt that my mother drove her away too with a look that Blondie was probably all too familiar with.

I don’t want to leave this hospital. I can’t find it in me to be worried about Perry or his boy-toy right now, but I know that I don’t want to leave princess here by herself to deal with it either.

And some part of me grudgingly realizes that I want her with me too. But this is my life, and I remember now that anything I’ve ever really wanted, I couldn’t have.

I hate this bed.

I want to get out of it, run for Jack, grab princess, and either make a plot to kill my mother, or make a plot to just go away and never come back to this stupid family of mine.

My legs look back at me like two useless appendages. It’s almost mocking, but then I tell myself how crazy I’m sounding.

I just want to go home, but even that thought isn’t a comforting one anymore. God, I remember seeing Perry and DJ, kneeling down in the floor of the apartment building. Even with gags and long sleeves on, I knew there was something very wrong with the way they sat.

Their expressions were even worse, but then everything was happening so fast.

Some black-haired guy suddenly took a swing at me, and then fired four rounds into Perry and DJ. I remember hearing them hit the ground, and then, all of the sudden, there was a gun pointed at my head.

Yeah, I guess I’m lucky to be alive. What kind of life am I leading now though? What kind of story am I writing for myself as a result?

Either way, it’s my story and I have to finish writing it. I’m staying in this hospital, and it’s high time I started writing for me and not my mother.

Jack’s going home with Blondie tonight. You know why?

It’s my story.

XXXXXXXXX

My Place-Elliot

I hate my place.

Not my apartment; it’s great. No, I hate my place in people’s lives right now.

I tried to go see JD again today, and he wouldn’t even take the jacket off of his face this time. So I finally gave in and wheeled him down to Dr. Cox’s room. Weird as that is, I don’t ask him about it (mostly because he doesn’t answer to anyone). Carla said that she thought she heard them actually talking yesterday, but I don’t believe her.

Weird as it is for JD, I’m in it with Jordan.

It bugged me that she wanted to sleep with me just so she could forget about her own problems with Dr. Cox being missing. I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t have agreed to it if Jack hadn’t asked for that extra story before he went to bed.

I don’t know where I’m supposed to be anymore, who I’m supposed to help.

With Jordan, it was so easy. She came from the same kind of family I did, the same kind of parents I had. I didn’t have to tell her I knew that, she knew by listening to my stories too. And that’s really all we ever talk about.

Well, bitch about.

I hate Jordan’s mother.

She’s a ripe old bat who’s way past her expiration date. Now she’s making bitchy noises about how no one’s doing their job properly, and if they had, maybe her daughter would still have the use of her legs. She claims that if the doctors weren’t so incompetent, her "son-in-law" would have been out of the hospital by now.

Old Grandma Sullivan hasn’t seen Perry yet, of course.

I don’t blame her; I’ve only seen glimpses of him. I can’t look at him; not when he looks the way he does whenever he sees JD. Something about that just makes me realize even harder how much those two went through to survive.

I hate that JD won’t talk to me about it.

Call me selfish if you want, but he’s one of my best friends. I’ve always known him well, I’ve always been able to tell how he was feeling. Now, I’m completely lost and I feel like I know Jordan better then him right now.

If someone had told me last year that I’d be sleeping with the most notorious evil satan-worshipper in the entire hospital, I’d have told them to go make sure they hadn’t taken their ticket to lala land.

Now she’s going through something that I can’t possibly understand, and I have no idea how to be there for her, how to be there for Jack. I don’t know where my place is there, and the last thing I want to do is make things worse for Jordan and her mother.

But I know that if I really care about her, I can’t just leave her alone to deal with this on her own. I may not be able to imagine what Jordan’s going through, but I can imagine how her mother’s dealing with it.

And I can see it just as well, the way her mother thinks it’s her fault she got shot by some random psycho.

I can see the way she looks at me like I was part of the reason Jordan was in the wrong place at the wrong time.

I know it’s selfish, but I don’t want Jordan to leave this hospital. For some reason, I think she knows that if she leaves Sacred Heart, she’s going to lose something really big that she really doesn’t want to lose.

And now I’m just staring at her again. She’s asleep, but I think she’s just pretending. I’ve seen her when she’s really asleep, and her face is too tense, her hands are still curled up too much.

So I just stand there, because it’s the only safe place I know to be for her right now. It’s the only place I can stand and know that I’m not going to get hurt because she’ll leave.

I want to tell her to stay. I tried to, but it came out all wrong. It came out sounding childish. But damn it, I felt like someone was taking away one of the things I really wanted.

And my mother always got the things I really wanted. Like one of my last boyfriends. She always tried to be a sister; never a mother.

It did hit me then that I wanted Jordan more then anything I’ve ever wanted, mostly because I love her when she’s bitchy. I love her when she’s sad. I love her when she’s playing with Jack. I love her when she’s yelling at me.

And then it hit me that I’d said love in my head four times, and I let my forehead hit the glass.

Love, while making things a lot more complicated, did make things in my head seem a lot simpler. Gut-thrust, finding out that someone had gotten in there again (big surprise), but it made things easier to decide upon.

So I went into her room quietly, trying to play along with her while she "slept". I just pulled up a chair, grabbed her hand, and sat there. I’m not going anywhere; I’m not giving up the things I want anymore.

Yeah, that might make me selfish. It might even make me obnoxious and uncaring. But that’s okay.

It’s my place.

XXXXXXXXXXXXX

My Friend-Turk

I hate Dr. Cox.

Okay, maybe I don’t hate him. But I know that he didn’t protect V-bear the way he should have or could have. At this point, I know I’m being unfair.

But I can’t find it in me to be concerned about it, because JD’s lying in a hospital bed with cuts and burns all over him, injuries that can’t be seen, and all he wants to do is look at Dr. Cox in some weird way that no one understands.

The last time I tried to talk to him, he threw a jacket over his face, and tapped his fingers against the bed. I finally gave up and walked out.

I don’t know what happened to them while they were gone, but I know now to gently open the door before I go to get JD from Dr. Cox’s room when Carla or Elliot can’t.

Carla doesn’t get it. JD’s my best bud, we’ve been through everything together. We’ve shared everything, told each other everything (though I probably shouldn’t have told him about trying to hook up with someone at my family reunion…she didn’t look like any relative I’d ever seen, to be fair!).

He can’t share this with me, and I can be a macho man all I want to, but even I know that it hurts he won’t. He’s like my brother. All Carla wants to do is tell me how unfair I’m being to Dr. Cox, how I don’t know what I’m talking about, and how I haven’t seen them in Dr. Cox’s room or JD’s room in silence while they "talk".

Whatever that means to them now anyway.

He’s supposed to be talking to me, not the guy who just reminds him every minute of what happened to him. Hell, I don’t know what happened to him, but I remember helping Dr. Wen staple him shut again on the operating table.

I can’t even tell what he’s thinking anymore, and he won’t even look at me, like giving anyone but that bastard down the hall a look means he’s talking to someone else.

At least Carla’s starting to see that they shouldn’t be together in silence so much.

I just want my friend back. I can’t see him like this, he’s not the guy I remember any more, and knowing that Cox knows him better than I do is just…

Man, it’s just wrong.

And anyone can call me a jerk if they want to. It doesn’t change what I know, or at least what my opinion is.

Everyone’s entitled, right? God, it’s just hard to see both of them like this.

The more I see Cox, the more I start to know that he’s going through it just as hard as JD is. And I don’t think that psychologist is helping much.

She always looks like she’s observing some strange specimen of bacterium underneath a microscope when she looks at them. Now she’s got some colleague coming up from San Diego to watch with her.

I already know my vanilla bear’s not going to like that.

JD can barely stand Carla being near him, let alone another stranger. Hell, he freaks when someone opens his door too quickly. I know he’s not sleeping. It’s hard to tell the difference between the bruises on his face and the dark circles underneath his eyes anymore.

It really just comes down to how scared I really am for JD. Something is so wrong with the both of them right now, that I can’t even begin to understand what they’re going through.

But the anger’s still there. Some faceless person without a name hurt both of them, and I can’t even look at who it was. The only thing I find myself doing anymore is blaming Cox still. I want to stop, but I have to do something.

Call me crazy, but something's better then nothing.

I have to be there somehow. Yeah, it makes me a terrible person, but it’s not like I’m in Cox’s room every minute yelling at him that it’s his fault. But it’s got to be someone’s fault. Being angry means I can do something.

Through it all, I can at least say that JD’s not alone in getting better though. Whatever he and Cox do while they look at each other all the time, it’s doing something for him. He sleeps when he’s in that room. So does Cox.

It’s jealousy. I’m never going to tell anyone, but he’s my vanilla bear. He should be talking to me, I should be helping him get through this like usual.

He’s my friend.

XXXXXXXXXX

My Suspicion-Carla

I hate Dr. Taylor.

That fifty-year-old bat wouldn’t know trauma from tranquil if it bit her in the ass, crawled up it, and took up residence there. I keep trying to tell the attending, Dr. Baker, but he seems to think the woman actually knows what she’s doing.

Just because Bambi and Perry aren’t screaming anymore doesn’t mean they’re okay. They’re still not talking to anyone; I don’t even know if they talk to each other verbally.

And you know, sometimes I feel like I’m the only who’s got my head screwed on properly and not shoved in the sand or up my ass.

God, I love Turk. I do. But he thinks if he keeps his head tucked under his arms, he’s not going to have to deal with anything that his best friend is going through. It’s so frustrating that he wants to blame everyone and anything.

Of all the people he wants to put all that on to, he chooses Perry. He’s been through so much too, and I know Turk’s just hurting and confused, but if he keeps acting like this, I’m going to have to bitch-slap him the Latina way and make sure he knows what an ass he’s being.

I think he’s starting to get that at least. But he still doesn’t think Dr. Taylor’s out of line. I think the woman’s got her own agenda, I just don’t know what it is. She’s got some stuffy bore of a man coming to look at them like they’re some sort of stupid sideshow at a carnival.

She doesn’t see what I see while looking at them. She sees some interesting thing she can write some tidy little paper about to boost her career.

I see the way Perry trembles when Bambi holds his hand or gives him a certain look. I still don’t know what that look means, but whatever it is, Perry always seems to feel better afterward.

And Bambi…JD just flat-out won’t sleep anymore unless he’s in Perry’s room. Then again, neither will Perry, but I don’t know how much he sleeps even with Bambi with him.

I don’t think they should be together so much, personally. Christ; when will doctors listen to us nurses? We’re not just nurses; we know a little here and there too.

I know that the more they only talk to each other and stay quiet, the more they’re not going to try and get better later. They can’t support each other through this fully, not when they’re both so horribly broken.

I don’t know how they’re going to ever be right again. I just know the only thing that brings them any type of comfort anymore is being in the same room. I also know that the one thing that eases whatever they’re going through is the one thing that’s only going to make it worse for them later.

It’s not even Bambi’s looks that make me let them stay together like that.

It’s Perry.

I’ve never seen him like this, not even when Ben died. He looks like he’s going to break into a million pieces of himself if JD’s not with him. Bambi’s not much better; when he’s alone in his room?

Those times are the worst.

When Bambi’s alone in his room and someone opens the door, he immediately curls up on his bed like someone’s going to shoot him.

I’m so tired these days; I don’t know how much longer I can keep fighting this psychologist, keep fighting JD and Perry to help them get better, keep fighting against Turk.

Oh, and don’t get me started on Elliot and Jordan.

Like I said, I think I’m the only one who hasn’t completely lost their common sense these days.

It’s Dr. Taylor I’m worried about. Everyone wants to say that she’s worked wonders with them, that JD and Perry are so quiet these days. How JD and Perry aren’t even having outbursts of screams anymore, how the mental trauma seems to be slowly improving.

I know that’s a crock of shit.

They’re drawing deeper into themselves, and if they keep that up, they’re not going to come out again. You can call me crazy, call me an idiot, or even just say I’m being paranoid.

Still, it’s my opinion, and I can tell whom I like. Mostly because I’m usually right, and I think I’m dead on. I don’t think she’s a horrible person; I think she’s misinterpreting the facts so badly that it’s going to harm them if she’s not careful. Call me insane, call me stupid. You can call me whatever you want. Still…

It’s my suspicion.

XXXXXXXXXXX

My Confirmation-Third Person Omniscient

JD squirmed when he heard the clacking of other doors. He shoved his hands over his ears to struggle and block them out, get the sounds to stop. He squeezed his eyes shut, and jerked when he heard his own door open.

A small stream of light slowly opened into the room, and Turk walked in.

"Hey, V-bear," Turk said quietly as he pulled the wheelchair into JD’s room.

JD didn’t quite look at him, but he did unroll from his position on the bed and tap his fingers a bit nervously across the sheets as expressions drifted over his face with a quickness that Turk couldn’t catch.

"I’m here for you, man," Turk finally said after a minute. "Really."

JD still didn’t look at him, but nodded his head in silence.

"And whenever you’re ready to talk to someone besides Cox, I’m willing to listen too," Turk tried, just wishing JD would at least raise his head.

But JD didn’t, though he did nod again as his fingers danced across the sheets.

Turk sighed again, and patted the wheelchair. "Come on. Carla had something to take care of downstairs, so I’m taking you to Cox’s room tonight."

JD did look up at that, beginning to maneuver his sore, battered body from the bed. He jerked and stiffened when Turk’s hands met his shoulders to help him in the wheelchair.

Turk tried not to flinch, and ignored JD’s hunched shoulders as he wheeled him down the hallway.

This time, when JD was settled by Perry’s bed, Turk didn’t leave, and only took Carla’s usual seat near the door.

JD frowned at that, and looked at Perry’s pale face. He gestured to Perry in order to ask him how he was doing.

Perry looked over his shoulder though, jerking his head in Turk’s direction with a questioning, slightly annoyed look on his face.

JD shrugged in reply, the same confusion written over his face.

Turk watched as the gestures passed, the quiet expression, the barest hint of facial change and finger-taps that hit the blanket in a rhythm he didn’t understand. He left when they stopped to simply hold hands a bit.

JD rolled his eyes at that, and sent a look Perry’s way that indicated he clearly didn’t want to talk tonight.

Perry seemed to agree, and tugged one of JD’s pale fingers in a movement that JD nearly classified as playful to some extent.

JD wasn’t sure what, exactly, Perry was teasing him about, but he felt it had something to do with Turk. JD simply rolled his shoulders and raised a hand helplessly.

After all, Turk just wanted to help.

Perry didn’t reply to that, and some other emotion raced across his heart. He didn’t want anyone to help JD but himself.

JD sighed and once again wordlessly asked Perry how he was doing.

Perry shrugged, using his arm to imitate the swooshing of a door before he pointed to the lights in the ceiling of his room. He frowned after that.

JD nodded his understanding and agreement. Then he used his arms to pull himself up to sit on the bed, wincing at the pressure and tension it put on his already beaten body.

Perry jumped at the close contact, but it was more out of surprise then anything else.

JD stared at him, and Perry felt the discomfort build in his system at that look from JD’s eyes and mouth again.

Still, as JD leaned down to rest his head against Perry’s heartbeat, some part of Perry began screaming that he should push the kid away, stop whatever this was before it became another problem he couldn’t deal with.

But Perry didn’t push him away. He moved his injured hand across JD’s hip and used the other to keep it in contact with JD’s hand.

JD sighed, tapping his free fingers against Perry’s shoulder to the movement of Perry’s heartbeat.

Perry sighed above him. Relief, fear, and comfort lined the exhalation of breath, and he felt a prompt shrug from JD’s shoulders against his torso.

Perry snorted at that, and, in what had become a continuous habit for them, pressed a thumbs-up sign into JD’s hand before he leaned his head back to listen to silence with the relief of JD’s body against his own.

JD smiled when he felt the thumbs-up against his hand, normalcy slowly returning to his body and comfort giving balm to his aching heart as he gave the okay sign back with his fingers.

It was when JD realized Perry had actually fallen asleep for once that the younger man smiled again before he passed out from sheer exhaustion.

XXXXXXXXXXXX

Dan Dorian considered himself lucky when he sat down next to the quiet, pretty blonde on the bus. She looked a bit tired and travel-weary, but held up a polite enough conversation that it made the drive much more bearable.

Still, the worry for Johnny was vaguely in the back of his mind. The only thing Turk had told him was that there was some sort of accident, and that he should come. Dan frowned a bit at that as the blonde woman next to him said something else that he didn’t catch.

What kind of accident? How badly was Johnny hurt?

Turk hadn’t really answered any of them, evading the questions like a pro.

Dan sighed and crossed his arms as he struggled to pay attention to his bus mate. She was pretty enough in his book, and seemed to have a somewhat-familiar sense of humor.

Dan still felt concerned, but definitely more at ease as he listened to her talk. Turk had sounded awfully tense over the phone, and hadn’t really wanted to tell him anything. Still, Dan knew Turk would’ve sent him a cake first if it were that bad.

So things weren’t completely down the toilet, in Dan’s opinion. He’d go see Johnny, maybe get the blonde’s phone number, and all would be okay in a few weeks. It wasn’t like Johnny to let anything get him down for too long anyway.

As the bus ride drew to a close hours later, Dan realized he had yet to ask the woman her name, and his stop had come up. As he turned to ask, though, she was pulling something from the upper compartment.

"My stop," she explained pleasantly enough.

"Me too," Dan said with a grin. "Must be fate, angel. So what’s your name?"

The blonde looked at him as she tugged her bag down. "Paige. Paige Cox."

Dan’s hand nearly froze halfway to her as the familiar wit finally hit him square in the jaw.

"Really. You’re not by chance related to one of the doctors over at Sacred, are ya?"

Paige looked at him oddly now. He’d been nice enough on the way up here, if a bit chatty and familiar-looking. But he hadn’t been a total loss as far as bus mates went. Besides, if she hadn’t lost her reservations for the rental service, she wouldn’t have been on the bus in the first place.

Still, Paige felt guard come up as they walked off the bus. "Yes. Why do you ask?"

"You’re Coxer’s sister?" Dan finally came out and asked as the luggage compartment swished open. "My brother works there."

Paige looked at the man’s face again, studying the angles and the eyes. The eyes…blue. She nodded in recognition then.

"Skinny kid. Daydreams. Idolizes my brother."

"Sounds like Johnny." He tugged his bag out. "Can I get your bag for ya?"

Paige shrugged and nodded as she flicked a piece of hair from her eyes. "Sure." She gestured to a bag near the back under a few layers of other luggage.

Dan didn’t roll his eyes until he was back there getting it, feeling things poke him as he struggled to move around in the small compartment. Coxerooni’s sister…

Christ, but it was a little world sometimes.

XXXXXXXXXXXX

Dr. Taylor exited Dr. Kelso’s office with a grin on her face. Kelso hadn’t been amenable to the idea of a case study, but she had finally convinced him that if it did well, it might bring more money to the hospital in way of other mental patients who could benefit from what she had to learn from the two.

Kelso hadn’t liked her theory or her idea. Money overrode it. It was a difficult decision in the end. More money, however, meant he could finally afford to reopen the weekly free clinic they did in the east end of town for the lower income families.

Sighing, Kelso sat back in his seat and rubbed the bridge of his nose. He hated his job.

Dr. Taylor entered her office, and realized the file for Thomas Andrews had finally come in. She frowned over the murder accusation, but had much the same reaction as Carla had when the hispanic nurse had first heard about it.

If a nurse had gotten hurt around a mental patient, the nurse didn’t know what she was doing.

It wasn’t enough, in any case, to deter Dr. Taylor from her current agenda. She had work-ups to write for Dr. Stojanovich, who would be arriving in a few days. She studied Thomas Andrews’s case file, reading over the vague abuse details and the even vaguer points of his foster care.

Thomas had been adopted as a baby into what was an abusive home, bounced into foster care, adopted again at fifteen, lost that family at eighteen, the state’s lab rat ever since.

Dr. Taylor frowned at that; if nothing else, she hated it when the state used the downtrodden as their own personal lab rats. She looked for more detailed files on the abuse he had suffered, but none was there.

Sighing, Dr. Taylor picked up the phone. It meant another phone call and another week or two of waiting for someone to send her the files for her own reference.

It still didn’t wipe the grin from her face. She finally might have some kind of concrete evidence to prove her theory.

And that pushed her harder then anything else.

XXXXXXXXX

Rain pattered in a humid drizzle over the street, steam rising up from the heated asphalt like something from a horror movie. This was real though. The clouds were almost purple, and had the location been further north, it would have indicated snow.

The streetlights gave a hazy, orange glow into the soft rain that made it look like little ghosts were watching the sidewalks every fifteen feet on the quiet street. The buildings were all dark, people asleep in their beds to prepare for the next day. A lone car drove by, but then all was quiet again.

The silence of the night was almost deafening, and only served to add on to the lateness and eerie feeling one might get from walking down a deserted street. A stray cat meowed in the distance, breaking that silence for a split second.

Something else broke the quiet then; an incoherent mumbling.

"No, you can’t do that…haven’t you done enough?"

"I’ve never done enough; never."

"But you don’t have to do this."

"Yes, I do. I didn’t do it right; I have to go back."

"You know you’re crazy. You don’t have to do anything; you’re your own person, remember?"

A harsh, bitter-sounding laugh. "Yeah, I know I’m crazy. I’m not my own person."

"But if you do this, they’ll never believe anything you say again."

"Like they will anyway."

"There’s always a chance."

"Now you’re the one that sounds crazy."

"I’m you and you’re me, so that’s not surprising, now is it?"

"Christ, I wish you’d die."

The incoherent mumbling stopped then, and all was quiet.

He liked the silence. Flipping shaggy, greasy black hair from the startling blue eyes, Thomas Andrews surveyed the drizzly rain as the voices finally silenced in his head.

Tilting his head back and ignoring the split conference he’d just had with himself, Thomas enjoyed the silence of the night.

Silence was good. He hated talking.

xxFINxx