Disclaimer: These characters are not mine. All belongs to Ryan Murphy. Please don't sue me.
Author's Note: I haven't written in quite some time but I can't get over Sarah Paulson at the moment. I would love a beta if anyone would like to donate their time. My intention is for this to be a long one, so I hope you enjoy!
The Devil's Advocate
Sister Mary Eunice pressed her side against the door, unnerved by the reality that laid on the other side. Her fingers traced the ridges of the cross around her neck, lingering at it's worn corners as her other hand wrapped around her waist. Her mind was sick with the sound of the screams that had been the result of the electroshock therapy only an hour before.
She understood that Sister Jude had expressed that it was necessary, that the reporter was a threat and a deviant. Sure she thought that the woman was certainly determined to find something but the deviance was what struck a deep chord in her.
The hall was empty as her body shifted and her bangs and forehead pressed against the door. It was cold against her skin; the sensation caused a grimace to cross her face.
"God help me." She whispered as her hand dropped from her crucifix and opened the door. The motion was slow at first, her nerves waning as she attempted to key down her imagination of what that level of pain must feel like.
"Wendy?"
The whisper was horse but distinct as it cut through the air. The nun winced as she crossed the room. Her own concerns paled as she kneeled and studied the shivering woman strapped to the cot.
Lana looked at the ceiling, afraid to find her hopes dashed. She knew Wendy couldn't save her now. Even with the fog that seemed to engulf her mind that certainty remained. But if she closed her eyes, she could pretend a second longer that her lover had come to comfort her. The convulsing had finally ended and now Sister Jude had come to gloat.
The brunette blinked to try and clear the remnants of her tears. She wouldn't surrender herself quite yet. Just a while longer until she can break out, write her story, and then the tears can come again. Her muster brimmed and immediately waned as the fabric of a handkerchief brushed her forehead. The brunette's vision had finally cleared, and as her head turned she found the young nun staring at her, pity evident in her expression. It left a bitter taste in her mouth, the girl's empathy almost worse than Jude's cruelty.
"It'll be better if you stop fighting." The nun husked. She pressed the handkerchief gently to Lana's temple.
The reporter turned her head, making direct eye contact with the woman beside her.
"You're just as guilty as she is. You can clean me up all you like," her brown eyes bored into blue, "but when I get out of here everyone will know what happens here."
She winced internally as the words left her lips. She knew that her temper was getting the better of her again and she really couldn't afford any more enemies in this place, let alone enough leverage or means to be making threats.
The Sister's care persisted as if the words had never sounded, though the eye contact broke as her other hand touched upon soaked sheets.
"You're going to get sick if we don't get you and these sheets clean. You can hardly try to escape if you die from stubbornness." The word escape was emphasized, but the brunette couldn't figure if it was meant in sarcasm or as literal fact.
"I'm going to get you some water and some clean sheets. You just have to promise that you aren't going to try and run out of the room if I take you out of those restraints."
"I don't know sister, there are a lot of blunt objects lying around." The joke felt strange as it entered the air. But it seemed to settle well with the other woman who attempted a smile as she left the room.
It was impossible to tell how much time had passed before the Sister returned. Stark white linens were bundled in the crook of her left arm, while a bucket of water was held in her right.
"Now remember your promise, I would hate for Sister Jude to do that to you again." It was a sincere statement that gave Lana pause. She was weak, most likely too weak to try anything that would be successful, beyond knocking the nun out cold. It was also worth considering that an ally, no matter how misguided, would most likely be lost after such an attempt. Even though she suspected that the young woman may not be all there, so to speak. So instead she lay still as the other woman set down the items and started to undue the straps.
A guard peered through the window briefly, but continued on so he could find greener pastures. Lana hoped it wasn't of a sexual nature.
"Can you move?" The blonde queered.
The brunette nodded as her knees towards her chest as she moved forward and then off to the side of the bed. She was grateful to be sitting upright, but the ache in her body was still unmistakable. She followed the other woman's cues and stood to the side.
"What is your name?" Lana asked. She wasn't sure if she had forgotten it during the electroshock, or if she had ever known it.
"Sister Mary Eunice." She responded. "Now take off your clothes."
The command came as a shock, but after a moment she complied and lifted the shift of a dress.
"I can bathe myself you know. My "perversion" doesn't make me an invalid." Her temper flared once more. Though it was hard to sustain it in her current state, standing was becoming a chore.
"I'm sure you're fully capable, but technically that won't be happening for quiet sometime."
The nun felt the grimace return to her expression, knowing that things were going to get much worse before they got better. She believed in her superior and wished to do her best to serve her and the Monsignor, but a small piece of her still held reservations about what may come to pass. She took the strapped gurney to the hall and returned to the small room.
"You won't be leaving this room for a while now." She suspected the Sister Jude wasn't ready to face what she had been party to.
Lana's dress had been balled and dropped on the floor as she attempted to stare at the wall, humiliated that this is what it had come to. Continuously stripped raw, and though this time was kinder, it didn't sting any less.
She flinched as a warm, saturated towel pressed against her shoulder. Lana willed herself to try and accept the reality of the foreseeable future as Sister Mary lathered some soap that had been hidden in the sheets. The white bar was passed into the brunettes hands and followed where the damp towel's trail.
"So you're not afraid?" The brunette's hands still trembled from her torture session.
"Of what, your plentiful blunt objects?" the nun chuckled.
"That I'm a sexual deviant." The title bit into the brunette as she tried to voice it numbly.
"I admit I don't know much about the whole thing," the words hung for a moment. "I love God, but that doesn't mean I want to touch him, and I doubt you like me- so I don't see what there is to be afraid of."
"Not to sound ungrateful, but I doubt those male attendants like the girls, but it doesn't seem to stop them from touching."
"I don't know what you're talking about." Mary Eunice said deftly, now scrubbing the brunettes back.
The warmth on her shoulder blade was both comforting and unnerving. "Come now Sister, I know you're not that simple." Lana said curtly, or at least, she hoped she wasn't.
The other woman wrung out the cloth and dipped it back into the bucket. "Do you have a family back home? I'm sure you're mother's worried sick.
"You're changing the subject." Lana turned to face the nun. "Don't you see what's happening in this place, how these patients can't possibly get better here?"
"Sister Jude has a vision for this place, her and the Monsignor, once that happens everything will get better. You just have to have faith."
The reporter could tell that the woman wanted to believe what she was saying, the last sentence sounding more like a mantra. "How did you end up here?"
The memory of the being on the diving board, naked above the pool, slammed into Mary's mind. "I wanted to dedicate myself to God's plan and in a place like this, people need all of the compassion they can get."
Lana bit her tongue in an attempt to curb her desire to go into interview mode. She wanted to tell the girl that this place was a lost cause, to beg her to set her free, plead her case, to call Wendy- the very thought made her want to break into tears.
"Thank you." Her skin had been scrubbed from head to toe now, and her body ached from standing.
"Sit on the mattress before I change your sheets and I'll wash your hair."
Lana complied as she settled onto the sad excuse of a bed that laid upon the floor. There wasn't much that could be done with only soap, but to feel hands scratch at her scalp provided her comfort that she hadn't felt since she stepped through the asylums' thresh-hold.
The nun took a moment to study the woman in front of her. It was true that mentally there didn't seem to be any issues with one of their newest residents, other than the perversion that the older nun had been railing about.
"Do you miss her?"
Lana's eyes opened, the euphoria of the physical contact had ceased as the question sounded.
"Why are you doing this Sister, I'm sure you're taking a risk being here. Doing this."
Mary Eunice became aware that her hands had stilled. "I believe in what we do here, but I can't wrap my head around a man like bloody face sitting unharmed in a room, while you're taken to electrotherapy. It doesn't seem right. So I'm here."
After the washing had concluded Lana was presented with clean clothes as the young nun dressed the mattress.
"I do." The brunette choked out.
The blonde gave her a puzzled look.
"Miss her."
"Get some sleep Ms. Winters, it'll be better in the morning." The nun paused at the doorway and then left, sporting a weak smile.
The woman sat quietly on the bed and brought her hands up to her dried hair. The kindness of the recent act wasn't lost on her, and neither was the risk that the girl had taken.
Her body had fully stilled at this point. Whether she liked it or not, Sister Mary Eunice was the strongest ally she could hope for in this nightmare.
The young nun's mind wandered as she walked down the hallway. She still couldn't shake the strangeness that had engulfed her after the exorcism. Small thoughts were growing into compulsions. Half of her went into that room because she knew that the reporter deserved any act of kindness she could give, but the other half had wanted to undress Lana herself.
She could still see the woman's body, bare before her. This must the perversion Sister Jude had spoken about, she thought. But it didn't feel wrong. It felt like fire, a fire that she was sure would not smolder anytime soon.
Her hand found her crucifix once more. The ritual was comforting, but the desire to rip it away rang through her mind. Until tomorrow, she mused.