A/N: The third story in my "Re-Arrange" 'verse, and it takes place third. Knowledge of at least "Re-Arrange Me Til I'm Sane" is needed to understand certain facts of the story, but not required. I also heartily recommend reading Willow Waly, but that's just me. ;) This is my favourite Shades fic I've written so far, so I hope you like it.

Disclaimer: Shades of London and its characters belong to Maureen Johnson. The title of the fic is a famous line from One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest by Ken Kesey. My muse was also greatly influenced by the song (The System of) Doctor Tarr and Professor Fether by The Alan Parsons Project (which, in turn, was inspired by a short story of the same name by Edgar Allan Poe).

IT'S THE TRUTH (EVEN IF IT DIDN'T HAPPEN)

Rory wished Dr Smith would stop writing. She had been speaking nonsense at him for forty-five minutes straight and his hand had yet to stop moving. His hands were apparently attached to his ears, and he was either a compulsive doodler, or he had missed his calling as a stenographer. Rory knew which option she preferred. She enjoyed a good doodle herself.

Just when she thought she couldn't think of any more bullshit stories – what was the phrase Jazza used when she wanted to call Rory on her crap? Bullocks! That was it! – she heard the blessed sound of the bell that signalled the end of the weekly required session. As though he had been behaviourally conditioned to do so, Dr Smith methodically capped his biro and closed his writing pad, balancing it on his knee.

'Time is up for this week. You may go, Miss Deveaux,' he said, his face as carefully devoid of emotion as his monotone voice. Rory often theorised to Stephen that she believed Dr Smith was a robot, or possibly a pod person. Or, when she was willing to concede to Stephen's pleas that she remain somewhat rooted in reality, she stated that he was more-than-likely a spy. Stephen maintained that Dr Smith was a psychiatrist who was very good at remaining objective. Rory didn't argue with him. Apart from acknowledging the futility of arguing with ever-rational Stephen Dene (even a vestigial memory of Stephen), she knew he'd always assume the most boring possibility to be the truth. Rory was adamant that Dr Smith was at least a spy. Who really had the name Dr Smith anyway? It practically screamed of an alias.

'Oh, and Miss Deveaux,' he said, his ever toneless, professional voice stopping her in her tracks with one foot halfway out of the doorway, 'I don't believe any of the stories you've told me over the last three weeks have anything to do with your diagnosed psychosis. You're going to have to do better if you ever want to get out of this place.'

She stayed stone-still, waiting for him to say something else, but all she heard was the steady tick of the metronome. She pulled the door open and rushed out as quickly as she could without it appearing like she was running.

Dr Smith was definitely a spy.

'He's NOT a spy, Rory,' Stephen said later that evening. It was after lights out, and she was lying on a hard bed in a room that was about as decorative as her psychiatrist's voice was welcoming.

Stephen was standing at her door, keeping a wary eye on the hallway lest anyone overhear Rory's whispered voice. She should have been asleep long ago. But Rory had never been big on following rules, and even though Stephen stayed (haunted, a traitorous voice in her head replied) with her most of the day, she had little time to speak with him. She wasn't going to pass up on her few guaranteed minutes each day.

'Think about it, Stephen. Three hours this month I have been forced to sit in that room, and not once has he asked me ANY questions or done anything to get me to talk about my so-called trauma at all. He just writes the entire time… or doodles,' she added a few seconds later. 'He looks a bit like a doodler.'

'Maybe he's just waiting for you to say something coherent, not to mention honest. You're good at spinning tales, Rory, but you need more than that this time. You need a red herring.'

'I'm guessing, based on your context, you're not referring to a fish.' Rory was very much aware of the definition of 'red herring,' but bantering with Stephen was her only source of amusement at Priory.

'You need a convincing lie to be traumatised about – a lie with an undercurrent of truth is always the easiest to recall, should you need to add to it later.'

'Is there any part of this made-up story that could be told as truth and not get me sectioned? Oh wait… too late!' she stage whispered. She realised how loud she had been a second before she saw Stephen place a too-pale finger over his mouth to remind her to quiet down. 'Sorry,' she whispered, in a much more quiet tone. 'I just can't think of anything to say. All the truths I know are too personal and, let's face it, way too weird for me to share them. The last thing I need is to be drugged up the wazoo or lobotomised to the point where I can't help you get out of here.'

'You're assuming I can leave. I might never be strong enough for that, Rory,' he reminded her, his eyes leaving their sentry duty of the corridor. He came over to the bed and sat down in the wooden chair next to her, same as he did every night when they had almost the exact-same argument. If it wasn't for the fact that only one of them was a ghost, Rory would wonder if that was their doomed story. Wasn't that what most people said ghosts were? People who had died who were stuck doing the same action over and over? There was truth to it – she'd seen it. Crazy people supposedly did the same thing – only they looked for a different result every time they did the action. Maybe she really WAS a ghost too, in her own way. She was definitely crazy, she knew that much.

'You WILL be strong enough, Stephen, because I am not leaving you here. And I refuse to stay here for the rest of my life, so you're just going to have to come with me. So work on bulking up those old rugby muscles again or something because you're going to need your strength.'

Stephen didn't smile, but the always-present notable downturn to his lips looked less deep. He placed his hand on the bed about two inches south of where hers was placed and made a small squeezing motion with his fingers. She made the same motion with her own and allowed herself a smile. It was the closest they could get to touching and Rory couldn't help but savour it. Stephen hadn't been big on touching when he was alive and she'd never gotten to experience it as much as she would have liked, and now she couldn't truly experience it at all. She felt a rush of affection for him whenever he made motions such as these – it meant more to her than kisses from other boys or hugs from her closest female friends.

'But he's totally a spy,' she added again, rolling over on her side to show him that the conversation was indeed over. As she closed her eyes, ever conscious of the feeling of his familiar eyes keeping watch over her, she heard him give that familiar sigh – one of a man who wants to laugh, but refuses to do. She smiled to herself in the dark as she felt the first tendrils of sleep take hold. She could get used to that sound.

When Rory Deveaux had first had the thought of getting herself admitted to Priory Clinic, she had been somewhat apprehensive as to what she was in for (but she had ignored it because there was a possibility that Stephen was there and she couldn't pass that opportunity up because…Stephen.) She had secretly pictured a place like one usually was told about it horror stories – barred windows and doors locked from the outside, and nurses with extremely long needles full of drugs patients didn't really need and doctors giving their patient many rounds of electro-shock therapy.

Thankfully, her imagination had been totally wrong. While the windows were barred in some areas, the nurses were actually quite kind, the doors didn't really stay locked (thank the higher powers for fire safety codes), and the only therapies she undertook were group talks, some mood stabilizers and her weekly hour-long sessions with the pseudo-Dr Smith. When she wasn't doing those things, she was left to her own devices in the group lobby to play games and muse on her problems.

The group room was an interesting world in and of itself. There were the typical crazies that appeared in most of the horror stories she read – the ones that would occasionally yell and possibly throw themselves at walls or people if they felt threatened (which happened very rarely in actuality), the ones that were having what looked to be an interesting conversation except that they were the only one there (and they weren't speaking to a ghost as she was, because Stephen was the only ghost she ever saw in Priory Clinic), and the Clinic had the rare people who seemed to become a different person at noon than they were at 8 that morning.

The majority of the people actually appeared to be quite normal, for the most part. About 85% of those admitted to Priory seemed to suffer from some sort of mood or behavioural disorder and were having problems either finding the right dosage of medication or said medications were having adverse effects. Most of the people seemed to spend the bulk of the day playing games together at the tables scattered throughout the room, chatting with each other (most of the chat seeming to consist of complaints about the lack of tea to have while chatting), or listening to BBC Radio 4 and complaining about Parliamentary politics. To Rory, it was all just very British.

Rory usually spent her time playing checkers against Stephen. They had quickly established a method of playing wherein he told her where to move his pieces and she would actually physically move them. After all, it wouldn't do to have the checkers magically flowing through the air, and moving objects still seemed to drain Stephen. He seemed to get more solid every day, but it would still be awhile before he was strong enough that Rory would stop worrying about him draining all his energy. Plus, then she could talk to him in normal tones, and she'd still manage to convince everyone she was crazy. She didn't even feel weird about it in the main room – if anything, it helped her blend in.

Stephen always beat Rory at checkers. No exceptions.

'I'm never going to understand this stupid game. Can't we play something a bit more interesting? Like chess?' About two seconds after she asked this question, she shook her head. She was bad enough playing him at checkers. He could probably beat her in three moves in chess. Then again, Rory seemed to be bad at anything that required her to think too many moves ahead, so most board games were out. She couldn't help but think she would legitimately die of boredom if she did not get out of Priory soon.

'Honestly, I don't understand how you haven't managed to beat me yet. I'm leaving plenty of space open for you to jump my pieces.'

'Well, excuse me for not excelling at pointless games,' she snapped. Her mood was quickly going from bored to angry, for reasons of which even she was unsure. Stephen merely gave a loud, put-upon sigh. He placed his hands on the checker board and sat ramrod straight in his chair, his hands folded pristinely over his section of the board. Rory thought he looked like he was about to be conducting a job interview and gave him her best eye roll in response.

'You've been like this for two days now. What's really bothering you, Rory?'

'It's that red herring idea of yours. I'm trying to think of which part of my real story to tell in order to make the lie, as a whole, easier to stick to later, but it's just… Then I have to be open to a shrink. And we both know how it ended the last time I allowed that to happen.'

'If it makes you feel better, I can't die twice.'

'That isn't funny,' she whispered, her eyes glued to the checkerboard which was always missing her pieces, while almost all of Stephen's dominated the board. The thought that he was making jokes about his death when it was all her fault made her nauseous. The fact that he was doing it to make her feel less uneasy about talking to professionals made her feel even worse.

'I know,' he admitted quietly a few seconds later. If she wasn't so finally tuned to everything that was Stephen related, she probably would have missed it. 'But Rory, you can't live your life based on that. So one person betrayed the trust you put in them – that's not your fault. What happened to me is not your fault, okay? She wasn't even a real psychiatrist; she just had good drugs. But I've been here before, and these people are good people, and they know their work. You're in good hands, especially considering we both know you're perfectly strong and healthy enough on your own without their help in the first place.'

Rory couldn't help the small smile that escaped as she finally looked up from the board and to Stephen's face. And as she did, she got a much bigger smile on her face.

'What is it?' he asked, her sudden change in mood causing that familiar wrinkle to appear in his brow.

'I know what part of my story to tell. I've figured out my 2% of the truth.'

She gave a small huff of laughter that sounded more of relief than mirth. The smile dropped quickly from her face as she leaned across the checker board, getting so close to touching him that he was forced to move his head and arms back to avoid any accidental brushing of limbs.

'I need you to stay away from Dr Smith's office during my next session.'

Stephen was understandably confused, though his face hid it for the most part. He had been present at all of her meetings so far, and his expression to her various pointless stories had been one of the only things that kept her speaking each time. After all, the stories had all been true and most were pretty amusing, and she had always been trying to get Stephen to laugh – a sound she'd only heard once in the months she'd known him and she wanted to hear it again. She had come close a few times, but so far all she had managed in the psychiatrist's office was a weak chuckle.

It wasn't often that she requested that Stephen leave her alone anywhere. So rare was it that it was actually 'never.'

She wanted to explain it to him, but she found herself unable to do. There was openness, and then there was openness, and some forms of it were only able to be had with a stranger; there were some things you couldn't tell your friends, and definitely not friends that you had kissed or had subsequently had die for you a few hours after said kiss.

Thankfully, Stephen didn't ask questions. He merely nodded, and folded his arms on the checkerboard, staring at the pieces for countless minutes while Rory thought through her strategy and her endless array of truth and lies that seemed so intermingled that she wasn't sure which stories were which anymore.

Rory swallowed loudly and started putting the checkers back on the board in the original starting places. Maybe beating her in checkers would make Stephen feel better, or distract her from her guilt. She wasn't quite sure who she was doing anything for anymore.

'I'm sorry, Stephen. I'll tell you one day – I'll be brave enough to share it with you, I promise. But for now, I need to tell this story to someone who doesn't even deserve to hear it so that we can get out of this place before someone starts to go all Nurse Ratched on me.'

'Honestly, Rory. I think the style of nursing in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest went out of style about twenty years ago.'

Rory stopped her organising and stared at him.

'What?'

'You know of One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest?'

'Of course I do. It's a great book; a classic! Though, as I said, dated in its portrayal of mental health facilities.'

Rory let out a loud bark of laughter that made the orderlies glance in her direction.

'The book? Of course you read the book. It was also a film. You know, those projected things on large or small silver screens that you watch in the dark?'

'I'm aware of what films are, you know. I'm not completely in the dark on such things.'

'You're just the first person I've met who, when I mention the reference, assumes I was talking about the novel.'

'It's you Americans,' he teased. 'So uncultured.'

Rory was unsure whether to laugh or cry about the fact that it had taken death for Stephen to fully develop a sense of humour. When he took out all her checkers in five moves, she thought the answer was probably 'cry,' but that may have just been the frustration.

Four days later, as she sat in Dr Smith's office once again, letting her heartbeat sync to the tick of the metronome, she allowed her mind a moment to relax. She was going to have to get vulnerable in a few moments, and while she was never the most emotionally strong person, she wasn't used to being completely open either. And, she figured, there was that whole 'once burned, twice shy' thing too. Her first psychiatrist had lied to her parents in exchange for a payoff from the British government to get her sent back to Wexford (not that she was complaining about that one, but she was sure it was a breach of ethics somewhere) and her second psychiatrist had committed murder and kidnapped one of her friends (or at least someone who qualified as an acquaintance.)

She took a deep breath and let it out slowly, using her senses to calm her nervousness. She focused on the feel of the slightly too slick leather under her arms and thighs, the smell of musty leather books, the taste of the orangeade she'd had at breakfast (she missed Wexford's fry-ups that were offered, as there was no Southern food on offer in Priory), the sound of the metronome and the scratch of the fountain tipped pen that Dr Smith was using behind his desk as she waited in silence.

Finally, he lowered his pen and closed his notebook. He set it to the side, placed the fountain pen back in its holder, opened up a much thinner notebook and uncapped a biro. Dr Smith obviously assumed Rory was going to be feeding him more meaningless stories. He's about to get an earful, she thought.

'It was my fault.' She let that sentence sit there for a few moments; let it fill the room with its possibilities and untold anecdotes. Dr Smith looked up, his pen completely still for the first time in any of their sessions. Victory, she yelled internally. 'My friend who died – it was all my fault.'

And despite her fears of not being able to tell the story, it all came pouring out. She managed to avoid bringing in Stephen's work history or his last name or Jane or any of it. Hell, when she left those things out and smudged a few facts together, the story was not only believable; it was tragic in its banality and senselessness.

'When my parents sent me back to Wexford, I made some friends in the area; I was having a hard time relating to the people I'd befriended there in the beginning. And it's not because they hadn't believed me when everything had been happening before or anything like that. I just… I felt so separate from them. How was I supposed to go back to chatting about boys and pointless exams after what I'd seen? So, me being who I am, I found the person who had been put on sentry duty over me during that Ripper ordeal last year and made friends with him.' She gave a small "what can you do?" shrug and smiled softly to herself, though the smile lacked any genuine happiness.

'But despite the new friends I had made, my grades were slipping. I just didn't have the focus for school. And,' she laughed as she tried to speak, a few tears leaking through that surprisingly weren't for show, 'I was trying to hide it from the friends I had made. It's that Southern pride, I guess. Or American pride, whichever you want to go with. But he figured it out, with surprising speed. Or not so surprising, really. He always was too smart for his own good. And when I got booted, he tried to make me go back to school. Even went so far as to forcibly put me in his cop car and drive me back to Wexford himself. And of course I was kicking and screaming and fussing the whole way.

'I distracted him,' she said, feeling her guilt seep in to the very core of her being. Though the story had been changed to protect not-so-innocent parties involved, her guilt was still very much genuine. At least she didn't have to fake that part. 'He was so busy arguing with me that he forgot to check for oncoming traffic. The guy who saved my life, and he got killed by something so normal.'

The tears were dripping off her chin and onto her legs and she wanted to feel mortified, but all she felt was relieved. For all of Stephen's statements that he didn't blame her, and his pressing that what had happened to him was not her fault, the guilt was persistent. Callum seemed to be the only person besides herself that was willing to place any blame at her feet, but she thought it was only because everyone else had some strange blind spot when it came to her. She hadn't listened to him; she had believed she knew better than he did what was best for her, and she had wandered straight into the lion's den. Following her there may have been his choice, but it wasn't one he should ever have had to make. And if she and Callum were the only two who ever acknowledged it, it didn't make it any less the truth.

'And I just sat there,' she sobbed. 'I sat there and let him insist to me that he was okay. And then he was just…gone.' She covered her face with her hands and tried to pull herself together. Stephen had been dead for months, and she spoke with him every day, and would probably be speaking to him as soon as she stepped foot out of the office. She really hoped he didn't ask what she had been crying about; she was mortified enough to be crying in front of an absolute stranger. She had also spent enough time crying around Stephen to last her a life time; once or twice was normal given their intense situations, more than that was just embarrassing.

Dr Smith said nothing. He capped his biro and took out the fountain pen and started writing. The metronome continued to tick and the only other sound was Rory's somewhat hiccoughed breathing as she got her crying under control. Strangely, though she wouldn't have thought it possible, she felt better. She felt almost lighter, as though there had been a weight around her feet that she had been lugging around that she hadn't noticed. The weight was still there – she could feel it sitting in her stomach like a meal she'd eaten a few too many bites of – but it was less than before. And that was something she had never expected to experience.

'This is a good start, Miss Deveaux. Admitting the grain of truth is the first step in dealing with the lies of psychosis. Next week, we'll work to start exorcising those "ghosts" of yours, eh?'

Rory gave a small nod. She had no plans of exorcising Stephen (she was already perfectly aware of how to do that if she had ever wanted to), but there was little other response she could give and not be sectioned away for the rest of her natural life.

'You may go now.' He waved his hand in her general direction, his head once again down and his body hunched over his notes, the persistent scratching of his pen the only sign that he had not yet died at his desk.

Rory wiped her eyes and pinched her cheeks to make them look rosy and less tear-stained, took a deep breath and left the office.

It felt good to be making progress.

Dr Smith waited until he heard Rory Deveaux's footsteps disappear down the corridor. The minute he could no longer hear her footsteps, he put his notebook and pen away and took out his laptop from a locked drawer in his desk.

He wrote a quick email and locked the computer away again.

For the first time in a month, he had some progress to report.

Miles away in London, a government official opened an email from his correspondent in Birmingham. It read:

Subject has established contact. Shadow is visible. The time remains constantly at noon. Could be a problem or an ally. Request instructions.

The official leaned back in his chair and rubbed his hand over his lips. So Stephen Dene was still in play somehow. That would make carrying out the Company's plans very interesting indeed.