A/N: This story is the result of a million strange stories between me and my brother, Bruce, the dozens of strange events that happen to me, my friend Hemaghini's stories about her times in the mental hospital, and my ability to be completely logical even though I believe very strongly in the supernatural. So here, at long last, is Zack's side of my other story, Life Support. You may want to read that to understand. His part of the story starts at chapter 8.
Disclaimer: I don't own Bones or any music except for my own (Juniper Volt).
I was listening to Breathing In A New Mentality by Underoath.
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Chapter 1: Integer Vitae Scelerisque Purus
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January 1, 2012
McKinley Psychiatric Hospital
Washington, DC
He woke up at 3:22 A.M. according to the clock on the wall outside his room. The first thought in his mind was not a question of why he was waking up so early, or that it was a new year, but that the white walls surrounding him were extremely dull.
The second after that thought, his mind started racing, going through a million thoughts at once, regarding all his memories of the previous 2 days, his dream during the night, and then switched to Algebra – basic equations to make sure he still understood – mentally reciting the bones in the human body, and considering briefly something he had been told the previous day regarding a field of psychology known as parapsychology, and his mind instantly went to overanalyzing the word's roots, another problem with being half asleep.
Based off of the Greek words para, meaning alongside, psychē, meaning mind, and logos, meaning word, thought, principle, and speech.
Parapsychology dealt with the paranormal, things not explained by normal psychology and science; telekinesis, precognition, clairvoyance, psychokinesis, reincarnations, out-of-body experiences, and hauntings, among others.
The girl who had explained this to him was institutionalized for severe depression, which had led her to try and kill herself and several others. But her belief in the paranormal was the only thing that seemed even remotely sane, as ironic as it was.
Yet he was one of the, for the most part, relatively sane people trapped here.
His thoughts returned slowly to normal.
3:47 A.M., he fell asleep again.
*~*~*
Grand Hyatt Hotel
Washington, DC
She was alone and everything was quiet, just as she liked it.
The hotel room was empty; her children were with her sister.
She didn't really understand her logic in getting a hotel room when she never slept.
As she looked around the dimly lit room, on the 12th story of the hotel, she couldn't help but be reminded of the music video for Everybody's Fool by Evanescence, a song she knew by heart and was very tempted to start singing, but didn't because she knew that the people in nearby rooms would not appreciate her bursting out singing at the top of her lungs.
Humming quietly, she turned on a lamp, casting an eerie orange glow over at least part of the room and shadows on the rest, then stood and walked to the floor-length mirror on the wall, staring at her figure.
She was skinny, currently 110 pounds, and 5'6". She knew most women would kill to have a figure like hers, but the fact that any curves she had were nearly nonexistent – she had no waist, a size 00 and she didn't even know how, and her chest was only existent due to having children so young, and because she was very pregnant – would probably kill any woman's desire for her body. In the dim light, she could see just how pale she was. Rarely going anywhere during the day, and tending to be very nocturnal, she had almost no pigment in her skin aside from several freckles scattered across her arms and face. Her hair, once a strange mixture of red and dark brown, had been dyed a dark crimson, with streaks of blue, purple, and brighter red – I look like Dilana, she thought, only a ridiculously skinny version. In truth, she looked somewhat like Lacey Mosley and Dilana, if such a combination was possible.
She smiled, biting her lip, a nervous habit she had developed over the years that led her lip to constantly be blistered, if not bleeding.
A wave of foreboding hit her and she closed her eyes, accepting the plague of visions that had affected her since she was 5 years old. Broken glass, squealing tires, screams, sirens, hospital rooms, pain.
The scary part was that they always came true.
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He was sitting in the cafeteria late that afternoon, eating some sort of unidentifiable mush that was passed off as food, when they came up to him. The nurses, the security guards, and the FBI agent who had put him in here in the first place, all suddenly surrounding him…
Smiling?
He looked at them, confused, unsure of what to say.
"Put your shoes on." One of the nurses said. He frowned; he didn't even have shoes. He had been wearing baggy, gray sweats since he got institutionalized, not to mention the 55-degree temperature, freezing water, and the lone pair of socks he was given each day.
"I don't have shoes." He finally stated. "Why are you here?"
"You're free to go."
He blinked, trying to figure out the backwards logic in what they had just said. "How am I free? I've been here for 4 years."
"Logic got you in here; even more logic is getting you out." The aforementioned FBI agent stated. That was when he noticed the blood on the lapels of the agent's shirt.
"I don't understand."
"Look, just get whatever you need, and then we're leaving. There are people waiting for us outside, and there are gonna be reporters here any minute. Now go get your things. I have to sign a bunch of papers."
He obliged, following one of the nurses back to his room.
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She sat on the foot of the bed, watching the scratchy news reports on the old TV. There was nothing on but news and CSI, and with her current mentality she didn't think that watching dead people and hot CSI techs would be a good idea. So she had resorted to the news, where the platinum blonde, blue eyed reporter who had spent way too much of her limited amount of money on plastic surgery was talking in a "let's-pretend-to-care" tone that made her sick.
There had been a shooting. At the museum.
She laughed once she realized why. A criminal who had been undercover for 6 years, who had played everyone around her like a cheap piano, blackmailed people into doing her dirty work for her, threatened others with death, and who put an innocent man in a mental hospital, shot by an FBI agent, a psychologist, and her own sister.
Smiling, she cracked her knuckles, annoyed at the freezing air that had leaked into her room somehow and which had apparently frozen the synovial fluid in her joints.
She knew that this would happen, and that was what made her smile, despite the pain she knew would come soon enough.
"Good job." She muttered quietly. Her sister was now on the screen, speaking with an air of maturity that she rarely ever used. So formal.
The doors on the screen opened and she simply had to laugh at the reporters.
*~*~*
He was led out by the FBI agent, who had one hand on his arm to prevent him from running away. He had his suitcase in one hand; filled with the few belongings the aides hadn't stolen from him when he first arrived.
The light was ridiculously bright – he had forgotten, in the dim light of the institution, just how bright the sunlight could be. His hair fell in his eyes as he noticed the two people standing in front of him protectively – a strawberry blonde who couldn't be more than 18, and his psychologist.
He heard the questions, heard the shouting, and shut his eyes to prevent the sensory overload he knew would happen soon, drowning out the voices.
The blonde was shouting at the reporters to move, and was growing increasingly frustrated. He heard the rustle that could only be from a purse, and wondered what was happening.
A gunshot silenced the reporters and he had to smile at the sudden lack of noise. He opened his eyes, still squinting in the sunlight and blinking to avoid retinal damage. He walked with the small group through the sea of voices and people, trying to ignore them all.
The door was opened to the van and he reluctantly got in, placing his suitcase on the middle of the backseat, then buckled his seatbelt as his mind raced through everything that could happen if he was in this car.
The others got in and he looked out the window at the trees and grass he rarely ever saw, as they sped away.
"That was extremely disturbing." He said, talking both about the release and the reporters. He fell silent again as he tried to get used to the light, trying to think of what could have possibly gotten released as he stared down at his hands. He was still wearing the same black leather gloves that he had worn for years, still subconsciously afraid of what people would think of the scars; visual memories of what the explosion had done to him. And then, he finally put all the pieces of the puzzle together.
"So you discovered Naomi's involvement." He whispered, unsure of what else to say.
"She tried to shoot me." The blonde in the front seat stated, as if it justified everything.
He considered what to say, almost scared that it would get him killed.
"It wasn't my original plan to protect her for so long. When she came to me telling me what she had done, I was going to tell Agent Booth." He inhaled, trying to calm himself, fighting his subconscious. "But she threatened to kill me if I didn't take the blame for her."
"And you believed her." His psychologist said.
"Naomi is deceptively strong." He explained, then realized that if they were here…
"She's dead." The blonde said. "I shot her in the chest. Agent Booth and Lance shot her too but I was the one who fired my gun first."
He nodded, understanding.
"She had a skeleton in her bedroom. It's at the Jeffersonian right now." The agent added calmly.
He was fighting his emotions, trying to figure out what to say.
"Does anyone else know what we did? Or is it just us?" the blonde was obviously not good at staying quiet. He realized that he still didn't know her name, but he had accepted long ago that names didn't matter.
"Just think of it as a late Christmas present to everyone." The psychologist said.
He was still fighting tears, trying to figure out why he even wanted to cry so much in the first place.
*~*~*
She was overcome by a fit of laughter at the sound of the gunshot on TV. Only her sister would use a gun to get rid of the reporters. And it worked, surprisingly enough.
She had always known her sister was a strange one.
Her laughter caused her to fall off the bed, hitting the nightstand as she did. Yelping in pain, she stood up, turning around to see the cut on her lower back; there was a surprising amount of blood.
Oh well. Scars were just tattoos, in a way.
Her cell phone rang and she answered instantly.
"This is Sarah Clemenza; how may I help you?"
*~*~*
Jeffersonian Institution
Washington, DC
He shouldn't have taken so long to recognize the building they pulled up to. He had worked at the place for years; it was his second home.
The people around him – Booth, Sweets, Sammy – were all standing in front of him, shielding him from view, in a way. He stared at his feet, counting the steps he took. Finally, they stopped.
"Oh. My. God." He recognized the voice; it was that of the artist who had always taken care of him. "What did you people do?"
He felt obliged to explain. "Sammy's incredibly intelligent for someone her age. She was able to figure out that Naomi was the real apprentice and that I was the one who took the blame. Judging by the amount of reporters who kept asking us questions, this is going to be on the news later today."
He heard the sound of running footsteps, and then a bone-crushing hug from half a dozen people who were all trying to talk at once.
"Welcome home, Zack."
He looked around nervously as he realized all that he would have to do now. If they didn't strip him of his doctorates, he would have to find a job. He was going to have to get new security clearance, find somewhere to live, dozens of things he would rather not do.
"My work here is done." The blonde's now-familiar voice made its way to him, and he heard the sound of two sets of footsteps walking away.
Everyone was surrounding him, as if he had never left.
For the first time in 4 years, he smiled.
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A/N: Done with the first chapter! Good god, that took too much research. 5 points for whoever can guess what the chapter's name means – here's a hint; it's Latin. In other news, Chrysler is suing my high school (more info on my profile), it's 41 degrees where I live in Florida, I was nearly in a car crash on Tuesday, and somehow I cut my back and I don't know how and it's painful.
Review! Please? I'll give you a virtual cookie!