A/N: Thanks for reading guys. Thanks for the support during my hiatus, thanks for every request to beta your story, for every long and emotional review you've given, for every one of your stories you've asked me to read, for all the begging for sequels to some of my fics. This is going to be a little different to my usual style – not much of a style aha. I'm all over the place with concepts and ideas. That being said, this fic means a lot to me. I'm very familiar with therapy and experiments, and what it feels like to be analysed every second of the day. I want you all to see past the scary stigmas drawn up around psychosis – that you're not all safe from yourselves – and that we are not above anyone else based on our physical, mental or spiritual stability. TL;DR: pay attention to everything, because most likely it will not be said twice and will probably also be important.

February 29th, 2008

Clara

My hands shake as I touch the doorknob apprehensively. Surely I shouldn't be the nervous one; it's the subject's job to be nervous. Not that nerves could change the poor girl's situation. Sara, the Doctor said her name was. Sara Jaime Price. I twist the stupid chunk of metal and stride in, smiling at the pale, mousy brunette preteen, although my hands clutch the clipboard like a lifeline. She reminds me of myself when I was twelve – she even has a white toy bunny. That makes me uncomfortable, considering what we're going to do to her. With her, I correct myself – but it's not convincing. Neither the Doctor nor I have any intentions of joining in this particular experiment.

She's smiling. She has no reason to smile, but she's smiling anyway. Smiling to be polite? Cheerful? Or is she hiding something? The Doctor squeezes my hand lightly, and a faint smile warms my face. All will be determined in this interview, surely.

February 28th, 2008

Professor Ausculta Nimius

My face is not what it used to be. Even as I pull and stretch the loosening folds, the skin does not bounce back to what it was. I can understand why it makes other women sad. It's basically a metaphor – even as you mold your features and carefully arrange your limbs, everything still falls mockingly back to the way it is. I wonder if women would age less in space, with no gravity. Would we age at all, with no opposing force to our skin's natural elasticity? Bone fragility would probably still occur, alongside weight gain and greying hair – alas, I must not think of such vain matters. This is my crucifix – aesthetic beauty I can never attain.

I'm still scrawling diagrams I have trouble understanding myself on the blackboard as my two PhD students run in; Clara barely managing to seat herself without spilling her coffee and the Doctor checking his watch with a murderous expression. It's her fault they're late, I observe. The eccentric young couple look up nervously, and I shrug nonchalantly at them. I don't really mind, in all honesty. They're both keen as anything for me to be supervising their experiments for their theses: Clara's studying humanistic psychology, while her husband studies Gestalt psychology. Both fascinating branches of the subjective science; also quite different to one another. Their chosen fields do reflect them as people. Humanistic Psychology puts a strong focus on who we are as humans – what isolation does to us, how we feel about the threat of death, what drives us. Gestalt, however, focuses on the main impression of something upon the mind. The image, as opposed to all the different things that contribute to it. Many consider it a kind of purism in these studies – but it is important to remember what you're actually trying to find. I myself specialised in both of these fields.

Clara wants to know how long it takes to make someone go crazy. All symbolisms and colloquial uses of that phrase aside; it's a dangerous and fascinating thesis. The Doctor's thesis sort of revolves around the success of hers: he wants to know what it does to the subject as a person. He will be keeping track of the subject's generalised reactions via observation and subject survey, while Clara will be speaking with her directly about how the subject feels about all of it. They don't know, but I've informed the other psychology professors about this particular experiment. It can go one of two ways: it can change everything we know about mental stability, or it can become the biggest intrusion of human rights known to man.

Thank God for contracts.

The Doctor

I frown a little at Clara, but can't stay mad with her for long as she sips her coffee, blissfully unaware of the froth moustache coating her upper lip. I don't want to tell her, for fear of breaking that delightful image, although she'll be mortified later.

Professor Nimius finishes her complex reaction flow chart, and I immediately grin at her. She's a lovely thirty-something-year-old woman with auburn hair, supernaturally pale skin, wide blue eyes and a sharp jawline. There's always some air of dissatisfaction about her – something hidden and quite sad. But I know better than to ask a psychologist what's on their mind.

"We're starting tomorrow," Clara bursts suddenly, proudly. Trust Clara to pop that one out of the ground. I'm still not sure about this, but she's dead set on it. We're going to make a twelve-year-old girl we met last week go insane, and we're going to put it all down for science.

Nimius raises an eyebrow in quiet delight. "I'm looking forward to your first report," she tells us encouragingly, brushing chalk off her white blazer. The blazer that always looks like a lab coat. "Thanks," I murmur awkwardly. I don't know what to say, but Clara probably will.

"How was your weekend, Professor?" she chirps happily, and I squeeze her hand in gratitude. Clara always saves us from awkward silences.

"It was great, actually! Went on another date with that guy from the tea shop, the one I was talking about on Wednesday with the eyebrow piercing?"

"Oh yeah! How'd it go?"

"It was wonderful, he's such a sweetheart..."

I start to tune out with polite intentions. Clara's much closer with Professor Nimius than I am. She's much closer with everybody than I am. Must be that magical charm she has. The same charm that snagged me for life.

Clara

"So what's she like? Your subject for the experiment?" Ausculta asks us.

She doesn't usually get this keen about things. Maybe it's that new lad she's seeing.

"Well, the Doctor knows more about her than I do..." I trail, nudging my husband meaningfully. He just shifts uncomfortably in the chair next to me and licks his lips.

"Her name's Sara Jaime Price. Twelve years old, brunette, small, orphaned at the age of six. She remembers," he states somewhat emotionlessly.

"Ah," says Ausculta, who then returns to preparing the blackboard for her next lecture.

The Doctor is nothing like he used to be. Before we were married on that cool day in autumn, he was loud. Loud, clumsy, and far too brilliant for his own good. He still wears his signature bowtie and tweed, but not with the same confidence. Ever since we established our shared theses, he's been unusually quiet. Shy, almost. As we pass through the mahogany door to our empty Victorian house, I start to wonder if I've done this to him. If being married to me means suffering silently.

I punch the bedroom wall, and it doesn't hurt.