I was inspired by Elizabeth 'Liz' Gillies' Lifetime movie 'Killing Daddy' to do this little one-shot. I may have borrowed some faces for people Liz has worked with in the past. This is a spoiler for the movie, so turn back now if you haven't seen it. I hope you enjoy it.

The Universe Still Talks to Me
By OneHorseShay
Disclaimer: Don't Own, Don't Sue. Please don't sue.
Rating: K+
Summary: Callie thought the Universe talked to her, what if something higher did talk to her? What if it wanted her to have her vengeance as much as she?

Philadelphia State Hospital
Philadelphia, PA

The nurse was right that Callie had watched enough television. She had heard enough of the TV evangelist. Yes, give, give and give… right into his pockets.

She got up from her seat and the nurse walked with her to her room for a quiet afternoon. She needed to get away from the other patients and more importantly, she didn't like Emma and Laura looking at her liked a caged animal. Oh, she saw them in the corner of her eye. She knew they were gloating underneath their sympathetic expression. They, the adulterous whore and the number one child, had finally gotten rid of her. It made her sick and she didn't care to see anymore of it. She wish would have shoved the pills down Emma's throat while the woman was unconscious instead of waiting for her to wake up and gloat.

She arrived in her bland room, free of most knickknacks that one would decorate to make the room their own were missing. She didn't even have pictures as they didn't want her to have anything sharp to cut herself as they had easily seen the scars on her wrists. All she had was a bed, a chair and a dresser to keep some clothes. The bare room alone with the off color white and dull green trimming would drive someone mad before long.

She took a seat cross-legged on her bed, the back wall supporting her back. The medication would be taking hold within the next few minutes, but just like all the other times, they failed to put her in a zombie like state.

The last time she was in one of these places she felt numb. The medication made her feel like a mindless zombie, but not this time… no, not this time. They weren't working. She had all her facilities, but the nurses and doctors didn't see it. She didn't understand why, but she had her mind… even the crazy one that she had finally accepted from the words of Emma.

"Of course you don't feel numb. I don't want you to feel numb and you're not crazy."

The troubled girl turned her head and saw a young man around her age dressed in a blue and white plaid shirt with the sleeves rolled up to his elbows and blue jeans sitting in the one chair in the left corner provided to her or more accurately for the doctor or nurse to sit if they had the need. He was light skinned, had fairly short brown hair parted to his left and with his sleeves rolled up and how the button up shirt was snug on him, she could tell he had a solid muscular body. In her eyes, he was a pretty little chunk-a-boy that she wished she could have met under different circumstances.

He didn't look like any of the patients she had seen since her admittance or any of the staff, so she had a rush of fear despite the momentary bit of attraction towards him. She hadn't lied to Emma when she told her of all the perverts and men that wanted her during her three years of wandering. Her eyes darted to the closed door then back to him as she cautiously asked, "Who are you?"

"I'm…" He licked his bottom lip then softly smiled, his eyes hiding a truth despite what some people that they were gateways to the soul. "I'm what you would call 'the Universe'. I'm the one that you've heard all your life, the one that's been guiding you."

The dark brunette rolled her eyes and looked out the window while she muttered in disgust, "Now I'm finally hallucinating."

The young man clicked his tongue and shook his head with a big grin. "No, no my dear, you're not. I'm quite real. I'm as real as that bed you're sitting in or the walls around you."

She shook her head and stared back out the window, disregarding what he was saying.

"They can pump you with medication until you're a walking pharmacy, but they won't get rid of me. Everyone abandoned you except for me. You'll always hear me when I speak to you."

Callie threw her head back and laughed in a low, rough growl, "Of course, because you're just a voice in my head. I really am crazy."

"If you are so crazy, then how come you've function perfectly well these last few years without medication?"

She lowered her head and looked back to him. She quietly answered, "I don't know, but I have to be crazy now. I'm still talking to a figment of my imagination."

"No you're not. I'll say it again Callie: you're not crazy; you're special and that's why you can hear me. Certain people, special people can hear my true voice and you're one of those people, but I thought it was time we had a true face-to-face meeting so… here I am."

Callie took a deep breath, trying to calm the anger forming in her chest at basically arguing with herself. She wanted it to stop and snapped in disgust, "Prove it. Prove that I'm not crazy. Prove that you're not just some hallucination I'm making because I'm here or from the side effects of the drugs."

"Okay," he smiled, pleased with the opportunity to prove such a thing.

The young man got up from his seat and walked over to her, taking a seat on the edge of the bed. He sat so close that the side of his right thigh touched her knee and it sent a shiver of fear through her. Her mind screamed that he was real if she could touch him and thought about screaming for help, but if this was a hallucination they would probably shove more pills down her throat and tie her down.

She looked up to his brown eyes and they were so calming and there was a spark of something there, something she had seen in her mother's eyes, but never in her father's eyes.

He looked down at her left arm and politely asked, "May I?"

She looked down at her grey sleeve covered arm then back to his comforting eyes then nodded her head and offered her hand.

He gently took her left hand into his left hand and partially rolled up the sleeve to expose her scarred wrist. He placed his pointer and forefinger on the scars and moments later with a soft whine, they had vanished.

She jerked her hand back and looked down at her blemish free wrist in amazement. She cautiously touched her wrist then looked back to meet his eyes. She swallowed down her fear and confusion and muttered, "Who are you?"

He put back on a boyish grin and answered, "You want a name more than just 'the universe'?"

"Do you have a name? Are you 'the universe'?"

"No, I'm not that arrogant. If you want a name then my name is Nathaniel and I'm here to help you."

She knotted her brow and slightly turned her head to the side before asking, "Help me?"

"Yes. I got you back to Philadelphia and though this isn't where I was planning for you to end up, you're well on your way of getting your vengeance." He leaned forward so their faces were just inches apart and whispered, "That's why you're here instead of in prison isn't it? That was a very good act with Emma and Hanover. You played into their preconceived notions."

Callie took a deep breath, fear and anxiety coursing through her at him speaking her hidden truth. Her mind was flooded with images of a sick mother, ones she was convinced were created by her stressed mind as everything had started to unravel. All their words were lies. Her mother was fine, her mother was well. It was her father that drove her to it. The lack of love, the lack of attention to her and her mother caused her mother's pain and turned her into this. Always too busy with work he said. No, no, he was too busy for the child he wanted over her and with his whorish housekeeper.

How come she didn't see the signs sooner? She knew in her very soul that they had been screwing each other behind her mother's back, but she didn't see it. He had broken her heart and her will to live. She wanted to choke the life out of them with her bare hands and make them feel her pain, but…

…but she was here and they were out there. She couldn't make them pay; she wasn't on any continuing path for vengeance.

She looked up and defiantly glared at her unexpected guest and snapped, "Pay? How am I going to make them pay? I'm sitting here in an asylum with no chance of ever getting out. They are free and clear and loaded with all of daddy's money. They have all the power and money. I'm the powerless one again."

The handsome face young man grinned as if he was hiding a secret he could barely contain. "Powerless? You're not powerless. If you were powerless, they wouldn't have insisted on putting you in here. There's always a chance you could be believed when saying you're innocent in prison, but in an asylum? No. They needed to silence you because you are a threat. You can bring them down… for them conspiring to kill your father and framing you."

The blue eye girl furled her brow, lost to his meaning.

He shook his head and patiently and sympathetically replied, "Oh Callie… this is only a setback and it will make the vengeance all that much sweeter."

She thought his was mad for a second with such a confident look on his face. Several tense seconds passed before she quietly asked, "I don't… I don't understand."

The young man knowingly smiled and continued, "I will explain it to you my dear. Fortunately and unfortunately you have a history of being under a doctor's care for… psychological reasons and that's why you're in here instead of a prison—something you brilliantly took advantage of—and now it is time to push that advantage."

"Advantage?"

She had fooled them enough to stay out of prison, but she hadn't thought it any further than that.

Nathaniel sat up straight and patted her left knee. "Yes… you're the poor victim of a conspiracy, a conspiracy of an intricate frame job as you humans would say for your father's and Jake's deaths."

She raised an eyebrow and questioned in mild disbelief, "They framed me?"

"Yes and they had millions of reasons to do such a thing and you were the perfect patsy. The three of them saw an opportunity to cash in with your arrival and Jake following behind you. They wanted it all and didn't want to share with you. They drew up a new, quite fake will that cut you out that you found in your father's office then framed you for murder then killed Jake to tie up loose ends."

She closed her eyes and placed her fingertips to her right temple, trying to process what he was saying. "Wait? They killed my father then killed Jake? Who would believe that?"

He let out a soft laugh then answered with a big grin, "First rule of assassination: kill the assassin. He was the perfect man for the job. He was desperate for money, the will to kill and you had an intimate connection to you. If he's dead, he can never talk and you… you could be framed at the same time for both deaths. They could make up plenty of reasons why you wanted him dead—say he was your accomplice. They after all had access to your father's gun and well…"

She glanced away and let the gears of her mind turn with his explanation of events.

Emma may have 'loved' her father, but with Laura gone to pursue her business and no one else, would she really want to take care of him day in and day out? Wouldn't it just be easier to get rid of him now than wait for him to succumb perhaps years from now? Or perhaps make that miraculous recovery that they had spoke about and it would be years more before they could collect his money?

It started making sense to her. It could make sense to other people too. They discarded her anyway. She was left in the wilderness for the last three years after high school and if they truly cared for her, if the truly meant what they said, then they would have reached out to her. They would have stand by her instead of taking her father's side.

The more she thought about it, the three of them coming together to frame the troubled and outcast daughter seemed like a believable story, something they'd make a movie of the week of to put on Lifetime or somewhere. She could not only humiliate them, but put them behind bars… that would be better than just killing them. They would feel her pain for more than a few seconds as they died by her hands, but however long they lasted in prison.

Callie wickedly smiled as she liked this idea.

Things could be painted in such a way, but… there was no way she could paint such a thing while she was in here, especially after she confessed to the crimes and labeled mentally incompetent.

She looked back towards him and replied almost in an accusatory manner, "That's a very good web you weaved, but… what can I do from in here? I'm the crazy one after all. They've done a fine job of…"

She looked down at her lap, letting their and her own words fill her head, but the words were soon joined by soft whispers, so soft she couldn't understand what they were saying. They grew louder and louder as every moment passed and drowning them out. She felt a soft touch cupping her check then the gentle brushing of his thumb over her pale skin.

"You're not crazy. You're not crazy at all. You're… filled with righteous indignation of his abandonment of you and your mother. 'Vengeance is mine; I will repay', saith the Lord… and you will be the instrument of that vengeance. I promise you that and I keep my word…"

She cupped his hand and pulled it away from her cheek. She quietly asked, "Then how? How am I going to do that?"

"With my help."

"Your help? You're going to help me? Where have you been for the last three years? When I was just scrapping by and having to dodge perverts and guys trying to get their hands on me?"

"You still have freewill and I wasn't going to take that from you. What would you want me to do? Be your father and turn you into a good little robot daughter like Laura?"

Callie took a sharp breath, feeling as if he had slapped her.

Nathaniel slightly bowed his head and continued with an apologetic tone, "I know that could be considered a cheap shot, but it made my point. They may have pursued you, but they never touched you. What you did with Jake was your own choice."

She looked down and played with the ends of her sleeves, accepting his answer for the time being then quietly remarked, "How are you going to help me?"

"You weren't my first stop this afternoon… do you remember a certain long haired boy from high school? He's majoring in business and ah… wanting to become a lawyer."

Callie knotted her brow and slightly tilted her head to the side.

She was about to question him, but the door opened and the nurse gave her a mildly disgusted look while speaking, "You have a visitor."

Nathaniel let out a good laugh, "And here he is now."

The troubled young lady looked back and forth between the nurse and her 'guest'. The nurse didn't react to the young man's presence. He knowingly smiled to her, relishing in the fact that she was the only one of the women could see him. She placed her fingertips across her bare left wrist and didn't feel the scars. She could hallucinate his existence, but the absence of scars?

Nathaniel scooted further down that edge of the bed to let her get up. She passed him a cautious look then got up to follow the impatient nurse out. He remained seated and smiled as they left and closed the door behind them.

The pair cut through the common area and towards the cafeteria as it doubled for a visiting area. The nurse stopped at the entrance and motioned for Callie to step inside.

The dark brunette paused for a brief moment at seeing a face she hadn't seen for a few years, not since graduation and their breakup. He was a little taller than Nathaniel at around five ten and leaner frame with lightly tanned skin from his Indian descended father. He had long hair, longer hair than she remembered, to the point of resting on his shoulders. He had grown a mustache and a little bit of chin hair.

The nurse gave her an impatient glance, but Callie ignored it to study the young man's nervous smile directed towards her. The pink wearing nurse snorted in disgust and walked away, leaving the twenty one year old frozen in place.

Callie's feet finally started working and she walked to the table. She had a seat across from him at the circular table, pulling a leg up to her chest and wrapping her left arm around her shin.

He nervously smiled and spoke with a voice just as anxious, "Hey Callie, it's been a long time…"

Callie cleared her throat and muttered with an anxious tone, "Yeah, it's been a long time."

Author's Note: I hope you enjoyed this little one shot. Yes, it screams for a continuation, but I'm swamped right now with other writings. Don't be afraid to review and tell your friends of this story.