Delusion
Part 1: Reality
A/N: Here I go again, just starting new stories. I swear I WILL finish every story I have started in time. Anyway, hope you like this one; it's a new string of ideas that hit me a while back. Kind of AU, but not completely.
Disclaimer: I don't own anything Class of the Titans, and it is doubtful I ever will.
// Life Is Passing You By And You Are Stuck in This Place You Are In, This Ordinary Place That You're In And I'm Stuck With YOU. //
White has never really been my color. I have always been more of a green person, or maybe a nice daffodil yellow. Although, I truly doubted my pale and drawn complexion was completely because of the ivory clothes and environment I had now been in for twenty-six hours. My head pounded from exhaustion, or from the extreme bun I had pulled my usually lustrous hair into this morning.
Coffee. I needed some more coffee.
Detouring to the faculty lounge, I passed a patient talking to his heart monitor. He was a sweet old man, completely blind, with strange white-blue eyes. Sometimes he claimed that he could tell prophecies, and the staff would often listen to him for amusement, or to be kind.
Today, I didn't have time. I quickly raced to the coffee machine and poured the biggest double double I could. In the mirror, I glanced at my face. Mascara was re-applied, and I pinched my cheeks for some color. Lip chap completed my look of non-death.
I was pretty sure this new case of mine would be the death of me via exhaustion. Desperately I needed to go home and fall into my bed… alone. As usual. But my lack of a social life, or a boyfriend was beside the point. Apparently the case that had come in just last week was… beyond the norm.
He had been sent by the courts of law, prohibited from any weapons, or free time outside the center. It was mandatory he stayed in maximum security until I, or someone with my calibre of skill could enter his mind. Seeing as how I was the leading doctor in the world when working with the TOUCH, I was the only one for the job.
The TOUCH was otherwise known as Therapeutic Observation/Utilization of Cerebral Healing. The newest innovation in the psychological world, the TOUCH made it possible for a highly trained individual (like myself) to actually enter the patient's thoughts and help them from inside their brain. It was used only in the direst of situations, with only the people who needed serious help that could not be given by standard psychological practices.
One of my closest friends, Odie Wichmore, owned a company called 'Merlin's Beard!' which dealt with all manner of inventions, technologies and innovations. It was Odie who had invented the TOUCH two years ago; and I became the first person in the world to be projected into another's brain. Odie himself had volunteered to try out the TOUCH from the receiving end, and had asked me to direct it. I had been working at the Vancouver General Hospital in the Psychiatrics ward for five years, and was Odie's most trusted friend.
I instantly fell in love with the TOUCH after that first time, and could see all the possibilities it held for people with incurable mental disorders. Odie and I started studying it, and eventually Universities developed courses to learn how to handle this device. Unfortunately, all students who are in these courses aren't graduated yet. I am the leading doctor and expert in the world on how to handle someone else's brain from the inside, and on using this therapy to help them, instead of harming them.
So now, because of the unusual level of my professionalism at this age, I practically lived at the hospital I used to love. Not that I didn't love helping the patients, and letting them re-enter the world happy and safe, I just didn't like devoting my youth to just this cause.
I still wanted a family! Although, that was getting ahead of myself, because for that I needed a boyfriend.
But that old hurt was for another time, and I couldn't afford to be distracted when I met my newest case, and the third case of the TOUCH. The first had been a true success, and the woman who I had cured was happier than ever. The second case had been a true disaster, and sometimes I still awoke at night with some of the images I had seen from his mind. But he was alive, if missing and on the run, and the public knew nothing of our true failure.
Third time's the charm. Or so I had heard, and true hope blossomed in my breast as I entered the room that connected to the patient's room. A two way mirror showed the room containing my ex-roommate Nancy, another psychologist who had lost interest in the TOUCH after the second patient's failure. She couldn't handle the repercussions it had had on me; the nightmares that had made me scream in my sleep, waking her up. She worried that it would drive me to death.
Perhaps. Perhaps it still would.
Today, it was not Nancy who drew my eyes, or the painful thoughts about the loss of her friendship that distracted me.
Instead, it was man who sat beside Nancy that shocked me, and made my very blood heat. He sat there, secured to the floor and to his chair, staring at Nancy very calmly, and responding to her questions very politely. He seemed composed, under control and very rational.
I didn't quite understand, and I really didn't want to start treatment on him. He looked like a normal guy, a normal man. Someone my father would be thrilled for me to come home with. Someone who I would be interested in.
But besides this point –this point of how normal he was- was the absolutely true and unarguable point that he…
Was…
Gorgeous.
"Dr. Davis?" A voice interrupted my trance. "Jason Cameron is ready for you, although he isn't answering Nancy's simple questions. Says he doesn't need a doctor, and that he would please like her to release him."
I shook myself, never before had a man drawn me in like that, I was the ice princess. No one could get close to me; no one could inspire passion in me! I turned to the nurse who was staring at me, waiting for my reply.
"Why is he in here? We aren't allowed to hold him against his will, you realize that? He has to choose Jail if he has committed a crime, or willingly place himself into psychiatric care."
"Dr. Davis… he killed at least three people last week, and was found near death with a sword in a children's high school with blood all over. The blood was a mixture of his own, and other's who have yet to be identified. The state wants to give him the death sentence, but his family is so influential, that he may only get time in the mental ward." The nurse told me, and I imagine he may have thought I was crazy myself.
I felt my mouth drop open. Perhaps I was crazy to be so attracted to him? But this man –this beautiful man- was a killer?! No way. Something was wrong here…
But then again, I had been wrong once before. And I had accepted the consequences of that error. Or, I should say, someone else had paid for my mistake. 'Oh Atlanta, I'm so sorry!" The thought flitted across my mind, staining it with blood and regret. I hardened myself against this Jay Cameron. I didn't care who he was, or how wonderfully inviting he looked under the harsh lights. He was a patient, and I would fix him.
"Well, we will try and convince him to accept our help, and the TOUCH sessions. If he refuses, the justice system can have him." I said bluntly. The nurse stared at me balefully, then finally nodded, turning his eyes to the two way mirror.
For the first time, I heard Jay speak, and the reaction my body took left me reeling. His voice was deep, soft, and tender. A lover's voice that caressed every inch of my body when he wasn't even aware that I could hear him.
What was happening to me!?
"I'm sorry; I just don't feel comfortable telling you my life story. Could I please leave, I don't understand why I am here." Jay's soft, controlled voice screamed that he was of noble and proud birth.
"Mr. Cameron, please understand that we cannot let you go. We are holding you for a twenty-four hour period. After that, we cannot hold you; however, the law is planning on charging you with a variety of offences. If you would just sign here and accept mental help, we could start therapy."
"I do not need therapy!" Jay thundered. I was shocked; he had finally lost his temper. I prepared to rush into the room and sedate him, but almost as soon as he finished his statement, he seemed to regret it. "I'm sorry ma'am, I didn't mean to yell at you and take out my frustration. If I could please talk to another doctor about my situation?"
Nancy smiled, but it held none of the warmth I was used to seeing in her face. She nodded calmly to him, and left the room.
I knew it was my turn to try, and for that, I hated him.
I couldn't even imagine the affect this man would have on me when I was in the same room. Why was he so… so… magnetic?! If I was my grandmamma, I would say we had known each other in another life. But I was not my grandmamma and I had spent most of my life trying to differentiate myself from her.
"Theresa… you're up." Nancy's eyes and voice held worry for me, and I could have kissed her for her caring. Instead I gave her my bravest and most beautiful smile and walked out the door and into my future.
// Oh Gods How Good Would It Be If You Trusted Me And I Believed In You? //
I walked into the room, and once more his looks stunned me. I tried to ignore the way his head was turned away from me, staring into the mirror. But at the same time, I used his distraction to stare at him. His skin was a dark gold, and for an instant I wanted to laugh hysterically at the thought of him using a tanning bed. But that desire faded as I understood that it was his completely natural skin color. Instead, another type of craving hit me, and I realized that I wanted him to turn and see me! I wanted him to look straight into my eyes and not notice that I was all alone, and absorbed in my education and career! I wanted him to think for just one moment that I was crazy and wild and a patient in here with him.
Most of all, I just wanted him to look at me like I was beautiful, something that hadn't happened since I was a child. I had never really known what was wrong with me, why boys had never really gravitated towards me the way some did to my best friend Atlanta.
With her name, I remembered that I wasn't supposed to be noticing how amazing he looked. I tried to stop –I really tried- staring at his shoulders, and how broad they were. Or at his arms, which, even though they were secured, looked to be strong and able to wrap around me and protect me from the world. His hair was a dark brown, with blonde strewn throughout it. It looked natural, like his complexion; perhaps it had been lightened from the sun?
I had thought that perhaps my blood was cooling, my heart would slow down and the permanent blush on my white face would fade now that I had taken my share of staring. It did, for a moment, but then Mr. Cameron turned from the mirror, and looked at me.
I was lost.
I knew it before he even used his magical voice again.
His face was… unbelievable.
It was the only way I could ever do it justice, to use that word. Cheek bones so finely structured, they made me jealous. His eyelashes were sinfully long and almost feminine, and they fell upon cheeks that I longed to run my knuckles across. Lips that begged for my kisses were pursed in frustration, and I almost lost my composure when his tongue flicked out to moisten them. But all of these observations were taken in an instant, and then I had found my one true passion in this world.
His eyes.
They were the darkest and clearest dark brown I had ever seen. I had always been of the opinion that brown eyes were boring, but I knew at this moment, that I had always been trying to compare all the other brown eyes with Jay's.
He stared at me, and I stared at him and for that one instant, he completely captured my soul. I knew it was wrong to get emotionally and intimately involved with a patient, let alone a murderer… but… damn the rules! If he hadn't been secured to the floor, and I hadn't known about the people watching us, I would have spent the next five hours making sweet love to him.
But, as it was, I knew about the rules, and the people behind the mirror, and Jay Cameron stayed connected to the floor, and trapped in his chair.
I wished it wasn't that way, and I wished I had met him in the grocery store, or the mall, or in a restaurant. I wished we were normal, and could be together, love each other, have a family… and oh gods, what would it be like to just… hold him?
But things seem to change as time goes on, and eventually… I wished that we could come back to this simple time, of when things could or couldn't be, all based upon who was watching, and who was trapped.
"Theresa?" He whispered, his voice poignant and catching. His eyes –for they were all I could stare at- showed desperation I had never known before entering this room.
I laughed shakily, trying to pull myself together, "Is that what Nancy told you to call me? Well, you may if you wish. But most people call me Dr. Davis."
Jay's eyes hardened slowly, with pain, and determination, and anger. But he didn't raise his voice, or rail at me like I almost expected him too. Instead, he leaned as close as he could to me, and smiled… almost… mockingly.
"Are you going to be my doctor, if I sign this sheet and submit myself to your TOUCH program?"
"Yes, I would be if you decided to be a part of our TOUCH program. At the TOUCH, we like to-"
I was shocked when he gently tossed the clipboard to the floor at my feet, along with the pen. It was signed.
But that wasn't what scared me, what rattled me was that he had gotten the clipboard and the pen without my knowledge, and both of them were considered weapons when in the hands of patients.
"That is what you wanted, is it not?" He asked me, his voice smooth and steady.
"Yes," my voice was breathless, "But eventually I need you to explain to me about your arrest, and why you were in that school."
"Of course."
"And you do know that you just signed away your privacy to me correct? I will know everything you think, and everything that goes on in your mind."
Jay smirked, and a flash of someone else came into the room. He was playful, and kind, and wonderful and not at all bitter or jaded. Not at all insane, or malicious.
"Not like that's anything new to me."
I didn't understand his comment, and I didn't particularly want to. It spoke of someone else, someone he cared about. Back when he looked so carefree. Perhaps she had died? Or left him? I didn't want to know. I pressed away the uncalled for jealousy that invaded my blood. He was hurting, and perhaps it was this person he seemed to care for and speak of that had done this to him.
Maybe I didn't even need the TOUCH to discover why the deep pain was in this man. Maybe I would just figure it out by myself. And if he was being wonderfully compassionate as he was now, why would I try and distance myself from him?
What if I could heal him, save him, and keep him?
"Have a nice day." His voice bit into me, "Now leave me alone in peace, Theresa."
Before I could think, I had waltzed out of the room, obeying his order unconsciously. Would I always react this way, as if he had been a great leader, a man whom I would follow to the end of the earth?
If someone jumped off a bridge, would you jump after them?
Perhaps. Perhaps I would.
// When Your Mind Is Gone, Your Body's Lost, Your Soul Is Finished, But I Am Here //
