Author's Note: Hello and welcome to my new Legion fic "Trials of Mercy". I'm so excited to have posted this story, which, admittedly, I started way back in November and more or less forgot. But now that I have a little free time, I'm finally letting the first chapter see the light of day. I do hope you enjoy it!
Disclaimer: I claim no ownership of Legion nor any of the characters affiliated with the movie. All OCs mentioned herein, however, do belong to me.
Chapter One Caged
It was about two o'clock in the morning when Doctor Susan Holm decided that she probably wasn't going to get any more work done that night. She was sitting in her office, no more than a glorified closet, off the fifth floor psychiatric ward at L.A. General. A stack of patient files sat on her desk in a neat pile off to her left, the folders varying in thickness, some dog-eared, others crisp and not yet marked with faint thumbprints or errant ink stains. Susan selected a file on the very top of the pile, the manila cover still clean, and rifled through the scant sheets of paper within. Female, aged nineteen. Diagnosed with anorexia nervosa and clinical depression. There was a social anxiety disorder also and maybe, just maybe, a touch of OCD. And now, she noted grimly, a suicide attempt.
Susan blinked, remembering how the girl had looked when they brought her into the E.R. that evening with slashed wrists, like a caged animal. Poor kid. She'd be spending Christmas in the psych ward. Did it get more depressing than that?
Definitely.
Susan flipped the folder closed and stuck her ballpoint back into the pocket of her lab coat. She'd finish this later. Give herself a half hour break. A little reprieve. She never really liked the nightshift, anyway. Why had she let Dr. Geller swap his on-call time with hers?
Stupidity, Susan told herself, a confined smile puncturing her annoyance. She liked to be self-deprecating. It kept her grounded.
Leaning back in her chair, which squeaked too much every time she moved around, Susan turbed on the small radio she kept in the corner next to her computer. It was little better than one of those hand-held sets her grandmother used to keep with her when she gardened in the backyard, but Susan only needed to get halfway decent reception on a handful of stations to be content. The problem was, nearly every DJ was playing Christmas music, and although she definitely wasn't opposed to the holiday, Susan found she really couldn't get into the spirit until Christmas Eve.
"You're a day early," she told the DJ as he introduced another set of traditional carols covered by nauseatingly cutesy pop stars. Even the classic rock station was playing Jethro Tull's Christmas album. She was truly screwed.
I'm not a grinch, am I? Susan asked herself. Aside from Ian Anderson's rather energetic flute playing, the office was quiet, the mood perfect for introspection. Somewhere down the hallway, a nurse rattled off a code call on the P.A.
Susan rubbed her hand over her eyes, getting stale mascara on her fingers. She was glad her days as a resident were over. There was nothing exciting about running off to a code. She wasn't sure how E.R. doctors stayed on their toes all the time. At thirty-three, she had learned how to feel old already. Maturity gave her some semblance of authority, she felt, and when dealing with the potentially unstable, delusional and paranoid day after day, having a little conviction behind her smile was more than necessary. Or something like that.
After forcing herself to listen to at least one Christmas song with holiday cheer in mind-it happened to Hark! The Herald Angels Sing-Susan gave into temptation and checked the time on her cell phone.
2:15 AM. Less than six hours to go. Susan squirmed when she realized that she didn't have a single text or voice mail. She supposed, that after waiting a week, Henry just wasn't going to call her. That was it. A very appropriate fuck-you to end what she had thought had been a good relationship. Granted, it had only lasted five months, but he had been the one who had invited her to spend New Year's with his family. That was supposed to mean something, right? Apparently not.
Susan jammed the phone back iton her pocket. She hated desperation, even in herself. And honestly, did she really think she was going to marry the guy? Thirty-six and still not out of law school. That was what someone like Dr. Phil might call a warning sign. But luckily, Susan herself was a real psychiatrist and didn't buy into any of that phony TV shtick.
Maybe she'd have the last laugh and let Geller trade her his New Year's shift. That way, if Henry did call, she could give his fuck-you right back to him.
"Childish," Susan scolded herself, but it made her feel better. She picked up the next patient chart on the stack to relieve the small, niggling sense of shame she felt. Wouldn't it be nice if the hospital switched all their records into a computer system? Susan was tired of getting writer's cramp in her fingers every day. And the cuffs of her white coat always had ink smudges on them.
She clicked the top of her ballpoint pen. Where was she when she last left off? Oh right, Christmas in the psych ward.
The knock on the door was well-timed. Susan looked up, perhaps too eagerly. It was hard for her to appreciate the small comforts of solitude when she had such a crummy office, although she supposed that her paltry three years at the hospital didn't exactly entitle her to a downtown view.
To cover-up her anxiousness, she took her time closing the cover of the file and placed it directly on top of the others. Symmetry pleased her, because it was so akin to efficiency. She made sure that the pile of charts was straight before she bothered with a greeting.
Her visitor, however, was much more impatient.
"Hey, Sue." Eric, one of the male nurses on the psych ward, lingered in the doorway. Judging from the creases in his scrubs, she guessed he had already been on duty several hours. "I don't wanna be a pain in the ass, but I'm going need you."
"Sure." Susan gave him her best smile, only because she really liked Eric. He was a good guy, a dedicated nurse who had enough patience to make a saint jealous. She had been fortunate to see a lot of him lately. His fiancée was four months pregnant and Eric was snatching up all the over time he could, securing himself a nice little nest egg for his growing family. Last time she had talked to him, he was already picking out names for the baby. Eric was almost positive that he wanted to name his kid after one of the members of the Rolling Stones, his favorite band. Susan didn't have the heart to tell him that his fiancée would probably call him crazy and she herself would agree.
Eric leaned against the open door and ran his hand over his smooth, bald head. There were only certain guys that could pull off that look, Susan thought and he was one of the few. His skin, the color of coffee, had a real nice luster about it.
"What's up?" she asked, swinging around in her squeaking chair to give him her full attention.
Eric pulled down the rolled up sleeves of his undershirt. "Need you in the E.R.," he said. "Cops brought in a guy who is definitely going to need a full evaluation. Another fifty-one fifty, I'd say."
"He's violent?" Susan asked. Mindfully, she put her ballpoint in her pencil holder. No sharp objects, she reminded herself. It was amazing how clever desperate people could be.
"No, not now, exactly," Eric replied. He let her step out into the hall first before he followed her. "Cops caught him breaking into some toy factory-"
"A toy factory?"
"He had, get this, he literally had a duffle bag of guns with him."
"Hello, Santa," Susan laughed. They were by the elevators now and she pushed the down button with her knuckle.
"The cops aren't saying much," Eric explained, "but Miggs down in the E.R. thinks he was definitely tased a couple of times. The paramedics must've removed the probes."
"So far I'm only hearing the criminal," Susan said. She stepped into the waiting elevator and was glad to find it empty. She wasn't exactly claustrophobic, but still… "Why do they want him to have a psych evaluation?"
Eric looked at her, his face expressionless. "Guy says he's St. Michael the Archangel." He delivered all this in a dead-pan and Susan appreciated his professional indifference. The stigma attached to mental illness disturbed her and empathy, she felt, went a long way.
"Oh," she said, her stomach dropping a little as the elevator sped down to the E.R. on the ground floor. "All right, well, we'll see what we can do about that."
"Cops said he was going for a gun when they rolled up on him," Eric added. "He would've shot someone if they hadn't tased him, I guess."
"Is he combative now?"
"Sedated. Miggs gave him Haloperiel."
"Okay," she said. "I'll go from there."
The elevator doors dinged open, revealing the war zone that was the E.R. on any given night. A couple of E.M.T.s rushed a car crash victim by on a stretcher. Susan took a minute to check her cell phone one last time before she stepped into the chaos. Pulling it halfway out of her pocket, she saw that there were no messages, no calls.
Well, a very Merry Christmas to you too, Henry.
Eric walked her down the open corridor to one of the isolation rooms. Susan was a little surprised when she noticed a small hitch in his gait. There was definitely something he wasn't telling her.
"What is it?" she asked, his reticence spurring on her curiosity.
Eric gave her a side-long glance, a worried frown digging into the corner of his mouth. "Guy has two huge lacerations on his back. He said he cut off his wings."
Susan couldn't help it. She raised her eyebrows. "I can't believe I'm going to say this," she replied, "but that has to be a first for me."
Eric only shrugged.
There were three cops outside the patient's room, along with hospital security guards. None of them looked too pleased. Susan smiled at them as she passed. She didn't have a problem with the L.A.P.D., most of them were dedicated civil servants. But, as in all things, there were usually a few rotten apples.
Miggs, the attending physician, was inside the room with a few nurses when she entered. In the sharp, fluorescent lights, his face looked pasty.
"Dr. Holm," he said. "I appreciate the consult."
Susan only nodded. Miggs didn't interest her much. This patient, however, most certainly did. She let one of the nurses finish taking vital signs before she maneuvered her way past Miggs to get a better look at St. Michael, or whatever he was called.
The man was in a hospital gown, handcuffed on both sides to the bed railing, his head resting back on the pillow. A map of faint, black tattoos crawled up his neck and twisted over his bare arms. The I.V. was held to his wrist with several extra pieces of surgical tape. Susan wondered if he had tried to rip it out.
But the patient stirred then. Jerked his head off the pillow and looked at her directly, looked her right in the eye. A caged animal, Susan thought and was suddenly glad for her empathy.
She took a deep breath and let it out slowly. "Oh boy," she said. "Oh boy."
Author's Note: Thanks so much for reading! If you have some free time, please leave me a quick review. Like all writers, I thrive on feedback. The next chapter has already been written and should be posted soon. Until then, take care and be well!
*Please note, a "5150" which Eric references in this chapter is a term for the involuntary confinement of a mentally ill person by a qualified clinician under California state law.