Title: Guardian Angel

Pairing: Norman Jayden/Madison Paige

A/N: I know it's a bit of an odd pairing. Don't get me wrong, I love Madison/Ethan stories. And yes, I'm jumping on the Norman Jayden bandwagon. There are indeed a lot of Jayden stories out there, but Jayden/Blake just doesn't make much sense to me...so I wrote this. Review if you like!

)O(

"Weep for yourself, my man,
You'll never be what is in your heart.
Weep Little Lion Man,
You're not as brave as you were at the start.
Rate yourself and rake yourself,
Take all the courage you have left.
Wasted on fixing all the problems
That you made in your own head."

- Mumford and Sons, Little Lion Man

)O(

The reason he joined the FBI was because he wanted to make a difference in the world; he wanted to help people. It was the same reason as everyone else. Jayden was still young and naïve at the time, but he had potential, and now he'd wasted it.

The ARI gave him an edge. Maybe not with his fellow agents, but the police in Philadelphia who were having a hell of a time catching the Origami Killer. The glasses allowed him to see things they could not, find hidden clues and missing pieces to the puzzle. But there were side effects…

The triptocaine helped with the nosebleeds and made the headaches go away. ARI was his means of escape, and tripto kept him calm and focused on the case until it was solved. He knew such a combination was potentially fatal, but if it meant he could save just one more life, even if it cost him his own; it was worth it.

Jayden wasn't exactly sure when it had gotten to the point where he seemed to need the drug more than he needed sleep or food. Soon he found himself spending more time in that beautiful alternate reality than in the real world. It was more real to him anyway.

He knew the risks and tried on multiple occasions to give it up forever, but in the end, he always came crawling back. Without tripto and the ARI, Jayden was just a normal person, if a bit of a smartass. But more importantly he'd be unable to solve difficult cases. That was not acceptable. Even though some nights his hands shook so badly that he couldn't even play the piano…

After the Origami Killer case ended, he had felt lost and empty. Jayden resigned from the FBI and got the hell out of Washington. He found himself on the first plane to Philadelphia. Where else could he go? What better place to start a new life than the city where his old one died?

And now, he was lying on the floor of some cheap motel room, trying to figure out where it all went wrong.

It had been his job to get inside people's heads and figure out how they worked and what made them tick. He had gazed into the dark and twisted psyches of some of the most infamous criminals, returning from it more or less the same. But this time…this time Jayden knew he was walking the serrated edges of right and wrong, struggling to keep the balance between his addictions and his life, and he could feel himself slipping.

His own demons were taunting him, now. For God's sake, he was supposed to be able to figure people out like the simplest of equations, and he couldn't even get his own shit together.

Tripto could make this awful feeling vanish; maybe even replace it with something sweeter, like ARI used to. An infuriating voice in the back of his mind told him this over and over again. But he didn't have the ARI anymore, it wouldn't help him here anyway, and he sure as hell didn't have any of that.

If he was ever going to rejoin the real world, Jayden would have to be in control. He must beat this on his own.

But the withdrawal symptoms…fuck

The only thing that had ever helped in the past was ARI. In turn, the tripto relieved that skull-shattering pain which made it impossible for him to think. The drug allowed him to think clearly, and eventually he couldn't do so without it. So Jayden was stuck in a perpetual loop of addictions with no way out.

What would Blake say if he could see this?

Jayden figured he must be losing his mind for even thinking about the unbalanced psychopathic asshole without any provocation. Or maybe it was just the insomnia…

This would be the second day in a row Jayden hadn't slept. It had something to do with the lack of a certain blue powder his mind and body now desperately depended on in order to function. Jayden's brain was buzzing a mile a minute, but no thoughts were particularly coherent.

Would anyone care if he died? Had his life made any sort of difference in the world?

Jayden's eyes wandered aimlessly, only half taking in the shadows that stretched across the ceiling. Suddenly, his hands began to shake and his heart fluttered rapidly. This wasn't good. He needed tripto and he needed it now.

Somehow he managed to get to his feet, which turned out ot be a very bad idea as the walls immediately started to bend like they were pieces of paper being folded into an origami figure…

He shut his eyes tight, feeling the pulse of blood behind them, and hoping that the hallucination would disappear. It did; the walls stood upright again but the room was still spinning. The former FBI profiler crawled to the bathroom on his hands and knees, stood up and gripped the sides of the sink to steady him. Turning on the faucet, he splashed some ice cold water on his face, hoping it would clear his head a little.

It didn't.

"Fuck, Norman, look at yourself!" the reflection in the mirror commanded. "Finally hit your proverbial rock bottom, huh?"

"Shut up." Jayden said through gritted teeth. "You're not real so shut the fuck up!"

"ARI wasn't real either, but it was by virtue of its impossibility that compelled you to keep coming back, wasn't it?"

The real Jayden took a deep breath. 'What do you want from me?"

"I want you to take a good look at the person you've become. Was this really what you had in mind? You had so much potential, Norman…If you keep going back, it will kill you."

"I have it under control." Jayden replied as calmly as he could, although it wasn't true and they both knew it.

"Do you?" the reflection of him asked. "No matter how hard you try, Norman, you just can't do this alone." Then he lowered his voice and spoke much gentler this time. "It wasn't your fault that you couldn't save the kid. He's alive, that's all that matters."

"Fuck you!" Jayden shouted. "Shut up, all right? Just shut up!"

He staggered out of the bathroom, gasping for air. It felt like someone had punched him hard in the stomach. Jayden knew he was falling and reached out for something to hold on to, but found only empty space. He finally collapsed beside the bed, barely able to breathe as sleep or maybe death claimed him.

And in those last moments of consciousness, Jayden thought he heard someone knocking on the door. But that was impossible. No one cared if he lived or died anyway, as it should be.

"Hello? Are you okay in there? I heard yelling…"

That voice, a woman's voice…

No, an angel's voice…

It was more beautiful than anything the ARI ever could have created for him.