Title: Misguided

Pairing: Bridgette/Duncan, slight Harold/Duncan

Rating: T

Disclaimer: I don't own TDI/TDA

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Duncan opened his blue eyes slowly and immediately wished they were still shut. The room was a spinning blur, fading in and out rapidly.

"Duncan? You're in a hospital. We're going to help you, okay?"

He didn't know if he could speak, but even if he could, wouldn't say 'okay'. Because it wasn't okay, since nobody could truly help him.

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"Do you have any scars, Duncan?"

"Yeah."

"Where?"

Duncan pointed all eight of them out. The woman didn't bat an eye, not even when he showed her the really long, fresh one on his chest.

"You may now go shower and change into these." The woman handed him a pair of what looked like doctor's scrubs, but in white. "This is a bottle of shampoo. You may use one forth of a bottle per day. We will check your mouth to make sure you didn't drink it, and it tastes very bad, so please don't do that."

"I won't," Duncan promised, but once he was in the shower, he wanted to, just to spite her. But he knew they'd pump his stomach again if he tried, and that was really just a load of painful shit, so he decided against it.

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"This is your room. You won't have a roommate until your doctor decides that you're stable," the woman explained. "Because you arrived so late, we'll late you sleep in an hour later than the others."

"I don't want a roommate," Duncan insisted, ignoring the rest of her statement. "I've had enough of those, and none of them turned out so great."

"Well, you won't have one for a while," the woman insisted. "Goodnight."

Duncan snarled at the door once she'd closed it – halfway, of course, so they could make sure he didn't try to asphyxiate himself, and then finally crawled into bed.

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It was only an hour before he woke up screaming, a lady taking his vitals, his heart racing and his cheeks wet with tears.

Every nightmare was different, but they always ended the same – blonde hair with dried blood and green eyes closing indefinitely.

And every morning he'd wake up with the stupid tears on his face insisting that they weren't his because he didn't cry.

Not since then had he cried once. The tears weren't his.

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"Duncan, this is Shane. He's going to be your therapist while you're here."

"Whatever," Duncan muttered, lying on the couch. He'd only gotten half an hour of sleep last night and he was exhausted. Black circles rimmed his eyes. He never did very well without sleep.

Shane, on the other hand, looked like he'd gotten at least four good nights of sleep. The guy was practically glowing. Duncan envied him. He hated him.

"I hate you," Duncan said the second the door closed.

"They all do," Shane cheerfully replied. "So tell me, Duncan, what brings you here?"

"An ambulance," Duncan smartly replied. Shane laughed a bit too loud and a bit too long.

"You have a great sense of humor," Shane told him, and Duncan growled. "And a great aptitude for animal sounds. You should be a comedian."

Dear lord. Must he be so chipper? It was far too early. Duncan decided the session wasn't even worth staying awake for and fell asleep on the uncomfortable couch.

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"It's time for lunch," Shane remarked, and Duncan growled at him again as he woke up. He'd slept for a while, he could tell, because the sun was higher in the sky and he felt a bit better.

"I'm starving," Duncan grinned, and even though the food was terrible, he ate three trays full of the glop they'd served and didn't even care that he felt like puking for the rest of the day.

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"Are you ready to talk about why you're here?" Shane queried.

"I'm here because I tried to kill myself," Duncan answered, attempting to imitate Shane's chirpy voice. Shane didn't seem to notice.

"I'm happy you can finally admit that. Do you remember why you tried to kill yourself?"

"No," Duncan lied. "No, that's all blacked out."

"I'm going to put you on some anti-depressants. They should clear your head," Shane announced, writing something down in Duncan's file.

"I don't want my head cleared," Duncan muttered. Shane didn't seem to notice.

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That night, Duncan found that he couldn't sleep, and that he kept seeing her standing next to his bed, crying her eyes out. He kept telling her not to cry and by the time she actually stopped, the sun had come up without Duncan noticing.

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"Do you remember yet?" Shane kept asking. He reminded Duncan a lot of a little kid.

"No," Duncan kept answering, the lie tasting stale in his mouth after the fifth time he said it. By the fifteenth, it made him want to vomit.

He was certain that he couldn't keep lying for much longer.

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"You've been cooperating," a woman told him one day as he passed by the desk. "Therefore, we've decided to reward you with a roommate. This is Harold." A skinny, lanky, redheaded boy stood next to her, wearing glasses that clashed horribly even with his white scrubs.

Duncan was so happy to see a familiar face that he completely erased their past by

hugging him.

Harold actually hugged him back.

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"I got busted for drugs," Harold said. The words sounded odd coming from the awkward boy's lips. "Why'd they haul you in?"

"I tried to commit suicide," Duncan answered. They were both sitting on their beds. Duncan hoped that maybe talking to Harold before falling asleep instead of thinking about her might make him have fewer nightmares, so he'd woken Harold up and pleaded with him to talk. Now they were sitting cross-legged on their beds, their knees a few inches from touching due to the fact that the beds only had a one-inch space between them, which the orderlies measured every morning.

"Why?" Harold asked.

"I don't…" Duncan finally sighed, feeling his throat go dry in anticipation. "Because my gang found her and…"

"Shh…" Harold whispered. Duncan was surprised to see him sitting next to him on the bed, gently rubbing his back. "You don't have to talk about it if you don't want to."

The nurse seemed shocked when she came in to check their vitals that next morning to find the two of them sleeping in the same bed, but she was one of the nicer ones so she didn't report them.

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"…they didn't want me dating someone outside of our gang," Duncan explained. "I never meant it to be that way. That's why I tried to hide her. I wanted to protect her from them. I knew they'd hurt her."

"Duncan," Shane said, and Duncan's head shot up because, for once, Shane was being serious. "Duncan, I'm letting you leave. I think we've done all we can for you."

"I have nowhere to go," Duncan sighed. "And I'm not leaving Harold behind."

"Harold was released this morning," Shane sounded surprised that Duncan didn't know. "It turns out that he was literally in the wrong place at the wrong time. And I do believe we've found a good place for you."

"Where?" Duncan queried.

"I think you'll understand when she gets here. Her name is Bridgette. She's been in the hospital for a while but she's never stopped asking about you."

The tears on Duncan's cheeks were finally admitted to be his, because they, for once, weren't sad. They were hopeful.

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A/N: A short memoir about my own time in a psychiatric hospital. My roommate really did end up being someone I knew.