It killed me to see her this way. It killed me. She was always so happy, so hopeful, no one thought she had the ability to get hurt. No one thought someone had the heart to hurt her. Even so, we all forgot she could feel pain. So for me, seeing her curled up in a ball crying her heart out, it killed me.

"Alice," I called to her, even thought I didn't expect an answer. She insisted that we visited the asylum where she was kept to try and find her records. I knew it had been a bad idea, but she was so stubborn sometimes. I was right though. It had been a terrible idea. Since we walked through those doors Alice hasn't said a word to me. She only spoke to give directions. It was terrible.

"Alice," I called to her again, moving across the bedroom so I was now kneeling in front of her, holding her hand. Her soft, fragile hand.

"Talk to me Alice," I told her, desperate, "Use me."

"I can't believe that all happened to me, Jazz," she said at last, and I sighed in relief. I pulled her into my arms and sat up on the bed with her in my lap. This was hard for her. Learning you were subjected to electric shock therapy and were a guinea pig for other new treatments wouldn't be easy for anyone. But it was so much harder for her, because it was her parents who sent her there. There was no love behind it.

"I know darlin', but it's all over now. You never have to go through any of that again. I won't let anyone hurt you again," I promised her. I meant it. If I couldn't keep any of the other promises I had to make, I would keep that one. Even if it killed me.

"Why?" She asked, suddenly. She looked up with me with her bright gold eyes that I loved so much. The eyes I would do anything for.

How I wished I could tell her that her parents sent her there because they loved her, and wanted to make her better. How I wished I could tell her that they regretted it, and that they wished they could have taken her back. Unfortunately, both would probably be lies, if not stretching the truth. It was unlikely that either was the real reason for her being sent to the asylum.

She was still looking at me when I brought my thoughts back to the question at hand. She wanted an answer, no matter how hard it was to hear. And so I would tell her.

"Alice, they didn't know any better. You were different to them, so they got scared and locked you up in the one place they wouldn't have to deal with you anymore. They didn't understand what was going on with you. People are naturally afraid of what they don't know, and they didn't know what your visions meant. They didn't understand that they made you unique. Individual. Beautiful."

"So instead of accepting I was different, they would rather I be dead?" She scoffed, and I knew it was a rhetorical question. I pulled her into my chest a little more, giving her more support while she was so fragile.

"That's just the way things were back then, sweetheart." As if that makes it any better. I added mentally.

"Do you think they loved me at all?" Alice asked again.

"I think that no matter how they felt about you, you have a family with two great parents, great brothers, a great sister, and a fantastic husband who loves you more than any human would be capable of," I told her, and smiled. She smiled back a little, and turned around in my lap to kiss me.

"I guess I am grateful for that," she said, "karma needed to cut me some slack."

"I couldn't agree more, darlin'. I couldn't agree more."