Disclaimer: I do not own the Alex Rider series. I own Grace and Emily.
Author's Note: Okay, I know I shouldn't but I'm a sucker for a new story. This is, I think, the most personal thing I've ever written. A lot of this is painful for me to put down but I'm going to because I think it'll help me in one way or another, even if I really don't want to do this. But it wouldn't leave me alone, this story. I really hope you enjoy.
!IMPORTANT!: This is NOT a romance fanfic. I swear, it's not.
Just A Simple Fix
"Like the body that is made up of different limbs and organs, all moral creatures must depend on each other to exist." - Arabian Proverb
"Sleep that knits up the ravelled sleave of care
The death of each day's life, sore labour's bath
Balm of hurt minds, great nature's second course,
Chief nourisher in life's feast".
-William Shakespeare, Macbeth
Prologue.
Doctor Grace Ryan despised her night shifts. She reflected briefly on this irrational hate as she walked down one on the seemingly endless corridors of St. Sebastian's Psychiatric Hospital. As a psychiatrist, she could recognize it as irrational but she didn't want to even consider self diagnosis.
She'd become a doctor because her parents wanted her to and nearly burned out in her first year when she realized that it wasn't enough to just go to work and go home and live those two seperate lives. In a way, her work saved her. Dragged her through the long, lonely hours. Stopped her from thinking how easily she could have been one of the youths she treated. She should have been. But no one watched out for her the way people did nowadays.
She immersed herself in other people's lives because her own felt too empty and stingingly painful to inhabit. But night shifts were different. There was nothing to stop her mind from wandering over what would or could be. Night shifts were lonely, morose, pensive times for Doctor Ryan.
The light of the moon strolled through the windows as she explored the empty, lingering corridors purposelessly, glancing through windows occasionally. She could make out very little of the empty bedrooms in the half light but as she ascended a flight of stairs her ears perked up. The mess hall was occupied by teenagers of all ages, laughing. Talent shows were good to have in the hospital.
It made Doctor Ryan smile. She might have stayed to watch the carefully supervised scene but she noticed that two of her favourite patients were missing. Slowly, she pulled herself away from the glass window, waving cheerily at the teenagers inside. She rounded the final corner carefully and glanced down the ward, cautious not to cause a disturbance.
The bedside lamp was still on. The only two occupied beds separated by a thin curtain of light material. Doctor Ryan smiled and shook her head silently. They were disregarding the rules but she would definitely allow it. They were her favourites and she wasn't ashamed to admit it. They somehow supported each other the entire six months they'd been in the hospital. Thrown together under strange circumstances. They'd been beaten and battered by life and they leaned against each other with an almost alarming dependence.
They were complete opposites but they'd clung together for six months, quaking as two halves of what seemed to be a fighting unit.
Doctor Ryan shook her head again, allowing herself for the first time all night to come to a stop and just watch. The girl lay on her right shoulder, cradling herself even in her sleep. She looked even more breakable when she slept. Her body was twisted to face him, even though the curtain blocked him from sight, black hair tumbling and fanning across her pillow. The angry red scars on her arms were hidden by a long sleeved pyjama top, hiding her secret. Her breathing was easy though, her skeletal face almost tranquil in the still light of the moon.
The sleeping boy was lying on his left shoulder, facing her. It was as if they'd fallen asleep trying to find each other behind the curtain. His hands were spread out, reaching toward the dividing line. He slept spread eagled while she hunched and cradled in on herself, trying to stop herself from collapsing. His face looked younger without his chilling eyes open, the relentless light of the lamp distorting his features slightly. Even in sleep they seemed to be dependant on each other. To tell their own stories. She was trying to hold herself together. He was reaching for something to cling to. Some form of help.
Doctor Ryan sighed at the sight and folded her arms across her chest, observing for another minute before darting away, smiling to herself. She'd go and talk with the others at the party. But she'd leave her thoughts in the room where they slept. Yes. Alex Rider and Emily Rose were definitely her favourite patients.
What she didn't know was that she couldn't help them in their sleep. The nightmares, they slunk in every single night.
She was powerless to help them in her own hospital, where she held the power.
Fin.
