[This takes place before the actual show picks up, in December 1999. I don't know much about hospitals or psychiatrists/therapists, so there will more than likely be inaccuracies. Also, I have this really purdy picture for this chapter, pasted in the word document, only I have no idea what the link to it is. The hallway is narrow, extending slightly above halfway up the picture into the distance; the whole thing is blue/has a blue undertone; the edges, in shadow, are black, but white light fans out along the walls... it's shaped like this, the brackets being the edges of the picture, the parentheses the edges of the white light, the slashes the hallway. Except it looks prettier: [(/\)]. Ah, well.

Should I make this two separate chapters? 'Cause the first ends on - if not an optimistic note, well, it's not as dark, whereas the whole thing ends a bit depressingly. However, the chapter title fits for both sections, I think, and it takes a long, long time for me to choose titles for anything.

The bits in italics in the second section are I guess Monk's thoughts, though not in first person narrative. They may be confusing, and, yes, I am quite aware that there are/is [a] run-on sentence[s]. It's supposed to be that way. I'm the author here - show me a little respect, hey?]

Chapter One:
Absence

She re-read the print version of the email notification. Patient: Monk, Adrian. Located room 216. Attempted suicide by drug overdose. An obsessive-compulsive to boot, with a list of phobias longer than her arm. Great. Another nutjob. But she needed the money, and badly.

Her footsteps echoed in the narrow white corridor as she walked. He'd been the best detective in the SFPD until the death of his wife two years ago. In all that time hadn't left the house for more than a few days, despite the urgings of all nine of his private nurses (all happily fired) and his psychiatrist – the man's only contact with the outside world.

She rounded the corner. There – 216. He'd been admitted a few days ago and had as of yet remained almost catatonic. God knows why they stuck him with me.

The nurse stopped before the door to look down at herself and examine her reflection in the plastic cover of her name tag. She'd heard about how particular he was from - what was his name - that police captain. Stottlemeyer? Yeah. She re-did her frizzy bun and patted down a few wayward wrinkles in her uniform before walking in.

She closed the door behind her and went to the bed. He lay there quietly, eyes closed - sleeping? resting? She couldn't tell. His breathing was erratic, inconsistent; at times he seemed to be almost hyperventilating, at others not breathing at all. How old was he? He seemed - vulnerable, almost childlike, his expression holding so much pain and terror and innocence that she felt her own heart wrench, but his face was lined and there were bags under his eyes and shadows on his face that spoke of ages of suffering. An intravenous tube was hooked up beside him.

On some strange whim she reached out and touched his forehead, only to draw away again quickly – God, he was burning! He whimpered, and his eyes opened suddenly. His brown irises were empty, black holes, pulling her in - empty but also overflowing with nothing she could understand. He was facing her, but through the blackness she could not see herself in his eyes - they showed a glimpse of once-was and never-will-be and a world whose boundaries she had not known existed. Then his eyes closed and she was spared from falling in.

"Trudy," he moaned. She jerked back involuntarily. In his voice, in his face, beneath the shuttered lids - abject loss, agony, I will never understand - she thought of her son, when he woke from a nightmare, sweat on his brow, at first not even recognizing her, the boy who did not cry when his mother screamed and raged who now wept on her shoulder -

"Adrian Monk?" she asked tentatively. Again the man's eyes opened, closed; now they were the eyes of man but not of the living. He sighed, and the light sparked on his cheek, highlighting a single tear. He's hurting. He's really hurting.

I swear I will do everything in my power to help this man.

"My name is Sharona Fleming, and I'll be your nurse until you get better."

I will be there when you stumble and I will pick you up, until the day you stand by yourself and the world is in your eyes.

"Why do you think you did that, Adrian?"

Monk didn't look up; had he even heard? He leaned over to his right to wipe a smudge off of the window.

"Adrian? Why did you take those pills?"

Monk frowned and wiped the glass again with the corner of his sleeve.

"Adrian, I'm talking to you. What were you thinking? Were you afraid of something?"

He continued to swab in a circular motion. Kroger wasn't sure if he was listening or not, and was just about to speak again when Monk replied.

"I just - wanted - to sleep," he mumbled. His arm stilled, eyes focused on the floor. "I - I couldn't sleep."

"Why did you take so many pills?"

"I couldn't sleep," Monk repeated. "I just – I couldn't" – he broke himself off and resumed cleaning.

"Were you thinking of Trudy?"

Monk's hand slipped and he froze.

"Adrian?"

"Bread and butter, Adrian," every time they had to let go. But she always came back. This time – they wouldn't let him return to her. So many hands, holding him, choking him, pulling him further from what he wanted most. He'd lost sight of her but then there she was again and he kept running but she didn't get any nearer and she cried out to him but he couldn't hear her and all he thought was just a little more time, Trudy, just a little more time, just wait for me. Come home early, Trudy. Bread and butter. Bread and butter. Wait a little longer. Just a little more time...

"Adrian? What's on the window?"

Monk let his arm fall away from the glass, and he stared at the smudge that was invisible to all but him. "I can't – see," he whispered, and Dr. Kroger saw his own face as reflected in a shop window so many years ago God where did that come from, a little-boy face that was lost and far from home.

"What can't you see, Adrian?"

Then suddenly so many voices and so many hands and they pulled him away, so far away, and everywhere he looked she was not there.

"I want to go home."

"Adrian"

"Where – where – I can't find – she isn't – "

"Adrian, are you alright?"

"I just – I just want – to go home."

When Sharona came in to bring him back he was sobbing, but there was no sound.