Erza could tell something was off about Jellal. He smiled more, laughed louder, and moved too quickly. During a morning group therapy session he tapped his fingers on his knees, and on the armrest of his chair. The psychologist running the group shot him a glare and he righted the backward leaning chair but his body didn't stop moving until he was leaning forward on his knees. Erza watched his thumbs circle jerkily over one another until the session ended.
"I need a smoke," he muttered, standing immediately. With hardly a glance back at her, he held out a hand and Erza reluctantly took it. The psychologist was already on her way across the common room but one of the other patients eyed Jellal grasping her hand with more interest than Erza felt comfortable with. Her green eyes followed them all the way out the door.
The air outside was muggy; the product of too much rain and too little sun. Jellal sucked down half his cigarette at a pace Erza said nothing about. In a show of insecurity she leaned into his side and he draped his arm across her shoulders.
"You're agitated today," she whispered.
"Am I?"
"Yeah. I thought you were going to bail on group earlier, you were so jumpy."
"I feel great."
Erza glanced up at him and then over at the spent cigarette still in his hand. She reached over and snubbed it out on the concrete tabletop. His fingers were blacker than usual. The pads of Erza's thumb brushed over his fingertips.
"Are you sleeping?"
Jellal shrugged and patted his pockets. "I'm out of cigarettes."
"How do you normally get them? Does your dad bring them for you?"
"Nah, he hates cigarettes. My friend usually hooks me up but she's been busy this week."
"I've never seen anyone come by for you that wasn't your dad."
"She's… busy. I only ever see her on Sunday mornings right when they open the desk."
"She must be a good friend if she does that for you." Jellal was silent for so long, Erza glanced up at him with concern.
"I don't know how good she is," he whispered. "But sometimes we get what we get."
Erza stared at his hand and pressed her thumb against the pad of his index finger. The charcoal was so packed that only a light dust on her thumb was left behind.
They didn't have a set schedule or rotation. Sometimes he came to her room and sometimes she went to his. On Sunday night, Erza sought him out. She found his walls and window completely plastered with charcoal drawings. Some of them were of a woman she now knew to be his mother. Others were of vague shadows and streaks of what looked like rain through a window. A small cluster of torn pages near his bed were nothing but hands with light shading. Erza leaned closer to the overlapping pages and saw they were his hands. The likeness was incredible right down to the smudges of charcoal on his fingers.
"I hoped you'd come," Jellal whispered in her ear. His hands slid around her waist and left black charcoal streaks on the hem of her pale blue pajama top. She spun around and before she could get a word out, his lips were on hers. He kissed her with a force Erza was unused to. His heart beat steadily against the palms of her hands and even though she knew he wasn't quite right, she wrapped her arms around his neck.
Jellal left charcoal fingerprints on her stomach and thighs, and a red mark on her neck. He went so far as to get one of her legs free from her pajama pants before Erza pulled him to the desk in the corner. She hopped to the surface and wound her legs around his waist. With an abandon they'd never shared before, Jellal fucked her on the desk and it was the most Erza thought she'd felt in days – weeks. Despite the concerned voice at the back of her consciousness, Erza let him drag her with him over a steep ledge. His breaths were heavy and this time when he kissed her it was slower but ended just as quickly as it began.
"What time is it?" He whispered, helping her off the desk and back into her pants.
"I don't know. Does it matter?"
"Remember my friend I told you about?" Jellal retied the drawstring of his pajama pants and pulled open the small wardrobe.
"Uh, yeah, I guess. The one who brings you cigarettes?"
"That's the one." He bent down and stuffed his feet into a pair of boots. "She's picking me up in a bit. You really don't know what time it is?"
"I think I saw the wall clock say eleven on my way here but, Jellal –" Erza grabbed his arm and spun him around. His eyes were bright and she didn't care for the smile on his face. "Are you really leaving?"
"Yeah, you wanna come?"
"Where?"
"I don't know." He shrugged, and took her hand in his tightly.
"Aren't you tired?" Erza whispered. "Don't you take a sedative at night?"
"I'm tired of sedatives, Erza." Jellal tugged her to the small table by his bed and yanked open the drawer with such careless force it rattled against the wall. Inside was an assortment of loose pills. "See?"
"Jellal," Erza breathed, trying to choose her words carefully. "How long have you been doing this?"
"A few days." He glanced up at the small space of visible window and his grip on her hand tightened. "We need to go."
Erza let him pull her into the hallway and said nothing as they navigated the maze of corridors and stairwells. A few days, he'd said. Could he really go from what felt like a level plateau to… this in only a space of a few days? And hadn't he been the one to tell her not to store skipped medication doses in bedside drawers? His sloppiness alarmed her more than anything else. She watched the shadows play on his face as they quickly passed through a hallway Erza knew would dead end into a receiving port for laundry trucks. She realized that though he was in boots, he lacked any sort of jacket and she was completely without shoes. Her feet padded on the tiled floor while his boots clomped loudly.
"Jellal," she whispered thinly. He didn't respond and only stopped once they'd reached the doors. Thunder rumbled outside and Erza's panic grew as she watched him peek through the rectangular windows. "Jellal, please," she breathed again.
Jellal pulled the door open only a crack before the wind blew it so hard the closer arm bent backwards and the heavy metal body crashed into the wall. A young woman leaned against a pillar at the very edge of the overhang. She flicked a still glowing cigarette butt out into the rain. Her midnight hair gleamed in the halogen flood light.
"I thought you'd take all night," she said in a bored tone. Erza wanted to shrink back down the hallway but Jellal held fast to her hand. "She coming with?"
Jellal finally turned to Erza in surprise, almost as if he'd forgotten she was there. His entire face was different. She suddenly regretted leaving her room at all.
"What do you say, red?"
"I can't." Erza twisted her hand in his grasp and he let her go. She clutched her hand to her chest and watched him turn away from her to join his dark-haired companion. They disappeared around the corner and Erza felt hot tears on her face mixing with the cold spray of the storm. Her socks were now wet and her toes, freezing. Erza backed down the hall and felt more alone than she'd ever felt in her life. To her left she spotted a red emergency lever. Without thinking, she reached over and yanked on it. The flashing lights and alarms filled every bit of her consciousness. Erza pressed herself against the wall and slid down to the floor.
The broken door was still banging against the wall and rainwater had soaked the mouth of the hallway when a trio of security guards found her on the floor with her arms wrapped tightly around her knees.
"Why didn't you go with him?" Doctor Dreyar asked in the tone he always took with her. Dry. Drab. Detached.
"Because I was afraid." Erza glanced up at him and, as expected, his expression was utterly neutral. "He was different. I didn't like it."
"A manic mood or state can be alarming to see for the first time."
"Is he going to be okay?" Erza chewed on her lip. "I mean, I know you cant tell me about his condition but I'm worried. Do you think he'll come back?"
"Mister Fernandes has a pattern of behavior that can be predicted by the people closest to him. I'd like to switch focus for a moment, Miss Scarlet."
Erza swallowed back frustrated tears. In very few words Doctor Dreyar had, however appropriately, shut her out of Jellal's situation. It hurt more than she wanted to think about. Doctor Dreyar cleared his throat.
"Have you tried to recall anything else of that last afternoon before the dream that brought you to us?"
"I've tried but nothing is coming to me." The lie was obvious and Erza didn't even try to be smooth about it. Recalling anything about that day, and the wobbly stilts her memories stood on, caused her head to pound and her heart to race. Just beyond that was the impulse to tear at her arms and release the poison her brain kept screaming was there.
"Miss Scarlet, I understand this process is difficult. Would you like to try and walk through the day again? Perhaps if I guided you it won't be so intimidating."
"Right, okay." Erza heaved a deep breath and stared at his table again. "I had a sandwich and there was a bicycle and the guy and the lady –"
"Let's slow down. Tell me about this man."
"He had purple-ish hair, I think. Or maybe it was red."
"A similar shade to your hair?"
"No, it was pinker than that. He had a scar over his eye. I think..." Erza's eyes traced the swirl of grain around a knot in the wood. "He couldn't open that eye. It was closed. He was yelling at me but I couldn't hear it." She clutched at her knees and dug her fingers into the soft place below her kneecap. "Then, uh, there was the lady with the mask over her mouth."
"Her mouth?" Doctor Dreyar didn't frown or break expression at all, but Erza heard it in his voice. "You said before she wore a mask resembling what one would wear to a masquerade party. Those are typically applied over the eyes."
"No, it was her mouth. I remember. It was black. She yelled at the guy with the hair and the scar." Erza tried to focus on the memory and their words but all she could hear was the clacking of yellow and pink beads sliding up and down the bicycle wheel spokes. She squeezed her eyes shut and poked her fingers into her knees so hard it hurt. Something white and something like tracks on the ceiling flashed in her mind. "There was a room."
"A room?"
"Yeah, like a room with curtains hanging from the ceiling. White ones." Erza's eyes flew open. "Oh," she gasped. "It was a clinic or a hospital or something. There was a light in my eyes and my head hurt."
"Is the woman with the mask over her mouth the same as the woman in your dream who inflicts the pain and sex-like pleasure? You mentioned before she had claws."
"Uh," Erza absently itched at her arm and felt her face heat. "Yeah. She touches me on my arm and it hurts and then it… doesn't."
Doctor Dreyar pursed his lips and Erza felt her chest tighten. He so very rarely reacted to anything she said.
"Miss Scarlet, you're itching your arm again. Did this woman at the clinic or hospital administer any medications?"
"I don't know," Erza whispered.
"How did you get from this facility to your mother's home?"
"I don't know that either." This time Erza couldn't hold back her tears. They fell in fat drops from her chin to her arm. She glanced down and saw she'd crinkled the tape on the bandages and the skin between the gauze and her wrist was bright red.
Doctor Dreyar's phone began to vibrate beside him and he sighed. For the first time in nearly two and a half months he leaned forward with a pained expression.
"Where are your glasses today?" she blurted.
"Miss Scarlet, I don't wear glasses."
"You don't?"
"No."
"I thought for sure..." Erza trailed off and realized she was itching at her wrist again.
"We made some very good progress today, but I don't know that it's good for you to intentionally try and guide yourself through that day anymore. I should not have suggested that before given your tendency to harm yourself whenever memories surface."
"I'm sorry."
"This is not a thing you should apologize for. We'll meet again in two days. I'm not going to be in tomorrow and I think it's important we keep these sessions as consistent as possible."
"Okay."
"I do have a request, though." Doctor Dreyar stood and circled the room to his desk. He dug out a notepad and a soft tipped marker. "If you do remember things you dream about or things that come to you, please write them down. Even if the things you remember don't seem real or important. I'd also like to discuss this alter ego of yours that you mentioned early on."
Erza took the notepad and marker from him and nodded. She turned to leave when he reached for his phone and started to flip through his calendar.
"I'll see you in two days then. I've got a spot after lunch."
"Thank you," she muttered. Erza kept her head down as she made her way back to her room. Usually after seeing Doctor Dreyar she liked to spend time outside but without Jellal the ritual felt empty. She passed by a cluster of arm chairs and the girl with the green eyes smiled. Her hair was long, blonde, and messy. She wore no shoes and kicked her feet back and forth, the pads of her toes barely brushing the floor.
Jellal returned nearly one week after he'd walked out the back hallway door. He was escorted directly to his room and had a cuff around his ankle. Erza only saw him for meals and even then he was in and out of the cafeteria before she could even think of catching him.
On the third day, he didn't show up for lunch and Erza was too curious to let it go. Midway between the end of the hall and Jellal's room was a nurses' station. The young woman on duty eyed Erza's approach but said nothing even as she slipped into his room.
The walls were completely bare and took her by surprise. All of his artwork had been stacked on the desk and his cases of pencils and charcoals were, for once, confined neatly. Jellal himself was stretched across his bed. He turned his head toward her but didn't smile.
"Nice ankle bracelet," Erza offered awkwardly.
"I asked for it," he whispered. Jellal's eyes never left hers. "I owe you an apology. I never should've dragged you down there. I'm sorry if I scared you or if I did anything..." he trailed off and sighed.
"You didn't do anything I didn't want, Jellal," she murmured. "I knew you weren't quite right and I enjoyed it. I should be apologizing to you."
"That's fucked up, Erza." His eyes moved to the ceiling. "This whole thing is fucked up. Now I have to start the new med combos over and everything is just a fucking waste. I am a waste."
"I don't think you're a waste."
"Well, you're the only one," he snapped. Erza tried not to react. He hadn't been himself the night he took off, and he wasn't himself now. She sat on the edge of his bed and touched the ankle monitor. "I'm sorry. I'm being a dick."
"It's okay."
"No, it's not." His voice was so quiet she almost didn't hear him. "I'm tired of trying to fly, and I'm tired of trying not to. I hate the race to the ledge, Erza. I come closer and closer to taking a swan dive right over it every time." Jellal flung his arm out across the space next to him and squeezed his hand into a fist. Erza sighed and stretched out beside him. "I'm wearing myself out trying not to be my mom." He turned his head to face her. "I'm afraid I'm going to run out of energy."
Erza touched his cheek and brushed her fingers over his lips to quiet him. She had nothing to offer him in the way of comfort. No promises of brighter horizons. Nothing. So she kissed him softly and let him curl her hair around his stained fingers.
Eileen made sure Erza had all of her favorite shampoos and conditioners and lotions. Erza's room would be stuffed full of creature comforts if the hospital allowed them. As it was, the shampoos had to be brought in unlabeled bottles and pass an inspection before they ever reached Erza's hands. She appreciated her mother's efforts and the simple act of washing her hair with her own shampoo brought a small amount of joy. Which was important because Erza did not like showering in a stall.
The facilities were starkly clean and often smelled of bleach and lemon disinfectant. Not a speck of mold could be found at the end of every day. Erza preferred to shower first thing in the morning so, at the very least, she could enjoy the solitude and the knowledge that no one had used the stall before her.
The skies had opened up again the night before and the row of windows that lined the upper portion of the wall showed nothing but mottled clouds. Erza reached for her towel and knocked over an open bottle of shampoo. Ignoring the flub, she blotted her hair dry and decided she'd try to remember how to french braid that afternoon. Maybe the resulting curls would be a nice change.
Erza stepped out of her shower stall and immediately recognized her mistake. The heel of her foot slipped on the small pool of shampoo and her body rushed at the floor. She felt her head crack on the lip of the stall and her vision was splotched with red and black.
"Looks like you're going back to the hospital," a small voice said from somewhere she couldn't see. Erza blinked rapidly and tried to gasp for breath but her head throbbed with every beat of her heart. A pair of wide green eyes peered over her and a halo of messy blonde hair brushed over Erza's naked shoulders. "Maybe you'll even remember it this time."
Erza opened her mouth but hadn't the breath to speak or scream. Her eyes closed and all she could see was green.
