September 18th, 2011

A short series of beeps broke the silence in the morgue. Dr. Ragland set his scalpel to the side, removed his slightly bloodied gloves, and unclipped a pager from his belt. His assistant, Jackson, looked up from the corpse they had been examining.

"You still carry one of those things?" Jackson laughed.

"A lot of doctors do," Ragland replied, reading the name displayed on the small screen, "Well, I believe you can finish this, can't you?"

"Um, yeah. Some kind of emergency?"

"Sort of, yes," Ragland answered.

Without any further explanation, he turned and exited the morgue. Ragland walked down the empty halls of the hospital's lower levels to his office. Through the window on the door, he could see the partial figure of the man waiting for him. He sighed and pushed the door open; he didn't exactly like dealing with the man.

The man's attention snapped up to Ragland for a second then back to his desk where a small back pack sat. He sat in the chair, trembling and covering his mouth with his hand. Ragland knew behind the man's hand was another one his frightening psychotic grins. Ragland closed the door behind him and quickly crossed the room to the otherside of the desk. He felt safer having the large piece of furniture between the two of them, just in case.

"I didn't think you'd be back so soon," Ragland said.

"It was a…little worse than normal last night," the man shrugged stiffly, trying to keep his voice even.

"How much worse?" Ragland asked cautiously, "…Don't tell me you took all those drugs last night…"

The man shrugged again, biting his lip anxiously and averting his gaze away from the doctor.

"You should be either comatose or dead right now then," Ragland whispered, "But I guess I shouldn't be surprised."

Ragland unzipped the back pack that had been waiting on the desk and removed the empty pill bottles it held inside and set them on the desk. He then opened a locked drawer in the desk, revealing several zip-lock bags of various drugs he had snuck out of their pharmacy department for this man. All of them were a much higher potency than when he'd first starting 'treating' the man. As he went through the bags of pain killers and sedatives, filling each bottle with whatever was written on them. For a moment, he wondered how many drugs he'd given this man. Probably enough to kill a few elephants at the rate he was taking them. Ragland glanced back at the man; he would look like a normal guy in his late twenties, if he weren't sitting there shaking and grinning like a madman.

If he wasn't the one responsible for all the cannibalized corpses he'd had to autopsy for the past couple years. Ragland had considered, on many occasions, calling the police and telling them he knew the one responsible for the horrendous acts. But something in the back of his mind always told him that no matter what safety the police could promise him, he would never be safe from this man; that it was better to just help him. He was sick and more than likely dying anyway.

Ragland shut and locked the drawer then stuffed the refilled bottles back into the back pack. The man wordlessly took the back pack and exited the office. Watching how stiffly the man moved, he almost pitied him.

Almost.

xXxXx

Desmond really didn't want to do this. He did care for his aunt and their family, and he did feel sorry for them about what happened to Petruccio. From what Ezio had told him, their house had become so solemn and depressed, that it felt like it just sucked the life right out of a person. Still, Desmond's father had told him to deliver the bouquet of flowers to them with his condolences, since he was out of town and couldn't make it back.

He thought about leaving the flowers on the porch and letting whoever find them when they left the house, but that was probably inconsiderate. Desmond rang the bell of the house and a few seconds later, Ezio opened the door. He could probably give the flowers to Ezio to give to his parents and leave.

"Desmond? What're you doing here?" Ezio asked, immediately replacing his downcast expression with a false, more upbeat one.

"My dad wanted to give these to Maria," Desmond replied.

"I'm sure she'll love them," Ezio smiled.

He stepped aside to let Desmond in. Now he would have to give the flowers to Maria personally. Ezio led him upstairs to his parents' room where Claudia sat on the edge of the bed, trying to comfort Maria who was lying on it lifelessly. Ezio knocked gently on the door to get her attention, she nodded and quietly left the room.

"Madre, Desmond è qui," Ezio said softly, sitting where his sister had been, "Lui ti ha portato dei fiori."

Maria scarcely moved, only glancing up at her now youngest son. He motioned for Desmond to come over. With some coaxing and help from Ezio, Maria sat up as Desmond stood in front of her. She gazed up at him with hollow eyes and made an attempt to at least smile a little.

"Um…these are from my father. H-he said he's sorry he couldn't make it to the funeral," Desmond managed to say.

"Grazie, nipote," Maria whispered.

She inhaled the scent of the flowers and smiled more genuinely. After a second or two, Desmond awkwardly excused himself from the room. Claudia returned as he left and sat on the opposite side of her as Ezio did. Exiting the house, he glanced back at it, feeling a bit guilty he didn't stay to comfort his aunt. But he didn't think there was anything he could do anyway.

Then it felt like he ran into a brick wall. Desmond stumbled back and unceremoniously fell on the ground. He groaned and pushed himself, intent on giving whoever he ran into a piece of his mind. Until he saw that he'd run into Alex. Any anger he felt quickly disappeared under Alex's icy glare. Desmond mumbled out an apology to him and stepped aside. Alex snorted in annoyance at him, readjusted his back pack and moved past him.

xXxXx

"Dana," Alex called.

He didn't bother waiting for a response. Dana had made a rule a few years ago that Alex wasn't allowed to walk into the house unannounced. Even though it was his house. Dana hated the way he snuck in and silently skulked around until he appeared beside her without warning.

Alex walked to the kitchen and saw note waiting for him on the counter.

Alex-

I went to the library to do some research for a history paper, be back later

-Dana

He wondered why she still had to put their names on her notes, it wasn't like anyone else lived there or even visited. Alex sighed and went to his room where he dropped his back pack on the floor next to a nightstand. He pulled opened the nightstand's drawer, unzipped the back pack, and removed the little yellowish bottles. He dropped them into the drawer, one by one, until the back pack was empty again. Alex closed the drawer and stared at it for moment before deciding to go back to the living room and lay down the couch while he waited for Dana to get back.

o0o0o0o

Author: trying to get more Desmond in the story since I did put him as one of the main characters in the summary thing…and also because it was requested…

Madre, Desmond è qui. Lui ti ha portato dei fiori. "Mother, Desmond is here. He brought you some flowers."

Grazie, nipote. "Thank you, nephew."