EDITED: 2015/04/24
Disclaimer: I own nothing but the plot. This is a SON AU, so I apologize if the characters are not Cannon, but again begin AU, that shouldn't matter.
Shadowing Phantoms
Chapter 4: Obligatory Friendships
Spencer didn't necessarily loathe hospitals, she didn't particularly love them either. Theirs was a love-hate affair, an obligatory friendship. In her line of work it posed more difficult to avoid hospitals. So many case-leads begin, trail to and more often than not end in a hospital. Add to that her aversion to common sense and lack of spatial mobility, she often landed herself as a patient within the institution.
Many of her earliest memories were that of hospital waiting rooms. Laying bare belly on the floor, colouring, munching on the snacks nurses would bring for her as she waited for her mother. It was the only time she was allowed cookies. A visit to the hospital often equated a mommy-daughter day out. They would always go for pancakes after and then sit at the park for hours. Although looking back, she couldn't remember whether or not her mom actually enjoyed their special time together.
Her mom was always smiling. There wasn't anything wrong. Ever. Just keep smiling.
"Mommy just fell down the stairs again."
"Mommy's allergic to bees. The bee bit her eye."
"Mommy is so silly."
The better the story, the longer Spencer got to play at the park after. The easier it was to smile, until…
"Mommy's sleeping. She won't wake up."
That was the last time Spencer physically touched her mother, the last time she saw her smile, before strange men took her away and placed Spencer in a home with other children.
Thirty two days.
Thirty two days, since those strange people took her away from her mommy. Took her to a strange house. Where she was expected to eat something different three times a day. Where grown ups would scold her when she said she was saving some for her mom. They made her go to school every day. Made her sleep in a room with five other kids. Kids, always crying, or coughing, or screaming. They made too much noise. She was use to silence at night. She was use to sleeping alone. But every morning when she woke mommy was there.
Mommy wasn't here in the morning. Mommy didn't know where to find her.
So Spencer left.
She walked out the door, careful to close it on her way out this time. This time Spencer left during the day. This time Spencer didn't stop and ask the police officer where her mommy was, or where the hospital was. She knew. She knew if she stopped and acted like she didn't know where she was going they would take her back to that house.
So Spencer smiled and kept smiling.
Spencer followed another girl and that girl's mommy closely, onto the bus. And took the bus right to the hospital.
She kept smiling because everything was going to be alright because she was going to see her mommy again.
"Judith, that little girl is here again," an intern pointed out.
Judith was an older woman. She was head nurse of the ER. She was just beginning her evening shift.
Spencer sat in the waiting room patiently, kicking her legs back and forth. Her feet couldn't touch the ground.
"Spencer?"
Spencer turned to look at the older lady who often gave her oreos and juice. She was a little bit hungry. "Is my mommy almost done yet?"
"Sweetie, are you here by yourself?" Judith asked the six year old.
Spencer shook her head, she didn't say anything and she couldn't lie if she didn't talk.
Spencer lived telling partial truths.
"I took the bus. Where's my mommy? She was being silly and wouldn't wake up last time. We're suppose to have pancakes now."
"Spencer your mom's not here."
"Where did she go?"
"Your mom's sick sweetie. She needs to get better first," the nurse took Spencer's hand, "Come let's get you home."
Spencer nodded in defeat. At least mommy could find her at home.
The nurse didn't take her home, the nurse took Spencer back to the foster home. It became harder and harder to escape the house. There was always someone watching her, but she kept going back. They had to move her to another home much further away, and Spencer didn't know the way back to the hospital now; she didn't know how to find her mommy.
When Spencer turned 7, Billy one of the older kids had fallen out of a tree and broke his leg. The ambulance came and took him to the hospital. The next week Spencer climbed the big tree at the park and jumped. She had to stay at the hospital for two weeks. Any chance she had, she would find Judith and follow her around, asking about her mommy.
Finally Judith relented, Spencer's mommy was moved to "Sunnybrook Rehabilitation Clinic."
Spencer had seen how the adults used the phones. Children were naturally curious about everything. So when Spencer asked about the telephone and its' uses, it was a mistake to tell her that the Operator helps find the people you're looking for.
It frustrated Spencer that the lady on the phone didn't know who mommy was.
Spencer soon figured out how the phone book worked, she was able to get the address. She kept the address in her pocket at all times.
It was on a school trip in third grade, the class visited the museum downtown. On the yellow school bus, Spencer read the street names. "Richmond St." During the tour, Spencer strayed from the group and wandered the city.
At the chime of the bell the receptionist looked up perturbed, no one was there. He saw a tiny hand reach around to ring the bell again. Standing up the receptionist saw a little blonde person smiling up at him. "Are you lost?"
"Is my mommy here?"
He looked at her. The logs his colleague left reported harassing phone calls from a child looking for her mommy.
"Do you know her name?" he asked.
"Mom-mie," Spencer articulated.
"What's yours?"
"Spencer Carlin."
He keyed in the surname he began sifting through the files.
Momentarily forgotten Spencer frowned and took in the cold interior of this hospital.
A woman burst through the door, as two orderlies tried to detain her. The receptionist sprung from his chair with a needle and injected it in the hysterical woman.
Spencer watched the scene unfold wide eye. Why would her mommy be in a place like this? Spencer ran out of the clinic. Resting by the side of the building she peered into the common room window, and saw her mother.
The older Carlin, wasn't smiling, she sat in a wheelchair staring blankly at a television.
Spencer sat there for hours watching her mother. Her eyes dead, her body motionless.
The receptionist had seen Spencer out by the side of the building at the end of his shift. She had fallen asleep. He called the local authorities who brought Spencer back to the foster home. Spencer was then transferred into another home. She was too much trouble. It was too difficult to keep tabs on her.
Spencer Carlin was a delinquent and was bounced from home to home to home. Any chance she had she'd return to Sunnybrook to find her mommy, but her mom was long gone.
It was a few years later, on her 13th birthday, to be precise, she came face to face with a woman who wore her mother's face, Paula Carlin. Aunt Paula, or just Paula. Calling her 'aunt' aged her well beyond her years, she told Spencer when they first met.
Paula Carlin, that name alone shook Spencer's very core. An influx of emotions tend to suffocate Spencer - shame, guilt, and longing- at the mere thought of the woman she resented but was eternally indebted to.
"Carlin!"
Spencer looked up to see who was calling her, it was the medical receptionist.
"Room 4205b on the left, please change into hospital garments provided," the receptionist directed Spencer towards the corridor to his right.
Spencer glided through the halls with ease, like it was her own home. Entering the room as instructed Spencer changed into the hospital gown. An intern came in to take her blood pressure, blood work and the necessities for her physical.
She knew the procedure, she's been doing it for quite a while now. A gunshot wound and falling out of a three story building takes a while to heal. If only she remembered to not drink the night before, she knew Chelsea will be upset later, when her results come in. At least she didn't have to get her stomach pumped anymore.
When she was 16, Spencer was hospitalize and had to get her stomach pumped. It happens when you consume a whole bottle of stoli's vodka on an empty stomache.
She was bored.
It was her birthday.
Ohio was boring.
Plus it was tradition. Well, not really but at 16, going on three years in a row, made it traditional. Spencer loved traditions. Like Christmas. She's been getting her stomach pumped every year on her birthday since she was 13. But 16 stood out. At 16 she woke up sharing a room with Ashley Davies.
Her mouth dry like the Sahara desert. The air required her lungs demanded assaulted her throat, like nails being dragged down towards her lungs only to be forcibly dragged back out, tugging at whatever siding it was that insulated the inside of her throat.
Blue eyes cringed after being battered by an assault of florescent light. She needed water. Juice. Pop. Anything to quench the thirst. Odd, it's not like she didn't have any liquid recently, *not* she remembers clearly downing a liter plus of vodka, earlier. Funny that would end up dehydrating her. Teenage Spencer was a sarcastic little fucker.
She forced herself up into a sitting position, her senses tuning into her surroundings, metronomic drone of her heart monitor raping her ears.
Beep-Bleep
Beep-Bleep
Beep-Bleep
There was a second monitor! Her head shot in the direction of the occupied bed to her right. 'I usually get the window spot!' Spencer pouted childishly, though it was more of an awkward grimace.
Whiplash.
'No sudden movements, please! It's my birthday,' whined her throbbing brain.
Swinging her legs off the bed Spencer got up and detached herself from the heart monitor, ceasing the erratic tone that monitored her pulse but replacing it by the warning tone.
'Ahhh I love breezes,' enjoying the familiar freedom associated with the sparse hospital wear.
Spencer proceeded to the main desk not ashamed in the least.
"Happy Birthday Spencer," the head nurse, Betty greeted her. "I was beginning to think we wouldn't see you today."
Her reply was a groan.
Betty handed her an apple juice.
Spencer greedily downed the apple juice, mumbling a thank you.
"Arthur will be down to check you out in a few hours."
"There's somebody in my room," Spencer pointed out, peering over the counter for more juice.
"She was already in there when the guys wheeled you in," Betty answered, setting three more juices on the counter.
Spencer smiled, "Thank you Betty." Spencer really loved the little containers her juice came in. So much better than the juice boxes they served at school, what with dysfunctional little straws. "Will she be alright?"
"Don't know she woke up hysterical earlier, Ben and the boys had to sedate her," Betty responded absentmindedly. "Surprised you slept through it." Spencer's attention was fixed on the plate of cookies in front of Betty, and was non discreetly reaching for one. "It's that Davies' girl. Don't you go to school with her?" Betty slapped the creeping hand away.
"Which one?" Spencer asked. She really didn't get a good look at her roommate.
"The middle one." Betty responded. "Raife's daughter. The bastard. The one the old lady sent to public school."
"BETTY!" Spencer reprimanded, the older lady. You do not call a Davies a bastard, least of all Ashley.
"Don't you Betty me, Spencer Carlin, where did you get vodka? I know Arthur doesn't leave liquor around willy nilly."
"I forfeit my last statement," Spencer mumbled looking away from the older woman. She could care less for the Davies and their huge piles of money. She glanced at her room, peering at the lifeless form that was Ashley Davies.
"Spencer…" Spencer Carlin was a good girl. Quiet a lot of the times, never got into any trouble really. She was always grinning, that one. It's only around this time of year, her birthday, did the youngster deliberately go through lengths to be institutionalized.
It was unspoken, and most the town turned a blind eye to the blonde. Arthur Greene was a good man, and he requested that these episodes be ignored. The young blonde had a traumatic past. She was finally adjusting well, opposed to the troubled child she use to be.
The older woman had to bite her tongue.
"Can I get a different room, Betty?"
"Why's that dear?"
"I don't want the kids at school to know…" Spencer answered, gazing at the ridiculously clean white tiled floors.
"I'll see what I can do," Betty replied. Gertrude had specific orders that no one breathes a word about Ashley being institutionalized.
"BETTY!" a younger nurse exclaimed, brushing past Spencer.
"What is it?"
"Guess who I bumped into at the cafeteria!"
Betty continued working, as Spencer began making her way back to her room.
"Paula Carlin."
Spencer stopped and stared at her hospital wrist band, 'Carlin.' She gripped her wrist hard, covering the cursed name, hiding it from wandering eyes.
"What she doing in town?" Betty asked distastefully.
"Apparently she had to get some blood work done," the other nurse answered, making air quotes. "I don't see why she bothers, she's going straight to hell anyways."
Spencer knew why she was here.
The nurse continued, "I saw her go into Dr. Thompson's office. I hear the Mrs. packed up and left for her sister's a few days ago…" she paused and looked at Spencer. "Can I help you?"
Spencer shook her head side to side. She couldn't meet the nurse's eyes. Not when her own eyes were a mirror reflection of the shamed woman.
'Spencer Carlin, you spineless wimp! She loves you!' The young blonde cringed trying to drown out her own conscience.
"Spencer you look pale go lay down, Arthur will be here soon," Betty instructed.
"I didn't know Arthur Greene had a daughter," the nosey nurse interrupted.
"He doesn't that's his niece," Betty whispered in a hush tone, thinking Spencer was well on her way to her room. "Her parents passed in a horrid accident years ago."
By now Spencer had changed out of the hospital gown and into her sweats and runners, awaiting Chelsea's arrival. Patience has never been her virtue, after all the sitting around, the waiting, it was dangerous. It allowed her time to think to reflect, to remember.
No.
Spencer was ready to get physical.
Knowing Chelsea, she was going to get a killer workout now.
At this point Spencer needed a distraction, and quick, all these thoughts and dwelling on matters like Ashley fricking Davies, and Paula Carlin after ten years, is ridiculous. That life was over. Ohio was a lie, her life there was a lie. That entire life was a lie. Now she sought the truth, to uncover the lies. She wasn't living it anymore.
The door opened and a man entered.
"Ms. Carlin," the pretty green eyed man greeted her, "I'm Doctor Dennison, Doctor Lewis is preoccupied at the moment, I'll be assisting you with your therapy today."
PREVIEW
"Can I buy you a coke?"
"Excuse me?" exclaimed a perplexed Spencer, covering her almost naked chest.
"I'll give you back your panties." Spencer's superman briefs were being twirled on the little brunette's finger.
"What the hell is going on in here!"
"Uh-oh…"