Thanx to the DHARKESIDE. And guess what? Here's the 'real' next chappie, lol

Chapter 3

Alex gazed across the room which he hoped to be able to leave forever as soon as his parents arrived. Thinking about them he felt scared, curious and relieved at the same time. What would they be like? Did they and he have a good relationship? What if not? An absurd thought crossed his mind. What if his parents hated him? What if they wouldn't come and get him out? That was ridiculous. He dismissed the thought though knowing that it wasn't as far-fetched as he wanted to make himself believe.

The white walls around him gave him a feeling of being at the mercy. Whoever had thought that a sterile atmosphere like that would help anyone to feel better had been miserably wrong. His thoughts were busy with him and his family again. Due to what that Carter had said, before he had tried to kill him, he had no brothers or sisters. So he only knew the name of his parents: Barbara and Ken. And his own: Alex. Alex Browning. He repeated it several times and only because of that it started to sound familiar in a way. But it was more like another person's name – it didn't mean anything to him.

"Hey shithead."

Looking up he saw Carter leaning against the doorframe, glaring at him. Alex couldn't tell for how long he had been standing there.

"You often soliloquize? Well, my advice: don't let the psychos hear you otherwise you gonna stay here for a loooooong while."

"You just stepped by to tell me that or beat me up again? I mean the right eye still looks quite sane and builds a contrast to the left one."

"Aw you didn't lose your stupid humour, that's great", the jock replied smugly. "Though I'm afraid it won't help you much." He kept staring at Alex.

"Okay, just out of a personal interest – what is it I should of done to you?"

Kincaid eyed him suspiciously. "You honestly wanna tell me you don't remember anything?"

Alex shrugged. "Why should I lie to you?"

The jock thought for a moment, obviously thinking that he had a point there. "Maybe because you know what that means for you."

Alex raised an eyebrow. "Can you give me a helping hand?"

Carter smirked. "I can give you a smashing fist if you want to."

The other one sighed unnerved. "See, this ain't of any use okay? I mean, I dunno anything bout whatever you think might have happened. And since you are here I can't even tell whether this is only one of your delusions or not."

Out of nowhere a hand appeared on Carter's shoulder but he didn't even start a bit. "Hey Kincaid, found your fav whipping boy again?"

The dark-haired boy Alex had seen in the session entered the room and let himself fall onto the empty bed opposite to Alex. What was his name again?

"Actually I thought to find you in the TV room downstairs, hiding from Cole", he said to Carter.

"Cole's left a while ago. Torture some new poor soul I bet."

"What do you expect? She's the devil."

The blonde girl named Clear appeared in the doorframe, jostling against Carter as she stepped into the room, taking a seat beside the curly one. An even more aggressive expression was shown on Carter's face but he didn't say anything. "Where is Terry?" he grumbled, looking downwards the floor behind him.

"What do you think?" Clear blinked her eyes in an exaggerated way and pretended to put on some make up.

"Are you mocking at my girlfriend?" Carter asked her in a low voice that augured ill.

In slow motion the girl turned towards him, taking a deep breath as if preparing for a longer speech. "Yessss."

For a moment it seemed that he wanted to beat her but then he just smirked.

"This must be quite confusing for you", Clear addressed herself to Alex.

He took a breath and made an undefined gesture, then finally nodded.

"So you don't remember anything? Not even the crash?"

Since the girl was a lot more friendly then the jock Alex refrained a sarcastic comment, but nevertheless wondered whether this might be a special game they played with all the new ones. "What plane crash?" he repeated.

Clear and Carter exchanged a glance. "You know, people get on board, plane takes off, BOOM, plane goes down", Carter explained as if talking to an idiot. "Plane crash."

Ignoring him Clear started to tell Alex about their common past [~ something I will skip for I'm sure all of us already know pretty well ~] making his left eyebrow rise higher every minute. The time she had finished he eyed them as if he was expecting it to be a silly joke for April Fool's Day and that they would suddenly jump up holding neon signs with 'DUH!' on it. Which they didn't. And one look into their faces told him that this was no well performed sketch either.

Clear gave him a moment before she continued. "Do you remember Tod?"

Again Alex searched his mind hoping to find something, a small memory, a scene, a single picture, a face. It was useless so he shook his head. "Is he here, too?"

Carter laughed coldly. "Naw man, he's over it all if you know what I mean. He's through."

"So I suppose he's dead?" Alex shrugged. "So?"

Kincaid stared at him, honestly surprised. "So??"

The other one shrugged once more. "What do you expect, huh? I mean, you give me a name of someone I don't even remember and really expect me to-"

"He used to be your best friend", Clear interrupted him. "You've basically known each other like forever and you've always been that close friends until …." she tried to choose the right  words to explain to Alex what had happened but Carter did it for her.

"Until he strangled himself in his bathroom. Per-lease Clear call the things by their names."

"I was just trying to make it-"

"Aw what?!" he spat. "Easier? It's not easy at all so why should you try to make him feel so?" Carter had always been famous for his lack of sympathy but it didn't mean that Clear would ever get used to it.

"Carter you're such a-" she began but he stopped listening to her the same moment Terry entered the room.

Of course she was dressed up perfectly like she always was and after giving Alex and the others a short sweet smile she took seat beside Carter, who sat on the only armchair, well more or less half on him and Clear was pretty surprised to see that they didn't instantly start to make out as they usually did.

"What are you guys talking about", she asked in an oh-so-cute tone Clear could have killed her for.

"Oh nothing, you know, just death and damnation, nothing you can find in a make up box."

Terry put her hand on her boyfriend's as he was about to give Clear a sharp reply. "Don't take it out on me if you're tired okay? In fact you didn't notice you're not the only one who had a bad night." 

The second blonde bit her lip for she know that Terry was right. The uncomfortable silence that followed was cut as they heard a loud and quite rude male voice from the outside. For a moment they all seemed to be turned to pillars of salt then Alex could see Carter raising his head and staring at Clear, frowning. She listened for another second for the discussion in the hallway was very loud. She raised an eyebrow and mouthed a single word. Carter nodded and as if it was a special sign they had waited for they all got up and went towards the door.