Can someone do me a favor and review this thing so I know that it's actually posting? I'm not kidding, I've had some issues with this story in the past. I mean, it could just be that I've scared my readership off with the nervous breakdown…but please review, I just need to know that it's WORKING. If you're too lazy to write a real review (come on, admit it, we've all been there) just be like "good." Or, if you disagree, "sucks." One word. You don't even have to put the period in. Come on, I've got half a mind to review this garbage myself, as depressing as that sounds. I'm only joking, people. Oh, and by the way…..wow, I forgot what I was going to say. I need to sleep. Someone tell me to sleep. Maybe if I slept more this story wouldn't have such weird plot twists….hmmm……
Minerva hasn't dumped me, just for the record. She's not coming to visit all that often, but that's because I really don't want her hovering around this place. Whenever I step outside my room I immediately want to either go back inside or run the hell away from here. I'm surrounded by freaks. I'm not that far from the closed ward…once I had a perverse whim to go visit Lockhart but decided against it. When Minerva last came to the hospital…damn, it was awkward. I was sitting in bed staring at a wall like the institutionalized freak that I am. She brought me flowers. Tulips, yellow and pink and red and white and insanely cheerful and completely out of place. She put them on my bedside table, and feebly slid a chair over to my bed.
"Minerva, what's the purpose of these flowers?"
"Oh, come on. This room is entirely devoid of color."
"White is a color."
"Severus, you know what I mean." That's when I realized that she had a headache. Ever since my little "incident" she'd been getting stress headaches. She knew it made me feel awful when she got them, so she tried to conceal them.
"Minerva, thank you for the flowers." She smiled for real, for once. Even when you don't want to you've really got to smile around mental patients because they're all suicidal and depressed and if you're depressed you'll get them depressed too and it'll be an awful vicious cycle thing.
"Thank you, Severus…Severus, you haven't asked who found you yet."
"That's because I don't really want to know."
"It wasn't Potter or anything."
"Thank god. It wasn't Dumbledore?"
"No."
"Thank god for that, too. So, who was it?"
"It was Draco Malfoy."
"Oh, god……"
"He wanted to tell you that he was in the first selection group for Auror training. He was so excited that when you weren't in your office he ran up to your apartment….."
"God, Minerva….."
"He hasn't told any of the other students."
"That's likely." She got her schoolmarm look.
"He most certainly has not." I knew he hadn't. Draco's a good kid. Poor bastard, he's going to have a lot of stories to tell his therapist when he gets suspended for going nuts on a few Dark wizards. He's got a lot of things pent up inside him, I don't know what all of them are, but they're there and they're not very healthy. Then again, who am I to talk? I'm the clinically insane alcoholic here. He's got quite a standard to live up to. Like I'm his damn role model. Severus Snape, the role model. Right. "He wrote you a letter." She put the letter next to the flowers. "Read it sometime. He's worried about you."
"He shouldn't be."
"Why not?"
"Because I'm fine." She grabbed my hand much too tightly. She's got a killer grip. "Severus, you…."
"Say it, Minerva. I stabbed myself with a quill."
"You didn't just stab yourself with a quill, you…dammit, I don't know. You completely broke down as a human being."
"Minerva, honey, it's not something I'd really like to do again. I did it once, and I'm okay with that." She gritted her teeth."
"Severus, you almost died. You think you have control over these things?"
"What kind of a question is that? Don't ask mental patients hypothetical questions, it confuses us."
"Severus, you're not fine, okay? You're not good, and you're not all right. You might be okay, just barely okay, but that's it. I've talked to your psychiatrist, Severus, and I've talked to you. I know you hate to say it, but you're sick. Can you accept that?" I didn't say anything for a few moments.
"Okay."
"Okay, what?"
"I agree with what you said. Don't make me expend too much energy here."
"Severus….I love you, Severus. I just want you to feel better. But…I want to feel good, too. And I'd feel good if you just tried to love yourself. I know you love me, but because you don't love yourself it's damn hard for you to show it."
"I…I love you, Minerva…..when I get out of this horrible place I want to make love to you. I want to, and I don't know if I can do it but I'm going to try." She smiled again, so perfectly and calmly and naturally that I wanted to French her but didn't just because…well, I'm me.
"Great." Then she remembered that she had an appointment with Dumbledore, and she dashed out, and I went back to staring at the wall and after five minutes of wallgazing I started crying and the tall nurse came in and asked me what was the matter and I just couldn't tell her because I had absolutely no idea.