Disclaimer: I don't own Mort Rainey, 3 Doors Down, or their song, Here Without You.
AN: I'm back! And I'm sad to say that this story is coming to an end in a few chapters. Once it's over, you can find me in the Pirates of the Caribbean section of the site. For those who don't like (or have never seen) Pirates, please consider this: if you like Johnny Depp, I highly recommend it and ask you to give it a chance. Johnny is hilarious and wonderfully talented in this film (he got nominated for an Oscar for his role!), so please just give it a try. Thanks, and enjoy the chapter!
Chapter 13: Delving Deeper Into Things:
The Next Day: Kayla's POV:
Detective work is a lot harder than people think. It's not exactly like the crime-drama shows on television, where they manage to solve the crime in less than an hour (and sometimes get confessions while they're at it). They even manage to occasionally catch the culprit in the act of hiding their tracks, and find a huge pile of evidence so that they can get an innocent person out of jail.
'Plus they have a badge they can flash in order to scare people into talking,' Kayla thought, sighing as she put her head in her hands.
However, in this case, a badge would utterly useless, considering the now-widely known doctor-patient confidentiality and all that legal jazz. Kayla had managed to learn that much from the shows, and the legality of being anonymous when reporting something to the upper staff members. It was so frustrating! She didn't even have the authority to get into the papers containing the allegations against Mort! It was times like this that made her want to scream her frustrations and burst into tears, all at the same time.
'But I have to stay strong,' she thought, taking a deep breath to calm her shot nerves and to prevent tears from falling in front of the other staff members. 'I have to stay strong so that I can help get Mort out of this.'
First, she had to find a way to get people to talk about Mort and how he was doing. Second, she had to find out (through the grapevine) who had caused all of this misery for her and Mort. Third…she had to prove that all of this was a pointless attempt to punish an innocent man.
'This is going to be harder than I thought,' Kayla groaned to herself as she reached for the next document she had to organize. 'I only hope that Mort is alright.'
That Same Moment: Mort's POV:
'If I have to stay in this room any longer, I'm going to go even crazier than they originally thought I was,' Mort thought, pacing inside his room.
It was currently his fifteenth lap, going back and forth, and he'd only been awake for ten minutes. They'd taken away all of his written documents, his writing tools, and any sort of object that could possibly keep him amused while he was here in the isolation wing of the hospital.
'Which is absurd, if you really think about it,' Mort thought to himself, rolling his eyes. 'I mean, I'm supposedly accused of having an affair with a patient or staff member, not under suspicion of suicide or anything!'
It was damn frustrating, having absolutely nothing to do. The orderlies had been ordered to not let him out of his room, and none of the nurses had come by yet to check on him, which was odd enough on its own. After all, Mort wasn't under isolation for harming anyone, so there was no reason for everyone to avoid talking to him for any sort of reason.
'They probably think I'm going to rape them or something,' Mort thought, grimacing at the notion. 'Which is a horribly disgusting idea, in and of itself. I mean, I've always treated the nurses with respect, even they know that!'
It was that last thought that hurt the most. The nurses had always been so kind and understanding to him, and now they were avoiding him like a plague. It hurt almost as much as being separated from Kayla! Oh, God, how he missed Kayla…he wanted her there to comfort him, hold him, and tell him things would be alright. However, Nurse Holly and some other nurses had found that damn piece of paper in his pocket, the one he had meant to give to Kayla in private the first chance he got.
He groaned; the discovery of that note was both a blessing and a curse. In it he had told Kayla of his love for her, and assured her that he would take the blame for their encounters. Mort had gone on to state that, whatever punishments were given out to him, he only prayed that they would not separate him from her; if he were, he would truly go mad, for she was his life and he could not live without her by his side. He had wanted to give it to Kayla the day they had put him in here, but had obviously not gotten the chance.
'I can only hope that someone mentions it and its contents to her,' Mort silently prayed, closing his eyes for a brief moment. 'I hope that she somehow hears of it…after all, the nurses here are some of the biggest gossipers I've ever known.'
Sighing, he lay down and began humming the first song that came into his head, which was 3 Doors Down, Here Without You. It mentioned the male singer being without his ladylove, but he still held her in his dreams. Mort softly sang out loud.
"I'm here without you, baby, but you still roam my lonely mind. I think about you, baby, and I dream about you all the time. I'm here without you, baby. But you're still with me in my dreams. And tonight, girl, it's only you and me."
Drifting back to sleep, Mort heard faint footsteps retreating from his doorway.
Lunchtime: Kayla's POV:
Picking at her salad, Kayla couldn't help but notice how boring her day was without Mort slipping her notes and winking at her as he passed by the reception area. She had thought him annoying at first, but now…now she truly missed him.
"You really don't know what you've got until it's gone," she muttered to herself, stabbing at a tomato slice and dipping it in the ranch dressing at the bottom of the bowl.
Giving the defenseless tidbit one last stab-and-dip, she put the food in her mouth and chewed, barely tasting it. Even lunch was boring without looking forward to seeing Mort sometime in the afternoon for a secret rendezvous in a closet somewhere. Sighing, Kayla slowly worked her way through the salad and somehow managed to clean the bowl of food without even realizing it. Once she realized that her bowl was empty, she stood up and put the tray on the conveyor belt that crawled towards the kitchen. When that was done, she headed back towards her desk for another long bout of boredom. She had barely passed through the double doors when she heard someone call her.
"Kayla! Wait, Kayla!" called a voice from behind her.
It was Alex…great, just great. She kept walking. Honestly, this day couldn't possibly get any worse. Well, technically, that wasn't true; it could get worse, but the last thing she needed right now was to talk to someone she didn't particularly like at this moment.
"Come on, Kayla, I just want to talk to you," Alex pleaded, catching up with her.
'Oh, well, might as well get this over with,' she inwardly groaned. Stopping by the entry door to the reception area, she turned around to face him. Out loud, she said, "What do you want, Alex?"
"I just wanted to see if you were alright," he said, brown eyes looking down into hers.
It surprised her that he looked like he actually cared about her wellbeing. It shouldn't have, considering that he'd been asking her out constantly for weeks, but the thought that he might care about how she both shocked her and caused her to doubt his concern. For one thing, he might be putting on a sympathy show just to score points with her, and she definitely wouldn't put that past him. Still, she knew she had to answer him before he started looking at her oddly.
"I'm fine, Alex, really," Kayla replied, crossing her arms. "I've just had a really rough couple days, that's all."
"Because of Mort Rainey, right?" Alex asked, his voice turning bitter.
"How did you know?" Kayla found herself surprised by the harshness in Alex's words.
"It's obvious you've been in a funk since he was put in isolation," Alex replied, crossing his arms and biting his lip in apparent frustration. "You can't tell me that you care about the guy, can you?"
Kayla could feel anger bubbling up inside of her. "Of course I care about him!" she snapped. "After all, I've been helping Mort with his treatments for the past month and a half, so of course I would care about him! Who wouldn't care about someone after spending so much time treating them and talking with them about their problems?"
"And that's the problem!" Alex cried. "You spend too much time with that guy! You shouldn't become attached to patients, Kayla; it's not what we do. We help them, treat them, and then release them. We don't get too close to them because attachments like that are dangerous and harmful to both the staff member and the patient!"
She couldn't help but gape. Had she become too close to Mort? Could their relationship be harmful to him and to his mental health? But how could something like what they shared together be so terrible when it felt so right and beautiful? Their sessions together had helped Mort become like any other man, and they had made him better, so their relationship couldn't be bad…could it? No, Kayla didn't believe that something so wonderful like unexpected love could be dangerous to anyone. She shook her head.
"Maybe it's time to change that idea, Alex, because I think it's wrong," she said, looking him straight in the eye. "How can we expect to help people when we don't form friendships or emotional connections with them? It doesn't make sense because having a connection with them makes us want to help them even more than we originally did." Kayla's eyes bore into his. "And it makes all of us better people than we were before."
With that said, she turned and entered the reception area, leaving Alex to stare after her before he turned and walked away down the hall.
That Afternoon, Mort's POV:
'This has to be the longest day of my life,' Mort thought to himself as he stared up at the ceiling.
At least the nurses had come in and given him some paper and pens so he could write. They had even smiled when they had come in, albeit a bit hesitantly. The orderlies, however, were still outside, immobile statues that probably wouldn't even let his sneeze escape out the door. His meals had been brought to him, and it had all been dull and lifeless without the afternoon treatment sessions that had Kayla's beautiful presence in his future.
Instead, he had Nurse Holly to talk to, and there was nothing he wanted to talk to her about. Not that he had anything against Nurse Holly; it's just that he wanted to have time alone with Kayla to talk about anything and everything. Talking to Nurse Holly was like…well, talking to a very distant acquaintance. After all, who wants to tell a stranger every personal thing about themselves while staying in a mental hospital? No one, that's who, and Mort very much wanted this torment to be over.
"Okay, Mr. Rainey, it's time for your treatment session."
Groaning, Mort stood up and followed the orderly out the door.
Two Weeks Later: After Work-Hours Staff Meeting: Author's POV:
"I'm very worried about the mental stability of Mr. Rainey," quipped Holly as the staff members settled into their seats around the table. "He's very withdrawn and refuses to interact with me during his treatment sessions. It's like he's a shell of his former self."
"He doesn't seem interested in his normal activities, either," Frank said, leaning back in his chair. "Ever since you let him have some time outside of the isolation ward, he's been sitting in his room, staring at the ceiling. I'm starting to seriously worry about the guy."
The entire staff looked at the chief orderly, suddenly going silent as they pondered his words. He didn't worry about patients very much, and whenever he was concerned about the health of one of them, the rest of the staff listened because he was usually right. If Frank was concerned about Mr. Rainey's health, they knew there was something they needed to do about it…the problem was that they didn't know what.
Dr. Vincent cleared his throat. "I know that this looks bad, but we need to remember that this man has broken hospital rules by intimately interacting with someone from the institution," he said, looking each nurse and orderly in the eye. "Isolation was a means of trying to discover the identity of her lover, and had proven nothing. Separation from Kayla was to prevent him from acting out his sexual aggression after being separated from his 'partner,' and apparently that worked to a certain point."
"Worked to a certain point?" Holly asked in disbelief. "The man is a total wreck of what he had been before all this happened!"
"I'm sure he'll be alright once his punishments have been lifted, Holly," Alex snapped, wanting to end the talk about Mort Rainey. "They always go back to the way they were before, so don't worry about it."
"Oh, shove it, Alex," another nurse said, glaring at him. "We all know you hate Mort Rainey like dogs hate cats, so don't try and fix someone you hate; you'll only try and make him worse than he already is."
"Alright, that's enough!" Dr. Vincent said, slamming his fist on the table. "I know that some of you have a fondness for Mr. Rainey and are worried about him, but his punishments need to be carried out to the end, no matter what. It's for his own good, and for the good of the person he was involved with. Now let's move on to other patients."
All talk eventually turned towards other patients, though most of the staff held a place in their minds for Mort Rainey.
The Next Day: Kayla's POV:
'This investigation is going nowhere,' she inwardly groaned, extremely disappointed in herself.
It had been two weeks since Mort had been locked away and separated from her, and still she'd turned up nothing. Well, that wasn't true…Kayla and managed to eliminate several members of the staff as possible accusers against Mort, but that was it. There were still a dozen others who might have done it, and most of them she didn't even know the names of! The worst part was, if she asked Holly for their names, her friend would get suspicious because she knew Kayla never really interacted with the nursing staff or orderlies that much.
'Guess I'll have to find another way to narrow down the list,' she thought, aggressively rubber-stamping a document to vent her frustration. 'At least I managed to get some more details out of Holly about the "anonymous tip" to Dr. Vincent.'
It was sometimes a good thing to have a fairly gossipy friend, especially one that could hand over information to someone they trust at the drop of a hat. Holly had managed to find out that the details of the encounter were kept confidential, so the only people who knew what officially happened were Dr. Vincent and the anonymous informant. Holly only knew the general information, which basically stated that a patient had formed a prohibited intimate encounter with a person from the hospital.
'So all I have to do is find the person who knows the details and I have our accuser,' she thought happily. 'It sounds easy enough, I guess.' She sighed. 'I just hope that Mort manages to hold up a bit longer, because I have no idea how long his punishment is or when he's going to be released.'
Sighing, Kayla slowly lost herself in her work and her thoughts about Mort.
Two day's Later, Alex's POV:
He was so close to his goal he could almost taste it. He'd managed to get Mort locked away in isolation, and had gotten him separated from Kayla, all in one shot! Now came the hard part: winning Kayla over to him.
Alex didn't know why he was so drawn to Kayla. Maybe it was the fact that she kept refusing him, apparently playing hard to get. Several girls had tried it before, and all had failed in their attempts, thanks to his way with words and actions.
'I'm just a persistent guy, I guess,' he thought, gazing across the room towards the reception area.
He knew he was wearing her down because she'd opened up to talk to him more during this past week, and now he had to risk asking her out on a date. Well, maybe not a 'date', but at least lunch in the staff cafeteria; he could work up the ladder from there. Alex just hoped and prayed that she'd say yes…or at least agree to lunch 'between friends.' Yes, the old 'friends' card just might work, considering she didn't like him in that way…yet. Well, it was time to make his move. Smoothing his hair and clothes, he strolled over to the reception desk and tapped the glass. He saw her look over, and a small smile crease her lips as she stood up to open the window.
"Hi, Kayla," he said, grinning at her.
"Hi, Alex, what's up?" she asked.
"Just wanted to know if you wanted to grab some lunch from the cafeteria tomorrow," Alex replied, still smiling. He saw her hesitate. "As friends," he added, silently praying she'd say 'yes.'
She still looked a little unsure of herself. "Oh, I don't know, Alex," she said, chewing on her lower lip in thought. "I mean, I don't really know you that well and everything."
"Well, think of this as a nice way to get to know me," he said, subtly trying to push her to accept. "Then I can get to know you, and we can get to know each other."
Kayla hesitated a second longer before speaking. "Well, as long as you realize that it's between friends," she said, looking him in the eye as she stressed the word 'friends'.
"Of course between friends," Alex quickly replied, inwardly dancing with joy. "I'll see you tomorrow at lunchtime, okay? How's that?"
"That's fine," Kayla said before turning to answer the phone.
Alex felt like he'd won the lottery as he walked down the hall, silently celebrating today's victory. He'd get Kayla to like him yet!
Kayla's POV:
She really couldn't believe that she'd agreed to have lunch with Alex, but it was the only way she could get to know him and see if he was the one that had framed Mort. Well, not framed, but at least accused him without any proof than his own word on the matter. Still, it was a long shot, but she really couldn't pass up this opportunity to dig deeper into the mind of a man who probably wanted to destroy a person's life just for the hell of it!
'I just hope I'm not in over my head here,' she thought, fiddling with a pen as she stared at the papers in front of her. 'But I have to do this if I'm going to help Mort.'
The thought of helping Mort decided her; she'd go through with that lunch tomorrow if it was the last thing she did!
AN: I know, cheesy ending to the chapter, but it's the best I could do after my vacation! Please review, I didn't get a lot for the two previous chapters, and that made me feel that people no longer like this story. Please show your support by reviewing! Thank you!