Author's Note: Hmm, it's been awhile since I posted, but I trust that you won't be disappointed by this chapter. In my opinion, it was worth the wait. Let me know what you think. ; )
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"Is it just me, or is Rainey in that same spot every time I come?" The small conference that took place outside of Rainey's room had become something of a ritual in the past two weeks. Carly used the time to talk to nurses or guards who'd dealt with the man in the past twenty-four hours, and to gather her mind before entering the room. And for the past two weeks, she'd arrived to find Rainey in the exact same position as she'd left him in – huddled in the corner to the left of the door. Logically she knew he got up to eat occasionally, and take care of other business, but it seemed as if he were as patient and unyielding as stone, always silent. Unmovable.
Betty simply shrugged at the question. "That's all he does since his violent behavior stopped. Before the windows were uncovered, he sat against the far wall where he could watch the door. Now he sits over there."
That stuck Carly as odd. "Does he ever go near the window now?"
"No doctor. He doesn't move at all unless forced to. And even then he doesn't seem to be aware of it."
"Hmm." Carly made a few notes on his chart, then looked to Bill, the guard who shared duties over this part of the ward with Ralph. "I'm ready to go in now."
The man shrugged, used to her orders to stay behind. He didn't like them – if she were injured it could mean his job whether she took the blame on herself or not – but didn't bother arguing. The doctor was unflappable and as stubborn as a twenty year old tree stump. She wouldn't be moved.
Carly knew something of what he thought, but shrugged it off. He wasn't her problem or her responsibility. Rainey was.
And speaking of Rainey. As Carly entered the room, she gave her now standard greeting. "Hello, Mort. How are you today?" And like every other day that she'd come up to the third floor, she received no answer from the man. Setting her clipboard and papers on the table, she went to the typewriter and wrote the same message there. No response.
This isn't working, she told herself for the tenth time in the past two weeks. Not that she was ready to give up. Attempts at establishing verbal communication had been failing for months, so she didn't think it was necessarily time to give up yet . . . but there had to be some change she could make that would speed things along.
Shaking her head and acting on a whim, she started typing out her dilemma:
Problem – patient has withdrawn into his own world to the point where no communication can be made. Ignores all attempts to draw him into conversation or everyday life.
She looked up for a moment and observed the pale blue huddle in the corner – since grooming him a week ago, the orderlies were obviously taking her demands of hygiene seriously. The man was clean-shaven, and his hair appeared to be damp.
While his first months at Briar Ridge were characterized by violence directed towards himself and others, he is now completely passive, allowing others to bathe, feed, and care for him.
The quiet sound of keys hitting paper and the soft ding of the carriage as it moved with Carly's words filled the small room, and she unconsciously began concentrating on it, having always loved the sound of the little arms hammering away at the paper. She typed slowly, just so she could hear each individual impact.
Solution – all solutions that have been tried have been
unsuccessful with setting up a dialogue with the patient. However, all attempts at establishing communication have been verbal as of this point. I hope to find success by using the means of communication which the patient is most familiar with – the written word. This has been a resounding failure as of now, but I sdfklujso
Carly failed to finish her sentence for the simple reason that she was suddenly aware of someone hovering over her. Raising her eyes from the paper, she looked towards Rainey's corner. It was empty.
"Hello," she said and typed at the same time, wanting to make some sort of connection between the two in Mort's mind. She froze as a pair of arms came up around her and the door to the room opened. One arm flew up to halt whoever was trying to intervene, while the other slowly backed away from the keys.
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Mort knew his room had changed, and he didn't like it. He couldn't identify what was different – couldn't manage to rouse the interest to find out – but he did know he didn't like the change. Not at all. He tried to stay away from it, avoid it, hide from it. And for the most part he succeeded, escaping to the bland and featureless vistas of his own mind, nothing but his own occasional thoughts for company, unaware and uncaring of the days that passed.
Yet, this silence was occasionally interrupted by a light tapping, that was familiar and annoying at the same time. For all he could remember, it usually stopped after a period of time, leaving him be for what was possibly a day before returning. But this time it was different. This time the tapping went on and on, disrupting his carefully crafted isolated silence, making him wonder if he were imagining things, losing his mind, losing himself within his mind.
But to find out, he'd have to surface.
And that would be painful.
But could he afford not to?
The fight to disentangle himself from his own mind took some time, but with each minute that passed, the tapping and the quiet rings of what sounded like a bell grew louder and louder. His own mind no longer muffled the sounds, drowning them out until they no longer had enough clarity to interest him.
While his eyes had been open, and while they usually were during the day, Mort squinted as be became aware of the light in the room. Closing pained eyes, he listened the sound trying to identify it. It was so familiar . . . but he couldn't place it without the use of his eyes.
Opening his eyelids slowly, Mort looked around the room he found himself in. It was completely unfamiliar, small, dim, and cheerless. His mind shied away from comparing it to his house or his cabin, unable to deal with the images that would raise. He didn't know why, he just knew he didn't want to push.
Moving his gaze almost mechanically, Mort searched for the source of the noise.
Amy!
No.
A trick.
There was a woman at the table, head bent over a . . . a . . .
. . .typewriter. . .
. . . over a typewriter. His eyes had tricked him for a moment, making him believe that his wife . . .
. . . ex-wife . . .
. . .was in the room. But he didn't know this woman. Nothing about her was familiar. Just like the room. And the clothing that rubbed at his knees as he stood.
The floor was cold on his bare feet, shooting pins and needles of sensation up his legs, through his spine, to his head. But the sound of typing drew him on. He had to find out if the woman was real or if he was imagining her.
Pausing over her shoulder, he reached out to touch her, but couldn't bring himself to do it. The thought that his hand would go through her, or that she might disappear altogether was too hard to bear. Better to wait. Better to hope he was sane for as long as he could.
Instead, he read over her shoulder, his eyes focusing on the words for only seconds before skipping away, not used to having to focus for so long. What he managed to read only confirmed his doubts though.
Problem – patient has withdrawn . . . ignores . . . everyday life . . . characterized by violence . . .
As he read, he leaned over the woman's shoulder, trying to understand what she was saying. He knew she was talking about her, but his inability to make out all the words was frustrating.
. . .all solutions that have been tried have been unsuccessful . . . a resounding failure as of now, but I sdfklujso
As he'd read, Mort had leaned over to far and his shadow fell across the page. The typing stopped. He waited. Waited for the woman to scream. To flee. To disappear. To prove that he was either insane or unsafe.
But she did none of these. He watched the keys move as she slowly typed h-e-l-l-o.
That single word unleashed an overwhelming need to communicate. To communicate what, he wasn't sure. The need was so strong that it felt like madness, but that's not what he wanted. He wanted confirmation. Either way, he needed to know.
Raising his arms – not touching her but trapping her all the same – Mort typed: w-h-o-?
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Carly swallowed hard as she watched the word appear in front of her. Looking over at Rainey's arm, she motioned for Betty, Steve, and two amazed orderlies to leave the room. They did – reluctantly – but left the door open.
Turning back to the typewriter, Carly slowly spoke as she wrote. "I'm . . . Carly. I'm . . . a . . . doctor . . . do you . . . know . . . where . . . you are?"
not . . . home.
"No . . . not . . . home . . . you're . . . in a . . . hospital . . . you . . . were . . . hurt." You're still hurt. And while surgeons had the easy job of patching the man up physically, and shipping him here, she had the harder task of helping him piece his psyche back together.
Hesitantly, the man standing behind her typed a single word: a-m-y
"Amy . . . is . . ." What was his ex-wife? She'd never met the woman personally, although she still meant to. ". . . fine."
s-c-a-r-e-d
"Of . . . what?"
i . . . hurt . . . amy
"She's . . . alright . . . she . . . tried to . . . visit . . . you." She couldn't believe this was working, that she was communicating with a man who'd been withdrawn for so many months.
not . . . myself
"Now?"
then . . . later . . . never
Suddenly terrified of what he was capable of, of what the flashes in his mind were showing him, Mort knew that this woman – real or not – couldn't stay. No more death. Real or imagined, he'd seen too much.
Somehow his mind managed to connect the woman's presence here with the typewriter, and he knew – knew – that if he got rid of it, she'd leave too.
-CRASH!- Carly was stunned when Rainey shoved the typewriter off the table with an anguished groan. The orderlies outside the door once again jumped to her "rescue" and she once again waved them off. As the crash faded, she pondered what had caused the noise to escape him. Had it simply been the effort of pushing the heavy machine onto the floor? Rainey wasn't a large man, and his incarceration had doubtlessly seen him loose weight. But she doubted that was it. Rainey was a tortured man, and his last sentence had indicated, or at least made her believe, that he didn't think his hold on reality was very firm. Mental anguish, she thought, certain that was the cause of his groan.
Disappointed and elated at the same time, Carly watched as Rainey shuffled back to his corner. It was a hard thing to watch, but she had hope. They'd made progress today. More than had been made in all the months that he'd been here.
Standing, she moved to examine the typewriter. As well built as it'd been, it hadn't survived it's rough treatment . . . which didn't bode well for giving the man a laptop. As she carefully removed the sheet of paper that held their abbreviated conversation, she thought, The next step is to get him to communicate again. In any manner. If I can get him to consistently do that, then we'll try the laptop. If he's not speaking by then. But until then, she had to get something the man could write with. That wouldn't cost as much to replace.
"Can one of you get me a box of crayons?" she asked suddenly, turning towards the orderlies.
They looked at each other, but the younger one shrugged and walked off, returning five minutes later with a twelve pack of Crayolas. Carly took them and set them next to the pile of paper that had originally been intended for the ruined typewriter.
Glancing around the room one last time, Carly gave her now customary parting statement. "I'll come back and visit you tomorrow, Mr. Rainey." She got no response, but then, she hadn't been expecting on either.
"Doctor. That was amazing," Betty breathed as she came back out into the hallway.
"It was a matter of time and patience." Carly didn't want premature praises. "When he talks, then you can give me due credit." As they tried to close the door behind her, she stopped them, directing one of the orderlies, "What's left of the typewriter can just be thrown in the trash. I –"
"Admitting defeat, Beckham?"
Carly sighed in frustration, then turned to her colleague with a extremely fake smile pasted on her face. "Steve! What's wrong? Professional jealousy dogging you again?" His superior smirk dropped. "For your information, I just conversed with your former patient." She held up the half-page of writing as proof.
He came closer to examine the sheet. When he met her eyes again, she could see dislike and disbelief in them. "And just how do you intend to prove –"
From the corner of her eye, she saw two orderlies carrying out broken bits of the typewriter that'd died for medicine. He threw his voice away, she realized suddenly, not liking the symbolic representations of that thought. Tucking the paper away, Carly was suddenly ready to be far away from this floor and this man and this conversation. "I don't have to, Steve. Half the staff in the ward was standing outside the door. Now, if you'll excuse me, I've got my lunch break coming up." Without a backwards glance, she set off, desperate to get outside and away from all of this.
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After grabbing her sack lunch from her locker, Carly made her way outside to the sprawling gardens that took up nearly half an acre of land behind Briar Ridge. Spring had finally hit, and she was determined to make the most of it.
Once she reached her favorite bench – the one nearly underneath the willow tree and next to the pond – she sat down and immediately took off her sneakers and socks, desperate to feel the ground beneath her. Sighing as her toes met cool grass, she pulled out her turkey sandwich and her green salad, determined to eat and put everything but the vista before her out of her mind. She only got a half an hour for lunch, and she didn't intend to brood on Rainey and Steve the entire time. The former was going to require extreme amounts of concentration, and the latter would upset her digestion.
Halfway through her sandwich, a shadow fell over her. She didn't bother turning around; if it was a patient, then there'd be another shadow, the one belonging to their doctor or orderly. And if it was a self checked-in patient, then they wouldn't be in this part of the gardens. It was too solitary.
"S'bout time you made it out here."
"Well, let's say that things got so bad inside, I had no choice but to seek refuge here." Carly turned as Todd, the ancient gardener, took a seat beside her.
Minutes went by without a reply from the old man. Shaking her head, Carly turned her head to look at him. "It won't work you know."
"What won't work?"
"I'm not going to crack open and spill my guts just because you're too polite – or more likely too stubborn – to ask what's on my mind." Todd didn't say anything. "It's not even really something I should be talking about with anyone. For some reason people look down on sharing confidential information about patients. Even ones that refuse to admit they have a life, or that they would if they'd take the help being offered them."
"What's wrong? One of your patients refusing the help of Briar Ridge's 'wonder shrink'?"
Carly looked at her companion sourly. "That was hitting a bit below the belt, don't you think?"
"Sometimes we all need a good sucker punch to make us pay attention."
Carly didn't exactly appreciate the sentiment, but couldn't deny its truth either. "I just . . . I just don't think that the environment that my patient is being kept in, is conducive to any sort of recovery," she said carefully. Just because Rainey was (mostly) withdrawn and (mostly) uncommunicative, didn't mean she couldn't get sued or have her license pulled for spilling details. "But I don't think that the higher-ups will allow me to move him to another ward either." Not without proof that he's making progress. More than a simple sheet of paper.
"Well, if he was in the part of the building that had its windows covered by that blasted ivy, then I'd say that you've already made some improvements to his environment."
"But that's just it. From what the nurses and orderlies have told me, while the window was covered, he went near it every single day. But now that it's not, he's avoiding it. And I'm not sure why." She laughed and slouched on the bench. "If I didn't think he was terrified of the sun or something, I'd gladly bring him out here and turn him over to you for a few hours each day." Her eyes automatically found the patient-run gardens on the other side of the grounds. There were four or five people toiling there that she could see, and one even seemed familiar. "Who is that man in the green baseball hat?"
Todd looked over. "Oh, that's Michael. You remember him. He's the reason you talked me into letting amateurs mess around in my gardens in the first place."
Carly nodded. Yes. She remembered Michael. He had acute paranoid schizophrenia . . . but he loved the gardens. With the help of medication and regular therapy, he'd moved out of the center and into a halfway home. "What's he doing here?" If he'd been sent back for some reason, surely she would have been told.
"He applied for a part-time job three months ago, and we hired him. He's been asking when you'll come to the gardens."
"And what did you tell him?" Putting her trash back into her lunch sack, Carly crumpled it into a ball, wadding it back and forth between her hands.
"I told him that you had other people to help and that you'd be out when you could."
"How'd he take it?" While Michael had been her patient, he'd often been paranoid that when she left him, it was because she couldn't stand him anymore, not because she'd had other patients to see. An eighteen-year-old boy, he'd had severe self-esteem problems on top of his condition. Some of the other doctors had teased that he'd been sweet on her.
"He didn't like it, but he didn't make a fuss either. He's a good worker that one."
Carly nodded, then looked at her watch. She reluctantly got to her feet and stretched. "Back to the daily grind for me, I'm afraid. Tell Michael hello for me, and that I'll try to come see him when I can."
"Will do."
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Carly was halfway to a group therapy session with some of the day patients, when an idea struck her. Turning about-face, she nearly ran into one of the interns. Michelle was a nice enough woman – if a bit wary of anyone with and M.D. or Ph.D. after their name – and had worked with Carly before.
"Michelle, I have to go upstairs and talk to Dr. Marchman. Can you handle my therapy group for me? It's for a group of day OCD patients."
"I don't know, Dr. Beckham. I promised to meet some of my friends for lunch . . ."
"Please. I promise to try to hurry, and I need to catch Marchman now. He'd been putting in half days for a couple years now, and I have to talk to him today. It's about one of his patients that's been added to my caseload recently." She saw the other woman was wavering. "I'll cover one of your groups if you need time off to study, or I can help you on your graduate thesis, or even talk to that pharmacist you've had your eye on. Please, just do this for me."
"Okay . . ."
"Thank you!" Without another word, Carly sprinted for the elevator.
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"I'm sorry, Dr. Beckham, but there's nothing I can do to help you. It's completed unheard of to allow a violent patient – especially one that stands to be convicted of murder – out of his ward just on the basis of a single conversation. And an abbreviated one at that." Rick Marchman leaned back in his chair, irritated that this woman had come barreling into his office just forty-five minutes before he was going to leave. And even more annoying than the fact that she was here, was the fact that she refused to leave.
"But what evidence do you have that he's a danger? Or that he'll be convicted?" Carly asked coolly, trying to match this man's level of unenthusiastic boredom. "I'm no lawyer, but as far as I can tell, the evidence linking him to the two murders at least, is circumstantial. Even his ex testified that no one in the neighborhood their lake home was in ever locked their doors. Anyone could have gotten those tools from his shed." She shrugged. "The evidence that he did burn down his own house is a bit more damning, but you and I both know that violent outbursts directed towards others is not a symptom of schizophrenia, and that the occurrence of premeditated murder is even less likely."
"You're young," Marchman patronized. "I admit that you know your statistics and diagnoses and treatments, but madness is not always logical or consistent. So Rainey is the one schizo in one thousand who is violent towards others. It wouldn't be the first time something like that has happened, and it won't be the last. I'm afraid I have to deny your request."
"Why?" Carly knew she was stepping close to the line of insubordination, but she didn't care. She couldn't heal a man who refused to let go of his illness. And if she wanted to tempt him out, she had to get him out of his high security prison. "Why condemn the man before the State has decided his fate? Innocent until proven guilty, remember? And how is he even supposed to testify in his defense if he won't come out of his shell?"
"You don't need to move him to make progress. You've already proven that." Marchman waved her own sheet of evidence at her. "Besides, you don't know if this is nothing more than a fluke. Ten words. You get the man to type ten words, and you're convinced that he's ready to be around dozens of other people." Rubbing his bald head, he tried to talk some sense into the woman in front of him. "Has it even occurred to you that Rainey is in isolation for his own sake as well for the sake of our staff and other patients? If nurse Ratchet's report is accurate," he picked up another sheet of paper and adjusted his glasses. "Mr. Rainey violated the personal space of Dr. Beckham, though she waved the orderlies off. He then proceeded to have a typed conversation with the doctor – lasting approximately ten minutes – before becoming visibly frustrated. In a burst of what appeared to be irrational terror, he destroyed the typewriter by shoving it off the table, before returning to his state of withdrawal." He laid the piece of paper back on the desk. "She goes on to say that Rainey's 'irrational terror' could have easily enough turned him against you. And he could have done considerable damage before the orderlies got there to stop him."
"No. You're wrong." Carly picked up her original conversation. "Look here," she pointed with an adamant finger, "Rainey is terrified of hurting someone. Look. This is remorse he's showing about the possibility that he did his ex harm. I'd say that shows –"
"I appreciate your enthusiasm, Dr. Beckham, but my answer is still no. Rainey will stay in the third floor ward until –" Carly opened her mouth to argue, but he overrode her. "Until he shows more improvement." Carly's mouth snapped shut, much to the elder doctor's approval. "If you can get Rainey to communicate consistently with you over the course of three weeks, and if he doesn't display any more violent outbursts, then I'll consider moving him to the second floor ward."
"That's not fair," Carly quickly countered. "Even patients on the second floor are periodically violent."
"Then Mr. Rainey had best be no more than 'periodically violent' or I'll reconsider moving him at all." Carly chewed on her lip, knowing that this was as close to compromise as she was likely to get. "I trust that this is acceptable, Dr. Beckham." They both knew that it didn't matter whether it was or not, but Carly still nodded. "Very well, then you are excused."
Collecting her things, Carly nodded to her superior, and left the room. She managed to wait until she reached the elevator before giving a sigh of relief.
That had gone better than she'd thought it would.
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Author's Thanks: wow, there's a lot of people to thank this time around, so stick with me.
Merrie (Sure, brag about the spell checker why don't you. : P I hope there was enough Mort in here to suit you – for the moment. Don't worry, he'll start to appear more and more now that I've gotten him out of his shell once.); Dawnie-7 (thanks, I thought it was brilliant if I do say so myself. ; ) I hope you liked this chapter just as much – if not more – than the last.); SS (you're right, I do worry too much. But look at what it gets me. ; ) And yes, I've got buckets and buckets of Mort just waiting to be poured out, so don't you worry none about that, pilgrim.); pandagal (Why is Amy ignoring him? Well, I plan to get into that eventually. I still plan to bring her into the story a bit. And Mort will talk when he's ready, and not a moment before. He's a bit too stubborn for me to force him to do it, no matter how weak he appears at the moment.); Lip Balm (I do. Flowers are very nice, and I figured that little details like that would make Carly a bit more real. Tess likes to quote things, Carly likes flowers. There we go. I'm very glad that nothing is lagging. Nothing is worse than lagtime in a fic – I know, because I've done it. Not only does it frustrate me, but it bores readers, and I really don't want to do that. As for what's wrong with Mort? I've yet to state it. winks); Ashley/WakingDream (I'm very glad that she's not Tess. After writing that character for so long, I can imagine that it might be a little hard to stop writing her. As for the PotC quote? I don't remember writing it, but it's entirely possible that I'm unconsciously quoting the movie. I've seen it enough times. And yes, please send my any quotes you might have. I'm struggling to work the 'death' ones back in, because that is something that, believe it or not, Sands appreciates about her. Not that he'd admit it to anyone but himself, and even that would be a fight.); smoochies221 (Yes, progress. It'll be made, but it'll be realistically slow. I'm not one for miraculous recoveries, because then I feel obliged to cause relapses, and that's just a bit more angst than I really want.); Nithke (No, not overly lustful. That can be saved for the home – or whatever. Besides, he's not a guy to inspire a whole lot of lust at the moment. But he is clean, and that is a start.); Cayenne Pepper Powder (I'm glad you're finding parts of this humorous. It'd be boring otherwise, and I want to be anything but boring.); Kinina (It didn't differ a whole lot – just some minor points/characters, and the entire ending!!! Sorry, still a bit upset over that. I was really looking forward to watching Johnny/Mort die. And I haven't read any Steven King, except for 'Secret Window, Secret Garden.' I'm glad that she's well rounded, because that is something I strive for. And yes, Don Juan. He seemed to sneak in the back door or something, because I didn't really intend to add him.); Emma (I hoped I updated fast enough for you, but I suspect I didn't. Sorry, must be the perfectionist in me.); normal human being (lol. I definitely want to mother Mort, but if I think 'fleece' means what I think it does, I might not mind that either. No, don't feel bad about re-reading. At this point, it's sort enough that I re-read the entire thing to coughprocrastinatecough get back into character, so to speak. And I'm glad that I'm pulling Carly away from Tess. We'll call it a hat trick if I can do as well with the 'From Hell' fic I'm planning to eventually write.); Dark-Soul-Pirate (lol, I was mad when the movie ended too, but only because Mort didn't die. I wanted him too. I'm a bit of a purist, and really wanted the ending to match that of the book. Oh well. At least it opened up the possibility of 'what if?' so I could write this fic. I'm just sort of mashing them together. Thanks for the complements.)