Author's Note: this chapter didn't take too long to get out, did it? It seems like I certainly managed to write it faster than the last. I hope you enjoy it – I certainly did. It's fun to let Mort interact with what's around him. Well, I won't take more of your time. Read and enjoy.

"Hello, Mort. How are you today?" The greeting had become routine by now. Carly walked in – looking official with lab coat and clipboard – said "hello," and he responded. No, he didn't talk and he didn't look at her, but he always acknowledged her presence in some way. A blink of the eyes, a turn of the head, a slight twitch of his hands, or perhaps a shifting of his weight as he sat in the corner.

She sighed. In the past three weeks, he hadn't show much progress, much less another breakthrough. Carly knew she out to be content that Rainey was at least responding to outside stimuli, but she wasn't. After drawing him into the "real world," she should be pleased with just getting him to interact with his environment. But for some reason he wasn't, and that bruised her pride.

Oh, he responds, she thought sourly, just not in the way I want him to. Fear was how he reacted to everything. If a meal was brought into his room, he withdrew into his corner. If someone reached out to touch him, he shrunk away. If she opened the window to let in some fresh air, he refused to go near it. If sirens went past on the far-off freeway, he covered his ears and popped his jaw.

Worst of all was when Joe, the head janitor, drove up in his noisy, ancient pick-up, which had a habit of backfiring; the closest Carly could come to describing the noise was it sounded like a truck having a hairball. She'd been in the room with Rainey just days after he'd been released from the medical ward when Joe had parked his car in the parking lot far below. It had chugged and sputtered for minutes after the engine had been turned off and Joe had long since disappeared inside the building. But eventually it gave up its indignant complaints with a loud BANG!

Mort leapt at least a foot into the air, spinning around frantically to find what had made the noise. Carly had tried to calm him, but her attempts were merely met with hyperventilation and flailing arms. Ralph and Betty had rushed in – adding weight to her theory that they had appointed themselves her guardian angels – ready with tranquilizers should they be needed, but Carly had waved them back out. She wanted Mort to calm down on his own. He'd had too many drug circulating through his system for too long. Had grown too used to having his feelings neutralized for him instead of having to deal with them himself. If he was ever going to progress to the point that Carly wouldn't feel guilty about letting him interact with other patients, he was going to have to relearn certain things, and this was one of them.

It'd taken the better part of an hour, but Mort had finally collapsed on the floor, one hand twitching as if writing. Carly had knelt down beside him, slipping a pencil into his hand and helping him to hold it. "What is it, Mort?" she asked gently. "What's wrong?" From this close she could see his pulse racing in his neck and could smell the sour scent of fear-induced sweat. To all appearances, he was having a panic attack. "You have to tell me what's wrong." The pencil scrabbled at the floor, and she watched, looking for anything that resembled words among the chicken scratch coming from the soft lead.

Finally Rainey went limp, his eyes shuttling back and forth under thin eyelids. The pencil fell from his fingers, and his breathing seemed to slow. Carly had let Ralph come in to help her get Rainey onto his cot, and then she'd sent him back to his post. Betty had come in then, stethoscope in hand, to make sure Rainey was indeed calming down and not suffering from hypotension or anything else.

Carly ignored her, sure that the woman could do her job without any direction. She had other things to occupy her mind after all.

Crouching down, she'd studied the marks on the floor, looking for any sense amongst the scribbles. After a half an hour of consideration, she thought she might be able to make out the words "you're not handling this well," but had decided to get a second opinion. Ralph had made out "not" and "well", and Betty had seen "you're", but that was all they came to a conclusive decision on.

Nonetheless, Carly marked all this down in her notes, and photographed the area on the floor for study later, and then talked to Mort, but he didn't respond to her.

That was the last day Joe parked in the parking lot near the heavy security wing.

That had also been three weeks ago. Now Carly know how best not to agitate her patient. If she left him alone got long enough, he would start to pace back and forth, hands wringing, lips moving but no sound escaping. Agitation was better than fear, so she let him pace.

As was custom now, she say down in one of the room's two chairs and pulled a stack of blank paper towards her. Somehow these sessions with Rainey had turned into writing exercises. She still clung to the idea that the written word was the way to ease Rainey into communicating with the rest of the world. However, she wasn't much of a writer, so trying to get Rainey's interest was a constant struggle. For a minute or two she doodled, playing with the idea of writing a scathing reply to the wedding announcement she'd received from her ex – the nerve of the man – but discarded it. She wasn't three years old, and she certainly wasn't drunk; she could act her age.

Instead, her mind caught hold of a fragment of a memory of some book she'd read in the recent past. Some overly dramatic, Gothic-inspired nightmare of a story. How hard could it be to write something like that? After all, she thought wryly, most of it follows a formula. Right from "It was a dark and story night," down to the revelation of some insane relative that's been committing horrendous murders. Picking up a black crayon – the only writing utensil that she was allowed to leave Rainey unsupervised with – she started to write.

It was a dark and stormy night. The gargoyles on the stone eves of Killingsford Manor seemed to scream in blatant defiance of the unexpected, irregular light. . .

Some minutes later, Carly stopped and looked over what she'd written. It wasn't Shakespeare – hell, it wasn't even Poe – but she didn't think it was horrible. At least not completely. Full of unnatural white floating figures, and mysteriously and forebodingly stern men full of sexual energy, and of course the requite beautiful, young virgin, it could have been taken off any the worse paperback shelves in some grocery store.

"How bad can it really be?" she asked herself out loud. "It's not something I'd really want seen by others, but . . . what do you think, Mort?" It was an impulsive question, but Carly realized that Mort wasn't going to start conversations on his own. He needed to be drawn into them. And for that to happen, he was going to have to be placed in situations that required answers from him. He couldn't be babied forever.

And her ploy even worked to some degree. Rainey paused in his constant pacing and his head twitched in her direction, but other than that he didn't respond.

"Com'on, I can't be that horrible of a writer. I always got really good marks on my essays in college." No response. "Do you want to hear it?" Again a head twitch in her direction, as if he were listening but couldn't bare to look at her. "I'll take that as a yes," she murmured. If she had to badger him into talking, she'd do it. It was already taking her an indecent amount of time – according to her professional reputation – to make the kind of progress that was expected from both Rainey and Carly herself.

She hadn't been reading off her paper for more than a minute before Rainey walked across the room and ripped it out of her hands.

It was such an unprecedented reaction that Carly froze, aborted words on her lips. She watched as Rainey's eyes skimmed over the words, distaste – or something very much like it – in his gaze. Finally he stopped, and for the first time initiated eye contact with her. Carly almost wanted to laugh at the expression on his face; he was not a happy writer.

Almost as if he realized what he was doing, Rainey suddenly jerked his eyes away from her face. His gaze cast about the table, looking for something. Intently watching, Carly had to stifle a grin when he picked up the red crayon and fastidiously drew a large 'X' threw her story.

"Bad writing, hmm?" she asked as Mort abandoned the paper, all interest having been dismissed now that he'd judged the quality of her words. And amazingly enough, Rainey responded to her once again. It was nothing more than a flap of his hand and a waggle of his fingers in her direction, but it was more than he'd ever done before.

Carly sat in shock for some minutes before taking out her pencil and making a page or so of notes in his file. His soft pacing accompanied the quiet scratching of lead on paper.

After five minutes of silence in the small room, Carly cleared her throat. "Mort? Would you like to write something for me? It can be anything you want." She waited with bated breath for some sort of answer from him. He'd surprised her so many times today. Perhaps he'd do so again –

A soft curse rang in her mind when Rainey immediately looked at his corner as soon as he heard her question. If she could just keep his attention for another minute or two! She'd be satisfied just to make him think. Just to introduce the possibility that he could communicate. After all the interaction they'd had today, she couldn't help but believe that Rainey had reached some sort of critical stage. That if she didn't reach him today, she wouldn't ever.

"I know you're scared, Mort." Carly tried to make her voice as soothing as she could even as she prepared to ask questions that she knew would upset him. "Why are you afraid to talk? Or write? Why are you ignoring the entire world around you?" No answer: Rainey slowly made for his corner as if her words were a net that had trapped his limbs. Good. She needed to trap him. "What are you scared?" she asked again. "What happened at the lake? When you were alone? Did your imagination run away with you?"

She never got a reply. He was turning himself off in front of her and it made her want to slap him, simply to shock him back to himself. But she didn't. Instead, she tried to reason with him again. "Mort – "

Before she could continue any farther, Carly was interrupted by the door opening. An intern stuck his head inside and said, "Dr. Beckham, Dr. Holshack wants to see you." She must have had an obstinate look on her face, because the young man cleared his throat and uncomfortably added, "He wants to see you now, doctor."

Carly sighed in frustration, resisted the urge to search her pockets for a cigarette, and sighed again. "Alright. I'm coming." She gathered her things slowly, using the time to lock away her frustration before her meeting with her supervisor. Irritation would get her nowhere. If this meeting was about what she thought it was, she was going to need to be cool and logical.

"I'll see you tomorrow, Mort." The figure on the bed didn't acknowledge her. Discouraged, she turned to leave, her triumphant high leaking away. "Think about what I said. I'll visit tomorrow." Carly couldn't even be sure he was awake to hear her, but she chose to be optimistic. Rainey could hide, but Carly was one of the best. She'd win eventually.

"Good afternoon, Dr. Beckham. Go right in, Dr. Holshack is waiting for you."

Carly nodded pleasantly to her superior's secretary, and entered the office, her back straight and shoulders squared as if she were going off to battle. Which was what she was expecting. As a state-run hospital, Briar Ridge couldn't afford to pay each doctor for too many hours of overtime, and Carly had been putting in more than her fair share lately. But it was needed to make the kind of progress she'd just witnessed in Rainey.

"Carly. Glad you got here so fast. We need to talk."

She walked into the room, and slid into a chair, still prepared to go to battle, but more than willing to engage in a verbal skirmish first. "I don't suppose you called me in for a bit of pleasant chitchat, did you?"

"'Fraid not." Holshack looked up from a form he'd just finished filling out and took the time to look his employee over. There was an aura of defensiveness around her, and frazzled look in her eye. She'd been putting in too many hours and she knew it. And from the look of her, she was also prepared to defend it. "Care to tell me why you think you're here?"

Carly gave him a wry grin. "I think I'm here because you sent an intern for me." Adam didn't look fooled. "Alright, I know I've been putting in a lot of overtime –"

"Approximately five hours a week. Yeah, I'd call that a lot of overtime. Especially when the accountants scream anytime anyone puts in more than five hours a month."

"One of the privileges of being a doctor instead of admin is that I don't have to deal with screaming accountants," she retorted, settling into the chair more comfortably.

"Yes, but you do get to deal with me. And I'm telling you that I don't want to have to listen to their screams either. So put an end to the late nights."

That was unfair. "I'm not wasting time, Adam. I'm putting in completely viable hours. Between my caseload of check-ins and temporary residents and Rainey, I'm stretched pretty thin. I need that time to see to everyone. If I can't give the proper care to the patients on my caseload, then why am I here? I refuse to give anyone half-hearted treatment. Mental illness doesn't run on a clock."

"You're right." Holshack sighed and leaned back in his chair. "And when we're called in at two in the morning to deal with suicidal or violent or disruptive patients, no one complains. But the state seems to feel that whatever treatment needs to be done for patients can either be done during business hours, or by another doctor. Isn't there anything you can delegate? I know most of your time has been spent with Rainey –"

"With good reason," she interrupted. "I'm making progress Adam. I'm getting him to interact. If I'm spending too much time with him, it's because he's got a court date set for –"

"For another five months from now. Drs. Gable, Marchman, and I talked to the head DA. We convinced her that justice would be better served once Rainey can at least speak for himself."

"And what was the trade-off?" Carly didn't like the sound of this.

Adam shrugged. "That's Dr. Marchman's business, not mine."

"What did he tell the DA, Adam. I need to know."

Her outburst earned her a raised eyebrow, and she fought the urge to blush at the silent reprimand/question. "That sounds an awful lot like personal involvement, Carly. Do I need to restrict the hours you spend with Rainey?"

And rob her of her hard earned victory? She didn't think so. "No. It's not. I just want to know if Marchman is going to be expecting me to be grooming Rainey for an insanity plea."

"You don't think that would be the best defense to go with?"

Carly got up and started pacing. "How would I know, Adam? I'm not a lawyer. All I know is that I have a man in my care who has gone through significant psychological trauma – enough that he can't even contemplate his own life, not to even mention a trial."

Holshack decided to let the subject drop for the moment. "What kind of progress are you making?"

"Slow. Slow but steady. I'm about ready to bring up the topic of moving Rainey to another ward with Marchman."

"I thought he wanted proof of consistent communication from Rainey before he considered moving him."

"He does, but I'm convinced that he's oversimplifying the matter. I can see it in Rainey's eyes, Adam . . . he hates that room. He's restless there. How am I supposed to get him to focus on anything if the room steals his attention from me?"

"But you've been making progress regardless of the surroundings." It was more a statement than a question, but Carly still felt the need to defend herself.

"Yes, but I think I could make more in a room that doesn't feel like a prison cell."

"You could make more progress?"

Carly shot an exasperated look at her boss. "I could make more progress with him. You know what I meant."

"Yes, but I'm not the one that had the authority to move Mr. Rainey or keep him in his current ward."

She made a face, but accepted the truth of this. "You think Marchman will listen to me then?"

"Of course he'll listen to you. He's a very deliberate and thoughtful man. Whether or not he'll bend to your wishes is another matter entirely. I think you'll need more than a red 'X'," he pointed towards the papers she'd laid on his desk, "to convince him to change his mind."

"But you'll back me up if he asks for your opinion."

"No. I don't interfere in the way he runs his ward, and he doesn't complain about the policies I put into place on the other two." Carly opened her mouth to protest, but Holshack cut her off. "But. . ." she closed her mouth. "But if he asks me whether you're off your rocker or not, then I'll vouch for you.

"In the meantime. . . ." He gestured for her to take her seat again, and she did. "I want you to cut back on the amount of overtime you're putting in. I'm serious when I say I don't want the accountants coming to me every other day with tales of your negligence to check the time – which is what they're calling it, by the way." Carly made a face. "Now, what I can do to help you do that? I assume you're not willing to hand over some of Rainey's care over to another doctor?"

"No, I'm not. He barely tolerates me, and he's at least used to me. I don't know what will happen if I throw someone he doesn't know in there."

"What about Steve? He was working with Rainey before you were."

"And making a lot less progress, I might add. Not to mention that I'm using some unorthodox methods of communication with him. I don't think my esteemed colleague would agree with half of what I'm doing."

"Dr. Wright is a good psychiatrist – "

"But book-bound, which is exactly what Rainey isn't." Carly had to smile at her own pun. "No, I just don't think that would work. If I do – and this is a big if – agree to letting another doctor work with Rainey, I want it to be someone who would not argue with every treatment I experiment with."

"So what do you want to do?"

As she stopped to think about the question, Carly blew out a gentle stream of air through her front teeth, producing a soft whistling noise. In her mind, she ran through her list of patients, their reasons for being at the center, and how close to rehabilitation they were. "I've got two obsessive-compulsives that I wouldn't mind handing over to Steve – his by-the-book mentality works wonders with them. I've got a third ob-com that's ready to be discharged, but who I've recommended for weekly therapy for the next few months, but I think he can attend one of the group sessions. I have a fifty-year-old empty nester, who I think is simply reacting to having all her kids out of the house. She was a single mother for over ten years, and the transition has been hard on her. I think I could let Dr. Na take that one over…or her intern. I hear he's good with older folks with disabilities."

This conversation continued for several more minutes as she went over her caseload with Adam and consulted with his master list of who had time for new patients and who didn't. It was finally decided that she would turn seven patients over to new doctors and keep three who were too far into their treatment but not close enough to recovery to switch over to a new psychiatrist. With these three in addition to Rainey, she'd only have four patients; with such a lightened load, she'd be able to devote more time to Rainey.

"I admit, this was more pleasant than I thought it'd be," Carly confessed, gathering her papers in preparation to go. "Sometimes I forget just how reasonable you can be, Adam."

"Why don't I feel complemented?" he teased his young protégée.

"Because you're a suspicious, cranky old man with exceptional taste. Now, I think I'll go see if I can slip in to see Marchman before he leaves for the day."

"It's Monday. He works normal hours today."

"Oh good. I was afraid I was already too late."

"You might be if he's closeted away in a meeting." Adam walked her to the door. "Just don't give him cause to come yelling to me too, Beckham."

"I won't. I do have some tact when I want to." She just usually didn't.

With that cheerful thought on the forefront of her mind, she left, walking down the corridor to the nearest elevator. It was time to go back to the third floor.

"I appreciate the hours you've put in, Dr. Beckham, and I find the progress you've made with Mr. Rainey to be astounding, but it's not enough for me to consider moving your patient."

Carly sat in front of Dr. Marchman's large desk and ground her teeth, trying to keep a civil tongue in her hand. She couldn't be nearly as informal with this man as she could with her boss, and frustration would just make him more reluctant to listen to her. And she couldn't afford that.

Once she considered herself under control, she said in a carefully measured voice, "I understand that. I'm just asking for you to reconsider your conditions for what you expect from Mr. Rainey before you'll move him out of the maximum security ward. He's only had two violent outbursts since he's been under my care –"

"He didn't have any under Dr. Wright."

Again she gritted her teeth. "You're right, but he also dramatically declined under Dr. Wright's care. When he came to Briar Ridge, Rainey was communicating – perhaps not civilly, but at least he was coherent – and he stopped altogether the longer Ste–" she caught herself, "Dr. Wright worked with him. Under my supervision, Rainey has started taking notice and interacting with his surroundings, he's communicated via the written word several times, and he's been more energetic. He paces instead of sitting in a corner all day. I think he's shown that he's recovering at a steady enough rate to be at least considered for relocation."

When Dr. Marchman fell silent for several minutes, Carly felt a surge of hope. She wasn't asking for immediate action – that had probably been her mistake the last time she brought her case before this man – but for the promise that action would be taken under consideration. Baby steps, she reminded herself as she waited for an answer. If I can just get the ball rolling –

"How soon do you expect Mr. Rainey to be talking again?"

"Hmm?" She'd been distracted by her own thoughts, and it took a minute for her to gather her mind and process what had just been asked of her. "Oh, no time soon. Verbal communication is still months – if not a year of more – down the road. Rainey is going to need to be eased back into the world of the cognizant. And part of that, I believe, is getting him into an environment that has more he can interact with. Why should he strive for more when he's stuck in such an austere room day in and day out? I'd become withdrawn if I had to stay in there."

"But you expect him to recover?"

A tough question. "I expect him to be rehabilitated. Full recovery is very unlikely in a case like his."

Marchman nodded, making her internally sigh in relief. She'd given the right answer.

"All right, doctor. If by the end of the week, Mr. Rainey has made some sort of attempt to communicate again, I'll act on your request to move him. But he will be placed under the highest security that is possible in that ward. You know what that means, correct?"

She nodded. No personal visitors without an orderly, no trips out of the room without the company of the psychiatrist in charge and an orderly or nurse, door locked at night. And the possibility of being moved back to the third floor should he become unmanageable. "Yes, sir."

"Then we have an agreement, Dr. Beckham. Now if you'll excuse me, I have some phone calls to make."

Carly nodded again, and left, a smile of triumph on her face. Rainey didn't stand a chance. He'd get better or she'd know why.

A dark and stormy night. . .A dark and stormy night. . .A dark and stormy night. . . .

The single sentence repeated itself over and over in Mort's mind, invading his dreams and making rest nearly impossible.

Bad writing. It's just bad writing. Cliché. Trite. Childish.

He had to make it stop. He couldn't stand hearing that phrase again. It pulled and nagged him out of bed, made him cross to the table in the middle of his room, and pick up a crayon. He didn't notice which.

It was dark in the room; a patch of night showed through the room's window. There was barely enough light from the moon to allow him to differentiate between empty space and furniture, but Mort didn't really need light. He knew what the words looked like without having to see them. He knew how they should flow together without having to see the punctuation marks. He could hear them without having to cipher the individual letters.

At four past midnight, he started to write; not on the paper, that would be too normal. Too routine. Too full of memories. The walls would be his paper. He'd write until those damn words were out of his head and he could fall asleep.

Disclaimer: Ok, so Four Past Midnightis the collection that Secret Window, SecretGardenappears in, and I don't own it. Stephen King does.

Author's Thanks: Oh, you are all much too patient for putting up with me. : )

pandagal (Yes, progress is a very good thing, and it's about time that Mort be making it. As I've said before, it's really hard to write insights for a character that won't speak and tries not to think. Thanks for letting me know that I'm doing a good job, though. It's a relief.); Dawnie-7 (Intense. Intense is a very good word for the last chapter. It was fun to write. I was a bit guilty for treating Mort like that, but it's what he'd do in that situation, and who am I to argue with his nature? ; ) As for Michael, I've got plans for him. We'll definitely be seeing him more as the story goes on.); Merrie (Who doesn't go for crazy men? They're just so needy. And it wasn't too short – that chapter was the longest I'd written until this one.); Sternenlicht (Thanks for your input. It's always a humongous compliment to hear someone say that I'm portraying my characters in a realistic way. It's hard sometimes to know what is realistic, and what's over the edge, but I've had no complaints so far.); normal human being (Morting! I love it. Right up there with Sandsish (is that the word you used?) And what about the end of the fic? looks angelic Natural – there's a word I consider a complement. If I can keep everything about this story natural, I'll be a very happy girl.); saiyuki123 (I tried to get this up as soon as I could, but it was hard to decide where to start. But I eventually got it down. Hope you enjoy it.); Nithke (Mort's major breakthrough is coming. I promise. I'm getting frustrated with writing him so. . .silently. Yes, I am a girl – I don't know any guys who write or read JD fanfics, but I'd love to meet any who do. And if I've inspired you, then I consider this story a success based solely on that. Oh, and there's a website I think you should check out…it' for Johnny lovers. It's If that doesn't show up for you, go ahead and e-mail me.); Esmeralda Sparrow (I'm glad you're enjoying everything. Let me know if this was worth the wait.); Cassie (Mort's a hard guy to write at the moment, but I've definitely enjoying it.); johnnydeppfanatic13 (if you're getting inside Mort's head when I'm writing, then I know I'm doing a good job. Hope you liked this chapter.); SS (you know, I really am trying to make these chapter long, but they're all a struggle. Mort's hard to write. But I'm glad you're getting into it – that makes my day. And yes, I wrote more. I'll continue to do so until the story is done. )