heee, i had you all fooled thinking you'd have to wait for an update but no!mwahahah!KK guys, this is a mini update to shake things up a bit, keep y'all on your toes because SOME PEOPLE think i'm going the predictable route and to those people i say, never ever try t predicit what route i will go, you have no idea how random i can get and if you want a semi coherent narrative structure to remain, let me do what i want to do, k?

Now, Disclaimers, i only own the OC's . langauge and content etc blah blee blah, read it and enjoy!And dont vent at me over stuff that aint my fault please, go to a blog or something, yeesh.

xx

"So….why don't we talk to Jack today" Dr Bergen looked over to Jack who started, having tuned out the woman's voice when she started the session talking about prayers and healing.

"What?" he mumbled, having started to doze off as Dr Bergen talked on and on. He had been given some pills that would supposedly reduce the effects as he detoxed the bad drugs from his system, and as a result, he felt groggy and suspected the drugs where sedatives too.

"We want you to open the session. We want to know all about you" Dr Bergen smiled politely and Jack raised an eyebrow.

"You read my file?" Jack asked her.

"Of course" Bergen shrugged.

"Look, I just saved us all ten minutes" Jack gave her a fake smile and went back to staring at the wall.

"Well, the rest of the group wants to hear it all too" Bergen told him.

Jack's eyes flicked to Jamal, who gave him a knowing grin and leaned forward "Yeah Mercer, we all want to hear your story" Jamal bobbed his head slightly as Jack chewed his inner lip.

"Do I have to tell it, is it the law?" Jack asked.

"Lets just do some paintings" Poe enthused, "I feel like, visually expressing my angst"

Jack frowned in disbelief but Bergen grinned "Yes, okay, shall we try that then?" she asked the group.

They agreed with Poe and Bergen led them to an arts and crafts room, watching with a smile as they all pulled on aprons and took up brushes.

She helped them set up easels and laid out paints for them before standing back "I want everyone to paint…something that represents their pain" she told them "Then when we're done, we're all going to talk about them, including you Jack" she gave him a pointed look.

She let them get to work and Jack stared at the thick brush in his hand, glancing around to see everyone smearing paint haphazardly on their easels. He noticed that Bear and Poe had taken up charcoal pieces and where sketching skilfully. Jack looked around and spotted his own piece of charcoal and took it up, holding it in his hand as he stared at the easel. He tuned out his surroundings and his hand raised almost involuntarily and began to move in sweeping lines across the canvas, sketching out the basic image of a huge, snarling bear, its jaws dripping with saliva as it loomed over a tiny child, a little boy who resembled Jack who stood before it with blank eyes, staring up at his own inevitable demise, unmoving. Jack regarded it for a second then added a pair of hands on the boy's ankles, holding him in place. The arms came out of the ground like roots and dug into the boys' legs, drawing blood. Jack added snow to the image, and in the distance, behind the boy, he drew figures, beckoning to him.

"Wow" Some one breathed close to him and Jack jumped, spinning to see Amanda standing beside him, grinning widely. "Sorry, but, wow" she looked at his drawing and Jack automatically stepped in front of it, hiding it from her view.

"Oh, okay, no problem" her smile faltered ever so slightly and she nodded "I understand if you don't want people to see it" she said sadly.

"Oh" Jack said haltingly "No it's…I'm sorry" he said, it's not personal, I just don't think anyone's ever seen anything I've done before" he admitted.

"Really?" Amanda asked, "Wanna see mine?" she brightened immediately and reached for Jack's hand to tow him to her canvas and he flinched away from her hand but followed her to her easel.

Her picture was a half decent drawing of a man in his thirties with dark hair and very, very blue eyes; too blue in fact, no pupils, just two huge blue circles.

"That's him, my teacher, Guy, he had the most beautiful eyes, just beautiful" she spoke rapidly, grinning the entire time.

"I see that" Jack said carefully "What's that behind him?" he pointed to a feminine figure standing in front of what looked like a burning house.

"His Bitch Wife" Amanda said, her voice going hard and flat.

"Oh" Jack raised his eyebrows and realised Poe wasn't the only genuine loony in the place.

"Well since you two are sharing shall we all share?" Bergen asked the group aloud.

Muttering and sighing, the youths gathered around Amanda's painting first.

"Amanda. You drew Guy again" Bergen said, clearly exasperated.

"Well, he's…" Amanda was still smiling but was blinking again, trying to think of something to say "He's what I think about. And I hurt when I can't be with him" she shrugged slightly.

"Amanda, next time, you have to draw something different okay? I understand your pain-"

"No!" Amanda snapped, interrupting Bergen "You don't understand, you couldn't"

Bergen nodded and spoke soothingly "I want to see something different next time though, okay?" she asked.

"Fine" Amanda muttered unconvincingly.

Next was Jamal. His picture was rough and simple and showed a stick figure that had been labelled 'Jamal' running away from a gang of youths labelled with a symbol Jack recognized as a gang insignia he sometimes saw back home. The Jamal figure was running toward a building labelled school and a giant stick figure woman with an angry, cruel face stood in front of the school, effectively blocking Jamal's path.

"This us my pain, that I'm in here cos people think I'm crazy when all that happened is I was trying to get away from the homeboys and she wouldn't let me in, so I pushed her and suddenly I'm a nut job with anger problems" the kid told them.

"Mm, but Jamal, why did your principal turn you away that time? Because you had a reputation for fighting and causing trouble" Bergen reminded him.

"I didn't push her to hurt her though, I just wanted her out of my way" Jamal rolled his eyes.

"Arthur?" Bergen pointedly ignored Jamal's protests as the group moved on to Arthur's picture.

Like Jamal, Arthur didn't have a lot of technical skill but still knew how to show what he wanted to show. His painting was of a cartoonishly oversized dog terrorising a tiny screaming baby while a stick figure with that shock of white blonde hair stood with a knife, frozen in his lunge to kill the dog.

"The dog this time?" Bergen sounded surprised "Well done Arthur" she nodded.

"Well I'm sick of painting Aunt Marie" Arthur said and Jack frowned, not understanding the comment but Bergen seemed content that Arthur had drawn the dog and they moved on.

Drew had painted a very competent image of a locker with a pair of eyes peering out of the slats in the locker door. A pair of oversized glasses hung on the door and there where 'quake' marks doodled in to make it appear as if the locker was shaking.

Drew's style was, to Jack, a cross between comic books and cartoons, and he gave a nod of appreciation.

"Um, me, in a locker. Ow" Drew said a little sarcastically, obviously not comfortable with the situation.

"Is there a reason the locker is wearing the glasses?" Amanda asked.

"Uh…cos when I attacked the bully that's how I felt. Like I wasn't a kid, I was just a locker, cos I kept getting stuffed into em" he shrugged.

"I like it" Bergen nodded "It's very telling" she gave Drew a kindly smile.

They moved on to Bebe's image which at first, Jack thought was simple a big round ball. Then he realised there where hands, feet, and a teeny head.

"That's how I am" the stick thin Bebe stated "And it hurts"

"Why is you head so small?" Poe asked.

"Cos my size, my problem when I keep eating, its bigger than my head, it takes over my mind. I don't have any control and its why I'm so big" Bebe told the, her voice never wavering. She truly believed what she was saying.

"That's…some thing we're going to talk about Bebe" Bergen told her.

Poe's was next. She had some skill too and her sketch was of a small girl standing beside a pair of graves, crying, while in the background, monsters, dark shadowy figures, congregated, ready to snatch the girl.

"That's me, and that's Mama and the little baby, we never named him but I like to think of him as Trevor, and he died and she died and those monsters are the bad people who took me in and that's my pain" Poe explained very simply.

"She has a knife" Jack remarked, pointing to the girl, who did indeed have a knife just peeking out from behind her back.

"Yeah. That's when I did these" Poe flashed her scarred wrists, nodding, and Jack realised she was uncomfortable.

"Well Poe, usually you draw the exact opposite of what I ask" Bergen stated "This is great! What changed?"

"I have a huge crush on Jack and I wanted to impress him" Poe stated seriously.

Jack blushed as Amanda giggled hysterically and Bear covered a smile with one hand.

"Well…" Bergen faltered "At least you're honest" she managed.

Poe shrugged and they walked over to Bear's canvas.

It was another very well done piece of work, showing Bear with one huge hand crushing a collection of flowers, children, kittens, all pleasant pretty things, and in the other, holding a question mark.

"I don't know why I do what I do, and I don't remember doing these things, and I don't like hurting people so it hurts me wondering why I do it" the big kid explained.

"Great, as usual" Bergen smiled.

Diggy's painting was simply done but complicated in content. It showed a man beating a woman while a small boy watched, a knife in his hand. The word 'help' flowed from the boys mouth growing larger and larger as it reached a group of people labelled 'teacher' 'cop' and 'neighbours' who had angry faces and their hands on their ears. Their eyes had been drawn extra wide and where aimed toward another image of an older boy, clearly the older Diggy, standing with the bloodied knife in hand over the body of the beating man, Diggy's hand reaching to his mother who had her mouth covered with both hands. The word 'crazy' had been lightly drawn in the space between the eyes and the older Diggy.

"Uh…kinda self explanatory?" Diggy waved a hand at the drawing.

"Yes it is" Bergen agreed "But it's the same thing you draw every week" she pointed out.

"I'm gonna keep on drawing it till you believe it" Diggy shrugged, walking away to Jack's sketch.

The group followed him and looked to Jack for an explanation when they had all examined it.

"Uh. That's me. And I'm threatened by bad things. And I cant get away from them and my family wants me to go to them and be happy with them but I uh, I cant, I'm sort of, stuck, by the hands, the roots, my past" he sheepishly explained.

"That's dark man" Diggy nodded.

"It's scary" Bebe hugged herself "Why isn't little Jack trying to fight the bear?" she asked.

"He cant" Jack said blankly, "It's too big, it's too much for him to fight" he was surprised by his own words as he spoke them, never having realised how much thought went into the drawings he did.

"The bear…its not just people trying to hurt you? It's your own like, issues, right?" Drew asked.

"I think so" Jack nodded.

"Damn" Bear said "I feel like I should apologise"

Jack felt his embarrassment fade slightly as the bigger kid clapped him on the back and gave him a sincere look "I'm sorry" Bear said sombrely.

Jack laughed but stepped away from Bear's hand scratching his head in embarrassment.

"I feel like this has been a very productive session guys, I really do" Bergen was grinning from ear to ear "Well done, to all of you"

Hours later, Jack sat on the sofa, leaning on his hand as he idly stared at the TV which was entertaining most of the other people in the room.

The people sitting around Jack where the youths who lived on the same floor as Jack did, and only included Jamal and Poe from the group.

Jamal was sitting in an armchair across from Jack, staring at Jack's bandaged wrists which Jack realised where exposed by how his sweater had bunched up.

"What happened Mercer?" Jamal asked, grinning.

"Your mother did it, she's into a little pain in the bedroom" Jack shot back casually.

Jamal snorted, letting the insult slide but leaned forward slightly "Come on man, we're in here together, you can tell me" Jamal pressed "What'd your old man come back for another ride of the Jackie Train?" the kid sneered.

Jack made a fist so tight his knuckles popped but what ever pill he had been given just after supper made him lethargic and he couldn't seem to work up the energy to rise and beat Jamal to a bloody mess.

"He was too busy raping your dad in prison" Jack said, his voice totally empty.

"Fuck you Mercer" Jamal shook his head.

"What about you Jamal, you gotta be in here for more than pushin your principal down the stairs?" Jack asked.

"You agree it's stupid I'm in here?" Jamal actually seemed to appreciate Jack's statement "its unfair man, its stupid" he shook his head.

"Maybe your lawyer pleaded insanity" Jack suggested "Bobby's guy did that a couple times, got him reduced sentences and shit on a few cases when he was a kid"

"Wouldn't he have had to tell me if he did?" the kid asked.

Jack shrugged sheepishly as Poe stepped over the back of the sofa and sat cross legged, chewing a fingernail idly.

"Poe, Poe" Jamal grinned "You know how you're into Jack?" he smirked at her.

"Yeah" Poe said matter of factly.

"Ask him why he's in here, is it just the bandages on his wrists or did he play 'good touch, bad touch' with his old man again?" Jamal asked.

"Jamal you pee in your bed" Poe smiled sweetly.

Jamal slumped back in his seat, and Jack realised he wasn't the only one who had been sedated. He had encountered Jamal once or twice in days past and the guy was not the type to take insults, any insults lightly.

"Why you gotta do that Poe?" Jamal snapped.

"Well I used to too" Poe shrugged.

She turned to Jack "So…?" she waved a hand to ward the bandages.

"I had some problems" Jack told her.

"Duh" Poe rolled her eyes.

She seemed about to ask a question but held up a hand and looked around as if she was trying to spot something "Damn snappers" she muttered under her breath, shaking her head and looking back at Jack.

Jack blinked at her, wondering what she would be like if she wasn't medicated.

"So?" Poe repeated.

"Well…uh my dad, when I was a kid he kinda….had the wrong idea's about showin me affection" Jack admitted "So I think he mighta screwed something up in my head"

"My step mom drowned me one time" Poe told him "It really sucked"

"Wow" Jack frowned "Why?"

"She was a schizo with strong religious beliefs and her mind told her I was the antichrist. It didn't help that I tended to…go off the rails every now and then and sort of, hear voices, but what are ya gonna do right?" Poe smiled brightly and Jack chuckled.

"I guess" he agreed.

"I'm getting out of here though" she said quietly "I found a way to get outside and once I do, I am gone" she winked at him.

"When?" Jack asked.

"Next week, it has to be, no one sees on Thursdays" she said cryptically "Not even blue"

"Uh huh" Jack nodded.

"I can't wait to be out of here" she enthused.

Jack smiled at her, remembering how she had touched his face in the dining hall the day before and chewed his lip nervously "Do you have to go?" he asked.

"Oh yes. I need to" she said seriously "It all relies on what can happen at high noon"

She stood suddenly and wandered off, yelling to one of the orderlies.

"She's uh…" Jack started.

"A fucking loony" Jamal suggested.

"That about covers it" Jack nodded "How long has she been in here?" he asked.

"Well in here about a year, but she's been getting psych evaled since she was six or seven and been in special homes too. She's born nutty" Jamal explained.

"She ever getting out?" Jack asked.

"She seems to think so but I heard Bergen sayin once that all they can do for her is provide her with a roof over her head till she's old enough to go in a real Mental Institution" Jamal shook his head "She's never getting out into the real world. Sad thing is, I think she kinda knows it too, that's what makes her little escape attempts so sad, she wouldn't have anywhere to go even if she did get out"

Jack was staring at the tree, which stood behind the house. It too had bare branches reaching toward the sky, but unlike the miniature woods surrounding the house, this tree stood alone in the centre of a manicured lawn. Jack had noticed it on his first night, and again the morning after, as it stood almost directly across from his window. What was drawing his attention to it on this morning was the odd shape hanging from one of its lower branches. Jack leaned close to the window, pressing one hand to the glass, frowning at what looked like some kind of distasteful decoration. He could hear the orderlies and nurses knocking on doors, waking the patients up as the day started. Jack had only slept at St Patrick's because they sedated all the patients, but he had found he would wake up very suddenly in the mornings, as if his body was overriding the affects of the drugs, waking him up alert and on edge. He seemed to wake before the staff woke him too, which he found was useful as he would have a short time alone in his room when he was wide awake and could think clearly. He had been watching the rain when he noticed the thing in the tree and now he couldn't repress a shudder as it began to swing gently back and forth in the wind.

He heard a yell behind him and realised one of the nurses was shouting about Poe not being in her room. Jack suddenly became very aware of how the thing in the tree was dark red and he remembered in a flash that Poe had been wearing red pyjamas the last time he had seen her.

"Fuck" he breathed "Shit" he ran to his door and began banging on it, "The tree!" he called out "The fucking tree, she's in the tree!"

He heard a click and his door opened and the nurse he knew as Fran pushed past him and frowned out of his window, gasping in shock as she spotted it.

"Wait here!" she barked at him, running out of the door and down the corridor, snatching at a radio she had on her belt.

Jack walked back to the window, pressing his hands to his mouth as he gazed at the sight of Poe, hanging by her neck, the dark streak of her hair blowing, stirring in the wind.

He could see people now running out of the house, charging toward the tree and he realised he was shaking as he saw that he could just make out the pale skin on her hands and feet as they dangled limply.

The people, doctors and nurses he guessed who reached the tree first couldn't reach her and a detached part of his brain theorised Poe must have spent some time climbing the tall tree to reach the right branch.

He turned and wandered out of his room, walking through the house silently as nurses rushed around, trying to regain control of the patients who where growing panicked as they realised something had happened.

Jack found his way to the back door and walked out into the rain slated garden, walking toward the tree, driven by some un known compulsion. The people trying to cut Poe down seemed to busy to notice him so he simply stood before her, that detached part of him observing how her neck was hyper extended and her skin was blue and she was soaked by the rain.

"Jack!" Bergen's voice cut through his thoughts and he turned to look at the doctor as she approached and forcibly turned him around, away from the sight of Poe's body.

"Jack get back inside" she told him firmly.

Jack ignored her and turned back to Poe, memorising the image of her hanging there. He looked down and blinked, frowning in confusion, "She said she was escaping" he told Bergen "But she did this…I don't get it"

"Maybe this is what she meant" Bergen was walking Jack back toward the house "Poe didn't have any where to escape too Jack, she was very troubled…we'll talk about this later okay, now please, just go inside?" the doctor looked suddenly very tired and Jack nodded obligingly, suddenly wanting his mother more than anything.

He let more nurses and orderlies rush around him, trying to find ways to hide what had happened, then headed to the office which had been left open.

Jack still hadn't been allowed to contact his family, as a part of his therapy but he sat at a desk and picked up a phone, dialling home.

It picked up after a few rings and Evelyn's voice, sounding bright and fresh despite the early hour, politely asked who was calling.

"Ma?" Jack asked "Ma when can I come home?"

He heard his mother gasp and start to cry and he glanced up, freezing as he realised that he could see The Tree through the window, and that Poe was still hanging, cold and dead, swinging in the wind as the rain fell down.