Malcolm pushed himself up from the bed and stumbled to the door. He pulled the handle, but as he'd suspected, the door was locked. Exhausted and unsteady, he leaned back against the door, letting himself slide down its surface until he came to rest on the floor.
He'd been moved to a "quiet room" because, to quote the doctors, he was "actively unsafe." This room contained a bed, and that was about it. There was a bathroom, but there was no door on it.
The orderly who'd locked him into the room had explained that he was being kept away from the rest of the population; whether for their protection or his had been left unsaid. Malcolm had been left with nothing that he could use to harm himself - they'd even taken his shoes. He looked up at the monitoring camera. He was also being kept under near-constant watch. Perhaps this wasn't going to be as simple as he'd hoped.
There was something wrong with him, and it was interfering with his ability to do what he needed to do. Maybe it was the drugs. His body had never reacted well to chemical restraints. Or maybe it wasn't the drugs at all. He shook his head. The cause didn't matter. What mattered was that he needed to get past it, to focus. He was in the asylum. Now all he needed to do was to find his way out.
Hearing rustling at the door, Malcolm slid out of the way just as the lock clicked and the door swung in, clipping him on the heel as it opened. He looked up at the orderly standing in the doorframe, meal tray in hand.
The man nodded to Malcolm as if it wasn't at all unusual to find a patient sitting on the floor, then placed the tray on the table beside the door. He held out the usual cups, one of meds and one of water, which Malcolm accepted like a good little boy. He quickly knocked the pills back without even looking at them, followed with the water. There was the usual routine afterwards, showing that the pills had gone. As the man left, Malcolm reached up to the table and tore a piece off the paper napkin. Shielding the action with his body, he slipped it into the lock. He hoped...and when the door settled into place with no "click", he smiled. He tugged the paper out of the lock, glanced up at the monitoring camera, then went to wash his hands in the small bathroom.
Malcolm kept his eyes on his task, trying not to look up to where the mirror had been. Wait, no. No. That was his other room. Not this one. He was confusing things. There was no mirror in this room. They didn't install them in the quiet rooms, probably for fear of what the patients might do with them. Still, he kept his eyes averted.
Just as well there was no mirror; he didn't want to see what he'd become.
He walked to the table, feeling steadier with each step. Looking down at the tray, he noticed that they'd given him only finger foods. There were no utensils, just a paper plate, the paper napkin, and the tray itself, which looked nigh unbreakable. Popping a vegetable into his mouth, he remembered Trip's "MacGyver" reference back on Enterprise. Trip had later explained just who this MacGyver fellow was, and how he was able to get himself out of any situation by engineering devices from the objects around him.
He wondered if MacGyver, in this same situation, could invent a method of escape involving one indestructible tray, one paper plate and one paper napkin. Maybe if Malcolm expanded his definition of "escape"? Since he was on suicide watch anyway, Malcolm toyed with the idea of trying something, just to see how quickly the staff could react. Maybe a quick paper cut to the wrist? He smiled. How about using the napkin to strangle himself? No, those were foolish ideas, but...he stared down at the items on the tray, suddenly serious. Maybe he could choke? But he put that idea aside because no, he needed to be a good boy.
Eventually the orderly came back to collect the tray. And Malcolm had to admit the man knew his job, because the first thing he did was check each item on the tray. When he noticed that a piece had been torn from the napkin, he looked at Malcolm.
Heart sinking, Malcolm removed the piece from his palm and handed it over. So much for being a good boy.
At this rate, he'd never get out of here.
x-x
The next morning Malcolm was allowed out of the quiet room for his therapy sessions. The first one was with the doctor herself, which they spent in their usual pattern: she'd ask a question, he'd ignore her, and on from there. Now he was in a group session in the common room, sitting in one of the chairs that had been placed in a circle. Malcolm refused to speak, so he just let the talk flow around him as he thought of Trip. The poor man would probably need therapy himself after what he'd been through here. Malcolm's stomach clenched and he could feel his heart pounding at the truth of what he'd just thought.
After what Trip had seen, first with Malcolm's hand, and then with the...Malcolm hesitated, not wanting to put a name to what he'd done. Trip had watched, unable to do anything, and who knows what he'd seen when they pulled Malcolm down. He just hoped to God that someone had told Trip that he'd survived.
He pulled his legs up onto the chair, wrapping his arms around his knees. It was bad enough, what Hemsej and his thugs were doing to Trip, but the idea of what Malcolm had done to him - the idea that Malcolm had done that to his friend.
He suddenly realised that the doctor was calling his name, and Malcolm made eye contact before he could stop himself. He felt the eyes of everyone on him, as if they could see right through to the real him, like they knew what he was thinking.
The doctor obviously could read some of what Malcolm was feeling, because she leaned forward in her chair and asked, "Are you all right?"
Malcolm could only shake his head no. Because he wasn't. He wasn't all right. He wasn't all right, and he didn't know why he wasn't. Something was wrong with him, but he couldn't waste time on that, because he needed to get out of there. If he didn't get out of there, he and Trip would be stuck, and Enterprise would leave, and if they survived their sentences...Malcolm heard laughter and realised it was his own, and that he was laughing because he'd been so worried about Trip making it through all this, but now he'd be surprised if he made it through himself.
"Malcolm?"
Malcolm looked up and met the doctor's eyes.
"The others were talking about why they'd tried killing themselves."
Malcolm felt his hand come up around his neck, covering ligature marks that he was certain had faded. Still, they felt like a permanent part of him now. He looked around at the others in the circle, realising that this was the first time that he'd really looked at them. There weren't that many there, fewer than ten. He supposed that it was sort of an exclusive club, suicides. He tried to see if they, like him, showed any evidence of their attempts.
The doctor spoke again, and his eyes flashed back to hers. "Why, Malcolm?"
And Malcolm heard himself say, "It was time." He was only able to stop himself from saying more by violently pushing his fingernails into the skin of his arm.
The doctor's eyes moved to his arm and back to his eyes. She nodded, then turned to the person sitting next to him.
Malcolm knew that he was in trouble. He'd just given her the opening that she'd been looking for. He was sunk. He needed to get out, and he needed to do it tonight.
x-x