Kia ora! This chapter's a bit short... but I'm sure no one minds cos... no one's reading this. Which is weirdly freeing. I feel like I could suddenly turn this into blatant, bizarre porn and NO ONE WOULD KNOW BUT ME. It's like a SECRET.

There's a guest character in this chapter that I've borrowed from my favorite author ever, Caitlin Kiernan.

Yeah, I get it,

You're an outcast.

Always under attack.

Always coming in last,

Bringing up the past.

No one owes you anything.

I think you need a shotgun blast,

A kick in the ass,

So paranoid

Watch your back!

Oh my, here we go

Another loose cannon gone bi-polar

Slipped down, couldn't get much lower.

Quicksand's got no sense of humor-

I'm still laughing like hell.

You think that by cryin to me,

Looking so sorry that I'm gonna believe.

You've been infected by a social disease.

Well, then take your medicine.

I created the sound of madness.

Wrote the book on pain.

Somehow I'm still here

To explain,

That the darkest hour never comes in the night.

You can sleep with a gun.

When you gonna wake up and fight for yourself?

I'm so sick of this tombstone mentality,

If there's an afterlife,

Then it'll set you free.

But I'm not gonna part the seas

You're a self-fulfilling prophecy.

~Sound of Madness, Shinedown

~,~

When the guards arrive at the cell about ten minutes later to take Andrew back, they find him seated against the wall, a murderous look in his eyes and Noyce asleep against his shoulder. His glare makes the two watchmen hover in the threshold a moment, bickering about who should go in and get him. When they finally do remove Laeddis (not without considerable reluctance on the sides of both parties) the schizophrenic man wakes and snarls at them, scooting further away into the corner. The wardens aim a few kicks at him and lead their charge away. Andrew casts a glance over his shoulder at the captive shadows, telling himself that it's sure as hell not gonna be a last look, before turning to face the long hall. He's got a little speech prepared for the good doctor.

Minutes later, Andrew Laeddis is in Doctor Cawley's office, ranting at the older man behind closed doors.

"You can't just fuckin' scrape the guy's brain out of his skull just cuz he don't wanna talk to you!"

"Andrew, George is a danger to himself and to others; he's attacked a dozen different orderlies and even more patients-"

"What about the shit you pulled with me? Can't you do some kinda freaky psycho mind trick and make him not nuts anymore?" The agitated man runs a hand through his hair, trying to keep his anger in check.

Cawley steeples his fingers in front of his face thoughtfully. "I'm afraid that wouldn't work in this case as it did for you. George is schizophrenic; you were merely suffering from a delusional breakdown brought on by extreme post-traumatic stress. They're... they're two entirely different conditions."

Andrew slams his palm against the wall despite himself, guilt and helpless rage burning at him. "Come on, doc. There's gotta be somethin'. You musta made some kinda progress with him while he's been here, right? Something you could use?"

The psychiatrist shakes his head sadly, but there's a considering tilt to his head. "Unfortunately, George is one of the most resilient people I've met when it comes to blocking others out. I've tried hypnotherapy, but he always finds a way to stonewall me. He never even speak to the other patients during his recreational time, when he was allowed it." He sighs and looks up at Laeddis. "In all honesty, you are the first person I've ever seen him willingly converse and engage with."

"But I beat the shit out of him," Andrew blurts, surprised.

Cawley nods, still looking calculating. "Yes. And what stunned me most of all was the fact that he continues to hold you in high regard. I believe it may be rooted in your delusion- the thought that you are responsible for his condition and his being here, your continuous insistence that you would 'rescue' him, and even your sudden violence toward him when you ceased to see yourself as 'Andrew'- they all galvanized your feelings of guilt and defensiveness toward him, and his view of you in the role of a savior."

"So let me fucking talk to him, then! Let me act as a- whatever you call it- a proxy shrink or some shit. You said it yourself, I'm the only one he opens up to. Let me at least try it before you cut the man's goddamn brains out!"

The doctor gazes at him sternly. "Andrew, you may be recovering but you are still my patient. It is not common practice for a patient to-"

"Screw common practice, I thought you were all cutting edge and shit!" He brings his hands to rest on the psychiatrist's desk, knuckles facing out, intensity and determination sharpening his stare. "You gotta let me try, doc. You let me try, and I swear to you- I give you my word, I'll work at gettin' better. I'll stop tryin' to off myself; I'll do my damn therapy."

Doctor Cawley continues to hold his gaze, finally sighing and shaking his head slightly, an almost amused look in his eye. "You're still very much a Marshall, Andrew. Bargaining with me, trying to make a deal."

"You think it's a good idea," Laeddis says, leaning in, triumph in his eyes. "You know it's a good idea; you know it'll work. You gotta let me."

"Truthfully? Yes, I think it would be good for both of you. I think that helping to bring him back to reality would help you to reclaim your former self and leave your self-destructive emotions behind. But it could take years, Andrew, and I was hoping to have you rehabilitated enough for society within the year."

"But I thought he trusted me."

"Oh no," Cawley smiles ruefully. "Oh no, no, he doesn't trust anyone. I believe he'll open up to you, yes, but I think genuine trust would take far longer. And the problem is that if he does come to trust you, the bond he'll form would be too deep. If he truly connects with you, your eventual departure could send him even deeper into his mania than he is now."

"It's worth a shot, right?" The former Marshall watches his shrink consider the proposition once more and slowly nod.

"...Yes. I suppose it is."

~;;~

The sun doesn't rise so much as saunter vaguely upwards the next morning, weak light filtering through the fog that has crept in from the ocean. As usual, Cawley arrives, bearing a thick manilla folder under one arm, to wake him and to ask him the routine questions:

"What is your name?"

"Andrew Laeddis."

"Where are you?"

"Ashecliffe."

"Ashecliffe...?"

He sighs, rubbing a hand blearily over his face. "Ashecliffe Hospital for the Criminally Insane."

"And why are-"

"I murdered my wife." Strange, how much easier it is already. He can feel her leaving him, slowly, like poison from a wound. "Because she killed our children."

"Very good." The doctor helps him up and turns to wave the orderly bearing a breakfast tray into the room. "I thought perhaps while you ate I could go over George's file, give you a base to build on if you're really intent on doing this."

"Uh," Andrew looks the tray over quickly- eggs, toast, orange juice, butterscotch pudding in a little tin- and is immensely relieved to find no little cup of candy-bright pills. To be on the safe side, though, he takes only the pre-sealed pudding. "Sure. Go ahead."

Cawley nods, flipping open the folder. The first item on the stack of papers is a photo, which the psychiatrist pulls from its clip and hands over. "That was taken the day he was brought here."

The murderer examines the photo. He expected- he's not sure, certainly not a vivacious, smiling young man, but at the very least a slightly more healthy-looking and somewhat younger man. True, the face is lacking its current disfiguring bruises and scars, but the person in the image before him resembles nothing so much as one of the Auschwitz victims of his war days: sunken eyes, cheeks like graves dug into pale earth, that haunted, hunted look that bites right into the soul. A walking corpse. The only other difference is a full head of rust-brown hair, the ever-present stubble standing out on his razor-sharp jaw.

"He weighed eighty three pounds when he arrived here," Cawley says, voice distant over Andrew's shoulder.

"For fu- why?"

"He'd been starving himself. It's one of his compulsions; he occasionally falls back into the habit and we have to put him on an IV, but he has gained weight since he's been here." The doctor sighs. "It's one of the few signs of progress he's made, of which I am proud."

"What'd he do, exactly?" Laeddis has been building up to ask this, worried, knowing it's gonna be bad.

"Well, it appears that one day- unprovoked, as far as we can tell- he left his apartment in New York, and drove over a thousand miles without stopping for food or rest back to his childhood home in Big Falls, Wisconsin. When he got there he-" Cawley withdraws another few photos, passes them over. Crime scene photos. Black and white slashes, people reduced to broken, crumpled shapes. "-beat his father to death with a tire iron, decapitated his mother with a shovel, then proceeded to crawl into his former bed and sleep for three days before the police, alerted by the neighbor's complaints about the smell, arrived and found him."

"Christ." Andrew runs a hand through his hair.

The psychiatrist nods again. "He spent three months in prison, awaiting trial, before the judge made the decision to send him to us. During that time he assaulted almost everyone who had contact with him, sending four guards and sixteen prisoners to the hospital. Although," he clears his throat. "It seems that he never started any altercations on his own. As always, he kept to himself until someone else approached him."

"Jeez," Laeddis scrapes the last of the pudding out and sets his spoon down. "I... I dunno, I never really got that violent a vibe from him." He sniffs the orange juice, puts it back.

"He's never been violent with you- that's not poisoned, you know."

"What about when I attacked him?" He picks up the toast and takes a hesitant bite. "I mean, he had to defend himself, right?" But he must not have, a voice in his head says. He was covered in bruises, true, but not me. "How did we... meet, exactly? I mean, in here."

Cawley smiles, head tilted in amused contemplation. "Your first day here you were next to him in the mess hall... He gave you his pudding cup."

Andrew snorts at the imagery. "So before I came... he didn't have anybody else he talked to? No one I could speak with to get a little more background?"

"No. Well, at least- there was a girl, Niki Ky, Vietnamese, another schizophrenic. She was brought to us by her lover, Daria Parker, after she tried several times to kill herself. Claimed there was a dragon inside her, infecting her, and that she had to drive it out. They arrived on the same week, and when she was attacked by one of the other, more violent patients here, George stepped in- I say 'stepped in', but it was more like 'charged in'. He broke the man's jaw and dislocated his arm. After that, he and Niki became... not friendly, per say, but they were more at ease around one another than with anyone else. Not that they spent much time together; we don't allow very much socializing between the sexes, and they never conversed that I saw. Niki spoke very little English."

"So they were...?"

"Oh no," Cawley says immediately. "No, of course not. I believe his feelings toward her were more of brotherly affection. There was never anything more than that."

"What happened?"

The doctor's face falls, remembering. "Well, as happens so tragically often in cases where a patient is really and truly bound to take their own life, Niki eventually succeeded. She threw herself off the cliffs."

"This place is just a barrel of laughs," Laeddis mutters, setting down the toast and standing. "So when do I start?"

"As soon as you feel willing," the older man replies. "Remember, Andrew... you're not required to do this by any means. If you change your mind-"

"I'm not gonna change my mind." Andrew slips his shoes on. "I told him I'd help him. I keep my promises, doc."