A/N Huge love to pre-readers wordslinger (my better third) and the brilliantly perverted Katinki. Jkane180 as always beta'd this chapter and talked me down from the ledge a couple times. Mind you the ledge was only five feet off the ground but I'm clumsy enough for that height to kill me. Song for this chapter is Paranoid Android by Radiohead, thanks to AltheaJams for rec'ing it for the playlist. Hi new readers - waves like an idiot
"No fucking way." There was no fucking way I had imagined it all. I swung my legs over the side of the bed and planted my feet onto the cold linoleum, and in typical Swan fashion, slipped onto my bare ass. The cold bit into my cunt, reminding me of Edward's cock.
"You're a mess, Swan." Flanagan grabbed my forearm and tugged me onto my feet.
"What the fuck?" I responded with. This was ten kinds of fucked up, seeing the bitch who had tormented me these past... I don't know, weeks? Months? Anyhoo, seeing her in the flesh made me uncomfortable, as if I was forced to confront a tangible example of everything I hated about myself.
Flanagan threw her head back and moaned, "Oh, Edward, fuck me! Don't stop fucking me! Shit, bitch, no one screams like that in real life. Have you been watching porn or something while you've been away?"
I shook my head and glared at her, scratching at the bruise on my arm; the IV was taped rather aggressively to my skin, and the adhesive was caustic. I tugged at the tape slowly and freed the clear tubes that were affixed to me. My veins burned with medication, and my eyes burned with frustrated tears. Everything was red.
"You listened to us fuck?"
"Nah, I listened to you have a wet dream about dead sparkle-dick, which actually sounds like a nasty British pudding."
"I don't understand what you're talking about..."
"It's a play on 'Spotted Dick...'"
"No, I mean...Edward. He was here."
Flanagan laughed again and humped the side of the bed, much the way Edward had. It was blasphemy.
"I need to find him," I sobbed pathetically.
"You lost your V-card when you went back, didn't you?" She stopped gyrating and grabbed my arm. "Fuck you're bruised. Give me your arm." Without waiting for my reply, she took my hand and tugged the IV out of my arm. "It's like someone tried to siphon your blood with a straw or some shit."
Would Edward have done that? There was in impression in my arm that was wider than the diametre of the IV and my heart leapt at the evidence that remained of our lovemaking: my bruised flesh and the torn sheets. "Yeah, I think Edward is real and you're a hallucination."
"Bella, where are you?"
"Um, Southlake, right?"
"Yeppers. What's Southlake?"
"A hospital."
"Disco. Who is more likely to be real at a mental hospital, a mental patient or a vampire?" She smoothed a Band-Aid over the puncture site and pulled an iPod out of her pocket. My arm throbbed and burned under the pressure.
"Don't try to confuse me with logic. Where's my phone?"
"They don't let the crazies have cell phones."
She dragged her finger across the screen and music filled the room, despite the headphones that were plugged into the port.
"Please could you stop the noise; I'm trying to get some rest...from all the unborn chicken voices in my head," Flanagan sang along,and a thought popped into my periphery, just beyond my reach.
"What's that?"
"Radiohead."
The overhead light buzzed like a fridge.
-({})-
I must have been crazy because I willingly subjected myself to the wrath of the White Coats.
"I want 'grounds' privileges." My fingers tapped impatiently on the Formica counter, and I licked moisture onto my parched lips, inhaling deeply and imagining the kiss of a DuMaurier filter. "I'm dying here."
"We're all dying." The nurse was a picture of apathy, clutching a folder against her chest while sifting through a filing cabinet. "Smokers are more thorough about it."
"But I need a smoke!"
"And I need a night with Mick Jagger, but you can't always get what you want." She made a show of pulling my file. "You're not permitted to even leave the ward, let alone the building."
"Why the fuck not?"
"Well, Ms. Swan, you've been on intravenous fluids feeding due to near-catatonic dementia. You're also on suicide watch."
"What? Why?"
"You swallowed a bottle of Ativan."
I didn't! Did I?
-({})-
Shit and fuck and shit again! Edward was sitting on my bed, unmoving, doing his best imitation of Michealangelo's David, only with arms and stuff. "Get the fuck out of my head."
His face of marble cracked, a ripple forming along his brow. "Where did you go, Bella?"
"Back into my right mind."
"You were gone."
"How could I have disappeared?"
He stood and opened his arms, his eyes pleading with me. No, I wouldn't be stumbling into that mousetrap again. The cheese stands alone.
Using this false idol for comfort took more from me in trade than my sanity could afford, and I was running low on currency. Crossing my arms over my chest, I sidestepped the lie, and shrunk away from his embrace, from losing myself to Edward again. Instead, I moved behind the curtain to see if Flanagan was listening.
That's when I hit a wall, both in the literal and figurative sense. "Where did the other side of the room go?" My palm flattened and scraped against the concrete, searching for a seam. My confused whimpers filled the room.
"Bella?"
"Can't hear you."
"You're going to rub your palms down to the bone. What are you looking for?" He sidled up to me, and I turned my shoulder to him.
"Bella?" he repeated.
Ignoring him, I knocked fruitlessly, searching for a hollow spot in the wall.
"Bella, why are you knocking on the wall?"
Alright, that question deserved a withering glare. The question was as ridiculous as 'why did the chicken cross the road?' because the answer should have been fucking obvious.
"To get to the other side."
"Bella," Edward said softly as he placed his hand on the small of my back.
"Don't." But this time I didn't pull away. His breath was on my neck, and I was rendered dumb by a sudden onslaught of lust. "Don't fucking dazzle me with your pussy activating pheromones."
His breath caught and his hand started rubbing slow circles on my back, gently grazing my bare ass at the split of my hospital gown. "Is your pussy dazzled by me?"
"Constantly."
-({})-
Dr. Shapiro eyed me suspiciously and decided that I was too unstable for Group Therapy, the staple of the sanatorium experience. "Your propensity to assimilate to another personality poses a risk to your recovery," he explained.
"Oh, you did not just use the Borg as a metaphor with me."
He shrugged. "Yes, I suppose I did, indirectly."
"Go fuck a Tribble."
"Bella, your personality has undergone a transformation that is unsettling. You say that you remember who you are now? Surely you recognize that you're not acting like yourself?"
"Surely you recognize that you're giving me too much credit."
"You're not in Washington anymore, Bella," Dr. Shapiro said to me, pausing as if he was going to follow-up with something remarkably profound. "The Canadian medical system only helps those who help themselves."
"Yeah, in the States that's the slogan for Jesus."
"The sentiment rings true," he smiled.
I couldn't tell if my doctor was just a dick, or if he was making an honest to goodness joke. Nevertheless, "I need to know what the fuck is going on."
The smile froze on his face. "Where would you like to begin?"
"Edward Cullen." His eyebrows arched at my reply.
"I don't know Edward, Bella, but I'm glad that you want to talk about him. That shows great progress."
"I wouldn't talk about him before?"
"Not without falling apart."
I nodded and attacked my lower lip with my teeth. "Is he real?"
"Do you think he's real?"
"No! Don't pull that shit with me. My life already feels like a David Lynch film. Answer the fucking question."
He sighed. "He's real, Bella."
Are vampires real?
"Is he here?"
"I don't know. Dr. Cullen is staying nearby as per your father's request; however, I can't tell you if Edward's with him."
"Flanagan is trying to convince me he's not real," I complained and shifted my assault onto my fingernails.
"Pardon me?"
"Flanagan. She's fucking with me. Why in god's name did the hospital room me with her again? I mean, especially if you're worried about me assimilating or whatever. Is this some sort of aggressive therapy that the province is using me as a guinea pig on?"
"Bella," Dr. Shapiro said carefully. "Isabella Flanagan killed herself just prior to your transfer to Tacoma two months ago."
-({})-
The curtain rippled indecisively, or maybe that was just me.
"Flanagan?" Was she a ghost, or was I really that fucking crazy? Neither answer was very promising. I walked through the fabric, and the room dissolved around me. Flanagan's bed resembled an ICU cubicle. A doctor and two White Coats hovered over her while she retched into a bedpan.
"How much did she have?"
"60 mg, at least. It shouldn't be lethal. What concerns me is how did she access an entire bottle?" Vomit ricocheted onto the doctor's coat as Flanagan emptied the contents of her stomach into the metal pan.
"Hello?" I whispered. No one noticed me at all.
"Who gave it to you, honey?" the White Coat asked, struggling to keep Flanagan's head forward as she fought to lie back down.
"I fucked a White Coat for it," she croaked.
"Hello!" I said louder. This time Flanagan looked at me, while her attending staff remained oblivious to my existence.
"Get bent."
"What's happening? Are you okay?" My feet were planted stubbornly on the ground. I could not move or speak properly.
"Yeah, I'm fucking grand."
"You took a bottle of pills?"
To get to the other side.
"It would seem so."
"What can I do to help?"
"Nothing. I'm not really here, remember? Go back to sparkle-dick."
"Shapiro says that you died."
Panic reached her eyes for a minute, and we stared at each other helplessly. I stepped forward but couldn't quite reach her bedside. "Let me help," I pleaded.
"Do us both a favour, Swan," she spat. "Pay no attention to the girl behind the curtain."
Author's Note: Buzz Buzz! Haha, yeah, so this was a little unsettling and no sparkleporn (sorry) but we're heading towards the climax (unf) so I had to go there. I'm going to write a timeline and post on the Twilighted thread to help with some of the confusion. It's not completely necessary to read it, but for those of you looking for a linear path in this fic, it may help ;)