After a couple months 'Jamie Rathaway' was able to convince Piper's doctors to lower his dosages. It took a whole host of disarming smiles, clever misdirection, and subtle manipulations to make them think Piper wasn't enough of a threat to need to be subdued…

And all that was undone when the mayor's assistant did a tour of Breedmore and saw Piper taking a meal in the dining room, chatting with another patient. It's not that Piper looked in the least bit threatening: he was pale and gaunt with stringy hair, a wavering smile and nervously darting eyes. But Pinchot was rightfully nervous (Piper had almost gotten the guy to crash his plane into a golf course). He didn't like the idea of Piper being alert and oriented, let alone leaving his room.

So James had taken a gamble and faked up a very impressive warning from Osgood Rathaway's lawyer, informing the doctors that medicating a patient to impede functionality was in fact illegal, and that the family would take action if it continued.

The Rathaways were apparently more intimidating than the mayor, because it worked. They didn't even call James' (or rather, 'Osgood's') bluff; they just decreased his dosages. And after that James got in a few good visits with his boyfriend. He was just starting to enjoy himself a little, that knot of helpless guilt easing just enough for some hope to get through, when Piper took another turn for the worse.

James made his way to the hospital, scoped out the rec room looking for Piper, then went and found him in his room. Piper was sitting on his bed, staring out the window. "Hey Pookie."

"Hello J-, um…hello. What day is it?"

"Uh…Monday. Why?"

"I keep losing track, and I think they're lying to me. I could have sworn it was Thursday."

James sat down next to him and squeezed Piper's hand. "Nope babe, definitely Monday. I'm not lying to you. So how are you doing? I mean, other than the mild paranoia."

"It's not so mild anymore…I don't think so, anyway, but the thinking's getting fuzzy. Hard." He swallowed, and licked his lips. "I keep questioning everything. I'm not sure of…what's my name? Am I really Piper? Or Henry. Henry? Hartley? Pookie? Robert? They all mean something, I know that."

"Your name's Hartley. Uh…Piper and Pookie are nicknames. D'ya want me to call you Hartley instead? Would that help?" James asked, getting a little nervous.

Piper squinted at him. "Who are you? I keep calling you James, but that's not right either. You're not James and I'm not Piper."

"Uh, no, actually, calling me James is right…oh, uh, are you thinking of Giovanni? Maybe?"

"Not JJ though. JJ's dead."

"Y-yeah," Kay, definitely getting freaked out now. James squeezed Piper's hand again, wondering if that might anchor him. He really needed that stupid confusion to stop. "JJ was your rat. You named him after me. Babe, you know who I am, right? I'm your boyfriend. I'm crazy in love with you. You do know that, right?"

"I get confused. That's why I'm here, at least, that's what they've told me. But I think they're lying. They told me today was Thursday and it's Monday and they say I have nowhere to go, but there's a man I live with, so that's not true either. I can't remember his name. Someone died." Piper twitched, pulled his hand away from James, and went back to staring out the window.

James took a deep breath. It didn't help; his voice still shook. "H-Hartley, you live with me. I have a lot of names, but you always call me James."

Piper blinked a few times. "I can't think well anymore. If you're the man I live with then why am I still here? Why can't we go home? They want to keep me here, I know that. They say I'm sick and I know I don't think right sometimes, but it's their fault. The medicine didn't help. It made everything slow and wrong."

"Baby, I'd take you home if I could," James all but sobbed. He closed his eyes and took another deep breath. "But you need to get better. I'm gonna visit you every day and help you until you can leave, okay?"

Piper stared at James and uncomprehendingly touched his face. "It's nice of you to look out for me."

James took Piper's hand and kissed it. He blinked back tears and waited for the lump in his throat to subside. "I love you Hartley. I'm always going to look out for you."

Piper looked down at their hands, then slowly back up at James' face. "You're…James?"

He let out a harsh breath. "Yes, I'm James. The man you live with. You know what? I'd thought this was just a mistake, that you were having a hard time, but you do need help. You are sick. Maybe I shouldn't have gotten them to decrease your meds." He stood up, needing to get out of the room and out of that damn hospital. He couldn't breathe, he needed air that wasn't tinged with disinfectant and feces.

"J-James? Don't go." Piper shot out a hand and grabbed his arm. "I don't know what's going on. You're the man I live with," He said in a firm voice. "I trust you. You'll help me, won't you?"

James pulled Piper into his arms and stroked his hair. He cringed. "Your hair looked better long." He had no idea why he was saying that. He'd thought it as soon as Piper had walked in with short hair, but there was no reason to say it. "Um, Piper, no-Hartley. Of course you can trust me. I'm going to help you get better, and then we'll leave here and go home together and be happy again. God, I was so friggin' happy with you."

For the first time since Piper had been involuntarily committed to Breedmore, his devoted nightly visitor left before visiting hours ended. The staff was a bit surprised to see the 'cousin' that was really his boyfriend slipping out now that Rathaway was responsive again, but they shrugged it off.

James sat in his car for a little while, waiting for his hands to stop shaking. That visit had been about as painful as it could have been. "I don't know if I can do this," he whispered.

James was lying on Piper's bed gazing at the ceiling, trying to think about anything but his boyfriend's failing sanity while surrounding by physical memories of said boyfriend. The pillows and sheets still smelled like him. Maybe he'd move back to his own apartment.

God. They'd only fought about that like a week ago. Even though things had seemed bad then, they really weren't. In fact, it all seemed like bliss compared to this mess.

He was roused from his depressing thoughts by a knock at the front door. James rolled out of the bed, wiped at his eyes with the heel of his hand, and went to open the door.

James-the-architect was fidgeting nervously in the hallway. "Oh, um, hello. Is Piper home?"

James almost shut the door in his face. "No, he's not." Idiot.

"Oh. Will he be soon? I haven't seen him around lately. Um…is something wrong?"

"Are you really that dense or are you mocking me?"

"I'm not-"

"So you're just stupid. He didn't even use an alias and you still haven't figured out who we are?" James snapped.

Other-James frowned. "I don't…I'm not following."

"It's been all over the news. Piper is that Piper. The Pied Piper. The one that was fighting the Flash and cracked up and got sent to the crazy house, and that's why he hasn't been around. God. Don't you watch TV?"

"N-no actually. I don't own…um…is he okay?" Other-James rethought his question. "Are you okay?"

James wanted to yell at him, tell him what an idiot he was for not noticing that they were criminals, and only seeing all the wonderful things about Piper that he missed so much right now. He was crying into James-the-architect's shoulder before he really noticed what was happening.

They spent the next couple of hours talking. The guy turned out to be a really good listener. He wasn't the 'waiting for my turn to speak' type, or the 'I'm going to solve everything with my amazing advice' type. He just listened and offered sympathy. James still hated him on principal (he was a rival, after all), but he did start hating him a little less.

The nice blond man with the handsome smile and the sad eyes, he stopped visiting. Hartley kept asking, but no one could tell him where the man went. Some of them thought he was making the man up.

So he stopped asking about the man, and the people told him he was getting better. In fact, they let him play with the sound system, and that was a mistake. He used the speakers to make all the liars stop, then he got his clothes and left to look for the nice blond man with the sad eyes. He could trust that man. He wasn't a liar.

He didn't find him though. A dead man found him instead, and he just stopped. Just stopped, because that didn't make sense.

When he was done stopping he was back in the hospital in the wrong clothes again.

He still missed the blond man. Maybe he had made him up though.