Fugue Forgotten
Chapter 4
Disclaimer: S.M. is credited with the Twilight Saga and associated characters.
Thanks to PTB for the wonderful beta-ing.
I apologize for not posting on my scheduled day yesterday. FF was giving everyone a major headache.
"Isabella. Isabella."
I pry open a dry and bleary eye to see one of the nurses staring at me. Everything aches. Everything feels swollen. I can barely remember the events that conspired only hours ago.
"Get up, Isabella. You'll be meeting the new doctor today."
I can't bring myself to move. New doctor or not, I'm done. I've given up. Last night was my chance, and I blew it.
I hear the nurse scoff at my lack of response. I slowly struggle to curl onto my side so that I'm facing away from the door. It's my only way to physically wall myself off from the world.
I try to concentrate on the myriad of sounds that filter in from the hallway – voices, a patient banging on his door, gurney wheels. The nurse left my door open. I don't even think about trying to run. Physically I can't. But I also know from experience that there's someone, be it a nurse, orderly, or even the new doctor, just outside my door.
No. Making a run for it is definitely not on my mind.
From the hushed whispers I hear from right outside my door, I'm inclined to believe that the nurse is talking to the new doctor. Their conversation is a garbled mess in my clouded brain, but I do recognize an annoyingly high-pitched female voice and a very unfamiliar male voice.
It's strange. I almost feel like some new species of animal on display. Everyone's invited to come look at the freak!
I'm still on my side facing away from the door when I feel a strange tension enter the room. Maybe I've become adept at feeling the presence of others. But unlike the typical pressure that seems to accompany the nurses and doctors I unfortunately encounter in my room, what I feel is a strange, comforting heaviness.
I'm confused, though. This heaviness is almost encompassing me with a light and buoyant feeling. It's out of place here. I've felt nothing but a dank, suffocating weight since I've stepped foot in here. I'm almost dizzy with the unexpected change.
The lightheaded feeling only increases as whoever was talking to the nurse outside my door steps further into my room. The footsteps are light. The soft smell of clean laundry and something musky swirls in the air and I feel myself relaxing.
"Isabella Swan?"
His voice is glorious, even muddled in the obscurity of my mind. It cuts through the fog with a sharpness that's almost terrifying.
My eyes are closed now. I feel almost as if denying myself one sense, even briefly, will enhance the other four. I inhale slowly. I picture his scent whirling in the air. I can almost taste the refreshing aroma. It's such an improvement over the rancid stench of piss and stale air that circulates through the entire building. My ears pick up on the light footsteps of most likely a nurse dispensing meds. I can practically hear the pills rattle in the cups. Despite all of this, I feel so alone.
"Isabella Swan?" The voice repeats my name. It's like a golden light in an otherwise dark, dead forest. A forest I've been wandering around lost in for years. His voice would awaken the trees, green the grass, and bloom the flowers. My forest, previously devoid of any color, would now be a world rich with bright hues and a warm light to guide me.
"She doesn't talk much. And she responds even less when she's having an episode." The stupid nurse ruins the visual with her grating voice.
"What medication is she currently on?"
There is a brief pause and I hope the nurse has left. She's not welcome here. I want to be soothed by this mysterious man.
"Right now, Dr. Smith is altering her daily anti-psychotics. She's also kept on a steady dose of sedatives. It makes her more manageable."
"I see." I think I detect a hint of a bite to the beautiful voice. I want to tell him the fucking nurse isn't worth his time, but the energy to turn over and address this stranger isn't in me. And I'm not sure I care enough.
"I'd like to give my own examination, if that's alright."
"Certainly, Dr. Cullen."
I hear the squeak of the rubber soles on the nurse's worn off-white Keds as she scurries out the door.
"Hello, Bella."
He knows my name. – the name I preferred to be called. I swallow thickly. I should be excited. Frightened. Elated. Confused. But I'm nothing. I feel absolutely no fear or confusion, even though a complete stranger has called me by the name I prefer to go by – a name that I've been unable to get the staff at this institution to call me ever since I have arrived.
I want to flinch as a cold hand, a hand as hard as stone, strokes back my hair the way a father would a child. The way Charlie used to when I was much younger.
For what's probably the millionth time this week, I yearn for a drug free system so that I may experience my emotions and for once, act upon them. Crying would be an appropriate reaction to this moment, only I'm too numb to shed even a single tear.
I slowly open my eyes. They're still puffy, as is the rest of my face, and they feel dry. The stranger sitting in front of me, the one who must be touching me with his cool hand and talking to me with his melodious voice, is beautiful.
He's hazy, as if a film of grime is covering his true brilliance, but that doesn't keep me from seeing what shines through. His hair looks to be spun of the purest gold and is neatly brushed on his head, unlike Smith's, which is always in disarray. He's dressed impeccably in a light blue button down and dark slacks underneath a perfectly tailored white doctor's coat.
"I'm here to help you, Bella."
I want to believe him – he seems so different from the rest, and I feel an instinctual urge clawing from underneath the drugs, to trust him – but I've endured possibly years of sedated delirium. Not to mention self-inflicted wounds that take ages to heal and scar to remind me of the prisoner I've become to myself.
I just can't.
He doesn't seem bothered by my lack of response to him. I've yet to move my eyes enough to look at his face. Instead, I continue to stare straight ahead, catching brief glimpses of his light hair and the palest skin I've ever seen.
Gentle fingers gingerly keep my eyes open as a penlight is flashed over them. The same fingers keep a gentle pressure on my wrist for a few moments.
I don't think I need to be scared of these fingers. They don't wander, and they don't stay on my body longer than necessary.
He clicks his tongue and releases a breath as he gently traces the scabs that decorate my wrists.
"Can you tell me the last time you ate, Bella?"
I don't even think I can remember the last thing I ate, let alone when it was. As if my mind isn't fucked up enough on its own, these fucking drugs make it impossible to keep anything straight.
Really, everything in my life is fucked up. This stranger shouldn't even waste his time on me. It's like they say – I'm a lost cause.
Cool hands wrapping around my own pull me from my spiral of bleakness and shock me back to the present. I'm not afraid, or upset, or angry, but I want these hands off me. I've had enough of people touching me without my permission. But I'm too fucking weak to even shake off a finger.
Isabella Swan is fucking weak.
"Squeeze my hands, Bella."
Another order. Even though it is an order directed at me, it's not as demeaning as the commands I receive daily from the nurses. It's gentle and forceful at the same time.
"I need to know you're in there." That part is more of a sigh, but I hear him clearly.
I want to yell at him. I am still in here, I promise!
But my throat is dry, and my muscles feel atrophied and useless. I'm back in my dark forest. The color is gone. What was once living is now dead and dry. The golden light has vanished. I'm losing. Instead of finally emerging from the thick woodland, I'm now more deeply lost than ever. I can't see. I can't breathe. I can't move.
"Come on, Bella."
The voice is just a mere whisper, but it's back. And my forest is golden again. I can breathe deeply.
It gives me the strength to try.
I concentrate on the stranger's ice-cold hands that he has wrapped within my own. I almost expect to hear bones creak from disuse as I focus my energy on squeezing the large hands I now hold.
I can hear the stranger's sharp intake of breath as my fingers twitch. Not exactly what I was looking to do, but good enough.
"Well done, Bella. I've seen your file. I suspect this wouldn't be so hard did they not keep you drugged to the high heavens."
I would like nothing more than to perhaps pause time right now. The sensation of the smooth, cool hand brushing back my hair is more soothing than anything I can remember. It awakens me slightly from the numbness I've grown accustomed to. I don't have to think about my next episode, or the drugs I'm on, or the feelings I do or do not get to experience. I just get to be.
That's all. And after what I've been through the last couple of …years, I think, there is nothing I want more.
The stranger hushes me as I realize I'm whimpering. I'm instantly quiet.
I feel as though this man could be magic. With just a shush from his mouth and a touch from his hand, I'm instantly relaxed. Not that I was all that tense to begin with, but what is it about this beautiful, albeit strange looking, man who sits near me that soothes me?
"I want to be your friend, Bella. I want to help you."
Right. Because people only have the purest of intentions. No one wanted to be my friend. No one could help me.
Weariness rocks through my body.
Slowly, I struggle again roll to my other side away from the stranger with the soothing hands and harmonious voice. I concentrate first on moving my arms, then my chest, then my legs. It's an effort and takes far longer than it should, but I finally do it under my own power. I curl more tightly into myself as if it will shut me off from the world. My hands find themselves at my wrists, tracing the scabs that have formed where the leather bonds restrained me.
Eventually and unsurprisingly, tracing turns into picking. I don't even feel the pain as I open old wounds, and the smell of blood barely registers. Good ol' sedation.
"Bella."
The cold hands are back, but they're no longer soothing. They seem harder than before, more rigid maybe.
"Let me see, please."
I'm limp as the stranger takes my wrists and inspects them again. He's moved around to the other side of the bed now. I suppose it would be easier than reaching over me.
"Were you restrained, Bella?"
I try hard to detect the emotion coloring his voice, but I'm unable to.
A finger traces the outline of the cuff marks on each wrist. I'm sure he's following the bruises across my arms.
Finally he sighs and places my arms back at my sides.
I would like to be left alone now, I've given up – everyone else should too. But since when do I ever get what I want?
Never, really. That's not to say I was deprived as a child. My father liked to surprise me with little trinkets and I wanted for nothing.
I do, however, remember asking for one thing in particular when I was younger. I had seen all the other kids with theirs. I had spent countless nights dreaming of what mine would be like. It was something I wanted more desperately than any toy or sweet.
I remember when I asked my father his face paled to ghostlike qualities before flaming to a beet red. He was speechless for quite a while. He and I just sat on the couch, my little legs dangling above the floor with the sounds of the baseball game on the television filling the silence of the room.
I had asked for a mother.
As young as I was, I didn't realize I couldn't ask for something like that. But it made me sad to watch all the other kids my age with their mothers. Moms who made snacks, fixed scraped knees, played dress up. It was something I was lacking.
Charlie wouldn't be able to teach me how to wear make-up or shave my legs. He most certainly wouldn't be playing dress up. He wasn't able to make snacks – the man could barely cook toast for himself.
A female presence in my life was greatly needed and desperately wanted. But like I said: when do I get what I want?
I barely knew of my mother. Charlie didn't keep pictures of her around and he almost never spoke her name. Renee. I would later come to learn that she had broken my father's heart when, just one month after my birth, she had decided Forks wasn't for her. She found it suffocating. So she packed her bags and left my father and I.
Surprisingly, I couldn't bring myself to hate her. Maybe it has something to do with her death four years ago.
I had stopped wishing for a mother the day after I had asked Charlie for one. His reaction made me feel incredibly guilty.
That was until I had recovered from my first episode. Then the wishing came back. I figured if my father couldn't comfort me, maybe a mother could. I continued wishing up until the day Charlie signed my life away.
"Bella?"
My eyes slowly open as the stranger's voice pierces the silence in the room.
"Bella?"
He should know by now I'm not going to answer.
"Bella, it's time for me to go now. I'll be back tomorrow. I promise."
For some inexplicable reason, though I've been promised things before and never had them work out, this promise seems different. I don't want to trust this man; I don't want to have to rely on him.
I guess…well, I guess only tomorrow will tell.
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