A/N: I realize I haven't updated in two days! It was torture to put a slight hiatus in my 'update-every-day' routine, but life happens unfortunately. Anyways, back to writing! Thanks to those who continue to post reviews. I will always thank you guys for giving your feedback. I appreciate it more than words can say. I also apologize in advance if some of this doesn't make sense, as I am writing a midst extreme sleep deprivation. But I really wanted to update tonight. So, enjoy chapter 13!
Olive.
Olive grass, olive robe, olive slippers.
Olive hand cuffs disguised as bracelets gripping wrists tight beneath them.
Patrick had re-familiarized himself with the white-walled room he had previously called home. He had been given the rest of the day to be by himself in the small room.
The "go to your room and think about what you've done" treatment. Rarely effective.
The following day, Sophie was the first to encounter Patrick. She entered the room accompanied by a tray with various breakfast items on it.
"Hungry?" she asked the lump of a human, closing the door behind her.
Patrick shook his head, remaining in his position of sitting on the floor against the wall, legs crossed in front of him. He stroked his finger nail up and down the length of his inner forearm.
Sophie set the tray of food down on the bed, taking a seat beside it. "Sleep well?"
Patrick's gaze remained concrete on the floor in front of him. "No. Not so much."
"And why's that?" Sophie prodded. "Not tired?"
Patrick exhaled with exhaustion. "Because every time I close my eyes, he's all I see." His bloodshot eyes stared intently at the floor, refusing to lose focus. He brought the hand he was scratching his forearm with into his lap.
Sophie nodded with understanding, letting a brief silence linger before continuing to speak. "We're going to let you go a few days without any medication in hopes of kind of cleaning out your system. So, no medication for a while." She grabbed a piece of toast off the tray and extended it to the man on the floor. "But you need to eat something. And you should try to sleep a little bit."
"I told you I'm not hungry and I'm not sleeping." His voice was soft, hoarse, and intense.
"Patrick, be reasonable."
I am being reasonable. I don't feel like eating and I don't want to have any more dreams of my family being murdered and not being able to do anything about it.
"One bite and I'll leave you alone," she bargained.
Patrick glanced up at her with disgust. He snatched the toast, bit off a small piece from the corner, and tossed it across the room. "There."
"...just like a child..." Sophie whispered under her breath. Patrick ignored the comment and brought his focus back to the floor.
Sophie wasn't entirely sure what this man was seeing so in-depth in the flooring. What Sophie did know is she hungered to get inside the head of this man. She had been studying him for weeks and still felt completely lost at even beginning to understand his mental capacities.
"Neil is your new watch nurse."
Patrick kept at his gaze. "Did I scare George away?"
Sophie chuckled lightly, "No. Well...maybe a little bit. George just needed to take some time for himself. He's taking a week or so to visit his family, get some air, take some time for him."
The lump of human sitting on the floor remained emotionless, not seeming to care at all.
"...but Neil is great." Sophie continued. "He's sort of new, but still knows what he's doing. Be good to him."
I can't guarantee anything.
"How long am I stuck in here this time?"
"Well," Sophie answered, "we're going with seven days. Then we will see where you're at, how you're doing, and we'll see what comes after that."
Patrick nodded, blood-shot eyes refusing to flinch from the gaze.
Sophie stood up, grabbing the tray. "Since you aren't hungry, I'm going to take this and go. I'll come back and see you in a while."
The psychiatrist left the room just as quickly as she came. For the next number of days, conversation revolved around a similar dialogue. The lack of medications returned Patrick Jane to the depressed, raged, self-loathing robot he was when he first arrived at Heritage Oaks.
Sophie saw this as a blank slate 'experiment'. After removing all drugs from his system over a course of a few days, they began re-evaluating his condition to determine what medications would be best.
"Four days was enough time for us to gather the information we needed from you, Patrick. We're going to be starting you on your new medications tomorrow."
"What'd you evaluate about me, doc?" Patrick asked, slightly more intrigued at the idea of being psychoanalyzed. He resided on the twin bed provided, laying on his back staring blankly at the ceiling.
Sophie sighed, dreading the explanation. "We've concluded that you are a narcissistic sadist suffering with depression, post-traumatic stress disorder, and prolonged grief disorder."
Patrick rose his eyebrows. "Two out of five isn't too bad..."
"Excuse me?" Sophie retorted.
"Well, okay. I agree with the depression and PTSD, but narcissistic? Really?"
A look of utter confusion made itself dominant on Sophie's face. She was surprised at the instant depth of his response, knowing that he didn't particularly enjoy talking. Especially to her. The relaxed manner of which he spoke was shocking.
She stuttered to try and explain herself. "W-Well...yes. Narcissistic. You...You obviously think very highly of yourself. You have a sense of exaggerated self-confidence."
"And this is based on...?"
"Based on interviews and videos I've found of you." Sophie explained. She had researched Patrick Jane up, down, left, right, front, and back to be sure to get a perspective of this broken, broken man. "On every talk show, in front of every audience you are slightly arrogant and egotistical. Now, this is something that has obviously changed because of the circumstances, however the personality trait is still there."
Patrick took a minute to think.
"Okay, you have a point. I can't see sadistic, though."
She glared at the man from her spot in a chair from across the room.
"Come on, you seriously believe I'm a sadist?"
"Peter, Red John, George..." Sophie listed off.
"Sadists enjoy their suffering. I was just angry and hit the closest thing to me."
"...that happened to be humans...both times..."
Patrick shook his head. I know I'm not sadistic and I don't need to convince you of it. "Now, prolonged grief? That sounds made up."
"It isn't," Sophie reassured. "It's something they're just discovering that isn't quite depression, but a prolonged sadness for the deceased."
Patrick nodded, bringing his eye lids to a close.
"You agree?" Sophie asked, excitedly.
"No." he admitted. "What exactly is 'prolonged' anyways? How long is too long to be upset about your family being murdered?" Patrick sat himself up and looked straight at Sophie. "My family was murdered 6 weeks ago. My only family. My wife and daughter, they were it for me. Six weeks. Six weeks, Sophie." He kept his eyes staring straight into hers. "You're telling me that my 'grieving' is taking too long so it needs to become a disorder?"
"Not so much a disorder, Patrick," she began, "but a way to help you cope slightly better. We can give you medications to help you with it all."
"Can or will?"
Sophie took a moment. "We will be giving you medications to help you with it all...okay?"
Patrick nodded.
"Since this is your fifth day and you've been decent so far, I'm giving you outing privileges." She handed him an olive colored robe and a match pair of slippers. "You can go out and about the unit for one hour each day. Where you go and what you do is completely up to you, but Neil will be playing babysitter."
Patrick nodded, taking the robe and slippers and placing them on his flat stomach.
"You'll be getting your medications tomorrow morning," Sophie added as she helped herself out of the room. "If you want out, knock to the tune of 'Yankee Doodle' okay? Neil will come and get you and then you can go."
A slight smile arose on Patrick's face. Charlotte knew how to play Yankee Doodle on her recorder.
"Patrick?"
"Yes?"
"Understand the protocol?"
The curly-haired blonde nodded.
"Okay. I'll see you tonight then, Patrick. Stay out of trouble."
Patrick nodded, waited about five to ten minutes before knocking in the familiar tune. The door creaked open, revealing a male, roughly 24, decent amount of piercings and tattoos, with an olive coloured shirt on.
"Yeah?" he asked, his breath smelling of cigarettes and mint.
"I was told you are my new babysitter?"
"...yeah," the man in the doorway remarked, obnoxiously chomping on his gum.
"...so...can we go somewhere?"
"Where to exactly?" Neil was skeptical of Patrick's sanity. (But for the record, so was Patrick)
"Just the common room. We'll just sit there for a little while."
"...that's all you want to do? Go sit in a different room?" Neil was obviously dumbfounded. "Why can't you do that here?"
"Can you please just take me where I want to go or do I have to attack you too to get a different watch nurse?"
Neil rolled his eyes, agreeing to the task. He opened the door, securing Patrick's hands with the olive colored wrist restraints (a.k.a. fancy hand cuffs) and lead him to the common room.
There sit Patrick's violet chair sitting by the window waiting for him. "Right there," he pointed to Neil. The duo went to sit down, the sun shining in from the window. A grin grew on Patrick's face once he noticed the children were outside playing. They sat in silence for the entirety of the hour, until Neil insisted they get back to solitary as his time was up.
Patrick was interested in Neil. He knew he wanted to get to know him, but didn't quite know how yet.
Day seven of solitary had finally arrived! The curly haired blonde could only stand so much time trapped in the white walled room with only being able to escape for an hour each day. He hadn't been this thrilled for anything since he could remember.
Sophie walked into the room with her usual clip board and accessories, taking a seat on the bed next to Patrick. They performed the routine "How are you's" and such before Patrick finally asked his ever longing question.
"Am I getting released from solitary today?"
Sophie looked slightly confused. "Why would you be getting released from solitary today?"
Some color drained from Patrick's face. "You said...you said seven days. Seven days, one week, after that we'll see where it goes and things have been going well so can't I go back in the unit?"
"Well...not necessarily." she added. "When I said we'd see where it goes, I meant we would see what happens to you as a result of the medications, which seem to be going well..."
"Exactly," Patrick added. "They're going well so I can go back into the unit now, right?"
Sophie approached each word with grave caution. "We still need to wait a few more days to fully understand your condition, Patrick. And..." The psychiatrist looked down.
Patrick stuck his head slightly more forward. "...and...?"
"Patrick, you have to understand we can't put the safety of other patients and nurses in jeopardy."
"You...what? I thought we decided my outbursts were from me being of medications but now I'm on them and..."
"But that doesn't mean it won't happen again."
Patrick scoffed, countenance disgusted. You lied to me.
"Patrick, we just need a little more independent time with you in here. Just a bit more. Not much."
How long are they going to keep me trapped here? They think they're preventing my insanity when in actuality they're feeding it.
"I'm sorry, Patrick. We can't release you back into the unit until we know that you are decently stable."
Well, good thing being a psychic required good acting skills.