Professor Layton and the Rewound Repercussions –Part 2—

"Good evening, professor. So good of you to join me." Clive stared across the glass partition, a thin smile playing across his lips. He looked no healthier than he had just days before. His dishevelled hair cast grey shadows over his pale face in the artificial light of the penitentiary.

"You always seem surprised." Layton frowned into the red plastic phone receiver. "A true gentleman keeps his word."

"In here, there are no gentlemen, professor—only men," Clive replied. "So you may allow yourself some reprieve from your gentle duties."

"Is that so? I believe I see a gentleman sitting right across from me at the moment."

"I once was, perhaps. Now, no longer." Clive toyed absently with the hem of his sleeve, pulling at loose threads. "They're moving me, you know."

"Really? I didn't know." Layton was rather surprised at the development. Clive had been put in a maximum security holding area—his mechanical abilities far surpassed even those of the workers, making him a key candidate for escape attempts.

"I'm going to an asylum, professor."

"You—what?"

"They've decided I'm crazy, apparently. Well, who am I to deny it? Even I've realized my fall into the depths of insanity once and a while. Fortunately, you were there to bring me back twice. Will you bring me back again, professor?"

"An asylum…I don't believe it."

"Well..." Clive sighed, shrugging dismissively. "I may have been exaggerating slightly. Though, they certainly emphasized the crazy portion of it."

"I hate to side with your, ah, lovely jailors, but it will be good for you to get help, Clive."

"Because I'm unbalanced." Clive nodded.

Layton hesitated. "I wouldn't say unbalanced—merely…troubled."

"You're too kind, professor. You wouldn't last a week in here, you know. They don't take kindly to gentlemen of your…calibre."

"I won't argue with you there. I suppose it is in everyone's best interest if I continue to properly uphold the law, then, isn't it?"

Clive made a strange sort of scoffing laugh at the word "law". "I don't doubt it, professor." He looked away. "You'll…you will visit me, even after I'm moved?"

"If you wish for it, yes."

"I…" Clive paused, gathering the strength to force the words out. "I want to see you."

Layton smiled gently. "Then I will visit you."

Clive flushed pink in embarrassment, quickly covering his face with his sleeve to avoid detection from the other inmates. "I can't take it here, professor. I thought I could accept my punishment after all that had happened, but…I can't. I just…I can't. I can't eat, I can't sleep, I can hardly breathe—I do my best to avoid the others, but it's hard, professor. They—they find me."

"You're being moved to a safer place, I'm sure," Layton replied. "There you will find the comfort you need."

"The comfort I need right now is you, professor."

"How so?"

"Speak to me. Talk me back from the fire again." Clive buried his head in his palms. "I can't…I can't do this… I don't want to be alone anymore."

"You're not alone, Clive. You have friends waiting for you on the outside," Layton corrected. "We will support you, though from behind these walls."

"Really? You could have fooled me, professor. Until you came, I thought no one out there cared about me worth a damn—other than those that want to kill me, of course. Sometimes I get death threats. Fancy that! Getting death threats in prison."

"We are your friends, Clive."
"We, we, we—you keep saying 'we', but all I see is you."

"I'm afraid I found it rather inappropriate to bring either Flora or Luke to this place. They support you, too, though you can't see it."

"They hate me."

"They do not."

"They should hate me, then. Anything else would be crazy. Perhaps they should be going to the specialist instead of me."

"Don't be cruel, Clive. You of all people should realize the frailty of innocence."

Clive looked up. "Yes. Yes, I do. I understand it far too well, professor. Protect them from the outside world. Don't let them suffer as we have suffered. We're alike, you know. We both lost something crucial that day."

"Yes." The professor tipped his hat. "But we can't dwell on the past forever. What's done is done—it is time to focus on new beginnings."

"Well, this will be the start of something new. Whether it is for the better or not, however, is an entirely different matter." Clive shook his head, smirking, then hung up and left the room.

The professor watched as the young man's back disappeared from view behind a heavy steel door. "For your sake and mine, I hope it is the former."