Accessed

.

"What? You're serious?" Jayden shouted, startled and sat upright in the bed. He rubbed his eyes furiously, all of a sudden annoyed at the feeling of his eyes not being able to open all the way from the dried blood around them. He started to reach for ARI with crusted blood on the back of his hand, but changed his mind and swung his legs off the bed instead, getting up in a huff. Jayden felt a rage build up in him, and he simultaneously was very, very confused. His back was turned to Shaun.

Shaun saw Jayden's hands clench tight at his sides, vibrating in anger. "I'm going to take a shower," he said strongly and went to the open doorway before Shaun could reply. Shaun followed him to the hall and stopped, peeking around the bedroom door, trying not to invoke Jayden's wrath by being too nosy.

"Do you need a change of clothes? I can get them for you while I wait." Jayden stopped before going into the bathroom, thinking about it, then wordlessly got a towel out of the cabinet in the wall next to the door and disappeared inside the bathroom. He popped his head out, Shaun being able to see half his face, and replied, his voice softer this time.

"No, but thank you Shaun. I'll be fine- I'll just head back there and change afterward." Shaun nodded. "OK," he said simply, not wanting to hold him up any longer. Jayden disappeared behind the door again and shut it. He touched a fingertip to his face and looked at it, a bloodless tear's residue on it. "At least this time it wasn't drug-induced," he chastised himself softly behind the privacy of the bathroom door.

.

Shaun flipped on the light switch in the hall and walked into the living room, looking at the clock on the wall. '4:30 AM.' Shaun sighed. He wasn't going to get any sleep tonight. He walked into the kitchen and set up the coffee maker, then turned it on. While that was going, he jumped up and sat on the countertop, rubbing his temples while his brain worked. 'He was… so angry. Angry that he lost the files. I've never seen him so mad, like he was about to snap and trying hard not to.'

He kicked out his feet, swinging them back and forth idly without hitting the counter. 'Is that corrupted file the key to understanding what he's going through? And what's with the other two files?' He put his index knuckle against his lips, pondering.

The coffee was ready now. He jumped off the counter and got out two mugs from the cabinet, putting one on the counter near the coffee maker and filling the other for himself. "I'll pour him some when he gets out of the shower, so it will still be warm."

.

Jayden sighed, exasperated, his hands running down his face. He really went off the deep end… with everything. He surveyed the bathroom with a knot of despair tightening in his stomach. "How… how did I let this happen?" He stripped off his dirtied clothes and dropped them in a heap on the counter, not wanting to look at them anymore. He almost thought to not even take a shower, and just clean up this horrid mess with the towel he brought in instead. But he decided against cleaning the floor and walls, at least for now. He needed the reminder, the painful truth laughing at him to make sure he wouldn't attempt to do something like this again.

"You know you almost offed yourself, right? Idiot."

Jayden flicked his eyes up at his reflection in the mirror. This other voice that spoke to him was his own, though he never remembered opening his mouth. This voice was loud, mocking, echoing off the walls menacingly. Jayden's ears rang.

"You knew you had to be more careful, idiot."

"Why'd you do it?"

Jayden heard two voices now, one lighter in tone and quiet, the other now becoming gravely, cruel and dark. Jayden squeezed his eyes shut and covered his ears with his hands, wincing in pain. Every time the gravely voice said "Idiot", it repeated in his ears a million times, getting louder and louder each time. And each time, that voice was getting more and more distorted, turning into what seemed to be someone else's. But that small, other, quiet voice was barely noticeable. Jayden tried to focus only on that one, ignoring his pounding eardrums giving him a splitting headache. That soft voice was not his, either. What, or who, was it?

"Jayden, why did you do this? I told you to stop."

"Yeah, NORMAN. Like he cares. Nobody cares about your fancy little FBI ass. ...Can't say I'll miss ya' though when you're gone."

Jayden's eyes flew open and he stumbled into the shower, pressing his forehead and hands against the cool tiles of the wall. Great. Just what he needed- Blake and Shaun in his mind, equally competing to nurture his insanity.

"Blake, get the hell out of my head."

"No, twinkletoes, that's not how it works. I'm stuck in this loony head of yours for a reason. Haven't figured it out yet? Get a clue."

Jayden groaned in annoyance and turned the shower on, still not moving his head from where it rested. He looked down at the drain, watching blood running down it, mixing with the water.

"Shut uuuuup," Jayden raised his voice, highly strained and irritated, trying to sound exasperated but not quite having the energy for it.

"Why should I, Norman? You're the one who's delusional and can't face the facts about what happened."

The drain started to turn clear, most of the blood washing away. "It's your damn fault. If it wasn't for you, he wouldn't be dead." Suddenly, Blake's voice went silent. Jayden took this as a small victory and raised his head, letting the water flow over his face. He closed his eyes and tried to relax. He had such a rough time these past few days; he really needed to unwind, and this brief moment was enough to make him feel at some sort of peace.

"What happened? What is he talking about?"

Some minutes passed before Jayden suddenly broke down, knowing that the soft voice in his head was still there waiting for him to reply. His hallucinations never went away that easily. He had to feed them to make them satisfied enough to leave him alone, at least for a while until the next time his mental state warranted another horrific psychotic episode.

"Shaun, I never told you what really happened," Jayden whispered emotionally, eyelids fluttering to fight back tears, eyebrows knitting close together.

After moments of silence from the imaginary Shaun, Jayden hung his head low in shame, water splaying down his neck and running down his nose.

"Ethan wasn't killed by the Origami Killer!" he half-cried, choking on his words. He wanted revenge for it, deep in his heart, but he just couldn't deal with what happened, deal with the reality, and because of that he was haunted by constant reminders and hallucinations to punish him for it.

"...Blake did it. And I'll never be the same because of it."

.

Shaun smiled while he put a few scoops of sugar and some cream into his steaming mug, stirring it with a spoon. He thought back to all the previous times he wound up at Jayden's doorstep after running away from home.

"You were always there for me, and helped me out when I needed it. True, this time it's the same as all the others, but I know that I'm safe when I'm with you, so now it's my turn to help you out as much as I can." Shaun looked down into the mug, feeling the steam warm his face. The warmth calmed him, reminded him of when Jayden hugged him on the bed earlier. He picked up the mug and turned around, leaning his back against the counter and started to drink. 'It really felt just like Dad hugging me, the way he used to. Sometimes I can't help imagining-'

Shaun finished the cup and rinsed it out, sitting it on the counter again afterward. "-that you ARE my dad. That way I won't be as sad when I think about how long you've been gone."

He made his way back into the hallway and grabbed two towels from the cabinet, went back into the kitchen and ran one of them under the sink faucet to get it wet. He wrung out the excess water, then took the towels with him to Jayden's bedroom. He went to work, scrubbing off the desk, then wiped it off with the dry towel after. He picked up the mug of bloody coffee, went back to the kitchen and washed it in the sink. He wanted the house to be in a better state before Jayden got out of the shower; he wanted to eliminate anything in sight that would stress Jayden out or reminded him of what had just happened. But, now that some of the more noticable messes were out of the way, Shaun wanted to investigate a little further into this whole "missing files" problem. Perhaps if he could figure this out, as well as cleaning up Jayden's messes, he would prove himself to be a capable partner to the man. Not that he needed to prove anything, though.

For they both knew that he already was.

.

Shaun wore ARI again, attempting to figure out exactly what happened the past few hours- and not just during the time Shaun was already here. He had to know what led Jayden into the state he found him in the bathroom. There must be some clues around here, either in ARI's internal files or somewhere in the house. So, he sat at the chair in front of the once-bloody desk in Jayden's bedroom and tried out ARI first. He took a deep breath, being surrounded by Mars.

"I don't know if he'll be mad that I'm doing this, and I'll apologize to him later, but I really have to know. I have to find this out myself." He pulled out the familiar holographic filing cabinet drawer and searched through the "A" files again. Yep, one of them still corrupted, two others missing. Just like last time. However…

"What the heck?"

Shaun noticed there was a new "A" file, A426-G. Without wasting any time thinking about how this could be, he immediately grabbed it and threw it into the air. It hovered over his head and he tapped the center of the file with his gloved palm, giddy with anticipation. The subtitle for the folder was:

"Case Results".

Shaun quickly read the contents of the folder, not knowing ahead of time what he was getting himself into.

"Victims: Evelyn Ramos, 23- Hospitalized, then transferred to psych ward for evaluation

Agent Norman Jayden, 25- Hospitalized for minor injuries

Reynald Ramos, 6- Deceased"

The date for the most-recently updated version of this file was 9 years ago.

Shaun gaped, speechless. "Jayden was a victim in one of his own cases?"