She said nothing at first as Sherlock slid in next to her and the car started forward. She seemed slightly distracted as her eyes glanced out the tinted windows. They slid out of focused before her eyes finally darted to him. She jumped slightly as if she had forgotten he was there. "What were you talking to my mother about?"
"The best for you," he answered her. She grunted in response before he changed the subject. "I still have questions."
"Oh?" she asked him sounding uninterested, and she was. She didn't want to listen to his questions; she wanted to dive into her own mind and recede there for the time being. She was still trying to decide what could have caused her to crack. She gently wrung her hands together not sure if knowing was the best thing for her. Wonder if it was enough to break her again? She glanced at Holmes; perhaps that was what he was hoping for. "They can wait," she finally answered.
"You have nothing more to ask?" he asked her surprised. He thought he would have the opportunity to drill her with questions before they got a chance to get to the asylum, but she wanted none of that. She, of all people, looked nervous, frightened even. It seemed she wasn't invincible after all.
"I have plenty to ask," she remarked trying to sound unconcerned, but he was getting on her nerves, "but right now, I would rather be left in silence. I have my own thoughts to deal with." Sherlock's eyes ran down her figure; what was making her so scared? It hit him, and he felt like an idiot for not realizing. If she had another break from whatever information she was about to get, Raine may cease to exist. Her very existence was a fragile thing, and she would fight to keep it, and be even more frightened to loose it.
"Can you hear her?" he asked her suddenly wondering if Jen still lingered there. He wondered if Raine still had the constant reminder that Jen was still alive. Sherlock was forced to look at a woman who was almost Jen everyday. Did Raine have to suffer as well?
"Of course," Raine replied with a sigh. "She's there. She's always there." Raine seemed exhausted with the admission. The woman didn't sleep much, he had noticed. Perhaps it was Jen who kept her awake at night.
"What about Ginevra Lorraine? Is she there?" Sherlock questioned. She looked to him slightly irked with the questions when she had told him not to ask anything.
"She is fundamentally me and Gina," she answered, "so in a way, she's never gone. She's always here in front of people just not all of her. Now, shut up. I told you no questions." She rested her head back in her seat as she closed her eyes. He watched her chest rise and fall as she breathed in deep trying to find a moment of rest of the ride to the asylum was quiet as Sherlock memorized her breathing.
Raine threw open the door to the car, but Sherlock grabbed her arm before she could march through to the asylum. It wasn't that he didn't trust... okay, he didn't trust her.
"What?" she demanded annoyed that he was preventing her from getting what she wanted. She debated if breaking his arm would be worth the trouble.
"The gun," he told her flatly looking at the place her gun rested on her waistband.
"It's for protection," she answered trying to play innocent as she batted her eyelashes at him.
"In a mental institution?" he questioned her mockingly. "Nice try. Gun," he repeated this time holding his hand out.
"Debbie Downer," she sneered as she pulled the gun out and slammed it into his palm.
"You're the one who swore not to commit any crimes," he replied as they made their way to the front doors. "I'm just taking away the temptation."
"And I hate you for it," she told him as the pushed the front door open to the front desk. "I like temptation. It's always fun to see who will win." The nurse on duty looked up from the desk before she smiled at Raine warmly making the woman twitch in discomfort.
"Miss Verown," she said happily making Raine flinch at the familiarity in her voice. "It's great to see you, again. How are you?"
"Do I know you?" she demanded looking at the woman up and down trying to find something worth noting. The woman was painfully ordinary and simply not worth her time. The nurse looked at her surprised before sympathy seeped into her eyes as if she knew everything.
"You relapsed," she realized. The pity she felt for Raine seeped in her voice making her uncomfortable. She didn't want anyone's pity, and she didn't need it. Sympathy just made her more moody and irrational as she proceed to snap at the woman.
"I want to see who tended to me," she told her quickly.
"That's-"
"Now," she demanded slamming her hands on the desk, "or I'll burn this place to ground, because Mr. Holmes, here," she vaguely gestured to Sherlock ,"took my gun or I would just shoot you and walk passed. Now, take me to the doctor who treated me." The nurse quickly stood knowing by now that fighting a patient was not the best course of action. She led them down the hall to an office with the words Doctor Maurice Walker. The office was big, and the name plate named him the head of the facility. She let a smirk flicker on her face; so, she was crazy enough to have the head psychiatrist treat her. She felt a little pride in that.
"You may go in, but you," she peered at Sherlock, "will stay out. Doctor, patient confidentiality." Raine glanced at him and gave him a wave of okay before she pushed through the door to see the rather stout man sitting at his desk with a woman sitting in a lounge.
"Get out," Raine ordered the woman without a second thought.
"But-"
"Out," she snarled.
"Miss Harris," Doctor Walker nodded to the woman. She quickly skirted out of the room keeping her distance from the newly entered woman. "Miss Verown," he acknowledge. "It's good to see you again. Have a seat," he offered.
"How long was I here?" she asked as she wandered the room letting her hands skim over the various shelves and the objects they carried. She didn't yet look the psychiatrist in the eyes.
"You've had a relapse," he remarked looking her over. He sighed heavily as if this was a tragedy. To him, it was. "What caused this?"
"This is my normal state," she mocked him causing a deep frown to settle on his face. This wasn't the same woman who entered his office years earlier. "I am what I am. I want to know what caused me to be 'cured.' It had to be something catastrophic."
"That's correct," he answered before she went to his filing cabinet and ripped it open without a care for privacy. "This is Raine then?"
"You're a psychiatrist; you should know the answer to that," she mused as she took her file out. "You're my psychiatrist. You should know me."
"The only woman I knew was Ginevra Lorraine Juliette Verown," he answered her. "She told me about you, but you and I have never met nor have I met Jen." He watched her as she threw open her file to find a single sheet with the words: Confidential written across it in a loopy, nearly illegible handwriting.
"What the hell is this?" she demanded holding up the paper letting the file clatter to her feet.
"A request by Miss Verown," Doctor Walker replied. "Everything you seek, is right here," he told her before he laid a picture down of a young girl on his desk in front of him. The girl was perhaps three with a smile that would probably light up the room. Raine stared at the picture and felt a sharp pain in her heart as her breathing became heavy. She didn't know why.
"What the hell is this?" she nodded to the picture.
"Sit down," he offered again.
"No! You tell me who the fuck that is," Raine shouted pointing at the picture as if it would be her demise, "and why the fuck-"
"She's your daughter," Doctor Walker cut her off causing her voice to fail her. Raine took another step forward and looked down at the girl. She certainly looked like she was her daughter. She had her naturally dark, curly hair and dimples that had come from her mother. The eyes were not hers, but there was a mocking laughter that could be found in them.
"I never had a daughter," Raine uttered quietly as she took the picture in her hands and sunk into the chair.
"You did," Doctor Walker told her. "Her name was Victoria. Victoria Anne Verown, do you remember?" The picture was shaking in her hands as she tried to hold herself together, but it was proving to be a difficult feat as she remembered those precious three years she had with her, and then her eventually demise.
"Peter, he...," she swallowed bile trying to prevent herself from crying or throwing up. She wasn't sure which she would rather do at this point.
"Peter Verown, your brother, killed your daughter when you were nineteen, and she was only three. Do you remember that, Ginevra?" he asked. Slowly, she nodded recalling why she had abandoned Peter when he was taken away, why she didn't make the attempt to help him, why she had tried to kill herself the day after Peter's arrest...
Ginevra Lorraine stared at herself in the mirror, shaking. Her hands were quaking as she ran the water in the bathroom sink of a cheap hotel room. Her face was pale, and her body was threatening to shut down on her. Peter had been arrested she watched from afar. Her daughter was buried, and she was left with this massive hole in her chest. She had known what Peter was, but she had ignored it. She was sure he wouldn't harm her own flesh and blood, but just three days ago, she had entered Victoria's room to find the girl dismembered.
She had slipped in her daughters blood, and Peter stood there... he stood there laughing as if it was a joke, and she wished she could say it was a mental illness. Her father was a schizophrenic, but not Peter. Peter liked the chaos. He liked the attention, and he liked to watch people break. If she broke, he was the only one there to keep her together. But instead of breaking, she became angry, and she let that anger consume her. Raine wanted to torture him, make him suffer as long as possible. Jen wanted to simply leave and let him live his own miserable life. Ginevra broke off from both of them, shattered the personas and found the happy medium. She let him be taken away; she sent an anonymous tip to the private detective rumored to be helping the police. But now, it was over. Peter was gone, and she was left with that burning, all consuming hole.
The hole was her reminder of what had happened, and that she had failed the girl, but as if that was not enough for the universe, she was also left with the knowledge of all the people she had killed. Raine and Jen were no more, and she was left with two very conflicting personalities: one that was fairly innocent and one that was a psychopath, and she wasn't sure who or what she was. It all piled on top of her so that not only did the hole burn and consume, but it ground and pressed into her as if it wanted to seep into her flesh.
She let out a gasp of pain as the hole consumed her, and the pain became blinding. She fell to the ground. She wanted to die; she could not live through this. It was not fair that Victoria died while she remained breathing. An innocent was murdered, and a murderer lived. Ginevra leaned up and took a pill bottle off the sink. There were more efficient ways to die, but she wanted it to be slow. She took one pill then another and another, and she lost count.
When she woke up, she would be surrounded by the white medical rooms of Hanwell Asylum.
Raine vomited into the trash as a spell of dizziness took over her. Doctor Walker remained fairly calm as he set a water bottle on the desk for her. She took it before down the whole bottle throwing the plastic to the side.
"I forgot her," she uttered, "but I wanted her so badly."
"Ginevra kept those memories as you have the ability to sift through which memories you, Ginevra, and Jen have," Walker told her. "You didn't want to remember; it was too painful for you. If it wasn't for Damon O'Hera, you may never have recovered. You were suicidal up until you met him."
"Damon O'Hera?" Raine questioned him. "What did he do?"
"He showed you kindness and accepted you as is despite knowing you have dissociative personality disorder, despite knowing you have murdered people, despite knowing 'The Carver' was your brother, and your lover was an internationally known criminal. It didn't bother him, and he didn't judge you for it. Having someone know you as Ginevra, wholly and completely, allowed you to heal," Doctor Walker told her. "I'm going to take a guess and say James Moriarty reentered your life, and that caused the relapse." He steepled his fingers and leaned back in his chair staring at her.
"You know about James?" She asked him leaning back in the chair trying to wipe the sheen of sweat from her forehead.
"Of course," Doctor Walker answered. "Despite his disgusting use of you, you had genuine feelings for the man. He showed you love and attention that you craved, and he knew you craved it. He used you, Ginevra, and it destroyed you. He destroyed you."
"Stop it," she uttered letting the tears fall from her eyes. This was all too much: first the child, now James.
"You were desperate, and he saw that. He saw an opportunity, and he took it."
"Stop it," she demanded.
"Why else do you think he never bothered to try and help you while you were here, while you were alone? Why do you think he never bothered you unless it was convenient for him?"
"Stop it!" she shouted slamming her hands on the desk. "Stop it, or not even your God help you."
"You won't kill me, Ginevra, because you know it's the truth," he replied evenly. Her mouth twitched in disgust before she snatched the picture off his desk and carefully folded it putting it in her pocket and leaving the office trying to wipe the tears from her eyes feeling very turned around.
Sherlock stood outside waiting for her. He wasn't sure what the point of coming was; perhaps he hoped for another relapse. Perhaps he hoped for a clue that would lead to him helping her. The door quietly pushed open as Raine stepped out. Her face was somber and her eyes red as tears continued seeping down her eyes.
"Raine?" he questioned. She shook her head and walked past him holding her hands clenched. He followed her back to the car, and they took it back in silence. She said nothing as she stared out the window lost in her own thoughts. Occasionally, she had to stifle a sob with her hand pressed to her mouth before her head tipped between her knees. Sherlock watched her unsure what to do or say.
Rather evenly, she left the car and headed inside were she proceeded to continue forward on to a bedroom that she called her own. Down went the dresser with a scream of anguish. All her clothes were thrown out of it as the drawers were tossed to the walls scratching the paint and in one instance, breaking her window. The lamps were thrown as well; the end tables broken. The bookshelf knocked her with all its contents spilled everywhere. Sherlock watched from the doorway as she threw the vanity over. It ended with the destruction of the bed frame, mirror, and light fixture as Raine let herself fall on the floor behind the bed away from Sherlock's sights, but he could still hear her sobbing.
He took a tentative step inside. "Ginny," he uttered.
"I'm not Ginny," she told him quietly.
"Yes, you are. I won't call you Raine," he answered taking another step in. "Ginny… what happened?" Raine said nothing as she took the picture from her pocket and threw it over the bed to Sherlock's feet. The detective picked it up and slowly unfolded the picture of Victories... Sherlock Holmes had seen this child before.
The Carver, the paper's had mentioned, was one of the most prominent serial killers London had ever seen. The Carver was also one of Sherlock Holmes's first real cases, and he would prove himself by finding him.
However, the Carver proved a worthy opponent. He made no mistakes, and Sherlock was able to deduce the victim's to pieces, but never anything important about the murderer. Until a day earlier, he had received a anonymous tip telling him that there was a Carver murder that the police had over looked- a rather important one.
"The M.O. doesn't match The Carver," the coroner told him pulling the blanket over, "but you're welcome to look." He looked down at the child surprised.
"This isn't right," he frowned. "The Carver targets specific people. This is the first child, but it's him," he was sure of it. "It's all there... the child's name?"
"No record," the mortician told him, "but the body was found in Braxton."
"Any family?"
"None reported missing in the area," he answered. Sherlock Holmes turned on his heels to leave. He didn't know much about The Carver, but he did know this was his first mistake. The child lacked The Carver's usual patient markings on the body. The body was chopped up rather than carved up. It was outside The Carver's usual pool of victims. This was a red flag to Sherlock; this was a personal kill.
"She looks like you," he told her looking at the dark curly hair. He didn't know why he never put it together before; perhaps he chose to ignore it as he chose to ignore Ginevra's obvious dissociative personality.
"Go away," she growled.
"Why?" he asked her with a frown.
"I said go away!" she snapped. Sherlock paused before he turned on his heels and left. Raine laid on the floor letting the tears form a puddle under her. She didn't want to move as she felt crippled with pain. It felt like hours of staring at a blank wall letting herself wallow in misery before she heard the sound of a violin flood into her room. The sound slowly stitched together the wound enough to allow her to rip herself off the floor.
She slowly padded her way toward the noise to find herself at the edge of Sherlock's room. She stood in the doorway listening to him play. He didn't seem to notice as she quietly made her way to his bed just ten feet from him and sat down curling her knees to her chest.
"Did you play for her when she was sad?" Raine asked in a whisper that reminded Sherlock of a summer breeze.
"Yes," he answered.
"I can see why she liked you," Raine uttered letting her head fall onto the bed. "Why did I forget her?" Raine asked just loud enough to be heard over the violin.
"Because you couldn't bare the idea of losing your child," he replied stopping to write notes on his sheets, "when you always wanted one." There was momentary pause as Sherlock finished composing for the moment. "Tell me about her."
"Why?" Raine muttered. She sounded miserable.
"Because according to John talking about something is supposed to help things," Sherlock told her rolling his eyes as if he didn't agree. "Frankly, I don't understand it." There was a pause as Raine considered telling him. She gnawed on her lip before she slowly let the words spill out.
"When I found out, I was terrified," she mumbled, "but I wanted her just as badly as Gina did. It was something we had in common."
"Her father?" Sherlock asked her curiously.
"I don't know," she admitted. "It could have been James or half a dozen other men. I didn't really care either way. I loved her no matter who her father was. She changed me, and I didn't want her near Peter, but… things never work out right. Peter killed her at the age of three, and it killed me. I abandoned Peter that day; I couldn't bare looking at him. Peter should have died for what he did."
"There was a girl," Sherlock told her recalling the golden hair and the smile that lit up a room before he felt the familiar pang in his heart, "named Lucy. Do you know about her?"
"No," Raine answered staring at him. "Should I?"
"Jen saw her as a daughter, and Peter killed her out of jealousy, and in turn, Jen killed him."
"Gina killed someone?" Raine whispered sounding both confused and in awe. "She's not capable of that."
"She did because of what Peter did. Jen was faced with a choice: Peter would either kill me, or she would have to kill him. She saw no other way out." That wsa the beginning to the end of Jen Lorraine. "It rattled her and unhinged her. She knew what she would do the moment Peter killed Lucy, and it broke her."
"She must have loved the girl," Raine replied laying down on his bed and stretching out to watch him. "What about you? Did you love her? You must have been close to her as well."
"It matters little," he answered not wishing to let her anywhere near the subjects that were near and dear to him.
"Of course it matters," she told him staring at him from the bed. She eyed him up and down. "I bet you loved her; I bet that death unhinged you too, but you had to keep it together. If you didn't, who would keep Gina together?"
"I failed keeping her together."
"Yup," she replied popping the last consonant. "I'm a mark of that failure."
"I don't need that reminder," he hissed at her. He glanced at her to see the usual laughing smirk, but found none. She looked to the wall with a sort of emptiness that did not seem to fit the woman. She was far too rebellious and spirited for emptiness, and he found he didn't like it. "Her name?" Sherlock asked thinking of the corpse of the three years old.
"Victoria," she replied. "It's a family name. I used to call her little red; she used to laugh."
"It won't help to dwell on it," he informed her. Wolves, red, the subconscious connection between the little girl and the small actions in Jen's life. It made sense.
"Nor will it help to forget," she answered quietly. "Will you keep playing?" He didn't use words to answer as he lifted the violin again allowing the music to fill the room. She fell asleep making her more vulnerable than ever. He paused for a moment, but she shifted in her sleep as if it's absence was notice.
"Oh, Ginny," he uttered before he continued playing, and he would continue playing to soothe her until he couldn't find the strength to hold the violin any longer.
A/N: May be in the market for a beta. Once a week work with my atrocious disaster of a story. Leave your applications below. =P
Ahhhhhh... is it too cliche? I'm playing with cliche's guys; I shouldn't dabble in them. It just makes for Mary Sues.
Thanks to reviewers: TinkerbellxO, XxAlexMarihaReyesxX, short-skirtbluescarf, zare . downey . okumura, hannahhobnob, and hairyhobbit7. Review please! And see you all next Friday!