You're a failure, hissed the ever-present shadow as Lassiter attempted to button his shirt.
"You're doing so good, Carlton!" Caroline, his occupational therapist said from in front of him, cheering him on.
He wished he could believe her. He wanted to. But every time she told him he was doing well, the shadow would remind him just how wrong she was. Because he wasn't doing well. He had been in this facility for almost two months, and he still felt just as useless as he had the day he was pushed in the front door feet first. Sure he was able to stand without a whole team of people pulling him up. Sure he could finally use a fork to feed himself, instead of needing someone to bring every bite to his mouth. But what good did that do? He could barely take a step, couldn't dress himself. Eating was painstakingly slow. He still would never be able to get up the stairs in his house or walk across the front lawn or pick up his daughter. What good was feeding himself if he couldn't even pick up Lily?
Stop it! He wanted to scream at the figure. Throw something at it. Make it leave forever so he would stop taunting him every moment of every day. And night. And every second that the intense blanket of exhaustion hadn't covered him in hellish, dark sleep.
As darkness would fall outside his room, the dark figure would sit in his regular spot at the windowsill, recapping how poorly that day had gone. Eventually Carlton had closed the curtains altogether, the thought of life passing him by on the other side too much for him to process. Day turned into night turned into day again, but for him, the minutes ran together into hours marked only by doctors briefly coming to check on him, therapists coming to move him, or nurses giving him meds.
He put on a happy face while people were talking to him. Channeling his best O'Hara impression as to keep people from worrying about him. But with each passing day, the hell from his nightmares was slowly leaking more and more into his waking hours. It became increasingly difficult to distinguish reality from fantasy.
Between the chronic exhaustion and his limited field of vision, it was impossible to tell if he was really seeing anything he looked at.
"Be nice, Carlton," Juliet reminded him, sitting on the edge of his bed. She patiently watched him struggling through his therapy, reminding him that he was getting better. "She's helping you come home to us. Let her help you."
Carlton nodded at her, took a deep breath, and focused intensely on his fingers pushing the buttons of his shirt together and slipping them into place.
"You're doing so good, Carlton," Juliet smiled, beaming at him after he pushed the last button into place. "You're getting so much better. I'm so proud of you!"
"Keep up the great work, Carlton!" Caroline chimed in, patting him on the shoulder. "You buttoned your whole shirt today! That's huge for you!"
Congratulations. The shadow hissed. You and your four-year-old can get ready together, though she can probably button her shirt in less than thirty minutes. She might get a little bored waiting for her dad to finish.
"I'll see you on Wednesday!" Caroline said, closing the door to Carlton's room behind her, leaving Carlton alone with his thoughts and demons.
And O'Hara, still smiling at the end of the bed. She reached out her hand to touch his leg, opened her mouth to say something. But she never even got a sound out.
Before she could connect with him, the shadow stood up and waved her away, her comforting image falling away into dust that faded into thin air.
She was gone.
Again.
She was never really there.
"Do you mind?" Carlton said, slamming his good fist onto the table in front of him, rattling the drinks that sat with lids and straws because he was no longer able to drink out of a cup like an adult and instead had to be fed like a toddler. Frustration swelling in his chest, wishing he could will O'Hara or his abilities or his old life back into being.
"I'm just pointing out the obvious," the shadow said. He cocked his head and folded his arms, clearly enjoying the reaction. "I'm not saying anything that isn't true."
"Why?" Carlton asked, running his palm aggressively against his forehead, attempting for the millionth time to shake the shadow from his head. "What do you want from me? Who are you?"
"Oh Carlton, you know the answer to that."
"No. I don't."
"Why don't you? Aren't you a detective?"
"Well my mind isn't really working the way that it used to."
"Hey, you said it man, not me."
"Don't you have somewhere better to be? Someone else in this stupid building you can make miserable?"
"Nope. I'm all yours. You should know that by now."
Carlton closed his eyes and let his head fall forward in exhaustion. The mere thought of forcing out any more words too much for him to handle. His jaw felt heavy and his head hurt from processing the words he was trying to use. He couldn't remember half of the information he was being told on a daily basis and he couldn't see most of what was going on around him, leaving him jumpy anytime someone would start talking to him before he even knew they were in the room.
The only thing that had kept him sane was his weekly visits with O'Hara. But now that she was stuck at home with her own medical crisis, he was more alone than ever. She would text him, asking how he was doing, or video call him. But texting was frustratingly difficult, and his brain had a hard time making sense of anything on a video screen. Slowly he stopped answering and slowly the messages became few and far between. They were giving him his space. Letting him work through this on his own, because that was what he seemed to want.
In reality, he didn't know what he wanted.
He knew he wanted to call them. Juliet, Marlowe. He was so desperate he was even considering calling Spencer. But he couldn't bring himself to dial the phone. Instead he let it lay in the corner of the room, unplugged for days until the power died, conveniently forgetting to connect it to the charger. Because he knew that if he heard her voice, he would lose it. He knew the second he heard Marlowe's voice come through the static he would break down, begging her to come back, take him away from here. Take him home.
But he couldn't put her through that again. Hadn't he already hurt her enough?
He felt like he had. He must have. Why else would she leave him here all alone?
"Because you just want to be alone."
"It's not true!" He tried, but his chest tightened as he tried to get the words out. He did want to be alone. Because as insane as it was making him feel to be alone, it also took all of the shame and embarrassment out of everyone else's eyes. If no one else was around to see him falling apart, they wouldn't be ashamed of him. And all the guilt could be his and his alone. And he wouldn't have to feel it anymore.
He was so done feeling. Anything. Everything.
He wanted it to go away.
Well, she wishes you had died. The voice informed him, setting him straight. She wishes she could move on.
"That's not true," he hissed, rubbing his hand across his forehead, trying to get the voices to go away. He knew they weren't real.
He believed they weren't real…
At least, he thought they weren't.
All he knew for sure was that he was losing his mind.
He could feel himself losing his grip on reality. He could feel concrete facts and hallucinations intertwining into one. He knew something was wrong. But he didn't know how to fix it. He didn't know what to say. He was the head detective for the Santa Barbara police department. What would they say if he told them how crazy he felt? What would that do for the cases he had worked? And, even worse, what were the chances they ever let him work again if he told them? No. He had to keep this inside. He had to figure it out on his own. He was a Lassiter. And Lassiter's can take care of their problems on their own. At least, that's what his grandfather always told him.
He wasn't sure if he believed his grandfather anymore.
He wasn't sure what to believe.
He did know that every day it was becoming increasingly difficult to open his eyes. And that every time he saw the sun, he hoped it would be the last time he saw it rise.
He felt useless. And hopeless.
He wished it could be different. He wished he could be different. That instead of being trapped in this hell, he was stronger. He wished he had more fight in him, that he could keep going. For O'Hara and her baby. For Marlowe. For Lily.
How he wished he could fight harder for Lily.
He had tried to fight. He really had.
He had spent months trying to push away the bad thoughts. He had worked so hard to focus on where his feet were. To be present. To get home to his baby.
But he wasn't strong enough. Not anymore, at least. The fight was gone, sucked away by sleepless nights and mountains of sedatives and an arbitrary day-night cycle. He was losing it. He was losing that thing that had kept him going. His drive, maybe? His will? Hope?
He felt like he was running. Like he had spent every day of the last four months running from a dark cloud that was threatening to take over the second he slowed down, so he kept running. And Marlowe helped pull him along when he got tired. And O'Hara helped drag him into the light when he fell behind. And everyone who he knew and loved had helped him keep running as the cloud closed in on him. But they were gone now, all of them were. He was all alone, running as fast as he could from the darkness that was creeping up on him with every passing second.
But his legs were so tired.
And his body was so tired.
He was too exhausted.
And he couldn't run anymore.
The darkness was going to win.