I do not own Ratched.
I do not own Huck. But I miss him and it's summer for me so I brought him back.
Huck Finnigan: Dreams and Nightmares; Best Life Lived
The Girl and The Frenchman
The girl sits and abides silently, somewhat nervously, when her hands are without paper and pencil.
With them, she eases, relaxes.
As much as she will.
She sits, she draws.
Swirls that turn into landscapes.
Swirls that turn into more swirls.
Swirls that turn into . . .
"Is that me, dear? Oh you've made me look so pretty. Look here, William Holden, this sweet girl has made me pretty."
"You've always been, uh, comely, Mrs. Kee."
"Are you getting fresh with me, William Holden?"
"No, ma'am."
. . . people.
Huck doesn't know how she does it.
Her swirls should be a mess, indecipherable as her jumbled words . . .
". . . white blue wall sky . . ."
. . . can oft times be.
Some of the orderlies notice it, the nurses.
". . . draw. I can't draw anything but stick figures."
Some of the patients do as well.
" . . . me playing my violin, though I am not certain you could adequately capture the beauty of those lilting melodies . . ."
And one in particular that Huck . . .
"Good morning, Peter."
. . . finds draws his notice more than anyone else.
"How're you doing today, Chief?"
The silent Indian boy that is brought in for meals.
Brought in for therapy.
Brought in to simply be brought in from out.
And he . . .
"Everything alright?"
. . . has noticed Jillian.
Jillian, sitting two tables away, half a biscuit left on her plate.
A cup of milk.
And the rest of her eggs.
She is hunched, alone, sitting, drawing on some paper she has been given.
The other guests sit and feed themselves or are gently fed.
And Peter, toast and jam left unattended on his plate . . .
"That's our new guest, Jillian Terrance."
. . . watches . . .
"Would you like to say 'hi'?"
. . . her.
Jillian.
And Peter.
And Huck . . .
I've never seen him watch anything that intently.
. . . watches them both.
Except the horse.
She draws everything and everybody around her.
Given enough time (and finger blackening charcoal)it stands to reason she could draw everyone in the hospital.
She even draws . . .
". . . you, Huck."
. . . him.
"Yeah. I didn't know she was doing that."
Him with his hideous, half melted face, his blind eye, his Halloween-
"-soul perfectly."
"Pardon?"
And Grace's smile is gentle.
"I said, 'she captured your soul perfectly', Huck."
She gestures toward the sketch on the table the patient has been working at.
"Look past your scars, Huck. Look past all the things that aren't the soul of you, even if they helped make the soul of you. Look at your eyes."
And Huck does, tries to, anyway.
He looks.
And he sees.
Himself.
She has drawn him looking off to the side, she has drawn the scars.
But she has also drawn the one good eye, the eye that is focused on something that is making the part of his mouth that can, smile.
It is a gentle face, a soft face.
Beyond the ravages of war, beyond the ravages of hurt, loss.
And Huck looks up at his Grace.
"Maybe she just caught me looking at you."
And it's a charming statement, it is.
A winning one.
But still and all, Grace shakes her head.
"Maybe. But this is the way I saw you before you saw me, Huck. It's the way I saw you with Mrs. Kee, the others. It's the way I see you now, even with Ms. Wells."
She pauses, dares the public gesture of momentarily caressing his face with her gentle touch before lowering her hand.
"It's you as you choose to be, Huck. That's what she sees. It's what I see. What anyone who dares to look sees."
"Than- Thank you, Grace."
And it's true.
The girl captures the essence of those she draws.
Pulls them out and puts them on paper.
She even draws the aforementioned Charlotte Wells, one side of her face pulled down in hateful grimace, the other pulled up in timid hopefulness.
A desperately sad picture, a conflicted individual, a wounded, divided existence.
A person . . .
"Picasso she isn't, but I suppose not everyone can be."
"Ms. Wells-"
"Doctor Hanover, nurse. And I only wish I could help the poor child."
. . . who just wants to help.
"You know, perhaps her brain just needs a little pressure relieved-"
In their own way.
He's searched and searched.
Read and read and read until his vision blurred.
Observed the girl on multiple times, talked to other staff.
Talked to his Grace.
And he thinks he finally may finally . . .
". . . think, Grace?"
. . . have found it.
Broc's aphasia, also known as expressive aphasia.
Discovered in 1861 by the French neurologist himself whilst treating a patient who could only say 'tan'.
Huck supposes Supreme Leader Director Betsy Bucket would say they were lucky the girl hadn't become stuck on the word 'cock'.
He doesn't think he will voice this assumption to neither her nor his beloved Grace.
And though Huck believes strongly in honesty in marriage, there are some things that are acceptable for a husband to keep from his wife.
And the fact that the Frenchman divined this information only after examining the brains of other deceased patients with similarly described oddities.
Concluding it was caused by damage to the frontal lobe ventroposterior region.
Affecting communication, speech, the written word.
In a name, Jillian Terrance.
The art, the simple act of drawing, sketching, Grace discovered appears to form a bridge of sorts that allows the girl to talk.
Intelligibly, contextually correct conversationally, once one sits and considers and practices the understanding of her.
Strained as it is when she does speak, as if she knows there is something wrong.
But cannot understand or correct the problem on her own.
It is clear she understands words spoken to her.
Can speak them clearly herself when drawing.
Which kicks out the possibility of dysarthria, the interruption of the nerve functions of the face, tongue, soft palate, resulting in slurred speech.
Something Huck himself initially struggled with when he lost half his face and his former life on a bloody foreign field of his lingering nightmares.
Though he had no name for the frustration at the time, the struggle with which he found himself.
Only able to name it 'that Nazi scumbag'.
But Jillian Terrance.
Aphasia.
And the symptoms, they match.
Written word completely gone, vanished as though it never was.
Marked diminished oral speech.
Loss of grammatical structure, all the little 'a' 'and' 'but' 'or' 'not' 'so' s that clarify and make understandable the spoken word lost to her, leaving mostly content words, nouns and verbs.
Which also means her ability to use adjectives in her speech, 'pretty', 'plain', 'brown', 'stupid', 'white', 'blue', denote that Huck is wrong is his analysis or . . .
". . . damage might not be that bad. Or she has already begun recovering."
The question is, what has caused it?
A slow-growing brain tumor?
Degenerative brain disorder?
Stroke?
Head injury?
They inquired to the mother when she brought the girl in.
Basic intake questions.
Injuries, hospitalizations, known medical conditions.
Nothing was reported.
They may not have known.
It may not have presented itself.
And, most important of all . . .
". . . can it be improved?"
Grace's answer is simple.
The simplest of all.
"Talk to her. Encourage her to talk."
Too simple to be correct, effective.
"The more she practices speech, without pressure, without fear of failure, the more she may improve."
And that is why Huck Finnigan . . .
"At the very least, she will be treated like a human being again."
. . . thinks it will work.
"Good morning, Miss Terrance. Would you like to go to the solarium with the other patients?"
Bruce Willis has a degenerative form of aphasia, connected with progressive dementia. It breaks my heart.
I already had this written before his was announced and when it was I almost erased this storyline. But I eventually decided not to.
But I still respect him and his family.
Thanks to DinahRay for previously reading and reviewing! And thanks to Hellibleri for adding your support to this tale.