Elle Words

"Don't Want To Forget How It Feels Without."

Chapter Two

It was his eyes.

Jacob Black was back to filing paperwork at 9:30 in the morning. He's got a half stick of granola bar hanging out of his mouth as he typed out memos and paged nurses and wrote out names on tags before sticking them on the stack of clothes handed to him by Zoe.

Jeffrey is eating chocolate pudding out of a plastic cup and instructing him on how to access the Hospital database when Pavel rushed in, prattling out a swift stream of Russian with ink smeared across his cheek and waving frantically towards the copy room. Jeffrey then told Jacob to man the reception desk until he got back.

He said to Jacob, "Don't do anything I wouldn't do."

Jacob blinked his tired, sunken eyes. He hadn't gotten home until well past midnight last night. The whole ordeal in the hospital kept him past his shift—at least Zoe promised him overtime pay, and the ride from McLean to his apartment was about 40 minutes. He crashed on the bed without even taking off his shoes and drifted off into an easy sleep, but it was like every time he closed his eyes, the lingering image of the haunting girl with the savage gaze would appear, as if she were glued onto the inside of his eyelids.

"Like what?" Jacob asks Jeffrey with a slight raise of his brows.

Jeffrey rubs a sore spot on his head where he had the barrel of a gun stuck to last night, as if he can still remember the icy sensation even now. He gives Jacob a pointed look, "Something stupid."

And so Jacob slumps in the rolling chair and runs the alphabet song through his head once again. Then he e-mails the doctor requests to the nurses. Then he receives a call from 3rd Floor asking for the condition of a certain Bishop, Elle to be sent up to their computers. Jacob Black wasn't sure if this was part of his job description but the strident aide that had called him had a clipped, strict voice that didn't leave any room for protests. So he wearily clicks open the file and forwards it.

Not before catching a glimpse of details, of course.

Bishop, Elle. Legal status at admission: Involuntary. Established diagnosis: Antisocial Personality Disorder. Symptoms: Displays signs of paranoid delusion—bipolar disorder; schizophrenia; narcolepsy.

Treatment: ECT.

Jacob frowned at the acronym. Everything else was written out in such order and in such scientific terms that such an improper and loosely elaborated word threw him for a loop. The three letters hang in the air like a singular thread off a silk shirt. It's not enough to effect the entire outfit, but bothersome enough that it nags you until you snag it off. What could it stand for?

And that's when he heard someone walk in. The double doors creaked open slowly, then closed again. At first, Jacob paid no attention because he thought it was probably just one of the nurses because only workers had access into this area. But after a few minutes there was a tap on the counter, which caused him to peer up from his work in befuddlement.

It was his eyes.

Blue. Arctic blue, ice blue, clear blue. However you wanted to say it. Blue. Bleached eyes like the high-noon Texas sky. Eyes so pale and vivid that it made Jacob think of Forget-me-nots.

The striking eyes belonged to a young man, and although they were a piercing lightening blue, his face was surprisingly boyish. The sharpened planes of his feature held a note of gentle, old-fashioned prettiness. The type you only see in movies. He pulls off his faded blue baseball cap, revealing a messy shag of shortly cropped blonde hair, and pursed his lips together as those electrifying blue eyes did a quick scan of the hall.

He flashes Jacob a tight, charming smile. "Hello." His voice is musical and smooth, but the tone agitated and nervous.

He was so unreasonably handsome that it annoyed Jacob, because it reminded him of someone he hates. He blinks, trying to keep his expression neutral, fighting to keep the sneer twitching at his lips at bay. "Um." He grunts and doesn't say anymore. He doesn't think he's supposed to.

"I'm, uh, I'm here for a visit. It is visiting hour, isn't it?" The young man inquires with his fond, cerulean eyes.

Jacob wasn't really sure. It was technically his first day. Were patients allowed to have visitors? How would he know where to take them? Is the guy even allowed to be in here? But Jacob thinks that the most important question is: Where is Pavel when you need him?

"Who do you need to visit?" Jacob wished he hadn't sounded so rude, but he was just curious. He tried to imagine him as Polly's husband. A strong, handsome young man that married the strawberry blonde, burned-half-to-death girl.

The man shifted from one foot to the other. "Bishop." He declares in his soft voice, and the anxiety on his chiseled jaw melted away. "Elle."

Jacob blinks again. A popular one, isn't she? He's just about to inform him that he's new here and that he's not quite certain if he's qualified to let him in when Pavel stormed into the office through the backdoor. Looking flustered, albeit pleased, he drops down a stack of paperwork and wipes his brow. He's rambling something about the copy machine being jammed and how he thinks that it was first invented in Russia.

According to Pavel, everything was invented in Russia.

Then he swivels around in his chair and sees the blonde gentlemen, and he stops in mid-babble. The gentlemen tenses as well, straightening, back straight as an arrow. Pavel exclaims something in a rapid fire of Russian, all of his curls bouncing. Through the unrecognizable stream of words, Jacob catches the endearment, "Jim!"

Oh yes. The infamous Jim. Jacob's heard about him. From the nurses, of course. They giggle and whisper about him whenever Zoe isn't around and think that he isn't paying attention. They talk about how gorgeous he is and what a charmer and how he just had to go and fall head-over-heels for that crazy girl.

"Jim!" Pavel repeated, although his babyish face dropped into a bit of a tentative frown. "You should not be he-ah." He drops his clear, loud voice into a hushed whisper, "You are suspended from duty. Zuh-oo-ee vould be wery angry if she found you." He bobs his head, "Wery angry indeed. Pear-haps it is not vise to come so soon."

Jim leans forward, over the counter, combing his long, elegant fingers through his golden hair. His lightening blue eyes are alive with electricity and they sparked as his brows wrinkled. "You have to let me see her, Pavel. Please." He scrubs his hand over his face, "I...I," He hesitates, "I can't eat. I can't sit still. I can't even think." He exhales shakily, "I haven't slept in three days. You have to let me in."

Pavel fidgets. He shifts. Then, "All vight." He agrees reluctantly. "I vill take you." Jacob is wondering if J comes before or after G when Pavel taps him on the shoulder. "Yacob, vill you come along. Yeffrey says I should not leawe you alone."

Jim was tall. Tall and slender. He walked with his shoulders squared and in long, agile strides. He wore a nice blue long-sleeve and khaki pants and a leather jacket hanging off his lean, thin frame. He reminded Jacob so much of Edward Cullen that it made him want to vomit.

The applied topography of the hospital is complicated. One could venture in and never find their way out.

Two locked doors with a five-foot space between them where they had to stand while Pavel relocked the first door and unlocked the second. Just inside are three phone booths. Then a couple of single rooms and the living room and eat-in kitchen. This arrangement ensured a good first impression for visitors.

Once you turned the corner past the living room, though, things changed.

A long, long hallway: much too long. Seven or eight double rooms on one side, the nursing station centered on the other, flanked by the conference room and a pristine room labeled HT. Lunatics to the left, staff to the right. At the end of the terrible hall, the terrible TV room. The guests—that's what they're called—liked it. Not patients or crazies or psychopaths. Guests. As if this were a hotel. They liked it better than the living room, at least. It was messy, noisy, and smoky, but Jacob thinks that it isn't really due to the atmosphere or the TV.

He thinks they simply liked it because it was on the left, the lunatic side of things.

Because as far as they were concerned, the living room belonged to the staff. One of the guests is always talking about moving the weekly Hall Meeting from the living room to the TV room; but of course, Zoe made sure that never happened.

After the TV room, another turn in the hall. Two more singles, one double, a bathroom, and seclusion.

The seclusion room is built into a precisely square shape and is moderately sized. Its only window was a rectangle of thick glass encased in the door that allowed people to look in and see what you were up to. There isn't much in there. The only thing in it is padding. The floor is covered in a foot deep foam. Padded walls like the ones you hear about from books and gossip. The seclusion room was supposed to be soundproof.

Jacob wondered if it was really.

Jeffrey told him that a lot of the guests popped into the seclusion room, shut the door, and yells. Then when they're done, they can open the door and leave. Yelling in the TV room or the hall was 'acting out' and was not a good idea because that gets you nothing but a Thorazine drip up your arm and a taser in your side. But apparently 'acting out' in the seclusion room was fine.

You could also 'request' to be locked into the seclusion room, although Jacob can't fathom why anybody would make that request. Because once you did that, you had to 'request' to get out too. An aide would look through the rectangular glass and decide if you were ready to come out. Somewhat like looking at a cake through the glass of the oven door.

The real purpose of the seclusion room, though, was to quarantine people who'd gone bananas. As a group, the guests of McLean all maintained a certain level of noisiness and misery. Anyone who sustained a higher level for more than a few hours was put in seclusion. Otherwise, Cassandra the nurse reasoned, they would all turn up the volume on their nuttiness, and the staff would lose control. There were no objective criteria for deciding to put someone in seculsion. It was relative, like the grading curve in high school.

But most importantly, seclusion worked. After a day or a night in there with nothing to do, most people would calm down. If they didn't, they went to maximum security.

The double-locked doors, the windows meshed with steel screens, the eat-in kitchen that's stocked with plastic knives and locked unless a nurse was present. All that was medium security. Maximum security was another world.

That's where they found Elle. Seclusion. She had been taken to maximum security after her little stunt with the police officers, but Zoe claims that they have calmed her down enough to just toss her in one of the cushion rooms. Somewhere that she can't hurt herself or others.

She sat on the far end looking world-weary and bone-white. So pale, in fact, she almost looked blue. Her long hair, still midnight black and as wild as ever, is like a curtain, veiling her rattling shoulders and quivering frame. She was convulsing, as if the charges from the stun gun is still coursing through her, and it made her raven tress shimmered like waves.

At this sight, the handsome Jim surged forward, pressing his hand tight against the door and furiously tugging at the handle. His musical voice pitched and rose, "Elle." He breaths, "Elle!" The door wouldn't open, and the girl is still sitting there looking like there's something crawling inside of her. His electric blue eyes are savage and desperate as he clawed uselessly at the door. Then with shaking fingers punched in the code key to a small pad next to Jacob, nearly tearing his shoulder off as he hastily nudged him to one side.

If Jacob wasn't so distracted by the shuddering girl inside, he perhaps would've said something, or punched someone.

Pavel's hands fluttered nervously around him, as if he weren't quite sure what to do with the. "Jim! Zuh-oo-ee vould be so wery angry if she found out you are here! You must be careful. Zis is not a good idea."

But at this point, Jim simply doesn't care anyone. He rips into the seclusion room in a flurry of blue and blonde. The girl, comprehending the sudden noise, peered up tiredly. And she holds up a hand, keeping him at arms length, steady despite the sparks quivering under her skin. She blinks a few times with much effort, managing slowly, "Am I hallucinating?" Her words are sharp and crisp and strained. "That happens sometimes when they give me really good drugs."

"Elle." His voice turned smooth, gentle, coaxing. His name fell out of his mouth like a lingering caress or a broken promise, "Elle." The lightening blue gaze is piercing and painfully soul-baring. He reached out for her. "It's me. It's Jim."

"Jim." She repeats then sighs, "Yes, yes. I'm not blind." A horrid shudder slithered under her skin and she gritted her teeth together. She peers up at him with wild, empty eyes. "You should not be here." There seems to be a hidden part to the sentence that she can't bring herself to finish. You shouldn't see me like this, she's saying with her hollow glare.

His brows furrowed and he pushed his hand through his golden hair. "I had to see you." He justified, just as stubborn. "I had to know you're okay."

She gingerly brings her fingertips to her temple, massaging it lightly before another violent jolt rattled her bones. She hisses through a twisted snarl, looking frustrated. It was like there's a force field of electricity around her, and it's crackling and searing under her skin, frying all the nerves along her spine.

"They gave me shocks." Comes her simple explanation accompanied with a biting smile, "Nothing I can't handle."

Despite her loud and insistent protests, Jim slides down next to her. She complains and fusses as he makes attempts to sooth her. She resists his strong arms and comforting embrace and meets the tenderness in his Forget-Me-Not eyes with aggravated huffs. Then finally, as if weary of resisting, she lets him carefully tuck a stray dark wave behind her ear.

He smiles a bright, golden smile.

He sits by her, calm but restless. He didn't move but there was an energy surrounding him, true and young. He presses their palms together then tangles their fingers into a lock. He flinched lightly when she shivered again, the electrical charges running from her skin to his and she grins.

They were good together.

His hair is buttery blonde while hers is midnight black. She's pale like a ghost; his skin is butterscotch tanned. Between the wild, savage eyes and the electric blue ones, there was something else there. A balance. Like she was too much of a negative and he was too much of a positive and the remote control will only work when the batteries are lined up correctly.

So him and Pavel leave them in the seclusion room. The lonely seclusion room that suddenly doesn't seem so lonely anymore.

His name was Jim Vaughn. But he had another nickname in the hospital. Jim Valentine, because he was handsome and suave and charming beyond belief. He was also the Head Psychiatrist's son, 25 years-old and trying his best to live up to his father's expectations.

Dr. Vaughn loved his son very much and when he graduated top of his class from Cornell, Dr. Vaughn pulled a few strings and managed to get Jim a job as a studying residence at McLean. Despite the lunatics and the probation orderlies, McLean was considered one of the world's top institutions.

Jacob isn't sure what defined 'top'. The one with the best crazy people?

And so Jim Vaughn reports bright and early for duty. Clean shaven and athletic with a shag of golden hair and eyes that can pierce through steel. The whole hospital was thrown in to a frenzy. He was new, and nice, and so unbearably good-looking.

The nurses always found excuses to stop by his station during his shift. They'd croon over the way he grinned, his boyish shyness, and that self-assured way he always carried himself. They asked for him to describe what's like up in Cornell. And did he have a girlfriend? No? Then, how about a movie on Friday?

Even the patients found him lovely. Whenever Polly invited him for an Ice Pop with her, he would accept. Whenever Georgina told him about how she used to be engaged to George Clooney or how she's a secret Canadian spy, he'd listen and nod. He didn't play favorites, and he didn't treat them differently than any other person. He would laugh and make cute comments and make it seem like everything was going to be okay.

They met in the library, according to rumors.

Bishop, Elle had been rewriting Romeo & Juliet by scribbling out William Shakespeare's masterful words and replacing it with her own, vulgar interpretation. While Jim Valentine is charged with the duty of placing books back to their original spots. He caught her changing the script from 'Romeo, Romeo! Wherefore art thou Romeo?' to 'Romeo, Romeo! Where the fuck is Romeo?'.

"That's vandalizing, you know." He comments casually with a bright smile. It's his first time seeing her because it's her first day back since sneaking out three weeks ago. She sneaks out a lot. It makes her feel alive. He notices the darkness of her hair and the paleness of her skin and the way her eyes are untamed and uninhibited. Sort of the way he'd like to be.

She doesn't say anything. She just blinked, and went back to scribbling. And he went back to stacking books on shelves.

Jim didn't see her for the next few days, but he couldn't stop thinking about her.

So he sought her out. He checked the front desk. He checked the TV room and the living room. He checks the seclusion room and the doubles. He tries to find her chart, but he didn't know her name and he was much too embarrassed to ask one of the nurses. So he finds Pavel.

"Ja. Bee-shop, Elle." The name trilled off his Russian tongue fluently. "She is always causing t-rubble. Last time I checked, she's taking a walk in ze gardens. But I vould not be surprised if she's escaping once again."

He finds her in the fountain in the garden. Quite literally. In the fountain. She's sitting inside with the water running up to her chest, her arms propped up against the stone ledge and reading a letter. She peers up at him with uninterested eyes and a raised brow, "Are you stalking me?"She demands.

He stutters, taken-back, "I-was, uh—"

"Don't think I didn't notice. Jim." She stretches out the word like it's taffy. She runs a hand through her damp hair then carefully folds the letter back into it's sleeve. She squints through the sunlight, which was making her white skin seem even paler, "Are you here for the physical? 'Cause Zoe already got it covered." He shakes his head. "My therapy session isn't scheduled for another two hours." She says, brows crinkled. He shakes his head again and it frustrates her,"What do you want with me?"

Jim blinks. "Just wanted to get to know you."

"Do you use this line on all the girls?" She's staring so intently at him, like she's trying to burn those wild eyes into his skull, that he couldn't tell rather or not she was teasing him. She instructs simply, "Read my file, if you simply must know."

He clears his throat. "I don't want to read your file." He sits down on the dirt floor and props his arms up on the ledge so that they were somewhat face-to-face. "I don't want to read your diagnosis or your symptoms or your hospitalization records." His eyes are blue like Forget-Me-Nots. "I want to know where you grew up. When's your birthday. I want to know what's your favorite book."

They don't speak for a long time.

She looks at him with gaunt, dark eyes. Eyes so deep and with such a deep-rooted pain that he knew, from that moment on, he wouldn't be able to part with her again. Because her dark, shimmering hair was alluring, and her thinness was fragile. And something in her told him that she needed him and some could say that Jim Valentine was born with the hero complex.

"Bishop, Elle." Then she beams and extends a glowing arm, "Sociopath."

End Note:

Oh my goodness. Sorry for getting this out so late, ya'll. It's just been a crazy couple of weeks lately and school's been demanding a lot out of me so I rarely find enough time to make myself sit down and write! And when I do, I'm stuck with this CRAZY writer's block, but I'm quite happy to say that I'm overcoming it slowly and am regaining part of my conscious.

I hope that you guys like where this story is going so far and that you guys will continue reading. Elle's such a crazy character to write and I'm still struggling to establish the foundation and characterization so I'm pleading for you guys to really stay with me. Is that cool?

Cool.

Leave me a review and drop me a line on what you think so far and what you'd like to see and it'll absolutely make my day.

--Love, Kitty.