Participants:
| Scene Title | Sympathetic |
|---|---|
| Synopsis | Allison Richards and Gracie Lee venture out to the Greystone Park Psychiatric Hospital in the hopes of reaching out to Darryl Lincoln and finding out what he knows about the Incident at Hamilton Heights Apartments. |
| Date | July 20, 2010 |
Greystone Park Psychiatric Hospital
A single droplet of water leaks through the closed passenger's side window, rolling a track down the rubber gasket, beading and dripping down onto the armrest.
Silence is a heavy, terrible thing sometimes.
Tiny droplets of rain patter try to break it up, falling down against the car's windshield, running in streaks, blurring the glass. Through the windshield, the dark silhouette of a looming building seems even more foreboding than it should. Flashes of silent heat lightning illuminate the gray clouds in irregular flickering. Settled into the driver's seat, Company agent Gracie Lee leans forward, both of her brows raised in assessment of the blocky, dark silhouette looming near the car. Breathing deeply through her nose, Lee curls fingers tightly around the steering wheel, her jaw set and throat tight.
The clock on the car's radio reads 8:13am, and it's been three minutes since agent Lee parked the car out front of this dark building. Turning blue eyes to look at her passenger, Gracie's normal silent stoicism has been replaced with a fretful nervousness that seems uncharacteristic of her.
Blinking away a vacant stare, she drums her hands on the streering wheel and reaches down for her blackberry in the center console, carefully tucking it inside of her pinstriped blazer. "I didn't bring an umbrella…" she finally says, looking back to the blonde woman seated at her side. "We're probably going to get rained on."
Briefly apologetic looking, agent Lee pops the driver's side door open to the drizzling rain and despite her warnings about the weather she is struck with a momentary pause on seeing the efidice outside of the car. Blinking back rainwater that has fallen down into her lashes, she slams the car door shut, now too just a little dark streak behind water-blurred glass.
For Gracie's partner for the day, this trip will be a revelation in many ways.
Allison Richards makes a living of getting to know people, this may well be one of the times she shouldn't dig too deeply.
Lest she not like the things she finds.
Rain and an agent she doesn't know. Well, things could certainly be worse for Allison, and she is getting to use her true talents today. She's dressed as professionally she ever does, in a dark pantsuit. Despite that, Gracie's words just prompt a shrug. "I won't melt," she murmurs, before she opens the door and steps out of the car. "Come on." She hurries away from the car towards the doors of the building. She may not melt, but being soaking wet while clothed is never a comfortable feeling.
And it would mess up her hair.
The facade of the Greystone Park Psychiatric Hospital looms ominously above agent Richards in the rain. Dark and slicked, the stone edifice has all of the posture of a reproachful parent towering over a misbehaved child. Its darkened windows show no signs of lights on inside, and only the lobby's lighting is spared to the front grounds.
Agent Lee's approach to the building is like someone approaching a cemetary that a loved one is buried in; mixed with apprehension and emotion. When she makes her way to the front doors, one side is held open for Allison before allowing it to close on its own with the hiss of pressurized hinges.
Inside, Greystone is silent as it is pale. The black and white checkered tile floor looks old, as do the eggshell white walls and oak reception desk. Pulling out her badge folio, Gracie pauses when she makes eye contact with one of the front clerks.
"Miss Lee?" comes a tone of familiarity from the receptionist, setting down a stack of files to turn towards the redhead. "I didn't expect to— "
Flipping open her badge and holding it out, Gracie's brows furrow and her lips downturn into a frown. "Agent Gracie Lee, Department of Homeland Security," is as impassive and unfamiliar sounding as agent Lee could manage. "I'm here to speak to Doctor Kurzweil, I called earlier?"
The receptionist flicks a look past Gracie to Allison's approach thorugh the asylum's front doors, then back to Gracie. "Oh ah, it… of course. I'll page him down to the lobby, if you two would take a seat?" Motioning to a waiting area across from the reception desk, the clerk turns towards the phones while Gracie begins tucking her badge away.
The attitude Gracie has towards this building has Allison giving her a long, searching look, but she cannot dwell upon it too long, not once the receptionist speaks. She smiles automatically, and nods. "Of course. Thank you," she says, moving towards the waiting area and a seat. Once they're away from the other woman, she murmurs to Gracie, "What exactly is your ability? You said it complemented mine. I'd like to know before we actually get in there with Darryl." And it might explain how the receptionist seemed to know the other agent. Curious, that.
"A college degree," Gracie quietly admits with a look down to the floor as she walks towards the chairs. "I studied psychology, it's how I was picked up by the Company post-grad. I have two masters degrees in the field… went into behavioral analysis for the FBI." Tucking her badge into her blazer's pocket, Gracie settles down in one of the chairs, sitting forward with her forearms resting on her knees.
"I'm not Evolved," she feels compelled to add while tucking an errand lock of red hair behind one ear that's come untucked from her tightly wound bun, "if that's what you were getting at." Lacing her fingers together, one of Gracie's feet bounces up and down in a small jitter. "I just wanted to see mister Lincoln for myself, first and second opinions all together. You— can't ever be too sure when trying to assess a person's sanity."
A brow arches slowly, and Allison looks back towards the receptionist for a brief moment. "Then how did she know who you were? Who is or was here that you have visited enough in the past for her to recognize you? To know your name?" she asks as she looks back to Gracie, head tilting, brow furrowing. "If you were evolved…it might have made sense. You had eye contact. But without an evolved ability…all that makes sense is you having visited someone here more than once. Or doing something to make one hell of an impression."
Blue eyes drift from the floor to focus on Allison, and Gracie's expression is in the odd balance between stern and scared. Her brows lift, mouth opens, but a distant man's voice interrupts her answer. "Agents Lee, Richards?" Walking down the corridor towards the lobby, a gray-haired man who's pale natural hair color blends in well with his showing age approaches with a fond smile and a wave of one hand. On his approach, the badge clipped onto his lapel shows both his face and the name he's soon to give.
"I'm Doctor Scott Kuezweil, Darryl Lincoln's psychologist. I heard you two wanted to discuss mister Lincoln?" Searching gray eyes drift from side to side from Allison to Gracie, and the redheaded agent is relieved by the interruption in their conversation. Rising to her feet, Gracie offers a hand out to Doctor Kurzweil, finding the handshake between the two settling to her nerves.
The look that Allison gives Gracie clearly says that she will not be forgetting this conversation. It will just be delayed until they're alone again. She stands and smiles at the doctor, nodding. "We do, yes. And we wish to speak with him as well. That will be alright, won't it?" she asks, her eyes their plain hazel for now. No sense in using her ability if it isn't necessary.
"I'm afraid it's not that simple," Doctor Kurzweil notes with a dip of his head into an apologetic bow. Turning in suggestion of walking and talking, Kurzweil waits until it's evident both of the agents are clued in to the notion before beginning to walk down the hall. "Darryl's in a very emotionally difficult position right now. Up until his release on June 22nd Darryl was slowly being weened into the notion of reintegration to society. He'd made fantastic progress, but… whatever relapse he had on the 3rd of July has put him back to a very fragile state of mind. I'm afraid any contact with unfamiliar faces or concepts could do irrevocable damage to his recovery process."
Sliding her hands into the pockets of her slacks, Gracie dips her head down into a slouch and furrows her brows. "We just need to ask him a few questions about an incident relating to what he said at the Crown Heights police station. We believe that Darryl may be a precognitive, capable of discerning future events before they happen, and that he may have been a material witness to what happened."
Kurzweil stops in the middle of the hall, turning to look back at Gracie and then Allison. "I'm sorry, agents. I understand that this is important, but genetic predisposition to superhuman senses aside, Darryl is still highly mentally unstable. To expose him to elements such as yourselves right now or bring him back to the moment of psychotic break in Crown Heights…"
Breathing in deeply Gracie rubs one hand at the back of her neck. "Doctor Kurzweil you do realize that we can come back with a court order under the provisions of the patriot Act and force you to comply with us, don't you?" There's tension in her voice, anxiety that isn't normally there.
"And I'll fight it," Kurzweil notes firmly, "and I'll drag you and your agency through so much litigation that your superiors will call it off. Do not try to play jurisdiction games with me here, agent Lee. My job is to care for the mental health of my patients, not bend my knee to your curiosities."
Gracie may want to try using the law to win them an interview with Darryl, but Allison has a much faster way, and one more assured of success than the courts. The smile lingers, and her head lowers slightly as her eyes change to silver. Mustn't frighten the man off without need. Not until her ability has a chance to take root. "Doctor Kurzweil, Darryl has information that we need, and you will not stand in the way of us doing our job, will you? You will take us to Darryl, and you will allow us to speak with him in private, because you know that it is a good idea."
She glances up slightly. "I am a psychiatrist, and a very good one. You know that to allow me to speak with Darryl can only help him. Taking us to see him is a good idea, isn't it? You trust us to help him. You don't want to keep us from him, or go to court against us." Though she's still smiling, it's false. It doesn't even reach her eyes as it normally does. But still she's relatively gentle with this man. For now.
Momentary anxiety tenses Gracie's posture when she hears Allison speak, looking over her shoulder to the agent before snapping attention back to Doctor Kurzweil. To his credit, the older psychiatrist furrows his brows and looks puzzled for a moment, then turns his head to the side and clears his throat before starting to walk again, slowly.
"Unfortunately this hospital is pressed enough for funding at the moment, and both of your credentials did express psychiatric study. As much as I don't like the idea, I know that the more I fight against this the more complicated it will become for the hospital and the more likely that someone less qualified will be sent down to talk with him." While Kurzweil has a sudden and about-face change of attitude, Gracie is looking nervously to Allison before she starts to walk again. Willpower bending abilities like that not only make her nervous, but uncomfortable.
"We appreciate your consideration, Doctor Kurzweil," is Gracie's hesitant thanks for his reconsideration, even if he doesn't yet realize it wasn't even his idea.
Sadly, Gracie isn't alone in her opinion of Allison's power, and she's well aware of that fact. She shrugs slightly to the other agent, then starts walking along with Doctor Kurzweil. "I promise, we mean Darryl no ill will, doctor. I would help him if I'm able to. We do believe that he's evolved, and if that's the case, then there's a very good chance that not all of his psychosis is real, but part of that ability. And my specialty happens to be dealing with evolved patients."
Just because she mindfucked him doesn't mean she can't try to reassure him as well.
Words of reassurance echo down the corridors in Greystone, soon drowned out by the sound of three pairs of footsteps on the tiled floor. This mental hospital has all of the oppressive weight that is expected in facilities of its kind. Everything is white, sterile, cold and distant feeling. The smell of antiseptic clings to the air and the buzzing noise of each security door coming unlocked almost sounds like an alarm, warning tresspassers into these old halls that nothing lies beyond these metal doors but people's individual sadness.
Greystone is remarkably quiet, unlike film representations of asylums with screaming patients banging on doors. Everything is sedate and calm, from the views glimpsed of group therapy through open doors to the sturdy metal security doors leading into private bunks. Gray clad hospital workers file up and down the halls, though their presence is intermittant, leaving the corridors seemingly abandoned at times.
Shafts of gray light shine through the tall windows in the halls, bleeding light down onto the floors and contrasting against the desaturated glow of buzzing fluorescent bulbs that light the other, windowless corridors.
The walk towards where Darryl Lincoln is being kept is a long one, across the expansive campus of Greystone and up three floors. The room that Doctor Kurzweil eventually leads the agents to isn't a padded room or a single-bed cell or anything so Spartan. Rather it has the look of a classroom or a cafeteria in a school. Colorful posters hang on the walls, most of them looking to have been made by hand, likely by patients. Circular tables surrounded by brightly colored chairs are spread out across an avacado and sage green tiled floor.
Standing in the doorway, Doctor Kurzweil moves to the side and allows Gracie and Allison a look at the man they'd come all this way out to New Jersey to see. Seated by one of the large windows in a chair he'd pulled away from a table, Darryl Lincoln looks so much the part of a lonely child. Though in his forties, his expression is that of a man much younger than his age. Dark brown eyes, nearly black, stare out the rain-dappled window, trembling hands folded in his lap and slippered feet scuffing back and forth on the floor.
At Darryl's side, sitting on the window sill, is a small black plastic television remote control. There is no television in this day room.
"Darryl?" Doctor Kurzweil says softly from the door, earning a look from the dark-haired man. "I… have some friends with me, Doctor Richards and Doctor Lee. They'd like to talk to you for a little while… if that's okay?"
Picking up the remote control in one hand, Darryl stares vacantly at the three people in the doorway, then down to the remote clutched tightly in his hands, before looking back up. He points the remote towards the door and quietly states, "Pause." At that, Doctor Kurzweil lifts a finger to his lips, indicating silence.
"Are you nervous, Darryl?" Kurzweil's brows lift up as he takes one step in. "It'll be okay, they're both doctors like me. You trust me right? We're friends, all of us. They just have some questions for you, okay?"
Gracie's brows furrow as she watches Darryl lift up the remote and press down the button again and quietly affirm, "Unpause." In that reaction, Kurzweil turns back around and walks towards the door, keeping his voice low so as to not let Darryl in on the conversation.
"The remote is a coping tool. Myself and two other hospital staff members are the only people who have access to Darryl at the moment. We've arranged it so that when he feels nervous, he can pause things and calm down. It's to let him feel a sense of control for his environment and situation, getting to the root of establishing his own ability to control his emotions in public and his anxiety. It's… role playing, in a way. I'll stay out of the way and let you talk to him, but please… try to follow his cues."
Nodding worriedly, Gracie offers a look to Allison, brows lifted and shoulders tense with anxiety.
While Kurweil talks to Darryl, Allison takes the opportunity to study the man. She continues doing so even as the other doctor explains the remote. "As I said, Doctor, I have no intention of doing anything to harm him, and will help him if I can," she says, and this time the reassuring smile is genuine. She may be a Company agent, yes, but it's a job. Psychiatry is more of a calling.
There's a glance to Gracie, then Allison starts forward, moving slowly so she doesn't startle Darryl. "Darryl? My name is Allison. Do you mind if I sit with you for a bit? Just there?" she asks, motioning to the nearest chairs to him, even as she approaches them. She does, however, wait for permission before she sits in one. "As Doctor Kurzweil said, we just want to talk to you for a little bit."
Lee hangs back, offering a look over her shoulder to Kurzweil before making slow progress through the room. There's distraction in Gracie as she paces around the perimeter of the day room, trepidation about even being in the room, and as she looks over the hand made posters, her brows furrow and fingers lift up to touch them one by one. Kurzweil seems to be dividing his attention, both between Gracie and Darryl.
"I— knew an Allison. She spelled it with a 'y' and that's wrong, so— um…" Speaking in a mumbling cadence, Darryl wrings his hands together around the remote, brows furrowed and dark eyes cast askance to the rain-dappled windows. "You're blonde though," he admits as if that were important, "I don't think I knew, either…" dark eyes come back to settel on Allison, and there is so much the look of a nervous child in his expression. A boy in a strange place without friends or family, alone, inside of himself and without. "What… what would you like to talk about, Allison?"
Allison settles down into the seat, giving him an interested look. "You don't think you knew what, Darryl? And yes, I'm blonde. Is that okay?" she asks, smiling. There's a pause, more studying of him. "I'd like to talk about you, Darryl. Can we talk about you? Because I've heard that you're a very interesting man. Do you think that you're interesting, Darryl?"
"Not— really?" Not really okay with her being blonde, not really sure about what he meant, not really interesting? Darryl doesn't explain, and his expression doesn't help convey any real answers either. "It's been quiet," he offers with a faint smile, "noisy before, the afternoon was noisy, things were…" there's a slow, vague motion of one of Darryl's hands as he looks down to his lap.
In that motion, Allison notices smudges on his forearm beneath his sleeve, purplish blue marks like smeared ink. Oblivious to that clue, Gracie has paused by one fingerpainting hung up on the wall, staring up at it in abject silence with her back to Allison and Darryl, though Doctor Kurzweil seems more interested in what the redheaded agent is doing now, more so than Allison's progress with Darryl.
"No? Are you sure?" Allison smiles then. "Quiet is good. How was the afternoon noisy though, Darryl? Were there a lot of people around?" She reaches over, still slowly, to try to touch his arm lightly. "It's okay, Darryl. You can trust me. You don't have to fear me," she says, and this time the words have the power of her ability behind them. "You can tell me anything."
Hypnosis is a powerful tool and some therapists suggest that traditional hypnosis can have positive results in the treatment of mental illness. Prior to the revelation of the Evolved though, this was only fringe medicine at best. These results though, that one powerful use of words and one simple touch an Evolved can convey can often times make all the difference.
Brown eyes are wide when Allison makes physical contact, and she can practically hear Kurzweil choking on his tongue when he catches that motion in his periphery. Freezing like a man presented with a skittish wild animal, Kurzweil watches with wide-eyed surprise when Darryl doesn't jerk away from Allison or even so much as make a noise. There's a momentary connection there, implied trust able to dig at a deeper subconscious root through the inroads of an ability most people fear.
"They found him and took him," is Darryl's hushed explanation, brown eyes squared on Allison's in unwavering stare. He doesn't blink, doesn't flinch, just sits with wide-eyed focus on the blonde hypnotist. Beneath Allison's fingers, she can see faint writing, partially washed off ball-point pen scrawlings all up one side of Darryl's arm.
Catching sight of Kurzweil's reaction, Lee turns around from the finger painting, brushing a thumb beneath one of her eyes as she does. Only then does she start to hesitantly make her approach, but still keeps a safe distance from the two, watching Allison work her literal magic on Darryl.
Those fingers remain on Darryl's arm, though they're still light. "Who did they take, Darryl? Who took him?" she asks gently. She wasn't just trying to make it easier for her when she promised not to harm Darryl. She glances down, just for a second, at the writing, then back to Darryl's face. "What did you write on your arms?"
For now it seems like Kurzweil and Gracie don't exist. Nothing does but this lost man sitting in front of her.
More relaxed now that Allison seems to be getting through to Darryl, Kurzweil moves over to where Gracie's standing, resting a hand on her shoulder in a way that is a bit too familiar for just a stranger. A look is shared between the two, and Kurzweil offers a nod of his head away from where Allison and Darryl are, and Gracie — while reluctant — eventually follows Kurzweil's lead towards the day room's door, standing just outside in the hall, their conversation unheard from inside.
"I don't know," Darryl's tone of voice is pleading, that he's horrified to know that someone was taken but even more overwrought with guilt that he had no idea who they were. "But I can hear them," is whispered, perhaps out of fear of Kurzweil hearing him. "They… they're all around us, right now…" Darryl's right eye gives a subtle twitch, his jaw trembling in honest fear.
Reaching up, Darryl takes a hold of Allison's hand with a subtle firmness. Leaning forward in his chair, Darryl whispers to Allison with a mixture of fear in his eyes and pleading in his tone, "They whisper."
Allison doesn't try to keep him from taking her hand. Instead she gives it a gentle squeeze. "What do they say, Darryl? It's okay, you don't have to fear them. I won't let them hurt you."
Only then does Darryl's stare divert from Allison's eyes, down to his arm where he pushes up his sleeve to reveal the writing he's made. "I— took n-notes… before it got quiet. It's quiet here, I can't hear the drum beats here, no whispers, no— noises. It's always quiet here… I like it here." While Darryl mumbles his way through a conversation with Allison, his hand reveals the writing on the inside of his arm, partly smudged from sweat and wear of his clothing.
Target is sighted at St. Joseph Hill Academy, orders?
We have visual confirmation.
Team 7, Sit-Rep
Drop your weapon
I have the target
Me too
Cover the window cover the window medbay window suspect is escaping
Eagle 5 this is Eagle 7 we are inbound
The rest, a scrawled mess of too-smudged illegible writing seems impossible to discern from one word to the next. The hand that pulled up Darryl's sleeve moves back to Allison's, trembling slowly as he creases his brows and offers a faint smile to her. "They're coming for someone else too…" is a whispered warning, and Darryl's brown eyes lift up from the writing on his arm, head shaking slowly as he does. "But I can't hear them anymore… it's quiet here."
When the writing is shown, Allison frowns slightly, taking a minute to study the words and memorize as much as possible. Then slowly her eyes lift to his face again. "Do you know why it's quiet here, Darryl?" Her head tilts. "Is that why you're here again? Just because it's quiet?" She glances back, to Gracie, and her expression has a little worry to it. But it's gone by the time she looks back to Darryl.
"Darryl…do you have any idea who they're coming for next? If you don't, it's okay, but if you do…I'd like to help them. The person they're coming for." She smiles and gives his hand another squeeze. "I know you tried to help someone before. You tried to warn the police."
Darryl's eyes wander, searching the floor and then the window, his free hand grips that remote control tightly. "I can't hear them, it's nice here… I… I don't know. The Doctors help, pills help, Doctor Kurzweil wants to help…" but Darryl furrows his brows and shakes his head at that. "He doesn't understand… nobody does." Squeezing Allison's hand, there's a worried look that dawns over Darryl before quickly fading as his hand finally lifts from Allison's.
"I can't hear them anymore. I'm— sorry. It's nice and quiet here and… I can't hear them unless I go away." Brown eyes flick to the door, and then Darryl's attention is squared on Allison again. "I can't do that— on my own. It's not safe out there, it— it's not safe. It's safe in here, by— by myself." More lucid now, Darryl's expression softens some as he reconsiders Allison.
"If I stay in here… it's quiet," is the difficult part that Darryl seems to be aware of, "but if I stay here, I can't hear them… I can't…" his eyes wander away, words trail off, and his right foot starts to jitter nervously.
Allison shakes her head. "Don't apologize, Darryl. But…do you want to be able to hear them? When you choose to, not just all the time? Because I think we can help you, Darryl. Me and my collegues. I think we can help you learn to control whether you hear the voices or not," she offers.
"You can't," sounds like an apology, but Darryl's smiling none the less, though it's hard to tell why. "But I can't make that choice anymore… they won't let me— won't let me check myself out." Swallowing tensely, Darryl shakes his head. "Not after I— I broke the way I did. They don't understand what I'm hearing, they— they don't realize that they're all around us, right now, watching us, listening to us, waiting to take us away to where they live."
With a wide-eyed stare, Darryl looks towards the rain dappled window and creases his brows. "You have to make that choice," he states with a slow shake of his head before looking back to Allison. "You're a doctor. I'm… just the patient. But… but if you do this, if you help me?"
Darryl glances over to the doorway where Kurzweil and Gracie are talking. "Eventually," his eyes sweetp back to Allison, "they'll come for you too."
Allison smiles, and it's a little sad. "That's okay. So long as I help you, that's okay. And I can help you. Because you're right. They don't understand. They don't know what it's like to be different. But Darryl? I do. And you are a great deal more sane than they give you credit for."
There's a look to the other two doctors, then to Darryl, and she gives his hand one more squeeze. "I'm going to go speak with Doctor Kurzweil, see about getting you out of here and someplace better for you, okay? But I promise, I won't just leave you here with people who can't help you because they don't understand."
Smiling faintly to Allison, Darryl nods in slow fashion and leans back in his chair, tapping the bottom corner of the remote control on his knee. "You can try," he quietly offers before looking down to his lap, pulling his sleeve down over his arm, then looking over to the rain-streaked window, listening to the droplets patter on the glass.
Just outside of the day room, Gracie and Kurzweil's conversation seems to have taken a different turn, and Allison's approach to the group standing in the hall reveals a nurse she hadn't seen before. Holding a clip board in her hand and looking at notes, Gracie is shaking her head and furrowing her brows, reading off something from a list.
"Propranolol, Aripiprazole…" A beta-blocker and an anti-depressant from Allison's pharmacological understanding. On hearing the blonde's footsteps, Gracie turns to look at Allison, offering her out the clip-board.
"Take a look at Darryl's 'scrips, look at what they have him on." There's something suggestive in Gracie's tone of voice, and it only takes Allison a moment more of scanning the list of anti-spychotics and hypertension medication he's on to realize what this mental hospital has unintentionally done to him.
They've unwittingly synthesized the cocktail of drugs used in the old Haitian pills.
Allison's head tilts at Gracie's words, but she takes the clipboard, looking it over. Yet she shows no surprise. She knew there had to be a reason that it was so quiet here for Darryl. She nods and offers the clipboard back. "Doctors, might I speak with you? Alone?" she asks, glancing pointedly to the nurse, then back to Gracie and Kurzweil.
Clearing her throat and looking to Kurzweil for permission, the nurse only dismisses herself once Kurzweil's approving nod comes. "I take it from your tone that there's something that Darryl told you that you'd like to discuss? I'm sorry if I distracted your partner a little, we had something to discuss unrelated to the case."
Tucking the clip board under one arm, Gracie looks back into the day room to Darryl, watching him become merely a silhouette for the moment that heat lightning soundlessly flashes out the window. When her blue eyes return to Kurzweil and Allison, there's still some of that nervous tension in her expression. "How did it go?"
Unrelated? That earns Gracie another look, but again, there's no surprise. "Darryl was very helpful, to a point. But it's too quiet in here for him to help us much. The drugs," she explains to Gracie. "We need to take him with us. Not only can he be extremely helpful, but he needs help to learn to control his ability."
Which explains her next action, turning to Kurzweil as her eyes flash silver again. She won't even try to do this any other way. "I need you to release Darryl into my custody, Doctor. He is not in need of psychiatric help as you know it. You and yours here cannot do for him what I and my associates can. Please, go begin the paperwork necessary for him to leave with us."
Capable as she is, Allison's ability cannot alter the very flow of the fabric of reality, which in turn creates the result that comes. "Absolutely," is exactly what she wanted to hear, but "it will probably take three to four days for the request form to process, which is as expediant as I can make it."
Expecting that answer, Gracie nod twice in slow, bobbing succession and looks askance to Allison. "That's about as best as we can hope for, we shouldn't make a scene out of this. I don't know what he told you in there but if this is important enough to bring him out, we're going to need to take time to talk to Ryans about it. We're already short our onw conscription for the year…"
There's a puzzled look from Kurzweil at that, then a scratch of one hand at the side of his chin. "I can call down to your offices and get in touch with the department that will handle the facility transfers, it shouldn't be difficult. I don't need to detain you two any longer with those details…"
Perhaps surprisingly, Allison nods and smiles. "Of course, doctor. Please call me as soon as he can be transferred." Gracie gets a nod as well. "Yes, but even if he won't approve anything, I am still a doctor in my own right, and Darryl needs help that he can't find here. But that also means that we can leave. I just need to speak with Darryl once more, to explain to him what's going on. He doesn't need anymore unexpected surprises or anything to worry about."
"Alright…" Gracie notes quietly, furrowing her brows before looking down to the floor, then up to Kurzweil, then back to Allison. "I'm— I'll meet you out in the car, alright?" Glancing back inside at Darryl, Gracie offers a faint smile before turning her attention back to Allison. "You seemed to actually have things all handled here.
"I'll walk you out," Kurzweil notes with a tip of his head into a nod before looking back over to Allison, offering her a polite nod of his head before turning with Gracie and beginning to head down the corridor, leaving Allison alone at the day room's entrance, while Darryl stares out distantly at the falling rain and flashes of lightning.
"Okay," Allison says with a nod to Gracie. She watches the two walk off and shakes her head, then turns to head back to Darryl. She touches him lightly on the shoulder and smiles. "Darryl? I've spoken with Doctor Kurzweil. He's starting the paperwork to have you transferred into my custody. It'll take a few days, but soon you'll be leaving here, and I'll be able to help you."
Large brown eyes stare up at Allison, then look down to the hand on his shoulder. Most people wouldn't be able to touch Darryl Lincoln, let alone get this close to him, but for the woman mostly untrusted within the Company thanks to her ability, she has come to find trust in a person incapable of it in nearly anyone else.
"You're not helping me," Darryl says with an apologetic smile, "you're helping the people… protecting them." There's a crease of Darryl's brows as his expression suddenly turns decidedly serious. "But… thank you. Some— sometimes, you have to do what's good, not what's right." For a man with as few faculties as Darryl has, there are indeed moments of lucidity.
That draws a confused frown from Allison. "I'm not sure I understand, Darryl. I want to help you learn to control this, so you can function like the rest of us. So you can be around people who understand. I promise though…I'll keep you safe, and I'll help you. Whatever it takes."
"I'm glad things went well with Darryl…"
Turning to leave Darryl behind in his quiet isolation, Allison Richards' heels click soundly across the tiled floor on her way out. His brown eyes stay fixed at her back the whole way, watching her leave while quietly tapping the corner of his remote control against the middle of his thigh. For all Darryl's presumed sanity, there is a vein throbbing at the side of his head, a tense nervousness filling him in anticipation of what he can only imagine is coming next.
"You asked me something… back in the lobby. How the receptionist knew me?"
Rising up from his chair and resting the remote control down on the window sill, Darryl Lincoln pushes himself up from his seat and walks down the row of windows, brushing his hand across fogged up glass to watch the front of the institution. The single silver-gray car parked out front earns his singular focus, leaning up so close to the glass that his breath fogs up the surface.
"To explain, I… have to admit that I lied to you about something."
Eventually, the blonde woman dashing through the rain towards the parked car's headlights informs Darryl that Doctor Richards has left, and he waits until the passenger's side door opens and closes before turning from the window, looking back towards where Gracie had been lingering on the periphery of the room.
"I told you that the Company recruited me out of college… and that's not entirely true."
Stepping around one of the colorful chairs filling the day room, Darryl approaches the finger painting with his brows tensed, looking over the colorful smudges and smears streaked across the coarse paper's surface, tracing them with his own fingers with a fond, sympathetic smile. Looking down, he follows the tracks of blurring colors to the bottom corner of the page.
"The Company recruited me here at Greystone, I was here for a year and a half after the bomb… as a patient."
Darryl's brown eyes square on the initials written at the corner of the sheet, G.L. and there's a twitch of his head to the side and a look over his shoulder to the rain dappled window, flashes of heat lightning visible through the blurred panes of glass.
"So believe me when I say…"
"I understand what Darryl's going through."