Who: Toby and Louis What: First evaluation at the hospital. Where: The mental hospital. When: Post-Louis getting booked after the car accident. Warnings/Rating: None.
The call had come during the early morning hours of Tuesday, a request for a psych evaluation on a young man who had wrapped his car around a light pole late Monday night. The name was given, filed away, before he went back to bed to catch a few more hours of sleep. It wasn't until the next morning and his conversation with Sam that things started to make sense. He knew the name of Louis Donovan had been familiar; he had briefly met the young man during Iris' stay in the hospital, though it wasn't enough of a meeting to gain any real opinion about him. So it was with an open mind that Toby went to the hospital the next morning, hoping that the night of rest after a very eventful evening had done his patient well.
Toby spent a few moments reviewing the files, both from the police and the emergency room staff when he had been admitted. Blood tests had ruled out inebriation, which was good in some ways, bad in others; at least alcohol would have been an easy thing to blame this sort of behaviour on. But Toby knew there was something deeper going on, especially after the conversation he had had with Sam. Pushing that to the side, Toby gave a short knock on the door to Louis' room before entering, file in hand, dressed as he normally was in his white coat with a dress shirt and slacks beneath. "Mr. Donovan?" he asked as he closed the door behind him, eyes on his patient instead of the file, concerned more with the person than what people had written on paper, on the notes that so many used to define who someone was. "I'm Dr. Fischer. How are you feeling this morning?"
Louis was sitting on the edge of his bed. They'd told him someone would be coming in to conduct an assessment, and he'd expected the voice at the door, but he was still greeted with a sinking sensation as the doctor introduced himself. He glanced up and met Toby's eye only briefly, turning his gaze back to his hands.
He was clean, freshly showered that morning, and he officially looked a horrific mess. There was a scrape on his cheek from being knocked to the asphalt, a spectacular bruise on his forehead, and his nose was still bound with steri strips while it healed. If he'd ever been self-conscious about his appearance before, well, he couldn't possibly have known how much there would be to worry about.
He cleared his throat. "Fine," he said, the word sticking thick as it came off the tongue.
He wanted to imagine that this, here, was rock bottom, but to even think it seemed to tempt fate. He swallowed, and tried to imagine this was somewhere else, that he didn't feel so crushed by shame that using force to expel the doctor from the room and get himself sedated seemed vaguely appealing. Instead he rubbed his hands together, looking down at where his fingers twined against each other. "I was curious to know...how long I will be expected to stay here," he asked, carefully, glancing up again, slate eyes staring out from bruised hollows. He tried not to seem afraid. He hadn't forgotten what Sam had said, about getting 'his own shit' sorted. He was starting to wonder, though, if he'd be kept here in perpetuity, locked up with the rest of the mad people, unable to prove himself sane enough to leave. The very thought made a bubble of panic rise in his chest, and he swallowed, watching the doctor.
Toby wasn't entirely sure if Louis' declaration of being 'fine' was a good or bad thing. It could be read as a sign that the man was feeling better this morning, that whatever had gripped him in the hours leading up to the accident and the handful of hours afterwards had been a simple fluke. But he had an idea that it was more along one of those generic answers that people offered when they weren't really sure how it was they were truly feeling. But he played along, satisfied enough with the lack of silence as he pulled over a stool to sit in front of him. The file was laid on the foot of the bed, leaving his hands free to lace together as he settled on the stool. "I'm glad to hear that," Toby answered, offering him a small smile as the next question was asked, the question that most people asked right away.
No matter how much he wanted to be able to give his patients a firm, concrete answer, a number of days or hours before they would be released, it was never that easy, never so cut and dry. It wasn't simply a matter of a physical injury healing, or the risk of infection to pass, and matters of the mind, the psyche, they were as unpredictable as the weather. "That depends entirely on our conversation today," Toby finally answered, leaning back just a bit as he crossed one leg over the other, balancing his hands upon his knee. "Do you want to talk about what happened last night?" he asked, the question asked lightly, gauging the reaction that was given.
Louis stared at his hands and felt his heart sink into his chest as Toby told him when he left would depend on their conversation. He couldn't be locked here forever. Could he? A small voice in his head reminded him that, yes, yes he could indeed. The skin on the back of his neck raised in goosebumps. "Of course," he said, and swallowed.
He had no idea what his file looked like to someone who didn't know him. Dual citizenship in the U.S. and U.K., a small but elite private detective practice, an employment history almost entirely within law enforcement since uni. Leaving the force abruptly to travel to America, eventually starting a business in Las Vegas. It was a strange picture, measured and then erratic, even, then unpredictable. Not to mention, of course, the business with the accident. What had he said to them? He remembered shouting something at the police officers, but he couldn't remember it now.
"I was involved in an accident," Louis said. He just kept his gaze down, now. It seemed like a better idea than risking checking the doctor's expression. "I had been suffering from insomnia. I may have fallen unconscious at the wheel. When I was conscious of myself again, I was in the street. I had climbed out of the car, and I was..." He licked his lips. "I felt threatened by the officers, and I had produced my gun. Which I am licensed to use,” he added, lamely. He’d bought a cheap one off a street dealer, but then later dug up a gun at the office when his assistant was out. Lucky for him. If he’d been caught with the hot gun, things would only be worse, now.
Toby listened intently, his attention upon the other man as he spoke of the accident and what he remembered about what happened. It coincided, for the most part, with the police reports that had already been filed, but of course from a different perspective. "Let's back up to the insomnia. How long has this been going on? Have you sought any treatment for it, over the counter or recreational?" It made him wonder how much of this was related to the family issues this small group had been experiencing. From the troubles with Iris, still on-going, to the recent events surrounding Sam, he knew that the family was under a considerable amount of stress. People reacted to such things in different, erratic ways, and there were more studies than he could count about the negative effects that stress could have on a person. And depending on the person, the coping mechanisms that were enacted were not always the healthiest; Toby knew his own weren't ideal, but this wasn't about him.
"A few months," Louis said, glancing up at last, there, for a reaction. He anticipated a frown that would precede a perscription to stay in this place for more days, more weeks. Honestly, though, what good was it going to do him to lie? You would have to be a complete fool to look at him and think everything was in order. "Things have been difficult for my family. I worry, and it's difficult to sleep." He shook his head. "No treatment," he said. "Some drinking, but just on a few nights. If I drink, or I take a pill...I worry I won't be able to wake up if something happens in the night." His phone was always on, dark and inert next to his bed, ready to light up and get him on his feet at a moment's notice.
Then Louis raised a brow as connection clicked into place. A Doctor Fischer? Could that be coincidence? "Do you know my sister?" he asked. "Iris Russell. Do you know her?"
He was grateful for the honest answers, but given the man's current state, it would have been rather simple to see through any lies that might have been presented to him. "Family issues tend to do that to a person. Cause worries," Toby commented, "and I certainly can sympathize with the thought of being inaccessible should something happen." He had had his own moments, particularly after he had finally taken the steps to institutionalize his mother, that everything would go wrong, somehow, and if he did anything to try and drive away the sleeplessness that had plagued him after the dip in the lake, then he wouldn't be there to help. To be that strong one the family needed with their mother in a hospital. "If the insomnia persists, we can discuss methods to help with that," Toby said, reaching for Louis' chart to make a note in it, a quick scratch to remind himself later on. He had just tucked his pen back in the pocket of his coat when the next question was asked, leaving Toby to glance up as he closed the file, resting it on one leg.
"Yes, I do know Iris," Toby responded, giving a small nod of his head. "If this is a problem, seeing both of you, do let me know and I can see about getting one of the other doctors to take over." But part of him wanted to keep the case, to have input as needed, if only because he knew some of the difficulties that plagued the people from the hotel, could understand the unique situation they were in. "Though I promise you that anything that is said between you and I will remain here."
Louis watched Toby take notes with the helpless stare of a convicted man watching someone tie the noose. Notes couldn't be good, could they? He was reassured, however, to know he hadn't been mistaken, that at least most of his memory was just where he'd left it. "I thought so," he murmured. "I don't know if you remember, but we spoke after her incarceration," he said, watching for some sign of recognition. Then, he'd been the concerned, exhausted family member. Now, here he was, in the same intake in the same hospital. "I visited her," he added. His gaze grew distant. "It didn't go well." No, mostly it had been Iris screaming at him, effectively blaming him for her attempted suicide after he cut her off from the family. Yes, it was all his fault.
The thought made him straighten a little. "Good," he said, in response to Toby's overtures toward doctor-patient confidentiality. "No, a change in doctors won't be necessary." He paused, adding, "Though I don't anticipate being here very long." He made an effort to seem confident about that. Instead, his gaze fixed on Toby, determination mingling with the despair that those words would be fateful in all the wrong ways.
"I do remember you," Toby said after a moment, fingers splayed out over the file, a shadow of a scar curling around his thumb, a memory of patients who weren't always easy to get along with. "Let's not talk about that right now," he said a moment later, leaning forward slightly, shifting the conversation away from that to what they were dealing with now. When Louis spoke again about how long he'd be here, or rather, the limited time he would be staying here, Toby's expression turned rueful. He could see the expression in Louis' eyes, the hope that what he said would be true, that his stay would be mercifully short.
The file was again set aside, leaving Toby to lean forward, hands clasped together, his eyes holding a certain seriousness to them. "As I said before, I can't guarantee how long you will or will not be here, Louis," Toby started, and though he picked his words carefully, the tone was not that of a parent to a child. There was nothing patronizing in the way the words were formed. "But I don't want you to concentrate on how many hours or days pass. There are problems that we need to figure out, better mechanisms for coping, helping your insomnia, and so on, and that's what we need to focus on. There's nothing wrong about being here. The people here can and will help you. I will help you. If you needed heart surgery, for instance, you wouldn't leave right after it's over, would you? There's still recovery to speak of, making sure that when you walk out of here, you don't end up back in our care immediately." He offered a small smile, brows lifting slightly. "Though I promise that I will work to get you on your way as soon as possible."
At Toby's dismissal of the mess with Iris, Louis' shoulders fell slightly. When Toby began talking about all the things he would need to stay to learn to do, he sighed, and he lowered his head. All he could hear was that it was the opposite of what he wanted to hear. "I know," he said, swiftly. "I know...that everyone means well. And I understand what it looks like, after what happened to Sam. But I can't stay here forever."
Louis wanted to try to sound appropriately mollifying, appropriately sane and collected. He couldn't help letting his anger leak into his voice, however, and he spread his hands while he spoke. "There is a man out there trying to sexually assault and torture my sister," he said, looking up at last. "He's done it once already, and if he gets his hands on her again, I don't think she'd survive it. I promised myself I wasn't going to let anything happen. Now I'm here - if he goes after her again, I'll have to sit here and let it happen." He knitted his fingers together, trying so hard to get his volume under control. Panic began to knot in his chest. "I'll have to watch on the news while they go find what's left of her. Again. I can't keep doing it. I can't keep being too late, or failing." He drew a long breath, and shook his head sharply. "I can't."
"And I'm not asking that you stay here forever, Louis," Toby said in that patient voice of his. He was quiet then, listening as Louis spoke, the anger that worked its way into his words as he explained the situation with Sam and the man who was still filling the news with reports of the manhunt that was going on. For a long while, Toby didn't say anything, watching as Louis laced his hands together, the way he drew in breaths, almost able to see the panic that had etched its way onto the man's face. "I don't believe he'll be able to find his way to her again," Toby finally said, his voice quiet, measured. "The police will be sure to protect her, now that they know she's a person of interest to him, and right now, the best thing you can do for everyone, including yourself, is put yourself back together." Toby reached out, laying a hand over Louis' own, giving them a tight squeeze. "They'll find him. She'll be safe. And you're not failing anyone. It's not your responsibility to save the world, though I know how hard it is to remember that at times. You want to protect everyone, to keep everyone safe, because what else are you good for if not that?" Another squeeze of his hand before he pulled his own back, fingers lacing together. "If you were to walk out of here right now, what would you do? Where would you go?"
Louis didn't exactly know what to do about the words, or the hand squeeze. They cut only because they all sounded right, and while no amount of reassurances could make him believe Sam was really safe, Toby's assessment that his value was eternally weighed against how well he could protect the rest of them struck deep. "Things weren't always this way," he said, trying and failing to steady his voice. "I was an officer of the law, in London. I didn't worry about my family. I just did my job, and I worried about that." He shrugged his shoulders, briefly. "Maybe I just didn't have enough of a family to turn my energy to anything else, and now that I do, it's all I can think about. Or maybe I'm trying to make up for not being here - I don't know."
Where would he go? Louis ran a hand through his hair. "I don't know," he said, knee bouncing. "I don't. I mean. I ought to get my life back together, try to recover what's left of my business, see my family." He covered his face. "No. No, I know what I would do. And it's so pathetic I can't even - I can't stand myself, it's so pathetic." Louis became dimly aware that his face was wet beneath his hands. "...I would go visit my ex in prison."
"I think everyone goes through their life with changing priorities. For a while, it's one thing. And then it turns into something different. Before, it was your career, upholding the law. Now, your concern lies more with your family. There's nothing wrong with that, but you have to realise that you have limits to what you can and cannot do in your quest to keep them safe." Toby sat back, watching Louis as he pushed fingers back through his hair, that hand soon covering his face as he stumbled through a question that was deceptively complicated even if it sounded simple.
Toby got up for a moment, moving to the bathroom to fetch a glass of water which he brought back, holding it out to the other man. "That's a good answer," Toby assured him. "Not pathetic. But you wouldn't go out and try a repeat of what just happened, would you?" he asked quietly, leaning forward so that his elbows were all but balanced upon his knees. "Why would you go to see your ex?" he asked a moment later, head tilted slightly to the side.
It had never occurred to Louis that his priorities might simply have changed. That seemed too easy, and he rolled it around for a moment. "Maybe," he conceded. "Or maybe I merely fancy myself as good at solving other people's problems." And then, when he failed to help them, he only dug himself deeper and deeper into a hole of self-doubt and self-hate. "Maybe I did fancy myself that," he corrected.
Louis let his shoulders sink. One moment, he seemed possessed of a manic energy, the next, he was sluggish, still, and cold. "No," he said, feeling his resolve curdle with shame. "I wouldn't. I feel as if I can't give up or I would only be as weak as he thinks, as I think. But I wouldn't do - that, again."
As for Ian, Louis shook his head. "We have unfinished business," he said, into his hands, letting them slip down, away from his eyes. "Although I doubt he thinks of it as such. If he thinks of me at all."
The ups and downs, the rollercoaster that Louis seemed to be experiencing in terms of his emotions and thoughts was, in a way, worrisome, but Toby wasn't entirely convinced that it wasn't just a temporary thing. Stress did strange things to people, unpredictable things, and given the sort of stress that Louis had been under between Sam and Iris and everything else, it was hardly surprising he was reacting the way he had.
"You're not giving up," Toby emphasized, his voice gentle yet firm. "But you have to know your limits. Where you can help the most." He reached out with the glass of water, offering it to Louis. "As for your ex, what he thinks of you is hardly something you can help. What matters most is how you feel about the situation, about the unfinished business you have with him. That is what you can affect, not necessarily how he feels about it." He paused, considering. "Here's what we're going to do right now," Toby said a moment later. "We're going to make sure you get some rest and keep an eye on that concussion. How comfortable are you with the idea of medication?" Toby didn't consider himself an advocate of solving your problems with a handful of pills, but he recognized that they could be useful under the right circumstances.
Louis glanced over to the water glass, hesitating a moment before taking it from Toby. He took a short swallow and dropped his other hand, clutching the glass with both. "Right," he said, thinly. Truthfully, if he could have changed how he felt about Evan, how it hurt when he thought of him, he would have changed that sometime in the year since he'd gone into jail. Yet here he was, the first person on his mind when he was locked in the loony bin. It made him think of the memories he'd seen, once, of Evan’s first stint in jail, drifting eternally on pills, abused by his cellmates. Toby's question about medication came just then, and he looked up from the glass of water, unaware his gaze had drifted away again. "Medication?" he blurted out, eyes widening a tick. His expression softened as he drew into himself again. Toby wanted to help, surely, but he knew firsthand what that might do to a person. "Not very," he admitted, as if that wasn't obvious enough. "I'm not required to take it, am I?" Louis knew the ins and outs of American law - he wouldn't be a very good P.I. if he didn't - but the mental health sector had never been a specialty. He was starting to wish he'd had more cases that ended in madness.
He could see the panic in those eyes at the mention of medication, and while he could understand those feelings, he also was frustrated by them. There was such a stigma associated with these sort of things that Toby found infuriating at times. If you were ill, you wouldn't balk at antibiotics offered to help you get better, so why people balked at anything else, well, he didn't quite get that. "It wouldn't be permanent," Toby said a moment later. "I saw a woman not so long ago who went on medication while her husband was going through cancer treatments. It helped her get through it so she could be stronger for him. Once things settled, she came off the medication. But we'll talk about that later." Toby wouldn't force it upon him, not if Louis was so fervently against it. "For now, I'm going to get you something to help you sleep tonight, nothing heavy, and we'll talk again in the morning." Toby rose to his feet, taking the file with him as he gave another look towards Louis. "As worried as you are about your family, I know there is at least one of them who's quite worried about you. So let's get you feeling more like yourself, alright?" He offered a smile, something he hoped was reassuring, before letting himself out of the room.