𝐀𝐧𝐠𝐞𝐥 𝐨𝐟 𝐌𝐞𝐫𝐜𝐲 [Ratched X Reader]

14 | Ruthless

A/N: Thanks to everyone for giving me motivation to continue hehe <3

━━━━━༻❁༺━━━━━

I couldn't get her out of my head. Once her beautiful name crept into my mind I couldn't pull myself away from thinking about her and there was seemingly nothing I could do to soothe my restless mind. The scenario of yesterday's night felt surreal - too good to be true. But what now? Had the coldhearted Nurse Ratched really developed a liking towards me after all? Had she finally opened up to me? Or had the influence of alcohol played a part in her actions?

Questions. Questions. Questions.

I'd been tossing and turning in bed but of course, my questions wouldn't be answered out of anywhere... But one thing I knew for sure: I couldn't live any longer with this uncertainty. Therefore I had to talk to her. No way around it.

Little did I know what lay ahead...

When I made my way to the reception counter in the morning I felt tension building in my body at the thought of seeing the nurse again but suddenly the querulous voice of an old man sitting in a wheelchair sounded and tore me out of my thoughts. He brought up both hands to his pained face and continued whining but one of the nurses standing at the counter was quick to rush to him and tried to soothe him but ended up pushing him towards the other corridor to avoid alarming the other few patients sitting in the lobby.

That was when Nurse Ratched walked around the corner with a clipboard in her hands while she was busy talking with another nurse. As her white rubber heels hit the tiled floor of the entrance area her presence was announced to everyone around. The strong impact she had on others was still simply fascinating to me. Yet I sensed for some odd reason that something about the Nurse seemed different today but I couldn't quite put a finger on it...

I waited for the other nurse on Ratched's side to separate and finally disappear in the elevator before I slowly approached the head nurse who was completely focused on writing something down on her clipboard, her expression unfazed as ever but the devil lay in the details: Getting closer I noticed that her normally perfectly done updo looked a bit lose, her dark red lipstick also wasn't perfectly applied. And behind her cool composure hid another emotion, barely noticeable though: She seemed kind of stressed.

Before I could get too close Nurse Ratched suddenly looked up, realizing she was being watched and when her dead stare met me for a moment she quickly straightened and simply walked in the other direction with fast steps and without saying a single word or giving me a chance to react. Entirely perplexed I stood there and watched her disappear in the corridor, the sound of her heels tailing off after she was out of sight.

Oh no... What was that supposed to mean? That wasn't a good sign at all.

The strong feeling of uneasiness grew and grew throughout the day as Ratched neither showed up at medication time nor crossed my paths in any way a single time till evening, which was more than unusual, and of course, I found myself overthinking the matter, pulling me into frustration. Why had she acted so strangely when she'd spotted me in the lobby?

I'd dared to ask a young nurse at the reception counter about the head nurse but her answers were always "Oh, you've just missed her", or "Sorry, I don't know, Miss" Therefore, I waited and waited impatiently in the lobby at evening for Nurse Ratched to pass the reception counter as I watched the staff one after another leave the facility, then the time came when I was asked by Nurse Bucket to head to my room as well, so I reluctantly got up and approached the dark corridor with my gaze fixed on the floor, no more understanding the world.

And at some point, the whole issue became coherent at once: Nurse Ratched had probably been avoiding me the whole time because she regretted what she'd done last night. At the horrible realization, I gulped, feeling my heart sink. Of course...! What else could've been the reason for stabbing me with her cold eyes in the morning, then dodging me all day? I could almost read this woman like an open book by now: Wasn't this exactly how she dealt with problems? Building a wall around her and let her cold, distant expression talk, instead of making the effort of addressing a matter?

Surely, she was doing it again: She was playing with me! Had I been dazzled by her ostensible soft side and fallen again for her stupid game? Suddenly I felt deeply ashamed of yesterday's event. We'd shared this very intimate moment and now she just pushed me away like a used toy she didn't need anymore...

I couldn't tell exactly what I felt the moment I realized what had been going on. On the one side, it felt like she'd stabbed me in the chest. Again. On the other side, I just felt so stupid and angry for trusting her, for letting her do all of this to me. This woman had already brought me so much misery and yet I'd made the fatal mistake of trusting her again.

Having looked around to check whether Nurse Bucket or any of the staff members were following me, my feet took me past my room towards the other corridor, aiming for the nurses' room, hoping to meet her there, to find answers for my burning questions. My last chance. And this time my prayers were answered.

When I spotted her alone in the small room with her back to me, apparently putting on her gloves I once again checked the area before I sneaked in with mixed feelings and a racing mind.

"Can we talk?", my weak voice filled the room, making the head nurse spin around - a look of genuine surprise on her face but it was quickly replaced with another mask of hers.

"I strongly believe you don't have any business here", she just growled and let her attention wander to her gloves again. "Go back to your room"

A moment of uncomfortable silence followed. Although I'd already mentally prepared for what was about to come it already felt like the world had just fallen apart.

"How can you do this to me?! What's the matter? Why are you avoiding me?", I finally choked out, my voice firmer now. Ratched just fleetingly glimpsed at me, rather unimpressed, then buttoned her coat and my frustration grew. "What about last night? Don't you have anything to say about that?"

"Nothing happened last night", the older woman suddenly snapped and snatched her pocket with more force than needed. "I made a mistake. I shouldn't have come to your room, I was drunk. Forget it, ERASE it from your mind!"

"No, please stop...You don't mean that..." Tearing up at her words I bit my lip, trying not to burst into tears. I was so tired of crying all the time, to have to go through all of this pain on my own, knowing no one here would understand me. Even though I'd learned from the past that trusting people too easily was always a risky step I'd made the same mistake over and over again. Ironic. I should've realized earlier that she would never let me in, that trying to get to her would only end in getting hurt.

"Yes, I do", Nurse Ratched hissed. "Don't you ever dare telling someone about this"

"But Mildred-"

"DON'T you ever call me Mildred", she suddenly yelled at me and her brown eyes flashed dangerously, which made me gasp in shock.

For a moment we just stared at each other. I couldn't find any words, still taken aback and hurt by this sudden harsh approach of hers. Indeed she didn't want to let me in at all - that seemed final...

"Don't you feel any remorse at all!? You let me in, then you just push me away! I thought you have a good heart somewhere between all of these walls you built around you but looks like I was wrong. In the end, you only care about yourself. Who even are you?!"

As I couldn't bear waiting for her answer, I instinctively turned around and just ran, leaving the nurses' room behind me as fast as I could. How could I've been so blind all this time? This woman had brought me so much pain already but still, something in me had hoped she could save me from this hell. Maybe it was even her who'd always been "the monster under the bed" - maybe even the main source for all this pain I'd experienced here...

━━━━━༻❁༺━━━━━