Blake sat at his desk at home, listlessly staring at something that could've been Spanish and trying to get the will to actually complete it. His mind kept wandering to the image of Vincent's body twitching as electricity coursed through it. He finally shoved the hopefully Spanish aside and rested his head on the table, closing his eyes against the image. Just as his mind wandered from reality, he heard his phone vibrate and snapped up to answer the phone. He winced back as he heard an excited female voice screaming through at him. "BLAKE, BLAKE, VINCENT FINALLY WOKE UP!! FOR GOOD THIS TIME, HE'S FINALLY AWAKE!!!!!" Blake dropped the phone to the desk in shock. He had just heard...what now?
"Blake?" Emma's voice came through again. "I'm sorry...what ?" Blake didn't comprehend what she'd said. "He's awake. As in, he's been awake for a few hours and he's not going to go back under." Blake stood up suddenly, banging his knees on the desk. He blinked and saw the supposed Spanish had turned back into trigonometry. Whoops. He grabbed his keys, ran out, and slammed the door. "Blake...hello?" Emma called from his phone, left next to his trig work.
After breaking all sorts of speed limits, running every red light, and making it to the hospital in the record time of 10 minutes, Blake ran into the hospital room with Vincent, Vincent's mother, and Emma. Emma noticed the crazed look in his eyes, the greasy flap his hair was, instead of being gelled out of his face. She also noticed the little hitch in Vincent's breath wasn't happy; it was scared.
"You're really awake..." Blake murmured. He dropped his keys and ran to the bedside. "You're alive..." he whispered.
Vincent whimpered at Blake's foul breath hitting his face, the insane way his eyes were glinting. He flinched away as Blake stroked his face.
Emma stood and took Blake's arm gently. "Um, Blake...I don't think-"
Vincent started screaming as he realized that THIS was the boy in the picture. He was best friends...with a total psycho? The person that had discovered his dying body, according to his mother, may have been the one to put it there! He at least had the insane tendencies for it.
Blake couldn't understand what he'd done wrong. He was just shocked was all. And yet nurses were flooding in, tearing him away from Vincent and holding Vincent down, strapping him back to the bed. One of them pulled out a syringe. Blake started screaming now, he couldn't watch Vincent be put under again. Emma could only watch in horror and escort Mrs. Flack away as her son was put under the needle.
"Um...what just happened? You're...not supposed to be back here." Vincent turned to see a blonde secretary lady coming toward him.
"Um...hi? How are you doing? I don't know what happened?" Vincent could practically see the confusion in his words but he didn't care. "Oh...oh poor thing!" the girl had been checking her tablet and apparently seen what just happened. "So Blake didn't take it too well, did he?" Vincent felt himself tear up. "No...he didn't."
"What happened?" Emma had never seen her father (or as she referred to him in her mind, the doctor) so angry before. "I have no idea. Blake wasn't at school but gave the impression of being mentally stable. Just worried, you know?" Dr. Chambers sighed and pinched his nose, forcing his glasses back up. "Em...I'm not mad. But I have to file this. You may lose your eligibility as a volunteer, for failing to prevent the situation." Ema let the tears fall. "I don't care. I just...I feel so useless, not just for that, but because I didn't know Blake was so...so gone."
Maria Flack sat in the waiting room, watching distantly as Joanie Stewart, Blake's mother, tried to tell a doctor that her baby was completely sane and did NOT need to stay in the psych ward overnight. They had been friends before this but now...Joanie didn't know how lucky she was. Her baby hadn't woken up only to be forced back to sleep.
Joanie's angered screams brought Maria from her thoughts. "HOW MANY 'ONE MORE NIGHT'S' WILL YO-?" "Joanie...that's enough. Come on, I'll walk with you to the parking." Joanie turned around, her pale makeup streaked with black mascara. As soon as she saw Maria, she crumpled into her shoulders. "C'mon," Maria repeated in a whisper.
Blake sat in his new room on his new bed. He didn't know why he was here. He hadn't thought he was doing anything wrong. "Unstable..." he muttered. He knew they heard him but it didn't bother him now. "That's all I am now....the only part of me that matters." In his mind, Vincent was there, shaking his head. "No. You're stable to me." Blake shook his head. "You don't count. You're not even here." But that didn't stop Vincent from being there, whispering to him all night in his mind.
"How did this happen?" Sophia asked no one in particular. She had sent Vincent into a state where he'd remember Blake's stability. But she didn't understand. How had he gone so far down? She ran from her white office to that of Antoinette, Blake's watcher. "Antoinette! I need to see your ward's what are you doing?" She couldn't stop herself from questioning the younger watcher's antics. She was balancing a laptop on a tower of books, using her QuikSearch tablet, and, apparently, keeping the powers-that-be on hold.
Antoinette turned, flushed, sweaty, and red. "You and everyone else in the metaphysical plain of existence! I don't even know what happened-" "Antoinette, I'm trying to be understanding but how the hell do you ignore the physical and mental health of your ward for a WEEK AND A HALF?!" "I JUST DIDN'T SEE, OKAY?!"
Sophia sighed. Now wasn't the time. "Antoinette, please. I need to see if it's safe for him to see my ward tomorrow." "Blake isn't going to hurt him. He's scared, okay? After all of this, he's afraid of himself."
Antoinette was clearly crushed so Sophia walked over and hugged her. "Hopefully, Vincent will show him he doesn't have to be. Tomorrow, they'll see. Oh, and have you heard what the matching department is doing?"
