PCP
Following Anne's thread with Mamet here:
Anne found herself amongst the trees behind the garden, staring at them curiously, reaching out to touch their skins from time to time. There were so many of them, and so little of her. She reached for a larger leaf, bigger than her head, nearly bigger than her whole body, and stumbled and fell before she ever quite reached it. She sat where she fell, on the warm ground with her back against the tree, and stayed merely witness to the world around her.
Ray had been having an odd day. Clarice Starling was all up in arms about Hannibal Lecter being on the island but he was fairly certain she was wrong. There were an awful lot of rude people here and none of them seemed to be going anywhere anytime soon. He had seen Anne and was on his way over to her when he noticed that she was also acting... Freaky was probably the best word for it. What the hell was wrong with her? She was different than most people, granted. She saw fairies in waterfalls and stuff like that but she didn't randomly fall and just stay there. Or be so weird about leaves and touching them. He crouched down where she was sitting and rubbed his forehead. Why him? Why was it always him? "Hey. Anne. What's going on?"
Anne was very quite for a few moments after that, staring at something past Ray, something curious and compelling. She reached out for it, but found it was beyond her grasp. How odd. Then, finally, she looked up to see she was not alone. "Ray," she said, giving him a smile, a tugging of her lips and cheeks. "Ray, hi Ray. Are you gardening?"
Oh hell no. Someone was going to die if she was on drugs. Who the hell gave Anne Shirley drugs? "No, that's more like something Fraser or Horatio would do together." Bad mental image there. He cleared his throat and eyed her closely. "So what have you been up to?"
Anne reached for Ray, then, but he seemed oddly out of reach as well. "I was sad," she said, very matter-of-factly, lowering her arm to her side again. "I'm not sad anymore. Have you ever felt sad like that, Ray, sad like you won't ever feel happy again? I didn't want to feel like that anymore, I don't want to feel like that anymore, it's a terribly sad feeling."
"I've been sad but at the moment I think it's safe to say I'm severely pissed off. Okay, you were sad. So. What changed that?" And whose wikiup needed burning?
"Oh, he was so very nice, Ray," she said, reaching for him again. She thought her fingers brushed against something that time. "We sat and talked about the rain and about loneliness and melting. It was so very nice of him to help me, don't you think? I think it was just about the nicest thing."
Why did this sound like she had been hanging out with the same loser as Frannie? What the hell was wrong with the women he knew? "Okay so you sat and talked and then...."
"He had a little tablet that makes you happy," said Anne, with a blissful smile. She wasn't sure this was happy exactly but it wasn't unhappy and she liked that, she liked that a lot, it was such a huge relief she wasn't even sure she had words for it. "I didn't even know there were remedies for sale that did such a thing. Wasn't it nice of him to share with me? Especially since he certainly won't be able to get any more, not here on the island, there aren't any travelling apothecaries or chemists or anything here."
Ray started to bang his head against the tree before he remembered this was Anne and not Fraser. She'd probably worry about the tree so he stopped. "Look... Anne....Kiddo, next time some guy says he can cheer you up and gives you pills, you say no. You have to say no, next time. Okay?"
"Why?" she asked him, with big, big eyes. "He didn't offer me liquor, Ray, or opium. It was a remedy, it's okay. It's not like any I've had before, of course, but I think he came from some time that wasn't my own--" She paused mid-sentence and stared out at something past ray again, the way the leaves were playing with each other. "Wasn't that nice of him?" she said again, a couple of minutes later.
"No," Ray said, trying not to be angry. "No, Anne, it was not nice of him, okay? You.... You just don't know, do you?" God, he didn't want her to know. He didn't want to tell her about the sort of men there had been in Chicago and probably were even up in Canada. Even in her time. He felt sick and he'd be sad later. He'd find Fraser and he'd be upset. He kept that in mind and took a deep breath. "You, uh, here let's get you back home."
"Why?" said Anne again, even as she reached for him and made contact this time, with his shirt, she thought, some kind of fabric. Funny how she wasn't sure, when he was right there. "You don't like the garden, Ray? I spend a lot of time in the garden, I planted my trees, right over there, and there are tomatoes and strawberries and flowers and trees and grass and dirt and sometimes there are butterflies that flutter around when I'm reading in the garden with my trees."
"Anne, please, let's just get you home." He couldn't even think there was anything nice about the island let alone her garden at the moment. What the fuck was wrong with people? How could anyone talk to Anne and give her hardcore drugs? "Who's this guy, Anne? Who's your friend?"
"Billy," she said instantly. "No, Ray." She thought harder. "No, Leoben." Finally she just looked up at Ray and confessed. "I don't remember. Is it okay that I don't remember, Ray? It seems wrong to not remember the name of someone who was so nice to me and didn't want me to feel so sad anymore."
You're killing me here, Anne. He wasn't fucking nice, okay? He poisoned you. You're just a kid for Christ's sake. No way it was Kowalski. Just, no way. Billy had adopted a kid and Leoben was a robot. Mamet. It was that bastard that was living with his sister. "Yeah, sure. It's time to get you back to your wikiup."
Anne let him help her up this time, stumbling to her feet and struggling a little to stay upright until she found her legs again. Then once she did, she skipped a couple of steps, right onto a friendly banana leaf. "Okay," she said, tilting her head to the side and watching the way Ray's face moved. "Do you know the way home, Ray? Are we going to your home or my home? Your home and my home are very close together, aren't they, I've always liked that, I've always liked having you very nearby."
Ray just nodded, gently tugging her forward. He was going to lose it any minute now. He couldn't keep anyone safe. Hadn't he proved that already with Benny? But goddamnit, couldn't he have protected one little girl? "Which one do you prefer?"
Though she knew that she was right by Ray's side, Anne felt like she was a couple of steps behind them, the whole way. "You can come to my home," she said. She suspected after she said it that she might've waited too long to answer, but it hadn't seemed like long. "I've done so very many things to it, Ray, I have a table and chairs and curtains and Billy made me a windchime, though the wind doesn't hit it very often so I should probably hang it somewhere other than where it is right now."
He continued nodding, grateful that if nothing else she would have no idea ever of how upset he was. Of how much he hated this place. He hadn't bothered with adding much to his hut. He didn't care to. What was the point? "Yeah okay. Tomorrow I'll help you move the windchime."
She jumped over something beneath her feet and almost stumbled again, but Ray had her and she was all right. "Thank you, Ray," she said. "It's a very beautiful walk, isn't it, all these trees and flowers and birds and other things that make noises in the bushes, all these living things around us like this all the time. Ray, are you sad?"
"I'm fine," he lied. He was good at saying he was fine. Almost as good as a Canadian. He didn't want her to cry or worry about him or anything. "It's nice."
Anne jumped again, over something that looked awfully big, and wondered why Ray didn't jump, too. She didn't quite land on her feet this time, sliding to the path on her bottom and finding it surprisingly comfortable there. It had never looked quite like this to her before.
Ray blinked and then knelt down. "Uh, we're almost there. Do you want me to carry you or something?"
Anne looked up at him. "No, I don't need to be carried," she said, quite certainly. "I'm only just having a moment with the ground. Will you give me your hand, Ray? I'm not sure that I can find it."
Ray gently grabbed her hand and gingerly pulled her up to her feet. "Did he tell you what the pill you took was called?"
"He told me it would make me happy," Anne said again. Maybe that was the name of it, only it seemed to her to be a very strange name, not like Lake of Shining Waters which was very pretty, she thought. "Wasn't that nice of him?"
"No because what he gave you could hurt you. Because you might end up wanting it more than anything else, Anne." Because because because. There were so many reasons and things he could have scared her with. In the end it boiled down to drugs were bad and he was a cop.
"It doesn't hurt, Ray," and said, stumbling along besidebehind him again. "Are you worried it hurts? It doesn't hurt anymore, you don't have to worry about me. I'm okay, Ray."
"Then that's something," Ray muttered, leading her forward.
Anne felt a curious pleasure when her hut, her home, came into view, though she still felt like she was following Ray and herself into it. There was her door, and her chimes, and her table, and her bed. As soon as they were inside she starting pulling her shirt off over her head, because didn't that feel better, feel so much better.
Ray just coughed and looked away. And then he went to see where the windchimes were. Jesus. Mamet was getting his head bashed in, no two ways about it.
Once her shirt was off, Anne trying to do the same thing with her skirt, but she couldn't seem to find the drawstring, couldn't seem to quite make it work. "Ray, help me," she said, "help me I can't get this off, can you help me get this off?"
Ray felt like he was going to puke all over but okay. He could do this. He'd bathed his nieces and nephews before. He could... Well, he put her hands on the drawstring and backed away again. "Uh. Here."
Anne tugged and tugged but it only seemed to be getting tighter so she left it where it was, it was too much work. She sat down, lay down really, at the edge of her bed, half on the floor and half on the softness all packed up in her blankets. "Thank you," she said, because he'd tried at least.
Ray sat down near by. Holy shit this was wrong and she still thought that fucker who gave her this shit was a good guy. Well, he had a gun chock full of bullets. Mamet came anywhere near this wikiup and he was getting a face full of lead. "You're welcome."
"Ray?" she said, after a very long quiet, a very long nice quiet, outside of her head and inside of her head, too. "Ray, did I do something wrong?"
In the long silence, Ray kept thinking about the train station and Fraser. He was getting too old for this shit. He wiped at his forehead. "You didn't know," he said quietly. "Just don't do it again. Don't take pills, Anne. Please."
Anne hid her face behind both her hands, the goodness floating away from her, like the wind took it out the doorway and over the ocean. "I did something wrong," she said. "Oh, Ray. Please don't tell anyone. Please. Please. Please."
"Hey...hey no," Ray said quietly. Shit. "No, Anne. You didn't do anything wrong. It'll be okay."
"Oh please, Ray, please please. Please don't tell. Please don't. Please stay with me. Will you stay with me, here? Please, Ray." Anne stopped talking but her mouth kept moving, over and over again, please please please.
"I'll stay," Ray told her in a soothing but urgent tone. "I'm not going anywhere, okay? I promise, I'm here." I just wish to God I'd been here sooner. That's all.
Anne shifted herself further up onto the bed until her whole body was on the softness, curling herself into a ball and letting Ray soothe her. And even though the hut was dark and she didn't feel happy now and everything felt closer again and hurt again the same as it had before, it was okay. Ray was with her, it was okay.
Ray gently touched her hair. He could do that. He wasn't his dad, he didn't kick someone when they were down if they didn't deserve it. She wasn't a criminal or a stranger. She was his friend, almost a sister. And he just wish he could make this stop.
It took a long time for Anne to feel sleepy, hours maybe but she couldn't be sure, she didn't know at all, shaking sometimes, her eyes flying open to stare but seeing nothing there. But when sleep finally came she welcomed it gratefully. Ray was still there.
[Dated to July 19]
Anne found herself amongst the trees behind the garden, staring at them curiously, reaching out to touch their skins from time to time. There were so many of them, and so little of her. She reached for a larger leaf, bigger than her head, nearly bigger than her whole body, and stumbled and fell before she ever quite reached it. She sat where she fell, on the warm ground with her back against the tree, and stayed merely witness to the world around her.
Ray had been having an odd day. Clarice Starling was all up in arms about Hannibal Lecter being on the island but he was fairly certain she was wrong. There were an awful lot of rude people here and none of them seemed to be going anywhere anytime soon. He had seen Anne and was on his way over to her when he noticed that she was also acting... Freaky was probably the best word for it. What the hell was wrong with her? She was different than most people, granted. She saw fairies in waterfalls and stuff like that but she didn't randomly fall and just stay there. Or be so weird about leaves and touching them. He crouched down where she was sitting and rubbed his forehead. Why him? Why was it always him? "Hey. Anne. What's going on?"
Anne was very quite for a few moments after that, staring at something past Ray, something curious and compelling. She reached out for it, but found it was beyond her grasp. How odd. Then, finally, she looked up to see she was not alone. "Ray," she said, giving him a smile, a tugging of her lips and cheeks. "Ray, hi Ray. Are you gardening?"
Oh hell no. Someone was going to die if she was on drugs. Who the hell gave Anne Shirley drugs? "No, that's more like something Fraser or Horatio would do together." Bad mental image there. He cleared his throat and eyed her closely. "So what have you been up to?"
Anne reached for Ray, then, but he seemed oddly out of reach as well. "I was sad," she said, very matter-of-factly, lowering her arm to her side again. "I'm not sad anymore. Have you ever felt sad like that, Ray, sad like you won't ever feel happy again? I didn't want to feel like that anymore, I don't want to feel like that anymore, it's a terribly sad feeling."
"I've been sad but at the moment I think it's safe to say I'm severely pissed off. Okay, you were sad. So. What changed that?" And whose wikiup needed burning?
"Oh, he was so very nice, Ray," she said, reaching for him again. She thought her fingers brushed against something that time. "We sat and talked about the rain and about loneliness and melting. It was so very nice of him to help me, don't you think? I think it was just about the nicest thing."
Why did this sound like she had been hanging out with the same loser as Frannie? What the hell was wrong with the women he knew? "Okay so you sat and talked and then...."
"He had a little tablet that makes you happy," said Anne, with a blissful smile. She wasn't sure this was happy exactly but it wasn't unhappy and she liked that, she liked that a lot, it was such a huge relief she wasn't even sure she had words for it. "I didn't even know there were remedies for sale that did such a thing. Wasn't it nice of him to share with me? Especially since he certainly won't be able to get any more, not here on the island, there aren't any travelling apothecaries or chemists or anything here."
Ray started to bang his head against the tree before he remembered this was Anne and not Fraser. She'd probably worry about the tree so he stopped. "Look... Anne....Kiddo, next time some guy says he can cheer you up and gives you pills, you say no. You have to say no, next time. Okay?"
"Why?" she asked him, with big, big eyes. "He didn't offer me liquor, Ray, or opium. It was a remedy, it's okay. It's not like any I've had before, of course, but I think he came from some time that wasn't my own--" She paused mid-sentence and stared out at something past ray again, the way the leaves were playing with each other. "Wasn't that nice of him?" she said again, a couple of minutes later.
"No," Ray said, trying not to be angry. "No, Anne, it was not nice of him, okay? You.... You just don't know, do you?" God, he didn't want her to know. He didn't want to tell her about the sort of men there had been in Chicago and probably were even up in Canada. Even in her time. He felt sick and he'd be sad later. He'd find Fraser and he'd be upset. He kept that in mind and took a deep breath. "You, uh, here let's get you back home."
"Why?" said Anne again, even as she reached for him and made contact this time, with his shirt, she thought, some kind of fabric. Funny how she wasn't sure, when he was right there. "You don't like the garden, Ray? I spend a lot of time in the garden, I planted my trees, right over there, and there are tomatoes and strawberries and flowers and trees and grass and dirt and sometimes there are butterflies that flutter around when I'm reading in the garden with my trees."
"Anne, please, let's just get you home." He couldn't even think there was anything nice about the island let alone her garden at the moment. What the fuck was wrong with people? How could anyone talk to Anne and give her hardcore drugs? "Who's this guy, Anne? Who's your friend?"
"Billy," she said instantly. "No, Ray." She thought harder. "No, Leoben." Finally she just looked up at Ray and confessed. "I don't remember. Is it okay that I don't remember, Ray? It seems wrong to not remember the name of someone who was so nice to me and didn't want me to feel so sad anymore."
You're killing me here, Anne. He wasn't fucking nice, okay? He poisoned you. You're just a kid for Christ's sake. No way it was Kowalski. Just, no way. Billy had adopted a kid and Leoben was a robot. Mamet. It was that bastard that was living with his sister. "Yeah, sure. It's time to get you back to your wikiup."
Anne let him help her up this time, stumbling to her feet and struggling a little to stay upright until she found her legs again. Then once she did, she skipped a couple of steps, right onto a friendly banana leaf. "Okay," she said, tilting her head to the side and watching the way Ray's face moved. "Do you know the way home, Ray? Are we going to your home or my home? Your home and my home are very close together, aren't they, I've always liked that, I've always liked having you very nearby."
Ray just nodded, gently tugging her forward. He was going to lose it any minute now. He couldn't keep anyone safe. Hadn't he proved that already with Benny? But goddamnit, couldn't he have protected one little girl? "Which one do you prefer?"
Though she knew that she was right by Ray's side, Anne felt like she was a couple of steps behind them, the whole way. "You can come to my home," she said. She suspected after she said it that she might've waited too long to answer, but it hadn't seemed like long. "I've done so very many things to it, Ray, I have a table and chairs and curtains and Billy made me a windchime, though the wind doesn't hit it very often so I should probably hang it somewhere other than where it is right now."
He continued nodding, grateful that if nothing else she would have no idea ever of how upset he was. Of how much he hated this place. He hadn't bothered with adding much to his hut. He didn't care to. What was the point? "Yeah okay. Tomorrow I'll help you move the windchime."
She jumped over something beneath her feet and almost stumbled again, but Ray had her and she was all right. "Thank you, Ray," she said. "It's a very beautiful walk, isn't it, all these trees and flowers and birds and other things that make noises in the bushes, all these living things around us like this all the time. Ray, are you sad?"
"I'm fine," he lied. He was good at saying he was fine. Almost as good as a Canadian. He didn't want her to cry or worry about him or anything. "It's nice."
Anne jumped again, over something that looked awfully big, and wondered why Ray didn't jump, too. She didn't quite land on her feet this time, sliding to the path on her bottom and finding it surprisingly comfortable there. It had never looked quite like this to her before.
Ray blinked and then knelt down. "Uh, we're almost there. Do you want me to carry you or something?"
Anne looked up at him. "No, I don't need to be carried," she said, quite certainly. "I'm only just having a moment with the ground. Will you give me your hand, Ray? I'm not sure that I can find it."
Ray gently grabbed her hand and gingerly pulled her up to her feet. "Did he tell you what the pill you took was called?"
"He told me it would make me happy," Anne said again. Maybe that was the name of it, only it seemed to her to be a very strange name, not like Lake of Shining Waters which was very pretty, she thought. "Wasn't that nice of him?"
"No because what he gave you could hurt you. Because you might end up wanting it more than anything else, Anne." Because because because. There were so many reasons and things he could have scared her with. In the end it boiled down to drugs were bad and he was a cop.
"It doesn't hurt, Ray," and said, stumbling along besidebehind him again. "Are you worried it hurts? It doesn't hurt anymore, you don't have to worry about me. I'm okay, Ray."
"Then that's something," Ray muttered, leading her forward.
Anne felt a curious pleasure when her hut, her home, came into view, though she still felt like she was following Ray and herself into it. There was her door, and her chimes, and her table, and her bed. As soon as they were inside she starting pulling her shirt off over her head, because didn't that feel better, feel so much better.
Ray just coughed and looked away. And then he went to see where the windchimes were. Jesus. Mamet was getting his head bashed in, no two ways about it.
Once her shirt was off, Anne trying to do the same thing with her skirt, but she couldn't seem to find the drawstring, couldn't seem to quite make it work. "Ray, help me," she said, "help me I can't get this off, can you help me get this off?"
Ray felt like he was going to puke all over but okay. He could do this. He'd bathed his nieces and nephews before. He could... Well, he put her hands on the drawstring and backed away again. "Uh. Here."
Anne tugged and tugged but it only seemed to be getting tighter so she left it where it was, it was too much work. She sat down, lay down really, at the edge of her bed, half on the floor and half on the softness all packed up in her blankets. "Thank you," she said, because he'd tried at least.
Ray sat down near by. Holy shit this was wrong and she still thought that fucker who gave her this shit was a good guy. Well, he had a gun chock full of bullets. Mamet came anywhere near this wikiup and he was getting a face full of lead. "You're welcome."
"Ray?" she said, after a very long quiet, a very long nice quiet, outside of her head and inside of her head, too. "Ray, did I do something wrong?"
In the long silence, Ray kept thinking about the train station and Fraser. He was getting too old for this shit. He wiped at his forehead. "You didn't know," he said quietly. "Just don't do it again. Don't take pills, Anne. Please."
Anne hid her face behind both her hands, the goodness floating away from her, like the wind took it out the doorway and over the ocean. "I did something wrong," she said. "Oh, Ray. Please don't tell anyone. Please. Please. Please."
"Hey...hey no," Ray said quietly. Shit. "No, Anne. You didn't do anything wrong. It'll be okay."
"Oh please, Ray, please please. Please don't tell. Please don't. Please stay with me. Will you stay with me, here? Please, Ray." Anne stopped talking but her mouth kept moving, over and over again, please please please.
"I'll stay," Ray told her in a soothing but urgent tone. "I'm not going anywhere, okay? I promise, I'm here." I just wish to God I'd been here sooner. That's all.
Anne shifted herself further up onto the bed until her whole body was on the softness, curling herself into a ball and letting Ray soothe her. And even though the hut was dark and she didn't feel happy now and everything felt closer again and hurt again the same as it had before, it was okay. Ray was with her, it was okay.
Ray gently touched her hair. He could do that. He wasn't his dad, he didn't kick someone when they were down if they didn't deserve it. She wasn't a criminal or a stranger. She was his friend, almost a sister. And he just wish he could make this stop.
It took a long time for Anne to feel sleepy, hours maybe but she couldn't be sure, she didn't know at all, shaking sometimes, her eyes flying open to stare but seeing nothing there. But when sleep finally came she welcomed it gratefully. Ray was still there.
[Dated to July 19]