United Chapter 39

"Sir, we're here."
David sat up with a start as they passed under the large stone arch with the black metal letters across it reading "Forest Hill". He stretched, settled back into the seat again. It had begun to sleet. "Rotten weather for the first week in November."
"It is these days. I recall when I was a boy, we would have had snow up to our waists by Thanksgiving. Now, we're lucky if we get a white Chrismas."
David nodded, "Harry, the times they are a changin'." He glanced at the tablet in his lap. Nearly seven thirty in the morning. He had some time before the board meeting to visit his projects though they might not be awake yet. Sometimes that was the way to go.
The psychiatric hospital had grown from the days when he had found it as a relic, the state ready to close its doors for a hundred reasons. He had brought in cutting edge technology, wooed some of the top therapists and psychiatrists in the country to join him in a new facility that hadn't even been realized at that time. He had taken a large chunk of his own money, much to Annie's irritation and put it forward to start renovations on the one-hundred plus year old complex. He'd had the rooms renovated in the subterranean basement for research and development. An eighty bed unit remodeled and updated to include ten more rooms for meetings, therapy sessions, family visits, and when the money started to dry up, he knew it was time to collect on the favors he'd provided for people. Within a year, the facility was ready to open back up with the approval of the state. It was fully staffed, with its own security force, nurses, doctors and in today's society, no end of patients.
He stepped out of the car under the cover of the car port at the entrance and trotted up the steps. As soon as he was through the front door, he was being hailed by the main desk receptionist. As he stopped to speak with her, he was cornered by Doctor Egan who was joined by the third floor supervisor, Mister Allen. By the time he had addressed their issues and was able to reach his office on the fourth floor, half an hour had been eaten up. He knew it would take half the morning to go through his emails and messages, and what with the meeting, he didn't even bother to start his computer. He simply shed his coat, draping it over his chair, dropped his briefcase onto his desk, so eager was he to visit his special project.
He was in the process of locking the door to his office when he head a voice behind him. "Welcome back, Director."
It was Julia, his secretary, "I didn't expect you in this early today."
David grinned, "I've been gone for two weeks. I've got a lot to catch up on."
She stepped behind her desk as she removed her coat, then flipped open the appointment book before her, "I would say emphatically, yes."
"Well then," He straightened his tie, "I'd better get started."
He was in the doorway, one foot in the hallway when Julia spoke up again, "Oh, Chase called a couple of days ago. He asked to be wired some money for a school trip. As per your instructions I wired him one hundred dollars."
"What kind of trip was this?"
She turned a couple pages back into the book, "Um, the Museum of Natural History?"
"A day trip then, that's fine. Good job. I have that board meeting today at nine. Hold my calls until after lunch."
Julia was scribbling his instructions on a small yellow notepad, "Will do."
He gave her a wink and was out the door.

It was nearly eight-fifteen when the elevator door slid open to reveal the stark light blue walls of the small research and development waiting room. Along the wall across the way were five plastic chairs in orange and light green, holdovers from the sixties. In between them was a short wooden table holding a stack of out of date magazines. This floor received few visitors. The majority of the patients in his special projects unit had no family to speak of, many of them wards of the state that had been here when he'd taken over the facility years ago. Such was the case with his star patient.
He looked to his left at the glass walled cubicle that constituted the reception desk. As he approached, he could see inside, two men, Leon, the security guard and the day receptionist, Bill. They were staring at a computer screen, one sitting, one standing, their backs turned to him, laughing. He was unable to see what they were watching and so he stood there, waiting for one of them to turn around. Eventually Leon glanced over at the window and put his hand on top of his flaming orange hair which was as red as his face which fell as David waved at him.
He reached over and punched Bill in the arm. Bill was a small, middle-aged man with a sallow complexion, a large bald spot and glasses double thick perched on his nose. In comparison, Leon, with his barrel chest and small thin Bill brought to mind Laurel and Hardy.
"Jesus," Bill swore, "The fuck you do that for?" as he swiveled around in the chair and caught sight of David. He jumped up from the chair, "Director, I am so sorry."
David tried to swallow his impatience, "That's fine, you weren't expecting me."
Bill shook his head vigorously as he reached under the counter below the window. A click and a buzz and the door to his right was being opened by Leon who ushered him in. Bill had moved to the inner counter inside the door and was now handing David a clipboard with a full sheaf of papers attached to it.
"Welcome back, sir."
David flipped through some of the papers until he found what he was looking for, "Thanks, Bill. It's good to be back." He tapped the clipboard on the counter and headed down the hallway towards a second door at the far end. Built into the wall beside that door was another booth. This one was manned only by one guard which was all it needed as he noticed David and stood up, the chair he'd been sitting in groaning in relief. Leroy was Leon's twin brother and he filled the window of the cubicle, his arms crossed, a smile on his face, same shock of red hair but cut much closer in a buzz. David had picked them both for the project on their size alone. When he had deigned to let the security supervisor interview for these positions down in R & D, the twins had immediately caught his attention.
Leroy in particular, had wedged himself into the chair before David's desk and sat with his arms crossed the same way he stood now. David had thrown out a question, pointing with his pen at Leroy's hair, "Irish?"
Leroy had laughed, a hearty snort at the end, "Scottish. My brother and I, we go to the Highland games every summer up north. I hold the current record in the caber toss."
He'd had to look up the phrase online. He found it was the equivalent of taking a telephone pole  and flipping it over end as far as possible, and in a kilt. He had given Leroy's credentials a preliminary look and hired him on the spot. His brother had come along a month later but in his estimation, Leroy was the more serious, the more dedicated of the two.
"Director." Leroy nodded and buzzed David through the door.
"How has she been?" David had folded the sheets over the edge of the clipboard.
"She had a couple....episodes. Doctor Egan was on it. He thought we should try other options."
David gritted his teeth together, "Damn it, without my approval."
Leroy shrugged, "Hey he's my boss too. I brought it up to him and he said you had left him in charge down here. He said he was just going to play around with some dosages."
Now he wished he had told Tom just where to get off earlier when he'd come to him whining about his case load for the month.
"Okay, it's not your fault. Just keep doing what you're doing."
He hurried down the hall toward suite one twenty-two where Jesse resided. She had been at Forest Hill since she was eight years old. Her parents had given up parental rights when she'd been diagnosed sociopathic. With nowhere to go at such a tender age, she had been kept there in the wards. She had grown, matured under David's watchful eye and he had made her his special interest. He had spent endless hours talking to her, written extensive papers on her behavior. He had tried environmental controls, homeopathic alternatives. He had bordered on the illegal, acquiring medicines that hadn't met FDA approval. Nothing seemed to make much of a difference for long.
It would have been easy to simply put her in one of the wards, let her live out her days in a structured environment and indeed he had tried it when she turned fourteen, against the advice of the nurses who had been there for years. They had been adamant that she stay isolated and he didn't disagree that they'd had good reason. Jessica North was a lovely child. Had she been able to function in society safely, she could have been a model with her lithe form, large green eyes, russet curly hair and sweetheart face and it only worsened as she matured.
When she'd been allowed to enter one of the wards and stay with other patients, she began to use her powers of manipulation and persuasion to get her own way. Soon even the oldest nurse on the ward was catering to her, bringing her candy bars which she was rarely allowed. She controlled what the ward watched on the big television. She would beg the orderlies to let her watch reality shows which were her favorite, especially the ones like Jersey Shore and Big Brother, chock full of manipulative behavior, lying, cheating. For her, David imagined, it must have seemed as educational television. It was one thing he eliminated when he returned her to the special projects area. She would use the other patients based on what they had or what they could do for her.
The final straw had come when one of the night nurses had found her in one of the empty ward rooms with a young, handsome orderly who had thought he'd locked the door. They'd strewn their clothes about the room in their haste and she was riding him hard. They might have even gotten away with it had she not been highly vocal about their coupling.
David had been called, racing to the facility in the middle of the night where he fired the orderly on the spot, informing him that he was extremely lucky that the cops weren't going to be involved seeing as it had been a case of statutory rape. He then escorted Jesse personally to her present quarters, explaining to her that her behavior had been deplorable. She had cried and begged not to be isolated, had even tried to turn her charm on him. Unbeknownst to her, she had charmed him long ago, however, he was firm. Now she was on a tight schedule, her meals at certain times with a closely monitored dietary schedule. Television shows had to be approved before she could watch them as did books. She would get two hours of supervised exercise either in the gymnasium on the second floor or in the enclosed yard in better weather. She had medicines in the morning and at night. Every week he would look for signs that she was improving, observe her actions, ask questions geared towards gauging her progress. Now at twenty-three years old, she was possibly the most beautiful woman he had ever seen, one he hoped to find a cure for.
He approached the door to suite one twenty-two. Beside the door was a panel with a small tv screen built into it. He pressed the button, "Jesse?"
The screen jumped to life, showing a young woman sitting cross legged on the floor in a pair of sweatpants and a t-shirt watching TV. "What?" She didn't turn around, kept watching.
"It's Doctor Wells, may I come in?"
"Yeah."
He held up his badge, the door beeped and slid open and he stepped inside.
"Where've you been?" She would still not look at him.
"I was at a convention in Washington D.C." He sat down in the easy chair directly behind her, took out his pen.
"What was it about?"
"My job."
This time she peered over her shoulder with those fetching green eyes, "You promised me you would take me outside again. That was a month ago."
David nodded, "I said I would consider it if you promised not to disappear on me like you did last time."
Her apathetic expression never wavered, "I said I was sorry, something distracted me."
He stared at her, distraction was a poor word to describe how they had finally found her when he had agreed to let her accompany him to the city one day. It had been himself, Leroy, and Jesse. He had been to a meeting, leaving her in Leroy's care which he'd managed quite well, at the end of the meeting, his colleagues had wanted to see her, asking her questions, discussing her answers.  David had promised her lunch afterward.
When they had exited the building on 23rd street however, she'd slipped into the crowd in seconds. They had run in all directions, shouting her name, scanning the busy summer city sidewalks until at the last possible moment, Leroy had spotted her. He sprinted as hard as he could, his size clearing a path for him, latching onto Jesse's arm as her foot touched the door frame of the yellow cab which had stopped when she hailed it. He had bodily lifted her struggling form and carried her back to David. Needless to say, they had headed out of the city, stopping at a fast food restaurant on the way home.
She rose from the floor, walked over and flopped on her bed. He looked about the room where she had plastered pictures torn from the magazines she was allowed to read; she wasn't allowed scissors. Some of them made sense, boys, men, even women. Others, news pictures of explosions, knives, guns. Still more, beautiful tables set for a lavish meal, pictures of recipes, pretty dresses. Her mind seemed to wander in a thousand different directions at any given time. Seeing his attention drawn to the walls, she pointed upwards with her fingers. "I need more tape."
"I will see to it you get tape. Leroy said you had a couple episodes while I was gone, what happened?"
She turned her head to the side and stared at him, "I would ask Doc Egan, what a little prick he is."
David tapped the clipboard with his pen, "Leroy's idea of episodes are usually violent." He scanned the room for any new nicks or dings in the walls. "Episodes like that?"
She smiled, "Ask Doc Egan about his leg."
David thought back to when Tom had come striding across the reception area at him, recalling a slight limp that he'd neglected to ask him about.
"Alright then." he scribbled out the medicines listed on the chart in Tom's tight scrawl, noting the time on his watch. Eight-forty. He was going to have to get upstairs and gather his material for the board meeting soon.
"Okay let's get down to business. Spirits today?"
She giggled, "Oh you know they don't let us drink here."
David sighed, "You know what I mean Jesse. How are your spirits? How do you feel?"
"With my hands." more laughter, she kicked her feet on the mattress.
David folded the papers back over the clipboard, she was obviously in one of her moods, "Okay we'll try this later Jesse, I have a meeting to..."
She was off the bed in an instant and on his lap with her arms around his neck, "Don't go, don't leave me alone today. I'll answer all your questions, I promise." The last sentence was delivered as a whisper in his ear and he nearly stood from the chair.
"Jesse, what did I say about patient doctor relationships?"
"That there aren't enough of them?" delivered with that same whisper and he began to sweat, blood racing to do his bidding unawares. He had to get her off his lap soon.
"That we maintain a distance, conduct ourselves professionally."
Jesse flipped one leg around and was now straddling him, "I'm not a pro yet though I'm sure you could teach me how to conduct myself." She ground against him once, twice and this time he did stand, tumbling her to the floor with a screech.
"Don't go, I missed you!" She was up, wrapping her arms about his neck, the clipboard clattering to the floor.
"If you don't stop this, the next visit I make will include Leroy." He removed her arms to see tears shining in her eyes, had to remind himself that she was a consummate actress.
"Will you be back to talk to me later? I promise I'll behave myself then. I've just been so godawful bored. Lonely. Even Leon doesn't talk to me anymore."
"I gave him orders not to." He bent over and picked up the clipboard. "He's not as quick witted as his brother but he's a good guard and he'd be no match for you."
She grinned again, "I'd swallow him whole."
David rubbed his temples, "I'm going to pretend I didn't hear that. I will speak with you later."
He buzzed himself out of the room and closed the door, turning around to look once more at the monitor. Jesse stared at the door for a moment longer, her face impassive, then turned and sat down on the floor in the same position he'd found her, eyes glued to the TV.
On the ride up to his office, he fought with himself as he did after each meeting. She was crazy, she was, psycopathic, apathetic. But she was gorgeous, smart, sexy, funny at times when he was receptive to her humor and he wanted her more than any woman he'd ever met. Annie had been somber, lacking passion in much of her life save the mutant cause. There she had campaigned tirelessly for mutant rights and an end to discrimination. It left nothing for the bedroom. David had vowed to find a cure for Jesse. A way to make her...and he hated to use the word, after all there were so many interpretations...normal. Only then, when he succeeded would he take her from this hospital to someplace far afield. Only then would he endeavor to make her his. Until such time, though, he would keep her safe from herself, safe from others. He laughed to himself, keep others safe from her.
He stepped from the elevator still laughing and Julia looked up, "Having a good day already?"
"Define good." he unlocked his office door, "I'm on my way out to my meeting. Ask me the same question later."