Sound carries strangely in small cities, and the sirens could be heard all the way down to the Djose Mental Ward—better known as Loose Cannon Hall, where someone was screaming and clinging to a table leg, afraid of the sound.
The sirens weren’t meant for him. They were meant for the fight down the streets, where needles were more common than pigeons in the street and most people who lived there only did so because they couldn’t afford a bus out.
Bars didn’t keep windows from being broken. Streetlights barely worked. One saw more spray paint than actual wall on every building. Every animal that wandered here was homeless, hostile, hungry, injured, or scarred.
Everyone had spoken about how the police force had gone to hell two and a half years ago. There were neighborhoods like this one police cars never went to unless they were called for something serious—and no phones worked here anyway. If you were rich enough to have a cellphone, you were rich enough to keep you ass out of here.
None of three belonged here. None of them even lived here. One of them would have died if one of them—a detective on the police force—hadn’t made the call.
Yet he was not about to let his friend, drunk and violent as he was go to jail. Not even when the victim lay unconscious and bloody on the dirty sidewalk.
Soon, there were new sirens. More cop cars, and an ambulance.
Two left in the cars, one in the ambulance. No one in the neighborhood thought it was at all out of the ordinary and didn’t give the police a second glance—those who gave them a first glance were the ones who started running away.
"Shit," Luzzu said, shaking his head as he dialed the number of the victim’s closest kin. "How many do you think’ll end up in Screwball Central?"
"I don’t wanna think about it," Gatta said.
"Hello?" a chirpy voice answered over the phone.
"Hello. Rikku, were you gonna report a missing husband later tonight?"
"I—but—"
"Ma’am, there’s been a fight. We managed to detain the other two, but—"
"He’s not dead, is he?"
"Not last we checked. He’s in the ambulance as we speak. Unless the car crashes, he should be fine. You can see him tommorrow, he’s gonna need some definite intensive care first."
"I—thank you, officer. I guess. Bye."
"Yeah, bye, miss."
"Real polite there," Gatta ssaid, caustically.
"Hey, I’m a cop. I’m not paid to be polite."
"But you’re told to."
"I’m also told Auron was a damned good part of the force, and we just dragged him into a car in cuffs after breaking his glasses restraining him."
"Point," Gatta said. "You wanna get some coffee?"
"I’d better; I got four more hours of this."
* * * * *
"Hi, I’m Dr. Paine—no pun intended."
"Oh… goody," Rikku said.
"It was worse when I used to be a cop," the doctor said blandly. "You’re Rikku, Tidus’s wife, right?"
"Yeah. Is he fixed yet or something?"
"PTSD isn’t exactly ‘fixable.’ It takes time getting over it. He’s doing well, in fact, he’s due for another assessment in a week."
"Then he’s fixed?"
"Then we see if he’s well enough to go back home and to his job," Dr. Paine said. "If he is, he may be on medication for a long time, possibly even his life."
"But if he’s okay, why is he gonna need medication?"
"It’s complicated," the doctor said.
"Will they be mood stabilizers or anti-depressants?" Yuna asked.
Dr. Paine looked at her curiously. "I’m sorry, but… who are you?"
"I’m Yuna, Rikku’s cousin… and a friend of Tidus’s."
Dr. Paine seemed to be considering something as she looked Yuna right in the eyes, never wavering. "It’ll depend on the assessment as to what we’ll end up putting him on. Most likely mood stabilizers."
"So we can see him, now, right?" Rikku asked.
"Of course," Dr. Paine said, putting her hand on the door. "Follow me, and keep those visitor badges on you at all times, please. Be sure to do what the security guards tell you."
"…Okay…" Rikku said, and she and Yuna followed the doctor down the hall.
"The… other two are in here too," he doctor said, her voice never once indicating any sort of emotion toward what she was saying or those she was talking about.
"Auron and Jecht?" Rikku asked. "Why are they here? They started the fight."
"Because the judge got so fed up with both of them he chucked them in here after they each attacked the bailiff during the hearing."
"But Tidus had a restraining order against Jecht," Yuna said
"He’s charged with assault, not manslaughter. That’s not big enough to move him somewhere else. He’s been put in ISO though, so he can’t get to Tidus. Auron’s close to getting himself thrown in there himself.
"My husband hung out with Auron. He was a friend of Jech—his father’s."
"Well, he’s really fitting in. There’s a reason this place is called ‘Loose Cannon Hall,’ and he’s already turning into one of the regulars. After a while it gets routine for both of us. They cause too much chaos and get thrown in ISO for a while, then they’re out to start lighting fires out making fights again and its goes on like that." Dr. Paine still sounded like she didn’t care. She must’ve seen too much of the failures she was talking about.
"It just goes on like that?" Yuna asked. "Don’t you do anything?"
"You gotta give people time in between assessments and sessions, and mostly, they just use that time to go back to what they were doing, or something fucks up all your hard work. Most don’t wanna even try," Dr. Paine said, then her voice changed, surprising both of the visiting women. "Here. This is the cafeteria. I told him I’d bring you here. You guys can go most anywhere you want, he’s a good guy, doesn’t like to start trouble. He really doesn’t belong here, and there are only a few that don’t. Fewer that don’t deserve it." She sounded like she meant what she said, and actually cared.
Dr. Paine turned and left, ending their conversation there.
Rikku and Yuna shrugged at each other and walked in. For a psych ward, especially one called ‘Loose Cannon Hall’ things seemed rather calm. Two people were idly coloring with markers while another chewed on some pens. Two people were playing checkers and arguing over the rules quietly. Most people were either off at their own table eating and watching the others as they did. Most were watching TV or staring at anything else they thought was equally interesting—people, windows, their shoes, the security guards.
The place itself smelled overly medicated and most of the residents looked like they either had had too any drugs, or not enough.
Tidus was in the crowd watching cartoons on TV.
"Doesn’t that coyote ever learn?" Rikku asked Tidus over his shoulder.
"Hey!" Tidus greeted her and stood up to hug her. Someone shoved him out of their view of the TV. "Rikku! I’ve missed you! God, I missed you. Yuna? You’re here too?"
"We’ve known each other since fourth grade," Yuna said. "Of course I’d come see you. In fact we’d have come earlier, but I had a nasty court case."
"Yuna, don’t talk about that, okay?" Tidus said, wincing. The two women lead him away from the crowd watching the TV.
"I’m sorry," Yuna said. "I just meant—that’s why I’m late, not—I…"
"It’s okay," Tidus said. "I still don’t want to think about it, though. I mean… it just digs stuff up when you talk about your work sometimes."
"We understand," Rikku said. "Here, let’s go outside." In truth, none of them wanted to breach the subject of the fight with Jecht that had sent Tidus to the hospital, and a month later, to the psych ward after a panic attack and severe flashback episode.
"Auron’s here," Tidus said, once they were outside.
Auron had been the one to call the cops to rescue Tidus from Jecht, but he refused to let the cops truly arrest Jecht either, and they all knew it.
"We heard," Rikku said as they all three sat on the bench bolted down to a patch of concrete.
"They threw him and Jecht in here after they both got pretty pissed in court and messed things up or something."
"Pretty much," Rikku said. "Still having flashbacks?"
"Not much anymore. Occasionally in my sleep, but that’s usually because Seymour’s breaking something and causing a lot of noise."
"Who’s—" Rikku asked, but she was interrupted as a shadow suddenly fell over them and Yuna bumped her, turning around.
"Hello?" Yuna asked a tall man standing over her and staring right at her.
For a long time he didn’t move or say anything. He didn’t seem to notice the security guards approaching him. He lifted his hand to Yuna’s face, holding a short-stemmed dahlia in his thin fingers, tipped with long nails.
"For me?" Yuna asked, slightly uncomfortable with how close he was holding it. Apparently he’d never learned about personal space.
"He got that out of one of the vases," Tidus whispered to his wife.
The man’s gaze shot to Tidus and Yuna wasn’t ignorant enough not to notice. She slowly reached up and he looked at her again, dropping the flower in her hand once her finger touched the stem. He seemed careful that her fingers never touched his.
She sniffed at it; slightly embarrassed when she realized it wasn’t a fragrant flower. Botany was hardly her most knowledgeable subject in life. "Thank you. It’s pretty. My name’s Yuna, what’s—" She had lifted her hand to shake his, but one of the security guards had made it to her side and stopped her by grabbing her wrist.
"He don’t like to be touched," the security guard said.
"Oh," Yuna said. "I’m sorry, I didn’t realize that… Wakka," she said, reading his nametag. "I was just…"
She turned back to the stranger, who was now three feet away and looking at her apprehensively until the other security guard came up to him and gestured to lead him inside.
"You know you’re not allowed out here without one of us watching you," she scolded him and lead him back inside, without ever touching him.
Wakka walked back inside after them to keep an eye on him.
"Who was that?" Rikku asked.
"That’s Seymour," Tidus said. "He’s one of the reasons this place is called ‘Loose Cannon Hall.’ Immediately went after Jecht when he got here. He’s fought Wakka and Lulu off with a broom he stole from the janitor several times."
"What’s wrong with him?" Yuna asked, lightly running her finger over the soft petals.
Tidus shrugged. "No one’s got a clue, really. He’s diagnosis keeps changing and he never says anything when he’s not screaming and throwing chairs or something. I think it’s dissociative identity disorder. He flips moods so violently and then he has lapses in his memory afterwards. I don’t really know what he did to get thrown in here, but I heard the courts are still waiting for an assessment. Last time they asked for one he bit the doctor."
"Tidus," Rikku said, leaning on him. "You’re going to get an assessment in a few weeks. You get out of here, you hear me?"
"I hear you."
"The police’ve got enough on Jecht to keep him in Jail, if not in here first. Either way, he’s gonna be locked up, so you don’t have to worry."
"Don’t worry," Tidus said. "I wanna get out. I don’t like being here with these crazies." In the back of his mind, though, he could still hear sirens.