"Author's Notes": When I was a teenager, I spent a bit over a month in a psych ward halfway across the country. I've tried to remember that experience in as much detail as I can, doing additional research whenever I found it necessary, but if I get anything wrong it's because that was about a decade ago. I apologize to anyone who's had a long term stay in a treatment facility who might have any issues with this update. Nonetheless, it's dear and personal to me, and I hope that I can use that experience to create a respectful depiction of a psychiatric facility. There is a sequence referencing a podcast, and that podcast's characters in my memory helped me in a later three-day stay in a psych ward to stay connected with myself.
CW: General psychiatric facility things, mental health struggles, implied suicide prevention tactics (no suicides or suicidality will be shown).
Lottie Cross woke up in bed reaching for a bottle of scotch that wasn't there. She wore a Johnny Cash t-shirt and spotted pajama pants. The Traveler Driscoll Neuropsychiatric Center in Seattle had been created a mere five years ago and only four years after the end of the Second American Civil War. The beds felt more or less like cheap hotel rooms. Lottie put her shoes on. They'd taken the laces out of the shoes.
Apparently people tried to strangle themselves with those.
Lottie wouldn't've. If she wanted to be dead, she would have blown her brains out with her 9mm. She reached for a pre-Revolutionary comic book called The Adventures of the Red Defender. She chuckled as she flipped through the pages, looking at the bad DSA catchphrases and whatever the hell the indigenous person was supposed to be. Then, she heard a knock at the door. It was funny. Usually in the FBI she was the one knocking.
She dog-eared a page and went to open the door. There, she saw one of the orderlies, Marco. "Time for your meds, Lottie," he said, holding a cup of soda from the cafeteria in his hand. She nodded. "Thanks." She went to the med desk and got her medication. A lot of the meds were harder to get these days, but all she needed was Parox (formerly Paxil). She took it with water from the sink behind the desk, then went to her morning group.
The Driscoll Center got all kinds, and as Lottie sat down at the large table in the middle of Group Room A, she saw a bespectacled girl and a messy-haired blonde. She recognized both as just as new as her. The therapist, one Dr. Haverford, sat on the edge of the round thing with everyone else.
Dr. Haverford set his fingers on the table, adjusting his tie. "Now, welcome to morning group. I see we have some new people, so can everyone say their names? In a circle, please," he said, motioning for the person at his right to speak first.
"Merle Albertson."
"Magnus Fisk."
"Lucretia Donner."
"Carey Lewis."
"Lydia Maximovich."
"Transistor Pernet."
"Lottie Cross."
"Edward Maximovich."
"Alexandra Hernandez."
"Chris Foley."
"Kendra Oswald, and frankly, I should be in rehab. Probably a way nicer rehab than this psych ward. Like Passages Malibu or something."
Dr. Haverford spoke. "Kendra, let's stick to our names, please? I'm Dr. James Haverford. Now, Transistor, Lottie, Kendra, and Alexandra, why don't you tell us an interesting fact about yourselves?" He stroked his beard idly.
Transistor spoke. "You want an interesting fact? I tried to jump off a six-story roof because I thought it'd let me fly, and I did that because I keep myself constantly high to keep from feeling this crushing sense of self-obliteration. Is that interesting enough for you?"
"Sounds like someone's dealing with withdrawal," Lydia said in a haughty tone.
"Lottie?" Dr. Haverford asked.
"Well, um, I don't really have any interesting facts," Lottie said. "I guess the closest one is that I'm a Reaganite conservative, a trans woman, and I fought for the Reds during the war. People find those three things to be contradictory, which I think is BS."
Haverford nodded. "That's interesting, I myself fought for the Reds. Kendra, how about you?"
"Oh, I don't know, how about 'My name is Kendra Oswald, and I was the fourth highest paid director in Hollywood history'? Or, maybe, 'I'm Kendra Oswald, the woman who turned the steaming pile of shit that was the MCU into artistic gold with Iron Girl'?Oh, or what about 'I'm Kendra Oswald, the woman who actually made Goncharov!' Is that interesting for you? Am I interesting, James?"
"That does sound interesting," Dr. Haverford said in a neutral tone.
Lydia made another disruptive comment about withdrawal, and Haverford silenced her. "Please, let's keep this group supportive. Alexandra, please tell us one interesting fact about yourself?"
"Special Agent Lottie Cross threatened to shoot me in the leg if I didn't confess to domestic terrorism I never did," Alexandra said. The entire room stared at Lottie.
"...You know what? I'm not going to try and justify that, or explain why I had to. I didn't. I always had a choice in the FBI. I spent a while in Portland, and I did end up doing that to Alexandra. I'm deeply, deeply sorry. I can't ever take that back. It's an evil job, and I deserve all these stares. I promise you that I won't ever hurt you like that again, and that if you ever need anything from me, I'll give it. Even if it's just a face to punch."
"James, I think that'd be therapeutic," Alexandra said.
"I'm up for it," Lottie said. "I was a real piece of shit. Maybe I still am."
"We're all pieces of shit," Transistor said. "Look, at least you're not in the rehab program."
Lottie turned to Haverford. "Could we make that happen?"
"Sure," he said.
"Please don't put the self-admitted psycho cop into more of my groups," Kendra said.
Lottie sighed. She got through the group responding to Haverford's questions without thinking. All she could think about was the bullet wounds she got. Did they mean anything? Had she just exchanged one set of targets for another?
She was already regretting volunteering for the rehab program.