Psychopathy

Chapter 58- Before and After

It was strange being home again. So strange, in fact, that Isabel couldn't say she enjoyed it. Hell was her home for so long, and she'd forgotten how to be in the Overworld. While she had been in hell, the Overworld had moved on without her, and nothing looked as it had when she had left. There were so many things to do, so many things to get used to. There were so many new faces that she felt she was drowning in them, and the people she knew from before were no match.

But at least they were there. They were trying to help her; that was all she could ask for. It would be a long time before she felt at home in this new world. And she knew that she would never forget her time in hell. How could she, when the devil appeared in her dreams? When she saw him as a face in the crowd, a whisper in the breeze, a flash of reflection in the mirror? But at least in her dreams, there was someone to save her.

Sometimes in her dreams, she could hear the lake in her head, reminding her that it was only a dream and telling her to wake up. And when she did, she could feel the rocking of the water in her veins. Isabel was probably only imagining it- there was no way that the lake could still communicate with her now that she was in the Overworld. But that was okay with her.

As long as she had the familiarity of the lake and the comfort of her friends, she could make it in this strange new world.

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Ciara lay on the floor, adjusting the IVs and wires until they weren't pulling on her skin anymore. Once that was completed, she put her head on her arm and closed her eyes, ready to sleep. Getting off her bed and onto the floor hadn't been easy when her legs had refused to cooperate and her arms hadn't been able to hold her weight. She'd ended up dropping to the floor clumsily, and she thanked her lucky stars that no nurses had been in the room to catch her in the act.

She wasn't sure how long she'd been awake. Time was nothing more than a vague concept to her now, something she only knew was moving because of the beat of her heart. When she first woke up, she'd tried to count them. She'd tried to tell time that way, but that had proved impossible. How could she keep time with her heartbeat when she didn't know how often her heart was beating? She knew heart rate was measured in beats per minute, she remembered that much. But she didn't know what her heart rate was, and after long enough, she had lost count anyway.

All she knew was that she'd been unable to sleep that entire time. Though her body was exhausted from all the people bustling through her room, sleep had evaded her. When her eyes closed, all she could hear was James telling her what he'd do if she didn't get off the bed. Every time she heard him, she jerked awake in a near-panic. It was only when she didn't see him in the room that she calmed down. But she needed sleep, she knew that much.

And so she had gotten herself onto the floor, feeling only a twinge of relief that none of the wires or tubes had ripped off when she fell. It would have hurt, she knew that much, but she also knew that she deserved the pain. What was she thinking, trying to sleep on a bed as if she was an actual person? She wasn't. She was less than that. The floor was her place. It was familiar, and the familiarity comforted her.

With her eyes closed, she tried to sort through the blur of faces and names she'd been exposed to. Reid and Teresa were the only two faces she knew from the time before the house in Halsey, a period of time she referred to only as Before. In her mind, there were only three periods of time- Before, Halsey, and After. The rest of the BAU, according to Reid, was giving her space to get a little more adjusted before they came to see her. She knew it would be hard for her to see people from Before start to leak into After. But perhaps that was what she needed. Maybe that would make After less scary when, so far, it had offered only a flood of new people.