This must have happened during a blackout, but it’s been so long that I don’t remember writing it. Joy.
Anyway, now that I’ve finished transcribing it, here it is in all its unfinished glory(under the cut):
Disclaimer: X-Men: Evolution belongs to the Warner Brothers, Marvel, and anyone who owns them. Possibly Disney. Sara Louise Adrien and this story are mine. All cameos belong to their cameo owners. Please respect this poor author and don’t claim my words as thine.
Non Compos Mentis
InterNutter
“So what are you in for?” said the pale girl with the black hair. Her nametag read, Wanda_.
“Cut off my cousin’s privates with a carving knife,” said Sara. “Well… almost. What are you in for?”
“I almost destroyed my house.”
“What? Like, literally?”
“There’s another way?”
“Mom says I’m something of a homewrecker, myself,” Sara confessed, “but I rarely did any literal property damage.”
“Okay, children,” said the shrink. He wore tweed. “Let’s make our introductions. My name is Doctor Philips and I will be guiding you on our journey of self-discovery and healing.”
Wanda stood. “My name is Wanda and I have rage issues.”
Sara was next. “My name is Sara and my Mom put me in here so dear cousin Roals wouldn’t have to face attempted rape charges and I wouldn’t go to jail for hacking half way through his penis.”
The next girl stood. “My name is Marjorie and I *used* to be queen of the ward. You *rock*, sister!”
“Ahem,” said Doctor Philips.
“I mean, I’m here for OCD and Pica.”
“My name’s Debbie and I poison people,” said a small waif.
“I’m Sandra? And Doctor Philips says I’m an egomaniac.”
“Excellent,” said Doctor Philips. “Sara, you’re new. Why not share more about why you thought violence was the solution?”
“Let’s see,” said Sara. “I’d already told my Mom, his Mom, *and* the police and he still tore my dress up, tried to tear my underwear off, and had his member out and at attention. He had me down and nearly helpless. Were there other options *besides* letting him rape me, Doctor Philips?”
“Now, Sara,” soothed the doctor. “The police report clearly states that you phoned in a hoax before the… unfortunate event. Your cousin showed no signs then of… shall we say… suspicious activity?”
“He hid his erection behind the bar and lied like a rug,” protested Sara. “He’s good at it!”
“And then there’s the matter of evidence,” said the doctor. “There’s no proof of attempted rape. There *is* a long history of violence against your cousin.”
“I dare you to prove any attempted rape, Doctor. And by the way - just how did I manage to stab him without going through his clothes at the same time?”
“Roals told the police that you overpowered him and pulled it out.”
“Roals has a story for every occasion. He’s also twice my weight and fights for a hobby.”
“You have a very solid story, Sara,” said the doctor. “And so does Roals. Unfortunately, you also show evidence of… shall we say… an involving fantasy life.”
“What, I make a few movies and suddenly I’m not a good witness?”
“Is it true that you call your aunts and mother and grandmother ‘the Gorgon Patrol’?”
“It’s a code to protect their identity on the internet.”
“And what about your journals?”
“That’s to protect *me*.”
“Sara… I’m sure you believe everything you say… but your mother is worried you may be… unstable. I can’t prove to you that you’re living in your own fantasy any more than you can prove to me that anything you tell me is real. We have to move on for the others, now.”
He mentally turned her off. Just with a flick of thought, he made her into something he could safely ignore.
Sara made herself comfortable. She was used to being invisible.
Wanda talked about feeling abandoned by her father, wanting to go back to him, yet afraid of being hurt by him again.
Marjorie spoke about her odd cravings and the need for numbers.
Debbie spoke of the dark things her father, uncle and their friends kept doing to her, and why she put rat poison in the brownies she made for them.
Sandra was convinced that everything was a plot to keep her down.
Small wonder her claims of attempted rape went unheard, here. It was hard to tell illusions from reality.
“Where did Sara go?” said Doctor Philips.
“I’m still right here,” Sara waved. “Hello.”
“Where were you?”
“I was right here, thinking,” she said. “How exactly do you define 'reality’?”
“Reality is what everyone and physical evidence can agree on.”
“An elephant walks down a hallway. Some see it pass and others do not. The elephant leaves no footprints, nor dung, and leaves without a fuss. Who is to say that the elephant was really there?”
“Cute,” said Doctor Philips. “But that is not a real-world case.”
“How about a poodle? One whose owner had dyed it bright pink. You’re the only one in an office who saw it come and go. Or so you think. How would you find out if anyone else saw it? How could you prove it was really there?”
“You’re trying to trick me, Sara. It’s not going to work.”
“I’m merely opening your mind to my side of the debate,” said Sara. “Now imagine that some others around you not only saw the poodle, but knew it intimately -BUT- they have a vested interest in the poodle never having been there.”
“Then it would be in my best interests to play along.”
“Even if you knew it was carrying a virulent disease? Something like a cross between Ebola and AIDS?”
Doctor Philips smiled. “You’re very clever, but I refuse to participate.” He closed his notebook. “Art therapy is in an hour. You all have free time until then.” He switched them all off and beat a hasty retreat to his office.
The small, crappy TV had bad reception of some 24-hour sports station and no remote and a guard who would not let her change the station. One girl was having an intimate conversation with a wall. Sara sympathized entirely. There were uncomfortable plastic chairs, and a low table with some ancient magazines on it. Sara examined them and discovered they were Art Therapy leftovers. Two other girls were playing a game in a corner with approximately half a deck of cards and three chess pieces.
The orderlies would not allow her to leave the common room.
There was nothing to Do.
Sara sat on one of the uncomfortable chairs and thought. There was no way she could prove to Doctor Philips that what she had said happened… happened. He was not inclined to investigate the word of a crazy person. And anyone in an institute was automatically insane.
Lovely.
What she lacked was the official cover story. The one that the investigating officials would be told time and time again in order to cover dear cousin Roals’ rapist butt.
They could not claim the interaction was consensual. For a start, cousins were not legally entitled to entangle like that. Secondly, the stabbing kind of eliminated the whole consensual angle.
Therefore they would make it Insane Sara’s fault.
Ah yes. Blame the victim.
Her 911 call had been blown off as a hoax.
Therefore they’d say the attempted rape was some kind of cry for attention on Sara’s part. Poor ugly thing just wanted to be wanted, in her own sad and twisted way.
Damn Gorgons.
They would publicly pity her - a girl who wanted to prove herself a woman to her idiotic peers - and decry her actions as some kind of psychotic break. Hm. That might fit. Sara, tired of being a virgin and already, quietly, mentally unstable, approaches dear cousin Roals on the subject of incestuous sex. Roals, being the pinnacle of human virtue, refuses. Sara gets angry, fighting to get at her prize. Roals tries to fight her off, tearing her dress… and somehow the knife gets involved, and it all winds up in blood and tears.
Such a plausible story. No wonder she thought of them as monsters.
*
Doctor Philips meant well. He wanted his patients to grow into sanity and wellbeing. He just assumed that the first story told was not the true one.
Right now he was analyzing Sara’s old notebooks and journals. The ones he could decipher, anyway. Sara’s newest journals were full of impossible pictograms. Walls of them, surrounding intricate pictures of amazing detail.
The oldest were scrapbooks filled with mementoes. Put together at age two, according to the dates.
At age three, she began practicing the alphabet. Then labels appeared on some amazingly detailed pictures, for a child of three. Mom, Dad, me and so forth. She made a storybook of one day. The final picture and sentence read, 'The next day I wrote and drew the story of my day’.
She’d bound it herself.
Very intelligent as a child. Very possibly a genius, he noted.
Her journals were certainly happy enough. They became diaries of a sort before she turned four. Her days were full and her hours long. There was evidence of troubled sleep - always a danger sign - and an allergy to sedatives, which meant that he and his staff would have to try other things. Her known list of peculiar medical reactions lead to an understandable paranoia with even over-the-counter drugs.
In order to avoid a lawsuit, they had to keep her drug-free.
Damn.
That meant, in turn, going back to older methods of therapy, though he would stop short of the ones that crossed the borderline between therapy and torture.
In the meantime, there was bloodwork and CAT scans, just to make sure there was nothing physically wrong with her. A complete physical.
That’d take a week or so.
During that time, he’d try to ascertain if the rape was a fantasy or a delusion.
*
“Forensics,” answered Sara.
“That wasn’t an answer to my question.”
“No, but it’s a partial solution to my predicament. If dear cousin Roals oozed anything before I cut him, it’s bound to be on the remnants of my dress. Liquid and I tend to spread about.” She snapped her fingers. “Oh! I have thigh bruises. From his knees? If it’s possible for me to consent to that, then I fully consent.”
“You’ll be having a full medical exam this afternoon, Sara. I want to move on to your… fantasies. Your dreams.”
“My dreams are surreal and my private fantasies shall remain just so.”
“What about pretend games? What do you play at?”
“There’s no point in playing. I’m too old.”
“You’re ten. Play is normal.”
“Tell my mother. She threw out most of my things.”
“Ha! Dad just threw *me* out,” said Wanda.
“My parents wouldn’t let me keep anything,” said Marjorie.
“Dad used to beat me with my things,” said Debbie.
“Guess I was lucky,” said Sandra. “I got everything except the opportunities I needed to get ahead.”
“Opportunities are overrated,” said Sara. “Private schooling? Dull. Dance classes? Dull. I didn’t quite get so far as all the other coaching, but the only thing that was interesting was learning Dressage.”
All girls spontaneously exploded in an orgasm of horse-worship, and the day was officially a write-off. At least they were temporarily happy. Doctor Philips let them chatter until it was time to take Sara to the infirmary for her checkup.
*
She did have the bruises from his knees. There were also restraint marks on her wrist more consistant with rape than fight for the knife… but not absolute proof. He sent her recovered dress to a forensics lab to search for suspect body fluids.
He took a peek at her journal. Page after page of tiny, intricate symbols and amazingly detailed drawings. He put it back exactly how he found it.
After they finished checking her condition (lack of body fat, suspected extreme dieter, possible maturity issues) Doctor Philips escorted her back to her room.
“How is your cryptography, Doctor?” she asked.
“Huh?”
“You opened my journal. *Could* you read it?”
“You have no evidence I did anything of the kind,” said Doctor Philips. “Don’t succumb to paranoia.”
“I left a thread between the pages,” said Sara. “It’s not there any more.”
“Ah,” he said. “Yes, I looked. No, I can’t read it.”
“Why not admit it in the first place?” Sara wondered.
“You have a history of violent outbursts. It was… prudent.”
“Why, Doctor,” said Sara. “I thought the least thing you’d do is *check*.”
“Check?”
“On the sort of people I tend to get violent *against*, of course.” And with that, she skipped into the common room without a backwards glance.
_Whackoes, nutjobs and lunatics… oy veh…_
*
Sara laid on the floor and leaned her legs up the wall. “That does it,” she sighed, “I’m officially bored out of my skull.”
“And it’s only your second day,” said Wanda. “Imagine being here most of your life.”
“Mmnno thankyou… I’d rather have a nice daydream.”
“Yeah?”
“Like… when I get out… the first thing I’m going to do is visit Ben and Jerry’s for a sample-a-thon.”
“When I get out,” said Sandra, “I am going to be discovered at last.”
Marjorie ignored her. “When I get out… I’m going *shopping*. I’m going to get me some all *red* clothes.”
“Why red?” said Wanda.
“It ain’t Scrubs Blue,” said Debbie. “When I get out? I’m going to stuff myself on fresh fruit. I’m'a find me a farmer’s market and go *nuts*.”
The girls laughed.
“I want a pony,” sighed Wanda.
“I want a dress that actually *fits*,” sighed Sara.
“I want flowers,” said Debbie.
“I want candy,” said Sandra.
“Stoopid Nuthatch,” said Marjorie.
“Did you poison your abusive male relatives, Deborah?” asked Sara.
“Yeh…”
“Sounds like justifiable homicide to me.”
Cackles from the girls.
“Yeh. And that cousin o’ yours sounds like he deserves castration.”
“Thanks.”
“You too.”
*
“He held me down by the back of my neck and made me stick my bottom in the air. Then he pulled my panties down and…”
“It’s okay,” said Olivia. “Take your time.”
“I tried to look for something. Some identifying mark.”
“That was smart. Did you see anything?”
“He… had a scar on it. Like… someone had tried to cut it off,” she burst into weeping. “I wish she *had*.”
Olivia left them with the counsellor and passed the news onto Stabler.
“Same guy. He’s getting himself a pattern. Blitzes them when they’re asleep, keeps 'em down… That’s three. I’m still stuck chasing warrants for all medical files on guys who got their dicks sewn back on.”
“Labs have come back on the first rape kit. This guy’s not using a glove… no sperm count?” she read further. “Our rapist is pre-teen… had a vasectomy… or taking hormones… or both.”
“That’s got to narrow it down,” said Stabler. “See if we can get a John Die warrant on this bastard.”
*
Sara had found a way to use her invisibility to her advantage. She could sneak into the offices and read the books. Admittedly, most of them were psych texts, but at least it was something to *read*.
She never went into any office that was 'in session’, though. That was a violation she would never perform.
Then one day a bald man in a wheelchair opened the door and said, “You too, Sara. Come along.”
Sara put the book back, sharing a Look with Wanda. She had no idea of what was going on, either.
“My name is Professor Charles Xavier,” he said, “and I can help the both of you.”
“Just us? What about Sandra, Debbie and Marjorie?”
“There are only so many causes I can fight. I’m sorry.”
“So why us? I know there’s nothing special about *me*,” said Sara.
“For a start, neither of you are actually insane. You may yet be driven so if you remain here.”
“I’m kind of hard to drive,” Sara warned. “I break psychiatrists. Not usually on purpose.”
“Nevertheless. My other reason for selecting you… is your unique genetic traits.”
“Wait. Sara’s a mutant, too?” said Wanda. “Are you like my father?”
“I’m not going to experiment on you, if that’s what you mean,” said Xavier. _But I am also a mutant. A telepath, to be precise._
Sara grinned. “Oh please do that to Doctor Philips. He *so* needs medicine from his own spoon.”
“Tempted though I am to do so, Sara… it would be very wrong. I plan to… convince this hospital to release you into my care. And I’m afraid it’s going to be somewhat… arduous. For us all.”
Both Wanda and Sara deflated. “Thanks for the Icarus Syndrome,” Sara murmured.
“Sorry, but I mean to offer you hope. I will be arriving for sessions on alternate days. In the meantime, I must ask you both to… endure. Until such time as I can release you.”
*
“We got a hit.”
“I thought we had all the rapist’s victims,” Stabler gestured vaguely at the board that was filling with photos.
“This one predates the others by about six months.” A photo of a ruined party dress. Torn down the front. “Pre-ejaculate was found under the blood. And it’s all *his*.”
“The girl in this dress cut our guy?”
“And they sent her to a psychiatric hospital for her trouble,” said Olivia. “I’ve already started the subpoenas.”
*