3 wise monkeys.... ( Locked for Heartofcourage )

[heartofcourage]

"If I don't scare you off first." Joan said, the only real commitment that she could give to Wake as he offered her a hand to stand. "And that's a very real possibility."

"Look, Wake, I want to be honest with you. This...isn't easy. Having an illness like this is something that I've dealt with for a long time and most people aren't strong enough to stick around. My family can be overbearing on their best day, but even they don't stick around for long unless I'm in the hospital. I don't want to get your hopes up." Joan said softly, her voice barely above a whisper as she looked into his eyes. "You're a nice guy. You've done more than your fair share to help me."

 

[CoSurvivor]

"Joan, nothing worth fighting for is ever easy. if it was, we'd all lead happy, stupid boring lives. Personally, in the short time I've known you, I think you are worth fighting for. Ok, maybe not physically, unless you wanna wrestle..." Elli rolled his eyes at his comment and gave her bare knee a slight pat as he sat up.

"Come on, lets get cleaned up and get you back to your place to deal with your sister. I'm sure I can find a grocery bag to wrap around your hair so it doesn't get wet, but we both distinctly smell like sex, and unless we bathe in cologne, rub incense all over ourselves or smoke a bowl of weed, your sister is going to smell it on us."

Reaching for her hand, Wake gave her a genuine heartfelt smile. "Come on lazy bones... Last one in the shower has to wash the other's privates first.."

Elli gave her a goofy smile, he wasn't going to give up, he'd lost his sister to the same sickness, he knew Joan needed a support group that would enable her to make the right decisions. Hopefully, she'd make the right one by letting him stick around. And, help him save her life, and the lives of others.

 

[heartofcourage]

Joan tried to let his words soothe her, but she had heard them all before. His actions would speak much louder to her than sweet words.

After they had showered and they were dressed again, she followed him out to his truck. Buckled in once again, she huddled down into her coat against the biting cold. She already missed his warm, if a bit sterile, house. It was a far cry from the hovel that he was taking her back to that moment.

She was quiet as he steered them safely through the icy streets. There wasn't much that she really wanted to say, she thought to herself. The voices were back and loudly taunting her, but she was even ignoring them. That meeting with Janie was not something that she was looking forward to.

As Wake pulled up in front of her apartment building, Joan saw her sister's little green car parked out front. It meant that she was still there, probably having used the spare key that she insisted she have to get into the apartment.

"She'll probably ask you a million questions. You don't have to come in." Joan said softly, offering him a way out.

 

[CoSurvivor]

Elli pulled into an available parking spot put the truck in park and shut off the ignition.

"If she comes at me with both barrels we'll see what happens. but she's your sister, I'll play good cop, cause well I am one, but if she's wondering why I'm tagging along while out of uniform let's play up the interview part of the equation.

Such as seeing me out of uniform, to the station house and tonight on the job. Not like you need me telling you how to handle your sister, but if she asks about anything more, I can, of course, pull the 'Can't be discussing cases while there's an open investigation." So that'll either piss her off or stonewall her.

Either way, if we get her to leave, we'll have to quickly plot where we need to go. My thoughts went back to the last crime scene, maybe the tree that was near the bench holds some clues. If I was going to hide something, that's where I'd put it."

Getting out of the Truck and helping Joan down, he made sure she lead the way back to her apartment. Elli made sure to steel himself against what her sister was going to throw at him...

 

[heartofcourage]

Joan simply nodded as Wake told her that he would play it cool at first and wait for Janie to show her true colors before moving on to other things. She didn’t say anything as she grabbed her bag from the front seat and walked towards her apartment. All the lights were on inside and she could hear the muted sound of her radio being played. She hated the sound of that radio, but Janie had insisted that it would help her. Her sister always hated the way that Joan lived in silence.

Opening the front door, Joan paused as she saw Janie in the kitchen, warming something in a pot on the stove. Her sister looked just like her, long blonde hair and delicate features. The only difference was that Joan had a terrible mental illness and Janie had a normal life. She was the apple of their parents’ eye while Joan was the disgusting parasite that was only seen when she was having troubles.

Janie glanced up as the door open and she let out a long sigh the moment that she saw Joan. “Where have you been? I’ve been looking for you for hours.”

“Nowhere, really.” Joan said softly as she pulled off her coat and placed it aside, glancing over her shoulder at Wake as he stepped into the apartment behind her.

“Who’s this?” Janie asked, eyeing this man suspiciously.

“It’s Wake.” Joan said simply as she looked over at Janie. “Wake, this is my sister, Janie.”

“Jane Archer.” Janie said, offering Wake her hand to shake. “How do you know Joan?”

 

[CoSurvivor]

At Joan's comment of simply referring to him by his last name, Elli chuckled to himself and shook Jane's hand once genuinely and released it. speaking matter of factly.

"Joan is actually doing an article for her paper on the police department. She's following me through today and tonight to put a human face to what we do. And, Joan's got it half right. My friends call me Elli, or Wake. It's only while I'm in uniform that I get called Officer Wake."

Elli prepared himself for the onslaught of questions that was to come, he also prepared for Jane to recoil and distance herself from him once he announced he was a Police Officer. Not everyone is happy to see their local PD in or out of uniform. Especially overprotective siblings, it can get pretty dicey he thought.

 

[heartofcourage]

Janie eyed Wake as soon as he said that he was a cop, glancing over at Joan and then back at him. She’d talk to him later in private if she could, but for now, she turned to look at Joan again.

“I came because the pharmacy said you’re not filling your prescriptions. I called and talked to Dr. Thompson and she said that she’s been giving you the medication you need. Why aren’t you taking them?” Janie asked, her hands settling on her hips as Joan looked down at the ground.

“I don’t like them.” Joan said with a shrug of her shoulders as if she were a child receiving a scolding from her mother. “And Dr. Thompson won’t listen when I tell her that.”

“Joan, this is serious. You need that medication.” Janie insisted as Joan shook her head.

“I’m not a child, Janie.” Joan said with the most mutinous glance that she could muster.

“I know but if you insist on acting like one, I’m going to treat you like one.” Jane countered, watching as Joan’s face turned red before her sister finally turned away and stalked the short distance to her kitchen table to dump her things on the surface.

“I’m sorry you have to be here while a family’s fighting, Officer.” Janie said, glancing over at Wake. “My sister has some issues that we are working through.”

 

[CoSurvivor]

Elli waved off her concern, and politely replied,

"Not the first time I've seen siblings have a discussion. As a police officer, I've gotten yanked into more than one domestic dispute. I've seen more than a few go from a simple discussion to a full-blown boxing match, minus the gloves."

"If I may, Just... try and listen to each other, and maybe Joan has a right to be concerned about the meds she's taking. I have no stake in this, but if Joan is concerned the meds make her feel strange, shouldn't this 'Dr. Thompson' be listening to her?"

 

[heartofcourage]

Janie put her hands on her hips and stared at Wake as he suggested that she listen to Joan before making a decision. "Excuse me, Officer, but you don't know this family and you don't know her. Save your comments for someone else."

She turned to look at Joan as she sat at the table, that same frustrated look on her face that she always seemed to have. "I'm going to take you to Dr. Thompson this afternoon."

"No. I don't want to go." Joan said as Janie heaved a great sigh. "I have an appointment in two weeks."

"And you're not medicated. You don't have a choice, Joan." Janie countered, knowing that she might anger Joan, but she was taking her to the doctor.

 

[CoSurvivor]

Excuse me, Officer, but you don't know this family and you don't know her. Save your comments for someone else."

Elli had been casually leaning against the wall, hands in his jacket pockets patiently waiting. But Elli knew that tone... he suspected Jane thought she knew what was best for her sister, and while she might think she is making the right decision, he was very familiar with the overbearing sibling, and when Jane guaranteed to take Joan to her Therapist, Elli knew he had to put a stop to this.

He took a step away from the wall and turned professional. His demeanor changed his tone of voice changed as he addressed Jane. Standing straight his full 6'1" muscular filled the tiny kitchen.

"Ms Archer, You're right. I don't know 'this' family, I don't know Joan, and I don't know you. But what I do know is, right now Joan is working. She has a job, which is profiling me for her paper. Now you take her to her therapist, get her medicated that means this whole arranged situation has to be rescheduled. From what Joan has told me her relationship with her paper is... tenuous. As in they are looking for a reason to let her go. You do what you intend to, you'll be putting her job at 'SERIOUS' risk."

Elli paused for a moment to let that sink in, he was trying to appeal to Jane's love for her sister, hoping she'd see the end result of her impulsive actions.

"I can tell you love your sister, I can tell by the concern in your voice and how defensive you got from my suggestion. But by doing what you think is right, what's the cost to Joan? Are you going to take that away from her?"

He hated talking about Joan in the 3rd person, but he had to stick up for her.

 

[heartofcourage]

Janie stared at the officer as he straightened up and gently, but firmly, put her in her place. She glanced over at Joan as her little sister hunkered down in her chair. Joan looked angry and lost, the same expression that she tended to have no matter what was happening in her life. It made Janie wonder what had actually happened between Joan and the officer and if he were covering for her in a way.

"Alright then. I won't push." Janie said, holding up her hands in surrender. "But you're going to take your meds before I leave, Joan. I want to see you take them."

Joan didn't say anything to that, her shoulders hunched up near her ears and her chin buried in the thick material of her coat. She often did that, hiding like a turtle, until Janie left. She heard the exasperated sigh from Jane. All of that was nearly drowned out as the voices spoke loudly in an angry tone. She hated the pressure her family put on her. Even more than that, the stress would often make her condition much worse.

"Joan?" Jane asked again, sighing as her sister continued to ignore her. "Fine. I'll leave since that seems to be what you want."

Janie said nothing else as she gathered her things and turned off the food that she had been cooking on the stove. Pausing as she zipped up her jacket, she glanced over at the officer and then at Joan, suspicious over the entire story but not having enough evidence to confront either of them with anything.

"I'll talk to you later." Jane said softly as she left the little apartment, closing the door behind her.

"She'll get my dad involved now." Joan said bluntly, her posture still hunched and tense.

 

[CoSurvivor]

"No, wait...Jane... " Elli didn't realize she was truly leaving until she was through the door.

For a half-second, Elli didn't like the sound of what Joan had said, 'getting her dad involved' and while he knew he should well leave this alone, he was neck deep in it, and they needed each other to solve this murder. But he also knew he had to prevent this from blowing up on all of them. Maybe he could bridge the gap, he was a cop, and his job was to deal with families at their worst hour.

So. he had to try and fix the issue that he'd partially created.

"Stay here..., keep the food going..."

Rushing off before Jane had a chance to get to her car, Elli double timed it and caught her just outside the door, halfway down the hallway. Calling to her, Elli didn't yell, but he wasn't whispering either.

"Hey, Jane... wait a second."

Standing to her side, not blocking her way he tried to get her to stop. Elli spoke before she could stop him.

"Hey I.. I'm sorry, I probably came off a whole lot 'stronger' than I intended to." Elli stammered, "Damn it I'm much better at this when the uniform is on. Look, come back in, I

"If I give you my word I'll keep an eye on your sister this evening, while she's working with me. Will you accept my apology, and... have dinner with your sis, 'without' yelling at each other?"

"I'm no expert on sibling issues, but I had a sister once... And I'd give anything to have dinner with her one more time."

 

[heartofcourage]

Jane stared up at Wake as he tried to diffuse the situation. He would never know that once Joan got it in her head that she was the enemy, there was nothing but time that would help the situation. Joan was stubborn, much like the rest of the family, but while being stubborn had been what got her this far, she also had a mental illness on top of it all.

"I understand that you want to help, Officer Wake, but you need to stay out of this. She is a very fragile person." Jane commented as he tried so hard to get her to come back to the apartment. "The best thing that I can do for her right now is walk away. She'll think more clearly in the morning, hopefully, and all of this will be just another bad memory."

Jane quickly zipped up her jacket and gave him a nod, brushing past him to continue to her car. She wasn't about to make Joan throw a fit and she knew that if she stayed there, that's exactly what might happen. She'd try again tomorrow and hopefully convince her that going to the doctor was what was for the best.

Back in the apartment, Joan had turned off the stove and moved to her bedroom, throwing her coat on the floor and burrowing beneath her blankets. Her head hurt now, she was cold, and she just wanted everything to stop for a few moments. Pulling the blanket tight over her head, she formed a ball with her body and simply tried to exist with the constant screaming presence in her head.

 

[CoSurvivor]

Elli nodded, he didn't say anything, but he hoped just as she did in his own way that they'd all wake up from this mad nightmare and find the killer. Watching Jane leave he couldn't help but hope that someday Joan might find some sort of normalcy. He knew it couldn't be with him, even if they were two damaged souls meeting in the storm. Eventually things always went bad, Elli had seen too much pain in his own life to think that what they'd started would actually become something real. But, he knew in his heart that he'd always support Joan no matter what.

Returning to the apartment, he entered, found the pot on the stove growing cold, and took a sip of the soup off the ladle "Not bad... not bad at all" Elli thought to himself.

Calling out, he was about to say something to Joan in passing about how good of a cook Jane was but figured it would just get lost. Instead, he did the smart thing of putting it on a different burner, even though Joan must have turned off the stove.

With as small of an apartment that she had, Elli opened the door to her bedroom and noticed her curled under the blankets. Slowly he called to her.

"Joan..?"

Elli called her name again, walked to her bed and sat on the edge, reaching up to massage her back through the covers.

 

[heartofcourage]

Joan was quiet when Wake came into her room, quietly calling her name. She wanted to sink into the mattress and disappear completely. He had seen her at her worst, at her absolute rock bottom, and yet he was still there for her. She had no idea what that meant.

"Did she leave?" Joan asked from under her comforter. "I'm sure she was pissed."

 

[CoSurvivor]

Elli nodded "She left, although she didn't seem to be pissed. more like disappointed maybe at the fact that she couldn't get you to take your meds."

Squeezing her booted foot through the covers, Elli then patted her thigh, "Come on, we can't stay here, while I'm sure the rest of the world would be fine with you crawling under the covers, I need you. 'they" need you.

"So what are you gonna do? let them think you can't do it? Or are you gonna come with me and prove them all wrong?"

Standing up off the bed Elli reached out his hand to her and said. "Come on Joan, I'm no good at just sitting around, come with me..."

 

[heartofcourage]

Joan didn't move as he tried to encourage her out of bed. In fact, it took a good while longer before she moved the comforter from over her head and turned to look up at Wake. She truly wondered what he saw in her. Why was he so bent on staying with her?

"I guess." She said softly as she took his hand and let him pull her to her feet. "We can eat and then go back out."

 

[CoSurvivor]

Helping her out of the bed, Elli gave her a hung, squeezed her hand and said "You know, whatever it was your sister was cooking, smelled fantastic. She'd probably take it as a compliment if we actually ate it." Giving her a warm smile Elli made his way back into her kitchen and took the container of soup her sister was making out of the fridge where he'd put it.

carefully emptying the container back into the pot that had been cooking on the stove, he started heating it up. As he stirred the soup, he turned sideways and looked at Joan.

"She means well, I know how she feels, I remember I was so overprotective of my younger sister that it was borderline smothering. I know it's none of my business, but... try not to hate her for caring enough to show up. I think if we can prove to her that you are ok on your own, then she'll relax a bit. It won't erase a lifetime of concern, or the fact that she's your sister, but it could go a long way to getting you the independence you want right? And... you'd mentioned he might pull in your Dad, who is he? "

 

[heartofcourage]

“My dad is the kind of guy who acts first and then asks questions.” She said softly, looking down at the tabletop as awake made them the soup that Jane had left behind. “When my mom divorced him, he focused in on me even more. She blamed me for the divorce. I don’t know if he did. She didn’t want to be the mother of someone like me. I haven’t spoken to her in years. Dad got remarried a few years ago. She’s nice, but she doesn’t want me around much. So, I got this place, he checks on me when he remembers, but he’ll swoop in if he thinks I’m a danger to myself.”

 

[CoSurvivor]

Elli nodded, "Well, then we need to prove to him and everyone else that you aren't."

Elli made sure to split the soup between them, he found spoons in one of the side drawers in the kitchen and carefully placed her bowl away from her laptop just to be sure nothing got on it.

Holding the bowl of soup, semi wrapped in a towel, he took a spoonful and felt a tasty flaver explosion hit his tongue. Elli smiled. and nodded at Joan "not to sound bossy but close that thing up and eat with me, your sister made some good soup, best we enjoy it."

He watched Joan's reaction hoping she'd close up her laptop and eat, when she finally took a sip of her soup, and knew she was eating, he asked a more personal question.

"If we are going to work together I said I'd be transparent with you, but I need you to do the same, who's Dr. Thompson? I'm going to guess your psychologist.. or is it a psychiatrist I can't remember which one it is that can actually prescribe drugs..."

 

[heartofcourage]

“Psychiatrist.” Joan said as Wake asked, her spoon pausing as he asked for honesty about her doctor. “Her name is Jo Thompson. Her office is at the hospital campus downtown. She’s been seeing me for a little over a year. They assigned her to me after the last hospitalization.”

Joan glances up at Wake and have him a shrug of her shoulders. “That’s about it. I see her every few weeks. She gives me meds that I don’t like to take. The world goes on.”

 

[CoSurvivor]

"They assigned you to her?"

Wake didn't like the idea of someone just being assigned to her case, it seemed she should have a choice.

"Who's idea was that? Jane's or your Dad's?"

Elli was trying to formulate what this psychiatrist's role might be in all this if there was one, and accusing someone in the medical profession was a lot harder than it seemed. Besides, Elli didn't even know this woman, and who was he to be butting into her, Joan's life like this. as if he knew what was right. He'd known her for less than two days, but they'd slept together. he'd kissed her, hard.. and been on the receiving end of a lot of passion from Joan. part of him wanted to ask her how she felt about that, but it wasn't the right time for that. Hell, there may never be another time like that.

Elli quickly finished his soup without really realizing that he'd done so, then looked over at Joan and sheepishly apologized. "Sorry... I get hungry when I start thinking..."

 

[heartofcourage]

"I don't know who made the decision, but it happened. You'll find that it's hard to have an opinion of your own when everyone is worried that you're about to off yourself." Joan said as he asked her a deluge of questions about her doctor. "I go to her, she gives me medication, I don't take the medication, the cycle starts over again."

"If you're thinking that means that you have ideas and plans. Maybe we should go back out there and see where they take us." Joan suggested as he apologized for eating so quickly. "Get us out of this hell hole."

 

[CoSurvivor]

"Get us out of this hell hole."

A bit of a mischevious smile came over Elli, he looked at Joan and realized she was more of a rebel than even her family realized.

"You..you mean you've 'never' been taking the meds Thompson has been prescribing?" The thought of what Joan would be like 'if' she did take them was a bit concerning. He admired her private inner strength which her family was probably mistaking as her diagnosis. Which made him wonder, was she really schizophrenic? Had she been misdiagnosed and might have something else? She'd made him think she'd been talking to his dead wife Maria but then passed it off. It was tough, tough to figure out if she was pulling him along regarding her thoughts, or if she was being honest.

He could go nuts trying to decipher this, instead of trying to think too much about it, he decided to continue to trust her.

"Alright, finish up and let's get the hell out of here. We have a murderer to catch."

 

[heartofcourage]

"I take them when I feel like I need them. I don't need them all the time." Joan said with a shrug as Wake asked her about her medications. "I don't like feeling like a zombie and that's what they make me feel like. I would rather take my chances with the dark voices."

She glanced up as he insisted that they should finish up and get out of there. With a nod, she placed her bowl in the sink and went to get bundled up again, ready in less than ten minutes as she met him at the door. A few minutes beyond that and they were pulling away from the complex in his truck again. It seemed that he had no hesitation about spending time with her, even though he had seen her at her worst and with her family. He had also seen her naked but that was an entirely different story.