3"It could have been so wonderful. It could have been glorious. Why did you have to go and ruin it all? Dammit, why?"
He smashed his fist into his open palm, bruising both, but he didn't notice. It would have been wonderful, if she'd just listened to him. If she hadn't been so stubborn (if he hadn't been so pushy) and if she'd just gone along with his plans they could have had the world. Or, at least, a sizable and happy chunk of it. Instead they'd fought, violently and viciously as only they could. Telepathy wasn't a gift, he thought bitterly, it was a curse. A curse made all the more potent when you had a huge argument with someone you cared about.
And damn if he wasn't a fool for not realizing it sooner. His head came down on the wall once, twice, and then the third time more gently. The argument earlier had torn all barriers down, both between them and between himself and... well, himself. The wounds were still raw, his mind skinned of all protective layers until every thought left him bleeding afresh.
"Explain it to me. Please? Just... explain why."
He'd never gotten a satisfactory answer to that simple, three letter question. Or maybe he'd gotten what she thought was a satisfactory answer, and he just didn't understand it. Derrick Brannigan wasn't sure either way, and he wasn't sure he wanted to know. He was aware of just how much the virus had changed him. He was very much aware of the encroaching psychosis, the blindness, the telepathy that put voices in his head no matter how much he tried to shut them out.
It wasn't that he wanted to be that way. That was the part of him that she could never understand... he had never asked for this. The virus had just... taken him, as it had taken the initial scientists, and the soldiers who had tried to clean up after them. Carey had been the lucky one, out of... he didn't know how many dozens of people. Even more people, now, after the last team he had led into that hellhole. Maybe a tenth of them had emerged alive, less than that sane and whole. The one poor girl was completely out of it, unable to pick out reality from her dreams. Prael... who knew how he was anymore. And Derrick Brannigan himself...
"You're completely insane. You know that? You're completely, utterly psychotic."
Brannigan groaned and slammed the wall, indulging in a whirlwind of destruction that took the lives of two hapless lamps, a table, and an old chair. It didn't matter. Weren't psychotics supposed to do that? Fly into mindless rages and destroy things? Destroy people. He didn't know. It didn't matter. It was all he'd ever done since he'd become infected. The only thing that would have made it worse would have been if he'd also become contagious as well as blind. He laughed bitterly, imagining what that would be like. Probably less painful. He'd've been a pariah, unable to speak with or visit anyone except those already infected. Given how high the death count was, that wouldn't have been very many people at all.
She had been right about that, at least. The people who had put this plan into motion had to pay. Unfortunately for him and his thoughts of vengeance, most of them were already dead. The remaining few weren't likely to be in any shape to be brought to the already-sealed labs and infected. It would be ironic if he actually went to all that effort only to have one of them turn into the most powerful telepath alive. The thought brought a harsh bark of laughter to his throat, which startled him into falling over. Loud noises in the silence were bad.
Loud noises... and the squeaking of the floorboards behind him. He'd almost missed it. Brannigan rolled over onto his stomach and pushed himself up, looking around. His head whipped around as he heard it again: the squeaking of the floorboards and the padded sound of footsteps on the thick Persian carpet. Was there someone in the house with him or had he truly gone insane?. Hearing sounds and maybe even voices (at least the voices not induced by his telepathy) was a bad sign, even for him.
"Who's there?"
He stretched out with his mind, groping, searching, trying to find any sign of the mysterious intruder. His hands stretched out in parallel motion as he grew panicked when he didn't find anyone. Maybe he really was crazy.
"Who's there?"
Hands covered his, and he actually screamed, high-pitched in his ears and frightened. He'd been blind since the virus, but he'd never actually felt this helpless before. The hands were slender, feminine, and came from somewhere lower... someone who was slightly shorter than him.
"Who are you?"
"Shhh..." The woman stepped forward, and Derrick frowned. He knew that voice... but...
"You..." still high-pitched, still panicked. "You can't be here. You're dead, I killed you... you..."
"Shhh... Derrick, shh. It's okay." He let his hands fall out of hers and backed up a couple paces until he ran into the wall and had to stop. Her fingertips touched his face, and he almost screamed again. Why couldn't he see her? Why had his mind been blinded as well as his eyes. "It's okay."
"But you're dead."
"No," she refuted, still in that same calm voice. How could she be so calm? She was dead. "You only thought I was dead. You intended to kill me, yes. So I allowed you to think I was dead... a telepathic illusion. In your state, you didn't even notice."
Her fingertips gently stroked his face, temple to chin, soothing. Was it true? Could she have done that? Could he have meant that? He knew it was true, and he still refused to believe it.
"What hap..."
"You slipped," she sighed. "You went over the edge. You became hysterical, psychotic. Violent."
"...God..."
"Yes."
He closed his eyes and took a long, ragged breath. This moment hadn't exactly been expected... but it wasn't exactly a surprise either. His mental state had been deteriorating for years. He just hadn't thought it would get...
"... this bad. I know..." He felt her lips brush his cheek. "I know. But you know what we have to do, now."
God. She was going to have him committed. Locked up for what would probably be the rest of his life in a tiny padded room, six by six, white walls and drugs. There would have to be drugs; a telepath in the midst of an insane asylum? He'd go mad if he wasn't there already.
"Yes..." He sighed. It was for the best. He wasn't going to make it out of this one. Hell, he'd been lucky to survive the initial attack of the virus.
He felt her lips brush across his own, the first and last kiss he would ever receive from her. He tried to kiss her back, but she pulled away.
"It's time to go..."
-
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The desk warden at the military hospital for the mentally ill wasn't surprised to find someone showing up at his watch at three in the morning. He wasn't even surprised to see the woman gently ushering the man in and going through all the sign-in motions for him. What surprised him was the number of flags that popped up when he typed in their names as patient and next of kin. Words like 'dangerous' and 'handle with extreme caution' and a whole list of special instructions were plastered all over their files.
He called for a gurney immediately, and a nurse.
"Ma'am, I'm going to have to ask, have you administered any drugs to the Colonel in the last twenty four hours?"
She shook her head, seeming more occupied with keeping Brannigan calm than actually answering the questions.
"Is he on any medication that we should be aware of?"
She shook her head again, looking around only when the gurney arrived. Brannigan's head whipped around, as though he had sensed the nurse and orderlies coming. His eyes were wild, unfocused, and the desk warden was uneasy at the amount of energy he seemed to have.
The questions continued, this time from the nurse. "Do you know when his last physical was... when he last ate... what precipitated his admittance..."
"He tried to kill me."
She was actually smiling when she said it, which brought strange looks from everyone including Brannigan. His mouth moved in words that might have been 'I'm sorry', and she gently eased him down onto the gurney.
"You'll need to keep him sedated most of the time, until they develop special drugs. I'm afraid Derrick is one of a kind..." she was still smiling that Mona Lisa smile. The desk warden shook his head slowly and went back to his post. The nurse just concerned himself with administering the first sedatives.
"Ma'am, you just let us do our job..." he turned around. The desk warden looked up.
"Ma'am, you need to sign the ..."
They looked around. The orderlies stared, and one pushed his way through the heavy doors and went and looked around in the parking lot, which was eerily empty. The desk warden glanced over at the security cameras: no movement. He exchanged a worried glance with the nurse, and they both looked at Brannigan. Silent tears were trickling down his face.
In the parking lot the woman smiled sadly, turned, and walked away.