#probably they’re both a problem. but let’s say i start drinking decaf black coffee. what do i do to make it incredible. please and thanks

[crystalsmentalhealth]

Things You Should and Shouldn’t Bring to A Psychiatric Hospital

Going to a psychiatric hospital is stressful and traumatic enough, searching through Google to try and figure out what to bring and what not to bring is just an added stressor to an already stressful situation. So, I, a veteran of psychiatric hospitals, am here to help. As with most situations, your mileage may vary in regards to the psychiatric hospital that you go to, but this is a basic list of things that most psychiatric hospitals allow and don’t allow.

Do Bring

1. At least three changes of clothes with no drawstrings or loose strings. Make sure they’re comfortable. If you’re a female, I suggest yoga pants or leggings and comfy shirts. No underwire bras will be allowed, so bring your sports bras. If you’re a male, bring t-shirts and sweatpants, you’ll be more comfortable and why not make yourself as comfortable as possible in one of the most uncomfortable situations? Bring several pairs of socks and a long-sleeved hoodie or jacket with the drawstring pulled out, even if it’s summer, because some room will be freezing. Also bring a couple of pairs of pajamas. Some hospitals don’t care if you wear your jammies all day long and some require that you dress for the day.

2. Paperback books. You will get bored. If you like to read bring a couple of paperback books.

3. Paperback puzzle books. Like Sudoku, word searches, and cross-word puzzles. 

4. A composition notebook. Those ugly black and white marbled notebooks with no wire binding. You can use it to journal, write notes, reminders, medication changes, ‘homework assignments’ that your doctor or social worker give you, poetry, or anything you need to jot down. 

5. Coloring books. If you like to color. It can be simple kids colorings, or the more advanced adult coloring books. 

6. If you’re a person who menstruates, then, if you have period panties, bring them if there’s a chance that you’ll start your cycle while in the hospital. From personal experience the feminine hygiene items that are available in the hospital are just cardboard applicator regular tampons and bulky maxi pads. I believe that Always makes disposable period panties that you can find in most Wal-Marts, or you can buy from Everie Woman, Joyja, Ruby Love, and many other online retailers. (No affiliation or money made from that advertisement.)

7. A list of your medications. You are going to be nervous and stressed and will forget something. Even if you’ve quit taking your meds, bring a list of what you’re supposed to take.

8. A list of important phone numbers. Friends, family, your doctor, therapist, social worker, case worker, anybody you or they may need to contact.

Do Not Bring

1. Anything with strings. This can be drawstrings or pants with ripped knees or stringy hemlines at the ankles. This also includes shoelaces. Bring slip-ons or shoes with Velcro fasteners or do what I did and just go around in your socks. 

2. Hardback books. Security will keep them or put them in a contraband room. Either way you won’t be allowed to have them.

3. Pens or pencils. The nurses station will usually have little bendy pens or harmless golf pencils that you can use (or both in some hospitals.)

4. Markers, coloring crayons, or coloring pencils. They’ll usually have these on the unit, so it makes zero sense, but most hospitals won’t let you have them anyway.

5. Razors/electric shavers. Razors won’t be allowed period, but some hospitals will have a shaver that you can borrow. Or, if they do allow razors, you’ll have to be watched closely while you use it.

6. Feminine hygiene products. It sucks, but they won’t allow you to have your own. Why it’s so different from what they give you, I don’t know, but there you have it.

7. Cigarettes, cigars, vaping equipment. They’ll give you nicotine patches or nicotine gum if you’re a smoker, but you won’t be allowed to smoke.

8. Your mileage may really vary here, but most hospitals won’t allow you to bring snacks or food or drinks of any kind, and definitely not if they’re in glass or open packages. Some hospitals will allow visitors to bring you closed packages of snacks, but don’t bet on it.

9. Your medications. Exceptions include antibiotics, vitamins (some hospitals will let you have your multivitamin), or special medications that your pharmacy usually has to order. For example, if you are on the diabetes medication Ozempic, bring it, they won’t have it and probably won’t be able to get it. If you are on the diabetes medication Metformin, leave it, it’s super easy to get and a very common medication. 

10. Cash. If you do bring it it’ll be kept safe in a safe in security, but it’s best not to bring it.

11. Your cell phone. With very, very few exceptions you won’t be allowed to have it. If you do bring it, and most people do, it’ll be kept either in security or a contraband room. You may be allowed to access it long enough to get a phone number out of your contacts, but you won’t be allowed to make a phone call or send a text.

12. Sharps. Don’t even think about trying to bring anything sharp. No needles, no syringes, no broken glass, no razor blades. They will find it and they will take it. End of story. Don’t think you can hide it in your shoes or bra either. Many hospitals will make you totally strip and change into a gown and hospital pants so that security can go through every inch of what you were wearing. I hope that included clean underpants!

13. Stuffed animals/your own pillow/blanket. Even if it’s your comfort item that you can’t sleep without, they’re probably not going to let you have it.

What the Hospital Will Supply

1. Your meals. You may or may not get a choice in what you eat, but regardless you will be fed. If you are having trouble eating and your doctor or nutritionist orders it, you may be given Ensure or Glucerna to supplement your meals.

2. Snacks and drinks. Most hospitals will have healthy snacks available as well as water, juice, coffee, and milk. Don’t expect regular coffee after 1pm though. They switch to decaf then.

3. Feminine hygiene products. They’ll be cardboard applicator, regular size tampons (which stinks if you have a particularly heavy flow and is why I suggest you invest in two or three pairs of period panties if you know you’ll be in a psychiatric hospital at some point, or even if you won’t, the right ones are awesome.) and bulky maxi pads that feel like a diaper. The hospital may also have disposable adult diapers if you have problems with incontinence or can’t get period panties and their supplies just aren’t enough and you’re worried about leaks. 

4. Markers and crayons. Chances are they’ll have them on the unit for you and everybody else to share. Be nice and put the caps back on.

5. Bendy pens or short stubby pencils. The bendy pens take a little getting used to but they’re better than the pencils.

6. Toothbrushes, combs, toothpaste, deodorant, shampoo, body wash, conditioner, towels, and wash cloths. The towels and wash cloths feel like sandpaper, but, yeah, they have them.

7. Laundry services. Whether they let you do it yourself or they do it in the middle of the night, almost all hospitals will have a washer and dryer for patient use. Expect to go home with at least one less sock than what you came with.

8. Your medications. The hospital will give you all your medications. Even the ones that aren’t for psychiatric use.

9. Phones. I’ve seen some lists that say you need to bring a phone card to use, but I’ve never been in a hospital that has actual pay phones. I’ve always been allowed to use the phone for long distance calls with no problem. If your specific hospital says bring a phone card, then do, but chances are you won’t need it.

If You’re Lucky, Your Hospital Might Offer

1. Weighted blankets. These things are awesome for anxiety.

2. Wireless Headphones with different music chips. Classical, pop, rock, hip-hop, whatever your jam is.

3. Safety laces. Walking around with no laces in your shoes is annoying.

4. Spare clothes. If you came in with just the clothes on your back and you need to do laundry many hospitals will have spare clothes.

5. Weak little ponytail holders. You can’t do any damage with them, but they’ll certainly damage your hair, so beware.

6. Sensory Candy. Sour for alerting. Hot and spicy for focus. Chewy fruit chews for soothing anxiety.

7. Stress balls. Squeeze!

8. 10 minutes of cell phone time at the top of each hour. I’ve been in several different psych hospitals and only one has allowed this, so don’t get your hopes up.

So, it’s a fairly exhaustive list, but probably not totally complete and as I said from the beginning your experiences may vary from hospital to hospital. I’ve been in some really bad hospitals and some really good ones, but the things to bring and not to bring seems to be about the same.

#mental health #psychiatric #hospital #psychiatric hospital

[qqueenofhades]

the tangled web of fate we weave: xvi

who has two thumbs and no self-control? there’s just gonna be... so much garcy fic this week, you guys. so much.

part xv/AO3.

April 15, 2013

It’s Monday, it’s tax day, and it’s the week that midterms start. If it was possible for a group of people’s collective moods to actually be little black stormclouds over their heads, the entire history department would be drenched, but they have mostly confined themselves to double doses of coffee and bitching about the IRS, as well as various passive-aggressive email chains to the idiots who thought it was a great idea to schedule three faculty-search-committee meetings this week. Lucy is sitting on two of those, was up until three AM last night reading the various CV submissions (besides, it’s hard for her to sleep for other reasons these days) and trying to draw up her shortlist of candidates for the new Assistant Professor of East Asian History that Stanford is preparing to hire. She is all for more diversity in the workplace and the academic realm, but as timing goes, this could be. . . greatly improved.

Still, she supposes, she can’t complain too much, and she’s about to be away from it for several months anyway. Her leave starts at the end of next week, and she won’t be returning until the start of the fall quarter, so there’s plenty of stuff that needs to be finished up before that. Her in-tray has been apparently cursed with a magical charm to never go down no matter how much Lucy works on it, but aside from one of said committee meetings in an hour, she is free to hack at it for the rest of the day. Flynn said he’d bring lunch over, too.

A faint smile curls up the corner of her mouth, and she decides that coffee (decaf, unavoidably) sounds like a good idea, even if she’ll have to fight through the zombified departmental hordes to get it. She submitted her taxes three weeks ago, so at least she doesn’t have to mess around with that last-minute headache, though she is sure that any number of replacement headaches will pop up in its place. She does feel bad for her colleagues, even if they did bring this upon themselves. You’d think academics would be more organized, but honestly, they really aren’t.

Lucy hauls herself to her feet, picks up her mug, and heads out of her office, down the hall to the staff kitchen. Her friend Eleanor and Paul from Late Antique and Byzantine History are leaning by the coffeemaker, having an involved argument about someone amusingly named King Boso, but while this is potentially a fascinating subject, Lucy definitely needs them to move. She clears her throat. “Hate to interrupt, but I have a need.”

“Good timing, you just missed the stampede.” Eleanor empties the grounds out of the percolator and reaches for a new pack. “Decaf, I assume?”

“Unfortunately, yes. I haven’t been properly awake in weeks.”

“I thought your leave started on Friday.” Eleanor puts in the capsule and presses the button to start the cycle. “Or is it this Friday?”

“This Friday. I have no idea how I’ll finish everything.”

Paul, as if sensing that the conversation might devolve into girl talk (he’s a dazzling genius, but the kind with absolutely zero people skills who should just stay happily shut in a library learning dead languages), makes his excuses and scuttles out. Eleanor digs in the fridge. “The Huns just took the last of the half-and-half, but we have powdered creamer.”

“No, I’m fine. I’m drinking it black these days, anyway. Garcia’s rubbing off on me.”

Eleanor raises a slightly impish eyebrow. “Clearly.”

Lucy blushes, but can’t exactly deny it. She waits until the coffee has brewed, then tips it out into her mug. God, she can’t wait to drink the real stuff again (and see her feet, and walk without feeling like a lumbering juggernaut, and not have to pee every five minutes, and be woken up with auditions for the  Olympic gymnastics team, and all the rest, even if she will obviously then have different problems). She and Flynn were not exactly planning for her to get pregnant after six months of dating, but it happened, in the way that life tends to do, and they’re ready to make it work, as much as anyone can possibly be. Flynn is clearly beside himself with excitement and apprehension at the idea of becoming a father, and Lucy – well, she’s obviously had ambivalent feelings about kids in the past, to say the least. Felt it was something to do more to please her mom, rather than anything deeply desired. But dammit, something has changed. She’s thirty, she’s in a stable and loving relationship with a man who worships the ground she walks on, she has a good job, they’re financially stable (though again, better not to ask how exactly Flynn has chipped in), they’ve just bought a cute little bungalow/fixer-upper of a starter house, and there is the unspoken understanding that this summer, after the baby is born, they will probably get married. Lucy has grown up, or at least grown older. She’s ready for this. Their family. Them.

“You’re due the second week of May, right?” Eleanor asks, sitting down at the table across from her. “Picked out names yet?”

“We’re kind of waiting to see what feels right.” Lucy raises an eyebrow, as if to acknowledge that this is a very San Francisco thing to say, but while they know that the baby is a girl and that her middle name will be Maria, for Flynn’s mother, they still haven’t settled on a first name. “We have a couple ideas, but nothing’s stuck quite yet. Item number one on things not to screw up for your kid, huh?”

“You’ll be fine,” Eleanor says. “Garcia’s a little. . . rough around the edges, but anyone can see that he adores you. And he’s gorgeous, and a medieval history nut. Clear sign of good taste.”

Lucy snorts. “Hey now. He’s definitely taken.”

“Trust me, I know.” Eleanor raises both hands in mock surrender. “Honestly, though, you two are one of the best couples I know. Lucy Junior is going to be so lucky to have you as parents. But – ” She pauses, well aware it’s a delicate topic. “Your mom come around yet?”

Lucy grimaces. Amy is absolutely thrilled at the prospect of becoming a cool young aunt who can spoil the kid rotten, but her mother, well. . . let’s just say that Carol Preston looked at Flynn like he was a dead slug the first time she met him, and her reaction hasn’t gotten much warmer since. Flynn also clearly doesn’t like her; he’s coolly cordial to her for the sake of familial civility, but that’s it. Carol thinks that Noah was a far superior choice, that Lucy callously threw him away to get knocked up by some idiot ex-lawbreaking hooligan (Lucy loves him, but has to admit this is not an inaccurate description) and that while she’s prepared to have a relationship with her granddaughter, Flynn should definitely not think that applies to him. Lucy gets the feeling that Carol will just pretend Flynn does not exist, as if she closes her eyes and blinks hard, he might happily vanish. For his part, Flynn thinks it’s rich of Carol to assume that she gets to have a relationship with their daughter at all, given what she did to her own. As Lucy’s pregnancy has progressed, they seem to be getting farther apart, rather than closer. They haven’t been in the same room since Flynn and Lucy broke the news.

Eleanor can see the answer on her face, and winces in sympathy. “Shit,” she says. “I’m sorry, Lucy. Forget I asked. That sucks.”

“It’s what it is.” Lucy tries to keep her tone light. “Sometimes people don’t like each other. I’m sure Mom and Flynn will work it out.” She pauses. “Eventually.”

“They’re both very stubborn, bossy people with strong opinions,” Eleanor says. “Usually doesn’t mix well. But hey, sure, maybe they bury the hatchet when the kid arrives, let’s think positive. Anything else I can help you with?”

“No, Eleanor, thanks. I really need to get my stuff ready for this committee meeting. Then I can come back and tackle the In-Tray of Death.” Lucy finishes her fake coffee in a few more swallows, puts the mug in the sink (cheerily ignoring the “Wash Your Own Dishes Please!” sign taped above it) and waddles back to her office. She gets her dossier of papers together, winces as sharp heels trod her spleen, and gives her side a poke. Then, feeling like a barge needing a tugboat to reverse, she heads for the meeting. Since she’s a small woman, it feels like her belly precedes her everywhere by about two feet. Maybe they can tie on a flasher.

Once that’s done with, and they’ve narrowed the overall shortlist of candidates from twelve names to ten (so, a productive use of everyone’s time, then), Lucy chats with the department chair, accepts his congratulations on her impending arrival, and then makes her escape before Debbie from student services can bustle over with her latest round of well-meant advice about what Lucy should be doing at this stage. Once the morning sickness stopped, Lucy hasn’t minded it too much, but she is not a fan of the (in her opinion, frankly creepy) Mommy Culture that surrounds it. No, she is not going to eat her placenta, or take tasteful black-and-white bump pictures. You will not catch her dead at a gender reveal party, she accepted a baby shower but only a small one with a few women, and the “my labor was TEN HOURS with NO PAINKILLERS!” kind of talk makes her run for the hills. This is 2013. Lucy will have all the drugs, thank you, she doesn’t think a natural water birth is the only proper and fulfilling way for her child to enter the world, she isn’t going to start a blog detailing their toilet training milestones, and the breastfeeding wars make her wonder if these people have real hobbies. Not to bag on women who do it that way, of course, and there have been a few times (thanks to hormones) that Lucy has found herself genuinely weepy over the Miracle of Life. But still. She is, at heart, just too practical.

She rounds the corner into the department reception area, stops, and grins at the sight of Garcia Flynn holding a large and greasy bag from her favorite sandwich shop and looking too tall for the room. (Which, to be fair, is most rooms.) There is paint in his hair, so he’s probably been working on the house again. It’s livable, but they’re still trying to get the finishing touches out of the way before their time becomes unavoidably caught up in caring for a newborn. The nursery is mostly done, decorated in tasteful, gender-neutral colors (Lucy has nothing against pink, but she’s also not slapping it everywhere), and she clears her throat. “Hey, you.”

Flynn starts, nearly drops the sandwich bag, then comes over for a kiss, which is even more of a cumbersome business than usual. The other nice thing about this is that Lucy has not had to lift a finger at home for months; Flynn waits on her hand and foot. He hasn’t been patronizing about it, just that he seems to know what she will need before she does, and makes it available as swiftly and conveniently as possible. He does his best not to hover, fully aware that she is a grown woman and can handle this herself, and that he is decidedly of secondary importance in whose opinion matters the most. Still, he almost never is more than three feet from her side, is usually touching her even with just a finger or the back of his hand, and gets jumpy if she’s out of sight for too long and he doesn’t know why. It must be really hard to adjust from “permanent outlaw on the run from international terrorist organization” to “suburban dad-to-be in loving relationship and DIY home refurbisher,” so Lucy tries to be understanding.

“Hey,” Flynn says, when he’s straightened up. “Free for lunch?”

“Yeah.” Lucy links her arm in his, and they walk out to the foyer, down the stairs, and out into the sunny midmorning. Campus is busy with its usual commerce, and they walk until they find a shady spot under a tree. Sitting, especially on the ground, is a production, so Lucy takes Flynn’s hand and does so with care. Once he’s joined her, he opens the sandwich bag and offers hers, as she leans against the trunk with a groan. “Yep. Ready for this to be over.”

“Only what? Three more weeks?” Flynn says that as if he hasn’t been watching the calendar as anxiously as her, and Lucy gives him a tolerant my-husband-is-an-idiot look. Well, basically her husband. He’s had a bag packed and ready to go at a moment’s notice since month seven. “Your sister was over to drop off the last things from the shower. Helped with a bit of the painting. Oh, and she says your mother isn’t feeling as well again. Watch her announce that the cancer is returned on the very day you go into the hospital.”

Lucy glances at him sidelong. Flynn doesn’t make much of a secret that he can’t stand Carol, but for Lucy’s sake, he rarely speaks this angrily about her. “Garcia, if – if it does come back, she can’t control that. I know things between you two aren’t the best, but – ”

Flynn snorts, taking a bite of his sandwich and doing that head-turn thing he always does in crowded public places, scanning for threats. He still carries a gun, even if only a small one, and he has definitely terrified people he thinks are following them too carefully or staring too long. It’s that fine line between remaining vigilant for Rittenhouse, and turning into a full-on paranoid lunatic who rants at rosebushes. He’s mostly managing it, though as her due date gets closer, he seems to be more on edge. But they’ve bought a house under their real names, they’ve been a normal couple, they’ve opened bank accounts and phone plans and whatever else. There have been plenty of opportunities for Flynn to ping in the system, to draw the attention of the omniscient electronic overlords, but nothing. Smooth sailing.

Flynn himself is suspicious of this, thinks it’s too good to be true, but Lucy (if perhaps naively) is holding onto the hope that he just disguised his tracks well enough with all his false identities that nothing has managed to stick to his real one. It has been over a year of domestic bliss. They’re expecting a baby. Surely if Rittenhouse was going to strike by now, they would have done it. Wouldn’t they? They need to be smart about this, of course, and Lucy has battled the ever-present anxiety that they are doing a child a tremendous disservice by bringing it into the world with no sure guarantee of safety, but then, no parent can give that to any child. There could be a car accident, or some pedo at the playground, or falling out of a tree, or. . .or. . . (yes, Lucy has spent too much time aware of all the various things that could happen). How does anyone ever have children, to give them this world and let them go? Who knows. She still doesn’t.

“Hey,” Flynn says gruffly, drawn out of his anger at Carol by sensing her melancholy. He reaches out and takes her hand, squeezing it with both of his. “Lucy? Are you all right?”

“I’m fine.” Lucy musters a smile. “I just hope you’re wrong. She’s still my mother, I’m her daughter. I don’t want the day I have ours to be mixed up with losing her somehow.”

Flynn coughs, as if knowing that badmouthing your mother-in-law to your wife’s face never goes well, and changes the subject. Finally he says, “I should walk you back. You have a lot to finish. So do I.”

“Oh?” Lucy takes both his hands and allows him to winch her to her feet. “More than just the house?”

Flynn glances both ways and lowers his voice. “I promised Wyatt a name,” he says. “I still haven’t given it to him yet. And I’m quite sure we both remember that.”

Lucy starts to say something, then stops. Yes, she supposes, they do. Wyatt fulfilled his part of the bargain to the letter, took the fall for them, even if he got out of jail quickly. He’s stayed in the Bay Area, in fact – has become roommates with Rufus Carlin, the techie at Mason Industries who Flynn threatened for information. (Lucy does judge her beloved’s life choices, like most people, but there you have it.) He’s done this because there still has been no news whatsoever on his wife. Jessica Logan has been missing over a year, it’s clear she either ran off to start a new life in Rio or she’s dead in some drainage ditch, but either way, she’s not coming home. But without a body, without any firm closure, there must still be that awful, tiny itch of hope in the back of Wyatt’s mind. Maybe she is trapped somewhere, held in some lunatic’s basement. Maybe she’ll escape and come home.

Lucy isn’t sure if she should try to visit or not, drop in for casual catch-ups or what have you. Wyatt did them a major favor, she can understand why Flynn still feels obliged to come up with his end of the bargain. Still, the whole point is that they weren’t seen together, and. . . well. She isn’t sure if Wyatt wants to see her pink-cheeked, doe-eyed, and bulgingly pregnant, in the middle of the domestic life he himself has lost, with the guy he likewise still isn’t very fond of. It just seems like it might be insult to injury.

She and Flynn don’t talk much on the way back to her office, as Lucy eyes the stairs but decides that since she gets winded on flat surfaces, she can wait a little longer to be an exercise hero. But as he’s kissing her at her door, she grabs hold of his arm. “Whatever you’re digging up for Wyatt, however you’re going about it – you’re being careful?”

This is always a relative question with Flynn, and she is well aware that he’s not collecting evidence like a Boy Scout earning merit badges. Knows that he might be kicking tires and turning rocks, nicely or otherwise. She isn’t even asking for the full truth of what he’s doing. Just enough to put her mind at ease.

Flynn’s brow creases briefly, but he brushes a thumb across her chin in a quick, tender gesture. “Of course. I’ll see you later, hey?”

Lucy nods, bites her lip, then pulls his head down for one more kiss, just because. He lets go and blows her one last extra over his shoulder, because it turns out that this terrifying murder machine in love is the softest imaginable thing in the universe. Lucy watches him go, then takes a deep breath and squares her shoulders. Marches back into her office, and gets to work.

She manages to make at least some sort of dent in her in-tray, and is just wondering if she wants to go to a conference at the University of Virginia in August (it sounds really interesting, but Charlottesville in August is going to be unbearably hot, and the last time she stayed on the Lawn, there was no air conditioning) when there’s a rap on her door. Then, before she has answered – it’s  not her office hour, she wasn’t expecting anyone – it opens. “Lucy?”

It takes a moment for her brain to process this. Then it connects, it burns through her, and she leaps awkwardly to her feet, almost knocking over her office chair and looking around in search of something she can grab. Her heart is racing, pounding in her mouth, which is half-open as if to scream, and her chest seizes up. She backs away. “You!”

“Lucy, please.” Benjamin Cahill holds out both hands as if to pacify a wild animal. He’s casually dressed in jeans and blazer and plaid shirt, looks like he has just strolled down from another department for a professional chat. “Don’t be alarmed.”

“Don’t be alarmed?” Lucy eyes her phone, on the desk, and wonders if she can call Flynn in time, if he’s anywhere near here and can come racing back. If he discovers Cahill in here, it’s going to get messy, and she almost doesn’t care. “How dare you show your face.”

“Lucy.” Cahill looks pained. Almost genuinely. “I haven’t come to hurt you.”

“So you’ve come to deliver more veiled threats about Rittenhouse, or – or tell me that your offer stands, or – ” Lucy’s grip tightens on the back of her chair. “You have to understand there is absolutely no way in the world I am pleased to see you. Leave, or I’m calling campus security.”

“I’m sorry for causing you stress,” Cahill says. “I’m sure you don’t need it right now. I’ve heard about your happy news, on the grapevine.” He nods at her, as Lucy crosses her arms protectively over her swollen stomach. “I just wanted to let you know once and for all that you’re safe. I know things were. . . mismanaged, before. But that’s all been called off. A little present for my grandchild. Rittenhouse may do some things you don’t understand, but it’s about family. We’ve always believed that. A time for a fresh start, and mending fences.”

Grandchild. Lucy hates hearing that word in his mouth, a word to which he has no right. “So what? You have been spying on me this whole time, but you’ll stop because – what, only now that I’m procreating I have value as a woman to you people? The way men only care about rape because ‘I have a wife and daughter?’ Is that it?”

“No, no.” Cahill manages to keep smiling. It’s not at all comforting. “Honestly. I wanted to ease your mind. You’re in the clear. You’ve probably been wondering. If you really can’t forgive me, I’ll understand, but there you have it. Your whole life.”

Lucy keeps staring at him tensely, heart hammering in her mouth. “What do you really want from me?”

“Nothing. I don’t want anything. I just wanted to see how you were doing, if you were well. As I said.” Cahill shrugs. “It’s just a time for new beginnings all around. I’ll let you get on with your day, Lucy. Bye now.”

With that, he smiles and steps out of the room, leaving Lucy shaky-kneed, dry-mouthed, and still tempted to call campus security and order them not to let Cahill anywhere near the history department again. Was that supposed to be a warning, a veiled insinuation that he could return the surveillance or whatever else? Do she and Flynn owe their happy life thus far purely to the fact that Rittenhouse is letting them have it, was that the takeaway? Is there going to be a second part of this conversation later, where Cahill returns and lets her know what the price is, if she wants to keep this sweet little deal? Turning over new leaves, her ass. If that was supposed to reassure her, it has comprehensively done the opposite.

Lucy’s concentration is shot, she can’t focus for the rest of the day, and she locks up her office and jumps a foot when she sees the janitor at the end of the hall. She drives home in distraction, goes inside, and Flynn, who has been stirring something on the stove, drops the spoon with a clatter at the sight of her face. He almost rushes over and grabs both her hands. “Lucy? Lucy!”

“I’m all right,” Lucy says faintly, even as it is relatively apparent that she is not. “It’s – I’m just – ”

“Do we need to go to the hospital?” Flynn starts looking around for his bag. “Should I call the midwife?”

“No, it’s not that. It’s – ” Lucy inhales a rattling breath, and allows him to sit her down on the couch. “Benjamin Cahill came by campus this afternoon. After you left.”

Flynn’s face goes blank, then thunderous. “He what?”

Lucy explains, feeling like she’s making a bad job of it, stumbling over her words. Flynn’s expression goes darker and darker, and she doesn’t need to ask to see that his conclusions over it are the same as hers. He gets to his feet and starts pacing as restlessly as a caged tiger, running both hands over his face and swearing. “It was a threat,” he says. “It was definitely a threat. He knew you were expecting a baby, someone told him, or they’ve been keeping an eye on us. They’re obsessed with bloodlines, they believe Rittenhouse has a right to pass on its superior genes, like any other creepy cult eugenics fanatics. Probably think you’re having some – some mongrel half-breed, and they have to – ”

“Garcia, stop.” Lucy reaches for his hand, trying to tow him back to the couch and next to her, but he doesn’t appear to notice. “Garcia, stop.”

She doesn’t know what she’s saying – stop with the pacing, stop with the paranoia, don’t stop because it’s not paranoia, stop and come back here and hold me – but it cuts through some of his mania. He halts in his tracks, looking at her with rumpled hair and anguished eyes, the thought vibrating in the air around him that he cannot protect her or their daughter, and this is exactly their worst fear coming true. There’s a long pause, and then he whirls on his heel. “I need to go out. Ask a few questions. See what I can turn up.”

“Now?” Lucy stands up with a grimace. “You’re really going to rush out and – look, I think it was a trick just as much as you do, but if you take the bait, if they can frame it as they’ve changed but you haven’t, they give you a fresh chance and you throw it away – ”

“They’re not really giving us a chance, now, are they?” Flynn doesn’t look at her as he answers, because he’s already halfway across the room, clearly heading upstairs to get his gun out of the safe. “It’s a carnival shell game, any way they set it up, we lose! And I’m not sitting and waiting for that to happen!”

“Garcia!” Lucy starts heaving herself up the stairs. She should have guessed he’d react like this, and she almost wonders if she should have told him, but obviously she never could (or would have) lied. “Garcia, please!”

She reaches their bedroom, which he is already tearing apart, pulling his gun and its holster out of the safe, slamming extra clips into his belt, looking wild-eyed and frightening. She grabs at his arms, wrestling him to a halt like a runaway bus, as she ends up with her back against the wall from the sheer force of his momentum. She grips his face in her hands, pulling him down to look at her. “Don’t,” she says, scared and small. “Don’t.”

He closes his eyes, shuddering out a deeply pained breath. He passes a hand over his face, trying to control himself, realizing that he’s scared her and clearly ashamed of it. “I’m sorry,” he says, struggling to modulate his tone. “I’m sorry, Lucy. I just – I have to go, I can’t just sit here and pretend it’ll be better in the morning. I’ve spent two years chasing these people, I know what they can do. I’m not – I’m not – letting that happen. Call Amy to come over and stay with you, turn on the house alarm, don’t let anyone in. I’ll be back in the morning.”

Lucy doesn’t answer at once. Her hands tighten on his face, even as she slowly forces them to let go. Then she stands on her tiptoes to kiss him, and he wraps his arm around her, pulling her as close as he can. “Please,” she says shakily. “Please be back in the morning.”

He nods, then lets go of her, striding down the hall to the stairs as if knowing it’ll be too hard for both of them if he looks back one more time. She stands at the top, watching him. Hears the door open, and shut, and hears his car start. Tires crunch in the driveway, headlights swing across the front foyer as he reverses, and then he’s gone.

Lucy presses her knuckles to her mouth, holding back a sob. Just for a moment. Then she shakes herself – I’m fine, I’m fine – and goes to get her phone.

Flynn’s head is a roaring, whirling maelstrom for at least the first twenty minutes out. He feels like he’s been electrified, he can’t stop or slow, he drives well past the speed limit, and he’s lucky not to be pulled over. He has a personal black site where he keeps his Rittenhouse materials, well away from the house, as he’s obviously not going to take any chances with that being raided. It’s north, up in the woods, and it has all the files he’s kept, the intel he’s collected – he’s not letting those two years go to waste, and he still adds to it where he can. He’s going to go up there and check all the things that might have pinged, run all the diagnostics and pull anything he can off whatever server he can think of. There has to be chatter, there has to be traffic. Some kind of reference to whatever covert surveillance operation that Rittenhouse has to have been running. He’s looked for everything, he’s never really stopped – how could they have fooled him?

The urge to drive to another location in Marin County – the Rittenhouse mansion in the woods where Cahill took Lucy the first time – and just go in guns blazing, try to take out anyone who’s up there for an evil retreat, is considerable. Flynn knows he can’t, but that doesn’t mean he doesn’t want to. Every anxiety, every lurking terror from every time he’s woken up and looked at Lucy sleeping, the covers sloped over her stomach, has been triggered at once, and it’s a battle to keep his head clear enough as it is. He’s going to ask her to marry him. Should probably have done it before, but – well, one thing at a time. He knows he loves her with his entire mind and heart and soul, and if she came back to him from the future, well. Something must have happened there.

(But what if it doesn’t?)

(What if Rittenhouse takes his wife – well, soon, anyway – and his daughter away from him? What if he loves two people more than anything else on earth, and he loses them? After all this, after everything?)

(He’s not brave enough, he’s not strong enough, to stand that without going mad.)

Flynn’s hands are almost vibrating on the wheel, and he accelerates again. He’s on the Bayshore Freeway, as it happens, the stretch that runs right alongside the Bay between South San Fran and Little Hollywood. He saved Lucy not twenty miles from here, just over ten years ago. Strange that that was the moment that connected them so inextricably, that wound them up where they are, and –

He sees headlights too late. Just out of the corner of his eye.

Hears the screech, and the swerve. Then the crash.

Then there’s nothing but black water below him, and the car is falling.

#lucy x flynn #garcy #garcy ff #timeless ff #the tangled web of fate we weave