Harry
"Why do you keep sitting with me?"
Harry shrugged, he really didn't know why he kept going back to the different girl, "I dunno, I thought maybe we could be friends?"
Jane didn't look at him, her hands twisting in her lap, "You don't want to be my friend."
He was determined although he was confused with how she acted sometimes, "Yes, I do."
She looked at him now, her dark eyes hard and intent on making him go away, "Why?"
Harry wasn't going to go away, even if she looked at him like he was the devil himself, "Because, you're different. I like different."
Jane didn't say anything, her eyes now darting around frantically, like someone was going to run around the corner and do something terrible.
"My sister's different too, you know. Sometimes, she isn't herself."
She didn't talk, but he didn't press her to say anything. He just wanted her to know that he wasn't like the other kids, that he would be her friend even if she scared him sometimes.
They sat there in silence, her eyes flitting back and forth constantly and his hands twisted awkwardly in his lap.
Jane was very different, he knew that by watching the way the adults looked at her when she started yelling, crying, or when they noticed her eyes wandering like they were now. That didn't stop him from trying to understand though.
He hated being alone and, surely, she must have too.
Jane's lips were trembling as she turned to look at him with glossy eyes, "Are you one of them?"
Harry didn't really understand what she meant by 'them', but he knew that his answer was no.
He shook his head, his fingers pulling at the dirt beneath him. He wanted to hold her hand, but he knew that it wasn't a good idea, just like he knew the answer to her question was no.
"No."
"They...they say that you are and that you want to hurt me too."
Harry frowned and thought about what she had said, picking out his answer carefully in his mind, "I don't want to hurt you, Jane. Why would I?"
Her dark eyes searched his lighter ones intently. He shifted a little uncomfortably, but he didn't look away.
"Everyone wants to hurt me."
Again, he shook his head, "I don't want to hurt you, Jane."
"They say that you do."
"Well, then, they're wrong."
. . .
Harry couldn't do a thing and he watched them take her away. She looked so terrified and his chest hurt when her dark eyes met his, pleading for him to help her.
He couldn't do a thing or they wouldn't let him back inside. Or, even worse, they'd keep him inside and never let him out.
A guard was staring him down from the exit they had just taken Jane through, and he slowly walked back to the table where his sister sat, unmoving, a wicked grin playing at her lips.
"I told you she would lose it."
He exhaled through his nose and ran a hand through his hair, "I already knew that she would. I just wanted to talk to her, even if only for a little bit."
Victoria leaned forward, her elbows pressing into the table and a fire behind her eyes, "How do you know her?"
She was the overly rude, and attentive side of his sister. He hadn't told her that he knew Jane, and she knew from what she had heard from Amelia and what she had just seen that he knew her a little more than he let on.
"I went to school with her, when we were younger. She was taken away just like you were, only, I never saw it happen, I heard about it through the other kids and the teachers."
Her head tilted to the side and her wicked grin morphed into a sly smile, "You liked her, didn't you?"
Harry was unsure of the answer himself, but he knew that he had to in some way because, here he was, still trying to talk to her after all these years.
"I guess so."
Rosalie was back now, easing her elbows from the table and looking at him curiously, "Was it bad this time?"
He shook his head, "No. Victoria was rude, as usual, but that's okay."
Inwardly, he was sighing in relief because Elizabeth hadn't come out yet. Elizabeth was the flirty part of Rosalie and she gave him the creeps more often than not.
Rosalie nodded, her gaze drifting to her hands briefly before lifting to meet his eyes.
She asked him a question that didn't pertain to her disorder, the first time she had done so in years, "Did you find out who she was?"
His vision was blurry and a smile trembled its way to his lips, Rosalie was getting better again.
Harry nodded, "I did."
Rosalie managed to smile at him in return, "I'm sorry that she's in here."
Harry smiled at her warmly, "Me too. I'm sorry that you're in here too."
Jane
The familiar feeling of the leather straps did nothing to calm her down. She fought against her restraints to no avail and screamed for them to let her go.
Everyone was out to get her.
A nurse that she didn't recognize, probably someone new to replace the last nurse she had harmed while trying to save herself, had the needle in her arm in a lot more time than what she was used to.
Numbness spread throughout her veins like wildfire, but she could still feel everything. She could always feel everything. The terrible and incapacitating shocks that ravaged her body were less painful than they could have been, but she still felt the terrible singe as the nurse turned the knob.
She could still hear Harry's voice in her head, it had grown deeper over the years and he looked so much different than she remembered, but she did recognize him, "I'm still not out to get you, Jane."
The eight words ran continuously through her head until the nurse turned the knob up a notch higher and she lost consciousness.
. . .
The voices were shouting at her:
"Gonna get you...gonna get you!" "He's one of them. Don't trust him. Trust NO ONE!" "Idiot! He's going to get you too!"
"STOP IT! STOP, STOP, STOP!"
A door slammed down the dimly lit hall and echoed all the way down the corridor. Someone shouted, "Shut up in there!"
Jane pulled at her hair, searing pain shooting through her head as she yanked at the roots. She wanted the voices to stop. She wanted everything to stop.
There was nothing in her room to make it stop and she screamed into her pillow. They would come to get her, she knew it, they always did when she was like this.
Everyone was out to get her.
Right on cue, there were shouts from all around her, telling her to shut up, and a heavy pounding on her door.
"Time for treatment, Jane."
She didn't move.
"Jane, I'm not going to ask you again."
She wished that her body would become the mattress beneath her.
Two male nurses strode through the door and pried her from the mattress. Jane writhed in their arms, their touch was poisonous. They were going to get her again.
"No! Leave me alone! NO!"
The hall grew silent again as they dragged her away and into one of the furthest and darkest rooms in the building. Even though she had been there so many times before, familiarity wasn't the best word.
In here, they would strap her to the bed, stick a needle in her arm, and electrocute her until she lost consciousness.
Treatment, they called it.
Jane didn't feel like it was any sort of treatment at all, torture was more like the right word.
Sometimes, she forgot things for days. One time, her forgetfulness had lasted for a month and they left her alone for a few weeks after that.
But they were always out to get her. Always.
A light voice sung in her ear, "Gonna get you...they're gonna get you!"
Jane screamed and the nurse flipped the switch.