Something was going wrong. This was the second time in one day that Samuel had caused damage to another’s skin. The first time, Dr Brown could write it off as having to do with Koji, but this time she wasn’t so sure. She decided to follow Lou to the infirmary, and take care of that detail first. Samuel would just have to wait in her office.

The two orderlies left Lou sitting on a hospital bed. Dr Brown just nodded to them and they left the room. The nurse then came over. She took a look at Lou’s wrists and then glanced at Dr Brown. Understanding the quick shake of the head, the nurse was wise enough not to say anything, but to simply start tending to the wounds.

“Ms Stephens will take good care of you,” Dr Brown said.

“Wh…what did he do to me?” Lou was understandably upset. Dr Brown considered that she would be in shock as well if it looked like her skin was rotting off the bones. Well, no, she wouldn’t. She had more fortitude than that.

“Yes,” Dr Brown said. “Those are some nasty bruises. We should probably have you checked over to make sure your health is alright. You really shouldn’t bruise so easily.”

“Bruises?” Lou sounded doubtful.

“Of course. Isn’t that what they are Ms Stephens?”

“Yes.”

“But…”

“I know they look horrible, but I’m sure they look worse than they really are. Isn’t that right Ms Stephens?”

“Yes. You have a few scrapes as well, but we’ll get you fixed up in no time.”

“There,” Dr Brown gave Lou a reassuring smile. “You see? Nothing to worry about. Now, how about you tell me what happened between you and Samuel?”

“I…” Lou whimpered again. Dr Brown had to resist the urge to clench her teeth and smack the boy herself. She needed to know what happened. She had to know what set Samuel off.

“It will go easier if you focus on my questions. You’ll forget the pain. Answer my questions, and Ms Stephens can give you something to help you sleep.” Dr Brown promised. “Now, tell me what happened.”

“He’s always getting special attention from you,” Lou muttered. “But he doesn’t appreciate it. Sam just complains all the time. He doesn’t try as hard as I do. Never. And then he wasn’t even in group this morning. So I confronted him about it. I asked him why, but he wouldn’t even answer me. Sam told me it wasn’t any of my business. And the whole time he kept saying bad stuff about you.” Lou looked up at her. Oh, he expected praise for defending her honor didn’t he? Well fighting couldn’t be condoned, she’d have to play this just right.

“That must have made you very angry,” Dr Brown said softly.

“Yeah, it did. He called me a dog for trying to do what you wanted. I guess that just was the last straw. And he was saying he could take me, so…I guess I decided to make him prove it. I’m sorry Dr Brown. I was just so mad all I could think about was punching him.” Lou was crying again. It was just a little pathetic really. “You’re not mad are you?”

“Well, you really shouldn’t be fighting. I can understand how upset you must have been, but violence is never the answer. You understand that, don’t you?”

“Yes. It won’t happen again.”

“Good. And see, Ms Stephens is all done with your wrists. Now take the medicine she gives you. Then lie down and get some rest.”

Obediently, Lou drank the liquid that Ms Stephens handed him. Then he stretched out on the bed.

“I’ll come back and check on you later. Ms Stephens, a word if I may.”

The two women went to the door of the infirmary so that no one else could hear them. Dr Brown kept her voice low.

“His wrists are bad, aren’t they?” she asked.

“They are. Do you want him to survive?”

Dr Brown considered this for a moment. “I’ll check with the…boss and see if this is an acceptable loss. Otherwise do what you can.”

“He’s going to get more infected and it’ll spread. Any idea how Sam made this happen?”

“Don’t worry about that. I’ll take care of it.”

Ms Stephens shrugged. That wasn’t her problem anyway, she was only asking out of curiosity, certainly.

“Koji’s well enough to come out of the infirmary, if you care,” Ms Stephens said.

“Hold him the rest of the day. I have to deal with this first.”

“Sure thing.”

With an annoyed sigh, Dr Brown headed away from the infirmary and back to her office. Now she knew what Lou had done, but that still didn’t explain what had made Samuel angry enough that he had been able to cause those injuries. This was not going to be easy. She’d have to find out without letting Samuel know he had done anything out of the ordinary. Okay, so there were days when her job wasn’t any fun.

~~~*~~~

Sam didn’t know how long he waited in Dr Brown’s office. It was definitely longer than he wanted to. He also never could keep track of the days of the week. That sort of thing wasn’t important at Wellhaven. All he knew was there were days when he didn’t have private sessions with Dr Brown, and this was supposed to be one of those days. So much for that.

His hands were covered with some kind of sick smelling goop again. Without anyone to clean him up, Sam had just wiped his hands on his pants. Now the whole room seemed to smell rotten. Either the hospital needed a serious cleaning, or he was doing something to people to make their skin fall off. Now that was something he shouldn’t admit to thinking. Dr Brown would use that against him for sure.

The door opened behind him. Sam didn’t even bother turning around. What was the point? He knew who it was. Sure enough, Dr Brown came around his left side before sitting down behind her desk. She looked a little less put together than usual. Then again, it had been a busy day. There had been two fights she had to break up. Sam waited for her to speak first.

“Lou will be in the infirmary for the rest of the day I suspect,” Dr Brown said.

“I’m fine too, thanks f’ askin’,” Sam muttered. He realized his head was definitely pounding where Lou had slammed it against the floor. He was lucky his skull hadn’t cracked open.

“This is the second fight you’ve been in today,” Dr Brown continued.

“Th’ other person started it each time. I didn’t…”

“Lou tells me that you egged him on, telling him he couldn’t take you. Is that true?”

“It…well yeah. But that was after he’d already hit m’ once.”

“And you’d been badmouthing me?”

Sam snorted.

“Oh, I assure you Samuel, I can take it, but the other patients here aren’t as strong as I am. Lou is very fragile. He desperately wants approval and acceptance. Protecting me is one way he feels he can get that approval. I’ve never really known you to be so mean spirited against your fellow patients.”

What was she talking about? Had she not been paying attention? He’d been in fights before, usually because someone wasn’t leaving him alone. They never ended up like this, but they had happened. And Max had definitely thrown him around before.

“He attacked me.” Sam said. “And y’ know, I didn’t see any orderlies come runnin’ to pull us apart.”

“I’m sure it all happened very quickly.”

“Yeah…well…I barely touched th’ guy anyway. He was on top o’ me, and then he starts screamin’. I wasn’t doin’ anythin’ t’ him, but tryin’ t’ keep him from punchin’ me.”

And that was the second time that had happened. What was going on today?

“Samuel, look at me. Lou is very fragile. I know he doesn’t look it, but he bruises very easily. When you grabbed him, you held on tighter than you realized and really hurt him. He has terrible bruises on both of his wrists right now.”

“Yeah huh?”

“Yes. Ms Stephens had to give him something to help him relax. It would be nice if you apologized to him later.”

“What? No. No way. I told you. He attacked me. I was just readin’ and he comes outta no where to complain about me not bein’ in group. Why didn’t y’ tell them that Koji had been sick and I was visitin’ him? They didn’t even know that Koji was sick.”

“Well, we got into things very early in the session, and there just wasn’t a good time to bring it up.”

“That was why he was messin’ with me. He thought me and Koji had just skipped out ‘r somethin’. So he gives me this lecture and…”

“Samuel, I’ve heard enough. As far as I’m concerned, you’re both at fault. You’re right, Lou shouldn’t have attacked you like that. I told him violence is never the answer. However, you knew exactly what buttons to push, and you pushed them. You should have expected something like this to happen.”

“I should read minds?”

“I said I’ve heard enough. I can tell that I’m going to have to do some re-evaluating of your status here. I may even have to change your medication. Now, do you think we can go without any further incidents for the rest of the day?”

“Sure, if…”

“I don’t want to hear any ‘if’s. No more fighting. And here’s something that I’m sure will make you happy. Koji should be well enough to return to your room by bedtime.”

Sam looked up at her, trying to hide his relief.

“Yes, I thought that would make you happy. Now, it’s lunch time. Go eat. You have art therapy afterwards don’t you?”

Sam left Dr Brown’s office with mixed feelings. On the one hand, Koji was going to be out of the infirmary by bedtime. That would definitely cut down on fighting. Somehow he felt more calm with his roommate around. On the other hand, he still had this uneasy feeling about what had happened both with Max and with Lou. Somehow those marks on Lou’s wrists just hadn’t looked like bruises. Still, there was no sense in worrying about it. He wasn’t going to be able to figure it out anyway.