How To Save A Life

Chapter 1: Sheehan

Summary: A look at how three people tried to save one life.

-sings to the tune of Free Fallin- I'm a bad girl, for not updating my other stories. I'm a bad girl for disappointing you. But I don't ca-are cause this one will freaking rock -ends singing-

Alright I feel better now! So I've had this story since Shutter Island opened in theatres (which was forever ago) but I didn't want to start it before I had a way to end it. Lucky for me, I found an ending to it!

I hope you enjoy. This is a Three-fer, so expect two more!

Where did I go wrong?

They tell me that wrong isn't the way to put it. They tell me that there are some people who just can't be saved. I didn't believe it then, and I damn sure don't believe it now. He could have been saved.

No. He had been saved. It just wasn't the saving I had in mind.

John tells me I should let it go. Emily tells me I should let it go. They tell me I'm going to go insane just like Andrew did. All because we won't (or didn't) let it go. But how can I let go? I spent two years with two men in the same body; two years trying to help someone bear with the unbearable. That is not something you can let go easily. Watching your best friend waste away; that sure as hell isn't something that you forget.

I'm not sure where it started. Somewhere between long conversations in my office and the cigarette smoke I crossed a line too bold not to notice. It wasn't just a patient- doctor line; it was the line of sanity, the line of normality. If you could ask Teddy, he'd probably say it started the moment the light came on. If you could asked Andrew, he'd deny it ever happen.

I wish I could do the same.

They thought I was just doing my job, and I was partly I guess. After all, I was suppose to take away the pain. I was suppose to make the nightmares stop. I was suppose to make Andrew and Teddy whole again. That was my job, they told me; plain and simple. They didn't care how I did it, they just wanted it done. Otherwise, Andrew and Teddy were doomed.

So I tried. I spent the first five months going back and forth between Andrew and Teddy, finding out what made them work. On the days with Andrew, he wouldn't say much. When he did, he talked about Rachel. The other days with Teddy, he would talk nonstop about everything and about Dolores.

Over those months I became two men in the same body myself. With Teddy, I was Chuck. With Andrew, I was Lester. I like to think that put us on equal grounds. I knew what he was going through because I was going through it myself. Of course, I will never understand what they went through, but at the time I was young and naïve. I knew everything and I could do anything.

One day, when I was with Teddy having a smoke outside on the hospital steps, he looked over at me, but didn't say a word. It wasn't something unusual. When Teddy wasn't talking, he was thinking. When he caught my eye, I took the cigarette out my mouth and exhaled.

"What cha thinkin, boss?" I asked as Chuck normally did.

Then he smiled. It was a half-smile. I was shocked, but I didn't show it. Teddy never smiled.

"Nothin, Chuck," he said and went back to his cigarette.

That was when the light came on. I saw it in his eyes when he smiled his crooked half-smile. The Lester part of me wanted to know what that meant, but as Chuck I didn't ask. I'd find out later, I told myself.

Then a week afterward, I was with Andrew in my office. His eyes were bloodshot and dark rings were starting to form. He hadn't slept in days.

"I couldn't handle the nightmares," he said. His whole body was shaking of its own accord. "I see her. I see her floatin in the water. My baby girl floatin in the water askin me to get her out, but I can't. I can't reach her." He stared down at his trembling hands with tears falling down his cheek. "I stretch my arms out as far as they can go, but my fingers, they don't even skim the water. "

Then he looked up, his eyes meeting mine. In that simple motion, something inside me broke as his grief washed over me. He was a drowning man sinking fast with only my hand reaching out to grab him, just like in his dream. Deep down, a part of me understood that I'd never catch him and if I did, he was already too far gone.

At the time, however, I wouldn't except that notion.

"Andrew, you did what could," I tried to reassure him. "You've got to realize that."

He shut his eyes and head shook rapidly as I spoke. I watched his hands grip his knees hard enough to make his knuckles white. I braced for the worst.

"No, no I didn't," he said, "I should have never left her. She told me not too but I didn't listen. She begged me, 'Daddy, stay home. Daddy don't go'. She cried when I left. I had to pry her little hands off me just to get out the door. What kind of person am I? I left her with that, that monster. What kind of person does that? What kind of father ignores his baby's cries and leaves them with a monster?" He shouted.

"Andrew, she was your wife, you didn't know-"

"I DID KNOW!" He screamed, jumping out the chair and flinging it to the floor. "I knew the fucking whole time!" He backed into the left corner, leaning on the wall for support as he spoke. I got out of my own chair and walked slowly to him.

"Andrew, you need to calm down," I whispered, hoping against hope he'd listen.

"I knew she was crazy." The words hissed out as more tears fell. "I saw it in her eyes when I first met her. I thought I could fix it. I was selfish. All I could think was, 'if she's crazy than what did that make me?' God, I loved her. I assumed if I loved her enough, she'd see reason. Not for herself, but for me; for the kids. Even if she didn't, I told myself my sanity was good enough for the both us. It had to be." His voice broke as I stood in front of him and grab his shoulders gentle. "I was so foolish."

"No, you weren't," I whispered. His eyes were shut tight and his forehead leaned against mine. "You were in love. You loved Dolores and that doesn't make you a bad person, Andrew, it makes you someone who cared. It's only natural that you wanted to fix her yourself; she was your wife."

I knew it was a lie.

I knew he was selfish and it did make him a bad person. A good person would have gotten help. They would have seen that they couldn't do it on their own. Yet, I stood there and lied as I held him up to keep him from collapsing.

I wasn't a liar. I was a doctor who told the truth; always. But as Andrew's clammy forehead pressed against mine, that something inside me couldn't bear to confirm his fears. It was the same part of me that broke moments before from the grief in his eyes.

"Take pain away," he said softly. His sore blue eyes opened and met mine.

"Andrew, you've got to-"

"I don't want too." More tears fell out of his eyes.

I sighed and hugged him because I didn't know what else to do. His grief sank into my bones. It's still there to this day.

"Then don't," I spoke softly, "It happened and there is nothing you can do to change that. You don't have to live with it, but you've got to let it go. Do what it takes, Andrew. Otherwise, you're gonna end up killing yourself." I pulled back and looked him in the eyes. "Andrew, please. You're stronger than this, I know you can find a way."

When we broke apart, silence filled the rest of the evening. When I took him back to his room, I replayed what I said over and over. Those were not the words of a professional and even though I tried to care, I couldn't. If I had been in Andrew's shoes, I would have wanted him to say the same thing (another indication that it was the wrong thing to do). The only thing I took solace in was that Andrew didn't want to talk about it either.

At least, not aloud. Before I shut his door, I caught his eye. I saw the same thing I saw in Teddy's eyes that day on the hospital steps. It was a light, bright and shining through dark clouds that was his insanity.

It would be the last time I saw Andrew for a long time.

The next morning it was Teddy who graced my office door. I knew by the way he carried himself.

"Mornin' Chuck." He said, confirming my speculations.

"Mornin Teddy," I nodded my head.

He sat in the same chair Andrew sat in the day before. I watched him slump into a comfortable position the way only Teddy could. I did my best not to stare.

We sat in silence for what seemed years. He stared at the wall, thinking as usual, while I stared at him and tried to displace all the bad thoughts that ran through my mind.

Then his eyes gazed lazily over to mine and he smirked.

"What cha thinkin, boss?"

"I'm thinkin you spend way too much time here."

"Me? Never." I laughed, which made Teddy laugh too.

He hadn't laughed since he set foot on this island, and possibly even before then. My spirits lifted at that.

"It has to be a Portland thing, staying inside."

"Seattle."

"Whatever."

So we talked. That was when the story of Rachel Solando surfaced. A month later, Teddy confided in me that he actually asked for 'this case' to find Andrew Laeddis, the man who killed his wife, Dolores.

I told John that night that we were in trouble. I thought nothing of it when Andrew remained Teddy for nearly a month, resetting himself every three or four days; it had happened before and he always came out of it. But Teddy never mentioned his other half, Andrew Laeddis, and from what he told me that day, Teddy's Andrew as not the real Andrew.

"It's like Teddy is trying to push Andrew out of existence," I told John franticly, "He thinks his wife died in a fire and he's using this Rachel Solando character to write off his kids."

John sighed wearily, "I was afraid of this. If his delusions get worse, Andrew might become violent. If he becomes too violent to manage…"

John didn't have to say it. We both knew what would happen.

"I can try changing his medication. Last time it seemed to help."

"I don't think medication is going to fix this, Lester."

"You always say that."

"It's the truth. Medicine only subdues the patients. It won't make his delusions go away."

"Then maybe they shouldn't."

John studied me and took in what I said. There was no secret I took this case personally but even I was taken back by my words.

"I wish it were that easy, Lester. I really do."

We spent the next days trying to figure out what could be done about Andrew. As we feared, he became more paranoid. He became fixated on the lighthouse and was certain experiments taking place there. Ghost soldiers, he said. Of all the patients John and I encountered, Andrew was by far the most imaginative.

Then he'd reset.

It played out that way for ten more months. Occasionally, there was no Chuck and I was just Dr. Sheehan. Rarely, he wouldn't even be on an assignment, he was just here. That was the strangest part. No explanation; no recreated roles for any of the staff and I to play. Andrew was just here, floating about in his own mind.

However, more often then not, he acted out his story line. Andrew became increasingly violent. He started writing in codes, tricking himself into trying to realize he was Andrew Laeddis and not Teddy Daniels. The Law of Four, he called it.

The only ones who could ever keep him calm were me and Emily.

We hired her a year before Andrew came to Ashecliffe. She wasn't his main nurse at first but something about her eased his mind. Emily and I grew close because of Andrew or Teddy as we were now calling him. I never realized how close until he pointed it out.

"What's with you and the redhead?" Teddy asked me.

We were outside smoking cigarettes again. It was starting to get stormy.

"What redhead?" I asked, pretending I didn't know what he meant hoping he'd change the subject.

"Don't act dumb, you know exactly what I'm talking about." He smirked, "We're here on business Chuck, try thinking with your head."

I glared at him. "We were just talking. That's it."

I frowned at his mischievous grin. I shouldn't have been annoyed but Teddy was right in a sense. This was a place of business; not his kind but business all the same. I knew what he was implying and I didn't like it; not at all.

"I'm just teasing. I didn't know you liked her so much."

"So I can't have a decent conversation with a pretty girl, boss? Nothing's going on."

"You keep telling yourself that."

"Alright, smartass," I said in a much lighter tone, "What do you think's going on?"

"That's none of my business," he shrugged.

"You make it your business, boss. Otherwise you wouldn't have said anything."

He looked at me and thought for a moment.

"Just don't let her slip by Chuck. Once you do, you'll never get her back. You might not see it, but the rest of us do. A girl like that's hard to find. You better marry her one day."

He threw down his cigarette and stepped on it.

"It looks like it might rain. Come on, we have a crazy woman to find."

He never mentioned it again and he didn't have too. Plant a seed the right way and it'll grow, right? It got harder for me to focus on helping Andrew. To me, Teddy was Andrew now. John was the only thing keeping me on track.

We finally broke through to Andrew but only for two days. The Warden, the other doctors, everyone else was getting impatient. Teddy already injured more staff and other patients than any other patient on the island. We were told to fix the problem or we'd have to incapacitate him.

Then John thought of something so out-of-box and dangerous, at the time I was certain it would work. The plan took seven months to set up and convince the board to allow us to try our idea.

We were going to allow Andrew to act out his delusion.

Thankies for reading! I hope it wasn't too angsty. As per usual, Flames will be used to light fireworks!