Okay guys, here goes another story. I recently discovered (I know, I must have been living under a rock) the Boondock Saints and all the wonderful beauty that is Norman Reedus and Sean Patrick Flannery. It has been driving my fiance insane because I keep watching the movies over and over. Literally. I think my Boondock Saints dvds have been watched more times than my son's Diego movies, and that is saying something.

This originally started as a short workshop for my fiction writing class. I drew two slips of paper out of a hat. I just started writing and this is what came out. Of course it ended up being over 100 pages so I definitely couldn't use it for class, plus somehow it had ended up about the Boondock Saints, which I definitely don't own and don't even pretend to own (as much as I'd like to). Anyway, I hope you enjoy this, because I definitely enjoyed writing it!

Chapter One

She

She

She screams in silence

A sullen riot penetrating through her mind

Waiting for a sign

To smash the silence with the brick of self-control

-"She" (Green Day)

Stewart Memorial Hospital was the worst kind of shit-hole, and I'd been in my fair share of shit-holes. They said that our wing wasn't really part of the hospital. I guess they said it to make us feel normal. We all knew better. The only thing that separated St. Rose from the ER was a little enclosed walkway and two sets of automatic doors that locked after eight p.m.

The hallways in our wing were awful. They were a twisting maze of parqueted floors and bare walls under fluorescent lights so bright they would melt your fucking eyes if you looked at them too long. There were also an exceptional amount of nurses' stations in our wing, as if they thought we were planning a revolt. And they weren't just normal nurses' stations, either. They were completely separated from the hallways; the only way to get behind that desk was with an electronic key card.

The rooms weren't quite as bad. At least the lighting wasn't as fierce. And we had beds that were more like real beds than hospital beds. We were allowed as much stuff from home as we wanted, so long as it passed inspection, so most of our rooms were bursting at the seams with knick-knacks and comforts.

My room was no different. I was a minimalist at heart, so I hadn't brought much. Not that I'd had much to begin with. There was a blanket on my bed that my grandmother had knitted and a picture frame with a photograph of my older sister. That was the extent of my personal belongings aside from a stack of books halfway hidden under the bed.

The rest of the stuff in my room belonged to my roommate Valerie. Val loved stuff. There were stuffed animals piled in the armchair in the corner, and no one was allowed to touch them but her. Posters of pop stars and ripped actors covered the cream-colored walls like wallpaper; stacks of wobbling VHS tapes sat around our little television that only got four channels, because apparently anything other than the Disney Channel, Nickelodeon, the History Channel, and PBS were detrimental to our health.

Val was a real character. She'd come to St. Rose's a couple weeks before me, so she felt that she was in charge even though I was older. She had orange hair and a vicious sneer that she liked to turn on everyone. I think she thought it was a smile. Her official diagnosis was a panic disorder. It made hanging out with her interesting, if nothing else.

We were supposed to spend the day going to therapy. I don't know why they thought that running around a track in the gymnasium or painting a still life would fix us. It certainly didn't fix me.

Most of the day I slipped away to the main part of the hospital. Hanging out in the waiting room of the ER, watching other people's problems, made me feel a hell of a lot better than sitting in the culinary arts room watching an obese nurse eat everything she was supposed to be showing us how to cook. I always had to go back to St. Rose for individual and group therapy, though. Individual therapy was every day, but group therapy was only once a week. You really got in trouble if you missed those.

There were only eight of us full-timers registered at St. Rose's. Bex was the youngest; she was only fifteen. Patrick was the eldest at twenty-nine. The rest of us just fell somewhere in between.

I'd been at St. Rose's for six months now, I thought miserably, glancing over at Val. It was only a quarter to eight, but she was burrowed down under a mound of stuffed animals in bed, watching the Little Mermaid on our television, content not to move again until morning. Six fucking months and I was no closer to being released than I'd been the night I was admitted. At St. Rose, you can't be discharged until your doctors think you're ready. And they never think you're ready. They must have a real lack of confidence in their rehabilitation skills.

I closed my book and got out of bed. Val didn't even look up; she was too busy singing along to 'Part of your World.' I grabbed my sweatshirt and ducked out of the room. The door was already open.

The hallways were deserted now. Most of the Crazies were in the common room; it was Tuesday, which meant Movie Madness night. The movies were always ridiculous G-rated monstrosities, films that made Val's Disney movies seem risque. The nurses were relaxed, chattering. It was almost time for the night shift to come on.

I sidled over to the automatic doors leading to the main hospital. I had fifteen minutes before these doors were locked, and I planned to be on the other side when they were. Nights in the ER were usually pretty boring, but it beat listening to Disney movies on repeat.

The nurses would have stopped me if they'd seen me; they knew I was aware of what time the doors locked. But they didn't, and I slipped across the walkway with no one the wiser.

The main part of Stewart Memorial was even worse than the St. Rose wing. Everything was brighter, louder, more abrasive. I loved it; I don't know why. Nurses, interns, and surgeons scurried along the corridors dressed in matching navy scrubs, some in lab coats and others with stacks of charts in their arms. Maybe it was the hustle and bustle that made it so appealing, I thought as I made my way to the Emergency Room waiting area. I settled into one of the uncomfortable chairs, curling my legs up around me, pulling the sleeve of my sweatshirt down to cover the hospital ID bracelet that established me as a patient.

There weren't many people in the ER now. There was a middle-aged woman who couldn't quit coughing into a handkerchief while her husband fluttered around her worriedly and an elderly man reading a magazine. Nothing too exciting.

I picked at my chipped nail polish, wondering if tonight was going to be a waste after all. It was only Tuesday. But, as boring as the ER currently was, it was nothing compared to the St. Rose wing.

A paramedic walked through the doors with a chart in his hand. He looked tired, but he smiled at me and came over instead of going straight to the counter. His name-tag said Ian. "Hey there, Mimi." He took the seat next to me, resting the clipboard on his knee. "Scoping out the disaster scene tonight?"

"Not much going on," I muttered, gesturing to the nearly empty waiting room. "Is it bad for me to hope for a disaster?"

He chuckled. "A little bit." He paused to check his watch. "Eight o'clock. Guess you're playing the truant now."

"Yep." There was no need to hide it. Everyone in the ER knew me by name now, knew my odd habits. Sometimes I felt I could diagnose people better than the damn doctors.

The paramedic yawned. "Well, I'd better get this chart in before I get off duty. I'll see you Thursday."

"Have a good day off," I answered. I should've been nicer to him, I thought. At least he was talking to me. More than I could say for anyone else in the waiting room.

Ian spent about twenty minutes at the counter, arguing with the curly-haired nurse on duty there. Finally he relinquished the chart and left, giving me one last smile before he slipped out the door to go home.

The nurse was a big hulking woman by the name of Erin. I called her Bertha instead. She wasn't a very nice nurse. She leaned over the counter, her massive basoomas resting on the sign-in sheet.

"It's after eight, kid," she frowned at me through her glasses. "Isn't it time you get back to St. Rose? The doors should be locked by now."

I pretended not to hear her. I wasn't causing any trouble. I wasn't trying to kill anyone or screaming maniacally. Compared to the rest of the Crazies, I was pretty damn normal. Bertha continued to frown, but she settled into her chair and went back to her charts.

It was cold in the waiting room. I balled my hands up inside my sweatshirt sleeves and hunkered down deeper in my chair. My gaze wandered to the ancient television set above the elderly gentleman's head; there was a news report about a group of mobsters that had been murdered. I didn't pay close attention. The amount of crime in the city was old news.

Things were getting boring. Maybe I'd have better luck with the Crazies and Movie Madness night. At least then I'd have something interesting to look at. I told myself that if no one walked in the door in the next five minutes, I'd go back to St. Rose. I'd have to get a nurse to let me through the locked doors, which would result in a lecture I could recite by heart at this point, but I was ready for it.

I didn't wear a watch. Dr. Mendoza seemed to think time was irrelevant for me and didn't allow it, so I counted the five minutes in my head. I was at two hundred and fifty-one seconds when the Emergency Room doors swished open and two guys stumbled in. I stopped counting at once. This was my type of emergency.

One of the men was unconscious, entirely supported by the other. They were both wearing jeans and black wool coats despite the humidity of the August evening, and there was so much blood. I felt myself get excited just at the sight of it. My mind immediately jumped to a million different scenarios, each more impossible than the last. Dr. Mendoza often said that I needed to calm my overactive imagination. Funny, I thought the drugs were supposed to do that.

Even though it was clear that the unconscious man needed immediate attention, Bertha took her sweet time paging someone and getting out of her creaky chair.

The orderlies and nurses came through the locked doors leading back to the main part of the Emergency Room, pushing a gurney.

"What happened?" one of the nurses asked sharply. I recognized him, though not by name. I didn't like him.

The second man hesitated, his stricken eyes never leaving his companion's unconscious face. "He was shot," he explained in a thick Irish accent, not looking up. "We were leaving the pub and some fuckers mugged us. Shot him six fucking times!"

The nurses barked commands to the orderlies. I didn't have to hear them to know what they were going to do. He was coding; that much was clear. Once he was on the gurney I could see he'd been shot in the chest, and a bullet in the lung was no trifle to be plucked out, sewn up, and sent on his way. No, they'd be rushing him to the OR to try and control the internal bleeding. For a moment I wished I'd be allowed in the operating room. Then the orderlies were pushing the gurney through the doors.

The second man made to follow them, but Bertha stepped in his path; there's no getting around her when she does that. She had a clipboard in hand. "Are you related?"

"Aye, that's my fucking brother!" the man snapped, tense. He obviously wasn't happy to see his brother being rolled down the hall without him.

Bertha held out the clipboard and a pen to him. "I need you to fill out this paperwork to the best of your ability."

The man took the clipboard helplessly. "Can't I go with him and fill this out after?"

"No." Bertha was insistent. "He's going into surgery; you'll not be allowed in the operating room anyway. We'll keep you updated on his progress."

Then she settled herself back behind her desk and continued with her paperwork as if even gunshot wounds couldn't interest her. The man glared at her with a loathing I could identify with, and then he took the clipboard and sat down in a chair by the door. He stared down at the clipboard, perplexed. His hands were shaking. There was a cigarette tucked behind his ear and it looked like he desperately wanted to rip it out and smoke it.

I watched him for a few minutes, no longer bored. He just stared at the paperwork, the pen clenched tightly in his trembling hand. He made no move to write anything. He stared, not seeing.

Even though I was supposed to be the crazy one, I felt sorry for the guy. He was obviously having a traumatic experience. I'd seen other people react this way too. A couple weeks back there was a real bad traffic accident. There had been twenty people reacting this way then. I'd sat quietly and studied them, but I hadn't pitied them. They'd had loved ones around to comfort them. This guy had nothing.

I unfolded myself from my chair and sat down next to him, gently taking the clipboard and pen from him. Bertha didn't even glance up from her work. She was listening to her headphones now.

The man looked at me with intense blue eyes, surprised. "And just what the fuck do you think you're doing?"

"Helping you out," I answered calmly, balancing the clipboard on my knee. "What's your brother's full name?"

He didn't answer, just frowned at me. Up close I could see there was a stylized tattoo of the Virgin Mary on his neck and the Latin word ĀÉQUITĀS on his right hand.

I blew a loose strand of hair out of my face. "Here's how this works," I said. "Your brother is having surgery right now. There's no way in hell they'll let you into that operating room. As soon as he's out, however, they'll take you back to the surgical waiting room. They might even let you see him. But only if you've filled out the paperwork. Now, what is your brother's full name?"

"Connor MacManus," he finally answered, watching me write with a certain sort of relief.

I couldn't help but smile. Now we were getting somewhere. Once I got him talking, he filled out the forms easily. His brother apparently had the cleanest slate of anyone I'd ever met before; not even a broken arm as a kid. He was healthy as a horse. It was a shame he'd been shot.

"Well, there you go," I announced, returning the clipboard and pen to him, forms fully filled out. "Now you'll be ready and rearing to go as soon as your brother gets out of surgery."

He took the clipboard; his hands had stopped trembling. The shock was wearing off, but not the fatigue. I saw it in his eyes. "Thanks, lass," he muttered.

"No problem. I hope your brother's okay," I answered, tucking my legs back up under me. "I can't believe this city. So much crime."

"You're telling me," he agreed with a grim look that wasn't quite a smile but almost. He left his seat to hand his clipboard to Bertha, who didn't even look up, but then he returned and stuck out his hand to me. "Me name's Murphy."

I shook his hand; it dwarfed mine but was much paler. "Mimi," I answered.

That's when Bertha noticed me. She lumbered to her feet and slammed her fat hands down on her counter, rattling the plastic pen holder. "Mimi!" she practically growled. Even the middle-aged woman and the elderly man looked up. "Quit bothering that man! Get back to your room before I call security!"

I unfolded myself from my seat immediately. You could tell when Bertha meant business and even I wouldn't cross her then. "Nice to meet you," I called over my shoulder, drifting towards the walkway to St. Rose as quickly as I could. Bertha huffily resumed her seat.

I crossed the walkway and had to press the button outside the St. Rose wing for about five minutes before one of the night nurses came over to unlock the door.

"What are you doing in the main part of the hospital, Mimi?" she asked with an exasperated sigh, the same way she always did when she let me in after hours. "You know you're supposed to be in this wing by eight."

I shrugged, pulling my sweatshirt over my head. There was no need to hide my ID bracelet here in the psych wing. "There was a gunshot vic. It was interesting. I got distracted."

"Mm-hm." She was used to my excuses. They all were. "Well, Movie Madness is over. Why don't you get back to your room? Val was asking for you a few minutes ago."

Great, I thought to myself. She probably wanted me to reenact the scene in the Little Mermaid where Ariel kills the Sea Witch. She'd make me be the Sea Witch. Again.

She was still in bed when I came into our room. The doors always stayed open, even when we were asleep. Our doctors insisted on it. Val looked up at me; she'd moved on to the Lion King and was bawling. She must have gotten to the part where Mufasa dies. She always cries at that part.

"It's so sad, Mimi," she sniffed, holding out her arms to me. She was eighteen, a grown woman in any culture, but she looked more like an eight-year-old at the moment. "Can you believe that his own brother would do that?"

I sighed but crossed over and got into bed with her, putting my arms around her slender shoulders. Val didn't eat much; she'd lost fifteen pounds just since she'd been at St. Rose. The panic attacks made it worse. "It is sad," I agreed. "But everyone has to die. Like Mufasa says, it's the circle of life."

I was only repeating the movie, but Val seemed to find solace in it. Even though it was only nine, she fell asleep. I left the movie on to lull her into a deeper slumber as I slipped into our bathroom.

The bathroom was the only place we ever got any privacy, and even there it wasn't much. The lights were automatic; as soon as the door opened they came on and wouldn't go off until all motion had stopped. Though they never told us, we all knew that when the lights came on, so did the microphones. There was a nurse employed only to listen to us when we were in the bathroom, to make sure we weren't doing anything we weren't supposed to. You know, like forcing ourselves to throw up or taking unauthorized pills. It was awkward trying to use the restroom while someone was listening very intently, but it was better than video cameras.

The lights came on and I shut the door behind me. The bathroom was a tiny, narrow little cubicle with a toilet, a sink, and a shower with no tub. There was no lock on the door. Everything was cleaned religiously; the smell of disinfectant was always overwhelming. I reached into the shower and turned the knob toward hot.

I found myself thinking about the strange Irish man I'd met in the ER waiting room as I stripped off my t-shirt and jeans. I met a lot of people in the main part of the hospital, people who were more interesting than this guy, but for some reason he intrigued me. Maybe it was the look in his eyes, I thought, stepping under the scalding spray and letting it wash over me. There was a haunted look there, one I recognized well. Almost all the Crazies were sane enough to have that look.

"Mimi," came the bemused voice over the intercom, just as I'd known it would. "I know you like hot showers but turn the temperature down a little. I'd hate to have to register this as an attempt to harm yourself."

"Fine," I grumbled, turning the knob. "Better?" The nurse didn't answer; I took her silence for assent.

That was the problem with St. Rose, I grimaced. They wouldn't even let me take a shower the way I wanted. It was the fucking story of my life.

There you go. Chapter one. I hope you all enjoyed! Please review!

P.S.: One of the things I drew out of the hat was a chance meeting at a hospital! You'll have to wait until my other prompt comes into play to find out what it is!