but I don't think I'm coming home

[enabeled]

WHO: ABEL GIDEON and VISITORS
WHERE: Health First Cape Canaveral Hospital
WHEN: 4/21 - 4/30 (specify date & time!)
WHAT: A trial and sentencing may or may not wait in Gideon's future, but his present involves a lengthy hospital stay. Spinal injury, amateur amputation, and a sudden but stubborn loss of appetite will do that.
WARNINGS: Probable references to violence, injury/amputation, cannibalism, and murder/attempted murder.


[ There should be relief, but there isn't -- hardly much. Abel Gideon almost wishes he had not survived his final encounter with the Chesapeake Ripper if it meant enduring what he is enduring now.

But he is glad to be alive, to be away from there. Here he doesn't have to worry about being kidnapped from his hospital room and waking up without his leg; they're taking good care of him. He had lost blood. He had a fever, and couldn't stop sweating. He felt cold almost constantly, and whenever he did sleep he always woke from nightmares shortly after with a jerk, staring with wary eyes at the door. Sometimes the window. Sometimes his remaining leg, feeling it to make sure it still really is there.

They feed him through an IV for the most part, because he refuses to touch any of the meat they try to serve him and has so far had some difficulty keeping anything else down except for the clearly inoffensive: Jello. Banana slices. Leafy salads.

Hannibal Lecter isn't here, but Gideon knows that is not a fact to take for granted. He isn't here now, therefore that fact is only of relief for the time being.

His condition is stabilized, but only physically. He doesn't speak much to the doctors or nurses but refuses psychological evaluation at every opportunity. Gideon is already rendered too vulnerable for his own liking for him to be interested in offering up what's in his head even if he did have reason to still trust psychiatrists. His head is crowded enough as it is, anyway; he spends enough time in there, thinking about Frederick Chilton -- and his own failure, twice, in killing him -- about Will Graham and the complicated baggage therein, about what his future might hold and dozens of other rotating subjects, some rational, some not.

Not much reading gets done, but not much sleeping does, either. Right now all he has is time to kill. ]

Comments

[selfequipped]

What did he do to you? Specifically, Dr. Gideon. That's the question I want to know the answer to. I've run a lot through my imagination, but my impression is that your world is not filled with people who have powers, so ... I'm left curious. You lost yourself, and he had no help in finding yourself. [She remembers those words explicitly, and had a number of different ideas on what they could have met. And yet—]

Beyond that, it's all hypothetical questions. That's the one I want to know best, since Dr. Chilton is ... helping so many here.

[enabeled]

[ That, of course, earns a stretch of silence; Gideon regards her quietly, eyes impassive though wary, and he folds his hands in his lap before slowly looking out toward the window.

The ever-complex relationship between himself and Chilton. What can he say, really? ]

He was my doctor. You know how it is with psychiatrists... they poke and they push and they twist, all in the name of healing.

Can't say I quite agree with the methods.

[selfequipped]

[The lack of specifics makes her lips twist downward. She wonders if now that he's put on the spot, he won't say anymore, or if he's building up to it. Either way, Kate has observed that he's one for theatrics. They both are, and it frustrates her.

(Not that she's not guilty of it herself.)]

How did he twist, Dr. Gideon? What methods did he use?

[enabeled]

[ Brow furrowing, Gideon tilts his head slowly, debating how to answer her further -- if he does. It's a dilemma, and as he mulls his fingers idly drum his unfeeling thigh. There's no reason to keep it secret, though -- really, all that does is hurt him further -- except for his own dignity and sense of privacy.

Slowly, words carefully enunciated, he says: ]

He tried to remake me into someone else. The Chesapeake Ripper is a man of many faces, but none that belong to myself. However... [ He pauses. ] For some time I had been led to believe otherwise.

[selfequipped]

He led you to believe that you were a serial killer. [A wheel turns in her mind. Why would he do that? Did Frederick believe that he could get away with it? Certain evidence would have to be displayed, and it would mean that Chilton himself had the right amount of information to verify that.

Still, it's risky.]

Why? What did he stand to gain from that? [There's another question, too. How did Dr. Gideon find himself in that position? She'll get to that in a moment.]

[enabeled]

[ Oh, Kate. You are opening a whole new can of worms, asking questions like that. Gideon almost looks amused, the way his gaze lowers and his lips quirk, but mostly there's something more ambiguous in that look.

He tucks his chin in toward his chest, pursing his lips more tightly before speaking. ]

Renown. Status -- the usual sorts of things. What else do men like him ever want?

[selfequipped]

[Kate recalls their burger date, and the mention of wanting to offer psychiatry to someone like Lucifer. Despite her indications otherwise, Chilton had insisted upon going forth with it, and even acted as if her concern had been misplaced. She's curious about that in hindsight, and what it means to this now.]

And what were you before he ... remade you? [It's the question that needs to be asked. Did Chilton make him into someone who would harm others, or would it be something different?]

He suggested that I should be afraid of you. But honestly, Dr. Gideon, you wouldn't get very far with me. [Even in his normal state. She's certain of it.] But that was a warning that didn't come out of selfishness. Why did you attack him, when there were other ways to injure him that were more severe? [Ways to prolong it. It's a lot of questions, a lot of things she's wondering, and she wonders if he'll choose to answer any of them.]

[enabeled]

What was I?

[ In his normal state, Gideon was capable of quite a lot when it came down to it; he had felled four people on his own, a nurse moments after his heart had continued beating, two armed guards while he himself had been in handcuffs. Not that this sort of abnormal strength was drawn upon in more lucid moments... or ever could be, again.

He holds out his hands in an open-palmed shrug. ]

A man. A doctor, a patient... quite a number of things. But not a serial killer. [ He smirks thinly. ] Either way, I don't think I'd kill you. Awfully difficult now, I agree.

I wanted him to suffer, Ms. Bishop... but whatever he tells you, I'm not a sadist.

[selfequipped]

[The response itself is curious, but she doesn't investigate it further. He had to be any number of things, and from her conclusions, she's determined that it's very possible that he was wrongly detained before Chilton had begun his experiments (or whatever he did) on him. Kate lives in a world where such things are, unfortunately, normal, so in this exact circumstance, she doesn't contemplate it further.]

No, I ... I understand. It's fairly normal to be inspired by being made a victim. One way or another. [She tries to sound neutral, and is confident that she's accomplished it. But she thinks back to Jessica Jones, to their conversation, and she knows that it runs in many different directions.

It's hard to be a victim. It's even hard to admit to it.]

[enabeled]

[ Getting a straight answer out of Abel Gideon is a rare skill, it's true. Alana Bloom could do it on occasion, but normally there had to be something for him to gain to make him interested in anything resembling straightforwardness. Even now as he smiles tightly in Kate's direction, every word and sentence from his mouth is a winding path that detours in different directions. They aren't lies, but they're barely helpful in the end.

He tilts his head, looking at her with veiled curiosity. He doesn't like that word much, "victim," but he'll go with it. ]

You're quite right about that. And I'm relieved, trust me, that we're able to understand one another.

[selfequipped]

I can understand it, but it doesn't make it any better. I fully expect you to have to undergo the appropriate procedures. That will prove necessary in the future. [Kate understands the desire to give someone retribution, but that doesn't mean she believes in doing it. Understanding is in a completely different realm than action-based responses.

It's something that she hopes to make clear to him. Then again, it's not as if she thinks he forgot their last meeting with one another, where she came to collect him to ensure he was in prison.]

[enabeled]

[ Gideon raises his eyebrow at her, tilting his head as if trying to determine if she's serious. Not that he really doubts her -- she has a tenacity that reminds him vaguely of Alana Bloom, not to mention the dark hair to match -- but it seems almost absurd to him at this point in time while he's stuck here, phenomenally bedridden. ]

The future will, I'm sure, work itself out when the time comes. No doubts about that, in fact. After all, isn't like I'm going anywhere.

[selfequipped]

You'd be surprised what people are capable of when they set their minds to it. [It's not that she thinks he's going somewhere, but telling him to follow the proper procedures means more than it might otherwise. Kate has seen stranger things happen, and while she won't say those explicit words, it doesn't mean she's discounting them.

After all, if villains were that easily caught, New York would be a lot quieter.]

[enabeled]

[ Her choice of words only makes his eyebrow arch higher, his expression tightening into something faintly sardonic. He inclines his head, gaze lingering on her briefly before he looks away in thought. ]

Less surprised than you'd think.

[selfequipped]

It almost makes me wonder what our point of comparison is. [Kate deliberates over that thought for a moment longer before she rises up from her seat.] I'll hope it's not too close, that's all. Thanks for answering my questions, Dr. Gideon.

[enabeled]

Almost.

[ Not enough to question further, he notes, but she perhaps knows better than to try. He wouldn't answer that question. His eyebrow raises at her commentary -- too close to what, he has to wonder, because he can determine just by looking their experiences can't be the same -- but he doesn't respond to it. ]

No trouble, Ms. Bishop. I appreciate the visit.

[selfequipped]

I hope the medicine here is as good as they say it is.

[Because either way, she doesn't want him to suffer. That's her first inclination. After a moment, she nods to him, and leaves his hospital room.]