Afternoon had arrived quickly at the doorstep, and so did Alfred's first ever group therapy session. He was immensely scared, tried to make up excuses for why he couldn't go, but nothing worked. It was inevitable, he would simply have to face sitting in a room with other people who were like him, expressing how he felt and being taught to communicate once again.
It seemed scary, so unreal - not so long ago, he would be the one helping other people to open up, he'd speak loudly about everything he was passionate about, and now he was stuck here as a social outcast, deranged, a lunatic, every horrible name one could think of. He knew that as soon as he got back to Yale (if he ever would), he would most certainly be showered with all those insults. Sure, those people were educated, but the taboo hasn't been broken yet. Psychosis is still a synonym of psychopathy to the world, and he had always hated that. Especially now, when he was the one who needed help.

"Alfred, are you ready? Therapy is in five minutes."

The American turned his head towards the familiar voice, finding out Emilia was standing at the door and waiting for him to follow her outside. She was picking up all of her patients from their rooms, two people Alfred had never seen before stood behind her quietly and dispassionately. He couldn't see the looks on their faces, but he sensed their sadness and fear, and it made him feel a tiny bit better to know he wasn't the only one who felt like that.

Despite that, he couldn't get off the bed. He had no mental energy for this whatsoever, and the bed seemed safer than wherever they were going to take them. "I don't want to go." He muttered, placing a hand over his forehead as a way of calming down the pulsing headache taking over him. He was still constantly surrounded by the demonic hallucinations, and the medication didn't make it any better - the only thing it did was tire him out even more than he already was.

Emilia sighed in exhaustion, knowing that this was most probably going to happen. "It's going to help you get better, okay? I know you're afraid, but everyone is the first time. Luckily, the fear goes away really soon." She convinced him into going, glancing at her other two patients behind her quickly. She was lucky they were peacefully waiting.

Hesitantly, Alfred shifted upwards on the bed, blinking a few times and rubbing the tiredness out of his eyes. He had no idea whether to fight against it or just go with it, but the idea of getting better did sound pretty appealing. And the sooner he did it, the sooner it would be over, that was always a rule. "Okay." He whispered insecurely, standing up in a couple of shaky, disoriented looking movements. His eyes were scanning the entire room around him, and only now he noticed how dark it was.
Sure, the lights were off, but the lamp from the hallway illuminated a good third of it. It was his mind that made it darker, covered by shadows and unrealistic looking figures in black outfits and scary voices. On a second, he could swear there was a flash of fire and extreme warmth in front of his eyes and on his face, and he almost fell onto the floor if it wasn't for Emilia who ran in and caught him by the arm before anything of the sort could happen. She noticed the distress in his eyes and body, his dilated pupils and short, rapid movements which indicated that he was nowhere near alright. Glad that he didn't put up much of a fight, Emilia lead him out of the room towards the other patients and locked his room door behind them.

After picking up two more people who didn't at all struggle accepting the fact that therapy was starting, they soon found themselves in a small room with bright white walls. Standing in the corner was a desk full of papers thrown of it, and it reminded Alfred of the ordination he got his medication in. Luckily, it wasn't the one. There were comfortable looking chairs lined up in an open circle. Even though it wasn't a children's hospital, the drawings and pictures on the walls reminded him of a pediatric unit or something similar. The room itself didn't look frightening, but it was fascinating how much can the atmosphere be changed only with the emotionless expressions of most patients. Each of them made their way towards a seat, but Alfred didn't know exactly what to do.

"Sit down wherever you want." Emilia advised him with a gentle smile on her face, softly placing a hand on his shoulder and quickly gaining attention of the other four people who already started talking amongst themselves a little. They were fairly quiet nonetheless, except of this one brunette boy who laughed a bit too loudly for everyone else. "Guys, this is Alfred, a new patient here. I want you all to be nice and accepting to him, though I know you will."

Usually, Alfred would have nothing against being in the center of attention, but now it made him extremely uncomfortable. He mumbled a near silent 'hi' as the others stared at him and greeted back, and sat down on the chair next to a girl with long, slightly wavy light brown hair. She turned to him and smiled, and he could only do the same. Only with more confusion, and less openness.
He felt somewhat like a new student in class being introduced by the teacher.

"Oh, are we going to introduce ourselves to Alfred?" The loud boy spoke up before Emilia could get another word out, making her nod happily in approval. She was all for them communicating, even without her, since that meant they could function a lot better than they could the first time they were here.

Alfred noticed that the boy had an Italian accent, at least he hoped it wasn't his mind twisting the speech. Anything was possible at this point.

Soon, he learned that his name was Feliciano, and he came from Venice to study the Italian language and Literature here at Yale. He was only twenty one, and only found out about his diagnosis of schizoaffective disorder a couple of months ago, even though he had been struggling with it since he was eighteen, going from mania to depression back and forth in what it seemed was a never ending cycle of emotional pain and a loss of reality.

The girl who Alfred sat next introduced herself as Isabella Køhler, and he immediately thought of his past roommate Mathias who, in fact, had the same surname and kind of resembled her. He found out they were siblings, and when he was moving back to Denmark, she chose to rather stay here and help herself get back on her feet before she could even think about her family who was in dire need of assistance.

It was a small world.

Mathias had never mentioned having a schizophrenic sister. Perhaps he was ashamed of her, or didn't want people to think of them as a crazy family.
Who knew that his roommate of all people would find himself shoulder to shoulder with her in the same situation.

The other two patients weren't as easy on the talking as Isabella and Feliciano, and neither was Alfred. They shyly introduced themselves with only their names and surnames, adding on nothing interesting about themselves. Toris and Raivis Laurinatis from Lithuania, they said, and the American couldn't repeat those until the fifth try at pronouncing them.

"How come almost everyone here is from a different country?" He asked Emilia, and she was happy to answer anyone's question.

"Well, we get to choose our patients, and I really wanted to make this an international group. Therapy can connect those who struggle with the same things, but it can also build bridges between nations. People can also learn that there are those like them all around the globe, and getting them together in one place really helps." She didn't only speak turned towards Alfred, but towards everybody, readily connecting with everyone to feel unity.

Therapy wasn't half as bad as Alfred expected it to be. Sure, he was anxious, and the voices he kept hearing insisted on reminding him of how useless and stupid he was, but he was able to share his experiences and hear others talk about their own.

He wasn't alone in this, and that helped him so much to know.

The Italian boy talked the most out of all of them, but Emilia always knew how to make him not go too far when he was on the edge of acting out on his mania. He told everyone about a strange experience in which he felt he was connected to god and other religious figures, but that it didn't affect him as much as it would the first time he got admitted here in the hospital. That gave Alfred hope as well. Maybe one day, his own encounters wouldn't give him such trauma.

Emilia helped Alfred and the Lithuanian brothers engage in conversation more, taught them how to express themselves properly, and warned the American whenever his speech was getting disorganized again. He was able to share some of the story about how he ended up here, but at times, he couldn't form sentences at all and his mind would go fully blank except of the voices. As if every other function in his brain would shut off besides the one giving him the delusions.

During the therapy session, there was a moment in which he nearly jumped out of his chair because of a flash of cold and a scream that distracted him from reality, and Emilia realized that she seriously needed to ask the psychologist for a change in medication or the dose. These Haldol shots weren't helping his case at all, and Alfred agreed as she said it.

He also learned that the antipsychotics they drugged him with should have had an influence on the dopamine receptors in his brain, and that it was completely normal for patients not to instantly feel a change. They needed to test out different types until finding the right help for each of them, since everyone's body reacted differently.
He was just glad that he didn't have any side effects worse than exhaustion and headaches. Thank goodness for that.

As their session was over, Emilia lead each of her patients back to their rooms, even Alfred who was supposedly staying at the special care unit. She didn't want him to feel even more trapped than he already was, and was a hundred percent sure he wasn't going to get violent. And even if he did, she would know how to handle it better than those people who tied him up and treated him as less than a human being.

Alfred sat down at the desk in the corner rather than on the bed, telling her that he wanted to spend the rest of the evening in drawing, since Arthur couldn't visit him. Time had to pass by quicker, and this was the best way to do it.

"That's okay", she replied to him with a genuine smile. "I'll come notify you for dinner as soon as it's ready."

And with those words, she exited the room and locked the door behind herself, walking down the hallway to the psychiatrist's ordination in a hurry and realizing she really needed a rest and a few cups of coffee. Working with completely new, scared patients was always difficult until they finally adjusted themselves to the fact that they were in the mental hospital, and they had to deal with it in their own, non-violent way. Even though she liked Alfred, he seemed to be at his lowest point, and it was always the hardest part to get the patients back on their feet after their condition hit them like an earthquake.

It was a stressful job, yet she loved it anyway. Helping people and seeing the look on their faces when they finally announce they are feeling at least a little bit better... Nothing felt as good as that.

She entered the ordination without knocking, seeing the psychiatrist sitting at her desk and going through loads of paperwork. "Could you double the antipsychotic dose for Alfred Jones? It doesn't seem to help whatsoever."

"Sure thing." The lady answered in a calm tone and scribbling the name on a bright yellow post-it note, quickly averting her gaze to Emilia, who looked incredibly tired, more than usually. "You look restless." She added with care.

"I haven't slept last night, I stayed up with him." The psychologist replied casually.

"You aren't obliged to do such things, you know... You're probably the only one who does that. Actually, why did you do it?"

Emilia stopped in her tracks, furrowing her eyebrows in confusion and looking around the room as if it was a way of seeking for the answer. "Huh...I dont't know." She muttered, going over possible reasons. She had done it in the past, but never as willingly as she did for Alfred. It was always because the patients were the ones who asked.

Alfred didn't ask, she was the one offering the extra assistance.

No, she couldn't be thinking like that. She liked Alfred, but only in a sympathetic way. After all, he was in a relationship with Arthur, that guy he talked about so much in one night to the point she thought she knew him personally. And she certainly wasn't the one to go for favouritism among her patients. They were all equals.

But Alfred just had that something, that spark of connection she hadn't felt with anyone else before.

"Get some sleep tonight, okay? You're totally out of it." The other snapped her out of thought momentarily.

"Yeah... I'm definitely out of it." Emilia blinked a few times, letting out a long exhale as she made her way out of the ordination with a short wave of goodbye to the overly caring psychiatrist.

As much as sleep sounded good, she knew that she'd stay with Alfred in a heartbeat if his symptoms worsened over the night, and wouldn't rethink the decision twice. She'd do it for anyone, but this was simply... Different.

If only she could explain it to herself, rationalize it...

Sometimes that was just impossible.

- - -

A/N

Yo ho ho and a bottle of brandy because I might have taken a few shots while writing this. Surprisingly, it still made sense!

Now I'm drenching my pain in ice cream because I'm sick AGAIN. Jesus, that's like the fifteenth time since January or something. But it's a-okay!

Thank you for reading!

P.S. Anyone here ever went to group therapy? Feel free to share your experience if you have!