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THIRTY SIX;

REAPING SANITY

Eichen House looked like everything one would expect it to. The walls were cracked, vines crawling all the way to the top and wrapping around the steel gate that looked like it was going to rip off if a single gust of wind came. The actual building itself made a chill run up her spine, leaving her questioning why Deaton had made the visit as late as possible. Just by a single look at it, she could tell that beyond the doors of this place was so much agony and insanity that she would blend in perfectly if she were a patient.

"Are you sure you want to do this?" Deaton asked her, glancing over with an unsure look in his eyes. He was even more hesitant than her about this whole idea, informing her that it might just make the situation worse rather than better.

The blonde shook her head. "Not at all."

Then, her hands opened the gate to enter the place. It was odd how, the second she stepped inside, it felt like something had knocked the wind out of her. She nearly went stumbling back but Deaton had quickly grabbed a hold of her elbow, steadying her with a pointed look sent her way. That was just his way of saying that this was an even worse idea, the building itself sending her a warning to get far away before she entered.

"You need to be careful in here, Sage," Deaton began as they started towards the entrance. "Remember what I told you about your mind being ajar. If anything has the capability of getting past that door inside of you, the consequences will be critical. You don't understand what you are about to step into."

Sage turned to look at him, giving Deaton a soft smile. "I'll be fine, Deaton. I'm just going to talk to her for an hour, then, I'll go. She's probably too unstable to talk to me anyway and all of this was for nothing."

She hoped that it was for nothing. There was always the possibility of her mother actually being able to speak, knowing exactly what she was saying and being a hundred percent sane, but Sage refused to think about that. All she wanted was to look the woman in the eyes and see if she was truly insane, if this woman chose to save her own life in a building like this instead of staying with her family and friends. Most of all, though, Sage just wanted to know if she was going to turn out like her mother.

"My sister should be in there to take you to Mallory," Deaton explained, nodding once. "I don't want to come in and intrude, but if something happens and you need my help, I'll be at the clinic."

Sage nodded towards the man, giving him a weary look as she felt her nerves get the best of her. Over the past few weeks, Deaton has been the only person there for her to help her through this, through the fact that her mother was still alive. He reminded her of her father, or what she remembered about her father, in so many ways that it was impossible not to trust him.

"Thank you, Deaton," she found herself saying, the smallest of smiles on her face from appreciation she had that the man helped her through all of this.

Deaton smiled back, but it didn't meet his eyes. "I promised your father that I would watch over you, just like I promised Talia that I would watch over Derek. Don't thank me for something that could end up hurting you more than originally intended, Sage."

She didn't know how to respond to that, rather just gave him another short smile before pushing her way into the doors of Eichen House. Just like when she went through the gates, something hit her hard, almost though she was continuously hitting a block on her way inside. She shoved it aside though, hands pushed deeply into her jean pockets to try and control herself before she dropped out of this whole plan.

"Sage," a voice called, making the blonde quickly turn her head to the left to see that Marin Morrell was standing there, her usual smirk lifting on her lips as she clasped her hands together. "It's nice to see you again."

The teenage girl narrowed her eyes. "I really wish I could say the same. How the hell did you get a job here, anyway? I thought you were a guidance counselor."

"I am," Morrell agreed, just before glancing around the room where the Eichen patients resided. "I just choose a different scenery every once in a while. The last psychiatrist at this place had a heart attack and I'm just filling in until she is well again. It gives me more hours of field work, if you are so interested to know."

"I see why she had one," Sage muttered under her breath, her eyes on all of the different people around the room; half of them looked like they could be in a horror movie, giving her stares and cackles that definitely didn't sit well in her stomach.

Morrell seemed to notice the blonde's discomfort gave a polite smile, outstretching her hand for the girl to begin walking. "Just ignore them. They won't harm you. Your mother is waiting for you in one of the visitation rooms we have."

"Did you know she was alive?"

"No," the woman denied, shaking her head as they moved from the entrance of the place. "I wasn't aware that a Mallory Connelly even existed in this place until Alan called me when you told him. I ended up checking the patient roster and saw her name. I have yet to have a session with her, but she seems like a lovely woman."

Sage scoffed as she followed Morrell down a flight of stairs. "So did you until we all found out you were the emissary to 'Death, Destroyer of Worlds'. Then, everything went downhill for you, didn't it? Deucalion left you here to rot away in a mental facility, Aiden and Ethan are M.I.A, Kali and Ennis are dead. I bet you have no idea what to do with yourself."

"That is a rather vivid theory, Sage."

Sage raised an eyebrow at how she called it a theory. "But, it's not a theory, is it, Marin? You know the truth and so do I."

"You speak about the truth yet you lie to your friends," Morrell opted, not bothering on stopping, her body completely casual as all of Sage's blows bounced off her back. "I don't suppose you've told Stiles or Scott about you being here? My brother told me that you broke up with your boyfriend. I do hope that it wasn't because of lies. We all know how vicious they can become."

The woman stopped in front of a door, a wickedly innocent smile on her face as she stared through the glass of the room. Sage turned to see what Morrell was so pleased about, and came to see a replication of herself. There was a blonde sitting down at a table, two orderlies on either side of her so that she would stay contained in her seat. No matter how many years it had been since she has seen the woman, she knew that the person sitting in that room was her mother, and then she knew why Morrell's words had become so relevant. It was a stab about her family, about how her mother had lied about everything and now, here Sage was, seventeen years old about to speak to the woman she thought died in a fire.

"You should go in there," Morrell urged, still smiling as she nodded towards the entrance. "It's been a while since you've seen your mother and I wouldn't want to deprive you of that magnificent moment when you're reunited."

It took everything Sage had not to murder the woman, Deaton's sister or not. She figured that she had a better chance in the room with her insane mother than outside with an emissary that was about to have her head bashed into a wall. So, in an impulsive decision, Sage had walked through the door frame with her heart beating in her chest. There was only a split second after she got into the room when everything changed. She hadn't even realized what was happening before her body was slammed hard against the wall and hands were clawing at her throat, having their way in an attempt to strangle her. The oxygen that should be in her system was failing, Sage's fingers trying to desperately pry at the hands around her throat.

"Mallory! Get off of her!" a loud voice shouted, and it had been enough for the woman to quickly let go of Sage, the blonde dropping to her knees as she struggled to breathe in air. "You know better than that, Mallory."

Sage let out another choked gasp, holding onto her throat. She was only just getting over the fact that Jennifer had tried strangling her with a garrote, and now, it was her mother's hands wrapping around her windpipe that did the job just as well. A hand was outstretched in front of her, and Sage looked up through her blurred vision to see that it was the same man that called Mallory off. A sneer was on his face, making her wonder if it was permanently there or if this whole thing was just amusing to him. Just by the sole fact of that possibility, Sage refused his hand and pushed herself up with the help of her knees. "What the hell was that?"

"Sorry, kid," the man apologized, although there was nothing sincere in his words. "We said that she shouldn't be let out of closed unit but Morrell insisted. You can leave if you don't want to see her anymore. Just be lucky you only got strangled and it wasn't anything too serious."

Sage stared baffled at the man. "Strangling isn't serious?"

"Not when it comes to that nutjob," he practically hissed out, turning his attention over to Mallory, who was sitting back in her same position, rocking back and forth as though she hadn't ever attacked her daughter. "How do you know her?"

The blonde felt a lump form in her throat as she realized just how insane her mother actual is. Some part of her hoped that it wouldn't be bad, that they just exaggerated her state and things weren't so horrible, but she had been very wrong. All of this was because of being an altor, all of this happened because of who her mother was. Barely aware her voice cracked, Sage answered. "I'm her daughter."

"Huh," he huffed out. "Good luck with that then, Sage."

Sage seemed to recoil away the moment that he said her name, never once introducing herself to the man. "How do you know my name?"

"Everyone in this place knows your name," he explained, turning to look at her with raised eyebrows. "We hear your mother scream it every night. The place echoes, no secrets are hidden beyond these walls. Mallory is one of our longest residents considering most of them either die of natural causes or are discharged."

The blonde, although having just met him, knew by the way he said natural causes that it wasn't that simple. Te man seemed too amused by the death of the patients, insincere and lacking any emotions what-so-ever. "Who even are you?"

"You should hope you never find out," he introduced, nodding towards the girl with the same wicked sneer he came in with, grabbing a hold of her upper arm to direct her to the seat across from her mother. "Maybe you'll get something out of the crazy bitch."

Sage bit down on her tongue to keep herself from speaking the wrong words, realizing that in the time she was conversing to the man, they had put her mother in a straight jacket to assure that she didn't harm Sage again. There was nothing more terrifying than seeing the woman that had helped her with her hair and made her lunch now sitting in front of her with a straight jacket and a dull look in her eyes.

"Who are you?" Mallory snaps, such venom in her voice that spit literally fell from her mouth as she glared at the blonde in front of her. "Why are you here?"

Sage's eyebrows furred a bit, just before they relaxed as she realized that her mother had absolutely no idea who she was, and she wasn't sure if that completely repulsed her or relieved her. Mallory had no idea about all of the pain she caused Sage, had no idea about the fact that her daughter was barely alive and losing her mind. Like mother, like daughter.

So, she took the opportunity. "I'm a friend of your daughter."

"Daughter?" Mallory questioned, shaking her head a couple of times as she struggled in her jacket. "No. My babies are dead. My little girl is— oh, you look so much like her, you know? She had such beautiful blonde hair. I would spend hours just braiding it for her so that she would look as beautiful as her heart. My sweet baby."

Sage picked up on the fact that her mother's speech was slurring, blinking as she paused in the middle of her sentence before picking up on another as if the first hadn't existed. There was a large section of her heart that ached, it ached because she was listening to her mother speak about a girl that no longer existed, no matter who Mallory was sitting in front of.

"She told me about what she was," Sage explained, continuing to lie about her identity in order to save herself, as well as her mother, the grief. She had come into this room expecting to yell, to throw things, but she realized that Mallory barely knew her own name, much less Sage's.

Mallory's eyes widened. "Oh, no. No, she can't know. She's too young. She just turned ten! She's too young!"

Tears stung Sage's vision as she saw stains roll down her mother's eyes, the woman getting so worked up over the fact that Sage knew she was a druid. She had to continue, had to see if there was anything left in her mother that knew why she wasn't at the house that day, anything left of her mother that could explain why in the hell she was having these hallucinations. If there was anything left of her mother that could help her refrain from losing her mind.

"Mallory," she began, ignoring her cracking voice. "Can you tell me what happened to you? How did you get stuck in this place? Was it your abilities that changed the way you saw things?"

The older blonde spaced out for a few seconds, her attention focusing on Sage's intense green eyes before frowning heavily. Her daughter could tell that she was struggling to remember, wanting to do her best to help out 'a friend of her daughter' in any way she knew possible. Mallory Connelly may be a complete nutjob, but that didn't mean she wasn't going to help.

"I used to tell my daughter a story," Mallory began, biting hard enough on her lips that blood was beginning to fall through the creases. "There was a woman who fell in love with a man, and she hadn't realized that it was Death."

Sage swallowed hard when she realized she knew where this was going. "The Grim Reaper."

"Yes," the woman exclaimed, eyes brightening for a second. "The reaper hadn't loved her back, though. He only wanted her for the light inside of her eyes. She was just another victim he took mercilessly, a game. He never wanted love, but only what it held. He was infatuated with an emotion that he could never feel— people being in love, people who had such bright hearts and bright souls."

Sage could remember very clearly when her mother first told her this story, could practically memorize it by heart up until she shoved her whole past out of her life. Now that her mom was bringing it up again, she could hear the words flooding back inside of her head. "He never took a life."

Mallory nodded slowly. "The reaper didn't need to end their lives to take what made them worth living for. All he did was break their hearts, and love destroyed the sanity that they held onto. Soon enough, each and every single one of them committed suicide and greeted their love with open arms."

"I don't understand," Sage muttered, shaking her head as she looked at her mother in confusion. "How does any of this relate to you?"

Mallory smiled sadly at the blonde. "It doesn't, sweetheart. It has to do with you."

Her mother gestured towards the ring on Sage's finger with her shoulder, and the blonde glanced down in confusion to see that it was practically flashing for Mallory to stare at. There was a message hidden deep in her mother's words, Sage realized. Somehow, her mother knew about her relationship with Stiles, and couldn't help but feel as though her mother was telling her that without love, sanity is nothing more than a word people use to comfort themselves.

"My husband held me together," Mallory began, shifting uncomfortably in her jacket as she licked the blood from her lips. "When I was beginning to lose myself, he could pull me back. Then, he died and I got stuck in this place listening to all the voices inside of my head. There is one good thing that came out of everyone dying in that fire."

Sage raised her eyebrows. "Which is?"

Mallory went to speak but her jaw fell slack, eyes gazing over for a few moments before blinking a couple of times. Then, her attention fell on the blonde in front of her and something blazed inside of her broken, green orbs. It was the same thing she felt the second that the teenage girl walked in earlier, and Mallory was jumping up from her seat, moving to lunge at the blonde. Sage was quicker this time, jumping out of her seat and letting the chair to fall to the ground. Mallory let out a cry when the orderly from earlier came out, a taser in his hand as he pressed the weapon to the woman's side to stop her struggling. Sage hadn't even realized a screech fell from her mouth before she was watching as the woman who gave birth to her slowly lost consciousness.

Her final words had been, "Who are you?"

That was when Sage felt like she couldn't breathe and ran out of the room, passing a blank faced Morrell. The stairs weren't the easiest obstacle to get up, the blonde's knees hitting hard on the concrete a few times before she was pushing open a door, trying to remember the way that Morrell came in. By the time she was in the lobby of the place, a hand had very roughly reached out and grabbed her bicep. Sage's eyes widened in horror, staring at the teenage girl that grabbed a hold of her. She looked only a few years older than the blonde, hair a large bush on top of her head as she continued to shake it incessantly as though she was trying to block something out.

Then, the girl's nails dug into Sage's arm, piercing the skin. "One of them is inside of you."

Sage stared at the girl in confusion, wondering what in hell she was talking about. She hadn't had a chance to ask because, just like her mother, the teenage girl was being taken away by an orderly as she cried out in protest. The blonde watched as all of the patients around her seemed to stop, their eyes boring a hole into her skin as she felt herself struggle to breath properly. Only a few seconds later did Sage find herself running out of Eichen House, wishing she had listened to Deaton. Coming inside of this place had broken her in a single night, and she wasn't sure if she could ever walk through those doors again.

But, one way or another, she was going to have to.

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Not Edited.