savagesagacity:
Camille listened with a frown on her face. A mental institution? Was it possible that such measures were necessary, or even justified? Sure, the things Claudia said sounded weird and maybe a little crazy, but the girl herself seemed to think clearly in her opinion. She was paranoid and probably traumatized. She was this way because of what happened to her, not because she was plain crazy. Camille knew how much life can change a person, how badly the past can affect them. She didn’t blame Claudia, because she carried away scars from the worst of her days too. She couldn’t. Especially not when the institution treated Claudia like crap too, after five likely less than friendly foster families.
“Sounds to me like they were looking for an excuse to experiment. You might’ve needed someone to talk to, but the loony bin? Totally over the top. I mean, I’m not gonna deny that you’re telling me one crazy story here, but you seem sane enough to me. At the very least sane enough to not need that kind of treatments.”
She bit her lower lip, daring to take a step closer to her cousin.
“Claude, just to clarify? I don’t think you’re crazy. I think you went through a lot and dealt with a lot of shady shit at a way too young age. I don’t know what exactly happened to you, but I do know that the results didn’t come out of nowhere or out of your freaking imagination. Maybe you’re not thinking as clearly as you used to, but that’s no miracle considering what they did to you. Electro shocks alone can do a lot of damage.”
Camille’s words had Claudia sagging in relief, too-thin shoulders slumping as a small smile briefly crossed her lips. But before she could say anything her stomach rumbled, rather loudly, and she looked away sheepishly. Honestly she couldn’t really remember the last time she’d eaten more than a bag of chips from a vending machine, mostly she’d been getting by on a lot of coffee at all hours of the day. Her feet, in their worn out sneakers, shuffled awkwardly on the carpet and she couldn’t quite look at Camille as she could feel there was probably a few comments about taking care of herself waiting in the wings. Clearing her throat she decided to draw attention away from her empty stomach for the time being.
“Uh, so I can go get my stuff whenever if you don’t mind me setting up here for a bit. But I can also stay somewhere else if it’s easier, I have a place. Kind of.” She had a rented storage unit, and she paid the guy who ran the place a little extra to look the other way while she stayed there nights on the military surplus cot she’d gotten. Her whole set up was there, boxes of files and notes and a set of computers with about a million redundancies built in to protect against whatever kept frying her things while she worked. And of course a printer, since keeping hard copies was the only reliable way for her to keep track of her progress.
The kind-of-request surprised Camille a little, but she quickly recovered. The more she thought about it, the more sense it made. Claudia wasn’t taking care of herself. She looked messy and lost, and she was obviously hungry and probably very exhausted. Who knew where the younger woman was staying at the moment? Camille couldn’t imagine it was a real home. And she was likely alone there, which she really shouldn’t be in her condition.
She quickly nodded when she realized how hesitant Claudia was to ask for help, determined to make her feel welcome. She’d have to get her roommate out of the house for a while though, since she doubted that Claudia would be comfortable with a stranger around.
“Yeah, no. It’s totally fine. You can stay here for as long as you want to. I’ll figure something out with Kirsten. I’m sure I can convince her to stay away, at Cameron’s or something, for a few weeks or so. I mean, she’s met Theo. When I tell her that someone from my family is visiting, she’ll avoid coming home anyway. She can’t know that I’m actually related to decent people too. But first things first. I think it’s time to move this conversation to the kitchen, don’t you? I can put something on the stove in the meantime then. I’m starting to get hungry.”
She added the last sentence as an afterthought, just so Claudia wouldn’t be embarrassed or feel like a burden. That really wasn’t what she was aiming for.
