Alfie, Trip pt 2, Northfield Hospital
Alfred and Dr. Harris Masterlist, Last
Alfie is sent to the normal hospital for a broken wrist, surreal normal life and treatment flashbacks ensue.
Oct 2025
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His wrist was swelling. He could see that. Something they’d given him was kicking in, softening the edges of everything, making the world tilt and blur. The backseat of the car had no door handles on the inside.
The restraint was making it worse. It was buckled over his wrist — already green and purple — and now his hand was turning red, swollen, almost shapeless.
But he couldn’t ask them to change it. They wouldn’t. Probably wouldn’t even respond.
The nausea rose with each turn of the car. He couldn’t let himself be sick. That would make everything worse. He still didn’t know if he was in trouble already.
Would Harris be angry with him for being so careless? He thought yes.
It had been years since he’d been in a car. Years and years. Not since the day he was arraigned and brought to the hospital. That had been 1954… at least five years now but he wasn’t actually sure what year it was now.
When they finally stopped, the world shifted. He blinked through the haze — saw glass doors ahead, blurred figures moving. The two attendants got out first, leaving him in the back.
His wrist throbbed. His hand looked wrong, almost monstrous. He was staring at it when the car door opened.
A uniformed woman had joined the Woodford attendants.
“He’s been sedated. Like the doc said — break’s bad. He’s got restraints on but they’re all pretty harmless once thorazine kicks in.”
“Alright, we can bring him on in, we’ve got a room ready for him.”
The attendant looped his hand under Alfie’s arm to drag him out of the backseat. He couldn’t suppress a sharp groan of pain as it pulled his wrist in the restraint, the pain momentarily blinding.
“He’s fine. Just milking it.” The man muttered.
The nurse — a normal one, in a clean uniform — glanced disapprovingly at the Woodford attendant but said nothing.
Alfie stumbled as they led him through the doors. He understood dimly that this was a hospital. A normal one. The kind people came to for fevers and heart conditions.
There were people here, ordinary people, and they looked up when they passed — patients, visitors, a child in a waiting room chair — all watching the restrained man in the asylum uniform being dragged through their world. Even through the sedative fog, humiliation burned in him like fever.
“This room’s ready for him,” the nurse said. “He can wait on the bed for the doctor.”
He stumbled inside, and they lifted him onto the narrow mattress. His wrist was in agony each time it was pulled against the leather cuff as they moved him around. There were restraints waiting on the bed — not the same kind he was used to, but close enough.
The men began unbuckling his transfer belt and cuffs to attach each limb to the bed.
“You can leave the injured wrist alone,” the nurse said. “You’ll do more harm than good if you keep cutting off the blood.”
“Ma’am, he’s sedated and harmless, sure, but he’s still a dangerous patient, it’s for everyone's safety.”
“What can he do with that hand? Someone will have eyes on him at all times. Leave it be.”
Alfie watched the woman who looked at him without making eye contact. She was being kind to him- but really she was just being a professional, a good nurse. Still. It was odd. He wasn’t used to it.
“Alright. But he’s a murderer, ma’am. Keep that in mind.”
“Yes, so your doctor on the phone said. Even so, leave the right wrist free.”
They sighed and shrugged.
“Okay then. We’ll be in the hall.”
She nodded to them and then they were gone.
He look around himself, three point restraints, new room, yellow walls. The first place he’d seen outside Woodford in five years.
“Mr. Finch?”
He turned his head. The nurse was standing by the bed still.
“-I asked you Mr. Finch if you’d like some water? I’m afraid I’m not authorized to give you anything for the pain yet.”
He couldn’t speak, so he nodded.
The nurse then left him too.
Yellow walls, polished floor, machines he didn’t recognize. How strange it was — to be somewhere else. He used to imagine the outside world, but it had never looked like this. It had never been another hospital.
“Here you go, Mr. Finch.”
She was back already, holding a cup. He tried to lift his unrestrained hand but it was disfigured and wrong. He couldn’t hold a cup in it.
“Oh yes, how could I forget,” She put the cup down on the bedside table. He wouldn’t be allowed to have it, he understood.
She rounded the bed to his other side.
“Mr. Finch, if I release this wrist, will you behave?”
He just stared at her at first. She wasn’t allowed to do that…
She kept eye contact, “You remind me of my little brother. But also I just don’t think you’re going to be capable of much while you’re drugged to hell and back and your dominant arm is completely useless, but I still need you to confirm it for me.”
He watched her, working to catch up with her words, her gaze didn’t break- “I need a ‘No, Nurse Jennie, I am not going to cause any trouble.’”
He understood. Direct commands he understood, “No- no Nurse Jennie.”
She smiled faintly, undid the buckle, and placed his freed hand neatly in his lap.
“Better,” she said. “Now you can have your water when you want.”
He nodded. He wished he’d said thank you, but it stayed lodged in his throat. He didn’t talk much these days. It was exhausting and hard to come up with the words in time. Harris said he used to be much more talkative. He didn’t remember that.
“What happened with that wrist anyway?” She scrutinized the mottled and swollen flesh with a frown on her face.
He hesitated. “I— I was knocked down. The medicine makes me fall. Harder, I think.”
“If your doses are anything like what they’ve got you on now, that checks out.”
She gave a small shrug, almost sympathetic.
Two other nurses had stopped at the window, peering in. They whispered, wide-eyed — there was a violent insane man in their ward.
Jennie noticed but looked back at him.
“You’re not much like your file says,” she murmured. “But that could be an act, I suppose.”
He didn’t respond. He wasn’t sure what she meant.
A man in a familiar white coat walked in then.
“Broken wrist from Woodford?”
“Yes, doctor.”
The man glanced at Alfie but didn’t meet his eyes.
“He’s sedated?”
“Yes, thorazine for the transfer in addition to his regular meds.”
“Good. Start a drip. We’ve had Woodford patients before — it’s best to keep them quiet before the trouble can start.”
“Yes, doctor.”
The man took Alfie’s wrist without warning.
“And get him in line for radiology. We’ll have to wait on the films but my money is that surgery will have to place a few pins. Looks like a complete displaced fracture.”
He pressed along the bone. Alfie caught his breath, biting back a sound.
“Come get me when the films come in. And in the meantime be sure he is properly managed, I don’t want him disturbing patients.”
Then he was gone.
Jennie smiled softly at Alfie and left the room again, returning with a tray — saline, tubing, a vial.
“Can I have your hand, please?”
Alfie immediately gave her his left. She found a vein with practiced ease.
“Good. This’ll be easy.”
“I won’t misbehave,” he whispered. “You don’t have to—”
“I’m sorry, hon. You heard the doctor.”
The needle slid in. He didn’t flinch. He hadn’t in years.
“Get some rest,” she said quietly. “You look like you could use it.”
He didn’t answer. The ceiling swayed gently above him. He watched it until it blurred again.
Time passed in uneven pieces. He drifted in and out — the light changed, footsteps came and went, and once he heard a child crying somewhere far down the hall. When he opened his eyes again, Jennie was there, adjusting the line in his arm.
“You’re still with me, Mr. Finch?”
He nodded. His voice wouldn’t come yet.
“Good. We’re going to take you for your X-rays. They’ll want to see what kind of repair you’ll need. Your friends will join us.”
She released the ankle restraints and positioned a wheelchair beside the bed.
“Can you stand if I help?”
He tried. His good hand gripped the rail; the other hung heavy and useless. She steadied him, patient and practiced.The movement made his stomach lurch — the sedative still thick in him, like syrup in his veins.
“That’s it. Easy. Don’t rush.”
When she settled him into the chair, she draped a blanket over his lap — a small, practical gesture that still felt startlingly kind.
“Cold?”
He shook his head, though he was.
The door opened; the man from Woodford waited in the hall. He wore the institutional white of the attendants, hands clasped behind his back.
The man followed a few paces behind as she pushed the chair down the corridor. The wheels hummed softly on the linoleum.
They passed other rooms, ordinary ones: patients sitting up, reading, sleeping. A woman eating soup. A man watching television. It felt impossible that all this still existed. It looked like the world had kept moving without him.
“We’ll be quick,” Jennie said. “They’re waiting for us downstairs.”
He nodded again. His head was heavy, the edges of everything doubled and indistinct. But this was a familiar sensation by now.
They turned into an elevator. A low chime sounded.
Alfie watched the doors slide shut. The movement was slow enough that he could see his reflection for a moment — pale face, his usual Woodford uniform, bandaged wrist. It didn’t look much like him.
“You doing alright?” she asked quietly.
“Mm,” he managed. “Just— dizzy.”
“That’s the medication. It’s strong. I can have them lower your dose once you’re back upstairs.”
He looked at her, uncertain. “They won’t like that.”
“They?”
“Woodford,” he said softly.
Her expression flickered — something unreadable behind her professional calm.
“Well,” she said finally, “you’re under our care for now.”
The elevator doors opened. The sound of machines hummed faintly from beyond. The Woodford man followed, a few paces behind.
Jennie steered the chair through another hall.
“We’ll get a few pictures,” she said. “You just have to hold still when they tell you.”
He nodded again, eyes half-closed.
They entered the X-ray suite. The air was metallic and cool. Machines gleamed under dimmed overhead lights. He could smell the faint tang of disinfectant, the same kind they used in the treatment wing at Woodford.
The Woodford attendant stayed by the door, arms crossed, impassive.
Jennie spoke quietly to another nurse behind a counter, then returned to him.
“We’ll help you onto the table, Mr. Finch. Try to keep your arm still.”
He nodded once. His body was heavy, and when she and the other technician lifted him under the arms, his bare feet skidded uselessly against the cold floor.
He was placed on a narrow table — too narrow — with a flat white surface beneath him that was cool to the touch.
“Just going to move your arm now,” the technician said. “Hold still.”
The fingers on his wrist were careful, professional, but his mind had already slipped a little sideways. The light above him was too white. The angle of it — the way it burned through his eyelids — was wrong.
Somewhere behind that light, in the hum, another voice surfaced–
“Increase the current.”“He’s seizing— hold him—”
He blinked hard, but the room didn’t quite come back into focus. Someone was speaking to him again; he thought it was Jennie, but her face was blurry.
“Almost done, you’re doing fine.”
She pressed gently at his shoulder to keep him flat. He tried to nod, but the sound of the machine — the clicking, the low thrum — became the sound of something else entirely, something that had happened on a table just like this one.
He felt the strap then, brushing his forearm as they adjusted the position of his wrist. It wasn’t a hard or firm touch — but his body reacted anyway. A small tremor, a flinch he couldn’t stop.
“Easy,” Jennie said softly. “You’re alright.”
For a moment, he wasn’t sure who she was talking to. Her tone was steady, reassuring. It was familiar. Lots of nurses had that voice well practiced.
When the flash came, it surprised him (though he knew it shouldn’t have). He shut his eyes too late and saw the pulse of it lingering behind his lids — white on white, a momentary scorching. Someone said, “Good. One more,” and then another light burst. It actually wasn’t very bright at all he realized.
Count backward from ten, Alfred.He almost did.
The next time he opened his eyes, Jennie was beside him again. The table moved, and he realized they were finished.
“That’s it,” she said. “We’re all done here.”
Her face was clearer now, her tone matter-of-fact. The edges of everything felt sharper again — the cold of the floor, the hum of the light — though his body still lagged behind.
“We’ll get you back upstairs,” she said, as if nothing strange had happened at all. “Doctor will look at the films this afternoon.”
He nodded slowly. He didn’t remember being helped back into the wheelchair. Just the bright light as they entered the illuminated hallway, and Jennie’s shoes squeaking softly on the tile.
The Woodford man fell into step behind them again as the door closed.
And the world outside the radiology wing looked almost too normal to be real.
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