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The hall into which Geniva stepped was lit by a row of bare light bulbs linked by hanging wires. Their glow was dim enough that it took her a few seconds of blinking to allow her eyes to adjust to the gloom in the hall. She had almost expected to step directly into the patient's room; she found, as she looked around, that the hallway was lined with cells on either side, their bars thick and black. Each cell was numbered in the 100s, starting with 106 on her immediate right.

"How many cells are in this wing?" Geniva asked her guard.

"Six," Johnson told her.

"And there are just the two wings in this building?"

"No."

Christ, Johnson, this is like pulling teeth. Do you need to be so difficult?

"How many wings, Johnson?" Geniva asked through gritted teeth. She reminded herself that they'd already had their chat, that he probably resented working for her, and that it would take him some time to come to terms with the arrangement. She'd give him a few days to change his attitude, she decided.

"Six."

Thirty-six cells, then. She didn't have that many patients. They must separate them. Wonder if it has something to do with the colors of the jumpsuits.

"Thank you," she said brusquely, starting off down the hall at a slow walk. She looked to either side of her as she moved, examining the cells as she moved. She had expected to find that each patient had their own room, perhaps with a little observation window in the door. She hadn't imagined that there would be actual cells with bars, or that it would be so disgustingly filthy. Had no one bothered to clean here? Geniva recalled the white walls and scrubbed floors of the ward in her old hospital. She found herself missing it dearly. A cot was along one side of each cell, connected to the wall by thick metal bars. The mattresses were thin, some worn through in places to show the stuffing within. A toilet was bolted in the opposite corner from the cot.

The first three cells that Geniva passed were empty. She took her time examining them, running her hand across the bars, not surprised that her fingers came away with a layer of grime on them. She grimaced and wiped her hand on her coat. These conditions were almost unlivable; she'd hate to be locked up here. Imagine the bugs! In the fourth cell, the second on her left, Geniva saw the hunched over figure of a rather old-looking gazelle. She checked the number on the door. 103. Not Clefthaven, then. Possibly Blackhorn; she seemed to recall something from her file about him. Former professor, wasn't he? If he noticed her watching him, or heard her pass his cell, he made no sign of it.

Geniva continued to the end of the hallway. Two cells were on either side of her, but her eyes were on the open doorway at the end of the hall. She stepped through the door, moving from cement to a yellowing tile, and once more found herself in a downtrodden bathroom. This was larger than the single unit in the circular room, with six shower heads, six drains, pegs along the wall, and a row of toilets and sinks. The toilets were positioned behind a thick, half-wall covered in tile, the same kind that Geniva had in her own communal bathroom, giving some semblance of privacy. A few of the mirrors above the sinks had been broken, the glass shards still on the floor.

Potential hazard, she noted. That will need to be cleaned up.

Nothing in the bathroom seemed to have been used recently. A film of dust covered the floor, the walls, and the sinks. She turned on the faucet. It clanked and hissed for a moment, but water never came forth. She shut it off again and turned toward the door, where Johnson stood watching her with his arms crossed.

"It's busted," he told her. "None of these work. Only shower they have is the one in the room that you already saw."

"Well we'll need to fix that then, won't we?" Geniva smiled at his scowl and strode past him out the door. She halted in front of cell 102 and glanced inside. A rather tall, husky deer stood leaning against the back wall of the cell, staring through the bars at her. His eyes were dark and piercing, his lips pulled into a sardonic half-smile. Light from the window behind him cut across half of his face, shrouding the other half in shadow. His arms were crossed, back casually pressed against the wall, and one ankle was hooked over the other.

Deliberate stance, Geniva thought. Trying to make a lasting first impression. I like what you've done with the light.

"Good morning, Elliot," Geniva said calmly. "My name is Miss Hart. I will be your new psychiatrist."

"Hart?" the deer asked, pushing himself off the wall. He stepped forward, hooves clicking against the cement floor, and stopped some few feet away from the bars of his cell. This close, Geniva could see that his antlers had been cut close to his head. The work had been butchery at best; the bone had splintered in places and would probably grow back irregularly, if at all. Geniva felt sick, but the deer spoke before she had a chance to ask about it. "Does that have an E in it, like heart-shaped face or broken heart?"

Caught off guard, Geniva shook her head.

"No, there is no E in Hart."

"Pity," Elliot commented. "I'm rather fond of the letter E, and wouldn't it be fitting that my doctor's last name was Heart?" He spoke with a strong New England accent; Geniva would have put his origins in the Boston area. "I suppose you're here to tell me how I'm such a bad boy. Funny, I thought for a minute when you passed my cage that you were one of us, but then they put the females off in their own little part of the complex, and you looked all too jolly to have been brought here to be locked away."

Geniva felt spots of color rise to her cheeks. This wasn't going exactly as she'd hoped it would; she hadn't expected Elliot to take charge of the conversation, though she supposed it wasn't a bad thing. She needed them to talk to her sooner or later. She'd just thought she'd need to work to get them to open up. Granted, all he's done is talk about me so far. Maybe it'll loosen him up and I can turn it around.

"Yes and no, Elliot. I'm here of my own free will, you are correct in that. Very observant."

"Oh, no, Miss Hart, not observant at all. A blind man could have seen that you're a free bunny. No gun to your head, and the idiot behind you wasn't dragging you around and bruising your pretty little arms. It wasn't exactly challenging to deduce. I'm simply surprised that they hired someone like you."

Elliot's arrogance was evident even in his tone. He spoke in such a way that Geniva believed he was talking down to her, as if he regarded her as nothing more than a mindless servant standing behind the counter at his favorite fast food joint. His very posture was commanding, even behind bars and in uniform; he didn't seem to be shaken by the fact that he was locked up in an asylum because he'd murdered people. She wasn't surprised by his intelligence, though; she knew that many people considered criminally insane were more astute than the average man. Geniva had known that she wasn't going to be dealing with rabid, drooling patients.

"An anthro, you mean." It was more of a statement than a question; Geniva knew exactly to what he referred.

"Precisely. They don't seem to think much of us here."

_I've noticed. _Geniva kept the thought to herself.

"So, Doctor, what do we have in store today? I can't imagine you brought yourself all this way just to visit."

"Yes and no, Elliot. And please, call me Miss Hart. I'm no doctor."

"Not a doctor?" The deer seemed intrigued. He pressed forward against the bars of his cell, the remainder of his antlers poking through. Geniva was close enough to make out the tiny hairs that covered the bone. Velvet. She knew that each hair carried blood, oxygen, and other nutrients to the bone to stimulate growth. She wondered if his antlers would be able to regrow; the velvet had grown back over the clipped ends of the bone.

"No," Geniva finally said, sweeping her gaze from his antlers to meet his eyes. "I'm not a doctor. I was a nurse, actually, before I came here. I still am. Your well-being will always be my top priority; it would behoove you to let me know if ever you need anything."

"I'll keep it in mind." Elliot's tone was dismissive.

No wonder, Geniva thought. He probably hasn't received the best treatment since he's been here. Locked in a dirty cage, no chance to get out of it. Well, first step then is to let him know he can trust me. I'll need to speak to the warden about making a few changes around here.

Geniva turned to regard the human behind her. His eyes were narrowed at the deer, and he wore the same suitably disgusted expression that he seemed to reserve for all anthros.

"Johnson." Geniva broke into his thoughts. He turned his eyes to her. "I imagine that I'll be here a while. Lacking a room to take Elliot, I'll need a chair. Be a dear and fetch one, would you?" She could see the anger simmering in his eyes, but he nodded and turned away quickly enough, striding down the hallway toward the door. Geniva didn't bother to watch him go. As soon as he left she returned her attention to Elliot, who was staring at her with something akin to amusement etched across his face.

"Doesn't seem to be a fan of yours," he said dryly.

"Not at all," Geniva agreed. "Indeed, he said he'd rather see me locked behind bars with the rest of you. Tell me, Elliot, while we have a moment to ourselves...how is your treatment here? My files concerning your schedule and a general overview of this institution are rather thin."

"Come now, Hart, that's the oldest trick in the book. Trying to treat me like a friend on the first day? Tsk, tsk."

Geniva drew in a deep breath. She hadn't adequately prepared for her meeting with Elliot or any of her other patients. She'd thought that just by reading their file she'd be able to come up with something to talk of during their first meeting. Indeed, that's all she'd wanted it to be. A meeting. A simple "hello my name is..." She wasn't accustomed to dealing with felons; she found herself regarding them as she would a patient in the hospital that actually wanted her help, one that would be kind enough to answer her questions without sarcasm or bitterness.

What had she read on Elliot? He hated humans, so that gave her a bit of a leg up over his last psychiatrist, though perhaps he saw her as one of the enemy anyway. She did work for humans, after all. She'd need to show him that she was there for him, that she wanted to see him comfortable, at least, if he couldn't be free. She'd have a hard time presenting his case to a judge if even half of what she'd read had been true. Relate to him, she thought. Trust is the key.

"I heard you were a photographer before you came here," Geniva said casually.

"Yes." Elliot's tone was guarded. He moved away from the bars to regain his position leaning against the far wall, eyes narrowed as he scrutinized Geniva.

"I had a chance to look over some of your work in the file I read. You had a real talent. Macabre, I'll give you that, but perhaps that was simply because I was only given the photos you took of your crimes."

Elliot had taken pictures of his slain victims. Each of them were human, though their similarities ended beyond that. Male, female, child, adult, black, white, fat, skinny. He hadn't left anyone out. He hated humans, though he'd never given a reason for why. All of his victims had been gored to death by his antlers, and three had had their skulls crushed by his hooves in addition to the goring.

"You show a lot of dedication to your work," Geniva continued. Elliot seemed too surprised to interrupt her; he listened with rapt attention. "All the moving, the hacking, and the cutting...I'm sure that was difficult."

"Only in the beginning," Elliot admitted, interested in what she said despite himself.

"Why the letters, though? What was your inspiration?"

Before Elliot could answer the door at the end of the hallway slammed open. Johnson came toward Geniva with a metal folding chair in his hands, which he thrust at her upon reaching where she stood. She offered him a smile and set the chair up, pulling it close to the bars so that she could speak with her patient. When she sat she crossed one leg over the other and opened up the file that she'd been given on Elliot, flipping through it until she found the photograph that she'd been looking for.

"This was your first kill," Geniva said, holding up the photo so that Elliot could see it. The man in the photo was lying face up, his legs and arms open in roughly 45 degree angles. He was, in essence, an X. "Why did you pick X for your first letter?"

"I didn't," Elliot said at length, only speaking when he'd torn his eyes away from the photograph. He had stared at it in hungry fascination, as if reliving every minute of the kill. "The X chose me. It was beautiful, nothing that I could create by myself. I was touched our very language was reaching out to me." He spoke in a revered hush.

"Freak," Johnson muttered from somewhere behind Geniva. Elliot heard him. His eyes snapped toward the guard, lips splitting in a snarl. The teeth that he bared were flat rather than fangs, but his expression was savage enough that Geniva heard Johnson take a step backwards. She whirled on him as she rose, anger in her eyes.

"You will not speak to my patients like that. You're here to act as guard, not run your mouth while I'm doing my job." Geniva had crossed the floor toward Johnson, and as she spoke she poked him in the chest with her finger, emphasizing what she said. "If you can't or won't keep your mouth shut then I have no use for you here."

Johnson lifted his hands and shoved Geniva, causing her to stumble into the bars behind her. Her head snapped backwards but she never made contact with the bars; she felt one of Elliot's hands cradling her skull, the other on her shoulder to steady her. She pulled away from the bars, glaring at where Johnson stood staring at her, his arms crossed defiantly.

"Out," she ordered. "Get out of my sight."

"Warden says..." Johnson started.

"I don't give a flying fuck what the Warden says," Geniva snapped. "If you want to keep your job you'll march down that hallway and find some way to entertain yourself until I'm done here. I already warned you about this. Now get."

The guard didn't seem reluctant to go. He strode down the hallway, anger evident in every step, and slammed the door behind him when he left. Still furious, Geniva took a few moments to calm herself. She inhaled deeply through her nose, pacing back and forth down the hall. She couldn't believe the nerve of him! To call her patient a freak when he was just starting to express himself, and then to shove her? Maybe she'd been wrong in poking at him, but her actions surely hadn't warranted his response. He could have hurt her, or worse, Elliot could have gotten a hold of her and snapped her neck. She'd felt his hands on her keenly enough when he'd kept her skull from smashing into the bars; he'd had ample opportunity.

But he didn't, she reminded herself. He could have, but he didn't. He doesn't hate anthros. He doesn't kill anthros. Just humans. You're probably the first friendly face that he's seen.

Geniva stopped her pacing and turned toward where Elliot stood inside his cage. He was watching her, had been watching her as she paced, and now regarded her with an indeterminable expression.

"I apologize," Geniva started to say.

"No, no," Elliot interrupted. "More entertainment than I've had in some time. You mean what you say, then, about being my nurse rather than my doctor. I'd always found nurses to be friendlier anyway. Please, Miss Hart, have a seat. We have much to discuss."

* * *

Geniva emerged from Elliot's wing some hours later. It was well after lunch time and she found herself famished. Indeed, she'd only noticed the passing of time when the deer had mentioned that he hoped the food quality would improve now that he had an anthro caregiver, someone that actually gave a rat's ass about her patients. Geniva had promised to look into it for him after he'd described the gruel he'd been given since his incarceration.

She found Johnson and Edwards seated in front of the desk with the television on it, their eyes glued to whatever was on the screen. Edwards had taken his attention from the program long enough to open the door for Geniva, but as soon as she was out he'd gone right back to watching his show. By the time she'd crossed the chamber to the two guards she had regained her fury from earlier.

"Let's go, Johnson," she spat at him as she walked by.

The guards exchanged glances, but Johnson stood to follow her. Edwards buzzed them out. Geniva's tirade began as soon as the first set of doors closed behind them.

"How dare you?" she hissed. "I told you to keep your mouth shut around my patients, and the first day you go and call one of them a freak! Are you an imbecile? Do you think this is easy, winning their trust and getting them to talk to me? Are you aware that Elliot despises humans more than anything else on this planet, that he wants nothing more than to break out of his cell and gore you with his horns and snap pictures of you once he's ripped off your limbs and rearranged them to his satisfaction? You're doing nothing but fueling the fire."

"You're not my boss," Johnson spat back.

"Wrong. I am your boss. You were assigned to act as my guard against hostile patients. That means you do what I say, and you do it when I tell you to. If I tell you to stand in a corner while I deal with my patients then you sure as hell better be standing in that corner when I turn around. I don't care that you don't like me, Johnson. I don't care that you don't like my kind, that you think I'm nothing but an animal. You're perfectly entitled to that opinion, but remember this: I've never done anything to you. I was nothing but respectful to you until you were rude to me, your mind made up before you even spoke to me. You show a remarkable lack of intelligence when you judge me based on what I look like. Grow a spine."

By the time the pair had reached the last door Geniva's anger had started to fade. She still planned on going to the warden about Johnson's behavior, but ranting at the man himself wouldn't have a lasting effect. He would treat her no differently tomorrow than he had today. Perhaps she'd see about getting another guard, someone that could do the remarkable feat of holding his tongue.

Lunch was over when Geniva and Johnson reached the cafeteria. It made no difference to Geniva; she found that she wasn't hungry after her argument with Johnson, despite her stomach's earlier protests. She went off in search of the warden, leaving the guard to his own devices.

She found Roy in his office looking over some paperwork. He glanced up as she entered the room and gestured for her to take a seat.

"I apologize for disturbing you, Mr. Billingsworth."

"No trouble at all, Geniva. Tell me, how are things going in B?" Roy tucked away the papers he'd been looking at and folded his hands on the desk in front of him, peering over the tips of his fingers at Geniva.

"Well enough, Mr. Billingsworth."

"I believe I've told you to call me Roy," Billingsworth cut in.

"Roy, then. Things are going well with my patients, or at least the one that I've had time to speak with. Elliot Clefthaven, the sociopath."

"Good to hear it. Anything interesting come up today?" Roy asked.

"With all due respect, Roy, I'm not here to discuss my patients. I'm having problems with a few members of your staff."

"Oh?" he leaned back in his chair, fingers tapping against his wooden armrests. "Do go on."

"Well," Geniva began uncertainly, "I don't believe that many of them like my presence here. There's one that was welcoming enough, but the guard that you assigned to me is rather...rude."

"How so?"

"He makes comments here and there about my patients and myself. Derogatory remarks. There was a bit of a scene at breakfast this morning and I'd thought that I had taken care of it then. Unfortunately he mouthed off during my session with Elliot and had the gall to shove me."

"Did you provoke him?"

Geniva stared.

"Provoke him? My very being provokes him. He hates me for no other reason than the fact that I have fur and a tail. I admit, yes, I had gotten in his face and poked him a time or two when he mouthed off, but that's hardly grounds to shove me up against the bars that hold back a rather dangerous criminal."

"I see. I'll have a word with him, but there isn't much I can do."

Geniva felt that the warden's solution was rather lacking, but there wasn't anything she about it. She nodded her acquiescence.

"Very well. I have other matters to discuss with you."

"Of course. How can I help you?"

"I'll need a copy of my patients' daily schedules. It was missing from the files that you gave me and I'm sure that my predecessor had one written up for them. I'll also need their dietary information. Do you happen to know when they're given access to the cafeteria?" Geniva rummaged through her bag as she spoke, pulling out a clipboard and pen.

"Never," the warden told her. "We don't let them out of their cages."

"Cells," Geniva corrected, frowning. "You bring their meals to them each day?"

"Of course. We can't have them roaming the grounds. You've seen what they can do. Letting them out is just asking for mass murder."

"And of course Ward B doesn't have some sort of activity room where they can stretch their legs," Geniva muttered.

"No. Their last psychiatrist didn't think they needed one."

"Are you telling me that you haven't let them out of their cells since they've gotten here? That you don't let them out for meals or for exercise? This isn't good for their health, Warden."

"Of course they come out. They get shower privileges."

"I'd hardly call that a privilege," Geniva said dryly. "Have you seen the state of those showers? What janitor is responsible for that ward?"

"I...ah..." Roy wiped at his face with a handkerchief he pulled from his pocket. "We don't have an active janitor out there," he admitted.

"And why is that, Roy? Is that because they're just animals, that they're not people, that they don't deserve the basic comfort of cleanliness? Their cells are filthy. Their bedding is ripped and torn, and in some cases so stained I don't even know what color it started as."

The warden shifted uncomfortably in his seat.

"No one wants to do it," he finally said. "The janitors won't go near the place. They're afraid of what's inside."

"Huh," Geniva grunted. "More like they don't think anthros deserve clean living conditions."

"I'll see what I can do, Miss Hart, but I can't promise anything. Let me write this all down and I'll get a hold of Sawyer. He oversees the janitors." The warden pulled open a drawer on his desk and extracted a sheaf of paper and pen. He glanced at Geniva, pen poised to record her grievances.

"This is going to take more than a couple of brooms, Warden. Did you know that each of the wings in Ward B has its own shower facilities at the end of the hall? I didn't get a chance to examine all of them, but the one I did see hasn't been used in some time. The water doesn't work, the mirrors are broken, I doubt that the toilets have flushing capabilities, and these are just a few things. Once I've examined the rest of the ward I'm sure that I can give you a more comprehensive list of things to repair."

"You're talking about a major renovation," Roy said, voice laced with disbelief. "That isn't possible. I don't have the funds to fix the entire building. Can't you just...work around it?"

"That's like asking a baseball team to play without gloves. The nurse in me quails at these conditions, Roy. I can't just ignore their basic needs. Just tell me where I can find this Sawyer guy. I'm sure that he and I can work something out."

* * *

Geniva's meeting with Sawyer hadn't gone according to plan. While he wasn't as openly hostile to her as many of the humans had been so far, she could tell that he didn't relish the idea of sending his men out to Ward B.

"It's nothing against you, ma'am," Sawyer had told her, "but the boys don't like the stories they heard about the things locked up in there. I'll talk to them and see what I can do, but you might be out of luck."

Geniva had assumed she'd be on her own to begin with. It was hard for her to imagine that prejudice would be so easily forgiven, but Frank's kindness had given her hope.

Perhaps it isn't the anthro aspect that they don't like, _she thought as she headed to dinner. _Maybe it really is just the fact that Ward B is rather...violent.

She found Frank seated at the same table they'd shared for breakfast, already halfway through his steak and potatoes. He was with two other men that Geniva didn't recognize, though, really, that encompassed most of the staff. She approached uncertainly, catching Frank's eye when she was a few paces away.

"Room for another?" she asked when she reached the table.

"Of course there is," Frank said, pulling out a chair for her. She sunk into it gratefully. She was more exhausted than she'd thought. She glanced around the table at the unfamiliar faces. They weren't glaring at her, at least, instead wearing expressions that were suitably interested. "Thomas and Jake," Frank told her, pointing out who was who. Thomas was the taller, bulkier men of the two, with red hair and a splash of freckles across his face. Jake, on the other hand, was small and slight, his hair black and his skin almost yellow. Asian, Geniva assumed.

"Nice to meet you," she said, offering the men a smile. They returned the greeting easily enough, their voices lacking the usual traces of apprehension.

"I figured you could use some more conversation. I'd hate to keep you all to myself," Frank teased. Geniva laughed, unfolding her napkin and placing it on her lap.

"Sure the lot of you aren't going to be ostracized for talking to a furry?"

"Rough day?" Frank asked. He had caught on to the trace of bitterness in Geniva's voice. She wasn't sure how she should feel about being read so easily.

"Little bit," she sighed, poking at her salad with her fork. "Johnson wasn't anymore helpful when we got to the ward, and there's a black man working out there that's just as racist as he is. I figured he'd understand what it's like to be judged. I can't imagine I made a very good first impression." Geniva related the story of what happened upon their meeting. All three of the men seemed rather amused by the tale.

"Anyway," Geniva finally said, "the ward is beyond filthy. I don't know what to do about it. Apparently none of the janitors want to work out there, but it'll take weeks if I do all the work by myself, and I don't even know how to repair plumbing. Showers are out," she explained to the dubious faces around the table. "I can clean the place, sure, but it'd be nice to give them something beyond that. And an actual room where I can chat with them would be more than helpful. It's just...I hate to complain, but it's just not fair."

"We can help," Jake piped up. "Thomas was a plumber before, and I'm pretty good at your basic carpentry."

"I appreciate the offer, Jake, but I don't think the warden is willing to spend the money on replacing the parts that we need."

"But there's a whole storeroom chock full of extra stuff," Thomas said. "Warden wouldn't need to buy anything new. I'm surprised he didn't tell you about that."

I'm not, Geniva thought bitterly.

"You really wouldn't mind helping?"

"'Course not, that's what we're here for," Frank said with a grin. "I can push a broom as well as any janitor. When do we start?"

"Well I wouldn't want to distract you from your duties during the week...what about sometime this weekend?"

"Works for me. We'll bring the beer, you arm us with mops."

"Sounds like a plan." The four exchanged grins. Working on the weekend was never a bad thing when it was accompanied by booze.

Their conversation turned to lighter things, and by the time dinner was over Geniva had mostly forgotten about her unpleasant day. She was glad to have found a friend in Frank and appreciated his attempts at bringing more people into their circle. Thomas and Jake seemed like great guys; it was nice to escape the hostility that seemed to dog her wherever she went.

She turned in early that night after her shower, falling asleep with a smile on her face.