Disclaimer: I don't own "Burning Bridges" or "Brain Damage," both belong to Pink Floyd.

Andie lay almost motionless in the small, uncomfortable bed. Even then she could hear the secret rustlings of the plastic beneath her. She was in a mental hospital or as people who want to tone the phrase down say, a "psychiatric institution." Andie didn't even know why she was here. The last thing she could clearly remember about yesterday afternoon was going to Pacey's house. Everything that came after that was so muddled. She would remember flashes of images: Pacey's face, blood, Dawson. But they were so jumbled and brief that she could make nothing of them.

Andie smiled bitterly to herself. She could certainly remember being brought her. Here being River Oaks Hospital, a psychiatric facility.

She remembered being led through the big doors that led to the adolescent ward. They had automatically shut and locked behind her, only able to be opened by the woman behind the counter. After that she had been lead to a worn-looking plastic chair. Still groggy from the sedative she had been given and unsure of her location, she had not put up much protest when they had "checked her in." Meaning that they had searched her for "sharps" or any other dangerous objects, then had removed the laces from her shoes. So I couldn't hang myself Andie now thought wryly. After that they had "interviewed" her. More like they had interrogated her. Asking questions, "Do you hear voices?" "What do they tell you?"

Andie was startled out of her reverie when she saw a face appear at the small glass window on the door of her room. The cold eyes swept over her in an almost disinterested manner, then the face was gone. Andie clutched the coarse blankets closer to her. Being here, in a mental hospital, was nothing like it was potrayed in the movies.

Why am I shut up in here? Andie thought. She knew that she had experienced problems with anxiety and depression at times, but she had been getting better. She was finally getting over Tim's death, something that her mother had been unable to do. Why wouldn't anybody talk to her and tell her why she was there?

Sudden fear seized her. What if she was like her mother? What if she saw things, heard unseen voices babble to her. She had seen her mother disappear before her very eyes, replaced by a confused stranger that bore little resemblence to the lively woman her mother mother had once been. She brushed the thoughts away.

Andie knew the great prejudice people with mental disorder unjustly suffered. She remembered the big, whispering crowds her mother had drawn at times. Cruel words being flung at her mother, "psycho," "nut," "crazy," and so on. Who knew better than she how ignorant people looked down upon the mentally ill as inferior or dangerous? But, she thought bitterly, do people like my mother choose to be that way?

There was a brisk rap at the door of the room as a nurse walked in. She headed towards Andie's bed as she spoke, "I came to take blood. We need to run some tests."

Andie lay still, afraid to speak. The woman reached her side and placed a thick rubber band around her arm. "Don't move," the nurse said. She produced a big needle with a vial attached to the end, Andie felt terror flare up inside of her. The nurse stuck the needle inside the crook of Andie's arm, and slowly began to draw the blood. Andie barely felt the pain, the fog that had hidden the memories of yesterday's events momentarily lifted. She began to scream as she remembered the wary looking man heading towards her with the needle, and as she remembered Pacey's bruised, beaten face and blood that had pooled around him. Andie jerked away from the nurse, the needle sliding out of her arm. The nurse dropped the vial filled with blood, and it hit the sharp edge of the table next to the bed. Blood flew in a spray onto the nurse and onto Andie's upturned, screaming face. The nurse looked distastefully at Andie, as the girl stopped screaming.

Pacey let out a shrill laugh, one that was devoid of all humor. His blue eyes were disbelieving. "Look, Dawson, I know that Andie talks at about a hundred miles per hour and acts a bit neurotic sometimes. But she's not crazy."

During the time that Pacey had been talking Joey had stepped forward. Her eyes were full of pity, "Pacey...I'm sorry."

Pacey was hit with the realization that they weren't lying to him, Andie was really in a psych ward. What had his father done to her? Pacey imagined Andie's battered face, imagined that he could hear her laughing and babbling about Voices that only she could hear. Impossible. That was an image that had sprung from dozens of cheesy horror movies and sterotypes of the mentally ill. But, why had Andie been put in there?

Pacey looked up at Joey with empty eyes, feeling the need to lash out at someone. "Sure Joey, you were never sorry before. So why start feeling sorry now? You never thought twice about the bruises I've had periodically since I was a kid. Do you really think I ran into the door that many times?" He realized that he wasn't venting over Andie, but over his friend's ignorance of his abuse. "But you believed all my stupid excuses, 'I walked into the door,' 'I fell down.' I mean, they're so obvious that any idiot could see through them!"

Both Dawson and Joey opened their mouths in protest, but Pacey ignored them and went on.

"Do you want to hear about the fucking hellhole I've lived in since I was born? Do you want to hear about the beatings? Do you want to know about my mother and her close relationship with the bottles and how she," Pacey's furious voice cracked with sudden grief, "h-h-hates me?" He strained to keep from breaking down as he was overwhelmed by memories of his childhood and his realization of how alone he had always been.

Dawson had grown pale. He had failed the person he considered a "best friend." What a mockery of those two words! How could he have missed something so major?

Beside him, Joey was suffering from her own feelings of failure and of shock. Mr. Witter? She knew that Pacey's father was a bit strict... And his mother... Joey remembered how Pacey had been there when her own mother had died. She could not even comprehend the idea that a mother could hate her own son. Joey reached her arm out to Pacey, then drew it back as she realized she didn't know what to say, that there was nothing she could say to ease his grief.

Pacey had regained control of his emotions, forcing them back into hiding. He looked at Dawson, his "friend" was staring off into space with a frow creasing his brow, then he looked at Joey, who was staring down at the tile floor. Why didn't they say anything? Didn't they care? Barely checked fury grew, "I should have guessed you'd have nothing to say," he spat the words at them in disgust, "All these years we've been friends, and I use the term lightly, you two have been so wrapped up in yourselves that you can't think of anybody else. Dawson, you are so egotistical, do you really think you were so righteous when you reprimanded me about blowing up at you? Do you even realize that I wasn't really upset over that at all? And Joey, I've never really been good enough for you, so why should that change? I'm a loser, right?"

Both Dawson and Joey recoiled from his hateful words.

"Get out," Pacey said in a quiet voice. "Get out, you disgust me."