Chapter Text
I know I shouldn’t have done it. There’s even something in my job description about no interaction with the patients but I still shouldn’t have kissed him. It was all wrong, all so wrong. He was just a kid, 16 or something. I know he had grown up but I think part of him wished that he could stay a child forever and be The Boy That Never Grew Up. He couldn’t see it, just yet at least, but he was older than he thought he was. He was a gangly, skinny teenager so in his mind he would be able to get away with it. I felt so sorry for him. He was stuck here. But at least it was official.
Losing my husband might have driven me slightly insane, but how could he go away and fight a war he knew he’d never win? And he knew how far pregnant I was. Maybe the grief had killed the baby but now I have nothing left to reminding myself of him. His death caused the kingdom to be so depressed that they all left, leaving me wallowing in my pain by myself. The king had died of old age before he got to see the grandchild that never came.
Lady Tremaine was especially delighted at knowing that she’d be ladled with me again, but when she realised that I’d be so broken that I wouldn’t have the backbone to stand up to her and stop being a human teacloth, stretched and dried to within an inch of total ruin, she was the complete opposite. Guess it was when I became so sloppy and slow that she realised that I was no use and had to be sent away.
But this place! This place was a mystery. I didn’t know which side I was on. Was I free, an under contract slave? Or was I actually a patient and this was my special brand of therapy? Work therapy to take all of stress out into cleaning all of the 145 windows. And polishing all the banisters until the glowed and sheened. And cleaning the floors so that the shined, but not so much that the patients would fall and hurt themselves. I was part of a machine and I was the little clog that helped a lot but no one thought about. It might as well be locked in a pen for all anyone cared.
I was as unstable, insecure, depressed and frightened of half this lot and yet I wasn’t part of their lot. My problems were more than some of theirs and yet I wasn’t penned up in little bedrooms like them. Maybe it was for the better, because allowing them to put up artefacts that make them cry probably wasn’t one of the best techniques to stop them being so depressed. So maybe the rule that cleaners weren’t allowed to have pictures in their room as we all have to share was a better rule.
But I didn’t share a room with them. I slept on the hearth in the kitchen, staring into the smouldering flame until I feel asleep. How come the rule still applied to me when all of the criteria didn’t? Nothing about me makes sense here anyway. Maybe I’m better off not being here. Maybe I might as well just leave.
Except I remember someone trying to do that before. I can’t quite remember who it was, I just remember her hair was blonde and she didn’t have the best clothes. She only got so far before they caught her. Someone in my brain rung along with that but I couldn’t quite work out the missing link.
As I busy myself in my task again the matron comes storming past. Her head is too big for her body, and her boastful attitude hasn’t helped her problem.
“Cinderella! Penny has been sick in her room again and she needs it to be cleaned up immediately, the smell might make everyone else sick. And Jane has been bleeding all over her room. She’s been taken into intensive care for the next few days but her room will need to be completely sterilised for her return. I want your full attention or it will BE OFF WITH YOUR HEAD!” With that the Queen of Hearts turned and marched down the corridor. She always threatened to take my head off but everyone knew not to take her too seriously.
Finishing off the last tile in the hall I straighten up and go to the little cupboard where I keep my stuff. Even within the cleaning staff I was an outcast, someone not to be talked to or acknowledged; unless it was to laugh at me if my hair was completely frazzled after spending hours cleaning all of the ovens in the kitchens. I was always ladled with the hard and time consuming tasks, will the others were content to lightly dust the stairs.
As I grabbed my sick and blood cleaning equipment from the tiny cupboard I walked along the D block to the wards where Jane and Penny were. Luckily they were relatively close to each other so I didn’t have to trail half way around the place just to get to the other room. I go into Penny’s room first as its closest.
I feel sorry for Penny. There’s a connection between us in ways. We both had a chance of a better life but due to circumstances we blow it. She got adopted into a nice family and everything started looking up for her but there was the pain and horror of the past that haunted her in nightmares every night. As she’s a little one and is required to take naps, it is quite possible that she had another dream which made her upset and sick.
As I enter her room the smell of sick hits me. A clump of yellowing muck is splattered over the walls and the floor near her bed. Penny is sitting in the corner, as far away from the smell as possible but somehow it doesn’t seem to be bothering her that much. She is just staring into space, not caring that I’ve entered her rom. Something’s up. Penny doesn’t even like the strong smell of deodorants or food and yet the heavy stench emitting from the side of her bed wasn’t fazing her at all. She was sitting completely still, staring at the wall. There was nothing on her wall, just a white mass.
Her Teddy was being squeezed so tightly I thought he would pop. I had never seen her without her teddy since the day she had arrived here. Teddy was her constant companion, her constant friend. If you walked past her room you might here in deep in conversation with the matted bear.
I was scared. I knew how deep her love went for her teddy but this was scaring me. She wasn’t moving. She wasn’t breathing especially deeply. She might not even have been living for all of the good that she was doing to her health and to mine.
My breath was coming in short, raspy breaths. I didn’t know why but this was scaring me to the core.
“Penny, Penny! It’s me, it’s Cinderella. Penny!” Tears were rolling down my face at how unresponsive she was. “PENNY!!”
Then she turned round to me, death white with tears streaming down her face. “I’m scared.”
With those two words I rushed over and hugged her. I really was breaking the no-contact with patients rule today. As I consoled her I wiped the tears from her face and my own. It wouldn’t do us any good to cry.
After checking that she was stable for a few minutes I quickly cleaned up the sick. After sterilising the area I returned to Penny. I don’t know for how long I sat there holding her for. I know my job is to clean and not console but I know many of the patients would prefer me to some of the therapists they have. I wish I knew where I stood in this place though. I knew the information of everyone; everyone, that is, except myself.