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Title: A Girl Called Alice
Author: Pace is the trick
Fandom: Twilight AU
Pairing: Edward/Carlisle
Word count: 300
Prompt # 003
AN: I am working on a History Big Bang fic in which vampire!Carlisle is a pathologist in Worcester State Hospital for the mentally ill in 1918 when psychiatry was trying to establish itself as a legitimate profession. There, he encounters two patients who leave indelible marks on his life. This drabble is about the death of one of those patients, a young schizophrenic girl named Mary Alice Brandon.
The handprint on the wall was indiscernible to the human eye. The only thing that remained of her and no one could see it. For the attendants, she was simply another patient, another body to be marked by a number on Hillside.
Even in the dim light he could make out every bending line, every declivity that marked the hand as hers. How many times had he touched it – to greet, to comfort, to restrain? Once he had kissed it, a tribute to her progress, to their achievements – doctor and patient. How much they had accomplished in such a short time! In truth, he never believed he would succeed with her. She was one of the wild things, destined to live out her days here in the back wards of the asylum. But in spite of that, he had loved her. Loved her for the joy she brought to his life, the plucky way she began each day.
She had been the only spark in this god-forsaken place.
He wanted to keep it, to tear that section of the wall away. Clutch it to his breast and carry it for eternity. So that she would know that someone in this world had cared for her. He prayed she was in a better place, away from the demons in her head.
There was commotion in the hallway. Exhaling, he pushed away from the wall and moved to leave the room, only to encounter its new occupant in the doorway. A boy, his face partially obscured by a thatch of violent bronze hair. Carlisle caught a glimpse of a wide green eye as the patient was forced into the room and flung unceremoniously on the horse-hair mattress that so recently had cradled her body.
He took the chart for Edward Anthony Masen.