Title: Scofield Standard Time
Author: Kathy
Rating: R for violence
Pairings: Chlex friendship/partners in crime
Category: General/Mystery
Spoilers: Season 5 Episode 14 “Tomb”, and the last thirteen episodes of Prison Break.
Summary: Chloe attempts her own prison break to save her mother and herself.
Disclaimer: This story is strictly for fun and no profit. I don’t own any of the characters or ideas from Smallville or Prison Break.
A/N: After reading the spoilers for “Tomb,” I was inspired by the sheer brilliance of Prison Break to make Chloe more Michael Scofield-esque, and this is what came to me. You don’t have to be a fan of PB to read this fic, but please know that I will be borrowing names, and prison slang from the show. And most importantly, this is not a crossover. And, as always, please tell me what you think.
Prologue
She’s not like them.
At least, that is what Chloe tells herself as she walks around the yard of the mental institution.
She is not like them. She is going to college, and has a bright future ahead of herself. Her life is not defined by what the prison doctor writes on her chart, or when she receives her medication.
She looks at the other inmates wandering around in the bright sunshine, and she pities them for their vacant facial expressions, and drooling, gaping mouths. She tells herself that her mind is still intact, and that she is in full control of all of her bodily functions.
But then she is forced to admit to herself that she has willingly chosen to have herself locked away in a mental hospital, and she begins to fear that this fact alone might make her the sickest person in this god forsaken place.
When the idea first came to her, she had conveniently ignored the more frightening aspects of what she was actually undertaking, and now with all of the bleakness surrounding her, she wonders why she thought this would be easy.
She doesn’t have much hope to cling to, but she still has some tricks up her sleeve. And she intuitively know that she is still of sound mind and body.
She will not acknowledge the unspoken part of that statement, the silent “for now,” because that thought would virtually paralyze her, and she needs to be focused and ready at all times.
She can, however, admit to herself that her mother’s insanity is the ghost that haunts her every thought, waking and dreaming. She swears to herself that she will not lose her mind, and end up like her mother.
Even though she knows that she has virtually no control over the matter.
And, sometimes, at night, her mother’s voice comes to her, whispering that she will die in this place, alone and insane.
Chloe Sullivan looks across the asylums’ lawn, and towards where her mother stands, surrounded by guards, and she thinks about her plan.
She lifts her face up to the spring sunshine, and vows that she will get her mother out of this hospital for the criminally insane, if it is the last thing she ever does.
Which, with how the escape was going thus far, it just might be.
Chapter 1
Chloe’s first day at the Fox River Sanitarium for the Criminally Insane was spent in a padded room.
Before the doctors could even begin to evaluate her mental status, she had to be placed on a 24 hour suicide watch. When Chloe was wheeled into Fox River, she had been covered in gasoline and about to light herself on fire.
The fire department had been called in because a young, blonde girl was reported to have been standing on a street corner in the middle of a busy Metropolis block, and dousing herself with a liquid, and screaming that she was “going to burn it right out of her ”
The young girl was said to have had matches in her hand, and she had been attempting to light one, but her hands had been shaking so badly she couldn’t seem to manage it.
The fire department was not only concerned for the young girl, but also the other pedestrians and businesses on the street itself, because she was standing right in front of the Metropolis Gas Company. If she managed to light one of her matches, she could not only take out herself, but also several city blocks.
The fire chief took immediate action, and directed his crew to distract the girl while he soaked a blanket with water. Moving quickly, he managed to cover the troubled young woman with the wet blanket, and had her taken to Fox River.
Chloe had stayed perfectly still when she was carried into the ambulance, because she realized that any sudden movements on her part would have ended with her being tied into a straight-jacket and shot full of sedatives.
When the ambulance pulled up to Fox River, Chloe figured that the orderlies would be wary of her being violent, so again, she kept her calm, and was carried into a padded room, and left there.
Once she was left in the room, Chloe took a deep breath and tried to relax herself. She was grateful that the hospital staff hadn’t tried to change her into a prison uniform, because she needed to be left in her own clothes. That would make things much easier for her.
When the time came for her to act on her plan, that is.
But above all else, Chloe knew that she had to maintain her careful facade of mental derangement. She needed to be believable enough to convince the staff at Fox River, but she couldn’t act so far out of touch with reality that she could risk getting drugged into oblivion.
She also wanted to have the other inmates afraid of her, but she didn’t want them so terrified that no one would come near her.
But the first part of her plan was executed: she had gotten herself inside the prison, and the next thing she had to do was find her mother.
And she wondered how long it would be before the orderlies discovered that she had poured water all over herself, and not gasoline.
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