December's days were elapsing as slowly as the tumbling snowflakes, outside the grand, old asylum in the Boston outskirts especially in Jude's case. 

The former Nazi war criminal, known as the doctor of science, Dr.Arden's spontaneous, odd disappearance was mysterious for Timothy, whilst the once favorite young nun of Jude and Arthur, Mary Eunice passed away, as a result of giving up to resume her life by allowing Shachath to take 2 souls with herself. The devil's which once dwelled in the fragile, taintless sister of the church, who joined the church scarcely in her late teens and the fiendish soul, which tormented her body by commanding it to do unspeakable, diabolical things against the others' wills and their expectations since she was known as the purest and least harmless soul in the mental institution. It vibrantly contrasted with the gloomy nuthouse's atmosphere which highly affected its jailed lunatics and staff members' demeanors. The criminally insane patients wore masks of glassy, emotionless faces which expressed nothing as an emotion than just their sorrow and grotesque frowns, cradling their once waxen lips that smiled. Furthermore, the juvenile nun's soul was in Shachath's gloved hands as soon as she kissed with her bloody red lips her recent victim of her kiss of the death. Her soul was richness of goodwill and undeniable purity, which somebody rarely would possess and wear it smugly as an armor, liting up their egos. She was just gone.

Shortly after the juvenile woman of the cloth's death, Jude mourned over her death as she was deemed as her daughter figure by giving her piece of advice as always, encouraging her and disproving the blunt inner voices, which lingered on her tongue by convincing to spit it out even if she has done the pettiest, dumbest mistake ever. Stupid was the adjective which the young blonde framed herself as usually after she has done the pettiest mistake by regretting her personal decision or action, which exasperated her mentor. Despite the fact, the former promiscuous nightclub singer always lived with the relentless, dismal circumstance of being infertile and empty, nonetheless Mary Eunice was her ray of hope and happiness. 

Swarm of snowflakes tumbled down as they blanketed in white as snow everything in the mid-December days. Dim sun rays bathed in dim light the pile of snow, despite the chilly wind which whirled in the air as the weather didn't warm at all.

The Monsignor, who was now the head of Briarcliff was sitting in the austere, old-fashioned former Jude's office by reviewing once again his former lover's patient file though he was supposed to return it back in the bottom drawer with the rest of the other patients' a quarter an hour ago. He just couldn't. Something urged him to leave his right hand's file, laying motionlessly on the hardwood, coated in dust bureau. Remorses gapped his heart as scars, tormenting him not just for hours. The hours turned into days and the days into a few weeks. 

A brief biography and the reason why she was committed as a patient were not only visible in the corner of his eye, but also her mugshot on the top of the document. They were rather 2 in black and white. His trembling fingers timidly reached up for her mugshot photo, tipping it gingerly by imagining her porcelain, parchment once silken as satin complexion, layer of filth, lack of hygiene and glee layers greazed it though it didn't change his opinion on her physical looks. Her once lion mane of old Hollywood, sheeny golden curls which ideally framed her pure, angelic face, were smeared in filth and unkempt condition as they lost its glossiness. Hazelish-brown pools darted directly to the camera glinted sadness and unemotionality. Her mugshot was peculiarly haunting him, already picturing the words of the stark, ugly truth which zinged her naturally rosy-coloured lips by confronting him in the common room. They were as honed arrows as the demon's unsatiable, inescapable sins which sweetly poured its sinful potion in his heart to relish the sip of the sinful beverage, howsoever, affecting his morality and solemn vows. 

"Have you fully recognized the irony here? You relinquished your virtue not to a loving woman, but to the Devil." One of her brittle, petite hands pawed the new jukebox, which was the new entertaiment in the common room since the former sister of the church demolished with her both bare hands the Dominique song's gramophone disk on abundance of pieces. Her voice tone was as calm as sarcastic in the same time. The administrator of the mental hospital's chocolate brown orbs were darted to her face as he paid absently attention to her speech, in spite of his lack of belief in her monologues as if he listened to the speech of a madwoman, instead of his Jude. His rara avis.

"It's so perfect. It's perfect, it's perfect." The younger man was opting to evade her by walking away from her though she didn't give up easily by spinning around the lacquered tall column, gripping it with one of her hands, gritting her teeth as the blood vigorously boiled in her veins. 

"I don't want to hear you talk like this." The revered man of the cloth was approaching one of the seats as their proximity was increasing. "I don't know this person." He sat on the wooden chair, replying dryly, softly as a wry chuckle escaped his berry-coloured lips, meanwhile, she faked her tempting, smug facial expression which she wore by transfixing her honey brown orbs, fueled with sore, unhealed wound of his betrayal glistening her irises. 

"What have you decided to do?" Her sole free hand shifted down to the table by pawing it as her other one was bracing the polished column. First rhetorical question bewildered him since he could never imagine the love of his life or rather his former love interest's speech to be as emphatic as now. She was always soft, demure and bashful around him as a schoolgirl just before she lost everything and her clerical title, possessions were no longer in her hands. His milky temple creased at her unbelievable, peculiar declaration. In the interval, he pursed his lips by furrowing quzzically his eyebrows in a pair of befuddlement. "Renounce your vows?"

In the meantime, he averted his stare from her by thinking rationally to riposte her. At the moment, the remorses weren't severely affecting medicament for his ego, whose radiant light resurrected it unlike his guilty consience after losing drastically trust in his favorite former nun. 

"Not at all. I'm going to stay the course." Meantime, the inmate shifted her position from the right to the left by strolling up to her once favorite priest, whom they shared together a celestial dream by becoming a Pope and a Mother Superior as they pass sea of nuns, addressing them with their revered, ecclesiatical titles by stepping on the crimson red aisle of the divine realm of their miracle. "I have too much to give, too much to offer. I can't just throw it all away." A couple of inches gapped their proximity as her face grimaced as a frustrated frown blossomed upon her grimaced face. 

"I thought you hung the moon, Timothy. I had impure thoughts, I'll admit to that. But I would have done anything for you, I would've done anything you asked me to do, that's how much I believed in your fantasy of the magic carpet ride to Rome."  The middle-aged lady made a revelation, which lingered on her tongue for a long time to spill the tea in front of Timothy, in spite of the God's judgmental glares she'd earn by the time she was a devotional servant of God and the church back then. Embarrassment was tattooed on his pale as ghost complexion. 

As soon as his train carriages of thoughts railed briskly, buzzing by recalling readily her words which haunted him more than his remorses, mellow, honeyed whisper danced in his oral caverns, verging to mumble it. 

"Rare bird? I'll do everything to get you out of this hellhole." He allowed himself to blink frequently for a while as his brittle eyelids' were pooled with dew as tears betrayed to sprung up into his eyeballs. His heart sunk by contemplating the mug shot of the despaired blonde as the bliss wasn't imprinted on this picture, contrasting her charming, extraordinarily beaming smiles which honed up in the corners of her lips then. Yet he could never erase them as tracks of memories of his rara avis, who he messed up by stripping her off the clergy and wipping off the smile of her face that was imprinted on her complexion every time they encountered one another. "I promise I'll do everything for you. Just for you to be happy and radiant again as I can remember! I'm deeply sorry. I'm sorry!" The bitter tears gushed down his creamy, milky as vanilla cheeks by soaking the patient's file in razor-thin dew. A thumb of his solely free hand wiped away the gushing down tears, sobbing and sniffling to himself by allowing his ultimate sorrow erupt. 

It was already 9 o'clock in the morning as the patients were already supposed to be released from their wards for breakfast and afterwards reside the common room by doing variety of activities to fill their time whether until their release or their destined death without having any family members or relatives, grieving over their death. 

Further, the English aristocrat woke up in the wee hours of the morning, due to his hectic schedule and taking his time to pack up Jude's paraphernalia in a box from the Holy Bible to her worn, satin ravishing red slip which he hasn't donated, nor sold. 

The day before, he had a grave discussion with Jude in the kitchen by informing the patients to leave both of them to discuss some important things as the essential topics included her release, his resignation of the church and taking their lives in much different direction. Namely spend the rest of their days in Timothy's owned private property in Boston's countryside outskirts which was far away from Briarcliff and its chilling to bones horrors. Initially, the blonde was beyond flabbergasted even befuddled by his own decision to give up his celestial, golden, Rome dream by looking after her and escape along on the morning after. Abundance of questions flooded her perplexed mind which died on her tongue to pose them. At first, she thought he was teasing with her until he gravely promised her to get her out as soon as possible, besides arranging her release to be circa the late hours of the morning by awaiting for him in the common room. 

After the tornado of horrors he spellbinded her with false hopes and almost unforgiving betrayal, nonetheless the blonde's chances of believing his promise diminished with each elapsing hour, besides the member of the clergy was prone to significantly change the things in no time as his rationality chimed him to aid his rare bird by resigning from the church, flee the asylum's dull walls for better. 

--- *** ---

--- A Few Hours Later or So ---

A few hours have passed since Jude came to her senses by having breakfast nothing than just a deceased patient's blood and poor quality dish, which were the common breakfast meals for each inmate, who was jailed. 

The former nun was seating by herself in the common room, crossing one of her yet drop-dead gorgeous, slender legs by taking a drag at her cigar, thereafter blowing dim carelessly. Hive of lunatics encompassed her whether by banging their heads recklessly in the brick wall, babbling, participating in impulsive, irrational physical fights or smoking cigarettes. Even though their babbles floated in the sufficiently expansive room which housed galore patients, however, the jukebox's song was recently playing a cheerful song, brightly contrasting the room and in general facility's ambience. Honey brown orbs stared emotionlessly into the brick walls and her surroundings as the hours turned into days, perhaps into months, years or most of all, centuries. She didn't even have any clue what time it was right now. 

"Hold me close and hold me fast! The magic spell you cast! This is la vie en rose!" Louis Amstrong's vintage song La Vie en Rose was momentarily playing on the jukebox, although it brought the former lincentious jazz nightclub singer's painful memories of her former lover, mingling with the song's lyrics as the realm of her reverie allowed her to drown herself in the mist, deep seas of her imagination, where impure thoughts were resurfacing as icebergs. The reverie of him taking her into his strong arms by snuggling and watching along the twinkling ocean of stars in the nocturnal sky under the moonlight were partly of her fanciful romantic, old Hollywood film played its scenes. Tantalitizing her mind. Indeed, the man of the cloth was not only her last hope, moreover he was her Achilles' Feet! 

Meanwhile her lips pouted as partly the song's line jingled in her ears by sighing. 

All of a sudden, the common's room double doors opened as the younger man was walking towards the blonde by drawing her attention, transfixing her gape at his as her mouth was agape. 

"He kept his promise?" A rhetorical question echoed in her mind by widening her pair of hazelish-brown irises. 

"T-Timothy!" The former sister of the church murmured timidly as soon as he offered her a benevolent smile. 

"When you kiss me, Heaven sighs and though I close my eyes! I see la vie en rose!"

"Good morning, Jude!" He placed his mammoth, surprsingly warm hand on the top of her shoulder by ushering her to get from her seat as she took a final drag of her cigarette, before stubbing it out in the ashtray.

"Morning, Timothy!" At the moment, he took off his thick coat by drapping it on her shoulders as he dangled a muscular, strong arm around her shoulder as she was accompanying him out of the common room. She obediantly held the coat by the lapels, without peeling like a snake of her frail, trembling of the cold climate skeleton as she was dressed up in nothing more than her amber cardigan and stone blue patient, rigid gown. "Why thank you!" She expressed her gratitude as they were pacing in the long, abysmal hallway of Briarcliff. Slight, radiant smile curled up in the corner of her lips.

"No need to thank me! In addition to, your belongings are packed in my cab as we're about to leave immediately."

Handful of minutes later they've already flew by passing the double front door of the old nuthouse by heading towards the parked vehicle past the stone massive as the glacial wind blew in the both adults' faces. Blush and searing heat crept underneath Jude's cheeks by bobbing her head by opting to eschew from the perky, invisible waves of the wind which whacked her complexion. 

Shortly before he unlocked the back passenger's car door, hence, he pulled her in a tight, warm hug by pecking a tender kiss on her forehead as she couldn't throw her arms around his shoulders, to double the absorbedness of mutual warmness. How long it has been since somebody has kissed her any inch of her flesh especially a representative of the opposite sex? She has longed for tenderness and she has the least expected it from her former lover. 

The older woman's heart raced as it leaped, relishing the moment of his soft, berry-coloured lips scooping her forehead's skin, shutting her eyelids until he unlocked the vehicle by opening the door for her to step inside and laying down to nap. She held yet the drapped black, thick velvet coat as he closed the passenger's back door by getting inside the car by seating the driver's seat. 

"Everything's going to be alright, rare bird! All you need is a good rest, while I'm driving to our new home." In the interim, he turned to the blonde by extending his hand to cup her cheek in the palm of his smooth, warm hand, in order to soothe her as their eyes met, locking up her stare. She found his serene, sincere smile and the cupped cheek of hers in his hand for more alleviating. Fondness sleeved by electroshocking her body. "It won't take a long time, okay?" She nodded her head, affirming his words. "Alright! Relax, Jude!" In this moment, he turned to his side by starting the car engine as he commenced driving his car by fleeing the asylum's area within several seconds. 

Whilst Timothy was utterly focused on the driving process, Jude's eyelids built its ounce by emitting a casual yawn, seconds before falling asleep and closing her eyes, relishing the moment of the catnap.

To be continued...