Phew! This chapter was a rollercoaster of emotions—especially the first part. I feel kind of drained after writing it. I listened to a lot of music to get myself inspired (namely the song "Black" by Pearl Jam). I'm satisfied with the results.

With this chapter, like the last one, I did some research (okay, a lot of research). Mainly I looked up how people should go about recovering from heart surgery. Though I don't mention every single little detail, I state the basics.

Also, just so everyone knows, Fairoaks Asylum doesn't exist. However, I'm going to base bits and pieces of it off of various real psychiatric hospitals that I research.

Disclaimer: Again, I do not own The Suite Life series.

It was decided that not all of Cody's family members should go into the recovery room at once. Typically, when several people crowded around a patient who'd attempted suicide, there was an undue amount of emotional strain (and not to mention, some verbal abuse). So it was determined that Zack, Carey, and Kurt would each have to take turns going in and talking to him.

Zack went in first.

When he stepped into the recovery room and saw Cody lying on a bed, fully awake, the first feeling that came over him was elation. Cody was alive. And he was awake. He had survived the thoracotomy and now all that was left was the healing process. Zack didn't take into account in that moment how the healing process would be difficult, mainly because it would have to encompass both Cody's body and his mind. The tremendous relief that Zack initially felt drowned out any trace of resentment in him. He felt like a child again—a child who'd just received the best Christmas gift ever.

Dr. Maps had told Zack to be extremely gentle with Cody since he'd just come out of surgery and his body (especially his chest) was very fragile, but Zack forgot all about that when he saw his brother. Without thinking, he ran over to the bed Cody was in, knelt down beside it, and buried his face in the crook of his twin's neck. He didn't intend to cry, but he cried anyway. "Oh, Cody…Cody…Cody…Cody…" He couldn't stop saying his name. He felt that if he stopped, Cody would disappear. "Oh, Cody…my Cody…my little Cody…"

Slowly, Cody tilted his head to the side and kissed Zack's hair. "Zack, I'm sorry," he said. "I'm sorry you had to deal with that. I didn't want to hurt you. That was never my intention. I was just looking for an escape, that's all. I wanted an escape from the pain. You were supposed to move on after I was gone. You and everyone else…you all were supposed to be okay."

Right then, Zack's joy was tainted by a sudden jolt of rage. Part of him wanted to hold it back—to not spoil the moment. But he couldn't; the surge was too strong. "Why did you do it, Codes?" he asked bitterly. "How could you do it? How could you even consider…?" His voice trailed off as he pulled away from Cody, giving him a dangerous glare. "I'll never understand it. You know that? No matter what you say, I'll never understand it."

Cody sighed heavily. He was prepared for this. "Zack, it wasn't supposed to be like this. It had nothing to do with you," he tried to defend himself.

"Nothing to do with me?" The daggers in Zack's eyes sharpened. Cody almost cringed. He'd never in his life seen his brother so infuriated before. "Cody, everything you do has something to do with me! You're my brother. My only brother! You're like my other half! Don't you realize that? I love you! Did you hear that, Cody? I LOVE YOU!"

"I know, Zack. I love you, too." Cody murmured those words, but Zack heard them perfectly.

"You know what, Cody? I'm not sure you do. I used to think you did. But now, I don't think so."

"What do you mean you don't think so?" Cody asked in sudden agitation. "I told you I loved you just the other day!"

"And then you tried to off yourself behind my back! Honestly, did you once think about how that would make me feel? Did you think about what that would do to me?"

Cody sighed with exasperation. He really did not want to be talking about this right now. "Zack, just—just shut up, okay? Just fucking shut up! You were right; you'll never understand it, no matter what I say. So you might as well just let it be!"

Zack sucked in an unsteady breath. He needed to calm down. His face was flushing hot and his vision was beginning to get impaired by a sheet of crimson. I guess people really do see red when they're angry enough. "How about if you explain it to me?" he suggested, in a somewhat reasonable tone.

"Why should I?" Cody retorted. "There's no reason to."

Stay calm. Stay calm. "Look, I won't pretend to sympathize with you. What you did was selfish and immoral, and I think a part of me may not be able to forgive you for it. But, nonetheless, I know you've been hurting. You were hurting long before you came to see me. I wanted to help you then, and you wouldn't let me. But I'm going to help you now. Tell me what happened."

"I already ran you through the memo, Zack. I told you what happened the day I arrived."

"You can't expect me to believe that was it. I know you better than that, Codes. You've been through failed relationships before; there was Bailey, Barbara, that one girl you were really broken up about for a while…Irma, I think? Yeah, Irma. But with them, you never went this far. You never tried to kill yourself!"

Cody was completely aware that Zack was right; there was something else, besides a simple break-up brought on by unfaithfulness—something that Cody hadn't told him, mostly because he wasn't even sure what it was. It went far beyond a slutty girlfriend—something that hurt so badly his ribcage felt like it was falling in. But he wouldn't tell Zack about that now. He didn't think he ever would. "Get to the point, will you!" he shouted.

Zack gave up trying to stay calm. "What makes this one so special, Cody? This one cheated on you! She used you! She constantly ran off to screw around with another guy, and then turned around and lied to your face about how she cared for you. You were a tool to her, man—something to make her look good! She finally had to tell you the truth because she didn't want to keep up the pretense anymore!"

"You think I don't know that?"

"If you knew that, then why would you think she was worth dying for? Seriously, not that suicide is ever right, but of all the girls you could choose to end your life over, it had to be this one? The most pathetic one? Dear God, please…help me grasp the way your twisted, delusional mind works!"

"It's not as simple as that, Zack! You don't know the whole story! You didn't feel how I felt! You didn't see me break!"

Zack assumed he was referring to when Brianna told him about the other guy. It wasn't, but Cody didn't contradict him. "It's nothing you've never heard before. And besides, it doesn't matter! I know it wasn't anything to die over. Nothing is worth that, Cody. Nothing!" Zack had to take another breath. He figured he had to have had a fever by then because his face was burning up. The fury was using up all his energy.

"You only say that because I'm your brother," Cody stated.

For once, what Cody said made sense to Zack. "Yes, you are my brother. And it's my job to protect you…"

Before he could finish, a doctor—a raven-haired woman in a lab coat, wearing latex gloves and glasses—entered the recovery room with a look of annoyance on her face. "What is going on in here?" She said in frustration. "I heard shouting from outside. People from down the hall could hear it too." She turned to Zack. "You know, visiting in the recovery room is a privilege. If you're upsetting the patient, I'm afraid I will have to ask you to leave."

Zack was tempted to argue with her. Or at the very least, to tell her to get lost. But he didn't do either. He didn't have the energy, or the will. Instead, he looked at her guiltily and said, "Sorry, ma'am."

"Okay, well, if I hear it again, I'm forcing you out." She eyed Zack seriously, and then walked back out the door.

Zack returned his focus toward Cody. "I'm going to protect you, Cody," he declared. "As soon as you're done with your recovery, you're going to be sent to a psychiatric hospital. It's called Fairoaks, and it's not too far from here. The doctors have been arranging it; they've been getting the referral papers ready and everything."

Cody already knew this, but for some reason hearing it from Zack was a lot more intimidating than hearing it from Dr. Maps. He felt his intestines tighten with fear. A psyche ward, he thought. They're really gonna send me to a loony bin.

"And I'm not going to bail you out," Zack added. "I've bailed you out of a lot of things in the past, but not this time. This time I'm going to watch, because I know you need this. You may not think you do. But I know you do."

Again, Cody's eyes brimmed with tears. Zack pretended not to notice them.

"I think I should go now," he said. "Mom and Dad are determined to see you."

Zack left the recovery room and was soon replaced by his and Cody's mom. However, as soon as she came in, Cody immediately missed Zack. Zack may have lost his temper with him, but all his mom did was sob hysterically and remind him over and over again that he was her baby.

…

Cody remained in the hospital for a week before being released. That wasn't so bad in his opinion. What was bad was what came afterward.

Cody's existence would have to be very supervised for a while, primarily because of his heart surgery. On the day of his discharge from the hospital, Dr. Maps took him and his family aside and ran them through a list of how things would have to be for Cody until he fully recovered (that is, physically speaking): he wouldn't be able to drive for at least 4 weeks because his reaction time would be significantly impaired; he wouldn't be able to lift objects over 10 pounds for 5 to 6 weeks; his temperature would have to be taken each day because bodily responses to the surgery could cause a dramatic increase or decrease in body temperature; he would have to take a boatload of pain-relievers, which would all be given to him by someone else (Cody knew why that was); and then, eventually, he would need to routinely exercise to strengthen his heart muscle.

Cody thought it felt like being tied up.

Plus, there was the place where he was headed—Fairoaks Asylum. The loony bin. And he wouldn't be an out-patient there either. Attempted suicides rarely were. This would be a 24-hour lockdown, every day. Just like prison. No one knew how long his sentence would be. He would leave whenever the authorities said he could. Whenever they decided he was sane enough to return to the world. They would hold the keys to his freedom.

His well-being would be in the hands of a bunch of psychiatric nurses—nurses who were accustomed to screaming and cursing, and temper tantrums, who had seen grown men struggling in strait jackets, and who had been toughened by years of stress and abuse.

Cody didn't want to be alive at this point. But he was. And his life was crashing down.

…

If Cody didn't know any better, he would have thought Fairoaks Asylum was a mansion. It wasn't just one building, but an array of several buildings connected together. Its appearance, when viewing from the front, was like something out of a folktale—red brick walls, high-peeked roofing, white edging around the barred windows, a lawn of freshly mown grass, an enclosed pavilion off to the side. The scariest thing about it though was the large, intimidating sign that hung from the tip of the entrance archway, reading "FAIROAKS ASYLUM."

Cody arrived there in a cab. He'd received a visit not long before his release from the hospital by a counselor who came to speak to him about life in an asylum. He'd seemed strangely eager to admit Cody into Fairoaks. In fact, he was so excited that he insisted on arranging Cody's transportation himself. From the moment he met the guy, Cody hated him. He reminded him of a counselor Zack had the misfortune of meeting while at "Seven Seas High" who'd been nuttier than a fruitcake.

But Cody couldn't complain about the transportation. It wasn't like he could drive to Fairoaks anyway; his driving was suspended for the time being.

The counselor rode with him. When the cab driver parked at the entranceway, the counselor reached into his front pants pocket, pulled out his wallet, and paid the man. "Thank you very much, sir," he said. Then he took Cody by the elbow and gently pulled him out of the car behind him. Two nurses were there waiting. One was tall and thin with long, blonde hair that was tied back in a ponytail, and the other was short and stubby with frizzy, red curls that reminded Cody of an afro.

They both smiled. The blonde's smile was noticeably friendlier. "Hello, Mr. Martin," she told him kindly. "My name's Jenny. Jenny Kroft, but you can call me Jenny. And this"—she pointed at the red-haired woman—"is Helen Richards."

"But you can call me Nurse Richards," Helen Richards cut in.

Cody smiled at them, though he didn't know whether that was really an appropriate thing to do given the circumstances. "You can call me Cody," he said simply.

Jenny nodded, her smile growing bigger. She was pretty; she had dimples in her cheeks and her eyes were sea-storm blue. And she was relatively young. Cody figured, by the looks of her, that she couldn't have been any older than 26.

"Well Cody," Helen said, starting up the pathway, "welcome to Fairoaks Asylum."

Gee, thanks, thought Cody. But he didn't say anything.

He was more than capable of walking up to the front door by himself; nevertheless, Jenny held onto his arm. "You know, you don't have to hold onto me. I have perfectly good balance," he assured her.

"It's the rules," Jenny replied. "All patients have to be escorted in unless they're out-patients who sign themselves in."

So I'm already a prisoner.

The front door to the building was locked and Helen stepped forward to stick a key that she had dangling from one of her uniform pockets into the lock to open it. When Cody stepped over the threshold into the front room—a lobby—he was hit with the smell of pumpkin-scented air freshener, which took him by surprise. He'd expected the place to smell like a doctor's office—a mixture of chemicals and latex. The walls were white with framed photos of past doctors hanging on them, some black and white and others (the later ones) in color. The carpet was tan and appeared to have been recently vacuumed. There were chairs lining each side of the room, forming a perfect square, and at the far end of the room was a desk where a lady in a mauve, tailored outfit was sitting, staring at a computer screen.

Jenny took Cody up to the lady. The lady smiled but her smile was tight, and strained. Her skin looked as though it had been stretched over the bones of her face. It was a bit unnerving. "Cody Martin?" she asked, her voice raspy.

"Yes," Jenny replied.

The lady—who's name, according to the gold-colored plaque at the edge of her desk, was Margaret O'Donnell—typed something on the computer and brought up a screen with rows of information that Cody couldn't read. "Right on time," she said. Then, from somewhere behind the desk, she produced a medical wrist bracelet with his name, his status as a patient, and the address of Fairoaks Asylum on it. "Give me your hand," she ordered him. He did and she swiftly wrapped the bracelet around his wrist. "Dr. Thompson will go ahead and see you now, in his office. You remember where that is, right Jenny?"

"Yes, thank you." Jenny took Cody by the arm and opened a door to the left of the desk, revealing a long hallway lighted by fluorescent lights (Cody had apparently developed somewhat of an aversion to them) and a tiled floor. She led him down that hallway until she reached a door with a plaque on it that read "DR. THOMPSON." She knocked on it.

"Come in," answered a deep voice from inside.

Cody was brought into a rather small office that, interestingly enough, had the same contents he often found in the offices of college professors back at Yale—a desk almost completely covered in stacks of papers, a filing cabinet, a book shelf containing mainly encyclopedias, and a single chair placed directly in front of the desk. Instinctively, Cody sat down in that chair. Nobody objected.

Dr. Thompson turned toward Jenny. "That'll be all, Miss Kroft," he told her.

Cody tensed when she walked out of the room, shutting him and the doctor inside together. He wanted her to stay. She had seemed nice…unlike Dr. Thompson who reminded Cody of a bulldog for some odd reason. He was heavy-set, and balding around the crown of his head, wearing a white, button-up shirt with cuffs at the ends of the sleeves and gray pants that were obviously a little too tight on him.

For a long moment, Dr. Thompson observed Cody silently, tapping a red pen on the surface of his desk, next to a steno notebook. Cody was unsettled by that. He suddenly got the urge to slide out of his chair and crouch on the floor.

"You're a young one," Dr. Thompson eventually spoke. "How old are you?"

"Twenty-one," Cody answered.

"I see." Dr. Thompson scribbled something in the notebook. "And you were in college. You were enrolled at Yale." It wasn't a question, but Cody nodded anyway. He figured this man already knew some things about him from Dr. Maps, who'd learned those same things from his family. "Did you like college?"

"Yeah, it was alright." Simple answers were probably better. At least for now. Cody didn't want to uncover too much about himself to this stranger, doctor or not.

"I heard from a reliable source that you were a fantastic student. You were making straight A's, involved in extracurricular activities, you had a positive attitude…by the way, what were you majoring in, just out of curiosity?"

"I was double majoring."

Dr. Thompson was genuinely stunned. "Wow, I bet that was tough."

"Yeah, I was going into law and business. I wanted to be a lawyer and own my own company. I wasn't sure on the specifics."

"Those are some pretty heavy goals, wouldn't you say, Mr. Martin? It takes a lot of time and effort to go into fields like those."

"Yeah, I know."

"I can imagine you were stressed out all the time."

Cody shrugged. "Not all the time."

"Hmm…" was all Dr. Thompson said in regards to that. He scribbled some more into the notebook before changing the subject. "You were also involved with someone, were you not? A girl."

Cody wasn't thrown off guard by this question, as he knew this topic was where the doctor was going to head for sooner or later. He knew enough about psychology to recognize word manipulations and subtle lead-ons. But even so, his whole body tensed. His muscles contracted, his stomach churned, his heart—now weakened—began beating too fast. He didn't want to say anything. He wanted to leave—to dart out of that office, down the hall, and never look back. But of course, he couldn't.

Just answer, he instructed himself. Just play along. He already knows, so there's no sense in hiding anything.

"Brianna," he said. The name left a bitter taste (was it only in his imagination?) on his tongue. "Brianna Marston."

"And the relationship ended badly, right?"

Cody swallowed hard. "Right."

"Uh-huh." Dr. Thompson paused for a moment to do more scribbling. He seemed to be deep in thought. "I can tell this is very painful for you. Bear in mind, I don't expect you to tell me everything on your first day here. This is simply a pre-admission meeting. We put patients through these mostly to observe them. I am fully aware that it may take a while for you to trust me enough to confide in me, and I am perfectly fine with that. My job is not to force help onto you, but to help you help yourself—to help you want to help yourself. That's my goal. If at any time, you want to stop, you can tell me and we'll stop."

Cody mulled over his words. They seemed honest, despite the fact that he was a professional twister of words and topics. Relaxing a little, he brought himself to say, "I don't want to talk about Brianna, if it's all the same to you."

Dr. Thompson nodded. "That's alright, we don't have to today."

Cody faltered, daring to be more straight-forward. "I mean, I don't want to talk about Brianna ever."

Dr. Thompson's expression became very perturbed. He took another moment to contemplate, and then said in a concerned tone, "You'll have to eventually. I understand needing some time to assort your feelings and gain faith in someone to share those feelings with, but you cannot simply ignore reality. It doesn't work that way. If you disregard your emotions instead of facing them, and act like nothing happened when something did, you're liable to end up with severe mental problems, like chronic depression. Believe me, I know. I've seen it."

"Maybe I have it already."

"I highly doubt that. People with chronic depression tend to be barely functional. They're so depressed that they are unaware of what is going on around them. Very often, their mobility is impaired. You still function, Cody. You're still alert, and able to move. But if you persist in hiding everything that's bothering you, you could become chronically depressed."

"I can shut it all out of me—the memories, I mean. If I force myself to, I bet I can shut it all out…like deleting a file from my brain."

"No, you can't. You can't forget, Cody. You don't forget things like this. Even if you put them in the back of your conscious mind, they will still linger in your subconscious one. They'll—"

"Can we be done now, please?" Cody interrupted.

Dr. Thompson was indignant over Cody's behavior. But he knew too well not to get his patients agitated. So he sat back and placed his red pen on top of his notepad. "Fine."

There was a telephone sitting on the left-hand corner of his desk. He grabbed the receiver, put it to the side of his face, and dialed an extension. "Dr. Thompson here," he said into it. "My session with Cody Martin is finished. If you could come and get him and take him to… yes…yes…yes…okay, okay, thank you very much." He hung up the phone.

"Take me to do what?" Cody wanted to know. "Who's taking me where?"

"A nurse will come in here momentarily and take you to your room. You'll be staying in Rosenberg Hall."

"Where's Rosenberg Hall?"

"It's a section positioned at the far right from the main building; it's where we keep people with depression, mood instability, and personality disorders. Since you're no danger to other people, you'll be with a roommate."

Cody thought it was peculiar how he said "roommate" instead of "cellmate" even though "cellmate" was much more accurate. After all, he would be in a locked room with a single window that'd be barred. He's probably just sugar-coating it. If I'm going to be here for a while, there's no sense in making me panic.

Cody wasn't panicking per se, but he was definitely nervous. "Dr. Thompson?" he said.

"Yeah?"

"Will I ever be let out of my room? Like, at all?"

"Certainly," answered Dr. Thompson. "Six times a day to go to the restroom, three times a day for meals, and twice a day to either go outside or go to the entertainment room, and once for showers. Oh, and once a week—sometimes two, if you behave—you'll get to go on an outing. We have public transportation buses and we use them to get patients out of the building now and then."

Well, at least it's not as bad as I thought it would be. Cody's fear subsided a bit. But he was still uneasy.

Dr. Thompson seemed to know what he was thinking. "This is a good facility, I assure you, Mr. Martin. It's not home-sweet-home, or anything near it, but I give you my word that we have designed this place to the advantage of our patients—to maximize their quality of life. It'll take some adjustment, granted, but you will get used to it."

The door to the office opened and a nurse (not Jenny, or Helen) came in. She beckoned Cody out the door, and then led him farther down that same hallway.

The place was like a maze. They took a left here, then a right there, then another left here, and then they cut across a room with a television set and an assortment of chairs; then they took two lefts, one shortly after the other, and then came to an elevator. They went up two floors and then went down one last, really long hallway—this one had walls that were faintly blue—before finally arriving at their destination. Cody was relatively good with directions, but he had totally gotten lost with all the turns.

There was a large black sign overhead that said "ROSENBERG HALL" in gold print. Cody had expected to be intimidated, but all that went through his head was: Finally!

The nurse took Cody to a metal door with huge latches and a rectangular window that had the number 312 on the wall next to it. She unlocked it, opened it, and then stuck her head inside. "Your roommate's here, Mr. Tanner," she said to the interior of the room. "His name's Cody. Be nice to him. And remember, he just recently had surgery so he should really take it easy. Okay?"

"Well don't just stand there!" retorted a young man. "Bring him in!"

The nurse looked at Cody semi-apologetically. "You'll have to excuse him. He can get obnoxious and irritable at times. He's a good guy, though. He wouldn't harm you."

Diligently, Cody stepped inside. The room was about the size of his dorm room back at Yale, if not a little bigger. The walls were white and made of brick (he'd almost expected them to be padded). There was a barred window in the back, giving him a nice view of some trees, and there were two beds situated on opposite walls; one was made, the other—on which a young man of about Cody's own age was casually laying down—was not.

When the young man saw Cody enter, he stood up to shake his hand. He was taller than Cody, and gangly, with curly black hair and hazel eyes that looked Cody over from head to toe. He was dressed in a white, pajama-like outfit that—even though it was already a small—hung on his body loosely. "Nice to meet you, dude," he said. "I'm George Tanner."

Cody took George's hand and allowed him to shake it.

From behind him, the metal door closed and latched.