Chapter Seven

Mox thought they would go right back to the Reign's house after the doctor's but instead they went a restaurant. Sefa called it a diner, but a diner was a type of restaurant. Mox knew what restaurants were, he'd seen them in movies, and Richard often got food from restaurants for them to eat. Sometimes when they traveled, they would stop, and Richard and Sam would go inside of a restaurant to eat. Sometimes they would bring him food too. When he was younger and they had to tie him up, Richard would feed him bits of the food at a time, but when it got to the point where they knew Mox wasn't going to fight the box so they stopped tying him up, they would just lock the food in the box with him. But, while he knew what restaurants were, he'd never actually been inside of one, at least not all the time he was living with Richard. He did have vague memories of being in a place with strange, but kind of cool furniture, tables with round seats bolted to them. He suspected it was a McDonald's, because he usually remembered this when Richard brought him McDonald's food.

This diner did not look anything like his memory restaurant. This place had metal on the walls, and instead of chairs, there were things like couches to sit on. The only thing that reminded Mox of his memory, was that there was this ledge with round chairs you could sit on and eat. Mox looked around, taking it all in. The ledges had dishes raised on platforms with plastic things over the plates and on the plates were pies and cakes. There were women wandering around, all wearing the same outfits, which Mox thought was weird, then he remembered from movies, that they were the people who you told you wanted to eat. Waitress? He was pretty sure that's what they were called.

One of these identically dressed women (it was a blue dress with some white in the front) asked them how many. Mox was going to ask her how many of what, but Sefa held up two fingers. She nodded and grabbed a couple of big, shiny paper like things, and lead them to one of the tables that had a couch on either side of it. Sefa helped Mox slide in, and then hung his crutches on a hook, that was on this tall piece of wood that was on the side of the couch, between his couch and a couch that was for the table behind him.

Right after they sat down, a different woman in one of the blue and white dressed came over and asked them what they wanted to drink. Sefa ordered coffee and when he did, Mox became even more aware of the delicious smell of coffee in the air. He looked at Sefa. "Please can I have coffee? Please? I know it's against the rules, but I really want some."

Sefa hesitated, then nodded, first to him, then to the waitress. "Okay, I'm going to bend the rules this time, but don't you dare tell Jen. This will be our little secret." Mox nodded, then Sefa opened up the big shiny paper like thing, that opened like a book, but didn't seem to have pages in it. Mox did too and saw it was all full of pictures of food with words. He started reading the words, most he had to sound out in his head, but he figured out enough to see these were descriptions of food and the prices.

Their waitress came back and brought two mugs of coffee, a bowl of plastic containers that Mox knew were full of cream, he'd seen these before and a tall pitcher that looked as if it were made of copper, but was really made of plastic. Sefa had already folded up his book-with-no-pages. The waitress asked them if they were ready to order. Mox was still looking at his book and realized it would take him forever to sound it all out. He looked over at Sefa, biting his lip.

Sefa sensed his discomfort and smiled. "Do you trust me, Mox?"

Mox nodded. He wasn't sure what he was trusting Sefa about, but he had determined that he did trust Sefa, he trusted the Reigns in general.

Sefa looked at the waitress. "We'll both have chili cheeseburgers with chili cheese fries, extra cheese. Make mine the five alarm stuff, make his mild. And before the meal, bring both of us a house salad with ranch dressing." When the waitress nodded and left, Sefa dropped a wink to Mox. "Now we can say we had a salad, which will make Jen happy."

Mox nodded. He knew what chili cheeseburgers were, and chili cheese fries, but the salad confused him. "What's a salad?"

"Some type of leafy vegetable, served raw, usually with other raw vegetables in it too," Sefa said, as if it was common for someone Mox's age to not know what a salad was. "You can order special salads that have meat on them, but we're just getting regular salads. And, because leafy vegetables can be boring to eat, they give you a sauce to put on them. It's called salad dressing."

Mox nodded. While Sefa had explained a salad to him, Mox had been adding cream and sugar to his coffee. Now he raised his mug to his lips and took a drink. "I missed this," he confessed.

"Well, enjoy it, because it's going to be the last coffee you have for awhile," Sefa said. "The rule is that you can drink coffee when you're sixteen, and you've seen Roman drinking it quite a bit, lately, but Jen doesn't like him to drink it all the time. So, this is a good time to practice not having it, so you won't go overboard when you are allowed."

"I was never told not to drink coffee," Mox confessed. "In fact, sometimes it was the only thing I got for breakfast, if I even got breakfast. Coffee with sugar and milk or cream if we had it. If we didn't have milk or cream I would add a lot more sugar. The last couple years though, I had to drink it black. But it was one of the few things I could drink on my non eating days."

"Non eating days?"

Mox nodded. "I was only fed every other day," he explained. "It was to keep me looking younger than my age and to hopefully keep me from growing too tall."

Sefa winced. "Mox, you do understand that Richard was bad, right? That pretty much everything he taught you was wrong? Even if you liked it, that doesn't mean it was right. Like the coffee. You like coffee, but that doesn't mean it was good of him to let you drink it at such an early age."

Mox looked at him, over his cup of coffee and for a moment, he knew his eyes were narrowing. There was that whole "like" thing again. He remembered his thoughts from earlier in the day and before he could stop himself he found himself blurting out, "If something feels good, that doesn't mean you like it. It doesn't mean you want it, either. Especially if nobody asked you to do it, but made you. I do like coffee. I did not like most of the stuff that happened to me."

Sefa's eyes widened and for what seemed like a long time, said nothing. When he did begin to speak, it was slow and deliberate. "You're right," he said. "Just because something feels good, doesn't mean you liked that it was happening to you, or wanted it to happen to you. No matter what, being forced is being forced and being forced is wrong." He nodded as he spoke, as if to make his words hold more weight. "I'm glad you figured that out, Mox. That's a good thing to know."

"I don't care if doctors think I liked it, because their tests show it felt good, they're wrong." Mox put down his cup without taking a sip, staring at Sefa as defiantly as he could. "Even if they tell you I liked it, they're wrong, I didn't."

Now Sefa really looked puzzled. "Tests that show me how much you liked something?"

"Richard said doctors did tests and they could tell them everything that I'd done and if I liked it or not. That's why Sam had to set my bones and give me stitches and stuff. Because we couldn't go to the doctor's because if we did, the doctors would do tests that could tell them all the things I had done, and that I'd liked some of them. Richard said I liked it. But I didn't." He drew in a deep breath, knowing the next part was going to be hard, but he had momentum behind him, and he was going to finish this train of thought. "Sometimes it felt good, most of the times it didn't, but I never liked it. But I don't know if doctor tests know the difference between liking something and that something felt good. I think they might be interchangeable."

Now Sefa shook his head. "Mox, doctor's can check your body out. And, if things you've done have altered your body in any way, injured it, they can tell that, if they check that far. But there are no tests that tell them if you liked something or even if it felt good. The only way anyone can know if you like something, or if it felt good is if you tell them it did." He sighed and shook his head again. "Mox, that was another lie. It seems that all Richard ever did to you was lie."

"I'm starting to figure that out." His tone was a dry as the desert.

Sefa now nodded. "Yeah." Then he raised his mug to his lips, taking a drink of coffee, then put it down and looked Mox straight in the eyes. "Look, I can pretty much guarantee that anything he told you that made you feel in any way responsible for what they were doing to you, that you shared any part of the blame or guilt, it was a lie. You were a child when they took you, a young child. They spent all those years breaking you down and trying to make you into someone else. Someone who would do what they told you without question. They would have done anything they could to make you complacent. Even try to make you think that you were in some ways, a willing participant. You weren't though. Legally, you couldn't be, because you're a child and the law is that children don't have the mental capacity to make certain decision, especially about people doing things with their bodies, sexual things. So, even if you asked them to do the things they were doing to y-"

"I never asked them!" Mox protested, his voice raising. A few other people sitting in the restaurant looked at them. And of course, the waitress picked that moment to bring over the salads. She put them down and said nothing, just walked away.

"I didn't say you did," Sefa said softly, after the waitress had left. The people looking at them soon realized the excitement was over and went back to their food and conversations. "But even if you did, you still aren't at all responsible. You were too young to make those choices for yourself. So, let's strike a deal, Mox. Any time you have a question about something from your past, something someone told you that makes you feel bad about yourself? Makes you feel that you were in any way a willing participant? You ask Jen and I about it. Marc too, if Jen and I are around. You can probably even talk to Roman about it, if you didn't go into grave details. But just don't discuss it with Lance."

Mox nodded, and picked up his own coffee cup and drank from it. So, doctor's can't tell if I liked something or not, he thought, it figures. I must sound like an idiot every time I talk. Then, as his mind was going over Sefa's words, he realized something and put his cup down again. "Do you really think I'm going to tell Lance anything about what happened to me? I mean, at least the bad stuff?"

"I don't know," Sefa said. There was a tiny container of white stuff resting on top of the green stuff in the bowl, and he poured it all over the raw, green stuff. "I'd like to think you won't of your own free will. But I also want to tell you that even if you want to, please don't. Jen and I would also prefer you didn't tell Roman too much either, but he's already figured out a lot more. He just doesn't need the complete details. But Lance? Someday he's going to figure it out, and being Lance it will likely be a whole lot sooner than later, but for now, he's not ready to know the grisly details. He knows you had a horrible life, he knows you were badly treated. He might even have a vague idea that sexual abuse has been involved, but he doesn't need details." He used his fork to spear up some of the vegetables and put them in his mouth.

"I'm not going to tell him," Mox said, pouring the stuff in the small container on his salad, trying to mimic Sefa as closely as possible. "Do you think I'm that much of an asshole? I'm not. And even if I was that much of an asshole, do you think I'd risk what all of you would do to me if I told him things I've done? All of you would gang up and probably kill me. I don't know what Lance's story is, but it's pretty clear everyone in your family look at Lance as some type of wonder child. Is it because he's the youngest?" He also ate a bite of his salad, and while the dressing was pretty good, he wasn't sure at all about the leafy stuff. The tomatoes though, didn't taste bad, especially with the dressing on them.

Sefa shrugged. "In part because he's the youngest. In part because he's extremely smart, smart enough to figure things out that he probably shouldn't. But the biggest reason is because he was a really sick kid. We almost lost him. He had AML, which stands for Acute Myeloid Leukemia. It was discovered when he was five. We thought he'd beaten it once, but it wasn't even three months before it was back. He wasn't declared NED until last year. And it will be a little over four years before we can call him a survivor."

Mox didn't understand a lot of the actual words Sefa was saying, but he got the gist of them. Lance had gotten very sick, almost died, but then got better, but this AML could come back any time in the next five years.

"So, yeah, we all protect him," Sefa continued. "Roman really feels responsible for him, because Roman ended up being the only suitable donor who could give him a bone marrow transplant. Lance was NED, but research showed that blood marrow transplants done to AML patients, particularly children, greatly increases their chances of staying in remission."

Again, a lot of the words were unfamiliar to Mox, but he could pick up on the key points. Roman did something that helped Lance's chances. "Well, I didn't know any of this until now," he said. "And I haven't told him anything about my life. In fact, he's been the one telling me stuff he suspects about my life, like the whole bad foster parents thing. I haven't said anything. And I won't. But what if he asks me something, something you don't want him knowing about? What if he says, 'did you ever do this?' and I did do it?"

Sefa considered it. "If he asks you something directly about what happened to you, and it's something you didn't like happening to you, or something you wouldn't want to see to happen to him, then you tell him you can't answer that until he talks to Jen or I. And I'll warn you, he will try to dig at the edges and find things out, so you will have to stand firm. And let one of us know as soon as possible what he asked, so we can be prepared."

Mox nodded. He had a funny feeling Lance might not like it, but he could deal with that.

"And since you brought this up, I'm going to call that a rule. Right up there with 'your body is yours.' We'll just call it the Lance rule."

Sefa looked as if he was going to continue, but the waitress arrived with their burgers and fries, so he stopped while their plates were delivered. They were asked if they needed anything else right now, and both of them shook their heads. "We might need more coffee in a bit, but not right now," Sefa said. Mox had finished his salad while they had talked, but Sefa hadn't. Sefa pushed his salad aside as if he'd had enough of this raw vegetable thing, even with the ranch sauce.

The food smelled wonderful and Mox ate one of the fries, feeling his eyes half close in contentment. The burger was messy, dripping with cheese and chili, but there was a container of napkins at the end of the table, and he leaned over the plate as much as he could to make sure that the excess chili and cheese would fall on the fries. He wasn't going to waste a bite of this if he could.

Sefa busied himself with his burger for a bit too, but continued with what they were talking about before the burgers arrived. "Mox, Jen and I want to take care of you."

"You are," Mox said. Truth be told, he'd been better taken care of in these last two days than he had since the day he was taken.

"Well, yes, but we'd like to keep doing it." Sefa said. "You're too young to be on your own, and in some ways you're naive. In some things you're not, but in life skills, I'd say you've got some things to learn. And, we think you should stay with us while you learn them. Also, since you want to be a wrestler, well, I'd say fate had a hand in bringing you to us."

Mox had just taken a big mouthful of his burger, but he nodded as he chewed. The idea of living at a wrestling school made him wonder if he was going to wake up and find himself chained in a basement, find out that Sefa, Jen, Roman, Lance, Marc, and everything that had been happening to him was a hallucination he was having. How could he, the kid who seemed to have absolutely nothing going for him in the matter of luck, stumble across a family who wanted to take him in, who just happened to have a wrestling school?

"You know how to read, but I don't think you know much more than that," Sefa continued. "Did the guys you lived with, Richard or Sam ever teach you things? Home school you?"

Mox shook his head. He wasn't quite sure what a home school was, but he knew the last time he'd been in school was the day he was taken. He swallowed the bite of burger. "Richard showed me letters and stuff sometimes. I think because he knew I knew all the letters to my name, and he wanted to give me all the letters, hoping I would forget which letters were mine. He made sure I could spell the name he gave me. So, I kind of learned to read myself. But I didn't have much to read. I had a few books, but they were for really young kids. I had tapes with covers on them, and I would read the covers, but that was about it. Oh yeah, sometimes there are words on TV. Like when you watch wrestling, they'll put up the name of the wrestler on the screen and I'd read that, too. I know a little bit about numbers too. But that's about it." And I know a whole lot more about what I shouldn't.

Sefa nodded, looking a little grim. "We figure you probably don't want to go to school. They would have to put you in special classes to catch you up and that might be embarrassing. But, we do know a lot about homeschooling because we had to do that with Lance when he was sick. There is a website we belong to, that is set up for home schooling. Jen and I agree that what we should probably do is help you get your GED. You're almost sixteen. You can't take the GED test until you're eighteen, but that gives you a couple years to learn what you need to know. A GED is just as good as a High School diploma in most cases. And, some colleges will even let you attend if you have one. Especially Junior colleges. If you decide you want to go to college, Jen and I will do what we can to get you into one. You might have to go to a two year college first, but if you do well there, you can go on to a proper four year one."

Mox knew what a college was, it was school for kids who were older. Richard had liked movies about college, especially if they showed a lot of sex, alcohol, and drugs. But Mox did understand that the sex and the booze and the drugs weren't the real point of college, that you were supposed to use college to learn stuff. "I don't think I want to go to college," he said. "I don't really care about this GED thing, but I'm betting that's something you're not going to let me get out of."

"And you are absolutely right," Sefa said. "That's another rule. You have to at least get a GED. I mean, we'd love it if you wanted to go to high school, but we understand that might be uncomfortable for you."

"Well, that's three so far, any more?" They didn't seem like they were that bad. Okay, the GED one had him worried, but the other stuff, he was fine with. Especially the whole part about his body being his own.

Sefa had been about to take another bite of his burger, but he put it back on the plate instead. "I don't want you to get offended by this one, because I'm pretty sure this is something you wouldn't do, but I have to make sure. Just like I told you that your body is your own, everyone else's is too. Meaning you aren't allowed to touch anyone without their permission. Just like you didn't like things being done to you without your consent, you have to respect that other people don't like that either. Is this going to be a problem for you?"

Mox stared at him in disbelief before finally managing to shake his head and say, "No way. I did hate being forced to do stuff. I'd-I'd," he paused trying to find the right thing to say that would prove to Sefa how much the very idea of doing to someone else what had been done to him would repulse him. "I'd rather cut it all off," he finally blurted out. "With a rusty knife."

Sefa's eyes widened, but he nodded. "I don't want you to do anything that drastic. And as I said, I had a feeling this wouldn't be a problem, but I just want to make sure you understand this. You can't do to anyone else what was done to you, unless you and that person both agree that's what you both want."

"That won't be a problem," Mox said. "Because to be honest, I don't think I will ever want to have sex again. Never."

"You might change your mind later," Sefa said thoughtfully. "Or, maybe you won't. It's okay though. There's no rule that says you have to have sex. There are people in this world who are, what they call Asexual. They just have no desire to have sex. And there is nothing wrong with that. But, there is also nothing wrong if you find that someday you realize you aren't Asexual. You might meet someone that you really like, and they like you, and you both realize that you more than like each other, you love each other enough that you want to express that love in a physical way."

Mox grimaced, clearly not sure about this whole love = sex thing, it sounded like bullshit. Sex wasn't love, sex was desperate and greedy, and turned people into animals that only cared about themselves. That wasn't love. But he nodded. "Any other rules?" he asked, eager to get off the subject of sex.

"You help around the house when it's needed," Sefa said. "Right now, you're excused from most of it because of your ankle. But when you're better, you'll have your responsibilities. We expect you to do your chores to the best of your ability and if you don't know how to do something, you ask someone and they'll show you. I will have you work at the camp, and you will be trained to wrestle, if you show you have the talent and desire, which I think you do. But, the priorities go like this, education first, then household chores, then wrestling. Don't lie to Jen and I. I mean, try not to lie to anyone, but especially Jen and I. If we ask you if you did something or didn't do something, you be honest. Even if you know you should or shouldn't have done it, be honest. It might be bad that you did or didn't do something, but if you lie about it, it will be even worse. You do have the right to refuse to answer, as long as you're being asked something about your past, before you joined the family. Especially if anyone but Jen and I ask it. And if Jen and I do ask you something about your past that makes you uncomfortable, we will explain why we are asking. We will do our best not to ask you questions that may make you feel humiliated or ashamed, and if we have to ask you those types of questions, we will do our best to let you know why we have to ask them. Those are the major rules. There are other rules that are minor that you'll learn as you go along, like hang your towels on the towel rack when you're done drying off, don't leave them on the floor, Jen will leave your clean laundry on your bed, you are expected to put it away, things like that. Do you think you can live with this?"

Mox nodded. They didn't seem like bad rules and he thought he could live with them. At least they seemed to be consistent rules, not rules that would change on a whim, as rules Richard claimed to establish would. "What are your rules?" Mox blurted out.

Sefa looked at him, raising one brow. "Whose rules? Mine and Jen?"

Mox nodded. "I mean, I get that you guys don't need to have the same rules. Nobody has to make it a rule for you that you have to pick up your towels, because you're adults and you just know that you have to do that stuff. But what rules do you have that I can count on with you?" He swallowed, knowing that asking this might be pushing things. But, again, he'd seen rules change around him too much. Richard would say one thing, or promise something one minute and change it the next.

Sefa's brow furrowed. "Well, I guess our rules is that we have to make sure you have proper shelter, clothing and food. Those are laws, actually, for any children we have, and it includes children we are taking responsibility for as well. But, as you know, just because something is a law, doesn't mean that people always follow it. But, even if it wasn't a law, Jen and I will always do our best to make sure your needs are met, just as we did and in some ways still do Marc, and do for Roman, and Lance. We also promise not to punish you physically. There are people that believe in spanking, or hitting as a punishment, but Jen and I don't. If you break rules, we might ground you, we might give you extra chores. We will punish you, because you need to learn, but we won't do it by hurting or humiliating you. The punishment will be something suited to the rule broken and your age."

"My age?" Mox tipped his head to one side.

Sefa nodded. "When our boys were young, from about ages two to five, we sometimes punished them by making them sit in the corner. We had a stool in the corner. If the crime was really bad, they had to face the corner. For lesser crimes, they could face the room, but they couldn't leave the corner for the amount of time we said. If they did, the time started over again. We put the kitchen timer where they could see it. But, when Marc and Roman each turned five and when Lance was four, we decided that was not a good punishment anymore. If we really felt they needed some time to reflect, they were told to go to their rooms. But usually when the boys got older, we could make punishments fit the crimes. Like if a chore wasn't done properly, they would have to redo the chore they did wrong, and do some extra chores. When Roman and Marc got poor grades, or grades we didn't feel showed they were trying their best, they had to study harder. In the case of Marc, he had troubles with math, so we hired a tutor for him. We'll do the same for you, if necessary, to help you with your GED studies."

Mox nodded. "And I can't drink coffee, that's one of the minor rules," he said, as he took a sip of the forbidden beverage. "Unless, you decide we can break the rules again some time when Jen isn't around."

"You're catching on," Sefa said, grinning. "Most rules we stick together on, Jen and I, but sometimes I'll bend them a bit."

"How else do you bend them?" Mox was curious. This didn't seem as much like bending as outright breaking.

Sefa thought a bit, then said, "Jen really doesn't want Lance eating junk food. I mean, she doesn't want any of us eating junk food, she thinks it's bad and she's probably right. But she's especially worried about Lance. A lot of people, not medical people, but other people, tried to convince her that junk food could have caused AML, or that making sure he never got junk food again would keep him from ever getting AML again, so on and so forth. So, she's strict about Lance. But, sometimes… let's say if she decides to skip one of Roman's games, which doesn't happen very often, I might buy him some hot dogs and fries. And the worst hot dogs in the world are the ones they sell at a High School football game."

"Do you believe junk food is bad?" Mox had no clue why he cared, but he did.

Sefa shrugged. "I agree with Jen that whole food is probably better than processed foods. For example, eating an apple is probably better for you than eating store bought applesauce. Eating turkey that was carved right off the bird is better for you than eating turkey cold cuts. But, I also believe that sometimes, you have to be able to eat something bad for you." He pointed to what was left of his lunch, which was a few fries with chili. "Like this. Nobody is going to say this was a healthy meal, and I wouldn't want you to eat it all the time, but from time to time? I think it's fine."

Mox nodded as he ate the last bite of his burger, chewing and swallowing. It was really good, but if he'd been offered a choice between this, or any of the meals Jen had made for him, he would have picked Jen's food.

When their plates were empty, the waitress came and gathered them up. "Any dessert for you?" she asked. "We've got apple pie, made fresh this morning."

Sefa looked at Mox. "Do you want a slice of apple pie?"

Mox had eaten apple pie before. Sometimes he was brought an apple pie from McDonald's. And a couple times he'd eaten apple pie from those companies like Tasty Cakes or Little Debbie's. He didn't like apple pie as much as he liked the cookie he'd eaten last night, the one Jen had made, but he did like it. He nodded.

"Do you trust me?" Sefa asked, grinning.

Mox nodded again. Sefa looked at the waitress. "We'll each have a piece of apple pie. Can we get it heated, with some of that really sharp cheddar cheese you have, grated on top?"

The waitress nodded. "We can do that for you. Should I refill your coffee, too?"

Sefa nodded in return. When the waitress walked off, he looked at Mox. "Most folks I know like ice cream on their apple pie. But I think cheese is better. Let's see what you think."

Mox had never had apple pie with ice cream before, so he couldn't make the comparison, but by the time they were leaving, he knew he'd be a fan of apple pie and cheese forever. He wondered if Jen made apple pie, and if it would taste better than what he'd just had. He thought that it might be difficult, but it probably would.


Author's Notes: Now, here's where the reasons why I was dumbstruck with Joe's announcement are discovered. Not only did I give Lance the same cancer Roman's actor has, but then I made Roman the one that was able to (at least for now) secure Lance's remission and increase his odds of being a survivor.

Special thanks to all of you who let me know what you thought of longer/vs. shorter chapters. The "keep it as it is" crowd seems to have won out and I'm glad about that. I'd feel strange trying to break apart the chapters.

Thank you to all of you who are reading this. Thank you to all of you who favored or followed it. And extreme thanks to those who felt inspired enough by the story to give me a review. It means a whole lot to me. And I hope you'll continue to want to read the story.

Peace Out

Willow