InfinityAndOne: Ah thank you dude - they've been tricky ones to write! Yeah, the spiral was so sad, just a lack of any hope at all. It's definitely good Cal and Mollie have sorted themselves out after a very rocky time together... it isn't undeserved. Thank you for your review and continued support.

Casualtyfandom1986: Haha, that made me smile so much when I read that! I'm so happy to hear that - hope you enjoy the next one, thank you for your kind review!

casfics: Ah that's so lovely of you. I'm so flattered you like the simile and the way a paragraph was written. You've hit the nail on the head there. Forever thankful for your in-depth reviews. Glad to enjoyed chapter thirty-five, I hope you enjoyed chapter thirty-six and will enjoy this one too! Thank you for your review!

20BlueRoses: Glad you liked the varying emotional-ness hehe (aw!). It would be so awful if the news had gone badly, haha, and there's been enough sadness of late. I'm happy you enjoyed that addition, father-son relationships are strange to write considering I'm a girl therefore unable to relate but it's so nice to explore. It really could go either way, when and if he's notified. Thank you for your support of this story and your review!

WinchesterShaw: Your review, fortunately, helped to kick-start this story again! I pm-ed you earlier, but yes this is still continuing and I am determined to finish it. Thank you so much for your review and I hope you continue reading.

a/n: left a huge authors note on "building bridges". i'm sorry about the wait on this one. it's a tricky story at the best of times but i hope u like it.

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9th of July 2017 (2 days later)

Ethan never saw himself as an angry person. Cal always claimed that title. He'd toss anything and pull up garden tiles and throw fits just for a glance. And Ethan was the quiet one, tucked in the corner harmlessly, watching it unfold. He wasn't like that. He couldn't be.

Sometimes he wonders if his entire perception is skewed.

The nutritionist - Mr Hughes - didn't get the frustration. Not once. Not when it was rising in his throat, choking him, all barbed wire and poison. Ethan was plain enough.

"I can't eat six meals," Ethan had insisted, on and on. The root of the anger - no control, nobody listening, no hope of neither occurrences. "I can't, it's too much."

And the nutritionist kept on saying, "yes, you can." Hiding a 'you will' behind a passive-aggressive front, tip-toeing closer to the border of frustration himself.

"They're not six meals as such, just six times a day for eating."

"It's physically impossible, I hope you understand."

"No, it isn't. If it was, we wouldn't be suggesting it. Everyone has to. Especially if they're as underweight as you. In order to put on the weight, you must eat multiple meals and more calories. As a doctor, you understand this?"

"It's unfair," he splutters. "You can't expect someone to go from nothing to everything."

"You're refusing the nutritional drinks so you don't really have a choice, I'm afraid."

"There has to be another option."

"I'm not averse to a nasogastric tube if you're against the six meals."

"No," Ethan had insisted. "I said no."

"When I say six meals, it's more that half are larger, and the other half is smaller. Snacks."

"Can't I have three?"

"You're not going to hit your goal posts. You'll simply be maintaining, not gaining. And even maintaining is unlikely. We've got targets for you to hit, targets that will avoid your physical health deteriorate further."

"I don't care about the t-" he breathed in sharply. "I just. I can't. You have to understand that. I can't."

The nutritionist looked at him for a bit, and then he looked down. Scribbling in a notebook. Ethan noticed his own palms are sweaty.

"Please, Doctor," Ethan had pleaded.

"You know we've got your best interests on the top of our list," he had said, never looking up. "We are doing what's best for you. You get choices, as long as they're not going to harm you. I'm afraid it's going to be that we agree to disagree here and that you do as you're told."

He had bitten back a retort, so hard that it hurt.

Ethan had known he wouldn't get what he wanted and no-one would relent to tailor to the needs of someone as acutely unwell as he was. Like his brain was seen as so poisoned that he couldn't think straight. As a doctor, he had understood. As a person, he couldn't have even tried.

"I'm sorry," the nutritionist had said with finality. "The answer is no."

And that, somehow, was all it had taken.

The first thing he had thought of was pain. He knew it felt better when he was frustrated. He'd spent many weeks, waiting for a chance to be alone, to dig his hands into his thighs, knowing it'd make him feel better when everything else went wrong.

What is more dramatic, more relieving, more final than just one sweep and then feeling it all release? Just blood and metal rust and everything that he couldn't have, everything he wasn't allowed. Getting his way. Feeling what he's missed. It was a cure-all. He needed a cure to this, a quick fix. Scars would fade, he reasoned (now, with a clear head, he realises that this urge would fade also if he gave it time).

But he couldn't. Especially since he was under such close surveillance.

So the second option was to stand, to pace, to keep on insisting, "I can't," and all the possible derivatives. And incessantly, he was declined, until he felt like the conversation was simply humouring him.

And he was frustrated. So frustrated, and angry. Maybe not at the nutritionist, whose legs were legs jammed under the desk (the man was overweight, he was going to lead Ethan from one extreme to another… right? Right?!), the notebook pierced with scribbled handwriting. Maybe not at anyone. Maybe he just was.

He felt like Cal when he did it. Picked up a big glass vase and smashed it. Right on the joint of his knee. Vaguely, he had felt pain, but that was hidden under layers of everything else he felt. Water and flowers leaked onto the floor, petals squashed. He hadn't had shoes on so the glass sunk into his feet. He welcomed it.

Then he threw a book. Two books. Felt like there was no point in stopping, he'd already ruined everything so why redeem himself now? He wanted to tear pages out and bend the spines so he did, and it replaced the anger with guilt, but more anger kept coming, and the guilt kept coming as consequence; just like scars and blood are consequences of cuts, scabbing and bright red against pink skin.

He had shouted, too, barely registered the words coming out of his mouth. Every nerve was frayed and tetchy and he had felt embarrassment, somehow - a physical emotion, like he was wearing his skin inside out.

The nutritionist was booming and Ethan barely listened, barely knew where he was. Barged past the people coming through the doors, felt himself running like he was going to float. It had felt like he was outside of his body. He wanted to step out of the window and walk on air.

They grabbed him and he fought against them but he felt sleepy and dizzy and breathless - was he crying? Ethan recalls now that he was crying. It isn't quite tears but he's shuddering, unable to stop.

"Just exploded," the nutritionist had shaken his head, disappointed. At that moment, Ethan felt like a kid. Restrained from a tantrum, pulled in to time-out.

That was all he was - all he is. Someone fragile and tiny to be guided, and told off when he gets it wrong.

He got it wrong. Really wrong.

Presently, Ethan sits alone. He's been put in a room with foam walls and a fluorescent white light. No windows. No pictures. No visible metal on the door, nothing he could scrape his skin with. His grazed knees are up to his chest - because if he's going to be treated like a child, it seems fitting to sit like one.

He doesn't hit the punchbag in the middle of the room. Just slides downwards, against the foam wall. Exhausted, guilty.

He just wants to go home, but he knows it isn't an option. He's hindered himself; it's like he's an amputee trying to learn to walk but chopped off a second leg. Today shouldn't have happened.

He knows who he's angry at now.

Himself.

.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-

Agnes comes to sit with him. Her hand snakes out, silver rings and manicured nails. It feels too much like the past. Mollie hunched beside him on the bathroom floor, stroking his hair, flannel to his forehead. He doesn't take the bait. He doesn't say a word.

"What was that about?"

Shakes head, hunches shoulders. He's feeling childish, defiant. It shows.

"When you're angry, you don't need to smash vases to tell us," she says. "You can just… say it. We'll get it."

"You won't get it."

"You don't trust us. Why don't you trust us?"

Shrug.

"Ethan," she says. "In my career, I have treated and helped to ease the problems of hundreds. In all these years, guess how many people died?"

He doesn't want to guess, so he focuses his eyes on the punchbag.

"Nine."

"Oh."

"I've been working here for ten years and each death felt like a chunk out of my own heart. It pains you to see these people grow and thrive, and then to wilt again until they die. They never know it's as bad as it is - until it's too late, and they'd give anything to turn back the clock."

"It could be worse, Agnes," he says, in reference to himself. Short-sleeved and scarred, his elbows pointy and sharp. His knees are still bleeding. There's glass in them but nobody has been brave enough to approach him yet to clean the mess he's made.

"Comparison is the root of all evil. A sprain doesn't stop hurting because your friend just broke her arm. It's relative. It's not comparable. It's not fair."

"I'm hardly at death's door, am I?"

"You don't see what I see."

"What do you see?"

She shuffles herself to sit against the foam wall. There's a whole body worth of space between them. "I see what's inside, more. Outwardly, you're pale, you're thin, you're closed-off. Everyone knows that already. But I see more. I see that you're angry, deep down. I think you're using that anger and frustration to try and play off the hurt."

"I'm not angry."

"Your brother told me you attacked him because he said something that annoyed you. Before anyone knew about your eating disorder, you got into a large argument with a good friend of yours. You ran away when people found out you stopped eating."

"There were reasons for all of that."

"I also know you're logical," she continues as though he didn't speak. "I know that you don't tend to speak unless spoken to, I know you're quiet. You don't like talking about how you feel unless you have to, you'll never reach out. You're afraid of being alone but you isolate yourself so much-"

"That's not true at all, none of it." Crosses his arms over his chest.

"-and you don't like being talked about."

"It's all people seem to do at the moment. Talk. About me."

"It's only because they care."

Ethan tips a shoulder, begrudging. "How do you know all that stuff, anyway?"

"Your brother and I spoke a lot before he sent you here. I think he was prolonging the inevitable. He didn't want you to go, not really."

Ethan is struck by unforeseeable, loving, sudden affection for his brother. "It's not forever, though. We'll see eachother soon."

"Will you, though? Ethan, you're going to end up in a different hospital if you get much worse. And I don't think you want that."

He rests the back of his head against the foam wall. The ceiling is unextraordinary and dull. The room is stuffy and cold. And he is not happy, but he is not quite sad either.

"How are you feeling now?"

"Not sure."

"Anger tires you out. Makes you bitter."

"I'm not angry at anyone here," he says quietly.

"I know you're not," she says, equally as gently.

"You're too... nice. Why are you so nice?"

"It's my job. And maybe I think you're a good person. Maybe there's that."

He smiles, non-believing. "I get this a lot, you know. People sidling up to me and trying to help. Sometimes I wonder if they're trying to help or just want the satisfaction of saying they cheered up the sad kid."

"I think more people have your best interests at heart than you give them credit for."

"You think of the world to be so beautiful and amazing but I've seen it, Agnes. It's an ugly wall hidden under a layer of paint and one squint reveals all."

"You can be angry at people all you want, Ethan. Angry at the world, angry at yourself. But it won't go away. You can punish yourself by pushing everyone away, but deep down, I just see someone who wants to be loved as much as he loves everyone else."

He shrugs, smiles - he can't take the seriousness, despite how he used to be. Always looking out for what could go wrong. Being careful, when everyone else would say he should loosen up. And he'd laugh about it; I just want to make sure the door is locked, or we can't all be reckless or they'd be nobody to turn the oven off to make sure the house doesn't burn down.

Agnes stands up. "I'm going to get someone to sort your injuries out. But I'll give you a minute first."

"Thanks."

"You know, you called yourself a kid earlier."

"Pardon?"

"Earlier," she says. "You said that everyone wants a chance to cheer up the 'sad kid' to inflate their egos, or something similar."

He shrugs, embarrassed. "Freudian slip."

"Right, okay."

"I'm a grown-up. I'm not a kid. I don't draw with crayons anymore or cry for my Mum when I fall over. It was a slip of the tongue."

"Alright," she says, and unlocks the door. "I'll leave you to it."

"Can't I go?"

"If I do that, I'll get a name for being a softie. I can't have that, I've got a reputation to maintain."

"At my expense?"

"Listen, you," she says. "You were the one who smashed a vase. Ad ruined several books."

"I'll pay for the damage," he says, guilty.

"I know you will," she says, and she's smiling. "See you in a bit."

He watches her go, groaning at the closed door. This is what he never got to experience as a kid - time-out. He always behaved too well. Adults would think he was constantly after something, but he wasn't. It was in his nature, just like it was in Cal's to… smash vases and things.

Maybe he's more like Cal than he thought. And maybe he's not as grown-up as he thinks he is. Maybe deep down, he's still just a kid.

Ethan sighs to himself and counts the seconds.

.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-

"We've still got some work to do with that one."

"Oh, have we?" Agnes smoothes her skirt and sits in her office chair. "Forgive me," she says, and fiddles with the lever, dropping it down a few inches. "I haven't managed to treat patients within a week of their arrival before, but I'm working on it."

Mr Hughes - clinical nutritionist of fourteen years, an esteemed colleague of hers - drops onto his own chair. Wooden. Stiff and uncompromising; just like himself, uptight. "In all my years, I don't believe I've seen anything quite like it."

"You've lived a sheltered life."

"I did so believe he was going to go for security's neck next."

"People get angry. Even you, Mr Brick Wall. We all explode sometimes."

"We don't all destroy hospital property in our crusade to express it, though, do we?"

Agnes chuckles and pulls up a document on her computer. "Well, I think we all have different ways of expressing when we're hurting."

"I think so too, but we can't let it continue," Mr Hughes says. "I'm making a proposal at the next board meeting concerning his treatment."

"Enlighten me," she says.

"No. You'll find out on the day."

"Go on. I'll iron out any creases in it."

"There aren't any."

"Tom," she says. Desperation kicking in now. "Tell me."

He doesn't seem happy about it, but he does. "I've thought that if there isn't a positive change in the next week, we're going to proceed with the nasogastric tube regardless of the patient's feelings toward it."

"Tom, no. That's not fair."

"He's being given the same chance everyone gets."

"It's barely been a week itself. We know that people deteriorate fast the minute they get in here. It's our job to slowly build them up again and let them trust us."

"But with the weight quickly plummeting, what other choice do we have? More damage will be done to his major organs, more than what's already been done."

"Listen," she says, standing, gathering her skirt and notes. "We're going to be patient. I'm not going to lose his trust and potentially traumatise him. It's a scary prospect."

"Then it'll be an incentive to start eating on his own."

"No, it's too soon. It'll be 'yes, I promise to be better and to eat alone', and he'll come off the tube and proceed to be even harder to help. He'll just keep lying. There's a lot we need to work through in counselling."

"Like what?"

"Like his inability to separate his child-self from his now-self. Clearly, it was traumatic to watch his parent's eventual split, and his mother's eating disorder rubbed off on his own. High school is a scarring time in itself without that. It's something I think he's not even aware of, the obsession with the past."

"I'm not a psychiatrist, Agnes," he says. "I don't know this."

"Well, exactly. You can't make an informed decision concerning his treatment if you don't understand all perspectives. You'll only trouble him more."

Agnes clutches her notes to her chest and leaves the room, shoe soles echoing down the halls. And she hears from behind her:

"We can't be patient forever, Agnes."

.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-

One, two, three. One, two- head rush.

He rubs the forming bruise on the back of his head. He knows nobody will ever know it's there - and he hopes that this satisfaction of dull pain lasts. It's a substitute for the real stuff, like nicotine patches instead of cigarettes. He balls his fist, pummels it into his thigh.

The door unlocks and he stops, burning with panic at getting caught. A nurse comes in, followed by security.

He doesn't say a word the whole time.

.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-

They don't expect much during the final meal of the day. And he doesn't give much either. Each bite feels impossible. He almost feels his body expand at the end of it. Knowing he's put on weight, he can just sense it.

In the evenings, they offer a phone call to home. It's a last-ditch attempt to fix this thwarted day. Ethan still declines.

What on earth could he tell Cal? He'd have to tell him how he's let him down, over and over. He can't do that. He isn't strong enough. Not strong enough to break Cal's hopeful heart.

And he especially can't call anyone else. Charlie is close to Cal. not Ethan. And anyway, he'd never understand. And he couldn't call any friends - assuming he still has any that don't hate him for the ignored text messages, the declined calls, the frostiness.

It just feels isolating. But he's done it himself.

He wants to go straight to bed but it's only seven. He half expects to be sent to bed early, but he's not a child - and they know that wouldn't be a punishment, anyway. To be left alone would destructive to him. He imagines he'll be checked on double this time - more late night disturbances, a torch shone upon him every half hour as opposed to hourly.

From the main room, he hears laughter and feels worse. He knows he can't join in. They'd never welcome him, not after what he's done. Maybe people would be scared. He just exploded earlier. Who'd trust him?

Instead, Ethan makes do to sit in a hallway, jogging his knee, waiting. Each movement burns calories. Tires him out. It feels like his leg is burning, as he pulls himself up, and walks up and down the hall.

Each lap of the hall will burn off the weight he's put on. He finds his head is spinning, his body is aching. Yet he can't stop. He has to, he needs to!

And so he continues, until the big clock hand has gone around the face once, and he is joined by someone, watching, disapproving.

"You could call your brother, you know. But this is how you choose to spend your evening?"

He feels sweat on his back, wanting to close his eyes and sleep. But he can't. He has to keep going. "Yes," he says to her. "I-I have nothing good to tell him."

"Listen," Agnes says. "I'm going to give you one last chance. Do you want to call home?"

"N-No!"

"Ethan, just concentrate on me. This won't help."

"It's walking, it won't do any harm," he says. "You lot won't let me do any exercise, won't let me… so I have to. I can't just let the weight pile on."

"It's not going to do that. You know it's not going to do that."

"Go away," he says. "Please go away."

"You look so tired. You've had enough of this, right?"

He stops against the wall, breathless and dizzy. He's shaking and lethargic. More than anything, he wants to sink into a chair, get his bearings.

He can't stop himself from it. Falls right into the chair, limbs burning. He finds that he barely has the energy to stand up again. Just crumples.

Agnes stands, normal enough to be still - not to jog her leg, to move anything, to make every movement a conscious effort to burn more weight off. Just stands. Just lives. Just survives.

And he wonders how that can be. Wonders how you can keep your head above water. It seems fake. How does she cope when something goes wrong? Is he just weak?

"Come on," she says. "You might as well get some sleep."

"I'm not tired."

"Punishing yourself won't help."

"I'm… not."

"Then come on."

He does as he's told. Obedient, for one of the first times today.

Each footstep is exhausting. He says goodnight quickly and then falls into bed. Doesn't even bother to get changed.

There's no point in crying. No point of anything like that. He just wants to sleep.

"Hush," says fire-year-old Cal, lips pursed, as Ethan sniffles. Their parents aren't home and the babysitter doesn't care that Ethan had a nightmare. But Cal does. He always does.

"Don't go," he whispers.

"I won't. I'll stay 'til you fall 'sleep."

He lets Cal sit on the edge of his bed, smoothing his hair. Duvet covers gathered, held tightly to his chest. He nuzzles his head into the covers, and falls asleep, without a bad dream even on the horizon.

Ethan finds himself missing Cal like a part of him has gone. And he always did, really. When he'd disappear off, abroad, or just down the road. During sleepovers or during medical school, Cal's huge sabbatical to Ameria. Didn't even return a phone call. Ethan mourned the loss of him then.

He remembers that, back then, he'd give anything for a text. Just to know he's okay.

And the tables have turned now. It's him who's leaving Cal in the lurch. He promised he'd call yet he isn't. Reminds him of someone.

But he can't call him unless something good has happened… can't let him down that way, he just can't.

He finds himself slipping into sleep. A resolution forms. A good one. Nothing like, I'll take another pin from the board later, it'll help. Nor anything like I'll drink as much water as I can before they weigh me, or I'll just refuse to talk about anything until I forget how to. It's better because it's about Cal. And it's better because it breeds hope.

He'll make tomorrow better. This whole week will be better. He has to make it so. Must make it happen.

He'll make something good happen to tell Cal about. He'll get his brother back. And maybe he'll get himself back at the same time.

It's not hopeful, not just yet. But it's a start, he thinks, as he finally sleeps.