I own my ideas, but I don't own the characters. Just in case you weren't sure.

Chapter 54

Natalie and Bud met Brian and Tris at the clinic. When they see their daughter, they are shocked by the drastic change in her. Tris had lost about fifteen to twenty pounds in the past three weeks. Her skin was pasty and she had black rings around her eyes from lack of sleep and she is dehydrated.

After the doctor evaluated her, he went to discuss his findings with her parents and Brian.

"I believe that Tris is suffering from PTSD. She is starting to hallucinate because she refuses to sleep. She told me that she can't sleep because they will come to get her in her sleep. She also told me that Tobias isn't here to protect her anymore. Brian was able to give me the details about her kidnapping and the attack. And I'm guessing that Tobias is her boyfriend?"

"Yes, he is." Natalie says. "But the kidnapping was almost a year ago and the attack was about six months ago. Why is this happening now."

"It is not uncommon for PTSD to manifest after months or years, so the timing is perfectly normal. More than likely, based on the comment about her boyfriend not being there to protect her that could be what triggered it. Now please understand, I'm not saying it is his fault. PTSD would have found a way to manifest no matter what the trigger was."

"Well, what can we do for her?" Bud asks. "We have to help her."

"We are suggesting that she be admitted to the hospital. First of all we have to get her healthy again. She needs nourishment and liquids. She also needs medicated. We can give her medication to help her sleep so she can get the rest that she needs. We will also be able to monitor her calorie intake and give her IV fluids. Just those small things will help her drastically in the first few days. After she is healthy, we will begin counseling and medicine to help her work through her problems."

Natalie is now in tears after hearing about how bad the situation for Tris really is. "How long will she have to be here?"

"It depends on her, on her willingness to cooperate, to talk to the counselors, and to want to get better. Sometimes the patients are their own worst enemies. They don't realize that there is something wrong with them so they don't try to get better."

Natalie and Bud don't say another word. They know that she needs help and they can't provide that help to her. They simply agree and sign Tris into the hospital.

Tris spends the next month in the hospital. At first she refuses to cooperate. She won't talk to anyone. When her parents or friends come to visit, she just sits there and stares at the wall. Even when Tobias comes home for a couple days to see her, she won't talk to him or look at him. But the sound of his voice sends her into a fit of shaking and crying hysterically. The doctors told him it is because for the past couple months, she has associated him with safety and security. Now she desperately wants that safety and security back.

On his last day in Chicago, he spends the day at the hospital trying to get her to talk to him or even look at him. He talks to her about playing professional baseball and about how badly he misses her and that he can't wait to be able to spend time with her. He spends the entire day talking and just wishing and hoping that at some point she will decide to look at or talk to him.

He gets the breakthrough that he hopes for when the nurse enters the room and tells him that visiting hours are over and that he will have to leave. After the nurse leaves the room, he turns his attention back to Tris.

"Well, I guess I have to leave. I'm going back to Indiana tonight. I have a game tomorrow." He leans close to her and whispers, "I love you so much Tris. Please try to get better. Please try to come back to me. I miss you so much."

He kisses her on the cheek and as he turns to walk away, she grabs his hand and holds on to him tightly. She mumbles something that he can't understand.

He turns back to her and kneels on the floor in front of her where he can see her eyes.

Quietly and gently he tries to get her to talk again.

"Tris, I couldn't hear you. What did you say?"

She stares blankly at the wall. But the grip that she had on his hand remains.

He whispers almost inaudibly, "Please talk to me."

Slowly she lowers her gaze from the wall to his face. It is the first time in three days that she has looked at him. When her eyes finally meet his, tears start to well up in her eyes.

He can see the sadness, confusion, and fear that she is feeling, in her eyes. This is the best he's felt in since he got the call about her being admitted in the hospital. She is looking at him, she sees him.

"Tris, please come back to me. I need you to find your way back to me."

When the nurse comes in to remind him about visiting hours, she immediately sees that she has had some kind of breakthrough. She quickly goes to get Tris' doctor to tell him what is happening.

When the doctor arrives, he quietly observes Tobias and Tris. She still hasn't spoken to him again, but she won't let his hand go and she is staring into his eyes.

"Tris, I heard you say something to me. Please tell me what you said. I would like nothing more than to hear your voice again."

She continues to look at him. She slowly opens her mouth to speak. He leans in close to her so that he can hear her this time.

"Don't go."

Those two words are the best words he has ever heard. Four looks over at the doctor who simply nods and walks out the door, closing it behind him.

Four continues to kneel in front of her, holding her hands in both of his. "I'm not going anywhere right now. I promise."

At those words she completely breaks down in tears. This is the first time she's talked or shown any real emotion for weeks. It is the breakthrough that the doctors have been hoping for.

For the next two hours, Four sits with her holding her hands and talking to her. She hasn't said anything else to him. But she has started making eye contact with him when he talks to her and she even smiles at him from time to time.

When eleven o'clock rolled around, the nurses came in to change her IV and to give her medication. This medication will make her sleep.

After a short time, she starts to get drowsy. Just before she falls asleep, she says one more thing to him. "Win for me," and then she's gone.

~oOo~

That night Four boards a plane that will take him back to Indiana. He has mixed emotions about going back, even if she basically told him to. He wants to be with her through her recovery, but he can't just leave the team either. Once he's in the air, he calls Natalie and Bud to tell them what happened at the hospital today and that as he was leaving the doctors told him that was the breakthrough that they had been hoping for. The sign that she hadn't completely given up, that she still had things that she was willing to fight for.

After their conversation, he tried to get some rest before he arrived back in Indianapolis. But just as he was falling asleep, his phone rang. When he looked at the caller ID, his heart sank. He hesitantly answered the phone dreading what he was going to hear on the other end.

"Hello?"

"Mr. Tobias Eaton?"

"Yes, this is he. Who is this?"

"This is Capt. John Rodgers. I'm the warden at the federal prison that your father is being held. I'm calling to inform you that Marcus Eaton was stabbed in a prison riot three days ago. He survived for in the infirmary until he died of his injuries this morning."

Four sits quietly for just a moment. "Thank you for contacting me. But as far as I'm concerned he was not my father. Is there something that you need from me?"

"I was going to ask if you wanted to make arrangements for the remains or…"

Four cuts him off, "Honestly, that man made my entire life a living hell. I really don't care what you do with his remains. But I will not claim them."

"I understand Mr. Eaton. We will take care of it. But just so you know, it is not uncommon for people to refuse the remains of criminals. Especially violent and manipulative criminals like Marcus."

"Can I ask just one question?"

"Yes."

"What started the riot?"

"A card game. Although we don't condone gambling, we also can't stop them from gambling what belongs to them, especially when they don't do it openly. Cigarettes, food, whatever else they can legitimately get their hands on. From what we gather, Marcus had been cheating others during these games, working with another man that he would split the winnings with. One of the other inmates figured it out and somehow made a shiv out of a toothbrush and a disposable razor. A fight started in the court yard giving him time to basically cut Marcus open completely."

Although the man that frequents Four's nightmares died a horrific death, he just can't seem to make himself care. He actually relieved to know that the man is dead and out of his life for good.

"Thank you for calling me, Capt. Rodgers. I appreciate it."

Four hangs up the phone and for just a moment feels a sense of relief flood over him. With Marcus gone, that is one less thing that he has to worry about.

Shortly after his call with the prison warden, the plane lands in Indianapolis. He retrieves his car and returns to his small apartment near the stadium.

When he walks in, a sense of grief and sadness overcomes him. He's worried about Tris. He hates being so far away from her and not being able to be there to help her.

He unpacks his bag and puts his things away. He looks around the small apartment and scowls. The room is smaller than his room at the fraternity house, it is basically just his bed, a small refrigerator and kitchen area, and a bathroom.

He loves playing baseball, but it doesn't pay enough for him to get a better apartment than this. He's tried to find a job either in physical therapy or some kind of sports training, but there are so many guys here in similar situations looking for jobs during the season, that he can't find anything to help supplement his income.

He finally lies in his bed after his rollercoaster of a day. He has to get some sleep before his game tonight. As tired as he is though, he knows that he isn't going to be able to sleep until he calls the hospital to check on Tris.

~oOo~

After the breakthrough with Four today, the doctors are optimistic that Tris will be able to find her way out of her depression and manage the PTSD. But when she woke up and found that he was gone, she shut down again. The doctors tried to remind her about her that she encouraged him to go and win his game for her. But she didn't respond to them at all.

Later that day, when her parents came to visit, the doctors told them that she spoke to Four, but that after he had to leave that she just stopped speaking again. He encouraged them to talk to her about things that she loved to try to get her to respond.

"Hi Tris, how are you?" Natalie says smiling at her daughter.

"Hi Honey," Bud says. "We miss you at home. We would so love for you to come home."

Natalie takes her hand and turns it over, revealing her wrist. "Tris, do you remember when I gave you this tattoo? The dove, it stands for love. You knew even then that you had fallen in love. But you couldn't admit it to yourself yet. And remember the dragon? Remember what they stand for? Strength, courage, and fortitude, Tris do you remember. These tattoos mean so much to you. They are reminders of the things you need to get through life and to heal."

Tris sits and doesn't appear to be listening, but then she puts her hand on her thigh where the dragon is. She rubs her leg as if she's thinking about the tattoo. She looks at her mother and gives her a slight smile.

This was the first time that Tris has looked at her mother. Tattoos were something that Tris has always had an affection for. They have always been her way of expressing herself and dealing with the trials and tribulations of life, especially when she was a kid in Keith's house.

"Pencil and paper?" Tris asks. Natalie immediately starts to cry as she takes a pencil and sketch pad out of her bag and hands it to Tris.

She doesn't say another word. But she draws. For days she draws pictures. The doctors said this was a good development. It could just be her way of dealing with what has happened to her. She has a long road to recovery, but she may have found a way to help herself heal.

A week after Tris was given the sketch book, she has a meeting with the psychiatrist. The doctors encourage her to take her sketch book with her. When the psychiatrist sees the images in the book, she begins to ask Tris questions about their meanings. Some of the drawings are images of the room that she was held in when she was kidnapped. Some are images of devils and demons and other horrific images. But then there are images of a blue ribbon for PTSD, a couple sayings such as…

'Strength of character

isn't always how much you can handle before

you break,

it's also about how much you can handle

after you've broken.'

When she sees these images and the sayings, she is confident that even though Tris still won't speak or really make eye contact, she is beginning to find ways of healing.

~oOo~

The next chance Four has to go back to Chicago, it is a month later. Tris has finally begun to talk to a few people, like her parents and brother. She even spoke to him once or twice through video chat. He misses her horribly, and the life of a minor league baseball player is not what he has expected. He doesn't really get paid enough and yet no one will hire him for any work because of his extremely busy schedule. He's beginning to wonder if this life is truly what he wants.

He walks into the rehabilitation center where Tris is staying until she has completely recovered from what the doctors are now calling a psychotic break. Before his last visit she was basically on a hunger strike. She had refused to eat or drink. Her parents had to agree to have her put on IV's for fluids and sustenance to help her survive, otherwise she would have starved herself.

Since his last visit, she has started drawing again and has started eating a little. She's trying to survive, but her body has gone without real food for so long that it is difficult for her to eat enough to sustain her body. Also she tends to get sick from eating.

He reaches her room and finds her sitting at a desk with her back to the door. She seems to be writing or drawing. From doorway he gently says her name.

"Tris."

When she hears his voice, she immediately gets a small smile on her face. She slowly turns to find him standing in the door way. When she sees him standing there with flowers and the smile that she fell for, her smile widens.

Her smile lights up his entire day. He's been so worried and so nervous about seeing her. He's been afraid that once she started getting better, she would realize that most of her problems were his fault and she wouldn't want to be with him anymore.

He moves slowly into her room. He doesn't want to startle her or cause her to be scared or nervous. He goes over to the desk, hands her the flowers, and kisses her on the cheek. He takes the chair next to her and smiles. He just looks at her, taking in her beauty. She is skinnier than she has ever been, having lost about thirty pounds from not eating, her eyes have black circles around them and they are slightly sunken. But when he looks at her all he sees is the woman he loves, and she is smiling at him.

He takes her hand and kisses it. "So what are you working on here? Have you drawn me a new tattoo?"

She silently slides the notebook over to him. He begins to thumb through the book looking at all of the images. When he gets to a portrait of the two of them together, smiling and looking into each other's eyes, he stops.

"This is amazing Tris. I knew you were good, but I never knew you were this good," he pauses looking at the detail and how she captured their happiness. "Can I have this picture?"

She smiles and nods. He gently pulls the page out of the book before continuing to look at the pictures. They are all fantastic, and the poems and other sayings are also wonderful.

He spends the rest of his time with her. She speaks a little to him, but mostly she smiles and holds his hand. When the nurse comes in and says that she needs to get some rest, Four reluctantly gets up to leave.

"You can come back in a couple hours. She just really needs to get some rest right now."

He leans in and kisses her cheek, "I'll be back in a little while, I love you."

Tris smiles and whispers, "I love you."

These words make Four happier than any other words that he has ever heard. He leaves with his picture in hand and immediately goes to the tattoo parlor.