Hi people.

Not much to say here. Just a reminder that we have an open poll and would really appreciate it if you guys voted. Once again, we want to know how you feel about this being a slash story. No, this will not be a Luke/Ravi slash story because even though they're not blood related, they're still brothers. Alexis and I didn't really want this to be an incest story. Depending on where this story goes, we could make it one. But honestly, that's probably not going to happen.

Anywho, please enjoy this chapter!

Disclaimer: We do not own Jessie.

Chapter 5: Family

Ravi feels at peace.

Something about the empty white space consuming him made him feel calm and relaxed in the weirdest way. Unlike the darkness that left him feeling hollow and detached from the world, this white space gave him a warm, comfortable feeling. It's like he knows he has burdens and demons to face, and he knows that he is struggling with unexplainable inner turmoil. But he feels as though in this white space he is floating in, none of that mattered. None of that could bother him, or even reach him in this quiet place.

He can't remember how he ended up here, nor does he know how he's going to get out. He's not sure whether he wants to or not. Why would he want to leave such a peaceful and tranquil environment, a place where he doesn't have to deal with his many issues? Ravi knows that he won't be able to stay in this warm place forever, but he can't worry about that when he's feeling so serene, and when he's on such an unexplainable high.

Ravi suddenly feels himself being slowly pulled out of his white space due to the feeling of something gently brushing his cheek. He wants to swat away whatever is bringing him back to reality, but his limbs suddenly feel heavy, as if his bones were replaced by hammers.

The white around him is fading. He is now aware of soft voices in his proximity. He wants to quiet the voices so he can descend back into his relaxed state, but he's having trouble opening his mouth and speaking.

The whiteness is almost completely faded now. Whatever fog that caused him to forget his surroundings is lifting as he begins to remember where he is and why he's there. He's asleep in a hospital bed because of his failed attempt at committing suicide. He was given pain medication that knocked him out for God knows how long. He's not sure exactly where his family is, but he knows that his brother is by his side, or at least somewhere in the proximity.

Now the whiteness is completely gone. Ravi is almost fully aware of the sounds around him. He can hear voices alternating between whispers and normal speech. He can hear a distant beeping as well, what he remembers to be a heart monitor. He can now feel the material of the bed he is laying on, along with the blanket wrapped around him. His limbs still feel heavy, but now they're movable. And he can now tell that what continuously brushed against his cheek was someone's finger.

Ravi starts to open his eyes, struggling due to the bright light illuminating the hospital room, the light being much brighter than the comforting white he was previously in. He lets out a soft groan, which seemed to alarm the people in his hospital room as he can feel their presence surrounding him. Finally, he manages to crack open his eyes, finally waking from the deep sleep he had been put in due to the pain medicine. The first thing he sees is both his parents sitting beside his hospital bed, his mother being the one stroking his cheek.

"Mom? Dad?" Ravi whispers, his voice still slightly hoarse from lack of use. He has gone from referring to his parents as 'Mrs. Mommy' and 'Mr. Daddy,' to interchangeably say that and the traditional 'mom and dad.'

Something washes over Christina Ross when she sees Ravi's bright eyes finally open. She had been waiting hours to see those eyes again, fighting sleep and nausea all at once. The sudden feeling of relief and anxiety makes her so lightheaded she nearly faints. Not today, she scolds herself. She's not about to faint and miss out on this moment with her youngest son.

"Ravi!" Christina exclaims softly, so as to not irritate Ravi. "You're awake!" She instantly wraps Ravi into an affectionate yet gentle hug, being careful not to be too rough. Morgan hugs Ravi after his wife.

"I'm so happy you're awake." Christina continues. "You had us worried sick!"

"How are you feeling kiddo?" Morgan asks after releasing Ravi.

Ravi sits himself up a bit, not feeling as weak as before. His headache has subsided from construction site to kids running around a room. He doesn't feel weighed down by antibiotics and sedatives anymore, and is fully awake now. His arm still hurts, but that's a given. Overall, Ravi feels much better than before. "Much better, but I'm still a little sore." He replies. "But what are you guys doing here? Aren't you supposed to be in Berlin?"

"Oh honey," Christina brushes Ravi's hair (once spiked up but now deflated and limp) off his forehead. "As soon as we got the call that you were hurt, we hoped on the first flight here. We needed to be here with you, and make sure you were okay."

Ravi gives them a small smile. He can't believe they dropped everything and came here in less than a day. "Thanks, but you guys didn't have to do that. I would have been fine with Jessie. You didn't have to go through so much trouble." There goes that overwhelming feeling that he was being a burden to his family, causing them more trouble than necessary. He tries his best to suppress that feeling.

Ross takes Ravi's good hand in reassurance, rubbing his thumb on the back of Ravi's hand. "Ravi it was no trouble at all." Ross says. "We'd rather be here by your side than all the way in Germany where we can't get to you."

"We love you so much Ravi." Christina gives him another hug, accompanied by a quick squeeze. "We were so worried about you. I don't know what I would do if I lost one of my babies."

Ravi feels himself melting in his mother's arms. He didn't realize how much he missed the feeling of being embraced like this until now. He doesn't always get to be around his parents, let alone hug them due to their line of work. He understands completely that they don't always get to be around, but God does he wish he gets to feel this kind of love more often.

"I love you guys too." Ravi mutters into his mother's hair. She releases him, but still keeps him close to her. "I'm sorry for causing all of this distress. It wasn't really my intention." He says with remorse in his voice.

Christina sighs. "No Ravi. There's no reason for you to be apologizing."

"Though we do want to know what drove you to this." Morgan says. Christina instantly glares at him, shooting him sharp daggers. She mentally curses at him for being so insensitive to their fragile son. The look on Morgan's face is a mixture of pure fear and confusion, not yet realizing his mistake.

"What your father means is," Christina starts before turning back to Ravi, "we want you to be open with us, and tell us what you're feeling. We never want you to feel helpless or alone. I know we're not always here, but we're only one phone call away if you ever need us." Christina takes a deep breath, the subject of Ravi trying to kill himself still too much for her to handle. "You don't have to tell us everything now since we know it's still an open wound. You can tell us whenever you're ready. But just remember that no matter how far away we are, we're here for you."

Ravi's heart warms up as he feels tears prick at the back of his eyes. His parents are being so loving, and so understanding. He doesn't feel like venturing into the depths of his troubles, but he knows that his parents deserve some sort of explanation.

Slowly, he unfolds some of his burdens to his parents. He tells them about how he's felt like he didn't belong, and how he felt like his existence was a mistake. He tells them how everyday he's mocked and demeaned at school, and how although it didn't bother him much when he was younger, the constant ridicule made him feel like less of a person. He tells them that he thought it would be easier to end it all instead of live every day hating himself. He tries to sum everything up without making himself and his parents cry, which he failed at doing.

Once Ravi finishes explaining everything, he watches the heartbroken expression on his parents faces and feels instant guilt. He never meant to cause so much grief when he tried to kill himself. He thought he would be doing everyone a favor by being dead and gone. But instead, he just caused worry and stress. He never wanted to do that.

Christina uses every acting technique she has to stop herself from breaking down. She musters up enough strength to allow herself to speak without choking on her words and sobbing hysterically. "Listen to me Ravi," she starts, drying her face, "I don't want you to ever feel like you're a burden to us. I don't want you to ever bottle all of this up again, okay? There are a total of 6 of us who love and care for you. Sometimes 7 when Bertram occasionally tries to care." Ravi chuckles at this through his tears. "Whenever you're feeling this way, I want you to tell one of us. Don't keep it in to yourself. Find someone, anyone in the family to talk to. Do you understand me?"

Ravi nods. He understands. It's hard for him to talk about how he's feeling, how he's hurting. But he knows he has to try. If not for himself, then for his family.

"Good." Christina and Morgan give him another hug, fully reassuring Ravi that he'll be okay, and that his family is always there for him.

"So," Morgan starts once they release Ravi, "you hungry? The nurses brought in some food a few minutes before you woke up." He gestures towards the table with a tray of food placed on it. It doesn't look like normal hospital food that was always equivalent to public school lunch. It actually looks decent enough for someone to causally eat.

Ravi is suddenly aware of how hungry he actually is. The last time he remembers eating was when he got home from school the previous day. And all he ate was a large cookie. So his last full meal was at lunch at around 12. He glances at the time on the small digital clock next to him and sees that it's nearly 5:00 p.m. Damn! He thinks to himself. He's gone a full 24 hours without eating anything. He's not just hungry. He's famished to the tenth power.

Morgan moves the table above Ravi, and Ravi uses the bed controls so he's sitting up instead of laying down. He winces, the change of position causing his head to pound, but settles into the new position. His mouth instantly salivates when he sees the meal prepared to him. It's nothing special. Just some spaghetti with vegetables, a small piece of chicken, and a fruit cup. But it might as well be lobster. Ravi doesn't waste any time. He digs in instantly.

"Hey," Ravi says in between mouthfuls of spaghetti, "where is everyone else?" Luke said he would be by Ravi's side while he slept, but now he's not. Did Luke already get fed up with Ravi and leave him alone? Did he realize that Ravi wasn't worth all the stress?

"Well Luke fell asleep about an hour ago." Christina nods towards the other side of the room. Ravi turns his head to see his brother comfortably sleeping on one of the couches in his large hospital room. It was a fairly large couch, big enough for Luke to lie on without his feet dangling off the edge. He was fast asleep lying on his stomach with his head facing the back of the couch, away from Ravi. Ravi sighs, relieved that his brother didn't leave him alone.

"He refused to leave when we got here. He was sitting right next to you fighting sleep before we made him go lie down." Morgan says, absentmindedly taking the fruit cup from Ravi's tray. Christina grabs it from him and places it back in its spot. Morgan sighs as he continues. "Jessie, Emma, Zuri, and Bertram were here too, but we sent them home to eat, shower, and do whatever else they need to do. They should be back any minute now."

As if on cue, Jessie, Emma, Zuri, and Bertram walk into the room, looking somewhat refreshed and refurbished. The still have anxious expressions and are dripping with worry, but at least now they look human.

They're eyes instantly light up when they saw Ravi awake. "Ravi!" Emma and Zuri exclaim as they run to him, giving him a warm hug. Ravi smiles as he returns the hug with his good arm. The two instantly ramble on about how scared they were, and how relieved they are that he's okay, and how he better not try something like that ever again.

"Guys keep it down." Jessie hushes the two, eyeing Luke's sleeping figure. "Luke's sleeping. You're gonna wake him up."

Zuri instantly dismisses the idea of Luke waking due to their loudness. "Nothing can wake him up. He could sleep through an earthquake."

Jessie and Bertram make their hugs short yet just as warm and reassuring. Ravi can't remember the last time he felt so much love and affection from his family. He's gone so long feeling unloved and ignored. Having all this attention all at once is slightly overwhelming. But he's grateful for it.

Ravi is released from the hospital after a couple of days. They had kept him for observation, but he was soon cleared to go home. Ravi is both excited to leave and nervous. He's excited to go back to the comfort of his own home and get away from the claustrophobic feeling of the hospital, but he's also nervous to be released back into the world, back into a place that has the potential to pull him so deep into his dark room he may suffocate.

He's not just nervous. He's terrified.

But nonetheless, his family does a great job of reassuring him, and letting him know that everything will be alright. Having his family with him eases his worries slightly, but he still has that pit feeling that he's all alone. It still lingers within him.

Before being discharged, Ravi had to have a quick session with a therapist recommended by Dr. Sato and Dr. Lauder. The therapist claimed that he "just wanted to talk," but it felt more like an interrogation session. Ravi honestly hated every second of it. He hated the questions the therapist asked and how he asked them. He hated having to tell a total stranger things about himself, things that he was barely comfortable telling his family. He hated how the whole episode made him feel like some sort of mentally challenged patient, who was at high risk of doing some inhumane thing.

Most of all, he hates that he has to meet with this stupid therapist at least once a week.

The therapist is a middle aged man who goes by the name Dr. Phillips. He seems nice in a way. But Ravi dreads being forced to see this guy. How is some stranger supposed to help him anyway?

Not only was Ravi assigned therapy sessions, but he's also being forced to go to group therapy with "other troubled teens like himself." The anxiety the idea of this gave Ravi was enough for 20 people. Ravi already doesn't do too well around other people, especially other kids his age. He is probably the definition of introvert, and has terrible social skills. He's already paranoid beyond belief to go to his school every day and face everyone who hates him. Lord knows what this group of kids will think of Ravi, let alone do to him once he walks into therapy.

He honestly just wants to crawl into a hole and stay there.

It's this same feeling of anxiety that keeps Ravi awake the night he gets home, tossing and turning in bed for what feels like hours. His mind races with involuntary thoughts and worries, making him feel like banging his head against glass. He thinks about what everyone at school will think of him, or how they'll treat him when he's allowed to go back. They'll probably terrorize him even more than before, and make him feel like some sort of freak show. Every time he closes his eyes, he gets flashes of the night he tried to commit, and when he opens them, his mind rears to dark thoughts, and an angry voice tells him he should try again and again until he finally succeeds and rids the world of himself. The madness goes on and on until Ravi finally sits up, clenching his head in his hand. Sweat soaks his t-shirt and he's taking quick breaths, trying hard not to hyperventilate. He can feel a panic attack slowly creeping through him. Or maybe it's an anxiety attack. Or maybe even both.

Ravi suddenly remembers something the therapist told him to do whenever he felt like this. Dr. Phillips told him to count backwards from 10, focusing on each number, how it sounds, and what it means.

Reluctantly, Ravi closes his eyes and starts to count backwards from 10. He tries his best to focus on the numbers he's counting, and not on the dark thoughts invading his head. He honestly feels kind of stupid doing this, but whatever works works. The technique becomes easier to do as he descends from 10 to 1, as the thoughts become less prominent.

Finally, he reaches 1. He sighs a he realizes the therapist's instructions were accurate. The technique eased his mind, subsiding the anxiety attack he was about to have. His heart stopped racing, and he starts to feel much more relaxed. He runs his hand through his messy hair before getting out of bed and heading to his door. He doesn't want to spend another second by himself in his room, with the chance of being attacked by his own subconscious, or having an anxiety attack. He doesn't want to be alone.

Ravi leaves his room, and goes over to the next best place he can think of at this time of night. He picks up his hand and softly knocks on the bedroom door of his brother. Normally Ravi would never go to his brother in the middle of the night because he can't sleep. But under the current circumstances, Luke is the only person who might understand.

He tries his best not to focus on the darkness of the long hallway, afraid of how that might affect him mentally. A few seconds later, Luke opens his door with a slightly annoyed look on his face. Upon seeing his brother, his expression goes from annoyed to confused and concerned.

"Ravi?" He says as his brother gives him a sheepish smile. Luke stifles a yawn. "What are you doing here? Are you okay?"

Ravi shrugs, not really knowing what he should tell Luke. He doesn't really want to talk about the almost anxiety attack. He doesn't even know what that was about anyway. "Yeah, but I, uhh, I can't sleep. Can I come in?"

Luke instantly nods, opening his door wider to let Ravi in. Ravi is surprised to see Luke's room much cleaner than it used to be. It looks as though Luke actually took some time to tidy up his room, or at least enough for the floor to be visible. Ravi tells Luke this and he just chuckles, returning to his spot on his bed and grabbing the laptop he was using before Ravi came.

Ravi climbs into Luke's bed, taking up the empty spot next to him. He leans over, curiously trying to take a peek at what Luke is doing on his laptop. "What are you doing?" he asks.

Luke bites his bottom lip. He has yet to tell his family what his recent favorite thing to do is. "It's uhh, it's nothing really." He looks over at Ravi who's eyebrow is cocked up, waiting for a better explanation than that. Luke sighs, rubbing the back of his neck. If there's anyone he can trust, it's definitely Ravi. "Well, I haven't really told anyone this but," he pauses, "I've been trying to find my birth mom."

Ravi raises his eyebrows in slight shock. "Really?" He remembers how adamant Luke was about finding his birth mom a couple years ago. He figured that Luke was satisfied with how that went, but he guesses he was wrong. Luke hasn't let the subject go.

Luke laughs nervously. "Yeah. It's kinda the reason why I snapped at you the other day after my iPad broke." Luke says softly, regretfully. "I had a lot of information about my mom stored on it and I thought it would be lost forever." Luke looks down, feeling ashamed of how he acted that day, and how he treated Ravi. He'll probably never forgive himself for that.

Ravi nods in understanding. Now it makes slightly more sense why Luke reacted the way he did. "Sorry about that. I didn't know."

Luke shakes his head. "It's fine." He says, completely dismissing the apology as unnecessary. Luke should be the one apologizing continuously for his actions. Not Ravi.

"Well what have you found so far?" Ravi scoots over to get a better look at Lukes laptop. He sees what looks like a webpage for a foster home in Detroit, along with countless other tabs.

"Not much really." Luke clicks on the next tab, which is some sort of people search web page. The next tab is the homepage for a High School in Detroit. Ravi watches intently as Luke goes through each website. "I've found a few things under the name 'Vanessa Olsen,' but it's a lot of dead ends. There are apparently a lot of people in the United States with that same name." Luke chuckles. "Who would've thought…"

"Can I see?" Ravi asks. Luke nods, handing his laptop to Ravi, being careful not to hurt his arm. Ravi places the laptop in his lap and begins going through each website. He can see that Luke has done a lot of work already, and has put a lot of effort into his search. Ravi clicks on the Microsoft Word tab on the taskbar and finds what looks to be notes Luke took on his mom. Ravi is completely shocked by this. Never has he seen Luke put so much effort into something. Luke was the epitome of lazy, and rarely did anything that required a lot of work. So to see that Luke was putting actual work into this was pretty admirable.

"Wow." Ravi says. He looks at Luke. "You've done a lot by yourself."

Luke just nods as Ravi continuous to go through the web browsers. "You know," Ravi starts, an idea popping in his head, "I can help you if you want."

"Really?" Luke's face lights up at Ravi's offer. "You'd help me find my mom?"

Ravi nods. He has a fair amount of knowledge about computers to know how he can track down Luke's birth mother. Plus, he could use the distraction. "Yeah. I'll help you out."

The smile on Luke's face warms Ravi's heart as Luke claps him on the shoulder. "Thanks man. This makes me feel so much better about this whole thing."

Ravi smiles back. The two work intently on the search, looking through various websites and going through phone numbers, addresses, and other form of information until they fall asleep.

This is more of a filler chapter. We didn't want to end it here but the writer's block is strong right now.

Anyway, don't forget to vote on the poll. If we end up doing slash and you didn't want slash, don't get mad because you didn't vote! (Said with love)

Thanks for reading! Reviews are kindly appreciated!

If you like it review. If you like it review. If you like it, then take your little fingers and write a review. Don't be lazy now!

-Bye Felicia