11/12/1999… late evening
As Jaune walked out of his room towards the Living room he stopped as Weiss was carrying out a pair travel bags and take outside. Jaune noticed right away that Weiss wasn't using her walker at all.
Jaune smiled as Weiss turned to look at him with a slightly sad look on her face. "Well uh… I guess I don't know what to say Jaune."
Jaune shook his head [Sorry I didn't realize today was the big day, you and your sister are finally getting into your own house.]
Weiss sighed with a faint smile "Yeah… I mean I came to this house with just the clothes on my back, and your mother's kindness taking me in. She could have said no." Weiss said as she looked into the now almost empty room. "It's funny, I went from a mansion with a bedroom the size of your living room, with a cleaning lady that came four times a week, cooks that made dinners every night. I had everything"
Weiss started to tear up "Except a family that loved me you know?"
[Your dad loves you in the best way that he can, I mean he bought you and your sister a house.] Jaune signed with his uninjured hand.
"Yeah, but… I didn't know what it was like to have a mother that loved me till I came here, It's stupid I know, but, I felt like I had a real family here." Weiss said.
Jaune smiled and signed [You still do. I'm sure my mom would say your more or less one of her's in spirit by this point Weiss.]
Weiss chuckled, "Well I'll be in walking distance from my girlfriend's place, at least I got that right?"
Jaune reached out and took her two bags from her and slung them over his shoulder before signing. [You shouldn't forget your walker, I know it still hurts to stand unassisted.]
Weiss looked down and smiled "Actually, it hasn't hurt for a while now. At least the last week or so. Ruby forwarded an improved version of her leg braces to my sister, with these on I could stand all day without a walker if I wanted."
[Well I guess the useless shithead is good for something right?] Jaune signed.
"Remember when I said I wouldn't forgive her till you did?" Weiss asked as she walked with Jaune towards the door.
Jaune signed back with a slow finger signed [Yeah I do Weiss.]
"I lied, I've been talking to her off and on for a couple days at school and on AIM. I forgive her Jaune. It's time you did too." Weiss said as they reached Winter's Van.
Winter stepped out and laughed "Look at you walking around with no walker now." Winter smile as she gave Weiss a hug "I got Tukson back at the new house finishing up getting your bed moved into your new room."
Jaune smiled and nodded to Winter who looked at him and said "I see that purple crap is washing out. I still don't know why you dyed your hair like that."
Jaune ran a hand through his hair and rolled his one visible eye.
"You know, I think I'm going to go ahead and refer Ruby to a few friends of mine, those Leg Braces are something else," Winter said looking at Weiss's legs. "I bet she could have a real future designing prosthetics in the future."
[Yeah yeah, she's miss perfect right now I know] Jaune signed out.
Winter laughed it off causing Weiss to laugh as well. Weiss then said, "Well You're both invited to the house warming party after we all get settled in, I hope you both can make it."
Jaune nodded and gave the pair a hug before they loaded up and left. Jaune's smile faded after a few moments. As he turned to go back inside the house.
Jaune meanwhile walked into the living room of their house where his mother and Alan were both sitting watching a story on Y2k when Jaune knocked on the door frame.
"Hey buddy, what's up?" Mina asked.
Jaune thought about it and signed out [Hey, do you both have a moment? I need to talk to you guys…]
Jaune sat down and started to sign out [I don't think my meds work anymore…]
Mina and Alan exchanged glances as they looked at each other before Mina asked: "Jaune, what do you mean?"
Jaune looked at his mother and Stepfather before he signed [Look, uh, just don't freak out at me okay? This isn't easy to talk about.]
"Hey, you can talk to us okay?" Alan said trying to put on a reassuring tone.
"Yeah Jaune, we want you to be healthy if you don't think the Medication is working then tell us why?" Mina followed
Jaune looked off to the side and gritted his teeth as he signed. [Because I think what's wrong with me is worse than depression]
Alan was the one to ask "I know I'm not privy to your talks with ms Fall Jaune, So I'll ask you to explain if that's okay."
Jaune bobbed his head as he tried to find the words. [I kept things back from Ms. Fall out of fear of what might happen.] Jaune winced as he signed [Like the Hallucinations…]
Mina's eyes went wide for a second. "What kind of hallucinations Jaune?"
[Shortly after… Well you both know, I started to hallucinate that Pyrrha was still around… Not the real her, I never thought she was still alive. But I would see her.]
"Are you still having hallucinations like that?" Alan Asked.
[No Sir… Not since I had said goodbye to her at her mother's place.] Jaune signed
Alan and Mina looked at each other with some concern Jaune took the opening to keep going. [Most of the time, it wasn't pleasant, it was like a wraith mocking me, making me doubt things, I know it had been part of the reason that Ruby and I fell apart as a couple.]
Mina chimed in "I don't know what to say Jaune, I mean we really should be telling this to a professional"
[Part of the reason I didn't want to tell a professional was out of fear they would recommend that I be institutionalized.] Jaune turned to alan [I had a suicide attempt in the last year, so it's normal that if I told Miss Fall that I'm seeing my dead ex she's write up a recommendation for me to get locked up right?]
"For your own safety yes. But I don't think that's needed at this point" Alan declared. "But if your no longer hallucinating, then why are you coming forward now?"
[Up till this point, the antidepressants were good enough, it didn't make me feel entirely normal but it was taking the edge off of it. But lately, they haven't been doing really that much.] Jaune signed.
"You're not feeling right?" Minda asked confused and struggling to understand what Jaune was saying.
Jaune signed out [Ever since the breakup I've been struggling to regain control of my life. But I think what I'm really not in control of is myself. I've been, Angrier, if that makes sense since the breakup.]
"That could be you just being upset about the breakup Jaune," Alan said.
[I don't think it's me being upset about the breakup, I have days where I just, I want to rip someone's head off and I struggle with dark thoughts. I was definitely not in control of myself the day I went and got my hair dyed] Jaune struggled to sign out.
Mina went over and gave her son a Hug, taking care to not grab him too tightly in areas that were still healing. "It's okay buddy, I'm sure we can pull some strings and get you talking to Ms. fall in the next couple days."
"I'll go call her and see if she's free in the next few days to get you in."
Jaune nodded and gave Alan a thumbs up. A wave of relief washed over him knowing that two of the people he felt closest to on this world didn't hate him or resent him for it.
Mina pulled back and cupped his face in her hands and was softly crying "It's going to be okay Jaune, I wish you felt like you could have come forward about this sooner, but we'll make it okay."
Jaune nodded to his mother as he signed [Sorry] to her.
The next week was a flurry of tests and examinations of Jaune's brain. Both by Cinder Fall, who conducted a series of interviews to get an idea as to the state of Jaune's mental well being. Jaune also had a general MRI scan of his brain performed on him to check for irregularities. Jaune tried to stay in touch with friends the best he could and he was encouraged to stay on his medication the entire time.
Today Cinder would get those results back.
Jaune and Mina sat in Ms. Fall's office waiting for her to arrive. Both were quietly waiting for the results of The slew of testing Jaune had been put through in the last week. When Cinder came in she had a slightly concerned look on her face as she sat down.
"It's good to see you both today." Cinder said to Mina and Jaune.
"It's a pleasure as always Ms. Fall," Mina said.
Cinder handed copies of a packet to both Jaune and Mina to review as she started to talk "I'll be honest with you both when I got my degree and ended up taking on a Job for this high school, I honestly never thought I'd find myself working this challenging of a case."
"Challenging as in what exactly?" Mina asked.
"Well if you turn to the first page you'll see the results of his MRI test." Cinder said with a frown "He has some slight scarring on his brain, I highlighted the regions they were located."
Both Jaune and Mina looked confused.
"In short, he suffered brain damage as a young child, I'm going to guess from the car accident that took his father's life when he was a toddler." Cinder said. "I'm guessing that's part of the reason why you were suffering from hallucinations in the last year."
Mina leaned forward and rested her head in her hands and just muttered out "Jesus…"
Cinder also added. "It's worth noting as well that some of the scaring actually spreads to the language center of Jaune's brain, have either of you thought to check to see if his vocal cords have ever recovered from his childhood injuries?"
Jaune shook his head and signed with his free hand [No, of course now, my vocal cords were badly damaged in the accident.]
"Jaune you mentioned once that in your hallucinations that you were able to occasionally speak normally right?" Cinder Asked.
[Well Yeah, I remember that being a thing] Jaune added.
Mina shook her
head and said, "I'll make a point to ask about it when his neck checkup occurs."
"I think because some of the brain scarring was around that particular region of his brain might explain why in some of his hallucinations he was able to speak, it's like his brain was trying to get his language center to 'Click on' to some extent but could only allow it when he was having an episode." cinder said.
[That's not something I ever would have considered] Jaune signed.
"Why would you? You never knew that part of the reason for you being mute was damage to your brain." Cinder stated.
"Ms fall, that's great and all, but what are we looking at here," Mina asked.
Cinder nodded and rubbed her hands together nervously. "Ma'am, Jaune, I'm sorry to say this but it's clear to me that Jaune is struggling with a form of Schizophrenia. To be more precise Schizoaffective disorder, which is a combination of Schizophrenia and Depression."
Out of instinct, Jaune put a reassuring hand on his mother's shoulder as she shook in her seat looking like she was going to break down. "Can we do anything about it?"
"I'm going to recommend he stays on the Fluoxetine, that was mitigating the worst of his depression, so we at least know that was working on the depression side but I'm also going to recommend he start taking a medication called. Clozapine right away, that will help curb the rest of his symptoms." Cinder stated.
"What kind of symptoms?" Mina asked.
"Well, Jaune described several symptoms that are very much typical of Schizophrenia. Besides the Hallucinations which I am glad to hear had stopped on their own. He also described several 'negative symptoms' of his condition." Cinder started to say "Jaune you admitted to me that you felt apathy in regards to your breakup with Miss Rose, as well as waves of irrational anger that dominates you from time to time. You also mentioned that you had been subconsciously withdrawing from your friends except for a girl named Penny that you can constantly listen to without feeling pressured to interact with her."
[All of this is true.] Jaune signed. [I also mentioned my inability to take the initiative in my relationship with Ruby.]
"After a few days you might find yourself acting very different, you might wake up and feel like a weight has been taken off your shoulders you never realized was there." Cinder said to him.
Jaune thought about it for a second [Well I'm willing to give it a shot if it means not feeling like I'm fighting my own thoughts to the death.]
Cinder smiled and handed Mina a slip of paper "Here's the prescription, we'll try it for three months and see how that works out for him."
Mina and Jaune thanked her as both stood up and steps out of the office. Jaune and Mina would stop by the pharmacy on the way home and Jaune would start on the medication later that day.
So this chapter dose retcon a couple things, Mostly the last chapter where we went straight from the IM conversation to the Talk with Alan and Mina, but that was honestly because "Oh shit" I forgot to write where Weiss was moving out into their own house at this point in the timeline. Weiss's story in this fic has been one that I found interesting for several reasons, I mean younger readers might now remember that back around the late 80's to early 00's it was not a great time to be gay. "Gaybashing" was absolutely a thing, as well as situations like Weiss's where kids would be thrown out of their own home for there sexual orientation was absolutely a thing that happened with disturbing frequency. Most of those stories didn't end particularly well with teens often ending up on the streets on drugs or taken advantage of.
It kinda makes me sick to my stomach that kids are still being tossed out on the streets by there bigoted parents happens today in 2020.
Anyways this was definitely a "Showing how the puzzle pieces fit" Kind of chapter. I did a lot of research into Mental disorders while writing certain elements of this story, I wanted to know what exactly would cause someone like Jaune to see hallucinations like what we saw with Pyrrha's Wraith. I forgot who called it, but someone called Jaune having a form of Schizophrenia early on, and I didn't say anything, because at that point I haven't done enough research into the subject to give a yes or no to it.
Well I did, and I've been working symptoms into his character since then. At this point though, It's going to be interesting to Write Jaune as he's going to be after this chapter, but i'll leave that for future chapters to tell that tale for me. Once again not alot of comments on the last chapter to comment on, so I'll leave it at that and once again thank everyone for taking the time to read and I hope you all have a great day!
