A/N: I'm an asshole, but I was swamped with scholarship applications and school work.

I have through chapter 26 planned out, so I'll do my best to pick this up again. School ends in a couple of weeks, so that should help.

Thank you all so much for your amazing reviews. I love you all and I'm sorry for the horrible delay.

Raising a Hand

by LQ Aredhel

Chapter 17

JD didn't see much of Dr. Cox before he was released from the hospital almost a week after the hostage incident.

After a long, painful (for him and Turk) trip up the stairs to his apartment, JD couldn't help but feel disappointed at the sight of Dan making "dinner" in his boxers.

"Hope you like pineapple meatloaf," Dan announced with a grin. JD gave him a little smile and made his way to his room where he quickly fell asleep on his bed.

He spent an inordinate amount of time over the next few days cooped up in his room sleeping; even after spending almost three weeks in a hospital bed, he was still exhausted. His ribs were constantly sore, and the stab wound in his side...well, he mostly tried not to think about that. It ached in a lot of different ways.

Dan seemed to constantly be near him, hovering over his bed, offering to make him food, convincing him to watch TV in the living room (it was so hard at first to walk out into the living room). Dan wanted to talk and to find out more about what happened. JD just wanted to be alone. He got his wish when Dan finally headed home after a week.

Being home alone most of the time after that felt...strange. JD had spent so much of his time before the hospital at Dan's house and working at least 12-hour days, but now he slept and watched television. And that was it. It wasn't exactly boring. He felt blank, mostly, like time was moving ahead of him while he sat around and did nothing.

Sometimes Turk or Carla was there. They made small-talk with him, but JD didn't really know what to say to them. They made him meals when they can, and bought plenty of easy-to-prepare food so that he wouldn't strain himself. But he was never hungry anyway.

JD thought often about Dr. Cox's offer to talk. It would be nice to have someone to talk to.

But Dr. Cox hadn't come to visit him his last few days in the hospital, nor had he been there to see him off from the hospital with the rest of the staff. JD got the feeling that Dr. Cox didn't really want to hear about what happened – it obviously disgusted him. JD didn't want to talk about it anyway; he just wanted to forget about it. And he was. But then the dreams started again.

They started to come every night, then a few times a night, then even during the day when JD drifted off while staring at the television; hands and lips and teeth and strong arms holding him down and ignoring his cries and screams and hurting him and bruising his skin and destroying his illusion of comfort because it wasn't only happening at the hospital but in his apartment as well and in the streets outside of his apartment and even when he's with Turk or Dan or Carla and expecting someone to stop it from happening, but they just get angry, too, and walk away, disgusted. And it's so painful to see them look at him that way...he's always crying when he finally comes out of it again, feeling stupid and weak and embarrassed.

Turk and Carla started leaving prepared meals on the counter or in the fridge before they went to work. They started giving him long looks when they finally came home at night to find him still awake, still staring at the television. They asked him – more often – if there was anything wrong, if there was anything they could get him, if he wanted to take a nap. At first JD just thought that they felt awkward around him and were doing these things to fill the silences that had grown in the apartment since he returned home. But then he accidentally caught sight of his reflection in the bathroom mirror and grimaced.

It wasn't even him anymore. His face was thin, gaunt, and far paler than it should have been. Dark circles under his eyes attested to his lately decided preference of exhaustion over nightmares. He looked worse than when he was in the hospital. He just looked ... sick.

At the sight of his own distant eyes, JD felt something inside of him sink, creating an ache in his stomach, a twinge of uncomfortable pressure like a sack of flower just over his bellybutton.

He took his first shower in a week and resumed his television watching.

But the ache didn't go away; it got bigger and stronger like a black hole, and by the time Turk arrived home after his shift at midnight, all JD could think about was Daniel. He knew that Turk was sitting on the couch next to him, talking to him – probably commenting on the TV show – but JD could only think of how much everything would be better if he could just see Daniel at that moment.

"Turk," he finally said, still staring at the glowing television. There was no response, but JD could feel his friend watching him. "What happened to Daniel? After..." He still couldn't quite say it. He stabbed me. He didn't know why it was so hard to say.

"He was arrested," came Turk's voice, quiet and careful. "He's in jail right now. He'll probably go to trial and then prison."

JD forced himself to nod and look at Turk. "For how long?"

He didn't answer for a moment. "He stabbed two people. That's probably attempted murder, JD. He'll be gone for a while." Turk was watching him, waiting for something. JD just nodded, feeling the ache grow stronger; he wanted to throw up.

Turk tried to talk to him some more, but finally gave up and went to bed. At around two in the morning, JD took Turk's cellphone from the coffee table and dialed the number that had been running through his head for a week.

"What the hell do you want, Gandhi?"

JD took a deep breath; he felt like an idiot for being startled by the angry voice on the other end of the line.

"Dr. Cox," he finally squeezed out. He cleared his throat, wanting to sound as normal as possible. "How are you?"

There was silence for a moment. "Newbie?" Dr. Cox replied, sounding condescending. "Did daddy say you could use his phone?"

"I know it's early, I just..." Actually, JD had no idea why he called. "I haven't seen you in a while, and I was wondering how you've been."

"Yeah," Dr. Cox drolled. He sighed loudly and JD could hear shuffling in the background. "I'll be there in a minute. Jesus."

JD stared at the phone in his hand, reading Call Ended again and again. What the hell had just happened?

It seemed like only moments later that there was a knock on the door.

JD just stared at Dr. Cox standing in the hallway. "I didn't think you were serious," he explained quietly, wondering what was going on. The older doctor just shoved his way through the doorway and rummaged through the kitchen.

"Don't think that this is going to be a regular thing, Newbie," Dr. Cox announced as he jotted something down on a piece of paper and taped it to the fridge. "Tubby's sure to see that in the morning." Then he dragged JD to his apartment.

Dr. Cox immediately poured himself a scotch and settled onto a large recliner. He eyed JD expectantly; JD was standing to the side of the room, surprised at how uncomfortable he was. He knew that Dr. Cox was waiting for him to sit down, but he found the idea of sitting on the man's couch oddly frightening.

I'm afraid of the couch.

Suddenly, JD was laughing. He was staring at the goddamn couch and laughing so hard that his ribs started to ache as he bent at the waste, unable to breathe properly.

He was scared of a damn couch!

"JD."

He heard Dr. Cox say his name, but he couldn't stop laughing! Imagine, finding himself in his mentor's home without even having to show up unexpectedly or beg and he couldn't even sit down!

"JD, sit down."

"I can't." He tried to say the words, but he wasn't completely sure that they came out. He wasn't sure about anything anymore. Was he even awake? There were tears rolling down his cheeks and he was sitting on the floor; he didn't remember any of that happening. He was breathing again, but the tears were still coming, so he wasn't sure whether he was laughing still.

He looked up through blurry eyes at the couch in front of him, and the ache in his stomach felt like it engulfed his entire body, squeezing his chest closed tight. His eyes moved up to Dr. Cox, still sitting in the big comfy chair across from him, gazing down at him with a look that was incomprehensible to JD.

But he could breathe again. He tried to regain his composure, tried to make the look on Dr. Cox's face go away, tried to talk about something light, about television or the hospital, but there was really only one thing on his mind.

So he took a deep breath.

"Have you ever missed someone so much...you can't even breathe right?" It wasn't the right comparison; JD's lungs were engulfed by a black hole, but he didn't know how to describe the ache. "I just...I wish I could see him. I wish he was here." He watched Dr. Cox rise and pour himself another drink.

"Then what would he be doing?" he asked, sitting on the edge of the chair. He sounded angry.

"I don't know," JD admitted. "But it would be better than this. If I had just stayed with him...everything would be alright now. I was so stupid. I tried to stop seeing him, I kept doing thing to make him so angry! If I had just... been his friend. Everything would be okay right now." He groaned and pulled his knees to his chest. "Now I don't know how to fix it. I don't know what to do. If he's in prison...what am I supposed to do?" He wiped at his face, frustrated that he couldn't calm down.

They were silent for a while. Dr. Cox stared at the wall above JD's head for several minutes before replying.

"I was a good kid, you know that?" JD looked up at him curiously. "I got straight A's, never talked back to my parents, never stole or hurt anybody. I just wanted to ...make my parents happy. But it seemed like no matter what I did, no matter how much I worked to make my father proud of me – or even like me – I always got more hits than hugs. I always felt like...if I could just do things right for once, then it would all end."

He drank the rest of his scotch. "But no matter what I did, it never changed anything. There were a few moments in-between. Moments when he was completely sober, when he'd tell me that he was proud of me. And for those fucking moments all of the hitting and the yelling seemed like it was worth it."

JD nodded, eyes wide, drinking in every word because he'd felt that way every second that he was with Daniel. He waited, with rapt attention, for the solution, the way his mentor had fixed it all, made it all good again.

"But it wasn't worth it, because nothing ever changed. Not because I wasn't good enough; that wasn't really what it was about in the first place. It's about control, Newbie, whether they already have it or not, they need to take it. And the sooner you realize that that's what your relationship was all about, the sooner you can put it behind you."

JD stared at him. Put it...

"Put it behind me!?" he exclaimed, clenching his fists around his knees. "That's your solution?! Do you know how hard I've tried to put it behind me, even when it was still happening? I tried, I stayed home, away from him, and it only made things worse! I've tried to forget about it, but the dreams keep coming, and they just won't go away! I can't put it behind me if it won't let me!"

"I know you're frustrated," Dr. Cox said quickly, suddenly kneeling in front of him. "You're never going to forget about what happened, because it happened. It's not about forgetting, JD, it's about letting go."

"I just want to talk to him, be with him again."

"No, you don't," Dr. Cox countered as if ignoring the statement altogether. "You want to move on, you want to go back to the way your life was before him."

"What's the point?!" JD screamed. "There's nothing left anymore."

"You have your job, Turk, Carla, Elliot, you have your patients and your family. You've got me, Newbie. We add up to a million times more than that bastard, you've just got to remember that."

JD shook his head; if that was true, then he would never have started going to Daniel's house in the first place. No, no one really cared about him like Daniel did. Then...

"Why did he do it?" He asked suddenly.

"Some people are just messed up in the head, and that's not your fault. He wanted to control you--"

"No." JD shook his head. "Why did he stab me?"

Dr. Cox just looked at him. JD waited.

He needed an answer. He had to know. He'd been complying, he did everything Daniel asked, why did he do it?

He needed an answer, but Dr. Cox was looking away now, at the floor like he couldn't decide what to say, like he didn't have an answer.