43 Dougie's POV

Despite a lot of attempts, none of us could get a world out of Tom, nothing further than him saying that he was fine. Any question about how he was really doing was immediately answered with him running off, or changing the subject.

With other topics, it depended on what it was. If it was something like what we were eating for our next meal, then we got an answer, but offers to help him with something were turned down, questions about Buzz were answered wearily, and anything else we didn't get a chance to actually talk about, because he wasn't in the room at the time.

It was like he was completely cutting himself off, trying to prove he could do everything by himself, without any interference. And everything else was because of what his wife had told him. I couldn't help but think of the things Tom had said before, about what his wife had said to him. She told him that wasn't good with talking to people, or being social in any way, maybe that was what was affecting him? Maybe he was scared to screw up again, and needed to be reassured that everything was fine?

"Could be the issue... we should phone Natasha, to tell her." Harry got out his phone, immediately phoning the therapist. We had started to do that a lot, phoning her to tell her everything that was happening, asking her questions as much as we could. She couldn't tell us much, as she was bound by patient/therapist privilege, but she could give us vague ideas.

"I know of Tom's issues with talking about how he's feeling, it's unfortunately something he's been doing for years." Natasha sighed, that was true, Tom did clam up a lot when he was stressed. He preferred to do things by himself, and shut everyone out.

"Trust me when we say, we know." Harry sighed too, rubbing the back of his neck, "Can we help in any way?"

"You're doing pretty well already, by talking to him and encouraging him to have conversation, you're showing that it's okay to talk, to express emotion and thoughts with others. I know it doesn't seem very effective right now, thanks to his continued escapes, but you're still giving him the option. And hopefully, when I start to work on this, he'll have the framework to know that you're all available to talk." We were more than available to talk, we wanted to talk to him constantly. We wanted him to interact, and be himself.

"When will you be starting that?" Danny asked, it was hitting him hard, seeing all of this. He was so close and connected to Tom usually, that to have him so closed off must have been difficult.

"Soon, I want to talk to him more about what his wife has done to him over the years first, to establish more of a baseline to his level of abuse. And possibly bring him round to the idea that this was not right in the slightest, before I got into getting him to open up to others. I'm not sure yet, I'm currently just trying to get him to be more involved with Buzz, so the two can bond properly." Natasha explained, "It's a tough balance, I want to get into the real problems, but I don't want him to lose precious time with his son. I'll do my best, and work on a better timeline soon. All I can suggest now, is to try and continue on like you have been, talking to him, getting him involved in whatever you can, and generally making sure that he isn't shutting himself out too much."

The phone call ended, leaving us all still a bit stumped. I think all of us were desperate for Tom to start his therapy about what happened to him, but at the same time, knew he needed to be more involved with Buzz first. He couldn't lose this time with his son, or risk not having a proper bond with the child. Buzz needed his dad, needed to know that there was a person out there who would be there to look after him. It was all well and good that we were there to play with him, but he needed stability, someone who was always there, and always be there.

Only after that, could Natasha move onto actually helping Tom with his problems. It seemed like a good plan, starting on working on problems with a clear head. Or at least, a clearer head, that wasn't worrying about his son being taken from him, or anything like that. He needed to feel safer in his situation, before he could start talking about the abuse his wife had taken out on him, without him even realising it.

Still though, we were desperate to get Tom back. This wasn't Tom, this was a shadow of who he was. He needed to be restored to who he was, so he could stop being miserable.