Ezra opened the door for his in-laws and took Ella's bag for her.
"Hi. How are you?" He said as he hugged them.
"We're worried. Where's Aria?" Ella asked.
"She's in our room. She's been in there for three days. We can't do anything to get her out, she won't talk to anybody and she's still on the whole Jacob thing" Ezra informed them.
"Jacob thing?" Bryon asked.
"Yes. For some reason she's set on thinking that Emily got re-married to a man named Jacob and they had a daughter named Caitlyn recently" Ezra explained.
"Maybe I should go talk to her" Ella started walking toward her daughters room, but was stopped by Ezra grabbing her arm.
"I don't know if that's the best idea right now. She still doesn't know whether to believe if you two went missing or not. I don't know where she got the idea, but she really believed it." Ezra said.
"Well what should we do?" Ella asked, tears coming to her eyes.
"Have you called a doctor?" Bryon asked.
"No" Ezra said, sounding sad. "We wanted to see if she would come out of our room herself and see how she is then, but she's not talking to us, she didn't even let me in to go to bed the last couple of nights."
"I think we should call a psychotherapist" Bryon suggested and Ezra and Ella agreed.
…...
Ezra knocked on Liam's bedroom door before opening it. He found Kevin, Matt, and Grayson all on Liam's bed playing some video game and Seth and Declan in the floor with Lego's scattered out in front of them.
"Where's Liam?" Ezra asked.
"He said he was hungry and went downstairs to get a snack" Kevin said.
Ezra had just been down in the kitchen and Liam was not there. He closed the door and walked down the hall to Annabelle's room.
Annabelle, Emma, Sophia, and Abigail were all sitting on the floor with baby dolls in their laps.
"Hello mommies, have you seen Liam around the house" Ezra asked.
"No" They all said simultaneously.
"Alright. Well, I'll leave you to your tea then" Ezra said before closing the door.
"We're not having tea" Emma yelled as the door shut, but Ezra ignored her and turned across the hall to the room that Lena and Chloe shared.
They were playing dress up with Sydney.
"Oh, hello your majesties" Ezra said in a fake British accent "Have you by any chance seen prince Liam around the Castle today?"
"I sleighed him!" Lena yelled. "He ripped the head off our dragon. How are we supposed to have a knight come save us without a dragon" She held up a stuffed animal that looked like a dog and a dragonfly mix.
"Oh, I'm very sorry Princess Lena. Could possibly tell me where you sleighed him?" Ezra asked still in his fake accent.
"In the office" She said bored.
"Why thank you. I'll be off" Ezra closed the door and started towards the stairs to the office to see if Liam was there, but when he passed the hallway closet he heard a little noise.
He opened the closet door to find Liam curled up in a ball next to a rack of towels.
"Liam? What's wrong?" Ezra asked, kneeling down next to his son.
"What's wrong with mom?" Liam asked.
"We're not sure" Ezra said. "She's with the doctor now. He should be able to tell us what's wrong with her" "Is she sick?" Liam asked. "Why does she need a doctor?""We don't know Liam" Ezra answered honestly.
…...
Ella, Bryon, Ezra, Spencer, Emily, and Hanna all paced outside Ezra and Aria's bedroom door waiting for the psychotherapist to come out. He had been in there with her for two and a half hours and everybody was getting extremely impatient.
Finally the door opened and the doctor came out.
"Aria's husband?" He asked.
"Me" Ezra said moving toward him. "Ezra Fitz"
"Mr. Fitz, it seems to me your wife has schizophrenia." He said. A wave of panic came over everybody "She believes an old friend has been sending her texts, however, she informed me that friend has been deceased for quite some time now."Spencer, Emily, and Hanna all looked at each other.
"No" Spencer interjected. "You see, we got text messages from someone claiming to be our old friend when we were in high school. They stopped after we graduated. We did have a problem about seven years ago, but nothing since then.""I see" The doctor said. "She seems to think she is still getting messages, I have taken her phone to give to you" He handed the phone to Ezra. "However, I do have another concern" The doctor said. "She seems to think a woman named Emily""That's me" Emily interrupted.
The doctor looked at her. "I must ask you Mrs. Emily, have you recently gotten remarried?"
"No" Emily answered "She seems to think I did though to someone by the name of Jacob. And that I had a daughter named Caitlyn, but I don't" Emily explained.
"Yes." The doctor said. "She said something about a baby too. Does she have any children herself?""Four" Ezra answered.
"I see. Mr. Fitz, would you mind if we talk privately?" He asked.
"Not at all" Ezra led the doctor into the kitchen while everyone else retreated into the living room.
"I thin it would be in her best interest to be admitted to the local mental heath hospital" The doctor said.
Ezra's whole body froze and a cold sweat covered his face. "You want to put my wife in a mental hospital?" he asked.
"It would be in her best interest, and in the best interest of your children. Do you mind me asking how old they are?"
"12, 8, and 6 year-old twins" Ezra said.
"With your children being so young, I don't thing it would be a good thing for them to be around her at this point in time. She is very mentally unstable and she could be capable of self-harm, not to mention physical harm to the children" The doctor explained.
Ezra felt nauseous. Aria has schizophrenia. She thinks there's people here that don't even exist and she still believes that she's getting texts from "A".
"I will need to do further tests on your wife to confirm this disease, however schizophrenia seems to be what is affecting her. I must warn you Mr. Fitz, if she is not admitted to a hospital this illness with continue to progress and she will keep getting worse. I can have people here this afternoon to take her there. She doesn't seem to want to come out of that room, which is common with her condition"
Ezra just stood, taking in all the doctor was saying. The words 'disease', 'illness', and 'condition' all spun around in his head. "Is this curable? Can she be put on medication?" Ezra asked.
"Yes, there is medication we can give her, but she needs to be in the hospital so we can monitor her for the next couple of weeks" The doctor explained.
"Then your people can come" Ezra didn't know what he was saying.
The doctor left and Ella continued to stand at the door to Ezra and Aria's room trying to get her daughter to come out, or at least to let her in. Ezra was still standing in the kitchen, frozen. He couldn't believe what the doctor had just told him. Aria couldn't be schizophrenic, she's Aria the down-to-earth, funny, bookworm he married, she's not crazy. But then again, she fit the description perfectly, and the doctor seemed to recognize it without a doubt.
Liam and Annabelle came in when they heard the doctor leave.
"Is mommy okay?" Annabelle asked in her innocent voice that just made Ezra's voice melt.
He bent down and picked her up, setting her on the counter, then he put his hand on Liam's shoulder.
"Now you guys need to know this, where are your sisters? I need to tell you all together." Ezra said, looking around for Lena and Chloe.
After dragging them out of their room, Ezra sat his four kids at the kitchen table and told them what was going to happen.
"Mommy's sick" He said calmly. "But it's not the kind of thing you can catch, it's in her head. You see, mommy's brain works differently than everyone else's and that could be dangerous to her and to us, so some people are going to come this afternoon and take her to a place where people better understand the way she thinks. Mommy's going to stay there for a while, but she'll come home in a couple of weeks." Ezra said, trying to stay as calm as possible.
"Can we see her when she's there?" Lena asked in the same voice Annabelle had when she was that age.
"Sometimes" Ezra answered "Some days we can, but others, they need mommy to be focused on the activities there"
"Is she going to be there for a long time?" Chloe asked.
"Only a couple of weeks, she'll be home before you know it" Ezra said rubbing her arm. He looked at Liam and Annabelle, they were being awfully quiet. He could tell they understood more what was going on than Lena and Chloe did, and they were taking it a lot harder.
"It's going to be okay guys" Ezra tried to sound positive for his kids "Everything's going to be back to normal before you know it"
"Okay" Lena and Chloe said simultaneously before getting up and running off to play.
Ezra sat down at with Liam and Annabelle.
"It's okay guys, she's fine, really" He said, rubbing Annabelle's back.
"Then why does she have to go away?" Liam said madly as he got up from the table and ran away, trying not to let his dad or sister see him crying. Ezra didn't bother going after him, he knew he would just get a door slammed in his face.
"Daddy?" Annabelle asked in a small voice.
"What honey?"
"Is mommy really okay?" She asked, almost as if she was scared to say it.
"Yes sweetheart, mommy's fine. She just has to go to this hospital for a little bit to get her thought's back in order, when she comes home, she'll be the same old mommy she was before" It was hard for him to sound so hopeful when he wasn't, but he wasn't going to let this affect his kids more than it needed to.