Chapter 6 - Withdrawal

The first thing he heard in the late hours of the night was retching coming from downstairs.

Ted sighed, turning over and looking at the alarm clock. It was almost three in the morning. But he saw this coming for a while. He knew Charlie adjusting after having been drugged so heavily for seven months wasn't going to be easy. For weeks, he'd been on pain pills to help manage his pain from his broken ribs, torn ACL, dislocated shoulder, and broken leg. Now that Charlie was no longer on any oxycodone for the worst of his pain, that would mean he'd be going through the beginnings of withdrawal. At first, the opioids he'd been prescribed to take for his pain helped keep him from experiencing a major withdrawal from the heroin, cocaine, and fentanyl he'd been forced into taking all those months. But now that he'd finished his pain medicine, the beginnings of withdrawal were starting to catch up.

Bella had heard it, too, because she was soon up; the retching had woken baby Hans, who was starting to cry loudly.

"Go get the baby," Ted mumbled. "I've got Charlie."

Bella nodded tiredly, shuffling down the hallway to the nursery, while Ted tiredly stumbled down the stairs toward Charlie's guest room, where Gordon had already beaten him to it.

Charlie was leaning against the toilet in the bathroom, dry-heaving, while Gordon wrung out a cold, damp cloth against the back of the kid's neck. The blankets on the bed were stained with vomit and sweat, and Charlie looked drawn and pale, shivering and sobbing as Gordon rubbed his back.

Ted sighed. He grabbed the soiled blankets and sheets and removed them before heading downstairs toward the basement. As he passed the basement pullout sofa, he caught sight of Casey stirring, blinking tiredly.

"What's going on?"

"Charlie's sick," Ted explained, throwing the dirty sheets and blankets into the washing machine; he poured detergent in before putting the fabric softener in, knowing Bella would insist that be done so the blankets would be even softer and smell fresh after they were done getting cleaned.

"Is he going through the withdrawal?" Casey was on her way to push herself up from bed, but Ted dismissed her with a wave of his hand.

"He is, but Gordon, Bella, and I got it; you just sleep, okay? We'll take care of him," Ted told her as he grabbed fresh sheets and a thick blanket from the linen closet before heading back upstairs to Charlie's room, where he quickly put the new sheets onto the bed before spreading the blanket across it. Afterward, he grabbed some clean clothes for Charlie and laid them on the bed before heading into the bathroom, where Charlie was lying on the bathroom floor, his head on Gordon's lap while Bombay tried coaxing him into sitting up. Eventually, Gordon managed to get Charlie upright, but the boy looked weak, his blue eyes glazed with tears and exhaustion.

Ted grabbed a cup from the cabinet and filled it with mouthwash, handing it to Charlie, who weakly sipped it before spitting it up into the toilet.

"I don't feel good," the kid sniffled.

Ted sighed. Bella had prewarned him that Charlie would experience withdrawal symptoms, but he hadn't expected it would be this bad. Ted didn't at all wish this upon anyone. Looking at Gordon, he knew his old friend and roommate knew what Charlie was going through all too well, having been a severe alcoholic before coaching the Ducks.

"It'll be over in a few days," Gordon murmured to the kid, having Charlie lean his head on his shoulder. "This is the worst of it."

Charlie shook his head, clamping his mouth shut to try and prevent himself from vomiting again.

Ted pressed his hand to Charlie's temple; the kid's forehead was like a furnace, burning hot; the kid's shirt was soaked with a ring of sweat and was stained with vomit. "God, you're burning up. I'll get you some Tylenol, okay? After you have that, I'll have you try ginger ale or chamomile and some Jell-O and see if you can hold that down."

Charlie shook his head at the thought of putting anything into his mouth, but Ted knew the only thing that would help the kid would be him staying hydrated. Sighing, Ted told Gordon where he could find Charlie's clean clothes before he quickly ventured up the stairs to his bathroom, where he had bottles of Tylenol and aspirin in the medicine cabinet.

"How is he?" Bella asked, rocking Hans gently.

Ted sighed. "He woke throwing up; he couldn't make it to the bathroom in time. This is the worst of it. And God only knows how many days of this he'll have to go through."

"I'll make him some chamomile and get him some Jell-O."

Ted nodded, grabbing the bottle of Tylenol before heading downstairs to the kitchen; he grabbed a bottle of water out of the refrigerator before returning to Charlie's room, where Gordon had already gotten the boy changed and tucked back into bed and was lying behind him, trying to keep him upright. Ted opened the bottle and popped out two Tylenol, handing Charlie the pills.

"Here, Charlie, take the medicine."

Charlie groaned, closing his eyes tightly against the nausea, but did as Ted told him to, taking the pills with the water, but even swallowing seemed to hurt him. Still, Ted knew it was the better option than having the kid burn up with a fever all night long.

"Ibuprofen would probably be better," Gordon commented.

"He can't have that. It could be too addictive for him, and he's gotta go cold turkey. It's the only way."

"But that's gonna suck even more."

"Be glad it's not from alcohol. It would've been worse had he gotten addicted to drinking."

"He's sitting right here!" Charlie groaned, seeming to regret speaking as he hunched over, clutching his aching stomach.

Ted sighed. "Sorry, kid, but it's the truth. And it's gonna last for a couple of days. There's no easy way out of it."

Charlie clenched his teeth as Bella came into the room bearing Jell-O and a spoon. Hans rested sleepily on her shoulder as she held him with one arm.

"Belles, I've got the baby; you take it from here."

Bella nodded, handing Hans off to Ted, who laid the baby across his shoulder and held him close so he could take him back upstairs and put him in his crib. But as he passed Lucy's bedroom, he saw his little girl wide awake.

"Daddy? Is Charlie okay?"

Ted nodded. "He'll be fine. He's not feeling very well, but he'll be okay in a couple of days. Now, go back to sleep, honey."

Lucy nodded, rolling back over to try falling asleep again. Ted quietly climbed the stairs, listening as Charlie kept refusing the Jell-O. Closing his eyes, he kissed Hans on the top of the head as he approached the baby's room; he took his seat in the rocking chair and rocked slowly, listening as the baby nodded off back to sleep.

He knew he was sugarcoating Charlie's condition to Lucy. But Lucy didn't need to know that Charlie had been given a series of addictive drugs over the past seven months. The one good thing about this was that Charlie, Casey, and Gordon were living with him, so they could all keep a closer eye on the boy to make sure he didn't get addicted to anything else. And because of the kid's broken leg, he couldn't climb the stairs, which meant he wouldn't be able to go through the medicine cabinet. Still, he needed to make sure that Charlie wouldn't attempt to go looking for anything else he could get addicted to; he knew addicts could potentially slip back into their old habits at some point, but he needed Charlie to know he wouldn't allow any of that stuff in his home, not with his daughter and son in the house.

Once he was sure the baby was asleep, Ted put Hans into his crib before venturing back downstairs. When he entered Charlie's room, he saw the boy sitting up in bed drinking tea, grimacing between sips as Gordon gently massaged his shoulders.

"Gordon, you wanna go back to bed downstairs?" Ted asked.

Gordon nodded. "Yeah, and I have an interview with St. Paul State tomorrow. They got back to me tonight about that coaching position I applied for a couple of days ago."

Ted nodded in reply, watching Gordon leave with a kiss on Charlie's forehead. But once they were alone, Ted closed the door behind him.

"I know it isn't your fault," he chose to say, causing Charlie to glance up at him. "And I know that this isn't going to be easy for you, going cold turkey like this. But I can't have you go looking for a quick fix, Charlie; I will not have any of that crap your dad forced you on in this house, not with my daughter and son here."

Charlie nodded, swallowing down more chamomile. "I know," he said huskily. "I wouldn't expect you to. And I don't want to have to deal with this, either. I didn't choose to do any of that; he mostly gave it to me to keep me quiet when he had people over."

"Did he make you do drugs with him?" Ted felt sick at the thought, but he needed to know.

Charlie nodded again. "Yeah." Ted watched as the kid's eyes misted. "I hated it. It was awful. And he'd make me do it every day. At first, when I got there, he didn't give me any of it; he made me watch as he snorted cocaine. He didn't give me water for a week, and when he finally gave me something to drink, it was tainted with fentanyl. But every day, I wanted it to stop. I was sick and tired of being high all the time. Whenever I was high, he'd beat me because he knew I wouldn't fight him if I were high."

"As long as you have it in your head that you want to stop," Ted said, keeping his voice gentle, though inside, he felt positively infuriated; he was confident that if Robert weren't dead, he would track him down and kill him. "If you need it, there are outpatient programs we can look into. I think Gordon still has a phone number for a therapist he used."

"You mean he –?"

"Yeah, when he worked for Ducksworth, he'd started drinking; even when working as a paralegal, he was drinking every day. It wasn't until he got caught with a DUI that he started getting help because he had no choice. He was sentenced to community service, and there you were: Charlie and the Ducks." Ted smiled as he recalled what Gordon had told him about how Charlie and the other District Five kids had been part of why he'd chosen sobriety. "You kids are the reason why he got clean at all. And I have a feeling he wants to return the favor for you."

Charlie nodded. Ted could see the tears rolling down the kid's face as he sat down on the bed across from him.

"He fell in love with you first," Ted said. "He told me all this when he talked to me about taking over coaching. When he heard you went missing, he returned home and quit that job in LA. He knows now he never wants to leave again. Not when you and your mom are here and need him."

"Let me guess," Charlie whispered roughly. "He asked Mom to marry him, didn't he?"

"How'd you guess?"

"Just from how they look at each other." Charlie glanced up, more tears falling. "And I know they're sleeping together. They suck at keeping secrets."

"They wanted to wait until you were well enough; they refused to plan a wedding without you here. He only proposed a month ago because they both decided they couldn't stand to spend any time apart. Now that you're home and safe, they can focus on happier times ahead because you're here for it."

"And I want that. Mom deserves it. After her last husband left, she hasn't been happy for some time."

"Why did he leave?" This Ted didn't know about. He figured this was a significant part of why Charlie had so much anger and resentment when they first met; it went beyond Gordon leaving; it must have been something else. Of course, after hearing what kind of person the kid's biological father had been before he hit that tree, he understood why Charlie would be so angry and depressed, unwilling to accept any change, but Ted also understood that that had been Charlie projecting his feelings of anger and abandonment onto everyone else on the team; for a good while there, it would appear Charlie would've been on his way to becoming a mirror of who his biological dad had been, a thought that gave Ted nightmares just thinking about it because when he learned it had been Charlie's biological dad who'd kidnapped him, he knew that he didn't want Charlie going down that same path.

"I guess he felt jealous that I saw Gordon as more of a dad than him," Charlie shrugged. "And he seemed to want Mom all to himself; he was extremely possessive, and I didn't like that at all. It wasn't just me disliking how he dressed or him wearing the wrong shoes; I did not like how he spoke to me or how he spoke to my mother."

"What do you mean by that?" Ted inquired softly.

"One time he said to me, 'Your mother should smack the shit out of you to keep you in line.' I told my mother what he said; she flipped out on him, and he ended up hitting her. I told Adam about it; his dad and Gordon ended up recommending the divorce attorney. In hindsight, I think Gordon was thinking about proposing, but then he got offered the job with the Goodwill Games."

Ted chuckled softly. "That sounds like the sort of thing he'd do; there had to have been some motive there. But when he wants something, he fights for it until he gets it. He was the one who convinced the board not to revoke your scholarships, you know? After he threatened to slap them with an injunction and harass them in court for years."

Charlie grinned weakly at this, drinking the last of the tea. Ted watched as the kid slowly relaxed against the pillows; Charlie was close to nodding off. Sighing, Ted grabbed the mug from him and put it on the bedside table.

"Get some more sleep, okay?" Ted pushed him back against the pillows, watching Charlie roll over and close his eyes. "You'll be fine. Just take it a day at a time."