All for You.

Chapter 9 - Catch

Chapter 9 - Catch

— Third Person

She screams for a solid ten minutes; her eyes shut tight in a dream, the rest of her bony limbs trembling.

Doctors in the main section of the hospital determined it's not seizures she's having when this happens. Is just how PTSD is affecting her; by trapping her in a dream where instead of sleep talking, she screams until the dream is over.

Doctors slowly began to leave for they were of no help: all she can do is scream until she wakes.

One told Tobias to leave and come back; that listening to her scream and trying to calm her won't do anything.

Waking her up could risk her gaining a memory. Despite the horror she goes through, she's usually gaining something from the past when she starts screaming; something she has forgotten.

Tobias doesn't leave. He sits in the chair to the right of the hospital bed she lies on, stroking her unwashed hair as she sweats profusely.

She can't even sleep peacefully.

She inhaled deeply, her eyes bursting open. Her heart thumps in her chest and she bursts into tears, shaking once again.

"Shh, Tris. You're alright," he soothes, "I'm right here." He strokes her hair out of her face, using his thumb to wipe tears from falling.

His eyes drift down to the new off-white cast that goes up to her mid thigh. He wonders what pain she's feeling, and he wonders why Chicago doesn't have any painkillers that can help her.

Her heart rate regulates as she continues to heavily breathe. She finds her gaze on his face; the deep concentration he has as he stares off to space.

He shouldn't want part of what is wrong with her.

If he was normal, he would leave and never come back.

But he doesn't,

And he never will.

+    +    +

It was only a week later when Tobias arrived to see his girlfriend standing with a walker.

Before her last surgery, she had been walking around, uneasily, on crutches. After her most recent surgery, her progress has been bumped down tremendously.

The amount of progress to be standing on one foot, gripping to the metal beams for her life depending on it, was enough to give the sense of hope.

After her physical therapy session, Tobias wheeled her back to her preferred spot of the common room of the Rehab Center; the spot just the left of the large window overlooking the city.

They both are silent; trapped in their own thoughts.

He finds himself wondering what she knows; wondering what she has come to remember from her past, and where there still are blank voids.

She wonders what's going on in her world; why she can't wrap her mind around simple things. She fears she had completely lost herself, for saying she has isn't an incorrect statement.

One thing she's grown to tolerate is the wheelchair she's carried around in.

Upon arriving back to Chicago, it was worse than pulling teeth to get her to simply sit in a wheelchair. Even she wasn't sure why she refused, but she knew it would only lead her to her death, for it had in the past.

Now, she sits, watching the walls pass as others hobble by, some with assistance, others on the run, as Tobias brings her back to her room.

The physical therapist, Julie, meets them outside the door to Tris's room. She holds the door, Tobias wheeling her in, and asking if he should help her into the bed.

Julie replied no, motioning for him to park her chair over by the much smaller, less visible window to the left of the hospital bed.

"Ask her if she's ready before each toss." Julie says out of the blue.

"What?" Tobias questions, raising a single eyebrow.

She picks up a large red balloon that was on top of the bed and places it in Tobias's hands.

"Play catch."