shadowed [eleven]

[phallogical]

Shadowed
Status: completed
Warnings: LOTS of them; see tags
Rating: R
Word Count: 102k


Matt has to wait hours for Dallas' surgery to end, it seems. The pre-op apparently went well, even if Matt had to play the role of 'concerned lover' for a good half hour to throw off the hospital staff.

They're not exactly the brightest people ever when it comes to personal relationships, Matt thinks, but as long as they can make Dallas walk again, he supposes it's not that big of a deal.

The student nurse seems to like him; the first hour of Matt's waiting time, she sits and talks to him. Mostly about inane things, but Matt finds himself interested in the student nurse's story of how she actually came to be a student nurse.

"I started working in an old folk's home when I was sixteen," she explains, clasping her hands in her lap and leaning forward towards Matt. He almost feels as though his personal bubble is being invaded. "I went to college when I was twenty and started going to get a nursing degree. Here, they don't really let me do much except for talk to patients, get them water, see if they need a nurse. At the nursing home, though, I changed diapers, helped with physical therapy by taking some of them out on walks. I brought them food and even fed some of their pets when no one else could." She smiles. "I like helping people. After I get my RN degree, I'm going to go for psychology and see what good I can do there. Maybe I'll be a nurse for mental therapy clinics. I don't know."

Never has Matt met someone so willing to help others. Even Dallas, who hardly had a conversation with him, hadn't given that 'I want to help people' vibe out; this girl - who's nametag says 'Donna' - is blatantly trying to help people; like her life depends on it. Matt almost envies her, a little. He'd rather be the hero, for once, and not the victim.

"Will Matthew Riley please come to the third floor nurse's station? Matthew Riley to the third floor nurses station."

"Oh!" Donna says, standing up and brushing off her teal scrubs. "That's the psych wing. If you'd like, I could bring you there."

Matt offers her a weak smile and stands as well. "That'd be nice."

Ideally, Matt would have wanted to go alone. As interesting - and pretty - Donna is, Matt would much rather be alone. Donna's a very bright personality to have around when one is trying not to lose their mind.

She drops him off at the nurse's station and proceeds to the fourth floor pediatrics wing with a round, red nose. When Matt watches her dig it and a clown's costume out of one of the cupboards at the station, she winks at him. "Every day I do a little skit for the kids. It helps, I think."

Matt laughs good-naturedly and states his name in a quiet voice to the woman behind the desk. "There's a psychologist that needs to talk to you about your mother, she says that it's very important."

The nurse behind the counter directs him to a room down the hallway marked Consult and instructs him to wait outside after knocking. "They've had to sedate your mother to keep everyone safe." He follows down the hallway, avoiding eye contact with the other patients that are walking around with nurses or other hospital staff, and does what the nurse said - knocks three times and stands outside, waiting.

The woman that comes out is a redhead with cat-eyed glasses and her hair in a bun. "Oh, hello, Matthew, right?"

"Yes…" He watches her carefully. "What can I do for you?"

She clears her throat. "I have some questions to ask you about your mother's whereabouts over the last few months. I was hoping that you'd be able to answer them?"

Matt nods. "Sure, yeah. Is there any place we can go?"

She snaps her fingers and the policeman sitting in a chair across the hall jumps to his feet. "We can go to my office. There's another officer stationed there." She eyes Matt. "There seems to be a lot of police officers surrounding you and your family. It's very… Shall we say, strange?"

"Yeah," Matt agrees. If only you knew.

She asks him questions about where his mother was, what his father had been doing to her, how long she'd been locked up… In general, a bunch of questions Matt doesn't know the answer to. Beyond actually knowing where his mother was, Matt wasn't allowed to know how his father treated his mother.

The psychologist doesn't seem very pleased by his lack of answers, not that Matt had expected her to. "Well, I certainly feel terrible for wasting your time," she says, and actually sounds sincere when she says it. "This must be a very traumatizing experience for you. Am I right?" She smiles sadly. "Unfortunately, I have to get back to your mother, otherwise I would take some time to lift a bit of that psychological burden off of your shoulders."

Matt thanks her for all she's done for his mother and takes the elevator back down to the surgery wing. It's empty until he gets to the lobby, where a father and two children enter. The father looks like he's about to fall apart, and if Matt had half the empathy of a normal person right now, he'd offer to help in anyway he can. Instead, he stares forward at the elevator doors and asks, "Rough morning?"

The father laughs humorlessly. "Yeah, you could say that."

"Cute kids,"

"They're not mine," he says solemnly. "Not legally, at least."

Surprised, Matt turns to him. "That's an odd way to introduce yourself and your kids."

"Well, when you live where I've lived my entire life, you start to become a little cynical of your lifestyle." He sighs. "My lover's in the hospital. These are technically his kids. I don't really have any say over them." He rustles their hair. They're surprisingly well behaved. "All I am to the government is a live-in babysitter." Now he laughs for real, if a bit sarcastically. "Well, normally I'd call myself something a little more… crude, but with impressionable young ears around, I have to watch myself."

"They seem to like you," Matt finds himself saying. "And they're very… Well, they're not like the normal kind of kids you see." Neither am I, he thinks bitterly. "You know. Rowdy."

He laughs again. "Yeah, they're quite the handful when they're at home." He looks down upon them fondly. "I have another court hearing about adopting them today. Third one this year."

"Wouldn't it be easier to just…" He pauses, trying to find a way to say it without sounding offensive. "…Live with how it is? When everything's not great, but you can live with it?" The man sort of frowns at Matt's words. "No, I mean… aren't you worried about what could happen later, as an effect?"

As the elevator door dings to announce its stop on the first floor (Matt's terribly confused by the layout of the hospital; hopefully, he'll be able to make sense of it quickly) the father says, "Well, yeah. But the good definitely outweighs the bad, and even if it didn't, sometimes you have to fight for the right choice, even if it means consequences later on down the road." He smiles. "I'm praying for whoever you know in the hospital."

The man leaves, and as he does so, Matt doesn't even think twice about saying, "Yeah. You, too."

He asks the woman at the desk in the surgery waiting room if anyone's asked for Matthew Riley when he gets back. She takes a few moments, looking through papers on her desk and then finally hands over a post-it. "Yes, about fifteen minutes ago. Said Dallas was out of surgery and doing fine. Doctor Reynolds also said that he okayed you to stay in his room while he was in recovery for the next hour, hour and a half." She smiles at him. "They'll be putting him in room 403. Just give this to the nurse's station and move out of the room when they want you to. You'll be fine. Doctor Reynolds will probably be there soon to let you know the ins and outs of the surgery."

He thanks her and heads back to the elevator, sharing it with a young couple pushing around an elderly woman with no teeth and a broken leg in a wheelchair. He rides it to the fourth floor and tells the student nurse at the desk where he'll be and settles in the armchair in Dallas' room.

It is, as Matt expected, completely devoid of anything interesting. Unlike the emergency room that Dallas had been admitted in, there aren't any paintings or even a border going around the room.

Just a stark, white room with a TV attached to the wall. Matt settles in and watches people walk in and out of the hospital while he waits.

The hospital staff bring back Dallas much quicker than Matt had expected, but when he looks at the clock, it seems much more normal.

"He'll probably want to sleep for a lot longer," Seth says after Dallas is settled in. "The surgery went well, the bullet did a lot less damage than what we'd expected it to." He sits down in the plastic chair next to Matt. "Listen, I want to talk about something with you. Off the record because it's a little unorthodox, but… May I?"

He can't take his eyes off of Dallas, despite Seth's words of assurance that he'll be fine. "Sure."

"I know you're not Dallas' partner."

Matt doesn't find Seth's admission to be surprising. He takes a deep breath before he asks, "How?"

Seth sighs. The chair creaks as he shifts his place. "It's how the two of you interact, it's just… Anyway, I need to know. For my own conscience… Is there anything… Wrong going on between you two? Anything, uh, nonconsensual maybe?"

Laughing, Matt shakes his head. Dallas' heart monitor beep, beep, beeps through the momentary silence. "No. Everything Dallas and I have ever done has been totally consensual."

"I imagine it's a complicated story," Seth says softly. Matt hums in agreement. "Is this something that the police are already involved in?"

"Anna Peterson. She's the officer on our case. She's supposed to be heading the entire process for a while, finding the people she needs to find, lining up a foster home… That sort of thing." He sighs; there's something about Seth that makes it easy to talk about this, but he's very aware of Seth's job and whether he's missing out on something important. "I'm sorry. Is this keeping you from your work?"

Seth shakes his head. "Oh, no, no… my next surgery isn't until this afternoon. I can stay until two." He clears his throat. "I know it's difficult to talk to a psychologist. Therapy is a hard thing to let yourself loose into, which is why I'm thirty seven years old and I still haven't been able to fully appreciate everything Madeleine has done for me… But, anyway. If you'd rather talk to me…"

Matt hesitates - this could very easily be a bad thing, talking to someone about everything, but it's definitely worth a shot, he figures. Like the man in the elevator, sometimes you have to take risks for what's right. "It's a really long story."

Seth shrugs. "I've got some time."

So Matt starts in. He talks about how his father lied about his mother's illness at first, but then told him the truth when the abuse came into play. Soon after came the prostitution, and Matt's first time with Bill, and the others… It's a tough story to talk about, Matt soon realizes, but all he has to do to quell the anxiety that threatens to overtake him is glance at Dallas, lying on his back in a white gown on the light blue sheets; almost peaceful. "Dallas followed me home one day after he paid for the dog food I was trying to buy from the grocery store. Guess I didn't even think that he would, I'm not used to people paying me much attention. Anyway, he started picking up overnights, you know?

"He wanted me to go to the police right away, but all I wanted to do was wait until I was eighteen so no one could send me back… in case there was a lack of evidence or whatever. He listened to me. And that might look kind of… sketchy to a jury, but…"

For the first time, Seth interjects. "It looked great to you." He sighs. "Wow. That's… I want you to know, Matt, that they're going to keep you away from Dallas, even while he's in the hospital, until they can clear that up. Once Jon gives up the names of the other clients, it'll be a while until they clear Dallas."

Worry makes Matt trip over his words. "Oh, wh… When's he-What does that-Is he going to be thrown in jail?"

Seth kind of tilts his head in thought, takes a breath, then says, "Not… necessarily. It depends on when Jon opens his mouth. The earlier, the better, because if he opens his mouth while Dallas is still in the hospital, I can pull some weight in when he's released. I can pull some crap about how I'm making sure that he's healthy enough to go to jail for an indefinite period of time, you know, that sort of thing." He pauses and looks at Dallas. "But, you know, your word is ultimately what matters. If you're adamant enough about this, they may forget Dallas altogether."

He wonders if it'll be the same for Josh.

"Me and my wife, we're foster parents. Neither of us is fertile, so… We have a ten year old and a seventeen year old right now, but I want you to know… When they start talking about where to send you and start looking for capable households to send you to while Jon is on trial, I'm going to ask if you can stay with the two of us. I don't know how much weight I can pull in that regard, especially since I'll be in contact with Dallas, but… At least then, you can stay in the loop as to how he's doing and he'll know that you're safe."

Matt feels flooded; too much emotion all at once. "Why… Why would you do that?"

Seth's smile is soft, sweet as he pats Matt on the shoulder gently. "I'm a doctor, Matt. I like helping people." His pager beeps from his belt and he pulls away to look at it. "I have to go, emergency surgery. Tell the nurse's station if you need anything, all right?" He points to the remote lying next to Dallas on the bed. "The red button if you need anything."

Matt can only nod as he leaves.

"Sounds like the two of you had a very lengthy conversation," Dallas murmurs quietly, voice raspy.

"How long were you listening?"

"Mmm… Just caught the end of it. Something about how if you needed anything, the nurse's station would be very helpful." He opens his eyes and watches Matt for a few moments. "How are you holding up?"

Matt laughs exasperatedly. "How am I holding up? I'm not the one who just had surgery."

"It wasn't brain surgery, Matt," Dallas says, sounding as though he's already a little short. "I'm fine." There's a moment that passes where neither one of them speak, and then he says, "Anything from the police?" Matt shakes his head. "Maybe they're having trouble getting your father to talk or something." He sighs. "He say anything about the surgery?"

"You could have just told us you were awake, he could have explained it to you himself."

"Come on. Everyone knows that interrupting important conversations is rude." He looks at Matt with half lidded eyes. "Just tell me. It's not like it's confidential."

Matt can't hide the smile as he says, "You're fine. Everything went well."

He groans as he tries to sit up in the bed - Matt grabs the remote and helps him with it. "How's Emily? Any word on her?"

"Yeah, she's not as much of a relief as you are." He clears his throat awkwardly, setting the remote back down next to Dallas. "The psychologist sounds like she's having some trouble getting through to her. She had all these questions about her living habits before we brought her in and I didn't have any answers for her." He sighs. "I'm not sure what they're going to do with her."

Dallas reaches forward and grabs one of Matt's hands. "Hey," he says softly, voice still raspy despite his attempt at clearing his throat. "It'll be all right, yeah?"

Matt sighs again. "But… What if the consequence of doing the right thing is Emily never recovering? Like, saving myself ended up ruining her?"

The look Dallas sends him is a mixture of amazement, surprise, and confusion. "What are you talking about?"

"I was talking to this guy in the elevator. He was with his kids, except they weren't really his kids. They were his partner's kids and he didn't really have any legal right over them. He had a court hearing, third one this year, to adopt them, but evidently he's getting some resistance, otherwise he wouldn't be going through this three times this year."

"Matt, don't worry. Everything's going to work out."

"Do you know that? Do you really know that?" Matt asks, gripping his head. "'Cause if you don't know, I don't wanna hear it."

When he speaks, he speaks so Matt can barely hear him. "You can't live like that."

"Like what?"

"Worrying about what tomorrow will bring. If you keep freaking out over what one decision will do, you're going to drive yourself crazy. You just have to do what seems right and the rest will work itself out."

"How do you know that? Since when are you the expert on decision making?"

"I never said I was an expert."

"Then how do you know?"

Dallas picks at his fingernails. "A lot of trial and error, mostly."

"With Alex?" Matt asks before he can stop himself. "Sorry…"

But Dallas waves the apology away with a heavy sigh that suggests he's much more tired than he wants to sound; Matt wonders if it's from more than the surgery, and then tells himself that it obviously is. "No, it was bound to come out eventually. I just… I worried that it'd make you uncomfortable or something. I mean… A lot of Jon's clients were… guys, and I just figured that… I don't know, maybe you knowing about Alex and I would kind of… freak you out given the circumstances."

"Not knowing didn't really affect me either way," Matt says truthfully. "Maybe it should have, but… I don't know. It didn't. I was still terrified to go home with you."

Silence befalls them for a moment before Dallas says, "Are you still regretting that decision?"

"No," Matt says, but the quickness with which he says it gets a scoff from Dallas. "No, really, I'm not. I'm just… worried."

But Dallas laughs. "Come on! You're gonna listen to some guy you met in a hospital elevator? He probably has all of his priorities skewed if his partner's in the hospital."

Matt shrugs. "Yeah, maybe."

"You're certainly on a maybe kick today," Dallas says, reaching for the remote for the bed. "Ever think that maybe is actually a bad thing?"

As Dallas presses down on the remote for the bed, Matt thinks about that.

"Matthew, we're going to have to place you in a foster home for a few weeks. Before we can return you to either Dallas or Emily's care, we have to make sure that they are capable of caring for you."

Matt finds his hands shaking the longer the social worker - Lisa Mahone, she said - speaks. "We've narrowed it down between two families. One's a doctor and the other is a lawyer. The lawyer is in North Dakota a lot of the time, however, so we're leaning much more towards the doctor, because we want to keep you local, and the doctor lives in Shadowbrook." She pauses; Matt wonders if it's for effect. "If you feel uncomfortable staying with a doctor, though…"

Shaking his head, Matt tries to still his hands. Seth, he thinks, that must be who the doctor is. "No," he says, looking the social worker in the eye. "No, I'm fine with that."

Lisa smiles. "Okay. We'll allow you to go to your house one time before you actually go to foster care, get clothes and that sort of thing."

Interrupting her as she packs things up, Matt starts biting at the hangnail his index finger as he says, "I don't… I don't really have any clothes there. Just… Old, ratty stuff Jon never let me clean. Mostly, it's from the clients, you know. A lot of them kind of ruined my clothes during their sessions and they gave back something else." He swallows. Lisa looks a little shell shocked.

"Oh. Um. Okay. Well, I'll see what the county can give for you." She writes something else on a sheet of paper and stands up from the table they're currently sitting at.

"Where am I supposed to go right now?" He looks down at the table. "I mean, while the police clear Dallas' name and I'm not allowed to… see him?"

Lisa takes a deep breath as she slings her purse over her shoulders and picks up her briefcase. "Well, you come with me. I'm supposed to bring you down to the Reinhart County Human Services office and wait until your foster parents can bring you home."

Foster parents. Matt never thought that he'd be one to have foster parents. All the time in school, he'd heard about other people in foster care, how terrible they were, how they acted out in any way that they could… He doesn't want to be one of those kids. He doesn't want to fall into drugs or, God forbid, prostitution, because he felt the need to lash out at the world.

Foster care can't be worse than life with Jon. Maybe that's the problem. The other kids didn't see the striking difference between normalcy and their fucked up world. Matt can't wait to see the difference.

When he tells this to Lisa, she tells him, "Matt, those children have preexisting problems of low self-esteem or feelings of worthlessness." She smiles at him as she kills the engine in the parking lot of the Reinhart County Human Services office. "I don't think you have either of those problems."

Matt appreciates the sentiment, the idea that he's a normal, functioning part of the teenage society, but really, he's not. The fact is, his mind is a mess. He wants to tell this to her, but the idea of going to therapy - especially with Seth's input - terrifies him. Telling his problems to a person scares him. Admitting his problems, his shortcomings, has a stigma attached to it - vulnerability, weakness. Matt doesn't want to deal with that problem, now or ever.

Lisa leads him through a hallway flittered with crayon drawings - "The younger children we've helped out of bad homes," she explains, "draw these while they're waiting for a foster home." - and stations him in a light orange room with a desk and a bookshelf. "This is for our older children," she says, unlocking the door. "There's a lot of middle grade and higher books in here, some classics, some new releases… We used to have a computer with Internet, but found out that some of the people that used this room were keeping contact with their families through that outlet, so we had to get rid of it. There's a TV, though, so feel free to do whatever you want to while you're waiting. A police officer will return with your foster family when they're ready for you." With that, she leaves, her heels click-clacking on the hardwood floor as she continues down the hallway.

He takes a seat on the couch directly in front of the television. He scans the bookcase for anything interesting. He looks through the drawers on the computer desk and finds nothing but crayons and paper. He doesn't bother looking through the channels on TV, instead just sitting on the couch and waiting.

He knows the room isn't supposed to come off as intimidating, but Matt finds it strangely similar to waiting for Bill's return - staying in one place until someone tells him it's okay to leave. This shouldn't bother him - it's nothing like Bill's basement, it's nothing like any basement, but Matt still finds himself trembling as he sits on the couch. The room is lacking any sort of human touch, any sort of personal life in it, and it all seems so detached. It shouldn't bother him like it does, but it does, and if he can hardly admit that to himself, he'll never be able to admit that to Lisa or a police officer or, God forbid, Dallas.

Dallas doesn't need any sort of his drama, no matter how much he seems to be willing to take on.

Matt sighs. He feels like the room's closing in on him.

When Lisa comes back some time later, she has a police officer in tow, along with Seth and a woman he imagines must be Seth's wife. He fights the urge to hug Seth as he smiles and leans against the doorframe casually. Finally. A friendly face.

"These are your foster parents," Lisa says, with a grin to match Seth's own, "Seth and Madeleine Reynolds."

"We're very happy to have you," Madeleine says, rushing forward into the room. She looks torn between falling apart and laughing with joy. Her voice is sweet, armored but smooth as she asks, "May I hug you?"

He's surprised at the question, but finds himself nodding regardless. Seth's smile falters for just a second as Madeleine's small arms wrap around Matt's torso. "Although, I wish we'd met under much happier circumstances." Matt feels wetness against his shoulder - she's crying already. "We'll go shopping as soon as we're out of here, all right? Get you a proper wardrobe. It's a perfect time, Henry's with his friends from school and Ali's tutoring."

"You don't have to do that," Matt says, looking from Madeleine to Seth. "Really." Dallas already has a wardrobe for him, and it's unfair for two people he hardly knows to spend hundreds of dollars on getting him a new wardrobe.

But Seth laughs, crossing his arms over his chest and nodding at Matt. "Are you just going to live in that outfit?" He shakes his head and kicks away from the doorframe. "It's not a problem, really. If it was, we wouldn't have offered."

Thus, Matt finds himself in the Shadowbrook Mall half an hour later, trying to find clothes for himself under the watchful eye of Seth and his wife. Seth doesn't allow him to go with basics and insists on getting him a suit and graphical t-shirts of bands Matt hasn't ever heard of and a set of dress shirts, just in case. "We're going to see about getting you back into school," he says, but as soon as Madeleine walks away to search a clearance section a few aisles away, he corrects himself with a grin. "Not really, but Madeleine has a very…" He clears his throat. "Specific way of fostering children, it's-" He sighs, frowning like he's not sure how to continue. His eyes meet Matt's before he says, voice soft, "I'll stand by whatever your decisions are, Matt. Don't worry. Besides, you probably won't be with us long enough to reenroll in a school, anyway."

Still, that doesn't stop Seth from buying all of the dress clothes. Matt feels that much more terrible - why should they buy him clothing that he's not even going to use? - but he doesn't say anything more about it. He doesn't want this to turn into some sort of scene, or end up being sent away prematurely because of Madeleine's specific fostering ways.

He doesn't want to push them until they break, and for some reason, he feels that refusing their offer to buy him clothing is just an easier way to make Madeleine fear for his psychological wellbeing.

He helps Seth bring the bunch of bags into their house and into a bedroom when they arrive at Seth's house - "Where you'll be staying while you're with us," Seth tells him when he opens the door to a green-walled room - and Matt accepts the tour of the six-bedroom house gratefully. "It's a bit spendy, but we can afford it. Madeleine and I could live in an apartment, but helping children is what we want to do." He smiles. Matt senses a hint of arrogance within his speech, and his train of thought falters when he finds the comparison between him and many of Jon's clients. "Any questions?"

Not about the house, Matt thinks. "Uh-about foster kids. Is that okay?" Seth nods. "Do you… When foster kids leave you, do they ever…" He pauses, uncertain how to continue. "Fall into drugs… or anything?"

Seth looks at him for a few moments, either gauging his question or trying to think of an answer. After a few minutes, he, with a wisdom Matt's never heard from anyone other than Dallas when he's talking about certain things, says, "We don't always know what happens to foster children once they leave, but we try to make sure that the children we get are the happiest we can make them. If they're not, we see what we can do to make them happier. A lot of them have been in foster homes before, sometimes all around the country. Madeleine and I try to keep the children in one place until they find what we like to call a permanent home."

Afterwards, he leaves Matt alone in his room. "They'll probably call you in tomorrow for a statement from you about Dallas. To be honest, I'm surprised that they haven't already done it, or got it while you were waiting for Madeleine and me to pick you up at the RCHS office."

Matt sleeps through dinner and through the morning, but when Seth leaves at seven thirty for the hospital, Matt barely gathers the courage to ask him as he's walking out the door, "Could you maybe let me know how Dallas is today sometime? I'd really like to hear how he is."

"Of course," Seth says with a chuckle. He looks like he wants to rustle Matt's hair, pat him on the shoulder. Matt takes an involuntary step backwards, and Seth's voice sounds much flatter when he finishes with, "You didn't even have to ask."

Madeleine makes him breakfast - pancakes and eggs - at nine AM when he wakes up for the second time. He feels groggy, like he'd overslept, but forces himself to sit down at the island anyway. "Ali and Henry are at school," she says. "Ali gets out at two and Henry gets out at three fifteen. Would you like to come with me to pick them up? They're both very excited to meet you. Henry was quite disappointed when we wouldn't let him wake you last night."

Truthfully, Matt doesn't really want to meet either one of them, no matter how sweet or eager to meet him they are. He doesn't want to find himself attached to anyone else, not when he's already torn away from Dallas and his mother. He can't handle the county tearing him away from another person. It's going to be hard enough getting through this; he definitely doesn't need any more emotional turmoil.

But still, Matt can't think of a polite way to tell her no, so he grudgingly says yes. At least they're not biologically the Reynolds' children. That would definitely make Matt feel much worse about wishing he didn't have to meet them.

It's not that he doesn't like Madeleine, or Seth, or the kids he hasn't met yet; Madeleine's actually pretty cool for someone as old as she is and having been foster mother to abused and neglected children. It's just that-his own parents are fuck-ups. That's not Madeleine's cross to bear.

"At about ten thirty today," she says when Matt's finished eating, or rather, poking his food around his plate for half an hour. "I have to bring you back to the RCHS office and have you meet with Tori Green. She's another social worker down there, she'll be conducting an interview-taking a statement, I mean, with a police officer present so the police can conclude who was involved in this process and who wasn't. After all, if Dallas is highly capable of taking care of you once he gets out of the hospital, they don't want to take you away from that. Keep you with a safe friend of the family, you know."

Matt nods. A statement. This could mean that, once they release Dallas, he gets out, but if he says anything that makes them second guess him… It could mean Dallas ends up in jail as well as the others, Josh included. And as hard as it was for Matt to finally trust him, he doesn't want that guy to go to jail. He helped. He kept Rick away from his father and Dallas when this all happened. That's…

Very noble of him, Matt guesses.

Madeleine talks about proper interview conduct the entire ride to the Human Services office. "Remember to be certain of what you're saying." She hums for a moment. "Although, I wonder if it would be different in your case. Oh! I'm sorry! I didn't… I hope I didn't offend you!"

Matt shakes his head. He feels awkward, as though his mind is disconnected from his body. The butterflies in his stomach make it hard to hear just what she's saying. Even if he did hear, could hear, he's positive he wouldn't be able to say that she had offended him. That's not exactly being polite to the people giving you food and shelter for an indefinite period of time, and Matt refuses to act like some ungrateful punk, because he is grateful. He just wishes he were more grateful than what he felt like he was.

She kills the engine and picks up her purse from the floor between the two front seats of her SUV. "All right, Matt! Let's go! Almost ten thirty, and they don't really like me here, so the earlier the better."

Smoothing down the t-shirt he was wearing that Seth had bought him the day before - Madeleine had refused to let him go without a shower, and if he denied that, she refused to let him go in his old t-shirt - Matt follows her in. She checks in with the receptionist and leads the way towards a small waiting room. "She's with another child," Madeleine says, picking up a parenting magazine and beginning to flip through it. Matt tries to hide his shaking hands. Soft, classical music plays from the speakers above them as Matt tries to take in as much of his surroundings as he can. The receptionist's keyboard keys clack as she types away. The little girl in flip-flops sitting next to a young woman kicks her feet against her chair while the young woman reads aloud to her in a soft tone. Phones ring distantly, and every time Matt sees someone walk past, his stomach flares up in a mess of butterflies until they pass.

"Hmm…" Madeleine says, flipping the pages of her magazine. "I'll have to look at that online later…"

The others in the room leave, but fifteen minutes later, when Matt swears that he's going to throw up from the anxiety coursing through his body, there's still no social worker in sight.

"Ten forty six," Madeleine says when she finally sets down the magazine. "Oh, honey, you look pale!" She reaches forward to touch Matt's forehead with the back of her hand. "Are you feeling all right?"

He desperately wants to tell her no, can we please leave?, but instead, trying to appear strong, like he's able to do this, he says, voice only wavering a little, "I feel fine. Just a little nervous, I guess."

Luckily, she buys it and picks up another magazine from the table next to them. Matt feels like his stomach is going to implode; it doesn't even feel like he'd eaten anything that morning… Not that he actually had much.

Finally, two people stop outside the room, women, one in a police form and the other in a business suit. The one without the uniform has her hand on the doorknob while they speak, and Matt finds his gag reflex starting to flare up while he waits. This is it; he knows it. There's no way it can't be. No one else besides the receptionist is in the room, and the likelihood of them coming for her is very low. They're too professional, too curt and sharp and everything about them screams we're going to take away your last shreds of innocence.

He feels like he's going crazy.

But still, they stand and talk. Matt has to close his eyes and force his breathing into counts, in through his nose, one, two, three, out through his mouth, one, two, three, before the urge to throw up finally goes away. When he opens his eyes, the woman's opening the door and walking into the room, and all of his hard work trying to keep the bile from making the trip up his throat seems to have been in vain.

"You must be Matthew," she says. Matt can barely manage the responding nod, a short, curt movement that sends the world topsy-turvy. "So sorry to keep you waiting. I had some paperwork that needed to be filled out."

"Oh, not a problem," he hears Madeleine say in her ever-so-chipper voice. For the first time, Matt just wants her to shut up. "As long as we're out of here by three."

The lady smiles. "That shouldn't be a problem. I'm guessing an hour, hour and a half… two hours, tops, but I don't doubt that you'll be out of here by noon." And with that, the woman leads Matt out of the room, further and deeper into the building, down hallways Matt would have rather not seen, eventually stopping at a room in the crayon-plastered hallway he'd seen when Seth and Madeleine picked him up. "Here we go," the social worker says, opening the door and allowing Matt to walk in first. "But, one thing before we begin the process," she says as she sits down. Matt mirrors the movement, but the policewoman does not, still standing in the corner of the room. Matt's legs shake roughly as she asks, "Do you have any questions?"

Now that he's finally gotten to the hard part, Matt finds the butterflies in his stomach gone - or at least, lessened to the point that he thinks he can speak if he needs to. He tries out his voice - "No, I don't think so." - and is surprised and slightly pleased with the normalcy in his tone.

It'll do.

"Alrighty then. Let's get down to business so you can get out of here, hmm?" The police woman takes a tape recording out of the chest pocket of her uniform and steps forward to set it on the table. The social worker, whose name Matt has long since forgotten despite remembering her saying it while they were walking down the hallway, presses play.

"Please state your name and today's date for the record, please."

His hands twitch in his lap. "Matthew Jonathan Riley, uhm, June, 18, 2007."

"I'm going to ask you a few questions, all right? This tape may ensure that you do not have to testify when your father and the others go to court and could clear up some of the evidence that has been found and that will be found.

"Did Dallas Heath ever touch you sexually?"

"No," Matt answers shakily, feeling terribly self-conscious because of the tape recorder. The social worker clears her throat and writes this down on yellow lined paper on a clipboard in front of her.

"How much was he paying for your time?"

Matt tries to remember, but figures that he can't. "Four thousand dollars a night, I think, maybe. I'm not sure, though." That damn tape recorder - he should have listened to Madeleine. Any advice would be good advice at this point. He feels like he's about to shake apart.

"Did you feel threatened when you were with him?"

"No. Never." Finally, something easy.

"Did he ever try to get you to go back to Jonathan Riley despite you reaching out for help?"

This is easier than he expected… So far. "He wanted me out of there." If the entire process is this simple, he regrets the stress he'd forced himself through.

"So that's a no, he never tried to get you to go back to Jonathan Riley."

"Not… electively." That look - Matt knows that look; she doesn't believe him. Before she can ask her next question, he says, hating the way his voice starts to waver, "I wanted to wait until I was eighteen to get away."

"And this…was fully your decision? Did anyone try to push this idea onto you?

"No, no, I thought it'd be the best bet. I was…" He eyes the tape recorder warily, and then forges through. "I was afraid that Jon would get off easy if I didn't wait until I was eighteen."

"You did this despite the threat to your safety?"

"Yes."

He feels like she's skipping around between questions, but maybe there's some sort of way to go about this - he wouldn't really be surprised if there were.

"Did Jonathan Riley ever touch you sexually or encourage you to engage in sexual intercourse with William Walker, Richard Buchanan, Harlan Springfield, Eric Adams, Joshua Lowe, or himself or others?"

Matt swallows, twists his hands in his lap, and picks at the seams on his jeans, bites at his swollen lip. The social worker waits for his answer patiently. "Yes."

"Yes to which?"

Another long pause. Matt has to force the lump in his throat away before he can say, "All of them."

She clears her throat again, twisting uncomfortably in her seat. "Did either William Walker or Richard Buchanan, or others, ever drug you?"

"Yes. Both, I mean, Rick and Bill, they-both of them did."

"Do you know what they used?"

"No."

"Did either ever force you into having sexual intercourse with them?"

"Yes." Didn't I already answer this question?

She sighs this time, unable to look at Matt anymore. He suddenly feels very dirty, like he needs to clean himself. He rubs his palms on his jeans. If she does stuff like this for a living and she can't face him… "How long was William Walker paying your father for your time?"

"He was the first one to jump at the chance, so… a few years, probably."

"Were the others paying for it as well?"

"Yes."

"And they were all using it to get sexual pleasure out of you?"

"Except for Josh and Dallas, yes."

She keeps making notes on the clipboard sitting on the desk and looks back up at Matt when she's finished. "What about Richard Buchanan? Can you explain the extent of injuries you acquired from him?"

Matt closes his eyes, trying to think. "A brand, a broken leg, a fractured arm, dislocated shoulders, broken toes, cuts that needed stitches to heal…" He picks at a hangnail awkwardly until it starts to bleed. "Among others."

"A brand… What exactly do you mean?"

Matt shifts in his seat before he says, "It's on my chest. The letter R." Well, that was easier than I'd expected, at least…

With a watery smile, the social worker jots something else down on her clipboard. "We'll need to get a photo of that for evidence, I'm sure. I'm going to ask you some questions about Eric Adams now, all right?"

He cringes at the thought of Eric, but still manages to say, "Sure."

"How was Eric Adams different from the others?"

"He made… He made me want it."

"Made you? Like forced you to want it?"

"No," Matt says, swallowing back the shakiness - or trying to, anyway. "He was gentle with me. Careful. He didn't force me into anything."

"And he left before he was actually supposed to, right? He was an indefinite roommate?"

"That's right."

"Did you know that he signed the contract with your father under a false name?"

"No…"

"Why do you think he did that? To throw the police off of his trail as one of men your father scheduled with you or something else?"

"He was always very guilty about the entire situation," Matt tells her softly, eyes on the table in front of them. "That's why he left. He said he couldn't handle the freak out."

She nods, jotting something else down in her notes. "And Joshua Lowe."

"He was working with Dallas."

"Working with him?"

"Dallas was using him to keep an eye on Jon and me, making sure that Rick wasn't going to get me before he got back. He was trying to keep me safe."

"And he failed to do that. Isn't that right?"

Matt clenches his jaw. Regardless of Dallas' timing, it was more than anyone else was doing, himself included. "That's correct, yes, but I electively went back home every time I was with Dallas. Dallas and Josh were both working hard trying to get me out of the house safely in the last few weeks."

She's on a roll, now, like she's trying to break Matt down or something. "Trying to get you out safely. What exactly do you mean by that? Were you threatened by Jonathan at all?"

"All of the time!" Matt exclaims, despite the voice in his head telling him to calm down. "Are you kidding me? The guy sold me on the streets, and even after I came home with broken limbs and branding and bloody, and never brought me into the hospital unless he couldn't do something with it himself."

She purses her lips but isn't rattled by his outburst like he'd hoped. "So he brought you in for broken limbs or the brands."

Matt swallows again. His mouth feels dry, but he doesn't want to ask for a glass of water. "Not always, no."

"What exactly did he do when you sustained those types of injuries, then?"

"He set the bone himself. Or tried to, at least."

"Did he give you a sedative or anything similar? Anesthetic?"

"Not normally."

She purses her lips again and says, "So the brand, he didn't bring you in for that?"

"No."

The social worker sighs. "Um…" Matt wonders if it's a good or a bad sign that she's hesitating. Probably bad. "What about Harlan Springfield?"

"What about him?"

"How different were your times with him compared to your time with the others?"

Matt pauses, but then throws in the towel. He can be as vague as he wants, but they're going to want details at some point, and it's better to lay it all out now, once and for all, than have to keep coming back and reliving something he'd rather not relive. "Harlan was, um… Gentler a lot of the time. Where Bill used multiple partners and Rick used manipulation to break me down, Harlan just had sex with me. Bill used blindfolds and tied me up naked in the basement, kept me for days at a time… So did Rick, but…" He pauses to take a shaky breath. "But, um, Harlan only ever raped me on his bed. Except there was once in his truck, but that was the only time."

"What exactly did Richard use when he was with you?" She sounds like she doesn't want to ask the question and when Matt looks up, she looks apologetic. I have to ask, she mouths.

"Leather whips," Matt starts off, turning away. "Handcuffs. Blindfolds, gags… Drugs, clamps, weights…" He chokes a little, grips his head in his hands. "Whatever he could get his hands on, I think."

"Did he use any of those in nontraditional ways?"

He closes his eyes as he says, "Sometimes he fucked me with the grip on the whips. Once, he did it with some sort of metal rod." Upon hearing this, the policewoman leaves her post to exit the room. Matt wishes he could do the same. He feels like he's about to lose his breakfast all over the table. "I'm not sure what else."

"Okay, that's all right," the social worker says in a soothing tone. Matt wishes he hadn't forgotten her name. "What about William Walker, could you tell me about what he did?"

"He had this basement. He, he locked me up down there for all of my visits. He always left me down there for a while before he or anyone else ever came down."

"Do you know if you knew anyone that ever came down there?"

"Dallas showed up once," Matt tells her. It's all he can do to keep the memories at bay. "But, he, uh-he was trying to gauge exactly how badly things were going for me."

"Any idea why?"

Matt hardly makes it through the sentence, "I think he wanted to know what they were doing to me psychologically," before he throws up underneath the table, loud retching echoing off the bare walls. All of breakfast stares back at him in the face. Matt thinks that the social worker sits and waits it out until she comes back with a cup of water.

"All right, Matthew," she says as she hands him the Styrofoam cup. "That's all for now. Would you feel comfortable staying with Dallas while we go through the means we need to for your mother?"

"Absolutely, I'm comfortable staying with Dallas," Matt answers, feeling relieved when she seems to write this information on the paper. He takes a small sip of water. It's over for now, he thinks. "Um, what means do you mean, go through the means, exactly?"

"Oh, just clearing her medically, psychologically, and physically. We have to make sure that she wasn't in on what your father was doing and that she's prepared mentally and physically to take care of a seventeen year old child after what she's gone through." She pauses and shuts the recorder off. "If you have any more questions, I should probably turn on the tape recorder again."

But Matt shakes his head. "No, no, I'm done. That's it, promise."

"Okay. Thank you, Matthew. I'm sure this will be very helpful." She leads him back through the building to where Madeleine's still waiting. She lets him go to her while she talks to the receptionist - probably to tell her about the janitor needed in the room.

"That was quick! Only forty minutes," Madeleine says, putting down her magazine. "How'd it go?"

"Fine," Matt says, but he crumples when she asks him how he is. Madeline stands up and hugs him close, petting his hair.

As she holds him, she whispers, "Shh, shh," soothingly into his ear. Matt sniffles on her shoulder. "It's okay, baby, it's okay…"

Matt doesn't hear the social worker speak, but figures that, by the way Madeleine's arm lifts from his back for a moment, she's taking some sort of appointment card. "I'm so sorry, sweetie," she says as she leads them back to her SUV. "I'm so sorry. Would anything make you feel better? Ice cream, shopping, comic books, movies, anything?" She seems so eager to help him, but the only thing Matt knows that would make him feel better about this mess is the one thing she can't give him: Dallas.

"No, nothing. I just, I have to wait it out," he tells her, curling in on himself. She buys it.

"Well, I definitely think that you should stay home and get some rest. I'll go get the kids on my own. That must have taken all the energy you had to go through that. Oh, I'm so sorry that you have to!" And that's how it goes as she drives back to her home. Matt leans his head against the headrest on the seat and looks at the ceiling of the car as she talks.

As soon as Matt wanders to the room they've set aside for him - he refuses to call it his room - he falls onto the bed and falls asleep. "I'll only be gone for fifteen minutes when I leave," she says, "but my cell number is next to the phone in the kitchen. So is Seth's, so if you need anything, please, don't hesitate to call."

He sleeps until Seth gets home at six PM. "Hey, kiddo," he says softly as he sits on the bed. "How was the interrogation?" he asks, a hint of humor in his voice.

After a brief moment of hesitation, Matt admits for the first time, "I threw up."

But Seth doesn't seem surprised. "That happens sometimes."

"How's Dallas?"

"Good, good. He's walking a little bit again. He says that his leg doesn't even hurt." He pauses. "He's been approached by two news journalists today, but I've made strict instructions that only family can visit him, so he's not bothered. When he gets out, he probably will be, though." Again, he pauses. "How are you?"

Matt takes a moment to think, really think, about that before he says, "Tired. Scared. God, terrified. The social worker kept asking me all these questions, I'm just… I'm not sure I answered them right. Madeleine was talking about all sorts of things on the ride in, but I was too nervous to actually retain any of the information she was feeding me."

Seth chuckles. "It was probably a good thing that you missed it. I love her to death, but sometimes Madeleine's pep talks are a little too much. I'm sure you did fine. You'll find out soon enough whether the police clear Dallas' name. They're still searching his house right now, but there's nothing to find there, I'm not going to worry about it. You shouldn't either." He stands up from the bed. "Dinner's ready."

Fearing another incident like the one earlier, Matt says, "I'm good."

"If you're worried about throwing up," Seth says, as if he can read Matt's mind, "Don't. We've all seen worse, really."

And so, Matt finds himself down in the kitchen, setting the table for five. Madeleine instructs him on where forks, spoons, and knives go while Seth starts pulling food off of the stovetop and putting it in sealable bowls for leftovers. When he's finished, Madeleine thanks him and directs him to the bathroom to wash up.

His reflection surprises him. He's not sure he's ever seen somebody look so terrible, so beat up. He's barely skin and bones, his cheeks are sunken in as though he's dying, his eyes have heavy bags underneath them… He looks like he should be forty years old and dying of cancer or something, not seventeen.

He has to work to peel his eyes away from his body and wash his shaking hands in the sink. It's not that bad, he has to tell himself to keep from having a breakdown. It's not that bad.

When he returns to the room, Madeleine sits him down at one of the seats and calls for Henry and Ali, who both rush down into the room quickly. "No running in the house," Madeleine scolds, but in a bright voice. "Henry, Alison, this is Matthew. He'll be staying with us for a few weeks."

As he fakes his way through a smile and a wave, Matt thinks, I really hope it's not that long.

Alison doesn't talk about much through dinner except to Madeleine, and Henry asks a bunch of questions about Matt that he's not sure he's fully capable about answering - or if he even should be answering for a ten year old.

"Why are your eyes all sunken in?"

"Um," Matt hesitates, looking up to see if either Seth or Madeleine are paying attention to his conversation with Henry. Madeleine isn't, but Seth looks just as interested in his answer as Henry, so he plows through. "I haven't been sleeping very well." It's a lie, sort of, but the kid looks young, and there's no way Matt's going to be the one to tell him about what's going on in his life. He doesn't need that drama.

"I thought that's all you've been doing since you got here, sleep."

"It was."

"So shouldn't they look a little better?" Before Matt can answer, he jumps to another question. "How come you look like skin and bones? My teacher says that's unhealthy to look like you do. I think she'd say that you should probably get something to eat and lay off on the exercise or something. Aren't you worried about, like, an oh-rex-ee-ah?" Matt hardly gets a moment to realize that he's talking about anorexia before Seth interrupts.

"That's enough, Henry," he warns. It's all Seth says throughout the entire dinner until he and Matt are clearing the table afterwards. "He's a young boy yet," Seth tells him in a soft voice. "Still hasn't fully grasped the idea of what's right and wrong. You don't have to humor him."

Matt shrugs. "I figured it was the right thing to do. You know, little kids want questions answered and all that. Not answering would just be…" he trails off.

Seth nods in understanding. "Sure, sure… Just… Look, if he asks you anything uncomfortable, don't feel bad about telling him not to ask those types of questions. The only time you have to go through talking about what happened is when you want to. All right? Only you know when you're comfortable with talking about it."

It hits him out of the blue - he almost drops a plate because of it - the intense pain in his stomach and chest, and Seth directs him back to the chair. "What? What's wrong, what happened?"

He can't stop the tears that flow out. "I just-I don't know," he whispers, looking up into Seth's concerned face. "It just…"

"Okay, okay… You go get to bed. I'll get you some medication-"

"No," Matt manages to croak out. "No drugs, I'm not taking any drugs."

Seth doesn't say anything as he directs him back up to the bedroom for Matt and settles him in the bed before he leaves. "Can I get you anything? Anything at all?"

He curls in, lying on his side in the fetal position, faced away from Seth.

Dallas. He wants Dallas.