Monday morning phone call...

Monday morning was passing slowly for Aurthur, he'd woken up early and was still trapped in the bed due to the fractured femur taking so long to heal. He still needed assistance to get out of bed and use the walking cast which meant having to wait for one of the physical therapists to come in. He sat there bored and impatient while waiting, hoping for Abigail or Jax to call. Eating the horribly bland hospital food every day was getting to him. While he loved his mother, her way of strictly following doctor's orders drove him nuts, she wouldn't even sneak snack foods in for him. Everything was irritating him in small ways due to his lack of control. Aurthur wasn't, strictly speaking, a control freak but when you have no control you want it more than anything. Sitting there, getting more and more frustrated with his current state in life, he wanted to scream at the top of his long and just check himself out. Just about the time he reached his breaking point Aurthur's phone started to ring on the table over his bed. He quickly picked it up seeing Abigail's number, "Hello," he answered the phone.

"Aurthur," came a timid voice through the line, "is that you?" the voice asked.

"Aryca? I mean Jax?" Aurthur asked.

A few seconds of silence before a response, "Yeah, it's me Aurthur. I've missed you so much."

"I've missed you as well, I was going insane not knowing what had happened to you," Aurthur replied. "I'm happy to hear from you," he wanted to say so much more but didn't want to scare the woman she'd become. He knew she wasn't just Aryca anymore and that he'd need to take it a little slower for both of them. "Thank you for calling me, how have things been going for you?"

There again was a pause and a few breaths before she continued, "All things considered, fairly well. I'm back in school, working on getting my PHD in Information Technology. Which is so strange since I didn't know the first thing about computers before the accident," she says with a chocked laugh. "It's weird knowing how to do things that I never studied, even just having the basic knowledge of her education, not to mention her IQ had to be so high and now I've got the benefit of that," she stated with a tremble in her voice.

"Listen to me," Aurthur said in a soothing tone. "Take a few breaths, 4 count in, hold it for a 4 count, and release it as a 4 count. Now do it again, and a couple more times," Aurthur instructed her as she had him whenever he was stressed out over his courses in college. "Now, keep breathing and continue when you're ready. Once you are, tell me what name you want me to call you so we can keep speaking easier."

"I want you to call me Ary as you always had, but I need you to call me Jax since that's who I am," she replied. "Thank you for helping me calm down, this is so hard, hearing your voice with someone else's ears."

"Jax, it's strange to me to hear your words in another voice, but that it is you saying them, no matter what voice it's in is what matters. You're alive, that's the most important thing to me right now." Aurthur let those words sink in for a few moments before saying, "I'm here for you, to listen, to talk, or to help you in any way I can."

He could hear tears in her voice as Jax spoke again, "I'm afraid to come see you as I am. I look so different than I used to and even more I find my tastes are changing. I'm afraid that while I still love you in my heart that this body's brain or sub-conscious might decide you're not what it wants Aurthur."

"Jax, the only way to know for sure is to meet each other as you are. I'll tell you this for a fact, I was attracted to the woman I saw, I fell in love with the woman whose heart I came to know. In your heart, you are still that amazing woman. You were fearless in school and inspired not just me but others around us to face the present and future as it came to us. I want to see you, but only when you are ready, once you know you want that. Until then, you can call me and we can talk about anything you want to, I'm here and not going anywhere soon. It's what everyone really wants, I'm your own personal captive audience," Aurthur stated with a laugh making his ribs hurt a little as they were still healing.

"What's wrong Aurthur?" Jax asked hearing the mild groan of pain hidden in the laugh.

"Healing ribs and laughter don't really work well together," Aurthur replied. "Tell me more about life as Jax, your family, anything you need or want to tell me about"

Jax began recounting what she could of the accident, waking up in her new body. The doctors explaining what happened, she glossed over her parent's reaction to the change which Aurthur noted but didn't press on yet. She talked about how strange it was being younger or seeing a woman not even a decade older than her as a mother figure. She gushed about having a little sister as she was an only child, how Kasey was helping her adjust to being Jax on one hand and encouraging her to be herself and do the things she liked as well. Kasey had told her that while you now have to live as Jax, the life was now hers to live as she felt it needed to be lived. People change she had said, and even more so after a trauma so it wasn't like anyone would think anything about it. Besides, people believed their eyes over almost anything so no one would believe she was anyone other than Jax. That insight from a high school freshman did so much to help her with her healing so much that she loved her new little sister even more that the feeling she got from the subconscious even suggested. She talked about taking Kacey out for fun, about helping with her schoolwork. She talked about life in general, just talking about everything that had happened over the last several months since the accident. They spoke for almost 2 hours until Jax said she had to head for class and ended the call.

Aurthur's mood was greatly improved after speaking with Jax. He was refreshed and wanted nothing more than to get healthy and to get out of this hospital. Aurhtur set himself back to focusing in on health and therapy so that he may get to see Jax soon, or at least get another phone call. That call had helped improve his mood so much.