Time passes in recovery before they move forward...

Aurthur and Jax spoke a couple of times a week on the phone over the next couple of months. Jax was still getting settled into her new life and was getting ready for mid-terms while Aurthur had to work hard on his physical therapy. This resulted in them both being exhausted and distracted which was a good thing for both of them. The phone calls kept Jax settled and Aurthur focused and listening to the doctors. His mother let up a little on strictly following the doctor's orders and snuck a few homecooked meals and the occasional treat in for him as rewards for focusing on healing. While speaking with his mother and the doctors, it came out that due to his youth and relatively good health before the accident her was recovery quite well, a little faster than traditionally expected with wounds as severe as Aurthur's had been.

Abigail had come up to visit him a few times, giving Aurthur more news on Jax and her recovery. Aurthur was coming to appreciate Abigail and definitely considered her a friend. The new she brought always made him feel better and Aurthur was sure she was checking him out and getting to know more about him for her own sake as well as Jax's. He had made a good first impression, but Abigail was a mother with all the protective instincts that that entailed. As she visited more often, they spoke not only of Jax and his recovery but also of Kasey. By this point he had been moved from the ICU into the rehabilitation center at the hospital and Abigail began bringing Kasey with her on occasion. Authur had always liked kids and had been hoping to have a large family with Aryca, this love of kids was one of the reasons he chose to become a teacher. He took to Kasey like a duck to water and the girl was like a kid sister he's never had. She was an avid reader which any literature teacher loved to hear about a student.

About a month after they moved him into the rehabilitation center, almost 3 months since the accident, Abigail and Kacey came to see him. Thanksgiving was coming soon, and Abigail wanted to Aurthur know that she, Kacey and Jaw would be out of town, taking a short vacation, giving Jax time to relax and not have to play the role as much. During one of the phone calls, Jax had told Authur that she was taking some of Kacey's advice and picking up some of her old hobbies, this was part of the reason for the vacation. Aryca had chosen to be a librarian for her love a stories and books and wouldn't have changed that. However, Aryca was a passionate foodie and had the skills to become a professional chef had she wanted to. There was one major obstacle to that, and it was why she never wanted to be a professional chef, she like cooking for people she cared for and didn't want it to become a chore or something that would make her angry. They were going to take a road trip to hit some of the places featured on Diners, Drive-ins and Dives. Aurthur wished them luck, telling Kacey to keep a journal of the trip. That way she'd always have the memories to look back on and he'd like to see what she thought of the trip, ever the Literature teacher.

Thanksgiving came with him in rehab. His mother made a small Thanksgiving meal for them, bringing it to his room for them to enjoy together. They enjoyed it, talked of his recovery and what she was doing at home alone, having lost his father years before while he was still young. Dad had been one of his mother's professors when she was in law school. They fell in love, got married and had Aurthur. She got her degree but never went to work, choosing to be a stay-at-home mom. His father had been twenty years older than his mother with a family history of heart disease, he was taken away from them by a heart attack one night while working late in his campus office. His mother still didn't need to work due to the insurance, his father's savings and the pension payments she received as his widow. Authur didn't like her sitting at home alone so much and had been encouraging her to get out of the house more. It was on Thanksgiving, shortly before visiting hours ended that the trauma surgeon who saved his life stopped in, his mother smiled brightly at his arrival. Authur looked at the doctor, he was roughly his mother's age, 6'4" compared to her 5'10" as mom was a tall woman. He was dressed in a nice suit but not wearing a lab coat or carrying his stethoscope. He walked over and took Aurthur's mother's hand as she told Authur that she was going out as he'd been encouraging her to do.

That evening after his mother left, Aurthur was feeling a little depressed. He was happy for his mother, and hoped she'd keep being social more. He thought about Abigail, Kacey and especially Jax, who he still mentally pictured as Aryca having not met her yet, enjoying their trip and was happy for them. The problem was that his life was becoming stuck, he couldn't get out of the hospital until he healed more and felt like his life was passing him by. That night he was restless, usable to sleep, tossing and turning as much as his body could all night. A somber mood set over him and the following week passed like molasses in winter. His emotional state getting worse over the week. He still did his therapy but went through the minimum effort, not pushing like he had been for the last month and his physical therapist noted this. After Thanksgiving he was seeing less of his mother, not hearing from Abigail, Kacey or Jax for a couple weeks. He started to get lazier about his recovery, trying to skip some of his physical therapy session and not trying as hard. All this behavior was noted, but the hospital staff wasn't exactly quick to respond.

His mother had been coming in to see Aurthur, her worry for his condition growing over the couple of weeks it took for him to spiral down to the point where she was truly concerned for his health. She called Aurthur's friends, his mentor, called a well rated therapist. No matter who came to talk to him, he just wouldn't open up about what was wrong. As the next couple of weeks passed with Aurthur getting more closed off and belligerent towards the staff and his mother, she got ****. After a month like this his mother had decided that something **** needed to be done. She left the hospital with a look of determination on her face.

The next morning, Aurthur's phone was ringing. As had become his habit recently, Aurthur just ignored it and let it go to voicemail. Time after time it kept ringing, call after call, non-stop. He finally picked up the phone, powered it off and shoved it in the drawer. He was tired of people pitying him. The loss of Aryca, who while still alive was out of his reach. It almost felt like he had completely lost her. He couldn't talk about it to anyone, but his mother and she just reassured him that she was alive, not understanding that her being alive and unavailable to him was making things worse. His mother kept coming to visit, trying to pull him out of the depression, speaking of the upcoming holiday. Asking her what he wanted her to do for gifts for his friends and Jax. He'd speak a little, just to keep her from trying to dig deeper into his moods again. He hated to see mom upset but even that wasn't enough to truly motivate him again. He was feeling that surviving the accident was not a good as everyone was making it out to be. His whole life was like a train thrown off the tracks, he lost h the woman he loved, his career that he worked hard for was put on hold, he wasn't even sure he'd be able to return to work quickly after getting out rehab. How long was recovery going to take before he might even start to feel like himself once again? Would he ever feel like himself again? These were the thoughts constantly running through the back of his mind, hiding even from him what was truly bothering him.