Jason

The chief opened the door and Jason watched as a man, a woman, and two boys - one older and one younger - walked in. You could tell that Jason was a part of this family. The two boys walked to the end of the bed as the man and woman went up to the side.

The woman took Jason's hand.

"Oh Jason, it is so good to see you again." She said tears coming to her eyes and running down her cheeks. The woman was about 5'6 with shoulder length brown hair and light brown eyes; she weighed maybe 120 pounds. The man was 6'2 and about 210 pounds; it was all muscle. He had dirty blonde hair and blue eyes. Jason just stared at them for a moment and didn't talk.

"Hey son how do you feel?" the man asked. Jason looked at him for a moment then turned and looked at Dr. Connor. Dr. Connor nodded his head at the unanswered question that Jason asked him.

"Fine but who are you?" he asked. The woman started crying more and the man started crying as well.

"We are your parents Jason." The woman replied.

"I know that but WHO are you?" He asked again. They now understood that he was asking for their names.

"Oh ok I am Pat O'Brien your mom and this is John O'Brien your father. The two boys are your brothers, Matt and Josh." The woman said. Jason then turned his attention to the two boys.

Matt was the oldest; he looked like he was about 15 and about 5'9 and 115 pounds, with dirty blonde hair and blue eyes. Josh looked about 10 or 11 with light brown hair and blue eyes. He looked about 100 pounds and only about 5'1 or so.

"Oh hi nice to meet you," he said smiling at them. Matt and Josh looked confused.

"Why don't he know who we are?" asked Josh looking at his mother.

"Maybe I can answer that for you." Dr. Connor said coming to the other side of the bed. "You see your brother was hit pretty hard on the back of the head several times. Well, that caused him not to remember who he is or any of you all. We are hoping that maybe you all could tell us what happened." Dr. Connor said looking at the parents.

"We don't know. About a month ago he never came home from school. We called the police but they said we had to wait 48 hours to file a missing person's report. We were hoping maybe he just went to a friend's house." Pat started. "But he never came home and by Monday we knew that something was wrong. He never ran off and if he had any problems he would always come and talk with one of us. Well, Monday morning I went down and filed the missing person's report. They started looking and said that a couple of the boys from his school saw him being forced into a green van. They didn't know anything else, we keep praying and looking but nothing ever came up, then the other day we get a call saying that they think that they found Jason, and well here we are." She finished looking at her son.

Dr. Connor nodded his head and wrote some stuff down, then turned and looked at Jason.

"Well does any of this ring a bell?" he asked. Jason just shook his head.

"No sir, I don't remember any of it. But I do have a few questions." He said, looking at Dr. Connor.

"Ok well, why don't you ask them and if it is something that I think you don't need to know right now I'll let you know. How does that sound?" he asked.

"Ok thanks," Jason said, and then turned towards his mom and dad. "Well...hold on Dr. Connor where am I?" he asked the doctor first. Dr. Connor laughed.

"Haha, I thought you already knew that sorry. You're in North Carolina." He said smiling. Jason blushed and laughed as well.

"Nope sorry, ok so where do we live?" he asked his parents. They looked at Dr. Connor to see if it is ok for them to answer him.

"It's ok to answer questions about where he is from, I'll let you know what things you shouldn't answer when he asks them, so don't worry go ahead." He said smiling at them. They smiled back.

"Son you're from Georgia, Savannah Georgia to be exact. We live in a gated community called The Landings." His dad answered him.

"Ok what school do I go to?" he asked.

"You go to Savannah Christian School." His mom answered. Jason just nodded his head.

"Ok do I have any other brothers or sisters?" he asked, but before he could answer Dr. Connor interjected.

"Before you answer him I may suggest that if you have lost any children to not mention it." He said. They nodded their head.

"That's ok and no you don't have any other siblings." His dad said smiling.

"Ok, I guess that does it for right now. I don't know of anything else to ask about. Oh, wait do I have any friends?" he asked. His parents smiled at him.

"Yes you do. You have a lot of friends and they are all worried about you." His mom said wiping his hair from in front of his face. Jason shivered but said nothing.

"Ok I think that is all for now, why don't we let him rest." Dr. Cunningham said. They all agreed and said their byes and left the room. Dr. Connor stayed behind.

"So what do you think?" he asked Jason.

"They seem nice, but I have no memory of them. They could be the people I saw in the vision I had, but I don't know." He said. Dr. Connor nodded his head.

"Well, hopefully it will all come back to you. So what do you think about going home with them?" he asked watching and see what Jason's reaction would be.

Jason sat there and thought about that for a few minutes before answering him.

"I guess it would be ok, but I am scared. What if they were the reason that I am where I am? What if they hate me because I am not how I used to be? I mean there are so many what if's and other questions. I just don't know." Jason answered honestly. Dr. Connor nodded his head.

"I know, and I am sorry I wish I could help you with that. But according to the chief they had nothing to do with you being taken or anything. I don't know if they know everything that has happened to you or not. I will sit down and talk with them before you all leave. How does that sound?" he asked Jason.

"That sounds ok. Thank you." Jason said. Dr. Connor ruffled his hair and went out into the hall. There he saw Jason's family talking with Dr. Cunningham. He walked up and joined them.

"Well, I think that is normal. Here is Dr. Connor why don't you ask him." Dr. Cunningham said. They all turned and faced Dr. Connor.

"Ask me what?" he asked the group.

"We were wondering if it was normal for him to treat us like strangers?" Pat asked. Dr. Connor nodded his head.

"Yes, it is. Why don't we go over here and sit down." He said and led them to a waiting area. "Let me try and answer this question and any others that you all have and also tell you a few things as well. First, it is very normal for him to act that way to you. You see even though his subconscious knows who you are, his conscious doesn't. It may take days, week, months and in some cases even years for people to get their memories back some never do but with Jason, I think he will get it back. Between the physical and the mental damage that is done there is no way of knowing how long it will take. I do suggest that once you all get back home that you get him to see a child psychologist. Also do not press him to try and remember things, if you do you may damage him even further than he is right now and he may never regain his memory.

Also, I don't know if you all know his problems, but he has been hurt a great deal. I'll let Dr. Cunningham tell you all of his problems in a moment, but first, you must all learn to be patient with him, right now he doesn't' know any of you, and he doesn't know where he is from. Boys I know that this is going to sound strange but you may have to treat him like a friend, before you can treat him like your brother again.

He is scared; right now he is scared that maybe you all had something to do with what happened with him being taken. He is scared that you're going to turn him away for not knowing who you all are. I think he is more scared that he is going to get hurt worse then what he is now. So you must ALL BE PATIENT with him and try and not push him into anything that he doesn't want to do." Dr. Connor said. Pat and John nodded their heads, while Matt and Josh just looked at him.

"Ok thank you, Dr. Connor, we understand. I have a friend who knows a child psychologist and gave us the number to call her. We called her after we heard from the police, and she said that if he is already seeing someone to give her card to them and to have whoever it is to call and talk with her. Here it is," Said John handing Dr. Connor her card. "Her name is Sherry Springer; she is a nice lady from what I have been told." He finished.

"Ok thanks, I will go ahead and call her now and get her up to speed." Dr. Connor said, standing up and shaking hands with Jason's Family.

"So Mr. and Mrs. O'Brien let me get you all up to speed on what has happened with your son. Why don't you send the boys to the snack room on this floor, that way they are close by. Matter of fact it is right there behind you so you can keep an eye on them." Dr. Cunningham said pointing behind them. He knew that they wouldn't want the boys out of their sight. Mr. O'Brien gave Matt some money for him and Josh and sent them into the room.

"Ok now that they are gone, I can tell you what is all wrong with Jason. I don't think that Matt or Josh should know everything that has happened. Well as you can see his left leg and right arm are in a cast. His right arm is broken and his left leg is fractured in several places, there are rods and screws in his leg. His appendix had to be removed, it was damaged to a severe point of rupture. As Dr. Connors stated in Jason's room his head was beaten repeatedly. I also told him that it looked like his jaw was broken once, but I am assuming that was from before he was kidnapped." Dr. Cunningham said.

Pat and John laughed and nodded their heads.

"Yes he was about 11 or he just turned 12, he was up in a tree playing with his brothers when he slipped and fell. For some unknown reason instead of falling like anyone else, he fell on his face. I was so scared but also trying not to laugh because it makes you think of one of those cartoons" said Pat, Dr. Cunningham laughed as well.

"Yes, I can imagine it would. Good, now we know about that we can move on. As you saw, he has many bruises on his body. Some have already cleared up and some haven't. It seems that he was severely beaten as well. Those are going away it is just taken longing because of all the damage that he has been through also there are some scars that he has now that will never go away. They will heal but he will have them for the rest of his life.

Now his back is probably the worse, I have had to go in there three times. He had 3-cracked vertebra and 4 discs that were completely damaged or destroyed. So we had to go in and remove the 4 discs and stabilize the 3 vertebras. So there are 4 rods and 12 screws in his back. The second time that I had to go in it was because we missed a vertebra that was putting pressure on one of his nerves. We didn't need to take the vertebra out but we had to move the nerve around some, so the vertebra wasn't pressing on the nerve anymore.

The third time I went in was because while in recovery from the second operation he started hemorrhaging. We got that under control but we had to go back in because we had to find out where it was coming from. I think that once you get back to Savannah that you find a good neurosurgeon to take him to that can examine him and make sure that everything is staying where it should. So those are things that are wrong with him that are in my opinion the least of his problems." Dr. Cunningham said.

"What do you mean the least of his problems?" asked Pat. Dr. Cunningham sighed.

"I'm sorry Mr. and Mrs. O'Brien but Jason has been raped, and not just once or by one person. What we can tell was he was raped repeatedly and by at least 3 different people. He is fine back there and is pretty much healed up back there. But I am more worried about the scars that the rape is going to leave. So as you see to me that is the main problem." Dr. Cunningham said. Pat started crying and John comforted her.

"Dr. we don't know how you are going to take this and we don't know if we should tell him or not, but the night before he was taken we were talking and Jason came and sat with us. He told us that he needed to tell us some stuff. Pat, Jason and I went into my office and sat down and talked. Jason told us he was gay; he was scared that we were going to hate him, but we already knew about him. It didn't make a difference to us if he was gay or not. We love out son. He told us he was not sexually active, nor did he plan to be for a long time. He said he wanted a boyfriend first and to see what was going to happen with a relationship before it went any further. Should we tell him or not?" John asked. Dr. Cunningham looked at them and thought, but before he could say anything Dr. Connor said something.

Dr. Connors showed up while Dr. Cunningham was telling them everything that was wrong with Jason.

"No you shouldn't," Dr. Connor said. "You need to let him find out on his own, if you go and tell him that then he may think that he deserved what happened to him. Gay kids tend to think like that. They have a tendency to think that what ever happened to them that it was their fault. I kinda of had my suspicions about him being gay but I didn't say anything. Do his brothers know?" Dr. Connor asked.

"No we decided that right now they don't need to know anything. That was Jason's idea. He wanted to tell them when he felt that they were ready and not before." Pat said holding John's hand. Both doctors smiled at them.

"You have one smart son. Ok, I talked with Dr. Springer and she is caught up to speed. She said that once you get back in town to call her and set up an appointment. She is aware that he was sexually abused; I asked her if she had anything against gay people and she said no. That she had a brother who was gay, I told her why I asked that and she understood and agrees that he needs to find things out on his own." Dr. Connor said.

"Ok and thank you, thank you both," John said shaking both doctor's hands.

"It was our pleasure do you have any questions?" Dr. Cunningham asked.

"Just one when can we take our son home?" Pat asked while holding onto John. About that time Matt and Josh appeared. The doctors smiled at them all.

"Well, by the way, it looks Monday you can take him home. Dr. Connor will be talking with him till then and if you are there visiting you will have to leave when he is there. But come Monday morning if everything looks good you can take him home. I do hope that you have a big enough car. With his leg in a cast, he needs to be able to sit comfortably." Dr. Cunningham said.

"Yes we understand and we have a Lincoln Navigator. It is the type with a back seat and a middle and front seat. So he will have plenty of room." Pat said.

"Good now, why don't you all go to the hotel and come back tomorrow, I know that you want to stay but right now you all need your rest." They agreed and the O'Brien's left for the day.

Dr. Cunningham went and did rounds and Dr. Connor went and talked with Jason. When he walked in Jason was having a snack and watching T.V.

"How do you feel?" he asked Jason. Jason looked at him.

"Ok I guess, I'm hurting but otherwise ok." He said.

"Good well come Monday morning you will be able to leave with your family. What do you think about that?" Dr. Connor asked keeping an eye out for any stress.

"I don't know. Scared, and I don't know mainly scared." He said starting to cry. Dr. Connor hugged him.

"I know you are but I promise everything will be ok. I have talked with a child psychologist down there named Sherry Springer. She will be expecting you within a week of you going home. So everything will be alright, why don't you get some rest?" Dr. Connor said. Jason nodded his head and lay back in his bed.

The weekend flew past very fast. Jason got his catheter out Saturday and his drainage tube came out on Sunday. His parents and brothers were there everyday to see him. They talked about what Savannah was like and their house and school and the neighborhood that they lived in. Whenever they were there Dr. Connor was there to make sure that nothing was said that shouldn't have been said.

Each time that the family left either because they went and got something to eat or because Dr. Connor wanted to talk with him or Dr. Cunningham was checking up on him Dr. Connor would ask about his feelings and what he was thinking.

By Monday morning Dr. Connor was assured and very confident that Jason was going to be ok and was going to make it.

Dr. Cunningham did his last check up on Jason and released him to his parents. By 1 that afternoon Jason was waving goodbye to Dr. Cunningham and Dr. Connor from the middle seat of the Lincoln Navigator with his parents up front and his brothers in the seat behind him.

Now he was more scared and apprehensive than ever. He was on his way to a city he didn't know, a house he didn't remember, and being with people that he had no memory of. Jason was scared but he had the hope and belief that he would be ok and as long as he had that he knew he would be alright and he knew everything would turn out for the best.

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To Be Continued ...