Friday, February 19, 2010
Eule spared a look at his father, Derek, sitting next to him in the Hero Corps office lobby. A couple of other people sat with them, most of them nervous.

He had gone home a couple of days ago, leaving the Safe Havens base. He wanted a vacation from Hero Corps, but when he called and asked them, they said he no longer worked for them. He realized that he had locked up some memories, but he didn't know the trigger word to release them. He and his father had a long talk, and Derek had suggested he got to counseling. Eule didn't care.

Derek had seen this before when interviewing some men who had come back from Afghanistan. He knew what his son was suffering from and knew there was treatment.

A well-dressed woman came out and summoned them. They followed her through the halls of Hero Corps, to another waiting room. "Next time, you can come right here," she said. Derek saw the receptionist and nodded, then continued to follow the woman along the hallways.

She stopped outside an office, opened the door, and let them in. They took seats on a large blue couch set against the wall. There was a bookcase, as in most doctor's offices, but this one had action figures of assorted heroes along the shelves.

She straightened her skirt and sat down, then smiled at the two men. "I am Dr. Roxanne Stoppler. You are Mark and Derek Barker?"

"Yes," Derek said. Mark stared at a spot on the floor.

"Why don't you tell me why you're here today?" she asked, looking at Mark.

"My father wanted me to come."

"Do you think you have any issues?"

"Yes." He shrugged.

Derek looked imploringly at Stoppler. She only nodded, and pulled out a pad and pen. "Mr. Barker, could you wait in the waiting room so I could talk to your son alone?"

"Of course," Derek said quietly, and patted Mark on the shoulder. "I'll be right down the hall."

"Okay, dad."

The door closed quietly behind him. Stoppler looked to Mark. "If you don't want to talk about it, I can read your mind instead."

Mark shrugged. "Doesn't matter."

Stoppler bent down and reached for Mark's hands. He gave them to her, and suddenly he felt connected to her. It wasn't like when he could read minds, when he created an avatar to look around, it was like they shared the same body. His mind filled with memories of the General, what they shared, his feelings toward him, and Kalius, and how he felt when he saw his bloody torn body on the stones. Always the feelings, but he was buffetted from it by a sense of distance.

The memories faded, and Stoppler was looking at him, her eyes a gentle sea-blue. He looked at her, blinking.

"I understand." She nodded, and released Mark's hands. He looked at the clock - an hour had gone by. "Are you all right?"

"Yes." The usual feeling of "blah" came over him.

"You are suffering from Posttraumatic Stress Disorder. It's very common among POW's."

"I'm not really a POW."

"Have you ever heard of Stockholm Syndrome?"

"No."

"It's when the captives have positive feelings toward their captors, even to the point of defending them. It felt to me that your captor sensed your feelings for his opposite and exploited them."

"I should have resisted."

"You did."

He looked up. "How?"

"You resisted that Mindlord."

"But not the General."

"We'll talk about that..."


Derek followed the doctor into her office, and saw Mark still sitting on the couch in the same position he left him. Part of him had hoped for a miracle, but hero or not, Mark was still a boy.

The doctor sat down. "Mark has a diagnosis of PTSD, Posttraumatic Stress Disorder. He's agreed to take medications, and to come back in a couple of days." She handed Derek a piece of paper. "He's going to be taking Paxil, are you familiar with it?"

"No."

"It usually used for depression, but it's commonly prescribed for PTSD. We're also going to be starting behavioral activation therapy. Do you think the Safe Havens would mind if he worked with them on a part-time basis?"

"I don't think they'll mind, they're very nice."

"He'll go work with them tomorrow for a couple of hours if they'll take him. Maybe every third or fourth day for now." She looked at Mark. Mark glanced at her and nodded.

As she wrote out the doctor's note, Derek smiled. Not quite a miracle, but a big step toward one.

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