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Freezing. Choking. Getting tongue-tied. It's what we call it when your mind goes from brilliant to blank. You can prepare all you want. But the feeling can still hit you, out of nowhere. So when it hits you, when your mind shuts down, when you open your mouth and no words come out, the good news is... It happens to all of us.
"Hey." Jackson spoke softly at his wife who was sitting on the couch reading a medical textbook. She always tried to catch up as much as possible with everything work related, even if she wasn't at work. And the last few days she had been feeling self-conscious, so she spent extra hours studying. "You're studying, again?"
Aurora looked at him taken aback; because for the first time he tried to have a normal conversation with her without yelling.
"Ah. Yes, I worked on a case with Arizona the other day and I am looking for different approaches we could have used." She took a breath, having difficulty speaking to him; even if it wasn't for something personal.
"I'm going to Avery's Medical Center in Montana tomorrow." Jackson informed her. "I'll be gone for one or two days. You'll be okay here, right?" He asked, not sure how to ask her what he truly wanted. Not sure if she was going to say yes with the way he had been acting the last weeks. So he didn't ask her at all.
"I–" Aurora looked more taken aback than before. "I guess it'll be good to spend some time apart... Even if it's two days, have some time to have our... You know, feelings."
"Right, I mean if you need anything, just call." I will call you, because I will need you, that's what he wanted to say instead. Aurora could recognise something in the tone of his voice, a sadness. "I'll let you study."
×××
The next morning Catherine Avery was in her private car, giving Jackson a ride to the airport, so he could take the foundation's private jet. Catherine looked at her son, worried. She knew that the patient wasn't the only one who he was going to see there. But also a man, who hurt him more than he ever thought it would be possible to hurt someone.
Sometimes you think that you've broken free from those memories... from the people who have hurt you, but there is a part of you that needs to know why... that part of you that will never fully let go.
"We should only be gone a day, two max. If you need me before that, you can just..." Jackson spoke.
"If you're having second thoughts, we could bring your patient here." Catherine tried to show him that he didn't have to see his father, if it was only going to bring him more down than he already was.
"No, I told you, we've got a girl who needs a throat transplant and a donor in the same exact hospital. We can't risk moving either of them." He insisted, his look outside of the window the whole time. He had been more distant than before.
