Discovering Pain (a scorpion fanfiction)

Chapter 5

The next few weeks went on with the same pattern. Every few hours Water would have a flashback and would end up on the ground screaming in agony. All the team could do was move anything that could harm him out of the way and try to pull him out of it, each time with varying degrees of success. It wasn't just the flashbacks though that were making days difficult. At night Walter didn't sleep; he couldn't. He would always end up screaming and writhing in pain. The team took turns watching him so that none of them would get too tired. Toby did Monday, Happy did Tuesday, Sylvester did Wednesday, Paige did Thursday, Cabe did Friday, and the team pulled names out of a hat to decided who would do Saturday and Sunday. They decided that to make it fair, if your name was pulled you didn't have to do it again until everyone had done it. And so it went on, but as days turned into weeks, and week started to turn into months, Walter wasn't getting any better, if anything, he was getting worse. Because he wasn't sleeping at night, he started to fall asleep during work or at the desk or at the wheel of a car, the last being the scariest, and each time he would end up screaming and writhing on the floor. The fatigue caused by the sleepless nights also lead to the flashbacks being worse and more frequent. The whole team were exhausted. They couldn't risk Water going anywhere by himself so the team started finding excuses to be with him, or in the same room as him, or drive for him. Walter new what they were doing but realised arguing was illogical as they would only follow him anyway. 

"Ahhh" Walter screamed thrashing around in his bed. The light turned on and the door opened, someone came running in. 

"Hey Walt, it's just a dream." The man who came running in said. The man sat down next to Walter on his bed and spoke softly trying to pull Walter out of his nightmare. "You're safe now." The man said and on instinct took hold of Walter's hand and held it gentle but firmly in his own. Toby didn't expect anything to happen, he had read about people who had PTSD like Walter. It never got any better, only worse and eventually it drove them mad. Toby still had hopes for Walter, Walter had to get better, even just thinking about the possibility that he might not pull through gave Toby a feeling of dread, it created a pit in his stomach making him feel sick. Toby kept his gaze fixed on the screaming, writhing man on the bed clutching his hand. Toby would later say it was so that he had some control and could stop Walter from throwing himself off the bed, but he knew better. After a moment Walter stopped screaming and opened his eyes. He was breathing heavily and his eyes were flicking around the room looking for the threat. "You're alright mate. You just had a flashback, a bad dream. I'm here." Walter turned and looked at Toby in a panic flinching away before seeing who it was. The moment it registered in Walter's head he relaxed. He hadn't even noticed he was clinging onto Toby's hand as if his life depended on it. Toby noticed though and held on just as tightly. After a few minutes Walter's breathing evened out and his hand loosened slightly, but he didn't let go. 

"Thank you, sorry for..." Walter said but was interrupted by Toby. 

"It's okay Walt," Toby said reassuringly. 

"Why am I not getting better? I don't understand. I should be." Walter said pushing himself up into a sitting position to look at Toby better.

"Walter, it is different for each individual person. You aim for control in all things, so when you didn't have control it affected you. I don't think it's the.. um, torture that is really haunting you. We can all deal with pain and move on." Toby said looking into Walters eyes. There wasn't much light in the room but there was enough to see clearly; the curtains weren't draw so moonlight and street lights brightened up the room.  He could tell that Walter wasn't really listening to what he had to say, he had probably already guessed,  he was probably only asking the question because he wanted Toby to stay longer; he just didn't want to say it. Neither of them said anything after that, just looked into each others time. For the second time Walter started to breath slightly heavier, so did Toby, his eye's were dark with dilated pupils and he held onto Toby's hand slightly tighter. After a moment Walter looked away and let go of Toby's hand.