A/n: yee haw lets go

✨TRIGGER WARNING✨

•all the normal stuff lolz

•therapy

•self harm implications

•A boring recap of some sht that's happened because filler

"I beat therapy."

"...what?" Emile asked carefully over the call with Virgil. He was a little bit concerned, as Virgil was smirking, but somehow also looked absolutely petrified.

"Kiddo, what happened?" Patton asked carefully.

———————le flashback—————-

It was Virgil's first meeting with his therapist for a long while. Between the whole being kidnapped thing with his mom thing, his dad going to jail, and the town being shut down to catch the people who escaped prison...he'd been a bit too busy to bother going.

He was doing it online over a FaceTime sort of app so that they could see each other even though they were a while away from each other.

He mostly hid everything from his therapist, not exactly comfortable talking about his trauma without, you know, joking about it. But his mother told him that she couldn't help him if he didn't tell her what was going on, though if he truly wasn't comfortable, they could always find him a different one.

Virgil felt like he should unpack his trauma, so when he got on with the therapist, it was awkward as usual for the first couple of minutes, before they got into the deep stuff, "it all started when I was really young..I don't think I even remember if anything bad was done to me before the age of four, and I have vague, terrible memories of my young childhood years..."

His therapist listened intently as he explained some things, asking the standard , 'oh? And what was your father like? What was home life like?' Kind of questions, which lead to some uncomfortable conversations and near crying.

"When my mom told me my sister, Emily was in her stomach it was the happiest day of my life. My mom had two miscarriages before her. Well, my dad called them miscarriages...he'd just beat her until the babies died..he did it a couple times after that too..."

"Oh, so you have a sister? What's she like?" She asked, writing some things down that he'd come back to in later sessions, wanting to focus on the positive for the time being.

He smiled, "I had one..and she was perfect..." he whispered, "she died when she was almost five...maybe she was five..time goes by so fast.."

"Oh-i'm so sorry, what happened?" His therapist asked, "if you're comfortable with sharing.."

Virgil took a deep breath and explained everything he could, everything he knew about the situation.

How his father bleached Emily's eyes out when she was a child so that she'd live in suffering.

How his father would sneak behind Emily and beat her for no reason just to scare her.

How he'd make loud houses, and make her constantly feel so unsafe in her own home.

He talked about Roman, Ram, Kurt, his father, the whole thing. He explained it all in twenty minutes, and then proceeded to talk about how Roman and Ram and Kurt kinda fell away from Andrew, but then helped kidnap him and his mom.

He told her about how they targeted people they were close with to hurt him and his mother.

Their session went on way longer than it was supposed to, and they talked for so, so long.

"I was forced to watch my father beat and rape my sister....so many times..right In front of my eyes. It was so weird because she was blind, but I was..I was watching..she must have been so scared, she couldn't protect herself in any way. My dad would tie me up somewhere so I couldn't help..he'd tape my mouth..."

"Where was your mother when all of this happened" his therapist butted in.

"At work..she was the sole provider to pat bills, put food on the table, get me help I needed.."

"And she was abused too, correct?"

"Well, yeah-"

"I'm sorry Virgil. But that is child neglect."

"What?!-"

"She put you in an unsafe environment, leaving you home alone with home i'll have to call CPS on her."

"HELL NO! She was promised that if she let him hurt her, he wouldn't hurt her kids. She was trying her best! It wasn't her fault the god damned cops never believed her!"

"Calm down Virgil! There must have been something she could have done!"

"No. We are talking about something else now, and CPS will not be called." He gritted out.

His therapist begrudgingly agreed and continued to listen to his story.

When he finished all that he could in their session, his therapist looked over a couple of things and listened as Virgil unpacked his last bit of trauma for that day. She was honestly shocked. She had no idea what to do.

"Virgil, honey..i'm so sorry, but I honestly-I don't know how to help you. We haven't even gotten into your eating disorder yet-I-can I speak with your mother please before we hang up?"

————end le flashback————-

"Holy shit babe, you really did beat therapy! Remy yelled from the sideline. Virgil was starting to think that Remy lived with Patton and Emile at this point, it was getting ridiculous.

"Yeah, i'm kinda proud of myself, not gonna lie" he smiled, doing a victory fist bump.

"Hey, this isn't something we should celebrate, because Virgil, no offense, but you need help, it's barely an option at this point, we're all so worried about you" Emile said gently.

Virgil opened his mouth.

"—and before you quip back" Emile started, "no, therapy is not going to take all of the pain away, or change your life so much that it feels like none of that ever happened, but it's sort of just-you have someone who you can talk to. They can professionally give you advice, and they'll remember things."

Virgil sighed, "I know-I just-it's hard" he said simply.

Emile nodded, "I know, Virge, but you'll get through the rough patch, buddy. I know you will."

"Yeah! And it may not get better anytime soon, or completely heal, though no matter what you decide to do, I hope you know that we'll always love you!" Patton smiled warmly.

Virgil smiled back, and they talked for a while longer to catch up, before they ended the call.

He laid in his bed, stared at the ceiling, and began to think.

————————————————————

Alice and Lucia were hanging out in a bedroom that they had decided to share. Over the past week of them staying at Alice's parents house, Lucia had gotten to know Jeffery and Isabella remarkably better then she ever thought that she would.

For example, she found out that Isabella wasn't the basic cookie baking knitting old person that everyone may have expected of her-she liked to collect knives.

You would never know how absolutely and unnecessarily expensive knives could be unless you saw her collection. Even the small ones, which, tended to be the sharpest in her collections, had gold and silver trims on the handles that made them worth a heck of a lot more then a standard kitchen knife.

Lucia was impressed by the sheer amount of knives she had, and thought it was pretty cool, though she didn't want Virgil to see walls upon walls of some of the sharpest knives in the world, and then get any..ideas or reminders of the past. She feared that seeing that many knives in one place would remind him of the basement.

Andrew never allowed Lucia in the basement. Her place was the attic, he reasoned, the basement was his secret space. And now, years upon years later...the smell of three year old blood and guts still lingered in the corners.

Their basement was practically condemned as police evidence at this point.

Isabella had wanted to know some about Lucia, and had asked her many questions of these sorts of topics. Being the ex wife of a on the loose prisoner would lead anyone to have questions.

But all of this was just trying to get to the question she was dying to ask, as they had already been over the ice breaker conversations.

The thing she'd wanted to know more than anything was what they were planning on naming the baby, the only person that knew what she was planning was Alice, as Lucia practically saw her as a co parent/second mom to her unborn child.

So Isabella would just do her old lady pout and sulk about it, before going off to sharpen her knife collection.

So now they were alone in their room together, "My doctor contacted me. They told me that I need to begin trying to induce labor..." Lucia said, breaking the silence, "they suggested squats and spicy food."

"...and sex?"

Lucia rolled her eyes, "and if the spicy food and squats don't work, then yes, sex."

"Whoo! Let's do this!"