A/N: Thank you for all of your kind support of this series. This hasn't been the easiest thing in the world to write, and I'm still much too happy, but I must continue. For those of you who don't know, aspirin is a blood thinner. That means if you get a cut (or cut yourself) while there's aspirin in your system, and the cut is deep enough, you can bleed- a lot. Also, I'm not a psychologist and the information within might not be accurate. And on that note...

Chapter 4- Unite

Cory and Shawn's POV (it switches)

Cory stopped dead in his tracks as he stared into the bathroom. His best friend was slumped on the floor, surrounded by blood. Without thinking, he went over to Shawn and shook him roughly.

'Shawn!" he pleaded. "Come on!"

He finally gathered his wits enough to call 911. As he waited on the sirens, he looked at Shawn's arm closely. The long gash on his arm was the same one that Cory remembered Shawn telling him about when they were younger. He had said something about a bike accident, and Cory had accepted the explanation. But now...

There was a loud knock on the door. Cory ran to the door and opened it up. "He's in the bathroom," he said. The paramedics rushed past him. Minutes later, Shawn was on a stretcher, and being loaded into the ambulance.

"You coming, kid?" One of them called out.

"No... no."

"Okay. We're on our way to County General." They shut the door and drove off while Cory watched them take his best friend away.

***

Later, Cory came to visit Shawn in the hospital. Shawn noticed him when he was still at the nurses' station. He pretended to be asleep when Cory walked into the room.

"Hey, Shawn," Cory said softly. "Um... I know that you might not want to talk to me right now, but when you do, call me, okay? The doctor said that you'd be released today. He asked me what happened." Cory swallowed audibly. "I told him I didn't know what happened, that I just found you like that. But... that cut... you told me that you had fallen off a bike onto gravel. I know it's not my business..." Cory seemed to want to say more. Instead he walked out of the room, missing the muffled sob that issued from Shawn's throat.

***

Shawn was back in school, just in time for finals. Cory was trying to take extra good care of his friend, and for the most part, Shawn was letting him. They started talking again, but never brought up that day, until...

"I have to leave early," Shawn said abruptly. At the moment, they were at Cory's house, studying for their math final.

"What's up?" Cory asked, his mouth full of the apple he was munching.

"After I got out of the hospital, my social worker told me that I have to see a psychologist, and my appointment's today."

"Oh."

"So anyway, I have to leave in fifteen minutes. Sorry."

"It's okay," Cory said rapidly. "I'm almost done studying anyway."

"Can... can I come and talk to you after I'm finished?"

"Sure. I'll be here."

***

"Did you have the nightmare again?"

"Yeah," Shawn said wearily.

"Did you use the technique I told you about?"

"The free-writing? Yeah." Shawn pulled out a crumpled piece of paper. "Do you want me to read it to you?"

"If you like."

"Okay. It doesn't say much, though."

"Well, why don't you read it and then we can look at the words you used."

"Dark, no, bad." Shawn stopped reading and looked over at the other person. "I think... I think I remember."

It started when he was ten. His father, although trying the best he could for his young son, ended up in trouble and the child was removed from the home temporarily. He was placed with foster parents, the Heaths. The mother was meek and mild, and never said anything unless spoken to. The father was a bear, loudmouthed and boisterous, and very frightening to the young child. The first night, the child was fed well, and put in a bedroom with only a dresser and a bed. He was told to sleep well. The next night, while he lay in bed, a person came into the dark bedroom. "You want to be a good boy, don't you? You don't want to be bad..."

Horrible, unspeakable things were done to the boy that night. He was sick, and the man was incensed. "I told you to be a good boy! You will be punished for that."

And he was. The boy was beaten severely and food was withheld. The boy soon learned not to eat a lot at dinner, because he would be sick later with a full stomach. The assaults happened nightly, and the boy could tell no one, because no one would believe a child who was so bad that he had to be taken away from his father.

In time, the father got straightened out and reclaimed his child. He asked the child if he was all right, and the child answered yes. By that time, the horrors of what had happened had been pushed to the back of the child's mind, only to resurface in nightmares...

"I... didn't remember that before. Why now?"

"Shawn, you repressed the memory. It was always inside you. When you were placed in a situation where you felt threatened, your subconscious produced those memories in the form of dreams. And when your dreams were more threatening than reality, then you turned to self-mutilation to express the pain that you didn't know why you were feeling."

"How do I stop?" he whispered.

"It won't be easy. But I believe that you really want to get help, even though you were resistant at first. Tell you what. In addition to these meetings, I would like you to attend a group that meets on Saturday mornings. It's for adult survivors of sexual assault. You might benefit from hearing the other peoples' stories."

"Okay."

Two months later...

"We're really about to leave!" Cory and Shawn were in Chubbies, wanting to spend time in their favorite hangout before they went to college.

"I know. We're starting a whole new chapter in our lives," Shawn mused. He was fiddling with the straw wrapper. Suddenly he looked up from the small ball he had made and said, "I'm still coming to group after we leave."

"How's that going for you?" Shawn had told Cory a little about what had happened, but not all of it. He figured that one day, he would tell Cory the real reason that three months ago had been one of the hardest things he had gone through.

"It's good. I feel more... hopeful. That I'll be able to move past this."

"Good," Cory echoed. Then he stood up. "Ready to go?"

"Yeah." They walked together into the golden day.

END

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Again, thank you for your support of this series. For the person who said that this could help people... I hope so. If you need someone to talk to, there are a lot of sources for help out there. And find someone you trust- parents, teacher, minister, anyone you feel comfortable with- and talk to them! If you have any questions, feel free to e-mail me. Until next time...