This Place is a Prison, Trey, Ryan, and Marissa

[Ryan Atwood]

hearing the little girl's name, ryan smiled sweetly at her and how cute she was being. as she explained that she was her daddy's flower, ryan thought of sydney and the nickname he had given her. bear. but when she asked if the bad man did something to him, his smile try wry and he shook his head sadly. "no, but i hurt myself," he replied somberly, raising the one hand that wasn't handcuffed to show her the damage that had been done by his own attack.

but before the exchange could continue, a nurse came into the room and looked at the little girl sitting next to ryan. "miss. tara, your daddy's looking for you young lady," she scolded with a gentle smile, waiting for the four-year-old to hop on down from her perch and go on her way as she tended to do. "thank you for visiting me tara," the eighteen-year-old gracious stated to the little girl as she started to turn away from him.

[Marissa Cooper]

"no, but i hurt myself,"

Tara looked at the man's hand with wide eyes. He did that to himself? No wonder he had been crying! If anything, Tara woulf expect someone to start screaming if they had done that to their own hand.... or at least she would have.

"miss. tara, your daddy's looking for you young lady,"

"But I like it here!" Tara protested, going back to kicking her legs with a wide smile across her face. She didn't want to worry her daddy too much, though, so she got down off of the chair and ran forward to grab the nurse's hand.

"thank you for visiting me tara,"

Tara dropped the nurse's hand when she heard the man speak again. She turned around, scurrying back next to the man's bed and holding up the dollar bill she had been holding, trying to push it into his hand. "There's a candy machine on this floor!" she told him, excited. Candy always made her feel better, and this man clearly needed it more than she did. "Bye, mister!" she giggled as she skipped back over to the nurse, leading the way back to her daddy because the hospital was so big and she didn't want the nurse to get lost.

[Ryan Atwood]

"There's a candy machine on this floor!"

smiling as the little gave him her dollar, she had scurried away before he could hand it back to her as the selfless guy he was. so, clenching the wrinkled bill in his fist, a doctor came in his room shortly after the girl and nurse left, looking at his hand and 'tutting' to himself in disappointment. in a matter of about fifteen minutes, ryan's hand was properly bandaged and the blonde was released from the handcuffs as he was given instructions on caring for his hand.

now sidling (what a fun word) down the hall towards marissa's room, he was surprised that his hand hadn't taken more work. after all, he had done quite a number on it before, and he hadn't gotten any treatment there. who knows. entering the room that marissa was in slowly, he allowed his blue eyes to cast down towards the ground in any attempt to be ... well, it wasn't an attempt, but he was a tad ashamed of his 'rage/grief blackout'. what else could he have done though? you tell me.

[Marissa Cooper]

Let's face it, Marissa had been fairly devastated when, after hearing Ryan struggle with another hospital official, he was taken into another room. She had been expecting--even counting on--Ryan to be there for the next parts of her examination. Some of it had been pretty embarassing, really. Once they had finished stitching her up, someone came in with a tape recorder and a notepad and asked her exactly what happened... asking for details that Marissa simply didn't want to talk about. They scraped under her nails for traces of Paul's skin, combed through all of her hair into a paper towel. The doctors asked for all of her clothes, giving her hospital gown to change into while her clothes were put in paper evidence bags. They turned on an ultraviolet light and swabbed the traces of saliva that were found on her neck, chest, and shoulders. They then swabbed her mouth, as well, and--asking Trey to step outside for a few moments--gave her a pelvic exam. Most everything was documented in polaroid pictures. All-in-all, by the end of the entire search for forensic evidence and checking for infections and injury she was feeling thoroughly..... humiliated.

A doctor was explaining to Marissa the effects of the misoprostol to abort Chase just as Ryan reappeared. (seeing as how I don't have the energy to look up the exact procedures, I'm just going to say that she was injected with the stuff) Around this time, she was feeling horribly numb. She was sitting in a cold room in a hospital gown, having had her entire body searched over and being told she had lost her son, most of this without her husband.... how else was she supposed to deal with it? She didn't have enough energy or emotion left to acknowledge Ryan more than glancing over at him.

If was just a few minutes longer before the doctors and the SAFE started sifting out, leaving Marissa alone with Ryan, finally. She just looked up at him, not saying a word--not sure right then if there was anything left for her to say or do.