Monday, December 14th, 4:00 p.m.

"Stroud!" A voice said, accompanying a banging on plexiglass, "You've got a visitor."

Christopher heard the man's words but did not feel a pressing urge to act on the information. Christopher's head rested on a threadbare pillow. He had pulled his knees up to his chest and wrapped his arms around them. The fabric square this institution generously referred to as a blanket had fallen off of him and now rested on the floor, but Christopher hadn't noticed, nor had he made any move to pick it up.

"You're going to want to see this one, Stroud," the man said. This man sounded like the one with the name tag that read, Hoff.

As far as the orderlies went, Hoff was the one with the most humanity. The others quickly saw everyone as "patients" to be separately cataloged than actual people. Still, Hoff treated Christopher like a human being who was just having a rough time instead of somebody with a mental disorder. If Christopher could force himself to speak at that moment, he would have told the man how much it meant to him, but Christopher hadn't spoken for a long time.

"Christopher," Hoff said, "Come on, man, if you don't get up, they're just going to drag you out of there, and neither of us wants that."

Hoff's words made sense, but the man didn't understand. Christopher's body didn't want to listen to sense. The world didn't make sense, and his body refused to play the world's games any longer. Christopher's mind was in league with his body, and the only sounds that managed to escape his mouth were the whispers of prime numbers, but even those were just muscle memory and offered no solace.

Once the others forced him up, he would be able to walk, but autonomy was out of his grasp. It was all he could manage to follow even basic orders. Christopher wanted to tell Hoff that he heard the man and would have loved to get up and make this easier on all of them, but none of this was easy. Christopher must look catatonic from Hoff's perspective.

"Come on, man, it's your daughter for God's sake. I know you can hear me. I've dealt with patients like you. The light is there. Now shake yourself out of it. She's your girl, man. Step up. For her."

Christopher urged his body to listen, but it refused to cooperate. It knew that Christopher was the last thing Gracie needed. He'd been an idiot to think he could change himself enough to take care of someone else. Christopher could barely take care of himself. The last time Gracie saw him, he'd been a hero. That's the image he wanted her to remember, not this pathetic, unmoving wretch in a psychiatric hospital.

After the events at the Nueva Vista Drive-In, the authorities had questioned Christopher and thought his contributions to their investigations were not overly useful. Christopher didn't fault them for that, but they perceived his inability to communicate as mental instability bordering on hostility. It wasn't his fault he'd reacted with violence when they tried to touch him.

Why did they need to touch me?

The authorities made Christopher wait in a cell. He hadn't been able to defend himself or explain what had happened. He wanted to tell them he had a daughter waiting for him, but all those words were out of reach. They'd known all along. Christopher discovered that piece of information when his public defender came in and told him the authorities were forbidding him from seeing Gracie for the foreseeable future. At the time, the words sent Christopher into a screaming, and crying rage with prime numbers shouted at officers in lieu of expletives. Now Christopher understood the wisdom of their decision.

Not only did Gracie not deserve to have someone so unstable in her life, but Christopher did not wish for her to see him like this. She had seen enough of him come completely unhinged to last a lifetime, and he would never be able to forgive himself for it.

Christopher heard the heavy release of the lock disengaging. Hoff and the orderly, Jameson, a hulking fellow invaluable in patient transport, entered the room and approached Christopher with slow and measured steps. Their orderlies hand their hands held out for if Christopher had another meltdown.

The whole roster of orderlies now had experience hauling Christopher around to make him do functions necessary for life like showering, brushing his teeth, and eating. The only one who didn't seem to mind was Hoff, and the man even held one-sided conversations with Christopher from time to time. The man wasn't working with a plethora of intelligence, but Christopher appreciated the modicum of mental stimulation nonetheless.

Ever since the original meltdown, Christopher's body at least made it easy on the gentlemen. It didn't attack them or resist them, and it started to do the functions they wanted it to perform when they got started. Once they grabbed Christopher's shoulders and waist and propped him onto his feet, his body stood up and acquiesced to their ministrations.

They changed his clothes and styled his hair into something with more visual appeal than bedhead. Christoper liked to wear his hair short, but this past month had seen it grow out longer than he was comfortable. His body was unwilling to inform the orderlies.

Aside from his room and the adjacent hallway, Christopher hadn't been anywhere else in the facility. He didn't participate in group or outdoor recreation time, and they brought him his meds instead of making him get them. Now that Christopher was finally venturing beyond the familiar, and his body didn't want to consent. The edges of his vision blurred, but he held the meltdown at bay and asked his body to keep moving. It could handle a change of scenery if it meant seeing Gracie, but he didn't think he could hold back the meltdown if she started crying.

Never again.

Hospital slippers made his feet slap against the floor in a muffled sound that Christopher started to differentiate and dial in on. The regular rhythm soothed him to a certain degree. It gave his mind a meaningless tempo to focus on. Christopher hoped that wherever they took him would be secluded from the external stress of others. He knew he couldn't handle the excess stimuli of additional people and sounds. The chaotic maelstrom of daily human interactions was not something he was capable of dealing with at the best of times.

Christopher knew the double doors he was being led to were the doors that had ushered him into the facility over a month ago, but he couldn't remember anything on the other side. A mind fog had blurred everything that hadn't been in his immediate vicinity at the time.

The door slid open with the noiselessness of regular maintenance and the liberal application of WD-40. Christopher's eyes were glued to the floor, fixating on the orderly arrangement of the linoleum tiles. They consisted of light and dark grays. Three rows of lights for every dark row, and there was not a speck anywhere in sight. He wondered for a moment who was paying for his stay in such an immaculate facility. Still, financial matters had never concerned Christopher for any extended length of time. This instance was no exception. He just grasped at anything to distract him from the present moment.

"Daddy?" A voice tinkled in the air, like the single, melodious bell in an orchestra.

Hoff's elbow nudged the tender spot on Christopher's ribs underneath the armpit.

"Say something, man, or do something. Anything." A moment passed, "It's the thought that counts."

Christopher looked up to see his daughter in an outfit he didn't recognize. It featured a blue pony that Christopher already knew he did not like. Did anyone else even know that Gracie doesn't like cartoon horses? A pang of sorrow and self-loathing hit Christopher, that he couldn't have been there to tell whoever was raising his daughter about her preferences.

Of their own accord, his feet moved forward, always careful to avoid any cracks in the tiles' pattern. Once he started moving, Gracie rushed forward in response, closing the distance between them in a manner of milliseconds. Christopher clutched her like a life preserver, and warmth flowed through his body, cleansing the ether that had been dampening his mind and emotions.

Salty tears stung his eyes before running tracks down his cheeks and going into his mouth.

"I'm sorry," his mouth said over and over again.

"It's okay, Daddy. I know you didn't mean to do anything bad," she said.

Christopher knew that she wasn't just referring to his stay in a psychiatric hospital. She meant everything he'd done, and her statement made him cry with more intensity. The sobs shook his thin frame, and he hugged her tighter.

"I don't know what to do anymore," he said. Christopher had wanted to put on a brave face for Gracie, but that too had been out of reach. The guilt threatened to overwhelm him.

"Hey!" She shouted, grabbing both of his cheeks with her hands, "You need to get out of this place. Grandma and Grandpa are weird," she said.

Despite himself, Christopher chuckled. He knew all too well about being under the spotlight of Jill and Johnathon Stroud.

Christopher cast his eyes downward. Gracie tried to pull his face back to meet his eyes, but he wouldn't let her.

"I'm sorry, honey. I can't do that yet," he replied.

"Nuh-uh," she said in a pouty voice that Christopher had never heard before, "Grandma and Grandpa said you could come out whenever you want."

Christopher hadn't known this, and his first instinct was to demand to be released so that he could take care of his daughter, but a pit sank to the bottom of his stomach. He had never cared for Gracie without Kate's help. He'd never even been left alone with her for more than a couple of hours at a time. Kate was always there.

"I can't take care of you," Christopher said softly enough that Gracie was the only one that could have heard.

"But you're my daddy, and you have to because mommy's gone," Gracie replied.

"I'm not good enough to be your daddy yet," Christopher said, lowering his head, "But I will be. Pinky promise."

Christopher raised his hand and extended his pinky. A deep sadness filled his daughter's eyes, but she raised her pinky to mirror his own.

When their pinkies entwined, Christopher knew he would become the man she needed him to be.

Someday.