Hospital Reunions


Quinis - Ohh... does the hospital part where Nathan finds out about his real family and his real family finds out what really happened to him feature in the excerpts?

This prompt is set between "Ryder versus The Antagonist" chapters 1 and 2.

(I currently plan to post the excerpts and completed prompts in the order of occurrence based on the layout of "Ryders versus The Antagonist.")


Moriah Camden:

After being separated from my family for so long, it was a surprise when my nephew gave us the strangest call the other day. He said that Nate was alive and that he had arranged for a DNA test to prove it. The test was positive that he was my little Nate, all grown up.

Passing the phone to my husband, I simply sat down where I stood and thought through the implications of what that meant. My baby wasn't dead! For years I could have been struggling to tell the difference between my own twins. I could have been watching two little boys play games and heard two sets of laughter filling the home. There wouldn't have been that look of sadness and longing in Neal's eyes as he watched his cousins play and laugh with their twins and siblings. My husband would have had two boys to teach instead of teaching Neal while wishing that Nate was there to challenge him. There were so many things that would have been different if he had been here, where he belonged.

As my mind got past the knowledge that my boy was alive, I found myself filled with questions. Was he okay, did he know about us, what had his life been like, what happened to separate him from us, and all of those questions that any concerned mother would wonder under the circumstances.

Seeking my husband, I realized that he was still on the phone with Nick and I couldn't wait to get a chance to ask some more questions of my own.

Noticing the look on my face through his shock, Nathan passed me the phone and gave me the chance to ask some of my questions while he took some time to absorb the information.

The answers that I received hurt. Nate had been tortured nearly to death after being confused for someone else in an operation (likely his brother). He was unconscious and wouldn't be able to know about us for a while yet, but he was aware that something had happened to put him with a family that wasn't his own. Nick assured me that his theory was a switch at birth for a doctor to avoid investigations into his actions and that I could ask Nate the rest of my questions once he was well enough to handle the information.

Now as I stand pacing the waiting room, it is so hard not to be able to be there for him.

The doctors agree that the shock of waking up to a stranger claiming to be his mother would be too much for him at the moment.

So, while I wait, I continue to alternate between pacing the floor and sitting while watching what occurs around me.

One son is simply on the other side of glass and surrounded by machines. I watch as the nurses come and go, the doctors make visits, Nick keeps us up to date, and the machines show steady signs of life that are reassuring in their own ways.

My other son continues to pace the floor as well, but with a more agitated air. I can tell that he is feeling guilty for something that he couldn't have helped. Yes, he is the agent that Nate was confused for and the reason that the villains hurt him, but it wasn't his fault. Neal had no idea that his brother was alive and therefore had no idea that they needed to be taking precautions to avoid being confused for each other in the field. At the end of each of his rounds, he stops and stares at his brother for a few moments. I think he is still adjusting to the knowledge that his brother isn't dead after all and elated that he will get the chance to do all of those twins games that he missed out on growing up…

Nathan on the other hand, is feeling a mixture of anger at the doctor and guilt towards himself. As the father of Nate, he feels that it was his responsibility to look closer into details when his perfectly healthy son was declared dead. I feel the same, but we had looked into the circumstances at the time and the team hadn't found anything to state any particular wrong action on the part of our doctor… no one thought to check into the other doctors.


Nathan Camden:

We had the first contact from our family the other day. It had been years since my wife's family had reached out to us for fear of endangering the children if we drew attention to us and risked the Antagonist finding us again.

I found my wife standing with the phone clutched in her white fingers and a shocked expression on her face. My first fear was that something had happened to Neal. When she passed me the phone and sat on the floor, that fear intensified.

Shaking with nerves, I accepted the phone only to be surprised at who spoke on the other end. Instead of the FBI supervisor that I was expecting, he identified himself as being my nephew Nicholas Neal. My fear for Neal was relieved, but then it switched to wondering what was going on that would cause the family to reach out to us again after so long.

My curiosity was answered soon enough, and it wasn't all good news. It turned out that the call was concerning my son, but the one that we thought was dead. I was shocked to learn that Nate was alive with a DNA test to prove it.

All these years, if only we had looked deeper, searched harder, insisted on another investigation…. Anything that could have brought our son to us then, instead of having to wait eighteen years to discover that we missed out on so much lost time. For a moment, his words took a back seat behind the previous news that Nate was alive and severely injured.

When I looked back to see my wife standing with a look that said she was now ready to ask a series of questions, I passed her the phone back so that I could take some time to collect my thoughts.

Time became a blur after that as we collected enough things to last for an extended stay and rushed to rejoin our family. We stayed with Nick's parents and spent a lot of time catching up with their children while we waited for the chance to get to know our son.

The visits to the hospital were filled with pacing the halls, simply standing and watching, or sitting and waiting. Needless to say, it was difficult to be at the hospital, but impossible to stay away.


Neal Thomas Camden:

It started as a routine FBI investigation and ended up changing my life forever.

I was sitting at my desk working on reports when I received the first call that informed me that a DEA agent has been nearly killed after being confused for an FBI agent involved with our current investigation. When I asked who he had been mixed up with, I was surprised to find that he had been confused for me.

My mind roamed back to the day that my parents had told me that I had a twin brother, a twin that had died the day we were born for no known reason. He had been healthy, and then he was dead. It hurt me as my mind thought… what if this agent was my twin brother still alive after all? The thought was quickly shoved aside as my brother was dead and anything else was simply wishful thinking that hurt. Still, the thought had entered my head and an element of hope had entered my heart that was so hard to deal with and yet impossible to get rid of.

When I didn't get another call about the subject, I thought that the situation had been resolved and the agent had simply had a general similarity of dark hair and blue eyes. Then I got a visit that I didn't expect and that cause my heart to soar.

Nick was led into my office by my supervisor and informed me that he had news of the agent that had been confused for me.

"Neal, I don't want to get you excited to drop your hopes but you need to know this. He is severely injured and not completely out of the woods yet, but he is alive. I found Nate and it was another newborn that he was switched with the day you were born. Before you ask if I am sure, he is a mirror image of you and I had a DNA test taken to confirm before I called your parents. Since you were here and already familiar with the other agent part, I felt that it would be better if I showed up and told you myself."

It was a good thing that I was already sitting down as the sight of my cousin and the information about my twin was too much to remain standing. Providing the information on the hospital, it turned out that my brother, the Nicholas household, and I weren't all that far apart, despite all of the separations that had occurred.

My uncle was waiting in another part of my office (my twelve year old cousin might be a doctor but he wasn't travelling alone). He agreed to give me a ride to the hospital and we set off.

That first time that I saw my brother had me falling straight down with my uncle and cousin catching me. They helped me over to a chair where I could watch him the machines that told me Nate was still alive. He looked awful as he was deathly pale and covered with injuries. The machines had a steady rhythm to them that told me was okay for now, but it would be sometime before he would be recovered enough for us to tell him the truth.

Talking to my cousin and the agents who had worked with my brother gave me a good idea of what to expect, but I still really wanted to meet him for myself.

Then my parents joined me. The waiting game became a full family event and the first of many reunions to come.


Nathan Daniel Camden:

It was like a dream come true… in a twisted sense.

I had grown up in an environment where I was the ugly duckling who didn't fit in with my parents and wondered what was wrong with me. Now, I realized that I was the swan chick that was placed in the wrong nest and raised amongst the ducks. Not to say that the Bennetts are ducks while the Camdens are swans, but the childhood story is a good way to describe how I am feeling.

For a while now, I have been wondering who I was, what my family was like, did they know that I was missing, and so many other questions that I was unsure if I would ever receive all of the answers.

Then, I got a blessing in disguise when I was mistaken for my brother and nearly tortured to death.

The situation turned to a blessing in disguise when my cousin turned out to be my doctor by coincidence. Nick was able to recognize the family features as he worked on me and after I was settled into a room he went to work trying to figure the situation out.

Digging through the old hospital records he found an anomaly that showed an old description of a newborn baby changing a bit too quickly to be natural. With the new idea in his head that maybe I was switched with someone else, he started digging into that boys files. Comparing my files with the files of Neal Bennett, he found the data matched and that I had in fact been switched with him, according to the files.

With solid proof that there was a likely switch, Nick was able to arrange for a legal DNA check to make certain that I was in fact Nathan Daniel Camden. When that came back as positive it was time to start the legal river of efforts to right the wrong.

When I woke up, Nick went through the steps of making sure that I was okay. After a while in the hospital, I recovered enough to handle the news that he had to deliver, the news that my identity had been discovered and confirmed while I slept.

One morning Nick walked into my room and told me that we needed to talk about why he had switched to consulting on my case instead of being my primary physician. At my surprise, he said that he was my cousin so he was unable to be my primary physician without breaking the hospital's rules.

Stuttering in shock I asked "C-cousin?"

Approaching the topic with direct but caring means, he answered. "Yes, and it has been confirmed by DNA. There are a lot of things in this file that may be shocking to you, but I have spent a lot of time researching and verifying it to be able to tell you who you are and a viable approximation as to what happened.

As he settled down in a seat next to me, I simply stared at him with a mixture of curiosity and incredulity.

"To start with, my name is Nicholas Neal Ryder. You are my fist cousin on my mother's side. Our family is predominantly involved in government work and we have a lot of enemies. Several years ago those enemies started hurting the children of the family and caused us to separate and hide under new identities.

Keeping that in mind, I want to go into the details of who you are and how I know that before I give you the file.

I was initially your physician who worked on you when you came in. Your features are recognizable as being a Camden and when I asked your fellow agents your identity was a blank spot. After you were settled into your room, I went to work going back into the hospital records for you and the boy you grew up as. Looking at the details, it showed that Bennett was born ill while you were born healthy. Based on the fact that you were declared dead, I would assume that Bennett died and his doctored feared a search into his records for the possibility of malpractice. In order to avoid the issue, it is likely that he switched you for Bennett. The records show your weights and various details being logged and when your measurements lined up accurately between the two identities while keeping your measurements in one identity didn't match, I had proof of a likely switch. Following the line of evidence, a DNA test was done to test you against me, as I am the handiest relative. It was positive that you were my family member which left the next issue to be which one.

To explain that last statement, I have to go into who you are. Your mother is Moriah and your father is Nathan Camden. The part that is going to be especially surprising is that you have a younger brother… an identical twin named Neal Thomas. You are the older of two brothers and your name is Nathan Daniel Camden.

Even though I haven't seen your brother in several years, you look like an older version of him. I would assume that he is the FBI agent that you were mixed up with on your operation. He has been notified and is waiting with your parents. When you have had some time to come to terms with all of this, they are only a call away.

Also, I should probably warn you… twins run in the family and I have three identical brothers. You'll only have to worry about two pulling your leg though as the youngest was taken when we were toddlers."

I simply stared at him for a few moments while he sat by quietly watching me absorb the information with a subtle excitement. As my mind wrapped around the information, I requested to see the file in order to see pictures and run through the information again with my own eyes.

Reading the data, it quickly became clear that my real family was honorable with a history of doing the right thing no matter the cost. Also, it was a relief to find that academics, athletics, and artistic abilities were normal, which meant that I wouldn't be an odd duck out with traits that didn't fit in with those around me.

The more the details settled in and the more I knew that I could trust this family I had lost, the more my smile grew and the tension left. I was home… and I couldn't wait to get to know the family that had been taken from me for so long!


In conclusion.

The doctor who had hidden the death and switched out the newborns faced his investigation after an eighteen year delay. It turned out that he had done nothing wrong in the case of the care of Neal Bennett, but he feared that an investigation would uncover his illicit activities that he had committed. A decade plus sentence awaited him behind bars with no chance of parole.

There was a clear conscience for the Camden doctor who had been questioning what had caused the mystery for eighteen years. He had become somewhat paranoid about the health and care of the babies that he delivered with the hope of never having to tell the parents such news of a healthy baby dying, again. Despite having retired, he was delighted when two identical twins took advantage of some down time to stop by and tell him what had transpired.

As expected the bad guys that had confused the twins were caught and faced charges for their crimes with the new additions of kidnapping and attempted murder of a Federal Agent.

The agents who had worked with the twins were amused and congratulatory for the twins who were united after so long apart and such a close call with Nate's near death. For Nate's coworkers, they were relieved to see him discovering his identity, family, and receiving closure about his past. Neal's coworkers were happy to know that his brother turned out to be alive after all. (Nate hadn't been a free flowing topic of conversation with Neal due to his feelings about missing out on opportunities with his brother. In fact, there were coworkers who didn't even know that he had had a twin).

All in all it was a happy ending for those involved and justice long overdue for the culprit who caused the separations.