Johnny's car streaked through the night, the light from the street lamps becoming lines across the hood, the engine roaring like some feral animal.

But it wasn't enough. Not for me.

"Can't we go just a bit faster, Johnny?" I asked. Tense. Worried. Needing to go faster and my insane brain somehow convincing me I could get out and run faster than Johnny's car, so mixed up was my head at that moment.

"You know I can't." Johnny muttered, still audible over the car engine. "If I get pulled over, that's no help to anyone. Least of all to them!"

He was right of course.

I should shut up and keep quiet until we got to the hospital.

But I didn't.

"How far away are we now?"

"Ten miles." Johnny reported. "About two miles closer since you last asked me." He added, coldly.

"You could be a little more sympathetic." I muttered.

"Jac, you've been asking how close we are every couple of miles for the last few minutes. I'm right on the speed limit as it is. I can't go any faster, I'm sorry. I'm going as fast as I can. Don't you think I wanna get there too?"

"You're right. Sorry." I said, and really did fall silent this time.

For a moment anyway.

"I'm just so scared.."

Johnny looked at me, briefly, before turning his eyes back to the road. He reached out and squeezed my arm in the darkness of the car.

"Hey. They'll be ok. They're fighters." He said, reassuringly. But there was a doubtful edge to his voice that I didn't like.

"They'd better be.." I said under my breath.

No sooner had the car pulled into the hospital parking lot, than I was unbuckling my seatbelt with shaking hands.

Hold on, Tommy! Hold on! I'm here!

"Christ!" Johnny exclaimed in shock. "At least wait for me to park the car!"

"Sorry! Sorry!" I said, and put my face in my hands, fighting to keep control. Johnny found a spot and swung in, not caring that the car wasn't straight, and turned off the ignition. He reached and swiftly released his belt as I opened my door. Together, we crossed the parking lot and entered the hospital at a brisk march.

As we entered the waiting room a few minutes later, I could see Bobby and Jimmy sitting stiffly on chairs. Surprisingly, Dutch was also there in a hospital gown, with his right arm in a hefty cast and with black bruises down his right side. He sat, staring into space but with a thunderous expression on his face.

"Dutch," Johnny said, surprised, "why are you here, man? Shouldn't you be-..."

"Don't!" Dutch snapped, not breaking his thousand yard stare into the floor.

"The nurse already tried like hell. He won't stay in bed." Bobby informed us, his voice flat and expressionless.

I stood, staring at the door through to the wards. Tommy lay behind them somewhere. But I couldn't go and find him yet. The deprivation was scratching at my brain and making me restless and I found I couldn't even think of sitting down so, instead, I paced the waiting room. One side to the other. Five times. Fifteen times. Twenty-three times. My weird rationalising came back and I figured that, if I managed fifty full lengths of the waiting room, Tommy would be okay. So I counted.

Twenty-seven times.

Thirty-two times.

"Oh my God, Jac! Can you sit down!?" Johnny suddenly growled as I walked past him for the fortieth time.

"No." I said, shortly.

"It's irritating!"

"Hey, leave her alone, man! You know how close she is to Tommy and she's scared!" Bobby leapt to my defense.

Johnny punched the arm of the sofa he was on and stood up.

"..going to the bathroom." He hissed, and marched from the room.

I kept walking.

Kept counting.

Forty-three.

Forty-four.

Forty-five.

The door to the wards suddenly opened and a grave-looking, middle aged nurse with dark hair came through them. She looked at us all in turn. My stomach dropped through the floor.

"No! I'm not done yet!" I said, out loud. I had five more lengths to do.

The nurse didn't react beyond a momentary flicker of confusion before she gathered herself.

"Two of you can come in at a time." She informed us.

"Jac, you go." Bobby said, taking charge. "Dutch?"

"Nah, man." Dutch replied, his gaze still fixed on the floor.

"Okay then. Jimmy?" Bobby said, enquiringly, turning to Jimmy who hadn't spoken a single word since we'd arrived. "You've known Tommy the longest."

Jimmy nodded and stood up.

Before we walked out of the waiting room together, I turned to Bobby.

"What about Johnny?"

"We'll deal with him when he gets back." Bobby reassured me.

I nodded and looked up at Jimmy who looked back apprehensively. I could tell we were both feeling the same thing. Both of us were scared of what we'd see when we walked into that hospital room. I clutched Jimmy's arm in an attempt to comfort him, without saying anything, and Jimmy responded by reaching up and actually taking my hand. Jimmy had always been the most sensitive one out of all of us and this was going to be tough, especially considering how long he and Tommy had known each other. They'd been friends since elementary school. Together, we walked through the doors and were led down the corridor a short way.

I'd never liked hospitals. They smelt funny. They were too clean, too clinical, too cold. They were so unnatural and there was a constant atmosphere of foreboding in the air that I could almost taste.

We were led to a hospital room and the door was held open for us so we stepped inside. The nurse stayed in the corridor. Oh my God, it was horrible in here! It was all white walls and hard floor and chunks of metal apparatus all over the place.

And there, on a bed with a cold metal frame with cold white sheets, lay Tommy. I felt like my insides had collapsed as I looked. He lay with his head back on the pillow, his eyes closed, his face partially obscured by the plastic pipe that hooked him up to a ventilator. The visible skin was either sprayed with cuts (the worst ones stitched), bruised with hues of black and purple or covered in dressings. He looked so uncomfortable. Even unconscious, his mind elsewhere, away from this place.

I heard a noise to my right. Like a sob quickly stifled. I looked at Jimmy. He was standing stiffly, his hands flexing awkwardly, and biting his lower lip.

"Oh, Jimmy."

He looked at me just as a tear rolled down his cheek. He flicked it away, furiously. Cobras did not cry! I reached out to him and he fell on me, wrapping his arms around me and laying his head on my shoulder like a frightened child. He turned his face away from me but the shudders that ensued betrayed his silent sobs. I rubbed his back and stood with him for a moment.

After what could have been an hour but was probably less than a minute, I gently murmured,

"I have to-... I have to go and see him."

Jimmy nodded and let go of me, keeping his head turned away.

I left him to his own devices and walked over to Tommy's bed, sinking into a chair beside him. I couldn't believe it. No matter how long I looked at his face, my brain wouldn't accept that this was Tommy. I reached out and took his long-fingered hand in mine. There was no reaction. Not a twitch, not a flutter of his eyelashes, not a flex of his fingers. Nothing.

And that was when it hit me. It washed over me all at once. Tommy was lying here, unresponsive and broken. Some part of my brain seemed to instantly regress back to childhood and I wanted to shake him and wake him up. If I called his name, he'd hear me and wake and everything would be normal again. I didn't need much. I just needed him to open his eyes. I needed him to look at me. I didn't even need to hear him speak. I just needed something! Anything to show me he was still in there!

But nothing.

He just lay there.

He just lay there as his vitals bleeped across a screen and the ventilator hissed over and over again.

I wondered what had happened to the driver that had hit him and Dutch. Had he died? Some malicious and vengeful part of me hoped that he had! No matter how much Mr. Miyagi had taught me, I was still a Cobra. And the one responsible for this deserved no mercy from me!

"Tommy..." I whispered, and I crumbled. I lay my head on Tommy's bed, his hand still in mine, and sobbed. How could this have happened? How was this fair!? I couldn't fathom it.

There was a sudden shout in the corridor and the door opened violently. Johnny came striding in, the nurse's protests muted as the door swung shut. He stood there next to Jimmy who was still standing back.

"My God, Tommy...!" Johnny muttered, unable to believe what he was seeing.

He walked up and put a hand on my shoulder.

I turned and buried my face in his chest.

"Oh Johnny!" I sobbed.

Johnny stroked my hair.

"Ssh. Ssh. I know."

"I-... I can't-...!" I fought to speak. I didn't know what I wanted to say. I wanted to express my horror at what had happened, my anger at the driver responsible, my grief at Tommy's fate, but nothing seemed to encapsulate it. No words could do it justice. So I just sobbed.

Johnny wrapped both arms around me and held me close.

I could still see Jimmy hovering so I reached out a hand.

"Jimmy..."

Silently, Jimmy walked forwards a couple of paces and took my hand, still too shell-shocked to say anything. And the three of us just stood (or sat in my case), reeling at the whole situation.

Our morbid diorama was disturbed by a cry from the direction of the waiting room. The three of us glanced at each other and back at Tommy a few times. There was another shout.

"We should see what's up. I think that was Bobby." Johnny said, quietly, as though afraid he'd wake Tommy. He went to move towards the door and was followed by Jimmy. When he reached the door, he stopped. "Jac, c'mon. Tommy will be okay. He's not goin' anywhere."

Slowly, and without taking my eyes off Tommy's battered form, lying prone on the crisp hospital sheets, I stood up. With a lingering stare, I moved away and eventually followed Johnny out into the corridor.

Dutch was apparently not taking the situation well. Bruised and battered though he was, he was making his best attempt at kicking through a wall (and judging by the candy wrappers, paper cups and napkins all over the floor, he'd also sent the little basket trashcan flying). Bobby did his best to pull Dutch back and calm him down, only to be pushed roughly away with Dutch's good arm.

"..fuck away from me, man!" Dutch shouted.

"Please! There are sick people here!" The nurse was squealing, completely ineffectually. "You need to be in bed yourself!"

"You can shut up too, bitch!" Dutch bellowed, rounding on her.

"Dutch, man, take it easy!" Johnny shouted over the ruckus.

"Dutch, this isn't helping anybody. Please just try to calm down." I contributed.

"Why should I, huh!? The world ain't fair to us! So why should we be fair back!?" With that, he sent a pretty solid side kick at the wall and actually succeeded in chipping the plaster (the nurse shrieked).

"But beating up the waiting room, Dutch? How is that helping?" I asked.

"I DON'T CARE!"

Dutch kicked over a standing plant in the corner of the room, covering the already litter-strewn carpet with earth.

And then, as if the universe was deliberately trying to push Dutch to his limit, a very unwelcome visitor appeared in the doorway.

I stared as Mike Barnes stood, staring at the destruction, with a stunned look on his pale face.

Paler than normal...

"What the hell-..?." Bobby breathed, disbelievingly.

Dutch wheeled around to see who Bobby was looking at... and saw red. With another shriek from the nurse, Dutch vaulted the sofa that was in his way, paying no heed to the fact his hospital gown was coming undone, and grabbed Mike by the front of the red shirt he was wearing, slamming him against the wall.

"WHAT THE FUCK YOU DOING HERE?! WHY IS IT, WHENEVER TOMMY'S BEAT UP, YOU'RE NEVER FAR AWAY!?" Dutch yelled in his face.

But, unlike the Mike Barnes we knew, he didn't react. He didn't raise his arms to defend himself. He didn't yell back. He didn't throw a punch. He just looked blank. His eyes, instead, came to rest on me.

"Where is he?" He asked, quietly, his voice sounding oddly far away.

"I ASKED YOU A QUESTION, ASSHOLE! AND YOU CAN STAY THE FUCK AWAY FROM TOMMY! WAS IT YOU, HUH!? WERE YOU THE ONE THAT HIT US!? YOU COME HERE TO BRAG, IS THAT IT!?"

"Where is he?" Mike asked me again, more insistent this time. His expression remained the same. Blank.

Dutch growled and pulled Mike forwards so he could slam him against the wall a second time. Mike winced but, otherwise, didn't do a thing.

"Why?" I asked, sharply.

"I just... I wanna make sure he's okay. Is he okay?" Mike asked and I was shocked to hear genuine concern in his voice.

"THAT'S NONE OF-...!"

"DUTCH, SHUT IT!" I yelled. And Dutch did. His head whipped round and he stared at me, not used to having me act so aggressive towards him. He did, however, maintain his grip on Mike but it seemed needless. Mike didn't seem to have any intention of moving anywhere.

I stepped forwards and addressed Mike.

"Why do you want to know about Tommy?" I asked, calmly, aware that my face was still red from crying.

"I-... I was-... I was in the car that hit 'em." Mike said, falteringly.

Dutch snarled and pulled Mike forwards again, ready to slam him back against the wall a third time but I grabbed his arm.

"Don't!" I warned him. I looked back at Mike. "You? So it was you driving the car!? Give me one good reason I shouldn't let Dutch finish you off! Or, better still, kick your head off your shoulders myself!"

"No! I wasn't driving!" Mike insisted. "I was in the back seat. Snake was driving. We got wasted at some party. We were on the way back when we hit 'em."

Dutch pulled Mike up close to his face.

"Then where's this Snake bastard, huh!?" He hissed. "I'm gonna give him what's comin' to him!"

"He's dead." Mike replied, flatly.

I stared.

So that explained the stunned expression, the total detachment, the unwillingness to defend himself.

"Mike... I..."

"So, this guy... Tommy? Is he okay?" Mike cut me off.

"He's in a coma, no thanks for askin'!" Jimmy suddenly piped up, speaking for the first time. "That all you wanted to say?"

"He... for real?" Mike stuttered.

"Yeah. So now you know how he is. Nice talkin' to ya!" Dutch growled and threw him towards the door. Mike stumbled but managed to stay standing. He straightened up and looked back at us for a moment before turning slowly and walking away down the corridor.

"Mike!" I called.

Mike turned.

"Sorry." I said, sincerely.

Mike nodded and walked away as though in a trance. Where he was going, I had no idea.