A/N: Okay guys, time for Chapter 2. Let me just start by saying that I have very little medical knowledge (I am not a doctor, nor do I play one on TV) so my apologies if I got some things wrong. Thanks to all who reviewed!

Disclaimer: I do not own Jimmy Neutron, or any of the characters. I do, however, own Dr. Willows.

Jimmy opened his eyes, closed them, and then opened them again. Somewhere in the back of his mind he was still hearing screams, shouts, sirens, and metal carving metal like a Thanksgiving turkey. He rolled his eyes blearily around the room, taking in the scents and sights that were taking longer than usual to register. Antiseptic...windows...what is that weird beeping noise? He tried to turn his head in the direction of that incessant beeping, but a sharp blast of pain down his neck stopped him from doing so. He shut his eyes again, slowly piecing together where he was and why, and why taking a deep breath hurt so much, and why he couldn't move his head and -

The accident.

The sudden memory sent his brain into a tizzy, and everything came rushing back at once: getting in the car...saying something to Cindy...feeling the car take off too fast when he wasn't yet buckled in...

"Dad, what is this special you mentioned? It sounds oddly familiar..." Jimmy shoved his backpack to the side, watching his father's face burst into a grin in the front seat.

"It's the one we watched last winter when I saw those ducks flying overhead and decided to Google the words ducks and flying and see what comes up and..." Jimmy started to tune his father out as he watched a pickup truck veering dangerously close to the sidewalk. It looked like he was going to hit those people when suddenly -

"Dad, look out!" Jimmy yelled and shot forward in his seat to grab the wheel. If worse came to worse, maybe he could...

Jimmy gasped slightly and shuddered. Why had he done that? Why hadn't he stayed in the back, where it was safer? And how the heck had he survived being thrown like a projectile through the windshield of the car?

And what had happened to his dad?

He tried to sit up but found that this was too difficult to accomplish as waves of pain radiated down his spine and through his chest. Wheezing slightly, he slumped back down in defeat, tears blurring his vision. It was difficult to breathe, everything hurt, and a million questions were hurtling through his brain. "Hello?" he croaked, and he was surprised at how weak he sounded. For some reason, panic was beginning to set in...he didn't want to be alone. He raised a shaking hand and stared at it, eyeing the healing scabs, wondering where he'd gotten those, then realizing how stupid that was. Calm down. He took a deep breath and winced. Broken ribs were probably the culprit of this horrible ache in his chest and...was he wearing a neck brace? He reached up slowly and fingered it, trying to ignore the pain in his upper torso. Yes, he was in a neck brace...so more than likely he had a neck or brain injury. Hope it's not the latter. He swallowed carefully, and jumped when a stranger suddenly entered the room.

"I thought you might be awake," the middle-aged man said as he made his way over. He was short and stocky, balding, but his watery blue eyes were kind and focused. "Have you been up long?"

"No..." Jimmy practically whispered, then cleared his throat and tried again. "Not very."

"Okay," the man said. "I'm Dr. Willows. It's good to see you awake. What's your name?"

"Jimmy," he replied. "Jimmy Neutron." Dr. Willows stared down at the chart in his hand and nodded.

"Age?"

"Eleven."

"Where do you live?"

"Retroville, Texas."

"Good, good. You don't seem to be having any memory issues." He looked up from his chart over the rim of his glasses. "Do you remember what happened?"

"Yes," Jimmy said slowly. "I was in a car accident." He paused a moment and wheezed, "Where's my dad? Is he okay?"

"He's fine," Dr. Willows assured him. Jimmy breathed a sigh of relief. "Right now we want to focus on you, though. You...went through the windshield of the car upon impact. The resulting diagnosis was 6 fractured ribs, a punctured lung, severe head wounds including a concussion, whiplash, and a fractured collarbone." Dr. Willows let out a small puff of breath and stared at him. "You're seriously injured, Jimmy. You've been in a medically induced coma for a couple of days, because -"

"You were concerned about brain injury," Jimmy finished. Dr. Willows raised an eyebrow, amused. "Sorry," Jimmy began but the doctor only chuckled.

"Your reputation precedes you, Jimmy. Luckily, we've run some tests and you have suffered no serious brain injury...nothing that will affect you, anyway." His face got serious again and he continued, "Right now you're on a medical ventilator, Jimmy. The machine is helping you breathe because you cannot adequately do so on your own. As your lung heals, the surrounding tissues will inflame and make it difficult to breathe...a feeling akin to asthma, I suppose. You're also at risk for infection there, so we have to keep you here for awhile to monitor that and make sure everything is healing properly. And on top of everything else, those ribs are going to hurt every time you take a breath. I'd recommend lying on your side to ease the pain, but your motion is going to be extremely limited because of the whiplash in your neck. We have you on painkillers right now, and those should help, but I need you to do one thing for me, okay?" Jimmy nodded slowly and the doctor went on. "You must take a deep breath, at least once every hour. Otherwise, those short, quick breaths," the doctor demonstrated, "are going to put you at risk for pneumonia, and we don't want that."

"I understand," Jimmy croaked. He stared at the doctor for a moment, processing all of this new information, and slowly ventured, "But my dad's okay, right?"

"Yes," Dr. Willows said with an understanding smile. "He suffered a tibia fracture, and a concussion, along with some cuts and bruises. He'll be fine, don't you worry about it." Jimmy was about to ask where he was, when a frazzled woman suddenly burst into the room, panting for breath.

He quickly realized the woman was his mother.

"Oh, Jimmy!" she shrieked and rushed to his side. Her eyes were bloodshot, and she looked exhausted. Dark circles rimmed her eyes and she wasn't wearing any makeup. "Oh, thank God, thank God. I came as soon as I heard they were waking you up and -" She cut herself off. "Oh, my poor baby," she cooed and she planted a thousand kisses all over his face. "Where do you hurt, baby? What can I do?" She turned to the doctor then and asked, "What can I do for him? How can I help?"

"Mrs. Neutron," Dr. Willows began, and by the way he said it, Jimmy could tell they had already spoken to each other, probably more than once. "At this point, Jimmy will be under constant medical supervision, per our discussion on the phone. He seems to be functioning fine, and mostly everything looks good...right now we're just focusing on his healing. The best you can do is keep him company and keep that brilliant mind occupied." He winked and Jimmy gave a weak smile. "I'll leave you two. It's been a wild couple of days." He departed, then, and Jimmy slid his eyes back to his unkempt and obviously worried mother.

"Oh Jimmy," she started, and then burst into tears. He watched her cry for a moment, feeling strangely detached, but then he reached out and placed his hand over her own.

"I'm okay, mom," he whispered and she looked at him through tear-filled eyes.

"I was so scared," she responded in a similar tone and she squeezed his hand three times. "I got the call and...and when I heard you went through the windshield..." She closed her eyes and swallowed, sniffing hard. "I was terrified. I thought I had lost you both."

"Have you seen dad?" he asked, studying her tired features. She nodded slowly, wiping her eyes with her free hand.

"Yes, he's fine, baby," she said with a tiny laugh. "And he feels horribly guilty. They won't let him see you, though, till he's undergone a complete psychoanalysis...they're trying to make sure his constant talk about ducks is normal." He smiled at that and she did, too, both of them trying to ease the misplaced awkwardness of this reuniting. Her face changed suddenly, back into its solemn expression as she whispered, "Cindy saw the whole thing happen. She was there with you, Jimmy." He blinked in confusion for a moment, trying to remember...Cindy? After the accident? "Do you remember?" He racked his brain and felt warm hands holding his as he lay on the hot street...a voice...comforting him...

That had been Cindy?

"I do," he said quietly and swallowed. "Mom, is she...is she okay?"

"Yes honey, she's fine," she said with earnest and he wasn't sure why he had asked that question. "She came with you to the hospital. When I found her, she was...she was crying. Hysterically. Covered in blood, but it wasn't hers." Jimmy's face blanched, but she didn't seem to notice. "She was so scared, Jimmy. I tried to talk to her, but she ran out of the place like she was running for her life. I haven't seen her since." Mrs. Neutron sighed and seemed to snap out of her trance and looked at her son. "Everyone's been so worried, sweetie. Carl and Sheen have been asking everyday if you're okay. Libby. Sam. Ms. Fowl." She smiled at him then with a strange sort of relief and added, "At least now I'll have some good news to tell them. There was a point there where...where..." She started tearing up again and Jimmy did his best to comfort her in his limited state.

"But I'm here, mom. And I'm fine." To prove his point, he decided to take Dr. Willows' advice and take a deep breath. He pulled air into his lungs, slowly, and it hurt more than anything he had ever experienced before in his life. Tears sprang into his eyes involuntarily and he struggled to breathe for a moment. His mother stared at him with earnest, frightened eyes, but before she could ask anything, a nurse entered the room and proceeded to administer care and painkillers. It was at that moment Jimmy decided to hide his pain the best he could from his mother, who had already suffered so much at his expense. It seemed only fair.

"What? No. You must have the wrong number. No problem." Cindy hung up the phone and stared at it for a moment, before turning slowly and making her way back to the couch, where the TV blared with some God-awful soap opera. She leaned heavily on the worn arm of the couch and stared, mindlessly picking up the controls and continuing to flip through the channels like she'd been a minute before, before the call interrupted. This particular distraction - or least, what was supposed to be - was doing nothing to get her mind off of the past few days' events. Every time she closed her eyes, she heard the sound of the cars colliding. Every time she looked across the street, she couldn't help but notice the how empty the lab looked, even from the outside. And any time she was alone, she could still hear her own almost-fulfilled prophecy...

"Drop dead, Neutron!"

With a growl, she leaned over and shut off the television. Nothing would help. She was desperate to find out what had happened, but terrified at the prospect of finding out something she didn't really want to know. She had seen what had happened. She had watched him struggle to breathe, blood pour freely from his head and -

No.

How often her own thoughts haunted her. She tended to over think everything, and it made every situation all the more painful. Tears filled her eyes at the ever-present thought of him and she rested her head on the back of her seat, eyes closed. What was she doing here, exactly? What if she never saw him again? Was she going to let her fears keep her from actually knowing what had happened to him? Beyond her knowledge of him being in a medically induced coma, she had no clue as to what other injuries he had suffered. You coward. What had happened to her? Was the prospect of losing him that overpowering? Not knowing wouldn't change anything. Then again, knowing wouldn't either. At the very least, she should call. See what was going on. See if he was okay.

The sudden sound of the telephone ringing snapped her out of her train of thought, and she made her way back over, wiping away tears she didn't know she had shed. She placed a heavy hand on the receiver, sighed once, and answered with a weary, "Hello?" If this was the same people again, she would -

"Cindy? It's me, Jimmy's mom. I have some news for you..."