-Chapter 2-

Larry was panicky. He was sitting on a hard plastic chair watching hundreds of unfamiliar people move around him. He had spent a few minutes watching the people sitting across from him. Then he started watching others walking by. Then he started to feel dizzy. He leaned forward and rested his elbows on his knees, his head dropped into his palms. He closed his eyes and tried to quiet his mind.

He had been in this place for only a half an hour, but he had left his house nearly twelve hours earlier. A series of alarms sounded followed by yelling in a foreign language that he was becoming used to hearing. When he opened his eyes and looked up, he found there was a soldier standing in front of him.

"Mr. McCoy?" Larry stood up, nodding his head. "Have you been waiting long?" Larry shook his head.

"No. I just got here." He turned behind him and picked up his coat. The soldier gestured down the hall to his left.

"If you'll just come this way sir." Larry nodded dumbly and started walking. The soldier fell into step next to him. They stopped near a bank of elevators and the soldier pressed the up button. He said nothing as they waited. Larry stared at his reflection in the mirrored doors in front of him.

He hated hospitals. Nothing good ever happened in them. Well, he thought, except for when Danny was born. He smiled absently at the memory of his son as a newborn, bright red and screaming, already mad at the world.

The sound of the elevator doors opening brought Larry back to reality. He followed the man accompanying him onto the elevator. Staring up at the numbers as they lit up and blinked out one by one, Larry found himself thinking of his son once again.

Danny had come to tell him that the Marines had recalled him to service. Larry had been so angry at the news, but mostly he had been scared. He had told him to be careful and to come home safe. He hadn't listened and now Larry's worst fears were becoming reality.

The elevator doors slid open and the two men inside walked out. The entered a small waiting room across the hall. The soldier stood next to a worn couch and gestured to Larry.

"Please sit down. The doctor will be here in a few minutes." Only after Larry had sat down did the other man turn and leave.

It was nearly another half-hour before anyone else came into the waiting room. Larry was getting more and more agitated. He wanted to know what was going on. He was beginning to worry that it was taking too long… what was the problem?

And then the doctor was there. For a long minute Larry could only stare at him. He couldn't make himself stand up to meet this man, or even raise his hand to greet him. Worst of all, he couldn't seem to hear a word he was saying.

"Mr. McCoy?" Larry blinked and started nodding quickly.

"Yes, yes… I'm sorry." The doctor sat down next to Larry and put his hand on his arm.

"It's all right." He smiled politely. "I'm Dr. Miller. I've been in charge of Daniel's case since he was brought in."

"Danny." Larry said weakly.

"Excuse me?"

"Danny, he goes by Danny." Dr. Miller smiled and made a note on the paperwork in front of him.

"We were wondering what to call him." Larry stared at the man in front of him. He allowed himself a moment of hope, a moment not to expect the worst. He opened his mouth to ask the question he had been dreading since the phone call he had received early this morning, but nothing came out. Dr. Miller looked up from his papers, which he had been shuffling, and cleared his throat. "Let's get down to it then." He put the paperwork face down on the table next to him and looked at Larry, his expression completely unreadable. "Danny was brought in nearly forty-eight hours ago now. I'm really unclear about the circumstances of what happened before that, but I will try to fill in as much as I can." Larry could only nod. "Please, feel free to stop me and ask anything that you need to."

"Okay." The doctor shifted himself slightly in his chair and seemed to wait until Larry appeared ready.

"Danny is in serious condition, but at the moment he is stable. He came out of surgery two hours ago. His left leg was nearly shattered. We put in pins to hold it together while it heals, but some of them may have to stay in permanently." The doctor stopped and cleared his throat again. He looked quickly down at his hands and then back up at Larry, who was beginning to relax slightly. "Now for the more serious part. Danny is in a coma. He has major head trauma." Once again, Larry could only stare at Dr. Miller. His head was swimming and he put up a hand to stop the doctor as he closed his eyes. After taking a few deep breaths, he opened his eyes again and forced himself to look up at the doctor.

"I'm alright. Please keep going." The doctor was looking at him nervously.

"Are you sure? Because I could get some…"

"Please. I just need to hear it." Dr. Miller nodded.

"Okay. Like I said there is a lot of swelling in his brain that's going to need some time to go down. Until that happens, we can't be sure of any damage, permanent or temporary." Dr. Miller watched Larry's eyes darting toward the hallway and the way he was wringing his hands on the edge of his sweatshirt. "We'll talk later about more of the details, but right now I want you to be with your son." Larry's eyes shifted back to the doctor and his features moved between relief and fear.

"Good. Yes. I… yeah…" He stuttered a little more and finally stopped. "Yes, I need to see him." Dr. Miller nodded his head.

"Before I take you to his room, I need to prepare you for what he's going to look like. I don't want you to be surprised. Okay?" Larry nodded, the fear finally settling across his face. "Alright, there's a tube down his throat to help him breathe." As Larry closed his eyes briefly, the doctor decided to move this along. "There are quite a few other tubes and wires that are helping us monitor him and keep him stable, IVs and such. There are some bandages on the back of his head and his forehead and of course the cast on his leg. Other than all that, he's got quite a few cuts and bruises that are mainly superficial and he's got what we call raccoon eyes. That's a condition that comes with the type of head injury he's had. It is just what it sounds like. He looks like he has two black eyes. Because of the severity of Danny's injury, they're pretty dark. But it's nothing to worry about, just like any other bruise they will go away." Larry opened his mouth but paused. "Please ask… there really are no wrong questions in this kind of situation."

"Will he have vision problems because of that raccoon eyes thing?" Dr. Miller shook his head.

"He shouldn't. But again, we really won't know any thing definitely until the swelling goes down." He took a deep breath before finishing what needed to be said. "I have to tell you Mr. McCoy, that there is a chance that the swelling could go down and he won't have any brain function." Dr. Miller stopped, wondering if he needed to expand on what he had said. There was no reaction from Larry, so he went on. "The next several days will be very important in his recovery and we won't cross any bridges until we come to them."

Larry felt like he had been punched in the stomach. There was his worst fear. This doctor had just told him that his son could die. His Danny. Larry let his head drop down and allowed himself a minute of flat out fear. But that couldn't last. He had to be strong and take care of his son. He pulled himself together and looked up at Dr. Miller.

"Okay." Larry stood up and picked up his things. "Let's go see him." He forced a weak smile on his face and was relieved to see it returned much stronger on the doctor's face.

Dr. Miller stood up and led Larry out of the waiting room and down the hall.

The doctor had left him in the doorway, telling him how to get ahold of him if there was anything he needed. Larry stood there for a moment listening and staring at the curtain ahead of him. He could just see the end of the bed in the room and the large cast covering his son's bruised foot. Walking the rest of the way into the room, Larry closed his eyes as he reached the curtain. He turned toward where Danny lay and opened his eyes. Larry felt the tears immediately spring to his eyes and there was no way to stop them from falling down his cheek.

Danny was barely recognizable. The bruises covering his eyes were so dark that they just looked like they were shadows. The tube coming out of his mouth was held up over the bed so it obscured most of his face. Larry walked around to the side of the bed and pulled a chair over. He sat down and gently picked up Danny's hand. He wanted those fingers to tighten around his hand so badly, but they just lay limply. He reached his other hand up and stopped before touching Danny's face. There was barely any part that was unharmed in some way and Larry couldn't bring himself to do anything that could bring pain to his son. Then it occurred to him that not only was Danny on heavy pain medication; he was deep in a coma. He wouldn't feel anything.

Larry let his hand drop lightly on his son's head and ran his fingers through Danny's hair. It looked like it was stained slightly red and was dirty. Larry couldn't help but picture Danny covered in blood and dirt, being brought in here earlier. He put his head down on his arm and cried silently. The only sound in the room was the rhythmic breathing of the ventilator and the beeping of the other machines keeping Danny alive.