Author's Note: As expected, I won't get this done in time for Christmas (not unless my Muse keeps me up for three days solid, and I somehow manage to do all the cooking and cleaning and present wrapping and such at the same time I'm writing), but this at least should get things moving along. With luck, I may have it done by New Year's — though with hubby on vacation, it may be more like Twelfth Night. :D In the meantime, I hope all of you have a good holiday, no matter which it is you celebrate, and a wonderful New Year!

Part Two

If there was one thing in which Megamind and his wife and his best friend were all in full agreement, it was their strong dislike of hospitals. To Roxanne, it was a place that always reminded her of her self-centered, selfish mother and her neglect, always placing her career as a nurse before her only child. To Minion, they were places to which his ward had sometimes been taken after battles with Metro Man, when he hadn't been able to get Megamind away from them and into his own care. Ever since he'd heard of unscrupulous scientists and businessmen who wanted to lay hands on the blue alien to either use him or dissect him, he feared for his safety in such places, and worried that he might never see Mykaal again, once he vanished into these supposed places of healing.

To Megamind, they were reminders of his unpleasant past, and the specter of what might loom in his future, if he made too many mistakes in his current line of work. With his acute sense of smell, they stank of antiseptics and blood and other things far less pleasant; and to his emotional sensitivities, they reeked of the fears people either brought with them or found when things went wrong, of pain and suffering of so many kinds. His response wasn't a rational one and he knew it, but to him, hospitals felt like places where people came to struggle and suffer and die.

The situation that had brought them there today did nothing to alter that feeling. Because Mrs. Thurmer was in the ICU, hospital policy was strict about allowing non-family members to visit; only one person at a time was permitted, and they abided by this rule. There had been no discussion of who should go first because none was needed.

As Megamind made his way from the ICU waiting area to Mrs. Thurmer's room — if the cubicle could be called that, the need for fast movement of both people and equipment made permanent walls undesirable — he noted once again how the saying that hospitals are quiet places was wrong. The noise may have been subdued, but it was constant and could rise to a roar when needed, and the undercurrent of tension in the air was like an overstretched wire, waiting to snap. Things were calm right now, and he hoped they stayed that way.

As he approached Mrs. Thurmer's cubicle, Megamind slowed his steps, preparing himself for whatever might await. He already knew to expect such things as IVs and monitors and oxygen; it was the emotional state of whoever might be within for which he needed to brace himself. Medical emergencies among perfect strangers could be stressful enough; one among people who were as family to him might be almost unbearable.

Fortunately, as he turned to peer into the "room," he saw only two occupants, the comatose Mrs. Thurmer and her husband. The retired warden looked a century older than he had when Megamind had last seen him, only a week or so earlier. The slump to his shoulders, the creases and shadows on his face, the even deeper shadows in his eyes... The ex-villain knew the posture and the expression too well, the look of a back and a spirit bent under the weight of crushing defeat.

For the better part of a minute, Megamind could only stand there in the shadows of the curtain that could be pulled to "close" the cubicle, silently debating whether or not he should make his presence known. Now that he was here, it occurred to him that perhaps he should have stayed away rather than intrude on his ersatz father in such a time of misery. But even as he thought it, something inside him disagreed, keeping him there. He didn't know why, and that made his inner conflict all the more unsettling.

"Is that you, Mykaal?"

The sound of Thurmer's deep voice kept the ex-villain from leaving, ending the debate. Usually gruff from years of dealing with prisoners and guards and giving orders, the retired warden sounded sad, exhausted — old. It tugged at Megamind's heart to hear it, the way any grown child does when they finally see their parents clearly and understand that they are mere mortal beings, vulnerable to the advances and depredations of time and age, and can no longer deny it. Any thought of turning away vanished, and he stepped out of the shadows.

"Yes, sir, it's me," he said quietly, even though a lingering trace of his old bad boy persona wanted to shout or yell or at least talk as loudly as he could, just to dispel the cloud of tension and gloom and fear that clung to the place. "The receptionist at the ICU waiting area said it would be okay if we came to visit one at a time. I didn't expect to find you here alone. Has your family already left?"

The warden shook his head. "I... haven't told them, yet," he admitted, with some obvious difficulty. "Emily was an only child, her parents are long gone, and what few cousins she has are either out on the west coast or living overseas. My brother and sister would come, I'm sure, they're both living in Saginaw, but I don't want to get in touch with them until I've told all the kids."

By "all the kids," Megamind knew he meant his sons and daughters, two of whom lived in the Metro City area, one in northern Illinois, and one in southern Ohio. He abruptly realized that he himself had been counted as one of "the kids," since someone had called to inform him. Though it gave him a feeling of warmth to have been included in such consideration, he was also puzzled to find the man alone.

It must have shown in his expression, for Thurmer explained. "They're all out of town. After Elliot finished his tour of duty with the Air Force last year, Marcy said something about how long it had been since they'd all been together for more than a day or two. Last time had been a couple years after you arrived, when I managed to get enough time off to take them on a camping trip. Andy joked about how if they all got together with their kids, they could probably qualify for some kind of group rate on a vacation to some place like Disney World, Lisa's done some work as a travel agent and she thought it could actually work, and suddenly, they were all jumping on board with the idea, thinking it would be a great thing to do before their kids all grew up, or got too old for it. They've all been saving since last December to do it — Emily and I even chipped in a little to help them out, make it a really special trip, though she and I didn't want to go, not our cup of tea. They've been in Florida since Sunday and aren't due back until Wednesday. I..."

He paused and shook his head, looking at his unconscious wife, carefully stroking one of her hands, so as not to disturb the sensors and IVs. "I know I should call them, she's their mother and they'll want to know, but..."

His voice cracked, and he had to swallow several times before he could continue. "The doctors don't expect her to make it through the night, so even if I call them right this moment, they can't make it back in time to say goodbye — and even if they could, what's the point? I know, I know, I should let them decide for themselves. Maybe I'm being selfish, but I don't want to be the one to ruin their trip with awful news that isn't going to change between tomorrow and Wednesday. Maybe I'm hoping for a miracle, maybe I just want some time to grieve alone, maybe..." His words trailed off as his eyes focused on his unconscious wife, his head drooping as he appeared to fold in on himself, collapsing from within.

To Megamind, the sight was profoundly unsettling. Even as he'd aged, Warden Thurmer had always remained full of life, perhaps with less vigor than when he'd been young, but still a proud and vital man. To see him like this, seemingly on the verge of total surrender, was frightening — and yet, totally understandable. If their positions had been reversed... He didn't even want to think it, couldn't bring himself to imagine such an awful thing. If Roxanne were the one lying in that bed...

The sound of a deep, deep breath being drawn pulled his train of thought away from that dismal track. "Well," the older man sighed heavily, audibly collecting himself, "I'm sure you didn't come to listen to my family woes."

The blue genius had to swallow to get his dry throat to work. "If that's what you need, I'm willing to listen, sir," he said most earnestly. "I'm supposed to be a hero, after all, and I've been finding out that sometimes, being willing to listen is the most heroic thing you can do for a person. Not that I'm saying you need a hero or anything!" he added hastily. "I came because... well, because I wanted to see if there was anything I could do help."

The warden somehow managed to muster a faint smile. "That's very kind of you, son, and I'm glad you came. I asked them to call you, you know, when the staff offered to contact my family. I thought I should call the kids myself, not have them hear the news from a stranger, but I think the nurses were worried about me being all alone, and... Emily always thought of you and Minion as two of our boys — sorry, I can't remember his proper name, right now, I can barely remember my own."

"I'm sure he wouldn't mind," Megamind assured him. "I use both, and he never complains. He's here, too, he's waiting with Roxanne, but they wouldn't let more than one of us come in at a time."

Thurmer nodded. "Emily and I may think of you as family, but the hospital knows you're not. Damn bureaucrats. Always think they know best when they don't."

In his own way, Megamind knew exactly how the warden felt. Before he and Roxanne had married, there'd been one instance where she'd wound up in the emergency room because of an accident at work; a ceiling mounted stage light had come loose and she'd taken the full brunt of its fall. Unconscious and bleeding, she'd been rushed to the hospital, and because they didn't know the full extent of the damage, they'd listed her condition as critical and had refused to let her boyfriend see her until she was stable and admitted to an ordinary hospital room. He'd had to fight his urges to dehydrate the entire staff standing between him and his lady, and Minion's reassuring presence had been the only thing that kept him from following his impulses. The relief he'd felt when he'd finally been allowed to go to her had been only slightly less powerful than his relief in discovering that her injuries had been far worse in appearance than in actuality. The mild concussion and a bruised shoulder had been the worst of it, and he and Minion had spent the next week and more doting on her throughout her recovery.

That was when it finally, fully hit Megamind, the realization that the man who had been his father figure on this world wasn't here waiting for his wife to recover enough to be taken home and nursed back to health. He was here waiting for her to die, and he was completely aware of it.

The alien had known this intellectually, of course; he'd felt it emotionally as well, but not in the same way as he did now, when the initial shock of hearing the news had passed. As both mind and heart grasped this reality in the same instant, he suddenly understood that this was what his parents had felt, what his entire world had felt as they'd waited for their ends to come, unable to prevent it. All his life, Megamind had known of this; he had clear memories of the days before he'd been sent off to save his life, and he'd witnessed the recordings of the final history of his homeworld and his kin as if he'd been there among them. But the images hadn't carried the same immediacy of feeling as this moment, watching his Earthly guardian experiencing the beginnings of emotional death as he watched the love of his life slowly lose her grasp on the last shreds of her own.

Even as he felt his heart constrict, the ex-villain felt his mind spinning, different parts trying to cope with different things, some very methodically, others in whatever haphazard ways they could manage. The part that prompted him to speak was one somewhere in between. "Sir, I — I really don't know what to say. I'm so sorry this happened, and at such a terrible time, just before the holidays, with your family out of town. If there's anything I can do to help, anything at all..."

Thurmer gave him a small watery smile. "You've already done it, Mykaal, by coming here. You're family to me, you know that, but not like my kids or my other relatives. My brother and sister would be leaning on me to let her go, the kids would be freaking out about the idea of losing their mom or grandmother..." He shook his head, as if trying to dismiss the confusion and conflict.

Something in the orderly part of Megamind's thoughts clicked. "Have the doctors completely given up?"

The older man shrugged. "They're running a couple more tests, they're waiting for the results, that's why she's still here instead of in a regular room or the hospice. But they've already told me not to get my hopes up. There's a lot of damage, and even if they can stabilize her condition enough for her to live, she'll... never be the same."

"Do you think they'd let me see her charts?" He moved to a computer set up on one of the tables alongside the patient's bed even as he asked. The strange look the warden gave him made his former ward flinch a little, realizing that his question had come out more clinically than he'd intended, perhaps rather ghoulishly. "I don't mean any disrespect, sir, I just meant..."

Actually, he wasn't quite sure why he'd blurted out the question. For a moment, he cocked his head as he rapidly scrolled through the information on the computer, all the charts and data on Mrs. Thurmer's condition. When he finished, his green eyes unfocused, his gaze turning inward to examine all the thoughts suddenly whizzing through his brain at lightspeed. Something else clicked, and a picture began to form, beginning with a memory.

"Thanksgiving," he said aloud, though he was still in the process of piecing things together.

Thurmer's tired blue eyes blinked at him, puzzled. "What's that?"

Briefly unaware that he'd spoken aloud, Megamind remained unfocused for a moment, then abruptly snapped back. "Thanksgiving," he said again, now understanding why, and why he was beginning to feel a very odd surge of nervous excitement. "Do you remember last Thanksgiving, sir — not the one a few weeks ago but last year, at the Lair? Remember how I started running off at the mouth about how it could be possible to use nanotechnology combined with genotech to rebuild parts of the human body that are crippled or damaged by accident or congenitally?"

The warden reflected for a moment, then nodded. "Yes, you said you might be able to come up with a way to help people like my son Andy. You haven't mentioned it since, though."

"That's because I've had so many other demands on my time, I couldn't give it the attention it needed. I am sorry about that, I've been trying very hard not to let the city and state keep getting first priority, that was Wayne's mistake and I should be doing better than I have been. But something I didn't tell you last year is that I'd already been doing work with some medical researchers, coming up with ways to use the selective cloning techniques I'd used in developing the brainbots to help people who suffer from brain damage or trauma or disease. Their work is still in the lab stages, but..."

Inside, his mind was working at speeds even he would've found frightening, had he not been so caught up in the whirlwind of possibilities he was now seeing clearly as the information about Mrs. Thurmer's condition merged with his general knowledge and all his intensely imaginative thought processes. His eyes were fixed on the woman's pale face, on the various IVs and sensors and monitors surrounding her like a strange flock of sad little mechanical cherubs.

The warden found the look of barely restrained excitement that swept across Megamind's mobile face faintly disturbing, somewhat reminiscent of the expressions he'd worn when plotting mayhem during his villain days. The older man swallowed thickly. "I hope you're not talking about some kind of experimentation, Mykaal..."

The use of his proper name drew the genius out of his distracted fit of hyperfocused inventive thinking. "Experi—? Oh, no, no no no, not experimentation, no! I could never—! Do you think I'd ever want to... to... to use someone as nice as your wife's been to us to— sir, I couldn't do something like that, not even back when I was trying to be a supervillain! That's so... so... so evil...!"

The shudder of disgust that ended his spate of denial convinced Thurmer. "Easy, son, I just felt I should ask. But I know you were never even the sort of kid who'd pull the wings off flies. So calm down for a second and try to tell me what you are thinking, in words a poor old man like me can understand."

Megamind did as requested, closing his eyes and taking a deep breath to bring himself into a more manageable, less overstimulated state. When he felt in better control of himself, he let loose the breath in a soft sigh, then opened his eyes, which were still bright with his reined-in excitement. "I know I've told you all about the brainbots, how I cloned the brain cells from a dying dog to make the organic core of their intelligence. That was a very rudimentary form of what's possible with genetic technology and medicine. A couple of years ago, I started working with researchers at a university medical center to find ways to help people with things like Parkinson's disease. They've been doing the experimentation, not me, and so far, it hasn't involved any human patients. I haven't done more than give them occasional advice, I've been too busy to do more — but I know that it's possible to do more, much, much more!"

The warden listened as attentively as he could under the circumstances — which was actually fairly attentively, as he could feel there was something vitally important under the ex-villain's excitement. "Is this something you've... ah... studied with that Teacher thing of yours? I thought you've only had it for about a year."

The alien nodded. "About that. No, I did the genetic research on my own, starting when I was fifteen or sixteen, but for a long time, I've been able to... feel that I've only scratched the surface of what's possible." He let out a long, frustrated groan. "That's not exactly what I mean, 'feel' isn't quite right. But I know it, and the more I learn, the more I know there's a lot more to learn, about — everything! Not just the things that were sent with me, but other things, new things, things I'm beginning to see and imagine and..."

He caught himself going into a full-bore babble fit and was able to put on the brakes, thanks to grimness of his surroundings and the entire sad situation. "Well, that's really beside the point. What I'm trying to say, sir, is that I know that there are things that could be done to help Mrs. Thurmer — to heal her, not just bring her out of the coma!"

Thurmer's eyes widened. "You know how to do this?" He knew he didn't dare let himself hope it could be true, but he couldn't stop it.

Megamind pressed his lips together in a thin, hard line, biting off a reflexive yes. "No," he forced himself to admit. "I don't know how — yet. But I'm positive everything I'd need to know is in the data my parents sent with me, and I can learn whatever it takes to help her."

His green eyes flicked back to the computer with all its information about Emily's condition. Though the prognosis was indeed bad within the limits of current medical technology and skills, Megamind could clearly see at least four ways that the damage might be reversed, with the proper skills and tools. But...

"Is there enough time for you to learn whatever it takes to do it?" the warden asked, voicing his doubt. "They haven't been able to fully stabilize her condition." He didn't have to finish the thought, that because of it, her damaged body would continue to weaken until she simply slipped away.

He was truly startled by the determination in the blue hero's reply, which pushed aside all traces of doubt. "I can make the time, if you'll let me." Seeing the older man's puzzled frown, he elaborated. "I already have the ability to put a person into a state of complete stasis; it's one of the settings on my de-gun, in fact, what I called the 'death ray' because the stasis is so complete, the person appears to be dead. But they're not, and it's totally harmless and temporary. This would be a version of the same thing. In stasis, her condition wouldn't improve, but it wouldn't deteriorate, either."

Thurmer gave a huge sigh of relief. "For a minute, I was expecting you to tell me you've developed some kind of strange superpower, or that you were thinking of dehydrating her."

Megamind considered the latter possibility for about half a second before shaking his head. "That's too risky. Dehydration can work as a very short-term method for transporting someone who's been seriously injured, but with certain kinds of damage — like this — it can make things worse if used for more than a few hours, sometimes more than a few minutes. Stasis would be much safer, and could be used for a long term, if necessary."

The older man snorted softly. "And you haven't tried to give this technology to the medical community?"

The answering smile was bitterly crooked. "I did mention it to the head of a hospital once, just as a possibility. He immediately started spouting off ideas about making a fortune off it by selling it to people with terminal conditions as a way to stay alive until a cure could be found — with no intention of investing that fortune in finding those cures. I didn't want to be part of making an already sick system that sees nothing wrong with profiting from the suffering of others even worse. It's the downside of some of the things I've been learning. Earth isn't Ayalthis; the political, economic, and social structures aren't the same, and what was perfectly safe and beneficial there can be incredibly dangerous and detrimental here, in the wrong hands. That's what destroyed my homeworld, powerful knowledge in the hands of some outsider focused only on profit and personal gain."

He shivered, his voice turned distant with thoughts of the past. "Sometimes, I lie awake at night, worrying that I might turn into my Uncle Varaan, the competent person who was the victim of an incompetent thief who stole from him the knowledge that destroyed an entire star system and all its trillions of people."

Megamind's face had gone dark with memories and worries as he spoke; Thurmer put a comforting hand on his arm, seeing those shadows. "I'm sorry, son, I keep forgetting that you're not little Blue anymore, or even the old Megamind who got his kicks out of designing doomsday devices that didn't work quite right, accidentally on purpose. I can't imagine how hard it must be, learning incredible new things and then needing to decide what's safe for this world and what isn't. I don't envy you that burden, not at all."

His expression grew sadder as he looked at his unconscious wife. "I'm not even doing very well, handling this one life or death decision."

But the ex-villain understood perfectly. "It's a decision that effects your entire world, so it's every bit as hard to make. I do want to help, as much as I can. Mrs. Thurmer has meant a lot to me and Minion, but I don't know how long it would take. It could be only a few days, or it could take months. I just don't know. And in the end, I can't even promise that I'll succeed — though I can promise to do everything I can, as best I can."

Everything about the slender blue man — his expression, his tone of voice, his body language, all the obvious conscious signals and the subtle subconscious ones the warden had learned to read long ago — told Thurmer that Megamind was completely in earnest. He considered the entire situation before responding. What he was being offered had the potential to turn this imminent tragedy on its head, bringing about a happy ending to an awful nightmare, but it also had the risk of dragging out what might be an inevitable end to the point of sheer torture. He knew that Mykaal meant well and would try his best, and though his rate of success had improved greatly in the last few years, he couldn't quite forget all those prior years of failure after failure. The boy had never deliberately hurt another person, true, not beyond such things as fist fights and self-defense and accidents, but the kind of deep emotional trauma that might result from a failure now was almost too painful to contemplate.

So he thought, and thought, and thought, studying the face of his poor, beloved Emily. He weighed what he desperately wanted against what he knew of her personal wishes and the burden of practicality, and finally reached an inner compromise.

"Do you think you could at least get an idea of how long this whole thing might take and what the odds are for success by the time my kids come home from Florida?"

Megamind hesitated only for a split-second before nodding. "Yes, that much I'm sure I could do. And unless the hospital has miles of red tape or flat out forbids it, I can get a stasis field up and running in a few hours, with Minion's help. That much is just a matter of modifying our already available equipment to generate a constant field rather than a single burst effect."

Thurmer grunted. "The hospital will probably have both of us sign a mountain of waivers to cover their asses, but I know just who to lean on to get their cooperation. A little blackmail in the right places goes a long way toward clearing obstacles."

The reformed villain chuckled softly. "And here you always wanted me to follow your example and become an upright, solid citizen. Sounds like I may have rubbed off a little on you, too."

The warden managed a more heartfelt smile. "Maybe — though if you want to know the truth, Mykaal, you were never half as evil as some of the people we laughingly call our business leaders and elected officials, and I'd been dealing with them long before you came crashing into my prison yard."

They both laughed for a few moments, rather weakly, before the pall of reality settled about them again. Thurmer made his decision. "Get that stasis thing up and running, then, and see what you can find out in the next four days — hell, make it a week. I don't want to keep Emily hanging in this limbo between life and death indefinitely, but I'll admit that having a few more days to consider all the options and then sit down and discuss it with the kids will help. This way, they won't have to try to reschedule their flights to rush home when they'd get here too late to say goodbye, anyway. If you can't find what's necessary or the kids and I decide to just let her go, then we can at least do it with dignity."

Megamind accepted that decision with a simple nod, though inside, he had made a decision of his own. His ersatz father had given him a week to discover whether or not it was possible to save his wife. He would definitely do that, but long before the week was up. Because by the time that deadline arrived, he vowed to know exactly what needed to be done, to have all the knowledge and tools to implement it in his head and in his hands. For the sake of all this man had done to keep him out of the hands of those who would use him or kill him when he was too young and small to protect himself, he would do whatever was necessary now to make this miracle happen, to save Emily Thurmer's life — no matter the cost to himself.

To be continued...