It was warm still, but his skin felt remarkably cold now. That is, he was moderately sure it was his skin he was feeling. It was some sort of aura hovering around him, rich with a fine meshwork of nerve endings. They didn't seem quite physical, more mental, because every time he tried to get his mind to think, he could feel the synapses pulse. He cleared his throat and tried to speak, but words didn't come out. A sort of raspy breath issued from his lips instead, and he felt a movement beside him in response. There was something touching his face now, and he heard a noise. It was very faint, like something echoing down a tunnel, but after a moment it became a human voice. "Nelson?"

He tried again to speak and open his eyes. Not being aware of his body, it was purely reflexive movement borne from the habitual center of his brain, but it was surprisingly effective. He was suddenly blasted with light and color and he shut them again with a slight cry at the intensity.

"Nelson, it's okay. Do you know where you are? Where are you? What's my name?"

The voice was female, that he was sure of. "Rachel?"

"Good, now where are you?"

"I don't know."

"You're here, on the couch. How many fingers am I holding up?"

"I...I can't see right now. I'm on the couch?"

His body was indeed lying on something lumpy, but moderately comfortable.

"You fainted in the shower. I got you out and put you here. You're heavy, you know that?"

"You got me out?" Even in his semi-awake state, he felt a sting of embarrassment at the idea of Rachel hauling his naked, unconscious body out of the shower and dragging him over to the couch. At least he felt some sort of blanket over himself now. He tried opening his eyes again, slowly, and focused on the shape leaning over him. Slowly, features came into view. Brown eyes, a mass of curly hair, and he saw the it was indeed Rachel.

"Barely. Do you remember what happened? You cut your head pretty bad...there was a lot of blood on the floor."

"No."

"Nelson. I'm worried about you."

It was a very simple sentence, but it was the way she said it that made him take in a surprised breath. She didn't look at him when she said it, but instead her eyes dropped down where he realized she was holding his hand. Gingerly, and with both of her own, but that didn't matter. She had holding his hand, and as she spoke she seemed to become troubled, and intertwined and released her fingers with his repetitively. Her touch held little, if any, suggestiveness - it was the gentleness of it that got to him.

"That's good."

"Good?"

"Not good, I mean...I like having you worry about me."

"Well I don't like it. I have enough to worry about without you."

"Wait, I was trying to say thank you."

"You never were good at saying thank you. But your welcome."

"I don't think I am."

"Welcome? Nelson, I don't hate you. You just drive me insane sometimes. You're my friend."

"Hmm." Not what I wanted to hear. "Am I going to stay here?"

"If you keep fainting and getting cold spells, then yes...unless you want to stay with Dave or Randy."

"Not really. I don't like - "

"Living with other guys, yeah you've told me."

"Because -"

"I know, I know, because they're messy and dirty and will use your things and bring over...what was the term you used?"

"Wenches." Nelson tried to smile a little but only the already-curled side of his mouth lifted. "Where will I sleep?"

"You're lying on it."

"No bed anymore? Are you afraid you'll be too tempted to take advantage of me? What with my charm and wit and tendency to get blood all over your bathroom?"

"Propriety. Besides, I've already seen you naked. Curiosity satisfied."

He was again hit by a slight wave of embarrassment. "Er...hmm. Satisfaction, eh?"

Rachel tilter her head and got up. He only just realized she had been kneeling down by the couch. "Don't start. I need to go to rounds now...you're still on leave for as long as you need, according to the school board, you know."

"You can't stay?" the words were out before he had thought them through, and he nearly bit his tongue afterwards. This entire recovery business was turning him into some sort of meek little lamb, and even though it seemed to hit Rachel's fancy to some degree, he sure as hell didn't like it.

Rachel paused and shouldered her bag, which had been lying on the armrest. "I can't...they need me at rounds, and then I have Histopath all day...unless you really need me to?"

The doctor in her was coming out, he could see it. The kind, caring beautiful young female doctor. That was what he was always so jealous of her about. Her compassion. It was sickeningly sweet. It was ridiculously unneeded. And yet it was something that he couldn't bring himself to have. But he wasn't thinking about all of the qualities that Rachel had that he did not at the moment. Right now the only thing he could bring himself to focus on was the feel of her hand on his.

"Well, I'd like you to."

"Like isn't enough, Nelson, you're a big boy and you can take a few hours by yourself." The compassion was edged with frustration. Damn. He guessed that she reserved the patience that went along with the compassion for actual patients. Not assholes-turned-mad-scientists with egos so big they had trouble getting through doors who harbored a disgustingly fanatical unrequited love for her. God damn it. One chance, that's all I ask for, one.

LATER ON THAT DAY

"I don't know if he's okay...he blacked out this morning."

"Blacked out?"

"Yeah, as in fell down and cracked his head."

"Christ." Steckle bit his lower lip and looked up from the histology slide. Rachel hadn't moved her eyes from her own, as if she wasn't quite able to drag her focus in either direction - the current conversation, or a nectrotic piece of pancreas. They were the only two left in the histology lab, a large, bare room reminiscent of some sort of endless hallways of computers with people hooked up to them...except here, it was frazzled medical students and microscopes. It was pushing eight o'clock at night, and both of their eyesights were beginning to fail. "Do you think it's brain damage? I mean come on, he was under for twelve minutes. Twelve minutes, that might as well be eternity, y'know?"

"I'm not a neurologist, I don't know. The scans said he was fine." She was having trouble keeping her long eyelashes out of the lens of the scope, and was moving her head slightly from side to side like a bird.

"Yeah but those scans aren't always a hundred percent, especially since they only did one. They only did one, right?"

"Randy!" Rachel blew her hair out of her face and looked up. "Please, I'm stressed to all hell right now and I don't need to be second guessing anything else."

It was true, the last thing she needed right now was to be doubting a frigging MRI. But then again, a lot of things she had doubted in the past had been made true in the past few weeks. But it didn't seem like brain damage. Nelson was very aware, almost himself...it was just here and there, things that pushed her worry button - his rapidly changing moods, blacking out, the strange look on his face when he had woken up, as if he couldn't remember where he was...I feel like I'm looking after a lost dog sometimes. Well, maybe not a big dog. Medium sized dog that doesn't slobber...wow, I need to sleep more. The truth was she hadn't slept well at all the night before. She had been tired enough, that was for sure - the hours spent at the emergency room constantly checking the time, and asking everyone in a white coat that went by about the results of a specific set of CT and MRI scans, had been exhausting. Crying for three hours definitely tires you out. But when your friend has just come back from the brink of death, and you have no idea if they are ever going to be able to walk, talk, or think again, especially a friend that could think as well as Nelson...well , it wouldn't just be a loss to her, it would be a loss to the medical profession. But she couldn't shake off the feeling of discomfort at being in bed with him, combined with the mutterings and twitches that went on all night long. It sounded like bad dreams, but she hadn't wanted to wake him.

Steckle sat back in the chair, his heavy brows knitted with worry. He looked like a large, concerned walrus. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry...it's just, well, beyond the entire absurdity of being dead for that long, and now all of these weird repercussions...I guess I just thought it was over. Wham bam, over, no more crazy near-death experienced, back to normal medical school hell, you know? The kind of hell we can deal with. I mean, I know its not necessarily anything, anything , well, I guess you'd say anything supernatural. But still, wouldn't it be incredible if something inside his head had changed?"

"Changed?"

Steckle's voice increased in pitch as he tented his fingers under his chin. "Yeah, I mean, who knows the changes a brain undergoes during death. Physiologically speaking."

"Atrophy."

"Not necessarily - we have no idea."

"Randy, I really don't want to talk about this right now." She had a soft spot for Randy, and always had, but he definitely had a tendency to not know when to shut up.

"Sorry, sorry. Sorry again. He's still staying with you then is he?"

"Yeah."

Steckle raised one eyebrow curiously and Rachel narrowed her eyes. "What's that look for?"

"Nothing. It's going well?"

"Aside from constant bickering and random blackouts, yes."

"How's he taking it? Living with you, I mean."

Well, I'd like you to.

"I guess he seems to be okay with it."

"Just okay?"

Rachel turned off the light to the scope and carefully placed the slide back in the slidebox, being careful not to tap the corners against any of the others. Something was telling her that she really didn't want to be looking at it anymore. "Care to extrapolate on your line of questioning?"

"Well, you know." He drew out the last two words, as if she should know what he was talking about.

She gave him a blank look.

"You know. Wait, you do know?"

"Know what?"

"Well, him, and you, and all of that -"

"That he takes delight in being a misogynist pig and pretending to want to get into my pants just to piss me off?"

Steckle let out a chuckle. "You've got to be kidding. Oh jeez Rachel." But seeing the blank, slightly annoyed look on her face had not changed, his mouth opened slightly. "Okay, wait. No kidding around. No kidding around?"

"Nope."

"You do know then?"

"I have absolutely, positively no idea what you're talking about." Rachel stood up took her bag from the back of the chair, swinging it around one shoulder, as if to tell him that if he didn't make his point quickly, she would be out the door.

Steckle stood up too, neglecting to turn off his scope. "Wow, oh man, this is big. This is huge."

"What's huge?"

"Rachel, hang on a second. You remember first year Anatomy class? The very first day?"

"Yes."

"You remember how all hell broke loose at me and Nelson's table when you came in, and we both got kicked out of the first lab?"

"Yeah. It was pretty funny, actually."

"Well, it was because the second you came into the lab, Nelson completely froze up and dropped his dissection kit on the floor. His scalpel went right into the lab coordinators foot, and then I started laughing, and we both got thrown out."

Rachel stared for a minute, and then broke into peals of laughter. Steckle took the time to turn off his scope and grab his things. "No, no, it's not funny."

"Actually, it is." she managed to get out in between gasps.

"Ok Rachel, Rachel? Listen. You listening?"

"Ahem...heeheeahmeahem..okay...listening."

"He's been completely obsessed with you for three years. Ok, maybe obsessed is a bad word. He told me two months after that first class that he was in love with you. I have never, ever heard him say that about anyone, and I've known this guy since high school. I don't even think I've heard him say the word any other time except then. I didn't think he could say it, I mean, love isn't exactly a word you would think to find in Nelson's vocabulary. You had no idea? Yeah, yeah I know about the asshole thing. It's kind of a self-preservation thing with him. He plays it up so he doesn't get all nervous and -"

"Drop more things?" Rachel quipped, but the color was draining slowly from her face. The door to the outside hallway was forgotten and her hands were stiffly at her sides.

"Well, you know how much he likes being 'master and commander' everything he can get a hold of. Losing his composure would be the worst thing to him. So...he does what he does best - be a prick. But seriously, you couldn't tell? We all thought you knew."

"Who is we all?"

"Y'know, us. Me, Joe, Dave, now you, maybe a few others here and there around school."

Rachel didn't know if she should feel outraged or embarrassed at the idea of everyone talking behind her back. It was quite possible that Steckle was mistaken...Nelson was good at putting on acts...but then again they had been friends for almost ten years now, and if anyone knew Nelson, Randy Steckle did. But seriously...it didn't make sense, his behavior around her for the past three years, if what Steckle was saying was true. Or did it? In some weird, twisted, Nelson-way make sense?

"Randy, promise me you're not putting me on."

"I swear. Ask Joe, or Dave."

Rachel cringed slightly at the idea of asking Dave. Things were still a bit awkward between them since the decision to not pursue a relationship had been made...she had wondered why he had seemed so accepting of the idea. Maybe not wanting to step on someone else's territory? Steckle noticed her reaction and scuffed a shoe against the floor. "Yeah, as if you couldn't tell, he was none to thrilled about you and Dave, especially since Dave was his friend. Kind of one of those unspoken male bonding things - don't go after the girl your friend likes. But you and Dave are...what exactly are you right now?"

"We're nothing, just friends" Her voice was distant.

But Dave does, doesn't he?

Nelson's snide remark from a few days ago came back to her mind. There had been acute jealousy, almost a tone of feeling betrayed, in his voice. She hadn't been able to place it then. And all of the drama when Dave had gone under, Nelson half-playing with Dave's life, trying to get a reaction out of her, to probe her feelings. And then again, when she herself had gone under, she had come to only to find Nelson a shaky mess, and Joe had told her later that he had been on the verge of a nervous breakdown when it became obvious that bringing her back was going to be an act of pure luck. It all fit, true. But Nelson? For goodness sake, the guy couldn't possibly care about anything more than himself. That was just how he was. How he had been for years. He was the most self-centered, snobbish, emotionless, nasty person she knew. She considered him a friends mostly through the others. But it seemed that yet another thing she thought she had known for sure was changing.

Steckle tilted his head to one side like a bulldog confused as to what it's owner wanted. "Rach? Hey, I, uh, didn't mean to be the one to break the news, we seriously though you knew. Don't shoot the messenger."

Deep breath. Rachel opened the door and exited, waiting for Steckle to catch up with her. She didn't feel like walking alone right now. She needed some kind of jabber to get her mind off of it - and if anyone could talk a mile and minute about nothing in particular, it was Randall Steckle, Esq. "Thanks for the heads-up. I guess. It's okay, I'll get over it."

"Get over it? Get over what?"

"Feeling like I just got hit by the El-train."