After sitting quietly for about an hour, Jimmy was the first to leave Sheen's room. Carl was still shocked by the situation. Upon opening the door it was a jarring experience to go from Sheen's dark, funeral home-esque room and then to cross over in the bright daytime hallways of the hospital. The rest of the world continued to move at efficient speeds while his friend was alone in a dark corner unable to breathe on his own. Thoughts of guilt took over his mind but he wasn't quite sure why.

As Jimmy was adjusting to the new environment he walked into he saw Alicia talking to someone in the hospitals legal department. He overheard their conversation.

"Now sadly it's possible he may not wake up for a long time. It could even be 20 years and by that point the shock could be too much for him." The employee explained.

"I understand." Alicia tried to appear professional as if this was a job interview.

'So instead of giving him that pain it may be better for him to be on the donor list incase someone needs an organ."

"Of course. I'll sign it for him. I'm sure he'd be willing to-"

"ARE YOU KIDDING ME!" Jimmy shouted across from them. He began to march over intensely. "You can't do that."

Alicia began to explain. "Now Jimmy, I know he's your friend and we're all upset but it might be best to-"

"Shut up!" Alicia was stunned by Jimmy's commanding presence. He turned to the hospital employee. "She can't do this. She doesn't have any legal right to make that decision."

"They're both married." The legal employee explained.

Jimmy looked back at Alicia in shock. "You told them you two were married." There was a long pause as he kept giving her a dead stare. Alicia looked down. "Are you fucking stupid? You don't think they'd catch on to a simple detail like that?" Alicia walked away annoyed. Jimmy looked back at the employee. "They just live together. I'm his best friend. I have more say in this than she does, okay."

"Okay. Okay." The employee tried to calm him down.

Jimmy took a deep breathe. "Have you contacted him parents?"

"No. We still haven't located any family."

Jimmy took out his phone. He saw a bunch of missed calls and a text from Carvey saying "WHERE ARE YOU?! I NEED YOU HERE NOW!" Jimmy unlocked his screen and pulled up the contact info for Sheen's uncle.

"Here. This is his uncle. He sends out money to him every month. He should be able to get a hold of the rest of the family."

"Thank you." The employee wrote down the contact information on the clipboard. "I'll look into it."

Jimmy nodded back at the employee and then proceeded to walk away.

Jimmy took a stroll through the hospital trying to collect his thoughts. The hospital was a place where people went when they got sick or were seriously injured. Even his smart, rational brain struggled to accept the idea that his friend now fell into that category of the injured. It was something that he knew could happen to anybody. He just never thought something like that would happen to someone he was close to. It was terrible when Sheen launched himself out to space but there was still hope that he was out there. Now it felt worse. All he could do was sit and watch as a machine did all the work. It was scary to look at and think he might not come back to life.

As he slowly moved down the hallway, Jimmy saw his dad walking out a door on the other end. After him was a bald man in a wheelchair who looked physically ill. Jimmy assumed this was the friend of his father's who had stomach cancer. The person pushing the wheelchair turned out to be Cindy. Made sense to him since she was working at the hospital. Jimmy figured she was probably checking on the man's diet or something like that. It seemed like her first day was getting to her. She looked really tired from the distance.

Suddenly Jimmy's phone began to vibrate again. It was Carvey. Tired of dealing with it, Jimmy simply turned off his phone and put it away.

Later that night Jimmy was alone at JT's bar. He was drinking a Tokyo Tea and doing some heavy reflecting on his friendship with Sheen. After hearing what Carl had to say about the night before, Jimmy couldn't help but feel guilty. He knew it was a freak accident but it wasn't what he felt guilty about. He felt responsible for how Sheen's entire life turned out. It sounded like Sheen almost wished he was never found from that planet. A part of him began to think that it would've been best if they never even bothered to look for him. He immediately retracted the thought. Jimmy knew that if he didn't go look for him that his own life would have potentially been worse than it was now. He knew he wouldn't be able to live with himself if he just sat back and did nothing. But Jimmy knew it wasn't truly his fault. He left the note after all. But then again it was still his responsibility to make sure no one could enter the lab. The thought was mess. He couldn't rationalize it no matter how hard he tried.

Jimmy was at the edge of being drunk when suddenly he saw Cindy take a seat at the bar a few seats away from his. She didn't even acknowledge him.

Cindy waved over to J.T. the bartender. "Could I get an appletini please?"

"You got it." J.T. replied.

Jimmy saw Cindy appeared confident but he knew her well enough. He could see she was very tired and worn out as if something was bothering her. Jimmy's rational side figured she was just as upset about Sheen as everyone else. She was the one that called them over after all. That combined with the busy day that she probably had it must've been a stressful day for her. That was what Jimmy's rational side noticed. Unfortunately the very strong Tokyo Tea had temporarily knocked out Jimmy's rational thoughts as his mean drunk side was beginning to take over. That drunk side was beginning to get angry over the fact that Cindy didn't even notice him or say hello.

"Vortex." He said with some drunken disgust.

Cindy turned her head surprised to see him. "Neutron… Hey. Is everything okay?" She asks with sympathy.

"Like you care." Jimmy turned away and went back to his drink.

"I do care, Jimmy. I'm sorry I had to tell you guys. I can't believe he's in there right now."

"Yeah right." Jimmy said condescendingly.

Cindy obviously began to look upset. "I do care. He's my friend too."

Jimmy calls J.T. over. "Hey, can I get another Tokyo Tea?"

"Are you sure you haven't had enough?" Cindy looked at Jimmy concerned.

Jimmy turned to her right away with a dead serious look on his face. "Fuck you, bitch! I'll have whatever I want."

Cindy was shocked by that remark. Around the bar patrons heard Jimmy concerned that something could happen. Cindy finally responded. "Excuse me?"

Jimmy exploded. "What the fuck do you want with me, Vortex? Did you come back home and get a job just to rub it all in that you finally caught up with me on an academic level and now that you have a real job you're ahead of me? Okay, fine. You win. You can stop now. Go back to Stanford while the rest of us deal with our real world problems."

Cindy's confusion began to heat up into full blown anger. "Really, you think I'm here just to get even with you? That's what you think this is about? Is your ego so big that even when one of our best friends is in the hospital you think the situation revolves around you?"

Jimmy turned away and focused on his empty drink, playing with the straw. "Can you come up with a better insult than attacking my brain or my ego?"

"How fucking dare you, Neutron!? How dare you imply that I don't care? That I'm only here to beat you down? You don't think I feel just as horrible about Sheen? You think I enjoy seeing others suffer?"

"You sure as hell tried your hardest when we were kids."

Cindy took a moment before she exploded in his face. "FUCK YOU, NEUTRON! You think you're the only one that's going through a hard time? Go fuck yourself!"

J.T. interrupted. "Alright guys, I'm sorry but I can't serve you anymore. You have to take this outside."

"You're kicking me out?" Jimmy looked drunkenly confused.

"You're drink is on the house, Jimmy. Now please, can you two leave? We have people here trying to have a good time."

Cindy immediately stormed out angry. Jimmy sat there processing everything he just said.

Jimmy looked back up to J.T. "Alright, can I just get a quick glass of water and then I'm out of here?"

J.T. poured the glass. Jimmy took out one of his pills and drank the water.

A sober Jimmy walked out of the bar aware of everything he had just said to Cindy. He knew he really dug himself into some deep shit. Catching her naked was bad enough, but calling her a 'bitch' in public was unforgivable. He was the biggest piece of shit breathing in Retroville and he knew it.

Cindy's car was parked along the sidewalk. Jimmy saw her and wanted to apologize right away. As he moved closer he could see from behind Cindy that she was crying. Jimmy slows down until he ultimately stops walking. As much as he wanted to apologize he knew he was the last person she wanted to see at that moment. He was close enough that he could hear her crying. It wasn't a pretty sound. Feeling extremely guilty, Jimmy turned away and walked towards his hover car.

The hover car was driving on autopilot with Jimmy slouched over in the front seat. No matter how hard he tried to get over it he still felt horrible about what he said to Cindy. He felt responsible for Sheen to some degree and his outburst just made it worse at a time when they all need each other.

He pulled out his phone and turned it on. There were many missed calls from Carvey. Jimmy composed a text.

Sorry. Busy day. You need me tomorrow?

He sent it and then began to compose a new text for Carl. Jimmy stayed frozen as he thought about what it was that he wanted to type. Suddenly he received a message from Carvey.

No. Come in Thursday.

Giving up on texting Carl, Jimmy put the phone away.

The next morning the sun shined directly in front of Jimmy's face. He slowly got up and walked towards the window. He grabbed the string to close the blinds but before doing so looked across the street. Cindy was combing her hair, getting ready to go to work. She didn't seem heartbroken, but naturally he assumed she just put the events of the previous evening behind her. She was always good at concealing any emotional pain. Not wanting to pain himself of the thought any longer, Jimmy closed the blinds and fell back to bed. Unfortunately he was wide awake now. His self pity did a good job of keeping him awake.

Minutes later Jimmy's phone vibrated. He looked over at his desk giving it a seconds thought of whether he had the will to go over and look. He figured it could only be bad news at this point. He thought he might get a text saying Sheen's dead or Carl might shame him for what he last said to Cindy. Being that the two were the closest friends in town it made sense that she probably called him and told him everything that happened. He really wasn't looking forward to having that conversation.

Tired of thinking about it, Jimmy quickly got up and walked over to his desk. It was Carvey.

Can you come in right now?

Jimmy began tying.

Omw

He got a response.

Hurry up.

Jimmy went downstairs fully dressed with his lab coat on. Hugh was in the kitchen eating pancakes. He was dressed in the same sweater vest he always wore.

Hugh looked over to Jimmy giving him the happy but inauthentic fatherly love smile. "Morning Jimbo." He casually said.

"Morning." Jimmy replied.

"Hey, listen. The dishwasher needs to be loaded. Can you do that before you go out?"

Jimmy quietly groaned to himself. He knew this seemingly harmless request had the potential to escalate to ridiculous proportions. It happened before. Many times. "Godard has it under control." Jimmy responded.

"I know Godard can do it but I'm asking you to do it right now."

Jimmy grabbed an apple from the fridge. "Why don't you do it. You're perfectly capable of getting up."

Hugh began getting agitated. "I'm a guest in this house. If this was a 5 star hotel it would be spotless right now."

Jimmy was too jaded by these pointless arguments. As complicated as their relationship was he was always nice to his dad. He didn't have any problems with his parents splitting up. He just accepted that something happened and it wasn't any of his business. He didn't ever try to start an argument with his dad on purpose but he wasn't ever going to bow down to his requests when they made no logical sense to him.

Jimmy began to rationalize. "Dad, this isn't a hotel. It's a normal, lived-in home. The sink isn't even that full, it'll get done later."

"Right, a normal home." Hugh continued to protest. "You see, this is why I left. Your mother stopped keeping the house clean."

"What the fuck are you talking about?" Jimmy asked annoyed.

"Why do you always have to be so vulgar. You know I didn't raise you to be this way."

"It's called adult language. I'm an adult."

Hugh raised his voice. "Your mom really didn't raise you right. You're vulgar. You're lazy, you can't even clean after yourself.-"

Jimmy interrupted defensively. "I built a dog that clean up the house for goodness sake!" He said making sure he didn't curse.

"Yes, you never could do anything on your own. You always have to depend on technology."

"Jesus, I'm not gonna have this conversation right now. I'm going to work." Jimmy began to walk away.

"Oh fine. Go to your low paying job where you cannot even make a living for yourself!" Hugh yelled out.

Jimmy walked out the door and quickly got into his car.

As he drove over to work his morning confrontation with Hugh was on his mind. It was always the dishwasher that would spark a pointless argument between them. It had been that way since middle school. Over the years Jimmy figured it was just a phase he was going through being a teenager and all but Hugh was still able to push his buttons. It made no sense to him why he was so obsessed with him doing the dishes. Hugh would always complain about doing all the work and would criticise Jimmy for not doing the dishes. Now it made more sense to believe Hugh just changed along the way and it wasn't just some phase for Jimmy. He never asked the details of the divorce but he knew it had something to do with Hugh's current wife as they quickly married after the divorce was finalized.

Hugh was just an asshole, plain and simple. It was difficult to accept because he had fond memories of his dad growing up. Maybe he was a nice guy back then and things just happened to go wrong at some point.

Jimmy's thoughts then went back to the night before with Cindy, something he just couldn't forgive himself for. He felt like such an asshole. Having just had a small argument with his dad helped him connect the dots. That was likely a trait passed down from his father. Jimmy Neutron was a narcissistic asshole by DNA. The thought depressed him but the more he thought about it the more it made sense. Maybe his fights with Cindy weren't just some cute albeit dangerous way of getting her attention. Maybe he really was as stuck up as she always said he was.

Jimmy pulled up in the parking lot outside the lab. He really didn't know how to feel. He didn't want to accept that he was an asshole. He knew he could fix his behavior if he tried. He knew he could apologize to Cindy. But none of that would matter if the people around him didn't take him back. His thoughts were all over the place. What it all boiled down to was that Jimmy didn't think he was a good person. He was angry with the world and couldn't find the will to do anything about it. He wanted to fix that but didn't know how.

Suddenly a text came in from Carvey.

Don't come in today. Come in tomorrow at the regular time.

Jimmy read the text frustrated. He began typing I'm here. His thumb hovered over the send button. He really didn't care to go in to the lab today anyway. Instead Jimmy deleted the text and drove off.