Wow! It's the latest chapter (and I apologise in advance for the shortness of it, but I can't really add any more to it without completely ruining the next chapter and epilogue. Sorry)

Anyway, I've finally got around to actually completing this chapter (happy dance!) and I've also got around to throwing it up on FF for all you people to read. You're the best reviewers I've ever had because you've waited for me to actually update! :D

Anyhow, I hope you enjoy this chapter and will shout at me repeatedly until I finish the next chapter :p

Kasey xx

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Chapter Nine

...

"DOCTOR!" A loud voice screeched and tore through him as he coughed and fought against the foreign object lodged in his throat. "DOCTOR! HE'S AWAKE!"

"Hold him still please." Another voice, softer and far more controlled and affirmative echoed around him – so much softer compared to the harpy – and he coughed feeling like he was choking; he couldn't breathe, not with this thing in his throat. They were trying to kill him! Silence him! She was right! They were all against him! No! No...

"Doctor Reid. Doctor Reid, please – if you can hear me I need you to calm down. You're in hospital and you have an intubation tube in your throat to help you breathe." The voice came again, soft but still authorative and Reid slowly began to calm – reason reasserting itself and chasing away the irrational thoughts that always came to the fore when he panicked. "That's good Doctor Reid. That's good. Alright."

Soothing. That's what it was, the sound of someone talking to him, in the real world was comforting and soothing... so soothing that he drifted off into a sleep. A Sleep without dreams. A sleep that would pass the time so that it would be all over before he awoke again.

...

"Doc... I think his hand twitched..." Tony whispered, almost terrified to believe himself. It had been two days since the explosion and it was like someone had hit a switch because that Reid kid had woken up and now McGee was doing the same. He could only hope that this luck would extend to Eppes as well.

It was almost like a miracle was being performed before them, some supernatural feat that none of them could control or understand and it scared Tony. It scared him because he was terrified of what would happen when the miracle turned nasty. He was waiting with baited breathe as the doctor checked McGee over and returned to Tony, and the recently assembled Ziva and Gibbs who had literally flew to the hospital from the hotel they'd been staying at.

"Well. I honestly don't know how this is possible, but Agent McGee is currently in the process of coming out of a coma." The doctor said softly, his eyes reflecting his surprise as the NCIS team breathed a sigh of relief. "I've never had a patient wake up so soon after such a myriad of injuries. You're agent must be very determined to wake up Agent Gibbs."

"Probably doesn't want you giving him a head slap boss?" Tony managed to crack, the euphoria of knowing McGee was waking up over-riding his concern for the big nasty part of the whole miracle business. Gibbs gave Tony a look but it wasn't the usual 'shut-up-Dinozzo' look, in fact, if Tony had to guess he'd say it was pure joy at knowing McGee was waking up.

"Or perhaps he's concerned about you trying to 'hack' into his user again, Tony?" Ziva teased as she poked Tony in the side making him jump a little at the contact. He looked at her and saw that her previously closed-off and drawn face was now alight with joy and happiness and relief. He smirked his usual charming smirk and shoved her softly with his shoulder which she took to be a reassuring gesture as opposed to a threatening one; thank God for him.

"Well. I'm happy to tell you that he's resting naturally now. He'll be asleep for most of the day and night I think, judging by the severity of his injuries that is. I'm guessing he'll be awake and alert enough by tomorrow afternoon; which I think is roughly the same time as Doctor Reid is estimated to be awake too." The doctor explained with a smile gracing his features making him seem younger and more approachable than he normally looked. "Quite the miracle pair those two."

"McMiracle." Tony quipped causing Ziva to laugh suddenly. "I like it." He grinned as Ziva swotted him lightly on the arm and Gibbs gave him the lightest head smack in the history of head smacks. "I'll get Abb's to make a banner for his workstation."

...

"They're not going to be happy with you, you know?" Don said as he watched Katrine walk across the waiting room to throw herself down in her preferred seat. He moved over to sit down on the seat next to her and leant forward so that his elbows were resting on his knees as he looked sideways at her. "In fact, I think they'll probably torture you with Hobbesian philosophies till you go insane."

"Pfft!" Katrine snorted and waved a hand airily. "As if they could drive me insane, there's no sanity left in this scarred mind of mine Don. There hasn't been for a long time but the world's been too blind to notice." Katrine slouched back in her seat and Don suddenly had the sense that she'd aged a few decades in a few seconds; she seemed to be tired and worn-out, but she also seemed to be shrinking, like she was collapsing in on herself and Don didn't like it for a second. "People rush about like crazed, speed-taking ants, that can't bear to stop and smell the scent of car exhausts and gas cookers. Their nine-to-five jobs require them to rush-rush-rush with no real concern for preference or comfort or individuality. The moment we're born, from the cradle to the grave, we are brought up in a manner so as to 'prepare' us for a nine-to-five lifestyle. All forms of individuality is steadily rolled out of a personality and in its place a common code of 'conform, work, conform, work' is thrown into the fray so as to turn us in to flesh and blood automatons. It's despicable but it's humanity as it is now. And I'm not cut out for that sort of lifestyle. I swim against the flow of the water in the river and I'm drowning under its sheer force as it beats me down more and more the further along I get." Don blinked suddenly as Katrine threw herself forward in her seat so that she too was leaning forward with her elbows on her knees and her head tilted sideways so she could fix Don with a pointed stare. "I'm young, I'm just kid the world says. But the world doesn't see that my age counts for nothing when it is my experiences that dictate just how long, just how good or bad I am. I've done a lot of things in my short life, probably as much as you have if not more, and that's not because of anything other than environment. I'm not a good person, but nor am I a bad one, and I truly don't matter in the grand scale of things; I'm as expendable to progress as a blade of grass is in a golf field. I don't matter. I never really will. But history recalls people more than it does development, which is a laughable and damn near hangable offense in my opinion."

Don opened his mouth to speak but Katrine raise a hand to still him and said, her voice low and resigned. "What I'm trying, and failing miserably, to say Don is this. I don't matter. I never have and never will. It's sad, it's something that'll make people want to hug me and tell me that I matter and so on and so forth. But reality wins in my world. I do not matter. I don't think little of myself, in fact I think quite the opposite; I value my mind and my personality immensely because it allows me to realise my own importance in the grand scheme of existence. However. I might not matter."

Don watched as Katrine stood up and she motioned for him to stand as well, which is dutifully did as he held his tongue and followed her over to the door to the 'living' world. "I don't matter. But what I've done, what I've said, and what I do and say now does matter. And I want you to do make me a promise Don; you don't have to say you will because I know you will, you're that kind of person. But I want you to promise me that you will go to the last place I was held and look for a small hole in the ground, which I covered with two planks of wood – I don't know if it's still covered because of that explosion but one can only hope. And I want you to take what's hidden there and I want you to share it with Spencer and Tim – and their teams too. And I want you to send a copy of it to my parents; though please black out the most... traumatic of things that have occurred to me in the recent past please. I want them to not join me any time soon."

"Katrine." Don said, his voice low and almost pleading, as he realised what she was doing; she was telling him goodbye. And damn it because he hated her for doing it and he hated himself for finding himself unable to argue with her. She was too logical about it all, too organised in her explanation and it made him want to shake her and act like she was freaking out – because he knew that she was but she wouldn't dare show him that because he knew that she knew that he'd force her through the door and damn it... Just damn it.

"No." Katrine said firmly, stopping whatever protest Don was planning to unleash. "You haven't got much time Don and I just wanted you to know one other thing." She paused for a second and took a breath before looking him directly in the eye with the firmest and more determined gaze he'd ever seen. "Your ability to understand your adversary, though sickening, is not a weakness and it does not mean you are in any way, shape or form as much a monster as they are. It just means that, unlike the majority of humanity, your ability to adapt to your surroundings applies to your thought process also. You are able to alter your thought pattern which enables you to save people. It's scary and it's weird and it's down-right terrifying at times but it's brilliant when it saves someone, when it helps you find a madman and know almost before he does that he's going to pull that trigger and you save people by stopping him before he can do more harm."

Don felt his eyes starting to water as a torrent of emotions swirled within him. How could this girl read him so damn well? No-one, not ever experienced profilers could do that and here she was, explaining to him that his own fears and disgust with how he was wrong. "How do-"

"You're not the only one who can read people naturally Don. The difference is I'm no longer afraid to use it as it has rightly been bestowed upon me as; a tool, a gift. I've had every thought running through my head since I was young, just like you, and I know for a fact now that this is the best tool I've ever had. It may have got me some unwanted attention but by God it saved me long enough for me to find you and the others. It saved me long enough for me to help you." Katrine smiled brightly as her eyes shone with tears and Don couldn't help it, he smiled as she hugged him tightly.

They stood like that for a long moment before Don's ears picked up the sound of something, something which he recognised, and before he could say or do anything he heard Katrine whisper. "I'm sorry Don." And the next thing he knew was Katrine had sneaked a foot around the back of his right heel and dragged it out from under him, causing him to fall backwards as she turned him so that he fell through the door.

The last thing he saw before he was engulfed in a wall of white light was Katrine's face looking apologetic but determined as she held onto the door frame.

And then the white went black.

...

It was quiet. And it was late, judging by the fact that his eyelids let in no light and there was nothing covering his face to inhibit the light. So, it was quiet and it was late. It was probably sometime around midnight, past visiting hours but too early to be time for the early nurse rounds. He tried to open his eyes but he found that he didn't have the energy required to drag his eyelids back and so he settled with straining his hearing and listening to the various ambient sounds around him.

There was beeping, rhymic and in time with his heart beat so he guessed it was the heart monitor. It sounded like it was to his immediate left, probably no more than an arm's length away from his bed. There was also the slight and incredibly drowned-out sound of rushing traffic, which told him he was somewhere near a freeway – or a very busy main road. That told him that he was in one of the bigger more important hospitals and that his injuries had to be serious. Very serious.

He could hear his own breathing, and he tried to swallow but he winced reflectively in slight discomfort as he realised that, up until recently, he'd had a breathing tube in; and damn did he hate those things. To him his own breathing sounded a bit laboured, like it was hard for him to take in oxygen, and he attempted to take a deeper breath only to wince at a sudden flaring of pain along his side. Ribs. Damn ribs.

Feeling like he was more aware of the world around him, he tried again to open his damn uncooperative eyes, and he was rewarded when his eyelids drew back and allowed him an unimpeded view of the ceiling; albeit a slightly fuzzy view. A small smile graced his face and he focused now on getting his hands to move in a more coordinated manner than random twitching. A couple of intense, thought-filled seconds later and he had enough muscle dexterity in his right hand to enable him to hit a switch on the little remote which someone had placed in his hand at some point. God bless that person.

No more than a minute later a doctor entered his room and blinked in shock as they realised that he was awake. They smiled warmly at him and said. "Agent Eppes. I'm glad to see you awake."

Don smiled widely, or as widely as he possibly could, and managed to croak out. "Not as glad as I am doc."

...

To Be Continued... when I get around to it ;)