I'm not much of a writer, but something about POI compels me to try this. Appreciative of any and all critiques. Don't know how long this will end up- just know there will be several chapters.

Root, Shaw and Dr. Tillman returned to Root's quarters. The doctor was not about to reprimand Shaw, knowing she would never do anything to negatively affect Root's situation so she chose to ignore their unauthorized excursion and get right to discussing her rehab protocol.

"We're going to start with two rehab sessions a day, Ms. Groves. The good news is we've inserted two rest periods into the schedule, each one immediately following a session. The bad news is, you're going to need them- we are going to work you like you haven't worked in a long time.

"We will re-evaluate your progress weekly, or sooner if it's deemed necessary. Each session will contain both strength and endurance training which will be increased as you can tolerate. We will work you hard, Ms. Groves, and you may have periods where you want to quit. We will push you beyond what you think you're capable of."

Root looked at the doctor and smiled. "I may surprise you doc with what I can take. Did I ever tell you how Sameen and I met?"

"Please don't, I've heard the story."

Root looked at Shaw, the question in her eyes.

"They did this TENS therapy on you to stimulate muscles and prevent them from atrophying. I told them they had no idea what you and I could take…. then I showed them."

Root snickered and looked back at the doctor.

"OK so you know I kind of like that sort of thing…" she smiled faintly eyes distant. Then snapping back to the present- "Can we start today?"

"Yes, I've scheduled your first session this afternoon. We'll start with a forty-five minute session and depending on your tolerance for the rigors, expand to ninety minutes over the next few days or weeks."

"I'm ready to go. Not that this isn't a really nice place but I'm not a hospital type of person. The sooner I can get out of here, the better."

Dr. Tillman started to leave the room. "I'll get started on it."

"Not so fast doc, you promised some info on the other wing." Shaw looked pointedly at the doctor. "We are all ears."

Dr. Tillman hesitated, then turned back to the ladies. Nervously, she looked at her hands then up at Root and Shaw.

"Well, as I told you Ms. Shaw, this facility was designed and built with two purposes in mind: first treating the local Native American population with state-of-the-art medical care and second to treat any victim of your conflict with Samaritan who as so gravely injured that this would be their only hope of survival.

"When I went to New York to treat you Ms. Groves, I had no idea what our team was facing. I quite frankly thought that you were going to die and that we would never see another patient in our 'trauma wings'. We did some pretty spectacular work, if I may say so, but without your resilience and will to survive, we would never have succeeded.

"Your case presented unique challenges in critical care, then neuroscience while doing our utmost to keep your musculoskeletal system from atrophying any more than necessary. The whole case, including our experiment with ultrasound on the hypothalamus could be written up in a medical journal except for several laws that were broken, and not to mention possible ethical violations.

"Our treatment of you may provide some future treatment guidelines for comatose people- I don't think any of the other treatment protocols will have a chance of being reproduced any time soon and probably shouldn't be. The entire situation led me to believe we would not see another case from your 'war' with Samaritan simply because I felt a scenario like this would not yield any survivors. In other words, any candidate for our facility would most likely die before we could be in a position to render aid.

"I was wrong."

Shaw and Root looked at each other with questions in their eyes. Each shook their heads in the negative before Shaw spoke up.

"So who's over there doc? And what's wrong with them? Are we supposed to guess? It better not be Martine. Or Greer for that matter."

Dr. Tillman looked at the two ladies with discomfort. She cleared her throat started to speak, stopped then finally found her voice.

"Ms. Shaw, I hate to do this to you twice and Ms. Groves I wish there was a way to soften this, but…. John Reese didn't die on that roof in New York."

Root's eyes widened in shock. Shaw went pale as a ghost, weaved to the side, then grabbed hold of Root''s wheelchair to steady herself. Shaw's face darkened in anger as she recovered from her shock.

"And why the hell would you keep me in the dark about this?" Shaw demanded. "I want to see him."

"Me too!" Root looked accusingly at the doctor. "Why didn't you tell her before this?"

"When I tell you the whole story, I think you'll understand. I will take you to see him, but I need to prepare you for what you're going to find. You see, John is suffering from a form of amnesia which has us baffled as to if and when he will ever recover.

"The clinical name is 'Hysterical' or "Fugue' amnesia. What it means is not only does John not remember what happened to him, he's lost the memory of who he is or who he was. We have been doing conventional treatment for some months but no progress at all. Ms. Shaw, I believed it was more critical for you to focus all your attention and energies on Ms. Groves so I deliberately kept this information from you.

"If I was wrong, I apologize but it was my decision. I planned on telling you once Ms. Groves was on a rehab schedule but felt she was the one you should concentrate on initially. When we discussed your relationship I became even more determined to keep you focused on Ms. Groves' situation because I felt your time with her shouldn't be restricted and, as we discussed, I didn't want your well being compromised by spreading you too thin."

Shaw had become very quiet but as she processed the doctor's words she visibly relaxed. Root seemed shocked but in her weakened state there was no outward sign of upset. Shaw smiled faintly and looked back at Dr. Tillman.

"OK doc, I'm going to cut you some slack on this- after all, you did give me back my reason for living." Root and Shaw glanced at each other and smiled. "And I might not agree with your conclusions, but I know you had Root's best interests in mind. But now we want, no we need to see John and figure out what we can do to help him."

Root nodded emphatically. Dr. Tillman looked at her watch and said, "Ms. Groves, your first rehab session starts in less than an hour and it will take fifteen minutes to get to the other wing. I guess we can start a few minutes late since today's session is a forty-five minute one.

"I wouldn't think you will want to stay much past 15 or 20 minutes once you see Mr. Reese's condition so we will put back your scheduled rehab starting time about a half-hour. On the way, I will bring you up to speed on his situation and prognosis."

Shaw nodded once and looked at Root. "Ready?"

"As much as I'll ever be, let's go see him."

On their way across the complex, Dr. Tillman updated them on Reese's arrival, treatment and prognosis.

"As I told the two of you, I believed we would never get another patient after your arrival Ms. Groves. The odds of anyone with the kind of trauma required to need us seemed very slim indeed. But a few weeks after we brought you here, I received another mysterious email.

"A Medevac jet was on it's way from New York with a patient with critical injuries. I was to be fed updates on the patient's condition along with how the injuries occurred. Interestingly, the injuries proved to be almost two separate incidents: several bullet wounds obviously the result of a gunfight and a traumatic head injury of unknown origin.

"The patient, of course Mr. Reese, was already stabilized from the bullet wounds as they had done little critical damage. He was still pretty much dressed as when he was injured except for an interesting kevlar vest which had been removed but brought along. I say interesting because it not only had several slugs and indentations, it had detonation marks on the outside. It appeared the detonations were packets of imitation blood, like special effects in a movie.

"I've been unable to come up with any logical reason for this, although it may have contributed to his survival: it's quite possible whoever shot him in this gunfight was fooled into believing his wounds were much graver than they actually were by the imitation blood. There was quite a bit and while he had some severe wounds, no vital organs were threatened. While I understand his wearing kevlar, I don't understand the special effects."

Shaw interrupted the doctor's story. "It's possible that it was simply an accident. John may have been rushed when he grabbed the vest and simply grabbed the wrong one."

"Of course, we designed them to fool professionals into believing they had killed some of the 'non-relevant' numbers- and as I recall, they were kept in the same storage locker as the regular ones." This came from Root. "It could have been a simple mistake."

Dr. Tillman nodded. "That's possible I suppose, especially since by your account, Ms. Shaw, John was expecting to die on that roof. As I was saying, the bullet wounds were severe but not critical- he was hit in a couple places that were unprotected, but the real problem appears to have been caused by an unknown event which led to a traumatic cranial event causing amnesia.

"Medically, it doesn't matter what caused this head trauma since we have to deal with the results no matter what. I am curious however, and hearing the story of what John was doing in the moments before his injuries may provide answers once we get some more information."

Shaw paused, thinking. "We may be able to watch most of the episode on the roof with the Machine's help. There were undoubtedly cameras in the vicinity and they may be able to provide video evidence of some or all of the gunfight. I would suspect the head injury, if it occurred separate from the gunfight, happened as a result of the missile destroying the satellite dish and wiping out Samaritan once and for all."

They continued in silence until reaching an alcove that seemed a mirror image of their quarters. Dr. Tillman looked at Root and Shaw. "Just be prepared for him not being what you remember- I'm baffled and Dr. West is baffled as far as what to do next."

They entered into a room with no furniture save the hospital bed and a single dresser. Several pieces of monitoring equipment were in a metal rack adjacent the bed. There was one lead attached to the figure in the bed. As Root and Shaw approached, the figure stared straight ahead, no recognition, no acknowledgement of their presence.

It was Reese, of that they had no doubt. But this Reese was even less expressive than the partner they had lived with and fought alongside of for years. While open, his eyes showed no sign of seeing, only revealing a blank stare.

Shaw pushed Root's chair toward the bed. Stopping about five feet away, she walked around and approached the bed. Shaw bent down so she was less than a foot from Reese's face, looked into his eyes and smiled.

No expression, no change, just a blank stare.

She tried a different tack.

"John- it's me, Shaw. I came to see you as soon as I knew you were here. I brought Root with me. Can you say hi to us?"

Root leaned forward slightly and smiled, "Hi ya big lug- did ya miss me?"

Nothing.

Shaw again, "John, JOHN- can you at least look at me?" She snapped her fingers in front of his face.

Reese's eyes changed slightly, he stopped looking through Shaw and seemed to focus on her. But he showed no expression, no recognition, no life. Sameen reached out and gently stroked his forehead.

"Looks like you've had quite a time of it, partner. Well, I just spent several days at Root's side praying that she'd wake up and remember me- I guess I'll just have to do the same thing with you. We were part of a team John and, while we weren't the Marines, like them we don't leave anyone behind. Root and I are going to be here with you until you come back- no matter how long it takes."

She leaned forward and gently kissed his forehead. "Now we're going back to Root's room, she's got some recovering to do herself, but we'll be back. And we're going to keep coming back until you're back. We will see you later."

Root spoke up right before Shaw took hold of her wheelchair, "Hey Lurch, I've been in a place similar to where you are- I know you can come back, you're strong, hell you're indestructible."

The last word made both Shaw and Dr. Tillman start. As they left the room to head back, the doctor asked, "Ms. Groves, why did you use that phrase?"

"What do you mean, doctor, what phrase?"

"You said, 'you're indestructible' to Mr. Reese right before we left."

"I don't know, it just came to me, I must have heard it before somewhere."

Shaw smiled and looked at the doctor who was shaking her head. "Well, Ms. Shaw I guess we can head on back and start Ms. Groves on her rehab schedule. I will have some more notes for her file. Oh and I think I will start including you two in the conferences Dr. West and I have been having regarding Mr. Reese."

Quick note: thanks to all who've reviewed and commented. Apologies for the new chapters slowing down some but I will try to keep updating regularly. This is already longer than I thought it would be but 'I'm not sure I'm calling the shots anymore'. ;)