A/N: I do not own anyone from the Cal Leandros series. I do not own the song lyrics used here!

Medical notes: I work in an ER, so even though I've tried to narrow out the medical jargon, there's still some in there. More notes at the end of the chapter!

Thanks to SensiblyTainted for the uber-prompt review! Thanks also to Obi the Kid, Comuterale, and halesgirl101 for reviewing! A big thanks and a welcome back to Kin-outcast1 for reviewing!

Also, Niko in a hospital gown = free butt-shots for everyone. Don't say I never gave you nuthin'. (Personally agrees with Robin that Niko's backside is fine.)

Chapter Fourteen: Ache

If you never had it then
You don't know how bad it is
There is nothing like it, well
Needless talk, then, I can tell
-"Domino," The Goo Goo Dolls

I half-laid on the cot, shedding flakes of mud all over the pristine starched sheet, and held Niko's hand so he wouldn't pick out his IV. Robin sat, mud- and blood-streaked, in a chair pulled up beside the bed. We'd been here ten minutes, said the clock on the wall, but I wasn't sure it was ten minutes. Could an eternity be packed into ten minutes? They'd scanned Niko's head, they'd started an IV, they'd X-rayed him, they'd cut him out of his clothes, drawn blood and hung fluid and hooked him up to monitors that showed erratic squiggly lines that I couldn't read. Then they'd left us alone, in a glass-fronted room right in front of nurse's station. Niko's blood-soaked, cut-up shirt was still slopped on the floor, and so were his pants; he was wearing a hospital gown and nothing else. There was the IV trash littering the little metal table-tray pulled up by the bed, and a plastic urinal jug, and a piece of paper with notes taken in some really gnarly handwriting.

My sense of smell was still dead as a doornail, but while it was a mercy it was also starting to freak me the fuck out. Niko laid very still, though his eyes were open and tracking, the head of the stretcher propped up a little. He kept watching me mostly, breath fogging faintly in the oxygen mask he wore.

"I can't smell him, Robin." My voice was thin and snot-chugged and hurt my own head. I had an awful headache, dull and skull-encompassing. "I can't smell anything."

"You said that," Robin soothed, but he was worried and there was a furrow between his eyebrows. "Niko mentioned you have a good nose."

"If I could smell I wouldn't be in here." I rubbed at a drip of dried blood between Niko's knuckles. It crackled up off the skin in chips and crumbs. "I can't breathe in hospitals. Everything's dead and rotting and sick. You know cancer smells like frying blood?"

Robin was giving me a funny look. "You can smell that?"

"Yeah." Niko curled his fingers around mine. I stopped picking at the dried blood. "I can't smell Nik. I can't smell you. Are you really you, Robin?" I put my head down on Niko's upper arm. It was cold in here. I had my knees folded up over Niko's thigh.

"I'm really me, kiddo." Robin's voice was kind. "I'll be right back, okay?"

Niko breathed slowly, and I breathed with him. I felt numb all over, too cold and too tired. Too much too soon. I pressed my back against the stretcher railing and my bruises ached hotly. I was alive, Niko was alive, Niko was warm and so were the bruises. His fingers tugged at mine - I held on. He kept wanting to worry out the IVs. He was awake, but slow and sluggish and definitely not all there. He'd known who he was, though, and the year and where he was. So they said he was doing really well. But I knew he wasn't okay, not really, the way he was acting.

Robin came back in, trailing a round lady in scrubs. She snapped on some blue nitrile gloves and started cleaning the room up, moving in a brisk busy way. She poked a button on the monitor machine and the blood-pressure cuff around Niko's arm started puffing up. I watched her, and Niko watched her, and she looked grim and tired and disinterested in her job. Robin tapped me on the arm, and held out two things. One was a surgical mask, and the other was a little clear bottle. I stared at it blankly, at the oil inside it.

"Peppermint oil," he explained, and his hand rested over my shoulder. "For when your sense of smell decides to kick back in."

Wow. I knew I should smile but I felt too weirdly blank. "Thanks, Robin."

He nodded, and sat in his chair again. That was exactly when another lady poked her head in. "Mister Goodfellow, I need you to verify your payment information, please." Robin stood up with a sigh, and the tired lady left, and then it was just me and Niko.

"We need to leave," I whispered, because Niko and I couldn't afford to pay Robin back for this.

Niko went tense all over. Worried, I lifted my head, but he wasn't looking at me. He wasn't looking at anything at all. I could only see the whites of his eyes under the edge of his lashes, neck arched stiff, and the monitor squealed and his body convulsed and that was wrong wrong wrong no no no that wasn't a good thing Nik!

The room filled up with people in a heartbeat. Someone pulled me off the bed and they dropped the head and the railings flat, rolled Niko to his side as he jerked and twitched like a hooked fish in sharp spasms. The doctor, the nurses, they hurried back and forth, sharp orders and words barked in harsh tones: "Seizing...increased ICP...gimme diazepam STAT...where's the crash cart? Get respiratory in here." Somebody rolled a big cart in, rattling loud and metallic. Niko dropped limp and the monitor was still squalling its electronic warning and one of the wriggling lines was flat and still.

Someone was screaming, raw and shrill on a high single hysterical note.

It wasn't until Robin's hand clapped roughly over my mouth that I realized I was the one screaming.

He was backed into a corner with an arm like a bar of steel around my chest pinning my arms to my sides and a rough-calloused hand over my mouth and I couldn't stop screaming. They'd rolled Niko on his back again, were bending over and hiding him from view; one of his arms draped out over the edge of the bed forgotten, hand dangling from a limp wrist, and Robin's hand was hot on my mouth and his blood was hot on my lips and I couldn't stop.

A nurse moved in front of us, blocking my view. "Can you take him out?"

Over my mental chant of no no no no Robin was shaking his head. "I think he's having a panic attack. He's got some serious anxiety issues. I...don't have his medication with me."

"I think you should take him out of the room."

Niko was struggling now, and I couldn't see well enough, but Robin said something else and the nurse backed away. Oh God they were trying to put a tube down his throat. He was fighting them and I needed to get to him he needed me and a nurse injected something milk-coloured through the IV and he abruptly stopped fighting and went limp.

The nurse was back, handing Robin something. His hand was bloody and bitten when he pressed it against my lips, something small and bitter on my tongue. "Swallow that, Caliban. Swallow it."

I did.

The world hazed away white and too bright and empty of everything.

I woke up to Niko stroking my hair.

I knew his hand anywhere. I'd know it in my sleep. Hell, even if I were goddamn dead I'd probably still know it was Niko. I couldn't smell him, but the instant alarm at that was weirdly muted. I could smell peppermint, strong enough my eyes watered, and I tried not to breathe too deeply. Something was on my face. I pawed at it with clumsy fingers: a soft synthetic cloth mask. I opened my eyes to an expanse of bland beige blanket when Niko made a rough scolding noise deep in the back of his throat. I dropped my hand obediently and laid very still, just to make sure. Niko's hand resumed petting my hair, which was filthy with mud and blood and God only knew what else. It crackled under his touch.

Blankets, white pillows. The dry elastic behind my ears itched but when I reached up to rub at it Niko scolded me again. I stopped. I felt...I didn't know how I felt. Flat. Like I was under a plate of glass. I was looking around the room but not really seeing it, head resting on Niko's chest, body limp across the covers. I was bundled under one of the same beige blankets, and the room was very dim. There was a clock ticking somewhere. Hissing of pressurized gas. Niko was breathing deeply and evenly, and he wasn't relaxed entirely. He was wary-tense, a shade of normal, and his hand on my hair was comforting. I felt weirdly displaced despite that - I was with Niko, but I didn't know where the hell we were or how we'd gotten here. And somehow I didn't much care. It was bad, I should know, I needed to know, but my head was too heavy to lift and Niko was warm and I felt flat.

"What did they give you?"

Niko's voice was a whisper, hoarse and harsh and it hurt my ears to hear it that way.

For a moment I didn't even think I could talk, but I couldn't panic over it. Then my dry lips and tongue unsealed, and my answer was weirdly slow and awfully slurred. "Dunno...pill." I'd been panicking. I hadn't been able to get out of it. Probably a sedative. My thoughts felt clear enough, but picking up what my body was up to, or my emotions... that was not coming in real well at all.

"Don't take it again," Niko warned. "You've been...you scared me."

My heart clenched and I turned my face into his chest. He pulled at my hair, but it didn't hurt. He started petting again. I could almost smell him around the peppermint. Almost. I laid there and he ran his hand over my hair and I drifted. It was a weird, dreamy feeling, like waking up in slow motion. Or like the world was fitting back into place like a broken bone being set. Niko's hand stilled only when he fell asleep.

I was dozing when Robin opened the door and came in. I lifted my head and watched him wordlessly. He smiled at me and crossed to the bedside in the dim. "Hey," he whispered.

"Hi," I croaked. Niko didn't stir. I shifted and found my arms. One was folded up under me against Niko's ribs, the other draped across his chest. "Robin, they drugged me."

Robin winced. "We did. You wouldn't stop screaming. Mighty Zeus, that was eerie a sound as I ever heard. And I have heard a lot of screaming in my day." His hand on the railing shifted, then stopped and settled. I reached out and brushed my fingertips over his hand. Long fingers folded over mine and his smile was a little easier. "You'll both be fine. Niko's got a small skull fracture, but he's not hurt anywhere else. You, well, you look like you'll recover."

"I look like shit," I muttered. I knew it. My hair was dirty and stiff and my face felt smeared and crusted. I sat up stiffly, feeling slow and clumsy. Niko wasn't awake and that made this all seem weirder; he slept light and he should have roused by now. Robin pulled a little on the hand he held to help me up. "Skull fracture?"

"It was a heavy rock. He's lucky he had you to get him out." Robin squeezed my hand. "He'll be fine. They didn't even take him into surgery."

"Oh." I sagged, and after a moment just put my forehead down on Niko's hip, curling over his lap. My ponytail was stiff when it brushed the side of my face. Yuck. I sat there for several moments, collecting my thoughts again. Niko was okay. That was all that mattered. "Don't drug me again," I told Robin. "I feel...weird."

"I won't,"said Robin, fondly, and then his fingertips brushed over the nape of my neck.

I tensed and waited for a pinch, before I realized Robin's slender cool blunt fingers were tracing the shadows of bruises over my skin. Suddenly it really sank in that Robin could see the bruises. The bruises, the ones that Niko gave me. I struggled back up, bumping against his hand. Robin's green eyes were steady as he met my gaze, and I wasn't with it enough to decipher exactly what emotion shaded the emerald depths.

"Caliban," he said, very softly and gently, "Who's been pinching you so hard?"

No way to lie. He knew what they were. I stared at him, head gone stupid from whatever fucking drug, and couldn't think of a lie fast enough. Robin waited, and I couldn't think of a damn thing to say for too long. "I..." My thoughts were too slow. "Nik. He...reminds me to focus. Pay attention." Little reminders in blue and purple and pain.

"I wasn't aware you had problems with focusing," Robin said, and he was quiet.

"I...sometimes." Let him buy it. Oh God let him buy it. I couldn't keep looking at him.

For a moment there was silence. "Then what is this?" he asked, and reached over my shoulder. A single finger pressed lightly and traced the stripe of a greening bruise from where it just barely peeked over my collar at the edge of my neck down my back to the edge of my shoulderblade, Robin's wrist pressing firm against my upper arm. He still held my hand, and his green eyes were serious and very, very old. I closed my eyes, shivering from the echoes of pressure that were not quite pain.

I wanted it to hurt. Bruises should hurt.

Only Niko was ever so careful when he touched me, and it felt wrong somehow for Robin's hand to rest against my back.

"Don't...don't ask me that," I whispered, voice dry and hoarse and thick. "Robin. Please." He took a breath. "Please."

There was a moment of stillness. Robin's hand moved from my back. A curled forefinger nudged my jaw; a calloused thumb wiped the single hot tear off my cheek before it could get the mask I wore wet. Shame, anger, sickness, despair, fear. I didn't want Robin to know. I didn't want to see the way he looked at me change. I liked him, dammit, I didn't want to have to push him away and leave him behind, like we'd done to so many others. I didn't want him to pity me.

Robin's hands were cool, like summer shade. He took his hand away from my cheek, but the fingers twined with mine stayed. "May I ask again later?"queried he, and the patience in his voice was ancient. When I didn't answer, he added, "Caliban. I can't not ask. Not if you're hurt."

"It hurts more when you ask. Leave it alone." I opened my eyes but I couldn't look at him. I stared down at our hands.

"Cal." That startled me into looking up - Robin didn't know what my full name meant to me (call a monster by its real name) and he didn't often call me Cal. That was usually only Niko's territory. Robin's eyes were deep and his voice was earnest, serious. It was as far from the laughing trickster as I'd ever known him to be, and yet it was still very much Robin in a raw way I didn't have words for.

He was older than I could imagine. He'd seen so much.

A small voice in my head said Robin had seen right through my lies, and he only wanted to hear the truth from me, in my own words, to have it out and make it honest between us.

Honesty was like a blade. Niko and I cut eachother to pieces with it every day.

I glanced automatically at Niko, hoping. I didn't want to answer Robin. Niko told better lies, would know how to handle this. But Niko was asleep, face slack and empty, and I didn't want to answer and I didn't want Robin to treat me like I was damaged, made of glass, a victim, because of all the things I was (monster brother healing loved abused) I was not a victim. I wasn't helpless and I wasn't weak and I wasn't mindless. I was a monster, and we didn't get happy lives. I tried to pull my hand out of Robin's. His fingers tightened, but when I looked up he wasn't looking at me.

That made it suddenly easier to think, somehow. "Not...not now, Robin."

Robin's curly head nodded, bowed and eyes closed. "Thank you." His voice was quiet, gentle.

For the life of me I had no idea why it made me start crying.

That got Niko up at last, though. When I started sniffling and my breathing went harsh, Niko stirred hazily and opened his eyes. He reached up to me and I laid down again, hiding my face in his chest. He put his arms around me and let me hide, even if Robin was still holding my hand. Niko ran his fingers over my hair, and took a deeper breath. He hummed a thin frayed note before his voice quit, but I knew what he was trying to do. I took a rattling breath and started humming the old lullabye myself.

It...wasn't the same, but it still helped. It still helped. I'd have to remember that, if it could work like that. I'd never thought about it before. I laid there dry-eyed and breathed.

"Did you tell Robin what Abbagor said, little brother?" Niko croaked, voice dry and hoarse.

"No." I shifted, and Niko let me sit up. I still couldn't quite look Robin in the eye. "Abbagor said the Rom have the second crown. He didn't say what clan."

Robin grinned, but the expression was wan, lacking his usual cheer and enthusiasm. "I may not know everything, but I do know everyone. Given a little time, I'll find out which tribe it is and where they are."

"I hope to God it's not the Vayash," Niko sighed.

I winced, despite myself. I did remember that visit. "Same."

Robin raised an eyebrow. "That was your mother's clan?"

"Yes. Damn them to the deepest pits of Hell, yes." Niko coughed, and the noise he made after felt like it cut me in two. I looked at him with my heart in my throat - his face had gone white as the sheets, as the gauze around his forehead, and there was a crease between his brows. But he opened his eyes and put a hand on my arm and tapped a finger. After a few very controlled breaths, he spoke again. "I'm fine, Cal. Head hurts."

Robin gave my hand a squeeze, then let go. He busied himself with something on the bedside table. With a flourish, he leaned over the bed-railing with a styrofoam cup of water with a straw. Only Robin, and Niko and I both smiled a little. Niko reached up and pulled off the oxygen mask, beads of moisture from the humidified air glittering-bright on his lips. He reached for the cup, but Robin wouldn't give it up entirely, so with a dirty look Niko simply wrapped his fingers over Robin's to pull the straw exactly where he wanted it. He drank thirstily, and it occurred to me that there was an IV bag half-full hanging over the bed...but no IV in Niko's arms. He pushed the cup away, and saw me looking. He offered no explanation, only nudged Robin's wrist towards me. Robin smirked when I tried to take the cup from him, hanging onto it as he had with Niko.

"Fuck no, I will kick your ass," I managed. "I'm not playing your games."

"Such threats! Surely you can think of a better use for my ass," Robin retorted, waggling his eyebrows cheesily.

I drank the water by dint of slipping the straw under the surgical mask and Niko calmly flipped Robin the bird. "I can. Hit on my little brother again and I'll turn your ass into a rug."

"Say it again when your skull isn't cracked and I'll believe it," Robin chuckled, but he wasn't all with the levity. "I'll start making calls."

"Good." Niko took a breath, braced himself tense, and sat up from the bed. He wobbled a little, eyes shut, and his face had practically no colour to it at all. He opened his eyes and though there was pain bracketing the thin line of his lips his grey eyes were clear and determined. "Get the nurse before you do. I'm leaving."

It took two hours. The nurses and the doctors and the security guards all tried to argue Niko had just suffered a traumatic brain injury and was not fit to go anywhere. I was pretty much on their side, as was Robin, because even if Niko had gotten to his feet under his own power, he was pale as a ghost and shaky with it. But he was in his right mind, and an adult, and reasoned them down ruthlessly. He and Robin signed some papers saying the hospital was not responsible for anything that happened after Niko left, and then we were out, AMA: against medical advice. Still wearing nothing but a hospital gown, Niko leaned heavily on my shoulder as he limped barefoot down the hall. Robin had him by the other arm and was trying to tell Niko he was being an idiot. I already knew Niko wasn't listening.

I was as stiff as Niko - apparently cave-ins of earth and concrete and fighting with trolls and being thrown into walls made you stiff as hell. I had bruised and pulled muscles all over.

Niko threw up in the ornamental flower-pot while Robin went to get his car. I helped make sure the flimsy hospital gown stayed put and nobody got flashed, at the same time giving Niko an arm to lean over so he wouldn't end up face first in the freshly decorated pansies. His balance was shot, and it was the first time in years I'd seen him stand flat-footed for more than a minute. Niko was always balanced and ready for a fight. Except now he was not, and he looked like death warmed over.

"You look like shit."

"You look worse," he returned, breathily.

Fortunately, Robin pulled up before I had to witness the indignity of my older brother quietly passing out on a busy sidewalk in nothing but a hospital gown. Niko sat in the front seat and I crawled into the back of the cherry-red Mustang. "Robin, have I told you I love your car?" I asked, poking my head between the seats to make sure Niko was okay.

"At least five times," Robin replied, with a chuckle. "She's a glory."

"Damn straight," Niko added, sitting very still with his eyes closed. I'd taken off the surgical mask, and the smell of peppermint was still fumigating my sinuses, but I thought I could smell him a little; a thin stale unwashed hurting sliver of his usual scent.

Niko slept the entire traffic-clogged drive back to the hotel.

It took him a full minute of sitting and breathing to get up the willpower to stand and walk into the hotel - and it was willpower, because I knew for sure he wasn't running on anything else. What he'd thrown up earlier had been green-brown bile and foam; there was nothing in his gut. But he was up and moving, pale and shaking, grey eyes determined. We got him to the room and he sat down on the bed and looked more like a wreck than I'd ever wanted to see my older brother looking. There was dried blood everywhere in his hair, flaking off his face, down in the hollow of his shoulder.

Not a full minute after we'd gotten him settled, Flay came knocking at the door. Niko caught him up to speed, while Robin started making phone-calls. I tried to get Niko to lay down, which he did at last and promptly went back to sleep, but not before eating half of one of the donuts Flay had brought. I'd decided the Wolf was now my favorite friend; not only had he brought a box of donuts, he'd brought coffee. I eagerly bolted two big bear claws and a cup of bitter black coffee. Flay munched complacently on his own and worked steadily at the gallon-sized cup of coffee in his other hand. His wounds from the fight already showed some serious healing - damn werewolves and their ability to heal so fast. Robin had a bear claw in hand and was waving it as he talked, slipping in and out of English with shocking ease. He paced the floor. Pecans scattered in his wake.

I could tell the difference between Greek and Rom, if only because some of the verb forms were vaguely familiar to me - but Robin wasn't using any of the curses I knew. I ate and thought about getting a shower - I was filthy and tired and reeked to the high heavens. Niko and I needed to get cleaned up before Flay decided we'd smell good on him. Snorting at the mental image of Flay trying to roll on Niko, like a dog with roadkill, and the subsequent slaughter that would follow, I creaked my way off the bed and went to shower. Even sitting still that long had made me stiffen up something awful.

Abbagor's lair had left a fuckton of bruises on my arms and shoulders and back. I had a stripe of bruising along one temple that I didn't even recall getting, and weird jagged blue marks and round ones from all the debris. I was filthy-stiff with dirt, too, and had to stand under the spray for almost a full minute before the water stopped running dark brown. I soaped up twice, washed my hair three times, and emerged at last feeling like I might be reasonably human. Monster. Thing.

Whatever.

I brought a washcloth with me and washed off Niko's hands and wiped his face. He slept the entire time, and it worried me. Niko didn't sleep like that. He woke up at pin-drop on shag carpet. He couldn't even sleep if the wind blew too hard, some nights. The man had the ears of a bat. Even I, half Auphe, didn't sleep so lightly. But now he slept hard, face slack and still. Flay watched me work but offered no comment. Robin's voice raised sharply, and I did recognize that insult, but then he was nodding. I pushed at my wet hair, down around my shoulders in stringy clumps and still dripping, and went to rinse out my very dirty washcloth.

When I came back not a minute later, Robin was speaking in something that sounded like Russian. Maybe. Slavic, most definitely. Helluva phone bill, but it was his phone so what the hell did I care? I sat on the bed with Niko and watched him sleep. It was unnatural. It felt too weird.

So I started cleaning weapons, and wondered what Robin had done with the mud-spattered collection in the El Camino. Hell, what'd he done with our car? That leather seat was probably ruined as hell.

I put a better edge on a knife and watched Robin pace and gesture with his free hand.

Flay and I were amicably discussing takeout options for lunch when Robin hung up from his latest call and grinned at me - bright and brilliant and so self-satisfied I knew he'd figured it out. "Done. We're going to Lady Lucia, Florida. The other crown is there."

"Robin, you are as awesome as you say you are," I told him, sincerely, grinning back helplessly. "I'm sorry for ever doubting."

Niko chuckled dryly behind me. "Road-trip. I thought I'd done with those for a while."

I turned, relieved to find him awake. He smiled at me, but didn't move to sit up just yet. "Guess we can't escape that Rom wanderlust." I shrugged. Yeah, we weren't doing this for the fun of it.

"Annie, get your gun. Let's get this show on the road."

Robin laughed, and started humming "There's No Business Like Show Business." I wasn't surprised he was familiar with the Broadway musical. I had the feeling that as literate as Niko and I were, Robin was moreso. Flay just shook his head. He was a simple Wolf, Flay was, and did not care for such fripperies in life. Okay, hell if I knew that was true; he was probably just annoyed at us for acting like idiots.

Since there was no way Flay was being left behind, but no way we'd all fit in either of the cars comfortably, Robin made a call to another friend who promised to loan him an RV. Now that was traveling in style. It would be easier on Niko, too. Robin and Flay left, and after a quick lunch of sandwiches from the deli on the corner, Niko and I set about getting him clean. It was not easy, because was he dizzy and unsteady on his feet. The gash on his head was four inches long, but Niko and I were both puzzled as to why his hair was not shaved; the wound had been very carefully stitched, at least.

"Robin probably said something," Niko concluded, as he sat cross-legged in the tub and I poured another cupful of water through his hair. Niko's spine was ramrod straight, but I could read in the line of his shoulders that he was tired and hurting and running on nothing but stubborn. His hair was almost clean, though. Almost. I was still rinsing.

"Probably. Robin said he'd get your 'scrips filled." Niko made a protesting noise. I scowled. "I know you won't take the pain meds but you're sure as fuck going to take the antibiotics. As many bodies that were rotting in Abby's lair, there was some kind of mutant killer infection waiting for your wounded ass. And you don't have my killer immune system."

Niko grunted a little, and wobbled, but stayed upright. "Very well, though I wonder if all Auphe have the same immune system."

I thought about it. "Probably. They eat carrion, you know."

"...I did not. Suddenly, many things become clear." Niko huffed a little laugh. "Carrion of what they kill or...?"

"Mostly what they kill, but they'll scavenge if they're feeling lazy." I rinsed Niko's hair out one last time. "But they fed me fresh, figured out pretty quick I couldn't eat anything already rotting." I only vaguely remembered that. "Maggots are gross. They squirm." I focused on Niko's hair under my fingers, and not the phantom sensation of something wriggling under my tongue, slick and slimy and alive. Yeah okay no. I gagged, swallowed, and put my forehead down on Niko's bare shoulder. "Fuck I think I just triggered myself." My stomach did a slow roll and I reached up to run a finger through my mouth, trying to convince my stupid brain there wasn't really a worm in there yuck yuck yuck they were bitter like bile and gritty and popped between the teeth and oh God...

Niko swore, and reached up to wrap his fingers in my wet hair. "Cal. Cal, stay with me. It's okay..."

It was mostly okay. I did throw up, twice, but after I brushed my teeth and sat on the bed with Niko for about half an hour I felt better. I didn't want to get up and go out, but Niko was in no shape to do the traditional before-the-trip shopping. Road-trips required food, drinks, and at least one crossword puzzle book. Also extra batteries for my Gameboy and the flashlight. We had a system going, and it was a damn good one.

When I got back from shopping, there was an RV parked on the curb and Niko was directing as Robin gathered up our bags. I joined in.

"What have you got?" Robin wanted to know, peering at the grocery sacks.

"Road-trip essentials. Also some extra ammo," I grunted, wincing as the strap of my duffle-bag pressed into my bruised shoulder. "Fuck, who know a cave-in could bruise to the bone?"

Robin snorted. "Laws of physics are so inconvenient." Mine and Niko's bags went into the tiny bedroom. I had a feeling Robin was going to stick Niko in there, too. Good. He didn't need to be up, not with his head.

"Damn straight. I want a refund on reality. Especially on yesterday. It sucked balls." I trooped out after Robin, and headed back into the hotel, rolling my shoulder against the ache. Wow that one stung. "How long will this trip take?"

"About two days, give or take traffic," Robin answered, holding the door for me. Niko was sitting on the floor, fussing with the lay of his swords in his bag.

"We made it in one from Louisiana to New York," Niko pointed out, helpfully.

"Yeah, and you were driving. I think Robin actually drives within twenty miles of the speed limit, dickwad." I watched him secure a knife inside the waistband of his pants. Niko took paranoia to a new and exciting level. Granted, I was the same; always always always be armed.

Robin gathered up the last bag. I helped Niko off the floor.

Flay met us at the door. We were ready.

A/N: So! Because Niko was concious enough to answer questions and scored a 14 on the Glascow coma scale, he was not deemed an immediate crisis, which is why after the first barrage of tests, he was put in a holding room in the ER. They were still monitoring him, and he was within view of the nurse's station as a high-priority patient, but he was not actively dying at that moment. Seizures, vomting, disorientation, and personality changes are common signs and symptoms of any head injury. Don't worry, I'll be exploring that with great glee!

During Niko's seizure, caused by increased ICP (intercranial pressure) due to swelling of the bruised, injured brain, the the medical team is preparing for the possibility Niko might go into cariac or respiratory arrest. The "crash cart" that was brought in is a pre-fulled cart that has all the medication and equipment needed for such an eventuality. The doctor calls for diazepam or Valium, a fast-acting anti-seizure medication. You do stop breathing during a seizure, but Niko also experienced a temporary respiratory arrest. Thus they intubated him to maintain a stable airway, and to help protect his airway from any vomit. The white substance the nurse pushes after Niko seizes is propofol or Diprivan - it's a fast-acting hypnotic with amnesiac properties, and is used here to induce unconsciousness in preparation for the endotracheal intubation procedure.

The flat line on the screen was not his heart; most monitors these days have readings for heart activity, breathing, blood pressure, and oxygen content of the blood. Cal, in his confusion, misread the line that indicated the rhythm and speed of Niko's breathing.

And finally, the nurse gave Cal an alprazolam, or Xanax. His own exhaustion combined with the drug's fast-working effects conked him out for a while.