Zed quietly entered the medical lab and walked over to the door to Kay's room. He had delayed coming to visit as long as he could, finding tons of things that suddenly needed to be taken care of immediately so that he didn't have to come down there, didn't have to see his friend laying there like that, suffering. Zed could hear Jay reading to Kay as he approached the room. Zed grimaced a bit at that. The kid had no idea what Kay was facing. Elle looked up when she head the door open and saw Zed standing there, a striken expression on his face. She turned and went over to him as he quickly backed away from the room.
"Zed?" Elle said as she approached him, placing a hand on his arm. "it's going to be alright, you know."
"How is he? Any sign of improvement?" Zed asked. He hated himself for backing away, for not going in and being there to support his friend when he needed help the most but he couldn't help remembering his grandmother, the condition she was in, everytime he saw Kay.
"He's making some improvement," Elle said with a smile. "He's reacting a bit to stimuli now. Not really responding to voices yet but that should come in time. How are you doing?"
"I hate it. I hate knowing he's in that condition, knowing what he's going to go through. Is he in any pain?" Zed asked. He had known his grandmother had been in pain at the end but before that there had been no way to tell.
"I don't think he's in anymore pain than usual after surgery," Elle told him. "I have him on medication for it in case, though, and of course I'm doing exercises to keep his muscles and joints working. That should help a lot as far as pain goes."
"What's his prognosis?"
"I can't say for sure what we can expect to happen. The brain's very tricky to deal with." Elle noticed that Zed looked away at that. "Zed he's making progress. He was in as deep a coma as it's possible to be in at first. He's made remarkably fast progress with that. The coma's much lighter now than it was."
"But you can't say for sure that he's going to recover?" Zed asked.
"Unfortunately not. The brain's very tricky, after all. There's a chance that he may never come out of the coma any further than he already has but there's every chance that he'll keep progressing and wake up fully within a day or two."
Just then Jay appeared in the doorway. "Hey, Zed. You coming in for awhile?" he asked as he waved the book in his boss's direction. "I could use some help with this thing. Thought Kay might like some different voices for the characters."
Zed shook his head as he followed Jay into the room wishing he could share the young agent's ignorance, his youthful optimism that everything was going to be alright. If only they didn't have to be here. He forced himself to take the book and start reading the lines as Jay directed. He would never forgive himself if he didn't at least try to help his friend.