Carlton watched the world move around him, unable to process completely what was happening.

Where the hell am I? His thoughts echoed loudly in his head, words racing nonstop through his mind, but the words sounded scrambled.

Get out! The dark voice from his dreams urged loudly. He could hear the voice, even feel its presence around him, but he couldn't find the source.

He tried to look around the room, but his eyes felt heavy, and he couldn't process what he was seeing. He could just barely make out the room- white walls, bright lights. He tried to look down at himself but all he could see were feet in dull yellow socks sticking out of the bottom of a white dress. A hospital gown? Where those connected to him? His brain couldn't make the connection, the yellow blobs floating in a sea of white. And there were people around him. Lots of people. Lots of eyes studying him. He felt that they were thinking, but the lines and emotions on their face meant nothing to him. They felt as comprehensible as hieroglyphics scrawled across an ancient cave.

He felt completely disoriented. He could see his feet, but they didn't feel attached. Rather, his whole body felt as if it was weightless in space, different textures that surrounded him keeping it from floating away into the abyss. His eyes felt a mile back from his skull, taking in the images swarming around him like he was watching them on a TV. He felt no sense of direction, just the strong urge to sink deeper into the soft fabric that rested against his skin. It felt safe and warm. And when he closed his eyes it became dark again, forming a shield from the swimming lights and colors that attacked him from all angles.

As he sunk down into the sheets, he became acutely aware of something thick hitting the back of his throat. He attempted to lift his right hand to free himself, but his arm quickly hit the end of a tie around his wrist and he was unable to reach his mouth. He tried his left hand, but his muscles felt weak and detached, and he was unable to control his hand with his thoughts.

As the colors dispersed into shapes around him, he swore heard Juliet speaking to him, but he couldn't quite process what she had said. Had she said she was pregnant?

A deep man's voice came closer and something cold touched his skin. "Are you ready to get this tube out?"

The tube. That must be what he felt. He used all of his focus to nod his head, watching the room move into position.

"Alright Carlton," a voice said out of his view. He tried to strain his eyes to see where the voice was coming from, but it was too far left for him to see.

"Take a deep breath." A woman on his other side said.

Thinking hard, Carlton breathed in, filling his sore lungs with air.

"One… two… three…"

Carlton felt the thick tube disappear, tickling the back of his throat as it left, causing him to cough aggressively. Another tube quickly replaced the last one, this one suctioning to the side of his cheek as it cleared his throat for him. The woman put something rubbery against his upper lip and he felt a cool breeze tickling his nose. His right wrist suddenly became free, and he looked up to see a Marlowe-shaped space walking towards him.

"Hi, baby," she said. He thought he could make out tears in her eyes. He could see she was feeling something. It must have been bad. Tears are bad. A childish thought reminded him, urging him to recognize her feelings through her eyes. Tears mean hurting.

Don't cry. He wanted to say, but his throat felt dry and his vocal cords heavy. Don't be hurting. He didn't know what her eyes were telling him, but he knew he wanted to be closer to her. She felt safe. He reached out his hand for her and felt his fingers brush against her shoulder before falling short. He saw her place her face into his palm, holding his hand close.

"I love you so much," she said, her voice cracking. Her eyes looked wide. Something was wrong. She was feeling something bad. Her voice was strained and dry. It sounded like being tired. He tried to identify her feelings, but the lines and crinkles of her face were lost on him. The part of his brain that told him what she was feeling was silent.

"I love you," He tried to say, hoping it would make her energy feel not so anxious, but no sound came.

Why can't I speak? His thoughts echoed loudly in his head. What the hell happened to me?

"I have to go to work," O'Hara said, giving Carlton's hand a squeeze and hugging Marlowe.

Work. The place he would go to be a detective. He remembered that. That sounded good. That sounded far away from here.

Take me with you. Carlton wanted to shout. Instead, he was stuck in this bed, where apparently, he had been for quite a while. His whole body felt stiff. His back felt sore and soggy from the sheets wrinkling underneath him. He could see red dents that cut into his arms from tubes and wires that had stayed in place for days at a time. His mouth was dry and his upper lip and cheeks raw from the pads that had held the tube in place.

He wasn't going to work any time soon.

"Hello there, Carlton," A man passed through the room as his partner left.

He nodded, exhausted from trying to speak and frustrated that he couldn't make the words come.

"My name is Dr. Weller, I have been coordinating your care for the past month. Do you remember what happened to you?"

Carlton looked around the room, trying to take in clues, but there was nothing. He remembered being at home. Lily waking him up. Eating breakfast. Driving to work. And then it's all gone. He thought hard. He must have made it to work at some point, right? But a groggy fog clouded his thoughts as his constant fever dreams fueled by ever persistent light and noise tangled with reality, making it impossible to distinguish the two.

He eventually shook his head in defeat. He remembered nothing. It was gone. It all was. Other than vague recollections of the people in his life and his home and job, he was unable to conjure images from his past all together. Every day he had ever lived had dissipated into a short reel of pictures and nothing else. Every core memory had been locked away, deep in filing cabinets he couldn't seem to find the key to.

Marlowe patted his hand in reassurance, but her eyebrows still crinkled, a deep crease forming above her nose. Her eyes still looked red, and were looking deep into him, like she could see right through him. Looking at her eyes hurt his brain. It felt naked and uncomfortable. He quickly looked down.

"You had a massive stroke on the right side of your brain." Carlton focused hard to make sense of the words as they came out of the man's mouth, hoping they would connect better in his brain if he saw them leave his lips. Like he could catch them before they dissipated into thin air, line them up into sounds that made sense. "We had to put you into a medically induced coma for the last month to give your brain a chance to rest and heal."

The last month? He thought, looking to Marlowe who caught his eyes and nodded back to him. He quickly looked down. He didn't understand most of the words, but he knew what a month was. A month was a lot of days. A lot of hours. She had been sitting here with him for a month?

"We also had to take out a portion of your skull to relieve the pressure in your brain. We stored the piece of skull in your abdomen and once the swelling has been completely relieved, we can return the skull to its rightful place in your head."

He stared silently, unable to process what he was hearing. His skull was in his stomach. He thought he heard correctly. His skull. That meant his head. Head is on top. But stomach is in the middle. That didn't make sense. There was something wrong with that sentence. It was impossible to tell with all the words getting scrambled before they could reach his brain.

"Now, because of the effects of the stroke, you are currently experiencing left-sided neglect. While this is not necessarily a permanent disability, it is currently too soon to say if you will ever be able to move your left side again. Regardless, it will require extensive therapy for a long time for the possibility of function to come back. But I don't want to get ahead of myself. Right now, we are just going to take this one day at a time. And as frustrating as that can feel, I strongly encourage you to do the same."

Carlton stared at the man across from him, his colors running together with the scene behind him, watching his lips intensely to make sense of every word. Out of the corner of his eye, he could see Marlowe nodding her head and could feel her hands holding tightly onto his own. The words slowly spun together in his head, turning into a word soup that he couldn't quite hear. He caught some words, connected even fewer with images, and was able to understand a net total of practically none of it.

You're useless. A voice hissed. He looked up and saw a dark shadow of a man leaning casually against the wall, his darkness standing out clear as day against the watercolors that made up the world behind him. He had his head tilted down, his arms folded, and what looked like a black ski mask covering his entire head.

Carlton watched the shadow turn his head to look back at him. He recognized this man. He was the man from his dreams. The one who had been yelling at him, telling him where to go and what to do next. Directing him from one nightmare to the next. What is he doing here?

You can't do anything. You're no use to anyone anymore. That's what he's telling you. You can't do anything.

"But I'm awake!" Carlton said to the man.

Next to him, he felt Marlowe jump a little and look at him, her eyes filled with tears. He looked over with the sudden tightening around his hand. Marlowe was looking back at him.

"You are awake, my love," She picked up his hand to kiss it. So maybe they were not bad tears. There must be good tears too. He logged the information in his brain with the small collection he had been making since he woke up.

Tears are bad. But sometimes good.

Wide eyes are not good.

His top was in his middle.

His brain got hurt.

Colors were blurry, his body felt far away, his head felt fuzzy.

Marlowe was safe. Juliet was safe. Juliet was pregnant?

From the edge of his vision, he saw the shadow nod and walk out of the room.

I'll be back. He said as he strolled out of Carlton's sight.

The shadow was not safe.

"I love you so much," Marlowe said, putting her hands on his cheeks to bring his focus to her. "You're awake and you're going to be okay. You are going to get better."

He tried to look back at her eyes, but it hurt his head to do so. So he looked at her lips instead. He closed his eyes to bring back images of her lips. His memories felt far away, but a few core memories floated above the haze. Her necklace when they first met. Her hand touching his at their wedding. Her eyes looking back at his after their baby was born.

He kept his eyes closed but focused on her hands, bringing him back into his body. He felt whole again. He found strength and comfort in her touch.

"You still have a long road ahead of you," Dr. Weller said, standing up to leave the couple alone, "but you've got this woman right here who loves the heck out of you, and a whole team of people constantly stopping by to make sure you are alright. I believe that you can make a remarkable recovery. But it won't be easy. This will be the hardest thing you will ever do, and it will last the rest of your life. It's up to you what happens next."

"Thank you, Dr. Weller," Marlowe said, her hands still on Carlton's cheeks.

"Yes," Carlton said softly, hearing the words coming out even slower than his foggy brain was processing them. "Thank. You."