When she came back an hour later, they had taken Ryan off the respirator.

"Christ! What's happened?! Is he dead?!"

"Oh no dear! They're just getting him used to breathing on his own, like we did the other day, remember? Here, let's look at him, huh?"

She took the pale-looking woman by the arm gently and carefully led her up to the bed.

"See. He's still breathing, just like yesterday."

Shannon let out a sigh of relief, and was a bit annoyed with herself.

Don't get any ideas! We are not a couple, and I'm not going to fall in love with you again!

"In fact, if you look at him, you can see that his breathing has deepened a bit."

Looking at his chest and stomach she could see that the nurse was actually right.

"So, is that good or bad?"

"That's good dear, that's very good."

"Good…" she felt another stone fall from her heart. "So how long has he been of the re…Whatever the fuck they call it?"

"Respirator dear, and he's been of it for…Oh, ten minutes now I think…"

"Isn't that a bit much?"

"Oh, don't worry dear…After looking at him it seems that they think it's getting easier for him to breath, so that's good. But they still need to be careful though, that's why I'm in here, monitoring him closely all the time."

"Oh."

There was a moment's silence.

"So have they figured out when he's going to wake up?"

"Well, no dear, they still have to make that head CT-remember? We were waiting for you to get back so that we could go to radiology. But that still doesn't mean they know when he's going to wake up exactly, but they can tell you if it looks like it will be days or months at least."

"Oh."

She looked disappointed, and the nurse felt sorry for the young woman.

Poor thing…I know it's a long wait…

"So has he done that eye-twitching thing again?"

"Well, yes, twice in fact. And he seems to be responding to pain and touch and hot and cold, and even smell and taste now, so that's good."

"Oh. So does that mean that making him smell things that seem familiar or giving him things that are familiar might help?"

"Well yes I think it actually might, although you've got to keep in mind that he might not be able to swallow things. But making him taste familiar things by, say moisturising his mouth with them might work. So what do you say we start getting ready to go to radiology, huh?"

"Yeah…That'd be good I guess…"

She looked very hesitant.

"Don't worry dear, it's not going to be the least bit scary. It's like x-ray…Only this time they'll move him on a gurney into a big tunnel-like machine, and they're going to take some pictures of his brain. They can look at those pictures in layers, sort of like slicing the brain…"

Shannon looked horrified for a moment.

"…But of course that's only in the computer, they're not doing anything to him more than taking pictures of his brain."

"Oh, ok."

She looked decidedly calmer!

"So, I´ll just call one of the orderlies and you get the things you want to take with you and we'll go."

"OK…"

"If I were you, I´d bring a book… It can drag out a bit and be quite boring."

"OK."

"Oh! And that reminds me; the doctor said that you should try to talk to him even more now, to stimulate his brain."

"O.K…"

Remembering that Shannon had told her she fond it a bit hard making conversation with her ex-husband, the nurse said: "maybe you can read a bit to him…"

"Yeah… That's a good idea I guess…"

"So, let's get going huh, dear?"

"Yeah, sure."

Shannon started collecting her things when she remembered.

"Oh! Can I put some deodorant on him before we go? I just bought some for him, and I bet he'd feel a lot fresher... If he knew that is…"

"Oh that's a good idea dear, and I'm sure he'd appreciate that! Do that and then call me and we'll go."

"OK."

"O.K, here we are."

"This is x-ray?"

"Exactly."

They were met in the door by two orderlies.

"Welcome. We'll take Mister O´reily here, prep him and bring him to get his head-CT."

Shannon looked agitated. She didn't like the thought of not being around to see what was happening.

"It's alright, dear, the doctor will go and confer with the radiologists and you wait in the waiting room."

"Could…Could you wait with me?…"

"Sure, dear! Of course I will!"

"Thank you!" She let out a sigh in relieve. She didn't like the idea of being left alone with a comatose ex-husband, now turned convict, to look after and a bunch of doctors to fend off.

"Let's sit down for a minute and see if we can find some nice magazines, huh?"

Ten minutes later, they were sitting in the waiting room, reading cosmopolitan and actually having a good time!

Shannon had missed that for along time!

She didn't have all that many really good friends, besides Ricky. It seemed she was always busy with work or some other business, and that she had no real time to hang around with friends. But if she was honest, the people she had known where mostly men from the gang that Ryan and Cyril had been a part of, or the girlfriends of those men. And as the memory of Ryan and where he was nowand how he was doing faded in the minds of the men still out on the street, so did Shannon's friendship with them and their girlfriends.

She wasn't exactly unhappy about that either . Sure some of the guys where nice and exciting and charming and what have you, but she knew all to well now what kind of consequences associating or having a relationship with either of them could have. There was a lot of times over the last few years she had bitterly regretted meeting Ryan at that party, and getting together with him, and getting married to him, and staying married to him for so long…But somehow she didn't anymore. They had had some pretty good times together, and some pretty fucked up, lousy times too, but thinking about it now, she couldn't really regret any of it even if she had left it all behind and went on with her life. But left it, she had. In fact the only reason she had got to know about Ryan's "accident" (so far it was apparently officially labelled an accident,) was that she had bumped into the wife of one of the guys in the gang who knew Liam and the woman had recognised her.

Suddenly she was awakened from her thoughts by someone talking to her.

" Alright, we're done with the x-raying for now."

It wasn't a minute before she replied.

"And?!"

"Well, I think Doctor Breen had better talk to you about them."

"Alright, but when?!"

"Missus O´reily…" The nurse did her best to try to calm her down a bit.

"Shannon…"

Margaret smiled.

"Margaret."

Shannon briefly and faintly smiled back before turning her attention back to the radiologist, who seemed lightly shook up by the violent reactions of the woman married to the apparently equally violent offender lying in that bed in a coma.

"So when the heck is the Doc going to talk to me about all of this?!"

"Missus O´reily…"

He took a step back as if he wanted to protect himself.

"Shannon, I think it's best if we take Ryan back to the ward now, and then you can talk to Doctor Breen when we get there. I´ll make sure he'll take the time to see you as soon as he possibly can, dear."

"Oh. Thanks."

"You're welcome dear. Now Mister…Jameson…Would you please take us to Mister O´reily or take Mister O´reily to us?"

"I´ll go get him, you can wait by the door."

The radiologist looked like he wanted the two women out of the ward before they both went crazy, looking for answers and thrashed his machines.

And that was exactly what he wanted!

Shannon and the nurse went to the door and waited.

When the orderlies wheeled the bed, with Ryan in it and Shannon saw that he was still in one piece and didn't seem to have been hurt by the examination, she, to her own annoyance, drew a sigh of relief.

She took her eyes off of him, opened the door and started walking before she could confuse herself more with thoughts about him and his current, past and future situation.