Remember when I said the chip was like being in hell? It wasn't. I have better comparisons today. Being in hell is sitting in a little waiting room, half trying to peek down the corridor and half not wanting to, while nurses and doctors move back and forth.

14 hours of surgery. Broken legs, a broken arm… contusions, brusing…

And massive head trauma, which is what is keeping her in that room. Which is why our daughter may not leave it alive.

We're all there. Ron, Me, Kim, Bonnie, Hego and the rest… Ron's parents, Kim'sfamily (san's mother who is in the operating room), Dr. D… hell, even Motor Ed and Killigan dropped by. Between us we could probably overturn nations, invent new devices to revolutionize the world…

We could do everything except what we have to do. What we desperately want to do. Hego has no stories…he's just sitting, looking desperately lost and afraid, wringing his hands. Jim and Tim aren't making jokes or thinking about inventions.

Finally, Dr. Possible comes to us, exhausted, looking older than I've ever seen her. There's blood all over the front of her gown—too much blood for a little girl to have, I think. Ron and I are the first ones to ask, and I have to clear my throat a few times. I don't want to ask.

Because than I'll have to accept the answer, and that this isn't some nasty nightmare that I'll wake up from. She takes us to an empty office and sits us down. I can feel Ron's hand's covering my own, but nothing else. Then Dr. Lisa Possible starts telling us what has happened.

They had to crack open the skull, because Ann's brain had been badly bruised and was expanding inside the bone, the tissue being crushed. There were also some ruptured blood vessels in the brain, and her heart stopped three times while they were operating. Two of her ribs were broken, not by the drunk, but by the paramedics trying to restart her heart on the way to the hospital.

Right now, she's still under sedation, but Dr. Possible believes that she'll be in a coma state…for some time. How long she can't know…and I can see she hates to say this, but she tells us that we might want to start considering long term care if she doesn't come out of it.

Ron asks if she can tell us what the probability of that is, and Dr. Possible shakes her head. She can't. She can tell us that the longer the coma goes on, the more likely it is to be permanent, but that it's impossible to say for sure—they'll have to run tests on her.

I ask if we can see her, and she nods…reluctantly. She tells us we can't go in, because of the danger of secondary infection right now, but we can look.

And she warns us it won't be pretty.

Ann's in there, at least the parts we can see. Her face is partially exposed, with bandages on it, and her body is nearly invisible under tubes and wires and sensors and things I can't even tell what they are, and the skin we can see is black and blue from the bruising. Her eyes are closed, and her scalp is bare—they had to shave her head when they opened it up.

Right now, she's not breathing on her own. She may never breath on her own. I nod and calmly walk to the ladies bathroom. There's nobody in it, and it's sound proofed, and I scream and let the fire come to my hands for the first time in years.

When I walk out, five minutes later, the room has been completely destroyed.

We go back… and by common agreement, leave home and move into one of the small apartments the hospital maintains for such situations. David comes with us, but he also spends time with the Possible's, Aunt Kim and Bonnie and Ron's parents.

He's started wetting the bed again and crying a lot, but Dr. Possible tells me that's normal for a sibling in this situation and arranges him to meet with a child psychologist. I try to avoid snapping at him. It's not his fault. I shouldn't take out my rage and fear on our son.

Weeks pass, and there is little change. I learn more things than I ever wanted to know—about how you have to move an unconscious person, or the bed sores will develop and secondary infections can set in. About how if there is no exercise, calcium can be leached out of bones until they have the consistency of cardboard. About how catheters and respirators have to be changed regularly…and about how my brief joy when she starts breathing on her own turns to fear…as Dr. Possible tells me that autonomic responses don't mean she'll come out of it.

She does have response on EEG and activity on the various brain scans. I don't know what terrifies me more, that Ann may be gone, or she may be trapped in there, screaming for mommy and daddy.

Her teacher appears, nearly unable to speak with guilt and sorrow. I wish I could hate her. It would make things easier…but what was she supposed to do. Read the future? I've been trying to do that enough myself. If I just hadn't let her go to school…

The drunk? A broken arm and a busted nose. Nothing else…not even as bad as his last three DUI's…for him, that is.

I read her favorite stories to her. She doesn't respond. I talk to her about her friends, and Ron comes in and tells jokes to her, and we both strain to see any sign that she's waking up, in that hateful room full of beeping machines. Other people bring flowers and cards and stuffed toys. Once, Ron Is speaking to the doctors and I can't finish a story to her, because I..

I…

Anyway. That's when I look up and Bonnie and Kim are there. Kim takes me to another room, and just holds me while Bonnie starts reading where I left off.

Then one day, Kim's mom asks us the question that is the hardest…which is why she's asking it and nobody else.

Do we want her rescitated if her heart stops? There's no garuntee that she'll ever wake up, and, we have to start considering that. We can't answer.

Oh God.

No. Hell with you God. Is this some kind of payback? For me? I'm right here, God, you want to screw with me, why don't you get your aim right?

Oh God. Don't let this be because of me. Not my baby.

At night, I roll over in bed and put my back to Ron. I know it hurts him… but I can't…

I don't want him to see me cry myself to sleep, and I try to keep it quiet.

But one day… I see her eyes twitch. I don't do anything, just hold my breath. It's been nearly three weeks. Her eyes twitch and open and they roll around for a minute, before looking at me.

Looking at me. She doesn't have the breathing tube anymore, and Ron is leaning forward and asks her with that grin in his voice (and what a good actor he is), if she's slept enough, because she still isn't getting out of school.

And she speaks. Her voice is rusty, but she's talking. She's asking us where is the bedroom.

We… We don't say anything for a second. What if this is some dream? What if speaking will wake us up? Then Dr. Possible is in the room and chatting with our daughter, and suddenly the floodgates for Ron and I are opened and we're laughing and crying and it's hard to tell which is which.

Later, Dr. Possible explains to us that it looks like Ann has a gap in her memory, which isn't uncommon, but that there may be other long term effects—which we'll have to wait and see about. I nod.

Ann will do well. While she might have needed long term care, I couldn't do this. But I swore that when she got better…or died, I would do this. I go back home.

The suit is tight around my hips and ass, and tight around my chest, but I can still make it fit. That's good. This isn't a mommy thing…or Ron's wife… or anything.

Shego is back, and that bastard is going to pay, pay in blood for every bit of pain he's inflicted on my daughter. I'll take out even second of agony on Ann's part on his body. I have just the little abandoned lair in mind that will let us be…uninterrupted.

Then I hear the door open…and there's Ron. He puts his hands on my shoulder and mentions the suit still fits me well…then drops them to my belly, slightly swollen with the pregnancy, and asks if they're on board with this as well. I don't say anything and he sighs and continues.

He already had to say this to Kim he mentions… And tells me that I may hate him after this…but he has to do it.

And he asks me the hardest thing he has ever asked me.

The one thing that I beg him not to ask me.

The one thing that proves just how much I love this man.

He asks me to…for my daughter, for David…for him… to give up my vengeance.

That's when I beg him to not ask that. He puts his hands on my shoulders, and tells me he wishes he didn't have to…but my children need me…and my unborn needs me too…not on the run, not in jail…but here. He leansinto meand I put my hand to his face and feel the moisture of the tears on my fingers, as he says that he needs me to.

And he asks me to not let this man hurt our family again.

For a second I wonder if he knows what he's asking. I never let the smallest offense pass when I was working for Dr. D, and this man…this man has done more to me than anyone ever dreamed of. He hurt my baby. Then I look into his eyes and see the same smoldering rage in them that I know is in mine, and I realize that Ron had to make this decision himself…and it was just as hard as this one is for me.

I tell him to leave me alone for a day. He nods. I've hurt him, I can see. But I can't be around anyone right now. I can't risk saying what I might say, with the hatred bubbling up around me. I spend the day, staring at walls.

Then I put the suit away. . Standing naked inour room, I look at it. Part of me wants to get it back.

But I can't.

Because Ron's right. Damn him.

Because Ron's right…and never leave me, please.

And if you can figure out how you can have both those thoughts at the very same time, then you're beginning to realize just how strange marriage—and love—can be.

To be continued.