Disclaimer: I do not own the rights to Numb3rs or any of the characters therein. Dr. Melinda Thompson is a made up name and character- it is not to be associated with any real or imaginary person.

Friday and Saturday, Dr. Melinda Thompson was very busy.

After she pushed Don into the trunk of her car Friday night, she risked injecting his right arm with a sedative. She did not want him waking up, for she had a long drive ahead of her. She then used an electric pump to fill the rear tire of her car. Once done, she drove to her home in Alta Sierra, a small community northeast of Bakersfield; the trip was long, taking almost six hours as she was careful of her cargo and refused to speed. She owned several acres of wooded land and had self-absorbed neighbors- together, they gave her more than enough privacy for what she planned.

Upon arriving home, Melinda opened the trunk and gently prodded Don.

He was still unconscious.

She knew he had been able to breathe. A long time before, as part of her preparations, she had cut several square openings into the separator between the back seat of her Lincoln and the trunk. She had also mounted a camera and small light along the inner panel of the trunk, so she could observe him while she drove. This contraption she removed from the trunk, placing it into a plastic bin next to the car. She took the small viewer that went with it from her rearview mirror, throwing it into the bin. Next, she pulled out three speakers from a shelf in the garage. These she placed into the openings in the separator behind the back seat.

They fit perfectly.

Melinda took Don's gun, wallet, and cell phone. Tearing apart the cell phone, she took a drill from the shelf and bore a hole through its locater card, placing it with the wallet and gun into the plastic bin. When she was done, she went into her house through a connecting door from her garage. Out she came with a wheelchair, two straps hanging from the right side; she set it up next to the trunk of the car, locking the wheels into place.

Carefully, Melinda placed her arms under Don's, pulling with her legs and dragging his body from the trunk of her car, his upper torso falling into the wheelchair as she could not hold his entire weight. With his legs still half in the trunk, Melinda put a strap across Don's shoulders, which held his body in place. She unlocked the wheelchair, and pulled back, Don's legs freed from the trunk and landing hard on the cement floor of the garage with a loud 'thud'.

Tugging his feet onto the foot rests of the wheelchair, Melinda fixed the second strap across Don's legs. Tired, she rested ten minutes before she pushed him to his new bedroom.

Once there, she had undone the straps on the wheelchair and pushed down the left arm. This allowed her to roll Don's limp body onto his bed. She moved aside the chair, and took off his belt, tie, dress shirt and shoes. When she wasn't so tired, she would take care of his pants.

Looking at the tie, shirt, and shoes, she thought-

These are big boys' clothes- my little boy won't need these anymore.

So, after placing the belt into the top dresser drawer, she threw the other items into the bin in the garage.

Satisfied with her work, Melinda lay down in the master bedroom of her home, situated next door to her son's. Though excited, she was physically exhausted and soon fell asleep.

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Saturday morning, Melinda checked on Don and gave him another injection, this one milder than the last. She ate a quick breakfast, showered, and dressed. After checking on Don once again, she took the plastic bin from the garage and placed it into the back seat of her car. Opening the trunk, she checked it thoroughly for any other items, finding none but the blanket that Don had rested upon. This she threw behind her in the car as she got into the driver's seat. She then drove out of town and onto the highway. At several fast food restaurants along the road, she stopped and threw into open dumpsters- one by one- the items in the bin, ending with the blanket.

Satisfied, she headed home; she wanted to double-check that the room she would be using for Don's therapy was prepped and ready.

She was in the midst of putting sheets on a hospital bed when she heard a toilet flush.

Thank goodness we tend to be creatures of habit, Melinda had thought, as she grabbed her taser gun and entered Don's room. After saying a few words, she shot him, knocking him out, as he was still suffering the effects of the sedative she had given him.

Sighing, Melinda left Don on the floor.

When she finished with her work, she went back into Don's room; he remained unconscious on the floor. Standing behind his head, she crouched down and slipped her arms under his shoulders. Using her knees to lift, she pulled him up to a semi-standing position, twisting his body until it fell onto the bed.

Sitting down next to Don, Melinda knew she would not be able to keep up this physical exertion. She was fifty-three, and though in good physical condition, it would not be possible to lift him over and over again, all week long. Her original plan was to have had to lift him twice- once out of the trunk, the second when she rolled him into bed. Having miscalculated the sedative that morning, she had been forced into lifting him this third time because she had used the taser gun.

Between the therapy sessions she planned to start him on Sunday, the restriction she was placing on his food, and the sedatives she would be administering to him nightly, Melinda had no doubt that she would have physical control of Don.

The problem was in allowing him to have some control- that is, have the ability to walk with her help. That way, she would not have to lift him. Instead, she could just guide him to where she wanted him to be. This would take some careful consideration, as she could not allow him to have too much energy- might escape- but she needed to allow him enough energy to walk on his own.

While she removed his pants- leaving him in boxers and undershirt- Melinda decided it would be best if she tried to wake Don up as soon as she could every morning. When he responded enough to walk, she would guide him to the therapy room and into his session.

Unfortunately, this meant she could not have a set time every day for the therapy sessions, which she had originally planned; being a highly organized person, Melinda was not happy with this arrangement. The only other thing she could do would be to guide Don into the therapy room, strap him in, and leave him there until the established time. She did not want to do this, because he might hurt himself trying to get out of the straps while the sedative wore off.

No- the therapy would have to occur according to the dictates of Don's body- no earlier and no later.

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It was Sunday morning, and Dr. Melinda Thompson was again very busy.

She sat in her living room, checking the controls for the portable electroconvulsive therapy unit she had bought from the estate of a former colleague. The size of an old Beta VCR, it weighed only twenty-two pounds. Looking over the compact unit, the psychiatrist was amazed that the little machine could produce the same effects as the old-fashioned ones she had seen as a graduate student. Both the new and the old machines worked essentially the same- they delivered measured volts of electricity to the brain through electrodes connected at the temples of the head; sometimes both electrodes were connected to one side of the head, sometimes on opposite sides. The subject's reaction to the electrical jolt was always a grand mal seizure- body convulsion, loss of control of bodily functions, and unconsciousness.

Melinda knew that in modern ECT, the subject was given general anesthesia, a sedative, and a muscle-relaxer; this meant that the resulting seizure occurred as nothing more than a body tremor, limiting the potential for body damage- like broken bones- that might happen during a grand mal seizure, as the subject's body twisted and arched upward. This also limited the subject's pain, as not only did the body not contort but the subject remained unconscious during the entire procedure.

Unfortunately, Melinda had not prepared the equipment necessary to give her son ECT without pain. She had cried many nights over the decision to forego the anesthesia and muscle-relaxer. But she was not trained to administer either, and even if she was, she would still need an extra pair of hands.

That was too risky.

She would just rely on the sedative she would be administering to him during the night before each therapy session; not only would she be able to control him more easily, but his body might be more relaxed than if he was fully awake, hopefully preventing the seizure from causing major damage to his body.

Melinda took the ECT unit into the back bedroom. It was her late husband's hospital bed that was set up in the room. Attached to the side railings were four soft leather straps, each with an adjustable circular cuff at the end. There was a flat pillow at the top of the bed, and a bottom sheet; there was no need for blankets. She placed the box on a small, plastic table at the head of the bed. There were also a sports mouth guard, two electrodes with wires, and a small tube of conductive jelly on the table.

Turning on the power to the small machine, Melinda was satisfied with how simple it was to use. The controls were on the front. All she had to do was enter the age and weight of the subject, then push the button, and the computerized machine would do the rest. On its own, the unit would administer and control the length and strength of the electrical 'jolt'; it would monitor the subject's heart rate; and it had a thin strip of lighting across the front that would show a bright, pulsing yellow throughout the duration of the seizure- that would then go to red when the seizure had subsided (this was important, as the body might still be in the throws of a seizure even when upon visual inspection it appeared the seizure had ended). The machine would even sound a little alarm- and not work- if the electrodes were not placed correctly on the head.

Even with all this modern technology, Melinda had wanted to test the machine out before using it on Don. Therefore, she had bought a supply of twenty-five large lab rats, hoping to check that the machine would be able to adjust for even the light weight of the rats. This it had not been able to do, as the animals were too small. However, the machine had refused to turn on, having detected that the electrodes were not placed where they would normally be on a human skull. This satisfied Melinda that the machine's built-in safety mechanisms would prevent her son from receiving an inappropriate treatment.

With a bit of anticipation, Melinda went to get her son.