It's a very short chapter by my standards, and long overdue. Sorry for the wait! Any reviews or thoughts would be greatly appreciated at the end!

Chapter Fourteen

Needless to say, Mickey had been rather annoyed with Thorn when she woke in the earlier hours of the morning and learned how much time had passed. But that annoyance had lasted for only a short while before Luna had appeared with breakfast, announcing that she had just finished a conversation with the Hospital Director and that Mickey was allowed to make her way back to Barney's side. With a chocolate chip muffin in hand she forced her body to rise from the pew and move down the hallway before she collapsed into the poorly upholstered chair at his bedside with an audible groan. Sleeping on the hard surface of the pew had not been the best place for her body to lie while it was trying to recover from her injuries, though she had to admit that she had at least been warm with Thorn's arms around her.

Neither Thorn nor Luna bothered to say anything as they watched her leave, exchanging a simple glance and a roll of their eyes. Luna jerked her head toward the door to signal that Thorn was allowed to leave now that she had arrived to take up watch over both Mickey and Barney. And he made no verbal response to her before he disappeared down the hallway and made to exit the building.

The rest of the day continued to pass in this fashion. Every few hours another member of the team would appear and quietly change places with whomever was standing guard, having taken the unoccupied chair from the other side of the bed and placed it against the wall behind Mickey so that they had a clear view of both the door and of her and Barney. Food was brought shortly after noon in an attempt to coax her to eat something, but Mickey's lack of interest was quickly made evident when the smell of it caused her to pull away in distaste, shaking her head.

"You need to eat something," Doc coaxed gently, continuing to hold the sandwich out to her. "I don't think you've really eaten since before Church got you."

"I'm not hungry," Mickey told him stubbornly. "And whatever that is is making my stomach turn."

"Okay fine," the older man conceded, pulling the sandwich away to throw it back onto his own chair. "So maybe not salami. But you do need to get something into your system, Mickey. Otherwise you're not going to get better."

The young woman turned her head slowly to face the older man, the weariness evident in her gaze despite her best efforts to conceal it from him. "Look, Doc….I appreciate what you're trying to do, alright? I really do. But right now I'm not concerned about me. I'm the one who's still conscious and walking around."

She was feeling guilty, Doc realized. The more he watched her the more the realization began to sink into his body. Despite the animosity that had been between Barney and Mikayla during their last encounter at the hangar, something had changed in their brief second meeting. The fact that they had been locked together in the same room was no accident, of that he was sure. Church had probably thought that the union would serve to mentally torture the both of them while they were trapped there, and if he had even the slightest idea of the history that lay between father and daughter he had probably been right. Only they would know what words had been exchanged during the time of their capture, and though part of Doc wanted to know what was said he didn't dare to ask. That was between Mickey and her father.

Still, that didn't prevent the older man from worrying about the two of them as a result. Given how bad things had been since the blowout that had finally prompted Barney to put distance between himself and the girl, things had obviously changed. Somehow she had adopted at least part of the lifestyle that her father had, something that Doc knew was absolutely against any wishes Barney might have had for her future. Yet she had been easily lured into Church's trap. She had been placed on Bonaparte's radar to make up the rest of Trench's team.

And to be honest, that really bothered Doc.

"Maybe," acknowledged the older man, nodding his head a little in agreement to Mikayla's words. "But that doesn't mean that you're in the clear yet. The doctor said you've got a cracked rib, probably from the way they had you tied to that chair. You're bruised, malnourished, overtired…Mickey, if you're not careful you're going to hurt yourself more."

The brunette kept her focus on Doc's dark eyes with her own, breathing a slow sigh as she came to accept the truth in his words. For a moment her gaze seemed to drop a little, as if she weren't fully able to face him. But then it rose again, slowly inching upward as the weariness became more pronounced in the lines that seemed to appear in her face and the heavy bags that sat beneath her eyes.

"He came after me, after all of the horrible things that I said to him."

"Of course he did," Doc told her gently. "Mick…no matter how badly things might have ended the last time, he's still your Dad."

But the young woman shook her head. "He was never my Dad. That implies that he was always around when I needed him. He and I just happen to share the same DNA."

Doc wasn't fully convinced. "He still cares."

"Well then he's had a funny way of showing it in the past."

The two of them fell in an uncomfortable silence then, with the brunette turning her head back to look at the unconscious form in the bed while Doc continued to frown heavily in her direction. This situation was beyond baffling to him. Even though Barney was the one who was laying still in the hospital bed, he couldn't help but feel that Mickey was the one who had come out of this with the most damage. After a nasty blow out and years of not speaking to one another, to suddenly be confronted by the father you had lashed out at in your youth? He still had no idea of how Church had even come to know about Mickey. Barney had always thought he was being so careful in keeping the two of them hidden away in Spain like that, limiting his visits so as not to attract any unwanted attention that might put them in harm's way.

The older man pressed his lips tightly together in frustration, not knowing how he was supposed to handle this. It wasn't like he had kids of his own. The honourary "uncle" status that he had achieved when Mikayla was growing up was about the closest thing Doc had ever gotten to being a father. And it wasn't as if she was a little kid anymore, or even a teenager. Nope…Mickey was a full grown woman who had every right to make her own decisions in life. That seemed to include walking right into the same lifestyle that her old man had adopted.

The very one he hadn't wanted for her.

"Can you stop staring please? You're going to burn holes in my head."

She hadn't even turned to look at him, her gaze was still focused on the slow rise and fall in Barney's chest that told her he was still alive. Her arms had folded themselves tightly over her chest now though. It was a protective gesture that he had seen her use many times before when Barney was involved. Especially in her teenaged years.

Doc sighed heavily and dropped his gaze to the floor as he rose to his feet once again. "Will you eat something today?" he asked her. "Please?"

"Yes…"

"Preferably before midnight tonight?"

"Doc-"

"Caesar will be coming in a bit to keep an eye on things. What can he bring that you'll actually eat?"

Biting back a frustrated groan, the brunette shook her head a little. Absolutely nothing that she could think of sounded really appealing to her senses. It made her stomach churn dangerously just to think of food. Church hadn't exactly fed her a steady diet when he had taken her hostage, and the days leading up to the fake mission had left her mentally angry over her reunion with Barney. When was the last time she had eaten properly? Hell, Mickey couldn't remember. But she knew that he wasn't going to let her get away without giving him a straight answer, and so the girl said the first thing that came to mind.

"Chicken club wrap, no tomato, bacon, cheddar cheese and caesar dressing."

Only with that response did the older man seem to be slightly mollified. She turned her head slightly to see that some of the tension had slipped away from his body at her request, and a more satisfied look had overtaken his face. Doc nodded to her and turned on his heel to march out of the room, presumably to give his companion a heads up that he needed to bring food with him when he arrived at the hospital. And not the stuff they served in the cafeteria here either. If there was one thing that Mickey knew about Doc, it was his personal disliking of hospital prepared foods.

Now alone with only Barney's unconscious form for company, Mickey breathed a soft sigh and closed her eyes as she pressed the heel of her palm against her forehead. The pressure behind her one eye was beginning to build, a sure sign that another of her ridiculous headaches was going to make an appearance. She certainly wasn't looking forward to trying to cope with that. But the last thing that she wanted to do was ask for aspirin or something that might help. Then the others would know that something was wrong and they would once again begin to pressure her into leaving the hospital for the benefit of her own health. She wanted to fall asleep in a nice soft bed. Really, she did.

But in her heart she knew that she couldn't abandon Barney like this, not when he had gone through so much to try and save her. Even if he'd gotten himself captured and tortured for his troubles, she thought to herself. He shouldn't have come after her. Church shouldn't have had the slightest clue that the two of them were even related. It was frustrating to think that she had spent so long covering her tracks and making her own way only to be sucked back into his life like this. He'd chosen that life over her.

She just needed to remember that.