Now that he was off the medicine with vengestone in it, Cole slowly began to get better. His new medicine made him incredibly tired and he ended up sleeping sixteen to twenty hours a day, but he wasn't throwing up nearly as much. He was able to keep more food down, so he started to put on some much needed weight. His strength slowly returned as a result. He still couldn't access his powers and that concerned him.

Unfortunately, Lou was adamant that Cole quit being a ninja, and what Dareth did seemed to seal the deal in Lou's mind. Dareth admitted to pressuring the pharmacist in the hospital to giving Cole morphine, but he insisted that he was threatened by someone he didn't know. The pharmacist admitted to getting a threatening phone call after Dareth confronted him, but since the police couldn't prove who was behind it, Dareth and the pharmacist were on the hook.

Cole hated living with his dad again. He knew his dad meant well, but Lou was incredibly overbearing and overprotective. Half the time, Lou didn't let the ninja come over. Cole agreed to wait until he was medically cleared to go back, but Lou was having none of it. After only two weeks, Cole had had enough. He knew Lou would throw a fit if Cole went back to the monastery, so he decided to go to the one place he knew Lou could not and would not fight him on.

"FYI, I'm no longer at my dad's place. I'm going to stay at my grandparents' house for a while. Give me a few days to settle in, and I'll send you the address," Cole texted his friends. He was confused when they started asking about a Hermes and Kelly, but he quickly corrected them and said he was staying with his dad's parents.

"Who are Hermes and Kelly?" Cole asked himself.

"Morgen's parents. I guess you'll meet them when you testify," Lou said without looking away from the road.

Cole sighed. He was hoping Morgen would plead guilty so he wouldn't have to face her in court, but that didn't look like it was going to happen. He stared out the window as Lou turned onto the dirt road that led to a gate almost ten minutes later. Once Lou put in the code for the gate to open, it was another three minutes until they pulled up to the mansion in the woods. Lou followed the large, circular driveway around and parked the car in front of the pathway leading to the house. An old woman came running down the steps as they got out of the car.

"There they are. I was wondering what had happened to you. I thought you would be here an hour ago!"

"Hi, Nana," Cole said as he hugged her.

"Sorry we're late, Mom. We ran into traffic, then this one got sick and I had to pull over," Lou said, kissing his mother on the cheek.

"Well, next time, I'll just throw up in the car," Cole said. He grabbed his suitcase and headed up the steps.

"I just hope the food isn't dried out. I've kept it warm. Cole, your grandfather is out on the patio. Could you please tell him I'm serving lunch now?"

"Of course." Cole walked through the foyer, down the hall, past the dining room, put his suitcase down at the bottom of the stairs, and then went out the back door next to the kitchen. He found his grandfather sitting in a chair playing a game on his tablet.

"Grandpa?" Cole asked.

"Cole! How's my favorite grandchild?" The old man struggled to stand up and Cole offered his arm for support. Once up, he embraced his grandson.

"Better. I'm not a hundred percent yet, but I'm getting there. How are you?"

"Oh, still alive. Is lunch ready yet?"

"Yes, Nana is setting the table now."

"Good. Hand me my cane. I'm glad to see you up and about. Last time I saw you, you were at death's door. Course, Lou said he was gonna pull the plug on you so I needed to come say goodbye."

"What?" No one had told Cole that they had taken him off life support right before he woke up from his coma because they didn't know how to tell him, and also because they felt he didn't need to know that small detail.

"I'm sorry I couldn't get down to see you when you woke up."

"I understand, Grandpa," Cole said, only half-listening. He knew his grandfather had been in a bad motorcycle accident years and years ago, when Lou was seven or eight years old, and it had affected his mobility ever since and nearly ended his career.

Giovanni Burtchenelli was to cowboy movies what Cliff Gordon was to space movies. Giovanni's most famous character, who he appeared as in most of his cowboy films, was The Mysterious Man in Black, a ruthless mercenary and bounty hunter with no name who let his actions speak for him. He went from town to town in search of gold, occasionally helping a damsel in distress, and getting into countless fights in the lawless towns which he always won. But Giovanni refused to be typecast and was always willing to branch out into other genres. He was on the set of a spy movie when he had his accident. It was nearly two years before he tried to act again. Another movie was made starring The Mysterious Man in Black, and the character's signature limp made its debut. The producers were skeptical if the film series could continue, but it did well enough they made four more movies before audiences moved on to space operas.

"What's this about you pulling the plug on me?" Cole asked as they went inside the house.

"Dad! I said NOT to tell him that!" Lou growled.

"What, I thought he knew," Giovanni said as he shuffled over to the dining room.

Cole followed before he stopped dead in his tracks. The sheer amount of food on the table made his stomach hurt just by looking at it. There was a roast, some cornbread, mashed potatoes, green beans, cranberry sauce, and fried okra. Cole's grandmother had driven out any pickiness he had by the time Cole was five, so there was very little Cole wouldn't eat, but he absolutely hated fried okra. Cole took a step backward and walked into his dad.

"Just eat what you can," Lou said, walking around Cole.

"Right… Maybe just a slice of cornbread," Cole mumbled to himself.

"Just cornbread? Cole, you're nothing but skin and bones. You have to eat more than just cornbread." Not for the first time, Cole silently cursed himself for forgetting about his grandmother's super hearing.

"Nana, I don't think I can."

"Cole!"

"If he eats, you can't get offended when he throws up in twenty minutes," Lou said.

"Then you should see a doctor."

"… I've been seeing doctors. And I am getting better. I'm only throwing up two or three times a day now instead of twenty," Cole said.

"He's not exaggerating. If anything, he's downplaying just how sick he was," Lou added.

"Oh, my word. Are you sure you're alright?"

"I'll be fine, Nana."