Disclaimer – Still own nothing. Sorry.

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Maggie rummaged through the drawers in the dresser in the room she and Hal used to share before he left. All of his clothes, beside the ones he was wearing when he went to rescue Anne and Lexi, were still where he left him, not including a few shirts that she had stolen.

During the last few months, Maggie started wearing Hal's shirts when she went to bed. They still smelled like him, and it comforted her. Now that he was back of course, he would need them more then she would.

As Maggie grabbed some clothes to take back to the infirmary for her boyfriend, she spotted Hal's camo jacket hanging over the couch in the room. When she woke up to find Hal gone, and went to tell Tom, and learned what had happened, she had come back to the bedroom to realize that he left his coat behind.

Maggie went over to the chair and picked it up. She had been keeping it safe for him, hoping that he would come home, at least to get his jacket. Maggie put it back down, knowing Hal didn't need it just yet, and headed back to the infirmary.

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As Maggie entered Charleston's hospital, she found Anne, walking away from a patient with a clipboard in hand.

"Anne." The doctor turned her head when she heard her name called, and found Maggie walking towards her.

"I brought these, thought that he'd need them when he wakes up." Maggie explained as she handed Hal's clothes to her. Anne smiled and took them with her free arm. She was about to say something, when she caught the look on Maggie's face, before she lowered her head to look at the ground.

Anne knew that Maggie had been through a lot in the last few months. Between constantly searching for Hal, still fighting and taking part in most of the missions, only to get benched after pushing herself to hard, all the while constantly worried about Hal and furious with Karen. It had taken a toll on the fighter.

Now, Hal was back. He had been found, and was going to be okay, yet Anne wasn't letting her, or anyone else see him.

"Maggie, as soon as the drugs wear off, and he calms down, and is awake, I will let you guys see him, alright?" Maggie nodded, but didn't look up.

"The important thing to remember is, that he is okay. He is here with us, he is safe." Maggie looked up at Anne and gave her another nod, but Anne could still tell that she was fighting the urge to bust down the door and go see Hal for herself.

Anne reached over and squeezed Maggie's shoulder before she headed back to work. Maggie, on the other hand, headed back to the door. The same door that Hal was just on the other side of. She went to open it, but stopped herself just before she grabbed the doorknob. As much as she didn't want to, she obeyed Anne's instructions and sat down on the chairs in the hallway.

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Hal slowly regained consciousness, but kept his eyes closed, terrified of what he would see. He barely remembered what had happened. He remembered an explosion, finding himself in the woods, then he was lying down with people holding his arms down, and had needles in their hands.

After breaking away from them, he thought he saw his Dad, and took comfort in his presence, though he knew he was dreaming. He had to have been. Karen had done this too many times. Made him hallucinate, think he was safe to get him lower his guard, then strapped him down to that table and continued doing who knows what to him.

The more Hal became aware of what was around him, the more realized that something was off. He was not lying down on a table, or bed. He was somewhat sitting upright, his head resting on something that was moving, and could hear someone's quiet breathing right by his ear.

He quickly concluded that he was lying against someone. He didn't know who, and the only way to find out, was to risk letting the person know that he was awake. So, very slowly, he opened his eyes.

Though his vision was lightly blurry, he could see he was in a very different room than Karen held him in. The room he was in greatly resembled one of the hospital rooms in Charleston. The bed was empty, and he was on the ground in the corner of the room. Slowly, Hal wrapped his right hand around his left wrist, and felt a bandage wrapped around it. He glanced down and saw that both of his wrists had been wrapped. Not caring about that at the moment, Hal gripped his left wrist and squeezed it. When the pain came, nothing changed, no image shifted, nothing suddenly appeared or disappeared, and Hal realized that this might actually be real.

"Hal?" Hal stilled at the sound of his father's voice, then slowly looked up. Sure enough, his Dad was there, holding him in his arms.

"Dad?" Tom smiled, and nodded. He pressed a kiss against Hal's forehead and pulled him closer.

"Yeah, kid. It's me." Tom assured him, and Hal let himself fully relax into his father's embrace.

"What happened?" Hal asked, confused as to how he got home, and as to why he was on the floor. He wasn't sure what all happened, and what had been real or not.

"Cochise found you in the woods, he brought you here. When Anne, Lourdes, and the other nurses were trying to check you over, you woke up and panicked You actually punched an nurse in the face. Then you crawled over here and wouldn't let anyone near, except me." As Tom explained, the memories came back, and he realized why he had done that. Everything that Anne and the others did reminded him of what happened when he was held hostage.

The door opened, and Hal felt panic rise up inside him. Tom immediately felt Hal tense in his arms. Even when they both saw that it was just Anne who entered the room, Hal didn't let himself relax. Tom couldn't help but wonder what was going on in Hal's mind that was making him so guarded.

"Hal, you're awake. How are you feeling?" Anne asked with a smile. She put down the clipboard and what looked like to be a pile of clothes she was carrying on the table beside the bed and walked over to them. The closer she came, the tenser Hal got.

"Do you remember what happened?" Anne questioned, slowing her speed. Once she was a few feet away from the father and son, she got back down on her knees in front of them.

Hal stared at her, completely poker-faced. He didn't really know what to think. The last thing he remembered was her giving orders to tie him to a bed and be stuck with needles. He had enough of that. Not to mention, in the hallucinations that Karen created, Anne was always the one standing over him with a scalpel, her face changing from hers to Karen's or to the harnessed kid's.

Anne's smile disappeared when she didn't get a response. Hal seemed to be staring right through her, as though trying to decide something. It become obvious that while he didn't appear to be under the drug's influence anymore, he still wasn't trusting her at all. Something had obviously happened that made him scared of her, or maybe just scared in general.

"Hal, do you know where you are?" Anne asked, thinking maybe it was too soon to try and get answers from him about what happened while he was held captive.

"In Charleston." Hal tried to sound positive, but he couldn't help but wonder if this was all just another hallucination, and he knew the unspoken question had slipped into his voice. Anne nodded, assuring him that he was right, and the smile returned to her face.

"Are you feeling better?" The doctor repeated her earlier question. Hal nodded, but didn't say anything. Anne pulled out her penlight and got ready to shine it in his eyes.

"Good, I'm going to turn this light on, and I want you to follow it with your eyes, okay?" Hal again nodded and Anne clicked the light on, shining it in his eyes.

At first, everything was going fine. It didn't look like Hal had a concussion, and his eyes were reacting normally, revealing that the drug had indeed worn off. After the third time of moving the light to the left though, Hal reacted.

Hal was fine. He followed the light obediently, then suddenly, everything faded away. He wasn't in the hospital room anymore. He was back in the warehouse, strapped to a table, with the bright light blaring down on him, while skitters were pushing on his chest and a harnessed kid approached him with a scalpel.

A small scream escaped his lips, and he jerked himself away from the light, inadvertently pushing himself farther into Tom's arms. Tom instinctively tightened his hold, not wanting Hal to hurt himself. Hal however, interpreted it differently. He thought that someone was trying to trap him, keep him still so they could inject more needles into him and he tried to pull away.

"Hal! Hal, listen to me. You're okay. You're okay. You're in Charleston, with me. You're safe, you're safe." Tom didn't know how many times he repeated that before Hal stopped fighting.

Anne had immediately turned off her penlight when she saw Hal react. She had hoped that Hal's reaction before when they first brought him in, was just due to his drugged state. His reaction now though just confirmed what she knew to be a possibility from the start, that whatever Karen had done, it affected him even in his coherent state.

Luckily, Tom got him calmed down before he punched someone again. When she looked at his face, though it was turned downward, she saw tears running down his cheeks, and he was panting for air.

Tom and Anne looked at each, both coming to the same conclusion. Hal's road to recovery was going to be a lot longer than they hoped it would be.