A/N I try to post. I really do... anyways, enjoy.

Phil had finally found Dan, and as he stepped into the room, his eyes welled up with tears. Phil had found him at last, but he hadn't been expecting Dan to look this bad. Unfortunately, there was no denying the truth as Dan lay battered and broken just a few feet away, occasionally wincing as he silently slept...

Nurse Green looked over at Phil sympathetically, but she had a job to do. Ignoring the teary man, she waved her wand over Mr. Howell, lighting up a display of his condition as recorded by the monitor. She checked his fractured skull, his mangled arm, and began to assess his brain activity. As she did so, Phil inched closer to see Dan properly. It wasn't a pretty picture, but it was still his best friend.

Glancing over, Green noticed the pained expression on Mr. Lester's face. "Listen... I know things look bad, horrible even, but the witches and wizards in this hospital are the best around,and we're all doing our best to help Mr. Howell and among others. Trust me, we'll find a way to help him."

Phil just nodded slightly and stepped a little closer to Dan while hugging himself. Bloody hell, he really looked wretched. There were bruises everywhere, a long streak of blood seeping through a bandage around his head, and an odd type of cast around his left ankle. His arms were also covered in cuts and scrapes but miraculously seemed unbroken. Dan didn't deserve this, and Phil wanted nothing more but to hug him, though of course he couldn't.

Not thinking, Phil reached out to touch Dan's face, just wishing he could be a tiny bit closer, a tiny bit more useful, even if that was pointless. Moments before he could, Lila Green jerked him back.

"He's in an extremely delicate condition, and his mental activity is horrendous," she said. "I want him to recover as much as you do, Mr. Lester, but touching him right now would be unwise. Besides, we should be leaving. I've done all I can for the moment."

Phil just blinked at her. "...Leave Dan? But I just found him."

Green felt horrible as the man's previously bright blue eyes dimmed even further, but she knew sticking around wasn't going to help anything. Sighing, she gently pulled him from the room and locked it shut. Looking up, she realized tears had flooded Phil's eyes once more, and before she knew it, Lila found herself hugging him. Lester desperately clung back onto her, letting his tears fall and sucking in comfort from the shorter woman. It was a quite a bit before Phil finally pulled himself away.

"Feel better?" Lila inquired as she handed him a couple tissues.

"A bit actually... sorry about that," Phil said to her.

"Don't mention it, but we should both be going now. And just so you know, if you come back around this time two days from now, I'll be here again. I know he's important to you," Lila said, earning her a thankful smile before Mr. Lester headed back to his room and Green continued her work.

To wait is agony as they say, and agony it was. For two days, Phil was counting minutes. He still explored other areas of the hospital and tried to understand some of the odd magic, but the back of his mind kept ticking and ticking and waiting.

Sleeping was a chore as ever, but staying up gave Phil time to imagine finally getting to talk to Dan, while sleeping brought him back to Dan's excessive cuts and scrapes. What was there to do? Could he do anything? Questions like these kept him up too, but ignoring them was practically impossible.

While waiting, Phil wrote a few letters home. He couldn't explain much, so Lester just rewrote variations of, "We're fine. Don't worry about us. We miss you."

Eventually, the time came for Phil to return to his friend. Triple checking the time, the man went to stand in front of Dan's hallway, alert ice blue eyes searching for Lila.

"Hello!" she piped up from beside him, causing Phil to jump a bit. Nurse Vincent was there too, giggling at Phil's reaction. "Oops, didn't mean to scare you. Anyways, let's get going."

The three then went on down the hallway. As before, they separated, and Phil accompanied Nurse Green to check on Dan.

Dan looked a tiny bit better, or maybe it was just his imagination. Phil couldn't tell. After a few minutes, Lila confirmed that, yes, Dan was healing. In fact, he had had new spikes in mental activity.

This time, Phil sat next to Dan. "I just wish you were here with me. I mean, really, here, so we could talk," whispered Phil as Lila muttered about Dan's various injuries. "Come back to me..." Phil sighed and looked away from Dan's unresponsive face, tracing the wires and tubes connected to his body.

"Huh, his mental activity seems to be spiking again," Phil seemed to hear Lila saying from a distance. He was too busy staring with eyes wide as saucers while Dan slowly blinked his eyes open, a confused expression filling his face.

The rest happened in a muted blur. "Oh God, he's awake. Phil, listen, you need to go. Phil, come on!" Lila said, trying to pull him away. It was no use, so she ran out to get Killigan. Together, they pulled a distressed Phil away and called in the other doctors. Dan Howell was awake... and Phil was nowhere near him.