Later That Night

The noise of the fireworks kept him awake for most of the night, which wasn't good. He had to make sure he had enough sleep or else he could suffer from a grand-mal seizure. The house however was rather quiet since everybody was outside watching the fireworks, which for some reason made sleeping that more difficult to do. He laid on his back, in his dark bedroom, trying to force his mind to sleep. After twenty minutes of boredom he finally decided to get up.

Very slowly he made his way downstairs, to the kitchen where he got himself a glass of water. As he walked into the living room he could see Mike sprawled out on the couch, the right side of his body partially hanging off. Walker had a chuckle at this, picked up his reading guide then sat down in the rocking chair next to the couch.

For over three months he would always do reading exercises at home, traveling or in occupational therapy. His reading has improved immensely, however he still had problems with complex sentences. Unfortunately he may never fully regain the ability to read like he use to which left him always frustrated. At least now he could read at roughly third grade level, which opened up his choices of reading material.

Mike groaned then shifted his weight which nearly sent him sliding completely off the couch. Seeing this Walker got up then went to his son to see him still sleeping off the booze. He will have to have a chat with the kid once he wakes up tomorrow. Right now, he had to make sure Mike didn't fall off.

He nudged his son's shoulder. "Hey, Mike. Wake up." When that didn't work, he decided to use brute force to get Mike back onto the couch. "Told you to lay off the drinks."

"As long as I knew him he always drank quite a bit." John came walking into the room, a glass of tea in his hand. "When I meant him, he was drinking it up and any time we get together, he's always drinking." He sat the glass down onto the side table then shook his head. "I'll help you."

Once Mike was settled a little more comfortably on the couch, Walker fell back into the rocker, his mind finally getting tired. John stepped up to him, patted his shoulder then prompted him to get up. Walker waved his son away who sighed heavily then sat across from him on another rocker. He could see John was rather annoyed at him, but he would go to bed when he was ready to. And right now, he wanted to stay up.

"You should be getting to bed." John checked his watch as the back screen door opened and closed numerous times. Trivette, Gage and a Ranger named Harris came walking into the room. "How was the fireworks show?"

Gage sat down on the love seat with a smile. "It was good. Shame you couldn't see it Walker."

Walker sighed heavily. "It's okay, I've seen plenty of fireworks shows before. Once you've seen one, you've seen them all."

Trivette nodded at his friend. "True." His attention quickly went to his watch. "Shouldn't you be in bed? It's really late." He studied his close friend to see the dopey look in Walker's eyes. His right eye drooped a little more which gave him the appearance of always being sleepy. "You're not going to go, are you?" Walker gave him a lopsided smile. "You know what Alex is going to say about this." He watched the smile on his friend's face fade as Walker's hands began to twitch.

This was the first time Ranger Harris saw a seizure in person and he was rather surprised to see it didn't take over Walker's whole body. In fact Trivette, Gage and John didn't appear fazed by what was happening in front of them. They continued talking, as though Walker having a seizure was a common occurrence. After all it's been eight months or so since the attack, seven months since Walker has been home maybe it has gotten to be like an everyday event.

John slowly stood up as the twitching in Walker's hands finally stopped. "Hey, dad. You just had a seizure." Walker blinked several times as his body slumped down into the chair. "Let's get you to bed." He smiled back at the stunned Ranger Harris. "Be right back."

Harris turned to Trivette. "How often does this happen?"

"Good days, twice. Bad days, five times." Trivette smiled. "Luckily the good days far out number the bad ones."

"What triggers them?" Harris shook his head at his curiosity. "Sorry, but it just happened out of the blue like that. One minute, he's fine and talking, the next…"

"It's okay." Gage shrugged. "The small ones, just happen. However if he doesn't get a whole lot of sleep he could have a grad-mal seizure, which shakes the whole body. That is scary." His voice showed his fear and he quickly cleared his throat. "That has happened only a few times in the last couple of months."

Harris took a deep breath then shook his head. "Can't believe Walker will never be a Texas Ranger again. It's so hard to even think how the Company will be like without him." He sipped his beer. "At least he's alive." He smiled broadly. "At least he's alive."

Two Weeks Later

In a corner of Terry's office Walker sat at a small table reading and rereading the guide in front of him. He did this for nearly an hour each day, which always bored him to the point where he couldn't focus after just thirty minutes. Finally Terry patted his hand, took the book away then laid an activity book in front of him. Two months ago he began to do word finds and other drills to try and get his brain to reconnect. It seemed to work ever so slowly.

He grabbed a pencil then pulled the book in closer so he could read it better. His right eye never fully regained sight, and according to Doctor Miller if he didn't gain vision back by now he never will. He got accustomed to the blurriness out of that eye, though on occasions it did give him headaches. In that case he would throw on the eye patch, which relieved quite a bit of strain.

"Okay, find the words for me." Terry held the guide in front of her. "Take your time."

Walker hated word finds, everything jumbled together in one big mess. It took him nearly fifteen minutes to finally find one word. He circled it then rubbed his face in frustration.

"Tuna." It took him ten more minutes to find the next one. "Carp." He put the pencil down and shook his head. "I want to move onto something else."

Terry appeared rather shocked. "Are you quitting on me, Walker. For as long as I've known you, I've never seen you just stop like this." She sighed heavily. "I told you to take your time. Finding words, is the most challenging thing for you. To get better, you do what?"

"Keep trying." Walker sighed heavily, picked up the pencil then began to hunt for words. "Sword…fish." He circled it then went on the hunt for yet another word.

Nearly an hour later he completed the word find and went on to writing drills. This proved more difficult then reading and a lot more challenging. Ever since his release from the hospital most thought he had no problem with writing and in fact neither did he till he had to write down his report on the incident. Then he quickly came to the realization that he couldn't remember how to make letters or numbers. The good thing, writing quickly came back to him once he began to practice, however he now had to work on how to spell words.

Terry smiled as he spelled out the words on the page. "You're picking up new information, which is really good." She took out his folder, jotted down some notes then began to study him once again. "How is the memory, Walker?"

"Really good." He wrote the word "beach" then glanced up at her. "Though, I have noticed that I've been having problems with patterns." He looked up from his activity book. "I was playing a game with Angela the other day, had a lot of problems with it," He took a deep breath to swallow down his pride. "I couldn't remember where the pieces were."

"I see." She scooted her chair backwards, grabbed a game then came back to the table. "Is this similar to the game you played?"

Walker nodded. "Yeah, that's exactly it."

"Hmmm…How long have you had this problem, Walker?"

"Awhile." He saw Terry's disappointed look which got him feeling a bit bad that he had held it in for so long. "I just thought it would get better…"

Terry shook her head in disappointment. "Walker, it's been over six months, you should've told me sooner." She scooted the chair backwards again, picked up a small box then came back to the table. "That stubbornness of yours is going to do you in, Walker."

"So I hear." Walker watched as she took off the lid revealing several multi-colored squares. "What's this?"

"It's a test on pattern recognition." She tisked as she took the squares from the box. "I should have done this test when you first came to me. However, you had a similar test done at the hospital and according to them you passed." She glanced up at him. "You did do a test like this, right?" She quickly noticed Walker's confused look. "I can't believe this got missed."

Walker shrugged. "I just had problems with word recognition. That was known almost as soon as I was able to talk after my coma. I never mentioned anything about patterns, saw no point."

She took out a book from the drawer in the table, flipped to the first page then arranged the blocks in a simple pattern. After she was done she leaned back and waved towards them.

"Remember that pattern, Walker." She waited a few minutes till she leaned forward, flipped all the blocks to different sides then leaned back into her seat. "Rearrange the blocks in the pattern that I just showed you. I will time you to see how well you do."

"Terry, can I just get back to writing? I see no point in doing this drill. All I came here for is…"

"Time is ticking, Walker."

He grumbled then began to fiddle with the little squares trying desperately to remember the sequence he was given a few moments before. How could forget something so simple? He had done tests like this numerous times, why couldn't he get it? After about a minute he began to see the pattern in his mind, but couldn't quite work it out with the blocks. Embarrassed he began to get flustered which made it harder for him to figure out the pattern.

Terry instantly saw this and jotted down more notes. "We'll be adding this to the daily routines."