"Hey…"

The whisper brought me out of the dream, and I woke up to find Chase's face close to mine. The angle was wrong, and it took me a moment to realize my head was resting on his arm. I twisted my neck and winced at the pain that shot through my back. I was too old to spend a whole night curled up in an armchair no matter how large it was.

"I have to go to the hospital," Chase whispered. "I have the early shift."

"How is he?" I asked, glancing in the direction of the bed where Gabriel's silhouette remained unmoved.

"The same. He'll be out a while longer, so go get some real sleep, okay?" Chase's fingers brushed the hair away from my forehead. He didn't look like he'd gotten much rest either. "I'll come back after four to check on him. Call me if there's any change."

"Okay." I sat up in the armchair and stretched my back while he got up.

"Make sure she rests," Chase told Alec who stood by the window with his arms folded on his chest.

"Hey," I protested weakly. He wasn't even family, and he gave orders like that.

"Relax, Sleeping Beauty won't care if you're here or not, and you heard the doctor." Alec grinned.

I threw him a glare, and kicked the blanket off to accompany Chase on his way out.

When we arrived to the stairs, he pointed up. "The bedroom is that way. I meant it." He dropped a quick kiss on my temple, which took me by surprise, and steered me in the right direction. "I'll see you later."

I mumbled something even I didn't understand and did as told. Sleep came, blurring the image of those blue eyes persisting in my mind and that, at times, was replaced by a pair of green ones.

Four hours later, I returned to the patient's room, showered and reasonably rested, considering that I had woken up every hour to check with Del on Gabriel's condition.

Alec was still there, he was probably going to sleep for a whole week after this adventure, but I also had the surprise to find Cassie in the room.

"What's she doing here?" I asked Alec quietly.

"Reacquainting with her long lost grandfather," he replied.

"Idiot." Cammie glared at Alec then turned to me. "Make him stop or I will."

"Stop what?" I asked.

"He's been flooding my network for hours! It's driving me nuts."

"Oh, you don't need him for that." Alec smirked.

Cammie's glare turned murderous.

"If you want to fight, take it outside," I told them. It wouldn't be the first time that happened, and things ended up broken whenever they did. "Del, is Gabriel sending something?"

"Piece of junk," Cammie spat the words in the direction of the bed, and tossing her long, black hair back, stormed out of the room.

"We'll miss you!" Alec waved cheerfully after her.

"Yes, he is sending something," Del said.

"Why didn't you tell me?" I walked to the bed and looked at Gabriel's asleep face.

"It's only memories fired by his brain, nothing else. I tried to communicate with him, but he didn't answer." Del's voice turned into a whine.

"You don't use the same frequency or protocols even," I told him. "I could barely connect you to my own computer, and half of the data still gets lost on the way. How is he supposed to understand that?"

"But I rerouted everything through the mainframe and sent it via Wi-Fi..."

Still too complex for Gabriel's chip, but that gave me an idea. I reached for my cell phone. If Gabriel was paranoid about his security, chances were he would be listening to any communications taking place in his proximity. I opened a blank message and typed, Gabriel, are you there?... Gabriel?... time to wake up… is the render module on?

The last question got a spike in the activity on the monitors.

"It isn't now." Gabriel opened his eyes.

"Yay!" Del squeaked and rushed to the bed. "He's awake!"

Alec took a few steps closer too, but he looked more alert than excited.

"How are you feeling?" I asked. "Any change?"

After a long moment of staring at the ceiling, Gabriel said, "Everything seems to be fine." He sat up in bed, wavering a little.

I reached out to help him keep his balance, but the blanket fell off him, gathering in his lap, so my hand landed on his bare shoulder. "And the render module?"

"It still works." Gabriel shot me a glance from the corner of his eye, and I removed my hand. "I won't know if it's fixed unless it starts by itself again, I guess."

"I did fix it…" Del muttered, squeezing Gabriel's shirt in his hands.

"Well, we'll see about that," I said. "How often did the episodes occur?"

"The short ones—under a second long—four or five times a day lately." Gabriel took the shirt from Del and put it on. "The longer ones—over a minute—maybe every other day."

I nodded. "Then we'll know soon. We have to wait for Chase to give you a check up before you leave anyway."

"I'm fine." Gabriel hopped off the bed.

"I'll believe it when Chase says it," I said.

"So, I'm a prisoner?" Gabriel asked, raising an eyebrow and showing no sign of concern.

"You heard Boss." Alec smirked. "You're not going anywhere until she says so. But can we get out of here?" he asked me. "I'm sick of this room."

"Yes, let's get back into the house," I agreed, having had enough of that room too.

"Well, can this prisoner receive something to eat?" Gabriel asked while we walked in the corridor.

"Yes, yes, food!" Del bounced on his metal toes. "I can make a delicious—" he pronounced a word I had never heard before, which promised a long preparation time and possibly several tries to get it right as it usually happened when he cooked something new.

"I think Gabriel would rather eat now than wait for you to make something," I suggested since he hadn't eaten anything in over twenty-four hours. "There must be something in the fridge you can warm up for him."

"Of course there is." Del huffed and opened the kitchen door to let us enter his kingdom. "You'd think I'm starving you…" he muttered.

We walked in and spread around the table.

"Your Ladyship." If Thomas had stood any straighter, his back would have snapped.

"Relax, we're just here for a late breakfast. Del, is there any cake left?" I asked.

"Worst. Diet. Ever." Del grumbled, but a plate with a slice of cake was slid in front of me.

My eyes kept darting at Gabriel, the questions "Is the render module on? Is it on? Is it on?" on the tip on my tongue. In retaliation, he made eyes at Thomas until poor Thomas threw a towel in the sink and left the kitchen.

"That was mean," I said.

"It's better than you firing him." Gabriel grinned into his coffee.

From what I could tell, he was fine.

"I already said I won't fire him."

"But he doesn't know that."

Gabriel's evil smile made Alec burst into laughter. "Oh, you'll fit right in!" Confronted with the look I gave him, he added quickly, "But don't get your hopes up. We're out of free rooms. I have to live above the garage."

That statement threw me off. Did Alec consider himself as part of the family? And did he really want to move into the house? I would have to talk to him about this later.

For now, we did our best to keep Gabriel entertained without freaking him out until Chase returned. When Chase gave his approval and after they agreed on another appointment later during the week, still at the house, we walked Gabriel to the front door and watched as he got into a black car that had come to pick him up.

"Checking out the competition?" Alec teased Chase.

"Nah … those dimples are leaving. I'm staying." Chase slipped an arm around my shoulders and pulled me back into the house, away from the cold.

I was feeling rather warm already.