Dagwood sat watching Lucas as he slept. He was shivering, but he looked like he was sweating as well.

"Lucas?" The Gelf put out his hand to shake his friend awake. He mumbled something, but wouldn't wake up. Dagwood was surprised by the heat coming off him.

This time, Dagwood went upstairs more quietly. He found Tony and covered his mouth before waking him. Tony's eyes flew open.

"Tony," he whispered.

Tony quickly got up and followed him back to his room.

Lucas was moving restlessly in his sleep. He put a hand to Lucas' forehead, and pulled it back quickly. The boy was burning up.

"Dagwood, go get a bowl of cold water and some washcloths."

He knew Lucas would be too hot in what he was wearing, and began to pull off his sweats, leaving him in just his boxers.

Dagwood hurried back in with the water.

"Thanks Dagwood. We need to cool him off, okay?" He grabbed a washcloth and wiped the sweat off Lucas' face and neck. "Like this..."

Dagwood took over while Tony ran to the bathroom and grabbed the thermometer.

"Shit! It's 103.2°. I'm going to get Aunt Angie."

They were back in minutes. As she walked in, Angie saw him uncovered on the bed, clad in only his boxers. For the first time, she saw the full extent of the damage.

She felt sick. Long scars ran down the length of both legs, and his right thigh and calf was pitted and gouged where flesh and muscle had been damaged. Her eyes filled with tears at the thought of all he had gone through.

"It ain't pretty, is it?"

"Can they fix this?"

"The doc thinks he might be able to walk again, but he'll probably always need a stick or a walker. She says he'll probably always be in pain as well, there was too much nerve damage."

"Oh, the poor boy!"

"Don't let him know you've seen it, okay? He hates pity."

"I know, I won't."

She rechecked his temperature. "I'm going to call Doc Jacobson again."

He got there within the hour. Like Angie, he paused for a moment when he saw the full extent of the boy's injuries. Then he got to work.

"Well, it looks like you're doing all the right things. Good work, Dagwood. Don't forget to wipe down the chest as well, keep him as cool as possible. What was his temperature earlier?"

"103.2"

"It's 104.6 now. I don't like how quickly it's going up." He thought for a moment. "Angie, you have a tub in the main downstairs bathroom, don't you?"

"Yes."

"Tony, start running a cool bath - not cold, just cool. Dagwood, pick him up and follow me. Angie, would you mind putting some fresh sheets on the bed? These are a little damp now."

Dagwood placed him in the cool water, while Tony grabbed some towels.

He continued to shake, and was murmuring nonsense as he tried to move about.

Dagwood gently held him in place, while Tony grabbed another washcloth and washed him with the cool water.

The Doctor smiled at him.

"Look at you, you're so responsible now!" he teased. "When I think of the things you got up to when you were younger. Wasn't even that long ago!"

"Yeah. He's like my little brother, y'know? He can be annoying as hell, but when I thought we were going to lose him..."

"Must have been scary."

"It was. And then he left SeaQuest for the hospital, and that nearly killed him again. So now, Dagwood and me, we're gonna try and look after him when he can't look after himself. When he'll let us. He has the hardest time accepting that anyone could want to help him, and then my Dad goes and says what he said..."

"People say stupid things all the time, you know that. He probably didn't even realize what he was saying. I've known your father a long time, and, if you'll forgive me, his mouth frequently runs ahead of his brain. But you're not like that, Anthony, and I know that you can make this right again. Friendships like this, they weather the storm. You just need to give it a little time."

For someone who had been giving this advice - 'give it a little time' - to Lucas, he didn't like to hear it applied to himself. He wanted to fix this now, not wait for time to heal the wound. He scowled, and continued to wipe Lucas' face.

Dagwood spoke up. "He seems better now."

He did seem calmer. Jacobson took his temperature again.

"Well spotted! 103.7, it's coming down. Let's get him dried off and back to bed."

He tossed and turned for the remainder of the night, but his temperature continued to drop slowly.

He woke in the morning to find Dagwood next to him in the chair, and Tony asleep on Dagwood's bunk.

"Dagwood?"

"Good morning, Lucas."

"What happened? Why are you...sitting there?"

His voice was dry and rasping. Dagwood handed him a cup of water and he started to drink, which ended in a coughing fit. They both turned to see if he'd woken Tony, who remained sprawled out on Dagwood's bed.

"Doctor Jacobson says you have the flu."

Lucas closed his eyes for a minute, and rubbed his hand across his face.

"Oh, great. Just keeps on getting better, doesn't it?"

Dagwood looked confused. "You are getting better. You were really sick last night."

"Did I wake everyone up again?"

"No...but I woke up Tony, and he got Angie and the doctor."

Lucas groaned. "I just can't seem to let anyone rest, can I?"

Tony grumbled from the bed, "Well right now you could stop talkin' and go back to sleep, if it bothers you so much!"

Lucas immediately became contrite. "I'm sorry Tony, I didn't mean..."

Tony came over to him, but spoke to Dagwood.

"Looks like we're doin' this again. Ain't that fun!"

Turning to Lucas, he said, "Listen, we don't mind, we just worry about you and want you to feel better. An' a big part of that is telling us when you're not feeling great. Doc says you must have felt this coming for a day or two?"

Lucas looked shamefaced.

"I had a sore throat when we went shopping, but I didn't think anything of it. I'm so used to feeling rotten, I'm not sure what's unusual anymore."

"Well, I guess that makes sense. How d'ya feel now?"

"I feel better. I'm really sorry about all this."

"Stop saying that, you don't have to be sorry."

"But I am! I'm disturbing everyone in the night, I'm ruining everyone's Christmas, I'm sure everyone wishes I hadn't..."

Whatever he was going to say next was interrupted by another bout of coughing. He tried to push himself up, but Dagwood quickly got there ahead of him, placing himself behind him to support him. After his coughing had ceased, he leaned back against Dagwood's chest.

Tony looked at his friend.

His face was pale with dark circles under the eyes. A fine sheen of sweat glistened on his brow. He hadn't managed to gain any real weight since he'd returned from the hospital, and Tony really believed that he hadn't known he was getting sick because he usually felt so bad.

And then, you added in all the psychological stuff. It was going to be hard for him anyway, but all the stuff from Nick really hit home, and now Tony felt like they were going backwards. He needed to at least try and fix this.

"I guess I've said this to everyone but you, so I may as well say it to you. We were really scared that we was gonna lose you after the accident, all of us were. Tim was praying by your bedside, heck, even Commander Ford was sitting there beside you for hours. When we had to leave you, Hudson thought he was gonna have a mutiny on his hands. He nearly did, but we all believed it was for your own good."

Lucas was watching him intently.

"Did you know that every single crewmember worked to get the boat ready in record speed so we could come and get you? All of us worked through the night, even Hudson rolled up his sleeves to help."

He saw Lucas' eyes widen in surprise.

"When we saw that place...God, Lucas, it was like hell. The smell alone...we couldn't even speak to each other, we were terrified that we'd lost you after all. And then we got you back, and you went through all that stuff, but you pulled through, and it was so great for all of us, having you back. It IS great having you back."

He picked up his friends hands and squeezed them in his own. He no longer felt self conscious about doing this, recognizing his friend's need for contact.

"We don't care about missing a night's sleep here and there, no-one does. What we do care about is you. We just want you to get better. We know, even if you don't, that it's going to take a long time, but that doesn't matter - does it Dagwood?"

"No, Tony."

"And, while we're talking about this, we're not doing this for any kind of payout, and no-one made us do anything. Nothing is going on here that we didn't volunteer for, okay? We knew what we was getting into, didn't we, Dagwood?"

"Captain Hudson and Doctor Perry talked to us for a long time and told us a lot of stuff. Then they asked us again if we wanted to do this. We said yes."

"See? So we don't want to hear anymore 'didn't want to bother you's' or 'I'm sorry's' or anything else in that line. We just want our friend to get better, okay? Do you get that? Wouldn't you feel that way if it was one of us lying there?"

Lucas nodded, and was horrified to find tears rolling down his cheeks. "I'm sor..." He stopped himself. "I don't know why I'm..." He gestured to his face and wiped his eyes.

"It's all those drugs, they're making you a little crazy. Another thing to think about when you start getting those crackpot ideas of yours." Tony grinned.

"Just remember, pretty much everything you think right now is batshit!"

Lucas laughed.

"Do you think you could eat some breakfast?"

"I can try."

"See? That's all we ask!"