DISCLAIMER: Nope not mine. I'm just borrowing the characters you recognize.

SUMMARY: Kim's dreams of Pan-Global gold are shattered. Is anyone going to be able to convince her that she can heal?

Coach Schmidt sat in the waiting room. He'd been calling all night, trying to find out how Kimberly was but there'd been no news until this morning. The doctors had been watching her for almost seventeen hours now.

The x-rays and CAT scans they had run had shown them several things, not one of them good.

"Coach Schmidt?" the doctor in the doorway asked.

"Yes?"

"Would you follow me? I'd like to talk to you in my office."

The coach nodded and followed the doctor down the hallway to the office. Once inside with the door closed, the doctor sighed. "Coach, normally I wouldn't divulge this type of information about a minor patient to anyone outside of immediate family but, since you've already informed me that Kimberly's mother can't be here just yet and her father seems to be unreachable, you are the adult currently responsible for her. We were hoping that she would have woken up by now but she's still unconscious."

"Doctor, please tell me how she is. Her roommate and other friends are extremely concerned about her."

"Coach, this isn't easy. Every test we've run so far tells us that her back was severely damaged by the fall. In fact, she may never walk again. If she does walk, it will only be after a long and difficult rehabilitation. Even then, I believe her gymnastics career may very well be over."

"Poor Kimberly. She fought so hard to get to this point only to lose it all here." The coach hung his head. "I don't know how we'll break this news to her."

"Coach, there is also a good chance that she might not be able to see when she wakes up. The impact on the back of her head may have done significant damage to her optic nerves. We won't know for certain until she wakes up."

"Would it be alright if I brought in her roommate and a couple of friends to see her? They are all so worried."

"Of course. Right now, it might actually help. Sometimes, talking to unconscious people helps to bring them around."

The coach stood up and went out to call Ana and Kevin. He only hoped that the young man that had arrived late last night would be able to help as well.

Kevin and Billy were asleep on the couch when the call from Coach Schmidt came in. Kevin answered it.

"Allo?"

"Kevin, it's Coach. The doctor has said that you, Ana, and Billy can come and see Kimberly. He thinks it might help wake her up."

"Merci, Coach. I'll tell the others. We'll be there as soon as we can." He hung up to find Billy sitting up and running a hand through his hair. "We can go see her."

"That is most excellent news." Billy headed for the kitchen to start something for breakfast. "I'll start making breakfast if you wake up Ana."

"No need, mon ami," Ana's voice answered. "I woke up when the phone rang. But I will take a shower while you fix something for us to eat."

The young woman turned and walked into the bathroom. The sound of a shower soon greeted the young men's ears. "I have a bad feeling about this, Billy. I don't know if we really want to hear what the doctor has to say about Kimberly's condition. Her back did hit rather hard."

"I'm a little more worried about her eyes. The way her head hit the mats could have damaged her eyes and made her blind." Billy knew that he had to face the fact that his friend might be in worse shape than anyone back home would know.

"You don' blame her for that letter, do you?" Kevin had to know.

"I can't. I know that there's more to it than anyone else knows. I couldn't believe that she would write something that cold. That just isn't the Kimberly I know. If Tommy had stopped to think about it, he would have realized the same thing. That's not Kimberly's style."

"Her mother wanted her to come to Paris to live after the Games. Kim refused. Her mother is furious. Kim thinks she wrote the letter and sent it to Tommy to make everyone there hate her so she would have nowhere else to go when the Games ended."

"I never would have thought that Mrs. Dumas would be so cruel to her own daughter. She had to have known how much that would hurt Kimberly."

"It was very selfish of her not to consider her daughter's feelings." Kevin had to agree with the young man in front of him; Kim's mother had been so cruel.

"Is breakfast ready yet?" Ana asked from the doorway.

"You were too quick, petite soeur. We haven't had time to finish pulling out the pan for eggs yet." Kevin laughed at his sister.

"Well, how about I take over while Billy takes a shower here and you run down to your room to shower and change?" Billy just nodded to the young woman and left the room.

Kevin smiled at his sister and kissed her forehead just before leaving the room. Ana shook her head, smiling at the two young men's expression when they realized that she didn't take forever in the shower.

She started chopping vegetables for omelets and scrambling the eggs. Before Kevin walked back in, she had three omelets and hash browns ready for breakfast.

Arriving at Angel Grove Airport, Tommy and Rocky hurried inside. They'd been a little late leaving the house and didn't want to miss their flight.

Once they settled in at the gate to wait for the flight to start boarding, Tommy decided to tell Rocky about the episode the day before when Kim fell.

"Hey, Rocky?"

"What's up, Tommy?"

"Yesterday, when Kim fell, I swear it was my back that hit that bar. I couldn't move for about an hour. And I think I may have blacked out for a moment when her head hit the mats."

"You two are still that connected? Wow."

"Yeah. It was scary for a bit there." Tommy sat there thinking for a moment. If he and Kim were that solidly connected, could it mean that she really hadn't written the letter?

He could only hope that what Rocky had told him was the truth and that she would forgive him for not trying to talk to her about it sooner.