If Elliot didn't know any better, she'd have commented on Dr. Cox's pacing around the room.

Said man glanced at the frozen JD and let out a small frustrated snarl.

But she did know better so she kept her mouth shut.

"When's he going to… wake up?" Carla whispered to the Janitor, who didn't reply immediately. He couldn't, really, because Perry apparently had super-hearing and whirled on them both.

"You tell me," the redhead barked bitingly. Carla winced, though the Janitor didn't look too concerned.

"He'll come back sooner or later, probably swapping stories with his big bwutha," the Janitor made a snorting sound, "Pfft, lucky little shit. I should have had a brother--"

He transformed into a hummingbird just in time to dodge Perry's fist.

Turk was washing his hands in a sink after one of the many surgeries of the day when the room exploded.

WAIT. Backtrack. What?! The fucking room explo-- except he couldn't form coherent thoughts yet because of the shock and when he finally could all that his brain wanted to think was what what what and hell he was probably going to start babbling too when his mouth started working again shit… now he was thinking run-on sentences.

When he regained his sense of hearing, he could hear the screams of the other surgeons, and damn if they didn't make him want to be deaf again.

But then he felt stinky, hot breath on the top of his bald head. He looked up… and saw a red-eyed cockroach.

The same ugly-ass red-eyed cockroach from the fight in the church, which hadn't been that long ago but it felt like a lifetime now. Turk froze. He recalled the name JD had mentioned, Artik.

If it were possible, he'd have said the cockroach seemed to grin at him. But it was not a nice grin. Not a nice one at all.

Shiiiiit.

"Lucifer needs a hostage, and since his last ones just escaped…" The demon hissed in it's scratchy, hoarse voice that reminded Turk of both sandpaper and nails scratching chalkboards.

Double shiiiiit.

He didn't have time to react as the disgusting thing's barbed tongue (or whatever it was… oh ew, that sounded wrong) wrapped around his leg and promptly slammed him against the wall-- or the remnants of it, anyway.

He swore he heard a cracking sound. A rib. Not his spine, thankfully.

He fell to the floor and could almost sense Artik getting ready for another slam, and for a second, just a short, small second, he thought something very un-Christopher Turk-ish. Something very cowardly.

He wanted his spine, his neck, to break. Just so he wouldn't have to deal with this.

Carla's face flashed through his mind, and another flash, something he'd never seen before. A vision of he and Carla cooing over their newborn baby in the delivery room. He'd imagined it before, of course, but it had never been so clear; so real.

With those thoughts in mind, he twisted upwards, ignoring the stabbing pain in his side that was the broken rib, and punched Artik in the face.

It was a damn good punch too, by the way Artik's ugly squashed face screwed up in pain.

The darkness shook. JD didn't know how that was possible, but it did.

Dan smiled at him, and it was genuine, "You should go."

JD paused, and nodded. "I will see you again." He stated firmly, as if trying to convince himself, too.

Dan smiled just a bit wider, "Yeah, little brother, yeah you will."

And JD was gone-- vanished in a flicker of light-- and Dan was left alone again.

"Danny?" Ben's voice called. Or maybe not so alone.

Dan started. "Ben?" He blinked, "How long have you been there?" He looked around but there was no one around him. The hell…?

Ben's voice came louder this time, more urgently, "Danny!"

"BEN! Dammit, I'm here, where are you? How'd you get in here?" Dan spun around in circles, trying to find the source of his friend's voice but there was no trace of anyone. No sign of life but him.

What really shocked him was when he heard Jordan's voice too, but she didn't sound like Jordan. She sounded terrified. Maybe close to tears, "There's no sign of life!" her voice almost wailed, cutting through the blackness like a butcherknife.

Dan rasped, "What…?"

And Dan was back to the land of the living again. Hovering above him were the faces of Ben, Molly and Jordan. He blinked owlishly up at them. He realized he was on the floor and shot up to a standing position. He ignored how his feet wobbled. "What happened?!" he demanded.

Ben put a hand on his arm, trying to calm the elder Dorian down. "You just kinda… fell just now, during the connection," he said in a voice that was a stark contrast to what Dan had heard just a moment before. Calm and soothing, not urgent and just a little bit… scared.

"But… but I heard you!" He insisted.

Ben furrowed his brows in confusion, "Heard me what? Dan, nobody's said much at all since you connected with JD."

"But…" Dan sputtered. He pointed at Jordan. "I heard her too!"

Jordan glared, "It's rude to point."

Molly, looking thoughtful, inquired, "Daniel, what did you hear?"

"I don't…" Dan started helplessly, feeling despaired, "I don't… k-know."

"Dumber than a box of rocks!"

"I heard you the first time, Perry."

"For the love of God, Nancy, you could warn us before you go all googly-eyed and frozen-stiff like that!"

"I didn't have any control over it." JD told him blandly.

"Oh like HELL you didn't!" Perry snapped, "You're one of the Four! You're telling me you can't control something like that?!"

JD was getting more than a bit irritated now and it showed, "Believe it or not, Per, but just because I'm powerful doesn't mean I know everything."

After an intense fussing session, the two had managed to get Carla, Elliot and the Janitor out so they could talk in private. Well, more like Perry had kicked them out so he could give JD a tongue-lashing but let's not get into specifics.

"Never said you knew every-damn-thing. I know you don't, Shirley Temple," Perry fumed for a minute, and then he just seemed to… deflate. "Scared me half to death there, Newbie." He'd rather not remember the number of times Carla had asked if he was alright, saying that how pale he looked couldn't be healthy. He wasn't sure what he had expected; for Newbie to start convulsing or something before coming back to the land of the living like a fucking excorsism or whatever? He'd expected something bad, that was for sure. He just wasn't sure... what. That was what happened when you cared for someone, he mused, you always expect the worst to happen and you spend all your energy expecting yourself to save them.

What the Irishman didn't expect, however, was the sudden sensation of JD's lips ghosting over his own, "I knew you cared." The demon murmured giddily.

Perry's eye twitched. And so did something else. "Damn you." He growled. "I freaking knew it. You're manipulative."

"And you love it."

Perry grunted but he didn't deny it.

A/N: Artik returns! And what was it that Dan heard? An omen of some kind, maybe? WAIT AND FIND OUT.

Oh, God, I sound like a crappy TV-newscaster or something. Dx You might be wondering why everyone hasn't realized that something's wrong with Turk. They're on the other side of the building and Artik's explosion-- it wasn't really an explosion, actually, it just felt like it to Turk because of how close to him Artik had busted through the wall. It was big enough to shake the whole hospital. But they're find out soon enough, that much is inevitable. Anyway, review, please?