The three of them walked down to Brodi's room together, Elise feeling slightly jealous as the two old friends chit-chatted about old times.

Dr. Brenner went in first. In hindsight, Elise realized that either she or Nate should have gone in first. However, none of them thought anything of it. Until Dr. Brenner introduced herself, that is.

"No. No one from this hospital is touching my son again."

"Mrs. Ford, I understand your distrust, but please, he needs to be looked at."

"I said no. Please leave."

"Mom…"

Elise stepped forward.

"Trish, it's OK. Dr. Brenner is an old friend of Nate's. Nate asked her to help us out. We can trust her." Elise took another step forward and held out her hand to the anxious mother. "Come on. Stand over here with me. We won't leave the room; we'll watch the entire exam. She's not going to hurt him."

"Please, Trish. Brodi will get stronger and more alert as the drugs leave his system, but we need to find out if that's all this was. Jennie… Dr. Brenner can help us find out what happened to him. She'll make sure he's really out of the woods."

Trish looked from her son to Elise to Nate. Brodi nodded at his mother.

"It's OK, Mom," Brodi whispered. "I'm OK."

Finally she relented and moved to stand by Elise. Dr. Brenner wasted no time in moving in and sitting on the side of Brodi's bed before the woman changed her mind again.

"OK, honey, let me see if I can't figure out what happened to you. Do you mind if I raise the head of your bed just a little? It'll make this easier on both of us."

Brodi shook his head, so she hit the switch to raise the head of his bed.

"All right then. I know you've been through a lot, so I don't want to put you through more tests than you need. If you get tired, just let me know and we'll stop for a while, agreed?"

Brodi nodded.

"We'll start with a basic neurological exam. I know your throat hurts, so just answer as plainly as you can."

The battery of questions was simple, but let her know his current mental status. What is your name? What is your mother's name? Where are you? What year is it? Who is the American president? Then came the physical coordination part. Close your eyes. Open your eyes. Raise your right hand. Your left. Sharp object on the fingertips…do you feel that? On the arms? How about the legs? Feet?

Finally Dr. Brenner smiled and laid a hand on her patient's shoulder. "That's all I have to do right now, honey. The heart monitor looks good, and you were able to talk to me without getting breathless. Your eyes dilated fine and they're tracking together, and you don't seem to have lost any sensation anywhere. Are you in any pain? I can order something for you."

Brodi shook his head, and Dr. Brenner looked doubtful. "Don't suffer unnecessarily, Brodi. I can give you something that won't make you sleepy."

Again Brodi shook his head. Dr. Brenner looked around at Nate. "He's as stubborn as you are, isn't he?"

She looked back to her patient and winked. "Well, then, if you're sure. I'm going to order some blood tests, so I'm going to get a phlebotomist up here. I'll order a followup MRI in the morning. Now, if I have that catheter removed, do you think you can walk to the bathroom?"

"With help, yes." He whispered.

Dr. Brenner smiled. "Very good. I'll call a nurse in here to help me. If that is successful, and barring the MRI doesn't find anything unusual tomorrow morning, I see no reason why you shouldn't be allowed to go home tomorrow. Sound good?"

"Yes, thank you."

Dr. Brenner took one of Brodi's hands as she stood. "All right, then, Mr. Brodi Ford, it has been an honor to meet you. I'm going to make sure you are well taken care of. Let me go ahead and call a nurse. While we're waiting, I'm going to borrow Nate for a few minutes."

Nate followed Jennie into the hall, far enough away from the door to prevent being overheard.

"What's up, Jenn?"

Jenn whirled around angrily. "That man in there—your friend—shows no sign of an organic problem. I see no evidence of neurological disorder, disease, injury. After you called me, I looked over the tests run when he was admitted. He had evidence of a concussion, but nothing that should have rendered him comatose for three weeks. That boy lost three weeks of his life, and I can't find a suitable reason for it."

She sighed and looked at her friend. "I'm going to run the blood tests like I said. I'll do a tox screen on his blood and on the waste in the drainage bag from his catheter. After the MRI in the morning, you can take him home provided nothing is out of the ordinary."

"I can tell you that any drugs, any chemicals you find in his system were introduced in this hospital. Brodi doesn't take so much as aspirin." Nate rested a hand on his friend's shoulder. "Jennie, we appreciate you even looking at this. I don't even want to think about what kind of trouble you could get into for hijacking another doctor's patient. Believe me, at this point, Brodi's alive, and he's awake. No one is going to be disappointed with any help you can offer."

Jennie Brenner smiled. "Well, then, let's go back and see if the nurse has arrived, and I'll remove that last little bit of nuisance for him."

__________________

Brodi sat bolt upright, gasping for breath.

"It's OK, honey. You're OK. You just fell asleep."

Elise hurried over with a cool washcloth and gently mopped up beads of sweat from his forehead and neck.

"Elise?"

"I'm right here, baby. You must've been dreaming, huh?" Elise handed him a plastic cup of water. "Nate finally convinced your parents to go get some sleep. He took them to the lodge a couple of hours ago. Rahzel had a room ready for them."

Brodi finished off the water, and, handing the cup back to Elise, dropped back down on the bed.

"What about you?"

"What about me?"

"When are you going to get some sleep?"

Elise smiled as she leaned over the bed rail and picked up his hand. "Last I checked, babydoll, you are the one in the hospital bed, not me. Don't you worry about me, sweetie." She teasingly tousled his hair as she brushed some of it off of his forehead. "I'm fine. Now go back to sleep. You're going to get shuffled around some more tomorrow before you're released. You need to rest."

Brodi looked at her sadly and sighed.

"Go on to sleep, sweetie. I'm right here, and I'm not going anywhere. No one is getting near you tonight, I promise. I'm not going to let anyone hurt you."

She leaned forward to kiss him when the sound of the door opening caused her to whirl around.

"Nate! Holy cow—what are you doing back here?"

"Have you turned on the TV?"

Nate stepped into the room and closed the door.

"No. We were just talking. What's going on?"

Nate walked over to the other side of the bed. "Hey, Bro. Sorry to bust in on you this late. How you feeling?"

"Uh, Nate? Hello? What's going on?"

Nate looked from Brodi to Elise. "I don't know how either of you will take this, but here goes. When the suits got wind of our boy here waking up, they held a news conference. They were going to do it tomorrow as some sort of "welcome home" event, but Rahzel managed to convince them that Brodi wasn't going to be up for more excitement than walking to his room. Well, that, and Psymon threatened to sabotage the event if they tried it—that probably helped convince them."

Elise tried to hold back a laugh. "I'm sure."

Nate sighed, and Brodi put a hand on his wrist. "OK, there's more. Out with it."

Nate looked down and patted Brodi's hand. "Well, hotshot, you might already have guessed this, but you weren't in a coma because of your boarding accident. Jennie says there is no medical reason why you should've been out as long as you were. You had a pretty nasty concussion, but there should have been no more than a day or so of a medically-induced coma to keep down brain swelling…if that was even necessary at all. More than likely you would have just been watched. Your biggest problem wasn't your head injury, but your lungs."

Elise blinked. "But he wouldn't wake up."

"Well, here's where it gets fun. Jennie ordered blood tests and tested what came out of your catheter. There were heavy, heavy antipsychotic drugs in your system, drugs that are used for chemical restraint in patients having severe psychotic episodes. Then Rahzel gets a call from someone who had seen the news conference. Seems there is someone who thinks her dear little sister, who works as a nurse in this hospital, may have tried to kill our boy here."

"What?"

"Whoa, easy there, big guy. Just—lay back down; you're not recovering as quickly as you think you are. The police have a name and are tracking this girl down. They'll want you to identify her, Elise, since Brodi was unconscious during this time."

Elise nodded blankly and stumbled back into a chair. She heard Nate telling Brodi to stay put, then Nate was kneeling in front of her, resting a hand on hers.

"Elise? Are you all right?"

"I, uhm," she looked from Nate to Brodi, both of them looking at her anxiously. "You were being poisoned right under my nose. I thought I was keeping you safe, and I didn't notice. Your mother took one look at you and knew something was going on other than what the medical staff was telling us. I completely missed it."

"Elise, look at me." Nate tilted her chin back towards him. "We don't know what happened. The police will talk to this woman and her sister. Jennie is checking drug inventories and who had access when. Eddie is hacking away as we speak to find any information he can find on this nurse. And, if it looks like she did it, she will be charged. But, Elise, listen to me. This is very important. She is a nurse. If she was in this room, it was because she was supposed to be taking care of Brodi. You would have no reason to expect otherwise. Do you hear me?"

Elise nodded but said nothing.

"You have stood by him. You fought for him, making sure he was getting proper care. Hell, you've barely left this room. And do I NEED to remind you that it's because of you that he's awake. Honey, your courage to make that decision to sign the papers probably saved his life."

"But why? Why would someone try to hurt him?"

Nate stood and walked over to the bed where Brodi was trying to sit up, and gently pushed him back down.

"We've talked about that, honey. Angel of Death, window of opportunity? Who knows?"

"Elise, go home and go to sleep. You too, Nate. I'll be fine."

"No offense, partner, but you don't exactly look like the picture of health right now. And that girl there is more mule-headed than you are, so if you think you can get her to leave, be my guest. I'm not going to waste my energy on that. However, I will tell you this. BOTH of you just need to settle in right here and get some rest. I'LL be standing guard. And let me give you a hint: it ain't just my size that's earned me the nickname "Bull". I will win the stubbornness contest."

He was about to continue his lecture, but there was a nervous knocking at the door.

"Come in," Elise called.

They saw Eddie's 'fro peaking around the corner.

"Come on in, Eddie." Elise stated as she looked around from her chair. "Brodi's awake. You won't be disturbing anyone."

Eddie entered with this laptop case and shut the door behind him.

"Eddie, what's up, buddy?"

Eddie came forward and hi-fived Brodi. "Dude, I am SO glad you're OK. You scared the hell out of us, man."

"So I keep hearing. What's got you out so late?"

"Got some news. Hey, you're not hooked up to any machinery that might go haywire if I turn on my laptop, will you? I've got something to show you guys."

"Nope. Completely and 100% unplugged."

Eddie looked carefully at Brodi's arms and chest, as if not believing him. Seeing no stray wires or tubes protruding from him, he finally seemed satisfied and started to unpack his laptop.

"OK. I didn't want to inadvertently cause another crisis. Now, gather 'round, kids; I'll angle this thing so Brodi can see it too. Let me show you what I found."

Eddie set up his laptop and put on a show that none of them could believe.