Thank you for your reviews. I start back up with classes in less than a week - so updates might be a little less often. That said, I am still actively working on this story (or trying to, that is - sometimes the muse likes to take it's own vacation...) and my other ones. :) Please know how much I appreciate your feedback and love what you have to say. You guys make writing all the more awesome.

Let me know what you think. Enjoy!


Ally was infuriating. How could someone go from being almost human to the biggest jerk in the world all in a few hours flat? After the pain in his leg subsided completely and the group went back inside, he insisted that they watch one of the movies that she'd put in his room. He said since they were all 'new' to him, he got to pick the first one. Ally was appalled by his choice in that of a horror movie.

"That's gross! And gory," she complained.

He didn't want to admit that it would be nice to focus on someone else's pain and torture for a while, but simply smiled and put the movie on. He would've preferred if she whined and complained the entire movie, but she didn't. In fact, she sat there on her phone like she couldn't be bothered, and at one point, even made a phone call to her best friend and laughed—so loud that he lost track of one of the best scenes in the film.

Finally, he paused the DVD player and Ally glanced up from whatever she was doing on the phone.

"What?" she demanded.

He pointed to the TV, "You agreed to watch a movie with me earlier."

"Yeah, a good movie. Not that shitshow that you call a movie."

"It's my room," he defended. "Why can't I pick the movie and you just shut up?"

"Why couldn't you have picked a damn movie we both liked?"

He couldn't help the anger rising inside of him and without thinking he spat, "Because you're too busy being a stuck-up bitch most of the time for me to know a single thing about you—how could I possibly choose a movie you like when you've been nothing but god-awful to me the last four days?" He didn't stop there. "I saw your jealousy today, Ally. I saw how you looked at Cassidy and Jake and I think there is a part of you that wants that. I think you're mad because for some reason, you would rather make someone else absolutely miserable instead of try and make this work—even when you do, you're still only doing these things for you!"

She just stared at him. He turned off the movie and raised his bed, the anger now coursing through him, probably soon enough raising his blood pressure high enough that the nurses would come in.

He gave her a mock smile, "Newsflash, Ally. Cassidy isn't like you. She's got a heart. She wants to be here because she wants to make a difference—she feels passion in her heart for this kind of thing. You? You just obviously want to sit in that damn chair as far away from me as possible and count the days down until you can run out that damn door just like fucking Piper!"

She didn't say a word back to him, but stood up.

With an unreadable expression on her face, she stormed out of the room.

Austin wanted nothing to do with physical therapy later that afternoon, but his nurse came and found him anyway. She had him on the floor, gently pulling his leg up and down, while also working on different exercises with him to build upper body strength. He didn't have the energy for it anymore—he felt lightheaded, borderline nauseous, but the nurse stated that was all normal, especially since his body was all out of whack.

"Another nurse told me you're experiencing burning sensations in your legs," she said after a particularly bad bout of pain coursed through his body.

"Yeah, its recent. One or two days ago," he admitted. "I am scheduled for a CT scan tomorrow afternoon at the hospital. I hope that means that they'll have more answers to how my spinal cord looks. I don't understand why it takes so long for the swelling to go down," he muttered.

The nurse smiled, "Well, our bodies are odd things, Austin. Besides, you are still fighting off an infection, right? They changed your antibiotic the other morning from augmentin to cipro, so, that'll help somewhat too with your water pill."

He had no idea what the millions of medications they were pumping him with did, but he nodded anyway. "Hopefully."

"You're doing good, Austin. I know it's not an easy battle," she told him, helping him into a sitting position. He ignored how the room spun around him and closed his eyes. "Once your good leg heals a bit more, we'll get to working on more physio stuff. Even with the possibility of a complete injury, there is still room for improvement. You are at the start of this very scary journey. I promise you it'll get better."

Austin smiled at her, wanting to believe her.

Life had other plans.

From the Ground Up

Ally sat in the pool with Trish that night, enraged but also hurt. All that Austin said to her back in the hospital room was repeating in her head loudly and she hated every word of it. Trish spent the last hour telling her that he was wrong and they just had to work out differences, but she was only minutes from calling up the facility and demanding to be paired with someone else, or begging for that matter. He hated her. She didn't really care all that much for him—even learning didn't seem to impress him, so what did he want?

"You're missing the point," Trish said, and Ally realized she said that out loud.

"He doesn't care about that," she added.

"How would you know?"

Trish smiled, shifting on the raft so that she was on her back. "You said he wanted to watch a movie and you didn't want to watch the one he picked."

"It was a dumb slasher film," she defended. "I didn't put it there—Jake did!"

"So?" Trish looked at her. "It wasn't your choice. He asked you to sit there and watch a movie with him. It's probably one of the few things that get his mind off things, and clearly, he was appreciative of what we did with the DVD player. Instead, you spent the entire time talking to me on your phone. You could've tried."

"I didn't like the movie."

Trish grinned at her, "Well, he doesn't like you. So, you have something in common."

"Trish," she whined.

The Latina girl laughed, "I'm kidding! You know what I mean. You only get back as much effort as you put in. If you want something to change with him, you have to do it not only for yourself, but for him. I'm pretty sure he's not unlikable, Ally. In fact, even in those few minutes I was in there the other day, he seemed quite nice. Just try. Put away your phone, go in there and do something for him. It's not about you. He's right about that."

Ally rubbed her face, "He's judging me without knowing me."

"I bring back what he said… you never gave him a chance to know you. How can he if you're constantly pushing him away?"

"Ugh," she groaned. "I hate when you're right."

"Show him the Ally beneath all the brought up walls," she encouraged her. "I know you—I know past your attitude and all that you do to make people think you're scary." She gave her a wiggling eyebrow. "I remember what 14-year-old Ally looked like, and how different she was. Stop acting like you're some terrifying model person, when in reality, I know how kind you can be deep down when you stop pretending to be terrible."

She hadn't been that person in years. She didn't even know if she still existed anymore.

Trish gave her another smile. "You're a lovely person, Ally. And I'm not just saying that, either. Show him that girl."

And so, with a pep talk under her belt from Trish, she decided she would go back in tomorrow and pray that he'd let her apologize.

Friday was their last day together through the weekend. Ally was grateful for this—as if this talk this morning went bad, she had all weekend to worry and hope that he was transferred somewhere else and she was reassigned. Trish texted her an encouraging message bright and early, and she set off for her volunteer job with hopes that maybe Trish was right.

She got upstairs a little after nine (timing was not her friend) and saw that once again, Austin was still asleep. The sun shined into his window and she pulled the curtains back so that the sun could remind him it was a beautiful, new day. Then, she heard him groan, "Piper?"

She made a face, wondering if she should go along with it for the sake of keeping peace.

"No, it's Ally."

He didn't say anything.

"Look, I want to apologize and I hope that—"

"Can you get me a drink of water?"

His mouth sounded garbled, so she obliged, hoping that this would cast her a few minutes time so that she could properly convey her apology. Carefully, she walked over to the bed, and pulled back the sheets a bit, noticing that again he was sweating. Ally bit down on her lip—it had been a month since his injury (she'd gone over his file with a fine-tooth comb so to speak last night), shouldn't they have this kind of thing in check already?

"Austin? Do you want to sit up?"

He mumbled something under his breath, and she waited for him to do it. When he made no effort to attempt it himself, she placed the water on the counter beside him and carefully placed her hand under his lower back, and then one under his neck so that she could support him upward enough so that the bed did rest of the work.

He murmured under his breath, "Your hands are cold…"

"Sorry," she apologized. "The water was cold. I can't help it."

Together, they got the bed into a sitting position and she wondered why he was still so groggy. He took small sips of the water and Ally leaned back away from the bed, doing a mental check on everything else about him. He wasn't having a bad morning spasm wise; in fact, they seemed quite in check. His bruising on his 'good' leg even seemed a bit brighter. She couldn't gauge much else from that and waited for him to say something. Something told her to hold off on continuing her apology.

"Are you okay?" she finally said after five minutes, his feverish skin looking worse instead of better. "Austin?"

He murmured something that she couldn't understand.

"Austin?"

"Not now, Piper," she made out.

Ally frowned, "Austin, I'm not Piper. It's Ally. I'm the volunteer intern, remember?"

Something was wrong.

Before Ally could even step out of the room, Austin made the most inhumane, awkward sound she ever heard, and his body contorted on the bed—his entire body. Then, she realized as his body began to shake and tremble—he was having a seizure. It took all of seconds for alarms on his bed to go off, and Ally knew nurses would be coming. In the meantime, she knew enough to try and get him on his side but otherwise not get in the way.

When Nurse Wendy came running in, her eyes widened in shock, "What happened?"

Ally quickly explained the morning to the nurse and several others while they kept their distance—she remembered briefly in a previous situation in school that you were not to disturb someone having a seizure, that it could actually make them worse.

Still, it was antagonizing to watch, and she closed her eyes as the minute ticked on. Finally, after a long five minutes, his body slackened on the bed and the nurses surrounded him and began checking all his necessary machines. Ally hung back, curious but scared, still knowing she had to watch for the educational purposes. Despite the seizure ending, Austin had not woken yet.

"I think we should give him some space," Wendy said. "We cannot do much as a team right now until he can tell us more." She eyed the other nurses. "I'll call you guys if I need you."

They left the room and Ally stepped a few inches closer, "Is he alright?"

"I hope so," she said, her voice laced with worry. "We do not know what caused this yet. It is not common for this to pop up out of nowhere—if it was part of his condition he would've experienced this already. I'm worried that it might be an interaction of sorts."

"Interaction?"

Wendy nodded, "Something that is not agreeing with his body."

Then, Austin stirred, "Whoa… what… what…"

"Shh," Wendy whispered, "Take it easy, Austin. You're okay. You just had a seizure. How do you feel?"

He glanced at her with weary eyes, as if he couldn't focus. Ally hung back, not wanting to be seen as of yet. "Sick…"

"What does that mean Austin? You feel sick? Sick as in how?"

He made a motion with his hand, which seemed weakened by the seizure. It landed on his stomach. For some reason, this went over Wendy's head. "I need you to use words…"

Ally understood, "I think you need to get a waste bin," she said quickly. "I think he means he's going to be sick."

Austin's gaze flickered over to her briefly while Wendy sprang into action, grabbing a nearby bin and bringing it over to him. With Ally's help they got him to his side just in time for Ally to be proved right. Austin lost the contents of his stomach into the bin harshly, and Ally kept one hand on his shoulder while Nurse Wendy spoke comfort words to him. Unlike the Nurse, she was just trying to not get sick herself.

He groaned and released more from his stomach and Ally cringed, trying to keep her grip on him tight, as he had very little control over his upper body below his shoulders. After a minute or two, he nodded his head and Ally eased him back onto the sheets. Nurse Wendy hummed something and took the waste bin out of the room, leaving it in the hallway for a second while she could continue her study of him.

"How do you feel otherwise, Austin? Still nauseous I'm sure, but do you feel light headed, seeing spots, or sore?"

He nodded, "All of that…"

Wendy took his file off the back of the bed and began to look through it. She stared at it in silence for nearly five minutes before tapping it with one of her manicured fingers. "Austin, have you ever had the antibiotic cipro before? You were on augmentin before this but your doctor suggested the cipro as a change so that your body did not become immune to certain ones."

He shrugged, "I dunno."

Wendy clicked her fingers to the board. "I bet that is it. You're showing signs of a cipro allergy. I can't be sure by just saying so, but I am going to call your doctor and look over the report further with him. In the meantime, we'll cut the antibiotic IV and switch it back to augmentin for the day, see if we see any improvements." She glanced at Ally. "I have to make a few phone calls and update his chart… keep an eye on him and let me know if anything changes."

Ally nodded as she didn't know what else to do, and watched the woman exit the room. From behind, she could feel Austin's eyes on her. Slowly, she turned to face him.

He just stared at her, clearly too exhausted to say anything, but his eyes, now clearing from the ordeal, said it all. He remembered yesterday and she was not forgiven.

So, she sat in the chair nearest his bed and sighed.

"I think we need to start over."