The next couple of days in the hospital were almost painfully uneventful. Believe it or not, there's not a lot to do in a hospital. Especially when nurses and the team stopped me every time I tried to do anything for myself. On the upside, I was given ice cream whenever I asked from the fridge and I was able to do literally nothing but watch television and read. I watched the first half of the Criminal Minds first season and then persuaded (i.e.: threatened) a nurse into putting the health care pamphlet down and setting the Firefly disc to play.

I generally had company from Booth or Brennan, sometimes both at once. A real load off my mind was that not once had they pressed the paternity issue. They seemed to be at least letting me heal up a bit before trying to crush me in that drama. Brennan usually read while I watched TV, and brought a couple of books with her for me. I was about two-thirds through The Da Vinci Code. On the other hand, Booth crashed on the couch by the window and watched the television with me.

Apparently, I wasn't the only person that didn't mind murder in both real life and fictional luxuries.

We didn't talk about a lot. Whenever there was an update on Kenton's prosecution or conviction, he carried the news to me. I guess he figured it was my right to know what was happening to my would-be killer. He usually came by three or four times a day, staying at least an hour each time. Sometimes he stayed for several. He had to break to see his ex girlfriend Rebecca and their son, Parker, and to check in with his work. The hospital discharged him on Tuesday afternoon to leave on his own and since then he was working on the accumulated paperwork. Sometimes he'd bring stories of the cases other agents in the homicide and violent crimes department were working if he thought they were particularly amusing. Admittedly, I was curious to know if they arrested that moron that thought putting evidence through a garbage disposal would completely eradicate all ties to him.

I had the stitches taken out early Thursday morning. The doctors said that the reason that stab wound was serious had been because it had ripped through several larger blood vessels and I'd lost a lot of blood, but even so, the wound would heal up faster than I'd initially thought because it wasn't as deep as it could have been. That's really all that happened up until Thursday afternoon.

I was watching a very violent fight on board the Serenity when I heard a few new voices outside during the lull in volume. I reached for the remote, grimacing as the bandages strained over my stomach, and hit pause. Maybe it was ridiculous, but even with people near constantly outside the door or in my room, I wanted to know who was where around me. I guess paranoia is a side effect of betrayal, kidnap, and attempted murder.

Honestly, I just want things to go back to the way they were. I mean, there wasn't a stab wound in me last week, for one. But, though it would be frustrating, I could live with the injuries as a result from my fight with Kenton. Really, I could be kind of proud of them, because I wouldn't have them if I hadn't fought back and saved my life in the process. What I really wanted was for there to be fewer complications. My screwed up mentality aside, I was still capable of the same intelligent thought and reasoning as before, so even if I couldn't fight, I could still work at the lab.

I leaned back and closed my eyes, trying to discern the voices behind the door. Two of them were hushed; only one was at a normal volume. It sounded like a man - Booth - and a woman having one of those "private" discussions in a place that wasn't actually private. Then a much younger voice, like a child, loudly asking to go inside.

I heard someone tell the child to wait a few minutes so that the adults could finish the conversation.

Parker? That was the only child I could think of who would be with Booth, although I wasn't entirely sure why Booth would bring his family here. I've never met his ex-girlfriend, nor do I have any connection to her. If she and Booth were still together, maybe I'd understand, but the only reason they communicated anymore was because of their son. Parker liked me well enough, I knew that from when I'd met him at Wong Foos on Easter, but I hadn't counted on seeing him again.

I left the TV paused anyway, because if they did come in, Parker didn't need to be seeing people get beat up on television.

And that was when it actually processed that since Booth is my father, then Parker, by extension, is my brother. I'd known both facts before, but they hadn't actually clicked until now. I'd been doing a fairly good job trying not to think about it. And didn't just that send my mind reeling?

I generally like children; at the very least, I care about their welfare. Too often, children are neglected or abused, and I would know. Other times they're victimized, by other kids, teenagers, or adults. There are actual government offices in the FBI and other organizations completely dedicated to rescuing kidnapped children from online auctions and trafficking. The crime rate against children is repulsive in itself. But the closest I've ever come to children is living with others while I was in the foster system; the ones I liked the most tended to be younger than myself, because they wouldn't usually mistreat me. Some of them liked me, even.

I'm not sure how I feel about having a little brother, though. If both of Parker's parents consent then I can be okay with being involved in his life, but I'm probably one of the last people Parker should look to as a role model. I suppose the way I'm portrayed to the public is alright for a child, but the media doesn't know everything. Besides, Parker is used to being an only child. It wouldn't be fair to suddenly insert myself into his family. I could adapt, happily or not, to another child; Parker, however, would have more troubles if he didn't like it. Sibling rivalry is the last thing I want to start, especially when I'm not really part of their family to begin with. Shared heredity is one thing, but being family is completely different.

DNA is something no one can change. Family, however, is supposed to actually fit the definition. Parker's four years old and he's met me only once before. Booth and I first met when I was seventeen and living on my own; practically an adult. I don't know Parker's mother at all.

Dysfunctional is more like an understatement.

I wasn't exactly mistaken when I figured that Parker would get inside one way or another. Children are stubborn like that. And I wasn't disappointed, either, because the door was slowly pushed open, almost silently. I wouldn't have noticed if I wasn't so hypervigilant. A blonde head appeared, peering through the gap between the door and the wall. The brown-eyed boy looked around in wonder before he grinned and had to stifle a giggle so his parents didn't hear.

Parker slipped in through the door and then pushed it shut, but it didn't close all the way. It was probably a good thing; if the door was ajar, then Booth would know where he went. It's not like I'm walking anywhere, I thought bitterly.

He had a light green hoodie on, along with jeans that went down about an inch over his sneaker-clad heels. His shoes were the kind that lit up with pressure, so when he walked, red light flashed on the linoleum just under his feet. One hand held onto a thin paperback book with a yellow cover.

Parker half-ran, half-skipped to the foot of my hospital bed, and purely for his amusement and a lack of anything better to do, I looked back up to the television, pretending not to see him. He peered up over the end of the bed. As far as stealth went, he definitely needed some work - he was too small for me to see his body, but I could see his hair and eyes peeking up over the rail.

"Boo!" He shouted suddenly. I jumped as much as I could with one arm in a cast and looked to the boy with wide eyes. He giggled happily at my expression and ran up the side of the bed.

"Parker!" I put my good hand over my heart like I had been about to have a heart attack. "Where did you come from?"

"School!" Four year olds go to school? Well, I suppose he could be in kindergarten. He held up the paperback book with both hands, standing on his toes to make sure that I could see. "Daddy asked me if I remembered you, and I did, and he told me you were feeling bad and asked Mommy if I could cheer you up!"

"That's very sweet of you, Parker," I told him with a small smile. "You're reading The Boxcar Children?"

He nodded at first, then stopped, frowned, and reluctantly shook his head. "Mommy has to read it to me," he admitted. "But I'm getting good at reading, too!" He puffed out his chest proudly. It was entertaining to watch him try to appear older than he actually was. "Mrs. Henry says that I'm good."

"You must be good then," I replied, completely serious. "Teachers aren't wrong about important things like reading." He was still standing on his toes - I lifted my bad arm up onto my lap and scooted over with the least pain possible, so my side was against the railing. I pat the bed next to me in invitation. "Come on, Parker, I'm lonely."

Parker needed very little motivation. He threw the book up onto the sheets over my legs and then he curled his fingers into the sheet, jumping up and kicking his legs. One ankle caught on the edge of the bed and he ended up sort of pulling himself up and rolling over.

Just to get the ultimate level of comfort, Parker crawled back up the bed and then plopped himself down next to me, leaning against the risen front of the mattress. Dutifully, he reached down and tugged the blankets back up over his legs, then bit his lip and put a lot of effort into straightening the blanket over my lap.

"Why are you feeling bad?" Parker asked, tipping his head to the side, craning his neck to look up at me earnestly with wide, doe-like eyes.

On one hand, I didn't want to lie to him - facts are facts, and I don't have to be graphic about it. On the other, he's a child, and the danger I faced could have just as easily happened to his father, had the bomb not worked and Kenton taken Booth by surprise the same way he did me.

I took a deep breath, sighed, and then answered honestly while being intentionally vague. "There was a bad man," I said slowly, choosing my phrasing carefully. "You know how your daddy puts bad men in jail?" Parker nodded eagerly, a bright grin spreading on his face. "This man didn't want to go to jail, so he tried to hurt me so that he could get away. He hurt my arm and my stomach, so I have to stay in the hospital."

Dumbing things down to this extent was difficult. There were so many more factors and variables involved - the inside job, the mafia, James Cugini, Penny Hamilton's murder, the bomb, the previous assassination attempts, Kevin Hollings, the frame-up - that simplifying it like that almost made me flinch. I was narrowing it down to a point where it was barely even accurate. I've never had to speak to a child about criminals before, aside from Shawn Cook, when it hadn't been necessary to go into much detail.

"Mommy always makes me soup when I feel bad," Parker explained, nodding wisely. "Should I ask her to make you soup to feel better, too?"

"No! No," I said, backpedaling once I realized how urgently I'd replied to that, cursing myself mentally. "No, Parker. I'm healing. I feel much better than I used to. Your mom doesn't have to worry - and neither do you." I bit the inside of my cheek and looked to the book in my lap, trying to find a way to steer the conversation away from its current path. "Hey, do you want me to read to you?"

"Would you?" He asked excitedly, seeming to forget immediately about his other concerns.

I smiled, relieved. "Of course, Parker." I picked up the yellow-covered book. The pages were slightly yellowed with age and the font was so large that it was disconcerting. I thumbed through the pages until I reached the one marking the first chapter and then lifted it up to eye-level, holding it up and open with one hand.

"About seven o'clock one hot summer evening, a strange family moved into the little village of Middlesex," I read aloud. "Nobody knew where they came from, or who they were."

Parker contentedly slid down in the mattress, more of him disappearing under the blankets. He changed his angle so that he was leaning against me, his cheek resting on the side of my nightgown. I glanced down at him and smiled while I read.

"But the neighbors soon made up their minds what they thought of the strangers, for the father was very drunk." That line gave me pause. Drunkard fathers wasn't new to me, nor to Booth, but I sincerely hoped that the connotations of drunk parents stayed out of Parker's grasp until he was old enough to understand from secondhand accounts. "He could hardly walk up the rickety front steps of the old, tumble-down house, and his thirteen-year-old son had to help him. Toward eight o'clock a pretty, capable-looking girl of twelve came out of the house and bought a loaf of bread at the baker's. And that was all the villagers learned about the newcomers that night."

It didn't take long for the parents outside to realize that Parker had snuck off, because I noted that the voices stopped and after a moment, the door crept several inches further open. Parker didn't notice, trying to follow along with the print as I read. Both adults looked through silently - Booth as well as a pretty blonde woman near his age, skin tanned from the sun. So that's where Parker gets his hair color, I noted silently without pause.

Rebecca collected Parker after giving us thirty minutes to awkwardly read on my part and cuddle while oblivious to awkwardness on Parker's. She thanked me for entertaining him but didn't say anything else to me, and honestly I was fine with that. If she was cool with Parker hanging out with me, then that was that. The four-year-old was the only thing we had in common, aside from Booth, and I did not want to be involved in that. His relationships are his relationships - aside from the teasing about his lawyer ex-girlfriend, but by bringing Tessa to the lab, he'd brought that down on himself.

"Thanks for… that," Booth said, rubbing the back of his neck and nodding towards the door where Rebecca and Parker had left.

"Yeah, no problem." I answered with a shrug. Much to my delight, moving my shoulders didn't hurt as much as it had on Tuesday - forty-eight hours after I'd woken up, I no longer had thread in my body, and even better, I could move both arms so long as I kept my casted wrist still, and could sit up straight and lean without feeling like I was being stabbed all over again. And that's without narcotics. "He's a sweet kid." And I really wished I could say that with merely the knowledge that Parker was Booth's kid, and not know that I am, too, and Parker is my brother. It complicates things.

My voice was kind of scratchy after reading for so long, so I went back to the television. My Firefly session reached its end and I asked Booth to put in the second half of the Criminal Minds season - I was planning on watching the Xena disc later, in case Hodgins or Zach decided to show up and watch it with me. Once I got to the episode "Machismo," I was completely ready to be awake and moving.

One problem with that, though, and three guesses as to what.

I watched restlessly, only half paying attention to the Mexican civilians being terrorized and the jurisdictional and procedural battle between the government and FBI. More often than not I found my thoughts wandering inevitably back to the warehouse - wondering what I could have done differently, what would have led to a better outcome. I couldn't help but overthink the last week overall, trying to recall everything that I had noticed at every juncture of the investigation. Was there any way that I could have known about Kenton's betrayal?

The problem with that was that there was no way to know for sure. I trusted Kenton; it was entirely possible I saw something vital, but overlooked it as nothing without realizing it. I had assumed that the mafia was involved when really they weren't. The only connections the case had with the mob was the Romanos being suspect in James Cugini's murder, and their alliance being the reason Kenton turned around and tried to kill me.

I was healing up speedily enough physically, but the mental results would last for a long time, if not for my entire life. I'd been in plenty of danger before, yes, but I'd never been so terrified in my life. At least during 9/11, there hadn't been a gun held to me. Fires, explosions - all one thing, something I'm regrettably used to. I mean, after the plane crashes, I was underwhelmed by the explosion in Brennan's apartment. I was more afraid of the assassin than anything.

And that was another thing entirely. An assassin had been after me - admittedly not a very good one, considering he couldn't hit a lone target moving relatively slowly with a high-powered rifle, nor could he manage to do the same to another target, and he still couldn't kill me even when he had me tied up and losing blood far too fast. Over the long months, I had changed up my life dramatically. I now had a stalker and a restraining order; I had contacts, even friends, in the FBI and Jeffersonian. Whether or not I have a hit on me, the Mara Muerte and Vanganza Rojas are both major gangs that know who I am. There is a foreign Ambassador who actually likes me. I've gone face-to-face with a psychopath. I went from a reclusive nobody to a minor celebrity because of newspaper coverage on me. I fought against mercenaries and won. I even met and befriended my father, completely unwittingly.

There is absolutely no way I can ever resume the same lifestyle I used to have. Maybe it wasn't great, but at least I felt halfway safe. I liked being independent; malnourished or not I was able to take care of my own needs. Now I'm on a lot of peoples' radar. It's probably not safe to be away from the legal protection of the FBI for very long while I have a gangbanger with wounded pride who'd like me dead. Even if it was, after I was nearly murdered working for the FBI, Cullen wasn't going to be letting me get away into the wind. On an insurance plan sponsored by Cantilever, I wouldn't be allowed to just drop off their books, either. Even if I managed it, the media or Oliver Laurier would probably find me eventually (honestly, I'm not entirely sure which would be worse).

Booth chuckled when Elle made a comment to Spencer on the TV and it brought me out of memory lane and back into the reality of the hospital room around me. A moment later, there was a knock on the door that sounded louder to me than it was probably meant to be.

"Come in," I called lazily. My voice still works just as well as it used to.

The door opened smoothly and Booth straightened up on the couch like he was about to rise to his feet, an inherently defensive gesture no matter how I looked at it. I suppose that should make me happy, but really it just annoys me because it reminds me how defenseless I currently am.

Regardless, I highly doubted that I needed to be guarded from Dr. Goodman as he stepped into the room and pushed the door lightly to send it closing. The lock hit the hinge on the door frame and bounced back, leaving it a few inches ajar.

"Miss Kirkland." I was given a courteous nod of acknowledgment and a sympathetic half-smile. Goodman held a couple of file folders in his hand; both had the Jeffersonian seals on the front of them. He stopped next to the foot of the bed and I hit the button on the controls, inclining the bed further. "How are you feeling?"

I tipped my head to the side, weighing my options between sarcastic and truthful. While being sarcastic was far more entertaining, he wouldn't have come here with file folders for no reason and being on his good side would probably bode well for me in the near future. "Like I was stabbed and then high on narcotics for a couple of days. I feel much better now though, thank you, and the doctors say I can attempt walking on my own over the weekend."

"I am glad to hear you're on the mend," Goodman allowed with a larger smile. "And it's also a relief to hear that your drug quota has been lowered. I can't legally proceed with these," insert vague motion to the files, "If you aren't clear headed."

I narrowed my eyes at the folders, unsure whether to feel anticipation or unease. He was smiling, and he's not a naturally or unreasonably cruel person, but at the same time, anything that involved legality could be like a double-edged sword.

"Why? What's in those?" Booth asked immediately, repositioning himself so he was sitting by the arm of the couch.

"Nothing that I believe will be unwelcome, Agent Booth," Goodman reassured, sliding one file out from under the first and holding it out to me expectantly. I looked from it to him in question before reaching for it, leaning forward with a pleasing lack of pain. The file wasn't very thick but it did have a notable collection of papers inside. Regardless of my relatively new mobility, I leaned back so I didn't push myself and cradled the file in my arm, opening it up to the first page.

"What is this?" I asked, staring dumbly at the internship application forms in the folder. The only information filled out were administrative information. Under qualifications, there were several sequences of numbers that, if I had to guess, corresponded to some of the cases I'd worked with the Jeffersonian.

"Miss Kirkland, you are a minor." I looked back up to Goodman, frowning contemplatively as I listened to him state things that I already knew. "Despite graduating high school at an admirable youth, you also have no college qualifications. Therefore, I cannot offer to hire you at the Jeffersonian. However…" he paused for effect. I could literally feel my heart beating faster. "Dr. Brennan has brought the option to light, and you have an exceptional schooling record. Your criminal record will be expunged when you turn eighteen." Criminal record? I only wondered about that for a moment before realizing that he probably meant from the records of me shooting Ken Thompson. Although he had been a murderer and it had been defensive, it was still put on my record, to be voided when I reached the age of majority. "I can offer you a place as an intern."

"What kind of internship?" Booth asked, going into the details before I had a chance to reply to it myself. Not that I would have if I was given the time - I looked back down to the files, the internship application, stunned. Was I seriously being offered an escape from the bar, the bad neighborhood? An actual, worthwhile job?

"Not one under myself," Goodman replied, casting me a lingering glance before looking back to Booth. I scanned over the files curiously, more out of a need for maintaining focus than an actual desire to learn the administration number of the application. It was all legit - an actual internship, in the Medico-Legal lab, as a forensic scientist. There was not a specified field (like Angela is a forensic artist, Hodgins goes by entomologist, Brennan is an anthropologist, et cetera), probably because either the Jeffersonian wouldn't sponsor interns for exclusive fields of study or because Goodman hadn't known what field to put me down for. Seeing as Zach was an anthropology intern, it was more likely the latter. "But Dr. Brennan introduced the matter to me, and it is fitting that any internship Miss Kirkland has be completed under Dr. Brennan's supervision."

The application was for an eight-month internship; correction: an eight-month paid internship, which would mean it lasted until mid-January next year. At that point I'd be eighteen, eligible to legally have my own apartment in a better complex, old enough to give up the Kirkland family name, and with the credit of an internship with the Jeffersonian, under Dr. Brennan - one of the leading forensic anthropologists on the continent - if the internship was paid, then I could save up to afford actually applying for college, looking for scholarships to pay tuition.

I was sure that there had to be some sort of expense to the deal; no way a seventeen year old (with a criminal record!) gets a job with a leading forensic laboratory out of the kindness of their hearts. No matter how kind and nice people are, the world just doesn't work like that.

"How, and what's the catch?" I asked Goodman cynically, the elation in my blood forcing itself to cool down.

Goodman only looked half-surprised. He had probably expected me to question it, I suppose. "No catch," he replied with a slight shrug of his shoulders. "Being an official placement in the Institution does make certain gatherings more of a mandate than a summons," like the banquet right after the murder case of Charles Sanders, "However I believe you'll find that the board of administrators is happy with the qualifications and reputation you already hold."

"What qualifications does she have?" I shot Booth a look at the question. I knew it wasn't meant to be mean or scathing, but Jesus, he could have sounded less shocked.

"Well, you don't have to sound like it's a freakin' miracle," I muttered under my breath.

Goodman chuckled at the exchange. "The cases she has been consulted for have their own record, of course. High-profile ones - such as those of Cleo Eller, Hamid Masruk, Paulina Semov-Decker, April Wright, and the flight of Chinese diplomats in particular have been cited. Those, combined with her public image, have given the board satisfactory proof that her association is beneficial."

Of course. One of the reasons Goodman hadn't practically strangled me after going behind his back was that my reputation in the city and my association with the Jeffersonian brings in good publicity for the Institution. It's not a very good reason to hire someone, but depending on how much credit Brennan, Hodgins, and Angela had given me in their official case reports, there was enough reason to put me on an experimental trial. It wasn't a tenure, after all; just an internship, but a paid one, which were harder to come by anymore.

So, basically… because I did something that I had always wanted to do, I found something I loved, and by continuing to do that, I made the Jeffersonian's administrators happy, and so now I'm getting a job, doing what I love, and I'm getting paid to do it?

… Score!

"Oh my God," I breathed, looking up to Goodman with an ecstatic smile. This was, by far, the highlight of my time in the hospital. "Yes! Thank you!"

"I suspected you'd reply with something of the like," he chuckled happily, the sound a deep baritone rumble. I couldn't slip the smile off of my face, the genuine happiness showing even as I looked back over to Booth. I guess seeing me be really excited for the first time in a while made him happy, too, because he smiled right back at me.

On Saturday came one of the most aggravating tests I have ever faced, and likely will ever face again: Re-learning how to walk.

It wasn't that I'd forgotten, per se; one foot in front of the other, without screwing up your balance. A lot of it was just natural, so there was never a lot of thought put into it. For all my faults and difficulties, there had never been any illness or defect in my body, and though I haven't been evaluated, there's nothing about my mind that there shouldn't be - nothing detrimental, anyway, aside from maybe depression. But the only person who I could actually believe walked with no problem after nearly a week of lying down all the time, getting stabbed, having surgery, and then eating as many sweets as Angela could get her hands on would have to be either God, Jesus Christ (pre-crucifixion, obviously), or a CIPA patient.

Zach came by for a visit Saturday morning and since he was there, I started the Firefly disc over again. It wasn't like there was a lot else to do, since I'm not about to start pouring my heart out, and hospitalized or not, I'll be damned if I let him start trying to teach me complex algorithms.

A nurse came in around the beginning of the first Reaver attack of the disc to take out the IV. I tried to stay relaxed, but no matter how much I knew I should stay focused on the TV, and not on the needle coming out of my arm, I couldn't help myself. If something's going through my skin, I like to see what's happening.

"It might help if you don't look, sweetheart," the nurse warned me - her name was Jennifer or something like that. Her nametag was out of my vision, the fabric of her scrubs folded half over it as she leaned down, carefully unwrapping the medical tape from my arm.

"Yeah, well, I'm one of those masochists, I guess."

The moment I said it, I regretted it. I sighed and closed my eyes for a moment. I'd meant it without any degree of seriousness, but Jennifer paused before pressing a cotton ball damp with solution to the entry point, pinching the locked plastic sides of the IV and pulling out the needle. Psych ward, here I come. I bit down on my tongue lightly to keep from flinching. Needles always hurt more coming out than they did going in for some reason.

She bandaged up my arm in a sling so that I could walk. She left my wrist in the cast to keep it still, but even I had to admit that having the sling would probably reduce the risk of me accidentally jarring the sprain. The blue fabric was thick and tough, and the white trim was neat and orderly. The strap came up around my neck and fastened in place with heavy-duty Velcro.

Moving was harder. After doing nothing for so long, what I really wanted to do was start sprinting. With all the sugar I'd been consuming, it was a wonder I wasn't gaining weight, but I suppose the vitamins and nutrients from the IV have been balancing it out somewhat.

Zach stood up from the chair but he didn't seem too sure about what to do with himself, so he planted his feet by the counter and wrung his hands behind his back - close enough, I noted, to step forward if he thought I required assistance, but far enough away to give me the space that I generally liked.

Both measures were comforting.

It had been days since I'd tried to walk on my own - even going to the in-room bathroom seemed to require either Angela, Brennan, or a nurse, and I really didn't appreciate that much. It was a struggle to make whatever worried female it was go wait outside the room so that I could bathe with a semblance of peace, and I had to hold on to the support rails installed around the walls. It wasn't because I didn't think I could manage not to - weakened or not, I could tell that I was getting stronger - but because I wasn't willing to try and fail. Failure meant the humiliation of not having my own privacy later on, and it would also mean that if I strained myself too hard, then I would only set back my progress.

Although, to be fair to the hospital, they have a surprising variety of toothpaste flavors, and their water pressure is better than I would have thought.

I had thought it would be easy, and it was a lot better than it had been on Tuesday. Unfortunately, it wasn't quite as easy as I had hoped. Once I had enough weight on my legs rather than on the bed, I could feel my abdomen pricking in protest. It wasn't a sharp pain like it used to be, but it was noticeable. More like an ache or soreness than an actual, stabbing (no pun intended) reminder that hey, still healing here!. So I assumed that it was just because I hadn't tried in a while.

"Right, sweetheart," Jennifer coaxed in praise, seeming to miss the death glare I sent her way. Being nice to your patients is one thing - treating them like lovers is another, and it's downright disturbing. I suppose it's alright with children, but when it's adults? Uh-uh. Please stop calling me your stupid endearments. I'd told her once already but she apparently chose to be selectively deaf. "Try to walk across the room. We don't want to push too far for your first time."

"My first time walking?" I repeated listlessly, almost completely monotone. Zach frowned where he stood out of the way, leaning back against the countertop. He must have recognized it as the tone I got when I was particularly testy. "Listen, honey," I added stingily as an afterthought. "I'm here because I was stabbed by a mafia associate, not because I'm an invalidated child."

"I know, dear, I'm just trying to help," she soothed, not seeming entirely affected by the force of my back-off stare. I wouldn't be surprised if she had a lot of surly patients. I mean, it's not like people are generally happy to be in the hospital.

My legs behaved rather well when I let the issue drop and started walking around the bed. With my uninjured arm, I started to reach for the edge of the bed's rails without thinking about it, but when I noticed I pulled back. It wasn't my legs that were the issue, anyway, just the muscles and tendons that pulled in my torso.

No matter how hard I tried, it would be near impossible to hide the discomfort on my face - but since discomfort was a hell of a lot better than all-out pain, I decided I didn't really care so much. It would be weird if I didn't feel uncomfortable, anyway, and Zach probably knew that.

I got to the opposite end of the room, to the wall with the couch pressed in front of the window, and reached out to tap on the dull-colored paint. Looking out the window was my reward - the light was brighter than I remembered it being, the sun's rays reflecting off of cars in the street below, the metallic whites, silvers, and blacks sometimes interrupted by an odd blue, green, orange, red, or yellow-painted car. I could almost see the heat waves of the almost-summery weather rising in thermals from the road, hot from tire friction and car exhaust. The clouds above were puffier than I remembered - like the sky was getting happier as my condition improved. If I believed in that sort of thing, I'd say it was an omen of good fortune.

"Are you feeling nauseous?" Zach's voice startled me out of my distracted reverie. I hadn't realized I'd been so quiet the whole time before I also realized that I had been leaning so far to the side to look through the window, it easily could have been interpreted as a dizziness-induced swoon. "Perhaps you should attempt to walk back to the bed, and try to move again in a few hours."

"I'm not ill," I replied stubbornly, reminded yet again of how everyone seemed overly protective and unreasonably caring. "So I haven't gotten a chance to really look outside in a week - shoot me." I winced as I turned around, bare feet pattering on the refreshingly cool tile. The hospital should reevaluate its supplies. Junk food of all kinds? Got that. Dental floss? Got that. Sesame Street stickers?! Got those. But socks? Nope. Apparently they don't have pants, either, because they keep saying that no, I'm not allowed to wear pants. And I hate dresses, so this bodes badly for me. "Okay, bad choice of words."

It must be true that there's a turning point for everything - at least, there must be in my case. My life sucked for seventeen years, then I get to live as close to "the dream" as I can realistically get. Then I get betrayed, kidnapped, stabbed, et cetera. But I survive. And then I find out that the man I trust the most, and one of only a few men I've ever trusted at that, is actually my father - and to make up for that, the universe didn't give me some sort of twisted complication to impede my recovery, plus I get a job. A paid internship. With the Jeffersonian.

If it were a movie, I'd say something cliché like "things can only go up from here!" or something stupid like "what could possibly go wrong?"

A/N: The chapter is named for the song "For the Love of a Daughter" by Demi Lovato.

Also, the story excerpt is from the real book, "The Boxcar Children."

Thirdly, I actually do have an idea how it feels to suddenly have more or new siblings. I recently found out that my biological father has two more children that I wasn't aware of, so how Holly feels in this is actually realistic. Maybe her feelings don't match everyone's, but they match mine for the situation. Seeing as she's my OC, that's honestly good enough for me.

Finally, the next chapter ends this sort of interlude and begins "The Woman in the Tunnel."