I'm going to feel legendary if I seriously get a quadruple update out in one day. Also sorry for pacing issues but I'm actually so impatient I need to get to the really fun angst immediately.

Nurse Danielle came again the next morning.

Of course she did, she's a nurse.

She gives him the routine checkup they've managed to establish within one day of testing. He knows that the blood pressure sleeve is not typically mandated for a completely regular wellness checkup.

But, it's become obvious, he's not in a completely regular situation.

So, he waits for her to tell him to count to twenty. He counts in his head. He might be mouthing the numbers.

He sees his mother smile.

"How are you feeling today, Logan?" Nurse Danielle asks, as she unwraps the blood pressure sleeve from his arm.

She doesn't expect an answer, does she? She can't expect an answer, he won't answer.

He shrugs.

"Better than yesterday?" she presses. Maybe she's figured it out, yes or no questions only.

It was better when she didn't press. And it only took a day.

Logan shakes his head at her question.

Nurse Danielle jots something down. What she has to note down, Logan wouldn't know. How much information could you possibly be able to receive from a patient who wouldn't talk?

She sets her notepad aside, and once again, she's smiling, only slightly. "Do you know what a skin biopsy is, Logan?"

Logan nods. It's a minor procedure that is supposed to be numbed with anesthesia. It shouldn't hurt. It should be better than the blood tests.

Nurse Danielle explains the procedure to Joanna anyway. "It's just the removal of a small segment of skin tissue. The area would be numbed by anesthetic, it's virtually painless."

"Virtually?"

Nurse Danielle nods. "It won't even take very long. It's just waiting for results, that's the long part."

"Okay," Joanna says slowly. "Okay, yeah."

So, Logan is moved to an operating room.

He's not worried about the procedure, he's not even 'going under'

It's just one area.

He'll be fine.

He's not worried, it won't hurt.

—

What makes him worry is how a flash of panic develops into a full five minutes of terror.

He doesn't know where he is. It's a hospital. A hospital bed.

He hasn't been in a hospital in a long time, this doesn't look like the right hospital.

It's a different hospital, not the regional hospital where his mother had been.

It can't be, his mother is standing in the doorway.

She doesn't look dead or close to it, like she had when he had seen her in her hospital bed.

Why is he the one in the hospital bed? He's fine, he doesn't want to kill himself like she did.

Is he dying too?

His arm is numb. Only in one place.

He reaches over to touch that one numb place. But he stops,

The skin is missing.

"Mom," he says, turning away from the missing skin.

"How are you feeling, sweetheart?"

Logan shakes his head, he can't feel this one little part of his arm at all. That's not good, that means he was operated on, he had a procedure done, it must be anesthesia.

The last time he had anesthesia, it was because he had split open his lip until is basically bled dry.

That was—his birthday, he doesn't remember which one.

"Honey, you just had a—skin biopsy."

He remembers reading about that somewhere. They collect skin cells and test them for skin cancer.

He doesn't have skin cancer, does he?

He doesn't.

He has something else, that's why they're doing all these tests.

At the Mayo Clinic.

Because he had forgotten where he was.

He doesn't mean to start crying without explanation, but he feels the hot tears dripping down his face. He's crying without explanation.

Without an explanation that his mother knew about.

He, of course, knew why he was crying.

Because he had forgotten where he was again.

This time, he remembered forgetting.

And so he cried.

—

Kendall hates Rochester. There's nothing to do here, not like he could do anything.

He can only think about Logan.

It's not like he could talk to James, who is silently trudging along like yesterday.

It's not like he could talk to Carlos, who either asks the same questions or doesn't ask anything at all.

And, even when they go to see Logan, it's not like he could talk to him.

Logan won't talk.

And worse, when they do see him, he's sobbing.

And they're not allowed to see him, anyway.

Because apparently, he's getting some skin cell test done, or already has it done.

But it was 'highly traumatic' for the patient.

Kendall doesn't believe it, Logan probably knew exactly what the procedure was. There's no way the procedure scared him.

But, he could hear Logan sobbing.

Something happened, and no one would tell him.

He needed to know what happened.

—

When Logan is moved back to his regular room, he doesn't look traumatized, James thinks.

Not traumatized like the doctors said he was.

Logan doesn't get traumatized over medical stuff. He knows about it, it doesn't scare him.

What scares him to an unreasonable amount is lights and loud noises.

Which is completely stupid.

But operating rooms aren't super loud.

And the lights are just—white or something, if any lights at all.

There's no way Logan was afraid of the operating room or anything that happened to him there.

Maybe he's faking again.

He might have been crying, he was crying like that on stage.

And he recovered from that quick enough.

He would be fine.

—

Carlos is trying to keep up conversation. It's hard to have a conversation when Logan won't talk back.

It's harder to have a conversation when all Carlos can think about is how the doctors said they couldn't see Logan right away because he was 'highly traumatized'

Logan wasn't scared of procedures and testing. He loved tests, and maybe these were different, but surely Logan had an appreciation for them anyway.

Logan was just scared of hospitals.

That's why he wasn't talking.

The only word Logan had said over two days was Mom.

Maybe Logan just wants to go home.

Maybe that's what traumatized him, that he and his mom couldn't go home.

Carlos would be traumatized if he couldn't leave a hospital for a week.

He would want to go home.

Especially after he lost one already.

He misses the swirly slide.

—

It's a new routine.

Nurse Danielle always says hello to him in the mornings. She does some modified check up (the blood pressure sleeve always hurts, even though he preoccupies himself with counting) and tells them what type of testing he'll be doing for the day.

The DNA testing day isn't bad. All he has to do is spit in some tubes. They needed a urine sample, he peed in the cup.

And he was allowed to sleep until he heard the guys walk into the room.

This is also a calculated, systemic part of the routine.

Logan has easily recognized each role his friends play in the equation. It's always the same, no variability.

Kendall always asks how he is, and if he doesn't ask, he just looks at him.

Carlos tells Logan what the guys did that day. This day in particular, Carlos went around looking for fountains. He threw pennies in each one he found. Which, in total, was one. But he threw pennies in deep puddles, too. Carlos is the Good Luck Patrol all by himself.

James doesn't talk. Sometimes he and Kendall glare at each other.

And, with the exception of that first time, Camille doesn't call.

She texts, and he tries his best to respond.

This routine continues for three more days.

Which, in total, would only be six days.

He's supposed to stay for seven days,

He doesn't have an issue with leaving early, the test results are done.

All it is is a deviation from routine.

It shouldn't be awful.

But it is, because his mother and all their mothers (and Mr. Garcia) have decided to celebrate the test results coming early. Logan thinks that's stupid, there's nothing to celebrate. They haven't seen the results yet, he's just been released early, and he was told he could come back the next day for the results.

This is a premature celebration that shouldn't be happening.

But he follows his mother out to the car, to the restaurant.

And he sits down next to Carlos at the table.

He picks up the menu, he doesn't want to tell his mother he feels sick.

He's not sick, he was released early, nothing should be wrong with him.

Something is still wrong with him.

—

"Logan?" Joanna asks him. "What do you want?"

He has the menu in his face, he's not reading it.

He has no clue what he wants, what would he even be able to eat? He doesn't know, and he's already indecisive, and he's tired from being poked and prodded at a hospital all week, and it's stressful the way everyone is looking at him, he has another headache, his head hurts so much, he can't formulate an answer.

He doesn't order. Kendall reaches over and places a roll on Logan's plate.

The waitress leaves.

When everyone else's food arrives, Logan realizes that he's expected to just try to eat the roll. He really can't, he feels so sick.

Joanna looks over at him from across the table. "You should eat something, honey. You didn't eat much at the clinic."

He doesn't remember eating anything at all, but that must be untrue. He would've died.

He remembers drinking a bottle of orange juice on the first day. After the blood tests.

That was five days ago, he needs to eat, he knows that.

He picks up the roll in his hands, he doesn't move it to his mouth to take a bite, even though he should, he just has it there.

"Logan," Joanna asks. "Are you feeling okay?"

He nods. He's lying, but he really just wants to leave, his stomach hurts so much.

His mother looks at him in this way he can't figure out.

Logan takes a bite of the roll. He sets it back down on the plate.

Logan knows he's terrible at lying. Did his mother figure him out already?

Joanna stares at him after the hasn't taken another bite for a while. "What's wrong?"

She did.

Logan shakes his head.

His stomach and all his organs and everything is so painful.

Everything hurts, his stomach is flipping.

He picks up his knife. He doesn't want to touch the roll, he's not going to eat it, he can't. The knife clatters to the floor. He reaches down to pick it up.

His stomach hurts so much.

He wants to cry, it's the worst pain.

The pain is still there, even as Logan registers the fact that he has thrown up on himself under the table.

He takes his napkin and tries to wipe off his pants, but it's gross and he feels gross and sick and something has to be wrong with him, there's no way he's perfectly healthy.

That's when Joanna's phone rings.

The Mayo Clinic has Logan's test results.

The two of them leave quietly, it's a short drive back to the clinic anyway.

Joanna has already made the decision to wait at least an hour until everyone else finds out. Jennifer, Brooke and Sylvia are sure to call any minute now, no matter what.

She turns her phone off.

And they walk into the doctor's office.

Dr. Jones tells them the news.

Oh my gosh cliffhanger? Gorgeous! And I did quadruple update, I think that's pretty legendary of me. Hope you enjoyed!