Brian looked up to see Lizz sitting in a wheelchair in the doorway. She was very pale, but had a determined look on her face. “Lizz, what are you doing out of bed? You look awful!” Brian exclaimed as he headed towards her.

“Gee thanks Bri, you look like crap yourself.” Lizz retorted. “How is he? I want to see him.” She tried to peer around Brian, who was standing in front of her.

“He’s still asleep.” Brian replied. Then he remembered that Lizz had never met Nick’s parents. “Jane, Bob, this is Nick’s online friend, Lizz. Remember I told you about her earlier?”

Jane nodded and held out her hand for Lizz to take. “Nice to meet you.” She said.

Lizz shook her hand and flushed. She thought of how silly she must have looked being so pale and having bright red cheeks. She turned back to Brian. “Will you push me over to him?”

Brian nodded and angled Lizz at the side of the bed. Lizz looked carefully at him and her eyes widened. She had expected him to look like he was sleeping peacefully, but instead he didn’t look all that peaceful. His eyes were partway open showing a sliver of his blue eyes. Lizz looked at Brian uncertainly.

“He’s been like that for awhile. I guess it is part of coming out of the coma.” Brian tried to reassure her. Unfortunately his voice didn’t sound as confident as he would have liked.

I opened my eyes and slowly tried to become aware of my surroundings. Machines were stacked next my bed...not good. I tried to remember what happened to me that landed me in this place. I had an itch on my nose and was going to scratch it when I realized that something was terribly wrong. I told my right hand to scratch it, but it refused to budge.

"Naaaa." Okay, now I was really starting to panic here. That did not sound like me. I attempted to clear my throat and try it again, a simple word, nurse, 'come on Nick, you can do it.' "Naaaa."

'Okay, it must be cause I was out of it or something, just give it time,' I was desperately trying to reassure myself and avoid the panic that was filling my mind.

A woman appeared in my view, her nameplate had a picture of her face and the Name Allison written on it.

"Glad to see you're awake, we've been waiting for you, Nick."

This girl seemed overly cheerful, I decided. I know at least my command of frowning seemed to work because she picked up on that one instantly.

"I know, it takes time, just relax, you've been in that coma for a few days now," Allison said as she patted my shoulder.

My mind searched trying to figure out why I was in a coma. Was I in an accident? I was growing more and more confused.

I was still trying to adjust myself to the weirdness of the situation when a group of people all wearing white lab coats came into the room. One of them said that they were from the neurology team and needed to evaluate my progress.

Brian paced nervously in the small private waiting room next to ICU.

"Brian, please, sit down, you're making me nervous," Jane said as she patted the seat next to hers.

Brian reluctantly sat down and leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees and holding his head in his hands. He could feel Jane rubbing his back.

"They said someone would be in to see us in a few minutes, what is taking them so long?" Brian asked out loud, a frustrated tone in his voice.

Before Jane could answer Brian's question, a man in a long white lab coat entered the room.

"Doctor Signet, neurology," the doctor sighed as he sat in the chair opposite of Brian and the Carter's. He flipped open what appeared to be Nick's chart. "I've just finished evaluating Nick and I'm afraid that the prognosis at this point does not look very good." The doctor sighed again as he quickly shuffled through some papers in the chart. "It appears that he has suffered a stroke from the last seizure he endured before he was placed into the coma.

Jane gasped and held onto her husband's hand tighter. Brian's mouth dropped open.

"Wha... what's the prognosis, what's been affected?" Brian stammered, afraid to know.

"Right now the paralysis appears to have affected his speech and his extremities are weak."

"But it will get better, right?" Brian asked.

"Only time will tell," the doctor stated as he closed the chart up. He shook their hands and excused himself saying that they could go see Nick if they wanted to.

I sat in my bed and sulked. I wasn’t in Nick’s room for more than five minutes when I got busted. I was pretty pissed, but I wasn’t going to cause a scene. Especially with his parents in there. I felt a little better when Brian told me that they had to clear everyone out so the neurologists could check Nick out. Maybe they would figure out what was going on. My nurse was not very happy with me for getting out of bed. Apparently my stats were not so good. Go figure, I felt pretty lousy. So I laid there and sulked and worried.

“Hey Lizz! I can’t stay, but I need to tell you something.” Kyung came in and stood by the side of my bed. She looked at me closely. “You look terrible.”

I rolled my eyes. “Thanks. Between you and Brian...” I trailed off.

“Um, there was a message for you on the answering machine. It was your mom...” She began.

My hopes lifted. As much as I was worried about how she would react, I needed her to be here.

“You were right about your mom and dad going to Kansas for that auction. Well, your mom said that they were going to go ahead and drive to Illinois to see the rest of your family. She said that they are going to stay in a hotel on the way so they will be on the road for a few days.” I could tell Kyung hated relaying this news.

I forced a smile. “It’s all good. My mom would freak if she knew anyway. It would be better if I was in better shape when she knew.” I couldn’t ignore that little voice in the back of my mind that said “If I got better.”

She nodded uncertainly. “Well you should still call them. Do you know any of your relative’s numbers?”

“Nope, not a clue.” I sighed.

“I’m sorry, sweetie.” She squeezed my shoulder.

I gave her a tight smile. “I start my first dialysis in about 20 minutes.”

“I know. I wish I could be here.” It was obvious she felt bad. She tried to switch shifts, but it didn’t pan out.

“Don’t worry about it. I’ll be fine.” My voice wasn’t as convincing as I would have liked.

She leaned down and gave me a hug. “You’ll be alright, I know you will. I’m going to swing by and talk to Brian and see what I can find out. I’ll try to get some info back to you okay?”

I nodded, not trusting my voice at the present. She left and I don’t think I had ever felt so alone in my life. That is the thing I hated most about being in the hospital. How lonely it was. I wished more than anything that my parents were here, but they didn’t even know what was going on. Kyung had told me that a few of our friends had called, but I didn’t know how to handle visitors yet. The situation was too delicate. Kyung had been great. All her spare time between class and work was spent with me. Brian had also spent some time in here too. It was those silent moments. The past few nights when I couldn’t sleep. And more than ever, now. I wanted to be the strong person that everyone always told me that I was, but I didn’t feel strong right now. I didn’t want to be alone through this dialyisis thing. I fought the tears that were trying to push through.

Barbara McKean struggled for the third time to get the right combination on her locker. Her hands were shaking so bad that she kept hitting the wrong numbers. She took a deep breath and exhaled slowly. The image of Nick Carter’s face kept going through her mind. It was wrong. What Dr. Minnick had done was wrong. What he was doing now was beyond comprehension.

Nurse McKean was faced with the biggest moral dilemma she could imagine. She couldn’t let Dr. Minnick get away with this, but how could she expose him without taking the fall herself? She couldn’t afford to lose this job. One little mistake she made as an intern could now destroy her career. On on the other hand, her ethics couldn’t let her stay quiet. Dr. Minnick was well known and respected. Personally, she didn’t like him. He was ill-tempered and had a miserable bedside manner, but he was a good doctor. Until now.

Her heart broke at the memory of the reactions of this poor kid’s parents. And that young man that was with them. It was his eyes that she couldn’t forget. She had to do something about this, but she didn’t know what.