Vengeance from the Sky (Completed)

Epilogue - Fever Dream

Fred Baelin sat beside the somber bed in the little, sterile-white room on the third floor of St. Mercy's Hospital. He visited every day around the same time, just before visiting hours were over. He didn't like to visit during the day, when his friends relatives stopped by to visit.

His friends father, Rick, was a good guy, but his son, Ike, was a stuck-up Ivy League College kid who held very little, if any affection for his step-brother who lay unconscious. They always visited in the morning, as soon as the hospital began admitting guests for the day.

He also tended to avoid a few of his friends colleagues when they would stop by around six in the evening, after work. Zachary was a weird, quiet fellow who always gave Fred the creeps, and it had nothing to do with the guy being a "ginger." Mostly, Fred absolutely couldn't stand Oliver Prince, a pompous man who seemed nice enough, until you disagreed with him in some way, and then the man would turn into a complete jacka$$.

So Fred would visit his good friend alone. His friend had been in a coma for a week, now. The coma had been brought on by Diabetic Hyperglycemic Hyperosmolic Syndrome that surprised everyone. He had always been very healthy, so no one suspected that he might actually have diabetes. The man was barely thirty! While in his comatose state, he was also suffering from fever. Fred often saw his friends eyes moving and flickering during REM cycles, so he had faith that his friend would eventually recover if he was well enough to dream. 'What wild things have you been dreaming up?' Baelin often thought to himself.

The door opened and a familiar blonde nurse walked into the room. She paused for just a second when she noticed Fred sitting there, then strode the rest of the way in with a gentle smile on her pale, pretty face. The name-tag on her scrubs read: Wendi. 

"Here again, Fred?" She asked kindly as she carefully checked her patients vitals. "I think he might be improving some."

"I keep telling you, I prefer to go by my last name, Baelin." Fred replied with a small smile of his own. "Is he really improving? That's good to hear."

"Last names are so impersonal, Fred," she responded, a twinkle in her sapphire-blue eyes. She pushed the platinum blonde braid over her shoulder as she looked down at her patients calm, handsome face. "What's he like?"

Fred shrugged. "A really good guy. You'll like him when he finally wakes up. He's a sucker for a pretty blonde." He grinned at her.

She chuckled lightly and kissed the sleeping man on his smooth, warm brow. "I bet." She smoothed a lock of dark hair away from his face, a bemused smirk on her pink lips. "Come on back to us, now. It's time to wake up, Mr. Connor Talon."