Apologies for this chapter being short, just wanted to get something posted :) I promise I'll have better and more frequent updates once school ends! Thank you all for reviewing, it's greatly appreciated :)

XXII

I had heard voices; soft voices at that, although they were probably muffled by the fact that I had been unconscious, or something like that, I guess, for who knows how long. With little knowledge of where I actually was, it was quite terrifying to hear muffled voices all while feeling like I had just been hit with a truck. Oh, wait; I had been hit with a truck, because of my extremely poor reasoning and even worse driving skills. Well, maybe it wasn't my driving skills that caused everything completely, but I think that had been a major factor, even though I still barely remember any aspect of the situation.

Even though I should have known that I was no longer wherever I had been when I was hit with the aforementioned vehicle, I had little concept of where I was, which scared me even more. I was afraid to open my eyes and see where I actually was lying; it could have been a ditch or something, couldn't it have been? What about my friends? Where were they? Were they even there when I had gotten myself into this predicament?

"Morgan?" I had instantly recognized my mom's voice, which made me feel just a bit better, but not much. Even in my barely coherent state, I knew I was going to be in so much trouble. I had definitely counted on not being allowed to leave my house for the rest of the summer.

"Mom?" I mumbled, opening my eyes and blinking several times to adjust to the light. The dimly lit room felt like it was stabbing me in the eyes from the brightness.

"Oh my god, I'm so glad you're awake," she said immediately, already with tears cascading down her face. I nodded, also feeling emotional, even though I hadn't totally known what was going on.

"I don't know what happened," I whispered, partly because I wanted to know what exactly had led me here and also because I was trying to not take any responsibility for the likely idiotic decisions I had made. "Where is everyone?"

"We'll talk about what happened later, okay Morg? You just woke up," she said, smiling at me just a little. "Jerry just left for a minute, so I'm sure he'll be back in a minute. Your friends are all fine. And your dad…" Pretty much everything up until those last three words had been blocked out.

"Dad's here?" I exclaimed, immediately feeling more awake. I'm sure my mother was cursing herself for admitting such a thing, but in her defense, it was better than her not saying anything until he was in the room.

"Sh, Morgan, of course he is," my mother stated simply. I looked at her, and we had both known that the 'of course' was an uneducated choice of words, so to speak.

"What does "of course" mean? I'm surprised he's even pretending to care," I replied, rolling my eyes drowsily. At this point, I had regretted the car accident even more; not because I was in pain, as I'm pretty sure I was too heavily medicated to be feeling much of anything, but because of the newly discovered fact that my father was now here. Didn't he still hate me? I had definitely still hated him, or at least resented him more than anything.

"Of course he cares."

"Really has never seemed like it," I quickly snapped back. I had realized I hadn't even examined myself to have any sort of clue about what had happened to me. "What's wrong with me, anyway?" I added, hearing a bit of unnecessary bitterness. "Must be pretty bad if dad's here."

"Nothing's "wrong" with you, Morg," she started, adding the air quotes that were indirectly telling me I was being ridiculous, and probably rather obnoxious. "You got a bad concussion, and your wrist is broken. How haven't you noticed that?" she laughed, trying to lighten the mood despite the current situation and previous subject, I presume.

"The news distracted me," I mumbled as I had looked down at the cast encasing a large portion of my left forearm. "Are my friends okay?" I said suddenly, even though I had already asked. All of this was making my head hurt; mostly because I had broken myself only a few hours… Or days, maybe, ago, I guess.

"Hey, relax. You're just going to make yourself worse. They're all fine now. It was just you, really," she replied, more tears escaping. I ducked my head; not only did I hate making people cry, let alone my mother, but I had been feeling pretty ashamed of myself for doing something so stupid, or at least, stupid from what I could remember.

"I'm so sorry," I whispered, tears finally falling down my face, too.

"I know you are," she replied, and I nodded. "But what were you thinking, Morgan?" she added, and she had sounded a lot more bitter than I would have wanted.

"I wasn't," I mumbled back, and it was true.

"Yeah, I can tell," she said back sharply, and I continued to avoid all forms of eye contact.

"I'm sorry," I tried again. "I was stupid, and I shouldn't have even gone in the first place. I knew it was a bad idea right from the start and I just should have known…"

"Morg, it's okay, I'm sorry, this is just stressful," my mother interrupted. I nodded yet again in agreement. I had been awake for all of ten minutes and it was certainly beyond stressful.

"I know," I said sympathetically. "It would be less stressful if dad wasn't here," I added under my breath, kind of hoping she would hear, but simultaneously not hoping this at all.

"Morgan," she said, and I knew what it meant. Essentially, I should quit being a brat while I still had a chance of not starting some drama of any sort.

"Never mind," I said, the lack of sincerity hanging on my tone.

"You're something else. Even when you're injured and drugged up you still maintain the sass," my mom said, and I laughed, even though I was starting to feel a dull pain in my head.

After what felt like a million check-ins by various nurses, and assorted people coming to visit, none of them being my father, I started to wonder if my mom had just tricked me in saying that he was here. Was it to make sure that I was still fully functioning, because surely if I didn't have an immediate reaction, there was something very wrong? Or was it to give me some sense of false hope or something; yes, he does care about you, but he's actually not here. Don't get me wrong, I had liked him not being there, especially during the first few hours of me being awake, because I didn't feel like saying much of anything to anyone. Having my dad around would not have made me feel better, despite what my mother was trying to convince me of. Why was she playing up his presence so much? It's not like she owed him anything.

"Morg, I'll be back in a while, okay? If you need anything, you can call me and I'll be back," my mom said softly; I was half-asleep after all, as she suddenly got up.

"Where are you going?" I asked, but she didn't exactly want to stay behind for any questioning.

"I'll be back, okay? Love you," she said as she left. I raised an eyebrow, but felt much too tired to care.

"Morgan?" my dad said as he walked through the door, his voice laced with concern. My ears perked up and I immediately felt the strong desire to leave (I wonder why?).

"Hi," I said back, not making eye contact and not daring to let any part of my voice sound friendly.

"How are you doing?" he asked, and I shrugged.

"Great," I said sarcastically. We both paused. This was already fun.

"What happened?" he asked, merely ignoring my comment. Nothing new. I shrugged for the thousandth time in the past few hours. How could anyone have expected me to know any sort of answer?

"I can't even remember, okay?" I replied, defensive before I had any need to be. "Why are you here?" I asked, trying not to sound as awful as I could have.

"Why do you think, M? I heard about what happened, and I wanted to make sure you were okay. You scared us all," he replied. The automatic reaction my question had caused had restored my faith in my dad just a little bit, but I hadn't been about to let go of the grudge.

"Oh. Thanks," I said quietly, yet sincerely, as hard as that may be to believe. "I'm fine, really. I'm sure it could've been worse."

"It could have been a lot worse," he replied, and I nodded somewhat tearfully; variables rushing through my mind as they had many times that day.

"I know," I immediately responded. "I was stupid. I'm sorry." The fact that I had just apologized to my father was basically earth-shattering, but maybe I hadn't realized who I was speaking with. I was definitely blaming it on the head injury. No other explanation.

"You could've died, M. I've seen that way too often in Vegas." I closed my eyes briefly, immediately regretting letting my guard down for even one second. I always had to be made to feel guilty in some form or another, it seemed.

"Yeah, dad, I know. I feel bad, you don't have to remind me," I had said hurriedly, wishing the conversation would just end and my dad would mysteriously disappear back to Vegas. All I had been wondering was why my mother had even told him; it hadn't made any sense to me at the time. It had never resonated with me that he did have some capability of caring about me, because I didn't feel that way in the slightest.

"Catherine's been asking about you. I'm pretty sure she would've come down here if she had the time off," my dad said, laughing. I smiled, even though I had known he was simply changing the subject to distract me from being mad at him.

"She's the best," I said, feeling much happier. He didn't say anything; even though he often left me with the woman, he had always seemed to resent Catherine and I's relationship. That changed when I moved to Vegas and started at the lab, obviously, but before, I could always notice something.

The silence continued on, as I wished my mother would get back, because it would certainly mean my dad leaving. I wanted to be able to accept the fact that he was just making a nice gesture by coming down here, but I hadn't really been able to muster up the feelings for that. Well, maybe it had been more of a nice gesture, because back then I couldn't recognize that he actually cared about me, but I know now that he did, even though it was hard to tell. So, I had not wanted to give him at least a little credit for doing his job by being concerned for me, even though I should have. Everything that had happened was still too new for me, and even though I've always known that time heals everything, or at least liked to think this was true, I was having a hard time accepting that notion this time around.