Disclaimer: Terra Nova is not mine.

The first thought that registers is that she is cold. This should be uncomfortable, but there is something familiar about the chill in the air. Before she finishes processing that, she becomes aware of the fact that her chest feels heavy - as if something is pressing down on it and making it difficult for her to draw air into her lungs. That is also one of the last things that she remembers from before everything went black. She should have noticed it sooner. That feeling of pressure and her airway tightening up had been coming on gradually for days - maybe even weeks. She can see that in retrospect. At the time, it had been so gradual that she had ignored that it was happening.

Her brain is moving quickly now - jumping from piece of information to piece of information and making the necessary connections. There must have been something wrong with her filter. Her lungs have been compromised. The blackness she remembers must have been her passing out when she was no longer getting enough oxygen. If she thinks hard enough, she can remember the feeling of distress when she started gasping. She would rather not remember that. She knows why the cold feels familiar - it's hospital cold. She associates the temperature of the air with the times she has dropped in to bring something to or talk to her mother. She passed out, and she is now in the hospital.

She decides that she should probably open her eyes. The room is dimmed, and she concludes that it must be night. The thought is disconcerting because she is positive that it was morning when she collapsed. She blinks and mentally checks her timeline of events. It had been morning. She had been on her way to school. She has been unconscious for most of a day. She doesn't much like that thought either. There is something about losing time that sets her nerves on edge.

She does not need more light in the room to recognize the figure that is curled into a chair beside her bed. Her brother is scrunched up with his knees against the arm rest and his head hanging back in what has to be one of the most uncomfortable positions possible. She smiles at the visible proof of her hypothesis that Josh is capable of sleeping anywhere. It takes a second before she realizes that his legs are folded up the way that they are because their little sister is sleeping on his lap. He has made a sort of a crib with his arms and legs to keep her in place. She's too big for that, but she feels her eyes getting watery at the sight of the way he is taking care of them even in his sleep - holding Zoe close and keeping vigil at her bedside. He must have been very worried about her to bring Zoe here (not all of their mother's coworkers are very pleasant about Zoe). He's a good big brother even if he is going through an angsty, argumentative teenage boy phase.

He must feel her eyes on him because he sits up suddenly (arms sliding Zoe to a new position without thought) and is looking at her as if he expects something to have gone wrong.

"You're awake," he whispers. She tries to answer, but her throat feels strange. She coughs instead, and it hurts - burns really like something has scraped away the inside of her airways or rubbed them raw.

"Mom says you shouldn't try to talk," he whispers again. "I lobbied for a permanent ban," he tries to tease, "but she said like a day or so."

She raises her eyebrows in question, and he answers.

"She had a shift," he tells her. He does not need to say anything else. They both know what it is like for their mother - what it has been like ever since population control discovered Zoe and their dad got taken away. She walks on eggshells around anyone in authority. There is an ever present threat of Zoe being removed on top of the knowledge that no matter how good she is at her job (or how impressive her resume and background in research may be), she has multiple strikes against her if she were ever to try and start over somewhere else.

She tilts her head to the side, and he correctly reads her expression. He usually tries to pretend that he cannot understand her, but she supposes this is not the time.

"I couldn't just stay home," he tells her even more softly than he was whispering before (as if someone might be listening in on his confession). "You scared me," he admits. "You're supposed to be the smart one." He looks momentarily angry, but he shoves it down quickly. She knows that he must still be worried because he never bothers to hide the fact that he is angry. She knows the part that he isn't saying - he isn't supposed to have to consider losing her as well.

She reaches out a hand, and he shifts Zoe to the side so that he can take it. He squeezes it (a little harder than is actually comfortable, but she doesn't mind), but the shifting around wakes their little sister.

"Maddy!" She exclaims in a whisper of her own. Zoe is never loud. (Maddy thinks it is because they put so much pressure on her to stay quiet when she was too little to really understand what was being asked of her.)

Zoe reaches out for her, and Josh drops her hand in order to keep the little girl from tumbling off his lap. Maddy holds out her arms, and Josh frowns.

"Maddy?" He questions. "Is that a good idea?"

She shrugs her shoulders but continues to reach for Zoe. Josh sighs and hands her over. "Be gentle, Zoe," he chides. "Sit beside her not on her, okay?" Zoe follows his directions and settles on the bed next to her with her head against her shoulder. It was a good idea of Josh's because the heaviness across her chest has only intensified with the reaching and lifting involved in getting the little girl situated on the bed. She doesn't think she could have handled having her drape herself across the way that she usually does.

Josh looks at a loss with his hands empty. There is an uncomfortable air about him, and Maddy does not know how to fix it. She catches his eye and gestures toward the opposite side of the bed with her head. He gives her a look of disbelief.

"We're not all Zoe's size," he reminds her. "It's not going to happen."

Maddy finds herself starting to laugh at the expression on his face, but the laugh does not actually come. It is a deep, hacking cough that comes instead. The fit seems to go on forever even though she knows that it is really only a few minutes. Josh has scooped up Zoe, and a nurse has appeared by the time that she is up to noticing anything again.

Her mother is standing in the doorway when the nurse has finished getting her settled and checking all of her vitals. Maddy can't quite make out the expression on her face with the light from the hallway putting her figure into shadow, but she can hear the relief in her voice when she says her name.