Kate POV

    I sit in the hospital room next to Seth's bed, reading Jane Eyre. I look up and stare at the breathing tube that is the only thing giving him life. "Seth, you would not believe how impossible classes are. We're two weeks in and I've already got a research paper due on Monday. I guess it's the Professor's' last chance to torture us. At least you don't have to deal with any of it right now." I tell him, flipping onto page 86. "Oh hey, get a load of this: Mrs. Crawley came by and checked up on you. I guess that old librarian has a soft spot for you after all. Your dad called the other day to see how you were doing. He misses you so much. He asked for me to tell you that he loves you."

    I am met with pure silence. I dog-ear the page I'm on and close the book, setting it on the nightstand. I listen to the hum of the breathing tube and the beep of the heart monitor, the only two sounds in the room. "Oh, Seth," I whisper, "There are some many of us that miss you."

I take his hand in mine and push my glasses up on my nose. I feel my eyes start to water, my throat start to close up. "I know that everyone has been asking you to fight. I know everyone wants you to stay. I do too. I miss all your corny jokes and when you would play your guitar. I never got tired of it," I pause and take a deep breath. "You've been fighting really hard, haven't you? I get it; I get that you're tired. I know it's way easier to let go. I'm gonna tell you something. You make this world a better place. But... But if you wanna leave, then you can. I'm allowing you to go, if that's what you want to do. I'll understand. And I'll miss you, but it's okay because I love you. Sometimes we have to let the people we love go free. I can do that for you." I wipe the tears away from my face and squeeze his hand tight. There is not a response from him, not a single reaction.

I lean back in my chair and wipe my hands over my cheeks again. "Okay, I need to go to dinner. I'll be back tomorrow." I stand and turn to leave the room. When I pass through the threshold, I hear...

I hear...

I hear breathing.

Not the unnatural kind that comes through a tube. I hear the kind that comes in short and long bursts, like after you've just sprinted a mile. It starts with one big gasp, and then a few short ones, followed by silence. ... it's steady. It's steady, somewhat controlled, human breathing.

Tears come back before I fully turn around.

I haven't seen those blue eyes in nearly four months.

And the first thing I do is run. I run down the hallway of the infirmary and towards the other wing. "Dr. Alicia! He's awake! Dr. Alicia!" I yell, searching for the familiar face of the head doctor. I sprint around the corner and gasp when I bump straight into someone much taller. I look up as Dr. Alicia stares down at me worriedly.

"Kate, is everything alright?" She takes my shoulders and looks me up and down, inspecting me for injuries, even though I've never felt better in my entire life. I pull away from her.

"Seth, he's awake. Seth is awake. He opened his eyes--" I say, a laugh escaping. I must sound like a maniac, running around and screaming and laughing. But the doctor's eyes merely widen and she beckons for two nurses to follow her. I move out of the way as she begins shooting out commands for everyone else. "The comatose patient is awake. He needs immediate attention. Get Nurse Dowell down to B24 STAT. Somebody needs to contact his friends--"

"I can do that." I say breathlessly. Alicia nods at me and hurries down the hallway. I run to the nearest phone on the wall and dial in the number as fast as possible. She picks up after three rings.

"Hello--"

"He's awake. Seth is awake." I yell, not even caring that everyone else in the lobby is staring at me. There is only silence on the other end of the call. "Celeste?"

"Seth--"

"Is awake. He's awake."

Again, silence. I say her name again, but this time there is no response. After a few seconds, the line goes dead. I hang up and then dial Preston's number, then Joe's. Then I run straight back to Seth's room. Dr. Alicia and two nurses both stand around his bed. She runs a finger over his eyes, asks him to squeeze her hand, snaps her fingers by both of his ears. Each time, she'll say that he's stable or unresponsive or other words that I can't decipher. Alicia turns to a nurse and murmurs, "MCS. He's lucky for having been asleep this long."

Suddenly I feel a presence behind me. I turn around and Celeste stands there, peering through the doorway. I can see her face scrunched up with worry, amazement, joy, and fear. "Is he..."

Alicia comes over to us as the nurses around Seth's bed continue to tend to him. "He's in a state called Minimally Conscious. This is a good thing, he could most likely make a full recovery. He can follow simple commands and he can verbalize. It will take a couple weeks but... he's safe."

Celeste steps into the room. "I want to talk to him--"

"I can't allow that just yet. Right now he needs immediate care. Coma patients that have just woken up are like newborns... they need constant attention. He needs some time before he can see others, but when he is allowed to, I'll let you know. Your faces are surely the ones he'll want to see first."

"How long?" Celeste demands,cutting her eyes to Seth once more. Alicia shakes her head. "It's hard to know, honey. Every patient is different. The average recovery time is six months, but rapid improvement happens within the first few weeks. He'll need supervision around the clock for his first days since he's starting to use his body again. We'll give him the best care we can," she pauses and looks at the boy laying in the hospital bed. "Right now, we need to be grateful that he came back to us. He's one of the luckiest kids I've worked with. He must have had something he needed to get back to."

    "He's stubborn. That's for sure." Celeste says and once again looks at the bed. I hook onto her arm and we both stare the bed, where nurses still circle around a living, breathing boy.

***********

"So Sleeping Beauty decided to wake up and smell the coffee, huh?" Preston says, leaning back in his chair. I smile at him from the bed that I sit on and adjust my glasses.

"He's a walking miracle, Preston. Well... he's not walking yet, but you get the point. Dr. Alicia says that it'll only be another day or some before we can talk to him. He's come back to us." I fall back on the mattress and grin up at the ceiling.

"You know he could be different, right?" Preston says. I glance in his direction and shake my head.

"What do you mean?"

"Sometimes when comatose patients wake up, their loss of memory could cause them to become completely different people. Seth was in pristine condition when he was induced, but anything could happen. He could have almost an alter ego."

I sit back up and stare at Preston. "Well we aren't sure if he's lost his memories yet or not--"

"It doesn't matter. He'll probably regain most of them over time but... you never know, Kate."

I blink several times. "Aren't you even happy he's awake? He's one of your best friends, you guys have fought together and--"

"Of course I'm happy. I just... I actually know a lot about this. I don't want to get my hopes up."

I open my mouth to respond, then close it and look down at my hands that rest in my lap. A few seconds of silence pass between us before Preston comes and sits beside me on the bed. "Hey," he says, and takes my cheek in his hand. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to make you feel down. I really am happy he's back. I'll take whatever I can get if it means having him back with us."

I look at him and nod my head, taking a deep breath in. "Me too."

***********

"Can we see him?" Celeste asks, standing inches away from Dr. Alicia, who stands in front of Seth's door like a guard.

"I--"

"You said three days. It's been three days." Celeste pleads desperately.. I stand behind her and bite my lip. Neither one of us has gotten much sleep in the past forty-eight hours.

"Celeste, I understand that you want to talk to him but..." The doctor trails off and looks at us standing with pleading eyes. She crosses her arms and taps her pen against her chin for several miserable seconds. Without another word, she disappears into Seth's room and shuts the door. Celeste and I both stand there, trying to hear a single thing being said inside the room that separates us from our friend. We jump back when Alicia reappears.

"Fine, I'll let you see him. But you have to take things slowly, you don't know--" Before she can finish her sentence, Celeste and I charge into the room and stand just inside the threshold. We both stare at the boy who stares curiously back. For an agonizingly long time, no one knows what to say. Then, finally, "Hi... guys."

Celeste releases a breath next to me. She runs to the side of his bed and takes his hands, feeling them. She looks down at them as if she can't believe they're real. She mutters something under her breath and then looks at Seth again, her eyes watering. "My God," she says, and collapses into a chair. "Thank God."

Celeste holds his hand up to her face and presses her forehead into it, sobbing. Seth says nothing but watches her, his eyes filled with relief.

Seth looks in my direction and smiles. I find the courage to smile back and bring a hand up to my mouth.I say nothing as we lock eyes. Afters several excruciatingly long seconds, he speaks. "Hey Half Size."

I laugh through a sob and wipe a tear off my cheek. "Hi," is all I can manage. I find the strength to move my feet to the side of his bed, and I pull up a chair. I rest my hands on the edge of the mattress, not knowing if I can touch him. Celeste doesn't seem to mind about that speculation.

"How do you feel?" I ask.

"I'm... great." Seth says, pausing in between sentences. I notice that it isn't from hesitation and it hurts my heart. He nearly forgot how to speak.

"We've been talking to your dad. He's headed here now from New York. He misses you so much." I continue. Seth nods his head and the corners of his lips curve up. He leans his head against the pillow and closes his eyes.

"Can you walk?" Celeste finally says, raising her head. Her eyes are rimmed with red. Seth looks in her direction and shakes his head. Celeste's face falls.

"When will you be able to?"

"Soon," he says after a few seconds. Celeste and I make eye contact across the bed and fall into silence. I hear voices outside the door, including Dr. Alicia's agitated complaints. I look in the direction of the door and cock and eyebrow. I catch, "You kids are gonna send him straight back to sleep if you keep badgering him!"

Suddenly the door swings open, and Preston and Joe stand in the threshold. Preston curses under his breath when he sees Seth and lets out a laugh that's halfway insane sounding. He comes to the foot of the hospital bed and leans his hands against the edge, staring at Seth like he's some exotic animal that has just been discovered. He curses under his breath again. Joe merely sidles into the room and quietly shuts the door behind him. He leans against the wall and crosses his arms, assuming his ever present dark mood. He gazes at Seth with what seems to be a cross between curiosity and amazement and... irritation.

"Well you look like death warmed over." Preston says, actually sounding fascinated. I shoot him a dirty look, which he ignores. Seth cocks an eyebrow.

"Nice to see... you too." Seth stutters out and rolls his eyes before they land on the other person in the room, who has yet to speak. "You're... still around?"

Joe cocks his eyebrow and smiles, nodding his head slowly. When he does that, I can't help but look between the two and see...

I shake that thought from my head instantly. Celeste sits up and lets go of Seth's hand. "Do you remember everything?" she asks. Seth nods his head at the ceiling.

"How did it feel to be passed out cold for four months?" Preston asks, almost giddy. This time my jaw drops and I whack him on the shoulder. He looks at me and shrugs. "What?!"

"Unbelievable," I say, but pause when Seth takes a deep breath in.

"I had... nightmares. You were all... in them. Bits of conversations that... I could hear. It was pitch black... everything was black. I heard all of you. Talking."

"Do you remember any words?" I ask.

"Some. I remember you two," he slowly lifts his hands and points at me and Celeste with a weak smile "talking the most. You told me... about your day. And....stories. And... school. Kate talked to me... about... books." He pauses and thinks for a minute. "Are they... building the library?"

Celeste smiles at him and nods his head. "They made a memorial for Rory right next to the site." Seth smiles at that and closes his eyes, then they fly open just as quickly. He says a name, causing Joe to shift uncomfortably from his perch on the wall.

"Jasper."

All four of us look at each other then glance back at Seth. Joe stands up and takes a step towards the bed. "What do you remember?" He asks. It's the first thing he's said since entering the room. Seth glances at him, and there is a moment of silence.

"He put me here." Is all he says. Everyone in the room grows quiet. I see Celeste shake her head and stare at nothing out of the corner of my eye. None of us know what to say, none of us know what to do. We've spent four months trying to forget Jasper and just like that, he has returned to all of us. He is a living ghost in our minds.

"Where is he?" Seth asks, his voice dark. This time, he asks the question to Joe, as if he's the only one that could know.

"Dead." Joe simply responds. I notice that he doesn't even blink. There is nothing left inside Joe's heart for his deceased uncle. Just memories.

Seth blinks, twice, then looks at Celeste. She still looks down at the bed, completely still. When she catches Seth watching her, she looks up and makes eye contact with him. No words need to be spoken.

That's all it takes for Seth to know what happened.

"Colleen?" is the next thing he asks.

"Disappeared," Preston says, "We have sources saying that she's overseas. Asia possibly."

"No one is... going... after her?"

"There's not any evidence of where she could have gone. She made sure she left nothing in her trace, otherwise she would have been in custody by now. Anyone working for Jasper that survived the attack on the school disappeared into thin air."

Seth tries to sit up, but fails. He looks angry, but at the same time he's too tired. "So she... she's just out there." When no one answers, the room falls into a grim silence. We've all tried to forget about Colleen and her whereabouts, and bringing it up again immediately sends everyone into the worst of moods. She's out there in the world somewhere doing God knows what. It's terrifying to have an enemy who is always one step ahead of you. The Academy hasn't experienced conflict in song long that it's unnerving. There's too much peace and quiet for our comfort, however insane that may sound.

"Well she's all alone, isn't she? How much can one person do?" Celeste says. She looks straight at Joe, who shrugs.

"Never underestimate her. I doubt Jasper's intentions for the Academy were all personal. I don't think those two were the only ones heading up whatever operation they had going against the Academy. He's never told me enough, but when Jasper thought that I wasn't around, he would act up. One time I listened to an entire conversation he had over the phone with someone. It was clearly meant to be confidential but... I knew. I never said anything about it to him and brushed it off as insignificant. But he talked about plans that he had for the future and allies in different countries and me. I was eleven when that all happened. I barely remember any of it." Joe speaks carefully, choosing his words.

"Joe's right," Preston says, "If Colleen is planning something then we need to be on guard at all times. If she's smart enough to disappear and hide from the government, she's smart to go behind our backs. Jasper couldn't have been her only ally."

I shake my head. "Okay, but what are we going to do about that?" I say. Everyone turns their head in my direction. I lean back in my chair and cross my arms. "I mean, I know that Colleen needs to be found, period. But if you think about it... we're all just seniors in high school." Joe clears his throat at the last part. I wave him away. "Except for you. My point is... we're not FBI agents guys. Yes, our entire high school career is for that purpose but we're not there just yet. We've still got years of experience to gain before we can officially call ourselves government agents. Yeah we've got fight in us, and we can figure just about anything out, but just the fact that we're young is gonna hold us back. This isn't our duty to handle and we're not meant to rush into stuff like this. We have no leads, no evidence, and no one standing behind us to help out." I pause and make eye contact with everyone in the room.

All four of them stare at me. Seth looks too tired to be annoyed with me right now, Celeste bites her lip self-consciously, Preston glares at me in disappointment, and Joe just looks bored. Celeste sits up and forces my attention on her. "Look, I get what you're saying," she begins, "I do. But Jasper Vegas took my family away from me. Whether I like it or not, he deserved what he got. If there are others out there like him, then they're a threat too. To all of us. If risking my life and my future career is all it takes to stop whoever is out there threatening to kill everyone at this school, then I will gladly give it up. I proved in Jasper's base that I would die without a second thought if it means protecting you all. No questions asked. I don't need to be put into that situation to know that I won't turn my back. I won't stop until I know that we can all live our lives without having to check over our shoulders every day. I'm willing to give up whatever it takes for that. All of you risked your lives to save me. You three left the Academy for me," she looks at me, Seth, and Preston. "And you turned against the only family you had." She looks at Joe. "Let's all work together this time and save hundreds of lives. We're kids but... there's no questions about it, we aren't ordinary."

She finishes her speech and sits back, looking confident. Preston sits up and nods his head. No one really knows how to respond to her, because we all know she's right. We're all a team, and we do everything together. Now that we have Seth back, it's only a matter of time before we're strong enough to take on anything together. He just needs time to return to his normal self, and that won't be long from now. By the determined looks in the room, I know that we're all thinking the same thing.

We are one.