Mindi drew a deep breath and sat down in a chair. "We've been trying not to worry you. You're all having different, pretty intense reactions to the whole situation, and we tried to keep you from being too worried on top of that."
"I knew you were holding back," A.J. muttered.
"What's wrong with being worried?" Brian wanted to know. "Our friend is lying in a hospital bed, isn't it natural?"
"Sure it's natural, but it doesn't help Nick." Absentmindedly, she twirled a lock of hair around her fingers. "Lina had to do some pretty drastic stuff to get him out of that bus. She had to go right into his deepest subconscious, fast. There wasn't time to be fancy; she broke down all his normal mental barriers. Resurrecting those is a conscious process, so until he wakes up, he's an emotional sponge. The team monitoring him have been doing a pretty good job of blocking the emotions of random people in the hospital, but his connection to you guys is just too strong. Everytime you think of him, he feels it."
"So why shouldn't he know that we're worried?" A.J. persisted.
Mindi struggled with a way to explain. She'd never had to figure out what the words were for this type of situation. "Worry is... I guess you'd call it a negative emotion. They're louder, heavier. Worse, what Nick feels is the emotion itself, not the reason behind it. All he knows is that you're worried, and that he caused it. Just makes him feel bad. If the outside world keeps feeling bad, he has no reason to wake up and face it."
"Why not? If he faced it, he could deal with it and make it go away." Brian reasoned.
"That's logic, B-rok. Nick's not at a level where he can think straight like that." She pushed her glasses back into place, still trying to get through to them. "Right now it's strictly self-preservational. We all have a safe place in our unconscious we can retreat to, y'know... 'calm blue waves' or whatever the therapists say. That's where Nick is right now. Why should he come out when he feels safer and happier there?"
"If he feels our worry..." the two men exchanged glances. "He feels Kevin too?"
"And Howie." she confirmed.
"What about his dad? He was here last night..."
"Maybe. I couldn't give you a list of who all he can feel." Mindi shrugged uncomfortably and A.J. picked up on her discomfort right away.
"There's someone who could?"
"I really want to talk about that with the whole group."
A memory flashed through his mind. "Lina?"
"A.J., please?"
"Bone, I think we're getting off track. I still don't know why I had that dream last night." Brian reminded him. A.J. stared hard at the blonde musician for a moment before nodding slowly. "So.. why did I?"
"Nick's not going to come out of it by himself. He's gonna need a lot of help from the people closest to him, feelings of love and support, among other things. Last night," she sighed, still not sure whether to curse or thank Jacob, "someone decided to speed the process up a little."
"A member of Nick's team?" A.J. and Mindi both stared at Brian.
"Who you been talkin' to, boy?" A.J. demanded.
"Uh... Suzanne?"
Mindi rolled her eyes. "Damn special ops team can't handle any situation without turning it into a special ops case. By the time he wakes up, betcha fifty bucks I'm on the team as his replacement."
"Huh?"
"Never mind. Mostly stuff you're better off hearing from Nick someday." She waved it away, and continued. "Yeah, one of the people who's been monitoring him decided to get involved. You happened to be the only one sleeping at the time, Brian. I'd apologise for him but it's done."
"Dunno about you Rok, but I'm still confused."
"Same here." Brian admitted.
Short and blunt. That had worked the first time. "One of Nick's team decided it was time you guys started helping him heal, so he strengthened your connection to him and let Nick's subconscious tell you who and what he needed most."
"Better? Sort of?" Brian said half-heartedly. A.J. just shook his head. "Somebody connected my mind to Nick's somehow, 'cause... well, 'cause they thought they should. So, what I dreamed wasn't a real dream, it was a message from Nick."
"Well, you got some of it anyway," she confirmed. "Now, let's figure out the message. What did you dream?" Mindi listened hard as Brian launched into a description of his experience in dreamland. Her brow furrowed as he finished up. "That was all? Damn, I thought you would have gotten farther than that."
"Bad?" A.J. asked anxiously.
"Not totally. I mean, Jacob was able to open a connection, and Nick is aware that Brian's trying to get to him. That's something. And... you're sure you said 'Hang on'?"
Brian nodded.
"Good. In fact great. If nothing else, you encouraged him not to go back further. It'll be easier for you to reach him next time."
"Next time? Look Mins, why is it Brian who's gotta do it? He's not psychic. I thought it was easier for Nick to connect to another psychic. Couldn't you do it?"
"Me? Not a chance. Nick doesn't have a strong enough emotional connection to me. Right now he can't feel me unless whoever's monitoring him lets everyone into him. And that would fuck things right up."
"Why?"
"Brian, we're in a hospital. It's filled with pain, fear, anger, worry, stress, confusion, death, sadness, you name it, every negative emotion in the book is here, all within less than a mile of him. They open him up, he'd feel it all. Multiply your feelings about hospitals by about a billion and imagine that dropping on Nick like a ton of bricks." Brian went pale. "Besides which, there were four panels in that door handle, and you fit one of them. Nick's decided it's your support he needs to get through this. There's no going back."
The last two chapters have been a little confusing. How lost did you get? Let me know