“Mom! Come on, Mom! Wake up! Don't make me hurt myself to get out of this bed and get you up, myself!” Sandra's voice was traveling through the room. It was a voice that had a rather assertive tone to it, at the moment. Mary's eyes were slowly twitching as she was beginning to wake up. She heard her daughter's voice in her sleep and began to stir, in response to it. It was calling out to her. Her mind was just thinking “Come on. It's not morning, already, is it?” She was holding onto the sheet that was one her, not realizing that it was, indeed, morning. It was later than she had realized. Of course, she had no way of knowing what time it was, being asleep.

“Mmm...I'm up, I'm up.” She slowly opened her eyes up and looked at her daughter. Light poured in from the lights in the ceiling. Her vision was a blur, having just woken up. She yawned and covered her eyes, still trying to wake up. Her mind wasn't completely on everything yet. Her hand was still clenching the sheet, not yet realizing that it was there. Taking her other hand away from her eyes, she looked around again. She finally looked down at the sheet and held it up. “W-What's this doing here? Isn't this yours, Sandra?”

The sheet was, indeed, from Sandra's bed. Sandra reached down and pulled it back up. She smiled to her mother and nodded her head. “I'm glad you're finally awake, Mom! You looked like you were really tired last night. After you fell asleep, I tossed it on you. I figured that you needed it a lot more than I did. You were the one running around, getting me all these new treatments.” She pulled the sheet from Mary and made waves with it. It quickly straightened out and was put back on her lap, straight and mostly free of wrinkles. “It's about time you got up, too. The doctor's going to be here in just a few minutes.”

“W-What?!” exclaimed Mary. She had a big shock; one of those moments where you're half-asleep, but suddenly have an important realization, waking up the rest of the way in a split-second. Her eyes bolted open and she looked around for the clock. She'd knocked her chair over from how fast she'd gotten up from it. After finding it, she realized that it was later than she expected. It was 15 minutes before the treatment had been scheduled to be performed. She looked to her daughter, a look of surprise still on her face. “Why didn't you wake me for this, Sandra? Why didn't the doctor or nurses wake me?”

“Oh, they wanted to...” began Sandra, remembering a little scene from earlier. She took a deep breath, looking towards her mother. “They wanted to get you out of the way, so they could lift my knee up. You looked so peaceful, though, in your sleep. You've been so stressed, lately, I thought I'd let you get as much rest as you needed. Besides, I woke you up before the treatment was to take place, didn't I? That's the important part of today, the part where I'll want you here, with me.” Sandra offered her mother a smile, hoping that she'd be alright with her watching out for her, for once. She had been so assertive when trying to wake her up, but had good, innocent intentions.

Mary just looked at her. What was she doing? She was her mother, and she had been sleeping. She got a knot in her stomach, feeling a little embarrassed that she'd been the overworked one being taken care of. She had been taken care of by her daughter, whom couldn't even walk right now because of her injury. She knew she had been tired, but she didn't think she was that tired. She bent over to pick up her chair, setting it back up. After taking a seat in it again, she looked and smiled. “Thank you, sweetie. I'm glad you woke me up. I want to be here for this treatment.”

The two were smiling towards one another as they heard a clicking from the other side of the room. It grabbed the attention of both of them. As they looked over, the door was slowly opening up, one figure walking through the doorway. It was Mickey, dressed in a normal pair of nurse clothing. Her soft-soled shoes softly tapped across the floor as she walked over to the side of the bed where Mary wasn't. Her hand waved over Sandra's body, softly brushing over her toes as it went across her leg, all the way up to her hip, feeling and squeezing, as if testing something. Sandra's toes twitched from her touch and Sandra just watched her.

As she came up to Sandra, she smiled towards her and placed her other hand on her shoulder. “Good morning, dear.” she said, addressing Sandra as 'dear'. Sandra just gave her an odd look, using a hand to brush back her un-brushed hair. Mickey just kept looking at her, with a conspicuous smile on her face. Sandra's look didn't seem to phase her at all. She continued the conversation inquiring about how Sandra was feeling, clearly trying to calm her down and make sure she wasn't nervous. Sandra just shook her head and told her that she was just fine.

“It's almost time for the big treatment.” she continued, moving her hands down to an area behind the bed, where she began to move something. Both Mary and Sandra heard the tapping of something metallic. They watched Mickey, to see what she was doing. More metallic sounds came before she produced a wheelchair. “If you would, Mrs. Moore, I could use some help getting Sandra into this wheelchair, and take her down to Surgery.” Her voice was calm and gentle, though it got a strange reaction in Sandra.

“Surgery?! I thought you said this was a simple procedure! It wouldn't be on the same level as surgery!” She was obviously a little surprised when she found out that they weren't going to have the procedure here, in the room she was already in. Mickey put her hands on Sandra's shoulder again, beginning to explain the situation to her. It seemed that, although it wasn't a surgical procedure, she had to go to surgery because of having to go under for the procedure. After a few minutes, Mary stood up and began to help Mickey get her daughter into the wheelchair, despite Sandra's confusion about why she had to go all the way down to surgery. She was starting to think this was more serious than she'd been led to believe...