“Well Old Fart you must be one lowsy Heroe then.” Selby said. She laughed, clasping her hand around his as he laughed as well.

“How long have I been out ?” Jack said. Rolling his half opened eyes back and forth, adjusting them to the light.

“Three days.”

“What happened ?”

Selby moved closer to Jack, gripping his hand a little tighter now, she knew what had to come next wouldn’t be easy. She knew she couldn’t tell her Boss and closest friend whom she had worked with for more than two year’s of her life that his world was going to change for the worse. Forever. But she always prided herself on strength. And that was what Both of them would need from now on.

“Selby. . . What happened ?”

She didn’t respond.

His eyes were now completely open. He could feel the adrenalin pumping through his vien’s. Jack’s degree of alarm increased as he tried to sit completely upright so that he could properly face whatever bad news he was about to hear from his friend. But that in and of it’s self was the nature of the Bad news. Jack’s legs didn’t move.

“Hold on. . . . . Let me. . . . .” His words trailed off and came to a defening hault. He then realized that from the inaction of his lower body and the look in Selby’s eyes that it was true.

“You hurt your back in the fall.” Selby said. Her eyes began to water, as did Jack’s eyes.

Thrashing slightly on his bed, he tried franticly to prove her and himself wrong. Hoping that it all was just a simple miscalculation. But he knew better.

Most of Jack’s injuries were superficial, all except for one. Selby continued and told him that because of the angle that he fell through the floor in the temple room he landed on the lower base of his back. The depth of the well had been greatly smaller than the data had shown in the brief, therefore the shallowness of the water along with the combined force of the impact caused much more damage to his spinal column then it would have if the water level were higher.

He lay there, for a considerable length of time, not moving, not speaking. He only stare up emotionless at the roof of the Hut. Jack’s eyes began to fill with tears again. He hoped it was all a dream. That He wasn’t in South America, That his wife and daughter were still alive, That he still had use of both of his legs, and that he was at home. The one Place he missed so much and hadn’t been for so long.