The ride to the hospital was uneventful in Jenna's mind. She kept nodding off and finding herself dreaming that Pickles was attacking her with his declawed tiny paws. Soft pats against her cheek that were in reality her mother trying to keep her awake as she cradled her while her father drove. She could smell her mother's perfume and the scent was comforting and calming amidst the atmosphere of panic.

Jenna still couldn't say anything, but she wasn't worried because she wasn't in any pain and her mother and father were doing their best to take care of her. It was an oddly surreal trip in the car, she never really paid attention to how some of the streetlights were slightly different colors before.

When they arrived at the hospital Jenna tried again to will her body to move and for her voice to tell her parents that she was alright, but nothing happened. All she was able to do was to slowly blink and watch the events as they unfolded around her.

Her father, nearly unable to stand from how at a loss for breath he was due to panic, tried his best to yell at the top of his lungs for help as her mother carried her inside the ER.

The next few hours flew by in a blur after her mother and father were swarmed by the night shift nurses and Jenna was quickly and gently taken from her mother's arms. She had trouble keeping track of all the faces that moved in front of her vision or the seemingly never-ending stream of lights that she was quickly pushed past as she was taken into the ICU.

Sweet sleep came over Jenna a few moments after one of the nurses hooked her up to an IV with something in it. She didn't even feel the needle going in. "What a professional nurse," was a thought that flitted through Jenna's mind before the effects of the drug swept through her body and brain. She hated needles with a passion.

The drug swept away consciousness like a crystal-clean splash of an ocean wave. It brought with it sleep. Sleep and dreams.

She dreamed such sweet dreams.

Dreams of her friends from school coming to play with her and to spend time talking with her. They never seemed to want to stay for very long, simply always trying to tell her that they missed her and that the class hamster "Jester" was doing well. These dreams passed quickly, far quicker than Jenna would have liked.

She dreamed of her mother holding her hand as they both walked through Grandpa's villa and vineyard together. Her mother told her stories about how she had played together with her sister and siblings inside the secret hiding places of the villa. Her father was in her dreams as well, resting his hand on her shoulder as he told her that he loved her and that they were doing everything that they could to help her.

She didn't understand what the last part of his sentence meant, she just enjoyed spending time with him.

Her father tried to tell her stories but after a while, he just seemed to be talking about the news and things that were happening day to day. Those moments were a little boring for Jenna to listen to but she listened anyway because she loved hearing his voice.

Now and then she would open her eyes, her body wrestling the sedative away that was keeping her under, only to find the same boring ceiling looking back at her. The off-white panel tiles and the square vent out of the corner of her vision mocked her inability to move her head even just a little bit. This made her dive back into her dreams. At least in her dreams, she could spend more time exploring her grandfather's vineyard with her parents more.

While Jenna dreamed her mind slowly changed and adapted to try to help her cope as best it could. Her hearing and sense of smell improved along with the depth and detail of her dreams. She could hear the footsteps of the nurse out in the hall and her dreams changed them into the footsteps of laborers in her grandfather's fields and the villa's kitchen. The smell and taste of hospital food and pudding turned into sweet meals shared at dinner time by her Italian relatives.

One day her dreams changed, Grandfather Lorenzo came to visit her. Jenna was wandering his endless vineyard alone when she felt his old and gnarled hand slowly take hers in his gentle grip. She knew it was him even without needing to turn her head because of how arthritis had bent several of his fingers. They were her grandpa's hands.

"Hi, little sleeping princess." He said softly as they both walked together. Grandpa stayed next to her and even told her stories while they walked together. Things were going to be ok; her grandpa was here with her now.

"This story was your mother's favorite and I used to read it to her every night before she would go to bed," Grandpa said as Jenna looked over to find him holding a little storybook in his gnarled hand. "It is called The Adventures of Maya the Bee and it tells the story of Maya and her many adventures."

This is how Jenna fell in love with Maya the little free-spirited bee. Maya was always helpful to anyone and loved to explore the meadow by herself.

Grandpa was almost always with her now in the vineyard, keeping her company and telling her all sorts of stories.

Her dreams were nice.

---

"No, Mr. Lorenzo there is nothing more that we can do for your granddaughter at this time. The specialist that you had flown in from Germany was impressive with his knowledge, but even he said that it is a miracle that your granddaughter is still alive." The chief physician answered the elderly gentleman with tired and apologetic eyes.

"The spinal cord is a fragile structure and sadly, we just don't have the technology yet to fix it. The damage to her cerebellum and the frontal lobe is healing but we can't control how fast or in what way it heals. All I can tell you that every specialist that we could contact is looking over her case."

"But surely you have hope, yes? My daughter and her husband are in pain. They need hope. They need light." Lorenzo said to the chief physician with hands raised in supplication.

"I... I am sorry Mr. Lorenzo. In all my years I have never seen a case this bad. What light, however, that I can share with you is small. Your granddaughter's mind always perks up and her EEG goes off the charts whenever you are with her. All I can recommend is for you to spend what time you can with her... while you can." The doctor said, barely whispering the last three words before he turned and walked away.

Grandfather Lorenzo may have been old, but his ears still managed to catch the last three words and the implications that came with them.

Today was a dark day in Grandfather Lorenzo's eyes. His heart was heavy, and his steps were slow as he made his way back to his granddaughter's room. It had been several months since her tragic accident. He had sold his villa and vineyard, worth millions it had turned out, and to come to live with his daughter and husband. He had done all that he could, spent his money, called renowned surgeons, and yet still no one had any help to offer his granddaughter.

He moved slowly to the slightly open door and peeked in to find his daughter sitting next to Jenna's bed. She was holding her hand and looked like her heart and spirit had been shattered. Broken to pieces.

It was too much for Grandfather Lorenzo to take any more of at the moment, so he turned and left the hospital. He needed to breathe, needed to walk for a while, and to get his heart and mind right again. His feet were slow but that didn't bother him, he had too many painful emotions to work through. He walked across the little town his daughter lived in and eventually found his way to the large local park.

"Ah, almost like home." He muttered softly to himself as his feet made their way slowly through the park. The canopy of leaves made the breeze pleasant and cool against his skin. His hands occasionally reached out to touch the old rough bark of trees planted along the path as he slowly made his way past. He needed this, needed a break out of sight and away from people.

Grandfathers were supposed to be strong. He didn't want anyone to see him breaking inside.

He made his way across a little wooden bridge and happened to spy a perfect little park bench for him to sit on, out of sight from the rest of the park.

He eased himself slowly down each of the wooden stairs that led down towards the bench and finally covered the last ten feet to his destination.

With a sigh of relief, he eased himself down on the old and sturdy bench and finally let go of the tight grip he had been holding his emotions in. He had never felt so helpless in all of his life. He sat there for hours, just a lost soul in an empty park.

It was there that Grandfather Lorenzo met an old man named Joe.

---

Hxerdinand had already seen Xa transfer away and had yet to reconnect to the Tela network, choosing to remain in vacation mode while he visited the spot he and his wife used to love to sit together at. He was looking forward to finally getting back to see Kevin again. His AI had managed to send them a message somehow even though both he and Xa had chosen to keep their mail and personal connections to the network private.

When he reached the park bench near the water, he found someone already there, an older white-haired wizened gentleman who seemed to be suffering from deep grief.

Joe tried to be as quiet as he could as he approached, to him this was a sacred place and to see someone sitting with their hands pressed tightly to their face while tears flowed freely was just something that Joe was not willing to accept.

This should be a place of happy memories.

Joe peeked into the recorded history of the old man, something that the local Arbiter provided as a free service to any Tela on vacation and found the source of his grief. It was something beyond what Joe had ever expected to find. His steps paused in their path towards the bench, unsure for the first time in forever with what he should do. The Tela were powerful, yes, and they had technology that surpassed this remote planet's ability by many light-years. The problem was the ability to use that power as a Citizen.

A Citizen couldn't use cr to interfere with a primitive species who were still infants within their solar system. It had been done in the past and had completely altered or destroyed the valuable ecosystem frequented by wealthy Tela.

This was one of the tragic reasons why Joe's human wife had aged normally and, in the end, passed away.

Joe had nothing to offer this man, he could tell from Lorenzo's archive how far he had gone to leverage humanity's limited knowledge and technology to try to help his granddaughter. Joe's vast earthly wealth would not do any more than was already done. All he could do was offer his support in another way.

He moved forward slowly, aiming to sit beside the grieving grandfather on the bench.

As he moved to sit down his mind sparked back to the last time he had been sitting in this very same place. Wait! There was hope! Joe knew someone who was considered to be a native of this planet by the System. Kevin might be able to get past the rule since he wasn't a Tela Citizen yet.

Joe hoped that Kevin had waited and had not yet paid the fee to unlock Citizenship within the Tela. If he hadn't then there was a chance that the boy might be able to use cr to offer limited mobility to the poor girl. It wouldn't be perfect since there weren't any Tela that studied human neurosurgery but maybe, just maybe, if Joe offered something of value in payment, Kevin might consider spending some decades in System time to study how to repair the little girl's brain.

Yes, there was hope then.

As Joe finished sitting down his movement caught the attention of Lorenzo for the first time. He glanced over between his fingers and found a pair of classic walking shoes and brown dress slacks that he himself would wear. Lorenzo's eyes traveled further, and he found himself looking into eyes that were very similar to his own. Eyes that had felt great loss and whose heart still felt the pain of loss.

That was all that was similar between the two men. Joe's face and grim smile possessed a determination that contrasted hard against the loss he could see in his eyes. It was the look of a man who had been through similar hard events and yet who still had the strength to press on.

"Um..." Lorenzo managed to utter roughly. He didn't have anything to say to this stranger and wasn't in any mindset to talk. He had just come here to escape, and it seemed that even in this lonely park he wouldn't be able to find solace.

He lowered his hands and clasped them together, staring off into the distance as he prepared himself for the long walk back to the hospital.

The words out of the stranger's mouth caught him off guard. It was nothing he had expected a stranger in a tiny town to say.

"Lorenzo Phillip Marzayla. Born in 1915 at 3:51 in the morning to a widow named Beatrice in Monforte d'Alba, the same year Italy entered what is known as World War One on this planet."

Lorenzo's eyes bugged a little at the details the stranger next to him so casually knew about his life. Almost no one knew his mother's name. No one knew who was still alive to this day anyways. The day may have been missing but the time, something that was unknown to even Lorenzo was offered as a matter of fact. It, mixed with the rest of the sentence, was too detailed to be a lie.

"Yes? How... how do you know of me?"

"I don't think you would believe me if I was allowed to tell you." The stranger said as Lorenzo turned to fully look at the man. His tears were forgotten on his cheeks as they slowly dried in the cool breeze.

Something was off about him. Something hard to pin down. Lorenzo had lived a long time and had seen old age in all its forms and glory.

This person in front of him showed age but seemed to deny its overwhelming power. It was as if he was looking at a twenty-year-old man disguised in the likeness of someone nearing Lorenzo's own lofty age.

"Are you Death?" Lorenzo asked as his mind came to the only conclusion that this strange encounter was pointing to. He had known his day was coming and the long walk to the park had probably taxed his old body too much.

"Eh? What? No!" The stranger flinched as though Lorenzo had spat on him. "My name is Joe, and I am here to try to tell you that there is hope for your granddaughter. Just a sliver no bigger than a grain of sand but hope, nonetheless. I just wanted to tell you to be strong for just a little while longer. Your daughter and granddaughter need you to be strong for them."

Lorenzo's eyes thinned as he suspected that this was a being that was going to make him an offer for his soul. He had lived a long life and remembered the stories that his mother used to tell him about exchanging and paying for things with strange beings. They were old stories, but they just seemed to fit this stranger who sought him out in a foreign country to make him an offer he couldn't refuse.

"I'll pay the price. Just help my granddaughter please."

"The price? No, you won't be the one paying this bill. It will be me." Joe said as he glanced again at the sad state of Lorenzo's bank account. It was enough to help his daughter and son-in-law live out their days with ease while paying for Jenna's medical bills but not much else. A couple million was nothing in Joe's eyes.

"Who are you?"

"Me? Nobody special, at least not here anymore," Joe said as he opened his access to the System and looked for his available transfer back to his Core.

It didn't exist.

"Hmm... that is odd, guess I will have to pick a neighboring Core as a stopover. Magus the Second must be having another exclusive party. Jterg Science Core it is then." Hxerdinand thought to himself as he focused one last time on Lorenzo.

"Look, you won't remember this next part so I will just be gone. Our earlier conversation may or may not get swept up in the Arbiter's protocols so I will leave you with something that will trigger your memories and to help you get through this next part while you wait for me to return."

"I don't understand."

"I know," Joe said as he reached into his pocket and pulled out something that couldn't exist.

It was a locket with pictures of Lorenzo's mother and wife framed individually inside.

Surrounding the framed color images was the word "Speranza" carved in ornate scroll lettering.

The strange visitor vanished the moment that Lorenzo had taken a glance to look inside the little locket. He looked around but found no trace of the man, not that he expected to anyways. Such was the nature of those kinds of beings.

"Hope." His old lips whispered as he translated the word.

He had found hope.