Pause by Pengi
Summary:

Do you ever wish you could hit the pause button on life? Nick did...


Categories: Fanfiction > Backstreet Boys Characters: Brian, Nick
Genres: Angst, Drama, Supernatural
Warnings: Death
Challenges:
Series: None
Chapters: 22 Completed: Yes Word count: 32562 Read: 40854 Published: 08/19/13 Updated: 09/02/13
Story Notes:
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1. Chapter One by Pengi

2. Chapter Two by Pengi

3. Chapter Three by Pengi

4. Chapter Four by Pengi

5. Chapter Five by Pengi

6. Chapter Six by Pengi

7. Chapter Seven by Pengi

8. Chapter Eight by Pengi

9. Chapter Nine by Pengi

10. Chapter Ten by Pengi

11. Chapter Eleven by Pengi

12. Chapter Twelve by Pengi

13. Chapter Thirteen by Pengi

14. Chapter Fourteen by Pengi

15. Chapter Fifteen by Pengi

16. Chapter Sixteen by Pengi

17. Chapter Seventeen by Pengi

18. Chapter Eighteen by Pengi

19. Chapter Nineteen by Pengi

20. Chapter Twenty by Pengi

21. Chapter Twenty-One by Pengi

22. Epilogue by Pengi

Chapter One by Pengi
Chapter One

Nick

"Why do you always have to challenge me?" His voice echoed through the empty seats surrounding the stage. "Every single time I say anything --"

"Maybe if you weren't such a self-righteous prick --"

"-- you gotta butt in like I'm a complete idiot and --"

"-- and you didn't expect everyone to kiss your fucking ass --"

"-- interrupt me like I have nothing important to say!"

"-- you'd see I'm just trying to help!"

We glowered at each other.

"Guys." Kevin came between us, his hands up as though we were about to launch at each other's throats. Brian's nostrils were flexing with his breath, sure, but even if he'd come at me he probably couldn't have reached my throat if he tried. "Stop it," Kevin commanded, "For Christ's sake, this is getting ridiculous."

"He started it," I snarled, childishly.

Kevin rolled his eyes, "I don't give a fuck who started it," he replied, "But one of the two of you needs to finish it." He glared at me, then at Brian, then back at me. "I mean it," he growled. "I did not come back to this band to listen to the two of you act like colossal dickheads to each other."

Brian's jaw was set.

It'd be a snow day in hell before I'd be the first one to apologize.

Kevin sighed. "Can we at least be civil?"

AJ and Howie were hanging back a few feet, studying their microphones, trying desperately to stay out of the whole thing.

Brian nodded sharply. "Yeah, I can be civil." His voice was flat, toneless. "I'm done with soundcheck. The mics sound great. See ya later." He stared right at me as he dropped his microphone to the stage. It made a resounding thunk through the stereo system. Brian turned and walked away, jumping down off the stage on the far right and walking across the lot to the line of tour buses.

Kevin sighed again. He looked at me. "What the hell is wrong with you two?" he asked.

I shook my head. I didn't really know anymore. It'd been going on too long. I had my suspicions about when it started and why, but the reasoning behind them was so far buried that I couldn't decipher any longer what was truth and what was just speculation.

"Can't you just let it go?" he asked, and his tone was sad, almost broken.

"I don't know how," I replied. I turned my microphone off and put it down on an amp that was sitting at the side of the stage before heading to my own tour bus, leaving the other fellas on the stage.

I heard Kevin ask Howie and AJ, "How long has this been going on?"

"Years," AJ answered.

I hated the tone he said it in. I knew the tone too well. It was the tone I used to answer questions about my parents' fights. I felt tears threatening the edges of my eyes as I reached my tour bus and pulled open the door. I jogged up the steps and threw myself onto the couch face-first. I stared at the game I'd left paused on the screen and rolled onto my back. If only all of life was that easy, I thought, that we could just hit a button and pause it, juse freeze frame it and take a break.

Everything was so frustrating lately.

I closed my eyes and I guess I fell asleep at some point, and I dreamed about the past, when me and Brian were friends - best friends, even. I dreamed about this one time when we were on tour and we'd tried to find the baseball hall of fame and got so drastically lost that we were like a hundred and fifty miles in the wrong direction and got so punch-drunk from the experience that we were riding along singing to the oldies station at the top of our lungs, off key and horrible.

When I woke up it was because my phone was ringing and I glanced at it and realized it was Eddie, probably wondering where I was. It was almost time for us to go on - I could hear Jesse's set coming to an end, the screams of the audience echoing off the tour buses.

I stretched and sat up, my eyes landing on the video game screen where my first person shooter character was crouched, a shower of bullets frozen mid-air all around him. I'd paused it because it was my last life and the character was about to die. I always felt bad when I'd led characters I'd played into their death like that. So I'd paused it to give him a few extra hours of life.

I reached down and grabbed the controller. "Sorry, man," I mumbled. I unpaused the game and I watched the bullets pierce the computer animated model of my character, watched the pixels of blood spray across the screen, and the words Game Over slowly fade in. I sighed and reached for the TV remote and turned it off.

There was an urgent knocking on my door.

"I'm coming, relax," I called, and I stood up. I grabbed a protien shake on my way past the fridge and shook it as I descended the steps and pulled the door open. Outside was Eddie. He looked tired and he had dark cresents under his eyes. "I know, I know," I said, "It's almost show time, I know. Relax."

Eddie glowered at me, "I haven't relaxed this entire tour. You know that." He herded me along past the end of the tour buses. Brian was standing there at the end, arms crossed over his chest. Eddie stopped in front of him. He looked at me, then at Brian. "Look, Kevin came to me and we talked for a few about what happened at soundcheck this afternoon."

Brian looked annoyed. I'm pretty sure I did, too.

"Look, fellas, this whole you-two-not-getting-along thing? It ain't working." Eddie took a deep breath. "You two need to stop. Resolve whatever this is, kiss and make-up, or --" he paused. "Or tthe other three guys say they're gonna call off the tour."

"What?!" Brian and I both reacted at exactly the same time, in exactly the same pitch. Brian looked at me in surprise. It'd been a long time since we'd said or done anything in unison that wasn't part of a tightly choreographed dance routine.

"AJ, Howie and Kevin talked and came to a consensus and they agree that they can't handle you two fighting anymore," Eddie explained, "And Kevin said that the three of them agreed that if it isn't resolved and it doesn't stop that they're all going to walk off the tour. And let's face it, the two of you aren't gonna hold this production together alone."

Brian looked up at the stars in frustration and let out a urrrgh sound. I licked my lips and cracked my knuckles.

"I think the two of you should drive to the next venue together," Eddie said.

Brian's head snapped back to look at Eddie, "What?" he asked. I was too incredulous to ask, but I was totally thinking the same exact word. In the same exact tone.

Eddie shrugged, "I don't know what else to do to help you two except... When my grandfather died, my brother and I had been fighting for years, and we drove up to New Hampshire together, mostly out of convience than anything, and the time on the road, I don't know. It changed everything." Eddie held up his hands, palm-up. "I don't know what else to do," he said.

"What about Leighanne and Baylee?" Brian demanded.

"Oh it's always about Leighanne," I snapped, my blood pressure rising.

"Like it isn't always about Lauren," Brian retorted, his voice heating as he turned toward me. "You're so quick to criticize me and my wife, and then turn around you're just as obsessed with yours."

"She's not my wife," I snapped, "She was my fiance. We aren't married."

"That's not the point," Brian replied, "The point is that you are a hypocrite."

"You wanna talk about hypocrites?" I yelped, "You really wanna talk about being hypocritical Brian?"

"GUYS!" Eddie shouted.

We both stopped and looked at him.

"Seriously." His voice was low, "No more fighting or we're done here." He waved his hand at the fence that blocked the audience from our view. We could hear them all, milling and talking, laughing. A few randoms screamed out stuff like I love you AJ at the top of their voices. "Do you really wanna do that to them?"

We both shook our heads. In unison.

"Okay," Eddie said. "Then you gotta find a way to work it out."

We nodded. In unison.

He sighed. "Okay. Well, c'mon, let's go get this show on the stage..."

Brian and I glanced at one another and I puffed out my cheeks with a long exhale and Brian ducked away after Eddie, his eyes carrying an air of reluctance that I was feeling in my gut.

I didn't wanna say anything, but I could picture us calling off the tour a lot easier than I could picture me and Brian getting along. That just seemed... impossible.

Chapter Two by Pengi
Chapter Two

Nick


It was a good show. For a few moments during the acoustic set, when we were singing Madeleine and the music was pouring out of the guitars, I looked over at Brian and he smiled at me and it was like the old times, like the days before there were business concerns and dollar signs and women to mess us up.

You know I think about those old days with Lou Pearlman a lot and for all the bullshit the guy put us through he really protected us from a lot, too. I would never tell anyone this but sometimes, when I'm laying alone in the bunk on my private bus and the wheels are humming over the pavement and I can hear the other buses groaning along outside my window, I kind of wish we'd never found out he was screwing us over and we could've lived our whole careers out in that state of excited blindness that we'd started out with.

Maybe that's what people mean when they talk about "the good ol' days" - a time of blissful ignorance, before we knew enough to know better than to be anything but happy.

But there's no stopping time.

After the show we were all headed for our tour buses, splitting apart like the pieces of a broken glass the moment we'd left the stage.

I had my guitar slung over my back and I climbed aboard the bus and opened up the fridge and pulled out a tupperware with a kale salad inside and ripped it open and poured some pine nuts over the top. I grabbed a fork and shoved some of the green leafy veggies into my mouth and stood at the counter, staring out the window as fans started pouring out of the venue and lining up against the barricades that blocked out the path the buses would take.

The bus door opened with a hiss and I turned around to see Brian standing there.

I put down the salad on the counter. "What?" I asked.

"Eddie rented a car."

"What?"

Brian sighed. "Eddie rented a car," he said slowly. "He's serious about this you and me driving thing." He ran a hand against the back of his neck. I could see his fingers working at a knot at the top of his spine. "Leighanne thinks we should do it, too."

"So you're here because Leighanne thinks you should be," I guffawed. I shook my head, "Of course you are. Why else would you agree to do it - or anything else for that matter." I put the tupperware lid back on the salad and chucked the fork into the sink. I was suddenly very not hungry. I bent and shoved it back into the minifridge. "Well fuck you, Brian," I said, "Enjoy the car ride alone."

I could see by the look on his face that he was swallowing back some remark. "Nick," he said finally, "I'm sick of this. I'm sick of fighting with you."

"Yeah well you shouldda thought of that before you started it," I said. I sat down and grabbed the remote for my TV and turned it on.

"I didn't -- God damn it, Nick. Turn the TV off."

I ignored him.

Brian came down the length of the tour bus quick, livid. He reached for the remote and I swung it out of his grasp, standing up so he couldn't get it from my hand, hoisted high over my head.

"Give - me - that!" he shouted, jumping between words.

"Make me," I replied hotly.

"NICK!" he shouted, "YOU WONDER WHY WE FIGHT? YOU ACT LIKE A TWO YEAR OLD! Why don't you just grow up?"

"Because I don't wanna become a giant dink, like you!" I shouted back.

"Fine." Brian turned around and stormed away, "Fine. Just stay here, just - just -- keep your stupid TV remote and your stupid -- you -- and I'll just -- whatever. Just -- forget it." He shook his head, "If you're too far gone to even care enough to try this, then -- then don't. I don't need you anyway. I never did." Brian stamped down the steps and I heard the door slam shut.

I stood there still holding the remote control aloft.

Then I galloped afer him.

I took the steps out of the bus in one colossal leap and rushed around the tail of the bus. A boring old blue car was idling behind the bus, Brian at the wheel. He was adjusting the mirrors. I yanked the passenger door open. "You're so full of shit," I shouted.

Brian looked up.

"You say you don't need me yet you always have," I said.

"The only time I ever needed you, you weren't there," he said, his voice level, cold.

We stared at each other.

"And you've gotten me back a hundred thousand fucking times for that," I replied.

Brian rolled his eyes and looked away. "Just... go back on your damn bus," he said. "Whatever the past, I sure as hell don't need you now."

"No," I answered, "Because I'm not stupid and I'm not immature." I swung myself into the passenger seat. I stared at him, "I'm not a quitter. And I do care enough to do whatever it takes... and maybe if you quit judging me, you'd know that."

Brian sighed, "Fine."

"Fine." I slammed the door and put the remote control on my lap.

"What the hell did you bring that for?" he asked.

"I just forgot to put it down," I answered.

We sat there in silence, watching as the roadies helped direct the drivers in getting the buses lined up and out of the barricades without flattening any of the fans. We could hear them screaming on the other side of the fence as the buses moved slowly, one by one, out of the venue lot.

Brian glanced over at me. "We just gotta make it through this ride," he said, "Make it through this tour. Then we've got a break. Maybe the break will -- help." He shook his head. Even as he said it, I knew he knew that it wouldn't. We'd had a break. We'd had several breaks. None of them had helped. Maybe temporarily. But nothing long term.

"Maybe it's just time to think about --" I paused. I hated to even think the words break up when it came to BSB, but...

"Twenty years," Brian murmured. "Almost twenty-one. You'd think we could figure out something else."

"You'd think," I answered.

Brian stared straight ahead.

But the thing is we'd been trying to think of something else for at least ten of those years.

I don't wanna blame everything between me and Brian on Leighanne, but that's when it really started. Before Leighanne (a time I refer to as BL), Brian was happy and funny and excited and my best friend. Ever since - in the time AL - he'd become slowly, steadily more and more uptight. She started showing up everywhere - I'd invite him to guys night out and he'd bring her. Or she'd call him seventeen times just to check up on him. Then they started getting like uber-Christian and judging everything I did and Brian started this awful habit of correcting almost everything I had to say.

Once the buses had rolled out of the lot and we'd followed, the headlights pierced the night, lighting up the road ahead of us and reflecting off the yellow and white lines. I stared out at the conical sphere of light that crisscrossed ahead of us. I was glad Brian was driving - I hate night driving 'cos my eyesight's crappy in the dark, and the glow of the GPS that was directing us along to the next city was enough to impair my vision even more. It occurred to me that maybe Brian had thought of that and that was why he'd just assumed he was driving, but then I remembered he'd gotten in the car thinking he was driving alone.

I looked over at the silhouette of his head as the street lights flashed behind him, lighting up his face and hair in a halo effect. I thought about how different he was - looks wise and personality wise. He looked older than he ever had before to me, and I realized that I didn't really know him anymore, like he was a whole other Brian than the one I knew. I wanted to say that I missed him, but I was afraid he wouldn't get what I meant and he'd say something like I'm right here when what I missed was a version of him that hadn't been there for years and years.

"I know you and Leighanne don't get along," Brian said, catching me looking his direction, "But she really does care about you and she's really championing for this whole road trip therapy thing to work." He smiled as though this would be an impressive fact for me. He flexed his fingers on the wheel.

It's like he's incapable of his own thought, I thought to myself, Apart from Leighanne, he doesn't exist anymore. She ate him whole.

All I wanted in the world was for him to admit that he missed me, too.

I didn't answer the comment about Leighanne. I didn't dare to because I knew I'd say something rude, something about his balls being in her purse, and I looked away and pressed my face to the window as outside it started raining. Brian turned on the windshild wipers and they squeaked their way across the windshield.

He made a frustrated sound that sounded like he might've muttered something under his breath.

I glanced over and raised an eyebrow.

"I think you'll understand me a lot more once you're married," he said.

"Oh?" I asked. I didn't see how I'd understand ignoring your friends in the name of a religious super-bitch that judged them harshly. Bros before hos and all that.

"Yeah," Brian said, "Theres a lot of responsibility you don't think about to it," he continued, "Especially with the added thing of parenthood. I just don't have time, Nick, it's not that I don't care."

"RIght. Your family comes first. I get that." I said. My mouth felt dry as a spark of anger rose up in my gut, "I completely understand not having time for your friend calling you cos his sister just died because you're busy on your fucking family vacation in Savannah seeing your in-laws. It makes complete sense; you couldn't put that on hold for anything."

The memory of the failed attempt to talk to Brian the night I found out about Leslie seared my insides like fire and ice.

"I didn't know," Brian said, "You didn't tell me why you were calling or what was going on. I didn't find out 'til the next day. I didn't know."

"It was all over Twitter. She was a trending topic, for crying outloud, and you were on there blowing up Chirpville."

"I don't pay attention to the trending topics," he said.

"Right."

"Stop that."

"Stop what?" I demanded, "Hurting?"

"Being - being mean about it," he said, "You're being ridiculous."

"Why is it always that I'm being ridiculous? Why is it never I'm sorry you felt like that Nick?"

"Because you're being ridiculous. You expect too much from people, Nick. Way too much."

"I do not."

"You do," Brian exclaimed, frustrated. "Leighanne and I were talking about this just the other day and --"

"Don't you do anything without consulting Boob-job Barbie?!" I cried, "Jesus, Brian, you're not conjoined at the skull, you have your own fucking brain!"

"Her name. is. Leighanne." Brian grit his teeth.

I stared at him. "Boob-job Barbie," I repeated slowly, letting each word drip out of my mouth.

Brian slammed the brakes on.

At first I thought it was because he was pissed and he was about to try to throttle me senseless, but then I realized there was a glowing red light ahead of us and the tour buses taillights were disappearing in the dark across the intersection. The car had skid way over the stop line on a hydroplane. He slammed his palms against the steering wheel and turned to look at me, "Why do you always have to be a complete and total assho---"

Brian stopped mid-word.

His eyes were wide.

I turned and looked around behind me out the window.

The grill of an eighteen-wheeler was staring back at me.

Chapter Three by Pengi
Chapter Three

Nick


The grill of an eighteen-wheeler is an impressive sight. Particularly when it's less than a foot from your side and still barreling forward. The horn was so loud off the front of it that it shook the glass of the window and I stared at it, my mouth gone dry. A hundred thousand thoughts went through my head as I sat there.

This was it.

My last life.

I was about to die.

I thought of the character I'd left crouched in the grass on my video game.

I looked down at the remote control in my lap and I grabbed it and aimed it at the window and pressed the pause button as I closed my eyes.

I didn't want to see myself die. I didn't want to see the spray of blood on the window or hear the crunch of my bones or feel the grate of the truck push aside the atoms that made up my muscles and everything.

I must be good at blocking things out because everything went silent.

I braced myself. I waited for it, for the crushing blow, the impact, the sound of shattering glass and twisting metal...

They're right about that moment before you die, how everything kinda pauses and the instant lasts a lifetime. I felt like I'd been sitting there a good two or three minutes already, just waiting for the truck to cross those last few inches before colliding with me.

It was taking way, way too long.

God, please, can't this just be over yet? I pleaded. Anticipation of the instant was straining every muscle in my body. Why do you gotta drag it out this long, man? I accused God, Wasn't I a decent person? Why you gotta torture me like this?

It'd been about ten minutes, it felt. And yet... still, no impact.

I didn't dare to open my eyes.

Everything was so quiet.

My finger was still pressing against the button on the remote control, my fist tight around it, fingertip aching from the push. I licked my lips, and strained my ears. Shouldn't there be sirens? Shouldn't there be shouting?

It occurred to me that perhaps I'd already been killed. Perhaps I was sitting in whatever version of the afterlife I was to receive with my eyes closed. Maybe I should look around. I still didn't dare to open my eyes, so I reached out my hand instead - the one not depressing the button on the remote - and felt the dashboard. So I was still in the car. I felt my way along the air vents, the stereo (the stereo was on, wasn't it?), and I found Brian's hand on the shift stick.

Brian's here. I must be in Heaven at least. That's good.

"Bri?" I choked, my voice sounding like it was rusted and old and unused, like it needed some WD-40. "Brian?" His hand was so still. My heart crawled into my throat and I turned my head in his direction and slowly, terrified of what I'd see, I opened my eyes.

He was wincing, leaning forward, in a position as though he were bracing for the blow, his shoulders hunched inward, his face scrunched up, teeth bared like he'd been about to yell something...

"Brian," I said, but he didn't move. Not even a little. "Brian?" I touched his face. Warm, soft, but... not moving. "Brian?"

Then I noticed specks of light in the air all around us. Little prisms. I reached up and touched one and it moved as I pushed it through the air. I took hold on it, closing my palm around it and pulling it closer to look at it. I turned it over. Glass? A shard of glass... But there were millions of them... suspended in midair all around us. I waved my hand through the cluster of them and realized the windshield was gone, replaced by these shards that looked like a sheet of rain, frozen in the middle of trying to fall.

I know they say that when you're in the midst of trauma that everything moves in slow motion, but this was beyond ridiculous. And I wasn't moving any slower - only everything else was.

And it wasn't slow motion. It was no motion.

That's when I remembered... what I thought would be the last thing I ever saw.

I turned slowly, my heart beat rising until it had climbed into my throat, and I saw the grate of the 18-wheeler directly beside my window on the right. The door of the car was already bending around it slightly on the outside, the window a spider web of the suspended shards of glass.

I looked down at my hand on the remote control.

"Holy shit," I whispered.

My finger was pressing pause.

"Brian," I tried again, "Brian, wake up, it's okay, you can move. I paused it. We can get out." I didn't know how to explain to him what happened, other than to say that we could get out of the car before the eighteen-wheeler smashed us like bugs. I reached over and put my hand on his shoulder, "Brian."

But he was paused, too like everything else.

Well I'd just have to save us both then, wouldn't I?

I struggled out of the seatbelt that held me firmly in place in the seat and leaned forward to push the glass shards in the air out of the way, clearing a space in what used to be the windshield. I awkwardly crawled out of the clearing I'd made and knelt on the hood of the car. Like the glass shards, the air was full of tiny prisms, but these were rain drops that were falling at a diagonal angle from the sky. I reached back in through the windshield for Brian, hooking my hands under his arms and pulling him. I had to keep repositioning him, like he was an action figure or something, moving his arms around and bending him to get him out of the car.

He was heavier than I remembered him ever being and it didn't take long for me to feel a sweat breaking out on my forehead. I leaned him against the hood of the car, his legs still inside, and swiped my brow. "Jesus, Brian, you should get with Lauren and have her help you lose some weight, you could really use a work out," I muttered.

It took me a long time to get him completely out of the car and drag him across the road and onto a hill that lined the side. The grass was wet, but a couple swipes of my hands and I'd dusted the water drops away from the grass, clearing a mostly dry spot for me to drop Brian down to the ground at. I sat beside him and stared at the car, at the way it was about to be completely cremated by the truck's advancement. I rubbed my knees. "Well shit, it's a good thing I brought this remote, huh B-Rok?" I asked. I looked at the remote in my hand. It was a Sony. I planned to write a long letter of appreciation to the company, detailing how well their products worked.

Brian lay there on the grass where I'd put him, his arms at an odd angle the way I'd positioned him. He still wasn't moving at all.

"You realize your last words to me were almost calling me a colossal asshole?" I questioned him. I wondered if he could hear me. "I guess my last words to you were almost Boob-job Barbie, though, so I guess mine were worse." I looked back at the soon-to-be-wreckage. "Well I guess we should get moving again, huh?" I laughed, "Shit, the guys are never gonna believe me when I tell'em how we got outta there." I looked at him again. "Well you might not, either, unless you can hear me right now that is."

I realized that this was the most I'd said to Brian in over a year without it being a scripted thing for the fans. I hesitated. "You know I miss you," I said, "I miss the old you, the you I used to hang out with and laugh with and stuff. I miss playing basket ball with you and guy talk and pulling pranks on the fellas and fighting about football and stuff. I miss that you."

No reaction.

"I just thought you should know, since I can tell you right now and you have to listen and everything." I lifted the remote control and aimed it at the wreck. I pressed play.

Nothing.

"Maybe it's like one of them ones you gotta hit pause again," I muttered and I shifted my finger and pressed pause.

Nothing.

I shook the remote and looked at it carefully, then flipped it over and opened the battery compartment. I popped the batteries out, rubbed the positive end against my jeans, hoping for a static charge, and slid them back into the compartment. I aimed again and pressed the buttons again, but still nothing happened.

I started to panic, "Why ain't you workin'?" I demanded of it. "Play, you stupid thing..." I shook it and pressed the button repeatedly, frustrated like an impatient old man. "Ugh!" I looked at Brian, "The batteries must be dead. I need to go find some batteries for this thing. Do you happen to have any AAA batteries on ya Frick?"

Course he didn't respond. He was still paused.

I stood up and galloped down the hill toward the car and pulled the back door open. Several of our bags were suspended mid-air, being thrown about by the impact or Brian's sudden brake-slamming or something. I grabbed hold of one of Brian's bags and unzipped it, rooting around through the stuff he had in there, searching for AAA batteries. He didn't have any.

"Well shit I gotta go to the store then, I guess," I announced. "I'll be back, Bri," I said, and I looked back at Brian on the hill. He'd be okay there. Everything was paused, it wasn't like a wild animal was gonna waltz out of the woods and eat him or anything. They were all frozen in mid-air like the glass and everything.

I turned and started walking down the road, pushing rain drops away from me with wide swipes of my hands as I made my way back to a gas station I'd seen a few miles before... It was the weirdest thing because the trees were all stuck in the middle of bending for a breeze and there were frogs frozen mid-leap on the pavement, and a bird darting among the rain drops overhead, and a squirrel poised, about to make his rush across the street. I passed another car, the driver balancing the wheel and a cup of Starbucks coffee and his cell phone as he drove.

I seemed to be the only one not effected by the pause anywhere.

Chapter Four by Pengi
Chapter Four

Nick



It happened when I was walking to the gas station. I'd passed a couple more cars, their occupants frozen in mid-motion. I could see the little convenience store, the light glowing in the dark, and I was just about to step over the curb that lined the street when everything in the world seemed to shift and I stumbled and fell to the ground. Funny enough, although I'd gone down on my left knee, my entire right side felt the pain.

"Oh fuck," I groaned, and I grabbed at my shoulder, which smarted the most and I winced. I wondered what nerve in hell is located in my knee that would make a shooting pain travel down my right side like that. I'm not one for anatomy, and I never memorized that old song the hip bones connected to the whatever bone. Despite my interest in horror movies, blood and guts always freaked me out more than they probably should.

There was one time I threw up because AJ got one helluva papercut on his finger. It was really nasty, though, and in my defense, at least I didn't pass out at the sight of the blood, like he did.

I held my shoulder as I continued walking across the parking lot, past people frozen pumping gas into their tanks, and I pulled open the door to the mini-mart. Inside there were people waiting in line, holding various snacks. I looked at the guy behind the counter, whose register was frozen open, his hand reaching for the cash a woman was holding up to him.

I spun through the rack of batteries that was located by the register until I found a pack of AAAs. As I spun the battery rack, I thought I caught a movement out of the corner of my eyes, but there wasn't anything out there when I looked. I'm going crazy, I thought to myself. Then I realized how crazy it was that I was thinking I was going crazy because I thought I saw motion when everything else was paused because I'd hit a remote control button just before an eighteen-wheeler had flattened me like a crepe.

After pulling the batteries I wanted from the rack, I glanced at the people in line. "Sorry, I'm gonna cut in line, cos...well, ya'll are frozen 'til I get this thing fixed anyhow..." I said to them. Most of them had probably just come from the concert, I thought. One even had a BSB t-shirt on. I reached in my pocket and realized I'd left my wallet on the tour bus in my hurry to catch up with Brian. I looked up at the clerk. "I'm sorry, dude, but I promise I'll come back and give ya the cash for the batteries I'm about to steal."

He, of course, didn't respond.

So stolen batteries in hand, I scurried out into the night again and made my way back down the street to the scene of the accident, passed all the cars and the windbent trees and the rain drops I'd pushed aside until I came back to the car, it's brake lights still glowing in the night, the eighteen-wheeler crashing into it. I climbed the hill beside the accident to where Brian was still laying in the same awkward position I'd left him in, the remote control on his chest. I sat down beside him and pulled the battery compartment open again and shook the batteries out. I ripped the package of the new ones open with my teeth and pressed them into the compartment and closed it up.

"Okay, here we go," I said again. I aimed the remote and was just about to click the button when I was tackled to the ground, the remote flew out of my hand, and rolled to the bottom of the hill, where it shattered a puddle into pieces.

"What in the hell?!" I gasped and I found myself looking up into the eyes of a girl.

She had me pegged to the ground, her hands on my wrists, her body leaning over me. By girl I mean a woman, like a woman my age. She had dirty blonde hair and bright green eyes and a smattering of freckles across her nose that you couldda used to play connect the dots or something. She stared into my face, her eyes searching mine with an expression of determination.

"Who the hell are you?" I asked.

"I might ask the exact same thing," she replied.

"You might, but I asked first," I said.

"How are you -- moving?" she demanded, ignoring me.

I stared up at her, "How are you moving."

"I asked first."

"That didn't work for me when it was my argument, why would it work for you?" I asked, raising an eyebrow.

"Just answer me."

"Get off me and maybe I will."

She stared at me, then leaned back, releasing me from my pinned-down position. I sat up slowly, studying her carefully. "Well?" she asked expectantly.

"I said maybe I would answer," I said. "Tell me who you are, then I'll answer your questions."

She hesitated. "I'm Margo," she said slowly. "Now who are you?"

"Nick," I answered.

"How are you moving?"

"I don't know," I replied, "I just -- am, I guess. I was in the car," I pointed, "That car. I was fighting with my friend, Brian, and suddenly that truck was there and I hit the pause button on the remote control, mostly out of like delusional last hopes, you know, 'cos I thought I was about to die, but instead the pause button worked and here I am." I shrugged, "I don't know why I can move. Everyone else seems to be frozen in place. Well, everyone except you, that is, I guess."

Margo stared at me. Her eyes were so fucking intense that I wondered if she was capable of pausing me with them. They seemed to almost glow in the dark. "But - that's -- that's incredible," she breathed. "I've been alone here for... years..." she shook her head. "You're the first person I've seen moving in years."

I shrugged. What could I say? I didn't know how it worked anymore than she did. However... "Years? You've been paused for years?"

"Yeah," she nodded.

"But that's impossible," I argued, "Because it's all only been paused for a couple minutes. If you've been paused for years, then everyone would've been paused for years. It's only been a couple minutes."

"Not for me," she said simply with a shrug.

I didn't feel like arguing with her about the space-time continuum and how I couldn't have been unpaused ten minutes ago when she'd supposedly been paused for years. It just wasn't possible. Was it?

"Why didn't you just unpause everything in all these years you've been here?" I asked.

"I don't know how to," she answered.

"Did you try hitting play on your remote?" I asked. Then, "Or maybe pause again. Some remotes want you to hit pause a second time."

Margo shook her head, "I don't have a remote."

"Then how did you get pause everything?" I asked.

Margo shrugged, "I'm not sure. I don't really remember. It was a really long time ago and I don't think I meant to pause everything. I think it just happened."

I pointed to the remote at the bottom of the hill, "Well, I hit pause on that remote. But the batteries died, so I just walked down the street and got some new ones --"

"I know, I followed you."

"You what?"

"I followed you. I saw you walking so I followed you and then I realized you might be using that thing to - to leave somehow... That's why I tackled you. I didn't want to get left behind. I don't want to be alone again."

I shrugged, "Not so much to leave as much as to restart everything. I saved my friend and got out of the car, but now I gotta get everything going again, you know?"

Margo looked at Brian.

I got up and walked down the hill to get the remote control. Margo followed me, sliding down on her bottom, sending frozen raindrops every which way. I bent down and picked up the remote control. "Here, c'mon, we gotta get back, that eighteen-wheeler's gonna do a shitload of damage to the car when I unpause everything." I took Margo by the elbow and pulled her a few yards away from the accident. I leveled the remote and pressed the button again.

Nothing happened.

My heart rate increased. I could feel it accelerate. "What?" I squeaked. I looked at the remote. "But... I put in new batteries, they're brand new. Of course they work. What the hell?" I flipped the remote over in my palm and ripped the compartment off and stared down at the batteries, knocking them out and carefully putting them back in again, being extra conscious of the polarity.

Again, though, when I tried the button, nothing happened.

"Maybe the remote's functionality is paused, too," Margo suggested.

The thought made a chill run down my spine. "But -- it can't be. It's what paused everything. How am I supposed to unpause if the remote is paused, too?"

Margo shrugged. "I've been trying to figure that out for years, remember?"

I sat down in the street. "No, no that's impossible. It can't be paused. How does something pause itself? That's impossible. I must be doing this wrong. Maybe I got faulty batteries. There's no telling how long batteries sit on the shelf in a gas station store, right? They could be expired." I knocked the batteries out of the compartment again and proceeded to replace them over and over again, each time desperately trying to unpause by hitting the play button and the pause button.

Margo stood beside me for a few minutes before she finally sat down on the pavement, too, and watched as I struggled with the compartment over and over.

"I missed this," she said suddenly.

"Missed what?" I asked absently, since I was still working at the batteries. She didn't answer. I looked up and saw she had her eyes closed. "Missed what?" I repeated.

She smiled, "The sound of noise that I'm not making."

"What?"

"Every sound I've heard for years has been generated by me - me moving something, me talking to myself, you know?" Margo closed her eyes and leaned back again, "But I can hear you now, and that's nice. I missed that."

I clicked the batteries back into place again one last time and then I sat still and I listened and she was right. The entire world was eerily silent. There were no night noises, no bugs, no distant hums from vehicles. The only sound that broke the silence was that of her breath going in and out of her lungs and I thought of the way the moon was always depicted in movies, where you can hear the Darth-Vadary breathing of the oxygen tanks.

And just like that, I understood completely why didn't want to be alone.
Chapter Five by Pengi
Chapter Five

Nick


I don't know how long I sat there pointlessly struggling with he batteries, but Margo was picking apart a blade of grass patiently the entire time, just listening to the sounds I was making. And I was making a lot of them, I guess, when you compared it to the creepy silence that surrounded us. I grunted and I groaned and I clucked my tongue and cussed under my breath and smacked the remote against my palm and rubbed the batteries against my knees. Normally, if I wasn't partially convinced that my entire life depended upon the remote, I would've slammed the fricking thing into the cement and let it shatter into fifty million pieces.

"Nick."

I heard Margo sit up.

"Huh?"

She didn't answer.

"Margo?" I turned and looked 'round at her. She was staring up the hillside. I followed her gaze. I dropped the remote. I catapulted to my feet.

Brian had moved.

I ran up the side of the hill, my hands shaking, my feet slipping on the grass. At one point I slid enough that I braced myself against the grass with my splayed hands and scrambled to stay upright. Brian, who had been in the awkward position I'd left him in hours ago, was now laying flat on his back.

I slammed to my knees by his head. "Brian..." I choked, desperate to know he was okay. "Brian?"

Slowly, his eyes opened.

"BRIAN!" I yelled. My voice echoed off the trees and the whatever else was out there around us. I grappled at his head, pulling him up onto my knees. "Brian, oh shit, you're awake. Oh shit." I felt my thoat closing up, though relief was all that was pouring through my veins.

His mouth quivered, like he was trying to say something.

"I'm so glad you're alive," I choked out. And it was at that moment that I realized how damn afraid I'd been that he wouldn't be. I realized that the nagging feeling that he'd die once I'd unpaused - just like my video game characters - had been eating at the edges of my mind this whole time.

He stared up at me, his eyes searching mine.

His mouth opened, forming a word, but I couldn't hear him. His body moved like he was shouting with all his strength, but still -- no noise.

"Brian? Brian - it's okay," I said.

His body suddenly fell limp against my lap.

"BRIAN!" I shouted. I shook him.

Margo sidled up behind me and hovered as I shook Brian desperately. "Nick," she said quietly. "I'm sorry, but --" Margo took my shoulders. "He's gone."

"Gone?" I whipped around to look at her. "No, he can't be gone. We're paused, where the fuck is there for him to go?" I stared up at her. "He can't." I shook my head. I saw the tears blurring my vision more than I really felt them.

"Nick, I'm sorry," Margo said, "But I saw this happen before once and - they don't come back. I don't know where they go to but... he's gone."

My throat burrned.

"But --" I choked. "I didn't get to tell him -- I didn't get to ---" I turned to look back at Brian. My world was shattering to about a hundred thousand pieces.

"He knows," Margo said.

I shook my head, still staring down at Brian. "He doesn't," I whispered, "Because the last thing I did was fight with him."




Brian


"NICK!"

The shout must've been trapped in my throat for eons. I could feel the shape of it still in there, like it was an object that I'd swallowed that had finally been removed. I struggled against the seatbelt restraints, grabbing at the air for him. My singular thought was to protect him because I couldn't imagine a world without Nick in it... even if it meant I wasn't in it. I grappled, trying to find him in the dark that surrounded me, but he wasn't there.

"Nick!" I shouted again, "No, Nick, where are you? Are you okay? Nick, answer me! Please!" And suddenly I remembered everything I'd been saying - the words that were falling out of my mouth when I saw the truck. "Nick please I"m sorry! I'm sorry!"

"Brian!"

"Nick?" I struggled more. I could hear him...

"Brian, it's okay... Everything's okay... Nurse! Nurse help!"

I needed out of this belt buckle. It was so tight and it was across my chest and -- and it was... soft.. and... over my legs? I ran my hands across it. It was... a blanket? My fingers moved over the dips and grooves, my hands feeling the cotton... I realized it wasn't dark, it was just my eyes were closed... and I slowly opened them, stopping my struggling, and winced against the brightest white light. I closed my eyes again, blocking it out. I didn't wanna die, I didn't wanna go to the light or whatever.

"Brian, its okay... I'm here."

That wasn't Nick's voice, I realized. And I opened my eyes slightly again, and the strangest feeling of deja'vu overcame me because in 1998 I had this exact same vision of this exact same angel this exact same way. "Leighanne?" I whispered, and I found my voice was a lot thicker and raspier than I'd heard it a few moments before. I stared up at her eyes - brilliant blue in a sea of platinum blonde hair and white, white, white ceiling beyond her.

"You're awake," she breathed, and the relief that flooded the words was thick and dreamlike.

"Where's Nick?" I asked.

The flicker went through her eyes for a mere second, but it was enough to stop my heart. I heard the monitor beep in reaction. "He's upstairs," she said simply once the flicker had disappeared. But she said it with the sort of hesitance that I knew she used when she was reserving some kind of terrible information from me, the way she did when she tried to protect me from something. Like when the fans said hateful things to her or when her wedding rings were stolen. Her voice was slow, and distinctly southern when she said things in that tone, like she was trying to distract me with the accent while she thought of how to tell me the news she had.

"Is he okay?" I asked, prodding.

Leighanne stared at me.

A nurse came in the room, pushing aside a bedside curtain I hadn't even realized was there, and Leighanne took the opportunity to lean away and I saw her cover her eyes as she turned to the window. The nurse leaned over me. "Welcome back, Mr. Littrell," she said, smiling. She went to a clipboard at my feet and mused over it a couple moments, then pulled her stethoscope from the wide pockets at her hips and slid it over her ears, "Let's see what's going on in there," she said, smiling as she returned to my head.

"Is Nick okay?" I asked her.

Leighanne turned around to look at the bed.

The nurse looked at her, then back at me, and her eyes did that thing that nurses eyes do when they remove themselves from a situation to tell cold, bare facts. When they aren't allowed to feel any emotions. "Your friend is in the ICU," she said. "He suffered severe brain trauma and he's in a coma. I'm sorry." She stood there in silence, staring at me, waiting for my reaction. I could see the muscles in her arm tense, ready to respond if I lashed out.

Leighanne was at my side again and I felt her hand grab my hand.

My throat burned. But - but I'd just been with him. We'd just been in the car. We'd just been arguing. I'd just been about to try to protect him, and -- that felt like seconds ago.

"How long has it been?" I asked, eyes flickering between the two of them.

"A week," Leighanne whispered.

Chapter Six by Pengi
Chapter Six

Brian


Leighanne had fallen asleep leaning against the bed, her hair sprawled behind her, eyes closed, lids fluttering ever so slightly as she dreamed. I slid my hand out of hers and pushed the blankets back as slowly as humanly possible, glancing at her periodically to make sure she wasn't waking up. This venture would most definitely not be Leighanne-approved. Or nurse-approved for that matter. I'd been asking all day and into the night for them to bring me to see Nick and they'd been saying no. I couldn't wait for them to decide when it was safe for me to go see him. I needed to see him now.

I didn't fully believe them that he was in a coma.

I'd heard him, damn it. I'd heard him talking to me, leaning over me on the hill by the accident.

I slid wobbly knees over the side of the bed, and with one last glance at Leighanne, I slid off the edge. My feet hit the tile and for one quavering moment I managed to stay up. Then my knees buckled and I went down hard and fast and I landed on the floor, my body slamming into it with a smarting pain that shot through my body.

Leighanne was up and at my side faster than I could've spelled her name. "What in the name of God do you think you're doing?" she gasped.

I winced and grabbed at my shoulder. I couldn't believe how fast I'd dropped. "I just - I wanted to --"

"You were going to see Nick, weren't you?" she asked in a disapproving voice.

"I need to see him," I said.

Leighanne sighed. "Brian..." she shook her head, and reached up to press the nurse's call button, then settled next to me again. She rubbed my shoulder for me and I lay there staring up at her, feeling weak. I couldn't even walk across a damn room. I closed my eyes. "He isn't even awake, sweetheart," she whispered.

"He has to be," I argued. "I heard him talking to me. We were... we were on a hill, overlooking the accident scene, and he was talking to me. He had my head on his knees and he said my name a lot and he was glad I was alive, and --" I thought about it, trying hard to recall Nick's exact words, but they were hazy. "Leighanne, he was right there, right next to me and --"

"Brian," Leighanne had nervous eyes, "Brian, there's no way."

"Of course there is, I'm telling you I --"

"Brian they pulled both of you out of the car. I was there. Kevin saw the whole thing from the tour buses, his driver saw you guys had to stop at the light and the bus pulled over, and Kevin was reading on the couch in the back and he heard the 18-wheeler lay on his horn. He called 911. The only reason y'all are alive at all is because at the last possible second you put your foot on the gas and managed to move enough that it wasn't a completely direct hit on Nick's door." Leighanne stared at me, her eyes serious. "You were never on the hillside. Nick was never awake. For that matter, neither were you until this morning."

I shook my head, "We had to have been, you just didn't see it, I heard --"

"It was a dream, or - or - or something," Leighanne stammered. "Brian, they had the jaws of life. They pulled apart that car trying to get you two out of it. They had to."

I felt sick to my stomach. I could still see the way Nick had looked at me, the way his eyes had burned into mine with relief and desperation and -- and now to find out it was all just a dream? I couldn't believe it. I felt... devastated.

Leighanne sighed. "You aren't going to relax until you see him, are you?"

I shook my head.

The nurse came in the room and saw me on the floor and a look of exasperate horror fluttered across her face and she hurried to help me up, latching her arms under mine. She grunted with the effort of lifting me up and moving with me as I got back onto the bed. Leighanne helped, too, and once they'd gotten me up, she turned to the nurse and said, "He's not going to relax until we bring him upstairs."

The nurse looked uncomfortable, but she sighed in the same way Leighanne had before - the sigh of caving in. "I'll go get a wheel chair," she said.




Nick


I sat there on the hill next to Brian, staring at the remote control at the bottom of the hill. If I'd managed to unpause quicker, would Brian still be alive? Had I fucked up and killed him? These were things going through my head. I wondered what it was like being dead in a paused world, then what it was like being dead at all, and I pressed my eyes against my forearm, staring down at the grass between my legs.

"Nick," Margo's voice was quiet.

"Leave me alone," I said.

She sighed and I heard her footsteps on the grass as she descended the hill. Part of me hoped she'd go away completely, that I'd be left here alone in this hell for the rest of my days. I deserved to die alone, I thought. It's not like there was much of anything to live for. I closed my eyes and waited for the loneliness to seep into my pores.

"What kind of remote is this thing anyways? It's got enough buttons it could be from freaking Star Trek or something," Margo's voice carried up the hill.

"It's a universal remote," I said without looking up, my voice muffled by my knees, "It controls my PlayStation, the TV, cable box, and stereo on my tour bus."

"Your tour bus?"

"I'm a singer. A Backstreet Boy. We're on tour."

"The Backstreet Boys are still around? Jesus."

I looked up. I hated that question - almost (but not quite) as much as I hated the question is that the band with Justin Timberlake? Margo was inspecting the remote control, turning it over in her hands. I stood up and walked down the hill and snapped it out of her hands. "You've heard of us, then?" I asked.

Margo looked surprised that I'd taken the remote. But she was quick. She snapped it back out of my grasp. She stared at me right in the eyes, "I'd have to live in a cave in Somalia not to, wouldn't I?"

"We're pretty big in Somalia."

"Do you even know where Somalia is?" she asked.

"Of course I do, it's --" I had no fucking clue. I hesitated. "It's just South of um, Russia."

Margo rolled her eyes.

I reached for the remote and she turned, taking it out of my reach. "Maybe you fucked up the wires in this thing," she suggested, and she popped the battery compartment cap off and shook the batteries out.

"Be careful with that," I commanded, "If you break it we're stuck here forever."

"We're already stuck here forever," she said.

"Not if I can fix that." I stretched, trying to get it away from her. She danced out of my grasp. "C'mon, stop it. I'm serious. It's mine."

"What are you? Four?" Margo asked, she backed away, wobbling the remote at me tauntingly, "Didn't you ever learn to share?"

I glowered. "You're gonna break it."

"I'm not going to break your remote, relax. Such a typical man, doesn't wanna share the remote control." Margo rolled her eyes again. This was apparently a signature motion of hers, the eye rolling. I wondered how she'd managed not to get them permanently stuck up inside her head or something. I watched with annoyance as she inspected the inside of the compartment and blew into it like she was messing with a Nintendo game cartridge.

"C'mon that doesn't do anything except get your spit in it," I argued.

Margo looked up, "Do you have problems with my spit?"

"When it's going into an electronic device that is quite possibly the only hope of me getting everything back to normal - yes, yes I do."

Margo made a disgusting honking noise as she hacked up some spit which she puckered her lips to show me.

"Stop that," I demanded as she pretended to aim at the remote. "You're not funny."

She turned and spit onto the ground, her eyes twinkling, "C'mon. I'm a little funny."

"You aren't funny at all. Gimme that thing." I hustled and took it out of her hands, though she really didn't put up a fight at all that time. "Of all the damn people in the entire fricking world for me to get stuck in a whole paused universe with and it had to be the most annoying girl ever..."

Margo's face lost the twinkle. She stared at me. "You don't mean that."

"Yeah I do," I said meanly. It felt good to be mean. I was frustrated, I was hurting, and she was annoying me and she didn't seem to care that I was hurting, so it felt extra good to be mean to her. So I said the meanest thing I could think of -- "I bet someone paused you just to make you shut the hell up. That's why you can't get unpaused. Cos whoever paused you is making damn sure you don't wake up."

Margo's eyes filled with tears.

Okay now I felt a little shitty.

"I'm sorry," I said.

"Fuck you," she said, and she stormed away into the dark.

I sighed. Damn, even paused I was a complete tool. I looked back at the hill, at Brian laying there, and I realized that the same spiteful, mean streak that I'd just acted out on Margo had been peppering Brian for the past ten years. No wonder he was being such an ass to me, he had to be just to deal with me. I'd been acting like a jealous kid for years - ever since he'd gone and gotten married and forgotten about me.

Now I really needed to get unpaused.

I looked at the remote and realized Margo still had the batteries and the compartment door.

"MARGO WAIT!" I ran after her.

Chapter Seven by Pengi
Chapter Seven

Nick


I followed the parted curtain of rain drops as I jogged along after Margo through the dark. "Wait, come back," I begged. "I didn't mean it. I don't even know you, how could I mean it? I'm just being a jerk. Come back."

I squinted through the paused rain and stared ahead. Along the side of the road were the tour buses. I stopped jogging and stared at them. My breath was caught up in my chest and I glanced in the direction Margo had gone. I wanted to go after her, but I also wanted to investigate the buses. I licked my lips and moved towards them slowly, my heart thumping so hard I could hear it echoing in my chest. Kevin's bus was the nearest to me. I walked around the end of it, pushing the rain out of my way in the glow of the brake lights.

I was about to pull open the door when --

"Don't."

I jumped in surprise as Margo's hand shot out and stopped my hand from opening the door. "Christ, you gotta stop sneaking up on me," I said.

"You don't wanna go in there."

"Why?"

Margo sighed, "It's just -- frustrating, seeing people you love paused and not being able to talk to them. That's all."

"But maybe it'll help unpause things," I said.

Margo shook her head, "How?"

"I dunno how, but I dunno how I got paused to begin with, so how am I to know what'll undo it?" I asked. I reached for the door again. "Look, you don't gotta come in, but --" I yanked the door open. "I'm going in."

I heard Margo follow me as I climbed the steps into Kevin's tour bus. "Kev," I called as I pulled myself to the top of the entry stairs. There were legos on the floor. Kristin was kneeling on the carpet, her hands cupped around a cluster of them, head turned and mouth mid-way forming a word she was about to shout to the back of the bus. "She must've been yelling to Kevin," I said, and I carefully stepped around her.

"She's pretty," Margo commented.

"Yeah I know," I answered.

Margo followed me through the bus, past the bunks where Mason was tucked in, and Max was snug in a carrier, fast asleep. She paused to look at the kids as I moved forward into the living quarters in the back of the bus. Kevin was standing at the window, his cellphone held to his ear, one hand pressed to the glass.

"Kevin," I said, excited. I rushed forward. "Kevin... Can you hear me, man?"

He didn't react, of course.

I moved to stand beside him. "Kev?"

I turned and looked out the window the same way he was looking and squinted through the dark. I could just see the headlights from the car and the eighteen-wheeler in the distance. I looked back at him and I could see the lines of worry and fear in his face. "I'm okay, Kev," I said. "I'm okay. Brian's --" I stopped. I couldn't. I turned away.

Margo stepped into the room.

I looked up at her.

"I told you, we shouldn't have come in here," she said.

I swiped away the tears that were falling across my cheeks and took a deep, shaking breath. "He's watching," I said, "He's watchin' the whole thing."

Margo looked at Kevin, then back at me.

"That's so like Kevin," I said thickly, "Always watching over everyone, you know? He's like the Dad, he's just always watching over everything. Making sure everything's ok."

Margo nodded.

I swiped my tears again. I felt like an idiot, crying like this. I never cried in front of people. It seemed to be coming more and more of a habit lately, though. I closed my eyes, willing the tears to stop.

"...much longer..."

I looked up. "What?"

Margo shook her head, "I didn't say anything." She'd turned and was looking at a series of framed photographs on a built-in bookshelf in the corner.

"But... I heard someone," I said. I turned around and looked around.

"We're the only two people moving, that's impossible," she said. "Plus, I didn't hear anything."

"...consider other options..."

"No dude, I hear someone," I said. I spun, listening, following a tinny, far-off voice until I realized the sound was coming from Kevin's cell phone. "It's the phone," I said, and I wheedled it out of Kevin's grasp, holding it to my ear. "Hello? Hello, hello?"

"...facilities that can care for patients with severe traumas like that which your son is suffering from. Many of them are capable of long-term care, if you're interested in that."

I pressed the phone to my ear. "Hello!" I yelled into it, "HELLO! CAN ANYBODY HEAR ME? HELLO!"

Margo was turned toward me, watching, her eyebrows cinched toether.

"Hello! I'm here! My name is Nick Carter and - I need your help! Who are you? Hello!"

"What are the odds of him waking up?"

That voice. That was my mom. "MOM?" I yelled. "MOM! It's me! It's Nick! MOM? Can you hear me?" My heart race increased. Why was Kevin calling my mom? I wondered. My palms got all sweaty. "MOM?"

"Honestly, they aren't very good odds. The amount of damage that has been done is nearly impossible to recover from..."

"HELLO? Mom? Mom?"

And suddenly the line went dead.

"No! Hey! Come back!" I turned to face Margo. "I heard my mom," I said.

Margo frowned. "I heard mine once, too," she said. "A long time ago."

"You did?"

"Yeah." Margo said hesitantly.

"What do you think is happening to us?" I asked. "Why is everyone on pause? Why aren't we?"

Her eyes met mine.

"Because in their world," she said slowly, "It's us who's paused."

Chapter Eight by Pengi
Chapter Eight

Nick


It probably should've occurred to me before that point, standing on Kevin's tour bus all blurry from tears, to ask Margo what her story was. But I'm a little selfish (anyone who knows me will tell you that) and I forget to ask stuff like that, even when I really care. It's the same weird streak of selfishness that makes me forget Brian's birthday every year - something that we always joke about but that probably really hurts his feelings deep down.

After all, Brian's never forgotten my birthday. Not even once. Not even when we were at our most cut-throat.

I looked up at Margo. "Which world is the real world?" I asked. "Ours or theirs?"

She shrugged, "I don't know."

"I feel real," I said. I ran my hand over my chest, feeling myself. "I'm tangible and stuff, aren't I? If you touch me, you touch me, right? You don't just go right on through?"

"Yeah," Margo said.

I was still touching my chest, as though making sure I was actually there. I frowned. "But stuff like this - this doesn't happen in the real world... this whole pausing thing." I took a deep breath. "So we're the fake ones?"

Margo shrugged. "I don't know."

"Well I mean if we're here and they're all here and they're paused here and we're somewere where they aren't paused and there we're paused... then where are we when we're paused and what's that mean, being paused, and how can we unpause us there so that everything can unpause here?"

Margo stared at me for a long moment. "What?"

"I know, that came out all fucky," I said. I took a deep breath. "Okay. So. Like... Like Kevin here. He's here, in my world, paused. Somewhere, in his world, he's unpaused. Right?"

"Yeah," Margo squinted, thinking as she tried to follow my trail of thought.

"So if we are in his world, too, and in his world, we are paused, where are we paused at? And what can we do to unpause ourselves there? Maybe if we can unpause us in their world we'll be able to get out of this paused world here."

"You mean like, line up unpaused us with paused us and maybe that'll unpause us?" Margo asked.

"Yes," I said. Because as fucky as the sentence was, it made complete sense... in context. "I think we need to figure out where we are in the unpaused world and go there and maybe it'll like, fix stuff."

"Okay," Margo said, "But... how in the world do we find ourselves? I mean, we could be anywhere."

"Well if we're paused, we probably ain't movin' too much so..."

"But other people could be moving us. I mean, you moved Brian out of the car, right, so unpaused people in their world could be moving paused us around wherever they like."

"Maybe," I said. I rubbed my chin. "But I mean we're probably in places we'd be most likely to be... Like I'm usually on my tour bus, playing video games. C'mon, let's go check out my tour bus." I suddenly had this excited feeling course through me 'cos, like, I was gonna get out of this nightmare in a second. I just knew I had it all figured out and this was gonna work. I galloped toward the door. Margo was still standing exactly where she'd been.

"Hey," I said, "Aint'cha gonna come?"

She hesitated. "Nick, I don't have any idea where I would be," she said quietly. "What if -- what if we get you over there to the other tour bus and you -- I don't know, what if you're right? What if you disappear on me and I'm here all alone again?"

As though to emphasize her worry, the silence that fell between us was so absolute that it felt solid and suffocating.

"Well," I said slowly, "I'm sure that's where I'd be, so... so we'll find you first and then I'll come back here and unpause myself the same way."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah."

A smile spread across her face. "You'd really stay here to help me like that?"

"Yeah," I said. "I mean, everything's paused, right? It's not like we ain't got time." I laughed.




Brian

Jane Carter was just coming out of the elevator when my nurse rolled me up the hallway. She was distracted, staring down in her purse and picking a Kleenex out of one of those little packages so at first she didn't see me. Then she looked up and her eyes landed on me and recognition flit through them and her jaw dropped. "Brian," she said.

"Hey," I said.

It had been years since I saw Jane. Literally, I think the last time I saw her, she'd come out to Los Angeles while we were recording the Unbreakable CD and she'd asked Nick for money while we were at the studio and Nick had looked thoroughly embarassed and asked if we could take a break and then he'd shuffled her out of the studio as quick as possible.

Other than on TV or whatever, I hadn't seen Jane since.

She'd aged a lot in that time, she had wrinkles under her eyes and she just looked tired. Like not sleepy tired, but, you know, lifetime tired. She forced a smile as she stared at me, "How are you?" she asked.

"I'm okay," I said, "I guess. I mean, for a guy who rumbled with an eighteen-wheeler." I paused. "How's Nick?"

Jane stiffened.

"Brian," Leighanne said quietly.

Jane held up a hand to silence Leighanne, her eyes never moving from me, "You just woke up, didn't you?" she asked. I nodded. Her eyes were so deeply sad, I don't even have words to describe them. She said, voice thick and shaking, "I can't believe that - I'm going to - lose another of my children."

Muscles tightened all over my body.

"I never really understood or appreciated Leslie or Nick," she said heavily, "Both of them were always such a mystery to me, always just a little bit -- I don't know, different, I suppose, than their siblings. But those two - ah, my rebellious, musical little souls." She shook her head, "I don't know how I'm going to come to terms with this."

My mouth was dry. "But he's not --"

"Dead?" Jane asked, her voice suddenly level. She shook her head, "Not yet."

"Yet?"

"Well the doctor says that it's time to consider -- other options," she said.

"Other options?" Leighanne's hand came down on my shoulder and she squeezed. I don't know if it was a comforting squeeze or a restraining squeeze. It could've been either. "What options?" I asked.

"We may have to..." Jane paused, "God, I can't even say it." She swiped a tear from her eye. "We might need to think about letting him go," she said.

Leighanne's hand tightened even more.

And it was a good thing because if she hadn't been holding me down, I probably would've leaped up from the damn chair. "That's not an option!" I said, my voice loud, "In what universe is letting Nick go an option?" I demanded.

Jane pursed her lips, "It's not fair to make him hang on when there's no chance of him coming to, Brian. The doctor said that it's nearly impossible for someone with that - that kind of trauma to recover. He hasn't moved in over a week..."

"So? It took me a week!" I said, "Nick's always been a little slower than everyone else! He always comes late!"

Jane swiped another tear. "Not this time, I'm afraid, Brian," she said. "He's basically gone already. It's only machines keeping him alive isn't it? It would be selfish to keep him here." She paused. "I would think that you above all people would understand and believe that as well."

I closed my eyes.

There might've been a time that I would've. But for God's sake, I saw him. I know that somehow that was him. It wasn't a dream... I couldn't explain what I'd seen, what I'd heard... but I knew it was real. Somehow it had to be.

"I need to go home and look over this paperwork and talk to BJ and the twins," Jane said thickly. "Are you going up to visit him?"

"Yes," Leighanne said for me. My teeth were gritted, I realized.

"Good luck," she said. She reached down and touched my shoulder softly. "And I'm sorry, Brian. I know the two of you meant a good deal to each other." And just like that, Jane walked away, her heels clicking on the tiles.

I closed my eyes again as the nurse wheeled me into the elevator. Leighanne followed and the doors dinged closed and a feeling of panic rushed over me, afraid of what I would see when I got into his room.

Chapter Nine by Pengi
Chapter Nine

Brian


I was terrified.

Leighanne walked slower and slower the closer we got to Nick's room. The nurse paused the wheelchair approximately seven times to douse my hands and arms with Germ-X. "I thought the fans were the only one this paranoid about the Nick Plague," I joked. I always made jokes when I was nervous. Nick would've understood. He would've joined me in joking around, or at least laughed nervously and hung back like he was trying to duck behind me or something. Neither Leighanne nor the nurse even cracked a smile, though, which only made me more nervous.

My hands were shaking by the time the nurse had wheeled me into a little room and closed the door. She made me wash my hands again with Germ-X then gave me gloves and a jacket and helped Leighanne gear up, too. She paused and took a deep breath, leaning against the door, her hand on the handle. "Just... to prepare you..." she said slowly, "He's probably not going to look a lot like himself. He's going to be swollen, from the machines and everything. And there may be a little... discoloration... in his fingers."

I nodded. I knew the drill. I'd been in plenty of hospitals, seen plenty of sick people.

The nurse pushed the door open.

I heard Leighanne gasp before I wheeled myself close enough to see him.

I lost my breath somewhere in my throat the moment my eyes rested upon him... and then I think I passed out.




Nick

"Okay. So. Where were you the last time you remember being, you know, not here?" I asked.

I was sitting at the table in Kevin's bus. I had a couple sheets of paper and some crayons of Mason's that I'd managed to scrounge up (can you believe Kevin didn't have any pens on his bus in any of the drawers?), and I was poised, ready to take notes so we could find Margo's paused-self and get on with our lives. I looked up at her. She was leaning against the counter, staring up at the ceiling, cracking her knuckles methodically.

Margo made ducklips with her mouth and breathed out her nose, then moved the pucker side to side as she thought. "It's been a long time," she said, "I think I was coming out of - of a mall. I was shopping. I got a dress." She bit her lip.

I wrote down "dress store" on the paper in purple crayon. And "mall". I looked up at her. "Then what?" I asked.

Margo stopped cracking her knuckles.

"Do you remember?"

"Yeah," she answered. She turned away and looked down at Kevin's sink. She picked up a glass that was really a Welch's jelly jar with Smurfs painted on the side of it. Kevin collected those things. He had billions of them, I swear. He'd gotten a huge portion of his collection from his father, who died a long time ago, and he'd been adding to it since. He always bought the little jars of jelly for the tour buses and he went in antique stores to get old ones. He only ever brought extras on tour. Margo turned the smurf glass in her hand and I watched her fingers move over the paintings of Papa and Blondie.

"What happened?" I asked.

Margo was quiet. "There was... this guy."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah."

In the silence that followed her yeah, the skin on my arms crawled and I realized she meant a guy. Like, a bad guy. I stared at her, and I suddenly hated the mystery guy, with every bit of me. She was so... so... well, I dunno the adjective, but she was it, whatever it was, and I couldn't picture anyone hurting her.

"I'm sorry," I said, "You don't deserve that."

Margo's breath shuddered and she shook her head, but she didn't answer outloud.

It was one of those type moments that I always feel really awkward in. Like, do girls want us guys to recognize the fact that they're crying, or would they rather be left alone? I can't ever tell. I get in more trouble because of this awkward now what type situations. Margo brought one hand up to cover her eyes, and I decided that I couldn't ignore it. I put down the crayon and slid out of the seat and moved up behind her and, after briefly hesitating about what the hell to do with my arms, I wrapped my arms around her.

It was funny because I hadn't held anyone since Lauren and... well, Margo kinda fit just right, like a puzzle piece I'd been missing and hadn't even realized I was. I was reminded of that book by that Shel Silverstein guy about the lil circle dude that's missing a triangle of himself and he goes looking and finds it and it's perfect and here she was. My triangle.

"It's gonna be okay," I whispered.

Margo turned around and she pressed her face into the crook of my neck and I closed my eyes as I felt her wet eye lashes against my skin and her breath on my throat. I ran my hands along her back and held her tight while she cried.

"It's gonna be okay," I repeated.

"I haven't thought about him since it happened," she choked out the words, "I was trying not to. I was afraid if I did..." she stopped.

I slid my fingers down her spine, "Like it'd be more real if you admitted it."

"Yes," she whispered.

I nodded.

"I just -- Didn't he take enough away from me, why did he get to take away time from me, too?" she asked.

"Life ain't fair," I replied. "Good things don't always happen to the people who deserve them, and bad things certainly don't happen to the people that deserve them either."

"But I guess there's a silver lining," she said softly.

"Is there?"

"I wouldn't have met you if we weren't here," she said. She pulled back a little bit and she looked up at me. "That's a good thing, isn't it?"

I nodded. "It is. Very good."

Margo smiled - it was a teeny smile, but it was a smile nonetheless.




Brian

I opened my eyes. I was laying on my back in bed again. Leighanne had a worried expression on her face. "Brian," she whispered, "Thank God."

"I'm okay," I said. I struggled to sit up. We were back in my hospital room. I licked my lips. "Nick - he's --"

"Upstairs," Leighanne nodded.

"How long was I out just now?"

"About ten minutes," she answered.

"We need to go back up there," I pleaded.

She shook her head, "Not until you're stronger," she answered.

"But you heard Jane," I said, "I only have just so long to talk him into waking up again before she's gonna -- give up on him." I stared into Leighanne's eyes. "Baby, I can't let that happen to him..."

Leighanne sighed, "Brian. You saw him..."

Had I ever. I felt woozy just thinking about what I'd seen, just remembering the way he'd looked so... un-Nick-like. I closed my eyes a moment, then took a deep breath, "But he's in there, I know he is. Deep down. He's just gotta be."

Leighanne frowned.

"I know he's there." I sighed. I shook my head. "Lauren must be freaking out."

"Lauren?" Leighanne looked surprised.

"Yeah, you know. Nick's fiance. Lauren."

Leighanne's eyes were concerned. "Brian..."

"What?"

"Okay how do you not know that they broke up?"

I blinked. "When?"

"Back in June... Before the tour even started. Honey, he's been moping around for months about it. How do you not know that?" Leighanne asked.

"I -- I dunno, we were fighting..."

"Yeah but, even I know that."

I felt like a complete failure of a friend. How did I miss something that huge. Why hadn't Nick mentioned it before? I stared up at Leighanne. "What happened between them?"

Leighanne shrugged, "I have no idea. He broke up with her, though. I don't know why. I heard this all second hand from Leigh, and she heard it from Howie." Leighanne was straightening some flowers in a vase on the nightstand. She carefully kept her eyes adverted from me. "You two have been fighting a long time," she commented.

I nodded.

"Is it because of me?" she asked.

I didn't want to say yes, so I didn't say anything at all. Instead I said, "I need to figure out a way to stop Jane from giving up on him."

Leighanne finished moving the flowers around and sat down in the chair beside my bed. Her hand slid across the blankets and took hold of mine. She said, "I'm sorry."

I looked over at her. "It isn't your fault, really. It's just..." I thought about it. What was it? I wondered. I stared down at the pattern of the blanket. And I realized that Nick had counted on me to be the closest thing to a father figure in his life - as the person with, basically, custody of him during tours, I'd become a sort of surrogate father figure to him and I, just like his real father, had left him behind for something else.

All this time, all these fights, and all the guy had wanted was to know that he wasn't being forgotten by a second father.

"It's just that I let him down," I said.

Chapter Ten by Pengi
Chapter Ten

Nick


It was Margo's idea to try one of the cars to see if we could drive it. We carefully moved coffee and cell phone guy out of his BMW and put him on the grassy hill beside the roadway. "I'm sorry, dude, but if I'm right about how all this is workin' you'll never know we stole your car anyways," I said as we put him down and climbed into his car. I turned the key in the engine so that it was off, then turned it back on and the engine hummed to life. I grinned at Margo.

It was tedious, weaving between paused cars along the freeway. But we had a lot of ground to cover and not a lot of time to get it covered in. I drove about twenty miles an hour along the interstate until Margo pointed. "That's the exit there," and I veered off into the country side.

It felt weird, being so far away from where this had all started, like being lost or... stretched out... or something. I can't quite explain it. Like I could feel the proximity to -- to something and I knew I was far off from it, whatever it was.

Margo waved toward a side street and I put my blinker on, even though there wasn't anyone around to see it, and the car made it's way through a labyrinth of back roads until she finally said, "Oh my God, there it is."

I came to a stop in the middle of the road and we sat there staring at a small house. Margo undid her seatbelt and climbed out of the car and as I turned it off and got out, too, she was already halfway across the lawn. It was her house, she said, where she lived with her mother and father. I left the keys in the car. I was more likely to lose them than anyone was to steal them. I walked across the lawn. Margo was already inside the house, the front door wide open.

"Things have changed!" she was yelling as I walked in the door, "When you came... things changed... I was here jus a couple days ago... Nick, look. My mom, she's cooking... she's cooking!" I followed the sound of her voice past displays of school photos and a couch that smelled like other people and into a kitchen where a woman with short blonde hair that reminded me of Mrs. Brady was cooking what looked like a pot roast. Oh what I would've given for that to be completely cooked already and unpaused. Damn.

Margo was staring up at her mother's face. Tears filled her eyes, "Momma, I miss you," she gasped.

"This house is really nice," I said. It was homey. It reminded me of my gramma's house.

"I grew up here," Margo said.

"It's nice."

"The walls in here used to be pale yellow and this weird green color. My mom hated the old paint, she always threatened to repaint it." Margo looked around. The walls were red and cream colored now. There was an assortment of rooster things around, including a teapot shaped like a rooster.

"How old were you?" I asked. "When everything -- you know, paused?"

"Twenty-three," Margo said.

I studied her. She didn't look twenty-three.

"So how do you think this works?" Margo asked, "Like do I need to figure out where I am and like... I dunno, walk into myself? Do you think we'll be able to see ourselves?"

"I dunno," I replied. I tried to think if I'd ever seen anything like this happen in a movie, but I didn't think I had. I shrugged, "Let's see if we can find you, I guess." I looked around. "Where do you think you'd be?"

"Probably my room," she said.

"Okay then, let's go."

She led the way to the stairs and I followed and we moved through the dark upstairs hallway quietly. "I can't believe I have a boy coming in my room right now, she'd kill me if she was moving," Margo said as she reached for the door handle on the second door on the left.

I smirked in the dark. "Well it's not like it's like that," I pointed out as she pushed the door open and we stepped inside.

Her bedroom was... well, it was empty. She stood in the doorway, jaw dropped, looking around. "Where's... where's all my stuff?" she choked. She swiveled, looking around, desperate. "My records... my books... where's my lamp? And my diploma always hung right here.. and..." her face turned red, "I had a shelf with like every beanie baby ever over here."

"You collected Beanie Babies?"

Her face was redder.

"Dude I ain't makin' fun, I got 'em all in a big trunk back at home," I said, "I even had Humphrey the Camel, man, but I got him before I was smart and I ripped all his tags off. Mother fucker went from being worth $950 to being worth like $5." I shook my head.

Margo stared at me. At first I thought she was, like, I dunno, confused or something, but then she blurted out, "YOU RIPPED THE TAGS OFF HUMPHREY THE CAMEL?"

I nodded.

"Oh my God, why am I even associating with you?" she turned around and paced around the empty room.

"Well I bet you didn't have Humphrey the Camel at all," I grumped.

"If I did, it would still have the tags on it," she said.

"If mine still had the tags on it, I would've sold it by now," I said.

Margo stopped and stood in a corner and frowned, "This is where my bed was," she commented. She looked at me. "My parents got rid of all my stuff. She painted the kitchen and she got rid of all my stuff." Tears filled Margo's eyes. "They really don't think I'm coming back, do they?"

It didn't look it.

"Maybe... maybe they just... put it in storage or uh moved it to another room."

Margo shook her head.

I sighed. "I'm sorry," I said.

Margo stepped out into the hallway and left the empty room behind. "I'm not here," she said, trotting down the stairs. She reached the bottom and moved into a living room, "I'm not gonna be here anywhere." I followed after her.

An old man was sitting on the couch in the living room, a remote control in his hand, raised and aimed at the TV set. Margo moved to his side and gingerly sat down on the couch. "Hey Pops," she said, and she hugged his frozen arm.

I snuck over and peered down at the remote. "Just for the hell of it..." I said, and I reached down and hit the pause button on the remote control he held.

Nothing happened.

"Well it was worth a shot," I said.

Margo was staring up at his face.

"This your dad?" I asked.

"My grandfather," she replied. "He has Alzheimer's." I stared at the old man all paused and old and staring at the TV set through squinty eyes. "He probably doesn't even know I'm gone," Margo said. "He probably doesn't remember me. He barely remembered me when he saw me everyday."

I didn't know what to say really. One of my grandmothers had a touch of Alzheimer's once but she'd died before she got too bad so I didn't really know what it felt like to be one of the people left behind. I shuffled my feet.

"We should go," Margo said. "I'm not there."

I nodded. She stood up reluctantly and ran a hand over the old man's hand as we ducked away and out of the house. We walked back to where I'd left the BMW sitting and Margo climbed in and looked away from the house. I climbed in, too, and put my hands on the wheel, though the car wasn't started yet, and I took a deep breath.

"Okay so you've been... gone... awhile, right?"

Margo shrugged, "Apparently. I mean, it's felt like years and years, and maybe it has been, but... you might've noticed, time kinda moves different here. It's hard to tell what is what and how long I've been where..." She twiddled her thumbs, "Especially when I'm alone. I mean it's been... how long since you've been here?"

It felt like days or even weeks, but it's not like the sun had come up or nothin' so maybe it was still the same night. I couldn't tell. She was right, time moved different here.

"I'm not sure," I said. "Is it always dark?"

"Always," Margo replied.

"Then I'm really not sure," I said.

Margo nodded. "See?"

I nodded back.

Then, "Okay so... like... Where do they take people who are paused?"

Margo rubbed her hands on her jeans, "Well. Most people in comas are in the hospital."

Until she said the word, I hadn't even thought of being in a coma. I know we'd been suggesting that the two of us were paused in another world, but I'd kind of envisioned it more like it was here, where people were suspended in mid-action driving, talking, eating, sleeping... getting cremated by eighteen-wheelers. I hadn't thought about it being something that seemed like a natural phenomenon in the Real World.

"So where's the nearest hospital?" I asked, turning the key in the ignition.

Chapter Eleven by Pengi
Chapter Eleven

Brian


I was getting frustrated.

I was still bed-bound almost a week later and I think everyone was getting sick of me asking about Nick. Kevin, Howie, and AJ had been by to visit me, as had Eddie, a couple of our bodyguards, and, of course, my family. I asked every one of them if they'd been to see Nick and if they had how he was looking, if Jane was up there, and what the doctors were saying about his status.

"I know you're feeling... all kinds of stuff," Kevin said gently during one of his visits after I'd made him go up to check on Nick to give me a status update, "But I don't know if this is, you know, healthy." He paused and chewed his lip, "Brian... I hate to say this, but I kind of agree with Jane."

"What?" I stared up at Kevin in disbelief. "You agree with his mother?" I demanded. "His mother."

Kevin shuffled his feet, "Brian, he ain't lookin' good up there, and -- it gets worse every time I come."

I looked at the blankets. "He's gonna pull through," I whispered. "He has to. I saw him, he's alive somewhere, Kevin."

Kevin's eyes were sad. He pulled up a chair. "Brian... that night, the night when the accident happened, I saw the whole thing. It wasn't your fault, man."

I refused to look at him. My heart felt like it might explode I was so angry with him. With him and with every other person who thought Nick was going to die (and yes, that was including myself at times). I stared away across the room where Leighanne had left a bag of yarn and some knitting needles. She was knitting a scarf for her father for Christmas. We were almost at the end of September. I chewed my lip.

"Yeah, you braked late, yes the car hydroplaned, Brian," Kevin said. "But so did the truck. That truck had it's right turn signal on, and it veered way to the left when it hit you. It was out of control on the ramp."

"We were fighting, Kev," I said.

"When weren't you fighting?" he asked.

"Exactly," I said. I shook my head. "Exactly."

"You can't take this on yourself, Brian," Kevin said, "And frankly, there's no amount of guilt you'll feel that could change it so you shouldn't allow it to sneak in." He smoothed the edge of the blanket in a nervous sort of way. "You know when my Dad died, I blamed myself for weeks?"

"Why?"

"Because I went to see him when I wasn't feeling too great," Kevin said. "It was just jetlag, and I knew that then, too, but I had myself convinced that I'd had a cold or something and that he'd caught it from me and that was why he died. But you know, even if I did have a cold and he did catch it from me, it still wouldn't be why he died. He died because it was his time. And if Nick dies, it's not because of you, it's because it's his time."

I shook my head.

"Or because of Jane," Kevin added.

"She been around?" I asked as casually as I could. I'd been spending all my time desperately trying to find some law that would help me keep her from pulling the plug on Nick, but I couldn't find anything. It wasn't the first time Google search had failed me but it was the first time that I needed an answer as desperately as I did now. I picked at my fingers.

Kevin's voice was level, "She has."

"And?"

"I told you, Brian, I kind of agree with her. I think if he doesn't wake up soon that it's... time."

I looked up at him. "Nick wouldn't have wanted ---"

"Nick did want that, actually," Kevin interrupted. And he turned and rummaged through a small duffle bag of stuff he'd brought me. He pulled out a journal. "I found this on Nick's tour bus," he confessed. He hesitated, turning it over in his hands and looking at the leather. It was one of those nice journals you can get at Barnes & Noble. "I... perused a little through it," he said.

"Nick is gonna kill you," I said. He was such a private person.

Is.

He is such a private person.

Kevin slid his finger through a page he had earmarked and he held it out to me. "This is enough to uphold Jane's request to end futile life support," he said.

I took the journal.

Nick's chickenscratch handwriting filled the page, a scrawling, rambling mess of thoughts and doodles that, for most people, would be hard to understand. If you knew Nick, though, if you knew how his mind worked, it was like opening up his head and looking inside. I stared down at the page.

Its bad to say it but I'm kind of happy for Leslie in a twisted kinda way. Nobody would understand that I don't think except that at least she's done with suffering. She didn't die slow and she doesn't gotta be sad again. She just is dead, just gone. Lingering isn't anyway to live and I think she's been lingering for a long time, like being on those pills were her life support machines and she just finally pulled the plug. I believe in pullin' the plug I guess. I dunno. I mean she's gone, I miss her. But she's happy now. Happier then we ever made her here and I wish she wasn't gone and I don't believe in suicide but sometimes it harder letting go than it is taking the leap. I don't know. I don't know what to believe sometimes. I know if I was dying, if I was mostly dead, I'd wanna be let go. Lingering isn't anyway to live.

This diatribe was peppered with doodles of the logo of some video game that he played constantly and a pretty accurate life-size, three-dimensional sketch of a pack of tic-tacs.

I looked up at Kevin.

"This was written when he was depressed about Leslie," I said.

Kevin took the journal back and unfolded his earmark. Underneath was the date. It was dated two days before the accident.

My heart ached. He still hurt and thought this much about Leslie, nearly two years later? I closed my eyes. How long had Nick been screaming out for someone to talk to, someone besides this bloody journal, and I'd just been ignoring him, too absorbed in my own life and my own anger with him to even notice that he needed me.

"I don't care," I said, "I don't care what he said two days before the accident, I don't care what Jane thinks, or, for that matter, what you think. I'm his best friend and I've maybe fucked up a lot in the last ten years but I owe it to him to stand up for him and protect him. I owe him my belief in him." I shut the journal heavily. "Nick is a fighter, he's always been a fighter, and he needs us to remember that part of him and fight for him, Kevin."

Kevin sighed. I could tell he wanted to argue with me further but that he knew it was pointless to try. He turned back to the duffle bag and rummaged around again. A moment later his hands emerged with Nick's iPod.

"What's that for?" I asked.

Kevin was raveling Nick's earbuds around the player. "I thought he might... I dunno... respond to some music or something."

"That'd be nice," I said.

Kevin slid the iPod into his pocket. "I'll be back in a little bit. I'm gonna go visit him."

I nodded.

"Say hi to him for me," I requested.

Kevin saluted in reply and stepped out the door of my hospital room. I looked down at the journal on my lap and ran my fingers over the cover slowly. I felt like I was holding his soul. I looked up the ceiling, pictured him a few floors above me.

"You gotta wake up, buddy. Prove'm all wrong. Just like the old times," I begged quietly. "You got this. I know you do. Just wake up... please."

Chapter Twelve by Pengi
Chapter Twelve

Nick


The city was the weirdest thing I'd seen yet in this paused world. There was just so much going on, even in the middle of the night. There were people braving the night and the rain, carrying cups and newspapers and holding their jackets and hats close to them. One guy had an umbrella that was about to turn inside out. And there was a maze of cars to maneuver through, too, and as the city became more and more congested the closer to the center we got, we had to drive the car slower and slower until finally I couldn't go any further and I stopped the car. "I think we're at the end of the line," I said.

"It's only a little further," Margo said, pushing her side door open, "Like two or three miles."

A few months before, two miles wouldn't have sounded so terrible. But since Lauren -- Well, I hadn't been exercising lately. All the machines at the gym reminded me of her. Especially the ones that she did better than I did. I was falling into old habits of pizza and video games. Except for that one kale salad. But I legitimately liked the kale. So... Kale's a good topping on pizza, by the way.

Now two miles sounded as ambitious as attempting to climb Mount Everest.

I followed along behind Margo anyways, headed for the hospital, feeling an awful lot like the first few episodes of the Walking Dead when Rick walks into the desolate streets of Atlanta on that horse that ends up being Zombie feed. It's a good thing that there wasn't anything except the two of us around to make unexpected noises or else I would've been jumpy as fuck thanks to the idea of zombies traveling through my mind. As it was, I started looking extra carefully at all the paused people whose glassy eyes were frozen looking exactly where they'd been lookin' when I hit the pause button.

Since Margo knew where she was going (and I didn't even know what city we were in). I watched as she led the way, her hair swooshing as she walked. She was pretty but in a normal sort of way, you know, like real-girl-pretty as opposed to celebrity-girl-pretty. The kind of pretty that the girl next door would be, or the kind of pretty that the person still appreciates being told they're pretty.

So I blurted it out.

"You're pretty."

Margo stopped short and I almost walked into her. The green lights of a four-way intersection glowed down on us, the criss-cross pattern of the headlights broke the dark... if stuff suddenly unpaused we'd be flattened by a stampede of taxi cabs. She turned to look at me. "Why in the world would you say that for?" she demanded.

I shrugged, "Why not?"

"Because you're lying," she answered."

"What?"

"I ain't pretty, you don't think that I am, so why say it?"

"I wouldn't have said it if I didn't think it," I said, "You dunno what I do and don't think." Margo studied me for a long moment, her eyes seeming to judge me or something. She licked her lips as she thought - in a cute, sexy lil way that was almost hypnotic. "Now you're sexy," I said thickly.

It was nice feeling --- whatever this was --- for someone again, I thought.

I took a step closer to her, took he hands in mine.

Margo shook her head and pulled her hands away, "Uh-uh," she said quietly, "No. Don't start this unless you're gonna finish it."

"Oh I'll finish it alright," I said, and I stepped closer again.

"What if we unpause and you - you change your mind once you're back in the real world doing your real life things?" she asked. "You're not gonna be interested in someone like me anymore then, are you."

"Of course I will," I replied.

She snorted.

"I will," I said.

"What if we can only unpause you?" she asked. "Don't start it unless you can promise me I won't be alone again."

"I promise," I said. "If we can only unpause me then -- then I won't unpause ever. I'll stay here with you forever. You'll never be alone again. I'll be here. I promise."

It was rash, but as the words came out of my mouth I knew they were true. They felt right, they felt good, they felt real. Realer than anything else in this weird little paused world. And for the first time in my life I had the weirdest thought.

This is what Brian felt like when he met Leighanne. Like nothing else in the entire universe - in either universe in my case - mattered, other than being with her. Of course he didn't wanna play basket ball or fight about which superhero would kick which other superhero's ass.

He was in love.

And that's when I realized something else.

I was in love, too.




Brian


When Kevin returned to my room he had a dire look on his face. He stood in the doorway, his hands in his pockets. I was eating a plate of food they'd brought me that included incredibly bland macaroni and cheese, dry chicken nuggets, and a bowl of cream corn. "I'd kill for a burger," I said when he first walked in, before I noticed the expression on his face. I put down my spoon with a clatter on the tray. "He's okay?" I asked.

Kevin nodded.

My heart rate slowed. I picked the spoon back up.

"For now," he muttered.

I looked at him, a bite of mac and cheese halfway between the tray and my mouth. "For now?" I asked, lowering it back down.

Kevin walked across the room and sat on the edge of the bed. He picked up one of the chicken nuggets and chewed it contemplatively. I stared at the side of his head, waiting for him to say more. Finally, he said, "Jane's giving him three days."

I choked. I don't know what on, I didn't have anything in my mouth. I just choked. I started coughing like crazy, so hard my esophagus felt like it was coming up through my neck and my eyes watered. I held my arms up, trying to stop the chokage and Kevin jumped up and patted my back 'til the coughing fit subsided.

"THREE days?" I squeaked the moment I could get any sort of words out of my mouth.

Kevin sighed. "Yeah," he said. "Three days."

"But -- but I thought --" I shook my head, "Three days isn't enough time --"

"Brian." Kevin looked down at the tile as he spoke, avoiding my eyes, "I told you already what I think."

"Kev... I saw him, I talked to him."

Kevin shook his head, "Brian, you had a dream."

"No, Kev, I know dreams. I know dreams and this was no dream. This was real. As real as you and me right now talkin', man. Just as real as this. I couldn't talk to him, but he talked to me. I know he's in there, Kev. I know he is. We just gotta figure out what'll wake him up and --"

Kevin interrupted me, "He's brain dead, Brian. His brain does not function. It's like he's turned off."

"Maybe he's just paused," I said.

Kevin shook his head, "He's dead, Brian. All that's there is a shell. Some body tissue that's shaped like Nick. But Nick isn't in there. He can't be, or he'd be responding in some way."

He'd said the D-word.

It was like all the oxygen in the world had been sucked into the blackhole that was the D-word.

"I can't believe you," I snapped, "What happened to sticking together through everything, to the Backstreet Family, to all of us being there for each other? What happened to we can make it through anything?"

"Brian, you gotta know I'm right about this. Nick wouldn't have wanted to just lie in a bed, breathing because machines are making his chest rise and fall. He wouldn't have wanted that. And if you were really his family, if you were really his best friend, you wouldn't want that either. He deserves peace for once in his god-damned life!" Kevin's voice rose at the end and he slammed his fist on the rolling tray and my lunch bounced.

I looked down at my hands.

"Doesn't he deserve some peace?" Kevin asked thickly.

I nodded.

"But he deserves a chance, too," I mumbled.

Chapter Thirteen by Pengi
Chapter Thirteen

Nick


I would've kissed her there in the middle of the intersection. That had kinda been my intention, really, but I dunno... After having my big revelation and everything I got kinda stupid and awkward and instead of leaping forward and sweeping her into a kiss that would've left her socks knocked off I got all tongue-tied and stumbled along after her through the city toward the hospital, silence surrounding us other than the sounds of each other's foot falls.

I tried to picture life there in a paused world, just me and Margo. We could have it all, really, virtually anything that we wanted. Food, water, shelter. We could travel - at least within the continental area (I had no idea if a plane could work given the paused air currents and shit and besides that there wasn't no way in hell I was gonna drive that). The entire world was literally ours for the taking.

Maybe, I thought, it wouldn't be such a terrible thing if we couldn't figure out how to unpause ourselves. Maybe, really, this was better than being unpaused anyways. There was nobody here to hurt us, nothing to tear us apart.

It occurred to me that I'd be okay - I didn't really care where I ended up, as long as Margo was there. As long as we ended up together, the world could be paused, unpaused, or not even there.

I didn't need it.

But I could see the determination and the slight fearful excitement that danced around the edges of Margo's eyes. I knew she wanted to be unpaused, she wanted the other world. She wanted everything going again, everyone moving. She wanted the life she'd been ripped out of back.

So I was gonna do everything I could possibly do to help her get it back.

"So," I said slowly as we walked, "What do you do? You know, for, like, a living or whatever?"

Margo looked up from her concentration on the street. This was a) the first time that I'd spoken in a really long time, and b) the first real question I'd asked her outright about herself. I realized I had about a gazillion more I wanted to know, too, just bubbling under the surface, waiting to be asked.

"I just finished school when everything happened," Margo replied.

"High school?" I asked astounded.

Margo laughed, "College," she replied. "That was years ago though."

"What'd you study?" I asked, relieved and also impressed. I was in love with a smart girl.

"Psychology."

"Ironic," I said.

"Is it?" she asked.

"Given that we're wandering around... well, here," I waved my arms around the city, "While in another world we're like, in comas or something. I think that's ironic, yes?"

Margo laughed, "True."

"What would a psychologist say about all this?" I asked.

Margo hummed thoughtfully, "Well, probably that one of the two of our subconcious minds were making this entire thing up. Including the other person." She eyed me and we stopped walking, facing each other as her words sank in between us. Both of us were wondering. The air was thick with wondering.

"Well I'm definitely the real one," she said.

"All the imaginary girls say that," I said, smirking.

Margo laughed.

I realized we were standing in front of the hospital and that the ER's flourescent lights were bathing Margo and I in brilliant white light. We were standing a few feet away from the ambulance bay and there were people frozen in place in the middle of unloading the patient from the back, surgeons in their blue scrubs rushing across the lot, faces paused in wild shouts of distress, forever caught in the height of their adrenaline.

Okay so this - the hospital ER - was definitely the weirdest part I'd seen. Unlike the city streets where the people were kinda far between and mostly bundled up against the rain, the people in the ER were busy responding and running and shouting, expressions of panic and worry and fear and pain stuck on their faces, tears caught mid-cheek, spatters of blood floating in the air.

It was hypnotizing, seeing all the people like his, wondering how many of them would be gone if we managed to unpause the world. I lingered in the center of the forray, wondering what it was like for them, the paused people. Could they see us? Hear us? Were they feeling things, like pain, or were they like a mirage or a prop that was there just for me and Margo to see and nothing more?

"Nick... c'mon," Margo called from the door.

I quickly trotted after her and she led the way down a long hall, pausing at the corner to read the directional sign. We hung a left. "What are we looking for?" I asked.

"Directions," she said.

"It's not like there's gonna be a sign that says Margo's Paused Self is This Way," I said.

"No but the nurse's stations will have computers loaded with hospital records and if we can access those we can find out if I'm even here by looking up my name."

I swear, the woman was brilliant.

We walked down several long hallways - these were populated with way happier faces than those in the ER. We passed people in the hallway - both patients and not. At the end of the hallway, we passed several open doors and saw a man in a walker standing by a huge square desk with a pot of flowers on the counter. He was sniffing them.

"There we go," Margo said, running around the desk. She carefully pulled the mouse and keyboard out of the paused hands of a nurse sitting behind the counter. She started typing and I looked around and studied the hallway as she muttered to herself and the keyboard clicked. When she hit enter, there was a long pause and I turned around to make sure everything was ok when she let out a hoot.

"Oh my God, Nick, there I am!" she shouted, "Margo Hunt, room ICU-8."

"I like the number eight," I rambled. "Eight's my lucky number, you know. There's a ton of eights in my life, you know. Like I was born in 1980 on day 28 of January... My phone number, that has a ton of eights, and every address I've ever lived in has at least one eight in i, and I liked being eighteen and twenty eight. I'll have to let you know about thirty-eight," I said with a laugh. I paused. "If I live that long," I said.

Margo stared at me. I thought for sure she thought I was metal until she said, "God, Nick, I'm scared now that the moment's here."

"It's gona be okay," I said.

"How do you know?" she asked, "What if it doesn't work? What if it does?"

"Because I won't leave your side until I know for sure that you made it okay."

Margo smiled, "Promise?" she asked.

I crossed my heart. "I swear to it," I replied.




Brian

I waited until Leighanne was asleep, leaning back in her chair, her mouth opened wide and eyes searching the backs of her eye lids in REM sleep. Then I began the execution of my plan to see Nick. I just had to pray that my knees would be able to hold me up this time.

I foisted myself to the edge of the bed and swung my legs over, pushing myself to my feet. I held onto the mattress with all my strength to keep from falling down, and I shuffled slowly across the room to the wall and, bracing myself against the door, peeked out into the hallway.

I couldn't let the nurse catch me or I'd get some hell for my escape plan, so I peeked down the hallway both ways and spotted the nurse going in with the machines for vitals. She was four doors away from mine and I backed in for a second, did a quick calculation of how long that gave me (approximately thirty minutes) and then I moved as fast as I could across the hallway to the far wall and shuffled my way slowly toward the elevator.

Normally, I could've gotten to and from Nick's room faster than it was gonna take her to get through two patients and then find my room, but I mean I was moving slow and stealth as I could. If the nurses caught me, I was gonna get the express ticket back to my room.

I only just managed to duck into the elevator when the nurse came back into the hallway.

My palm slammed on the button for the ICU floor and the door closed just before she walked by it. I closed my eyes and held onto the handle that lined the wall as if for dear life as the elevator moved up.

See, I needed to find out exactly what Nick's condition was. His life depended on me, and I needed to know what I was up against. I needed to know his condition so that I could find the legal loophole that would allow Jane's authority on the matter to be overthrown. Because, whatever Kevin said about Nick's brain and about what he thought about Nick's ability to recover from all this, I wasn't ready to believe Nick wasn't in there yet. It wouldn't be the first time that Kevin had exaggerated something. I just knew that Nick was gonna get through this - he had to.

I had to tell him I was sorry.

And he couldn't die thinking that nobody loved him because he was wrong.

I loved him.

He meant the world to me.

He was my very best friend.

He was the little brother I never had.

I'd been the kid's legal guardian for more than half his life, for pity sake.

Holy shit, I thought. That's it.

The legal loophole.

Chapter Fourteen by Pengi
Chapter Fourteen

Brian


I got myself all pumped up with excitement, imagining court cases with heat and energy and passion and the judge yelling the verdict in my favor. In my head, Atticus Finch was my lawyer and as I won the case to sustain Nick's life support, the double doors of the courthouse would be thrown open by Nick running in to announce that he was awake and that the time I'd bought him fighting his case was what had provided him the time he needed, and he forgave me for everything we'd been through. But the imaginary scenario was shortlived - it only lasted the time it took me to shuffle from the elevator through the various handwashing stations and into Nick's ICU room. I was still elated as I snuck across the ICU ward (everyone seemed to be busy in another room, there was a lot of shouting happening and I said a quick prayer for the occupant of ICU-8) and into Nick's room. I backed in, closing the door behind me gently, and then turned around.

And that's when my elation ended.

I stared at him, my back against the door, my breath stolen away. He was laying so still, so un-Nick-ly still. They'd shaved him, because he was clean-shaven and last time I'd seen him he'd been sporting some fuzz around his chin. He had a pretty good sized gash across the side of his head, and a line of his freshly-blonde hair was shaved away for the gash and it's bold, black stitches. His near hand was laying palm-down across his chest, and his finger tips were a dark color, just like the nurse had warned me the first time we'd come. Generally, he looked a lot better this time than he had then - the first time the gash on his head was fresher. I mean all that wasn't as bad as I expected, really, but the tubes and wires they had connected to him --- that was bad.

There was a giant tube shoved into his mouth that kept his mouth wide open and I could hear the air being pushed into his lungs and evacuated in an even pattern. In..... out. In..... out. It paused each time, as though waiting for him to expel the oxygen himself before withdrawing it for him, as though even the machines were holding their breath waiting for him to wake up. There were other tubes, too, going in. Including a skinny yellow one that was pumping what I guessed was nutrition into him but I wasn't sure. It was taped along side the big wide tube and disappeared into his mouth as well. Then there was a cannula in his nose and a bunch of round heart monitor dots across his chest with skinny red wires running away to the side where a huge screen counted the beats of his heart. Three different machines beeped at different intervals creating a continuous beeping - almost a music - that filled the room. He had three IVs in his far arm, which was strapped down to keep him from moving it, I guess. Not that he was moving at all.

The only wire on his body that wouldn't have freaked him out was the wire of one earbud that Kevin had strung under the big tubes and into Nick's far ear. He'd left the iPod laying on Nick's chest, the cord to it curling back around and disappearing on the other side of the bed, keeping the device charged. He'd left a note with it that requested nobody turn it off.

Music is a form of lifeline for this man. Please don't remove unless necessary.

I stood there, unmoving, not daring to for a few moments, just staring at him. Every bit of excitement had left my body, like the air leaving a balloon, and I felt deflated. My mouth was so dry from shock... Finally, I moved slowly, keeping my back to the wall, staying as far away from him as possible, and took the chart off the end of his bed.

I scanned it. I didn't understand a lot of it. But I tried to remember keywords I could use in researching later to figure out how bad off he really was. Presented with a subdural bleed following motor vehicle accident, bleed was isolated and edema repaired via evacuation of excess fluid, no visible shift was scrawled across the bottom of one page in a messy handwriting. No sign of stem pressure. I was pretty sure that was good. Glasgow score: and the number 5 on a scale of 3-15 was circled.

I put the chart back on the end of the bed, mumbling my new-found vocabulary under my breath so I wouldn't forget it.

I glanced out the wide window looking out into the bay of rooms surrounding a central nurse's station. They were still crowded around the other room. I looked up and noticed a curtain and drew it in hopes of not being caught just yet. I had a feeling the middle of the night was past visiting hours.

Then I turned to Nick.

I crept closer to the bed, holding onto a guard rail that lined the side. I stared down at him for a long moment, trying to figure out what to say. My throat felt raw. I reached out a shaking hand and picked up his iPod. "What'cha listenin' to, buddy?" I asked.

I turned the iPod over and tapped the screen to make the display show. Kevin had put on a playlist of our own music. "Oh Lord," I laughed, "I'm sorry, dude. You can blame Kevin for that. He probably thought it would wake you up hearing something that familiar though." I hit pause and scrolled back through the menu. "Let's see... what would you wanna listen to..."

I muttered to myself and I started going through the stuff stored in the device. "You know, I'm such a terrible friend, I don't even know what you've been listening to much lately?" I sighed. "Let's see what's on your most played list," I suggested. I clicked back to playlists and found the top 25 played. Lights, Eye of the Tiger, Free Falling, Faithfully, All Apologies, Everybody Hurts, Come Together, Summer of '69, Fly, Losing My Religion... "Been on a classic kick lately, I see," I said.

I clicked back out and was about to go back to artists to put Journey on when I noticed a playlist toward the bottom of the screen. It was titled Brian.

My heart rate increased and I looked up at him. It felt like... like a message. "What's this?" I asked and I scrolled down and opened the playlist up. There was a smattering of religious songs (including a rendition of an old hymn as sung by Kurt Cobain of Nirvana), and a bunch of songs that were "us" songs, each one a key part of a memory that we'd shared. Like Down Under by Men at Work, which we'd rocked out to going to Australia the first time ever and Kevin had yelled at us for having the music too loud. Or It's My Party, the song we'd sung when we'd gotten lost looking for the baseball hall of fame. The Looney Toons theme music, which we frequently imitated when we were younger in a series of 'da, da, da-da-da-das', and the Cops Theme, which we'd sung to each other every time we ever got in trouble. Which, back in the day when we were Frick and Frack, was ... well, pretty much constant.

I was crying. I could feel the tears in my eyes even as I laughed at all the random sound effects and TV theme songs and music he'd put into this playlist. He had so many memories captured in one little folder of his iPod. I felt my chest get all tight and I looked down at him. "I miss you," I said.

I clicked play and leaned down and grabbed the second earbud that was laying on his chest. There was a chair behind me and I pulled it over as close as I could get it to the bed and I lowered the guard rail so I could lean close and put the second earbud in my ear. My forehead leaned against Nick's arm and I closed my eyes and listened as the memories played through the headset, and I imagined he was laughing at the memories with me. I could almost hear his laughter in my head and a couple times I looked up, expecting some miracle movie moment where he was suddenly awake and really, actually laughing with me. But his face was just as stoic as it'd been before.

The playlist was halfway over when the door opened and a nurse came in. She stood there for a moment and stared at me, eyebrow raised. "They're looking all over for you, you know," she said as she moved to the foot of Nick's bed and lifted the chart.

I took the ear bud out and laid it back down on Nick's chest. I sat up. She was studying the chart intently.

"How bad is it?" I asked.

She looked up.

"My cousin, he came up and visited Nick earlier - he said he's brain dead. But -- and I'm not an expert, but -- that score thing. He can't be totally gone if there's a score of 3-15 and he's a 5, right?"

The nurse licked her lips. "He scored a five because he displays decorticate response."

"What's that mean?" I asked.

The nurse moved up his other side and pointed at Nick's hand, laying across his chest. "See how he's got his hand?" she asked. I nodded. "This one would be up there, too, if it wasn't restrained. We had to restrain his arm because the bend was cutting off the circulation of the IV medication."

"What's it mean though?" I asked.

"Well, when a patient has a severe injury in the brain, they present what's called abnormal posturing. When --" she glanced at the chart, "-- Nick presented originally, he was in a decerebrate posture. That means he was really stiff. He had his arms and legs fully extended, his head tilted back. Picture someone pretending to be a wood board. That's decerebrate posturing. That's when he had the edema and his brain was swelling, putting pressure on his brain stem. The pressure on the brain stem is really bad, it can kill a patient. It's probably what put him in the coma to begin with."

"But he's not stiff anymore," I said. In fact, he looked like he was sleeping, aside from the tubes and stuff.

"No, he's not. After we isolated the subdural bleed, his doctor extracted fluid and relieved the swelling in the brain, releasing the pressure. At that point, Nick's posture changed from being decerebrate to decorticate." She waved at his hand again, "He balled his fists and put both hands on his chest and tightened up, like a mummy in a way. That was a sign that he was in pain and his muscles were reacting to the stimulus of the pain by contracting. When we ordered the morphine for pain relief, he relaxed into a normal posture and that's when his hand relaxed." She reached down and gently started flexing Nick's hand, rotating his wrist, moving his fingers, pushing and pulling his hand to flex his elbow and shoulder. "Basically, what that means is that he's responding to painful stimuli."

"So he's... he's not... not dead then," I ventured.

She shook her head.

I looked at his face.

"How are you tonight, Nick?" she asked as she moved his arms, and for a moment I thought maybe he'd opened his eyes, but he hadn't. She smiled down at him and took hold of his other arm and started flexing it the same way. She looked at me. "We flex his muscles every twenty minutes to keep him from developing a muscular atrophy from laying still so long," she explained.

"I've been in here longer than twenty minutes," I said.

The nurse moved to the foot of the bed and lifted the blankets to reach Nick's feet, which she started massaging. "Well we had a - a situation, across the ward," she explained. "Normally we do this every twenty minutes."

I looked at Nick's face.

"It's a shame," the nurse said, "His parents ordering the three day cut off." She was rotating Nick's ankles now. I looked back at her. Tears had filled her eyes and she smiled at me. "Not everything can be explained by science, you know, and I'm a believer in miracles. I see them everyday." She lifted his foot and pushed it, making his knee bend and unbend. "It's belief in miracles that make my job doing this pleasurable, because I believe that in doing this every twenty minutes I improve his future by not letting him lose his muscle memory, you know? If we didn't believe, we'd never have situations like tonight."

"What was the situation, if you don't mind me asking?" I asked.

She smiled, "Well, it was one of those miracles I was just talking about... A patient that's been with us for over two years woke up tonight."

Chapter Fifteen by Pengi
Chapter Fifteen

Nick


Margo and I held hands going up the stairs. We laced our fingers together in a knot. "So when we do this, when we unpause everything," she was saying, "How do I find you on the other side?"

"I'm easy enough to find," I said, "I'm a fricking Backstreet Boy."

Margo laughed.

"But I'll come find you anyways. I know you're here. I'll come to get you right after I wake up."

"Okay." She squeezed my hand.

We had reached the top of the stairs and we were lingering in the stairwell. I took her other hand in mine and we stood there staring at each other for a long moment.

"What if... what if you wake up and you don't remember me?" she asked.

"How could I forget you?" I asked romantically.

"Because you're in a coma," she said pragmatically.

"I'm not gonna forget you," I replied.

"What if I forget you?" she asked.

"Then I'll spend the rest of my life reminding you of me," I said.

Margo laughed, "Are you always this adorable?" she asked.

I nodded, "Always. Everyday."

She took a deep breath. "Okay look, I just -- I gotta say this. Just in case you do forget me or I forget you or we can't find each other or - or something else happens that neither of us is thinking of -- I just want you to know that the last... however long you've been here 'cos I have no idea how long it's been now... it's been the best time of my paused life."

I nodded. "Me, too."

Margo bit her lips.

"C'mon, let's go unpause you," I said.

"Wait."

"What?"

"There's one last thing I need to say to you before we do this. Just in case."

"What's that?"

Margo pulled me in and our mouths connected and I swear to fuck, even though I thought it was just something people said to be like poetic and shit, I saw fireworks. I'd never felt a mouth so perfectly shaped to fit my own as hers was, or a kiss so soft and so sexy or so... soo...

She pulled away before I'd had enough.

"If you want more where that came from," she said slowly (I did, I really really really really really did), "Then you'll have to come find me."

I nodded.

She opened the door of the stair well and we were in a long hallway. We walked down it until we found a door labelled ICU and we pushed in through several doors, following signs to the ward until we found ourselves in a big half-moon shaped ward, a high nurses station in the center overlooking twelve rooms with wide windows. Each of the rooms had occupied beds - well except for one in the far corner, where a team of surgeons were paused in the middle of pushing a gurney through the door. Margo and I walked slowly around the moon shape until we found ICU-8. She reached for the door.

"Wait," I said before she could push it open.

She looked at me.

I stared into her eyes, really memorizing them. I wanted to burn them into my memory. I didn't want to wake up and forget her.

"Yeah?" she asked.

I pulled the paper and crayon out of my pocket, "Can you write down how we got here? I gotta get back to the tour bus to find myself, too, so I can wake up, yanno?"

"Oh. Yeah. Right." Margo grabbed the paper and the crayon and leaned against the door to write it down.

I stepped around her into the room. There was just an empty bed. All the machines were all around. I looked about. "Here," Margo said, coming in behind me. She held out the paper to me. "It's kind of a crappy map, but it's the best I could do given I only have one color of crayon and I'm not a cartographer."

I took the paper.

Margo was staring at the bed. "Where am I?" she asked.

"I dunno," I said.

She stepped towards the bed carefully. "But the computer said I'd be here."

"Maybe they took you somewhere to like get a test done or something?" I suggested.

Margo touched the sheets.

I turned and looked out at the nurse's station, "Maybe they moved your room or something this morning," I suggested, "Maybe we should go check the computer in this station and see if it's been changed or something." I grabbed the door and pulled it open again and walked across the ward to the station, climbed the steps up into it and sat in an empty chair. "What was your last name again, Margo?" I asked.

She hadn't followed me out of the room.

"Margo!" I called, but she couldn't hear me through the closed door.

In the window, I could see she'd climbed up on the bed and laid down.

I got up and went back over and pulled the door open, "Margo," I said, "I'm trying to see where they took you. What's your last name again? Was it Hunt or Hunter?"

She didn't move.

"Margo?"

Still nothing.

I walked over to the bed and grabbed her hand. It moved under my touch, but not the way it should. It moved the way Brian's body had moved when he was paused and I pulled him out of the car, like I was moving an action figure, not a living person. My stomach churned. Moments before, this hand had grabbed my hand, moments before that hand had pulled me into her kiss.

"Margo?" I said, urgency soaking my voice. "Margo?"

I looked up at her face. Her eyes were wide open, her mouth slightly agape, as if she were surprised...

"MARGO?" I grabbed onto her hand.

Then, as I watched, very slowly, the expression melted from her face, her eyes closed, her mouth shut, and her body went limp. She was gone.

It was a strange feeling because even though I'd expected something like this, I hadn't been ready. I felt like she'd died. I felt like I'd lost her. I found tears filling my eyes and my stomach churning in disbelief, and a gutteral moan broke out of me. "Please," I choked, "Please... just be unpaused, don't be actually gone, okay?" I begged. "Our story's only just starting," I told her, pressing her hand against my face. "I want more of you. I want all of you. I wanna give you all of me. So you have to be okay, okay?"

My hands shook as I put her hand down. I took a deep breath. "Okay," I whispered. "Okay." My stomach hurt from emotion. I swallowed. "Okay. I'm gonna... gonna go find me... I'm gonna go back to the bus and try to unpause me too so I can get back here to you, okay? Just... just wait here. Don't go anywhere. I'll find you, Margo. I'll be right back. Really soon. I'm gonna hurry. You aren't alone, okay? If you can hear me, you aren't alone. I'm here... I'm right here." I put my hand on her heart. "I'll be right back. I swear it."

Chapter Sixteen by Pengi
Chapter Sixteen

Brian


"These exercises, they keep him from losing his muscle," the nurse, whose name she'd revealed was Carrie, said. She was still flexing Nick's legs. "When patients don't move a lot, they lose muscle mass, so if we exercise them, it helps prevent that." She smiled. "I'm an LNA, still studying to be a real nurse, you know, so I get all the dirty work... bed pans, sheet changing, the like... I don't mind the exercising though. I feel like I'm really helping when I do it." She smiled sweetly. "I can't wait until I graduate and I get to be a real RN, though. Maybe I'll even study and be a doctor someday. But for now, RN will be nice."

"You'll make a very good nurse when you graduate," I said.

Carrie smiled. She put Nick's leg down.

The door banged open behind me, and the sound of a girl, screaming incoherent sentences loudly, filled the room. "Girl, we need you out here, c'mon. All hands on deck!" another LNA said, sticking her head in.

"I'll be right back," Carrie said and she hurried out the door.

She didn't close it all the way, it got caught on the edge of the chair I was sitting in, and I could hear the girl screaming, echoing off the walls of the ward.

"BUT HE PROMISED!! HE HAS TO BE HERE SOMEWHERE! HE PROMISED!! PLEASE!!! PLEASE! OH GOD, HE PROMISED!! NICK!!!!"

I reached for the door and slammed it quickly, glancing at Nick. I half expected him to wake up at the sound of a female shrieking his voice. I stared down at him. "Must be something about the name, making the ladies scream like that, huh?" I asked, trying to make light of what I'd just overheard.

The girl was now shrieking loud enough that I could hear her even with the door closed. A sedative was surely on it's way.

"Good Lord," I mumbled.

The door opened again. I looked up as the girl's screams got louder, then quiet again as the door closed behind my nurse from downstairs, who was toting a wheel chair and had her hands on her hips. She stared at me with one eyebrow raised. "I had a feeling this is where I'd find you. I should've just started my search here instead of looking around the ward downstairs. Your wife is having a panic attack over your whereabouts, you know."

"I'm sorry," I replied.

She waved at the wheel chair, and pretended to be pissed, though I could tell it was all good natured. She understood. I put my hand on Nick's hand. "I'll be back, buddy," I said, then I turned and sat down in the chair, and my nurse wheeled me out of Nick's room, being careful not to let the door slam behind us.

In the ward, the girl was still shrieking from ICU-8, and I could see her fighting and struggling against several nurses and a doctor was rushing toward her, ripping the packaging off a giant sedative needle and pulling alcohol swabs out of his deep coat pockets. "PLEASE! HE HAS TO BE HERE SOMEWHERE, HE SWORE HE WOULD COME! NICK!!! NICK, WHERE ARE YOU!"

I glanced over as my nurse pushed me around the half-moon of the station in the center toward the exit.

We were just about out of the ICU ward when ---

"BRIAN!!"

I looked up.

The young woman - the miracle coma patient that Carrie had been telling me about - was kneeling on the bed in ICU-8, staring at me over the shoulders of several doctors.




Nick

My hands were shaking and my knees were like Jell-O as I stumbled through the city streets back towards the BMW, tears soaking my face. I lingered in the intersection where we'd almost kissed and glanced back the way I'd come, a nagging feeling like I should go back eating at the edges of me. Part of me wanted to go back and just... sit there beside her, just stay by her forever, but I knew that it was futile because she wasn't there, just her paused self was and the only way to truly spend forever with her was to find myself and then get back to her in the Real World. Going back would do nothing to reunite us, not in reality.

The city seemed a thousand times bigger than I remembered it. I felt so tiny in such a huge, silent world. Everything was so much more ominous without Margo there, talking. I couldn't imagine what she'd gone through wandering through these streets by herself for years. Years, I couldn't even fathom it. I'd go crazy. The silence was oppressive, like weight was being applied to me from all sides.

I paused and looked back again, but I couldn't even see the hospital from where I was, and it gave me a hollow feeling. I kept referencing her makeshift map until I'd finally found my way back to the BMW and climbed inside. I held onto the steering wheel, flexing my fingers and took a deep breath.

It was gonna be okay, very soon it would be okay.

I had to keep reminding myself I hadn't truly lost her, I'd saved her, and now I just had to save myself and we'd be safe.

I started the car and pulled a U-turn and started maneuvering my way back out of the tightly congested streets, further and further away from Margo and the hospital, further and further out of the city until finally I was back on the Interstate, headed back toward the tour buses and my paused self.

As I drove, I started trying to imagine what I was gonna tell the guys when I woke up, how I'd get the tour buses to turn around to go back so I could find Margo at the hospital.

When I finally pulled up to the first of the tour buses, lined up along the dark street, I stopped the BMW and turned it off. I got out, running alongside the buses in excitement until I got to mine and I reached for the door and yanked it open. I climbed on board and turned on a light and rushed to the back of the bus and closed my eyes. I waited for a flash of light or a rush of sound or something to happen that would indicate I'd been unpaused, but nothing came. I reached for the shade that covered my back window and looked at the driver of the bus behind mine - Howie's bus - but he was still paused.

"Damn it," I muttered, "What'm I doing wrong?"

Then I remembered Margo had to climb on her bed before she was unpaused. Maybe I needed to figure out exactly what unpaused me would be doing if I was unpaused and get into that exact position. I turned on the TV and PlayStation and grabbed a paddle and threw myself to the floor in various positions (Indian style, flat on my belly, on my back, leaning against the couch...) but none of that worked. I furrowed my brow. I climbed onto the couch, dropping the PlayStation paddle and threw myself face down, then on my back, then a variety of other sitting positions I frequently found myself in (including the Mork from Ork). I tried the same thing in my bunk, and the food booth. I even tried opening the fridge door. But nothing. Nothing worked.

I stood in the middle of the bus, my shadow casting long across the floor, staring, dumbfounded at the empty darkness. "What the hell?" I muttered.

I'd been so sure I'd get here and just boom, snap back, that I hadn't even stopped to wonder what would happen if I got back to the tour bus only to discover that I wasn't there.

I rubbed my hands together.

"Well where the hell am I then?" I wondered.

I always played video games after the shows while we rode the buses to the next venue. There wasn't anywhere else I'd be. It's not like any of us shared tour buses anymore, and the other guys all had their kids and wives with them and ---

Brian.

I suddenly remembered.

"Of course. What an idiot I am... Of course." I rushed off the tour bus and I ran down past the line of the buses to the end. "How the hell did I forget this?" I said, shaking my head, and I ran through the still-parted rain drops that lined the street where Margo and I had been before and followed them back across the street to the hillside to the scene of the accident. I couldn't believe I'd nearly forgotten all about the accident.

I ran toward the car and crawled up onto the hood of it, crawled over the dashboard and pushed aside the shattered glass, and rolled into the front seats of the car. I moved until I was sitting in the passenger seat and I looked to my right at the grill of the eighteen-wheeler and I took a deep breath, my heart pounding in my chest as I stared at the metal, at the indents on the side of the car where the truck was about to plow through...

What if I managed to unpause myself only just in time to die? I wondered.

I closed my eyes.

Chapter Seventeen by Pengi
Chapter Seventeen

Brian


The only possible, logical explanation for this, I thought to myself as I was held captive by the occupant of ICU-8's stare, was that this girl was a Backstreet Boys' fan. Or telepathic or... I dunno, something. I stared back at her. "Hi?" I said, confused.

Her shrieking and struggling having stopped, the doctors glanced between her and I as though they were trying to decide what to make of this development. Even my nurse was staring, dumbfounded at me.

"Where is he?" the girl asked.

"You mean... Nick?" I asked.

"Yes, Nick! Where is he? He's here, isn't he? He said he'd be here. I need to find him. He promised he'd be here."

"I - uh --" I looked up at my nurse, then at the gaggle of doctors and nurses surrounding her.

Carrie spoke up, "Nick is in ICU-13."

The girl struggled away from the doctors' grasp and got off the bed, her knees gave out on her. She was rail-thin, her face shallow, her skin kinda pale. But Carrie caught her before she could fall and I jumped up and my nurse moved quick with the wheel chair I'd been in - even she knew this deranged chick needed it more than I did. The girl fell into it, hands shaking, "Take me to him. Please. He knew I was in 8, he made such a huge deal about the number 8, how does he NOT know --"

"But he's --"

"TAKE ME TO HIM!" she screamed.

"Who the hell are you?" I demanded.

"I'm Margo," she replied.

"But --"

"NICK!" Margo screamed, "NICK I'M HERE! NICK!"

"Please, miss, don't scream, you're disturbing all the pati--"

"HE SAID HE WOULD BE HERE! I NEED HIM! PLEASE!"

"Can she go visit him?" Carrie asked helplessly.

"Well I mean I - he's -- He wouldn't want a fan to see him --"

"A FAN?" Margo turned in the wheel chair and Carrie panicked and turned the whole thing to face me, afraid Margo was gonna get up. The herd of doctors had moved to surround the two of us, my nurse was nervously holding up her hands around my back as though she expected me to pass out at any moment. Margo stared up at me, her eyes like fire, "I'm no fan."

"Then who the hell are you?" I asked again.

Margo stared at me, "I just spent the last... however long... with him... trying to figure this out, trying to get back here, trying to save our lives. He said he would come back here for me, he said that we'd be together." Margo's eyes were wide with tears.

I stared back at her. Several doctors started mumbling. I'm pretty sure I caught the word psych being passed around behind us.

"But he's in a coma," I said.

Margo's face paled. "He's -- he's not awake?"

I shook my head.

"He's here and he's not awake?"

"No..."

"HE'S HERE? HIS PAUSED BODY IS HERE?" Panic struck her face, "BUT HE THINKS HE'S ON THE BUS! HE'S GOING BACK TO THE TOUR BUS!"

"What are you talking about?"

"Nick figured out that we needed to find ourselves and if we found ourselves then we'd be able to get unpaused! And we found me and it worked, but he thought -- oh fuck, why didn't we realize that he would be here, too? We knew he was in a coma, why didn't I -- stupid. Oh my God, I'm so stupid." She started to sob. "I don't know how to tell him. Oh my God, how do I tell him?" She looked around at the doctors, "PUT ME BACK! PUT ME BACK IN THE COMA! I HAVE TO TELL HIM!"

My mouth was dry. I felt sick to my stomach, but in a weird way. In an almost... good way. "You mean... you... you saw him."

"YES."

I stared at her.

One of the doctors broke away from the others, headed for the nurses station. "Don't call psych," I snapped. He looked up with a guilty expression on her face. I turned to Margo. "Tell me - tell me something that - that you'd only know if you'd really seen him. Tell me something that someone in a coma for the last two years wouldn't know about him." My voice was shaking.

Margo stared back at me, "I don't know what anyone would know about him anyways, without being in a coma for two years. But I found him at the accident... the accident with the eighteen-wheeler. You and him, actually, but you were paused. He paused everything and he pulled you out of the wreck and he got you out onto the grass and he was apologizing like crazy, a big crying mess when I found him. He's been trying to get back since. We came all the way here from the accident to find me and then he was gonna go back because he was sure he'd find himself on his tour bus. Shit, that doesn't even make sense, does it? He would've at least been in the accident to unpause himself." She closed her eyes, "God I'm so fucking stupid."

I couldn't breathe. The nurses and doctors all looked... well, dumbfounded.

"He... he saved me?" I choked out.

"Yeah..." Margo paused. "You woke up for a minute... when he was trying to change the batteries in his remote control, and --" she licked her lips. "We thought you -- he was so upset -- and --" Margo shook her head, "He was upset because he thought you didn't know that he was sorry and he loved you."

Tears filled my eyes, everything became blurry. "He said that?"

She nodded.

"Did.. did I - did he hear me - did --" I choked up.

"You didn't say anything," she said, shaking her head, "You couldn't. You were mostly paused. You tried... but nothing came out." She paused. "I think you were saying his name, though."

My throat burned.

"I think it's cos he moved you. Maybe cause - cause you weren't really there, you know? I don't know what the whole science is behind this stuff -- if there's really a science at all..." Margo's eye were pleading. "Can I please see him?" he asked.

I nodded.

Carrie pushed the wheelchair forward and I shuffled slowly after them. My nurse hustled along after me. The doctors herded after us all, too, mumbling to each other. Carrie pushed Margo in and she struggled to her feet and stood beside Nick, Carrie carefully standing behind her.

"Oh God," Margo whispered. She reached a shaking hand down and rested it gently on Nick's face, on his cheek, right by the tubes and wires and everything. "Nick," she whispered, "Come back to me."

"What exactly is going on here?"

The voice that came from behind me was sharp. I turned around. So did Carrie and my nurse, though Margo was still staring down at Nick. Jane was standing in the doorway, her arms crossed over her chest, anger flaring in her eyes.

"None of you are authorized to be in here," she snapped. She glared at the nurses, "I'll have your jobs for this." She moved around them quickly, "Get your hands off my son. He's sick, you could kill him with your - your germs," she snarled at Margo.

"Please come back," Margo whispered.

Jane reached to push Margo away from Nick and Carrie stopped her. "She just woke up from a coma, please," Carrie said, "I'll do it." She turned to Margo. "C'mon sweetie."

"No please," Margo whimpered. She grabbed Nick's hand, her eyes wide, begging, as she stared up at Carrie.

"I'm sorry," Carrie said, "This is his mother."

Margo looked at Jane. "Please."

"Get your hands away," Jane snapped.

Carrie gently pulled Margo away, and settled her into the seat. I turned to Jane, "She talked to him. She saw him. She was in a coma for two years, Jane, and she knew -- she knew everything." I shook my head, "That's impossible if she hadn't talked to him."

Jane was staring at me.

"He's in there, Jane," I said, "He's in there and he's just gotta have time to figure out how to get out. That's all he needs is a little more time."

"You're all insane," she said hotly.

"How can you give up on your son so quickly?" I demanded, "How can you at least not believe enough to give him a chance? Isn't Nick worth waiting for?"

"He's coming," Margo shouted, "He'll come back! He'll come for me, he promised, he swore he would, he'll be here."

I pointed at Margo, "Isn't he worth the chance - however slim you may think it is - that she's right?"

Jane stared into my face. "I can't take this," she said, waving her hand at his body laying on the bed, "I can't take seeing my son like this. I just want this over. I want it to end. I want his suffering to end."

"Well I don't," I said, and I drew a deep breath and said, "And as Nick's last legal guardian before he became of age, I refuse to allow you to remove the life support."

I could see the color in her face pale and the nerve drain out of Jane's eyes. She shifted her weight on her feet. "Your guardianship ended the moment he turned eighteen," she hissed.

"So did yours," I replied.

"But I'm his mother, I'm blood. There's a connection there stronger than any piece of paper --"

Carrie stepped between us, "We need the paper work," she said to me, "We need proof before the orders she's placed can be revoked."

"Oh I'll get the paperwork no worries," I replied, my eyes boring into Jane's.

"You have twenty-four hours," Jane replied, "Now get the hell out of my son's room."

I turned, shaking, and shuffled out of the room, Carrie ushering me out, my nurse pushing Margo's wheelchair. I looked back at the room as Jane pulled the curtain open. She'd pulled the iPod away from him, rolled the ear buds around it, and moved Kevin's note to the bedside table. She sat down in the chair next to him and took his hand and patted it, and stared up at him uncomfortably, legs crossed as she leaned back in the chair.
Chapter Eighteen by Pengi
Chapter Eighteen

Nick


I opened my eyes.

The grill of the eighteen wheeler gleamed in the moonlight. I swallowed. My throat burned. "Fuck," I breathed into the dark. I leaned back in my seat, staring ahead at the sliver sheen of the metal through a web of frozen, shattered glass. "FUCK!" I yelled it that time, loudly enough that it echoed off the hill and the trees and whatever was beyond them. I struggled out of the car, my feet slipping on the glass that was scattered across the dashboard.

I crawled across the hood of the car and turned and started kickin; the crap out of it. "FUCK YOU," I screamed, "FUCK YOU!" I looked up at the cloudy night and I bellowed, "YOU THINK THIS IS FUNNY, GOD? You like fuckin' with my head like this? Making me run all the fuck over the world? Well -- FUCK. YOU."

I balled my fist and tried to punch the hood of the car. My hands were barely able to make the fist, they were shaking so hard, and it was more like smackin' the car.

"Fuck you," I groaned and I leaned against the car and slid to the cement. I was so angry, I could barely contain my anger But I think, even though I was taking my anger out on God, I was really just pissed at myself. Why couldn't I just have been happy when I had the fucking chance? I wondered. Why couldn't I just have been content?

Why'd I have to be a jackass to Brian? If I had just been a good, understanding friend in the first place then Eddie wouldn't have rented that car and we wouldn't have been in this mess... but then, I wouldn't have ever met Margo... Well I should've at least been contented with Margo. How many songs in the world -- hell, in my own catalog! -- talked about the idea of making all the world stop spinning to be with the one you love? But I couldn't just be happy to have her, couldn't just be content with her. I had to go and fuck everything up, trying to have it all, everything. I was a stupid, selfish idiot sometimes. And yeah, I was friggin' pissed at myself.

I sat there staring at my sneakers internally cussing myself out until my anger had dissolved into tears and I pressed my face into my knees and hugged my legs, just sitting there in front of the paused accident. I was crying like a damn two year old, I swear it...

I don't know how long I spent like that. Maybe an hour? I dunno because, like Margo had said, it was impossible to keep track of time. But after a bit, I ran out of tears and my stomach was all sick from crying. I knew I needed to come up with a plan - something beside sitting there and crying to the point of nearly throwing up.

The way I saw it, I had two choices.

One - I could go back to the hospital and stay with Margo, just kinda... I dunno, stay there at the hospital until.... something happened, I guess. Or, two - I could go. Just go - go and see stuff, go do something with myself... Maybe I could drive to the shoreline, and -- like, I dunno, maybe find a boat and like... boat somewhere where there was sunlight and I could -- I dunno... I could fish.

Or at least finally learn how to be contented.

Maybe somewhere in Australia.

I pictured boating to Australia.

Maybe I'd find someone else who was unpaused there.

But I didn't want anyone else. I wanted Margo.

But she wouldn't want me to just stay there at the hospital for all my -- was this life?

I stood up resolutely.

I'd made up my mind.

I walked back to the BMW, swiping my eyes with the back of my hand.




Brian

Margo was sitting up in bed, and I was sitting in the wheelchair, rolling myself forward and backward and forward again. Leighanne had gone downstairs to call our lawyer to try to get a copy of the guardianship papers faxed as soon as possible.

"We need a second plan," Margo said.

I looked up at her. "Like what?"

"I dunno," she sighed, frustrated. She leaned back and stared up at the ceiling. "Is his momma always a bitch?"

"Pretty much," I answered.

"She seriously just... gave up custody of him to you?" Margo asked.

I shrugged and wheeled myself in a tight circle. "Well I mean he was a kid on tour, and she trusted me and he listened to me and stuff 'cos...well, like, at that point, he pretty much worshiped me..." I shook my head. Disappointing Nick, breaking that trust that he had in me at that age, it was one of the things that I regretted the most.

Margo had her eyes closed. I thought she might've fallen asleep until she suddenly sat up. "I have an idea."

I raised an eyebrow.

She bit her lip. She hugged a pillow to her chest. "Shit."

"What?"

"Nick... was he... is he... is he really good at keeping promises?"

I rubbed my hands on my knees. "Sometimes."

"'Cos I have an idea," Margo said, "But... it's... it's risky."

"I'm listening...?"

"Okay," Margo took a deep breath, "It goes like this."

Chapter Nineteen by Pengi
Chapter Nineteen

Brian


Margo was crazy.

She was crazy, and her plan was the most insanely ridiculous, risky, impossible plan that I'd ever heard in my entire life (a life that includes the planning of Nick, by the way).

I couldn't believe the words that were coming out of her mouth. I was shocked. Just the thought of attempting to pull it off made my palms sweat.

Margo was still explaining the rationale behind her idea when Leighanne came back into the room, her glasses framing her eyes as she stared down at a sheath of papers in her hands. She looked up at me as she walked into the room, and I could see in her eyes that she had bad news. She sighed and held out the papers, "You had limited legal rights as the guardian, most major life altering events defaulted to the parental unit, with you only designated to handle immediate situations in which they were unreachable." I took them from her hand and turned them over to a spot that she'd circled with a pen she now had tucked into the loose ponytail at the back of her neck, "And your term as legal guardian clearly only stood during on tour situations until January 28, 1998."

I frowned down at the papers.

My heart rate increased with every word I read from the contract that confirmed the words Leighanne had spoken.

Margo was staring at me, her eyes wide.

My eyes met hers.

She licked her lips, "So...?"

I knew she was asking if we were gonna follow through with her crazy-ass plan. My mouth went dry at the thought of it. There were so many things that could go wrong with it, so many things that could happen that we'd never forgive ourselves for... and only one of the many possible scenarios that could come of the plan was the one that we wanted.

But it was also the only plan that either of us had come up with.

Leighanne looked between the two of us. "Y'all came up with a plan?" she asked, eyebrow raised.

I put down the papers. "Well... Margo did," I said.

Leighanne looked at her. "How can I help?"

Margo took a deep breath. "You can push the gurney."

Leighanne nodded, "What gurney?" And Margo explained the whole thing again. And by the time she finished, Leighanne's eyes were nervous, too, but she also set her jaw with determination. "Let's do this."



So it was with sweaty palms that I pushed myself out of the wheel chair as Margo struggled into it. I kept glancing back at the doorway, at the hall, at the nurse's station that we could clearly see from the room. My mouth was dry with anxiety as I worried about us gettin' caught. I helped Margo sit and took hold of the handles of the chair and pushed her forward. We hovered at the door, looking up and down the hall to spot any oncoming intercepting nurses, but found none.

Leighanne followed, covering us from behind as I pushed Margo down the hall as quickly as possible, into the elevator and she pressed the right floor number for the ICU.

I closed my eyes as the elevator climbed through the floors, my foot wiggling with nerves. Leighanne slid her hand over mine on the wheelchair's handles and I opened my eyes and looked into hers. "Are you okay?" she asked me quietly.

"I just... can't stand the idea of losing him," I whispered. Leighanne nodded. She slid closer to me, her arm slipping around my shoulders and she lay her head on my upper arm and squeezed me as best she could at that angle. "I can't picture a world without him in it."

"Hopefully you won't have to," Leighanne said.

I looked into her eyes. "Do you really think that this is going to work?" I asked her.

I heard Margo shift in the seat to look up to see Leighanne's response.

Leighanne took a deep breath, "You know Nick and I have had our differences and everything, but... in the end of everything, at the very end of it all, he's always been... faithful."

I nodded.

"And I don't think this is any different," she said.

"But enough to risk a life on it?" I asked.

Leighanne's voice shook ever so slightly, "You mean to say, Brian Littrell, that I believe in Nick more than you do?" she raised her eyebrow. "Impossible."

"It's not a matter of believing in him," I replied, "As much as questioning the science of this whole endeavor."

Margo's voice was thick, "I'm tellin' yall, all I had to do was be in the same place as my paused self and boom, just like that, I woke up. One second I was standing there talking to Nick and he was looking up on the monitor where I might've moved to and I reached down to touch the bed to see if it was still warm to guage how long ago I'd moved and the second my hand touched the spot, I was laying on my back in the bed, just woken up from the coma."

The elevator doors opened and we pushed Margo into the hallway and moved toward the ICU ward, glancing every way in anticipation of getting caught.

When we got into the ward, we hovered near the door, pretending to take extra time at the hand washing station, listening to the voices of the nurses, waiting for them to go and do their muscle therapy with the patients. The moment their footsteps faded from the station, we moved forward.

My hands shook as I pushed Margo into Nick's room. We gathered around his bed. Jane's purse was on a chair in the corner. She must've gone to get a drink or a snack or something, I thought, and I looked at Leighanne with nervous eyes.

Leighanne looked at me, then at Margo. She took a deep breath, then turned to Nick and grabbed his hand. "Hey," she said quietly to him. "Listen; if you can hear me, Nick, you need to help us make this work... and forgive us if it doesn't."

Margo reached up and put her hand on Nick's leg. I hovered there staring at him, my heart aching because I realized that, if this didn't work this would be the last chance I had to speak to him. My palms sweat. I didn't know what I wanted to say. My mouth felt glued together. Part of me wanted to call this whole bit off, not to take the risk, to try to find some other way to stop Jane, but with so few hours left to fight her (less than twelve by this point), I didn't know what else to do.

"Show'em up, buddy," I muttered. "You got this."

Leighanne squeezed Nick's hand.

Margo stood up weakly, her knees shaking, and moved to whisper into Nick's ear. I watched her mouth move, but I couldn't hear what she had to say. When she finished, she looked at Leighanne and I.

"Are we gonna do this?" she asked as she settled into the chair.

I nodded.

Leighanne stepped forward, her hand reaching out to the wires and tubes that connected Nick to the machines.

But I grabbed her and pulled her back.

"No," I said, stopping her. I took a deep breath that shook as it traveled into my lungs. "Let me do it."

She stepped back and allowed me to shuffle between her and the bed. I stared down at Nick's face, peaceful aside from the garish tubes going down his throat. His eye lashes looked so soft, the dimples at the corner of his mouth just barely visible even without a smile on his face...

"It's gonna be okay, buddy," I promised.

And with a shaking hand... I disconnected Nick from the machines that were keeping him alive.

Chapter Twenty by Pengi
Chapter Twenty

Brian


Nick immediately stopped breathing. The ventilator had pushed the air into his lungs just before I withdrew it. I'd hoped that his chest would somehow continue to rise and fall even without the machine reminding it to, that perhaps he'd become more self-sustaining without the doctors even realizing it, but his throat restricted and he began choking on oxygen. I knew we had less than a couple minutes to pull this off, to make this work.

Time seemed to stand still. It was as though we were all paused as Leighanne leaped forward, grabbing hold of the foot of the bed and wheeling it quickly toward the door, pulling Nick out into the ward. I helped her, directing the bed from the head, my hands shaking as I gripped the handles. Margo followed.

As we swung Nick - who was now gurgling, his body already getting desperate in its oxygen-deprived state - through the doors and into the ward, a nurse I didn't recognize stepped out of one of the other rooms, and upon seeing Nick, a look of horror crossed over her face. She looked at me, "What in the hell are you --"

"Saving his life," I answered.

Leighanne joined me on my end and pushed the bed quickly around the half-moon nurse's station as the nurse stood there, jaw dropped, eyes wide, speechless and helpless. Nothing could've stopped us at that point.

Not even Carrie, who rushed out of another room and started shouting for us to stop immediately. "Stop! Stop! Who extubated him?" she shrieked, "My God." She looked at the other nurse and in a take-charge voice, she shouted, "Get shots of morphine and lorazepam. Now." She hurried to my side and helped to direct the bed as the other nurse rushed to get the shots from a tall cabinet in the station.

Alarms started going off from the station as doctors were alerted to the situation.

Leighanne rushed ahead and pushed open the door to room ICU-8, and I put all of my weight into shoving the bed forward, toward the room. The ward doors opened and Jane walked in carrying a take-out container from the cafeteria, and her jaw dropped when she saw us trying to manuever Nick's bed into the room. "What do you think you're doing with my son?" she screamed.

Leighanne tugged the bed through the door just as Nick's body started to convulse just a little bit on the bed and I realized that we were fighting a losing battle.

Margo was up and out of the wheel chair on wobbly legs helping us guide Nick into the room. Leighanne swung the end of the bed 'round and we pushed the extra gurney already inside out of the way, and positioned Nick as close as we could to the center of the room.

"What are you doing!" Jane shrieked, her eyes a panic, "What are you doing? I didn't authorize this!"

The other nurse rushed into the room with the two shots and handed them to Carrie. "Nobody authorized this," Carrie said, looking at me, her eyes narrow. "I could lose my career for this," she snapped.

She was prepping the needles.

Nick's body shook.

Nothing was happening. He wasn't waking up. He wasn't getting better, he was getting worse.

He was dying.




Nick


I fell to my knees on the tile floor, my palms smacking down. My throat burned. "Fuck," I choked out. One moment, I'd been walking along, and the next I was down, my brain spinning out of control, oxygen rushing out of my lungs at top speed. I crawled a couple feet, dragging myself forward.

What the hell was happening?

I stared ahead. I could see the door to the ICU ward ahead of me, looming like an oasis in the desert.

Was this what dying felt like? I wondered.

I had to see her one last time.

I'd gotten in the car, I'd driven almost ten miles away from the city on the interstate, when I'd reached a fork in the road. One direction offered the east and the other the west and I'd sat there, facing the split in the road, looking at my options, and I'd idled there, trying to decide what it was that I most wanted to see in the world.

That's when I'd turned back.

There was nothing in the world I wanted to see, I'd realized, except for her.

Now, laying on the floor in the hospital, I pulled myself forward, my palm sticking to the tile... I dragged myself forward. I had no hope of getting up to my feet, the energy was seeping out of me like I'd fallen and shattered open.

Was unpaused me dying? I wondered.

"Margo," I choked out her name, my voice hoarse. I somehow managed to get through the first door to the ICU ward. I felt like I was nine and crawling GI Joe style through my mother's flower beds - a pasttime I'd done and gotten in trouble for a lot when I was a kid...

Was this my life flashing before my eyes? I wondered.

I gasped for air, but no matter how hard I tried, it seemed like nothing was going into my lungs. I wheezed as tears came into my eyes.

This had to be what dying felt like.

It hurt. A lot. I felt like I'd been severely beaten up. I felt like I'd been run over by an eighteen wheeler, I realized.

Oh the irony.

I reached my hand up, toward the door of ICU-8, and watched it tremble... What I wouldn't do for someone to come along and take a hold of it... "Margo," I whispered, and I felt tears streak across my cheeks.

Maybe I should just stay here, I thought. It'd be so much easier to just lie still and give in to it, not to fight it. I stared up at the door, less than ten feet away, looming ahead of me... an impossible goal.

I was starting to get dizzy... the longer I stared up at the door, the blurrier it got, shrouded by the tears and the haze of my mind.

I lay my head down, my cheek pressed to the cool tile and I closed my eyes.

"Please Nick... where are you?"

"I'm here," I hissed, unable to get enough air to replace what I was expelling. I opened my eyes, expecting to see the light that would take me away.

"You promised you'd be there with me! You promised I wouldn't be alone!"

I struggled to look up at ICU-8 again.

"M-mm-margo?"




Brian


I looked at Margo, desperate to hear her say this was what she'd expected, but the look of horror on her face, wide eyes and quivering lower lip told me it was most certainly not what she'd expected.

Carrie pushed around Leighanne to the left side of Nick's body and took his still-restrained arm and slid the first of the needles into his arm. Almost immediately, the shaking stopped.

"What are you doing to him?" I demanded. I looked at his mouth. He was still struggling for air, still getting just the smallest amount to keep him alive.

"Sedation to keep him calm, it'll help with the shaking," she said, holding up one syringe, then she slid the other into his arm, "And morphine to stop the pain." She looked up at me, her eyes teary, "It's painful business, dying."

"He isn't dying," Margo snapped, "He's got to wake up. He's got to. He promised he'd be here, he promised." She grabbed Nick's hand. "Please. You promised, please." She stared into his face.

Jane was sobbing.

"You said you'd be here," Margo pleaded into his ear, "Please. Please. Please, Nick..." Tears were pouring down her face. "Where are you?"

Nick's throat moved with the struggle for air. I wanted to close my eyes, wanted to not witness this, but I felt responsible, I felt obligated to at least see him through. I owed him that much didn't I?

Leighanne grabbed my hand.

Margo's voice trembled as she sobbed, pulling Nick's hand over her eyes. "You promised you'd be there with me! You promised I wouldn't be alone!"

And there we stood... all of us waiting, our breath held, for Nick to keep a promise.

Chapter Twenty-One by Pengi
Chapter Twenty-One

Nick


I could hear her.

Her voice was echoing in my head, like a dream.

But I couldn't keep my eyes open, and I blinked in and out of consciousness as they drooped, then I forced them open again... I struggled, my limbs heavy, trying desperately to move across the floor. "I'm here," I said, my voice catching in my throat so that not even half the words made it out. My lips were dry.

"Where are you?" Margo asked again, voice thick.

"I -- I'm..." but I couldn't get the words out to tell her that I was right outside the door.

I closed my eyes.

This is it, I thought.

"C'mon buddy, you can do this."

"B- Brian?"

"C'mon Nick. You always show'em up... I believe in you. Show'em the impossible." He was whispering.

I forced my eyes opened and looked up at the door of ICU-8.

"Br-- brr-- Brian?"

I paused.

"Bb-bb-brian, he-help mm-me."

If he'd only listen, if he'd only open the door and come out and help me up...

I felt like a fish out of water, like my lungs weren't compatible with the air that was surrounding me. But I gathered every particle of energy left in my body and I forced myself forward... Two feet... four feet... five, six, seven feet... Eight... I stopped, my body aching like hell, my lungs tight in my chest, seeming to have shrunk up. I winced. My heart jolted - stopped, then restarted.

There was a whimper as my heart gave out.

It was Margo.

I hated the sound of her whimper. Hated the idea that my heart stopping hurt her. I wanted to make everything better. I wanted to launch myself up to my feet and rush to her side, show her that it was all going to be okay... but when I tried...

"Oh god-damn," I clutched my chest, where I felt like I was about to be split in two as my heart skipped it's beat again.

I wasn't gonna make it. That was obvious. I was gonna die there alone on the floor of the hospital.

I pressed my forehead to the tile.

But I had to at least see her. She had to see me. She had to see that I kept my promise, that I was there for her, just like I said I would. I couldn't die here, so close, without seeing her one last time.... I had to get in there. I pushed off again.

Nine... ten feet.

I was at the door.

I pushed it open with my head as I crawled through it, not enough strength to lift my arm to shove it open...

"B-brian, he-eelp, I nn-need help..." I begged.

I needed to see Brian, too, before I died. I needed to tell him that I was sorry. For everything.

That's the thought that carried me through the door, wincing and clutching my chest, balling my knees into myself. I looked around blurry-eyed, my head beginning to throb, everything fading in and out...

The room was empty.

Well, I couldn't see if Margo was on the bed from the angle I was at, but I could see that Brian wasn't in there.

I couldn't believe that I was going to die without apologizing to Brian... he'd never know how much I loved him like a brother and how sorry I was for misunderstanding him, for being a prick to him...

My heart jolted again and I closed my eyes so tight I saw spots of color bursting behind my lids and pressed my face to the tile. It stopped longer this time before restarting.

"Mmm-mmargo..." I wheezed.

I'd do anything for her to sit up on the bed, see me, and come to me...

But she didn't. I had to go to her.

I reached my hand out toward the bed, intent on gripping her hand... my palm splayed on the edge of the mattress and I grabbed hold of the guardrails and pulled myself to the bed, my hand shaking, barely able to lift, and I reached up over the edge of the mattress, searching for her hand to hold... but where was it?

"Oh Nick...where are you?" she sobbed.

And with the absolute, last possible breath that I could squeeze from my body I said ---




Brian


His heart was stopping. The monitor would be beeping normally, then suddenly flatline and I felt sick to my stomach every time because I knew one of these times it was gonna do that and there wouldn't be that relief of it catching and beeping again. Eventually it'd just stay flatlined until Carrie turned the monitor off.

And then he'd be gone.

I looked down at Leighanne's fingers laced through mine. I knew I should be looking, that I owed it to him to witness this, but I couldn't stand it. My own heart might stop if I watched his stop.

Then ---

"I'm here."

My head snapped up to look at him as Leighanne dropped my hand and rushed the bed, grabbing hold of his free hand, her eyes wide. "Did he just --" I started, at the same time that Margo shrieked his name and Carrie gasped loudly and sharply.

"Nick?" Leighanne asked quietly, urgently.

I saw Nick's eyes flutter, his eyelashes struggled to part, and revealed his brilliantly blue eyes beneath his lids. They swiveled around the room, taking in a bit of it, and then they met mine and he stared up at me for a long moment. Then, "B-bb-Brian?"

I leaped forward and grabbed his hand away from Leighanne's. "I'm-sorry-You're-my-best-friend-I-was-scared-to-death-about-you-And-you-aren't-an-asshole-I-only-said-that-because-I'm-an-asshole-myself-But-you're-like-a-brother-to-me-and-I-love-you-man,-I-fucking-love-you."

The words had poured out of my mouth all in one breath, like so much bath water, washing away everything.

Nick's eyes rolled lazily, droopy, and he muttered, "I-I'm a-a-- a little b-bit of a- a- an a-a-ah-asshole."

Having said that, Nick looked at Margo.

"What took you so long?" she sobbed, voice shaking.

He stared up at her.

"I j-just wanted t-to make a dr-dramatic ent-tranc-nce," he stammered, and he grinned - weakly, but still a Carter grin, through-and-through.

I laughed. A part of me feared it was a fantasy that I'd created in my mind... a way to pause the inevitable.

Epilogue by Pengi
Epilogue


Brian

"Why do you always have to challenge me?" my voice echoed through the empty seats surrounding the stage. "Every single time I say anything --"

"Maybe if you weren't such a self-righteous prick --"

"--- you gotta butt in like I'm a complete idiot and --"

"-- and you didn't expect everyone to kiss your fucking ass --"

"-- interrupt me like I have nothing important to say!"

"-- you'd see I'm just trying to help!"

We glowered at each other.

"Guys." Kevin came between us, his hands up as though we were about to launch at each other's throats. "Stop it.," Kevin commanded, "For Christ's sake, do you not remember what happened last time y'all started this shit?"

Nick and I both paused. I took a deep breath in through my nose. "He's right. God I hate when he's right." I pulled Nick into a bear hug. "I know you're just trying to help, but man are you a pain in my --"

Nick struggled out of my hug, "Dude, stop droolin' all over me, dawg..." He flailed his arms. "Just a'cos I love ya man doesn't mean you need'a be slobberin' all over me, I'm just sayin'..." but he was grinning even as he fake-bitched about the bromance.

It'd been almost six months since the accident.

Leighanne and Margo were sitting in the front seats, off to the side of the stage, talking. They'd stopped when we'd started fighting. Margo had her hand on her hip and had half-risen from her seat like she was about to come whale on Nick if he didn't stop fighting with me while Leighanne had a smirk on her face. She probably recognized the fight from six months before when I'd stormed off the stage and onto the tour bus complaining about what a douchebag Nick was and how Eddie had decided the two of us needed to drive to the next tour date together.

Nick waved at Margo.

Margo waved back. Be good, she mouthed at him. He grinned in a way that said he was inherently good at being not good, and then frolicked back across the stage and jumped at me with his big goofy tongue hanging out.

"Stop it," I groaned, pushing him away.

Nick danced away.

"Okay, seriously, let's get this song nailed down," Kevin said. "If y'all expect to sing it tonight then we gotta get it just right."

"WE HAVE TO SING IT TONIGHT!" Nick wailed.

"Okay, I didn't say we weren't going to I said if you wanted --"

"WE HAVE TO DAWG!" Nick was still shouting.

"At least it's not just you he interrupts," Howie commented, winking.

Nick was ridiculously good at interrupting pretty much everyone, I guess.

Margo leaned back and put her feet up on the barricade in front of her seat and grinned up at Nick as he galloped around. She shook her head. I saw her turn to Leighanne and I could read her lips as she said, It's so weird seeing him running around pissing people off.

Leighanne answered, You better get used to it. That's all he does when he's awake.

But she meant it in a loving way.

Nick meanwhile had jumped on Kevin's back and toppled him over.

Sometimes I think we all wished we could just... aim a remote and pause him again every now and then... if for nothing else but to catch a breath between moments when he was hangin' all over us... Sometimes we all wish we could just rewind back to the start of everything and change how it goes... To how it would've been in a perfect world.

This story archived at http://absolutechaos.net/viewstory.php?sid=11152