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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.