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** HOWIE **

Alone again; no matter what the situation, I always seemed to be the one who ended up alone. I may have actually been upset if I hadn’t already become so used to it. The hospital lights were bright and they burned my eyes as I turned my head from side to side. The steady beep of the heart monitor was reassuring, as was the even steadier drip of the pain medication that was currently seeping into my body through an IV.

I could remember most of what had happened. I knew that I had been shot by the crazy woman who was obsessed with Nick. I knew that the others had tried to help me by wrapping a shirt around my stomach in an attempt to control the bleeding. I knew that Brian blamed himself for what had happened to me; I had seen it on his face as I had been on the verge of blacking out. What I didn’t know was if the others were okay. Clearly, I had been saved, but had the other guys been as lucky?

I gave up trying to look around the room and allowed my eyes to fall shut. The idea that I was the only survivor was too much for me to handle at the moment. I couldn’t go on without AJ, Brian, Nick, and Kevin. As much as I felt that they excluded me, I needed the four of them in my life. If they were gone there was nothing left for me; next to Leigh and the kids, of course.

“Howie?”

My heart surged at the sound of his voice. My eyes fluttered open and I attempted to stretch my face into a smile. Nick had made it; Nick had also been lucky.

“How are you feeling?”

“Sore.” I sounded like I felt; rough and gravelly. “But alive.”

At my mention of the word ‘alive’, Nick’s face lit up in the same way that it always had when he was twelve years old and everything in the world was new and amazing to him. He crossed the room in a matter of steps, dragging one of the chairs up beside the bed. He sat down and stared at me as if he were expecting me to spring out of bed and launch into the choreography for ‘Everybody’.

“What’s up, Nicky?” I tried to laugh at my use of his outdated nickname, but it came out sounding more like a groan. “You look rough.”

Nick rubbed absently at the dried blood on his face and grinned. “Only one of us was allowed to come and visit you. Kev decided that it should be me.”

“He did, did he?” I smiled and laid my hand gently on Nick’s arm. “I’m glad you came.”

“The rest of the fellas wanted to come too.” Nick leaned forward and peered intently into my face. “AJ’s got a concussion, so the doctors won’t let him leave his room. Kevin and Brian are waiting to talk to the media.”

“Everyone’s okay, then?” I asked the question even though Nick had already answered it. We had all made it through. We were all okay.

“You ended up getting the worst of it.” Nick admitted. “We were all – we didn’t know – we thought that maybe …”

I tightened my grip on Nick’s arm. “I’m okay, Nicky.”

“I’m so sorry, Howie!” Nick let out a choking sob and made no move to stop the tears that were all of a sudden rolling down his face. “I’m so sorry about everything!”

I started, taken aback by Nick’s rapid onset of emotion. “Why are you sorry? You didn’t do anything to me.”

Nick hiccupped as the tears continued to fall. “This wouldn’t have happened if Sarah hadn’t wanted to get even with me. She used you guys as bait; you got shot because of her grudge against me. She had a plan, and you were supposed to be last, not first!”

I blinked, unsure of what to say. Nick had lost me with his final comment. What was he talking about? I was meant to go last for what?

“I take you for granted, Howie.” Nick continued. “I always have. I know that you’re going to be there for me no matter what, so I end up pushing you away when it suits me. I know that it’s not right, but I do it anyway. I just want to make sure that you know that you mean so much to me. If I had lost you today, I don’t – I don’t know what I would have done.”

Now, I was really confused. Nick was never this emotional with me. This was the side of himself that he too often kept locked away. My heart ached as I watched him struggle to pull himself together. Maybe I wasn’t alone after all, maybe I never really had been.

“You don’t take me for granted.” I whispered the lie because I knew that it was for the best. “It’s all gonna be okay, Nick. We’re okay.”

Nick sniffled loudly and wiped his nose across the back of his hand. “I treat you like shit. I don’t know why you can’t admit it.”

“There’s nothing to admit.” I kept up with my lie. “Like I said, we’re okay.”

“Are you okay?” Nick pressed. “The doctor wouldn’t tell us anything.”

“I lost a lot of blood.” I paused, trying to remember what the doctor had told me. I had still been pretty groggy from the anesthesia when he had delivered the news. “The bullet missed all of my major organs, but it nicked an artery. From what I understand, they were able to remove the bullet and stitch me up without too much trouble.”

“So, you’ll recover?” Nick looked more than hopeful. “You’ll be the same as you were before?”

I hesitated, considering Nick’s statement. “I don’t think that any of us are ever going to be truly the same.”

“Howie!” AJ’s overpowering voice boomed down the corridor. “”Howie, where you at?”

Nick and I looked at each other, both of us trying to contain our amusement. AJ sounded as though he were on a mission.

“In here!” Nick yelled, giving in to his need to smile. “Room 412!”

The door banged open and a heavy-set nurse appeared in the doorway. She was huffing and puffing, cursing under her breath as she pulled a hospital bed into the room. Another nurse, similar in stature, was doing pretty much the same thing as she helped to push and guide the bed into position. AJ was perched atop the bed looking as smug as ever as he waited for the two women to catch their breath.

“You can just wheel me up right next to Howie.” AJ instructed, conveniently ignoring the death stares that both women were sending in his direction.

“What the fuck?” Nick’s mouth fell open. “How did you convince them to move your whole fucking bed?”

“The doctor on duty is a huge fan of yours.” The older of the two nurses grumbled. “Apparently, she’ll make anything happen for Mr. McLean here.”

“Damn straight!” AJ smirked. “A little to the left, ladies.”

The two women exchanged a quick glance and shoved the bed into its final position, making sure to jostle AJ as much as possible in the process. I bit my lip as I watched AJ grab his head and wince in pain. Normally, I would hate to see him in pain, but he had pretty much asked for it in this case.

“Enjoy.” The older nurse deadpanned. “You’re stuck with him now.”

“Wonderful.” I rolled my eyes in mock annoyance. “Is there no chance of you ladies taking him back downstairs?”

“Dude!” AJ admonished as the nurses waddled out of the room. “I did this for you!”

“Did you really?” I smirked. “Or were you just afraid of being alone in your room?”

A brief look of anxiety flashed across AJ’s face. “I’m not supposed to fall asleep until after the doctor has checked on me one final time. How am I supposed to stay awake if I have no one to talk to? If I had stayed down there all by myself, I probably would have fallen asleep and never woken up!”

“You wouldn’t have died.” Nick looked to me for confirmation. “You just would have, like, gotten serious brain damage, or something.”

I snorted at Nick’s comment and cringed as the movement rocked my body. “Nick’s right. You wouldn’t have died, but you may have woken up with the intelligence of a carrot.”

“I don’t even LIKE carrots!” AJ moaned, clutching at his head as his own voice echoed around the room. “You guys have to make sure that I stay awake.”

“You got it, Aje.” I used what little strength I could muster to reach my hand out and curl my fingers gently around his arm. “You got it.”

“Kevin and Brian are about to talk to the press.” Nick interrupted, gesturing at the television that was on, but muted, in the corner of the room. “Do we want to watch it?”

I turned my eyes towards the television and the slow, steady beat of the heart monitor immediately began to speed up. The anxiety was swelling in my chest as I watched Brian and Kevin walk out of the hospital doors and slowly approach the crowd of reporters. The fact that the two of them were facing such a frenzied crush of people only a few feet away from where the three of us were sitting seemed almost surreal. The inside of the hospital was so quiet and sterile; it didn’t seem possible that such a noisy, chaotic crowd was stationed just outside the doors.

“We have to watch it.” AJ insisted. “Turn it up.”

Nick grabbed the remote off of the small table beside my bed and aimed it at the television. Piercing shrieks suddenly filled the room and my heart swelled as I realized that it wasn’t only reporters who were waiting to hear from Brian and Kevin; the fans had also gathered. I shouldn’t have been surprised. The fans always seemed to know where we were, they were always waiting.

“Hello …” Kevin’s slightly unsteady voice cut into my thoughts. The shrieks and squeals began to recede as he stepped up behind the makeshift podium. “… Thank you for waiting …”