This sucked. I had always been an active person. I loved being around people, being social and keeping busy. Never a dull moment. Well, let me rephrase that because all of this was certainly not dull. I should say I prefer other means of keeping life interesting. Lying in a bed, hooked up to a bunch of machines, and being in a considerable amount of pain was not my idea of fun.

Kyung had left only about fifteen minutes ago, but I was already bored. I had to be thankful for the small things. At least I was off that damn respirator. Right now more than anything I wanted to know if Nick was okay. Kyung promised to come tell me as soon as she knew something, but I was a very impatient person.

The first thought that came to mind was a bad one. I didn’t know if I would get away with it, but I decided I would find out for myself how he was doing. I wasn’t sure how since I didn’t feel like I could move, but I was determined. Kyung left the door open so I could see into the hallway. There was a wheelchair just outside my door. If I could get to that, then I would wheel myself to the ER. I wasn’t even sure if he was in the ER still or not.

I tried to sit up, but my body didn’t seem to want to work. I groaned in frustration and grabbed the side rail to try to hoist myself up. That made me gasp and I bit down on my lip to keep from crying out. I had almost forgotten about the sutures in my sides from the surgery. That was the source of a lot of my pain.

This time I used the button to raise the head of my bed. Almost immediately I was overwhelmed with dizziness. The pain got steadily worse, but I tried to put it aside. I was on a mission. Very carefully I moved my legs so they were dangling off the side of the bed. Nausea was starting to hit me now so I took a few deep breaths. Being on oxygen helped, but that was going to have to come off since it was attached to the wall.

I sat there a moment clinging to the side rail. It was taking every ounce of my strength to keep myself upright. I was feeling worse by the second, but I had gotten this far. I wasn’t going to give up.

Another problem occurred to me. I was attached to a bunch of machines that would beep at me if I tried to take the patches off. I decided that when I got up I would go hit the silent alarm button so I wouldn’t get caught. That would take care of that.

The pain in my sides was becoming fiery and I had to stop and take a few more deep breaths. It was getting more difficult to breathe, but I passed that off as just being worn out from the exertion.

Just find Nick. Just make sure he is okay. Then you can rest again. Just a little way’s to the wheelchair, I kept coaching myself. I put my feet on the floor and braced myself against the side of the bed. I took one step before the pain and the dizziness completely overwhelmed me. My knees buckled and I crashed into the unforgiving floor. My head hit something and I felt a tear along my side. I barely heard the door open and someone yelling, “What on earth?!” The pain was so bad that I couldn’t even talk. I suddenly felt very sleepy. There was a roaring in my ears and that was all I heard before I passed out.

I laid there for the longest time unable to talk, just watching Brian pace back and forth in the room. He kept running his hands through his hair and sighing. I blew it this time, he didn’t have to tell me, I knew.

It took all the strength I had, but I finally willed myself to speak.

“Brian?”

He apparently didn’t hear me the first time, so I cleared my throat and tried again.

“Bri?”

“Yeah?”

“I’m okay now, lets just go.”

Brian laughed softly at me. “Nick, you’re talking crazy, you’re too sick to leave.”

I reached out and grabbed his arm, my eyes locked onto his.

“Please, let’s just get out of here, everything will be okay,” I pleaded. I wanted to walk out of here and just pretend none of this ever happened. I never wanted anything so bad in my life.

Brian shook his head, dismissing the idea. “Nick, you couldn’t walk out this door if you wanted to. You need to let them take care of you. Now just lay back and let them do what they need to do to you.”

Tears were stinging my eyes. I kept thinking that if I could leave then Lizz would be okay and this mess would be over and done with, like it never happened.

I watched as a nurse wearing purple scrubs came into the room with a new IV bag and a syringe. Nothing was said as she went about her work of hanging the new IV up and then injecting something into the line. I started to feel sleepy.

“What’s that?” My voice sounded drawn out and slow to me.

“Meds to help you and calm you, Nick,” the nurse replied smiling as she looked at her watch while she was pushing the meds into my IV line.

Brian evidently could tell I was falling asleep.

“Nick, I’m going to go and check on Lizz and see how she is, by the time you wake up, they will have you in your room, okay?” Brian said as he rubbed my shoulder.

The words were in my mouth to reply, but the dark haze overtook me before I could tell Brian that I wanted to go with him.

As Brian took the elevator to the intensive care unit, he was assuming to himself that Nick would be assigned a bed there shortly. As the elevator stopped on the floor, Brian momentarily hesitated, forgetting if he was to turn right or left when he got off. His indecision was immediately resolved when he saw Kyung approaching the elevators.

“Hey!” Brian called out, “how’s Lizz doing?”

Kyung smiled. “A little better, she’s stubborn though, she won’t listen to the advice the doctors are giving her.”

Brian quietly laughed. “Sounds a little like Nick there.”

“So Nick is awake now?”

Brian nodded. “Awake and complaining and thinking if he goes home everything will somehow magically reverse itself.”

“Oh, I know exactly where that’s coming from,” Kyung frowned.

“I was just checking to see how Lizz was doing. They gave some stuff to Nick and it calmed him down so I figured it was okay to leave until he got a room assignment. I was thinking they will be putting him on this floor too because of the seizures he’s had,” Brian stated.

Kyung’s footsteps slowed when Brian said seizures. She knew that was not good and it appeared in the way Brian was talking that he figured it was something that would medically disappear.

“Do they know why he’s been having them? I mean, was it because of the meds he took or what?” Kyung tried to keep her voice calm; she knew she failed when she saw the alarm in Brian’s eyes.

“I.. I don’t know for sure. He hit his head when he passed out at the hotel, and the xrays are negative so they really aren’t sure. This will stop though, right? I’ve been praying this is something temporary,” Brian searched Kyung’s face for answers.

Kyung touched Brian’s arm. “I’m sure it will be fine. There’s probably---”

A loud crash from Lizz’s room stopped Kyung in mid sentence. Both she and Brian dashed towards the door, with Brian reaching it first and pushing it open.

“What on earth?! Lizz!” Brian shouted as he saw Lizz lying on the floor, a table overturned next to her.

Kyung immediately saw the blood soaking onto the side of Lizz’s gown. She had torn the stitches when she tried to walk to the wheelchair.

“Brian hit the nurse call button for me,” Kyung instructed.

Brian nodded, and hit it and then turned back towards Lizz, scooped her up and laid her gently back into her bed. He saw the blood soaking on the side of the gown and felt momentarily dizzy. He swallowed hard, trying to push the nausea away. The sight of blood was not something he tolerated very well.

Kyung immediately laid the head of the bed down so that Lizz was laying flat. She strapped a blood pressure cuff back on Lizz’s arm and turned back on the heart monitor.

“She does some stupid things, you know that?” Kyung mumbled as she read the blood pressure.

Lizz started moaning once her pressure started to return to near normal levels.

“Wha..what happened?” Lizz asked, her eyes wild as she looked around the room. When her eyes rested on Brian’s face she grew restless again. “How is he?”

“Nick’s okay, he will be up here soon enough, just calm down and let us relay the info, okay? You don’t need to hurt yourself and make it worse, Lizz,” Brian said in a soft, soothing voice.

Lizz nodded slightly, accepting Brian’s advice. She couldn’t help it though, she was still worried about Nick.

“Where is he?” Lizz softly whispered, her energy drained.

“He’s still down in the emergency room, he will be assigned to the floor pretty soon,” Kyung replied. “Brian, could you stay here for a minute? I’ll go check at the station and see where they will be sending Nick, okay?”

Brian nodded and scooted a chair next to Lizz’s bed. Kyung was only gone for a few minutes when she appeared back in the room.

“Nick is no where to be found on the computer, what gives?”

Brian breathed a sigh of relief. “They are going under an alias to protect him, oh I am so glad to hear that.”

“Do you know what name they would be using?” Kyung quizzed.

Brian shook his head no. It was so guarded that even he didn’t have any idea what they were doing.

“At least maybe this will stay a secret.” I whispered.

Brian looked at me, but didn’t say anything. I could tell by the look in his eyes that there was something that he wasn’t telling me. I started to ask, but I was stopped by a shooting pain in my side that took my breath away.

“Lizz?” Kyung must have seen the look on my face. “Hold on hun, let me get your nurse.” She hurried out of the room.

I tried to sit up a little to see what was causing me so much pain. Brian immediately put his hands on my shoulders and gently pushed me back down. “Lay still, you are going to make it worse.” He coaxed.

I brought my hand down to the side of my gown. When I lifted it back up, the sight made me lightheaded. “I’m bleeding.” I breathed. It hurt.

“I know. You probably tore something.” Brian frowned. He looked a little pale.

Della burst through the door and Kyung followed behind, pushing a cart full of supplies. “What happened?” She demanded.

“I fell.” I whispered.

“Okay, let me see what you did.” She pulled the sheet up to my waist and then pulled up my gown, exposing just my side. “Oh shit.” She muttered.

“Lizz, you tore your sutures wide open!” Kyung exclaimed.

Brian turned away quickly and sort of swayed.

Della looked up sharply. “Are you okay?” She asked, watching him carefully.

“I’m fine.” He mumbled.

I started feeling really woozy. I could see a considerable amount of blood all over my sheets. “They’re going to have to take you back down and sew you up.” Della told me as she applied pressure to my side. She turned and said something to Kyung and then Kyung left the room.

“Why can’t you do it?” I protested. “People get stitched up in the ER all the time.”

“This is a little more delicate because they are surgical sutures. They also need to make sure there is no internal bleeding.” She explained.

I whimpered. “It hurts. Make it stop.”

“We’re working on that.” She said gently. “Why were you trying to get out of bed? You should know that your body is far too weak.” She chastised.

“I had to go find...” I trailed off.

Della didn’t seem to notice my hesitancy to end my reply. “You are slowing your recovery down by trying to force your body to do things is isn’t able to do. I’ll be right back. I’m going to see if Kyung was able to get a hold of your doctor.” She looked at Brian who hadn’t said a word in the last few minutes. “Could you hold pressure on this while I go do that?”

“Uh sure.” He said uncomfortably. She left and I had to smile at the look on Brian’s face.

“You don’t like blood do you?” I asked him.

He shook his head.

I knew pressure had to be applied so I wouldn’t bleed to death, but it hurt something fierce. I tried not to let Brian see that.

“You shouldn’t have done that.” He said quietly. “We were on our way back to your room.”

My eyes welled with tears. I wasn’t sure if it was from the growing pain or the shame of doing something stupid again. “I’m sorry. I just wanted to try to find him. I thought if I could see him for myself, then I would know that he would be okay. I didn’t mean to make things worse. I guess I wasn’t thinking.” My voice was barely a whisper.

“Lizz, I just hate to see you going through this. You guys are both so concerned about each other that you are making things harder on yourselves. You need to take the best possible care of yourself so that you can get better faster. So does Nick.” He smiled ruefully. “You two are two of the most stubborn people I have ever known.”

I tried to smile. “Stubbornness is a trait that I am willing to admit to.”

He patted my hand. “Well use that stubbornness to get you through this okay? When it gets harder, and it will, don’t give up. Stay with it and be the strong person that I know you are. Maybe that will help Nick too. Everything’s going to be okay.”

I nodded. A few of the unshed tears slipped out and I blinked furiously. A few moments later Della and Kyung returned. There were also a couple guys with a gurney. Very quickly and carefully they lifted me onto the gurney. My eyes felt really heavy. It made me wonder how much blood I lost.

Kyung brushed a strand of hair out of my face. “We’ll be here when you come back okay?”

I nodded.

Brian squeezed my hand. “You’ll do fine.” He assured me.

As the transport guys loaded me into the elevator I tried to relax. There was something that Brian had said that stood out in my head. What did Nick do that he was slowing down his recovery too? It was my last thought as I fell asleep.