The young men that were gathered in the consultation room wore somber expressions as they looked at Nick’s onocologist. Bob Carter’s expression, however, was the opposite of somber - he was livid.

“Nick trusted you in taking care of him! His heart stopped twice!” Bob’s strong voice finally broke and the older man buried his face into his hands as he started sobbing.

Dr. Andersen placed a comforting hand on Bob’s shoulder. “Mr. Carter,” she started out in a soothing voice. “I know that this frustrating but please let me explain what happened to Nickolas and why.”

Bob Carter shook his head in disbelief. “There’s really nothing more that you can say about Nick....I-I know whats happening.....y-you already said it when you told me to call the rest of the family,” he sobbed quietly.

“Mr. Carter, that was when we weren’t sure what was going on with Nickolas. It didn’t look good at all with the seizures and with him going into cardiac arrest but his body was having a reaction to the medications that were given to him for his stronger chemotherapy,” she explained.

“So its your fault that he’s is dying?” AJ rasped. Normally someone would have stopped AJ from carrying on with his accusations, but mysteriously he was left alone. “You poisoned him and his heart stopped because of your negligence?”

“That isn’t true,” the doctor defended softly. “Everyone has different reactions to chemotherapy and for those reasons, cancer patients are monitored when any new chemotherapy medication is introduced into their systems for reactions. Nickolas so far hadn’t had any reactions to any of the medications he has been on but for some reason his system rejected the new meds.”

“Don’t you think you could have checked this out a little better before you gave him that shit?”

This time Kevin placed a hand on AJ’s forearm and gave him a warning glare to calm down.

“We’ve taken him completely off the chemotherapy medication and we are now working on clearing his lungs---”

“Goddamn! You took him off the stuff that could save his life? Are you fucking crazy?” AJ asked incredulously.

“AJ!” Brian admonished.

Dr. Andersen didn’t seem to be offended by AJ’s outburst. “I can understand your concerns about the chemo being disrupted but let me assure you that this is in his best interests for the time being. As I was just saying, we are working on clearing his lungs to avoid pneumonia which can commonly happen in RSV patients.”

“So N-n-my son is going to be okay?” Bob Carter stammered, unable to say Nick’s name.

“He is in guarded condition for now,” the doctor replied.

“Guarded...” Bob quietly tested the word outloud.

“It would still be a good idea to for the rest of his family to be here,” Dr. Andersen said as she squeezed the older mans shoulder sympathetically.

As Nick’s eyes fluttered open, it took several tries before his vision finally cleared.

“Hi,” a young nurse smiled sweetly. “How are you feeling?”

Nick furrowed his brow as his brain tried to sort out where he was. His first attempt in answering produced no sound. Licking his lips Nick tried to clear his throat and instantly his chest and stomach rewarded him with sharp burning pains.

“S-surgery?” he asked in a soft whisper.

‘I’m sorry hun, what did you say?”

Clearing his throat again, he was able to repeat the question a little louder but it was still a whisper.

“Surgery? Oh that was over a week ago,” the nurse corrected. “Are you in pain?”

Nick had to think a moment, letting his brain digest the fact that the surgery was over a week ago. ‘A week ago? Why am I still feeling like shit?’ He could feel a tickle in his nostrils and he feebly reached up with his left hand to pull the nasal canula away.

“No hun,” the nurse shook her head as she guided his arm away, adjusting the clear green tubing. “You have to leave that there, you aren’t breathing very well on your own. Is it bothering you?”

He closed his eyes as he slowly shook his head. Other than the obvious - the cancer - Nick was wondering why he felt so weak and drained. If surgery was well over a week ago what was going on with him?

Another set of unfamiliar squeaking sneakers annouced to Nick that someone had joined his nurse in the room. Playing opossum, Nick kept his eyes closed.

“Shoot, is the patient still asleep? I’d really like to give him his breathing treatment when he’s awake.”

“He’s awake, I think he’s just resting,” the young nurse said as she rubbed Nick’s shoulder. “Hon, respiratory is here to give you a breathing treatment.”

Reluctantly, Nick opened his eyes to see a stout woman holding an oxygen mask and clear tubing. She reached up over the head of his bed, plugging in the tubing and then gently removing the nasal canula and replacing it with the pale green oxygen mask.

“I want you to take nice deep breaths when I turn this on,” she directed as a mist start flowing through the mask.

With a puzzled expression on his face, Nick did as the woman directed, coughing as his lungs protested the invasion of the mist.

“That’s good dear, nice and even,” she commented. “I have been giving you blow by treatments for last few times I’ve been doing this and I see on your chart that you haven’t been awake for any of the treatments.”

There were so many questions that were swimming in Nick’s head now that he couldn’t wait for the breathing treatment to be overwith. He could only wait and watch as his nurse busied herself with his chart and the other woman sat watching him dutifully take deep breaths.

As the treatment was nearing the end, Nick’s eyes started growing heavy. He had so many things he wanted to ask his nurse and he struggled to keep his eyes open. He finally gave up and allowed the comforting darkness of sleep carry him off into a pain free and cancer free world.

Brian Littrell sat quietly, head bowed in prayer as he sat next to his best friend. There were so many intentions he was asking God; hoping that He was listening, praying that he would be answered. Leighanne and the unborn baby were weighing heavily on his mind and of course there was Nick.

Brian’s heart was heavy with all the stress he was carrying inside. He felt torn. He was so scared of losing Nick but he was also scared of what was happening with Leighanne and the health of their unborn son.

There were so many “what ifs” that Brian had normally been avoiding time to think for fear his mind would answer the “what ifs” with the worse case scenerios.

Death.

”Bri.......Bri.”

The soft voice seemed to weave in his incessant praying and Brian failed to realize that the voice wasn’t in his mind until he felt a soft stroke on his cheek. He jerked out of his trance and looked around the room, the tears on his cheeks momentarily left unchecked.

“Bri?”

“Nick...omigosh, Nick!” Brian rushed his words when he realized where the voice had come from. Quickly standing up, he wrapped his arms around his best friend’s shoulders. “Nicky, you’re awake!”

Nick could only smile faintly in reply.

“How are you feeling?”

Clearing his throat Nick managed a soft reply. “I feel like I’ve been hit by a Mac truck.”

“No doubt buddy, you gave us all quite a scare,” Brian grinned and then a serious expression washed over him. “Don’t you ever do that to me again.”

“What happened?”

“You don’t know, do you?”

Nick shook his head negatively.

Tears started flowing freely down Brian’s cheeks. “You left us......your heart stopped.”

Nick’s eyes widened in horror. He died?

Brian clasped Nick’s hand. “I was so scared that I lost you, your father is a wreck, understandably and your mom, well...” his voice trailed off.

“My mom’s here?”

Brian shook his head sadly. “No, she’s not but your dad is calling the family again, he tried once when this first started but I guess your mom didn’t think it was this serious and I guess with everything that has happened between you two, well um....forget I said that....”

“Bri, can I ask you something?” As Nick spoke his eyes were growing heavy again.

“Sure Nick,” Brian said as he watched his friend struggle to stay awake. He waited for a few moments and then realized that Nick had drifted off to sleep again.

As Brian re-entered the private waiting room he noticed that Bob Carter and AJ McLean were missing.

“Where’s Jay?”

“He went out for another cigarette,” Howie explained, glancing up from a magazine.

“Bob?”

“He went to call home.”

“But he was doing that when I left to go see Nick over an hour ago!”

“I guess he couldn’t reach anyone or something the first time,” Kevin explained quietly, his voice sounded tired. “How’s Nick?”

“He was awake,” Brian grinned.

Howie and Kevin laid their reading materials down. “And?”

“He asked me a few questions and then he fell asleep.”

“How was he?”

“He seemed pretty weak and tired understandably,” Brian replied as he sank down into a chair.

Bob Carter entered the waiting room causing the young men to look at him expectantly. The older man didn’t speak as he grasped a white styrofoam coffee cup and quickly grabbed the glass decafe coffee pot. Kevin asked the question that was weighing on everyone’s mind in the waiting room.

“Any luck in getting ahold of Jane?”

Bob quickly changed the subject. “Any word on Nick?”

“Nick was awake a little bit ago.....he fell back asleep,” Brian informed. “He asked if Jane was here.”

Bob ran a hand over his face in a tired gesture, looking down at the cup of coffee. “I finally got through to her.”

“So she’s coming?” Howie asked hopefully.

The older man nodded as he took a slow sip from his cup. “She’s bringing Aaron along but not the girls. She wasn’t sure about bringing him but she mumbled something about tickets and some other bullshit...” his voice trailed off as he sat down.

“That’s good then I guess,” Kevin sighed.

Bob turned to Brian. “So you said that Nick was awake?”

“Yes sir, he still seemed kinda out of it but that would be understandable considering what he’s gone through in the past twenty-four hours.”

The older man set his coffee cup down as he stood up. “I’m going down to check in on him,” he announced as he strode toward the door.

Once he left the room, Kevin focused his attention on his tired cousin. “Brian, I really think that since Nick is stable now, you should call and get your flight set up to get back home to Atlanta.”

Brian waved his cousin off. “It’s not time to go just yet, I really can’t leave him right now and you know that......what if something bad happens and I’m not here for him?”

Kevin placed a hand on Brian’s shoulder. “Nothing bad is gonna happen. You need to be home with Lee, she needs you.”

“Your family comes first Bri,” Howie added quietly, his brown eyes mirrored the tears that were in his band mate’s eyes.

“Do you want me to book a flight for you?” Kevin offered.

Wiping the tears from his eyes, Brian shook his head. “No, I can do it....I’ll go make the call right now.”

With a heavy heart, Brian walked out of the waiting room toward the bank of pay phones that lined the wall alongside the elevators. For a moment he rested his hand on the receiver as if to draw strength for the task he needed to do. Reaching into his back pocket, Brian pulled out his wallet to retrieve the number he had hastily scribbled down on a slip of paper when he was at Nick’s house two weeks ago when he had booked a flight back home. But that was two weeks ago and so many things had changed since that time.

Instead of dialing the number on the slip of paper, he dailed the familiar digits to home......