[note from the author: Hey all, sorry for the several-day skip in updates. Thank you all for the reviews! I love coming online to check and seeing the review number higher. It really makes me feel good to read your comments. Okay, now to address one of y’alls most asked questions. How do I know about this stuff/am I a doctor or nurse/have I spent time in hospitals, etc? Hehe, for the past two years I have been getting variations of these questions and I have always been really evasive. I know, shame on me. Well, without totally coming clean, I’ll just drop a hint. Throughout the story, Ellie has made comments or dodged questions of the same sort. There is something to that...

Meanwhile, enjoy and I will try to get the next chapter up tomorrow or Monday. Please keep reviewing :) Oh, and Happy Labor Day! Hope everyone enjoys their day off school!]

“This sucks.” AJ muttered as he paced the length of our waiting room. Brian’s dad and Dr. Johanson were out in the hall for about ten minutes. When they came back in, we were ushered back to our waiting room. Nick protested, but Howie convinced him that Brian needed his parents right now. So here we were, back in the blasted waiting room. I watched everyone, my heart aching. Kevin was acting like a zombie. Totally spaced out. Howie’s big brown eyes were wide with sorrow as he glanced worriedly at everyone in turn. AJ continued to pace around the room, muttering under his breath. Nick was the worst though. He was crestfallen. He was having a hell of a time keeping his emotions in check and more than anything I wanted to go give him the biggest hug I could muster. I couldn’t though. I was having a hard enough time with my own emotions. The doctor’s words kept ringing in my ears. He had said that the muscles that were damaged should heal in time. That wasn’t good enough!

“Would you stop it already?!” Nick’s head shot up and he glared at AJ.

“Don’t even start with me Nick. You think you are the only one upset here?!” AJ shot back at Nick.

“Guys please.” Howie pleaded. “Don’t do this now.” He glanced at Kevin, but Kevin seemed like he was in another world.

I felt really uncomfortable. What was I doing here anyway? I barely knew these guys and I here I was, intruding on their personal problems. For all I knew, they resented me hanging around when they were going through this. The more I thought this and the more I thought about Brian’s situation, the more upset I got. The walls started feeling like they were closing in on me.

“We need to work together here. Not against each other.” Howie cast a pointed look towards Nick and AJ. “I know you guys are upset. We all are, but don’t take it out on each other. Brian needs us to be strong for him and how are we going to do that if you guys are at each other’s throats?”

Nick and AJ nodded in a silent apology to each other. The room got quiet again and to me it was even worse. I couldn’t stay in there any longer. I didn’t feel like I belonged and it all became too much. I jumped up off the couch, startling Kevin who was on the other end of it. I didn’t look at anyone and I ignored their calls as I flung open the door and tore down the hall. Tears blinded my vision and I nearly collided with several people before I reached the stairs at the end of the hall. I shoved my way through the door, but instead of going down the steps, I went up. Don’t ask me why, my brain wasn’t functioning properly. When I reached the top, it was just a small landing that showed the door to the roof. More than anything at that moment I wanted to go out onto the roof. I knew there would be some peace and quiet out there. No hoards of people, no reporters, no psycho Leon, I wouldn’t be in anyone’s way. But of course, the door was locked. Safety reasons. Hell, I had no intentions of jumping. I just wanted some peace of mind. Instead, I sank down onto the floor, defeated. I curled my legs up and wrapped my arms around them. Then, I buried my head and just let the tears come.

I must have been crying too hard to hear anything because when I felt a hand rest on my shoulder, I jumped a mile. Nick was standing on the steps in front of me, a concerned look on his face. I couldn’t believe it. What the hell was he doing here?

“Go away.” I muttered, burying my head again.

He sighed and sat down next to me. “Ellie, why did you run off like that?”

“I couldn’t take it anymore. I didn’t belong there.” My words were muffled behind my crying.

“What do you mean you didn’t belong there?” He asked.

“I just didn’t. It was too much, watching you guys go through this and I shouldn’t even have been intruding.” I wasn’t even making sense now. Running all my words and thoughts together in one big jumble.

“Don’t belong here?! Where do you think Brian would be if you weren’t there when he his heart failed on him? And you have helped him since you have been here. Don’t you think he would be a little upset to find out you just disappeared on us?” Nick demanded.

“I’m sure I am the least of his problems right now.” I argued.

“Ellie, listen to yourself! Brian needs his friends and whether you think you aren’t important enough or whatever, he thinks of you are. If you just run away now, that isn’t being a friend. We need you there okay? I know you didn’t ask for all this, but you are here now and we aren’t going to just drop you okay?”

I shook my head in disbelief. “Nick, you’re right. I can’t believe how selfish I was being, throwing myself a pity party when I should have been concentrating on being there for Bri.” I don’t know if it was what he said or the way he said it, but Nick made it all make sense. People don’t give him enough credit. He’s really smart.

“Good girl.” Nick finally smiled at me. “You ready to go back?”

I nodded. “How come you came back?” I asked as we started to get up.

He paused and looked me in the eye. “I saw what you were doing to yourself. Beating yourself up and questioning what the hell the point of you being there was. It isn’t a nice feeling and I didn’t want to see you going through it.”

His words perplexed me, but before I could ask him the question that popped into my head, I lost my footing. I hate stairs. I always had and always will. In one fluid motion, my feet slipped out from under me and I could feel myself falling. My head struck something hard and then it all went black.

~*~*~*~*~

My head was absolutely pounding. That was the first thing I was aware of when I woke up.

“Ellie? Are you okay? You gave us a scare!” Howie’s face leaned over mine and I stared at him incredulously. What was going on?

Nick was standing next to him and his eyes widened at the blank look on my face. “Oh shit. Do you know who I am?” He turned to Howie. “Maybe she has amnesia.”

I laughed softly, immediately regretting it for the pain that it caused me. “Nick, asking if I knew who you were is not a good question to ask to see if I have amnesia. I would expect that nearly every girl with remotely good taste would know who you are.”

His expression relaxed. “Smartass, you know what I mean.”

“Better than being a dumbass.” I said softly. “What happened?”

“You don’t remember?” Howie looked alarmed.

A doctor appeared next to them both. “You had a nasty fall. You’re in the ER. It’s normal after a head trauma to not remember everything for awhile.”

“A fall?” I murmured.

“Do you remember us sitting on the stairs up by the roof? You left the waiting room upset and Howie and I tried to find you. I found you up there and we talked for awhile and then we started to go back down to the waiting room. About halfway down that flight, you slipped and fell down the rest. I tried to catch you, but you were just out of my reach. You sort of rolled down about 6 steps and you hit your head pretty hard.” Nick explained.

“Whoa.” I whispered as I reached my hand up to my head. There was a white bandage on my forehead above my left eye. Same eye that was already black and blue. I must have looked great. It was tender and it made me wince.

“You busted it right open.” Nick grimaced at the memory.

“I think it’s broken. It feels like it.” I muttered.

“Your head?” The doctor couldn’t help but smile. He turned his attention to Nick and Howie. “I need you fellows to keep an eye on her. She’s got a mild concussion so don’t let her sleep too much for awhile.”

Ha! Like I would really have to worry about that one. I was hardly sleeping much as it was. We all shook the doctor’s hand and he gave me some Tylenol for the pain. I had a feeling it would take more that Tylenol to make this headache go away. We walked through the ER and it brought back memories of when I brought Brian in. I shuddered.

“Cold?” Howie glanced at me.

I shook my head, carefully, and we quickened our pace to get out of there. Other than the bad memories, it wasn’t a good idea for us to be meandering around. Too likely to get spotted. “How’s Brian?” I asked quietly.

“He’s asleep. His mom and dad are still with him. They are going to start the speech therapy to get him to regain use of his vocal cords. Probably in the morning.” Howie explained.

“Were they pretty confident that he would get his voice back?” I asked hopefully.

“They were pretty evasive when we asked them that. They haven’t had very many cases of that, but from what I gathered, there success rate didn’t sound very promising.” Howie’s voice was clearly upset.

I didn’t know what to say. My heart literally ached and I wanted to just start crying all over again. Nick hadn’t said a word in during this exchange and I glanced at him. He was staring straight ahead, his jaw clenched. I knew he was taking it hard.

Thankfully, we reached the waiting room without event. None of us were in the mood to deal with anything. AJ was half asleep on the shorter couch and Kevin was watching TV. He glanced up when we came in.

“Hey El. How are ya feeling?” He gave me a small smile.

“Stupid.” I answered honestly.

He shook his head. “Don’t worry about it. Everyone is under a lot of stress right now.”

I nodded, accepting his understanding. I couldn’t help feeling like an idiot still though. So now we are back to what we have spent more time than anything doing. Waiting.

After about fifteen minutes, I started to get restless. I wanted to help somehow, but I was having a hard time coming up with something with my head hurting so bad. I got up slowly from the couch and started to wander around the room.

“Ellie, I wouldn’t do that if I were you. Nick’s liable to bite your head off.” AJ mumbled sleepily.

“No I wouldn’t. She’s nicer than you are.” Nick smiled half-heartedly.

“Whatever you say, Nick.” AJ mumbled, his eyes falling back shut.

The wheels in my head kept turning as I was desperately tried to think of something that would cheer Brian up. But, hell, in his situation, what would make him feel better. To have something that precious taken from you. How could anything possibly make him feel better. I sank back onto the couch, feeling discouraged. Right now, more than anything, I wished Jack were here with me. So he could hold me in his arms and tell me everything was going to be okay. That’s it!! Leighanne! One minor obstacle though, she was in some other country and no one knew how to get ahold of her. I sat there for awhile thinking of what I could do. After a few lame ideas and some wishful thinking, I finally came up with something. An idea was beginning to form in my head. It was farfetched, but when I put my mind to something, I get it. I’m just stubborn that way.

“Nick, I have an idea and I need your help with it.” I whispered urgently to him.

He looked at me curiously, but I didn’t give him a chance to ask me what I was talking about. I grabbed his hand and pulled him off the couch. “Guys, we’re going out for a bit. Call if anything happens okay?” I instructed. They looked at me with mild surprise, but I ignored it and led Nick out of the room.

“El, where are we going?” He asked as I pulled him after me.

“I have an idea on how to find Lee.”