~~~~~~~~~~» AJ «~~~~~~~~~~

"Where is she?" I asked as I ran into the hospital lobby.

"I’m sorry...can I help you?" asked an older woman that was sitting behind the information desk.

"Please...Liz Holder...can you tell me what room she’s in?" I asked again.

The woman quickly turned to her computer, typed something in on the computer, and waited for the information to come up.

"Oh..." she said in surprise. "Miss Holder is ICU...room 436."

"Thank you soooo much," I said in a rush as she gave me a smile.

"Good luck."

"Thanks," I said as I hurried down the hall towards the elevators with Nick following closely behind me.

Nick pushed the elevator button, but I didn’t want to wait for the elevator, so I ran up the stairs as fast as possible. Once I walked into the lobby on the intensive care floor, the lady and man sitting behind the desk looked up at my frantic face.

"Where is room 436?" I asked in a hurry.

"I’m sorry sir. I’m afraid I can’t let you in there. Only family is allowed at this time," the elderly woman replied sympathetically.

"Please! You have to let me in...I’m her boyfriend," I said as I placed my shaking hands on the counter of the desk. "Her family lives in Colorado and she doesn’t have any family in the area..."

"Please have a seat in those chairs over there and I’ll see what I can do," the woman said while she pointed to the waiting room.

As I slowly walked to the waiting room, the elevator dinged and Nick walked out. He saw me walking away from the desk and followed me into the small waiting room.

"How is she?" he asked.

"I...I dunno..." I replied as I slumped into one of the chairs. "They won’t let me go see her."

I sat there in a daze for a while until a man came into the waiting room. He walked over to the two of us and waited for us to stand.

"I’m Isaiah," the tall hunky man said. "Miss Liz calls me Izzie."

He had an English accent, so I figured he was from the UK. He stretched out his hand and waited for us to shake his large muscley hand. He was at least seven inches taller than me and about four inches taller than Nick. He was definitely bigger and taller than our bodyguards, and to tell you the truth, I felt like a shrimp compared to this guy. Once we shook his hand, the three of us sat down on the chairs.

"How is she?" I asked in a shaky voice.

"She’s pretty beat up," Izzie replied. "We were just driving into the city on the freeway when a semi coming the other way lost control. It jumped the median and slammed into the back of the bus. Thank goodness there wasn’t very much traffic."

He paused for a second before he continued.

"Her driver, Charlie, is shaken up a little bit, but he’s only got minor cuts that will heal within a few weeks," he said. "The whole back end of the bus is pretty much destroyed...luckily Liz was standing in the bunk area when the truck hit. She lost her balance and hit her head pretty hard...there was glass and things flying. When I got to her, she was passed out on the floor...she was bleeding quite a lot from the cut on her forehead. She’s covered in cuts and bruises so don’t be alarmed when you go in to see her."

I looked up at Izzie’s face and saw how concerned he was for her. I mean, he is her protector...how could he not be worried? When I heard the door of the waiting room open, I looked up and saw a doctor walk into the room. The three of us stood up when he walked over to Izzie.

"Mr Johnston?" the doctor asked.

"Yes..." Izzie replied. "This is Alex and Nick."

He gestured to us and the doctor shook our hands.

"My name is Doctor Sidney Hanson," he introduced himself to us.

"How is she doctor Hanson?" I asked.

"Please...call me Sid. She hit her head quite hard...with that and the loss of so much blood, she’s lapsed into a coma," he replied. "She shouldn’t be in the coma for long...probably only until her body regains strength from all of the blood she lost. The gash on her forehead is healing nicely and it should heal so that there is no visible scar."

I was relieved to hear that she’d be ok, but I was still worried about the whole coma thing. What if she didn’t recover? What if she didn’t come out of it?

"I can allow you to see her now, but please remember that she can hear everything you say...talk to her and let her know that you are there," Sid said before he led us down the hall to her room and then walked off to tend to another patient.

We momentarily stopped outside the door.

"Nick...I can’t do this," I said out loud. "I don’t want to see her in so much pain..."

"Yes, you can do this," he replied as he gently nudged me towards the door. "She needs you now more than ever."

Izzie slowly and quietly opened the door and led the two of us into the room. My heart ached when I saw her lying still on the hospital bed. She had tubes in her arms and the heart monitor beeped noisily with every beat of her heart. Her blond hair cascaded onto the white starched hospital pillow. As I walked across the room towards her bed, I noticed that she had a bandage on the right side of her forehead...that must have been the cut that the doctor had mentioned. My eyes started watering when I reached the edge of the bed and picked up her limp hand in mine. Her arms had scratches and bruises on them, along with a few on her neck. I reached up with my other hand and carefully stroked her forehead and hair.

"Els," I whispered quietly as I let my fingers run through her soft hair. "I’m here with you Els..."

Nick sat down in the chair on the other side of the bed while Izzie stood inside the door as if he was on guard. I kneeled down next to the bed and cried as I held her hand with mine.

"I love you so much...please don’t leave me," I whispered to her lifeless body.

When the nurse came in to check up on Liz, Nick and Izzie left the room and went back to the waiting room. After writing down various numbers and measurements, the nurse promptly left.

"After you left on New Years, I thought about everything you said," I told her. "You were right. I’m so sorry...I didn’t want you to leave that night, but I didn’t know what to say."

If this were any other situation she probably would have said ‘AJ McLean...speechless? It’s a miracle...’ or something to that effect.

"If you just hang on for me, I’ll make you a promise right now. I’ll never ever hurt you like that again...and I won’t do anything to make you afraid. I don’t want you to be afraid of me."

I carefully rubbed the back of her hand with my thumbs as I spoke.

"You’ve got so many people supporting you. I hope you know how many people love you," I said. "But I think I love you the most."

~~~~~~~~~~» Kev «~~~~~~~~~~

"How could this happen to her? She’s got everything going for her," Arti asked as we rode in the limo to the airport.

I knew that she was worried to death...all of us were. Nick hadn’t said what had happened, but I had a feeling that it wasn’t good at all. When a tear rolled down Arti’s cheek, I reached up and softly brushed it away with my thumb. At the site of Arti crying, Meg finally let down her guard and cried into Howie’s shoulder. Howie in turn wrapped his arms around her and tried to keep from crying himself.

Once we arrived at the airport, I hurriedly helped everyone out onto the runway pad where a private jet was waiting for us. We quickly boarded the plane to avoid contact with the press. There had been rumors flying about what had happened, but a statement had yet to be released about the accident. We truly had no idea how bad it was or the extent of anyone’s injuries, but we all decided to fly to Chicago anyway. AJ and Nick had already been in Chicago for a day before we finally could get a flight out of Orlando. We promptly took off and were on our way to Chicago.

~~~~~~~~~~» AJ «~~~~~~~~~~

"Excuse me sir...I’m going to have to ask you to leave for a few minutes," the nurse said when she walked in the room. "I’ll come get you when I’m done."

I knew what she meant. The doctor had explained to me that Liz had to have a few blood transfusions since she had lost so much blood from all of the cuts and the gash in her forehead. I stood up, gave Liz a soft kiss on the cheek, and slowly left the room. When I got to the waiting room, I only found Nick sitting there in one of the chairs.

"Izzie went to get us a room at a hotel," he said in a tired voice.

He looked like he hadn’t slept in two days...which was how long it’d been since he found out about the accident. I sat down next to him, leaned over so that my arms were resting on my knees, and looked over at him.

"Nick..."

He looked back at me.

"How did you know that she was in trouble?"

When he heard what I said, he turned his head back and stared at the floor for a few seconds.

"This isn’t the first time this has happened, is it?"

He looked up at me and shook his head a little.

"The first time...do you remember the shooting at Sunny’s Market on Christmas?" he asked.

"Yeah."

"You’re going to think that I’m crazy, but that morning I was just sitting on my couch thinking about stuff and I got this really weird feeling," he said as he shifted and turned in his seat so that he was facing me. "I felt that something bad was going to happen if she went to the store..."

"Wait...she shops at Sunny’s doesn’t she..."

He nodded a little.

"So I told her to stay home and I’d get her the things she needed. If she’d have gone to that store, she would’ve been one of the ones that was hurt."

"Dude...this is way creepy," I said as I gave him a skeptical look.

"You don’t need to tell ME that," was the answer he gave me.

We sat there in silence for a few minutes.

"What did you mean when you said you told her not to do something?" I asked.

He stood up and took a few steps to stretch his tired legs.

"I warned her not to come into Chicago on the freeway...I got the same weird feeling when she told me that she was coming here," he answered as he sat back down. "I tried to tell her AJ...I tried but she didn’t listen."

He started crying so I hugged him. He was like my little brother and it hurt me to see him like this...and it hurt to know that he was only trying to protect the girl that I love and I took the liberty to beat him up for it.

"Oh goll Nick...I’m so sorry," I said. "I didn’t know...she never told me."

When I let him go, he looked up at me.

"I forgive you Bone...I forgave you a long time ago," he said. "I just haven’t forgiven myself yet."

"Listen Kaos. It’s not your fault. Sometimes things happen for a reason," I replied.

"I just wish I knew why."

"So do I," I said.

There was another moment of silence that was broken when the nurse opened the door and told that I could go back into the room. I told Nick to come with me, so he did. This time I let Nick sit at her side as I sat in the chair by the window.

"Liz I want you to know that we are all pulling for you," he said in a hushed voice that broke the silence in the room.

He lightly rested his hand on her arm above her wrist as he spoke to her.

"We miss your smiling face to keep us happy..."

He momentarily closed his eyes for a few seconds, opened them again, and got up to walk over to me.

"Sing to her Bone," he said. "She’d want that."

I didn’t really have a chance to question him about what he said before he walked out of the room. Without any hesitations, I went over and sat next to her, held her hand in mine, and thought of a song to sing.

~~~~~~~~~~» At the Same Time «~~~~~~~~~~

~~~~~~~~~~» Arti «~~~~~~~~~~

"No...I want to go to the hospital right now!" I insisted when Kev tried to ask if we wanted to check into a hotel before we went to the hospital.

I had called Liz’s cell phone earlier while we were on the plane and when Izzie answered, I knew that things weren’t right. She always answered her phone...she rarely let anyone else touch it.

"Fine," Kev finally agreed before he told the driver where to drop us off.

It was a short drive to the hospital and when we got there, Meg and I jumped out before the limo even came to a full stop. Once we found out the room number, we hurriedly climbed the stairs to the fourth floor. When we walked into the lobby, I saw Nick sitting in the waiting room with his eyes closed. Meg went in to try and talk to him while I walked down the hall looking for the right room. When I found the door with the ‘436’ plaque on the door, I carefully pushed the handle and started to open the door. I stopped after I had it a few inches open when I heard AJ’s voice softly singing a song.

When he was done singing, I lightly knocked on the door and waited for an answer.

"Come in," he quietly called out.

He looked up when I walked in. He gestured for me to come over to the bed so I did. I walked around to the other side, pulled up the chair that was underneath the window, and carefully held Liz’s hand that had the IV in it. The cuts on her arms and neck looked like they had been cleaned out and they were starting to heal. She had to wear a tube for oxygen and besides the IV, she had a few other tubes and machines hooked up to her. After I looked at her for a minute, I looked up into AJ’s sad eyes and I knew that there was something that wasn’t being told.

"AJ..." I started to say before he cut me off.

"She’s in a coma Arti."

I looked back down at the girl that I had come to know as one of my closest friends.

"They have to give her blood transfusions because she lost a lot of blood," he continued.

When he didn’t say anything else, I leaned over and rested my head on the railing of the hospital bed and cried as I held her hand.

~~~~~~~~~~» A Little While Earlier «~~~~~~~~~~

~~~~~~~~~~» Liz «~~~~~~~~~~

© Liz Holder 2000