Yeah. Sure, you may think I'm mean for cutting Seth, but you guys are all mean to Ryan! I mean, you make him run away, get hit, get beaten to a bloody pulp, make his girlfriend (Theresa, not Marissa) die, make Sandy hit him, make him find out about a dad he didn't know he had, make him get shot THREE times! I mean, come on. Seth deserves a little pain. Also, this follows the same time line as the last chapter, so it's like reliving the past. Yay!

In other news, I think I may have gone insane.

Thank you to Sister Rose, who gave muchtvs the idea of using x to replace the dashes, which I have now gacked.

Disclaimer: I own nothing.

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"Shouldn't he be awake already?"

The voice sounded echoed in his mind.

There were eight of Sandy in his head, saying the same thing over and over and over again.

Or at least, he assumed it was Sandy.

It sounded like Sandy, anyways.

"Sir, you have to understand..."

Now there was another voice bumping around his head.

This was getting confusing.

"No. I've been here for the past three hours and he hasn't so much as moved. Is there something seriously wrong with him? Is there something you're not telling me?"

This was getting ridiculous.

The voices in his head were becoming incessant, overlapping each other like waves on the shore.

"Sir, Mr. Atwood has undergone a very serious trauma. His body needs to rest. Relax. There's nothing wrong with him not waking up. He tired himself out the last time he woke up."

A deep intake of breath from someone now.

Ryan wasn't processing much of this.

Not very well, anyways.

Sandy was here, he thought. Or it seemed like it. Unless this was a dream.

In which case, Sandy wasn't here. And he was still alone.

Which was fine.

"Would you like a glass of water, sir?"

If there was a response, Ryan missed it, but that was ok.

A door closed. Someone sat down somewhere and the seat squished.

"Hey kid."

Yeah, this was definitely not a dream.

Usually Ryan's dreams had actual visuals to go along with the voices.

Anyways, Sandy always called him "kid".

It was only two letters away from "kiddo", but it made all the difference.

Not that that was important or anything, but still. Ryan decided long ago that "kid" was a much better nickname than "kiddo".

For absolutely no other reason than that of it coming from Sandy.

A light tingling sensation in his hand when Sandy took it.

Or Ryan assumed it was Sandy, anyways.

"Listen, I can't stay..."

Of course he couldn't. No one could. No one did.

"I can't stay, but I'm gonna. Until you wake up. Because I don't believe that you're ok and I won't until you tell me so..."

The words faded and crossed over each other in different volumes, like when Seth would play with the volume knob on Ryan's stereo to make it sound like the singers were all messed up.

"You know, Seth's worried about you, Ryan. He told me so in, uh..."

Sandy coughed.

Ryan felt the need to move, to do something, but he really couldn't.

The darkness around him was so much easier to bear than actually doing something.

But Seth was somewhere, obviously not here.

Sandy needed to be somewhere other than here.

This was really confusing.

He became very aware of his eyelids, that fluttered and let in a small line of light.

Sandy held onto his hand tighter, and Ryan frowned at the pain. Or at least he thought he frowned.

"Hey, come on now, that's it. Good, Ryan. Good."

Ryan would have laughed if he could.

Sandy was treating him like a little puppy. It didn't even embarrass Ryan, because he liked having someone who cared.

Not that he would say that, because that was stupid, but still.

His eyelids were halfway up now, and he could see the silhouette of his guardian.

"Hey there, Ryan."

Ryan tried to grunt, but his throat only let out a raspy breath.

Sandy reached for the call button.

"We'll get you some ice chips, ok?"

Ryan blinked in response.

Sandy was beginning to focus in Ryan's eyesight, and along with the new visual came a jab of pain in his upper body when he tried to move for a better view.

Ryan took three short, shaky breaths.

Sandy blurred for a second.

"Woah. Watch it, Ryan. Careful with your breathing. You've got some fractured ribs that aren't gonna like any of those quick breaths."

A nurse left a cup in Sandy's hand with a spoon, smiled at Ryan, and left.

Sandy put the cup on the table beside Ryan's bed.

"If you're at all wondering, I learned how to deal with hospital patients from when Kirsten was pregnant with Seth. I also learned to do things like this quickly, but sadly, my skills have vanished over the years."

Ryan swallowed and frowned.

Sandy was talking too loud for his taste.

Although, of that, he couldn't be quite sure, because everything was loud, so he suddenly felt like an ass for thinking it was Sandy's fault.

Sandy fiddled with the bed, mumbling about it not working and pulling every lever for a few minutes until it came up so Ryan was sitting.

Ryan blinked at Sandy, who picked the cup up from its spot on the table.

He put a few ice chips into the spoon carefully, and Ryan kept his eyes on the spoon.

"Open your mouth, Ryan."

Ryan opened his eyes wide and frowned.

Finally realizing what Sandy was doing, he grunted as well as he could and weakly reached for the plastic cup.

Sandy pulled it back.

"Hey. No, it's ok. I've got it."

Ryan shook his head a little and reached further out.

He silently pleaded with Sandy, glanced over to his shaking hand, and tried to steady it.

"Ryan. I'm not going to tell anyone."

Ryan gave Sandy the best glare he could muster and dropped his hand to his side.

Sandy moved his chair closer to Ryan and held the spoon out.

Ryan, still glaring, slowly opened his mouth and let Sandy drop the ice chips into it.

"Now don't bite those. Just suck on them. Good."

Sandy cleared his throat, obviously uncomfortable.

Ryan felt the cool liquid travel down his throat.

"So, uh, how are you feeling, Ryan?"

Sandy spooned two more ice chips and waited.

A few seconds passed before Ryan acknowledged the question.

He gave Sandy a small shrug.

"Fine, I guess."

Sandy's raised eyebrows seemed to believe differently.

"Fine? Ryan, you don't look fine."

Ryan sighed.

He didn't say anything, instead opening his mouth to accept the ice chips.

"How are you really feeling?"

Another sigh.

Ryan figured he'd be better off to give Sandy the answer he wanted.

"Not so good."

His voice was low and grating and he coughed to make it sound normal, surprised when a wave of pain hit his chest and head.

He closed his eyes tight, leaned forward, waited for the pain and the ringing in his ears to pass.

Sandy's hand was on his back, moving in slow circles.

"You want me to call a nurse, Ryan?"

Sandy had never sounded that way before.

Ryan had never heard him sound so worried. So drained.

He shook his head as slowly as possible and took as deep a breath as his ribs would allow him to.

"Just sit back now, ok? I'll stay as long as you need me, Ryan."

Ryan obeyed the command.

Sandy's words triggered something in his mind.

Sandy still had to go somewhere to be with someone, and it took Ryan a few moments to rearrange all the memories in his head in their correct order.

Seth. Knife. Eddie.

"Seth?"

He was proud of the fact that his voice sounded a little more normal now, and less like that of Wolverine's. Or what he thought Wolverine sounded like. They all sounded the same to him.

Seth would kill him if he admitted that he really didn't know all the X-Men's names and their powers.

Sandy put a hand on the top of Ryan's head.

"Seth's ok. Don't worry about him right now. Worry about you."

Ryan closed his eyes.

He was an unfamiliar person to be worried about.

In fact, he was finding it easier to worry about Seth. And Theresa. And oh, god, Eddie.

"Sandy?"

Sandy took his hand again.

"Yeah, Ryan?"

Ryan blinked a few times to remember what he was trying to say. He kept his eyes closed after he succeeded.

"Why'd you come here?"

His voice broke near the end, and he tried to clear his throat without further hurting his ribs and chest.

Sandy let out what, under different circumstances, would have been considered a laugh. To Ryan it sounded more like a sob.

"How can you even ask me that? Ryan? You know why."

Ryan let out a breath he didn't know he'd been holding.

"But Seth is... he..."

Sandy let go of Ryan's hand, and Ryan found himself missing the physical contact with his foster father.

Ryan opened his eyes.

"Seth is fine. Seth isn't hurt. You're hurt, Ryan. Seth is... I mean, Seth's hurt, but he's not hurt like you are. A few days in..."

Sandy paused. Ryan looked around, his eyelids heavy.

"A few days in juvie isn't going to kill him. Not that I'm saying he deserves those few days, because I mean, from what he's told me, it was self defense. But I have to try and get him out of there as soon as possible."

Ryan frowned and watched Sandy do the same.

"I think I talked myself in a circle."

Ryan let out a quick breath that, to him, was a laugh.

Sandy took his hand for the third time.

"Don't worry, Ryan. I'll be here for the next few hours and then I've gotta go pick Kirsten up at the house to bring her here."

Ryan thought about it for a second.

"Wait. Kirsten can drive down here herself."

He thought his voice sounded a little worse, and apparently, Sandy agreed, because he put another ice chip in the spoon and waited for Ryan to open his mouth.

"Yes, well, Kirsten forgot to bring her damn cell phone with her to the spa, so I had to pull her out of her treatment by calling the manager and leaving a message on the answering machine. Apparently she didn't want to talk to me. Something tells me she won't be reacting well to the news."

Ryan opened his mouth and Sandy dropped the ice chips into it.

Ryan thought that Sandy sounded angry.

At who, he didn't know.

Which scared him.

"I'm sorry."

Ryan sucked on the ice chip.

Sandy put the cup down and it clacked when it came in contact with the table.

"Sorry? Ryan, for what?"

Ryan felt his emotions start to bubble over, but he kept them in check.

He was sorry for every goddamn thing in his life that he did wrong.

If it wasn't for him, Seth would be at home with his family instead of being scared and alone in juvie.

"Everything. I just-- I'm sorry, ok?"

He just wanted to sleep.

He knew he was contradicting his earlier protests against sleep and rest and anything that had to do with closed eyes, but he decided he had changed his mind.

He glanced over at Sandy before closing his eyes.

"I want to get out of here."

Ryan said it mostly to himself, but he knew Sandy would overhear.

"I know. Don't worry, you'll only be here about a week and then we can take you home."

Ryan almost opened his eyes.

Home was with Theresa, in their little house near Eva's.

Home was where the bed squeaked loudly because of the old mattress.

Somehow, Ryan highly doubted Sandy was talking about home in Chino.

He didn't have the energy to say anything, so he didn't.

But he would.

As soon as he got some sleep.

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Ryan felt a little better when he woke up a few hours later. It was already early afternoon, and a nurse was looking at things on a clipboard.

"Hi there, Ryan. How are you feeling?"

Ryan swallowed.

He decided to test his voice.

"Fine, thank you, ma'am."

The 'thank you' didn't really come out right, or, actually, at all, but he decided to let it slide.

The nurse did too, apparently, because she smiled and continued with her job.

Ryan watched her check his pulse.

"You've got a visitor, Ryan. See? Right there."

The nurse pointed at the corner of the room near Ryan's bed, where a blonde woman sat slumped in an uncomfortable looking chair, her hair in a loose ponytail.

Ryan looked up at the nurse, who smiled again. He cleared his throat and tried to reach for the ice chips on the night-table beside him.

The cup tipped over and fell to the ground.

Kirsten jumped in her chair and glanced around nervously.

The nurse hurried over to where the cup lay on the ground and started to clean it up.

Ryan grunted and tried to reach over the bed to help her.

"Ryan, sweetie, don't do that."

Kirsten.

Kirsten, who despite the dark circles under her eyes and lack of make-up, had the decency to put on a small, fake smile for Ryan, who felt like throwing up from the strain of reaching and twisting to try and help.

The nurse found a cloth and wiped the rest of the water up.

Ryan breathed through the pain.

"I'm sorry, ma'am."

The nurse smiled again and put a hand on his chest to make him lie down again.

Ryan looked at the hand and then looked at the bed.

It was flat again.

When that happened, he didn't know.

"Don't worry, Ryan. It's no problem. I'm going to get you some more ice chips so your mom can give them to you."

Ryan decided against correcting her.

Kirsten slid her chair closer to Ryan.

"How are you, Ryan?"

Ryan grimaced.

"Ok."

Kirsten had her hands on the edge on the bed, and she was wringing them nervously, squeezing her fingers together, squeezing her palms together, squeezing a fold of fabric.

She looked at him, tears in her eyes.

"Mrs. Cohen? Here you go."

The nurse handed Kirsten another plastic cup, and she mouthed a 'thank you'.

Ryan apologized again, the nurse smiled again.

"How do you, uh, raise this thing up?"

Kirsten put the cup on the table and read the instructions on the bed, successfully figuring out how to push it up.

Ryan gave her a careful smile.

"You know, I can do... that..."

He pointed at the cup.

Kirsten shook her head.

"I'd rather do it myself."

Ryan nodded.

"Ok."

He opened his mouth while she tried to spoon a few ice chips.

Her hand was shaking as she tried to keep from dropping the two chips in the spoon.

Ryan leaned forward despite his chest's protests.

"Where'd Sandy go?"

Ryan sucked on the ice while he spoke.

Kirsten was still tightly gripping the shaking spoon.

"Sandy had to go fill out a lot of paperwork about Seth. And you."

Ryan cringed.

Him. This was all his fault, whether the Cohens wanted to admit it or not.

Kirsten seemed to realize she was still holding the spoon, and she dropped it into the plastic cup.

"Hey, it's ok if you leave too, Kirsten. Seth is more important than me right now."

Kirsten sighed and looked at Ryan, her lip quivering.

Suddenly, she burst into tears, her left hand clasped to her mouth to silence herself.

"Uh... What's wrong? Please don't cry, Kirsten?"

Ryan put a hand on her arm, unsure of what to do.

She leaned forward and hugged him.

Ryan grunted at the tight feeling in his chest.

"Ok. It's ok, Kirsten."

Kirsten was clinging to his back and hugging him tightly, and his ribs dug into him.

He gasped and grunted in pain, caused Kirsten to let him go.

"Oh god, I hurt you. I'm so sorry. Here, let me call the nurse."

Ryan shook his head.

He didn't need more poking and talking and lights in his eye.

Even if he was a little trouble breathing.

"It's fine. I'm fine. Don't worry about it."

He started trying to breathe through the pain.

Kirsten kept her finger an inch away from the call button, ready for the occasion.

Ryan swallowed and quickened his breathing.

"Can you tell me what happened? I mean, everything that happened?"

His chest rose and fell rapidly with his quickening breaths, but he tried to make himself sound normal.

"Because, I mean, I don't even get what's going on, and I know Seth's in jail, and Eddie's... but this isn't making any sense and I've only retained about half of what Sandy told me."

He wasn't used to talking that much.

It all came out as one string of words, which made him more than a little angry.

He couldn't even sound normal doing something as seemingly easy as talking.

Then again, talking was never all that easy with Ryan.

Kirsten pressed the call button.

"Breathe slowly, sweetie. Everything's ok."

Ryan tried to breathe like she wanted him to, but his breaths came out ragged and short.

He closed his eyes and concentrated on trying to breathe right.

It didn't work.

He blinked a few times and opened his eyes to see Kirsten frantically pressing the call button.

"Alright, Ryan. Uh, deep breaths."

A nurse walked in briskly, and Kirsten jumped up and went back to her corner, stared at Ryan intently.

Ryan closed his eyes as tightly as he could as a doctor strapped an oxygen mask to his face.

"There you go, buddy. Deep breaths."

The mask smelled funny, but Ryan stayed quiet about that.

He felt so tired from all the effort his irregular breathing took, but he needed to know everything that was going on with Seth.

The doctor said a few more things to Kirsten before leaving.

Kirsten nodded and sat down next to Ryan, once again gripping her hands together.

"Please tell me what's going on with Seth?"

Ryan talked as loud as he could so he could be heard over the whirring oxygen mask.

Kirsten touched his cheek.

"When you feel better, Ryan. Just sleep now."

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Ryan was awoken three times after that.

The first time, for more medication. They hadn't meant to wake him up, but they did.

The second time, another check-up by the nurse whose name he had already forgotten.

"What the hell do you mean, Sandy? What do you mean, 'cut'?"

The third time, by Kirsten.

"No, I will not calm down. Tell me what the hell happened to Seth. Tell me now or I'm coming down there and causing a scene."

Ryan blinked, opened his eyes, groggily took in his surroundings.

Kirsten's dark form was seen pacing back and forth with a cell phone at her ear.

"No. No, Sandy, I can't stay here. I have to know what happened to Seth or I'm not staying here."

Ryan grimaced despite his best attempts not to.

He lifted himself to his elbows.

"Kirsten?"

For a second, Ryan hoped she hadn't heard him.

She turned around and stared at him, and Ryan guessed that if he could see her face clearly, she would have had a 'deer in headlights' expression on her face.

Kirsten's cell phone hand wavered for a second.

"Sandy, call me back when you know anything about Seth, alright?"

She snapped the cell phone shut and walked over to Ryan.

"I'm so sorry, sweetie. I didn't mean that. I didn't mean it."

She fumbled in the darkness to grab Ryan's hand and gripped it tightly.

Ryan bit his bottom lip.

"It's ok. Go see Seth."

Kirsten shook her head and gently pushed Ryan back so he was lying down again.

Ryan took in the fact that the bed was once again flat.

Whoever it was that was flattening the bed was really, really good, Ryan thought.

Kirsten awkwardly kissed the top of his head and pulled back.

"I'm staying here, Ryan. Don't worry."

Ryan wasn't worried.

He wasn't worried and he wasn't scared because he was almost an adult and adults didn't get scared.

Kirsten smiled.

"And when Sandy calls to tell us what-- if anything-- is wrong, we'll work through it together, alright?"

Ryan nodded weakly.

Kirsten's smile faltered slightly when Ryan closed his eyes halfway, leaving a slit to see Kirsten through.

He fell asleep to her quiet tears.

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