Disclaimer: The only things I own are the plotline, any OCs, and any music by Juniper Volt, seeing as it is my band. Anything else belongs to the respective persons who own the copyrights.
*~*~*
Last time that I saw you it was dark
I remember 'cause I think you're pretty
You shine brighter, baby, in my heart
Than the bright lights of this New York City
~See It All – Fink~
*~*~*
The menagerie of people stood outside the ICU, staring through the over-sanitized glass at the person just a few feet away, watching him struggle to breathe even though he was intubated. Dozens of machines, keeping one person alive. More machines than people.
Advanced Trauma Life Support.
That's what it was called.
Because he had fought back.
He wouldn't let her get hurt.
Someone he hadn't seen in 12 years, up until just a few months ago.
He risked his life for her.
He was still risking his life for her.
And she was standing next to them, tears in her eyes, still in shock.
How could one person have been strong enough to hurt another man – albeit a much weaker and younger man – so much that the other man was so severely injured he might never recover?
How could anyone have done this to someone so innocent?
How?
Why?
How had this all started in the first place?
It wasn't fair.
Someone so young.
Someone you think can never get hurt.
Because nobody in their right mind would hurt him.
Someone overlooked so much.
Someone currently lying in a hospital bed.
Struggling to breathe.
Struggling to live.
Fighting.
Just as he had always done.
It wasn't fair.
Nobody really noticed him until now.
Anonymity must be painful.
Especially when all you've ever wanted was to be loved by someone.
To have a family who cared about you.
And he had finally found one.
And now they were watching him die.
Lance Sweets flatlined at 0617, exactly 3 months after meeting the person who inadvertently caused everything to happen.
The person who was crying softly as doctors rushed into the ICU to keep the man alive.
It wasn't fair.
*~*~*
A/N: This idea's been bugging me for weeks now, and while I am probably making myself seem really twisted in writing this, especially because I love Sweets - and John Daley, for that matter (I asked if I could have a poster of him for my room, the dorky fangirl that I am), this is one of my more normal stories. Is that pathetic or what? And plus, I really wanted to write something other than NCIS for a change. So here it is.
