AUTHOR'S NOTE: This story is set in a fictional version of season four (mainly because I have only seen portions of the first half of the season) where the Taylor's are still at odds with the McCoys but Eric is still the head coach of the Dillon Panthers.

SUMMARY: When J.D. McCoy winds up in the hospital, the Taylors are once again pulled into the family's drama. Tami does her best to make things right, but some wounds run too deep.

BROKEN WINGS

CHAPTER 1: PINPRICKS

A voice on the intercom kept cutting into the comfortable, warm darkness of J.D.'s mind. He wanted to block the voice out for it wasn't saying anything that made sense and was sending pinpricks of consciousness into his slumber. The growing awareness of self made him wonder why he was hearing an intercom in the first place and he worried that he had fallen asleep in class. He tried to open his eyes but couldn't, and realized that his lips and nose were burning. Was he at home with the furnace on too high? What was the air seeping up through his cheeks? Trying again, he forced his eyes open and blinked. When he saw the speckled tiles of the ceiling, his mind tugged with familiarity that he couldn't place.

His chest felt tight, like something heavy was sitting on him, so he tried to take a deep breath and winced, screwing his eyes shut at the fire that spread from his lungs. The pain was as distantly familiar as the ceiling tiles, and a bespectacled woman's face drifted into his mind. The woman had her hair tied back in a green cap and she wore scrubs and gloves. She had asked him to do something. What was it? She had asked him to count back from fifty...

Surgery. He had been going into surgery. That's why his chest hurt and why he had a breathing mask on his mouth and nose, drying him out. He remembered that he had arms and legs and as his consciousness surged through his body, he moved his toes and fingers. If he was still whole, why did he feel so hollow? The twitch of his right thumb sent a tingling numbness through his forearm and he realized how cold the limb was. Blinking again to try to clear his vision, he lifted his head off the pillow a little to look down at his arm. But as soon as he shifted, his head swam and pulsed with a dull ache that permeated his brains, and his abdomen shot out a vein of searing heat, churning his stomach. Gently leaning his head back down, he closed his eyes and lay as still as he could, waiting for the nausea to pass and the world to stop spinning from the rush of his blood.

When he felt more stable, he opened his eyes again and looked at what he could see of the hospital room. He was in a bed surrounded by machines either on carts or mounted on the walls. One was blowing air into his mask and another was wired to his chest, monitoring his heartbeat. Other machines surrounded him, as well, but as far as he could tell, they were turned off. His arm and chest felt tight, and when he angled his chin to look down, he saw that his right hand was bound in bandages and that a red tube was sticking out of his elbow. After a moment, he realized the tube itself wasn't red, but rather that it was feeding him blood. As soon as he registered what he was seeing, the place where the needle entered his arm felt very cold and foreign and he didn't dare move his arm at all.

Why did he need extra blood? He couldn't remember losing any. In fact, he couldn't remember even coming to the hospital at all. Someone had bumped him in the hallway at school, and he'd known the bump was intentional but ignored it because a teacher was nearby. He had gone to practice and... in the back of his wandering memory with the image of the night sky with stars just out of reach. They had reminded him of the glow in the dark constellations he had on his ceiling before his dad tore them down, claiming he was too old for stickers.

He thought of school and saw his breath clouding above him, he thought of practice and smelled dewy, cold grass. Then he thought of lying on the hillside yards from his house, so cold that he was numb, watching the stars appear one by one, and realized that the cold and the grass belonged to that memory. After a while, the stars had drifted closer and became blurry, and he had felt so very sick inside, like he was growing heavy and turning into a rock. But the memory of lying and stargazing felt like a fever-dream and was as nebulous as it was tangible. More than anything, it made his skin crawl.

He tried to remember anything else that felt recent but he couldn't, and the pinpricks of consciousness were beginning to seal back up. All that remained was the memory of the woman with the glasses and the soothing voice, asking him to go to sleep, and the blur of lights on the ceiling as he drifted. His mind began to sway, and he felt unsteady, like he was falling, and the burning in his mouth and nose began to feel comforting for it anchored him to his bed. He focused on the sensation, and soon his own breathing lulled him to sleep.

Coach Taylor chomped on his gum as he surveyed his players while they exited the locker room and headed for the field. Several of them were laughing and joking around which was always a good sign. As much as he didn't allow mischief at practice, their energy and upbeat attitude was exactly what he liked to see. Turning away from them, he headed up to the field and stood by his assistant coaches, overhearing the end of their discussion about the homecoming game. It wasn't terribly important to the rest of the season, but Coach Taylor was certain it would be a big boost to his team's morale, especially the seniors.

Several of the younger players were missing Saracen, Riggins and the rest of the upperclassmen who were now gone, but homecoming would prove to the new crop of seniors that they were just as talented and valued. Landry had already been stepping up as a leader, which seemed less expected by him than by Eric, who had always seen great potential in the kid, not only on the field, but off, as well.

"All right, let's get moving," Eric said, tucking his clipboard under his hand to clap. "Give me three laps."

The players started jogging, and as they ran, Eric scanned their ranks and realized one of them was missing. He waited until Landry jogged past on his second lap to call out to him.

"Hey, Landry!"

The redhead peeled off from the group and jogged over to the coach, pulling off his helmet.

"You seen J.D.?"

He shook his head. "No, sir. But, I mean, it's not like I have any classes with him or anything."

Eric chomped on his gum for a few moments before slapping his shoulder. "All right." Landry stuck his helmet back on and jogged back to rejoin his teammates as Eric peeled away from the group and pulled out his cell phone to call his wife. It wasn't like J.D. to miss practice, but the kid had been acting a little headstrong lately, picking fights with his teammates and blaming everyone for interceptions and fumbles but himself. As a coach, Eric tried not to cut the sixteen-year old much slack just because he knew more about his personal life than he did about most of the other players. It wouldn't be fair if he let the kid mouth off just because his dad was nearly crushing him with pressure, so he slapped him on the wrist just as he would with any other player.

But if the kid was flaking on practice or sick and didn't even bother to warn his coach with even a text, he better be on his deathbed. Eric had scheduled a session today with Wade Aikman so that J.D. could get some one on one throwing practice. In fact, he was surprised Joe McCoy himself hadn't shown up to make sure the training was to his liking. The kid needed to learn that no matter how talented or rich he was, there was no excuse for wasting other people's time.

The phone began to ring, but before Tami answered, Eric caught sight of Buddy Garrity getting out of his suburban across the field.

"Hey, babe," Tami answered.

"You've got to be kidding me," Eric muttered, watching Buddy frantically wave and start to jog.

"What is it, hun?"

"Buddy Garrity is trying to run." He could hear Tami snort on the other line.

"Eric!" Buddy yelled through his huffing and puffing, still half a field away.

Eric sighed. "Can you do me a favor?"

"Sure, what do you need?"

"Can you check the attendance records for me? I wanna know if J.D. McCoy is sick or if he's pulling some sort of power trip with me. He knew he was supposed to have a special practice today and he ain't here."

"All right, let me –" She cut herself off as her office phone rang. "Just a sec, babe, I've gotta take this."

"Yeah, all right." Eric chomped away at his gum, grateful for his sunglasses that disguised the direction of his eye, pretending he hadn't yet seen Buddy.

"Oh my God," he could hear Tami gasp, though her voice was muffled since her cell was sitting a ways from her. "Oh my God, that's terrible. No, I had no idea."

"Coach Eric," Buddy called, getting closer. Eric was forced to give him an appeasing smile of acknowledgement as he heard Tami say goodbye to the other line and pick up her cell again.

"He's in the hospital," Tami said.

"Who?"

"J.D. McCoy. He's in the hospital."

Eric's lips parted slightly as he was about to ask "what," but as Buddy Garrity's flushed and frantic face neared him, he realized the older man had been hurrying to bring him the same news. A cold, sick feeling twisted in his gut as Buddy shook his head, his mouth a grim line.

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