A/N: Hi and welcome back! Hope you're ready for an emotional bunch of exposition regarding my personal headcanons! I mean there's some juicy and relevant plot stuff too, so I mean I hope there's something in that as well. But really this has just been my most fun chapter to write thus far. So yeah! I hope you're all doing really well, anyways.

Trigger Warning: Discussions of a previous suicide attempt (Not graphic and not successful, but more than just referring to Connor as having been suicidal) Proceed with caution and know I love you.

Also there is a fair bit of swearing - the kids are stressed. And also a description of a nasty rehab (disclaimer: I have never been to a rehab and I'm not totally sure what's legal and what's not, it's just my estimation of a terrible experience). It's gritty but it picks up at the end. Anyhow, let's go!

These Broken Parts - Chapter 10

Shit. Shit shit shit shit shit. Shit.

Evan half-stood, not fully upright since his knees were trembling far too much to allow that, clumsily backing away from the aghast girl before him with his hands held out in front of him, to make sure she saw he was keeping her at least at arms length. The vague idea drifted into his head that he must look like a criminal looks just before getting arrested; he certainly felt like he deserved to be locked up away from the world, somewhere he couldn't mess things up even more.

"W-what the -"

His head was shaking so much Zoe was reduced to a blur in his vision, but the image of her stunned disgust was burned into his brain like a garish, ugly scar. "Oh my God, I'm so, s-so, so -" he blinked hard, the tears stinging behind his eyes and his words already becoming thick and painful from having to crawl up past the sob building in his throat. No, no, the only way this could get worse is if I cry in front of Zoe. "I have to, I h-have to, uh, I'm sorry, I'm s-so sorry." With a raspy crack in every word he forced out, his sentence seemed to be giving way, words plummeting down into a great, vast nothing, and Evan felt like he was falling right along with them.

He fled so fast his feet barely seemed to touch the stairs: the front door appeared to swing open of it's own accord as if it was recoiling away, and the grunt of surprise as he raced past Mr Murphy, followed by the disappointed exclamation of Mrs Murphy, seemed to come from very far away - unless that was just the impact of the ringing in his ears.

Blinded by now unreserved tears and the memory of Zoe's betrayed expression, Evan simply kept on running, oblivious to his surroundings, the harsh slap of his trainers on the pavement the only evidence that his brain hadn't left his body behind in the rush to escape. He didn't quite know how long it was before the throbbing of his left arm, crap, the doctors said I wasn't meant to do anything physical yet, and the burning of his lungs became too intense for him to carry on, and he staggered to a breathless, undignified halt, doubled over, cradling his spongy, pulsing left arm against his heaving chest, suddenly exhausted as the adrenaline melted away.

It took a few moments for his dazed mind to recognize his surroundings; even in the open air, he felt as though the world was closing in on him, ready to swallow him whole. The weight of his guilt squeezing at his chest, pressing on his lungs and taunting his pounding heart, made him feel even more claustrophobic, like he was stuck in the gullet of a beast, except judging by the look on Zoe's face he was the only monster around. I have to go somewhere, I can't just be nowhere right now, I need to just not be alone right now, I just want to be somewhere safe. I want my Mom. Mom's at class, it's Wednesday so she's at class, why is she always at class? He was at the side of the main road, a twenty minute walk from his empty house and fifteen from Jared's. Briefly, he considered pitching up on the other boy's doorstep and explaining the whole thing to him, apologizing profusely for offending him and begging for his forgiveness before he fell apart and told him precisely how he managed to fuck up everything with Zoe, his parents said I was welcome any time, Jared told me he hated me not keeping him up to date on what's going on, and I could really use a friend right now, I need to let this out...

He took a step, then paused. The mantra that had haunted him for years whispered in his ears, family friends, family friends, that's a whole different thing, family friends, and you know it.

Maybe he urgently needed a friend, but he really wasn't convinced that Jared was one.

There was someone else, however, who Evan could trust not to mock or judge him, who wouldn't respond with laughter or scorn, who would patiently allowed Evan to talk and talk until the words ran dry, and who wouldn't go and share his secret confession. He could simply sit and talk, unload some of his burden to someone who wouldn't criticize him, someone who, just maybe, might have been able to comprehend the loneliness that had been behind all of Evan's bad decisions. It was only ten minutes in the other direction.

Without even having recovered his breath, he continued towards the hospital.

Connor was lying just as Evan had last seen him that afternoon, the blanket uncreased, the machines beeping regularly, his skin pale and his loose hair splayed across the pillow. Without hesitation, he strode purposefully into the room and collapsed into his usual chair, every last ounce of strength or resolve leaving his limbs the instant he touched the plastic seat. There was no need for him to build up to an emotional outpouring of feeling this time, the tears came unhindered, the floodgates seemingly blasted off their hinges as he sobbed, unleashing the torrent that had been forming from the instant Zoe had pushed him away.

"I'm sorry Connor, I've made such a mess of everything. Honestly, I think - " Oh my God, Jared is so right, isn't he, "No, I know, okay, I k-know, I know, you're never going to forgive me, b-but I swear to you, I only wanted to help. That's it, that's the reason for all of these stupid, stupid lies - and I know that doesn't make it right, or fair, but I figured you'd be back soon and then they wouldn't need me to make things better, and I guess when that happens the lies just won't matter so much anymore because you'll be there and then it's your choice how things go, and I won't be important and maybe I can just disappear from all of your lives, and now I'm rambling, sorry, shit." Eyes squeezing tightly shut, Evan pressed his trembling fingers to his trembling lips. Breathe. Okay, Evan. Breathe. Breathing is good. Talking is good - it helps, you know it does, even if it has to be to someone who can't hear.

Mumbling through his fingertips, he practically pleaded, not only to Connor but to his own tormented conscience, "Okay look, I was trying to help, but then there was Zoe, and I know she's your sister, but she's also Zoe who, y-you know, I've been in love with since forever, and I know it was wrong b-but it just happened. And then it stopped happening, well she stopped it..." He physically shuddered, pained by the memory of how horrified she looked after his great mistake. He shook his head, a humourless grimace gracing his face.

"I can't blame her, she -" he hiccupped, leaning forwards as he did so and grasping the blanket in his sweaty hands, "-she doesn't care about me, s-she doesn't even know me, she only tolerates me because of you, and she shouldn't have to, she deserves so much better. You would know, she's your sister - oh God, I kissed... I kissed your sister, and it was on your bed, oh my God that's so messed up, I'm so sorry." The words felt foreign and wrong as he said them, too large and momentous to be coming from his mouth - his first kiss, with the only girl he'd ever cared for, and few things had ever felt so wrong. "I didn't even mean to do it, I swear, it wasn't planned, it's just we were talking and she was smiling and I thought, for one stupid, stupid minute, she might actually..." His jaw clenched and his face contorted beyond his control as he tried to suppress a particularly loud whine. Gasping, he shook his head aggressively, cursing himself internally as he muttered, "I'm an idiot. I'm so sorry, Connor, for Zoe, for this whole screwed up thing... I don't know how it got this far."

That was true. He'd never intended to allow Mr Murphy's assumption to go uncorrected, never meant to go to the hospital with him, never meant for it all to spiral out of control. It was like one of those seeds from a sycamore tree, dropping without warning before falling, falling, twisting and twirling as it fell, a failing helicopter completely at the mercy of the wind and helpless to choose where it would crash.

He'd almost managed to assemble some form of composure to talk about it - that wasn't exactly intentional either, the way he'd reverted to stifling his emotions, it was just that he'd had to calm himself in order to spit out those poisonous words. As soon as his confession was through, though, his throat was rapidly seized by another powerful sob, and Evan no longer felt the need to fight against the lapping waves of sorrow which were hungrily consuming him.

He hadn't meant to fall like one of those pitiful little helicopter seeds. He hadn't meant to laugh at Connor, or bump into him in the computer lab, or let him sign his cast with that offhand comment, now we can both pretend we have friends. Connor had been kind to him that day, for a few moments, just long enough to ask about his arm and sign his cast and smile as if neither of them was entirely alone. Evan knew he had no right to be there lamenting his misery with the ragged desperation of a drowning man gasping for air, but like a seed in the wind, he couldn't resist. Even though he knew it was never meant to happen, even though he wished he'd never been dragged into the tide, this time he'd found himself swimming with the current to make his way to Connor. The boy had been kind to him, once, and Evan didn't go to Connor because he was naive enough to think he might have meant it; he went because Connor had been willing to pretend he had.

And now Evan was using him to pretend that there was somebody who cared about his troubles. Shame sat heavily in his windpipe. There were no more words, only tears, until his throat burned and his eyes ached and his face was completely red.

The boy had no indication of how long he'd spent weeping, but eventually his noisy, snotty wails subsided into grating hiccups, and in time those, too, finally faded. His shoulders were hunched forward, his forehead pressed against his jeans, his moist fingers were bizarrely still, and his face felt dry and grainy from the salty trails left behind by his seemingly ceaseless crying. Shadows increasingly clung to the walls, and began to wrap their cold tendrils around the two lost boys.

Initially, Evan didn't react to the sound of the door opening in any way beyond tensing his spine - he was hardly in the most flattering of states, but he presumed it was a nurse come to check on Connor, and that it wouldn't be considered strange for him to be so visibly distraught, and that they would come and go without a word just like they always did. After a few seconds of silence rather than footsteps, however, suspicion started to prickle at the nape of his neck, and hesitantly he unfurled himself to glance at the figure standing in the doorway, framed by the bright light of the hallway; instinctively he knew before setting eyes on her exactly who it was.

Zoe's silence frightened him further than any amount of anger or disgust could have, mostly because she had every reason to shout how repulsed and offended she was - he deserved that. She deserved that, that anger. He'd almost come to expect it. But the unknown, the imperceptible, unreadable quiet emanating from her, was so menacing to the regretful boy that he didn't at all know what to say.

Laughter of any kind, nervous or otherwise, had no place between Evan Hansen and Zoe Murphy in that moment, even Evan could tell that much. So, for lack of alternatives, he fell back on the other favourite phrase of his.

"I'm so sorry."

It didn't look like she was planning on responding. Her face was cast in shadow while her edges were illuminated and blurred from the light behind her giving her a great impression of power and immortality - a spirit of judgment. Zoe regarded him through narrowed eyes, assessing just how genuine he was. Eventually, she shifted, her weight sliding from one foot to the other and back - preparing herself, she's going to walk away or start shouting any second, oh my God, why did I come back here, - and strode forward, visibly attempting to shake off her reservations to leave them at the door. She didn't look at him as she took the closest chair and sat down, but flatly quipped, "Didn't I already say you apologise too much?"

Evan blinked. His mouth stumbled over incoherent syllables as his mind raced to confirm what she'd just said, "I - uh, well um yeah but, I - uh, I just -"

"You shouldn't have kissed me, that was weird," she informed him, sounding suddenly very much like a confused teenager, more of a kid really, instead of an angry, defensive young woman. "But I don't need you to keep saying sorry, I just want to forget about it, okay?" Turning, she fixed her eyes, still piercing and narrow, upon him, reading clearly the terror and bewilderment written on his face. "You can do that, right?"

Without a beat of hesitation, Evan nodded frantically, relief almost bringing new tears to his eyes. I don't know how she can be so forgiving, I know I should never have tried to kiss her. But if she wants to put this behind us, then that's fine, that's so fine, it's great, actually, I really thought that would be the thing to tip her over the edge and hate me forever. I guess we get to save that exciting thing for another day!

Words couldn't have begun to express his immense gratitude to Zoe's generally dismissive response, but she seemed to pick up on his subdued wonder. A wry smile darted across her face, and she suggested, "I think it's just one of those random things that happens when you're not feeling so normal. It's like... Grief, worry, whatever, that stuff, it makes you do dumb things - things you would never think to do normally, you know?"

She's not wrong - half the time I'm too nervous to even look at her in case she sees me. A week ago I would never have dared to even touch her, let alone kiss her. Again he nodded, mumbling, "Yeah. Thanks for being so, uh, just being so nice about it." Zoe began to shrug nonchalantly, turning her attention back towards her brother. Where it should have been all along. She didn't expect anyone else to be here. I'm intruding on a family moment. Hasty, he scrambled to his feet, hurrying to escape from Zoe for the second time that evening, "I can just - well, uh, I was gonna go home, so I can just, uh, I'll leave you to it -"

"No!" The command was far sharper than Evan's subdued murmurs, and came out almost like a shout, stark in the stifling air. She blinked, as if she herself was caught off guard by her own urgency. Cautiously, Zoe amended her demeanour, replacing her aggression with reticence as she slowly implored, "Just... don't go, please." Her pause lasted several seconds too long, heavy with the anticipation of what she didn't go on to say. No longer looking at Evan, her gaze drifted around to rest upon Connor's peaceful face as she added, "You were here first."

"Y-yeah but -" the teenager hovered awkwardly between sitting and standing, feet shuffling constantly on the linoleum floor while his nibbled nails carved crescent-shaped indents in his sweaty palms, "N-no because he's your brother and honestly I don't mind-"

"Stay. I don't want to be here alone."

Zoe had angled her face so as to hide it behind a veil of her long brown hair, but her embarrassment was audible regardless. The plea stopped Evan's retreat in it's tracks, and, tentative in case she should change her mind and erupt in a fit of anger, he lowered himself back into the chair.

It didn't change the fact that he knew he shouldn't have been there. But he couldn't abandon Zoe, not if she claimed she needed someone else with her if she was to dare to interact with her comatose brother in any way, and especially not when she'd specifically asked him, with that potent mixture of timidity and boldness, to be with her, to stay there.

Unable to bring herself to look at the boy at her side, Zoe judged by the creak of the chair that he'd decided to do as she asked. It was with more than a little relief that she allowed herself to relax slightly, leaning back more comfortably into her seat as the tension eased its way out from her body, save for the frown on her forehead. That, however, wasn't something Evan was prepared to enquire about; his own experiences had made him quite an expert at identifying when people were trying desperately to hold onto something they wish they had the courage to release. Being asked had never made him any more inclined to open up to anyone, however, so he waited, watching Zoe for a trace of a sign that soon enough she would voice the issue that was bringing her such consternation.

It didn't seem to be more than a few minutes before she softly asked, "Why'd you come?"

The truth. That brief warning slammed to the front of Evan's mind before any more meaningless projections could come skidding out; he could pretend he was there out of a sense of duty to Connor, or lie that he was coping just fine, but right then, Zoe was suffering, and she needed to know that someone else could relate, that what she was feeling was valid and universal, not to be isolated by false claims. He took a shaky breath to confirm, as sincerely as he could, "To... I don't know, to speak to someone, a person who has been good to me, who tried to help as if he actually knew how I felt when I was just..." Lost. "He's been there, before, w-when things weren't so great for me? It's... It meant a lot. It really helped. Whatever. Y-you know, I just wanted to speak about..." He nodded towards her, indicating their recent disaster of a kiss, and thankful he didn't feel the renewed heat of a blush rising to his cheeks. "There's lots going on, I just needed to get it off my chest, uh, clear my head." Edging closer, he asked, "You?"

"Same. Kinda." Zoe sighed, heavy and exhausted as though the weight of the entire world sat obnoxiously upon her shoulders. She tucked her hair behind her ear, and Evan was surprised to see the raw misery shining out of her face. Kindness was commonplace on her pretty features, happiness often resided there too, and due to his recently acquired privilege he was no longer a stranger to Zoe's anger. But sorrow, especially regarding her brother, was incredibly rare, and he'd never seen her looking quite as pitiful as she was right then:

Something has changed. She's starting to let herself feel that pain... She needs this as much as I did, the talking, the chance to tell someone how she feels. His stomach seemed to rescind within itself at the prospect of baring witnesses to what he knew was surely coming, but his conscience would not be so easily swayed. You're here to help the Murphys, remember, that's what you told Connor and Jared and Alana and yourself, and this is helping. This is what you're here for, you can't... you can't run away and abandon her, you've got to help. You've got to listen. Courage and resolve renewed, he dared to press, "What is it? The stuff you need to sort through, can you say?"

She nodded, slowly, the space between them pregnant with anticipation.

Reaching for the right way to describe it, she began, "He's not been... very good to me. Some of it's not even intentional, he just does things. It's stupid." She could have stopped there. Under other circumstances, she probably would have. But not just then, with her comatose brother before her and a soft-spoken, apologetic boy beside her. "Did you know that it was me who found him?" Zoe's soft murmur barely disturbed the mild, dusty air. Her eyes, on the other hand, their piercing, tortured stare, threatened to burn a hole in her brother's pillow as she took in his unnaturally peaceful expression.

He'd made a point of asking as little about how Connor came to be in the hospital as possible, well aware that he was not at all entitled to know such deeply personal, disturbing information. Even so, between the regretful mumbles of Mr and Mrs Murphy and the explanations of the doctors, he'd been able to assemble a fairly clear picture of what had happened. Equally subdued, he admitted, "Yeah, I heard."

Though he saw her green eyes narrow to shield from the painful memory, they remained firmly fixed upon the comatose teenager. She swallowed, but her words were thick and throaty as she confessed, "I thought he was dead - he nearly was - it was the worst thing I've ever seen. H-he was just laying there, so still, and I couldn't - it was too much - I couldn't do anything, I just stayed there, staring, I don't know how long it took for me to..." She pressed her lips into a thin, narrow line, her brow became creased and weary, her eyes squeezed shut tight, and her nostrils flared with repressed tears.

Tentative (and hoping he wasn't crossing a boundary), Evan cautiously raised a hand to pat her shoulder reassuringly. She didn't appear to notice, but he was just relieved she didn't pull away. Trying to muster the same level of compassion his mother always had when she was trying to comfort him, he reminded her, "Shock, i-in a situation like that, it's completely normal; and you, you got help in the end, right, you told your parents, and the paramedics got to him in time, otherwise he wouldn't..." He jerked his head towards the heart monitor, releasing a comforting beep every passing second to remind them of the life within the body before them. "Whatever you think, I know y-you did your best, you got him help in time."

She huffed, a bitter smile causing her freckled face to contort. "No," she muttered, "I didn't. If I'd helped him in time, he wouldn't have tried to kill himself." The way her jaw visibly tensed, and the subtle twist of her neck, followed immediately by a shuddering breath all reeked of the emotional denial he'd already seen so prevalent in Larry Murphy, and he no longer had any doubt about how Zoe learned to appear so unfeeling.

She has to let it go, whatever resentment or guilt or whatever else, she has to let it out, or it will destroy her. And if it's not for me to hear... well, who else will listen? He squeezed her shoulder - just for a moment - and that was all it took for the dam to burst, and a river of tears to come crashing through. She pulled her knees in tight to her chest and buried her face in them, but the muffled sobs were still painfully audible. As always, the sight of someone falling apart before him brought Evan to a stage of utter uncertainty, exacerbated by the fact that he knew Zoe, at least well enough to know how strong she was; even on that fateful morning, when he was first brought to the hospital after Connor had been in surgery all night long, she hadn't cried. On his first ever meeting with them, he'd witnessed the tears of both Larry and Cynthia Murphy, but not Zoe - he'd never seen her cry.

A large part of him wished the ground would open up beneath them and swallow him whole. However, another part, a piece of his heart that seemed a little heavier than the rest, belonged to Zoe - it had done since he was eleven and she was ten and had played some Taylor Swift song on her purple guitar at their middle school's summer talent show - and it longed for him to be near her, helping her in any way he could. Therefore, ignoring the intrusive voices of doubt and ridicule mumbling in his mind, he steeled himself to offer, "I'll listen. You don't have to, but, uh, if-if you want to, y-you can talk about it. I mean, I-I just... I'm here. If you want. Uh..." He watched her carefully for any shift that indicated a decision being made.

She sniffed, nodded into her knees, and wiped a hand across her face. By the time she looked at him, Evan had a tissue offered to her, which she accepted with a bewildered smile. He waited for her to blow her nose and dry her eyes properly before she began to share the knowledge that had played on her mind for months, and which had plagued her mind ever since she discovered what Connor had done to himself.

"You know how he was after rehab, right? You saw how antisocial he became, that's why all that stuff with your e-mails started, wasn't it. He used to be out at all hours, and he'd lash out if anyone asked him where he'd been, and it sucked, but at least we pretty much knew what was going on: he'd sneak out, get high, then come back and get mad at whoever challenged him over it. But after he came back from rehab, it was like he completely shut down..." She shook her head, and her gaze returned to her brother, though in that moment she didn't see the teenager laying perfectly still in a hospital bed, she was seeing the frightened, weeping creature she'd found clinging to his pillow and knocking his head against their shared bedroom wall the night after he came home.

"We spoke about it, once, on the night he came back; I guess he couldn't sleep, but he was being noisy so I went to tell him to shut up, and he was just standing there crying. He was being weird, kinda zoned out but not like he was stoned, just like there was something missing. I don't even know if he realized he was saying it to me, but h-he told me, he spent so much of the time he was there locked up, completely alone in his room. He told me how lonely he felt, like he was never going to get out, and he knew he was being watched but they just didn't care, 'cause he could be shaking and throwing up and begging for help, but nobody ever came." She looked up from her mournful reverie, and asked, "Did he tell you that?"

Evan was forced to shake his head.

"It wasn't the first rehab we tried, but it was the only one that actually stopped him; the first two were ones Mom found, some weird hipster-nature-meditation-exercise-artsy mental health bootcamps - you can guess how much good they did." Evan heard without seeing the bitter grimace on her lips. "Dad didn't approve, he said that he needed real therapy, but even that wouldn't help Connor get better if he didn't actually want it, so we really weren't surprised that the first ones did nothing for him. But Mom was so desperate for Connor to get clean that when they didn't work, she begged Dad to do something. She knew Connor needed more control if he was going to stop using, so she let Dad take over the whole thing."

The sharp inhalation through gritted teeth was the only indication Zoe gave that she was struggling, or at least, the only one Evan was aware of; reluctant to make her more uncomfortable than she already was, his eyes were fixed firmly on the letters written on his cast, meaning that he didn't see the tears slowly trembling down her cheeks. In spite of that, as she carried on her voice remained stubbornly steady, unwavering despite her grief, "He found this other centre, a place he said would give Connor the regularity and discipline he needed. There were way more regulations, a no visitor policy, no drugs of any kind even with a prescription, barely any emotional support - I think the website said it offered one optional therapy session per fortnight? - And if you showed any kind of violent behaviour, they'd keep you in your room until they were sure you were calm. Well, it's Connor, so I guess that explains why he was locked up for so long."

Evan felt physically sick at the thought of what Connor must have gone through. He'd really never had any reason to consider what a juvenile rehabilitation centre would be like, but even if he had, he wouldn't ever have believed that they could be so strict as that - not on a sixteen year old.

"Of course it messed him up. I mean, he was already messed up, but before he went in there he had moments when he wasn't so bad, he had a sense of humour, and he was independent, and he had something inside him. But when he came out, it was all just... gone."

"Mom clearly wasn't happy, but I guess she figured she'd asked Dad to stop Connor using somehow, and it worked, so she couldn't complain. I don't think Dad was completely happy either, but he pretended to be, maybe just so Mom didn't point out that it was clearly a mistake. I mean, he basically got what he'd been aiming for, so even if he felt bad he could hardly complain; Connor was keeping his head down, going to school, staying in at night, and the only time he argued was when Mom was smothering him in attention. But it was so clear that he wasn't happy, and we all hated it. Dad decided he'd been doing well enough that he wanted to try and cheer him up. So he bought him this old car, and tried to teach him to drive."

"They only had one lesson. That's when the old Connor came back, I think. He ended up screaming at dad, and crashing into a tree - afterwards he said it was an accident, but Dad..." She didn't dare repeat the concern that Larry Murphy had voiced that day, didn't want to humour the idea of it perhaps being true. "Dad got concussion, had to stay off work for a week, and he said that as soon as he was better he would get rid of the car." Doubt crept into her words one syllable at a time, until it sounded like Zoe was struggling in vain to justify it to herself: "I didn't even think Connor liked it that much, it was really old, and it was some gross brown colour, but I don't know, maybe it was because it was something that was only his, after going so long without anything of his own, that he got so upset... whatever made him react like that, the big part of the story is that later that evening I found him, just sitting in the car..." she swallowed, her voice taut and ready to snap, but she refused to stop when she was so close to finally having it all out in the open, "he was sitting, a-and the windows were closed, a-and the engine was running, and I-I didn't even noticed anything was weird about it at first, but then I saw the hose pipe in the window and the exhaust pipe, and then I realized what he was trying to do, and of course I pulled him out of the car, but he begged me not to tell, he told me he was just messing around with trying to find some other way of taking off the edge, and it wouldn't happen again as long as I didn't tell Mom and Dad, and, you know, he was barely out of rehab and it had been a while since he last shouted at me, and he wasn't angry that time, he was just sad, and - oh my God - look, I wantedhim to be telling the truth, so..." She shrugged, attempting nonchalance before promptly crumbling in on herself as a loud, broken sob shook her from the inside out, and she dissolved immediately into a sniffling, shivering mess, aftershocks continuing to send tremors running through her. Miraculously managing to force stunted syllables through the hiccups and whimpers that distorted her pretty face, she reiterated, "I saw - my own bro-other try to gas - himself and I did-n't tell."

"Oh my - Zoe..." Evan looked from Zoe to Connor and back, disbelief that the boy before him could have tried to do such a thing battling with the solid evidence that he'd clearly tried to kill himself at least once more since then (and come much closer to it actually working). It wasn't solely because he barely knew Connor that he could honestly respond, "I had no idea." I didn't really think there was anyone around me who felt like that - I thought I'd be able to see if there was, that I'd be able to recognize the signs - it's not meant to be so easy to hide how bad you feel. If I had seen, could I have helped before it got this far? Or would I have been too afraid to even try? He promptly decided he didn't want to risk reaching an answer.

"This, though, this isn't my fault," Zoe insisted, adamant and angry in spite of the angry red tear tracks stripped along her face, "It's not like I didn't try to help him at first. Even after all the shit he used to pull, I really tried to give him another chance, just in case there was the tiniest possibility that he might be able to change. And if he hadn't been so fucking horrible to me then I would have kept on trying, too, I mean he's my brother, obviously I wanted to keep him from trying to off himself again... But I guess you can see how well that turned out." Zoe rubbed at her damp eyes, reproach for her brother returning to her expression as, once again, she lost herself to the memory. "The same night, I took the car to the scrap yard myself - I didn't want him trying to suffocate himself again, so I figured I'd get rid of the car and then maybe we could just, you know, talk about how he was feeling, like a fucking normal brother and sister are meant to, but of course he didn't want that." The mournful fury emanating from her as she swiped at her continuing tears was unmistakable, as was the bitterness in her thick, heavy words. "When he realized what I'd done, he got so mad, worse than I'd ever seen him before, and he just went for me like a total psychopath. He swore he was gonna kill me, and the way he looked, I could really believe it; I locked myself in my room but I was so sure he'd break down the door, he just kept screaming and banging until Dad managed to pull him away, and then the neighbours called the police, and half the neighbourhood ended up coming out to see what was going on, and Connor only calmed down when they threatened to take him into custody."

She paused, close to the end of her tale. Shrugging, she swept aside the last of her tears, determined to pull herself together. Evan's hand still rested on her shoulder, and he softly rubbed, a gentle encouragement to keep going.

Zoe's hand reached up to pat Evan's, quietly thankful for his presence with her. She sighed, half-breezy, half-bereaved. "Afterwards, he went out for the whole night... He came back stinking of pot. So yeah, that was that. I decided I wasn't going to give him any more chances."

Evan nodded, empathy swelling within him and threatening to force yet more tears to fall. No. No tears, not for me, not now: this is Zoe's moment. He watched her continue to stare at Connor's peaceful, unstirring form, patiently waiting until she released his hand and let hers drop back into her lap before he dared to question her.

Acutely aware of the foreboding warnings whispering in his hear, he tried to be as cautious and sensitive as it was possible for him to be as he bravely asked, "But... If you're not giving him any more chances, why did you come back?"

"Because..." she sniffed, bemused at the fact that the single honest reply she could think of was almost sickeningly cliche. Shaking her head, she admitted, "Because of you. I know it's so stupid, you can't begin to understand how dumb I feel for even thinking like this, but..." she shrugged, exasperated by her own uncertainty almost as much as by her brother's inconsistency. "He nearly died, my brother almost killed himself for real this time, and I know that doesn't change anything about the way he is, but it just makes me think, if maybe there could be some way for him to... I don't even know. But the way you talk about him, it's just... It's so much better than I've known him to be. I guess you just make me think that maybe, someday, things might just be... I don't know. Ignore me." She sighed. "Damn, this is just getting depressing."

Zoe shook her head, still not quite able to believe she was there again, digging for hope in the great big pile of shit her brother had left them with. "Tell me something happy. About the two of you," She said, shy once more, like a kid who's just recounted a nightmare and has to ask for a bedtime story before they can go back to sleep. It was a sweet request, she was sweet for even making out like their mess was redeemable, and Evan was helpless to refuse.

"Something happy, about Connor and I..." He grimaced, scouring his mind for anything uplifting enough that the content of his fabrication would compensate for the lack of truth. Zoe had just been brutally honest with him, and it stung him to have to lie to her in return, but it wasn't like he had a stock of Evan-and-Connor's-wonderful-friendship stories to drag up. He couldn't look at her as he weaved his web of dishonesty. Instead, his eyes fell to his cast, and the unruly scrawl it bore proudly. "I... The day I broke my arm? Yeah." Something happy!? That? It will have to do.

"Connor, he came to see me, uh, at work, I-I spent the Summer as an apprentice park ranger at Ellison State Park, and there was a lot of wandering around staring at trees and picking up litter, s-so he decided to keep me company." Embellishing it like a fairy tale, he decided, "Connor got kinda bored, so he thought, he said we should climb a tree? You know, s-see the view, 'cause it might look really cool from up high, or something, s-so... We found this really tall oak tree." He remembered selecting it specifically, the 40-foot tall oak that had been standing there for almost a century. It was the tallest in the park, and he'd been practicing, learning how to scramble up smaller trees, discovering which ones were the best. He'd been saving the oak for his greatest challenge - the branches grew thick and close, almost all the way to the top, and the bark was coarse and cracked, but it didn't easily peel away from the trunk when he dug in his fingers. He'd thought it had been perfect. "We began climbing - i-it was fun, it started out fun. I got over half way up, and then I just stopped... I-I looked around - for Connor, h-he was quiet so I was looking for Connor - he was below me, a-and I leaned down to be able to see him better, and he smiled." Evan blinked hard. "B-but then I felt the branch give way underneath me, and..." He gestured to his arm. "It was a long fall."

"Well, shit." Zoe raised an eyebrow, sniffing away her tears as a doubtful smile tried to make itself known. "I don't know if this is a happy story, Evan."

He laughed at the irony of it all - he'd tried to spin it as funny before, and Jared had said more or less the same thing. "N-no, it gets better, I promise. Like, I was on the ground, on my own, my arm was numb a-and I couldn't see anyone, and for a moment, I was terrified. But then, Connor climbed down, he came... He came to get me. And then, you know, he helped me up, made sure I got to the hospital, made sure things were okay. And I just knew, you know? I knew it would get better."

Zoe appeared to mull it over, silent. His mind raced, afraid that tale would be the thing to give him away, until she decided. "That is a nice story. Thanks."

"It will get better, Zoe. I promise."

Zoe glanced at him, a timid smile shining beautifully amidst the gloom of the dim room. Neither her expression nor voice seemed to hold much genuine conviction, nevertheless she valiantly replied, "I hope so."

Her gaze returned to her brother, as did Evan's; the cool, damp sensation of shock still rested in his chest, and the boy remained genuinely stunned by what he'd learned. However, (perhaps owning to the calm, comforting presence beside him and their recently resolved incident) Evan felt more peaceful than he had in days, and he suspected it was in part because of what he'd found out about Connor.

True, he'd known since his first encounter with Larry that the other boy was prone to suicidal tendencies, and he'd recognized him as something of a lone wolf long before; but he'd never really come to notice how isolated he must have felt, and through the twinge of guilt he felt for thinking it, he couldn't help but feel comforted that, no matter how bad things got for him, he wasn't the only one struggling like that.

I'm not alone. Neither is Connor, and maybe he doesn't know that, maybe he won't care, but that doesn't stop it being true. We're not on our own here, neither of us, and maybe, well hey, I don't know, maybe, maybe that's something. Regardless of his uncomfortable tendency to revert to well-meaning lies, and even with his crippling fear of social interaction, Evan's heart was warm. When he told Zoe things would get better, he did so while promising himself to attempt to make sure that, at the very least, that one thing he told her turned out to be true.

Not that he knew how to actually help a teenager with mental health problems - he'd had little success even with himself. But I have to try for Connor. And for me. There must be some way to let us see we're not alone.

A/N: Here's hoping that wasn't too much of an infodump!

I made a playlist on spotify for this story, it won't let me link to it properly but it's called These Broken Parts - A Dear Evan Hansen story, by user eternaleponine (yep, that's "eternal Eponine", don't you judge me for that, I was 12 once!) It includes some songs which really gave me the idea for the story, and plenty of others which mirror the plot!

Maybe give that a listen and maybe let me know what you think of it and this chapter! Thanks so much for reading, I'll be back soon!