The plunge into the dark water jolted A.J. out of trance he seemed to have been in. The water was unusually cool, and the lack of light disoriented him. He was not sure if he was going up or down. Then he saw a faint glow overhead. He swam towards the dim light to break the surface—and woke up on a stretcher.

"A.J.?"

He felt a hand on his forehead, fingers running through his matted hair.

"Rick?" He whispered his brother's name. His own voice sounded weak and wheezy.

"Just hang in there, okay? We'll get you to the hospital in no time," said Rick trying to sound reassuring while a couple of paramedics tended A.J.'s wounds and took his vitals. He was using his body to partially block the field of his brother's vision so he would not have to see the hunting knife handle protruding from his midriff. No one except a medical doctor would dare touch it fearing massive bleeding.

A.J. noticed Rick was soaking wet and wrapped in a blanket. His brother had a bandage on one shoulder and his right arm was in a sling. He also noted the presence of the police, the forensic team and the bomb squad around him. As the paramedic wheeled him to the back of one of the ambulances, he saw a white sheet covering a telltale mound on the ground.

"Is he…?" A raling cough cut his speech short.

"Whitaker? Yeah, dead."

"Good."

Still coughing, A.J. felt no guilt or remorse for being the catalyst for Lance Whitaker's sudden and violent death. Some souls were too far-gone to be called a human being.

While the paramedics were getting ready to leave, Rick told his brother that Danny had non-life-threatening injuries and had been taken to a nearby ER already.

The ambulance sped off to the nearest ER facility with the lights flashing, the siren blaring. Rick hovered over his brother and talked incessantly during the whole ride. It was pretty much a one-sided conversation because A.J. was in no shape to chat, but he was compelled to do so in order to drown out his panicky inner voice and the grim communication between the paramedics and an ER doctor on the radio. Still, he could not help overhearing snippets of their shoptalk: BP dropping, S.O.B., aspirated water, a knife in the upper right quadrant of the abdomen…

He blamed himself yet again for not killing Whitaker six months ago when he had had a brief but perfect chance. If he had, none of this would have happened. Besides, it was he that was supposed to be on the gurney, not A.J.

"Rick?" A.J.'s voice was barely audible, and his face, paler than it had been only a few minutes ago. "If I…" Speaking only a few words seemed to have sapped out his energy. His eyelids drooped over his eyes. "Just in case I don't make it…"

"Don't you dare," Rick whispered fiercely into his brother's ear. "Don't you die on me, or…"

A.J. opened one of his eyes just a crack. "Or, you're gonna kill me?" He seemed to be smiling under the oxygen mask though his speech was slurred and labored.

"You better believe it," declared Rick returning a smile though he was a nervous wreck inside.

"Wouldn't that be physically…" A.J. rested a little. His chest hurt every time he took a breath. He closed his eyes for a moment. Opening them again, he spoke the last word to finish the sentence, "…impossible?"

"What?"

He became momentarily confused when he realized he was looking up at not his brother but a woman in a hospital uniform.

"Oh, you're awake! Great!" She—Michelle, R.N., said her name badge—beamed. "Your brother will be thrilled. He just stepped out to take a call. I'll go get him, okay?"

A.J. nodded wondering how much time had lapsed since the last moment of consciousness during the ambulance ride.

"Can I get you anything before I go? How's your pain level? Do you need another dose of pain medication?"

This time, he shook his head. He was just groggy, disoriented and exhausted. And cold.

"You may be fine for a while longer because you just got wheeled out of the OR, but let me know right away when the anesthesia and pain meds start wearing off. All right?"

OR? Anesthesia? I had a surgery?

The nurse fussed over him like a mother caring for a sick baby before she went out of the recovery room to look for Rick and to let the doctor know he was awake.

"A.J.!" Rick flew back into the room shouting. A.J. had never seen him run this fast—well, except the time he'd been caught red-handed by the father of the girl he'd been making out with when he'd been fifteen or sixteen.

Somewhere in the hallway, Michelle the nurse was ordering Rick not to excite the patient too much but he was paying no heed, asking his brother if he was okay repeatedly. A.J. couldn't help but smile at Rick's single-mindedness.

Rick was a mess; in addition to the bandage and the sling, he had an adhesive strip on the forehead, some bruises on the arms and the face. His eyes were bloodshot from fatigue and lack of sleep, his face drawn with two days' worth of stubble.

"My God, you look terrible, Rick." A.J. managed to croak behind the oxygen mask.

That caught Rick off guard. He stopped babbling for a beat then threw his head back and started laughing albeit maniacally. "Man, I wish I had a mirror to prove it, but you don't look so hot either, kiddo. Just this once, I'll say I'm the beauty, and you're the beast."

Rick and, later on, the attending doctor told A.J about the traumas he had sustained: lacerated liver, blood loss, water in lungs, among others.

In the late afternoon, the surgeon happily announced the prognosis was excellent. He wanted to keep A.J. in the hospital for several days to let him recover from the operation and water in the lungs, both of which could lead to an infection although he was on antibiotics on top of other meds. He assured A.J. would be fine so long as he followed the medical staff's instructions and recommendations. The doctor also told him to keep using a device called incentive spirometer, and that he should begin his daily exercise regimen of walking up and down the hallway starting tomorrow.

"We'll keep an eye on the incision, vital signs, oxygen level and such for the next few days, and hopefully your lungs will clear by the time you leave the hospital. Our bodies are capable of absorbing a small amount of fluids in our lungs," said Dr. Covington with a confident smile. "Do you have any questions or concerns?"

After a few moments, A.J. shook his head.

"Well, I don't have anything more to add as a doctor, but as a father of two teenage daughters, I personally would like to thank you for what you've done," said the doctor with heartfelt sincerity. "Just let me know if I could do anything to make your stay more comfortable, okay?"

"Thank you," said A.J., and on the heels of it, he added, "Actually, there is something I'd like you to do."

"Anything, anything at all," said Dr. Covington earnestly. "What is it?"

"Tell my brother to get some sleep."

"What?" The doctor stared at A.J. as if he had just spoken ancient Greek.

"He hasn't slept for almost two days but wouldn't listen to me when I tell him to get some rest. My injuries may be worse than his, but at least, I'm resting comfortably—to a degree." A.J. huffed glancing at the bathroom where Rick was in at the moment. "I'll be able to rest a whole lot easier if he stops asking me how I'm doing every five minutes. If he resists your order, slip something in his drink, or put him in a straight-jacket and sedate him, I don't care."

"I heard that!" Rick emerged from the bathroom glaring at his brother, "Well, excuse me for caring."

"And please tell him again the importance of hand-washing, Dr. Covington. I don't want to die from an infection after surviving a major operation!"

The doctor just shook his head and hid his grin while the newest hometown heroes were carrying on like a couple of squabbling kids in the backseat of their family van during a long road trip.

S&S S&S

Eventually, Rick accepted some sleep aid from Dr. Covington and crashed. When Cecilia Simon, who had been vacationing in Victoria, Canada, rushed to the hospital that evening, she found her firstborn stretched over two chairs next to A.J.'s bed. He was in such a deep sleep, when she tenderly traced the outline of the bandage on his forehead with her fingertip, he didn't even twitch.

She hesitated to touch her other son—he looked extremely fragile with so many tubes and shunts stuck in his body. Nevertheless, she needed to feel the warmth of his body to be sure that he was still alive.

At her feathery touch on his hand, A.J.'s eyes fluttered and opened ever so slowly.

"Hi, Mom," said he sleepily.

"Hi, honey," whispered Cecilia forcing a ghost of a smile. "Sorry I woke you up."

"Are you kidding?" He offered her a wan smile. "Sleep is all I've been doing."

"So, how are you doing? Are you in pain? If so, I can ask the nurse to give you…"

"No, Mom." He shook his head. "No more drugs. I'm on so many medications I can hardly think. I hate that feeling."

Cecilia knew what her youngest hated was losing his control of any situation. "Honey," she gently rubbed his hand that was free of the IV tube. "You're supposed to be resting, not thinking. Sometimes it's all right to let other people take care of you. Just let it go and get as much sleep as your body needs so that you can heal faster."

A.J. blinked a couple of times, trying to understand what his mother had just told him in a drug-induced haze. "Okay," said he softly after a while. "I'm sorry, Mom."

"Sorry? Whatever for?"

"Made you worry," he said in a small voice full of regret.

She looked her son in the eye and said, "No, A.J., you made me proud. Don't you know that? I would be lying if I said I wasn't scared when Rick called, but I always worry about you two anyway—it comes with the territory. I just want you to know that you and your brother made me the proudest mother in the world." She paused for an instant. "But…"

"What?"

"I have a confession to make. When I learned that you'd been seriously hurt, for an instant, I thought, 'why does it have to be my son, why not someone else's?' and I felt so ashamed of it, being so selfish after you've done such an unselfish deed."

"No, not selfish," he declared shaking his head. "Just being a mother—a very good one at that."

"I'm not so sure about that, honey…"

"And tough."

"Oh, you don't have to tell me that. I kept my sanity during Rick's teenage years, didn't I?" Cecilia deadpanned. "Just barely."

His mother's comment brought a smile on A.J.'s face.

"Mom? Do you remember when he…did…? Um…" He broke off frowning when his mind suddenly went blank like the switch had been turned off.

This was one of the reasons he hated getting all sorts of chemicals pumped into his body at all hours. Frustrated, he closed his eyes trying to recapture the elusive train of thought.

"When he did what, sweetheart?"

No response.

"A.J.?"

Her son only sighed. It took Cecilia a few moments to realize he had dozed off.

The next hour or so, she silently watched her two sons sleep, like a protective mother bear watching over her cubs.