XAV's P.O.V.

I desperately needed someone to talk to or I was going to drown in tears. At least that's how I felt. So I reached out to the most reasonable person I knew.

Yves?

Xav?! What's wrong? He replied immediately. He sounded worried, which made perfect sense. I tried to answer him, but the only thing that came out were more tears. It's okay, Xav, I'm here. Let it out. I was so thankful that he understood, because I really couldn't get a single word out even if I tried. We stayed like this for a while. I could sense his constant presence, but he didn't say a thing. Just offered me support as best as he could. A couple of minutes passed, before I calmed down a bit. When he thought I could breathe well enough to speak, he continued. What happened, Xav?

I inhaled deeply, trying to figure how to put this. I decided to go with the straightforward version of the truth. He tried to kill himself. It may have sounded very harsh, but there was really no other way of saying this. It was going to hurt and sting no matter how I said it.

There was a short silence, before he replied. What? He was shocked, but luckily he managed not to freak out and panic like I did.

Before you left, you asked me what he said to me. I trailed off not sure how much to tell him. Part of me wanted to keep this to myself, but the other couldn't bear the burden. It was too much to handle on my own. I needed to tell someone.

Yeah... he confirmed my statement, waiting for me to continue.

He asked me to take the tube out and let him d- I couldn't get myself to say the word. As long as I didn't say it, it felt less real. There was nothing Yves could say to that, so he patiently waited for me to go on. He asked me to leave, so I talked all of you into going home. I must've fallen asleep in front of the room and the next thing I knew, alarms were going off. I paused to regain myself. Here came the worst part. He disconnected the ventilator. There was no need for me to continue with the explanation. Yves could vividly imagine the rest on his own.

Are you sure it wasn't an accident? He tried his best to deny what I'd just said.

He did it twice. I ruined his illusion.

After a pause, he continued. Is it possible it was because of his head?

Hang on... I hadn't thought about that. Maybe Yves was right and this was all going to pass. Yes, depression can be a side effect of head injuries. Yves had nothing to say to that. He was silently thinking, trying to digest everything I had just told him, so I decided to go on. Yves, promise me you won't tell anyone. You can't. Not yet. I knew he wouldn't agree with me on that, but it was for the best. I needed to protect Zed as much as I could. This was hard enough on him as it was. He was suffering.

Okay, I won't. What on Earth? To my surprise, he didn't object. Instead, he kept me company telepathically for hours, but neither of us said anything.

XAV's P.O.V.

It was a couple of hours later, at about one in the morning. I was sitting beside Zed, drifting in and out of restless sleep. Yves had fallen asleep a while back, so I was left to my own confused thoughts. I couldn't understand how something could change Zed from the goofy, hilarious and mostly happy douchebag he was, into a miserable wreck, who'd rather die than even try to fight this. It didn't make any sense. This shouldn't be happening. Not to Zed. Not to anyone. It was so unfair.

I kept going through the recent events over and over again. After I was pushed outside, the doctor managed to get Zed's heart started and he was taken for some scans to determine how much damage he had done to himself. To everyone's surprise, the scans came back clear. Well there was still evidence of bruising from his previous injury, but other than that... Miraculously, he didn't make it worse. He still had a long road ahead of him though. The recovery from such a severe brain injury itself was going to take time. Add the compications, the long coma, possible depression and his double suicide attempt... He was lookng at months of therapy. Both physical and psychological. That was going to be very hard on Zed. He always found it hard to sit still for more than five minutes and now, there was a good possibility he would have to relearn how to walk again. He might never return to the way he was before and that scared the hell out of me. I couldn't even begin to imagine how much it must've scared him.

I glanced up at Zed's motionless face and noticed his eyelids were fluttering. He was starting to come around. I moved closer to him, but kept quiet. Suddenly, his eyes flew open and were immediately looking from one side to another, confused and completely panicked. Poor Zed. He must've been so scared. I needed to try and calm him down.

"Zed?" I said as calmly as I possibly could, resisting the urge to either hug him or kill him.

ZED's P.O.V.

"Zed, please talk to me. I know you can hear me." I looked down, tryng to find the source of the voice. Xav?! What was he doing here?! I thought they'd all left.

Wait... I wasn't dead, was I? No. Not even close. I failed miserably. Man, I couldn't even kill myself if I tried. I was completely useless. Everything I tried to escape from was still there. The annoyingly white hospital room, the tubes and wires, the constant beeps - everything. The agony was still as bad as before, and I was still very much trapped inside my useless body. But there was one big difference. When I tried to move, nothing happened. Was I paralysed? Suddenly my chest felt tight. I couldn't move. How the hell did that happen? What did I do? I wanted to move so badly, but there was nothing I could do. I was trapped and there was no way of escaping.

"They're giving you paralytics, so that you won't hurt yourself. That's why you can't move" Xav explained to me. "And before you ask, they're gonna keep you like this until you can be taken off the ventilator." Brilliant. So I was stuck like this for days, maybe even weeks or months. Or forever. A vegetable.

"You got extremely lucky, you know that?" Lucky?! Was he serious?! How was I lucky?! I was halfway dead, completely useles, not even able to breathe without a machine! He freaking called this lucky?! "You could've done some serious damage." Believe me, I wish I had. Maybe if I had ended up brain dead, they would've let me die in peace. But no, I was going to have to suffer for the rest of my life.

Zed please say something. Xav decided to enter my head, but I didn't care. His sad and worried voice didn't mean anything to me. I may not have been dead on the outside, but I was dead on the inside.

XAV's P.O.V.

Nothing.

He decided to keep ignoring me and drown in his misery. As long as he refused to talk to me, there was nothing more I could do to help.

Tears were running down my brother's cheeks and for the first time in my life, I felt completely useles.

Author's note

Today was a crappy day for me, but I hope you all had a great day. I hope this chapter wasn't affected by my mood to badly...

So, the other thing... This story is slowly coming to an end. I think there's only going to be one or two chapters left, which makes me kind of sad, because I really enjoyed writing it. If anyone has any requests for new stories, I'd be more than happy to hear. They can.be from other fandoms aswell, as I am planning on writing stories based on different books, shows or movies. I haven't figured out what I'm going to write next, so I'm very open-minded... Let me know (if you want).

Love, N