The silence usually associated with hospital waiting rooms was no where to be found at Desert Palms. It was hard to tell who was making the most noise. Grissom was arguing with Jim, who being the man he was, was arguing back, with equal, if not more fervour. Sara was arguing with Warrick for arguing with Greg, who was doing his best to convince Warrick that he hadn't screwed up on purpose, that Nick was his friend too. Catherine had yet to arrive, but was bound to pick a corner and fight it when she did.

The only people who weren't arguing were Nick's parents. They stood at opposite ends of the room, Jillian hugging her arms around herself, tears sliding down her face, one after the other. She felt hopeless, like everything was out of her control, it was a feeling she wasn't used too, a feeling that a woman like her could never tolerate in her life. She had always been in control, she was the paradigm of control, the original unflappable, the only problem was she wasn't any of those things right now. She had just turned 19 when she married William Stokes II, her parents had told her she was too young, but she was very much in love. He had been her first love, and she his, and there had truly never been a day to pass in their 43 years of marriage that she had felt anything but love for him. Not when he missed the first three births of their children because he was working, not when he'd missed the music recitals or the ballgames, not when he'd been on business trips when the kids were sick, not when she had been cold in bed at night because his job needed him, not even when she'd found the lipstick on his collar or the receipts for restaurants she'd never been too. He was not a perfect man, she had no illusions, but it's an unfortunate thing when you can't choose who to love, and that was all there ever was, that was the truth, until today. Today everything was wrong and she was lost. She didn't know who she was anymore, and the one person she could have asked was the very person that had just broken her heart.

William watched as the woman he loved ached on his account. He'd only ever wanted to protect her, to keep her safe. She wasn't all he'd ever wanted, but as he grew in stature, and grew as a person, grew older, he realised that she was all he had ever needed. He took big strides, crossing the length of the room in less than five paces. He stood less than an inch from his wife, not daring to touch her, caressing her face only with his eyes. They were deep and dark, but still held an inexplicable softness, eyes just like Nicks.

His voice was cracked when he finally addressed her.

"Forgive me Jilly."

She snapped her gaze towards him, the emotion was painted on her face and her lips trembled as she scowled at him, her tone full of warning. Tread carefully.

"Don't ask me that Bill, don't you ask me that!"

"Please, Jill, I did it for you."

The sound of the slap ricocheted off the walls, killing dead the arguments that raged like an angry sea just seconds ago. It was the second time that night Jillian had slapped her husband. He rubbed at his cheek, head slightly bowed, embarrassed at the attention that was being drawn towards them, but not daring to admonish his wife for it.

"You selfish bastard, don't dare William, don't dare! You did this for me?! You made MY son live with this, you allowed him to think it was his fault. He apologised to me! I let my baby down that night, and have done every night since. And you did this for me? Explain that to me William; explain what part of this was for me. You were protecting me…I was a grown woman, a District Attorney trained to deal with the victims of rape, he was a little boy. What makes you think I needed you and he didn't? What the hell were you thinking, what ARE you thinking right now. He's suffering and you're adding to it. My son is in surgery fighting for his life because since the day he told you what had happened you've been conditioning him to get on with it. To keep his head in the game. To cowboy up! He's been hurting for days now, physically hurting, but he's too bull headed to ask for help, and that's down to you. If he doesn't make it through this...so help me William, as the Lord our God is my witness I will hate you until the day I die."

The tirade had shocked him. He'd never seen Jillian angry before. She'd never been so unreasonable. He was thrown off kilter and now struggled to remain composed in the uncharted territory they'd ventured into.

"Jilly please, honey, don't say that, it'll be ok, Nicky's going to be fine, and we'll work this out, we'll get past this. You're just in shock right now is all? Once we get back to the ranch we can talk about it ok? Let's just get back to the hotel and we can sleep some. You look tired honey."

"You just don't get it do you? You've lied to me so many times Bill. The little lies, the big lies, the white lies, the black lies. But this…this is too much, it's just too damn far. That night while he was crying for me I was sipping champagne and dancing with you. It makes me so sick I don't know how I'm still managing to breathe. He should never have been home that night. I shouldn't have left him there."

"Jillian, you know how we ran the house, we had 7 kids to keep in line, the rules were the rules. Nick broke them, we would have kept any one of the kids home that night if they'd done the same thing. He was horsing around inside and he broke the vase, he was punished as he should have been."

"He didn't do it."

"What!? Of course he did Jilly, he confessed to it."

"And you more than anyone should understand the concept of a false confession…He was doing what Nick always did, he was being selfless, and good and kind. Katie started crying at the reception, don't you remember? You told her not to make a show. I took her to the restroom and heard her stunning confession; I had to try so hard not to laugh. We really did have the kids programmed with some kind of catholic guilt mechanism. She told me she'd knocked the vase over. That's why I made you bring home that piece of cake for him. He worshiped you Bill, it would have been worth missing the party for him if it was you that brought the cake and not me, but God how I wish I'd done it."

He reached for his wife's hand, wanted to hold her close to him, to make her see that he had never meant to hurt any of them. She pulled away from him, leaving a sting tenfold greater than she had inflicted with the same hand only moments ago.

"Jilly, please…"

Any further exchange between the two was halted by the appearance of Doctor Zeedyk. His enquiry as to who of the assembled herd was Nick Stokes family was met with impatient answers of, "we all are."

And so he launched into a well rehearsed speech. It was anyones guess how many other times he'd delivered similar news to similar people.

"Mr Stokes arrived in the ER suffering from extensive trauma to his chest and back, as well as suspected head injuries and a partially dislocated knee. According to the information provided by….Dr. Grissom, it had been almost an hour since the trauma had occurred before he was treated. Mr Stokes was taken to the operating room suffering from massive blood loss caused by re-injury to his spleen, which I believe was repaired quite recently. Unfortunately it was necessary to perform a partial spleenectomy to remove around 60 percent of the damaged spleen. Although it is possibly to function normally with only part of the spleen, for the time being Mr Stokes is at a high risk for contracting fatal infections while he recovers from the trauma. That said I am pleased with how the surgery went, and expect the patient to make a full recovery. He has age and fitness on his side, though I suggest every effort is made to encourage him to stay in the hospital until I see fit to discharge him. His records show he has a tendency to make rather ill advised decisions about his health. If you have any questions don't hesitate to contact me. Mr Stokes is in recovery and should be awake soon, though he will be weak and I don't advise causing him more stress than is absolutely necessary."

The doctor slipped quietly out of the room again, leaving an oppressive silence to linger in his place.

Greg retreated to a corner of the room and took a seat, glad for a disruption to escape from Warrick. He figured it was probably nothing personal, but most of what had transpired in the hallway before Nick collapsed had been heard by anyone in the vicinity. It was now pretty obvious why Nick had reacted so strongly to the case, perhaps it was even obvious why Warrick had chosen this moment to kick off about Greg "screwing up."

Warrick Brown was an all round straight talking guy, a mans man. He drank beer and shot hoops and swore and never cried. He and Nick had struck up an unlikely friendship, though neither had ever commented on their differences. It had never seemed to be an issue. Warrick was struggling with the idea that his best friend had lived with the shame of being abused, was struggling even more with the idea that it made a difference to him. Nick was still the same guy, y'know, he was still just Nicky…except Warrick wasn't sure if he was, and now he was in the hospital, waiting for his friend to wake up, but dreading it at the same time. He didn't know what to say or how to act, and the last thing Nick needed right now was for him to say the wrong thing. Nick had once told him it was easier sometimes to be mad about something that to be hurt by it, so he'd decided to be mad and ripped Greg a new one, now he just wanted to be quiet, to sit and wait.

Just as Greg had retreated to one side of the room, Warrick slipped towards the other, only just managing to avoid taking a detour with his fist to add to the nice big purple bruise on the Judges face. Warrick felt sick that the man had known about what happened to Nick and had chosen to keep quiet. He felt even sicker that he had sat in the locker room with Nick so many times while Nick tore himself apart every time he heard his father was coming to town. It was a pre-programmed condition, his father's presence made him hate himself, and now it was all becoming clear.

Jillian turned away form Bill, wiping at the tears that still jumped from her eyes.

"I think you should leave before Nicky wakes up."

"What? No Jilly, I want to be here for you."

"Yes Bill, that's the problem. You don't want to be here for Nick, you want to be here for me and right now it makes me cringe to think of you anywhere near me."

"Look, honey, just let me stay, we can talk about this later."

"I need some space to think."

I've often wondered about that phrase. Space to think, as if having "space" allows us to somehow arrange our thoughts in the air around us. So we can look at them and move them round and re-interpret them, when really at the end of it all the guy is still going to be an asshole.

Was William Stokes an asshole?

Nick stirred in his dreamless sleep, blinking against harsh clinical lights when he regained consciousness. He knew he was in the hospital, remembered the way the mattresses in hospital beds felt, could smell the fragrance that was uniquely hospital and heard the hum, whizz, burr of an assortment of machines, no doubt designed to keep him in the happy place he was in right now. Who says the drugs don't work.

He assessed his condition. His chest was wrapped tightly in bandages and he could see the blood stained gauze over his surgical incision. He reasoned he must have busted out the stitches in his spleen. His doctor would probably be pissed that he hadn't taken the direction for bed rest seriously the first time round. His knee was being supported by a heavy elastic brace, immobilised, but painless. He bet he looked like hell, but right now he didn't care, he could feel the cool rush of morphine in his veins and he likes it. He liked morphine. Everything was better with morphine. Nothing mattered when you had morphine. Not his nine year old self, not his moms horrified face, not his fathers cold indifference, not Grissom, not Greg, not Annabel, and especially not Mikey…No. None if it mattered right? That was probably why he felt overwhelmingly sad, not empty or hollow or defeated, just plain old sad. But sad's a real bitch. It's quiet and unassuming and we don't take notice of it when it creeps up behind us, sits down beside us and offers us its perspective on the situation. Sad is what pre-schoolers are: because it's all they have. It's the only word they know for how they feel when the balloon bursts. Nick Stokes was indeed sad, his balloon was well and truly burst, and when you are sad there really is only one thing you can do. You cry…Not gut wrenching, heart breaking tears, quiet tears. Sad tears.

Jillian watched as Nick cried silent tears. Her hand was on the door handle, but she couldn't bring herself to open it, so she just watched him. Sara stood a little off to the side. There had been silent agreement that Jillian and Sara would see Nick first, but now Sara felt a little awkward, blaming herself for the divisionshe'd created between Nicks parents. She made no attempt to follow when Jillian turned from the door and walked down the corridor towards the ambulance bay, instead she opened the door to Nicks private room and pulled up a chair beside him, slipping her fingers between his and resting her head gently on his shoulder. His only acknowledgement of her being there, the feather-light kiss he dropped onto the crown of her head and the gentle squeeze of her hand. They didn't talk, it had all spiraled so far out of control that neither of them would know where to start. So they sat in silence, each contemplating their next move.

AN: Sorry for the ridiculously long wait for an update. I've just started my final year of university and it's all a bit hectic. Thanks for being patient. Thanks also to all the reviewers who have spurred me on to update as soon as I could. Another slightly angsty chapter, but I assure you there is light at the end of the tunnel...well...kind of. Thanks for reading, feel free to comment...(or leave ridiculously detailed accounts of my grammatical and spelling errors lol) Take it easy, Aly