Nick knew he was supposed to be grateful and appreciative and happy, but Christ it was too much. The doctors had run a whole battery of tests again and given him enough painkillers to put down a horse, it seemed. It left him a little groggy but at least not in pain. And it made him irritable. Well, he assumed it made him irritable. If anything else made him feel irritable now, he'd feel really guilty about it.

What kind of family man wishes everyone he loves would just go away? All Nick Buchanan had ever wanted all his life was to have a family to love and protect and cherish. And they were all here in this room with him. His wife and his two children and his mother and two of his sisters and his brother-in-law. All of them happy and laughing and here with him to show they cared. He could not possibly bring himself to be bothered by that, could he?

He could feel Jennifer watching him. She was surely seeing the way his eyes hardened with the tension he tried to conceal. He was coping extremely well, all things considered. But he was very close to losing it, and he very well might if she didn't do something about it soon.

"Where's Hope?" Jen asked Eloise.

"Spending some much needed time alone with her fiancé. You heard her yesterday, going on and on about not being married yet. I thought she'd be upset about missing the wedding, but it seems she cares less about the circus of it all than we all thought. She just wants to be married. Which, honestly, is quite sweet. As soon as the doctors give Duncan and Nick the go-ahead to be out of bed and at least in a wheelchair, they want to have the wedding," Eloise answered.

"In the hospital?" Nick asked incredulously.

His mother nodded. "You know your sister, Nicky. She'll get what she wants. And Duncan will find a way to make it happen for her. Those two are going to be husband and wife by the time he's discharged or else Hope will probably burn the place to the ground."

Nick could not help but chuckle at that. Though the fact that his mother was absolutely right about his tyrannical baby sister was the smallest bit disconcerting. "Well, we'll all be here whenever they're ready, I guess."

"Speaking of everyone all being here, Sam and I were thinking of heading out if that's alright," Danielle said, coming to stand beside her mother in front of Nick's bed. "We've been here a while and Sam can't take time off…"

"Of course you should go," Nick insisted. He was relieved Danielle had said something. Maybe if she left, the rest would follow suit.

"We'll be back tomorrow evening," Sam assured him. "Danielle has to check in at her office and I've got three cats to neuter tomorrow. And I just got a message from my office manager that apparently there's an emergency with a rabbit."

What that emergency might be, Nick did not want to know.

"Dad!"

"Yes, bug?" he said, turning to his daughter, pleased to be distracted from veterinary worries. But Ella was sitting in the corner with Kimmy, which was never a good sign.

"Can we go to Sydney next month to see Aunt Kimmy's art show?" Ella asked.

There was a smirk on Kimberly's face that Nick did not like one single bit. "What's her art show about?" he asked warily.

"It's called 'The Moose and the Feminine Nude,'" Kim explained.

"How about this, bug, when you get your driver's license, you can drive yourself to Sydney and see Aunt Kimmy's art shows as much as you want," Nick replied.

A small snort from Nick's left let him know that his wife agreed with the sentiment and that his phrasing had amused her.

"Well if my art isn't appreciated, you don't have to bother," Kimberly said. She wasn't at all annoyed by her family's lack of appreciation, which they all knew. Kim liked to do what was weird and unpopular and she reveled in the fact that no one understood her. She liked it best that way. With a wink to Nick showing there were no hard feelings, she stood up and stretched. Her crop top rode up to show off her piercings and tattoos. "I've got to be going, too," she said. "I changed my flight, but I need to pack and get back to Chris. Danielle'll video call me for the wedding, whenever it happens."

She kissed Ella and Cody's foreheads and gave quick hugs to the rest of her family and then she was off. Sam and Danielle agreed to give her a ride to the house for her bags and then to the airport to catch her flight.

When it was just Nick and Jen and the children left, Eloise Buchanan let out a huge sigh of relief. "Lord knows I love her, but I am shocked that Kimberly doesn't have at least two forms of hepatitis by now."

Nick and Jen burst out laughing at that. Cody asked, "What's hepatitis?"

Eloise answered her grandson, "It's a disease people get when they don't live a clean lifestyle. And your Aunt Kimmy has all those tattoos and does all sorts of filthy things with her artist friends and it's all great fun but she's nearly forty and those things will catch up, I'm sure."

"I want to get a tattoo!" Cody announced.

"They're very expensive, so you can get one when you can afford it," Jen informed him. She was very careful to never flat out say no to anything the children wanted, but she put reasonable limits on things, ensuring that they wouldn't try to be rebellious and reckless like she had been in her youth. Nick had never had his own rebellious phase; he'd been too busy taking care of the family to even think about acting out like that. He obviously did not want his kids to have the kind of burden that he'd carried all his life, but he did hope to instill in them a sense of responsibility and integrity that would guide them well through life and prevent them from doing anything before they understood the consequences.

"Why is everything expensive?" Cody grumbled.

"Because," Eloise told him, "money is the root of all joy and suffering, and that's why we're here."

Cody gave her a quizzical look. "Huh?"

"Oh I don't know, I haven't slept in almost forty-eight hours, sweetie."

"Eloise, do you think you can take the children to yours? I think everyone could do with a nap," Jen suggested. "My car is at the house, and I need to do a few errands."

"That's a very good idea, I think. We could all use a little rest, now that everyone's alright," Eloise agreed.

"Gram, can we have ice cream?" Ella asked sweetly.

But before Eloise could say anything, Jen interjected, "You had ice cream last night with Bernice. You know better than to play the grownups against each other."

Ella scowled at her plan being thwarted. But Eloise cheered her up by saying, "Let's all have a nap and then we can have some of Auntie Hope's cake. All the food from the wedding is at my house and Hope doesn't want to see any of it, so I say we have some."

The children, both quite excited at the prospect of eating wedding cake, kissed their parents goodbye for the time being. Nick was left alone with Jen.

"You leaving me too?" he asked.

She smiled softly, leaning over his bed to kiss him softly. "You could use some peace and quiet. I've got to see to some things. I'll take a cab to pick up my car, and then I need to change clothes."

"And then what?"

Jen kissed him again. "You just rest, Nick. I'll be back soon."

Nick did not like lack of answer she gave him, but his head was too foggy to really figure it out for now. And he did want the peace and quiet. Jen had done a good job of getting everyone to leave, which he appreciated. He wished he could leave, too, but he'd only been awake for half a day, and it was going to take time before he was even close to being discharged. But with rest would come healing, and that was really all he could do for the time being.