They waited another hour before the doctor came back out again; Marissa had gone to sit with Shane. Linda was on and off the phone with Stephanie. "When can we see him?" was the first question asked. "In just a moment, his recovery should go well. He had a lot of bleeding and lost a lot of blood. For his age he's very lucky to be alive. The bullet did some damage, but nothing that will effect him long term. We're going to wait out the night to make sure he doesn't have any more bleeding." "Thank you." Vince said as he walked by him. He let Linda know that they could go see him now. They walked slowly down the hall. "I don't think I'm ready for this," Vince said stopping in front of his door, "I never imagined that I'd one day have to walk in and see one of my kids holding on for their life." "This is tough on all of us, but we have to be strong not only for him, but for yourself. I know this is going to be hard to see, but be strong, cause I don't know if I'll be able to take it and someone in there has to be strong for all of us." "Here we go then." He said opening the door he followed Linda in. In all his life experiences he would never be prepared to see this. There tubes going into his arm, tubes making sure he was breathing right, he was attached to all kinds of machines. It was a horrible site to see. Linda sat down in a chair; she pushed his hair back off his face and closed her eyes. Vince dragged a chair next to hers and took her hand; he put his head down and prayed. He wasn't a religious person, but at that moment he would do anything to make sure that nothing happened, to make sure he didn't lose Eric. He had only such a short time with him, there was more he wanted to do with him, and more he wanted to show him. God not now, please. Not him, not any of my kids. Linda leaned her head on his shoulder as they a waited for him to regain consciousness. The day went by and nothing had happened. Linda got up on occasion to check in on Shane, called Stephanie and filled her in on what was happening and called the company to make sure that all was going okay and letting them know that neither she nor Vince would be in. She took a seat next to Vince only he had moved over to where she was sitting and was holding Eric's hand. She wrapped her arm around Vince's and leaned on him. "Some day huh?" "Yeah I would say so," he sighed and let go of his hand, "happy birthday son."