Chapter Four

"Are we doing this?" Ryan asked as he looked down at Theresa, feeling her hands roaming over his body. She smiled up at him, that coy smile that had always melted away his protective shell, the smile that had always made the hurts go away. God how he'd missed that smile.

"It's not like we haven't before," she whispered, leaning up to kiss him. Ryan kissed her back, feeling like he was back home again. But it was a different sense of the word. It wasn't the home where he would get his ass kicked every time he walked into the house. It was the home that he'd had to sneak into through a window in the middle of the night. It was the home he felt only when he was laying beside Theresa on her bed, as she stroked his hair away from some new black eye that he'd gotten earlier. It was the home he knew when Theresa was the only one who could see him cry and not judge him. It was the home he hadn't known he was missing.

The door to the hotel suddenly burst open and Ryan was immediately off the bed, looking at an estranged Eddie. But it wasn't Eddie as he remembered him. This Eddie was 14 again. He was shorter, almost Ryan's height, and he was baby faced, without the goatee. The tears that were in his eyes were the tears of a child. He held a gun out in front of him. "She's mine!" Eddie cried, his voice young again. Ryan held up his hands. "We can't share!"

"Eddie, calm down man," Ryan tried to coax, suddenly noticing that his voice had changed. He looked over at himself in the mirror and saw that he had digressed five years and was now 11 years old. He gulped nervously and looked back at Eddie, whose face was raw emotion. "Don't do this, please," Ryan begged.

"I can't," Eddie said back. "I trusted you. We all trusted you. But look what you did. Look what you did to our crew. Trey's in jail. Arturo's on his way to prison. It was you and me, Ry. You and me. We were all that's left. And look what you went and did? You slept with my fiancée! What the fuck, Ryan?"

"Eddie, please," Ryan begged again.

Theresa suddenly got off the bed. She stalked over to Eddie and turned around, running her hands along Eddie's shoulders. "Ryan, it would have never worked out." She said, her voice monotone. "I belong with Eddie."

"Theresa…"

"I want this," and as if to stress her point, she kissed Eddie. Eddie looked up at Ryan through the kiss. He aimed the gun and Ryan went to yell, but Eddie pulled the trigger, silencing him, for good.

Ryan jerked awake. Though as soon as he did, a wave of pain coursed through his body, almost sending him into the dreamy states of unconsciousness again. His eyes were pressed shut, tightly. He breathed in slowly, willing the pain away. It took him a while to notice that someone was holding his hand and gently stroking his forehead. He tried to remember where he was, but found that he couldn't recall falling asleep. The memory of Eddie at the party, however, told him all he needed to know.

Deciding that he wanted to know who was touching him so softly, he slowly started to open his eyes. They fluttered for a few moments and he tried to blink away the fogginess. As soon as he could see straight, he looked at the person sitting by his side. He was surprised to find that it was Kirsten. She wasn't looking at him, instead her eyes were on his hand as she held it. She had stopped stroking his forehead and now held his hand in both of hers. Ryan was almost devastated to see tears in her eyes. God, why did he always have to cause this family so much pain?

Ryan tried to call out softly to her, but found that something was in his mouth, and that something was down his throat as well. As soon as he realized it was there, it begun to hurt. With the hand that Kirsten wasn't holding, he reached up, almost sluggishly, to remove whatever foreign object had found its way into his mouth. Kirsten saw the motion and looked to his face while at the same time gently grabbing his wrist in the process.

"Ryan," she said, relieved. "Let it alone, sweetie." Ryan looked to her, confused. "It's to help you breathe." She stood up, not letting go of his hand as she pressed the call button. She sat back down and smiled at him. "The doctor will take it out now that you're awake, I'm sure."

Nodding to let her know that he understood, he suddenly felt a wave of pain race through his stomach. He clenched his eyes shut and Kirsten's hand was immediately back stroking his forehead. The pain was blinding but it died down again after a few minutes. Ryan realized that Kirsten had been talking to him through it all. "It's okay, sweetie," she was saying. "You're all right, it will pass. You're all right."

Ryan opened his eyes again and looked at her. She smiled at him wanly. The doctor came into the room, halting anything further that Kirsten had to say. When the doctor saw that Ryan was awake, he smiled, almost too happy. "Well, Mr. Atwood," he said, his voice cheerful. Ryan felt like throttling the man. "It's good to see you awake. We were worried there for a while." Ryan lifted his hand and felt at his throat, hoping the doctor would catch on to what he wanted. Luckily, the doctor was no dummy. "I suppose you'd like that ventilator out, wouldn't you? Let me see what I can do."

Kirsten held his hand as the doctor took the tape off the sides of Ryan's face. "Just relax," the doctor said. "This will hurt a little." Ryan tried to relax, but as soon as the doctor began to pull on the tube, Ryan gagged and slammed his eyes shut. It was a burning pain as the tube was removed, he felt it scrape up against his throat. In just a few seconds, the pain was over, but it left his throat sore and raw. Ryan felt tears prick at the corners of his eyes, but he kept his eyes closed until they were gone. Kirsten held his hand through it all. "There we go, all done." The doctor announced.

Licking his lips to wet them again, Ryan opened his mouth to talk but his voice cracked and was halted. Kirsten reached over to the small table and grabbed a small cup. She reached inside and pulled out an ice chip. Ryan knew the drill and opened his mouth as Kirsten placed the ice chip in his mouth. He ran his tongue over it, trying to melt it as quickly as possible. Ryan licked his lips again once it was gone and tried once more to talk. This time, he managed a hoarse sentence. "Is everyone okay?" he asked.

Kirsten gave a small unbelieving chuckle and rubbed his arm. "Ryan, everyone's fine." She assured him. "We were just all worried about you."

"Sorry," Ryan apologized, looking down.

Kirsten took his chin and made her look at him. "This is by no means your fault and don't you dare think otherwise." She gave him the look to pronounce her point and Ryan nodded, though they both knew he wasn't entirely convinced.

The doctor smiled at the site. "Well, Ryan," he began, drawing both of their attention to him. "I'll fill you in with what's going on." The doctor went on to explain Ryan's condition. As he was hearing it, Ryan was having a hard time concentrating on what the doctor was saying. He was getting too caught up with every new problem that the doctor brought up. He caught on that this was very serious and that it involved his hip, liver, and stomach, but aside from that, he really didn't know what else the doctor was saying. Ryan could only stare. When the doctor was finished, Ryan nodded. "But, the good news is," Ryan perked up at that. "That if there are no further complications, you should be able to go home in a day or two." Ryan's face fell. A day or two? He hated hospitals.

The doctor nodded, looked once more at the charts, and then said goodbye, leaving Ryan and Kirsten alone. Ryan turned his head to look at Kirsten, his eyes dropping sleepily. Kirsten smiled at him reassuringly. "At least you'll be able to go home soon."

"Not soon enough," he said and winced when his voice caught again. Kirsten gave him another ice chip and watched as he closed his eyes to suck on it.

"Why don't you get some rest?" Kirsten suggested, stroking his forehead again.

Ryan nodded, but then a thought came to him. "Theresa?" he asked, not bothering to open his eyes.

"She's with her Mom," Kirsten answered quietly, willing Ryan to be satisfied and get some more rest.

But Ryan wasn't satisfied yet. "Eddie?"

"Don't you worry about him now," she whispered. "Get some rest, Ryan. Seth and Sandy will be here when you wake up." Ryan was too sleepy to express his thoughts, but as he drifted off to sleep, he couldn't help but feel a twinge of guilt at the thought that Seth and Sandy would have to come back. He fell asleep with a sigh.

Review Responses:

I-Believe-In-The-Butterflies: Yeah, I'm going to resolve the Theresa thing as much as I can and then get her the hell out of the story, lol. And I don't do big bangs and happy times. I do long, drawn out bangs and then some content times. Happy times are a rarity it seems. But I'll see if I can't slip a few of them into here. :)

xoleanderx: I think Seth is the hardest character to write for other than Ryan. With Seth, it's hard to get his babbling down, but with Ryan, it's hard to guess how he will react to things sometimes. I'm hoping I'll be able to keep them in character as much as possible. Oh, and the three chapters in two days thing...that doesn't happen that often, lol. But I'm keeping up with this as much as I can. I'm totally obsessed with this show right now, so there's a lot of inspiration, not just for this story, but for other OC fics as well that will come after this. Not all What if's either.

Christina: Well thank you! I'll try to update as much as possible. I love Ryan's connetion with the Cohen's. I think it's a very complicated relationship, but at the same time, it's very loving and beautiful. It's one of my favorite aspects of the show.

TeacherTam: Yeah! I'm actually taking a psychology course right now and we learned a little bit about that, but because I'm a horrible student, I don't know what the disorder is called either, lol. But I do love that aspect of Ryan's character, how he always takes on the blame. I was watching a few episodes today with my friend, who I introduced to the show (and he's obsessed with it now too, lol) and I was really watching for it.My favorite quote from the show is something Sandy says to Ryan where he's like, "You don't have to be the parent here." I thought that was so true and such a good thing for him to say. Ryan needs to hear it more often, I think.

jumby8: Why thank you! Yes, it is inevitable for Ryan to escape his past. Even on the show, he never really gets away from it. When I first saw this episode, I really thought this was how it was going to take place. I could totally see Eddie just going ape shit and shooting someone. So I decided to make it happen. :) And nah, I'm not going to kill off Ryan (at least I don't think I am) but there will be lots of angst and suffering all around.

Dumbeblondi02: Well I wouldn't want you to stop reading it:) I'm loving all the friendly reviews I'm getting. And I also love Kirsten and Ryan's relationship. I think I'll play with it a lot in this story, along with Seth and Ryan's relationship. I may save Ryan and Sandy's relationship for a different story though, but we'll see.

jess: Thank you! I'm really rolling with this story, so I should be able to keep the updates coming at a pretty nice pace.

Vancouverite: Thank YOU! I love your story "Fading." I wanted to do a Ryan cancer story, but then I found yours and knew I couldn't write anything half as good, lol. I still might try later on, but I'm just not sure. I like your story too much and it would probably just end up to be like yours, lol. I have a lot of "what ifs" in mind. But I also have a lot of other stories in mind too. We'll see what I'm inspired to write next, though. This story is still a pretty long way from being over, I think. I'm sort of just winging it right now, but I have a few twists in mind.

Gator-Girl: I love angst too. And when are there never complications with Ryan? ;) You can expect some, so don't worry, hehe.

To All: Thanks for all the reviews! I love seeing them clogging up my e-mail! Keep them coming. I'm sorry this chapter was shorter than the rest, but the next chapter will be longer, I promise. We'll see how you respond to the first twist I throw your way! Hehe. snickers evilly