Have lowered the rating on this stroy because I didn't think it needed to be M. Correct?

Chapter 7

Kirsten, Sandy and Seth sat on another set of uncomfortable plastic chairs, waiting for another doctor to come and see them. It had long ago become a tiring and frustrating process. Kirsten still couldn't believe it was really happening, not until she had seen Ryan. Seth looked pale and exhausted. Sandy looked dishevelled and nervous, and she dreaded to think what she herself looked like. A tiny, tired part of her mind thought that this was all a conspiracy, that at any second she would get a call from Ryan at home, asking where they all were. Kirsten barely had the energy to look up when the door opened and a female in a white coat entered the room.

"Dr. Reeves", the woman said with a small smile, holding forth a hand that Kirsten somehow summoned the energy to give a weak shake.

"I know by now you must be very impatient to see Ryan, but I'll just talk you through his current condition." Kirsten nodded at the doctor to show she understood and the woman continued. "Ryan's surgery went as well as we could have hoped. We removed a shard of glass that had penetrated the pleural membrane. Ryan now has a chest drain in to remove remaining blood and air from the cavity. We're replacing the blood he lost through transfusion, so don't be alarmed by that. We'll be monitoring Ryan's chest and heart very carefully over the next few days to check for any further complications. Ryan is still on an intubator to give his lungs the chance to recover. We'll be keeping Ryan sedated for at least a day to give his body a chance to start healing itself. Depending on Ryan's recovery, will review the situation on that in about 24 hours time.

"Additionally, we have wired the shoulder to repair the fractures that he sustained. We'll be keeping a close eye out for infection and Ryan is receiving antibiotics as a preventative measure. We won't know how badly the tissue damage has affected his movement until Ryan comes round, but for now we've done the best we can.

"Ryan also received a knock to the head from when he hit the ground, but the CT scan didn't present anything to be too concerned by, so we don't believe that it will cause any problems. But as you can gather, Ryan's condition is still critical, though we have stabilised him. We've put him on the road to recovery, and we'll be trying our hardest to make sure that things stay that way. Have you got questions?" The doctor finally asked. Kirsten and Sandy glanced at each other and shook their heads, hopeful that they would now, at last, be able to see Ryan.

"Ok then", said the doctor. "The visiting rules in the ICU for a minor are as follows. One parent can stay with Ryan, though we appreciate your understanding that the ICU is a very busy department, and ask you to allow the staff to work without interference. A second family member may visit Ryan for ten minutes every three hours, but seeing as Ryan has just arrived, I'll let you go in succession this once. Because Ryan is a minor, one of you can stay through the night. Although, tonight you may want to go and get some rest, because Ryan will be sedated," Dr Reeves suggested.

Kirsten quickly shook her head. "I'll be staying with him," she asserted. The doctor gave her a small smile. "Would you like to come and see Ryan now?" She asked.

Kirsten glanced at Sandy to check that he didn't mind her going first. At his nod of affirmation, she felt a mixture of relief and apprehension flood through her. At last she would get to see Ryan. But at the same time, the minute she set eyes on him in this condition, she would know that this was real. She wasn't about to see that Ryan was ok, she was about to see that he was not.

Gulping back tears, she stood, trying to force herself to focus on the positives: Ryan was alive and on the road to recovery. Kirsten felt butterflies fluttering around her stomach as she followed the doctor out of the lounge and over to the ICU, opposite. Kirsten was reminded, quite ridiculously, of the nervous walk she had once had as a child, after biting another member of her class, whereupon she was promptly ordered from her seat and followed the teacher to the headmistress's office for a telling off. The situation was entirely different, but the feeling was much the same.

Dr Reeves pushed open the door to the ICU and Kirsten was met with the sight of three empty white beds, surrounded by carefully stored monitors and equipment, ready for patients.

Kirsten drew her eyes towards the other end of the room, where the equipment around the bed beeped and bags of blood and fluid hung from poles at the end of the bed. She couldn't make out the form on the bed yet. Noticing that her pace had slowed to pigeon steps, Kirsten forced herself onwards towards the bed of medical paraphernalia.

And there he was.

Ryan was more tube and bandage than he was Ryan, barely recognisable with his eyes taped shut and a plastic tube extruding from his mouth, skin pale and chalky with dark circles around his eyes, made more noticeable by the dim but unnatural light of the ICU. But this was her Ryan.

Kirsten reached forwards to touch him, but found herself unable to find an exposed part of him that didn't have a tube emerging from it or a clip attached. Instead, she placed her hand over a blanketed thigh. The doctor busied herself studying the chart on the end of Ryan's bed and checking the various monitors. Kirsten squeezed his leg.

"It's all Ok now sweetie," she whispered, conscious of the doctor standing nearby and the out of sync beeping coming from behind a screen in the middle of the room, signalling the presence of another patient. "We're here for you, just waiting for you to get better and wake up." Kirsten pressed her second and third fingers against her lips, forming a kiss, and carefully placed them against Ryan's forehead. Gently squeezing his leg, she stepped back from the bed. She was going to stay the night. Now it was time to let Seth and Sandy have a turn.

---

Half an hour later, Seth and Sandy had both visited Ryan, and both had come out looking as grim as each other. Sandy just wanted to wrap Ryan in a bear hug and make everything Ok, and Seth just wanted Ryan to wake up so he could start bantering with (or at least at) him again. The self enforced quiet of the past few hours meant that Seth felt like he was ready to explode with words, but until Ryan was awake, he felt too scared to speak, worried that somehow he would jinx things, and Ryan would not get better.

Now Seth sat dejected in the corner of the waiting lounge as Sandy and Kirsten sat huddled and whispering.

"Now that we've seen him Sandy, now that I know how he is, I'm ready to hear it. What happened?" Kirsten asked Sandy. Over the past few hours, what had happened had been of secondary importance to Ryan's health. Now Kirsten had accepted his physical condition, she needed to know what had happened to him. Maybe then she could accept what had happened.

Sandy paused, considering carefully how to phrase the events to his wife. On the one hand, he needed her to hear the truth. But on the other hand, he was furiously angry that Trey, Ryan's own brother, was the reason that his son was lying in a room half dead right now. Sandy was a lawyer, and an expert at talking his way through situations and colouring the facts. But right now, he didn't know how he could stop anything but an angry outpouring of his own thoughts and feelings. Since the moment the police had informed him of the facts, he had been unable to stop his own, dramatised version from playing out in his head. Finally, he settled on a simplified version of the bare details that the police had told him.

"Ryan went to meet his brother Trey at a diner in Chino. They sat and talked, then after a few minutes Trey pulled a gun out of his pocket and demanded all the money in the diner and held all the customers, including Ryan, hostage. But one of the other hostages jumped Trey. There was a struggle and the gun was accidentally discharged. Ryan was shot and fell back through a glass window. Trey ran. They haven't caught him." Sandy's voice shook as he ran through the explanation but his face remained stony.

Kirsten took a deep, wavering breath and buried her face in her hands before letting the air out in a defeated sigh. Her son, brought into her home so they could protect him from the world, and once again, he had been hurt by a member of his own family. But unlike Sandy, Kirsten was able to push Trey to the back of her mind. When Ryan had been hurt by his mother before, it was the Cohen's who had been left to pick up the pieces. As dramatic as it sounded, they had rescued Ryan. And now they would do it again. They were his family now, and all that mattered right now was that Ryan got better. Kirsten was glad to know the facts of the situation, but that was all she needed. She wouldn't let it affect her priorities.

Taking a steadier breath, Kirsten lifted her head from her hands and looked Sandy in the eye. Sandy was amazed by the composure on his wife's face, and despite the mixture of anger, guilt, and worry that assaulted his mind from every angle, he felt a rush of love and warmth towards his wife. No words were needed.

A/N: massively cheesy, I know. I feel like I may have lost my way a bit with this chapter, it didn't flow very easily. I need opinions! Please review if you read.