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Jeff was getting restless when Remi stood up. "I can't sit like this, I'm getting a coffee. You want one?"

Jeff nodded, surprised but grateful. "Sure, thanks."

Time seemed stretched out and inconsistent in the hospital, Jeff was starting to notice, and nothing felt quite right. It was a painfully long time before Remi was back with the coffees, which didn't feel normal. He felt like he was losing touch with reality.

But he took a deep breath and drank his stale coffee and counted ceiling tiles and tried to be patient.

He was just about crazy, getting ready to get up and buy a book from the gift shop when Marlow came back.

"Hi, you guys. The surgeon had to start on another case, but I figured you would appreciate a familiar face. Nick's out of surgery now, everything went really well, they're going to take him up to Radiology for some imaging, then move him to a room. His nurse until shift change will keep you guys updated and move you with him,"

Remi smiled at her, Jeff nodded, then they were alone again.

Jeff's watch said it was an hour later when the nurse came to get them, though he was certain he could have gotten a full night of sleep in the time it took.

"Hi, I'm Dillon, Nick's nurse. He's been moved to a room now, you guys can come up and see him while we wait on the results,"

He led them to an elevator and up a few floors, then to Nick's room. Almost in autopilot now, they assumed their positions at his shoulder and knee, and Dillon dismissed himself.

Jeff grabbed Nick's hand. "One down, only a couple more to go, right?" he smiled to himself.

The smile fell when he saw the results of the surgery. Nick's eye was sewn shut, and the bruises underneath looked worse now. He saw stitches in his hair at his temples and felt like throwing up, and he was sure there were more in his abdomen under the gown but he couldn't bring himself to look. He took a deep breath and squeezed Nick's hand again.

Feeling more at peace now that he could sit with him, Jeff felt himself drifting in and out of sleep as the evening wore on. He was woken up around seven when a nurse came in. He talked with her for a few minutes, giving the summary of Nick's case he was quickly developing at her prompting. When she finally left, Jeff fell back to sleep almost immediately, leaning on Nick's bed.

He woke up again to Nick stirring, and he was wide awake in an instant. Jeff squeezed his hand. Nick turned his head to see him - Jeff was sitting on the side with his closed eye - and smiled, blinking slowly.

"I love you," Jeff's eyes watered. "I'm so glad you're okay."

Nick just smiled wider and hummed. Jeff rubbed his arm. "Go back to sleep. It'll all be over soon."

Nick closed his eyes. Jeff smiled and rested his head on the railing of his bed, falling asleep again. When he woke up to a nurse in the room, Nick looked half-awake.

The nurse was trying to talk to him, but Nick wasn't awake enough to answer. When she saw Jeff awake, she directed her questions to him. He gave her the spiel and answered her questions as best he could, looking to Nick when he squeezed his hand.

"Hurts," he slurred. "Jeff. Hurts."

He couldn't stop the tears that time He swiped at his eyes, smiled, and squeezed back. "Good thing we've got a lovely nurse here, then, right?" he turned to her. "Guess that answers your

question."

She smiled and adjusted his IVs. "The results are back from the scans earlier, the surgeon should be coming in here soon to talk to you about those. For now, let's get Nick here out of pain and you guys some sleep."

Jeff smiled and nodded as she left. Remi was still out cold at the foot of the bed. Nick's eye was still partially open, but the tension started releasing from his muscles and he drifted back to sleep.

Jeff couldn't go back to sleep, so he waited for the surgeon, who knocked about forty five minutes later. This seemed important, so Jeff woke Remi up when she came in.

"Hi, Jeff? Mr. Duval? I'm Dr. Frederick, you can call me Emilia, I'm the orthopedic surgeon. I have the results of the imaging taken earlier,"

Remi smiled. "Please, call me Remi."

She nodded and set herself up at the computer, pulling up the images. "Nick has some fractures in his skull around his ear on the right side and a few in his jaw that shouldn't need any intervention, though we'll keep an eye on them." she swiped to the next image, an x-ray of his pelvis. "You can see here that he has several fractures in his hip, they're going to need to be pinned back together for them to heal. I have one procedure to perform before then, but I have a team that will take him down to pre-op when that's finished."

Jeff nodded. "Do you know if Marlow will be the anesthesiologist?"

Emilia smiled. "Yes, she will be. Did you meet her?"

"Yeah, she was with Nick for the last surgery he had, this afternoon,"

Her pager beeped. She shook Jeff's and Remi's hands, smiled at Nick, and left the door cracked behind her.

A pair of chattering nurses passed by the door, laughing awfully loud for ten at night on a trauma floor in a hospital. Jeff frowned, glancing to Nick to make sure he didn't wake up.

"Sorry, that's a little loud, I'll get it," he said to Remi, who didn't seem to mind, and Nick, who was asleep and not paying attention. He untangled Nick's fingers from his and pushed off the bed, rolling to the door and shutting it, then rolling back to Nick.

Another pre-op team, another holding area, another round of questioning, another round of waiting and waiting and waiting later, Nick was out of the second surgery and back in his room, but they took him back to the pre-op room again almost immediately and Jeff couldn't stay awake to remember why.

By this time it was past four in the morning, but no one ever seemed to sleep in the hospital. A woman whose name Jeff forgot the moment it came out of her mouth was explaining that she was the audiologist and she had some news. He waved her on, still mostly asleep and just wishing she would leave.

"Despite our best efforts, the hearing damage Nick suffered is total and permanent."

Jeff's head snapped up. He was certainly awake now. "Excuse me?"

She frowned. "We repaired everything we could, but it was irreversible. I'm sorry, Jeff."

Jeff thought back to everything the doctors had said. They couldn't understand what he was saying in the ambulance. His ears were bleeding. He didn't answer when Jeff talked to him when he woke up. He didn't answer when the nurse asked him questions. His voice sounded different, less enunciated, quieter. He wasn't bothered by people knocking or the loud nurses outside his room.

Nick was deaf.

Well, this was certainly going to change things.