Lanie leaned her head against the window of the bus, waiting for the driver to pull away. As her the bus moved on down the road, her head started bouncing against the glass and she sat up straight again.

At the next stop, Doug got on the bus. "Hi," he said, sitting down next to her.

"Hi," she said, looking back out the window.

"Hey loser," the boy behind them said, popping up over the seat to hit Doug in the side of the head.

"Leave him alone!" Lanie snapped.

"You going to make me?" the boy taunted. "Letting your little girlfriend fight your battles for you?"

"She's not my girlfriend," Doug insisted, wrapping his arms around his backpack as he stubbornly faced the front of the bus.

"I'm not his girlfriend," Lanie agreed quietly.

"Whatcha got for lunch today, Dougie?" the boy asked, snatching Doug's backpack right out of his lap. Undoing the zipper, the boy rummaged through the contents. "Nothing good," he said, shoving it out the window.

Lanie watched out the window as the backpack hit the ground and bounced once before coming to a stop. All of Doug's things spilled out into oncoming traffic. She turned to look at Doug, but he wouldn't look back at her.

Wrapping his arms around his middle, he whispered, "I didn't even bring a lunch," before drawing his knees up to his chest and burying his face.

OoooooooooooooooO

Lanie sat up in bed, looking around the hospital room.

"Hi," Addison whispered.

"Hi," she answered quietly.

"How are you feeling?" Addison asked, scooting her chair closer to her bed.

She shook her head. "I keep seeing him," she said as a solitary tear trickled down her cheek. I was kneeling right next to him, I reached out to touch him, and…I just…I feel sick," she whispered as her face turned a ghostly shade of white.

Addison grabbed the garbage can from the bed and got it in front of Lanie just as she started to gag. Her fingers clutched the sides of the can as she fought throwing up, continuing to gag and trying to choke it back.

Tears streamed down Lanie's face as Addison crawled into bed behind her, wrapping her legs around her and helping her to sit up. "It's okay," she whispered, putting her hands over Lanie's to help her hold the little can.

Lanie gave in, her face nearly disappearing into the can as she retched violently, repeatedly upending her stomach. Lifting her head, she leaned back as she gasped for air, her face a mixture of sweat and tears. "Mom," she moaned, before gripping the edge of the garbage and vomiting again.

Addison held her hair back, laying Lanie's head down on her shoulder as the horrible retching finally ceased. "Oh, sweetheart," Addison murmured, cupping her head in her hand. Shimmying down along the bed, Addison laid her head on the pillow and let Lanie settle in beside her.

Lanie fell asleep like that, in her mother's arms, and Addison held on to her as tightly as she could. Addison prayed that if she held her daughter tightly enough, she could take all of the pain away.

OoooooooooooooO

Izzie walked down to the garage, turning on the fluorescent light above what used to be George's tool desk. Bending down, she dragged out the giant red toolbox and tipped it over, spilling the contents across the garage floor. The hammer that she was searching for was right on top, and she snatched it up, testing the feel of its weight. Wandering absently out of the garage, she left the light on and the door open.

As she walked up the stairs, Izzie let the claw of the hammer drag against the railing. Drifting into Doug's room, she felt herself heft the hammer almost as if she watching somebody else. Izzie drove the hammer into Doug's desk again and again, hitting it until the wood splintered. Her next target was the computer monitor, and she gave it a well-placed strike in the middle, causing it to fall amongst the wood debris. Whirling around, she sent the hammer flying into Doug's mirror, watching as a spider web of cracks made it's way across her reflection. "I hate you!" she screamed at herself as she reared back to strike the reflection again. Tightening her grip on the handle, Izzie drove the hammer into the glass again, and the shards went scattering across the floor. "I hate you, I hate you, I hate you! Why didn't you notice? Why didn't you do something? Why didn't you see?"

Spinning around, she threw the hammer at the wall, ripping open the closet door as it bounced to the ground. She yanked out hangers and threw the clothes all over the room, ripping and tearing at what she could, and tossing away what she couldn't. "You should have seen it!"

Izzie felt like she was floating, watching as all of the fight left her body and she sank down among the glass on the floor. She saw herself picking up one of the bigger shards of glass and staring at it, but she couldn't make her hand let it go. Letting it fall into her palm, she squeezed her hand shut as tightly as she could.

As she watched the blood leak out around her closed fingers, Izzie felt the start of tears trickling down her cheeks. "No," she whispered furiously, swiping them away with her free hand. "You can't cry," she told herself. "You don't have that right." Squeezing down harder, she watched from above as her hand started shaking uncontrollably.

When Izzie opened her hand, she caught the glass in her free hand as it fell, and let her injured hand bleed openly. Poking at the sharpest corner with the tip of another finger, she twirled it around and around in her hand, making a tiny circle of cracks to match the gash in her right hand. "I think I know why he wanted to die…" she murmured. She watched from above as the dug the glass into her hand, uncertain of her ability to stop herself.