A/N: Just wanted to say thanks to everyone for their continued reviews and comments on this story and thanks to everyone who took the time to say whether or not I should carry on. As you can well see I've had a crack at another chapter for this story. I hope everyone following this story likes it. I really do appreciate your thoughts and comments :D

Has someone taken your faith?
Its real, the pain you feel
The life, the love
You'd die to heal

~~x~~

Hunter drove all night at breakneck speeds as he crossed the states, determined to put as much distance between himself and Chris as possible. His other motive was to finally confront Shawn about just what was going on. The other photos now looked less like an innocent meeting and his theory about them being some elaborate photoshopped concoction was slowly coming apart at the seams.

Finally after more hours than he was able to count he found himself in his familiar parking spot outside the hospital. His hair stuck to his face with the sweat that hadn't stopped pouring down his skin since the fire of his rage had been lit by his run-in with Chris. The whites of his eyes were bright pink through a mixture of tiredness and tears that just wouldn't come no matter how he tried to let go. His body had gone onto standby and had shut down all the emotions he had, protecting itself from the inevitability of his anger and pain, neither of which were feelings he'd ever learned to deal with particularly well. Lashing out at Chris had only served to coil him into an even tighter spring than before.

Having seen himself in the rear view mirror he half considered a trip home for some fresh clothes and a shower before going to see Shawn but in a heartbeat he deemed that level of effort pointless. It didn't really matter to him what he looked like if all he was going to do was go into the hospital ward and emerge a man with nothing more than the tatters of everything he cherished rested in the palms of his shaking hands. If Shawn was in love with Chris, if it was all true then the dirtied, dishevelled and desperate appearance of the man about to appear before him was the least of either of their worries.

Hunter patted his jacket pocket as if to make sure that the evidence was still there, its only real chance to escape being during his one stop at a roadside cafe for their largest coffee and some candy to keep his energy levels up. In the weeks since the incident he'd hardly eaten a proper meal, grabbing whatever whenever just to take the edge of his body's demands. His muscles felt aged and tired and his strength was ebbing away. The problem was that without Shawn nothing else seemed to matter enough to make him take good care of himself. In a passing moment he'd acknowledged that fact and then shelved it, knowing that the truth about his own feelings was going to do nothing like set him free.

The familiar walk through the corridors seemed longer and the wait for the elevator eternal. He'd long since stopped using the stairs despite their being a good way to kill some time if he arrived early. Around halfway up he would stop and his heart would be tearing at him to continue or to turn and run at every landing. At least if he rode the elevator then he had little chance of forcing himself out on a floor too early or too late.

His steadily paced walk towards the private room was only interrupted by one of the regular nurses eyeing him with some degree of concern. Hunter nodded at her and hoped that he'd laced his look with enough disinterestedness that she would know to leave him well alone. Peering briefly through the window in the door he could see Shawn was reading the paper, glasses perched on the end of his nose but his eyes squinting to read the smaller print. He choked back a smile thinking about the number of times he'd gotten on at Shawn to go get his eyes retested rather than wearing a pair of glasses that were 4 years old. That, like a lot of his concerned and maybe even nagging words, had fallen on pretended deaf ears.

Pushing the door open quietly he went and sat in his usual spot at the bedside and it wasn't until he cleared his throat that his engrossed lover realised that there was someone else in the room. Hunter watched as the paper was carelessly folded and cast onto the table nearby, the glasses following suit as Shawn reached out his hand and held it open palm up, ready for the interlacing of their digits. For a moment Hunter hesitated and thought whether or not he should be sharing a moment of such intimacy with a man he'd basically come to interrogate. Sensing that he probably needed a moment of support himself he reached his hand out and felt it be enveloped in two smaller but warmer hands

"Hey you...."

"How's it going today Shawn? Any news from the docs?"

Hunter watched Shawn's face intently as a wide smile grew across it.

"I kinda had some news today Hunt... I've asked them if there's any chance of me going home anytime soon. I know I'm still busted up but they've said if we've got the room then my insurance will cover some nurses. I'd just have to put some to for enough of them to come care for me. I need to get out of here Hunter, it's driving me more crazy than I need right now...."

The look on Shawn's face was pained and desperate. Hunter had to admit that in recent days his lover had been growing more and more tired looking. The number of waking hours had increased as his body was finally getting to the point where it was rested enough to heal at a better rate. The only thing was that Shawn could only have visitors for a few hours a day and was still bed bound meaning there was no way for him to leave the hospital or even the confines of his room. For a minute or so Hunter looked silently at a spot of nothing on the wall that faced him, torn between blurting out his accusations and swallowing them one more time for their potential greater good.

"Shawn, are you sure that's a good idea right now? I mean, you're only a couple of weeks past major surgery and...."

The worried look in Hunter's eyes did not appear to have gone unnoticed and before he knew it he was interrupted by a nurse in the doorway responding to the unseen press of the buzzer that Shawn had made during the period in which Hunter had been unable to summon the words with which to respond.

"Shelley! Come in here. Tell Hunter how Dr Lee said I could go home as long as I have the right staff there with me!"

The winning smile that Shawn shot her went straight to Hunter's heart. He'd had that same smile used on him so many times in the past whenever he was reluctant to do anything from getting out of bed to signing on to a new storyline. As she smirked back at him it was clear that of all the people in the room only one of them didn't know how to work a grin to their best advantage.

"Shawn, you heard what Dr Lee said. You might be able to go home depending on the results of the last lot of tests you had done to show whether or not you were healing up ok. He just wants the wound totally healed over so you don't go catching anything in it. Now those results should be back either later today or tomorrow at which point we'll talk about this again."

Shawn's face dropped into his trademark pout and he shrugged his shoulders like a small child who had been told at New Year's that they could have a puppy next Christmas. Shelley smiled at them both and shook her head, muttering something almost inaudible as she closed the door behind her.

Hunter waited for the protestations from Shawn but they didn't come. He was clearly disappointed that he had to wait even longer. Despite the turmoil about their relationship that bubbled so closely under his skin he also knew the toll that the extended stay in hospital was taking on Shawn as a person, not just as his lover. He reached for and squeezed one of Shawn's hands to show that he understood what he was going through even though in reality he hadn't got the first idea.

"Look, they'll tell us soon and then we can see what we can arrange okay? Dr Lee knows best, he's not let us down so far and I can't see that he's gonna start now. Just bear with it for a little while longer and I'm sure you'll get the news you want."

As the words fell out of his mouth Hunter realised what he'd said. The 'you' instead of the expected 'we' really did feel like the elephant in the room. It was so long since they'd been anything other than a 'we' that to hear it said so starkly shocked them both. Shawn eyed Hunter carefully, the worry lines on his face deepening.

"D-don't you want me to come home Hunt? Is that what you're getting at?"

The hurt expression stabbed straight through the haze of misery that Hunter had been feeling and for a moment he remembered all the reasons he fell in love and stayed in love with the man before him. Usually he'd do anything to take that hurt look off his lover's face from offering kind words to doing some sort of overblown gesture, anything for him not to have lost his smile like so many times before. This time though was so very different and his free hand reached almost automatically to the box that was masked so well by the stiff leather of his jacket. He ran his hand over it carefully and taking a deep breath forced a reply.

"It's not that I don't want you to come home Shawn, its not that at all, its just...well I think there's something we gotta talk about first...."

Slowly Hunter unzipped the pocket of his coat and reached into it for the photograph and the bracelet box. He slid his reluctant fingers along the shape of it and as he started to withdraw it from its dark confines his cellphone rang.

For a moment he considered ignoring it. His hand froze where it was and he sneaked a look at Shawn's face which was still furrowed and twisted with hurt and confusion. His heart screamed at him to take it as a chance to run from the room and save himself from the potentially harsh truth of their impending discussion. His head told him to stay right where he was and brass it out, to get the answers that might finally permit him an unbroken night of sleep as opposed to the fitful and frustrating napping which had passed as rest for weeks.

Pulling his empty hand out of his pocket Hunter decided to let fate make the decision for him. If it was a call he felt he had to take then he would. If it was someone he didn't want to talk to then it looked like their confrontation would be happening after all. Reaching into his jeans pocket he retrieved his phone and in bold neon blue letters the name 'Vince' flashed as the generic tone rang mutedly in the room.

"It's Vince, I gotta take this Shawn – if I don't he'll just keep ringing. You know what the crazy old crank is like. I'll go talk to him and I'll be straight back. I promise."

With his fingers poised to flip his phone open Hunter stood and leant over to kiss Shawn on the forehead, something he rarely did, preferring the feel of his lover's warm lips against his own. It struck him that maybe he'd been distancing himself from Shawn without ever giving him the chance to be innocent, to prove Chris a liar and Paul nothing more than a deluded fool. He just hoped that that chance would be taken and soon.

Slipping quietly from the room Hunter flipped the phone and took a deep breath before pulling it to his ear.

"Vince, how are you man?"

"Hunter, you must know why I'm ringing by now. I'm sure you've had one or two calls about this whole thing and I've got to say I'm pretty shocked. I just needed to check that you and Shawn were okay."

Vince's tone was serious and his gravelly voice seemed little more than a rumble in the distance to Hunter who was convinced that everyone would be gunning for him after the incident with Chris.

"I don't know what you're talking about. I haven't had any calls at all today. Something I can help you with?"

Doing his best to maintain a light and happy tone Hunter knew that Vince rarely if ever made social calls in the middle of the business day. He braced himself for either the tirade or the reprimand, whichever his boss saw fit to throw at him.

"Look, last night after the show we found Chris collapsed in his dressing room. Truth is we think now that he'd been assaulted. Now I'm just calling to let you know that we've suspended Paul indefinitely. We know he was here last night despite being suspended after the incident with Shawn. I...well I think we might be offering to send him for some kind of evaluation. He can't go around hurting people like this, I won't have it, not in my company."

Hunter listened in little more than a stunned silence. Inside his heart and his stomach were doing the equivalent of backflips as it looked as if his involvement with the attack might be the furthest thing from Vince's mind. He decided to play patsy and go along with Paul being the culprit just in case what was being fished for was further clues or even his admission of guilt.

"Was...was it bad?

"Bad enough. He's got a busted up nose, a few scrapes and bruises. Nothing much more than a hard night at the office would've gotten him. Speaking of which, you got any ideas what got into Sheamus? That young man nearly took Chris' head off last night in the ring. Any chance you can give him a call and just tell him to calm it down a little? He can't go on sticking it to the guys here and before long they'll be tagging him back for real too."

"Sure thing Vince. He's still young y'know. He'll get better with time and I'll be looking out for him in case anyone gets handy. He'll come good, I know it."

He somehow managed to keep the innocent tone to his voice and it appeared that for the time being at least, he was in the clear. Hunter would talk to Sheamus but only to thank him again and make good on his promise to do what he could to get the kid to where he deserved to be in the company.

"Anyway Hunter, just watch out for Paul showing up. Don't take him on if he does, he's clearly not too stable right now. Take care of you and of Shawn and send him mine and Linda's best wishes. When the show comes back around your way I'll be sure to stop in and see him. I miss him a hell of a lot and I don't want to stress him by calling the hospital but if he wants to talk then he has my number. So help me God I shouldn't care with what he put me through over the years but he's like a son to me."

Offering his thanks to Vince for the kind thoughts and confirming that he would keep his distance from Paul he closed his phone and stared at it for a moment before sliding it back into his pocket. A relief swept him that he was not being pinned as Chris' attacker but he couldn't help but wonder if that was because Chris was too hurt to remember him being there or was covering up and saving this as ammunition for a later date. Surely he would've noticed by now that his diary was missing but Paul could've taken it if that's who he truly believed had landed him so squarely on his ass.

Turning his body to lean shoulder first on the wall he looked back towards Shawn's room and started to play over in his mind the words that had been spoken about him coming home. The truth was that Hunter didn't know whether or not he was ready to have Shawn around again until he knew what was really going on. By the same token it was Shawn's home too and who was he to say that he couldn't come back there whenever he wanted?

The dilemma weighed heavy on his mind as he made the short journey back into the room. He found Shawn to be dozing in the warmth of the late morning sun. The light streamed in and made the white of the sheets that much more vivid and the halo of dark blonde hair shine as if it were spun gold. On Shawn's chin the stubble that he was sporting looked soft and inviting and Hunter wanted nothing more than to go and lay his head on his lover's chest and stroke the strong jaw. He'd then listen to the steady heartbeat as the crooked fingers raked through his own flowing hair. So many idle hotel room afternoons had gone down that way leading either to gentle sleep or roaring passion. Hunter missed that, missed their bond.

As he stood in the doorway and watched the slow movement of Shawn's chest he wondered if they could put this all behind them and just carry on like nothing had ever happened. Hunter tried to figure out if he could threaten Paul and Chris enough to stay away and try to push his suspicions to the back of his mind for good. There was nothing more he'd wanted and nobody he'd ever wanted more than Shawn. Maybe it was time to just forget the pain and move on together. Maybe.

A/N: So I tried at a next chapter. I quite like it but that usually means that it sucks. Which I hope it doesn't totally. This story is heading off towards its finish now and I'll be glad to get it sorted out. It's already hard work thinking about the end let along writing it!! All reads and reviews appreciated as always.

The lyrics at the top are more from Best of You by the Foo Fighters.