Author's Note: This is the end. Very short chapter, I know. But it's mostly to just wrap things up.

Chapter 12: Finality

Micky heard his friends' voices around him. His mind was in too much of a haze to really make anything out. He tried to figure out what was going on. He remembered waking up with a gun pointed at him. He remembered seeing Tony behind the gun. He remembered Tony yanking him out of bed and throwing him into the wall. He remembered Tony throwing him out of his room. He remembered being kicked and pushed over the railing onto the first floor. He remembered being hit, battered, and bruised. He also remembered Mike being struck on the head and Peter valiantly dodging bullets to save Micky. He knew he should be in a lot of pain, but he wasn't. He tried opening his eyes, but was only able to open one.

"Ssh!" He heard Mike say. "He's awake." The room fell silent at these words. Micky's vision was blurred, and the voices of his friends sounded so far away. But he could vaguely make the outlines of his friends out.

"Hey, Micky," Peter said. "How are you feeling?"

"Actually, I'm feeling fine," Micky said; his vision was still blurred, but the voices were now as they should be. "Although I can't see all that well."

"Well your eye is still swollen shut," Davy supplied.

"And you're on a lot of really good pain killers," Mike added. "Which is why you feel fine."

"Even though you look terrible," Peter said.

"Peter!" Mike and Davy admonished.

"What?" He asked innocently. "It's the truth."

"Peter," Rose finally spoke up. "He doesn't need to hear that kind of stuff right now." Micky felt a pair of soft hands squeeze his arm.

"It's ok, Rose," Micky said. "What happened?"

"You don't remember?" Davy asked. Micky could hear a slight panic in his voice.

"No, I remember what happened. But last thing I saw before I passed out was Mike's head and Peter's wrists bleeding and Tony and his friends crumpled in a heap."

"The cops arrested them," Mike said. "They brought them here to be treated for their injuries. Peter nailed 'em good and they were only released into police custody a couple hours ago after being cleared medically. Except Freddie. I kinda destroyed his knee. He won't be walking around on it for a long time."

"That's good," Micky said with a smile. "But what about you guys."

"We're fine, Micky," Peter said. Micky may not have been able to see him that well, but he could hear the smile in his voice. "I got a few rope burns from wiggling out and Mike has a concussion. The doc said he was lucky that he didn't need any stitches."

"Too bad," Davy laughed. "They would have had to shave your head to do that."

"And you know I would have refused," Mike laughed. "No one is touching my hair." Micky tried to laugh, but felt tightness in his chest.

"Ow," he muttered.

"Don't try and laugh, Micky," Rose said, placing her hand on his forehead comfortingly. "You just came out of surgery and if you laugh, you'll tear the stitches."

"Surgery?" Micky asked.

"They said you had a very small tear on your spleen," Mike said. "They went in and fixed it."

"So I guess I'm not going home for a while?"

"No," Peter answered. "The doctor said you have some pretty severe bruises mostly, and a sprained wrist from the fall. But other than that and the spleen, you're fine."

"And you guys are sure you're ok?" Micky asked.

"We're fine," Peter assured him. "No big problems. Doctor released us hours ago. We just have to keep an eye on our injuries to make sure they don't get infected." Micky felt a little more relaxed. He still couldn't believe Peter's actions. He hadn't expected Peter to be as nimble as he was. Or as adept at overcoming adversaries. They'd always taken the cowards' way out in the past. And Peter was the least likely out of the group to do anything even remotely violent.

"Don't worry about us, though, mate," Davy said. "Just make sure you take care of yourself. You're gonna be here a few days. Doctor said maybe even a week. Just try and relax."

"A week?!" Micky exclaimed, now trying to get up. "I can't stay here for a week!"

"George Michael Dolenz!" Rose exclaimed, freezing him in his attempts to get out of the bed. He really hated being called by his full name. It's not that he hated it; he was named for his father who was a wonderful man, but he always knew he was in trouble when someone used his full name. "If you don't lie back down in that bed right now, I will use force against you."

"Force?" Mike asked, clearly a little shocked at Rose's outburst.

"Yes," she replied simply. He couldn't see her beyond a fuzzy figure, but he could feel her eyes staring at him. "I can ask those nurses to give him a little help sleeping. They can put it in his IV and he'll be out like a light for hours."

"Okay, okay, I surrender," Micky said, lying back down reluctantly.

"Good," came a voice from the doorway, and Micky assumed this was his nurse because of what she said next. "Because I would have given you a little sleeping medication. You need to be resting, Mr. Dolenz. Not moving around. Your spleen is trying to heal itself. If you move too much, you'll burst it open again which can cause you to bleed to death. Best case scenario, you lose your spleen entirely."

"I promise, I'll behave," Micky answered.

"You? Behave?" Rose said skeptically.

"Never!" Mike, Davy and Peter said in unison. Micky couldn't help it; he laughed again and his stomach erupted in pain. He inhaled sharply and moved his hand over his stomach.

"Don't do that," the nurse told him. "And you boys don't need to be making him laugh."

"That's going to be very difficult, ma'am," Micky said.

"Call me Lori," she replied.

"Ok, Lori," Micky answered. "Can you tell me how long until I get my vision back?"

"What do you mean?"

"He can't see well cause his eye is swollen shut," Peter said.

"He should still be able to see out of the other eye fine. The only thing that should be affected should be his depth perception. Is that what you mean?"

"No," Micky was now slightly reluctant to answer, thinking there may have been something else wrong with him. "Everything is blurry."

"Blurry?"

"Yeah, I can make out shapes, but that's it."

"Hmm…how many fingers am I holding up?" She moved her hand in front of his face. He couldn't see how many fingers she was holding up exactly.

"I…um…I don't know. I see something in front of me, but can't make out what it is." All three of Micky's friends got immediately nervous and spoke all at once.

"What?!" Mike exclaimed.

"What does that mean?" Davy asked.

"Is he going to be ok?" Peter added.

"Calm down," Nurse Lori said. "It's probably nothing to worry about. Stressing him out won't do any good. I'll get the doctor." She left and came back with the doctor moments later.

"Hello, Mr. Dolenz," the doctor said. "I'm Dr. Fletcher. Lori says you are having issues with your vision?"

"Everything is kinda blurry," Micky replied.

"Well, it's more than likely a result of a little brain swelling on the occipital nerve. Your brain is a little swollen, but it should go down and your vision should return to normal as the swelling goes down. But we'll keep an eye on it just in case."

Over the next week, Micky's vision did slowly improve. The pain in his stomach also subsided to the point where he could laugh with his friends. Rose, Mike, Davy and Peter had pretty much stayed with him the whole time, going home occasionally to take showers or change clothes. They slept in cots the doctor had brought in for them to use, even though it was very cramped because the room Micky was in wasn't that large. Finally, Dr. Fletcher came back in to Micky's room to tell him he was ready to be discharged.

"How are you feeling, Mr. Dolenz?" Dr. Fletcher asked.

"Better," Micky replied. "And my vision is almost completely back. Just a little bit of haze now."

"Good. When you go home, I want to make sure you still stay pretty sedentary. You can get up and move around to do some basic things on your crutches still, but sit as often as you can. As the other doctor told you, you need to ice your ankle very often. I'm going to give you some pain medications to take as well; something a little stronger than what you had before. Have you ever taken Oxycodone?"

"No," Micky replied. This was essentially true. He'd taken it once, but not in the manner the doctor was asking about.

"Are you sure?" Mike asked. Micky looked at him, wondering why he would ask this. Micky briefly thought if he knew something he wasn't letting on.

"Positive," Micky replied. Mike looked very confused about something. He must know something, but Micky wasn't sure what.

"Ok," Dr. Fletcher said. "It's a very powerful narcotic. You need to be careful with it. It can cause nausea and dizziness. I want you to take this every 8 hours. If you take too much, it can cause a lot of problems; make sure you take it as directed. I'm going to check on your last round of tests, but barring any new problems arising, I don't see any reason not to send you home." The doctor left the room, and as soon as the door closed behind her, Mike moved to lock it.

"What did you do that for?" Peter asked.

"I know you don't feel good, Micky," Mike started still looking confused, "but I need to figure something out. When we took you in four years ago, we assumed you were drunk because of all the empty bottles, but I told Peter that it didn't quite make sense." Micky's stomach knotted. He knew where this was going and didn't want to deal with this.

"What do you mean, Mike?" Davy asked.

"Peter and I talked about it when you were asleep that night, Davy. Do you remember seeing Micky drink anything but soda all night?"

"Well, no, but I wasn't paying all that much attention," Davy answered.

"Peter?"

"No," Peter replied.

"Neither did I," Mike said, now looking squarely at Micky. "I told Peter that it didn't make sense for you to get drunk enough to pass out and throw up in the half an hour you were alone. If you had anything to drink before the party, we would have seen signs of it while you were working. I let it go back then because I didn't know you, but now I'm not going to. A lot of things don't really add up here. At least not to you having been drunk that night. The comment you made about us helping you more than we knew. And the fact that I found a bottle of Oxycodone when I washed your pants that night that didn't have your name on it even though you just told that doctor you've never taken it. Tell me, Micky, what does that all add up to?" They were all staring at him now. He was very uncomfortable, but he knew he couldn't run away from this anymore. Mike knew. Mike had pieced everything together. Mike was looking at him with a sense of paternal concern, Peter with brotherly sadness, Davy with utter confusion, and Rose with a small sense of despair mixed with guilt and pity. Why hadn't Micky destroyed that bottle? He had completely forgotten about it.

"Alright, you win," Micky relented. "I didn't want you to know the truth because I was ashamed of it. I hated my life. You saw what I was going through and I was so depressed about Rose. I bought that bottle off a guy on the street. I wasn't sure when I first bought them if I was really going to do it, but after the night I had, I decided to do it. I wanted to die. Peter came down about 15 minutes after I took a handful of them. I must have thrown them up throughout the night. That's what that comment really meant. Peter saved my life initially by making me throw up throughout the night with his incense and all three of you made me remember that life was worth living." He couldn't look at any of them as he spoke; he bent his head down and closed his eyes as he spoke. He didn't want to see their angry faces.

He was startled when he felt several arms wrap around him. He opened his eyes and noticed Peter and Davy were both hugging him from either side. Rose squeezed his hand in hers. Mike stood there, looking as if he were fighting back tears, which was odd because Mike never cried. Micky didn't know what to say. They weren't angry?

"Micky, why didn't you tell us this sooner?" Peter asked when he and Davy finally let go of him.

"I…I was ashamed," Micky repeated. "I didn't want you guys to know how stupid I'd been."

"Well, what you did certainly was stupid," Mike said. "But that doesn't mean you're stupid. We've all done stupid things. That doesn't make any of us stupid."

"Mike's right," Davy agreed. "None of us thinks you're stupid. We're just glad that you are better now. That you don't think that way anymore."

"Yeah," Peter added. "And I'm glad I was able to make you throw up!" Micky chuckled. Peter was trying to lighten the mood and make Micky feel better by acting clueless again.

"Micky," Rose spoke up, her voiced very strained like she was fighting back tears, "I'm so sorry I drove you to do that."

"You didn't," Micky assured her. "It was a mix of a lot of things. My life was hell. And everything that happened between us was Tony's fault."

"It was mine, too. I never should have listened to Tony."

"It's in the past now," Mike said, walking over and placing a reassuring hand on Rose's shoulder. "All of that is. What Micky did; what you did. It's all in the past. Mistakes that both of you learned from. I know I've made my fair share of mistakes in the past, and I know Davy and Peter have too. It happens. It's what makes us human. But I've said it before; the only thing that makes us fools is the inability to learn from our mistakes." Rose leaned over and kissed Micky. Micky knew this wasn't a "thank you" kiss. This was much more than that. When she pulled away she whispered "I love you". Words he hadn't heard her say to him in years. He didn't care anymore if he dove into the deep end or not; he whispered "I love you, too" back to her, and she squeezed his hand again.

Micky smiled. He felt a weight he didn't know he had lifted off his shoulders. He felt at peace. He hid no more secrets from his friends. And now he knew that they truly loved him. He knew that they would be able to get through anything together. They were more than friends. They were family. And they always would be.