First, I'm sorry you had to wait this long and that my last chapters haven't been too good. But I had a lot of stress and somehow lost a bit connection to the story, but I promise to do better now with the last few chapters waiting. I don't know, if any of you have depressions, but mine are pretty bad even with four different anti-depressants. It just happens sometimes that I can't write or that I lose interest or focus. I tried to get my will to write back by writing a Person of Interest story and it helped a lot.

I hope you enjoy it, though it's short!

Hank felt still sick from the sedative he had been given, but he was awake and his mind was clearing. A mild headache was forming around his temples. But he didn't complain. He'd feel better soon. The doctors had treated his head wound. He hadn't really taken care of it earlier, but in his defense, he had had to worry about more important things. His brother.

"Evan!"

His baby brother wasn't around him. He should have known after working in hospitals so many years. He'd just get a nurse and ask her about Evan, but then memory hit him. An image came up so fast that it hurt: His brother unresponsive, still and lifeless in his arms.

"No no no no!" It couldn't be true.

He got up too fast. His legs gave in for a moment, but he could catch his fall by holding on to the nightstand at his bedside. He had to be careful, but there was no time for a break. He had to get out of this room and find out about his brother. He was slowly, but it didn't take him long to find a nurse he could ask. She told him Evan was at the ICU, but she thought it'd be best if Hank went back to his room and wait for the doctor.

Dr. Henry Lawson looked at her as if she had lost her mind. Waiting for a doctor, while his younger brother was fighting for his life? Ridiculous! He felt tired and weak, but he was surprisingly fast at the ICU, where another nurse brought him to his brothers room.

He fought with himself, afraid of what he was going to see by entering and aware that he had to go in to be by his brothers side. It was a short fight, but it took some of his strength. He went into the room and just stood there.

Everything that he cared for, that made his life and that he loved was lying in the bed not to too far away from him, surrounded by machines. Hank knew all of those machines, what they did and why they were needed. But to see them so close to his brother, connected to his brother, made him sick again. This image was just as wrong as it possibly could be. The funny, hyperactive Evan and all those horrible frightening machines – it didn't fit. It was like two different worlds, universes.

Evan was taller than his big brother, but right now he looked like an unhappy, hurt and abused little child. But 'right now' wasn't really the right word here; 'again' would be the better one. He was back to the poor child he had been for too many years in his life. It had been bad than. It was the same now, but this time something worse was added to the anyway serious situation. His life was at risk.

Henry was at his brothers side, held his hand, though he couldn't remember, when exactly he had taken the few steps to come to the bed. Evan was unconscious. Still unresponsive. His hands felt cold. He wasn't breathing on his own. His body looked like he had been to a violent battlefield. No, his body actually looked it was the battlefield.

"You have to wake up, Evan" Tears burnt in Henry's eyes. "Can't leave me like this. I told you I was coming for you, didn't I? But you didn't wait for me. You just had to have it your way, huh? Yeah, always doing as you want and not as I tell you to. You've been this way ever since I was responsible for you. Stubborn kid."

The nurse that had brought him to the room came in. "I know you want to be with your brother, but you should really go back to your room and wait for the doctor. He'll come and talk to you. And if you feel better you can come back and sit with him for a bit." She looked at Evan to signalize that 'him' was the unconscious patient.

"No! I'm fine, well fine enough. I can't leave, my place is here. Here, with him. I can't go and leave him alone. He needs me and I have to be here for him. I have to take care of him and protect him."

He was already talking more to himself than the nurse, that had left anyway. "Protect him, like I always have. Not always. I let him down too often lately." The tears were running freely now and he looked at his brother. "I let you down, Evan. I promised to make you my number one priority and for a while I forgot it. I failed. I failed you, kiddo. I'm so so sorry and I need you to wake up so I can tell and show you just how sorry I am. You need to give me a second chance – again. I'm such a jerk, how many second chances have you given me already? I don't know, Ev, but I do know that I didn't deserve any of it."

The CFO of HankMed was pale, far too thin. Hank could see and feel his bones. Bruises covered his body. He looked vulnerable, but what really got to Hank was his hair. It was gone. Shaved. Probably by a nurse. The hair that he had loved and admired on his little brother wasn't there anymore, probably thrown into a can with all the other trash, like it was just the same. Like it meant nothing to anyone. Henry guessed it would sound silly to tell anyone, but those hairs meant a lot to him. Because it was Evan's hair, the curly hair he admired so much.

Aaron was sitting in his cell around the time his oldest brother was sitting at his other brothers side. He was thinking. He wouldn't admit it and hadn't thouth it would really affect him the way it did, but well, it did. He wondered, if everything the doctor had told him earlier about his father had been true. Or just parts of it? Probably nothing at all, but Aaron couldn't stop thinking. Doubts forming in his head.

But his lawyer was coming soon, the lawyer his father had sent him. A good one as far as he knew. Eddie wouldn't let him down. They were too alike, they loved each other. So why did he even consider the other man's words about his dad? He didn't know. It was silly. He could trust his father. Dr. Lawson was just a rich ass and the other bitch was just... he looked at his dirty fingers. The youngest Lawson wasn't even worth the dirt under his fingernails.

Dr. Henry Lawson understood everything the doctor told him. But he didn't comprehend it. The doctors words were like a background noise that you don't hear anymore after a while. He heard them, probably saved them somewhere in his brain, but he couldn't focus on them. All he needed to know was that his brothers had gone through surgery. That he went through it fine, but they didn't know, if he would live.

But there was something growing in Hank, slowly and not recognized, yet. Hope was coming back. Because Evan was still there, he didn't die and he made it through surgery without any complications.