"We have to do something!" Nate exclaimed as he paced around the green room of the late night talk show host, Brian Phelps. His brother, Shane, sat on the couch, watching him with the same expression of perturbation on his face.

"I know!" he said forcefully, his hands balling up into fists, "but what can we really do?" After a long moment, he muttered, "It's his own fault."

Nate wheeled on him, anger flashing in his eyes. "His own fault?" he asked in a deadly low voice that warned his brother that he had said something wrong. "Don't ever say that again in my presence, and don't let mom hear you say that either."

His stony tone startled Shane, but he put his hands up in the air and said, "The doctors say that he could pull himself out of it if he wanted to. That's all I'm saying."

"And why do you think he doesn't want to?" Nate demanded. "It's because of us. It's because of what we've done to him over these last three years." He ran a hand through his curly hair and said regretfully, "If it's anyone's fault, it's ours. For goodness sake! We haven't even gone to see him very often because we've been too busy with the tour schedules!"

Shane was silent for a moment and then he asked again, "But what can we do? Mom and dad have already signed the papers."

Nate didn't answer. He fisted his hand in his eye, striving not to scream, or cry, or both. "I don't know," he said quietly. "I think it's over."

A man appeared at the top of the stairs leading down to the green room and called, "Nate! Shane! You're on!"

Nate glanced at Shane, who stood up from the couch haggardly and said, "Let's get this over with."

Nate shook his head as he followed his older brother up the stairs, muttering under his breath, "I can't believe we're doing this."

"Welcome back everyone," Brian Phelps said cheerily as the commercial break came to an end, leaning his elbow on his desk to try and create a more friendly, intimate stance with his audience. "We've had our laughs, our jokes, and our downright awkward moments on the show tonight," he said, and the audience was cued to laugh, which they did enthusiastically. "However," he went on, "it's time now for our sad moments. Would you please welcome Nate and Shane Grey of the Connect 3 band?"

Girls screamed shrilly in the audience, waving signs that proclaimed their undying love for the two boys that walked out from backstage dejectedly, and everyone that wasn't screaming clapped at least for the popular teens. Nate and Shane nodded to their admirers, shaking hands with the host and then seating themselves in the two chairs set out for them.

"Hello boys," Brian said congenially.

"Hi."

"Hi."

Both boys returned his greeting tiredly, and it was only then that the exuberant audience realized that there was something wrong. Never had the boys appeared without their brother, and never had they appeared anywhere looking so listless and upset. Murmurs started to circulate, and some of the crewmembers hushed them so that Brian could continue.

"We hear that you have some rather disturbing news for us tonight," Brian went on. "Something about your brother." More murmurs were heard, but they were almost instantly hushed.

Nate, ever the spokesman, nodded affirmatively and turned slightly towards the audience so that he could address them personally. "As many of you know, our brother, Jason, was in a car crash almost three months ago and has been in a coma ever since." He watched as most of the audience nodded their heads in understanding. "Since that time, the doctors have been working very hard to get our brother to wake up, but they haven't been able to succeed." He paused, struggling with his words. "They spoke to our parents and explained the situation, and they have deemed that Jason has no chance of recovering."

Gasps were heard throughout the studio, and the crewmembers of the show didn't even bother to try and quiet them. "So what does this mean for Connect 3?" Brian asked hurriedly. Nate raised an eyebrow and Brian lamely added, "And for your family?"

Nate felt all eyes on him and Shane as he responded, "It means that Connect 3 will be no more and that our family will need the prayers of our fans. Our parents have signed the papers to remove Jason from life support."

After the round of horrified gasps that followed Nate's statement, the entire studio went completely silent. Brian just looked at the two boys in front of him, actually lost for words, and even the cameraman looked shocked as he focused in on the two Grey boys' faces, which were pinched and white.

"Well," Brian stuttered, unsure how to continue. "We are all very sorry for the loss that this will cause you, but you'll definitely be in our thoughts."

"And prayers!" someone called from the audience.

Nate and Shane both turned in that direction and smiled weakly at the girl who had said it. "Thank you," Shane said, speaking for the second time. "We'll need them."

"The boys of Connect 3, ladies and gentlemen," the host proclaimed, his hand sweeping out to include the two boys that sat beside him, staring down at the floor. When he had asked their PR director for an interview, he had never imagined that the bad news they had warned him about would be this bad. The thought of them slowly letting Jason Grey die that way, though he would never feel it, made the host shudder and a horrible feeling crept up his spine, making him edgy.

The boys rose as soon as the show went to commercial and shook hands again with Brian, thanking him politely for having them on his show. "In a way," Shane told him, "it's a blessing. By later tonight, this will be all over the internet and we won't have to go through the explanation again."

Brian just nodded, unsure what he should say. What did one say to two boys that knew that their brother was going to die in a matter of days? "You're welcome, I guess," he finally said lamely. Now did not seem like the right time to make a joke.

The boys waved once more to the audience and disappeared backstage to where their parents were waiting for them. Their mom had tears rolling down her cheeks, and even their father had a tear beginning to form, though he was not normally a demonstrative man. "It's over," Nate said as he put an arm around his mother comfortingly, knowing all the while that his gesture was in vain. At this moment, knowing that she had literally signed her son's life away, Mrs. Grey could not be consoled.

"We'll wait for you two in the car," Mr. Grey told his two sons and led his wife out through the back of the studio.

As Nate watched them go, he felt the tears that he had fought to hold back spring forth, and this time, he let them come. "What have we done?" he whispered to his brother.

A/N: Okay I just want to say first off that I wrote this last night and couldn't get to sleep for over an hour because I was so depressed! :( Anyways, mickeyhagg, I hope this answers your questions about where Nate and Shane were in the story!! Please review, but don't kill me just because this chapter's depressing! LOL!