A/N I know this is late, it's lateness brought about by a combination of me being unsure of how to start it and spending hours shut up in my room avoiding my mother who was angry at my sisters and I. Fortunately, I stay up later than her giving me time to write this. :P

Thanks to all Reviewers!

Dedication: to whitetigers for her lovely review. :)

Disclaimer: I own nada. ;)

Joe Hardy had spent a lot of time in hospitals in his twenty-two years, fortunately or unfortunately a lot of that time he had been unconscious and thus largely oblivious to the horrors of an E.R. waiting room. He could not presently imagine a worse place to be than seated in the hard plastic chairs, surrounded by his friends and his father, and yet at the same time still completely alone. He had always found it strange how it was possible to be in the midst of dozens of people and still feel truly, and utterly alone.

Of course, Joe mused, he'd grown rather used to being alone in the last year. He was currently seated in between his father and his brother's ex-girlfriend (though he did wonder if Callie could really be considered an ex-girlfriend when she and Frank had never actually broken up), both of whom were completely silent. Callie had curled in on herself, drawing her knees up under her chin and staring blankly into space, likely picturing scenes from a different time and place.

His father's hands were tightly clenching the arm-rests and his eyes were glued to the floor, evidently fascinated by his shoes. Or at least that was the impression a bystander would get. Joe, however, knew better than that. His father was brooding over something, probably about his self-perceived failures with his sons. Joe didn't consider his father to be a failure by any stretch, Fenton Hardy had made mistakes to be sure, especially with his treatment of Joe after his brother seemed to be dead, but grief did strange things to people, tore them apart and made them do things they never would have done otherwise.

His own ex-girlfriend, (an actual ex in his case as he had actually broken up with her prior to fleeing his former life, do not pass go, do not collect two hundred dollars), was seated on Callie's other side. She had tried to engage both of them in conversation several times since their arrival, but both Joe and Callie had preferred to brood over their separate worries. Vanessa had eventually given up and was conversing quietly with Phil who was seated across from her.

They had been waiting for two hours already and had not heard anything since. Frank had been rushed away for surgery, and the doctors finding Joe to be a family member had asked him to give his consent for it, since Frank was currently completely out of it. After that the nurses had handed Joe a stack of insurance forms to fill out, which he had given up as a bad job, considering he was fairly certain that being considered dead probably meant that Frank no longer had health insurance.

Joe had reached the conclusion that he definitely preferred being the injured one to the nerve-wracking wait to find out information. He wondered what that said about him.

Further musings in this vein were cut short by the arrival of a doctor, chart in hand, scanning the various groups gathered in the waiting room. "Frank Hardy?" He called out.

Joe was vaguely aware of his father calling out an answering reply. The entire group immediately perked up at his arrival giving the doctor their unabated attention.

"Frank is currently still in surgery, removing the knife is proving to be rather difficult," The doctor, who had introduced himself as Dr. Parker, began. "The knife has managed to knick the femoral artery, removing it could cause him to bleed out, we are currently working on doing so a little at a time; we are giving him blood transfusions to help with the blood loss." He continued bluntly. "It's touch and go, but we're doing everything we can to help him."

He waited for this to sink in and was met by eight horror-stricken faces, none of them having fully grasped the extent of the damage until then.

"Do you have any questions before I get back in there?"

"No, that's all, thank you." Fenton managed in a strained voice. Dr. Parker left with one more assurance that they would do everything they could for Frank.

Joe felt like he had been punched in the gut, his breath exploded out of his lungs with an audible whoosh. He heard an audible sob from his right and new that Callie was crying without looking. He could see a few tears slide down his fathers face and land on his pants in a steady drip, although his father continued to stare down at his shoes as though expecting they would reveal the answers to life's most difficult questions.

Vanessa looked as though she had been slapped; Phil had lost at least three shades of color. Tony was muttering words in Italian that Joe couldn't understand but knew to be curse words. Chet was hunched over and appeared to be praying. Biff was staring up at the ceiling, evidently having decided that the floor didn't seem to be revealing any answer's to Fenton, so maybe the ceiling was the way to go.

Joe was almost tempted to laugh at the shear irony of the situation, the ludicrousness of finding out that his brother was alive only to have him at death's door again.

He remembered reading once that brothers "...may be the keeper of one's identity, the only person with the keys to one's unfettered, more fundamental self." Joe knew this was the case for himself and Frank knew with the sort of absolute certainty that came along once in a lifetime. And, Joe also knew with every fiber of his being that if Frank died, Joe would die along with him.

Torn between anger and grief, Joe decided that Chet probably had the best idea and decided to give prayer a shot. He hadn't prayed much at all in the past year, didn't really see the point, after Frank had appeared dead and besides that he couldn't bring himself to find much to be thankful for or want to protect after that. He hoped God could forgive him for that. He guessed it was true what they say about people not really bothering with prayer until they had something to pray for. Joe swore up and down that if his brother could only be saved he'd go to church every Sunday, pray every night, help the poor, donate to the church, anything at all, if only Frank would not die.

A/N Review! At some point in the next few days (possibly tommorow), my new laptop will arrive (it's pink!) which will provide me with the ability to update whenever I want because I won't have to share anymore. :P