Charlize got out of her car and anxiously walked toward the main entrance of the hospital. Madison could not tell her much on the phone, they had just gotten the call and were on the way to the hospital themselves. Charlize had finished her shift, and headed straight to the hospital afterward.

"Excuse me, where do I find Nick Clark?" she asked the woman at the reception, and then followed the direction she was pointed in. She absentmindedly thought about why exactly she was there. Why would she go see her ex-boyfriend at the hospital even though they had not talked in eight months? Back then he had disappeared too, and never gotten back in touch. Eventually, Charlize stopped trying to reach him.

She took the stairs up the the first floor, took a right, and entered the ward she was told Nick was in. She quickly walked down the corridor, passing other patients' rooms, until she reached his. Next to the door was a big window, and she immediately recognized her ex-boyfriend. He was sleeping. He looked a little banged up, but it was not nearly as bad as she had pictured in her head. His light brown hair was tangled and greasy, he looked like he had not taken a shower in a while. Then again, even when it was clean, Nick's hair had always looked messy and tangled.

Charlize's eyes wandered from his hair and his dirty face down to his hospital gown, the blanket that was covering the lower half of his body, and eventually, his arms. She had not noticed that his wrists were restrained before. She sighed, and could feel her heart sinking. This had to mean he had been involved in something illegal.

Once she had seen him, and realized he was, at least physically, going to be okay, Charlize became more aware of the voices around her. She hadn't realized how worried she was. She could hear Travis and Madison now, their voices were coming from around the corner.

"I can't leave him like this," she heard Madison say as she started walking into their direction.

"Leave him with me. I'll stay," Travis answered, and Charlize realized they were discussing who'd stay here and skip work.

"You didn't sign up for this. You didn't sign up for any of this."

"Yes, I did. I signed up for exactly this.." - "Don't go sentimental!" - "..when I fell in love with you", Travis finished, despite Madison's appeal.

Charlize stopped right as she was about to turn the corner. She did not want to get in the middle of this argument, especially now that there was an uncomfortable silence.

"You just threw up in your mouth a little?" she hear Travis ask.

"Yeah, a little," Madison answered and the tension was broken. "You sure you're okay to stay here with him? Who is going to take over your lessons?"

"I'll watch him," Charlize heard herself say, surprising herself, and turned the corner.

Both Madison and Travis turned toward her, surprised not only by her offer, but also by her presence. Madison was wearing a dark sweater and she looked worn out. The perks of having a drug addicted son who gives you sleepless nights. Travis looked tired as well. Even though Nick was not his son, and Nick had always had problems accepting him, Travis cared unconditionally and was willing to go all out for him.

"Charlie, you don't have to.." Madison started, but Charlize stopped her. "I know I don't," she smiled at Nick's mother, "but I don't mind. I don't have anything to do anyway. I worked the early shift and am done for the day. Just come back after work. You have enough to worry about."

"Are you sure?"

"Yes, of course," Charlize said. "I just saw him. He looks okay. What happened?"

"He was hit by a car."

"A car? How did that happen?"

And Madison told her about how Nick apparently ran into traffic without looking, frantic. He had been high, but the doctor refused to tell them what he had been on, since he was over 18. The police had been there too, but Nick did not talk, just avoided their questions. While Madison was talking, Zoey could see that her appearance had changed since she had seen her yesterday evening at dinner.

Yesterday she had been a worried mother, trying not to show it. Today, with her son lying in the hospital, she just seemed exhausted. She had been in this situation a dozen times. She was calm, in a sense that this was not even close to being a new situation, but at the same time, slightly angry. Not as much directly at Nick, even though she most definitely was, but at the situation itself. The disappointment of seeing that he had not changed, had not gotten better, had gotten worse even, was weighing heavily on her, even though she did her best not to show it. Charlize wondered how much longer she could do it before she gave up. Then again, Madison was much tougher and resilient than most mothers.


After Madison and Travis left, Charlize went into Nicks room and made herself comfortable in a chair next to his bed. From close up, she could see that he looked even dirtier than from the window. One foot was sticking out of the blanket and the sole was completely black, like he had not worn shoes in a while. The skin on his arms and part of his face was grazed, Charlize assumed that came from the asphalt when the car hit him. There were needle marks on the inside of his elbow.

She had to force herself to take her eyes off of him. The sight of him, and the knowledge that he still did this to himself that came along with it, weighed on her chest and made it harder to breathe. This felt all too familiar, and she did not want to get back to the place where this, and he, would affect her this much.

Instead, she took a magazine from the table next to the nurses' station, wishing she had brought a book, and spent the next couple of hours reading about celebrity scandals and how to wear maxi-skirts this summer. It was a horrendous read, but it was better than nothing.

Eventually, Nick stirred and Charlize looked up at him. He was moving his head from left to right, his eyes moving hectically under his eyelids. He was grunting quietly once in a while, and it was evident he was having a nightmare.

Charlize reached out her hand and carefully put it on his forearm, her thumb gently stroking his skin. The touch seemed to have pulled him back into consciousness, and Charlize watched as Nicks eyes fluttered open and close a few times, adjusting to the light. For a split second, the expression in his eyes was one of confusion; he was still stuck in the brief moment between dream and reality. Then, as memory settled in, his expression relaxed, and fear was replaced by the infamous Nick-Clark-Pokerface. Nick had always been able to put on a great face which replaced every emotion he might feel at the moment if he wasn't ready for people to see it.

His eyes then followed the source of the touch, and Charlize gave him a small smile as he looked at her.

There was a moment of silence, of him processing this information.

"You are the last person I would have expected here," he eventually said in a casual tone.

"Both Travis and your Mum had to go to work, so I volunteered to wait here until they come back."

"Mum told you I was here?"

Charlize nodded.

"Why?"

"I had dinner with them last night. She thought I'd wanna know."

If Nick was surprised, he didn't show it. He simply turned his head straight again and stared against the wall, seemingly lost in thought.

"What happened?" Charlize asked eventually. Nick looked back at her and questioningly raised his eyebrows.

"The accident. Why did you run into traffic?" Charlize paused for a second, but decided to add: "They said you were frantic."

He turned his head away from her again. "It's because of what I saw," he said.

"What did you see?"

"You wouldn't believe me."

"Nick."

He did not answer.

"Nick, look at me," Charlize said, and Nick slowly turned his head, his eyes finding hers.

"We've been over this. I am not Travis. I am not your Mum. Just talk to me," she said gently.

"I'm not crazy."

"I know that."

Nick took a deep breath, and Charlize knew whatever he was about to tell her, it was difficult for him.

"I saw Gloria," he started. "She's a girl I know. She's a friend...Urgh, Jesus," he groaned and put his hands on his face, rubbing up and down. "Okay so it's like this," he continued after he put his hands down, but he still didn't manage to look at her while talking. Instead, he looked at his hands. "You buy at the corner and then you shoot up at the church. It's junkie communion. Gloria, Glo-.., she was with me when I scored. She was with me when I - when I nodded -"

"It's okay," Charlize tried to say in a calming tone. Nick was working himself up.

"When I woke up, I - I went down..everybody was dead, and Gloria - Glo, she was.."

"Nick,"

"It was all over her, it was all over her face, and then she came at me and she - her eyes - they were open but she was just - she wasn't seeing me,"

"What did she do, Nick?"

He paused. "She was eating them."

Charlize swallowed. She didn't know what to say. She had seen Nick high many times. She had seen him in withdrawal many times. She had never seen him like this.

"Nick," she started carefully. "What you saw...the drugs made you see it."

"No, no, no," Nick exclaimed, hectic, raising his hands up into his hair, pulling, exasperated. "I don't know what I saw came from the drugs." He looked at her again. "But if it didn't, it came from me. And if it came from me, that means I'm going insane." He let out a breath. "And I don't wanna be insane, Charlie. And I don't want what I saw to be real. I also don't want it to not be," he trailed off.

Charlize looked at her ex-boyfriend. She had never seen him so fragile, so close to a breakdown. She asked where the church was, and Nick absentmindedly told her, his mind still replaying what he thought he had seen.

"I'll go check it out," Charlize said and made to get up.

"What?" Nicks head snapped around. "No!"

Charlize stopped in her movement and looked at him, surprised.

"You can't, it's dangerous! You need to promise me you won't go there!" he said urgently.

"Okay, okay. I won't. It's okay. I'll stay here," she said, trying to calm him down again, and sat back down in her chair.

Nick leaned back in his pillow, both of them lost in thought. They were silent.


Charlize was quietly humming along to the song playing on the radio while checking the street signs. After Travis was finished at work, he came to the hospital and relieved Charlize of watching-Nick duty, and after promising Nick she wouldn't go to the church, she went straight to her car and started heading to where he had described the church would be. Sometimes, she couldn't keep every promise she made.

She found the place rather quickly, Nicks description was accurate. After she parked her car, she eyed the church from afar. It had been out of use for a while and looked correspondingly deteriorated.

She entered the place through the window Nick described, and inside it was even worse. The furniture that was left was thrown over, broken. There were tents, mattresses, sleeping bags. Trash was everywhere. It reeked of feces, sweat, vomit, and other things she couldn't, and didn't want to, identify. The windows were covered with newspapers and ripped curtains, so there was barely any daylight.

Charlize shivered. This place gave her chills, she could not believe people lived here. Even if you were on drugs this place must be depressing and creepy. Her first instinct was to turn around and leave again, but she forced herself to go on, for Nick's sake. She carefully started walking through the room, using the flashlight on her phone to guide the way. The sound of every step she took was amplified by the massiveness of the empty room, and she felt strangely exposed. What if Nick was right and his friend (for a second she wondered if they were more than friends) really did murder the others? What if she was still here? Charlize had nothing on her to defend herself with.

She pushed the thoughts away and continued on to a corridor, making for the upper level. She walked very carefully, trying to make as little noise as possible. She reached the stairs and slowly went up.

There was another corridor. Charlize took a deep breath and kept on walking. There were doors on the left side of the wall, and she noticed one of them was standing slightly ajar.

"Gloria?" she asked quietly. She touched the door and gave it a little push, but when she did a man ran out, frantically. Charlize jumped back toward the wall and for a split second, her flashlight illuminated the man's face. His face was pale, as if he hadn't seen the sunlight in years, his eyes were wide, and everything about his expression showed panic.

"Don't - don't kill me - don't.." the man kept repeating, and bolted for the stairs. Before Charlize could react, he was gone. She leaned against the wall, her heart hammering in her chest as if it was about to burst through her rib cage. She closed her eyes for a second and tried to calm her breathing and steady her heart.

When she continued down the corridor, her hands were shaking, causing the light to flicker off the walls nervously, creating creepy shadows. She reached another big room.

"Gloria?" she tried again, hoping she wouldn't find her. She carefully walked through the room. It was hard to make out much, it was so dark. She turned her light towards the floor and realized there were footprints. Someone must've stepped in mud and walked through here. She followed the footsteps until they turned, carefully stepping over all the objects lying on the floor to not make any extra noise. She turned into the direction the footprints were, but just as she did there was a screeching noise behind her. She jumped and turned around, continuing into the direction she was walking in before, but this time backwards, as her foot got caught on something on the floor and she lost her balance.

Instinctively she used her left hand to catch her fall, so when she hit the ground she landed on her ass, elbow and hand. A quick shooting pain ran through her forearm, but she ignored it and quickly used the phone in her right hand to shine the light into the direction of the noise.

A rat. She just fell, because of a rat. She sighed, but as soon as she relaxed, she noticed she had fallen into a puddle. She shone the light onto where she landed and immediately jumped up. Her stomach turned. The tracks hadn't been from mud, they had been from blood. And she had just fallen into the source. A big puddle of drying blood, viscera, and tissue. She felt nauseous.

Was Nick right? Did someone die here? It sure looked like it.

She bolted out of the church. Once she got out of the window, she ran down the alley and understood why Nick ran into traffic. Just before she exited the alleyway onto the busy street, she forced herself to stop and take off her jacket. A bloody jacket would draw way too much attention.

She folded the jacket so the stain was on the inside, and clammed it under her arm. The image of the puddle and the panicked man were replaying in her head over and over again. She took a deep breath.

She had to go back to the hospital.


When Charlize reached the hospital, she could not manage to get out of the car. What would she tell Nick? What would she tell Travis? Madison? Every time she closed her eyes she could see the tissue and the viscera and the blood, and she would feel nauseous. No wonder Nick looked like he was close to a nervous breakdown. How was he going to deal with it? Would he turn back to drugs, run away? Was there any way she could prevent that?

She jumped in her seat when her phone started ringing.

After composing herself, she answered. It was Haley.

"Hey Charlie, are you already on your way home?"

"No, why are you asking?"

"I was wondering if you could swing by the pharmacy for me to get some medication?"

"You okay?"

"Yeah, it's not me. It's Courtney. She spent the night but was really sick when she woke up. She's burning up and all that comes with it, so I don't really wanna leave her."

"Yeah of course, I'm at the hospital at the moment anyway so I'll get some Advil on my way out."

"Hopital?" Haley asked, surprised.

Charlize took a deep breath. "It's Nick."

"Is he okay?"

"Yeah, he is. I mean - physically he is. Was hit by a car. He was high and rambled on about people being dead and his friend eating them and - Jesus, Haley, I have never seen him like this. He sounded crazy,.." Charlize felt herself starting to ramble. Everything she was feeling was pouring out without her being able to stop it.

"He was restrained to his bed by the police, and he said his friend had murdered everybody at the church they use as a drug den, and I didn't know what to do so I went to check..and..Haley,..oh God, I can't believe I'm saying this... I think he might be right. There was so much blood, and tissue, and I slipped and fell in it, and now I'm back at the hospital, and my bloody jacket is lying on the passenger seat, and I don't know what to tell him. What do I tell him?"

Haley made to answer, but Charlize just kept talking. Tears started forming in her eyes.
"If I tell him he's right, he'll loose it. If I tell him he's wrong, he'll think he's insane. I - I can't do this...I can't do this," Charlize added quietly.

"Sweetie," Haley said, her voice gentle. "How about you don't tell him anything for now? Come home, we'll talk about it, we'll figure something out," she paused for a while, but Charlize could tell that she wanted to say more.

"I know you care deeply about Nick, but you need to stop putting him first when he comes back from a bender. Right now you need to figure this out for yourself before you can figure it out for him."

Charlize nodded, forgetting Haley could not see her. She was right. Nick and she hadn't been dating - really dating - for almost two years. They had still hooked up after, but it was different. He was already more committed to the drugs than he was to her. He would always come out of hiding, come to her for support, and she was always there to make sure he was okay. He'd swear he'd stop using this time, his Mum putting him into rehab, but eventually he'd disappear without a word, for weeks, until one day he was in front of her door again, swearing he's done.

Charlize knew it was time to cut the cord, to stop allowing Nick to always sneak his way back into her life when he needed help, just to leave her again without a word. "You're right," she told Haley, as she was wiping away her tears. "Thank you, I guess I needed to hear that."

"Are you gonna be okay?"

"Yeah, yeah. I will. Go back to Courtney, I'll get the meds on the way home."


When she got back to Nick's room, both Travis and Madison were there. She gave them a smile, and then looked at Travis.

"Travis, can I talk to you for a second?"

He followed her to the corridor outside and looked at her, curiously.

"I went to the church Nick talked about."

"Charlie..", Travis started but Charlize stopped him.

"No, Travis. You heard the story right? Nick told you?"

Travis nodded.

"I think he's right."

Travis raised his eyebrows in surprise. "What do you mean?"

"It was bad. There was an insane amount of blood and tissue and guts. There was definitely a fight. I think Nick might be right. No one could survive losing that much blood. One guy was still there, but he ran away from me repeating 'Don't kill me' - I don't know what else to make of it."

Travis contemplated this for a moment, his expression serious, his eyebrows furrowed in doubt for a second.

"You shouldn't have gone there alone."

"I know I shouldn't have. But I didn't believe him. Did you?"

Travis paused, then sighed. "No, not really."

Charlize nodded. "I'm gonna talk to Nick before I leave."

When she entered Nicks room, Madison got up and joined Travis outside, giving them some space to talk in private. Charlize sat down in the chair again. For a moment, she did not know how to begin. She took a deep breath and looked at Nick, who was leaning back in his pillow, looking at her, giving her the smile she loved. It was one of the few expressions he could make that made him seem completely innocent, and it was the one smile that usually made her forget everything he had put her through since they had fallen in love.

"I went to the church," Charlize began, and Nick's expression changed immediately. He lifted his head from the pillow, his smile vanished from his face and his eyes grew wide.

"I told you not to-"

"I know you did, but I didn't believe you. I do now."

"What did you see?"

"Blood, guts, - it was bad."

"The bodies?"

"No, there were no bodies."

"But they-"

"Nick,", Charlize interrupted him again. He faced her.

"What are we gonna do? What's happening?" Nick asked.

Her heart sunk when she heard him using 'we'.

"Nick, we won't be doing anything," she started, trying to not make it sound harsh, trying to make it sound like she wasn't abandoning him. "I'm sorry, but I can't do this. I've been doing this again and again and again, every time you have come out of hiding, and I can't continue to be there for you when you're never there for me," she swallowed. "You always leave. I cannot handle you leaving me again."

Nick did not say anything. When she looked up at him, he looked upset, but he nodded. She hoped he understood.

Charlize got up, leaned over him, and kissed his forehead. "I'm so sorry."

She left without looking back.