After the phone call with Ryan, tensions eased considerably in Atlantic City, but there were still incidents and accidents. Nicole fell and sprained her ankle so badly that she had to be carried on and off stage. Keith had gotten into a late night altercation with some other guests who were being noisy outside his room, and had mouthed off about the hotel on Twitter, making Sharon force him to apologize. Even a new guitarist who had come in to audition, Dave Bakey, was already in an ankle cast when he arrived, leading Sharon to say sarcastically that he'd fit right in.

The daily phone calls continued, although as they were being placed through Ryan's family, there were times when the family would tell the caller that it wasn't a good time to talk to Ryan at the moment - either he was too agitated, or he was overloaded and not responding. The details of these states gradually worked their way through the group members, who found it hard to imagine Ryan in either state. When he was able to talk to them, the phone got passed from hand-to-hand in AC as whoever was nearby would come running. Even if Ryan was confused or forgetful, it was good to hear his voice again after so many weeks of no response at all.

Meanwhile, the fan support continued; in fact, it had increased after Sharon had mentioned in a blog that Ryan no longer needed critical care. The fact that Ryan had been so severely ill had rattled quite a few people. Ryan's family began judiciously sharing some of the information about the fan response with Ryan as a way to keep his spirits up when he got discouraged at what he perceived as his slow progress. At this point most of Ryan's understanding of his progress hinged on the physical, and the fact that it had taken him days to get strong enough to sit up for 15 minutes or to get himself to a wheelchair wasn't going over well. He wasn't really even seeing the memory and concentration issues he was having yet. Something else did come to mind one afternoon when Fiona and Nadine came to visit. They'd barely had time to see him awake, much less get to know him, before he'd been transferred out of the ICU.

He didn't remember them, of course, as he'd been unconscious for most of the time they'd worked with him, so for him it was like meeting new people. It was like that for them, as well. They both knew, of course, that the Ryan they were seeing wasn't his old normal self yet, but it was at least a glimpse, and as he was having a good day at the time, it was pleasant. That was, until Nadine asked him if he'd tried singing anything yet. He hadn't, as it simply hadn't occurred to him to try it. Now he did, and was appalled to find that he was having tremendous difficulty with his breathing - even singing quietly, he was out of breath before he could finish a line. This threw him into a serious agitated episode as it scared him that he wouldn't be able to go back to CT. Not even the boys' music helped this time, as it represented what he thought he was losing. Finally, Mrs. Kelly gave him the suggestion of calling David Munro, and the idea that there was someone he could talk to about the problem helped settle him down.

Mrs. Kelly placed the call to Sharon and told her what they needed. Sharon called David out of rehearsal to talk to Ryan and he was able to talk Ryan through his worries, reminding him of how he'd had to learn breath control when he'd started with CT and reassuring him that he could learn it again. He emailed information on breathing exercises to the Kellys, who shared them with Dr. Reilly. Dr. Reilly insisted that a respiratory therapist oversee the exercises initially as he didn't want Ryan to push too hard. The therapist had never worked with a professional singer before and was fascinated with the process, and in turn shared it with the speech therapists who often worked with patients who had trouble with breath support for speaking longer sentences.

One day, Ryan was having a particularly difficult day with all of his therapies, including the breathing exercises, as he was having a lot of trouble focusing. Feeling himself growing agitated, he said to the respiratory therapist, "Stop. Please."

"What's wrong?" asked the therapist.

"Can't. Too much." Ryan was so stressed he was having trouble putting words together. He started searching for his Ipod. "Music. Help me!" The therapist didn't know what Ryan was looking for, and he was getting steadily more agitated. The therapist was about to call the nurse when Mr. Kelly came back into the room. He recognized the agitation immediately.

"What do you need, Ryan?" he asked.

"Music! Can't find it!"

"Here." Mr. Kelly grabbed the Ipod from the drawer where Ryan had put it that morning. Handing Ryan the headphones, he turned the device on to shuffle through the recordings the boys had made. Ryan began to settle almost instantly as the familiar voices surrounded him. Closing his eyes, he relaxed back into his pillows.

The respiratory therapist pulled Mr. Kelly aside. "I'm sorry, I didn't know that's what he was looking for," she said.

"It's all right, but couldn't he tell you?"

She shook her head. "He asked me to stop, said it was too much, and then started looking for something and said 'music' and 'help me'. He really seemed to be having trouble with the words."

Mr. Kelly nodded. "Yes, that happens sometimes when he's starting to get overwhelmed. We'll have to find a way for him to keep that Ipod with him all the time so he doesn't lose it again. Usually we've been here with him and can get it for him, but we're trying to back out a little now and let him do more things on his own."

"Whatever he's listening to, it seems to be working. He's gone from agitated to smiling!" The therapist was surprised - in her experience, it usually took a lot longer for people to settle down.

"It's the other boys from his singing group - recordings they made for him before they left for a tour. Right now it's his lifeline since he can't have them with him. Thank God George thought of doing this, it's exactly what he needs when things get too hard. We knew the boys were close to each other, but we've really learned how much they rely on each other through all this."

The therapist nodded. "I'll make sure a note gets put on his chart and passed to all his therapists," she said. "That way if something like this happens again, we'll know what he needs. I'm going to give him a break today, he's obviously had a pretty rough day and I think he can use the down time."