The time was rapidly approaching for filming. They'd been doing the "Making of" and "My Land" filming in bits and pieces, which was easy for Ryan as they could do it in small takes. After watching the first day of film, though, they'd gone back and done those bits with Ryan wearing a blazer - his arms were still so thin that they were afraid they'd scare the fans. They'd started running through the whole show from start to finish. Ryan was holding down his full expected number of pieces, and doing well with it. They'd set up a quiet area backstage where he could go between numbers if he needed to, and finally, he was using it regularly without needing to be reminded. There were always one or two things that would throw him off, so they were all still concerned about the actual filming. Especially when Colm caught him off guard with a question, pretending to interview the other guys as they were getting made up, goofing for the backstage camera. Ryan froze for a split second and Colm held his breath, hoping he hadn't created a problem - but then Ryan was able to get the answer out and everyone relaxed again. Then again, it was normal for them to have to do multiple takes of the same song when filming; either somebody would mess up or somebody would do something silly. Even the roadies got into it; they had to redo one of Keith's songs because his roadie had gotten hold of a mic and was out in the audience saying Keith's name over and over into Keith's in-ears, drowning out his music.
But overall, the filming shows went well. All of the staff who had worked with Ryan from the Belfast hospital and the rehab hospital had been able to come on the same night, and they had spent a lot of time before the show filling each other in on their respective experiences with the guys, as well as catching up with Ryan's parents.
When they were all in their seats and the lights went down, there was a collective murmur of anticipation. The cheers when the singers came out startled some of the staff, but when the lights came up and they saw all the guys, including Ryan, standing strong and confident, singing enthusiastically, they broke into smiles of amazed pride - especially as "Voices" got more and more complex and Ryan kept right up with it. None of them had anticipated anything this complicated. The cognitive therapist from the rehab hospital was shaking his head as the song ended.
"What?" Shivaun said in his ear, grinning.
"I'd have never thought he'd be able to keep up with something like that," the man said.
"I know," Shivaun agreed. Dr. Reilly, sitting next to her, was staring open-mouthed at the guys as they left the stage.
"My goodness," he said. "I've heard every one of those men singing and I never anticipated something like that out of them. You know they used to sing to him in the ICU all the time, but that was nothing compared to this."
"I've heard," Shivaun said. "Did they really sing to him for 2 weeks?"
"Almost every minute of it," Fiona, Tim and Nadine assured her from the row behind them. Fiona added, "I heard Neil and Keith harmonizing once, but all of them together is so far beyond that that it's hard to imagine it was the same guys in our ICU."
Every time Ryan came on stage, they held their collective breaths until he was done - but they needn't have worried. As the sheer number of his pieces started adding up, they were even more amazed. It was clear he was taking his full part in the show and handling it very well. "House of the Rising Sun", somehow, seemed to be the song that all of his joy and triumph concentrated into. By the time he flung his head back and sang to the rafters at the end of the song, there wasn't a dry eye amongst the staff that had worked with him. They all agreed, afterwards, that his recovery was little short of a miracle.
Normally it was only family and friends that were invited to the after party, but all of the hospital staff were invited as well. It was a joyous reunion, on all sides. Ryan's friend Michael had wanted to come, but it was much too far a trip for him out of the hospital yet. He had, however, sent a video of himself with Shivaun - talking to Ryan himself, telling him how his therapy was going. That required all the guys to take Ryan off into a corner for a few minutes to get him back together - and then he sent Michael a video back, promising him a copy of all the filming they'd done as soon as possible.
Once the filming was done and the tour started, things slowly got more and more back to normal. Ryan still had a few overloads, but they gradually disappeared, the last one happening on Halloween morning when they were awakened by Emmet's calls for help when Keith had cut his wrist on broken glass. When the tour was done, Neil and Ryan took off on their own to do eleven more Acoustic By Candlelight shows before they headed home for Christmas. It was a much happier holiday than anyone in the Moy, CT, or the fan family had been able to imagine 6 months before.