"Mr. Richardson, you can accompany Nick into the operating theatre under he goes under," a young nurse announced as she tapped on his shoulder.

Kevin jerked out of his thoughts, looking up at the nurse, blinking several times. "Huh?"

"We were thinking it would be best to be in the operating room with Nick until he goes under the anestetic, it seems to soothe the patients when they are scared."

Kevin glanced at his sleeping brother. "Well, he seems to be okay right now."

"Until we move him, yes he's resting right now but once me move the cot, he will more than likely wake up. I have some scrubs you can put on and here's a pair of booties you can slip over your sneakers. The doctor will be ready as soon as you are."

Kevin accepted the woman's offer and reluctantly took the scrubs and hurried into the restroom. Quickly undressing, he caught his reflection in the mirror. He could see that the past few hours had already taken a toll. Taking a deep breath, he slipped the booties over his sneakers and opened the door to join Nick.

"That was pretty fast," the nurse complimented.

"Lots of practice changing between sets," Kevin grinned.

"I guess so. You can follow us down the hall."

Kevin obidently followed the stretcher that Nick laid on and true to the nurse's words, Nick moaned as he stirred awake.

"Kevin?"

Kevin rushed up to the side of the bed. "Right here Nick."

Nick looked up at his band brother, eyes wide in shock. "You're doing the surgery?"

Kevin couldn't help but laugh at Nick's innocence. "No little man, I'm just gonna be here with you until you go to sleep."

Nick seemed satisfied with the reply and closed his eyes for a moment. "What do you mean go to sleep? Is it all over?"

"Nick you just asked if I was doing the surgery, close your eyes and rest, everything will be over soon, they haven't started yet," Kevin gently stated.

The stretcher was guided into the small, sterile operating room. It looked much different than the ones he saw on television and in the movies, Kevin decided. The walls were a dark pea green color of tile, large lamps were over a table, stainless steel cabinets were lined against the wall.

"Nick, we need you to scoot over onto the table, do you think you could do that for me?" the male orderly that guided the stretcher into the O.R. asked.

Kevin could see how much pain the young blonde was in when he bit his bottom lip in an obvious attempt to keep himself from crying out as he shifted his body onto the operating table.

"There ya go, good job," a nurse complimented as she quickly covered the young patient with dark green sheets. There were two other people gowned up in surgical scrubs, each taking an arm from Nick and fastening them on either side of his body, outstreched.

"Kevin?" Nick whimpered, his eyes searching the room for his friend.

"I'm right here buddy," he replied from the corner of the room.

"You can come up to talk to him," a man assured as he took a seat above Nick's head.

Kevin quickly walked over to Nick's side, stroking the side of his face. "I'm here Nick."

Tears pooled in the young teen's eyes. "I'm scared," he admitted softly.

"It's going to be okay," Kevin assured.

"Okay son, I'm going to put this over your face and you need to breathe slow, deep breaths and count from one hundred backwards, can you do that for me?"

Nick nodded yes and did as the man instructed, barely making it past ninety-seven. Kevin kept his eyes trained on Nick's face as he concentrated on counting backwards. His eyes fluttered shut and the instant the anestic took effect, his body went eerily limp.

"He's going to be just fine, Mr. Richardson," a nurse stated as she took Kevin by the arm. "Lets take you back to the waiting room."

Kevin couldn't shake the image of Nick as he fell into the drug induced sleep. "Will he be okay? I mean, he looked like he stopped breathing."

"The muscles relax when you're put under and he is getting a tube to help him breathe during the surgery, it's normal, nothing to be concerned over."

Nodding slightly, Kevin tried as best as he could to erase the image of his baby brother laying on the operating table.

"Mr. Richardson? Are you going to be alright?"

"Huh? Oh, I'm fine," Kevin quickly replied.

"You're looking pretty pale," the nurse stated as she led him over to a set of chairs that lined the hall. Kevin immediately balked at the idea of sitting out in the hall. The nurse sensed his reluctance. "I really think you should sit down."

Running a tired hand over his face, Kevin shook his head no. "I really need to get back with my friends in the waiting room, I'm sure they're worried about Nick."

"We can once you take a seat for a few moments here," the nurse directed in a firm voice as she led Kevin toward the seats.

Reluctantly, Kevin gave in and slowly sat down. He fidgeted the entire time he was sitting and he couldn't help but think of Nick when he realized he was bouncing his leg up and down. Stopping the movement, he smiled to himself thinking how much he could be like Kaos at times.

"Seriously, I'm fine, I just need to get back with my friends."

"You Yanks are always in such a hurry," the nurse mumbled as she stood up with the tall singer.

Kevin barely crested the threshold of the waiting room when Howie, Brian and AJ rushed up to him.

"Jesus, I was beginning to wonder if you were doing the surgery or something," AJ snapped, looking at the tall Kentuckian in the surgical garb. "Or did you?"

Howie cast a dark look at the rebel. "How's Nicky?"

"Why were you gone so long?" Brian asked.

"I don't know how Nick is yet, I just left him---"

"You've been gone for almost an hour!" AJ interrupted.

Kevin's cheeks grew hot. "Yeah thats cause the nurse thought I was going to faint or something."

Brian placed a comforting hand on his cousin's arm. "Are you okay?"

Kevin shrugged his shoulders. "Brian, I'm really worried about that kid."

"We all are Kev."

"No, I mean I'm really worried about him, he's so damned sick," he sighed as he sat down, folding his hands between his knees. "I've never seen the kid look as bad as he did."

"Well you know Nick, he can really over-do on the sick part, I'm sure he's gonna be fine."

Kevin smiled slightly. "Lets hope so."

Dr. Bernard Rosenbaum was a no nonsense surgeon. He held high medical standards and expected only the best from his surgical staff. All of the surgical team was hand picked by Dr. Rosenbaum from the scrub nurse down to the attendant that wiped the doctors brow during surgery. He expected the tools in his hands as soon as the orders left his lips, snapped into his gloved hands with a swift, crisp motion.

"Scapel!"

"Lap sponge!"

"Gauze!"

And so it went for the first ten minutes of Nick's surgery. Except for the pinging of the heart monitor and the respirator, there was thick silence in the air.....until:

"Goddamn."

"Doctor?"

"This kid has peritonitis, why did they wait so long to prep him for surgery?" Dr. Rosenbaum barked. "Suction!"

The anesthesiologist positioned the breathing tube on his young patient and injected more anesthetic into the patient's bloodstream. He knew that when the appendix was ruptured it would require more time on the table.

"I want an irrigation of normal saline, stat!"

The doctor worked feverishly on his young patient, barking out orders to the staff, packing the young man's abdomen with gauze packs and flushing the area several times with saline soloution. After almost an hour of working on Nick, Dr. Rosenbaum was finally satisfied.

"Dr. Schmitz, you may close."

Wordlessly, the older man made his way from the sugical suite toward the scrub room, snapping the latex gloves off and throwing them hap-hazardly into the biohazard trash bin.

A young nurse poked her nose into the scrub room. "Dr. Rosenbaum?"

The doctor never took his eyes from his soapy hands. "Yes?"

"Would you like me to notify the family?"

"Give me a few minutes, please."

The three men gathered in the small consulting suite, waiting for the surgeon to come in and talk with them about Nick. The surgery took over two and a half hours, a far cry from the forty minutes they were originally promised before Nick went in.

"What the hell do you think too them so long?" AJ rasped as he toyed with the box of kleenex sitting on the coffee table.

"I'm sure there was a good reason," Kevin quickly stated.

"What fuckin' kind of good reason would there be if it took over two freakin hours?"

"I don't know!" Kevin snapped.

"Jay, just wait until the doctor comes in, he'll tell us everything," Howie soothed. "We won't know anything until we talk to him, so stop trying to second guess everything, okay? You're just making it worse by asking questions we don't know anything about."

"I'm sure he'll come in and tell us that Nick is fine and that there was a problem with their equipment or something," Brian said absently.

"These foreign hospitals suck ass," AJ muttered.

"AJ! Kevin admonished. "There is no difference here than back in the states. Nick would be treated the same either place."

Dr. Rosenbaum entered the consulting suite, wearing clean scrubs and a white lab coat. "I'm Dr. Rosenbaum, which one of you are Richardson?"

Kevin quickly offered a hand out for the doctor to shake. "I'm Kevin."

The surgeon didn't accept the hand, narrowing his eyes. "Well, we have a very sick young man. Can you tell me why he didn't get checked over?"

"We brought him in as soon as we knew he was sick," Kevin defended.

The surgeon didn't accept the explanation. "I believe this has been going on for quite some time. His appendix had ruptured---"

"Which you thought before you even took him into surgery!" Kevin interrupted.

"But the infection was massive in his peritoneum. It took plenty of irrigation to flush out his abdomen."

"You didn't seem to be in a such a big hurry before surgery," AJ rasped.

"I'm in no position to argue with any of you! Whoever is guardian over this child is not doing a good job and I have half a notion to report this to the government--"

"Please, don't do that. We have had some problems with our managers and well, Nick is the type of person that complains a lot of the time about being sick with this or that, so I guess it's my fault we didn't take him seriously in the beginning," Kevin quickly apologized.

"Needless to say, we could have lost him if we had put this off any longer."

"He's going to be okay, right?" Howie asked.

"He will be pretty sore for a few weeks, but it is my belief that he will come out of this okay."

"How long will he be in the hospital?" Kevin questioned, hesitantly.

"That all depends on the patient and if I got all of the infection out of his abdomen. He will be on IV antibiotics for several days so we will be watching for signs of fever and other indicators of infection. You may go see him when the nurse comes back. Good day."

With that, the surgeon quickly stood up and left the room, ending further conversation.

"Asshole," AJ muttered as he wagged his middle finger at the closed door.

"That asshole saved Nick's life," Brian pointed out.

"Yeah, but he was a jerk!"

Kevin dragged a tired hand through his hair. "Well, not only do I have no idea how long Nick is going to be in here, but what am I going to tell Lou when he asks when we can start work up again?"

"That is not important right now," Howie stated. "What's important is Nicky's health and if Mr. Pearlman can't understand that, then we will have to get someone involved that can."

"Thank you mister positive," AJ mumbled.

Howie flashed a nervous smile at the rebel singer. "Why thank you."

"I'm going to wait until I see Nick before I call Lou," Kevin sighed. "Perfect ending to a perfect day."