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He would be brain-dead by the end of the day. Kevin was quite certain of that notion when he woke in the morning to find his head feeling as if it were ten sizes too big and throbbing painfully. The persistant, dull ache starting in his temples and moving backward till it flared in his already stiff neck. Gulping down a handful of Tylenol with a large bottle of piss-warm water, he meekly stumbled toward the bathroom in search of a cold shower to lighten the thick haze surrounding him. Little sounds that he made seemed to echo in the deepest recesses of his aching head, magnifying to that of a sonic boom. Definitely, he would be brain-dead by nightfall. Most certainly because he would be the one to jam a sharp object in his ear to deafen the pain.

He stepped out of the shower, finding that the cold water barely touched his hangover as he slipped into a black t-shirt and jeans. Shuffling out of the bathroom, he made his way out to the living room, expecting to find the Boys obnoxious and loud, which was atypical for them when he had a hangover. However, this was not the case as he found AJ and Nick sitting on the couches, their cell phones perched next to the penthouse phone. "What the Hell are you two doing?"

"Nothing," AJ murmured softly, voice void of any emotion. Though he jerked slightly when Nick's elbow worked its way between his ribs. Arching in surprise, he glanced up to see Nick tilting his head in Kevin's direction. Frowning, he watched the man fall into the nearby couch with a heavy groan. "Did you just get a shower?"

"Yes, why?"

"Your cast is fucked up."

Glancing down, Kevin noticed the mangled heap of plaster laying awkwardly over his right arm. Wrinkling his brow in confusion, he struggled to remember when the cast had even been placed. Nothing made sense under the blur of alcohol still pumping in his system. "Fuck..."

"How did you break your hand?"

"I tripped and fell," Kevin muttered, closing his eyes for a moment. Another trip to the hospital, though he didn't remember the first one.

"Hit your face on the way down too? On nails?" Nick guessed quietly, though he shrank back at Kevin's blistering glare. The man was far too roughened to have simply fallen.

"Just leave it alone, Nick. You know better," Kevin nearly growled as he glanced down at his cast again. Apparently, whenever he had gone to the hospital he hadn't requested a water-proof cast.

"Bar fights are never pretty," AJ agreed gently.

"It was a rough night," Kevin ran with the story AJ was freely giving him. "Next time I need to bring Marcus or Q. I'm too old for fist-fights."

"When Howie or Brian call, we can get one of them to drive us to the hospital," AJ suggested, plucking his phone from the table to check for messages once more.

"Why would you two be going to the hospital?"

"Ana got attacked last night," AJ stated simply when Nick's phone alerted to an incoming call. The youngest hurriedly snatched the phone from the table and stumbled to the balcony for some shred of privacy.

"Attacked?" Kevin's face blanked for a moment as a picture flashed through his mind. Breaking down a door with his fist.

"Some asshole broke into her house last night and... I'm not sure of all the details to be honest... Howie just wanted to get Stephanie around and take her to the hospital to wait... But it wasn't good..."

"That's the risk when you live in New York. There are lots of dangerous people out there," Kevin tried to keep his voice even as more images flashed quickly, causing his head to ache more as Nick came back from the balcony.

"ER Doc came out and said they took her to surgery," Nick murmured, collapsing back onto the couch. "Howie said we could come any time we wanted. Brian's not taking it too well..."

"I didn't think he would," AJ sighed, running a hand through his locks as he glanced to Kevin. "You coming with us? A doctor could re-do your cast while we wait."

"Did she say who did it?" Kevin murmured after a long pause of dead silence. Holding a hand to his throbbing forehead, he winced at the reverberation of a wooden bat connecting with bone. Her agonized screams piercing the very center of the soul till he shuddered in disbelief. Had he truly been the attacker?

"She was unconscious when Howie and Bri found her; the paramedics couldn't wake her up. They suspected she had gone into shock."

"Sure she didn't just get a quick knock to the head?"

"Howie said her knee was bent inward. Like someone took a bat and just smashed it. Bruises, cuts... her head was slammed into the floor," Nick swallowed hard, trying not to image the scene his two friends had stumbled upon.

"Maybe she deserved it," Kevin muttered after a moment.

"No one deserves to be beaten within an inch of their life, asshole," AJ snapped, standing up and stuffing his phone into his pocket. "C'mon, Nick, let's go."

"Is he coming?" Nick questioned in confusion, allowing AJ to tug him along.

"He can find his own fucking way to a hospital."

~*~*~*~*~*~

"It's been too long... they should have come out by now... What if... Oh, Ana..." Stephanie trailed off, muttering to herself as she paced the private waiting room they were assigned once Ana was brought into surgery. She couldn't seem to sit still, and if she did, her emotions would just turn her into the blubbering idiot she was earlier when Howie first picked her up. She had to be strong for her best friend.

"Steph, Sweetheart, why don't you come sit down," Howie directed softly, hoping to break her from the trance of her pace. Seeing that she continued, he moved to stand and placed a reassuring hand on her shoulder. Having sent Brian out to change from his bloody clothes into a pair of scrubs one of the nurses had retrieved, he found himself now having to deal with Stephanie's emotional state. The police had been so blase about the entire proceedure. Cold and calculating as they moved through the home.

"I can't sit down. I'll start... no," Stephanie shook her head as Howie began to gently lead her to the chairs. "I can't be falling apart when Ana needs me."

"She would want you to take care of yourself first," Howie gently reminded, helping her onto the couch. "Just rest."

"Why did this happen to her, Howie? She never hurt anyone in her life," Stephanie whispered in dismay, brushing away tears that already fell from her eyes at the mere thought of Ana being hurt.

"I can't tell you the answer to that," Howie stated honestly, reaching for the box of tissues a nurse had brought to them.

"I will find the bastard and kill him."

"No, you will not."

"Howie--"

"What is killing him going to do? It's not going to take back what he did to Ana, and I don't think she would want you killing anyone."

Stephanie wanted to object, but found no words coming from her lips when Brian stepped back into the waiting room. He looked quite ashen as he shuffled to the couches and gently lowered himself into the empty seat. Clasping his hands at his knees, his head bowed once more. It looked as if he were in prayer as silent tears slipped from his closed eyes, dampening the blue material of the hospital-issued scrubs. She wanted to provide the man some words of comfort, but a raspy voice caught her first, "Hey, B, great outfit. You planning on nursing Ana to health? Bet she'd like you to play her doctor, right?"

"Such a way with words," Howie groaned as all looked up to see the youngest members join the room. "Tact was never J's forte..."

"I wish this didn't happen to the girl, but she's a fighter. She'll be just fine, especially with Rok taking care of her," AJ sat down next to Brian and placed a hand on the older man's shoulder. "You know she's strong, man."

"She wrestled my ass to the ground for the controller to my Playstation when I refused to let her beat the boss in my Resident Evil game," Nick volunteered with a forced smile as he reached to gingerly shake his friend's shoulders as if that would rouse Brian's confidence.

"Aaron can wrestle your ass to the ground and he's half your size," AJ snorted with a roll of his eyes. "But your point is well made."

"I'm just saying... Once she comes out of surgery and all... It's just a few broken bones, right? I mean, the asshole didn't..." Nick didn't know how to phrase the question appropriately as he glanced to AJ for a moment. "Y'know... Hurt her... Woman-parts?"

"She wasn't sexually assaulted," Brian whispered, using the collar of his scrub shirt to wipe away his tears. "He smashed her knee with a bat she kept around for protection and basically beat her up. He also slammed her head into the floor..."

"So she'll just be on crutches for a few weeks?" Nick guessed with relief.

"It's more than that, Nick," Howie chided, though he had no desire to detail how significant the damage to her body had been. How blood had actually spattered the walls from the repeated blows.

"What do you mean? He beat her up... like how guys would beat each other up in a high school fight. Right?"

"She barely had a pulse and wasn't breathing too well," Brian remembered. His voice barely rose above a whisper as he remembered the way the paramedics had rushed inside. "Something about how the ribs in her chest were broken caused her to breathe unevenly. They called it a flail chest... There were cuts to the back of her head from it being slammed into glass... She could be brain-dead for all I know..."

"Don't think like that," Howie immediately scorned, feeling Stephanie shiver.

"I heard the paramedics muttering. They said she could be--"

"And thinking like that is not going to help Ana, is it?"

"And me thinking positive is?"

"It certainly wouldn't hurt. What happened to faith and praying? You used to believe that helped more than medicine."

"But she's just so..."

"It was pretty bleak for you when you had that infection as a child. But what did your family do? They didn't give up. They prayed. You're with us today because of their prayers, and their faith in God."

"I just want to know that she's okay--"

"Family and friends of Anastacia Lord?" A voice called into the room, startling the huddled group as they looked up to see a tall woman walk in. She adorned pale purple scrubs under her white lab coat with a purple clipboard grasped in her hand. Long black locks were pulled into a low ponytail.

"That's us," Brian blurted hurriedly, practically falling from his chair as he attempted to reach the woman.

"Be careful, sir. I don't think Anastacia would want to wake up and see her boyfriend in a hospital bed next to her with his own injuries," the woman chuckled as Brian reached her and they shook hands.

"So she's going to wake up?" Brian breathed with relief. "Be okay?"

"After a few months of rest and physical therapy, yes. She will be okay."

"What were all her injuries?" Howie questioned as Stephanie slumped against him in relief.

"I suppose it might be easier to go through what wasn't injured," the surgeon answered honestly, glancing over the young woman's chart. "Thankfully, we found no evidence of sexual assault. But she did suffer a severe concussion from the way her head was struck upon the floor. We'll give her some steroids through an IV and diuretics to keep the swelling down. Several ribs were broken from blunt force trauma, which resulted in a puncture to her right lung. We had to reinflate the lung by inserting a chest tube into the space between the lung and the sac surrounding the lung. Then there was reconstructive surgery done to her knee. The knee cap had been split in half and the femur broken near the joint."

"That sounds absolutely vicious," AJ muttered in disbelief, feeling himself shudder as he listened to the list of Ana's injuries.

"Whoever did this didn't stop until she was almost unconscious."

"Did she say who?" Stephanie murmured softly, hoping that the assailant could be brought to justice.

"She's been unconscious since coming into my hands, Ma'am... Perhaps when she wakes and speaks to the police you'll know more?"

"When can we see her?" Brian found his voice again.

"As soon as she starts coming out of the anasthesia, I will come and show you her room. Alright?"

"Thank you, Doctor...--"

"Anderson. No need to thank me, I'm just doing my job," Dr. Anderson smiled before leaving the room.