~ Chapter Fifty Three ~

"Pretty good, huh?  Two hospital visits in three days - I could probably set some kind of record!"  Brian greeted Nick, a proud grin on his face.

Nick gave him a fleeting smile.  Brian could sit and make all the jokes he wanted - it still wasn't funny.  Last night was the worst that Nick had been scared in a while. 

Well, there was always Friday night when he had walked out on Stacy, but this situation with Brian was a different kind of scared.  At least with Stacy, Nick still had a chance at fixing things.  With Brian - there wasn't anything Nick could do.  He would have preferred not to come hang out at the hospital, but it was the least he could do, especially after he had said what he had in the clubhouse before game five.  "How're you doing?"

"Good."  Brian nodded, tipping his head at the chair next to the hospital bed.  "Have a seat. Have you seen Kevin around?"

"No."  Nick sat uncomfortably in the hard plastic chair.

"Good."  Brian said firmly.  "He keeps popping his head in here every ten seconds.  The man gets annoying after a while."

Nick had seen Karen and Becky in the hallway earlier.  Nick hadn't ever talked to Karen much, but she had seemed to figure out Nick didn't really want Becky hanging around right then, and had dragged Becky off down the hallway, telling her they had to find Kevin before he interrogated every doctor in the hospital.  That one little gesture by Karen had been enough to make her cool in Nick's book. 

Kevin, on the other hand, he was just worried about Brian.  Brian was lucky to have someone that cared that much about him, and he didn't even seem to realize it.  Then again, maybe he did.  Brian knew a lot more than he let on. 

"Y'all okay there?"  Brian was watching Nick, eyebrows raised. 

"Fine."  Nick didn't feel like elaborating. 

"Did you call Stacy yet?"  Brian wondered.  "I was gonna go ask you that, but I blacked out first."

Nick stared hard at Brian.  How could he say that so nonchalantly?  "Yeah, I called her."  That was another something Nick would prefer not to think about right now.  He should just go back to the hotel and sleep before batting practice.  The truth be told, he hadn't sat down all night, much less slept.  Once the excitement of Brian being rushed to the emergency room had died down and the team got themselves back to their rooms, Nick had spent the rest of the night prowling his hotel suite.  He had been so keyed up he couldn't even sit and watch TV.

"So is everything okay now?"  Brian prompted.

"No, I don't think it is."  Nick swallowed hard, trying to get rid of the lump that had suddenly appeared in his throat.  "It's so stupid, Brian! What's the point?  It's just gonna keep going around in this circle! She's gonna get mad at me, we get stuff worked out, but nothing ever changes.  It'll just keep going around and around.  It's screwed up."

"So change it."  Brian said logically, leaning back and staring up at the tiled ceiling. 

"I don't know how." 

"Figure it out.  C'mon - the first time you come up against a pitcher, you might get an out, but what about after you've seen his stuff for a while?  Eventually you're gonna figure him out and start getting hits."

Nick thought about that one.  It made a lot more sense when Brian put it that way.  Still, experience wasn't exactly the way Nick wanted to go about his life.  There had to be some way that didn't involve making mistakes and learning from them. Nick had already made enough mistakes.

"Yeah, okay, Brian, but what about when you come up against a guy like AJ, that's unhittable?"

Brian scowled.  "Dammit, Nick!  Why do you have to go and try to ruin my analogy?" 

Nick laughed.  "I was just wondering!"

"Even guys like AJ make mistakes."  Brian had an explanation for everything.

"Well, he can't make any for one or two more games." 

The smile appeared on Brian's face again.  "We're gonna take it in six, right?"

"I don't know, Brian.  I don't think we can."  Nick had no idea where this had come from.  Words were coming out of his mouth without him really thinking about what he was saying.  "I don't... we can't win without you."  He glanced up at Brian, lying on the white bed.  It might have been true that Brian was the one little piece the team needed to pull out another win, but Nick didn't mean just the game.  Right then, he didn't really care about the game.  It was making it off the field without Brian that was freaking him out.

As he had many times before, he wished he was halfway decent with words; there had to be some way to tell Brian how much his friendship meant to Nick, but he had no clue how to say it. 

Brian was shaking his head slowly.  "You don't need me, Nick."

"Yes, we do."  Nick said intently.

"No you don't."  Brian repeated.

~*~

Kevin stood at the top of the dugout steps, watching the palm trees along the back of Dodger Stadium.  When they had been in Seattle, it had felt more like a regular season game to him.  Now that he was back in LA again, the eerie "we're in the World Series" feeling was returning.

Things were looking a little different now than they had been in games one and two.  Then, Kevin had been fairly confident of the Mariners chances.  Now, he wasn't so sure.  Brian had been a big factor in their play that postseason, and with him out - it made Kevin a little nervous.

He hadn't come this far just to give up on the last two games.  They were just gonna have to buckle down and win without Brian.  It hadn't been voiced in the clubhouse, but there was an unspoken feeling among the team that they were winning this series now, for Brian.

"What'cha looking at?"  Nick wondered, skipping the dugout steps completely and leaping down onto the floor. 

"Nothing."  Kevin stared over at him for a moment.  "Are you nervous about tonight?"  He added.

Nick threw him an almost comical look of disdain, mixed with confusion.  "No."

Kevin rolled his eyes.  He should have known.  Nick was a Yankee whether he wore the uniform or not.  For Nick, the regular season was just something to be endured until the postseason started.  He didn't hope to be in the playoffs - he expected it.  "Excuse me - not all of us have been in a major league dugout from the time we were six."

"I was eight."  Nick corrected quietly.

"And I was being facetious." 

"Nick!"  AJ hollered from the field.  "C'mere!"  Sports Illustrated had been shooting photos through most of batting practice.  Now AJ was hamming it up for the camera for a last few shots.

"What?"  Nick climbed back up onto the field. 

"Come stand over here."  AJ directed, placing Nick along the sidelines, then slinging one arm across his shoulders and turning to the camera.

"What's this, guys?  Scoot in!"  The photographer protested, waving at AJ to close the arms length gap he had between himself and Nick.

"No, no, no!"  AJ protested, his free arm waving wildly in the air.

"This space right here..."  He pointed at the space between he and Nick. "...is where Brian would be standing if he was here right now.  But he isn't, so he's our imaginary friend today." 

The photographer, Nick and Kevin all stood stunned for a moment, taking in the significance of what AJ was saying.  Finally, the photographer raised his camera and snapped the shot.

Kevin stepped back and sat down slowly on the dugout bench.  AJ might have been crazy, but there were times he made more sense than anyone else on the team.  Who cared who won the game?  One of Kevin's best friends was in the hospital - did the World Series really even matter?  Maybe Kevin needed to rethink his priorities a little.