He stood there, in the doorway of the overly quiet ICU room -- we're talking the kind of quiet that was deafening -- and tried his best to fight the tears that were threatening to spill down his cheeks.

"You can go down and see your friend now," the soft spoken, gentle looking nurse had told him when she'd entered the cramped and crowded hospital meeting room where Howie had been taken to, once again be interviewed by the police, only a short few minutes before. And as relieved as he'd been by the idea that he'd finally be allowed to leave the confines of that cramped and stuffy little closet they called the "Private family waiting area", he'd been more terrified by the idea of seeing his friend for the first time since everything had happened that morning.

Now he stood in the doorway, hesitating, sick at his stomach and not wanting to go any further. If Aj looked this bad from as far away as the doorway... he could only imagine how bad it was going to be when he got up close. He could already see the bruises on his face and the dried blood beneath his nose. His leg was being held up in one of those hightech devices that hung from the ceiling and the rest of him was tucked neatly beneath at least a dozen white hospital issued blankets.

"You can go on in now," the nurse prodded from behind, giving him a gentle but steady shove in the back, urging him ahead as if perhaps she knew what he was thinking -- that if he didn't get this over with now, he would surely turn around and run like hell as far away from this place as his exhausted legs could manage to carry him.

"His mother stepped out to speak with the doctor's for a few minutes," she continued, as they headed towards the bed together. She pulled him by the hand towards the small chair beside Aj's bed -- possibly taking note of the paleness of his skin. Maybe she was just as worried as Howie himself that he would be the next to pass out and land in a hospital bed like Nick.

"Sit here and talk to him... just talk. He's in an induced coma so he won't respond to you... but I believe he can hear you if you talk to him." She continued on as if small talk might make things better but Howie was paying little attention now as his eyes widened at the sight of his best friend's pitiful figure. He was right. It was so much worse from this close up. His head was wrapped in a bandage, blood seeping out from beneath the corners of the wounds that weren't quite covered. His right ear was completely hidden beneath a thick patch of sterile guaze. His eyes were swollen shut and purple with the bruises the madman had inflicted. Howie didn't even want to think about the wounds on the rest of his body. He didn't want to think about the gaping hole he'd plunged his hands into earlier in the day... the one right in the middle of his brother's chest.

"Will you be okay for a few minutes?" The nurse asked after several tense moments had passed during which Howie shed silent tears over Aj's condition, sitting vigil by the side of his bed, holding the one hand that poked out from beneath the mass of blankets. The one part of his body that seemed to be uninjured. All he could was nod in response to the nurse -- Kate was her name and she'd been most helpful -- and so he nodded even though he truly didn't want to be left alone with this person he was sure could not be Aj.

He watched as she walked out of the room, fear rushing over him as he tried not to look at the figure upon the bed beside his chair. He continued to sit there though. To sit and hold Aj's hand.

Finally, after several more long and agonizing minutes of silence Howie felt the need to say something... he didn't know what, but definitely something to his friend. He leaned down and grasped his hand tighter, squeezing his fingers and feeling their warmth within his own hand. He rubbed his hand over Aj's for a few moments, trying his best to steel the emotions that were threatening to pour from his body and not knowing what to say, but knowing he needed to say it. Finally the words came to him.

"I love you man," he whispered, because it was the best thing he knew to say and because it was true. "Get better okay... you gotta get better."

As if in response to his words Howie started hearing the monitors around him beeping louder. He wondered if maybe Aj was starting to wake up.

Then he remembered what the nurse had said; "He's in an induced coma..." and his attention immediately shot towards the monitors around Aj's bed that were beeping more rapidly now... and louder. And then, once more as if on cue, doctors and nurses filed into the room and the fast beeping of the monitors turned into one steady "bbbbbeeeeeeppppp" and Howie's heart nearly stopped right along with it.

"He's flatlining!" A young doctor yelled as he reached for the curtain around Aj's bed and a nurse by his side began CPR, "Call a code!"

Those were the last words Howie heard before another nurse had grabbed him by the arm and was escorting him out the door into the hallway of the ICU.