Nick nodded a little and started to cry again.

Katya kept stroking the side of his face and held him to her, letting him cry. She knew where she was now. She was inside of the place Nick had retreated to. She looked around at the darkness and shook her head. She knew this place well.

Morning came quickly and Sterling walked in the room to see three of them sleeping, Nick standing at the window and Kevin sitting on the bed watching him. Sterling sat on the bed beside Kevin, "How much sleep did he get?"

Kevin shrugged, never taking his eyes off of Nick, "I don't know. I woke up four hours later and he was already up and standing at the window exactly like that. He hasn't moved."

Sterling nodded and made a few more notations on Nick's file. He shook Kevin's shoulder to get his attention, "I want you to bring Nick to Montana."

Kevin looked at him in shock, "Why me? Shouldn't you bring him?"

Sterling shook his head, "No, Nick trusts you and I doubt if he would leave without you at this point. I'll be going with you, but I want you with him. It will keep him calm and we need that."

Kevin nodded, "Give me an hour to get these guys back to the hotel and a bag packed, ok?"

Sterling nodded and watched as Kevin quietly woke everyone up and they all hugged Nick, even though he have no response, and walked out of the room. Sterling watched Nick and for the entire hour that they were gone Nick didn't move. It fascinated him, watching Nick stare into nothingness. He wished he could go to where Nick had gone and try to understand it, to somehow bring the young man back that had been there before that phone call.

Katya pulled back and made Nick look at her, "Nick, go back and let them help you. They want so badly to help you, but you are shutting them out. You are shutting out the good right along with the bad."

Nick sniffled, "I...I don't want to hurt anymore."

Katya wrapped her arms around his torso, letting him lean his head on her shoulder again, "Well being hurt is part of life, Nick. But so is being loved and you have a lot of that surrounding you. I can see it around you, Nick. It's very strong and it comes from those five guys in your room with you. It comes from your brother and sisters. It comes from all those people that you touch with your music. The love is so strong around you, Nick, it's almost blinding."

Nick started to rock back and forth, "It's so much easier this way."

Katya grabbed his shoulders and looked into his eyes, "No, it's not easy. This is forever, Nick. This is nothing but blackness for the rest of your life. This is no touch, none. This is forgetting who you are and why you are here. This is losing everything that makes you human. This is gaining everything that makes you the living dead. This is taking a wonderful human being away from the world that needs him. This is being nothing but a coward, Nick."

Katya got up and looked down at him, disappointed. "I can't watch you go through this, Nick. It's too hard watching you waste everything that you have been given. I can't watch a strong man become a coward."

She started to walk away, not knowing if she could even leave, but she was going to try.

Nick scrambled to his feet, his blue eyes blazing. "I am not a coward!"

Katya looked over her shoulder at him, "Yes, you are. You let her win. You proved her right. You are a coward, Nickolas Carter."

With two angry steps he had his hands on her shoulders and spun her around. "I AM NOT A COWARD!"

She scoffed at him, "Please, if she was in front of you right now, you would be able to do nothing. You would just turn your tail between your legs and skitter away. " She shook her head at him, sing songing her next word. "Coward!"

He pushed her away and she stumbled backwards as his face twisted in anger, "What the hell would you know about any of this. You and your perfect angel life that never had any pain in it at all. You don't have a fucking clue!"

Katya grabbed him, her hands closing around the top of his head and all these images took over his mind. He saw Katya as a human. He saw painfully familiar scenes, he saw the razor blade, he saw the alcohol, he also saw pills. He saw the blood. He saw her fall to the floor, only no one was there to help her to safety, no one was there to stop her. Then he saw her again, this time on a bed, hooked up to machines that were monitoring everything that happened in her body. He saw the healed over scars on her wrists.

My god, how long had she been like this? he thought.

Katya let him go and he reeled backwards, "Don't have a clue huh? How do you think I know everything you are going through, Nick? It's because I've been there. It's because I'm still there. This..." She threw her arms out to take in their surroundings, "is where I was pulled from when I was sent to you. This is where I have been for so long I didn't remember touch, how to feel, how to love anything. This is where I forgot what life was like because I could never have it back again."

She stared him down, "My god, Nick. You have a choice to leave this place. Some of us are given no choice. Some of us do such a good job of trying to leave life that when we do realize that we want to live, in those last moments when the panic of what you've done sets in, it's too late. It's too late because you've done such a good job with your body that it no longer wants to let you back in."

"Then you are sent here. There is nothing but blackness. Nothing but emptiness and nothing to do but sit here and think about what you gave up. What you would give anything to have back. This is forever for me, Nick. This is all there is for me for the rest of eternity." She grabbed Nick's face in her hands and looked in his eyes, "You don't get it, do you? This isn't a safe place. This isn't an easy place. This is just an eternity of nothingness, sucking the humanity out of you until you are nothing." She shook him a little, "This is hell."