“The doctor says he’ll be fine. He was lucky.” Sandy said sitting down beside the boy.
“Lucky? Lucky?! He doesn’t remember a thing! He didn’t even know who *he* was!”
“But it’s not permanent. He will remember. It’s just going to…to take some time.”
“Some Time?!” Ryan took a deep breath. “Sorry...sorry...it’s just”
“I understand.”
“But...how can...how can you be so calm?” The boy looked him in the eyes.
Sandy shrugged. “Comes with the territory I guess. We’re all hurting, Ryan.”
Ryan nodded sadly. “I’m...I’m sorry.”
“What for?”
“I should have been there...should have-”
“Your not his protector. You can’t be there all the time-”
“But I should’ve…He asked me to go...I should have been there.” Ryan stood. “I have to...Can I go in and see him again?”
Sandy nodded standing as well. He walked with Ryan to the Hospital room, neither talking, both staring at the floor. When they reached the room Sandy managed to persuade Kirsten to leave with him and Ryan closed the door behind them. He looked towards the boy in the bed.
IV in one arm, machines behind him beeping, he looked frail...lost.
“Hey there Seth.”
The boy looked up hair as disheveled as usual, eyes as bright as normal but the smile was missing. He nodded softly. “I’m Seth. Seth...” He looked towards Ryan. “What’s my last name? I mean I do have one right? I should have one...Do you know what it is?”
Ryan couldn’t help the smile. You couldn’t take the babble out of this one. He walked over to the bed sitting in the chair beside it. “Yea you have one. It’s Cohen”
“Cohan?”
“No Cohen.”
“Cohen. Seth Cohen...” He nodded again. “I like that Seth Cohen.” The boy looked at him more closely now. “You were here before...right?”
“Yeah.” Ryan said leaning closer to the bed, clasping his hands together in order to keep them from reaching out.
“Ra...Ra...Ryan? Right?”
Ryan nodded.
“What’s your last name Ryan? You have to have one too.”
“Atwood.”
“Ryan. Ryan Atwood. Nice ring to it. So Ryan...can you tell me what I’m doing here? My...Mom won’t say anything. Can hardly stop crying. And the doctors are always too busy saying something or other or doing something and they refuse to answer any of my questions which is *really* annoying-”
“They want to see if you’ll remember.”
The boy sat up in bed wincing. “Ow that hurt.” He coughed holding his chest. “God I hate pain.”
Ryan looked down at his hands. It was hard. Hard to know that Seth was hurting and he couldn’t do anything to help. Hard to squash the feeling that it was his fault. He should have been there. If he had then none of this would have happened. Or maybe it all happened because he was brought here in the first place. He always fucked things up.
“Ryan?”
The boy looked up eyes showing a glimmer of hope.
“Who excatly are you?”
And just as quickly the hope was gone.
“I guess you can say...I’m your best friend.”
“Best friend? I like that. I have a best friend.”
“Yea, yea you do.”
~~~
There was a knock at the door and then Sandy was there. "Time to go Ryan." The boy looked over at him. He wanted to stay but he didn't want to ask. Didn't want to bother Sandy anymore then he might already have. He looked back at Seth and felt bad that he would be leaving the boy alone and yet he was relieved. Because if he didn't have to see Seth then he didn't have to hate himself. He didn't have to watch the pain in those brown eyes and regret coming to Newport. Because he had finally found a place where he could be happy. A place to call home.
He nodded, getting up and saw the panic in Seth's eyes. He looked away to escape the pain of leaving the boy alone. "See ya Seth. I'll be" he swallowed. "I'll be back tomorrow."
"Night son." Sandy said opening the door to let Ryan out. "We'll be back in the morning alright."
Seth nodded. "O-okay I'll be fine. See you tomorrow then."
Ryan winced he could hear the hope in those words. As if Sandy and Ryan were lying, as if they would never return for him. Sandy followed him out of the door and they walked down the hall.
Seth looked around the room. White walls, black and white tiled floors, bright flowers from his 'family'. The family he couldn't seem to remember. The room was quiet now, eerily so. The beeping of the machines around him as well as the shuffling outside his door made the his room seem like one of those soap operas he had seen on TV that morning. But unlike Maria on the show he didn't have anyone waiting beside his bed for him to wake up out of his coma. Not that he was in a coma. Well he thought, it was possible that he *was* in a coma and all this was just the extravagant workings of his inner mind. I mean how do you really know if your awake or not when your awake? You can't tell if it all seems so real. But which is real excatly? Was this real? Him laying in this bed with pains in his body that felt like that time when he had fallen on the cement and scrapped his head magnified by like a thousand.
He'd never felt pain like this, that he could recall, in his dreams so he figured it must be real. What ever real happened to be. He couldn't remember what happened to land him in his current position. The pain, the swelling, the hospital, the not remembering a thing. So he wasn't actually sure if his not remembering about painful dreams was correct. He seemed to have forgotten a bunch of things. And no one but that boy Ryan, 'his best friend', seemed to be even trying to help him remember.
Not that the boy was much of a talker. He was more of the brooding type. If Seth was even correct in his memory of what the word meant. Seth did most of the talking, asking actually because there's not much to talk about when you don't even remember what you would have talked about before you lost your memory.
Seth looked down at the IV in his arm. He couldn't remember for sure but he had a feeling he never liked needles because right now just looking at the part of it disappearing under the tape was making him nauseous. He looked away from it around the room again. Quiet, Boring, Lonely. Tomorrow wasn't going to come fast enough.
~~~
Ryan was quiet the entire ride home. Sandy tried to hold a conversation a few times but no one was really in a mood for talking. Ryan's eyes followed the road outside. Lights, buildings and the sky all merging into one large smudge of color flying past him. He looked beside him at where Seth should be, smiling and joking with him, babbling on about something, but he wasn't. He wasn't and Ryan knew it was his fault. He wasn't sure how but he knew it was.
When they reached home he escaped to the pool house. Sitting on the edge of the bed he looked up at the ceiling trying to hold back the tears. He had no right to cry. He wasn't the one alone in the hospital right now, bruised and broken. No he was the one perfectly fine sitting on his bed at home. It wasn't even his home. He didn't deserve it, Seth did. He should be the one in the hospital. He should be the one with the physical pain, the one whose memories were taken. He didn't need them, any good ones he had all started here anyway.
Lying back he closed his eyes. Seth deserved to be here right now not him. Seth was worthy of all this. Ryan was just the recycled trash.
A tear ran down his cheek and he wiped it away. He had no right to cry…but…it hurt so much.
Seth spent most of the night up. He couldn't go to sleep. Not when it hurt to breath when he was laying down and it hurt to shut his eyes and there was that throbbing in his head. He gently rubbed an eye with his palm and even that caused him pain. He went over the names he had learned the other day. Went over what he heard and the answers Ryan had given him, afraid that what he learned he would forget as he did everything else.
It was scary lying in the room alone and he hoped he could go home soon. Not that he remembered where home was, but he was sure it had to be better then here.
Sandy woke up exhausted. It had taken a while for him to persuade Kirsten to leave the hospital then it had taken even longer to get her in bed. When they were finally under the covers though she had tired herself out so much by crying that it didn't take her long to fall asleep. But him, he had stayed up most of the night worrying about his son. He had seen things like this before, cases of such violence. But never, never had he expected it to ever happen in his family, especially to his son.
Seth was a quiet child. Introverted, calm. He took most of what people dished out on him and though Sandy had always been against it, he had always admired Seth for it. He could never have dealt with that at Seth's age. He was more like Ryan. Getting into fights and solving the problems before they broke him.
Maybe he should have been more concerned with what tribulations his son had rather then those of clients at work. Maybe he wasn't home enough, didn't talk to Seth enough. Was he a good Father? He couldn't imagine being so. Not with what Seth went through. He couldn't be a good father if he let his son be taken away from him. Taken away from Kirsten. He blamed himself for his families pain, including Ryan's.
Kirsten stayed home the next day busying herself with work and the local woman who came over with flowers and condolences. Sandy had been against any of them visiting Seth in the hospital. The boy didn't need anymore people to try and remember. Especially ones who didn't care about him. So as Sandy and Ryan drove quietly to the hospital, Kirsten remained at home fussing over any little thing she could.
Ryan went straight to the room when they arrived while Sandy went to find Seth's doctor. Seth was sitting up in bed eyes staring at the television screen in the room.
"Anything good on?" He asked walking over to the chair beside the injured boy's bed.
"Justice League." Seth replied eyes going to Ryan.
"Cool."
"Do you like them?" He asked looking back at the screen.
"They're alright."
"Do I like them?" and those brown eyes met his again. Ryan looked away too ashamed to hold the gaze.
"You've been watching, you tell me."
Seth shrugged. "I don't know, it's good."
"Well then," Ryan swallowed past the lump in his chest "You like them."
Seth coughed holding his sides, the sound was horrible, Painful.
"You alright?"
"Yea," another cough "Yea I'm fine." Seth shut off the television and turned to Ryan. "Do you…Do you think I'll ever remember?"
"What?"
"…Anything…"
"The doctors say there's a high-"
"I don't care what they say, what do you think?"
Ryan sighed. "I…I don't know what to think…"
Seth leaned back into the pillows. "Do you hope?"
"I just hope you get better man…whether or not that includes you remembering anything."
Seth looked down at his hand's, fingers grasping the sheet lightly. "…I…I want to remember…"
Ryan looked away unable to watch the sorrow flow through his best friend. "Then…I hope you remember…"
~~~
A week spent back and forth from hospital to home and back again. Finally the doctors said it was safe to bring Seth home. Ryan wasn't sure if he was relieved about that. He knew he should be, Seth was his best friend after all, but he wasn't sure if he could face seeing the boy in pain every minute. He hardly ever saw Seth smile anymore and when he did it wasn't as bright or happy as it used to be. You couldn't even call them smiles, they were more like smirks, and they were hardly ever genuine. He glanced out the window at the scenery that he had seen every day since Seth was admitted into the hospital. The car drove in the same direction as always and he was kind of happy to know they wouldn't have to be doing this so much anymore.
Kirsten had come along today to help Seth out of the hospital and she had that same lost, sad look, she'd been wearing for a week now. It was hard for Ryan to look at any of the Cohen's anymore. To know that in some way he had caused those looks, in some way it was his fault. He was the reason Seth where he was.
The car stopped and they made their way into the large bright building. The commotion was as loud and hectic as it always was and he didn't even bother looking around simply following his feet to their destination. He had been here enough times to know where to go and when he reached Seth's room he just walked straight in. "Hey man."
"Hey, Ryan." Seth said and it was to Ryan's pleasure that there was no longer any note of question to it. For a while there, Seth had been questioning everything out of his mouth. Never sure if what he remembered was correct. Always thinking he had somehow forgotten and would get it wrong.
"Breaking you out today."
"Yea, I know. Kinda relieved. Just a bit..scared, you know."
Ryan nodded. Seth would have to get acquainted with everything all over again. The house, the family, the community which would undoubtedly come knocking to give 'Well Wishes' and 'Welcome Home's. To tell the truth Ryan was a bit scared as well. He'd be the one with Seth most of the time. Trying to fill gaps and answer questions. Teach him about a house and a life *he* had just recently gotten down. It had only been a year since he had been dropped into Newport society. There were still a few things he didn't get or just wouldn't be able to understand. Seth had basically grown up here. Everything he knew he had been trying to teach Ryan and now the tables had turned on them.
There was a knock on the door and Kirsten and Sandy entered. Kirsten wandered over to the bed planting a quick kiss on Seth's forehead. She had a smile on her face though it was fake and she tried to act cheery. "Finally going to get you home."
Seth nodded faking a smile of his own. He had told Ryan once during his hospital stay that he still wasn't quite comfortable with his 'Parents' and it was apparent when Sandy ruffled his hair. It wasn't as if he didn't like them. No, something was ingrained telling him he loved these people. That's why he had no doubts about them being his parents, but he just wasn't sure how to respond to them and that made him uncomfortable. He wanted to be like he used to, before the accident he couldn't remember that had landed him here. But if he couldn't even remember what he was like then he couldn't even try to fake it. Was he the touchy type? Was his family one of hugs and kisses on scrapped knees? Baking cookies and joking around happily. Or were they different. Were they distant and only showing him attention because of what happened? Were they workaholics? Alcoholics? They didn't *seem* the type but then could you ever tell? He made a note to try and remember to ask Ryan later.
Sandy clapped his hands together and grabbed a bag of stuff that had accumulated over Seth's stay. "Okay then lets get you out of here. Need any help?"
Seth winced getting out of bed but waved him off. "I'm fine."
Sandy watched as Ryan took place behind Seth. He was relieved that Seth was finally being released. This way maybe he would be able to get some sleep, knowing Seth was down the hall and not across town. He knew everything would be alright because he had faith in his family, in Ryan. He could tell how much the boy cared, how much remorse he was carrying around. He could see it in his eyes, in the way he slumped his head to avoid eye contact, the way he walked behind Seth hands twitching every time Seth took a step. Ryan was ready to grab him if he stumbled, catch him if he fell. Sandy was a little disappointed that he couldn't be in Ryan's place but understood the bond the boy's had built up. Respected it. Seth didn't need him now. And as much as that hurt he was also happy to know that Seth *had* someone else. Someone Sandy trusted and loved. Ryan was like a son to him and he couldn't think of anyone better for Seth to depend on, regardless of Ryan's past.
TBC