A/N: *takes too long to write* *runs out of cave with finished chapter* *notices angry people with tomatoes* *avoids rotten tomatoes* *ends up getting hit anyways* *posts chapter* *hides in cave to repeat cycle*

Paul groaned miserably.

The pain shot through him in quick, fast waves, not giving him a proper moment to press a button to alert a nurse or anyone in the hallway. The most he could do was groan and allow his body to twitch around as the pain dictated. 

After a rather intense rush of pain, a throat-shredding yell left his mouth and tears began to flow down his face.

Footsteps started to his room started and were quick from the get-go.

He was faintly aware of the voices that were by him, vocal ranges and urgency changing at every moment but he couldn't hear a word. His pain wouldn't allow him to hear anything, words that were probably clear only muffled and annoying at best.

A hand came to touch him in a way to comfort him most likely but it was like fire to his skin and another yell left his throat. He was fairly sure that he was crying himself into a dehydrated state and he should have taken those stupid ice chips from Buddy. He didn't though, so now he was crying away the only liquid he had near him that wasn't in an IV.

The fire began to die down slowly, leaving his skin with invisible but harsh marks that threatened to engulf him again.

"Paulie, you okay?"

He wished that he could properly tell Buddy that he wasn't okay in any aspect. Mentally, physically, emotionally. But he couldn't move his mouth in fear that he'd yell once again and feel vulnerable to the people around him. He did, though, open his eyes and look over to his friend, who seemed to have a few unshed tears in his eyes. 

Nurses scrambled around the two of them, playing with the machines that were hooked up to Paul and writing down things. He wondered when the doctor was going to really talk to him.

"The nurses really do a lot here, huh?" Buddy asked, moving to get the tears out of his eyes with the back of his hand, only to smear them on his face. 

Paul would've said amen to that, if he was brave enough to open his mouth and if one of the nurses didn't walk up to the two of them at that moment. 

"It seems that someone turned off your IV drip, so we're slowly bringing it back up," he said softly. He showed him the remote, probably the one that caused all this and Paul raised an eyebrow slowly.

"But that's the TV remote, right, Buddy?" Paul said weakly, finally getting that courage. After hearing his own voice, it was possibly worse than when he first came into n the place.

"Uhm, actually no," the nurse said and handed him another remote, the absolute twin to the one the man was using to fix the IV. He was starting to wonder why they would allow that to happen but thankfully the nurse started to talk once Paul's thoughts took a wrong turn and got a bit wilder. "I guess you thought you were turning down the TV. No worries, good thing we found you when we did." 

Buddy hummed a quiet agreement, no words just a jumble of noises that meant something to everyone in the room but didn't really mean anything. 

A few of the nurses stayed to watch over him, see how he was doing and if he would even move, but Paul stayed in the exact position he was in since the pain ended. It may have been uncomfortable, but he was still afraid of something that may never happen in the end. He surely wasn't going to take any risks after the events of the past few hours. 

Or was it days? 

He didn't know anymore.

"Buddy? How long has it been?" 

"Since . . . ?" Buddy asked as he sniffled quietly once again and Paul randomly remembered it was fall and Buddy was constantly in a state of sickness during the fall. It took a great deal of self-restraint not to give a great smile, give the taller man a kiss on the cheek and say how happy he was that Buddy was his friend. And Buddy wouldn't even take it the wrong way, which made him want to appreciate him all the more.

"The incident."

"Isn't the correct word for that . . . accident or something?"

"My throat is killing me here, just answer me."

"Okay, okay," the Southern man said, waving his hands in a pseudo-apologetic fashion. "Well, the concert was Friday . . . and then you were in surgery for . . . four hours. I think. You were asleep for a while, maybe an hour. Then more surgery! That was two hours because you were really freaking out, bud. Another hour to wake up from that surgery and we talked for a while after that. You slept for a few hours and now we're here." He pulled out his phone and stared at it for a moment. "It's almost Sunday, now."

"And you've been awake that whole time?" Paul croaked. Eventually, he was going to ask for a whiteboard to write on. 

Buddy, though, looked a bit uncomfortable, almost insulted that Paul even asked the question. 

"Coffee's underappreciated, Paul. Does wonders for the system and all that."

They left it at that, Buddy offering to help Paul out of the bed and Paul quickly accepting that offer because staying in bed wasn't going to be good for him anyways. 

It was a bit of a shock when his feet touched the cold ground and he realised that he needed socks. And a support system to help him even stand, which Buddy quickly pointed out would be his IV and all. 

"Buddy?"

They were slowly moving down the hall at this point, mostly because that was all Paul could take and the small other reason was that Buddy was lost in thought and looked anxious. 

"How long has it been?"

Buddy stopped moving, some of the anxiety leaving his body only to be replaced by confusion.

"Since what, Paulie?"

"The incident."

Now Buddy truly stopped moving. He was fidgeting, his hand moving toward his phone, which was about to die, then stopped. He was also about to answer Paul's question when he just let his mouth hang open and his head tilt to the side. 

"You've already asked that."

Paul also tilted his head to the side, resting a bit more on the metal he was wheeling with him. 

"No. I would have remembered if I did."

"Okay, it's practically Sunday and you got here late Friday."

Paul nodded and continued the slow pace to the end of the hall and Buddy's anxiety flared up once again. Maybe, just maybe Paul wouldn't want to go down the hall. 

"How long has it been?"

Now Buddy was anxious for totally different reasons. They were only steps away from George's room, but Paul asked this question over and over again was scaring him and making him ask questions. Just not aloud and repeated. 

"You got here Friday, now it's Sunday."

The funniest, or should it be said oddest, part of all of this was these reactions were all different. This time Paul was searching for something, eyes looking for something in the hall but not finding it and only causing his eyes to get more frantic. 

"Paul, what's wrong?"

The younger didn't answer and continued to search. As he was searching, he started to move down the hall at a faster pace than before, though Buddy wasn't sure that the one moving noticed this. 

"Paul?"

Paul didn't hear him at that, eyes already settling on what they were looking for.

"What happened?" Paul stuttered, now putting his full weight onto the what he was using to walk down the hall. "Why are his eyes closed? Why is connected to all those machines?"

His breath was shaky and he could hardly get his words out but they were still audible enough for Buddy.

"Paul," Buddy said slowly and he hoped that his scripted calmness would be transfered to Paul. "You two were in an accident—"

And those were the only words that Buddy could get out before Paul collapsed to the floor in tears, his calmness obviously not helping Paul to get calm. In an instant, nurses were swarming around them, getting Paul up and into a wheelchair to somewhere. He was still very upset, but he wasn't as agitated and out of his mind as before.

"Can you tell me what happened?" a doctor asked him, a little late to the scene. It seemed that all the doctors here were late to the scene.

"I don't know, sir," Buddy whispered, on the verge of tears for the second time today. Maybe Paul a few hours before was on to something, he wasn't handling today's events very well. "He kept forgetting what was going on when we came down here—"

The doctor ran in the direction of  Paul and the nurses, leaving Buddy all by himself, confused and still shaken up.

"Well, Georgie. It looks like it's just you and me now."

A/N: I'm still writing! I'm just a lot slower about it now. XD Okay, I'll be having a George centered chapter soon, just not now because I think it'll be better to have what's going on with Paul straightened out before we get into Georgie's head. Thanks for reading!