Tristan notes how tired Eva is, "Can you stay awake for just a bit longer, love? There's someone I want you to meet and someone else that would like to talk to you."

"I'll try, but I won't make promises," Eva manages to get out of a mouth that doesn't want to work very good.

Tristan chuckles, "That's fine, I'll have them hurry." Tristan goes to the door and tells the person on the other side to come on in.

"Eva?" The sound of the voice she wasn't sure that she would ever hear again has Eva opening her eyes wide in hope. 

"RJ?" Eva says excitedly. "What the hell are you doing here?"

Eva tries to sit up and winces as she is forcibly reminded once more of why she is here. "Fucking bullet wound hurts worse than those damn knife wounds, Tristan." Her words are far more pain filled than earlier. More acidic as well.

Tristan sighs, "How do you know RJ, Eva?"

Eva turns delighted eyes to Tristan, "He's the friend I haven't talked to since I had to leave my last foster home."

RJ had known the name, at least the first name and a photo, but he hadn't put it together with the friend he'd wronged so long ago.

RJ falls to his knees, "I'm sorry, Eva, so damn sorry for what I did then." He lifts his head up and it's obvious that he's fighting tears.

Eva sniffs, "There is nothing for me to forgive.  At least not you. Tristan, will you help RJ to my side please? I'll also need a laptop. I think it's long past time for him to learn the truth."

"He's your mystery friend?" Tristan says even as he helps the collapsed man to his feet.

"Yep!" That's the happiest he's heard Eva since he left for South America. He sighs, at least he's accomplished that for Eva. Hopefully she'll be able to relax a bit after this.

Tristan hauls RJ over to the chair at Eva's bedside, the same chair he's occupied since he brought Eva to his room after the surgery.

Next he hands Eva his laptop. He hopes this will help RJ as well. RJ is haunted by something and now he thinks he knows what it is.

Eva pulls up the video and before she turns it on she faces her friend, "What you think happened that night, isn't what you think. I just hope that you will forgive me, once you see this." With that Eva presses play and for the first time in seven years they both hear the people that have haunted them.

As RJ hears them planning his death if he doesn't participate in Eva's rape he turns white. "You knew about what they were planning?" Neither of them had heard the door opening or the two people entering.

"Yes, I couldn't tell you though, or you wouldn't have come. I couldn't allow them to kill you." Eva had allowed the video to run. She pauses it after a short time, "If you had known what they were planning you would have refused to come, perhaps even tried to keep me from being near the party. You would have died.

"I spiked your drink, RJ, because I knew you would rather be with Tristan or Tom than me. You had to be with me, so I made it so you physically could and would. I told you that night, that for you, I was willing and I meant it. I couldn't and wouldn't let those entitled bastards take my only friend from me. You and your mother were the only good thing to happen to me up to that point. I would have shown you this but after that night you refused to look at me, be in the same room as me or speak to me. It was the only regret I've ever had about disappearing after the court cases. For seven years, almost eight now, I've wanted you to know the truth."

"Why didn't you go to the police after that night, Eva?" RJ asks his voice pain filled.

"I couldn't, you didn't use a condom and you would have been rounded up with the sick bastards. I knew that once wouldn't be enough with them and then I would get them. I knew the chances were that they would try for the next Friday and made sure that you were working so that you wouldn't be there. 

"Then I made sure that there was ample evidence against them about rape. I made sure that each of them would spend a good long time in jail. With video evidence of them bragging about the girls they forced and testimony from some of them plus mine, I knew they would go down. 

"You weren't like them and had no reason to be treated like that. You had a bright and good future ahead of you. I wanted you to have your dreams, those that you told me about." Eva looks at him with tears in her eyes, "What happened?"

RJ hangs his head in shame, "After that night, I was ashamed of what I did and what I didn't do. I didn't even have the guts to go to the police and turn myself in. When the police arrested the others no one was more shocked than I was, that I wasn't arrested too. I always wondered why the others didn't mention me."

Eva smirks, "I told the police the truth. Showed them the video evidence and proof of intent of first degree murder so if they tried to implicate you they would be charged. If you had turned yourself in they would have been charged. I didn't want your name associated with that mess in any way, shape, or form. When their lawyers found out they told their clients to keep their lips shut and accept fewer counts of forcible sex. With the evidence they had and the testimonies against them they would be long dead before they would be eligible for parole otherwise. For the first time ever they listened to someone smarter than them."

Eva turns to RJ, she takes his hand, "I will understand if you never want to see me again after I spiked your drink. But I only did it to save your life." Eva wipes the tears from her eyes. She is therefor a bit shocked as RJ wraps his arms around her and cries.

"You saved RJ's life, Eva?" The sound of Jenny, RJ's mother brings, Eva's startled gaze to her.

"Jenny?" Eva smiles through the tears she'd been crying. "Yes, they were going to kill him, but I caused him a great deal of pain in the doing of it. I'm sorry."

Eva finds herself engulfed in a hug by the only woman that has ever treated her like a daughter. "You saved his life, he'll get over it."

After a bit they both let Eva go and Eva lets out a relieved breath. It was beginning to hurt her wound.

"Now, will one of you please tell me how the hell you two are here?"