The sun was streaming into his eyes and he groaned as he tried to turn. It didn't get him far, and he cracked open his eyelids to see that he was wrapped in a blanket and on some sort of bed with railings on it. Turning, he saw the IV attached to his arm and then everything spiraled as his head hit the pillow again.

This was a hospital.

"Try not to move so much." Nathan's eyes were drawn to a familiar voice and he tilted his head to see Allen leaning against the door frame. "You've been out for almost a week, so it'll be difficult to move at first. You have a hole in your side too, though it's stitched up and healing now."

Nathan touched his side where he remembered the searing pain and blood. What had happened to everyone? Panic consumed him, and he grimaced, clutching the bed post as he fell into another spell of dizziness.

"Calm down." Allen came over to the side of the bed. "No one else was hurt, aside from Rick. Just take a few long breaths, calm down, and look in the other direction."

The other direction? Flipping his head around, he met with a pair of watering mocha eyes that mirrored his own, and tears lined his eyes.

Sitting there, in a chair pulled up to the side of his bed, was his mother. She was just like he remembered her, her long hair tied up behind her head into a ponytail, darker than his, near black. A blue shawl was draped over her shoulders, and by the blankets around her, he could tell that she had been sleeping her. The tears in her eyes lightened them as he dipped his gaze to the dark circles under her eyes. Had she not been getting sleep? Was it because of him?

The first instinct he had was to reach for her, but then he leaned away and clutched the opposite railing, too afraid to speak. During those several months he had not once tried to contact her. By the time he had been thinking about doing so, everything had exploded into where he was now. How could he explain that to her?

Nathan whined of pain as Allen wrenched his head back toward his mother.

"This woman has been sitting here all week, Nathan." Allen's voice dripped with spite as he firmly held his head in her direction. "Have the decency to look at your own mother."

Nathan trembled as he awaited her judgment, the truth he had been putting off again and again until there was no other choice but to face it. It was too difficult and he closed his eyes to keep from knowing what she thought of him now. Now that he was a criminal. A light touch to his face ripped them back open and his mother's hand rested gently on his face.

"It's all right, Nathan." The sound of his mother's soft voice that he hadn't heard in months. "You don't have to say anything right now if you don't want to. I'm just happy you're alive." His mother's voice cracked, and tears slid down her face heavier than before. "I was so worried about you. I know you well enough to know that you are ashamed of everything that has happened. I'm not angry with you. I know you had to deal with it all by yourself because you didn't want to burden me with your troubles."

There was no way to stop the tears that poured down the side of his face as his mother held him as best she could. All this time, he'd been worried that she hated him, but she was just the same as he'd left her on the way to school that day. Kind, too kind, and forgiving of anything he'd ever done.

"As much as I hate to break up your moment, he actually does have to say something right now. I'm not sitting around because I like watching him sleep." Allen's tone was sharp as he sat down and pulled out a pad of paper. "I am under legal obligation to not taint your testimony in any way, but I'm also biased. We need to know what went down, aside from Julian and Ian's accounts. People don't trust them like they've attached their hearts to you."

"You want to know what happened." Nathan groaned, and Allen pressed a button that elevated his upper torso slightly.

"Sure, as long as you sound pitifully abused and terrified the whole time."

Nathan gaped at Allen.

"What I'm saying is, Nathan, people want you to be a normal child that was tossed into a den of monsters and then chewed up and spit out. I know you have no animosity toward most of the men in the pen, but I don't want to hear a lick of it. I also don't want you to say anything about it to anyone in the press, or at court, or aloud even."

"Why?" Nathan lowered his eyebrows.

"Because you can't help them. What happens to them, happens to them, regardless of whether Ian held you down for Rick to shoot or tried to save you by risking his own life. Nothing you say will sway the rock hard contract they signed. It will however affect you. Think about yourself for a moment.

"Right now, if you're everything people think you are, you'll likely get out on probation. They'll probably throw community service in your face, require psychological checkups and progress, and keep tabs on you for a bit, but you won't go to prison. Your original trial was a sham, and I have no doubt your public defender was incompetent, but you can still have another one that ends you up with a few years in prison if you say the wrong things."

"You want me to lie?" Nathan felt his stomach heave, but Allen sighed.

"No. I want you to tell half the truth and only that. It's not perjury to withhold information they don't ask for. I know you were frightened most of your stay. I personally read Maggie's reports, and I know the men weren't always entirely kind to you. I don't need you to paint the people you cared about in a bad light, just don't paint them in a good one either. Give me facts, things to sway people to pity you without making them think that you are at all like the men you lived with."

"I understand," Nathan said, twisting the sheet that was over his legs with his hands.

"If you don't get locked up, you can likely see them again, if only once or twice. It won't be seen as strange if you visit the man who was next to you when you were shot before he is executed, or the kid who saved you both from certain death."

"Executed?" Nathan squeaked, panic causing his head to spin.

"Calm down, Nathan," Allen said, and his mother pressed herself against his head. "There is no way for Ian and Tanner to get out of the contract they signed. We are currently in a review period while they go over the pen's records and wait on your testimony, but it's just a dog and pony show before the inevitable. It sucks, I know. But if you have to be in despair and broken up about it, make it appear as if your that way because of what was done to you, not what is coming."

"What about Donovan? Maggie said he was only living there by choice." Nathan had to ask to ground his spiraling agony over Ian.

"Donovan has been in once, but it's hard for him to get past the god damn paparazzi. The only reason they aren't up here is because I have men on the elevators and stairs, and my partner is sitting over there waiting to axe anyone who might get past. Donovan is with the Moceris, so if you want to see him, I'd recommend just calling and finding a meeting point somewhere discreet. I have his number that I can give to you later."

"Is Julian okay?" Nathan asked, looking up to another sickened twitch in Allen's face.

"The kid is back in a mental hospital around here, where he belongs. They had him in holding for all of one day before he had a fit in his sleep and nearly took out a guard that tried to check on him. The kid needs help, Nathan. Legitimate, psychological, help. I know he opened up with you at the pen, but that was only really something that could mask his pain and illness. Until he faces it and works through recovery, it won't disappear."

"Julian really doesn't like the mental hospital." Nathan sighed.

"Well, after all of this blows over, I'm sure you can arrange to visit him, if he becomes stable enough to do so. Giving someone who needs emotional help a goal is a good way to promote them to put actual effort in recovery, so you being around will help, I'm sure. For now, I need your statement."

~~~~~~~~~~

Nathan worked through his short physical rehabilitation and was sitting in a chair watching others struggle on the bars to walk or just stand up. It had taken him a few days to get his land legs, but he was up and walking around on his own now. It wasn't like he had been in a coma for too long. His legs had just needed some coaxing to do their thing again.

That, and they had been missing a whole lot of blood volume from what the doctors had told him. The stitches in his side were solid, but he had to be careful not to tear them or to stress anything in his abdomen so he took everything slow.

Swinging his feet in his chair, he stared out the huge hospital window at the gardens outside. There were pleasant trees and a winding walk way that divided it all up so patients could walk through. It was chilly, but there was no snow, so everything was the stark forest of evergreens and darkened tones of the grass.

Someone came through, and he cringed as a flash went off before they were dragged away by one of the officers watching outside. They just kept getting through now that Allen had better things to do. There had been a short hearing after his statement, which he'd had to repeat it all with way too many people watching in the courtroom.

Saying it had made him cry, which Allen said was good. It hadn't been out of fear or memory of how he'd been treated though. It hadn't even been from the terror of Rick attacking him. It had been the slow ache in his heart as he couldn't tell them what he wanted to say.

How Ian had volunteered without hesitation to die in his place.

Or tell them about every time someone at the pen had stuck up for him, protected him, or smiled with him. Instead of being able to tell people that they weren't monsters, he'd been forced to just reiterate all of the fear he'd felt, the pains he'd suffered, the abuse he'd endured. At the least, he had kept the worst that had happened between him and Ian out of it. No matter how many horrors he could recount to these people, he would not throw Ian under the bus, even if he had gone too far.

All of the times Ian had held him, embraced him, and touched him gently and affectionately were absent when he spoke. The way he'd taught him how to drive, made him food, and spent time with him, omitted. All they heard was about how terrified he'd been when Ian had pushed him up against a wall and kissed him.

Instead of telling them that Julian had sat with him and helped him work through his fear and pain, he only mentioned the veiled threats and the marks on his arms he couldn't hide from the hospital. They had taken note of that quite quickly, the design of a rose slightly raised in his skin.

Where he wanted to talk about the way Tanner had played around with Ian, obeyed Maggie to the letter, and even had fun playing with them on the court, all he could tell them was all the times he snapped in the house, fought with Ian, and terrified him with his open, honest rage.

At least after recounting all of the vulgarities of Rick, Nathan hadn't been forced to degrade Donovan too. People knew about his court case, now that everything was out in the open, and they knew how he'd been freed. Some were conflicted, others on his side, but no one expected Nathan to say that Donovan had harassed or brutalized him.

At least there was that much.

Word count: 2104 -- Edited July 15th, 2020