~~~~~*~~~~~

Clare stared at the hospital bed willing her eyes not to believe the sight that was before her. The horror of seeing her friend lying there unconscious, her small frame connected to a plethora of machines that all seemed to be making strange, unsettling noises made her feel sick to her stomach.

There were only a few places on Libby's body that weren't covered in wires, or, worse, wrapped in hospital grade bandages that were hiding most of her from view. Only the area around her eyes was visible through the gap in the white cotton that covered most of her face, and Clare was distressed to see that even the skin there was blotched and bruised.

Libby's right arm was strung up in a sling that was hanging from a metal contraption in the ceiling—presumably to keep it elevated—and both her legs were uncovered from the knees down to allow the large cuts and weeping grazes that covered the best part of her shins to heal.

As she looked at her friend, Clare felt the bile begin to rise in her throat and she willed herself to get a grip and not be sick. Hot tears flowed silently down her cheeks as she watched the ventilator that Libby was hooked up to hiss and click as it managed her breathing for her.

All through the twenty minute journey to the hospital, Clare had imagined how it would be if the young woman who'd had the accident turned out to be Libby. But, even the worst case scenario that she'd considered in her head paled in reality to the sight before her. Standing beside her, both Justin and JC were silent as they, too, tried to absorb the reality of what was happening.

"Lib?" Clare managed to sob, and the pathetic sound of her voice caused more tears to flow from her eyes. Was this really her Libby? Libby who was usually so full of life, fight and attitude? She couldn't relate the memories of her energetic friend with the vision before of her.

As she stood staring, Clare became aware that beside her, Justin's legs and arms had begun to visibly shake, and she turned to look at him in concern. Since being directed to the room by one of the hospital nurses, Justin's eyes had never left Libby's still body, and the expression on his face made Clare fight back a gut wrenching sob. He looked utterly and completely horrified.

Clare immediately began to feel sorry for having shouted at him back at the apartment when she saw the look of vulnerability and devastation on his face. After all, twenty–four hours hadn't passed since he'd been running along the beach with her draped over his shoulder.

The memory made Clare's insides ache with regret and despair, and she grasped at JC's hand for support. He squeezed back and met her eyes for the first time, revealing to her the tears that he'd been silently shedding for their friend.

"It's her..." he said in a broken, tearful voice and Clare felt her heart begin to break all over again.

Is there someone you know? / Loving them so / Taking them all for granted? / You may lose them one day / Someone takes them away / And they don't hear the words / You long to say

~~~~~*~~~~~

As Clare stood clutching JC's hand, she heard a gentle tap on the door, and a short, middle aged man entered the room before introducing himself.

"I'm Doctor Greene. I hear you may be able to help identify our Jane Doe?" He said kindly as his eyes flicked between Justin, JC and finally settled on Clare.

"Yes," Clare said quietly. "Her name is Libby... Err, Elizabeth. Elizabeth Armstrong. But she prefers to be called Libby."

Dr. Greene nodded politely and walked over to the foot of Libby's bed, where her medical details were hanging on a metal clipboard. He retrieved a plastic ball point pen from his shirt pocket and scribbled Libby's name at the top of the first form, where the patient's name had previously been left blank. Clare swallowed audibly as she saw her friend's name written in black and white, tying her conclusively to the woman lying still in the bed.

The doctor turned back to Clare and for the first time she noticed the sympathy in his eyes. "Are you family? Friends?" He asked before flicking his eyes to Justin, who had now begun to silently cry. "Boyfriend, maybe?"

"We're her friends," Clare replied numbly as she turned to stare at Libby's motionless body. She didn't see the fleeting look of hurt that crossed Justin's face at her words. To him, it didn't seem enough to simply label them as her friends. They were more to her than that; they had practically become her family. It dawned on him then that he might never get another chance to tell her how he really felt about her. The thought sucked the air out of his lungs and he bit down hard onto his tongue to stop himself from screaming.

"I'm sorry to say that Libby here has been the victim of a nasty climbing accident. Some of her injuries are rather serious, I'm afraid, particularly her head injury, but we have been able to stabilise her. As to her other injuries, she has an assortment of broken fingers, a shattered arm and several other lacerations and bruises. All of these are very common in this type of trauma." He paused and regarded them carefully to see whether they had understood and were able to absorb the information that he was giving them.

"Brain injury?" Clare managed to ask in a strangled voice. No one has said anything about a brain injury until now. Is that why she's so still?

"I'm afraid it seems that your friend had a direct impact between her skull and the rock face. Now, we don't know everything until we have the results from her C.A.T scan that was taken this morning, but in the meantime, we've placed her in a medically induced coma to help reduce any swelling on her brain. We've managed to treat her other injuries, such as her arm, but like I say, until I have the results from her scan I really can't give you much more of a prognosis."

Justin balked at the word, and for a moment Clare thought that he was going to run from the room. Instead, he sucked in a deep breath and seemed to rally. He forced himself to tear his eyes away from Libby and looked the doctor square in the eye. "By prognosis you mean survival, right?"

"Like I said, I wish I could tell you more, but I'm reluctant to say anything until I have the results from the scan. All I will say is that the first few hours after an accident like this are crucial; your friend has been very lucky to have made it this far."

Clare sucked in a breath and stared up at JC's shocked face. The doctor's words had hardly been reassuring, and she realised for the first time how close Libby had—and still was—to dying.

~~~~~*~~~~~

Jamie hung up the phone and turned to face Jenny, who had been standing next to her during the entire phone call. She'd been trying to overhear the conversation between Jamie and JC, but had only managed to catch a few words. What she had heard was enough to send her pulse racing and her heart into her mouth. The expression on Jamie's face convinced her that the news wasn't good.

"It was Libby," Jamie said numbly, and she turned to look out of the window as she tried to absorb the shocking news.

JC had been brief and blunt over the phone as he'd explained to her that the woman in the hospital had been Libby, and that she was in critical condition in the I.C.U. Jamie could barely believe it, but for the fact that she knew that JC would never lie to her.

"I can't believe it," she said as she turned to meet Jenny's wide, horrified eyes.

"What do we do?" Jenny asked her face pale with shock.

Jamie blinked several times as she tried to clear her thoughts enough to decide what it was that she was supposed to do next. She'd been so hopeful that the woman in the hospital wouldn't be Libby that she hadn't prepared a plan of action in case it turned out that it was.

"We need to tell the others," she said eventually as she fished her cell–phone out of her jacket pocket. "Do you have your cell? We need to let everyone know what's happened. I'll start with Libby's family... you start with everyone she knows from work."

~~~~~*~~~~~

After the doctor had left the room, JC, Clare and Justin fell into silence; each lost in their own thoughts.

JC was the first one to speak. He politely excused himself from the room on the pretence of needing to call Jamie to update her on the news, and tripped over his feet in his rush to get out of the room.

Once he was gone, Clare felt his absence immediately and her eyes once again flicked over to her motionless friend. She needed to get closer but there was something holding her back; fear, maybe. She sucked in a deep breath and forced her feet to move forward. A few steps later and she was at Libby's side, staring down at her pale, bruised face.

Now that she'd spent some time in the room, the sound of the machines were less upsetting to her and Clare had begun to dismiss their alien noises as simply background noise. However, she feared that seeing her friend in such a state might never become easier. Letting out a deep breath that she hadn't realised that she'd been holding, Clare peered down at Libby's face, focusing her attention on the area around her eyes where—despite the bruising—she still looked the most like herself.

"Lib?" Clare called for the first time as her voice cracked. For a moment she felt as though Libby would open her eyes at any second and look at her, but she soon felt foolish for thinking it. For nothing changed, and Libby's face remained frozen as the machines continued to click and hiss around her.

Clare stared at her friend in horror as the tears began to stream down her face. Lib...

~~~~~*~~~~~

JC returned ten minutes later carrying three polystyrene cups containing strong, black coffee. He handed one each to Clare and Justin and told them to drink, ignoring their protestations that neither of them liked black coffee.

"It'll help, I promise," he assured them as he took a sip from his own cup.

Clare eyed him carefully over the rim of her cup as she took a sip and cringed as the bitter drink scalded her tongue. Normally, she put so much milk in her coffee that it was practically lukewarm before she had a chance to drink it. As she considered his assurance that the drink would help revive her, Clare couldn't help but bitterly think about how wrong he'd already been so far that day.

After all, hadn't he been the one assuring her earlier that morning that Libby would be fine? It'd been the first thing he'd said to her when he'd turned up unexpectedly at her door; 'she's fine. I know it!' She narrowed her eyes and took another more careful sip.

As Clare continued to think bitterly about how wrong he'd been, JC seemed to detect the change in her mood and glanced at her with concerned eyes. He was still feeling pretty shaken from the revelation that Libby was in the hospital, and his conversation with Jamie hadn't been easy, to say the least. He was trying his best to keep it together—for Clare and Justin's sake—but he was aware of the jittery tension that was building in his gut. It wouldn't take a lot for him to lose control of his emotions and break down.

Clare immediately averted her gaze as he met her eyes and a feeling of shame washed over her. This isn't his fault, she told herself. I shouldn't be thinking such horrible thoughts about him. After all, he'd been incredibly strong and supportive so far, especially during the excruciatingly tense drive to the hospital; when neither Clare, nor Justin, had said or done anything other than stare unseeingly out of the car windows, lost to their own dark thoughts. He'd been the one trying to assure them not to give up hope.

Clare smiled weakly at the thought and she turned her head in the hopes of being able to offer him a grateful—and slightly apologetic—smile. However, she found that he'd already made his way towards her and was in the process of wrapping a comforting arm around her waist as he joined her at her side. Despite all that was happening, Clare was surprised to find that she still felt a flutter when he touched her. She allowed him to pull her gently towards his body and she let out an unhappy sigh as her eyes once again settled on Libby.

"Are you okay?" JC whispered into her ear as he placed his cheek on top of her head and glanced at Libby. He felt his insides clench at the sight of her motionless body; it was so unusual to see her so still.

"I don't know," Clare answered honestly in a shaky voice. "I'm not sure how I'm supposed to feel. Other than wishing that it was me in that bed instead of her."

JC lifted his head and kissed her hair. "You mustn't think like that, Clare," he told her. "We must keep strong for Libby. All of us."

"But I need her..." Clare whimpered, and she felt him squeeze her body tighter to his in response. "She's like my little sister, Josh. I can't not have her in my life..."

A clicking sound from behind them startled Clare, and she spun around in JC's arms to face the doorway just as a familiar face pulled the door closed behind her. At once Clare felt a feeling of relief wash over her.

"If I know Libby—and I do—she won't be in that bed for long," Justin's mom said as she momentarily met Clare's eyes before glancing over at her son. Justin's head had snapped to attention at the unexpected sound of her voice and his face crumpled as he stumbled towards her waiting, open arms.

"Jenny rang me," Lynn explained as she wrapped her arms around Justin's trembling body and rested her head against his. For a moment she closed her eyes as the sound of her son's sobs cut straight through to her heart and when she opened them again to glance at Clare and JC, her eyes were shiny with tears. "She told me what had happened, and I thought I'd come straight over and see if there was anything I could do."

Clare nodded silently in understanding and looked helplessly at Justin's back as he continued to sob. She had forgotten during the confusion and horror of the situation that besides herself he was the closest person to Libby. And, although she didn't like to admit it, it was very likely that he was suffering just as much—if not more—than she was.

Lynn pulled away slightly to look Justin in the eyes and he looked at her helplessly as his tears continued to fall. She searched his face and reached up to cup his cheeks in her hands.

"Baby..." she said soothingly as he squeezed his eyes shut causing more tears to flow down his cheeks. The grief of the situation was clearly overwhelming him and Clare felt embarrassed to be witnessing such a private moment. She'd only seen Justin cry a few times—most notably when he'd broken his thumb on stage—and he always looked like a little boy when he cried. It was usually pretty harrowing to see him upset.

"Baby, it's going to be okay," Lynn said as she pulled him back into her arms and squeezed him tight. For the first time, her eyes flicked over to Libby's bed and her voice caught in her throat as she tried not to let her feelings show on her face. "She'll get through this. She'll soon be back on her feet giving you hell again, you'll see."

Clare gave Lynn a half–hearted smile at the thought and glanced up at JC to see his reaction. He too braved a smile. Clare could tell that they were all thinking the same thing—the next time they heard Libby saying something, anything—would be a pretty emotional moment.

~~~~~*~~~~~