Zac jogged up the three steps to the front door and flung it open, kicked off his shoes, and threw his coat on a hook.

"HEL-LO!" he yelled. he heard laughter coming from the back of the house and followed it to the den, poking his head in.

Isaac was in one spinning desk chair, Avery in the second, and Mackie in a third. They were playing a makeshift game of wheel chair basketball.

Taylor was sitting on a desk in the corner, holding the garbage can. The three players were trying to knock each other off course and land sponges in the garbage can at the same time. They were all screaming in laughter.

"Zac!" Taylor greeted, grabbing a sponge out of the can and throwing it at him. "Grab a chair, take a shot!"

Zac threw the sponge back, sinking it in the trash can.

"How's your friend?" asked Avery, as Isaac pulled her and her chair backwards, causing her to miss the trash can.

'She's alright. They said it would only be a few more days."

"Aw.." Avery teased, "Zac, are you in love?"

"What?" he asked, laughing as if this were a completely out of the blue question. "No that's silly."

"Why?"

Everyone in the room looked at him. He shrugged after a minute.

"Should I be?"

Isaac and Taylor looked at each other.

"Methinks you already are." said Isaac.

"Methinks!?" Taylor mocked, incredulously.

"Well, I think you should invite her for Christmas." put in Avery.

"Well, she's got a family, Ave." reasoned Taylor.

"Heh. Sure she does." muttered Zac, bitterly.

~~~~

Vienna lay in her hospital bed, feeling more and more restless with every passing second. She heard a light knocking and looked up to see Zac, tapping on the frame of her open door.

She grinned in vast relief.

"Wow, I'm glad to see you." Vienna said, happily.

He walked in the room.

"You are? Is that because I brought you candy?" he asked, coming to her bedside.

She giggled.

"Well, that's deffinately a bonus." he sat down in the chair at her side, dropped the box of chocolate into her lap, and rested his elbows on the bed.

"Here you go."

"Thank you." she smiled, moving it to the bedside table.

"How are you feeling?" he asked.

She sighed, the happiness melting from her face.

"I'm so bored. I'm thinking of breaking out." she joked.

"Uh huh." he laughed, "Go for it, they're not gonna notice you dragging yourself on the floor, all throughout the hospital."

She laughed with him.

"Come on, Zac." she pleaded, "Would you break me out of here if I begged you?"

He grinned at her.

"In a heartbeat, baby."

Vienna smiled, getting serious. She shook her head, the beginnings of tears forming in her eyes.

"God, I want to get out of here." she whispered

"Hey." Zac reasoned, "Come on now, I'll bet you'll be checking out by this time tomorrow."

She shook her head.

"I don't mean out of the hospital, Zac." tears escaping, "I mean life...I'm so alone." she said, almost to herself. "I have no one..my family is gone and the one person I have left dosen't love me. There's nothing here for me."

Zac sighed and reached up to cup the side of face, wiping a tear away with his thumb.

"I love you."he whispered. "You can't give up..don't give up on me, Vienna."

She closed her eyes.

Zac hugged her, holding her tightly to him. She wrapped her arms around his neck, returning his embrace.

"I love you too." she whispered.

They held each other for a long time, before Zac pulled away slightly so he could see her face.

Vienna lifted her head, thoughtfully, from his shoulder, meeting his gaze.

For a moment, they just stared into each other's eyes, wondering what came next, then Zac bent his head down and kissed her.

Vienna accepted this immediately, kissing him back.

Zac felt like he was soaring through the air. he got lost in the kiss and the only thought he could grasp was that he wanted to stay like this forever, he never wanted to let go of her.

Vienna broke off the kiss and pulled away slowly, looking up at him. It was a few minutes before either of them spoke.

"Woah.." said Zac, "That was random." he smiled, "That's a lie, I've been wanting to do that for a long time."

Vienna smiled back.

"I've been wanting you to do that for a long time." she agreed.

He laughed.

"Well, if I had known that, we could have saved a lot of time."

They both chuckled a little, almost nervously.

Zac wound his arms around her waist and she dropped her head back onto his shoulder, all anxiety gone between them.

"What am I gonna do?" she whispered.

"I don't know." he said, after a minute. "But I promise you.." he tightened his hold on her, "You won't have to do it alone."

~~~~~

A few hours later, Zac was sitting in the hospital waiting room, deep in thought. He was torn. He loved Vienna and didn't want to betray her trust but, because he loved her, he didn't want to leave her in a situation where she could get hurt again.

Lost in these thoughts, he didn't notice his father come into the room.

"Zac," he heard, bringing him back to reality. He looked up at Walker, "Zac, I've been talking to vienna's uncle." he said. Zac started a little, nervously.

"You have? What about? Is he in there with her now?" he asked, hurriedly.

"Zac, are you okay?" Walker laughed, "I think you need to get some sleep."

Zac nodded, urging him onward.

"Yeah, he's with her now."

This made Zac's heart pound nervously, though he wasn't sure why, she was safe here.

"We've been talking," Walker continued. "You know, he's at work from nine to six. Vienna's going home this afternoon, she'll be alone all day.''

Zac nodded. "Yeah, she's home alone all the time."

"Yes." Walker said, "Vienna's going to be really weak for a while and she can barely move at all. I don't think she should be alone."

Zac nodded, in agreement.

"No, she deffinately shouldn't. He's not going to take off work?"

Walker shook his head.

''He can't. So I told him I wanted Vienna to stay with us until she can take care of herself again. He agreed to let her, so I need you to go with him to get together some of her stuff and put it in the guest room. I'm checking Vienna out and then we'll meet you back home in a feew hours. Okay?"

"Alright." said Zac, jumping up. The two of them left the room together then Zac went to find Vienna's uncle and Walker went off to talk to a nurse.

~~~~~

"Well, here we are." said Walker, as his car pulled into the driveway. He looked at Vienna, who smiled nervously.

"You really don't have to do this, Mr. Hanson." she said, sincerely, "I'll be fine at home."

He brushed the comment off, hopping out of the car. Vienna opened her door as he came around to help her.

"Alright," he said, hooking his arm behind her back, "Do you think you can walk?"

"Oh yeah." she breathed, as he helped her out of the car. They made it slowly to the front door and Walker opened it.

"We're here!" he called, needlessly, as Zac was already half way across the living room.

"Vienna!" he greeted, taking her hand and replacing his father's bracing arm with his own.

Walker closed the door behind him and flung his coat onto a hook.

"Zac, why don't you show Vienna the guest room, I'm sure she's tired." he said, leaving the room.

She did look extremely worn out, Zac noticed.

"Are you alright?" he asked her.

"Yeah," she smiled, wearliy, "It's just the trip over.." she trailed off, looking down in embarassment.

"Took a lot out of you." he finished for her, "Don't worry, you'll be back to normal soon." he lifted her chin, "I'm really glad you're staying here." he whispered. She smiled, politley.

"I don't feel right about it.."

"I don't care." he laughed. She opened her mouth to respond but was cut off by his. She let him kiss her for a minute, then pulled away. He immediately realized why, as her knees began to buckle under the exhaustion and pain of the exersion.

He grabbed her fast, scooping her up into his arms.

She sucked in a breath.

"Alright," he said, reassuringly, "The guest room is upstairs anyway."

He brought her up the stairs and into the room

"Here we go!" Zac said. He grinned at her. "Alright?"

She nodded.

"Thank you."

He put her down on the bed, amoungst the pillows, and looked down at her. He couldn't help but to smile at the sight of her.

Vienna's shinning golden hair fell in ripples across the surface of the pillows. Her eyes were fixed softly on him and there was a slight smile playing around her mouth.

"What?" she questioned his gaze.

Zac smiled.

"I love you?"

She smiled back. No you don't.

~~~~~~~~

Taylor was sitting in the living room, watching MTV, when Isaac walked in the front door with a brown grocery bag in his hand.

"Hey." Ike greeted, taking in his brother's spaced out gaze on the tv screen, "Snap out of it." he threw his coat on the hook.

"What did you buy?" Taylor asked, coming back to life and spotting the grocery bag.

"Oreos and Dr. Pepper."

"How predictable." Taylor commented. Isaac brushed it off and headed for the kitchen.

"Where is everyone?" he asked, as he passed Taylor.

"Dad to Jess, Ave, Zoe, and Mackie out Christmas shopping and Zac is upstairs with Vienna." Taylor called to his retreating brother.

Isaac came back into the room, biting into an oreo.

"Damn." he said, "He's really hung up on her. Come on, lets go make fun of them."

Taylor shrugged in agreement and hopped over the back of the couch. The two trotted up the stairs then burst through the guest room door.

Zac and Vienna were laying on the made bed. Zac was resting on his side, next to Vienna, his arm underneath her back. His other hand was resting, lightly, on the wounded abdomen of the sleeping girl.

"Shh!" Zac hushed his brothers, whispering, "She's asleep."

Isaac and Taylor looked at each other.

"Awwww!" they exclaimed in unison.

"Shut up!" Zac said in a harsh whisper, as his brothers came over and sat on the foot of the bed.

"Why are you in here, if she's sleeping?" Taylor asked.

"Because I don't want to disturb her by moving my arm." Zac answered, quietly.

"Which brings me to my next question." Taylor said, "How, exactly, did you come to be in that position?"

Isaac play-punched him in the arm.

"Now, that's none of our business."

"You're right." agreed Taylor, in a mock-resigned voice.

The two of them looked at their younger brother.

"So, how did you come to be in that position?" asked Isaac.

Zac smiled, dispite himself.

"I don't remember exactly." he answered, "I put him down and I guess it was just too much trouble to try and take my arm away without hurting her, since I was gonna stay and talk with her anyway."

"Oh." said Taylor.

"Or.." Isaac told him, "This is just the honeymoon."

"Oh." said Taylor, again.

"You are so lucky I can't get up." Zac remarked.

Ike grinned at him.

"Wouldn'ta said it otherwise."

Taylor was staring, with concern, at Vienna.

"Is she gonna be okay?" he asked. Zac looked at her too.

"I don't know." he said, after a minute, "She's just so exhausted...with the bleeding...I guess that's to be expected." he rubbed his hand, gently across her stomach.

"Does it look really bad..on the outside?" Isaac questioned.

Zac hesitated a second before pulling her sweater up, revealing her midriff.

His brother's flinched, breathing in as if it hurt.

The ivory skin of the girl's stomach was streaked across with purple and blue bruises, beginning to turn yellow in some places.

"How the hell does that happen to a person?" Taylor asked, shaking his head.

Zac didn't answer, he just stared down on Vienna's face, ungarded as she slept. She looked so young and innocent in her sleep that he couldn't imagine how anyone could ever hurt her.

Isaac and Taylor exchanged knowing glances.

"Zac?" Isaac questioned, carefully, "Are you going to be okay?"

Zac didn't take his eyes off her.

"God, she's so beautiful." he whispered.

After a few long moments of wondering if they should answer, Taylor spoke.

"She's a special one, I think."

"You do?" asked Zac, slightly embarrassed, as he came out of his trance-like fixation on her.

"Oh yeah, she's cool." said Isaac.

"She's hot." said Taylor. Isaac hit him in the arm again. "I'm just messing around!" Tay laughed.

"Shhh!" Zac hissed at them, "We're getting too loud."

"Woah, Zac." said Taylor, "You? Monitoring...loudliness?"

"Is 'loudliness' a word?" asked Isaac.

"I guess it is now." joked Zac, "They'll put it in the Taylor Hanson dictionary."

Isaac put on his screaming-fan-girl voice.

"Oh Taylor said, Taylor said it! I'm changing my name to LOUDLINESS!"

Taylor couldn't help but laugh at the sight of his older brother flailing his arms about in such a manner and screaming like an idiot.

"They'll be making t-shirts with a picture of Taylor on them that just say 'Loudliness'."

"Shh!" Taylor mocked at Zac, through his laughter, "We're being too loudly!"

Zac grabbed a spare pillow and flung it at his brother.

Tay tried to catch it and fell backwards off the bed, followed up by a thud-like sound of him hitting the floor. Ike and Zac looked at each other and laughed.

Vienna opened her eyes when she heard them. She looked up at Zac then over at Taylor, who was climbing up off the floor, beside a hysterical Isaac. Taylor was the first to notice she was awake.

"Hey," he laughed, "How's it going?"

Zac looked down at her as well.

"Oh great, we woke her up." he accussed his brothers.

"It's Tay's fault." said Isaac, "It was all his loudliness."

The three boys laughed again. Vienna glanced around at them in bewilderment.

"Are you alright?" Isaac asked, laughing at her expression.

"Yeah.." she said, slowly, "This is just weird to wake up to." she looked at Zac, "What's going on?"

"Oh." he started, "You fell alseep and I didn't know how to move my arm without waking you. Then Ike and Tay showed up and, I don't know, made a lot of noise."

She jumped.

"Zac, your arm! Oh my God!"

He grabbed her wrist.

"Stop trying to move!"

"But your arm.." she breathed.

He waved the said arm in front of her.

"It's fine, see?"

"Good.." she breathed, "Good..but your other arm...is really hurting me.."

He looked down at his hand, tightly wrapped around the thin, ivory wrist, where he had grabbed her. He let go really quickly, as if he had been shocked, causing her to fall backwards off the bed.

"Ohh..Oh man." moaned Taylor, "Nice work, Zac."

Vienna was laying on the gray carpet, shaking in laughter, he hands over her eyes.

Zac threw his head, face down, into the bed.

"Gahh!" he exclaimed.

Ike came around the side of the bed, chuckling.

"Are you okay?" he asked, "Here, let me help you.."

"No, no, no." she moaned, "Just leave me..just leave me here."

"We can't just leave you there." Taylor reasoned, recovering from his laughter.

"It's gonna hurt too much to stand." she muttered, "I'll just stay here until I'm okay again."

"Right." said Taylor, "We'll be back in the spring, then."

Zac made to climb down next to her.

"If you come anywhere near me," Vienna threatened in a flat voice, "I will maim you beyond belief."

He laughed, reaching down towards her. She grabbed his hand.

"I mean it. Your next photo shoot will feature a brown paper bag over your head."

Zac took his hand back.

"Okay." he said, stubbornly, "Then you can just stay there forever. And, when you finally wanna get up, I'm just gonna walk away."

"Aww, this is so cute." said Isaac in a girly voice, "Lover's quarell, lover's quarell!"

Taylor laughed while Zac lunged across the bed at his bed at his brother. The two of them tumbled to the floor.

"Yes!" said Taylor, jumping up victoriously, "Last man standing!"

He raised his arms above his head.

Ike and Zac both jumped at Taylor's feet, knocking him off the bed as well.

Vienna, who was still laying on the other side, shook her head, looking up at the ceiling.

"I don't think I wanna know what's going on over there?"

Out of nowhere, Isaac showed up next to her.

"Hi." he greeted, cheerfully, as he crawled out from under the bed. He layed down on his back, next to her, looking up at the ceiling. "Well, I can deffinately see why you wanna stay here." he said, "Yeah, this is a lot of fun."

"Eh.." she...said? Well, she made that noise.

Ike turned his head to look at her.

"Alright." he sighed, getting up. He grabbed her by the upper arms and raised off the floor. She groaned.

"Yeah, yeah, yeah.." he muttered, putting her down on the bed.

"Hey." said Zac, crawling up from the other side. "How come Ike doesn't get maimed beyond belief?"

She shifted her glare from Isaac to Zac.

"Well, fine!" said Zac, in response. "Where's Taylor?" he disappeared behind the bed, "Taylor?"

"I'm down here." came Taylor's flat voice. Zac lifted up the blanket so he could see underneath the bed.

"Taylor!" he said.

"Hi." Taylor said, in the same monotone. Zac came back up to sit on the bed, his legs under him.

"Well, I think we've alienated her enough." he said. He looked at Vienna and spread his arms wide. "Welcome to the Hanson home!"

Vienna looked at him, completely unamused, then shut her eyes.

"And when I open my eyes again," she said, "I will be very far away from here."

"Take me with you." came Taylor's voice from under the bed, again.

"What are you doing down there?" asked Isaac.

"Finding myself."

The room was silent for a minute.

"Let's hope he meant spiritually." Isaac said, throughing himself and Zac into a fit of laughter.

Vienna looked around at them.

"Oh God.." she muttered, "I'm outnumbered." she rubbed at her eyes, "Ohhh, I miss my sisters."

The boys stifled their laughter, looking sympathetically at her. She took her hands away, slowly, noticing their sudden silence.

"Oh shit.." she groaned, then pitched herself sideways off the bed. "I'm such an idiot." she moaned, from the floor.

"Well," said Taylor, emerging beside her, "For throwing yourself off a bed, yes, you're a bit of an idiot." he sighed, "So, you had sisters. I didn't know that. You were close with them?"

"Nooo.." she groaned, face hidden by her hands, "I don't have sisters." she slammed her fist into the floor, "That was a long time ago." she removed her hands, mask of stability reintact.

"Okay." said Zac, "Enough of this." he sprang to his feet, jumped on the bed a few times, before hopping to the floor. He landed at Vienna's feet and held out his hands to her. She reached up and took them.

"Wooo!" he sounded, as he yanked her to her feet. "We should get you a wheel chair." he said, once she was standing, "Then you could leave the room and stuff and not just lay in this bed all day." she ambled back onto the bed.

"You act like she'll never walk again." said Isaac, "She'll be up soon."

"Okay, then we should get a wheel chair just cause..well, that would be really fun."

Ike shook his head at his brother, heading for the door, Taylor behind him. They stopped just before leaving.

"Vienna, do you wanna come downstairs or something?" he asked. She shook her head.

"I'm so tired, I'm just gonna go back to sleep."

He shrugged and they left.

"I guess I should go too then." said Zac, eyeing her with concern. She was silent for a minute, her eyes closed.

"Zac, I want to go home." she said, without opening her eyes. He gave her a sad, sympathetic smile that she didn't see.

"Do you mean you wanna go back over by your uncle?" he asked. She shook her head.

"No.." she whispered, "I want to go home." a tear escaped her closed eye and ran down her cheek. Zac watched her empty face for a moment, then sat down on the side of the bed.

"Vienna.." he started, softly. "I know it kills you. When Ike and Tay were in here, goofing off..I could see it in your eyes, no matter how hard you tried to hide it. It's because it reminded you of your sisters..but, Vienna...you're not going to escape it." he touched a strand of her hair, softly, tucking it behind her ear in hopes that she would look at him, but she kept her eyes shut. "You can't run from your pain, baby." he whispered, "You have to think of them and you have to remember...and then you'll be able to live again. Then it won't hurt so bad."

There were tears streaming down her face, but she still didn't open her eyes. Zac sighed.

"Vienna, nothing can replace them, nothing can fill those holes...but I love you. I can't take that place in your heart..but won't you make a new place for me?" he touched her hand, hesitantly, then wrapped his own around it.

"Vienna.." he pleaded. She opened her eyes, after a moment, and just looked at him. Then she moved her eyes to their entwined hands. She gently freed hers from his grasp and stared down, silent. After a moment, she raised her head.

Zac was taken aback by the amount of pain she allowed herself to show him. They looked at each other, in silence, then Vienna spread her arms to him and her immediately embraced her.

They clung to each other so tightly, their bodies melted together.

Zac noticed, after a minute, that they were rocking. He realised that the stretch was probably hurting her. He pulled her into his lap, straightening her abdomen.

After a few minutes, her breathing slowed down and he could feel the tension leaving her body.

She nuzzled his neck with her head, resting it there, on his shoulder.

For a long time, Zac couldn't form thoughts, as he held her there, pressed against him. He rubbed her back, moving his hands up and down.

"I love you too." she whispered.