Sean quietly made his way to Taylor’s side as the rest of the family watched Zac. “Call me later, or tomorrow morning, and we’ll try to figure something out. I’m so sorry about all of this Taylor.” He handed Taylor a card with his cell phone number on it. He knew he wasn’t going to be going back to his apartment tonight. “Is Zac okay?” Sean asked anyone who was listening.

“Uh,” Walked stood up. “Yes, he’ll be fine. I don’t really know why it hit him so bad.” He crossed over to Sean and shook his hand. “Thank you for bringing him back. Under the circumstances, I’m afraid I really can’t go into details.”

Sean nodded. “I understand. I should be going anyway.” Sean said, and quietly slipped out the door.

Both Sean and Taylor spent the rest of the night getting answers about Zac’s condition.

“We haven’t been entirely honest with you boys.” Diana said as Taylor and Isaac sat down next to her. “You know Zac has been having problems the past year, and you know we took him for tests, but we didn’t tell you what the tests showed. That was Zac’s idea. He didn’t want you guys to know until he was ready to tell you himself, and in a lot of ways, I guess he had to get used to it on his own first. You father and I decided we’d respect his choice, but if it’s gotten this bad, I guess we have to tell you the whole story.”

“You mean you guys knew what’s wrong with Zac all this time and didn’t tell us?!” Taylor felt betrayed. His trust in his family had always been absolute.

“Honey, Zac asked us not to tell you, and it is him that has to deal with this.” Diana answered. “Just hear me out, and I’ll tell you everything.”

Taylor nodded, and Diana continued. “Your brother has a very rare neural degenerative disease. Essentially, his nerve cells are dying off one by one.”

“Oh God.” Taylor moaned. Isaac stayed silent, though he turned visibly pale.

“It seems it’s genetic. As soon as we learned about it, we had the rest of you tested, but you all came up negative. Only Zac has it.”

“So what’s going to happen to him?” Isaac asked slowly.

“Well, the first symptoms are loss of short term memory, and attention span, and occasional loss of motor control. Those are the symptoms he had when we first started taking him for tests.”

Both boys nodded. Those symptoms where the reason they had worried something was wrong with their brother in the first place.

“He’s been on medication that’s supposed to slow it down, plus pills to help with the muscle control, and the memory loss. Things were going better for him, but the doctors say they can only try to slow down the progression. Stress and fatigue makes it worse. After that stage, the symptoms get worse. Blackouts, shaking, disorientation&ldots;”

“Like tonight.” Taylor breathed.

Diana just nodded. “That’s called the mid-stage.”

Diana’s eyes began waver as they brimmed with tears. “After that is end-stage. The symptoms keep getting worse. It’ll be harder for him to control his body. He’ll start forgetting who he is, and who we are. Eventually, the nerves that control his breathing will begin to go&ldots;. After that&ldots;”

Diana couldn’t finish. She began crying at the thought of one of her children slowly suffocating, trapped in a body that was condemned at birth.

Isaac and Taylor held their mother, both in shock at the news they were hearing. After a few minutes, Diana regained her composure. “I’m sorry we couldn’t tell you two. I know you love him, and you deserved to know. But he made us promise not to, and we just couldn’t bring ourselves to say no.”

“We understand, Mom.” Taylor said softly as he hugged his mother tight.

“Can they do anything?” Isaac asked after a few moments had passed.

Diana shook her head. “They really don’t know why it happens, and there’s no way to reverse the damage done. I should go make sure he’s okay.” Diana said and went quietly into the bedroom where Zac lay.

At some point, Walker had come into the room where they were talking, and was now standing by the doorway, silent. Taylor looked over at his father for a few minutes, his mind whirling with everything that had happened in just a few hours. How could everything change so quickly? And out of all the jumbled thoughts and feelings, a single question emerged.

“How long?” He asked his father, his voice cracking with emotion.

Walker looked at Taylor for a few moments, his face hard to read. “Two years, maybe less.” He answered simply, then turned around and left the room. Taylor knew his father must really be hurting to be acting that way. For his own part, Taylor went into his bedroom and shut the door. As he sat on the bed, he tried to make sense of everything that had happened.

Suddenly, angry and terrified, he grabbed the phone and dialed the number Sean gave him.

“You son of a bitch!” Taylor worked himself into a fury as Sean answered. “This is all your fault! If you hadn’t done this, he’d be okay.” Taylor suddenly began crying.” If we didn’t go to that restaurant, he never would have freaked out, and he wouldn’t have had that seizure! God damn you! Why did you have to do this?”

Sean stayed quiet on the other end of the line. Kaera had told Sean all about what Zac had, and could only imagine what Taylor was going through.

Finally, Taylor said, “Look, I don’t think it’s a good idea for us to meet. I don’t know what the hell happened down in that restaurant today, but I really don’t care. Just stay away from us from now on. We’re not going to tell anyone what happened.”

Sean had pretty much expected that response. It had been the commotion downtown, after all, that had caused Zac’s attack. He had counted on that reaction, actually, when he was been trying to convince Kaera’s mother to let him help them. There was something about this extraordinary family, and especially about Taylor, that made Sean want to fight for them. Too often secrecy got in the way when he wanted to try to make a difference in someone’s life, but in this case, the secret was already fragile at best. That made it easy for Sean to persuade Kaera’s mother to agree to his plan. She wasn’t interested in the needs of a single, unknown family. She had greater troubles to deal with. She was, however, interested in making sure the boys had no reason to mention what had happened in the coffee shop to anyone. Sean played on that, and explained that if he helped Zac, the Hanson family would feel indebted to him. Better to have them owe him a favor than blame him for Zac’s condition getting worse. His reasoning had won her over, and Sean waited patiently for Taylor to wind down before delivering his news.

“We can help him, Taylor.” Sean said quietly before Taylor could hang up.

“What are you talking about?” Taylor was still upset. “No one can help him. He’s going to die no matter what. He’s going to stop breathing, and he’s going to die.” Taylor spat the words out at Sean, trying to make him feel as terrible as he did. Sean’s heart broke at the sound of Taylor’s hopeless voice, hurting for every moment the young singer had to deal with his newfound pain.

“That’s not true, Taylor.” Sean continued, still speaking softly, calmly. “We can help him. Kaera can do things no doctor can ever hope to do. No one can step through a wall in a coffee shop in SoHo and into an elevator in the Plaza, but we did that today.” Taylor was silent; he didn’t know what to think anymore. “Please Taylor, let me help you. Let me bring Kaera there, so she can help Zac. We’ll come right now if you’ll let us, but if you still want me to leave you alone, I will. I know I’ve been saying this a lot to you, but please, just trust me once more. What do you have to lose?” That question snapped Taylor back into reality. He had his brother to lose, but he was going to lose him anyway. If Sean came and couldn’t help, Zac would die just as surely as he would if he told Sean to stay away.

“Okay, you can come, but I don’t want anyone else knowing you’re here. No one else will understand. I don’t even understand.” Taylor finally answered.

“Is anyone in his room with him?” Sean asked. “If not, I’ll open a gate like the one we got into the elevator through.”

Taylor peeked into Zac’s room, where his brother was quietly sleeping. He could hear voices in his parent’s room, where they and Isaac were apparently still talking. “He’s alone.” Taylor said quietly.

“Okay, we’ll be right there.”

Before Taylor could hang up the phone, the air between him and his brother rippled, and Sean and Kaera stepped into the room, seemingly from nowhere. Taylor set the phone down and sat down next to the bed his brother lay on. This was all too much for him to handle. He knew if thought too much about what was going on, he was going to snap, so instead, he chose not to think about anything at all.