The first two weeks of being back in Orlando were hard. Kevin wasn't used to being in a wheelchair and Nick, having been given crutches three days after arriving home, was having a little trouble negotiating life having to lean on two modified sticks to walk. The two men sent Tim, Jerald, and Howie away as soon as Nick was given the go ahead of being able to get on his feet. Tim and Jerald stayed with Brian for two more days then went back to Lexington to their wives and children with promises to come at a drop of a hat if they needed anything. The two brothers made Brian, AJ, and Howie promise to call if Nick and Kevin needed anything if they themselves didn't call.

Howie was a little easier to deal with. He understood that both Nick and Kevin needed their space so he would drop by in the morning before the boy's morning physical therapy session and get a list of anything they might need. Then while he was doing his own thing during the day, he'd make sure he would pick up whatever was on the list. AJ and Brian mostly hung out in the afternoon, helping the two men with their afternoon PT session that was usually in the pool. Additionally, they were usually the ones who were dealing with the press. AJ even went as far as to fly up to NYC and do TRL live, bringing with him a video of Nick and Kevin thanking everyone for keeping them in their prayers.

Kevin started going to grief counseling as soon as he was well enough to be up an around for that long. In addition, he and Nick saw a therapist together so that they could work out what went wrong the last time so it wouldn't happen again. Things were going extremely well for the group nearly two months after their entire world nearly came falling down on top of them.

"We got an invitation to the Grammy's," Brian said, walking into Kevin and Nick's kitchen where they were all meeting for lunch one afternoon in late January.

"Well, I hope we did. We're nominated in 3 categories," AJ said dryly.

"Thank you, captain obvious cause when I was there for the announcements, I wasn't to sure," Howie replied.

"What I meant by the statement of that is that Jack wants to know if we're going," Brian said cutting into the two friends banter back and forth.

"Why wouldn't we? Dude, we actually have like an awesome shot of winning this year," AJ said, getting excited again. Their album, Escape, which had been released the previous was nominated as well as Nick being nominated in the songwriters' category for the song he wrote, “High Flying Angel.”

"Yeah, let's go it will be fun. Nick and I should be walking with little or no trouble by then," Kevin said. "Let's make like a week out of it. Go out to LA, do some promo, go to the Grammy's. It would be fun," Kevin said, wheeling himself over to the table with the salad resting in his lap.

"Maybe we could even give a show? Something like Night Out with Backstreet? We always said we wanted to do something like that again. It might be fun. Besides we had to cancel the rest of the tour. To do three or four shows would be nice," Nick said, not really thinking anyone would take to it.

"That's an awesome idea, Nicky!" Howie said. All of a sudden all five of them were talking at once, shooting out ideas about what they could do. The rest of the afternoon was spent planning what they wanted to do for the shows. They even played around with some arrangements for certain songs including an a cappella version of “High Flying Angel.”

 

"I swear to God Nick when I find you're a dead man!" AJ yelled as he ran through Kevin and Nick's house looking for the 25-year-old. He arrived in the gym to find Kevin busily lifting weights, minding his own business. Ever since he'd gotten the okay to ditch the wheel chair a week previously, he'd spent most of his time in the gym. "Where is he, Kev? You know it's really not a good idea to help him. You'll only get yourself in trouble too," AJ said seriously as he came to stand by Kevin, who was sitting on a bench, having just finished a set of flies.

"I have no idea what you're talking about, J" Kevin said with a straight face. In all reality, Kevin knew exactly where Nick was. He had come running in here, grinning and laughing evilly, kissed his head, and then proceeded to fling himself into the closet at the other end of the room where he was now hiding. "What did he do?" Kevin asked as innocently as possible.

"He dyed JD green," AJ said, holding up his little Jack Russell terrier, which was now a disgusting color green. Kevin tried to not laugh, really he did, but it didn't quite happen and he burst out in laughter at the sight of poor JD, who was looking quite pathetic.

"It's not funny! How would you like it if someone died Quincy green?" AJ asked, referring to Kevin's black cat that wandered about the house as if it were she owned the place.

"She's black Jay. You couldn't dye her even if you wanted to," Kevin said, going back to doing his weight lifting.

"Well, Mikey isn't. You tell that boy of yours he messed with the wrong dog!" AJ said. Mikey was Nick's little pug, who if given the opportunity would sleep all day. Just then Nick burst out of the closet, forgetting he was supposed to be hiding from AJ.

"Don't you even dare!" he said before realizing the mistake he made of making his whereabouts known. Before AJ could go after him, Nick took off running and Kevin grabbed AJ's shirt.

"Kevin, let go of me!" AJ said, trying to go off after Nick.

"No, don't run after him. He's not supposed to be running around like that anyway. With you after him, he's liable to look back at you, trip over something, and hurt himself again. I'm all for you getting him back. He deserves it. Just don't run after him please," Kevin said.

"So if I dye his hair green in the middle of the night, you won't care," AJ asked.

“Just as long as you don't get it on me, we don't have a photo shoot the next day, and you don't walk in on us, do whatever you want to him.  But I wouldn't do green if I were you. It's his favorite color. He's liable to think it looks cool," Kevin said. In response to AJ’s look of utter amusement, Kevin claimed immunity. "Hey, I never said he wasn't weird! I just said I loved him. There's a difference," Kevin said, holding his hands up in defense.

As it was, three days later Nick woke and discovered his beautiful blond hair had been dyed a hideous magenta color. "Kevin!" Nick yelled from their bathroom.

Walking into the bathroom slowly, rubbing the sleep in his eyes away, Kevin tried to keep a straight face. "What Nick?"

"Look what he did!" Nick said, turning to face Kevin.

It didn't work. Kevin burst into laughter the minute he saw Nick. "Oh, God! He actually did it," Kevin said laughing, quite impressed with the fact AJ managed to dye Nick's hair without waking either of them. Of course both him and Nick were known for sleeping like the dead.

"You knew about this?" Nick asked incredulous.

"I told him not to run after you when you attacked JD. I didn't want you to fall and hurt yourself again. Then I said, jokingly mind you, that he could dye your hair green while you slept if he wanted. I didn't think he'd actually do it," Kevin said, coming to sink and pulling out his razor and shaving cream.

“Kevin, my hair is pink!" Nick said, whining slightly and resting his head on Kevin's shoulder while they looked at each other in the mirror.

Laughing, Kevin reached up and ran his hand through Nick's head. "That will teach not to dye AJ's dog green, honey. Come on. Let’s see if it will come out in the shower, otherwise I'll call Leighanne and see who colors her hair and we'll call and get it fixed." Kevin said, abandoning his razor and pulling Nick towards the shower.

Most of the hair dye did come out in the shower, although he and Nick did make a trip to Leighanne's hairdresser later that afternoon after Nick called AJ and apologized for attacking JD and establishing a truce.