James had just settled into bed when he heard his phone go off. Rubbing his eyes, he looked over and saw that it was not on its uusual resting place, which was the desk right by his bed. "Cooper! Go find my phone!"

"Connor! Go find Daddy's phone!" Cooper immediately yelled.

James rolled his eyes. There was absolutely no reason why Cooper couldn't get the phone all by himself. The only excuse his oldest son had was that he was completely and totally lazy. "Just somebody answer the mother fucking phone!" he yelled in annoyance. "It might be Mark!"

There was a couple minutes of silence and then Connor came running into James's room at full speed. "It's Glenn!" he announced as he handed James the phone. "He wants to talk to you."

James sighed. He didn't really want to talk to Glenn. He had wanted to talk to Mark because he wanted some phone sex before going to sleep. "Crispy Critter, this better be important," he said as he took the phone from Connor.

"On the scale of one to a hundred, how homicidal do you feel at the moment?" Glenn asked, completely ignoring the fact that he had been called Crispy Critter, which was a nickname he absolutely hated.

James shrugged. "I don't know. I'm kind of sleepy so I'm only at a twenty at the moment. Why do you care?"

"Well um....there was a...fuck there was an accident."

"What kind of accident?" James asked. He didn't like the tone in Glenn's voice.

"Um...Mark he um....fuck, I do not want to be the one who has to tell you this."

James sat straight up. All he could picture was Mark breaking his neck during a match. "What happened?" he asked. "God damn it Glenn, just tell me!"

"Mark got hit by a car," Glenn said quickly, obviously worried that James was going to kill the messenger. "We're at the hospital now and we don't know how he is. The doctors haven't come out and told us anything yet."

"Which hospital?" James asked. He wasn't even going to begin yelling at Glenn yet. No, he would do that when he was face to face with his the Big Red Machine. The only reason he was waiting was because he wanted to hit people while he did that yelling.

"Mercy Hospital up here in Sacramento. James I--"

James just hung up on Glenn. He didn't want to hear anymore. "Put your shoes on," he told Connor. "We're going to Sacramento."

"Okey dokey Smokey," Connor said happily. He ran out of the room and nearly collided with Cooper, who was coming to see what was going on. "Get your shoes on Coop Coop! We're going to Sacramento!"

"First of all, don't call me that," Cooper said. He hated that nickname and Connor knew that. But everyone knew that Connor did not actually care that Cooper hated that nickname with a passion. "Second of all, why are we going to Sacramento?"

"Mark got hit by a car," James said, slipping his combat boots on and grabbing his leather jacket. He still had on his ancient AC/DC shirt and pajama bottoms, but he wasn't going to change into anything else. That would just waste more time.

Cooper let out a snort.

James glared at his oldest son. "Excuse me? What was that?"

"Nothing," Cooper said. "I didn't do anything."

James continued glaring until Cooper sighed and went to go put his shoes on. "Damn kids," James muttered under his breath. "They're always doing something to annoy the fuck out of me." He put his cell phone into his coat pocket and then headed downstairs to the kitchen. "Keys keys keys--oh there they are." He grabbed them off microwave. "Cooper get the keys to your bike!"

"Can't we take my truck instead?" Cooper yelled back.

"No! The bikes are faster!"

"Well then Connor is riding with you! He pinches my nipples every time he rides with me."

James stopped in his tracks and moved his mouth for a few seconds, trying to find the words to respond to that but not being able to. "He does what?" he finally managed to get out.

Connor skipped into the kitchen and giggled. "Purple nurples are cool."

James sighed. "Fine!" he yelled at Cooper. "He'll ride with me." He glared at Connor. "You keepy our hands to yourself. If I get a purple nurple, you're not living to see your next birthday."

Connor giggled again. "Okay Daddy. Whatever you say."

Ironically, it's the crazy son who listens better. Oh well, I'll think about that shit later. Right now, Marky needs me. James made sure he grabbed a knife before going anywhere else. Whoever had hit Mark was not going to live very long once he found out their idenity. He was going to make damn sure of that.

XXXXXXXXXXX

Jeff squirmed around in his chair impatiently. It had been a couple of hours since Mark had been rushed to the hospital and the doctors were still working on him. "Why can't the doctors hurry?" he asked Matt. "I need to know how Mark is right now."

Matt squeezed his hand tightly. "Jeff if the doctors hurry, then they might make a mistake. And a mistake could really cost Mark. You don't want that, do you?"

Jeff shook his head. That was the last thing he wanted. He already felt bad enough as it was. It was his fault Mark had gotten hit. If he hadn't run out into the street like an idiot and distracted Mark with that kiss, this wouldn't have happened.

Chris frowned. "Jeff are you blaming yourself?"

Jeff just looked down at his feet.

Matt sighed. "Jeff it's not your fault. That driver was even more drunk than you were. He had no business getting behind the wheel of a car."

Jeff wasn't convinced. He began chewing on one of the strands of his hair, thinking about how long he had been trying to work up the courage to kiss Mark. He had pictured it going a thousand different ways, but never in his wildest dreams had he ever thought that Mark would get hit by a car. That had not been a part of the plan at all.

"Dude, why do you keep looking at the door like a monster is going to be coming through it?" Cody asked Glenn.

Glenn shook his head. "You'll find out soon enough," was all he said.

Jeff rested his head against Matt's shoulder. Normally he would be asking Glenn what he meant by that, but at the moment, he couldn't bring himself to give a shit.

Matt took Jeff's hair out of his mouth and put it on his shoulder. "You're too old to be chewing on your hair like that Jeffro," he said quietly.

Jeff responded to that by starting to chew on his fingernails instead.

Matt just sighed and stopped fighting with Jeff. The next couple of hours felt like years. Jeff was sure God was just mocking him by making it take this long. Finally, just as he felt like he was truly going to go insane, a doctor came out to talk to him. "Family of Mark Callaway?"

"That's us," Glenn said. "How is he?"

The doctor sighed. "Well his right arm and three ribs are broken, but those are the least of his injuries. There was a bit of internal bleeding that looked to be pretty serious, but we were able to stop that. Unfortunately, he did suffer massive head trauma and that is our main concern at the moment. We have him in recovery right now and we're hoping he wakes up soon, but the longer he doesn't, the chances of him actually doing that will lower."

Jeff bit his lower lip. That was not the news he had wanted to hear. He had been hoping to hear that Mark was just fine and already awake and everything. Was that realistic? Well yeah, but Jeff didn't want to be realistic at the moment. He wanted to be optimistic.

"Can we see him?" Randy asked.

The doctor nodded. "Right this way."

Jeff grabbed on to Matt for support as they followed the doctor to Mark's room. When they got there, he felt like his legs would give out from under him. Mark looked so broken laying there in his hospital bed. His face was bruised and swollen, his forehead was all bandaged up and his right arm was in a cast. Underneath the blanket and the paper thin robes were probably even more bruises that Jeff didn't want to see.

"Damn," Ted said under his breath. "He looks terrible."

Jeff began taking a step into the room but stopped when he heard lots of yelling in the waiting room. Something about it just kind of stopped him in his tracks, even though he had no reason to believe it concerned him at all.

Until Glenn sighed and shook his head that is. "Oh boy, here comes the Psycho Parade. This is going to get ugly in a hurry."