"Where are they?" Ryan asked, for probably the tenth time in the last five minutes. He had spoken to Marissa almost two hours ago and he still hadn't heard from her. She should have been back by now. Unless she and Oliver had driven back to Orange County to see the movie. He picked up his cell phone and dialed her again, but her phone just rang several times without an answer.

Luke shrugged, and tried to surreptitiously glance at his watch. He knew Ryan was injured and wouldn't be skiing tomorrow, but he wanted to be able to hit the slopes in the morning, and he needed to get some sleep. It had been a long day and it was already past midnight. Still, he didn't want to abandon Ryan on the couch. He looked so forlorn, with his bad leg propped up on a pillow, and he had dark circles under his eyes. The guy, who Luke had once feared slightly- although he would never admit it out loud, right now just looked kind of pathetic.

Seth shuffled into the room though, as if he had gotten a silent signal that it was time for changing of the guards. "Hey Ryan," He flopped down on the couch. "Ooh, kung foo!" He said, pretending to be delighted by the movie playing on the TV, which had bad dubbing and worse action.

"Hey," Ryan gave him a slight nod of the head.

"How's your knee?" Seth dared to ask.

"Hurts," Was all Ryan said.

"Like, bad?"

"Yes." His clipped tone told Seth to drop the subject, but Seth ignored it.

"You really should call Mom,"

"I'd rather not."

"Why? Worried she'll be on the next plane here?" Seth joked, then realized that it was probably the truth. "Yeah, let her live in blissfull ignorance."

"Hey, I'm gonna head to bed." Luke tried to sound casual, and not like he had been waiting for an excuse to leave Ryan on the couch.

"Night," Ryan muttered, slightly jealous. He wanted to go to bed, but he wanted to see Marissa more, besides, the prospecting of moving seemed daunting. His knee hurt even when kept completely still, and even the smallest shifts of weight sent strong stabs of pain up and down his leg. He wanted an ice pack and a lot of pain killers, but he had already taken as much Aleve as he dared, especially considering the fact that he had been drinking earlier in the afternoon, and he was not going to bother trooping all the way to the kitchen just to get an ice pack.

After Luke left, Seth made a half- hearted attempt to talk about comic books, but gave up when Ryan did little more than grunt one word responses. When Ryan's phone rang, both of them jumped slightly, startled by the sudden burst of song. "Marissa?" Ryan grabbed it.

"Hey Ryan..." Her voice was soft.

"What's wrong?" Instantly he was on alert, he sat up and swung his legs around, ready to spring into action and fly to her rescue, as always.

"No... It was a deer..."

"A what?"

"A deer jumped in front of the car... The car's totalled... Oliver's kinda

banged up... We're at the hospital."

"So you're okay?" Ryan felt himself flood with relief. Oliver being hurt, well... That just seemed like karma.

"Yeah, I'm okay. Can you come get us?" Ryan was about to jump to his feet

and race to the car, but then he remembered his own injury.

"Uhh... Yeah, we'll be right there." Ryan said and hung up the phone. Seth was looking at him funny, "A deer hit their car..."

"Really?"

"Yeah, I need to go get them."

"Seriously?" Seth looked less than enthused about this mission. "If Anna wakes up and I'm not there... Can't you just go?" Ryan sighed, then got up and limped off to find Luke, not bothering with his crutches. "Oh Ryan, sorry, I forgot about your knee."

"It's fine," Ryan said, trying to pretend like every step wasn't making tears spring into his eyes. He pounded on Luke's door. "Luke? You awake?"

"Yeah?" A bleary eyed Luke appeared in the doorway. "What's wrong?"

"There's been an accident."

"What?" Luke stared at him in disbelief. Could anything else go wrong today? Well technically it was tomorrow...

"Marissa said the car hit a deer or something… They're at the hospital. She asked me to come get her."

"Tell them to take a taxi," Luke said irritably. "It's not like you can drive right now…"

"I know," Ryan said.

"Oh god dammit…" Luke muttered under his breath, yes, clearly Ryan could not drive and there for it was going to be up to him to pilot their mission. Now he knew why Ryan had so rudely jolted him awake with all the pounding at the door. The only question was why Seth wasn't driving, but whatever. He was up now. Mind as well go and rescue Marissa.

"So it was a deer?" Luke asked as they headed for the door.

"Yeah," Luke watched as Ryan limped painfully towards the car, he winced inwardly just watching Ryan struggle.

"Shouldn't you bring your crutches dude?" The guy could barely walk.

"Nah, I'm fine." Ryan's voice was short and clipped, the effort of walking was clearly a strain.

"Whatever dude," Luke climbed into his truck and started up the engine, yawning and rubbing away the last of the sleep from his eyes.