AN: Shout out to AllisonReader for some helpful thoughts and ideas. :)

They fell in to an easy routine for the summer. The weeks were quiet and easy going up until Friday nights when Jesse would start to pace the house, checking and rechecking to make sure everything he needed would be readily available the next morning or Sunday depending how far they'd have to travel for the next race. Luckily this was a closer one.

Ruth would never understand how he could know exactly where everything was one day, to then be missing something they couldn't leave the house without the next. She'd threatened to glue his helmet to his head at least once, and that if he ever lost that jacket he better expect to never speak to her again.

"One of these days you'll forget the car."

"Think I'd have to cash it in if that day ever came." He'd replied.

"You need one of those trailers..."

"Working on it." He'd replied with an enigmatic smile.

She followed him outside and down the steps. "What does that mean?" When he didn't answer she grew indignant. "Jesse, what does that mean!"

"It means I'm working on it." He smirked and threw his stuff in to the back seat of the Hornet.

She only huffed and crossed her arms, they didn't have time to be going back and forth like this. The boys needed to leave.

"Be careful..." Her stomach would be in knots until they made it back home.

"Always." Jesse said from the passenger side, leaning out the window.

She kissed Smokey on the cheek quickly as he passed and told him to drive safe. She was proud of them but was ready for the season to be over. Ruth didn't enjoy watching that car drive away so often.

Smokey had only just walked in to the house but was startled to see his brother come flying down the stairs late that Sunday. After a race the kid tended to do as little as possible. Aside from getting the car situated and himself cleaned up, Jesse could sleep through an entire afternoon on any given Sunday.

Joan had made a comment once that she didn't understand how he could sleep all day and Smokey had defended with the fact that they were usually up by four-thirty, even on days that they raced more local tracks. Between making sure everything was absolutely perfect and the physical stress of a day on the track, he noted that the amount of mental fatigue after focusing for so long behind the wheel of a car was incredibly draining. He never faulted Jesse for sleeping on Sundays, not when he was constantly finishing so high in the rankings.

So to see him rushing down the stairs at quarter after two, he was concerned.

"What's-"

"How far is Jefferson Memorial?"

"Forty-five minutes maybe?" He looked up the stairs knowing there was only one reason for that question. "Is she-?"

"It's been two hours and she can't get a handle on it-"

Smokey cursed lowly and started up the stairs. "Get the car started."

He was halfway up the steps when he heard the powerful engine of the Hornet outside and could tell Jesse had brought it around to the front of the house. It idled impatiently on the dirt road at the bottom of the steps.

He knocked once on the door frame before looking in to see Ruth sitting up on the bed. She looked exhausted, breath coming in short, quick, gasps when she was able to keep a coughing fit at bay.

"Alright, Little Dipper, come on." His tone was soft as he entered the room and rested a hand on the middle of her back. "Relax."

"Sorry-"

"Don't be sorry for anything."

"Jesse is panicking."

"Jesse is always panicking, that's nothing new." He watched her quietly. He was panicking himself, he was just better at hiding it. "Can you get up?"

She started to but began coughing once more so he cut her off.

"Nevermind. Here. Arms around my neck."

"I'm not a little girl."

"No, but you are my little sister and we need to get you to a doctor. Come on."

She relented and allowed him to carry her downstairs, she looked around his shoulder to see Jesse jump to the ground from halfway up the front steps and meet them at the car. She grinned in appreciation at his attempt for levity.

"Didn't think you'd ever ride in a famous race car did you?"

She'd closed her eyes, leaning in to her older brother's shoulder and listening to the sound of the engine as they left the homestead. Jefferson Memorial was the closest hospital that had any idea how to treat whatever it was she had. Jesse had contemplated selling the house the year before to move closer but she'd refused. There was too much family history in that house.

Her brothers had gotten pretty good at this and she appreciated their attention and concern but she couldn't help but feel like a burden. Her last image of the two before she'd been carted off to a room had been veiled fear. Guilt settled heavily in her lungs, stealing what little room there was left for oxygen.

That guilt only increased when she was told visiting hours were over. A nurse had gone to inform her brothers.

She hated the hospital. She wanted her family. She wanted Smokey, and she wanted Hollywood.

Ruth held back her tears until her treatments were over, when she was alone in the wing and the lights were dimmed for the evening. She stared across at the far wall and wondered what the boys were doing and if they had at least been told she was ok.

"She's gunna be fine, Hollywood. They're keeping her overnight to make sure it doesn't flair up again."

Smokey had only gotten a noncommittal shrug and a muttered comment he couldn't make out as Jesse trudged up the stairs once they'd returned home.

Smokey wasn't surprised when the kid slept right through in to the next morning.

"I wondered what was wrong, he wasn't himself on the track yesterday."

It had been a little over a week and Ruth always laid low for a while after dealing with a scare. She sat on the porch swing and kicked at the floor with a bare foot while looking out toward the garden. "His head's in the clouds when he's worried about anything."

"You have a great family."

She looked away from the far treeline and toward Louise.

"Those two would protect you with their life."

Ruth didn't reply, asking the obvious would make her look foolish.

"Not many people ask, so I don't tend to share either." Louise started. "But the car I use on the track, the Ambassador? It's from my uncle's company."

"Nash Motors...I'd wondered, actually."

"He's got no children of his own so when I asked about driving for him I thought he was going to cry."

There was a lengthy pause before she continued. "My parents had different thoughts though, they humored me for a while but when they realized I was serious they threatened to disown me."

"What?"

She only nodded.

"But- Louise you're their child-"

"I know..."

"Are-"

"After my first race I went to stay with my uncle until I could afford my own place."

Ruth had no idea how to respond to that.

"I haven't spoken to them in a while."

"Do any of-?

"No." Lou shook her head quickly. "I've never mentioned it to the boys, any of them." All four of them had taken it upon themselves to become surrogate brothers. She'd lost two family members and gained four. Five if you wanted to include Ruth.

It hadn't taken long to consider them family either.

"They drive me crazy sometimes."

Ruth blinked a few times, taking a moment to catch up. "Brothers do that."

They knew all the right buttons to push and when to push them.

"But they're also really protective." Ruth added.

"Did you hear about yesterday?"

She shook her head.

"There was a fight after the race. Someone finally got tired of Piston's comments."

"What?" Ruth's eyes widened and she looked out to where her brothers were working on the Hornet. Neither of them had mentioned anything.

"No, no. They weren't involved." She smirked, remembering Jesse's comment. Not getting between flying fists for him.

"Alex has a nice shiner though."

Ruth was quiet a few moments, unsure how to voice her thoughts. "Racing is dangerous..."

"Only as dangerous as you make it."

"You sound like Jesse."

She shrugged, looking out toward where the Hudson brothers were working also.

One thing Ruth admired in her friend was her ability to hold her own out there on the track. She was totally capable, and had proven she was through the rest of the season, but she did it without being one of the boys. Louise could take care of her own car, but she hadn't handed in her dresses and heels either.

The conversation faded as sounds of a vehicle coming up the drive pulled they're attention away from watching the boys. Ruth couldn't place the clattering and clanging until a truck with an empty trailer came in to view. It took a moment until she understood what she was looking at.

"He got a trailer..."

"Not just a trailer..."

Another vehicle pulled up behind the truck and trailer, and when Ruth really took a moment to look over the rig that was parked beside the Hornet, she realized the truck was also a Hudson.

"Jesse has been having a hard time keeping that to himself."

"He told you?"

"Only because he didn't want to tell either of you. He wanted it to be a surprise."

Ruth waited impatiently on the porch, not wanting to intrude in the conversation between her brothers and these newcomers as they went over the truck and trailer. She could tell just by their body language that Jesse was pleased and Henry was surprised.

It was barely half an hour but she felt like she'd been waiting for ages when the strangers finally went to leave in the second car that had been brought. She was down the steps before it had left the drive.

"Did you know about this?" Smokey asked.

She shook her head, admiring the truck and immediately going to investigate the inside as she opened the driver's side door. "No. Just that a trailer was in the works."

"Well you can't haul a trailer with the Ford." Jesse replied. "That wouldn't look good going to the track."

Louise watched from her place on the porch swing and grinned as Smokey put an arm over Hud's shoulders. Unsurprisingly, Scott and Moon arrived shortly after and she started down the steps to join the group.

She cared for this family more than she'd expected to.