Welcome to everyone new, and thank you to the amazing SweetHigh and Nattiebroskette (both amazing writers; if you haven't checked out their work, I highly recommend it!) for the lovely reviews.

Onward!


Meg kept her word, hanging around the resort, waiting the rest of the late afternoon and early evening for Randy to dial her on Skype. When he didn't, Meg wasn't entirely surprised. 'He was angry. I hurt him. It's what I do. Better you left it where it was, Meg. Do anything else, and it would have ended worse.' Leaving the laptop, Meg moved to her cell phone, checking for messages. 'Now that I know what I'm looking for, anyway.' She hadn't missed any calls from Randy, but surprisingly, one call from Dave had snuck through – though he hadn't left voicemail.

"You. You're the one thing I haven't dealt with. And what do I even want to say?" Meg flopped into the bed she had earlier shared with Randy, raising a cloud of his cologne around her and bringing a twinge of longing to her stomach that she had to force down, hearing the skulls hissing in the back of her mind. "Why, Dave? What was the point? That's all I want to know. You've never been able to stop me from anything – why try now?"


Dave didn't expect Meg to pick up, and he didn't bother leaving voicemail. The super at his apartment complex had called, asking him politely not to send Meg back, and it took all of forty-five seconds to figure out what had gone on. Dave hadn't counted on Randy's compulsive dialing habits; his assumption had been that Randy would leave well enough alone at the airport and would simply board his plane, not that he would try to call Meg before takeoff. 'Well, I'm the idiot for that one. Busted, Dave' Knowing that Meg had put two and two together, all he felt he could do was wait.

When waiting wore too heavily on his conscience, he called again, despite being on the clock. When Meg didn't answer, he knew he deserved it – but he also didn't know how long she planned on maintaining her silence. Drumming his fingers on his phone, he tried to focus on his work, and on preparing the man across from him for his return to the ring, but couldn't help himself from wandering far afield in his thoughts.

"You okay, ol' man? Not pissed at me about your girl, are you?" Joe's voice was half-tease, half-concern; he knew Dave was enough of a professional to not hold a grudge. He also knew Dave never really wanted him to pair with Meg and had absolutely never approved of Meg's decision to simply run off, so he didn't anticipate too much blowback on that front. 'It's good – I can go to triage, I don't have to deal with her backstage, my fiancee is traveling with me again – this all works. Get this exam on the books, and then I'm outta here – shit to do at home, anyway.'

"No, Joe. Everything's fine. You're both adults; you make your own decisions." Dave clapped the younger man on the back, trying to be convivial. "Did you and the lady ever pick a date, by the way?" 'I'd really like to drop one of Meg's vicodin in your protein shake and then bust you to the Wellness Board myself. But I also like my job. Let's compromise, asshole: You're an asshole.'

"Nah. We're still working shit out, but it's good, it's good." Joe smiled, broadly, and let Dave lead him through a series of stretches and tests, knowing full well he wasn't ready to come back quite yet, but feeling confident that it would be soon. 'And 'soon' means I get my hands on you, Randy. Fuck that crazy bitch as many times as you want – we still have shit to settle.'


Meg waited, waited longer, til late evening, wrapped herself in the sheets – 'Because they still smell like you. Why did I let you leave?' - then resigned herself to the fact that he simply wouldn't be calling her that night. She reached for her phone regardless, knowing that if she dialed the next number she was thinking of, her call would be answered regardless of time. Tapping at buttons on the screen, Meg took a few steadying breaths while the phone rang.

"Meg?"

"Yeah, Dave. We have a few things to sort out."


Their conversation was more argument than chatter, starting back on the shoulder of the off-ramp weeks ago, winding its way across the country, eventually parking itself in Seattle, where Dave felt he could get a somewhat logically-based upper hand.

"Meg, look. You have to understand. You were so wrapped up in him, and right after Joe – right after Jackson – can you fault me for being concerned?"

"I can fault you for how you handled things. I'm not a child! You don't get to make decisions for me. Telling me to go to your apartment was one thing, but you told me, told Randy, that he would be keeping an eye on me. Then you worked as hard as you could to take him away from me. You basically made sure I would be alone."

"I made sure you could stand on your own two feet, Meg. And are you hearing yourself? Taking him away from you?" Dave sighed heavily, working to gentle down his voice. "Sweetheart, I love you, but you're...he's not yours. He's not anyone's, sure, but he's not yours, either. There is no 'taking him away' and it scares me that you're already thinking of someone – anyone – like that. In that way. You're not worried it's too much? Wouldn't you tell him it was too much, if he was in your position?"

"And I spent the last three – no, four – days with him, so now what?" Meg, triumphant, let her vacation dangle in midair in front of Dave, taunting him. "I didn't run away, I went somewhere I knew I would be safe – and that was actually the thing we all agreed on, before you turned into an asshole. I stayed with him, didn't fuck him, didn't even kiss him – so what was your problem, Dave? I'm such a train wreck that I can't control myself? Or Randy's such a sex-crazed, desperate motherfucker that he'd take advantage of me just because I was there? Nevermind that he completely derailed his job for me, trying to find me, trying to make sure I wasn't dead in a ditch somewhere. What were you doing, Dave? Were you looking for me?"

"Meg...ask Randy. We were coming to New Orleans, we were planning to look for you -"

"And the only one who did was Randy. And that was before you were scheduled to be there."

Dave sighed; Meg had him there. 'But, she's still missing my point in doing what I did.' "Meg, you needed space. Period. You weren't thinking clearly, you were leaning on him for everything. I'm not going to change my mind on that. Whether I did that in the right way or not...okay. Obviously not. Everyone's done some wrong, here."

"Dave, and how the fuck would you know what I was thinking? Did you ask? No, you didn't! All you did was add your name to the list of people I know will lie to me!" Meg, screaming now, was holding her phone at arm's length and bellowing into it, tears of rage coursing down her face.

"You need to calm down. I can't talk to you like this." Dave, irritatingly calm, was picking at his nails in the triage bay, relieved Joe had left, chalking all of Meg's outburst up to a side-effect of the accident and a product of her PTSD. "You've been through a lot. I don't even know what you've been through, you're right. And I should have just told you what I thought. But let's be real, Meg – even if I did, would you have listened?"

Meg, for her part, was silent, knowing Dave was right. 'Of course I wouldn't have listened. He told me to stay away, leave Randy alone, and I was in bed half-naked with him last night.' "No, Dave. I wouldn't have listened. But that's my mistake to make."

"Not when always it takes other people with you, it isn't!" The words flew from Dave's mouth before he could stop them, and he clapped a hand over his mouth, trying desperately – and failing – to shovel them from the air back into his throat.

Meg was suddenly, painfully aware of the bay's waves lapping at the ridges of sand on the beach. She could hear them through the glass door of the balcony, a rhythmic whispering sound that kept her breathing even; she lined her exhalation up with each pull of the water in an effort to try not to shriek at Dave. After a minute's worth of internal struggle, she spoke.

"You've never hurt me intentionally, Dave. And you've always said you believed the shit I did – no matter how dumb – has been for a reason. But this...you...this was intentional. And what you did to me...to Randy...was just as bad as what I did to Joe. You hurt him, Dave. I'm used to it, the way it feels, the way it cuts into you and nothing grows back together right. But Randy? No. He trusted you. He believed you trusted him. That's all fucked up now, Dave. There wasn't even a purpose to what you did. You told him to watch me, then you set shit up so he couldn't. And you know what? He ended up afraid again. I fucked up my phone – I didn't know I couldn't remember how to use it – but if Randy had just known what you were doing...after everything that happened...he thought..." She trailed off; Dave remained oddly silent. Meg was almost panting from the effort of controlling herself, but she had one last shot to fire. "I can get over it, Dave. Did you ever stop to ask yourself if he could?"

"Meg, I-"

"Gotta go, Dave. I'll talk to you later." Meg pressed the large red button on the screen of her phone and stared at her reflection in the dark glass. "Guess I'm down to one person. And that's only if I didn't fuck it up when you left." she whispered to herself. "If I did...well...then I don't know what to do. Start over, Meg. Figure it out." She rolled onto her back and pulled Randy's pillow over her chest, willing herself to sleep, willing herself further to not miss the tone from the laptop if he should call her.


Randy paced around his trailer, feeling more and more claustrophobic and irritable. He had been told, through a third-and-fourth-hand series of technicians, that he wasn't actually needed for the stunts that day. 'Of course not. They didn't call, and I could have spent an extra night with her.' Again, he was tempted to march up to the director and tell him to scrap the whole thing, find another actor, and let hair and makeup know that their choice in lipstick sucked, but Meg's voice echoing in his head kept him from lashing out. 'She asked me to focus on myself and the movie. I just have to get through this.' He picked up his phone with every intention of calling her, then dropped it and turned his laptop on. He toggled his way over to his email account, hoping Remy had gotten back to him. Surprisingly, he had, but nothing was attached to the message.

'Bonjour, Randy. It will be several days before I have completed files to send. The departments are working to convert the paper files into things that will display on a computer – I do not understand the process, but they tell me it is somehow simpler for you at the end. I have not heard from Oechsner or Tulane, but attached are copies of the releases your Meg will need to sign and return in order to access her records. Also, Oechsner is requesting payment in full. I did not know what to tell them; perhaps you will have a better idea. Malheureusement, the figure is quite large. Nothing can be easy, n'est-ce pas?'

Randy sighed; the best he could do would be to get the forms back to Meg, ask her to sign them, and hope she hadn't changed her mind. 'And I have to make sure she doesn't ask about the bills. She'd kill me.'

He smiled and tossed himself down on his thin, dusty mattress, allowing his mind to wander back through the past three days. They were physically frustrating, to be sure, but he watched Meg come closer and closer to who she used to be, and that was worth any amount of discomfort he'd had to endure. 'Besides, that's what the shower is for,' he mused, and went back to trailing his fingers around the bed, remembering how Meg's shoulders felt under his touch, the way she had shivered, and the desperation in her eyes when they'd been millimeters away from kissing each other and then – who knew what else.

"What are you trying to tell me, Meg? You keep saying you can't explain, but why not?" Randy's words hovered in the air as he looked over to his laptop and silently willed Remy to hurry with whatever information he could send. None of the pieces he currently had fit together, even with Meg's help. Sighing, he checked the lock on his trailer's door, and went back to his bed. Even if he couldn't truly have her, his mind could play at the edges of possibility. It was enough for now, and then sleep might follow.


Meg shifted in bed, not understanding how she was hearing an alarm when her phone's screen hadn't lit up. 'Don't I remember how to use the alarm? Why would I even set it?' Pieces shifted into place slowly in her mind, and then she bolted upright in the bed, hurling herself down its length, aiming for her laptop. 'It's got to be Skype! Wait, Randy – please, don't hang up, just wait!' She slapped desperately at the keys, trying to get the screen to wake up, and then forced herself to mentally jumble through the directions Randy had left for her. Clicking on the blue phone icon, she dropped the laptop onto the bed and prayed she'd guessed correctly while waiting for the camera to snap into focus.

"Meggie? You okay?" Randy wasn't sure if he should be amused or worried; from the angle she was at, he could see tangled hair, her shoulder, the straps of her bra and tank top dangling down her arm, and most of her left side – but none of her face. "Kiddo, adjust the camera. Er, the screen. It's the dot at the top of the laptop. You see it?"

A few nauseatingly swift and angular tilts later, and Meg's sleepy visage was on his screen. "Ran, what time is it?"

"Don't hate me...three-thirty."

"In the morning?"

He shrugged, looking suddenly interested in something on the table in front of him. "I'm sorry. You're probably tired. I'll talk to you later."

"No, Ran. No. It's okay. I just thought you weren't gonna call tonight. That's all." Meg's smile was relieved. "I'm glad you did. I thought you were mad at me. It's lonely here without you." She immediately mentally kicked herself for saying it; she knew he didn't want to leave her, and with a complaint in the air, it would be even more difficult for him.

"Meg, I can-"

"Nope. Finish what you started." She smiled sleepily, and reached forward to touch his face on the screen, flinching when her hand bumped cold plastic. "I talked to Dave earlier."

Randy tilted his head to look at her, surprised. "You called him?"

"Other way around. Well, sorta." She started to yawn, working to force it down. "He called me and I called him back. We...didn't really work anything out. He's probably going to call you next." Meg explained what they'd said, watching the look on Randy's face become harder and harder regardless of how she phrased or spun the conversation. "Ran...what?" Her tone was confused, bordering on sad.

He rubbed his hands over his face, dropping his head down several times before deciding what to say. "This...it's hard, because I know Dave's so important to you." He allowed his eyes to meet hers, and all he found was patience. "I want to tear him apart. He wanted me to help you, then he didn't want me near you at all, and it's like he blames you for his decision. Or he thinks I'm some kind of perv, whichever."

Meg rubbed at the screen again, instinctively, and rolled her eyes in frustration when she again pressed plastic instead of skin. "This fucking thing," she muttered.

"No, Meg, I'm sorry. I shouldn't talk shit about Dave, and-"

"Not that, dumbass. This thing. Skype, and the laptop. I keep trying to touch you and I can't." Sleep having got the better of Meg's mouth, she began to ramble. "Dave was wrong for what he did, and I told him so. My problem was what he did to you. You didn't deserve that. I put you through enough; Dave was supposed to be helping you. Helping us. And now we're here – well, I'm here, you're there – and if Dave had just left us alone, it's like, would it be better? You'd still be in Vancouver, but would we have had to sneak around like this? Would we have been talking to each other the whole time? What else would have happened, you know?" She sighed. "Maybe I'd still be in Seattle. Now, I have no idea. Well, I have an idea, but – you know what? Let me hush." She smiled at him. "You authorized sneak tactics."

Randy, whose face had relaxed considerably listening to Meg talk, now blinked and startled. "Wait, I did what?"

"Nothing, Ran. Just remember that you said you like surprises. Or something like that." Meg giggled, drowsy, wanting to keep him in front of her for the rest of the night. She leaned back into the headboard, affording Randy a full view of her sleep-worn body, trying to arrange clothing and limbs so she was comfortable but covered. "Tell me about your day?"

He smiled, and reached for the screen himself, fingers thumping against it. 'Goddamn it. You're not here.' Moving his laptop to his bed, Randy settled in and began his own rambling story: his sloppy drive back up to the film lot, then not being needed at all for the first day – which brought an audible whine from Meg's throat – then talking to Remy, and then he found himself stopping short, face flushed, as he realized he was preparing to tell her he'd later locked his door and helped himself to several mental servings of her. The smile on her face was electric; he suspected she knew what he'd been about to reveal, and so stammered his way into silence, eyes firmly fixed on the keyboard.

"Hey, Ran?" Meg's voice was gentle, and he managed to meet her gaze on-screen. "You're good now, right?"

The same golden heat that threaded out across him on their last night together, that flooded his room earlier that evening when he was drowning himself in the memory of her cool skin and soft scent, crashed over him again, this time almost suffocating in intensity. He tried to breathe, tried to will words out into the space between them – nothing came – just a flying, glittering ether that made it impossible for him to picture anything but her. Slowly, he felt the walls of reality build back up around him, and as his eyes came to focus on the woman with the now-demure smile reclining in front of him, a singular word went tumbling around his thoughts: 'Mine.'


Waking to the pounding of yet another stagehand, Randy shifted uncomfortably in bed, banging his elbow into his laptop and momentarily forgetting why it was next to him on his sheets instead of safely on the table near the door. Allowing himself a second's worth of composure, he considered the screen carefully, then smiled. Meg's sleeping figure, now wrapped in his zip-up, lay on the hotel sheets in front of him, the same small smile still on her face. He traced his thumb along the pixellated line of her arm, stretched, and promptly told the stagehand to fuck off. 'This is going to be a good morning. There's my girl. Get through the movie, figure out where she's going, then get us both there. If that's what she wants. That's got to be what she wants, right?' He sped through his morning routines, sped through filming, and returned to the solitude of his trailer – not just locking the door behind him, but making sure the lid to the laptop was firmly latched down.

"Oh well," Randy shrugged, commenting to the empty room. "Never said I was a saint."


Meg woke with a renewed sense of purpose, even if her current idea was also going to fall firmly in the category of, 'Well-meaning yet ill-advised.' Her phone rang several times, all of them Dave, all of them being hung up on before they could even filter to voicemail. 'I'm beginning to like Skype more and more...there's only one person I want to talk to like that, anyway.' Opening several browser windows, she shuffled through various websites, made a ridiculous number of phone calls, and never once considered that Dave was reading the billing statements since he was the one who had purchased her the phone.

"Meg, what the hell are you up to?" Dave puzzled out loud, scrolling through page after page of Meg's phone bill. "There's nothing in Saint Charles..." He squeezed his eyes shut and pinched the bridge of his nose. "Okay. Okay, Meg. You win. I fucked up, and you win."