So I'm going to keep this short and sweet. My living situation is a bit of a mess currently and I'm just kind of bouncing around between places so updating might be a bit more sporadic. I will still try my best!

Wick's POV

Wick takes the stack of rejected papers back home with him and shoves all of them in a drawer. It wasn't that he was just going to give up, but maybe give it a rest for now. Raven wasn't as against accepting his help as she'd once been, but there were definitely matters that she wasn't about to change her mind on anytime soon.

Though he wasn't going to bring it up again, the night in his living room was hardly forgotten. The words she spit out like poison cycled through his mind. Maybe some of what was holding her here so steadfastly was the guilt she felt from the thoughts that she had breathed to life. She was loyal, to a fault, but her mother had pushed that loyalty so far and Wick was waiting for it to break and finally allow Raven to be free. Once her mother was forced to fall on her ass she might actually start putting herself back together. Raven might be trying to do the right thing, but standing by and enabling her own mother she was just making it worse. Once again, not something he was about to go and tell her. After all, she had only just barely forgiven him for the last stupid thing he said.

So he doesn't bring it up again and neither does she. Somehow their friendship has managed to become a little bit stronger, even after the kiss and the fallout and the messiness that came along with apologies and forgiveness. Wick was sure that even if she ever did forgive him that she would return to being distant and reserved, the Raven he had met back in November instead of the Raven he had since gotten to know. So it takes him by pleasant surprise when nothing really changes.

They spend more time at his place than before. When he picked her up from the store she would ask to stay with him until their shift at the hospital started three hours later. Maybe she was trying to save him driving, but Wick liked to pretend it was just that she wanted to be there.

At first he tries to remain a complete friend distance away from her at all times. He doesn't sit too close on the couch or linger in her space at work, at least not like he used to. But now when they sit down she props her leg up on his lap and asks him to massage it, and she leans towards him when there's a table or desk or any sort of space separating them. He feels like he's always waiting with parted lips and held breath for her to just lean in again and remind him of just what he'd been missing. (As if he needed the reminder at all.)

Of course she doesn't. That just leaves Wick frustrated and angry and having a shorter fuse than normal. So he starts by asking out Harper. Not that he really knew much about her, but she was a girl and she was pretty cute and he was perfectly fine with buying a relatively nice dinner for a girl who smiled a lot and laughed at his jokes. But she answers with, "I'm sorry, I don't think my girlfriend would like that very much," and he figures that his chances there are probably pretty slim.

He's upset for all of twelve seconds before he's in front of Raven's desk laughing about a hot dog commercial and forgetting why he even thought there was a point in going out with someone else. So he invites her to dinner instead and she shrugs and says yes and he doesn't even care if he can't kiss her at the end of the night. Okay, that's a lie, he does care.

It's easy and fun and he orders dessert even when she tells him not to. They talk about things like cars and science and the worst teachers they had growing up. No one mentions the things that make the air heavy and no one leans too close or talks too softly. It's similar to going out with Monty or Miller, and Wick decides he wouldn't really change that anyway.

Now when he drops her off at her place he always scans for other cars or signs of any trouble. Raven keeps her cell phone on her, he always sees it in her back pocket, and every once in a while he texts or calls her, just for the hell of it. She answers him back, but he can usually read everything she sends in that same exasperated tone that she talks in.

The one time she calls him it's three in the morning and he'd been asleep and she tells him everything is fine, her sleep schedule is just fucked from work. He tries not to hear the voices in the background and instead he pulls out one of her manuals that she'd left behind at his place and quizzes her on the whole thing, front to back. She knows every answer, usually with more detail than he can even fact check. It's morning before they're finished. There are no more sounds that he can hear aside from her gentle breathing and when she clears her throat he tells her thanks for the company. What he doesn't tell her is that he has to work day shift today and so he rolls out of bed with two hours of sleep under his belt and goes to work a twelve hour shift. Regardless of his heavy eyes and unfocused train of thought he can't bring himself to regret it in the slightest.

March waits to make an entrance and everyone eagerly awaits the break of spring. Which of course doesn't come and leads to a community of complaining, as if the weather was just going to go, "stop your bitching already, here's some sun." Instead it just got angrier and colder and Wick was glad that nine times out of ten he was driving Raven where she needed to go.

After another long, boring night of work Wick makes his way to the front of the hospital. He bursts through the doors like usual and she shoots him that look like always and he smiles because it's familiar and easy. Just as he's gone to sit across from her, because it's a Tuesday morning and Jasper was always late on Tuesday mornings (he had raids on Monday nights), Doctor Griffin comes out those same double doors, admittedly lacking his superior flourish. The one thing he notices is that she does not seem happy.

She stands in front of Raven, arms crossed and not paying Wick the least bit of attention. "So how are things going with Dr. Robins?"

"Who?" Raven asks with a raised eyebrow.

"Exactly my point," the doctor says with a sigh. She shakes her head and throws Wick a glance before directing her attention back to Raven. "I pulled a lot of strings to get you into physical therapy here, Raven. They don't normally accept Medicaid here." Raven's mouth forms a small 'o' as she realises what Dr. Griffin is on about. "Are you blowing off appointments for work? Because I can tell you that therapy is far more important than working."

Wick is a little surprise that Raven doesn't immediately argue with that. Then again, unless she wanted to inform Dr. Griffin of her exact conditions, it made sense. "It's not about work, Abby," she tells her and her voice is equal parts grumble as well as resigned.

"I don't care what it's about, Raven. If you don't take care of that leg soon you're going to lose it." It seems that this isn't new information to Raven as she barely reacts. Whereas Wick's eyes get wide as he sits up properly in his chair for the first time.

"What are you talking about?" he asks, intervening for Raven since she seemed to care so little.

That gets her attention. "This is HIPPA," she says to the doctor. "You can't just go around blabbing my medical information when other people are around."

"I'm not your doctor anymore," she argues even though Wick is pretty sure that's not how it works. "And I mean it, Raven. You better get your ass to an appointment because I will not be the one who saws through your bone. Not after everything I did to save it."

Raven at least has the decency to look ashamed as she stares down at the desk. She doesn't seem to have any words to respond with and Dr. Griffin must not have anything else to say. She walks away, throwing Wick one more look which seemed awfully angry. He wasn't completely sure if the anger was directed at him or Raven. Either way he looked down from her stare, feeling like a kid in trouble.

Once she's gone Wick looks up at Raven who still was fixated on her mousepad, a fingernail scratching over a stain on the black material. "Raven-"

"Don't, okay?" she cuts him off and instead of the harsh, dry anger he had suspected she sounds weak and defeated.

Later, he decides and instead just nods. "Yeah, okay."

Jasper comes in and no one gives him a hard time about being late. In fact, no one says anything at all.

Wick doesn't even ask her before driving her back to his place. He parks in his usual spot and turns the truck off but neither of them make a move to get out. The heat hadn't been on long enough to properly warm the inside of the truck and the cold air settles back around them. "You're an idiot," he says eventually. "And I know that's usually your line but…damn, Raven."

"Didn't we just decide not to talk about this," she asks through clenched teeth. But she doesn't actively try to get away from him so he keeps going.

"Losing your leg? I feel like that's something we should talk about."

She huffs like a pouty teenagers and opens the car door. "That's worst case scenario," she says, getting out and moving towards the building.

"Well you're pretty much flying the plane right to worst case scenario-ville so then what?"

There's no answer as she starts on the stairs, moving at her usual pace. "Shut the fuck up or take me home," she says, turning to face him and pausing on her ascent. "You're not telling me anything I don't know and I'm tired. So decide what you're going to do and then let me know."

He has a hell of a lot more to say but she doesn't seem to be interested in listening any longer.

So he shuts the hell up in order to prevent any further damage. Once they get inside she passes out on the couch and he takes the bed and it's all very normal. But then his mind starts reeling and he does exactly what any curious, concerned human would do in a situation such as this. He Googled it.

There wasn't anything clear and concise to really look up so he starts at the beginning. He learns about the difference between myopathy and neuropathy, partial paralysis versus full, and he stumbles onto some forum where people start talking about their miraculous recoveries or the sudden deaths of their loved ones. There was no in-between.

The one thing he doesn't do, which is what he really wants to, is wake Raven up and discuss all of this information. He figured that odds were she had something called a focal contusion, maybe, but even that he was kind of weary on. In fact, most of what kept popping up was diabetes related things and Wick felt pretty certain that wasn't what he was looking for.

It was his NASA college program research project all over again. Only this time he's printing out pictures of range of motion exercises and reading about the positive effects of swimming.

Lastly he does something that he knows he probably shouldn't. Partly he feels like he's betraying some sort of trust or crossing a boundary line that he felt pretty certain Raven didn't even want toed. But he creeps out into the living room and finds her brace lying on the floor next to the couch. He picks it up and with trained eyes and experienced hands he considers how it works now as well as how it could work better. He sees how it's used to fully support her weight and how her range of motion, which he had just read about the importance of endlessly, was constricted the whole time she wore the damn thing because of it. He thinks of materials and comfort and mechanisms and really he thinks about how he could do so much better.

Taking pictures and measurements and sketches were way further than he had intended, but he goes for it anyway. He uses what he has to discover what he can and he draws and plans and talks out loud like a crazy scientist. But when he puts her brace back and falls into bed three hours later, he feels the pit of worry in his stomach lessen and the possibility of creating something better grows in him.