By the time we finished eating our main course, I was starting to get tired. And when Ranger carried my dirty plate into the kitchen and I heard him angrily say, "VAL!", I figured that it was a good thing that I was getting ready to go upstairs. I looked at Kai and sighed.

"Now?" said Kai.

"In about two minutes", I said.

Ranger came through. I could see how furious he was by the look in his eyes. "There is no pineapple upside-down cake for dessert. Apparently while Steph and Tia were teasing about eating twenty slices of cake, Val actually ate all twenty-one. There is no cake left."

"Ooo-wee!" I said. "Someone is going to have a tummy ache this afternoon." I winked at my mother. She looked mortified and on the verge of tears and I sighed.

Grandma stood up and glared at Val. "You pig. How could you eat all that cake? You're going to get fat eating like that. Oh, wait. You already are." Val started to cry.

"Grandma", I said, "sit down. Just because Val is a selfish twit doesn't mean that you have to get offensive about it." I turned to the rest of the people at the table. "I'm sorry, everybody. In the Plum family, we take our pineapple upside-down cake seriously." I turned to Val. "Why did you eat all the cake, Val, knowing that other people would like to have a piece as well?"

Val sat down in Ranger's seat again. "I'm tired of you having everything. I mean, you lie and cheat. Take for example these burns. You say that there are burns, and your feet are wrapped up like a mummy. But you are fine. You use it as an excuse and Lindsay gives you a complete new wardrobe of beautiful clothes, and everybody is catering to you and carrying you around. You couldn't be as happy at the table if you were truly in any pain. See? I'll prove it." She kicked as hard as she could and hit my leg.

I couldn't breathe, I was in so much pain, and I barely noticed that Ranger pulled Val from the chair and threw her against the wall. Val started to cry and Hal got up and stood between Ranger and Val, and talked him down. I couldn't hear him. I was in my own private hell. The kids were crying, and Kai picked me up and ran me up to the bedroom. Grant followed, and when they got there, they took off my sweater, reattached the IV, and dispensed some morphine.

I closed my eyes, and tears leaked out. Kai and Grant took off my pants, covered up my body with Lindsay's light down throw, and Kai washed his hands and put on gloves as Grant listened to my heart and took my blood pressure. Kai pulled off the bandages and looked at the damage, and took a deep breath.

Ranger came into the room, followed by Eduardo. Ranger looked beside himself, and I rather thought Hal sent Eduardo to keep control of Ranger. "How?" Ranger shuddered in a breath. "How is she?"

"Going to be on morphine for a while, and she won't be working half-days for another two weeks at least", said Kai grimly. Ranger looked at my legs. "All the healing on her left leg has been disturbed and her left leg has been reinjured. The toe of Val's shoe hit Steph hard, and her leg is now bleeding. The cut is deep and I have to set some stitches. Her leg is just too fragile to sustain that kind of injury. Her right leg was knocked a little, but the healing wasn't disturbed the same way. She is in so much pain that she can barely breathe."

I was whimpering and moaning and praying for the morphine to hit soon. "Ranger", said Grant. "Come here." Ranger went over to him. Tears were flowing down his face and he looked lost. "Sit on the bed and smooth Steph's hair from her face. She has always found that comforting before. Be there for her. She needs you more than ever right now."

The morphine was starting to work, and I was able to smooth out my breathing a bit. Ranger sat beside me in the bed, and I moved my hand and swiped the tears from his face. "Don't cry", I said hoarsely.

"You've got to fight, okay?" said Ranger. "You've got to fight for me."

"Ranger? Can you cuddle me? I'm cold."

Grant took my blood pressure again. He quietly told Kai what it was as Kai finished setting the stitches. He applied antibiotic cream and bandaged my legs. Grant inserted an antibiotic in my IV and turned up the rate of infusion and, as Kai cleaned up, Grant put the horseshoe pillows around my feet, tucked me in more securely, and told Ranger to cuddle in and keep me warm.

Ranger gently, carefully, inched into my side. I kissed his forehead and smiled at him. "I love you", I said.

"I love you too. So fucking much", he said as he started crying again.

"Ranger? Don't cry. I'll be okay. The morphine is working now. I'm feeling better."

"You have to be okay."

"I've got a joke for the girls. Tell them."

Ranger sniffled.

"What's brown and sticky?" I waited a second. "A stick. Make sure you tell the girls. They'll like it."

Ranger snorted. "That's bad, babe."

"I'm insulted. That was my favorite joke when I was four." Ranger laughed.

I felt like my eyes were crossing, and it was all I could do to keep awake. Grant noticed as he took my blood pressure again. "Go to sleep, Steph. You'll feel better when you wake up."

I sighed. "Thank God", I said. "Can Ranger stay?"

"For a little while."

"Thank you." I stopped fighting sleep, closed my eyes, and that was the last I remembered.

When I woke up, Ranger was sleeping on the bed beside me and Kai and Grant were sleeping in chairs to the side of the bed. I was in pain, but it was a bearable pain. I could, at least, breathe this time. I was thirsty and bursting for a pee, and I sighed with frustration. I knew that I was not getting on the toilet that night. I wet my diaper and sighed again, just glad that the padding in the diaper absorbed liquid quickly. At the rate that I had just peed, I wondered if my diaper now looked like a huge water balloon attached to my butt. Perhaps like Aunt Fanny in the 'Robots' movie.

I lifted my arm to see my watch. I had been asleep for about fifteen hours, which meant that I had been dosed with morphine again. There was no way that I had just gone fifteen hours on one dose and felt that good. I put my arm down gently again, but the sound of the bracelet on my watch jingled a bit, and Kai and Grant and Ranger all woke up on high alert.

"I'm sorry", I said. "I was trying to be quiet so that you could sleep. Y'all look a little tired."

Kai and Grant grinned, and Ranger started to cry again. "It's okay", I said. "I'm going to be fine, you know. You don't have to worry. This was just a little setback." I looked desperately at Kai and Grant. "What happened? The last I remember was that Val ate the cake, which means that I am going to have to give the award to her for the most junk-tolerant stomach, so I am pretty pissed about that, and then she kicked me. And then I remember pain and not being able to breathe. What happened after that?"

"When Val hit your legs", said Kai softly, "she disturbed all the healing on your left leg, and it has to start again. She also cut it deeply with her shoe. The cut needed stitches. Your right leg wasn't as injured by her. However, you'll be in bed for another two weeks before we start talking about you getting into the office again, and a need for grafting looks more and more likely." I closed my eyes and took a steadying breath.

"You also went into shock", said Grant as he took my blood pressure. "Luckily, we have the things here to treat it." He took the reading. "I am happy to say that your blood pressure has come up again."

"What happened to Val?"

"Hal talked to your parents, and they agreed that Val should be charged with assault. So Val is currently in jail for assaulting a disabled hero. We kept Ranger away from her. We weren't too sure if she would survive another encounter with him. She's already pretty bruised from being thrown into the wall."

I thought about that for a moment. "Does she finally believe that I'm not making it up?"

"I think so. When she was being taken away, she was crying that it wasn't fair, that she didn't know."

I sighed. "How are my parents taking it?"

"They have apologized and said that they will take Grandma with them, and leave for Trenton tomorrow", said Ranger.

"That's silly. I mean, Grandma is a challenge, but I think it is good for my parents to be here, and if they leave now they won't have any normalcy surrounding what happened. I imagine that I looked like I was in pain when Val kicked me, and I don't want them thinking of that scene when they go home to Trenton."

"It's true. You did look like you were in agony", said Kai.

"See? I don't want my parents thinking about that every time they think of me. Maybe I can talk to them tomorrow?"

"Okay", said Ranger. "What do you want to tell them?"

I sighed. "All of Grandma's stories will sensationalize what happened to me. The kids will be out of the danger zone. I can handle a few stories about dripping green goo and pus blisters that grow to the size of a tennis ball. I think I'd like to ask Mom and Dad if they could stay and help with the kids. The children will be upset over what has happened, and the more people that are there to cuddle them, the better it will be for them. That way, too, we'll be giving something to my parents to do to make them feel better. I think it will be good for them to see me get better as well."

"Are you sure that's what you want?" said Ranger.

"I think so. If Grandma makes a nuisance of herself, we can rethink it. But in the meantime, I think it would be a good idea for Mom and Dad to stay. Besides, they've been working with Lindsay to plan Tia's party. I'm sure they are looking forward to that."

"Fair enough."

"Now that we told you what happened, it's your turn", said Kai. "What's your pain level?"

"Hey, this is exciting! I have a new quantifier."

"What do you mean?" said Kai.

"Now my legs can be broken into right and left legs. I know how you like numbers, Kai."

Kai laughed. "I'd prefer if all the quantifiers were zero."

I sighed as I looked at him with twinkling eyes. "You can't have them all. I'm giving you another number. You can't have it be zero as well."

Kai laughed again. "So what are all those numbers?"

"Just for you, Kai, my lungs are a zero. My muscles don't even hurt, but I imagine that is the result of a little morphine magic. My abdomen is a three – again a little morphine magic and the fact that I haven't moved in the last fifteen hours. My right leg is a seven, and my left leg is a seventeen. It feels very sore, but if I don't move it, it is a little better. I can cope with it, anyway."

"That's really good, Steph", said Grant, "because you are coming up to dosing time again. We've been giving you doses of morphine every four hours, so in another hour you can have another dose."

I smiled. "If it wasn't for my left leg, I would be feeling pretty good."

"So do you want the bad news now?" said Ranger as he tried to hide a smile. "We gave you the wrong medication earlier."

I could feel my eyes grow wide. "Am I going to suffer from long-lasting erections?"

"No, but you're covered from heartworm, ticks and fleas for the next three months."

I burst out laughing, and Ranger looked pleased with himself. Kai and Grant laughed too as they shook their heads. As I wiped the tears from my eyes, I grinned at him. "Thank you. I needed that."

Ranger kissed me on my nose. "So did I."