So if you're hurting babe
Just let your heart be free
You got a friend in me
I'll be your shoulder at anytime you need
Baby I believe
So if you're hurting babe
Just let you're heart be free
You got a friend in me
I'll be your shoulder at anytime you need
Baby I believe
You can lay it all on me

Rori was elbow deep in engine grease when the side door of the hanger opened. She glanced over her shoulder to see Danny strolling over. She didn't stop what she was doing.

"Hey you," Danny said. He'd stopped a few feet behind her.

"Hey," she replied, giving him only half her attention.

"So, we were wondering if you plan to come home at all?" Danny asked hesitantly. "Or, when?"

"I don't know, Danno. This engine rebuild still has at least fourteen hours to finish," she said.

"Rori," he leaned on the Mustang beside her work area. "You've been at it a couple days already."

"And it's not done," she said. She'd dug in to rebuilding the engine for one of her RX8s as a distraction from the tension at home. The first day she'd worked a ton and passed out in the small bedroom on the second level of the hanger. The second day she'd thought about going home, but she pulled her stitches out and Hank would have been angry, so she bandaged herself up and sat around watching old tv shows on the small tv in the bedroom. Then, she was invested and felt like she needed to finish it. She needed to feel like she was in control of something, anything.

"I can't believe I'm saying this, but, can I help with anything?" Danny asked. He must have realized it wasn't so much about fixing the knock in the engine as it was about the actual work. She'd always found fixing cars to be therapeutic. But Danny wasn't like that. He'd take a car to a mechanic in a heartbeat before even checking the oil level.

"No, I'm not gonna ask you to do something you don't like doing," she said. "I got it."

"You want John or Steve's help?" he asked.

"I said I got it, Danno," she snapped. The bolt she'd been trying to loosen finally budged and came loose, she slipped and busted her knuckle against the engine block. "Fuck!" It was bleeding pretty good, but she went on to the next bolt.

"Rori, stop for just a minute," Danny said. She didn't until he put a hand on her arm. "Rorianna," he said softly. She looked up to meet his eyes, which were shadowed with concern and pain. "I know you're grieving. I know you're hurt. But you can't lock us out."

"Grieving? Hurt? You think that's why I'm locking myself away in the hanger? This is not what I do when I'm grieving. Ask John and Hank. When I'm grieving I drink, I smoke, I get reckless, I have a lot of inappropriate sex, and I slit my wrists. I'm not grieving. I'm angry. More angry than I have ever been," she said. She tried not too, but she had tears well up in her eyes and they spilled over, soaking her face. "I'm so angry all the time."

"That's grief, babe," he said. He pulled her into a hug and held her close. "But you don't have to do it alone. We're in this together, all of us."

"I'm scared I'm going to hurt you or lose you," she said. They both knew it was a collective 'you'.

"I know," he said. "But, if this is one of our hells, we should face it together."

"I failed you guys," she said.

"No," he replied. "This wasn't your fault. We, apparently, have terrible luck, but you couldn't have controlled any of this."

"I could have been better on the Wraith ship," she said. "We wouldn't have lost the baby."

"Did you see the size of those aliens? We were overrun. Steve, the super-seal, was overpowered. John, who knew exactly what to expect, was overpowered. You didn't do anything wrong," he kissed the top of her head gently. "Why don't you come back to the house, we can grieve together."

"I can't just sit around the house doing nothing," she said.

"I know, which is why I thought we could do a little grieving your way," he said. He reached for a bag on the floor. She hadn't noticed he'd set it there. He pulled a bottle of whiskey and a pack of cigarettes out of it. "Don't tell the guys about the cigarettes, but I thought we could share the whiskey and spend the evening together."

"That sounds great. I need a shower first," she said, regarding her grease covered tank top and arms.

"Of course," Danny said. "Let's go." Danny led her to the door.

They arrived at the house to find Hank and John trying, and failing, to stop Steve from cooking something, or rather microwaving something. Danny rushed past her and grabbed the bowl away from Steve. "Steven, do not put that in the microwave!" Danny shouted. "I will handle the cooking. Steven and John, clear the table and set it. Hank, take Rori upstairs and check her surgery thing."

"Why am I checking the incision?" Hank asked.

"I saw some bloody towels at the hanger and it's sensitive," Danny said. "I'm a detective, babe, you didn't think I'd notice?"

Rori sighed and shook her head at him before heading upstairs. Hank followed close behind. "Rori, what happened with the incision?" he asked.

"I pulled a couple stitches when I was working on the engine," she said. "I bandaged it up and moved on."

"You had major surgery a week ago, you shouldn't have been working on the engine," he said. He sat her down on the bed, pulled her tank top off and started pulling off the bandage.

"I can think of something else you can take off," Rori whispered and tugged at his shirt.

"Again, you had major surgery a week ago," Hank said. He knelt in front of her and inspected her incision closely. "And you pulled more than a couple stitches out. I'm going to get my bag."

"Can I shower before you go sticking needles in me?" she asked.

"No, if you get anything in that incision it can cause an infection," Hank said. "You should have called me, Rori."

"I know," she said. "But I needed to be alone."

"I know," he said. "Just like you needed to start smoking again." He didn't say anything else, but his disappointment was written all over his face as he headed to get his medical bag. She sat in the quiet of the room, their room, on the huge bed that didn't look like it had been slept in during the three days she'd been hiding in the hanger, especially by four guys, only one of which was known to make the bed. Hank was only gone a moment. He sat his bag down and started preparing an injection as soon as he returned. "Lay down and relax," he said. It would be sexy except that he was holding a needle in his hand. She did as she was instructed and he leaned over her. "This is going to numb the area," he explained when he started injecting the anesthetic. After a moment he started stitching the incision closed again. She could feel the tug of his stitches, but there was no pain.

"I'm sorry," she said.

"You just have to be more careful, Rori," he said. "You're the only wife we have. We don't want to lose you." He crawled into the bed next to her and traced a finger along her arm to her hand, which was still bloody from where she'd hit her knuckle. "What's this?"

"Hit it on the engine block," she said.

"Let's clean it up," he said. He went back to work, getting a warm washcloth and gently wiping away the dry blood. "It's just a scrape." She knew that. But he was a doctor in his soul and it was the only way he knew how to care for her. "I'm going to cover your incision with some plastic wrap so you can get rid of all this grease."

"Thank you, Hank," she said softly. He just nodded, clearly lost in thought. He finished covering her incision in the plastic and left her alone to shower. She didn't really want to be alone, but, at the same time, she wanted to crawl in a tiny hole and never come out.

When she'd finished scrubbing the grease off and made her way down stairs in a pair of Danny's sweat pants and one of John's t-shirts she found the guys sitting at the table with some kind of pasta on plates in front of them. Danny held out a glass of whiskey and a plate of pasta for her.

"If this is my kind of grieving, y'all are doing it wrong," she said. She took the provisions from Danny and headed for the living room. She pulled all the pillows from the couch and went for the blankets in the top of the coat closet, which only made her wince. Steve reached them for her, reminding her that she had help, she wasn't doing it alone. "John, get the candles, Hank, kill the lights," she ordered and they obeyed. Before long, she was sitting in the middle of the floor with them and they were picking at the pasta.

"Is this what you did all those nights you said you needed time?" John asked of the period of time after she'd lost her family.

"No, back then I was mostly just contemplating suicide and getting as drunk as possible while hoping, desperately, that it was all a bad dream," she said. "But I've changed. I'm not alone anymore."

"No, no you're not," John said. She looked around the room. She wasn't alone.