When they made it back to the lodge, Ryan gingerly climbed out of the car, balancing as carefully as he could on the slick ice. He was half- looking foward to and half- dreading facing Marissa. He didn't want her to feel guilty per- se, what happened on the ski slopes was probably an accident, and even if it wasn't... Well, he could forgive Marissa a little stupidity, as long as she managed to eventually come to her senses.

What worried him was that she wouldn't and now he was out of commission. As much as he didn't want to admit the truth but he knew his knee was bad. The doctor at the 24- hour clinic had barely glanced at it. He had spent most of the two hours sitting alone in a cold room, his knee alternating between aching and sending sharp shooting pains signals to his brain. When the doctor had finally seen him he had told him to go home, ice it, and keep it elevated and muttered gruff instructions to see an orthopedist if it still hurt in a week. He scribbled down a prescription for naproxen, which Ryan knew was just a high dosage of Aleve. Then a nurse came in to put an Ace bandage on it to keep the swelling down. She had tut- tutted and said he should probably go to the ER, and then taken pity on him when he'd started to limp away, and offered him crutches. She seemed to know that the doctor did not actually dispense any sort of valuable medical advice to Ryan, or probably to any patients who came through his door.

He hadn't wanted to take the crutches, but offered the choice between using them or trying to use his knee, the crutches seemed like a safer bet. He had tried testing the knee a few times, and found it strongly resisted taking any weight. He had tried to put a brave face on it when he saw Summer and Luke in the waiting room. He was grateful that they had been nice enough to take him to the local clinic. He didn't want to ask anything else of them. At first they had said maybe they should go to the hospital, but that was a trek and Ryan didn't feel up to it. He had just wanted to go to the clinic, get some pain killers, go home and get some sleep.

He looked up and saw Summer looking at him with pity in her eyes. He wasn't sure if it was because he was obviously beat up, or because she knew it should have been Marissa out in the snow with him. Marissa should have been the one to take him to the clinic

"Ryan?" Luke's voice snapped him back to the present, and his predicament of trying to navigate safely into the house while staying balanced on the crutches, which so far he hadn't mastered. "You okay? Need any help?"

"Nah, I'm cool." Ryan said, and placed the crutches under his arm and slowly began tapping his way up to the front porch. He had almost made it when he put one of the crutches down on a patch of ice, and it slid out from underneath him. In a desperate attempt to stop himself from falling he tried to put his bad leg underneath him, but it buckled the moment he put pressure on it, and he fell to the ground. Summer was at his side almost instantly.

"Oh my God, are you alright?" She asked, brushing her hair out of her face. He grimaced.

"Yeah..." He grunted, his knee was throbbing, he wasn't sure how much more pain he could tolerate.

"Need a hand?" Luke helped him to his feet, and Ryan didn't bother resisting. Summer helped him reposition the crutches. The door opened and Seth appeared in the doorway, drawn out by the commotion.

"Hey, we were wondering where you all went off to... What are you all doing out here?" The Luke moved away from where he had been standing in front of Ryan and un- blocked Seth's view. "Ryan!" Seth cried out, surprised at seeing his step brother clearly injured and for a moment he seemed at a loss for words.

Ryan decided he might as well explain indoors rather than outside, and ignored Seth's wide-eyed stare and limped past him into the house. Unsure what else to do, Seth decided to resort his usual method of communication- sarcasm, "Ryan, did you get into a fight with the abominable snow man?" Ryan had made it to the couch and collapsed onto it, trying to keep from bending his knee, then turned and glared again at Seth. The look told Seth that at the moment, humor was not appreciated.

Seth decided to take the situation a little more seriously, and immediately a thousand questions bubbled to the surface: "What's wrong with you? Did you guys to the hospital? Did you call Mom and Dad? Why didn't you tell me something was wrong?" The questions tumbled out without Seth pausing to take a breath.

"No Seth, I haven't told them..." Ryan said choosing to only answer one of the questions- the easiest to answer, and seeing his brother reaching for the phone, "Don't you dare call them and get them panicked, I'm fine!" Ryan snapped at him.

Seth's hand slid away from his pocket, and as if he was unsure what to do with the hand, he ran it through his hair, and scratched his head, looking uncertainly at Ryan. He was pretty sure Ryan wasn't "fine" but he also could tell Ryan wasn't in the mood to be answering his questions. "So where did you go just now?" Seth asked finally, they had obviously seen a doctor or something, where else had Ryan gotten the crutches? He glanced at Luke and Summer, who hovered anxiously around Ryan. Summer had been looking at her cell phone, but she snapped it shut quickly.

"There's a 24 hour clinic near here, we saw where we were driving up. We took him there." Summer explained glancing at Ryan and then looking around for Anna, who was nowhere in sight. She felt a slight moment of glee, surely Seth had to notice that she had been the one taking care of his brother. Would Anna have done that?

"Do you want anything Ryan? Maybe some water? Some Tylenol maybe? Ice pack?" Anna had somehow materialized out of thin air next to Ryan on the couch. How did she do that? Summer felt a flash of anger and wished she had thought of asking Ryan if he had needed anything.

"I'm fine thanks." Ryan said, looking around sadly at the gathered group, "Where's Marissa?" The moment froze as everyone looked around for her aimlessly, as if she was right there in the room and they had somehow not seen her, but it was obvious that neither she nor Oliver were at the lodge.

"Uhmm... Guess they went out." Seth said lamely. The two of them had appeared briefly and eaten some Chinese food, and then left again. Seth had been preoccupied… He glanced guiltily at Anna.

Ryan looked angry, then he flipped open his cell phone and dialed Marissa's number. Everyone tried to look away and act like they were interested in something else. Luke and Summer wandered off to the kitchen to see what was left of the Chinese food. They were starving, but both had an ear cocked for Ryan's conversation with Marissa. They wondered what he was going to say to her, and what she would have to say to him. Where was she anyway?