This time around, I've got a section from Chapter 14 of Lies, Damned Lies, and Statistics that didn't work out. This would have gone where the section starting "Hospitals, like any other bureaucracy, work slowly…" is in the final version.

Here it is, commentary afterward:

Chapter 14 - Discarded part for Thursday

Alex and Lexie took turns again, and had one close call when Theresa came looking for Alex while they were pulling their switch, but they managed. Miranda came for the late visiting time, and that was a little awkward, with her not knowing about Alex and Lexie, but it was still good to have her there. Harper came as well, and that made things easier, even though Harper wasn't greatly happy about Miranda being there.

The doctors wanted to keep Justin in the ICU for the rest of the night, then move him to a private room in the morning, once they were sure things were stabilized. They wanted to keep him for several more days after that, but Alex didn't care - once he was in the private room, she could spend the night with him. Okay, so she'd have to sleep in a chair, but... for him, she would. So Alex spent another night with Miranda - this one was a much happier evening, though, and they had popcorn and watched trash TV, talking about how amazingly stupid the people on the shows were.

As it worked out, Justin didn't get moved to his new room until nearly three - and then there were people in and out for a good solid hour, setting up the monitoring machines, talking to him again to make sure he was recovering well, and so on. Of course, by then, it was nearly time that Harper, Max, and Lexie would be getting there.

"Justin - come on, we can tell Max. It's Max. He's used to weird. He'll shrug and say something that makes no sense at all, and then he'll realize something more important. Something about food that'll be absolutely disgusting."

"No," Justin said, closing his eyes and shaking his head slowly. "From what you told me, we could have had a disaster with Miranda, if she'd decided to go to the police. And Harper was a close thing too. Look... I'd like him to know too. But now is not the time."

Alex bit back her first retort, and her second, then closed her eyes and breathed out patiently. Then she smiled and squeezed her brother's hand, said, "I'll let you win right now, since I'm so happy you're okay."

"Thanks," Justin said, smiling and squeezing back. He frowned, then pointed to the pitcher of water. "Could you get me some more water, please?"

"Sure," Alex said, setting aside the GED book as she got up. She poured about half a cup, brought it over to Justin, who took it with his left hand, raised it to his lips and sipped slowly. "This is kind of a switch," Alex said then, smiling at him. "Me taking care of you. It's actually sort of fun. But don't get too used to it," she finished with a wink.

Justin handed the empty cup back to her, chuckling a little. "I'll try not to. But -" He cut off as Alex's phone buzzed. She picked it up, looked at the screen for a second, then flipped it open.

"Hey Lexie. Okay, yeah, I can clear out of here by then, and we'll meet up in the bathroom." She giggled, then said, "You know, Mom's going to think you're having a bladder problem soon, if we have to keep this up." She paused, turning half away from Justin as she listened to Lexie, and he took the opportunity to watch her for a few moments.

A moment later she thumbed the call off, then turned to look at Justin, frowned at his gaze. "Do I have something on my face? What are you staring like that for?"

"Because I love you. And because you're beautiful."

She smiled back, said, "Does getting hit by a car always make you this sappy?" Immediately, she held up a hand, said, "Skip that question. We're not getting you hit by another one to find out. Mom, Dad, Max, and Lexie are gonna be here in about ten minutes, so I'm going to have to clear out for a little while." She walked to her brother, leaned down and kissed him softly on the lips, keeping it a surface kiss, but lingering for a moment. Alex pulled back just a few inches, smiled into his eyes, then said, "I love you."

"I love you too," Justin answered, and caressed her face for a moment with his left hand.

So, why didn't I use this? Well, for one thing, I discovered just how expensive the private rooms at the hospital I was using were, so I decided it wasn't reasonable for Justin to be put in one. Secondly, both Harper and Miranda had been let in on the secret in this story, so I decided I didn't want to bring up Max being let in yet.

Most importantly, though, when I wrote this, I didn't feel like I knew where I was going. I was thrashing around, writing little snippets of fluff, and while I enjoy fluff sometimes, I like plot as well. So I backed off and tried to decide where I was going from here, which is when I realized that I wanted to do the 'unlawful wedding'. Once I had a clear idea of what was coming up next, I wanted to make this section shorter, and to get rid of the fluff in it, since the wedding itself was going to be amazingly fluffy.

So this section went, and all that survived from it was a couple of sentences that I reused. The "Mom's going to think you have a bladder problem" and "Does getting hit by a car always make you this sappy?" I liked enough that I considered keeping them, but I didn't. Still not sure if that was a good decision or not… but at this point LDLS was already the longest story I'd written so far, so I decided not to.