The roads were quite impossible to navigate. Max wanted to try and dial Red's number, but he'd already tried various times. It was true: Red's phone had to be dead. Max knew there was no way the stable hand would neglect to answer his phone in such a situation. The only reason Max kept calling was because he hoped for some reason that maybe, just maybe, Red's phone would jump back to life.

"Should we call the police?" asked Deborah from the passenger's seat. Judy was lying spread out on the backseat, snoring unashamedly. "Personally I think we should. That way Pine Hollow will be high up on their priorities list."

"That's actually a really good idea," said Max. He craned his neck to try and see around the long line of cars ahead of them. "You want to call or should I?"

"I will," said Deborah, taking out her cell phone. Max listened as Deborah dialed the three numbers, and a 911 operator came on the line. "Hello, this is Deborah Regnery. I'm calling because I'm aware of a situation that needs immediate action…Pine Hollow Stables…yes, that's the correct address…yes, someone is trapped there, a tree is down on the stable…thank you so much."

Deborah snapped her phone shut and dropped it into the nearest cup-holder. "They're on their way there," she informed Max. "They'll probably be up there getting rid of the trees in no time."

"Thank God," said Max, rubbing his face with one of his hands. "That kid had better be okay."

"Max, listen. I'm sure he's fine."

"No, he's not. Didn't you hear him, while Judy was on the phone with him? When he…" Max searched for the right word. "…I don't know, when he made that sound like he was in pain? He's only eighteen, Deborah. He turned eighteen two weeks ago. He's just a kid."

Deborah, to Max's surprise, laughed. She actually laughed. Max was about to glare at her when she explained. "Max, you need to listen to yourself. Red O'Malley is a legitimate adult. I don't care if he turned eighteen yesterday. He's been living at a barn for at least a year and he's been taking perfect care of himself. In fact, do we even know where his parents were then? And last night, when he helped a horse have a baby."

She paused, letting all that sink in. Max nodded slowly after a minute of mulling it over. Deborah finished: "I think he grew up a long time ago."

"Oh, I don't know," Max burst. In the backseat, Judy snorted at the loud sound, but remained asleep. "I really hate to hear him in so much pain." He hesitated before adding softly, "I don't know, he's like…family or something."

Deborah looked like she wanted to hug Max, but she restrained herself. Instead, she smiled reassuringly at him. "Now we know that there are people on their way to reach Pine Hollow. They'll find Red and he'll be safe and sound."

"I really hope so," said Max. "I really, really hope so."

The kid that had grown up a long time ago was at that moment in the middle of feeding the horses. His head was pounding with such fervor that Red wouldn't have been surprised if there was a little man beating on a drum in there. His stomach had bypassed hungry and was at the point of hunger-induced nausea. His ankle was likely to give way any second, as it had done several times in the past hours; and even worse, he'd begun to cough as well. He'd probably caught a cold from being around all this dampness without ever taking the time to dry off.

Red soon finished feeding the horses. The ones in the wash stall were less frenzied than they had been. Nickel in the tack room was clearly bored, but he hadn't settled for chewing on any of the tack yet. The stallions had yet to start fighting each other over territory-crossings, and the mares in the indoor ring were standing around quite calmly sharing a large bale of hay that Red had tossed in there with them. Everything was going swimmingly, which was why Red thought something was about to take a turn for the worse.

He paused by Bella's stall and glanced in. Miracle was on his feet now and shifting around, bored by the lack of interesting things in his stall and outside his stall. Red started to say something to the colt, but he cut himself off with a violent coughing fit. Watch me have gotten tuberculosis, Red thought miserably, as the last of his coughs faded away.

Red moved away from the stall. It occurred to him that he could open the garage-sized door that led outside from the indoor ring – and then he realized that he could even head up to check on the trees that were blocking the road. Maybe people were already working on getting rid of the trees. Red had a sudden mental image of Max slicing through the fallen trees with a chainsaw. He didn't doubt that the man would be quite capable at this point. He was probably beside himself with worry.

The stable hand headed into the indoor ring, only after giving up on keeping himself awake and grabbing his handy-dandy makeshift crutch of a broom. He passed the mares, who were very calmly munching on hay, and with some work managed to open the garage-sized door.

A large gust of cold wind greeted him. Great, thought Red sarcastically. So this fantastic wind's still going strong. Red honestly considered riding a horse up to see if the road was still blocked, but he didn't want to put one of the horses in danger. It was a short walk up to where the trees had blocked the road, wasn't it?

Red cast a wry look down at his right ankle. He'd taken the time to roll up the end of his pant leg some hours ago and had found that his ankle was swollen. That walk might have been short on a regular day, but to him, it would feel like a thousand miles. Surely there were people working on moving the trees.

He decided to believe this and retreated back into the barn, limping the whole way.

A/N: Hey! I'm uploading this guy too because I took so long in updating. :P Review?