Rayna looked down at her phone and sighed.
"Which one now?" Deacon asked from his bed. "Juliette? Teddy? Beverly? I know that sigh, Ray and someone's about got on your last nerve."
Rayna looked over from her chair and smiled. "No, it's Tandy. I think she is trying to break it to me that she needs to head back to California."
Deacon pressed his hand down and moved to sit up a bit more, grunting with the effort. "C'mere, babe. It's too far with you way over there."
Rayna crossed over and sat down at the foot of his bed. "You doing okay? You want me to call the nurse for something?"
Deacon shook his head. "It's just gonna be tender for a while. They all said that. It's only been a little more than a week…"
Rayna reached out and took his hand. "And this one might go slower than you expected, so take care of yourself, babe."
Deacon pulled her closer to him. "I will. I promise."
She moved closer and let him pull her into his arms, her lips meeting his without words. They stayed there until a knock at the door had Rayna drop back toward the foot of the bed.
"Sorry, didn't mean to interrupt…" Caleb Rand said as he walked into the room.
Rayna blushed slightly but Deacon just grinned.
"Hey, I'm a man who cheated death," he said. "Plus, the way people are walking in and out of here and doing things to a person, it's not like I have any semblance of shame left."
"Well, I can probably do something about that," the doctor replied. "Your incision is healing well, your cardiac enzymes are all within normal levels and the liver is showing no signs of rejection, so at this point, I think the best thing to do is to discharge you and let you go home."
"Really?" Rayna asked. "I mean, today?"
Caleb nodded. "I'm going to have the transplant nurse come in and do a final education session, but yes, you can be released this afternoon. I'm going to need to see you again in a couple of days-we still have a lot of healing to do, but the team has all agreed that there's no need for you to stay in the hospital."
Rayna raised her hand to her mouth, surprised to find tears filling her eyes. After everything that had happened, it had never felt like this day would come.
"Thanks, doc," Deacon said. "I mean it-thanks for being there with us through all of it."
Caleb nodded, holding Deacon's chart tight to his chest. "I'm glad it all worked out. I really am. So, I'll go see where they are with getting the appointments set, but I'm thinking we should have everything ready to go for you in maybe four hours of so."
As he turned to leave, Rayna got up and followed him out of the room into the hallway.
"So, he's really ready to go home?" she asked as she pulled the door closed behind her.
"He's stable and I think that getting out of the hospital would be good for him," Caleb replied.
Rayna looked over at the closed door. "I know you've only known him for a few months, and those were under pretty intense circumstances, but does he seem okay?"
"What do you mean?" Caleb asked.
Rayna looked up, shaking her head. "I don't know-he's just-he's been very congenial, optimistic and not too terribly worried about anything. He hasn't asked much about Bev, hasn't commented about Scarlett not being around, doesn't seem very engaged with the girls, he just...he isn't Deacon."
Caleb nodded. "I'd noticed a pretty significant change from his pre-surgical attitude, but I didn't know if that's just how he was because of the illness."
"Is it the heart incident?" Rayna asked, her face covered with concern. "The transplant?"
"At this point, it's hard for us to know," Caleb answered. "But it's definitely something we're going to monitor. And as I said, getting him home in more comfortable surroundings may make all the difference."
Caleb turned and walked a few steps, then stopped and turned back. "Have you heard from Scarlett?"
Rayna shook her head. "Not since she got back to Mississippi with Beverly. I've called, but have only gotten her voice mail. Have you?"
"No," Caleb replied. "I can't decide if that means I should go down there or just stay here and wait until she's ready to let me in."
Rayna reached out and put her hand on his arm. "If there's one thing I've learned all these years, it's that sometimes it's better to let a Claybourne come to you. She'll call you when she's ready."
Scarlett pulled off the visitor's badge as she walked back to her car. She opened the door and slid into the driver's seat and sighed.
"Did you get to see her?" Gunnar asked.
Scarlett shook her head. "As I was reminded once again, patients do reserve the right to refuse to see a visitor-even if it's that patient's daughter."
Gunnar reached over and slipped his arm behind her, pulling her awkwardly into a hug. "She still knows you were here and that you came, even if she can't get that all you wanted to do was take care of her and get her well."
"She's never gonna forgive me," Scarlett said, her face tucked into Gunnar's shoulder. Her body started to shake as the tears came once again.
Gunnar held her, waiting until the tears subsided.
"So, give it another day?" he asked.
Scarlett sat up and shook her head. "Rayna texted today. Deacon's goin' home. Guess that maybe we should head back to Nashville. Might be time for us all to get back to our lives."
"Might be," Gunnar replied. Except at this point he had no idea what that exactly looked like.
Deacon eased back against the pillows and let out a sigh. He looked over at the closed door. Rayna wasn't very subtle about her need to talk to the doctor about him. He eased his t-shirt up and looked once again at the bandages covering the incision that went across most of his abdomen in a "Y" shape.
He had tried to downplay it, again, but the pain was more intense than he'd expected. And he felt weak. Even the weeks before the surgery when he'd had more symptoms, he'd never felt as weak as he did now.
He reached for the glass on the table next to him, gasping as another wave of pain went across him.
It hurt. He hurt. He knew that he should care about what was going on with Bev, ask something about Scarlett or even be somewhat interested in whatever thing Teddy had gotten himself tied up in now, but he couldn't.
Right now, it was all he could do to keep breathing and not scream. And anyway, he was alive. And right now, that had to be enough for all of them.
Maybe getting home would be better, maybe things would start to feel more normal.
He looked over at the wardrobe. He should get up and start putting somethings in there, get things packed up.
He raised the head of the bed until the pain in his abdomen got too bad, then pulled the blankets back so he could get his legs free. They'd had him up walking the last few days, up and down the hallway. With a walker at first, then just the IV pole. Since yesterday he'd been free of the tubes and wires.
He swung his legs down toward the floor and waited for the next wave of pain to subside. He felt a little dizzy at the movement. Slowly he eased off the bed, holding onto the side rail for balance and stood up.
Why anyone thought he was well enough to leave this place was beyond him. But Rayna had looked so happy at the thought of going home. He took in a breath and stepped forward. One foot in front of another. And everything would be fine. Eventually.
TBC