Rachel was positive that the last three hours had been the longest in the history of time. Raylan went out to lunch. Less lunch than a doctor's appointment that he refused to let Tim drive him to.
An hour later he came back, sat down and picked up a file, and started reading.
He's still reading, or pretending to, he hasn't said a word to anybody. He's doing his best to blend into the background, and he's still sporting the soft foam collar they gave him to protect his neck.
She knows something is seriously off, because there isn't a coffee in sight. He hasn't stirred near the coffee pot, and when Nelson called out for orders fifteen minutes ago, Raylan stayed quiet.
She gives him a long look.
He senses her looking, or maybe he just wants to make eye contact. She's not sure. Normally he would just trundle his chair backwards until he was right next to her, but this isn't one of those moments. Instead of turning his head to look at her, he turns his whole body on the chair.
She frowns, reading between the lines he's had enough. He looks tired, and snappish and she can almost feel the anger seething beneath the surface.
She's finished with her paperwork, and since she's on the injured rosta too, she figures they could legitimately call it a day. He's not actually angry, unless it's about the collar, he's just reached his limit.
"Home?" she says.
For a moment she thinks he's going to try to be super-cool about it, to reassert his alpha male need to be in charge of his own destiny, but then he says "Yeah."
She gets to her feet, positions her crutches, and swing/limps her way to Art's door, tells him she's getting out of here and taking Raylan with her, and Tim's going to drive them, quells whatever smart-ass remark Tim was about to make with a look, and then chivies Raylan to his feet.
Somehow she manages to drop a quiet word in Tim's ear. They're all going back to Raylan's. She just has this feeling that he needs his friends but doesn't know how to ask them.
Before they get as far as Raylan's place, which is a step above the miserable rat hole above the bar, Rachel's already implanted the idea of a bucket of chicken and biscuits, with some nice greens to go with, and movie night. Raylan's face actually lights up at the thought, and since Tim catches a look at Raylan's expression in the rearview mirror, Rachel doesn't even have to push that hard. She knows that Tim won't let an injured friend down.
Raylan's apartment has level access, which in the circumstances is good, Rachel really isn't too fond of the crutch/limp/swing routine over more than a couple of stairs. Her plan is going to take some finesse, but thankfully Raylan's couch is old, and kinda small, and Raylan gives in surprisingly easily when she suggests that they relocate his tv to the end of his bed, she can stretch her leg out and support it, he can rest, and Tim doesn't mind sitting on the bed.
The tv is easily relocated, it's not particularly large or particularly heavy, Raylan got it in one of those cheap store deals, so Tim manages the set up without any difficulty. A knock at the door says food's arrived. Raylan's in the bathroom changing into something more comfortable, so Tim goes to get the door.
Rachel had hoped that Tim would grow a clue as to how much pain Raylan was in, but Tim's arrival in the doorway just as Raylan is exiting the bathroom with his wife-beater around his neck, and his good arm, asking Rachel if she wouldn't mind pulling it down.
"Jeezus!" Without the shirt, Tim can see the bruising around Raylan's shoulder that isn't covered by the sling. It's actually black, there's slightly less bruising down his ribcage, it disappears past the waistband of Raylan's sleep pants, and Tim has no doubt that it's bad, but he can't tear his eyes away from the horror of that black bruise. He hands the chicken off to Rachel and goes over to Raylan. Very gently pulls the undershirt down avoiding touching Raylan's battered shoulder. "Does Art know it's this bad?"
Numbly, Raylan shakes his head. Looks over to Rachel, knowing that she kinda fixed this, letting Tim know without breaking a confidence. People care about him, this is a strange new set of variables, and Raylan was never much of a mathematician but he can calculate this. Not sure he can quite articulate it, but he lets Tim help him into bed, they both organize the pillows so his back and injured shoulder are supported, then Tim goes and gets plates from the kitchen, and Rachel rifles through some DVDs, and they settle in to dinner and the Avengers' movie which prompts a weird conversation about superheroes, which quickly degenerates into the Batman v Superman argument. Two big bags of micro-wave popcorn later, they're on The Dark Knight Rises, that Tim just happened to have in his trunk, together with his sleeping bag. Rachel has changed into one of Raylan's warm flannel check shirts, and borrowed a pair of soft fluffy white socks that may or may not have belonged to Winona, Raylan's sinking down a little into his nest of pillows, wondering quietly how he can get them to stay the night because he really doesn't want to lose this feeling.
Even with the nasty white bandage around her knee, he's not too tired or too sore to fail to appreciate that Rachel has nice legs.
She pats his hand, and he blushes a little that she caught him looking.
He's warm and comfortable, sinking slowly down, with a vague sense of tilting to the right. His right cheek encounters something warm and firm, he tries to keep his eyes open, but they droop closed as the stadium falls away beneath the players.
Just before he falls asleep, a small hand cards gently through his hair, the fingers scritch his scalp a little and he makes a soft contented noise.