Author's Note: I guess you could call this the drabble that got a little carried away. I actually sat down tonight to work on a fluffy piece, but this is what happened instead. I had my issues with the ending of the finale, but this is my way to deal with that. I'll work on getting something else up later on this week. Any and all reviews are very much appreciated. Thanks for reading!
In a daze, Deacon wakes up in the passenger seat. It takes him a few minutes to gain his bearings and to realize he's upside down. He blinks, pressing a hand to his temple. When he pulls it away his fingers are slick with blood. He closes his eyes, trying to remember just how and when he got here.
Tires screeching. Glass shattering. Metal scraping metal. A high, piercing scream.
It's now that he remembers. Wincing, he turns his head in her direction, and it takes everything within him not to let out a scream at what he sees. "Ray," Deacon cries, shifting as best he can in his upside down condition. "Rayna, come on. Wake up."
Rayna lays still in the driver's seat, her head lolled to one side and arms, covered with scrapes and embedded with glass, strewn about at her sides. He brushes hair back from her shoulder, shaking her as softly as he can, but she doesn't react.
"Rayna, please," Deacon sobs. He knows they were fighting when it happened, but it doesn't matter now. He'd take her yelling at him if it meant she'd wake up. When she doesn't respond he tries the door, thinking if he can at least get out maybe there's some other way he can get her to safety, but it doesn't budge.
Seconds go by. Minutes that feel like hours. He knows it can't be that long, but every moment that slides by with Rayna not awake is one too long. Deacon shifts, biting his tongue to stop himself from crying out in pain, and palms the seat around him in search of his cell phone to call for help. His hands come up empty. He can feel consciousness slipping from his grip, but he fights the urge to lean back and just let go. Just then he hears sound coming from the driver's side, low but still enough to give him hope.
"Deacon?" Rayna murmurs, her voice coming out slow and cracked. "Deacon, what…how did we—"
He knows that every move made could jostle the vehicle, could further injure either of them, but he still finds himself reaching out for her hand, desperate to provide some semblance of comfort. "It'll be okay," he says. Maybe it's wrong, giving her false hope, but it doesn't stop him. "I'll find a way."
Tears spill from her eyes, spilling upward towards her hair. She wants to say so many things, needs him to know so much, but she can't find the right words to say them all, so instead all that comes out is a meager apology. "I'm sorry. About Maddie, about…what I said. About…"
"No. No, no, no…" Deacon insists, shaking his head despite the fact it makes him feel like the whole world is spinning and he is its axis. "You and me, we're not apologizin' right now, okay? You can say sorry and you can hate me later, right now we need to find a way out."
Rayna sobs quietly, her eyelids feeling heavy. At his encouragement, she tries to kick her legs out, only to be met with resistance. "I can't—" she stops, trying to process what's happening while clinging to his hand like a lifeline. "They won't…I'm stuck."
It's the only motivation he needs. Deacon pries off his seat belt and sits up as much as he can without jostling everything around him. His side pulses and he's almost certain something is broken, but he's determined to find a way out, even if that means crawling through the remnants of the windshield, glass shards gleaming like small daggers around the edges. He's trying to figure out how best to move forward, when he hears it, faint at first and then growing louder. "Sirens. Someone must've…the other driver…Ray, help's coming, okay?"
Her eyes flutter open long enough to see blue and red flashing against the interior of the car before closing again. The last thing she hears before blacking out is the sound of Deacon yelling, telling her to fight, to hold on.
In the agonizing moments before an officer shows up at his side, the scent of alcohol invades his senses, and he curses himself for it. There will be questions and tests and an investigation, and all because of him. All because, just for a moment, he let go of the control he'd worked for years to build. He's conscious of the fact Rayna's gone still and quiet beside him, and he doesn't want to admit how much it terrifies him. If anything happens to him, he doesn't care, as long as she gets out of this. As angry as he still may be, it's all that matters.