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Not mine.

Forgive me, I'm not a medical doctor and have no medical training. Please don't hold that against me. Remember, this is a work of fiction and helps to move the story along...Sort of.

And all mistakes are mine.

"Hey girl," Lula said, looking up from her magazine. "Ooh, donuts."

I sat the box down on the desk. "Got any skips for me?"

"Just one. Mooner. I called him and said you'd be by soon. He said, and I quote, 'cool, dudette. Mooner out.'"

Lula chuckled. "He's as high as a kite."

I rolled my eyes. That was the understatement of the year. As I picked up my third donut and sat down on the couch, Connie and Lula started to fan themselves.

"That man is so hot." Lula said.

By this time, since no celebrities have stopped by or will ever stop by, I figured it was Ranger. The tingle on my spine told me I was dead on.

"Ladies." He said. He gave me a slight nod of the head. I gave him a finger wave. "He in?" He asked Connie.

"Sure."

Ranger walked through the door of Vinnie's inner sanctum.

"Boy, I'd ride him till the cows came home." Lula said.

Connie and I thought about that and I mentally shivered. I knew what it was like to ride Batman. Pure magic.

A few minutes later, Ranger came out and grabbed his files. I followed him out to his car.

"I was thinking about stopping by around six." I said to him, putting my hands in my pockets.

"No one's putting a gun to your head." He continued to walk to his car.

"What's that supposed to mean?"

He opened the door and looked at me. "It means that you don't have to come back. Look, I appreciated you being there, but it's no longer necessary."

Ouch. That hurt. I shrugged my shoulders. "Okay, I guess I won't come then…"

He shrugged his shoulders this time. "Do whatever you want. Later."

I watched him drive away, confused. What had just happened here? Last night he could barely let me go. Now, he's acting as if nothing's wrong.

Oh hell no. He is not pulling that act on me again. I know he wants to seem all badass, but it no longer works on me. I've seen the man behind the mask and he was amazing.

At six thirty, I felt Ranger's presence.

"If you think you can fool me, Ranger, you have another thing coming." I said, turning the page of my magazine.

He sat down next to me. "I was serious. You don't have to be here."

I looked at him. Maybe he didn't…

"But I'm glad you are." He said, taking my hand and lacing our fingers together.

My heart warmed a little. Ranger has never forced me to do anything I didn't want to do. That was the thing I might love about him the most. We always found a way for the situation to work in both our favors. He was letting me choose to be here, not forcing me to. I gave him a small smile.

It was like that over the next few days. Every morning we'd see each other in the office and make polite conversation, as if none of this was going on. I never knew it, but Ranger could delve even deeper into Denial Land than I could. But every night, we'd be together at the hospital. Ranger and I would sit in the waiting room while his other siblings visited his father. Before it was his turn, he would take my hand and lace our fingers together. Sometimes he'd kiss my fingers.

It made me swoon.

The doctors weren't too happy with his father's progress, but considering his age, they weren't surprised.

Then one day, everything went to hell.

I was sitting in the waiting room, reading a magazine, when Ranger stormed out.

"Get up." He growled.

Seeing his rage, I did what I was told. "What's…?"

He held up a hand. "Not now." He then grabbed my arm and pulled me to the waiting Turbo outside.

"Get in." He said.

When I was situated, he walked around to the other side of the car and screeched away. I could see the tension in his shoulders and knew that whatever had happened, it wasn't good.

"Ranger-"I tried again.

"Later." He shifted gears and sped up.

I knew I should let him start, but after twenty minutes of speeding down deserted roads, I felt my eyes narrow.

"You tell me right now or I swear to God, I'll jump out of this car." It was a big, fat lie, but he needed to get a grip before something bad happened. Like getting us wrapped around a tree.

He looked at me for a moment, then back at the road. The car slowed, but he still didn't talk.

Then, suddenly, he stopped.

I looked around the car. Even when Ranger wasn't paying attention, he was still aware. He had stopped in the middle of a deserted field that I don't think even God could find us in.

He started to unbuckle me.

"What…?"

"Shh." He said, and he pulled me over the console and straight onto his lap.

"Okay, if you think you're getting any right now…"

I could feel him smile in my neck.

"Babe." He said.

It sounded slightly relaxed, so I deemed it a small victory for now. His hands gently roamed up my back, caressing my spine.

"You want to talk now?" I asked after a few minutes of silence.

He paused. "They…the doctors don't think my father will make it."

"What? That's crazy. He was alert and coherent yesterday."

"Well sometime last night, he had a stroke and he hasn't woken up yet. They're not sure if he's going to fully recover." He let a Batman sigh out. "They wanted to talk to us…to my mother about the options."

I leaned back, waiting for him to continue.

"We can leave him on the ventilator and pray for a miracle or we can pull the plug."

"Ranger…" I wasn't sure what to say.

"When they stopped talking about him like a human being, I just snapped." He said, tucking a curl behind my ear. "All I could think about was getting away."

That explained the mood.

"Then why drag us to the middle of nowhere."

"I needed somewhere quiet to collect my thoughts."

I snorted. "You'd be better off without me. I don't know the meaning of the word quiet."

He smirked a little. "You help keep me balanced. Keep me sane."

Okay, this is the moment when everyone will go 'aww'. Ranger needs me to be himself, which is a little funny because everyone knows that I'm the opposite. That I'm insane. But it's completely sweet all the same. Because when I'm in his arms and need to be comforted, I feel the same way plus completely protected from all the bad things in the world.

"Ranger you have to go back. Your family needs you." I said.

He sighed again and pulled me back into his chest. "I know. Give me a few more minutes." And he went back to stroking my back.

Exactly five minutes later, he deposited me back into my seat, and turned the car back towards the hospital. In a quick gesture, I grabbed his hand and squeezed, trying to tell him silently that everything would be okay.

And I hoped that it would.