I love you all. Thank you so much for the kind words. We're going to learn much more about Austin's accident and all that surrounds it soon enough. For those of you who are familiar with Tom Maden from MTV Scream, that's who Jake looks like (who is more heavily in this chapter). And yes, I used the same name bc Tom Maden looks like a Jake. ;D Anyway, this chapter is more set up but it's important. :)

Let me know what you think. Enjoy!


Down in the main area, Ally saw several other interns with their patients. Cassidy was with Jake in the corner and they were playing one of her board games, while two others looked on. There was another guy who was holding a walking stick and laughing with another guy who she assumed was the intern. Another girl was hooked up to an oxygen tank but moving faster than anyone else in the room while the sweaty intern from yesterday tried to keep up.

When Austin came into the room, Jake's face lit up. "Hey, man!"

"Bro," Austin answered and Ally scowled to herself. Why did everyone else seem to like him? He was being a douche bag to her.

"This is Cassidy; she's who they hooked me up with." Ally saw a twinkle in his eye. Almost as if he had the same thought process that Cassidy admitted to the day before. He introduced himself to the strawberry blonde who was very polite and they shared a few words. "Who is your buddy?"

Oddly, Austin didn't make a negative comment. "Oh. Ally is. She's over there. Ally?"

Ally came forward and forced a smile. "Hello. Nice to meet you."

"You too," Jake said and he glanced at Austin, who had covered his lower body with a blanket. "How did the surgery go yesterday?"

At the question, the blond teenager lifted the blanket to show a surgical tape covering part of his intact leg that she hadn't noticed. "So far so good. They think for sure now that it should heal and have no lasting effects." He smiled ruefully. "So here's to hoping…"

Jake nodded solemnly. "I'm thinking about you every day, man. I don't pray like your family does, but you are always in my thoughts."

Ally raised an eyebrow at this. The loudmouthed, rude teenager below her was from a religious family? Why did he seem so normal? The only religious family she knew lived down the block and they often were preaching to her about how important it was to get God into your life. Ally never realized that not everyone could be like that.

"Thank you. I have hope, but not too much."

Jake laughed. "Yeah. You guys want in on our next game?" They were playing CandyLand. Ally wanted to snort. She couldn't remember the last time she played that, but Austin nodded his head vigorously.

"Hell yeah. Oh man," he said with excitement. "You have no idea how good I am at Candyland I used to beat…" he trailed off, his eyes casting downward. He only allowed that for a second before returning with a smile, curtly cutting off the other thought. "Yeah. I'd love to play. Ally?"

She was surprised that he included her. She shrugged her shoulders, knowing she was stuck here for at least another four hours and sighed. There was no escaping it.

Time went slow. It turned out that Cassidy owned more board games than Ally could ever remember seeing, and each time, Austin beat everyone. Finally, after about an hour, a nurse called Austin away, stating that he had appointments to get to. The nurse instructed Ally that she could not come to his first appointment (it was some sort of mental consultation she got the feeling), but she was welcome to sit in on the second. Austin didn't look thrilled by this, but shrugged his shoulders. She thanked the nurse and said she would meet them in the room in about a half hour.

From there, she sat with Cassidy and Jake.

"So, how do you like Austin, Ally?" Cassidy asked as they started a game of Left, Right, Center.

"I don't really know him," she said with honesty. "He seems alright."

Jake cut in, "He's a good guy. He's been through a lot in the last few weeks. He got here last week, and I must say, today's the best mood he's been in thus far." Ally cringed internally at that. That was not a good sign for her. It would be a rocky road, it seemed. "I think the surgery going well as much improved his mood."

"Ah," she said lamely.

"Has he told you everything?" Jake asked.

Ally shook her head, "No."

Cassidy eyed Jake with curiosity, but he didn't elude to anything further. He simply stated that Cassidy owed him a chip and pretended like he never said a word. They got so into the game that Ally didn't realize it had been forty-five minutes until Cassidy said so.

With a hurried motive, she left the main area and tried to remember which room that Ally was supposed to meet the nurse and Austin in. She knew it was on the main floor and that the nurse mentioned it was near the bathrooms, but she had it to find it. Only when she was seconds from turning around to go back and ask, she overhead the nurse say Austin's name from a room just down the hall.

"You're doing great, Austin," she encouraged. "Really well."

She didn't hear him respond. She inched closer to the room, still keeping her anonymity and waited to hear what he said. She was shocked to hear him gasp and cry out in pain. Ally recoiled like she had watched it happen.

"Was that painful?"

"Yes," he spat out, not angrily but more so because of some sort of pain, she assumed. "Oh man." He took a deep, shaky breath. "Is that a good sign?"

The nurse hummed, "Well, a lot of paraplegics I know feel pain and discomfort but it doesn't always mean that it is a sign that they'll recover some of their lost mobility no," she stated, "If I'm being honest with you, and I know you want that. But this early on, feeling it during physio, I would say it doesn't necessarily mean the opposite either. You're in for a long road to recovery either way, Austin. Your injury has been not determined yet as complete or incomplete. The swelling in your spinal cord has not gone down enough."

Ally swallowed hard, ignoring the feeling those words gave her. How terrible.

He just sighed. "Great."

She announced her presence then and while the nurse looked delighted, Austin did not. He was on the floor, the wheelchair to the side and she was gingerly moving his amputated limb up and down for range of motion, she assumed. She'd seen her father do it a time or two when she got stuck at the hospital as a kid. The other leg was firmly on the floor, looking angry and painful.

"Great timing, Ally! I am stretching Austin right now. It is part of his physical therapy. It is both used to keep muscles in tact and hopefully in time, to help him regain some range of motion."

She nodded shortly. "And he will?"

Austin seemed surprised by her question and the nurse answered, "It's too early to tell that right now, unfortunately. Austin's injury is still too new for the doctors to give definite answers. But we're hopeful. Right, Austin?"

Austin looked at her from the floor and there was something in her eyes that latched on, if only for a second. "Yeah, we are."

Ally watched the session continue for the next fifteen minutes and she could tell by his expression he was in a lot of pain, but was keeping it in for the sake of her presence. She remained at a distance, not sure she wanted to be any closer. The nasty scars and bruises on his full leg stared back at her and she wondered what had happened to him to make him become in that condition. She supposed she could ask, but she would probably get a rude, sarcastic answer in return and she didn't want to deal with that. So when the nurse announced they were done for the day, and helped Austin back into his chair, she simply followed beside him to the elevator, where he wordlessly hit the up button and waited. She noticed in those seconds he was gripping the wheelchair with one hand so tightly that the skin in his fingers was going pure white.

Out of pure worry, she asked, "Are you still in pain?"

He glared up at her, "What do you care?"

She was taken back by the direct fire of a response and immediately shut her lips and left him be. They went into the elevator wordlessly and went to his room where they stopped short.

"I want to be alone," he stated curtly.

Ally furrowed her eyebrows at him, "It's a little past noon! I have to be here until three. You can't just tell me to leave."

"I can and I will," he stated a second time and wheeled himself to the room. She watched as he went over to the window, staring out at the view. Ally refused his request and walked in after him, picking up her 'huge designer bag' and looking at the file. Would it state what happened to him in detail, or was that kind of thing only told through verbal message? Ally was too enthralled with that notion to notice him coming back over.

"What?" she asked when he looked at her.

"Why are you still here?" he demanded.

Ally rolled her eyes, "Because as much as you're being a dick to me, I have to be here in order to get into medical school and I really don't want my father to hate me." She smiled sweetly down at him. "So don't think it has anything to do with you. I would have been out that door five minutes ago if otherwise."

He seemed disappointed by her answer and wheeled over to the bed, ready to seemingly climb into it himself. Ally stayed back a moment, knowing that he couldn't possibly have the upper body strength to do that, especially not with the severe injury in his lower extremities so recent. Finally, she sighed, "Before you go and die, let me help you. I do not want to explain to the nurses why I was the only intern whose patient died on their watch."

"That's so heartwarming," he snapped. "Brought a tear to my eye."

"You're a miserable person," she muttered as she helped him into bed.

He turned away from her best he could, "Well, at least I have a reason to be."

"He was by far the most miserable person I have ever met, yet he had the nerve to call me miserable!" Ally sat on Trish's bed later that afternoon, still reeling from her first day as an intern at the rehab facility. "I don't even know what I did! I mean, yeah, I probably should've known who I was meeting before I walked in there, but to assume that I should or was made aware is also wrong!" She was upset for more than one reason, and she couldn't figure out why.

"Was he a jerk the moment you walked in?" Trish asked.

She thought back, "He was nice when the nurse was there, but then he started making snarky and rude comments. When we were around others, he was nice. It was really weird. And when he was at his physical therapy session, he looked almost… I don't know different."

The Latina girl beside her nodded, "That would make sense. He was most vulnerable then, wasn't he? You saw him at a point where he had no control."

She agreed, "I guess you're right. I don't know. This is going to be a miserable few weeks. Maybe he is right."

"You're not miserable," she muttered. "But he does have a point. He's obviously been thrown an ordeal, so he probably isn't having that many great days. You figure he is your age, so he probably just graduated and now he's sitting in an hospital bed, figuring if he even gets his motion back in his legs, he's going to have to learn to walk without one of them. That sucks, Ally. You cannot even fathom how that would feel, would you?"

She tried to think of a scenario where she could have a similar thought process, and she knew deep down, that she couldn't. But it didn't excuse him being rude. "I just want this to go fast and smoothly, and I can't do that if he's arguing with me all the time."

"Alright, so what do you think he likes?"

"I don't know," she responded. "He liked playing board games earlier, but I don't think that's his life passion or anything." The other girl rolled her eyes. "You're saying I should find out and do something based off that?"

She nodded her head. "Find a common ground. I highly doubt he has a shoe collection or enjoys shopping on weekends with his friends, but I'm sure you two have something in common." The smaller girl made a gentle face, reminding her, "You might feel out of place, but I'm sure this world is more than new, too. There is something sometimes you lack Ally and I love you, but a little empathy can go a long, long way."

Ally finally stuck her tongue out at someone that day.

In turn, she was thrown off the bed.

The two girls laughed for nearly five minutes, before Ally realized she was going to be late for her date with Cooper. The small brunette rushed off from her friend's house, running home to quickly hop in the shower and change into something a little more sexy. The doorbell was ringing by the time she barreled down the stairs, and she met her dirty blond haired boyfriend with a smile, pressing a kiss to his lips.

"Hey baby," he cooed into her ear. "How was your first day at that intern crap?"

She groaned, "Way too long and way too much to explain. I just want to go out to dinner and get something strong to drink." She purred into his ear. "Think you can do that?"

He flicked his green eyes her direction, "Oh yeah, I know I can."

The two of them were seated at a seaside restaurant about a half hour later. The couple quickly ordered drinks with fake IDs and began to hum over the menu for some sort of delicious option to try. Ally settled on a seafood salad while Cooper went for some surf and turf. All in all, she was just glad to have a drink in front of her.

"I want to head away one weekend this summer," Cooper suggested a few minutes into their meal, which she found delicious. "Your internship is only on weekdays, so if we left on a Friday night and came back on a Sunday, we could have some fun and not interfere… what do you think?"

The word yes escaped her mouth without second thought. "That would be perfect," she gushed. "Where did you have in mind?"

"Maybe we'll go up to somewhere in North Carolina, maybe another beach. I know that seems kind of stupid when we live on a beach, but sometimes you just need a change of scenery, you know?"

She nodded eagerly. "Sounds wonderful. Let me know when you have the details."

They finished their meal with little more to say, but Ally could stare at him all night long. She really was staring to enjoy her boyfriend. He was going to law school (he was a year older than her), and while she already decided how their life together was going to go, she knew both of them had long schooling ahead of them. It would be worth it though. He was so passionate about learning the law and he often spoke in detail about whatever he learned that week. Even in the summer, he was taking two classes just to stay ahead and was usually unavailable in the daytime himself. The internship worked out well in that regard.

Soon enough, they were sitting in front of her house, making out since no one was home, and Ally sighed in content. The day had started out a little off, and got worse as it went on, but ended well. She could not ask for more than that.

"You make me really happy," Cooper whispered into her ear.

"You make me happy too," she murmured back. "But I do have to get in. I can't be late for this dumb internship. They'll throw me to the sharks."

He chuckled and gave her one last kiss before she ran into her house, closing the door behind her.