A/N: Sorry for the slow posting (I have wacky job hours) and the slow burn on this one. I promise, we're getting there. Stick with me. We've got to lay just a little foundation for the smut, right? Thank you for all of the reviews, all of the messages, all of the views, and if you're looking for other authors, may I recommend the lovely kingfisherwings, mxjoyride, and irishcreamtruffle, depending on your level of *ahem* kink. Happy Reading!

Meg leaned in the doorframe of the triage bay and watched Dave accomplish everything and nothing at once. He cleaned without wiping, organized without arranging, packed without placing. Meg, mind elsewhere, glanced around the room, rolling a caramel around in her mouth, pressing it into discs and rounds while Dave worked.

"You know, I can help with - "

"Save it, Meg."

Meg sighed heavily. "Look, I know. I was out of it tonight. Jackson was shitty with me, I'm exhausted from dragging Joe around, I was terrified we fucked up in the first place, Randy was beyond angry, and my hip is killing me." At that, Meg tugged down the edge of her cargo pants, revealing an arch of fingerprint bruises over her right hip that were already deep red and blackening.

"Okay, and I get all that, but what the fuck was with the ice?"

"The wha?" It was Meg's eyebrows turn to arch and bobble.

"Do not play stupid with me, Meg." The edge in Dave's voice was unmistakeable. "I busted my ass to get you in here, you have...whatever Jackson is, and Joe has a fiancee. If you do anything to fuck this up, I will personally kill you before corporate has a chance to pull your contract."

"It's an internship, and I'm way too old for one of those, anyway. And what ice?"

"Meg, go get in the goddamned car."

Stunned into silence, Meg picked up her duffel and skulked out to the parking deck. She combed through the night in her head, going over everything she had done. Hand squeezes were an accepted way to communicate with a non-verbal patient; ice chips were given to patients who couldn't swallow safely. It wasn't what she had done, she decided, it was how she had done...something. Not to mention, in the 20 years Dave had put up with her, he had never chastised her like that. He had basically raised her, brought her back when she went off the rails, and kept her steadily moving forward. For him to be this terse, Meg thought, she had to have screwed up royally. Once Dave joined her in the car, a full 20 minutes later, Meg grabbed the steering wheel and refused to let go.

"Whatever you're doing, Meg, stop it."

"No. Everything I did tonight was acceptable practice. So what else did I do?"

Dave said nothing, merely reaching around her to turn over the ignition and move the gear shift. Once they were driving with the heater running to counter the night's chill, Dave spoke.

"You...whatever that was...Joe was completely out of it. Beyond out of it. It looked like you were completely taking advantage of the situation and enjoying it. I don't know if you were having an off night or what, but that can't ever happen again. Neither one of you is in the right position."

Meg pressed herself back into the passenger seat, turned to face the side window, and threw the triage phone into the center console. She mentally declared herself through with the night, and wrenched her elastic band out of her hair, picking individual dark red hairs off of it and flicking them onto the floor of the car. "Just drive, Dave. Hotel. Bed."

Barely 15 minutes into their mutual stony silence, the triage phone's ringtone blared out, nearly scaring Meg out of her skin. Dave cast a sideways glance at her, but she made no move to answer it. Two rings, then three, and Dave sighed before dropping a hand off the steering wheel to pick up the phone.

"Medical and Triage, this is Dave."

"It's Randy. You need to get here." His tone was unnervingly calm.

Dave yanked the steering wheel hard to the right, grinding the car to a halt on the shoulder, breathing deeply before continuing. "What's going on?"

"I got Joe upstairs, his dumb bitch argued with me and then kicked me out of their room. I'm next door to him, so ten minutes later I hear her leave and then a thump, ten minutes after that, another thump. I bribed housekeeping to let me in his room, and Joe's laying in the bathroom in a puddle of vomit and blood."

"Jesus. We're coming. Can you tell where he's bleeding from?"

"No. Do you want me to look?"

"Don't move him. If anything changes, gets worse, or scares you, call for outside help."

"Right, because this didn't fucking scare me. Room 513. It's propped open." Dave could hear Randy nervously checking and re-checking the door, making sure it was open.

"Give me ten minutes."

Dave swung the car around and headed toward downtown Glasgow, getting caught at a light. "Fucking traffic," he muttered, "Meg, I need you to tune in on this one." Meg hadn't turned to listen to any part of the conversation, opting to keep snapping hairs off her elastic band. "Meg? I need your help."

"No, Dave, you made it perfectly clear I'm off my game tonight."

"Meg, I didn't want you to take it like that. I want you to avoid backstage sabotage. That's all."

"You're on your own. If it's that fucking serious, call whatever the Euro-equivalent of 911 is and leave me alone."

Behind them, a horn blared and Dave floored their car, nearly missing the light and slamming Meg back into her seat while he screamed at her and pounded a hand on the steering wheel. "Meg! You can't leave me with this! The only person he responded to was you! Even if you were wrong for it, it worked, and I need you. It doesn't matter how it worked, it worked!"

Meg's hip screamed when she was forced back into her seat by the momentum of the tiny car. There was little padding to cushion her, and Dave was livid now. Whatever she had or hadn't done, he was past his limit. She pulled her knees as as far up to her chest as she could, defensively, and wrapped her arms around herself, trying to brace for whatever the night would force on to her next.

Whispering, Meg asked, "Who?"

"You know who, Meg," Dave said, quietly, "Joe."

After another ten minutes of hard silence, Meg opted to trudge distantly behind Dave, hauling all of their gear and some of their luggage. It slowed her pace, destroyed her already ragged hip, and gave her time to think. She had wrapped her hair back into its requisite ponytail, and the cold air bit at her neck. Meg didn't know how to handle the situation she was about to walk in to, and knew the best course was to let Dave take the lead. She also knew, at 20 years his junior, that wouldn't happen. The expectation was that he would be able to sleep through most of it and she would be the one staying up all night to babysit and monitor. 'What am I doing? Something got in to me...I just need to see Jackson, get this shit out of my system. I'm so dumb. Get over it, Meg. There's carrying a torch, and then there's being hopeless and pathetic. Let's not live up to your name, okay?'

A short elevator ride, and Dave and Meg were swept into Joe's hotel room by Randy. Obviously agitated and anxious, Dave's first concern was calming him down. "Meg, you've got Joe. I've got Randy."

"Uh, don't you think it would be better if I-"

Randy grabbed Meg by the arm and shoved her toward the bathroom. "You heard him! Didn't you hear him? Go! Go check on Joe!"

Meg staggered from the shove, but kept her footing and rubbed gingerly at her arm. "Randy...it's going to be okay. Go with Dave. I'm going to take care of Joe. Dave needs to make sure you're okay. Go on, go with Dave. I've got Joe. He's safe."

Dave locked eyes with Meg. "Randy and I are going to Randy's room. You are on your own. If you need anything, you call."

Meg was incensed. "Dave, what the fuck? After that lecture? No! This is a setup! What the fuck do you think-"

"Meg, I'm exhausted, Randy needs to calm down, and the only person Joe responded to was you. I told you what the problem was. Correct it and move along. Go."

Meg dropped all of the bags to the floor, and Dave steered Randy past her heap out into the hallway, muttering assurances that Joe would be fine and that he knew she would call next door if she needed help. Randy wasn't convinced; neither was Meg. Sliding around Joe's bulk into the bathroom and trying to work in the dim light from the single lamp above the bed, she crouched next to him and assessed the situation. His breathing was again shallow, and he met Randy's description to a tee. Grabbing a towel and cradling Joe's neck, Meg slid the thick terrycloth under him. 'At least he doesn't have to lay in his own runoff. Wonder what his fangirls would think of him now – not such a pretty face,' she mused. Luckily, his stitches had held, but Joe had managed to cut the inside of his mouth in several places by crashing into the counter on his way to the floor. All told, Meg considered, nothing was wrong with him other than exacerbating what she already knew, cutting his mouth, and knocking his ass out cold. 'Even Randy should have been able to figure that much out,' Meg giggled, 'He must have been fearing for his Bromance.'

Deciding she could reach the tub easier than the sink, Meg threw the entire week's worth of washcloths in and turned the water to hot. If nothing else, she figured, she could clean Joe's face and hair before trying to rouse him. There was no sense in getting him in to bed covered in his own filth, and he might be more willing to cooperate if he felt less like he'd been hit by a truck.

Waiting for the water to heat and leaning over Joe with one hand under his neck, Meg tried rolling him over onto his back. She almost immediately snapped at herself. "Oh, and what did I think I was going to accomplish with that? Come on, Joe, I need you to help me." Wringing the water out of a washcloth, Meg slowly wiped down Joe's chest and as much of his right arm as wasn't under him. Gently turning his face and reaching for a second cloth, Meg hissed when she saw how deeply bruised and swollen his eye had become from repeated impacts and a lack of ice. "Joe...come on. Please. I need you to wake up now. You need you to wake up now."

Leaning over him to try to get a better look at his stitches, she didn't notice the charm on her necklace slip from her shirt. Meg's perpetually cold skin had chilled the metal of the St. Julian medallion, and it tapped against Joe's temple on its backswing. She returned to alternating between rinsing washcloths and wiping his face and hair, trying to clean him as best she could from her awkward position on the floor. "Come on, Joe. I promised to take care of you."

'...Help me...Need you...Wake up now...' Joe wasn't sure what he was hearing. A vaguely familiar voice was registering with him, but he couldn't place why or how he knew it, or where or who it was coming from. Something cold was tapping the side of his head, but Joe was confused – something warm was wiping his face. He inhaled deeply. 'I promised I would take care of you.'

Roses. More roses, and some vague, small hint of caramel, and Joe tried to force open his eyes. The world registered sideways, then as a set of cabinets in dim light. He felt light, freezing hands on his face, wiping gently through his hair, and the sound of running water somewhere behind him. The hands left him, briefly, and returned, along with her voice. 'What's going on, Joe? Your roses are here...? Don't let them leave again, Joe. Whatever this is has to stay.'

Blindly, Joe flung his left arm in the air. Meg had her back to him, tilted over the tub to turn it off, and when she leaned to return to Joe, his arm crashed down on top of her, blindsiding her, throwing her headfirst into the same cabinets he had plunged face-first into earlier that night. Momentarily, her vision blanked out, and she struggled to breathe as she felt Joe's arm crush down on her waist. His right hand flew up from under him, tangling in the neck of her shirt, her hair, the chain of her necklace, pulling her further down over him, craning her neck at an impossible angle and giving her even less ground to use to push off of him.

Meg was starting to panic – the size and strength difference was nothing she was going to overcome on her own. Then, just as suddenly as Joe had pinned her over his side, he was on his back, dragging her up his chest, hand still tangled in her hair, using her shirt to move her. Meg pedaled her hands wildly up the floor tiles until Joe stopped dragging her up his length – her face was directly over his, and they both tried to catch their breath and decide what the next move should be. Meg's eyes were still watering from the sting of hitting her head, and her neck was still bent in Joe's grip.

"Don't leave anymore." His voice was pure desperation.

"Okay. Okay, Joe. I won't leave. I need you to let go of me, though."

"No."

"Joe, please. I hit my head, too. It hurts."

The hand mauling her hair and shirt let go, briefly, and Meg started to straighten up, but Joe only slid that hand around to the back of her neck and dug his fingers in. "I need you to stay. She didn't stay."

The arm around her waist tightened dangerously, and Meg again feared for her ability to breathe. Dave wasn't going to like how she was about to play this, but she didn't want to asphyxiate, either. Meg moved her hands to meet Joe's, gently massaging his fingers and the backs of his hands, and she settled her weight over her hips, trying to feel more solid over him and trying to ignore the tug she felt in her heart. Meg, for all her outward composure, had always been in carefully-concealed inner turmoil over Joe.

"Alright, Joe. I'm staying. I'm right here. I need you to trust me, though. Just like before." She eased his fingers out of the snarled remains of her ponytail. "Let me reach up and get this out of my hair, okay? I'm not leaving. You've got my other hand, but this mess with my hair hurts." Meg, smart enough to move slowly – and Joe, watching every blurry move – dragged the elastic out of her hair and rolled it down her wrist. She slid her hand back over Joe's. "There, see? I didn't leave. You know we're on the floor, right, Joe? We should get off the floor."

"No. If you get up, you'll leave like she did."

Meg leaned down toward his face, as close as she dared. The Saint Julian medallion brushed Joe's neck along the way, and Joe arched his throat forward as she leaned toward him. 'You're making her stay. She said she won't leave and she's on top of you and she feels so good and how is she always so fucking cold?'

Meg brushed her cheek against his – he was clean enough, now, smelling largely of hotel soap – and her brain screamed at her to stop, to listen to Dave, to back off because now she had hit her head, was indulging herself, and nothing about this was right. But she kept going.

"Joe, listen to me. I'm right here. You said I smell like roses. I'm real. You can feel me. You're holding me, holding my hands. I just want to get you to the bed and get you some ice. I promise you, I won't leave you. I came back tonight, didn't I?"

She backed off enough to watch him struggle through the expressions on his face, partly from pain, and partly from emotional exhaustion. "You came back."

"Okay. So you can trust me. I'll leave my things here, too. The only thing I need to get is ice."

"No. You said you-"

"Shh," she pressed two fingers to his lips, "I said I'm leaving my things and I'm coming back."

Joe tightened his grip momentarily, then loosened it, but reached up to her fingers against his lips. Meg, slowly unseating herself from over him, paused and watched what he was doing with her hand. Joe, eyes now shut, throat still tilted slightly upward, took each of her fingertips from his lips into his mouth. Meg felt her jaw drop slightly when Joe nipped them, kissed them lightly, and then pressed her hand to his chest. For the first time, Meg truly understood the size and depth of his tattoo. The rest of the room, however, had fallen away entirely.