Something was dripping onto her face. It was warm and tasted like pennies; no matter how much Meg tried to spit – which was admittedly difficult because her mouth didn't want to move the way her brain asked it to – the substance kept coming. She couldn't move her head to look at the source, either: her neck refused to turn. Both of Meg's arms and one leg were pinned against her chest; she remembered balling herself up into her seat before the car had fully committed to its series of barrel rolls, but now they were making it harder and harder to breathe. Her other leg's location was a mystery to her. 'Here's hoping it's down there somewhere. This wasn't the deal, Cosmic Being.' Pressing her fingers into her sides, she could feel not only the breaks in her ribs, but what she knew were the protruding edges of her ribs themselves. 'Compound fracture. Probably more than that, too. Can't feel a leg. Arm is bent. Shoulder burns. I can see my collarbone. That looks kinda wrong.'

Suddenly aware that the world was sideways, Meg rolled her eyes around as much as possible, trying to take in her surroundings. The interior of the car was dark; the air was thick with the powder from the airbags and sparkling dust from the broken glass. It occurred to her, vaguely, that she was going to die there, on the side of the road. 'At least so many things are fucked up that it can't all hurt at once. I hope someone calls you.' The ringing in her ears was so loud she couldn't think, so she simply closed her eyes and waited, not understanding that the sound was coming from sirens instead of from the impact of her concussion.

A small crowd had gathered at the side of the road, alongside the crew from the ambulance, the police, and the fire brigade, who had already tarped the man's side of the car and begun to cut through the metal supporting the windshield near the woman.

"He's done. Steering column is through him and the seat. She's still breathing, though."

Unfortunately, the jaws of life only moved at one speed, regardless of how urgent the situation was, and they didn't care about the woman's shattered tibia, protruding collarbone, or compound rib fractures. One of the more agile firefighters crawled in around the woman and draped a sheet over her inside the car, in part to protect her from the sparks caused during the extraction and in part to prevent any more of the man's blood from dripping onto her. Once the sheet was in place, a swarm of EMTs began to work around the extraction team, laying IV lines, covering open wounds, and generally clucking their tongues at the number of injuries to the woman that were obviously old and not caused by the car accident.

"You can smell the booze coming off him. What the fuck was he thinking? Mon dieu. God does not love all drunks, eh?"

"Just cut faster. Her pressure is going down, not up. She's not stable and it's not gonna get better out here."

"Look. Odds are good it's not gonna get better even once we get her on a table."

"Still, try. She deserves better than what this asshole did. Roof's off; get her braced and out."

Locked into all manner of plastic supports, strapped to a board and lifted to a stretcher, the EMTs finally were able to cut away the woman's clothing, smearing an inky phone number in the process.

"Hey, hey, wait. Be careful!" one of the paramedicals called for paper. "Something's on her leg. Look – give me your light. We fucked up some of the numbers, but...maybe it's someone to call. Was there a wallet or ID in the car?"

"Like we're gonna find anything in that? C'est arte moderne, now, not a car."

"Just write down as much as you can and give it to the cops. We have to get her in the bus now."

An EMT – Remy – wrote down the numbers, peered at them a second time, and wrote down a few more guesses as to what they might have been before sweat, blood, force of impact, and their medical work had jumbled them together.

"Here's hoping, ma peche. One of these better be a phone that works," He whispered to himself as he passed the slip of paper to an officer, who was still marveling at the crumpled car in front of him and wondering when, exactly, the coroner would arrive to deal with the mangled, dripping remains of the driver.

"Call, s'il vous plait. She's not going anywhere."

"Dead?"

"Not yet, but...you never know. She lived through it, so that's one thing, but...I'd call quick, tell you that much."

The officer grunted out some sort of non-committal sound, and put the numbers in his pocket. Remy turned to walk away, then turned back to the officer. "Hey, uh...actually...you're gonna have your hands full with this guy, anyway. Drunk, and all that. You can smell it on him. And the road's a mess, glass, metal, merde for days...you want us to make those calls for you?" 'Mon dieu, let him say yes. She might have a family, he is not going to call...'

Shifting his weight from one foot to the other, the officer took far too long to make the decision. He pulled out the paper, reading it over several times. "All these numbers are hers?"

"Oui, monsieur."

"Jesus. Yeah, here, you go ahead and call. Merci."

Remy sent up a silent prayer of thanks, snatched the paper out of the officer's hands, and ran back to his rig. He leapt into the back and slammed the doors shut, pounding on the back wall to signal the driver to go. He wiped clumped, bloody hair out of the woman's face and leaned down close to her ear, hoping she was lucid enough to hear him.

"Hey in there. I have your phone numbers. I'm going to call as soon as we get to the hospital. Hold it together, oui? Don't quit on me yet."

The various machines and monitors in the back of the ambulance droned and toned slowly, but they all indicated the woman was alive, if barely. "Good enough," Remy spoke to their screens, "For now, good enough."

At the same time, Joe - having much more sense than Jackson, but making just as much noise as Meg - finally caved in, ended his current call, and started a new one for an ambulance of his own. The pain in his stomach was unbearable; he couldn't crawl, let alone walk. 'Fuck Randy. And fuck Dave, too. I don't need help, I can deal with this. Take care of myself. I'm done with anything that ever touched her.' Panting, eyes watering, he waited, shaking from the effort of holding still on the edge of the bed.

A small part of Joe, the nostalgic, lonely part that craved her scent and her touch, was begging him to go to Randy or Dave, get help, was crying out for Meg, but it was easier and easier to force that emotion down, to choke off those feelings before they made it up to becoming actual words. 'Don't even think about her. That's done. It was a fun ride, great sex, and it's done. Now where the fuck is the ambulance?'

The thumping at the door minutes later told Joe the paramedics had arrived, and it was with great relief that he saw them let themselves into his room. "Sorry, guys. I don't think I can get up right now." Despite that, Joe tried to move from his perch, and was greeted by the ceiling swooping immediately up and behind him, leaving the carpet to take its place at the top of the room. 'Why does everything make me pass out? This fucking hurts. This fucking hurts so bad.' Joe's phone fell from his hand as he hit the floor, leaving the medics to puzzle over who, exactly, to contact about the emergency – there was no asking Joe, now. Opting for the last number called, one of the EMT's pressed redial on their way out the door, ending up with Joe's ex-fiance on the line as they boarded the elevator.

Back with the crash survivor, Remy sat down with her list of numbers and prepared for disappointment. Granted, he was working during bar-time and most people would be ignoring their phones in favor of beer bottles, but he was holding out hope. The first number went to voicemail that didn't have a personalized greeting, so he left a short message asking the owner of the number to please call Ochsner Baptist Hospital and ask to speak to the critical care desk if they were expecting a relative who hadn't arrived home that night. The same message went out to the next two numbers; only two combinations were left to try. "Jesu, s'il vous plait, let one of these work. She's trying so hard, let there be someone out there for her." He picked up his phone and dialed again, marveling at how long this number rang without going to voicemail. He prepared to hang up, thinking there was something wrong with the line, when a sleep-thick voice answered.

"H'lo? Meg? Meg, 's'you?"

"Monsieur, I am a paramedic with the New Orleans Emergency Medical Services, and I -"

Randy sat bolt upright in his hotel bed, Meg's medallion tapping against his chest, his eyes burning from sleep but his mind wide awake. "Magdalena Nechayev. What happened to her? Who are you?"

Remy immediately grabbed his pen and scribbled Meg's name next to Randy's number. "Oh, merci, merci. Mon dieu. I thought we wouldn't find anyone. My name is Remy. And Magdalena-"

"Meg," Randy cut in while scrambling for clothing, throwing things into his suitcase, trying to pull on track pants, tangling himself in their legs,"Call her Meg."

"Bien, bien. Meg was in a car accident."

Randy felt his stomach seize. "How bad?"

"Monsieur, you should come now. Very quickly. The driver has died and I am not sure-"

"What? Say that again, the driver what?"

"Did you know him as well? He was...he could not be identified at the scene. Dark hair, Caucasian male, seemed to be quite tall, and was...quite inebriated. We could not find any wallets."

Randy's head was swimming. "Where are you now?"

"Ochsner Baptist, in New Orleans. Can you be here soon?"

"I have no idea. I can leave now, on the next plane. I don't even remember what city I'm in – Nashville, I think. I can get on a red eye. We travel a lot."

"I will arrange for you to see her when you are here. You are...her brother, non?"

Randy froze in his tracks. "Oh...Right. Uh, yeah." 'Well fuck me, this is awkward. I can't see her if I'm not family. If I say I'm anything else, then why the fuck would she be with a different man all the way down in New Orleans?'

"I will wait here for you. Come to the Critical Care unit. Ask for Remy."

Randy hung up, paced, threw more things toward his suitcase, threw a lamp across the room, then called Dave, who didn't give Randy the option of driving himself to the airport after the situation was explained. He packed and showed up outside of Randy's hotel in his cramped rental car, gesturing him into the passenger seat. Dave watched him silently for a few seconds before shifting the car into drive; he wasn't sure Randy would make it to the airport before he started screaming. He felt like something had to be said before the situation exploded.

Randy, as was becoming more the norm, surprised him by speaking first.

"She can't die. Just...she can't." His voice was high-pitched and watery, and he writhed in his seat. 'There's no way I'm going to make it through a flight. No fucking way. I'm going to crawl out of my skin right the fuck now.'

"Dave...I'll take the hit on the wellness policy...but...you have to give me something. I'm going to fucking lose it. That guy on the phone...Remy...he said the driver was dead. Couldn't be identified. That means it's bad." He suddenly seemed to overflow the passenger seat, both by size and noise, and threatened to spill out of the car by sheer force of emotion. Dave cringed, but had to state the obvious.

"Don't hate me for this, but are you sure the guy on the phone wasn't actually Jackson? Or one of his buddies? That this isn't all some sort of sick bait-and-switch? I'm just as worried as you, but I don't want you to fuck up your job over anything we aren't sure about yet. Especially since our schedule is public. Everyone knows we travel to NOLA next. Wouldn't this be a great time to fuck with us?"

Randy rolled the strap of his seatbelt around his fist tighter and tighter, watching his fingers turn red, then pale, not sure how to respond to Dave and now kicking an entirely new possibility around his mind. "Should I call the hospital? Check things out? Or talk to the cops?"

"It can't hurt. If a wreck really happened, and she's really a Jane Doe like Remy said, they won't know anything about her unless you give a description. Best-case, they'll tell you she's in surgery."

"If they tell me she died, Dave, I'm done. I'm just fucking done. I'm getting out of the car."

"You know what, let me pull over while you dial. You make a good point about cell phones being dangerous on the road."

A few quick web searches, and Randy was able to find phone numbers to call both Ochsner Baptist and the correct parish police department, ending up with enough information to vomit not once but twice on the side of the highway.

Dave handed him another bottle of water and crouched next to him on the gravel while cars flew past, oblivious to Randy's misery. 'Ironic. We're on the side of the road. Meg would appreciate this if she was here.'

Trying to sound more composed and less anxious than he actually felt, Dave started slowly. "Okay. Tell me what's going on. And don't break your phone, you're going to need it."

"Huge...huge wreck." Randy's breathing came in ragged gasps. "Car was almost in half. It was Jackson. Drunk as fuck." Randy retched again, and Dave forced him to drink more water. "Meg was tore up real bad. Still in surgery. They...they don't know if..."

"Okay. Okay." The triage phone rang from inside Dave's car, and he glared over his shoulder at the intrusion. "Sit here. I have to answer that. If you move, I'm going to shoot you with the gun I don't have. I mean it – don't get up. You'll pass out." Dave snatched the phone out of the center console of his car, pacing up and down the shoulder as he spoke. He stopped to lean into the side of his car as the conversation continued. 'Great. More shit on top of shit. How do I even explain this one to Randy without him going out to play in traffic?'

Returning to Randy's side, he sat down heavily next to him, silent for several seconds and not daring to look at him. When he spoke, his voice was flat. "Randy...there's something else now, too. Joe's in surgery. We have to clear this with corporate before we go anywhere. They won't let us board a plane, period. The company was caught off-guard. It was an emergency."

"No, fuck corporate. Do you hear me? This is an emergency! We have to go!"

"And you have to have a job. They're re-writing whole scripts on the fly. Jon is coming back to fill in the gaps. We have to stay, we can't get away with it; Meg isn't an emergency to them. Call the hospital back. No, I'll call the hospital back. You need to call corporate."

Randy walked off the shoulder into the grassy, wooded area far from the road, and leaned into a tree. The world was spinning around him. He dug his nails into his palms, then reached up to feel for Meg's necklace. "No," he growled, "No, no, no. Meg, I...I'm trying. Please just...Meg, I'm so sorry. I can't. I don't know what Joe fucked up this time." Randy turned and walked back to Dave's car, taking his phone out of the older man's hand as he walked.

"I'll wait to get on the plane. But we're staying at the airport, just in case."

"In case what, creative grows some compassion? Meg doesn't work for the company anymore. It's not their job to care, Randy. I'm sorry. It's wrong, and it's fucked up, but they're the ones in control."

"Just fucking drive. There are hotels at the airport." 'Control. I have never had control.'

"Just don't make any phone calls until we get there. You talk now, you're going to mouth yourself right out of a plane ride. Calm down. I'll find you a valium before you dial."

Meg woke up screaming, in part from the nightmare she was having, in part from the pain that coursed through her body like brushfire. Nurses flew into her room, pinning her to the bed, pushing button after button on machine after machine, morphine and ativan flowing freely through lines and coils towards Meg, everyone praying it would shut down whatever was wrong with her.

Which it did - she slipped back into whatever dark space she woke from, this time with less pain, but also with no ability to slow her mind's freefall through oblivion. 'Where is he? Then again...why would anyone come for me? Burned bridges and couldn't swim.'

One week of sedation stretched into two, and eventually the hospital wasn't sure if they should transfer her to the psychiatric ward or keep her in critical care. She was full of screws and wires, barely ate, fought anyone who came near her, screamed incoherently at people, had continuously unstable vital signs, and eventually the sedatives stopped working. Scan after scan found no brain trauma that could explain her behavior; the doctors concluded her 'psychiatric disturbance' was organic in nature and not resulting from the trauma of the accident. 'I'm not crazy; you assholes are making me crazy. Let me go. Let me talk to them. Leave me alone. You have no idea how much I hate hospitals. I should have turned the wheel harder.'

Ochsner's administrative board made the decision to transfer her, as well as her medical bills, over to Tulane. Meg was harder to handle than anyone anticipated; whatever Jackson had done with her wallet that night had been permanent, her LPN had lapsed, she wasn't employed, and carried no insurance. Remy fought tooth and nail for her – she had become his personal mission of sorts, if for no other reason than she tugged at his heartstrings. He gave Randy's phone number to Ochsner's administrative board; even Dave had been worked into screaming matches with the various departments handling Meg's treatment – but it was all for naught. Magdalena Nechayev – or case number 8684572 – had ten days before she would be transferred to Tulane, a teaching hospital, essentially as a science project, because Ochsner could no longer afford to care for her on their own dime.

Remy called Randy and Dave continuously, trying to work out some sort of plan for them to come to the hospital. Randy had explained his job, why he couldn't go, but each time Remy had become more and more confused and frustrated by the antics of "Corporate." It didn't help that Randy had to keep explaining that "The Corporation" and "Corporate" were not the same thing; Remy had the damndest time keeping television separate from real life. Complicating things further was the fact that Joe was out of the hospital and recovering at home, and there were rumors about him and his ex-fiancee being not-so-ex after all. 'That's all Meg needs,' Randy thought, 'Turn on the TV and find out the hard way that Joe's hurt and she's...replaced? Whatever Joe is doing. Doing his ex, I guess.'

Randy's on-screen work was on auto-pilot; it was his only way to get back at the company for standing in his way. He worked matches with a complete and utter lack of enthusiasm; the second he was off-screen, he was back on his phone, arguing with anyone he could get to listen about why Meg needed to be released to him, or else kept where she was – he offered to pay bills, donate, make appearances, fund research, whatever they needed. Nothing helped. Confidentiality, HIPAA, any excuse the hospital could come up with, all stopped him. He had no legal tie to her; they didn't care who he was or what he offered.

Hitting a wall with the hospital that he had neither the expertise to overcome nor the borrowed time to fight, Randy decided to try a different tactic. After approaching talent relations and claiming exhaustion, stress, an inability to focus – and passing both drug and concussion screenings – he was able to get an injury scripted into his storyline, allowing him to pre-record a few promos, tape a few backstage interactions, and take five days of vacation to forgo sleep and go to New Orleans. 'Please, please be where they said you would be. Please, don't run anymore. And Dave, don't kill me for not telling you.'

It was hardly surprising when he arrived at Ochsner and Meg wasn't there. 'A last minute transfer? Bitch move on your part, guys.' They were at least kind enough to point him towards the proper ward at Tulane, and his mind wandered on the way there. 'She wanted me to come. She knew I would answer if someone called. She finally believed I would help her.' A small smile breezed across his face. 'Meg...something changed.'

Sitting in an oversized chair in an opulent waiting area, Randy had to marvel at Tulane's medical center. 'Maybe...maybe having her moved here was a good thing. And I can pay her bill before she sees it. Between this place and the last one, she's fucked for money.' The critical care triage clerk typed, frowned, typed again, then pushed her keyboard away.

"Sir, Miss...Nechayev? She's AMA."

"She's what? What happened?" 'Okay, wait, you don't know what AMA means, maybe she's just in a different wing.'

"She's checked herself out against medical advice. She's no longer being cared for here. She's discharged."

Randy put his head down on the desk and squeezed his eyes shut until he could see colors and shapes forming on the back of his eyelids. 'Meg, what the fuck are you doing? What, just what are you doing?'

"Did she say where she was going?" He didn't bother to look up as he spoke, which was probably for the better. Looking up meant knowing where to reach in order to strangle the clerk.

"Hm...Here, let me call up to her last unit. Maybe she left a message." Turning away from the desk, the clerk spoke quietly into a phone behind her for several minutes, Randy growing more and more agitated while he waited.

"I'm sorry we can't be more helpful, sir. She only said she had someone to see in Florida. She sounded like she had somewhere specific to go, if that's your concern. The ward manager said she just wasn't...really ready...to go, though they did give her scrubs to wear before she left.. Apparently, Ms. Nechayev has not sounded...lucid...during her stay with us."

"I'm not even going to explain how stupid this is. You shouldn't have let her go." 'Not lucid. Not understanding what's going on. I'm not even understanding what the fuck is going on, how is she supposed to function?'

"Once she signs the paperwork, there's nothing we can legally do about it. Trust me, they weren't happy about it upstairs, either."

Randy sighed again. "While I'm here, here's my address. Send the claims here." 'Waste of time. I have to get to Tampa before she walks in on...whatever the fuck. Get up, Randy. Go. Go fast.'