We made it! For those of you saying Meg needs to catch a break, she catches one, I promise. (And all things considered, she's only had one crazy guy in her life. The other guy has just been an asshole. *snork*)

Rather than drag this out and on, I'm going to put a bow on it and move into a Part Two. For those of you who are content with leaving Joe where he lies, your ride is done. For those of you who want to punch the ticket a second time, the ride will continue.

Many, many, MANY thanks to everyone who read and reviewed, just read, took the time to drop me a note, anything. It's all very appreciated, and the interest and interaction is what makes all of us continue to put fingers to keys on this site.

Shoutouts to Shieldgirl, Nattie, MetalMayhem, Mom2, Psion, Ctina, and EVERYONE who chimed in, messaged on, and made it happen. Double-time to Ms. Warbler. All the love in the world.

As it happened, Meg didn't have to make it all the way to the clubhouse. The clubhouse employees, all of who remembered her, missed her, and much preferred her presence to that of Joe's catty new love, ran out the door to meet her.

"Meg! Dios mio! That box, put that down, give it here. What happened?"

Meg couldn't place the first voice that spoke to her, but the displaced voice also took the box, so she was grateful. It felt like a hundred hands were suddenly on her, all trying to lift her, steady her, guide her, get her inside the doors and comfortably settled into the air-conditioning before the heat caused her to crumble into the beach sand that framed the subdivision.

Everyone was talking at once, offering water, fanning her, and Meg couldn't hold her head up long enough to focus on any one person. 'How do I fix this? They can't call Joe anymore.' Of course, the first solution offered by the staff was to contact Joe, and Meg, unsure she could find words, had to hold up her hands and force herself to wave as hard as she could to indicate that no, they should not make that call.

Displaced Voice spoke again. "Meg, then what should we do? You need help. Should we call an ambulance?" He gently pushed her down into a plush chair and knelt in front of her as he spoke.

"No," Meg choked out, trying to hold a small paper cup of water steady. 'Where did this come from?' "No, gracias. I just need to get this box to my car. I was just leaving. Trying to leave. I'm not used to the heat."

"Meg, Meg, no. You can't leave. It's not safe. I can take the box for you, but you can't drive like this. You are not well. Here, give me your keys. I will put the box in your car, but you're staying here until someone comes to drive for you."

"You guys better find a bed. That's gonna be a long wait. And I parked a block away."

Displaced Voice chuckled. "Okay, Meg. Keys." He took her keys, stood, and looked her over while she stared into her paper cup. "While I go...can you think of anyone else to call? Any other numbers? What about that man you used to see? Your stories were not so wonderful, but he might come."

Meg shuddered. "No. Not him, either. Long story." She watched her box disappear, along with her car key, while she curled into a ball in the chair. 'I can think of two other people, but...the odds of either of them showing up...right.'

Randy mentally kicked himself for spending so much time sitting on the side of the road when he could have been driving. "You wasted an hour, dumbass. An hour. She could be anywhere by now. You know how she is. What the fuck were you thinking? You know what you were thinking, and it didn't help things." He hadn't stopped berating himself for the past twenty minutes; if nothing else, it made the time pass. The radio stations offered up nothing but pop and salsa the closer he got to Tampa – not his style. He didn't have his iPod with him, either, or he would have put on something more familiar.

- He snapped the left side of her headphones against her ear, harder than he probably should have, and rather than swat behind her, Meg slapped herself over the same ear, trying to pin the earpiece in place.

"Dammit, Randy, that hurt! What the fuck?" Meg gave up trying to adjust the headphones and draped them around her neck instead, rubbing her ear.

"It hurts because you just punched yourself in the head, not because I snapped your headphones. Besides, it's not going to kill you to take a break from listening to your Justin Bieber bullshit."

"First, that wasn't Bieber I was listening to. Second, you came back here because you need something. What'd you fuck up?" She hadn't paused her iPod, and the sound of her music continued to filter out of her headphones.

"You spend money on an iPod, and then you don't buy decent headphones?"

"Uh, Si-ir," Meg poked him in the chest, drawing out the word, "You came back here for something. What do you need?"

Randy sighed, sitting up on the counter next to the sink. "I might have punched a wall." He offered his hand to Meg, trying his best to look chagrined and failing miserably.

"Dumbass." Meg slowly unfurled his fingers, wincing at the peeling skin and purpling knuckles. "You missed plaster and hit a stud. Good work."

"Technically, that means I didn't miss." He hissed as she came to his ring finger, and involuntarily yanked his hand back.

"Sorry, sorry." Meg let go almost before he jerked, sensing his movement, then picked up his hand again, reconsidering his fingers carefully. "You really need a film, I'm feeling way too much motion in that second knuckle. I'm pretty sure it's only dislocated, but better safe than sorry."

"A film means filing a report, Meg."

"Aaand, behind door number two, we have the intrepid LPN who might just attempt to re-set the joint without filing a report." Meg winked at him. "The problem is, if it's not dislocated, all I'm going to do is make it worse."

"Then it's my fault, not yours."

Meg sighed, looked down at her shoes, up at his hand, further up at his face, trying to read his expression. "Okay. But here's the deal. It's going to hurt no matter what I do. I can ice the hell out of it, but that's only going to help so much. I have to poke around to feel what moved where, and then I'm going to have to snap things back in place. You can. Not. Yell. At all. If you flip out, or if I make it worse, and we get caught, I will almost absolutely lose my license. Got it?"

Randy looked surprised at the seriousness of her expression. "Meg, it's just one finger. It's not life and death."

"Randy, it's my license. I don't want to hurt you, and I don't want to lose my job or my ability to ever get another job." She looked hurt that she had to explain things.

"Well...when you put it that way. Where's the ice?"

Meg left and returned with two large buckets of chipped ice, and poured them both into the sink. Topping the sink with water and swirling the ice around, she pointed. "Batter up. Dip it."

Randy cringed, but dunked his hand. "Fifteen in, fifteen out?"

"Nope. Fifteen and five. I'll do skin checks. You'll live."

"Meg, you're gonna kill me with this shit."

"You're doing a fucking fine job of it all on your own."

He nudged her with his foot, but said nothing. She put her headphones back over her ears and started stacking towels, prepping gauze and a splint, and organizing swabs. Randy watched, mildly interested, through two rotations in and out of the ice bath, trying to ignore the throb in his hand. Idly, he reached over with his other hand and snapped her headphones a second time.

"Motherfucking – if you do that again, I swear to God!" Meg rubbed her left ear, and dropped her headphones around her neck again.

"Calm down, tiger. What are you setting all that up for?"

"For you, dumbass. In case you haven't noticed, you made hash out of the rest of your hand. I have to take care of that. Everyone's going to ask questions, but at least I can minimize the damage. You can say you overworked it at the gym, instead of that you're an idiot who tried to take on Home Depot and lost."

Randy reached over and lifted her headphones away from her neck, holding them up to his ears. "This isn't what I expected. It really isn't Justin Bieber bullshit, is it?"

"Deftones, asshole. Now pull your hand out and take your zip-up off."

Randy handed her headphones back, took his hand out of the ice, and took off his jacket. She blotted his skin dry with a towel, then rolled one sleeve of his jacket into a tight coil.

"Okay. The towel I get, the jacket I don't. What's that for?"

"Because you need something to put in your mouth. I sure as shit don't need you yelling in my ear – or making any noise, period. And I have a limited supply of towels. Open wide." Meg looked smugly satisfied as she stuffed Randy's zip-up sleeve into his mouth. He rolled his eyes, but bit down. "Take a couple deep breaths, and try to relax." She looked up at him, thoughtful, and then put her headphones over his ears.

Meg turned her back to him, backed into his lap, and wrapped his arm around her, pulling his hand into her lap. "Okay. Here we go."

Randy leaned over her shoulder, curious, dragging his mouthful of fabric with him like a dog with a rope-tug. Meg smiled and laughed as she watched him over her shoulder; Randy could feel the sound vibrate through him while the music carried through her headphones. 'I should get her a better pair; these things are tinny as fuck. I could work out to this if I could actually hear the bass in it. It's heavy. It's not what I thought she would listen to.'

Meg was waiting for the right moment; for blankness to settle over Randy's face and tell her that he was somewhere else, mentally. Subtly, her fingertips parsed out ligaments and bones; she knew she could slip the joint back to its original location. She just had to make sure Randy wasn't really watching when she made her move to do it, and she had to be prepared to let go of his hand quickly – when she adjusted it, it was going to be painful.

He did yell and bang his head down into her shoulder when she pushed the joint back, but the sound was largely muffled thanks to her pre-planning for his inability to keep quiet. What she hadn't planned for was him locking his arm tightly around her, making it nearly impossible for her to breathe. Meg pushed against him briefly, then gave up and pulled her headphones away from him.

"You okay?"

Randy turned his face toward her neck, but didn't loosen his grip. "Other than wanting to puke on you, I'm good. Did that fix it, or do I need a film?" He had to fight with himself not to do or say anything else; he was heady from her perfume and the rush of endorphins.

"You're fine. I'm going to splint it for now, and you'll need it taped before the show, but you'll be able to get through it with some ibuprofen."

"No lecture about not punching shit?"

"Randy..." Meg trailed off, squeezing his arm with both hands. He loosened his grip enough to allow her to turn and face him. "If you want to talk, I'm here. If you want to go get shitfaced with me, I'm here for that, too. You know not to punch things – what lecture am I supposed to give you? Don't hurt yourself. Simple as that." She cupped his cheek in her hand, patting the side of his face. "Besides, it was worth it to hear you concede defeat about my musical taste. Now, let me clean up the rest of your hand." -

Randy pulled up to the gate at the subdivision, hoping against hope that he wasn't too late. He drove in and parked next to a car he didn't recognize in Joe's driveway. "Maybe that's her," he mused, "And everything is fine. I'm probably worried about nothing."

For the second time that day, Joe's fiancee found herself staring cockeyed at a person she only half-recognized. Joe was sick of the interruptions; this time, he threw the front door wide open and stalked outside, trying his best to look intimidating while being unable to pull himself up to full height.

"You have balls, showing up here."

"Joe, just...I'm not here to fight. Dave is looking for her, too. Did she come up here or not?"

"She did, and I gave her back her box of shit and told her to get moving."

Randy rolled his eyes, half turned to go, then turned back to Joe. "And where did you tell her to get moving to?"

"The clubhouse, if she needed to call someone. Other than that, I didn't ask for details. I don't give a fuck where she goes, as long as it's not near me. Same goes for you. Off my steps, now."

"What is your deal with her? Did you even let her tell you anything? Try talking to her? Do you know what happened to her?"

"Off. My. Steps."

"Or what? It's not like you're gonna move me. Did you even try to talk to her? That's all I want to know. Or did you throw her away the same way you threw away your fiancee, the same way you threw me away, and Dave? Did she get at least half a chance, or was it 'Get the fuck out, you crazy bitch?'"

Joe's face flipped from livid to sinister in a heartbeat. "No, it was pretty much, 'Get the fuck out, you crazy bitch.' Happy? Now, get off my steps."

Randy turned without another word and headed up the sidewalk towards the clubhouse. 'Please, please, whatever is up there listening – St. Julian, if you're in on this one – please just let her be in there. In just one place that I've looked. If it's not too much to ask. If she's not there, just give me a hint. I'll keep driving.'

While he walked, his phone rang – not Dave, but Remy. "Bonjour, Randy. Were you able to find her? Tulane said she had left. I wanted to be sure she was safe. It did not sound like it was a good decision."

"I'm still not sure where she is, Remy. I'm working on it. Once you know Meg, you get to know how fucking stubborn she is."

"Merde. She sounds like a pistol. Listen, the other reason I called – maybe you will want this news, maybe not – the police reports, fire reports, photographs, all of those, are completed and prepared. They are...detailed." He paused there, clearing his throat deliberately. "I asked medical records as well, and once her hospital bills are paid, Ochsner and Tulane will release her information. It may not help now, but in the future, she may want to know."

"Thanks, Remy. We owe you."

"Non, monsieur. Just get your girl, eh?" With that, he hung up and Randy pushed the door to the clubhouse open, fully prepared to see nothing but bored staff and empty tables.

Which, except for the one overstuffed chair holding Meg, asleep and curled tightly into a ball, was exactly what he found.

The sudden shot of hot, humid air that came flying across the room when Randy opened the door caused Meg to stir in her chair. She started to stretch her legs, but gave up – one was completely numb, the other wedged hopelessly underneath her to keep her from slipping down the seat – she wasn't yet awake enough to deal with their tangle, or to locate the source of the warm air. Instead, she started with her arms, trying to ruffle out her hair and work feeling back into her shoulders. Her collarbone ached from the pressure of sleeping against it. 'Smart, Meg. You're going to screw yourself up permanently. Well...that's a laugh, you are screwed up. But don't make it worse.'

Randy took a step towards her, immediately reconsidered the decision, and backed out of the door as quickly as he came in, grabbing his phone and messaging Dave.

"Did you land? Call ASAP if you did."

"ETA is 45."

"She's here."

On the plane, Dave nearly shot up out of his seat, half-whooping with joy, causing most of the cabin to look at him with suspicion and alarm. Stewardesses rushed down the aisle toward him.

"Uh...sorry, sorry. Sports scores. We're winning. Sorry." Dave settled back into his chair, unable to suppress the broad grin on his face, fingers pounding the screen of his phone.

"Is she okay? What's she saying? Where's Joe? Is she talking to you? Does she need anything?"

"She doesn't know I'm here. I think."

"Randy, what the fuck?"

"I don't know what to do! Joe was a douche. She looks bad. IDK. There is no plan."

Dave sighed and tapped his phone on his forehead. 'Okay. Randy, time to grow up.'

"Randy, figure it out. Gotta go."

Randy simultaneously rolled his eyes and wound up to throw his phone down on the concrete, but stopped himself mid-tantrum. He knew Dave was right. 'Meg would say the same thing. Figure it out. She's probably out of options. Make yourself into the only option.'

Slowly, he opened the door, praying he hadn't just imagined Meg. Thankfully, she was still where he remembered her from a few minutes ago, this time paging absentmindedly through a magazine. Her legs were still pinned awkwardly underneath her, and she was rubbing one hand across her left collarbone, but – it was Meg. She turned to face the door as the warm Tampa air blew across the room a second time, and Randy was shocked at just how gaunt she was. Meg was no less shocked at seeing him in the doorway, and tried to force her legs to cooperate in lifting her from the chair.

'Shit, shit, she's going to try to take off again...do something...figure it out.'

Meg got one foot on the ground and tried to push herself upright with that and her arms in a motion that ended up nearly collapsing her sideways – and would have, except for Randy's ridiculously high-speed lunge that caught her and settled her back, less-tangled, onto the chair. He eased himself onto the floor next to her, holding her upright, not sure he should let go.

"Not gonna let me up to give you a hug, asshole?" Meg smiled wanly, putting no small effort into pushing his shoulder. She leaned forward into him, lifting her arms around him as best she could, praying he wouldn't outright push her away. 'Let one thing go right today, Cosmic Being? If I'm stuck here, just one friend would be nice.' Meg leaned back, trying to read his eyes. "Look...I know I deserve whatever you want to say to me, so if you-"

Randy pulled her forward again, using no more force than she had, back into the same gentle hug she had initiated. "Meg, shut up. Just let me be glad I found you, okay?" He felt her face pull into a smile against his shoulder, and his mind swore up and down she leaned in just a bit more. 'Quit imagining things, Orton. Just get her out of here. Make yourself the only option.'

As if reading his mind, Meg whispered, "You don't have a plan, do you?" She didn't move to let go, and neither did Randy.

"Not a single fucking idea. Kinda winging it here, Meg."

"Me too."

"I drove. You drive too?"

Meg nodded, leaned forward further, started to slide off the chair. Rather than reposition her awkwardly over him, Randy simply caught her on the way down, placing her on the floor against him. 'Keep working, she hasn't run yet. Buy time.' "Kind of a long way to go alone, Meg."

"You should talk. You did it, too. And so metaphorical."

"There's my girl. A smartass to the end." He chuckled. "C'mon, we have to go get Dave at the airport."

"We?" Meg started to sit up, the pleasantly drowsy look on her face being replaced by one of irritation. "Randy, c'mon...what are you trying to do?"

"Meg? Honestly? I don't know. But can you just go with it? He really wants to see you. It's not like I'm throwing you on a plane to a nunnery. There's no ulterior motive." He raised an eyebrow. "Well, okay. Maybe one."

"And what's that?"

"I'd like to take you to dinner. Who could resist an airport sandwich?"

Meg sat back, looked at him with her eyebrows knit, and then slowly, as though the sound didn't know where to come from or how to start, began to laugh as she fell back against his side.