Rayna sat in a hard wooden chair next to Deacon's bed. She looked at the clock on the wall. It read 12:34 am. Bucky had taken the girls over to Teddy's around 10:00. It had been a fight with Maddie getting her to leave, but Rayna assured her that she could come back first thing in the morning.

Rayna had been watching Deacon sleep for hours now. She knew she should try to get a few winks herself, but she just couldn't seem to close her eyes. Every second of sleep was a second that she couldn't look at Deacon, and she was well aware that those moments could be coming to an end soon.

She was gently brushing the hair away from his face when a light from the hallway broke the darkness of the room. Rayna looked up to see Tandy standing there. She had just flown in from San Francisco. She had a few days off, and she knew that Rayna could use her support.

"How's it going in here?"

Rayna had been holding it together for the last few hours, but when she saw the concerned look on her sister's face she just broke down.

"I'm going to lose him Tandy. I'm going to lose him and there's nothing I can do."

"You don't know that?"

Rayna just shook her head. "All those years. I wasted all those years that I was with Teddy that we could have been together."

"Don't be silly. He was always around, and you had a good life with Teddy, at least for a while."

"It was a fine life, it just wasn't the life I wanted."

The sisters sat there in silence letting the weight of Rayna's statement sink in.

"You can't turn back time Rayna. You can only move forward and appreciate the time you did have with him."

"I'm not ready to say goodbye yet Tandy. I just can't. There's so much more of life that we're supposed to live together. So many more moments that I can see in my head that have yet to happen. We deserve those moments."

Tandy reached out and took Rayna's hand. "I know it seems impossible to think about now, but you'll have those moments Rayna. Someday you'll meet someone else, and you'll love each other and you'll have those moments with him."

Rayna pulled her hand back. "I know you're trying to help, but just no Tandy. There will never be anybody else. You more than anyone else in my life must realize that."

Rayna was right, Tandy did realize that. She may not understand the bond that her sister shared with Deacon, but she could see it plane as day. There would never be anyone else for Rayna, no matter how hard she tried. She may play the part of the bubbly country star, ecstatically happy with all life has to offer, but Tandy knew that every moment of the rest of Rayna's life that she had to spend without Deacon she'd be dead inside.

"You should get some sleep."

Rayna shook her head. "I can't, but you go Tandy." Rayna reached into her purse grabbing her keys. "Go sleep at my place. If you could grab the girls at 7:00 tomorrow I'd really appreciate it."

"Of course." Tandy took the keys and headed out. Right before she left she paused at the door. "He's a lucky man Rayna. You're a good wife to him."

"No Tandy, I've been the lucky one."

Tandy just nodded her head and slipped out, there was very little she could do for her sister now.

##

Rayna woke up with her face pressed halfway against Deacon's leg and the other half squished against the bed rail. She lifted her head and looked around the room. Deacon was still sleeping but she heard quite a commotion going on outside of his room. She stood up and opened the door peering outside. Maddie, Daphne, and Tandy were there talking to Deacon's specialist Dr. Rand.

"What's going on here?" Rayna asked.

"Hi Mrs. Claybourne. Your daughters were telling me that there are a bunch of people wanting to be tested to see if they're a match for Deacon, and I've been telling them that we'll test everyone, but we can only do a couple at a time so it may take a day or so."

"That's too late, what if he gets sicker in a day?" Maddie protested. "You have to do them now!"

"What people? Where are all these people coming from?"

Rayna was confused and looked to the girls for answers. "Well no one else was doing anything to save dad so I took matters into my own hands. I talked to the reporter last night and he wrote a story about dad. See, it's here." Maddie handed Rayna her phone that had the reporter's article pulled up. Rayna scrolled to the top skimming through.

"Claybourne's Final Encore?" by Jack Berger.

It's a Thursday night, 2009. I'm sitting at The Bluebird Café a beer in hand, surrounded by a packed crowd. Despite the dozens of people who have crammed themselves into the small space, there is absolute silence in the room. That is except for the sound of a gravelly voice that rings out with the experience that comes from long nights on the road and early mornings with nothing but a cup of coffee to keep you company. Nashville singer songwriter Deacon Claybourne may have spent nearly half his life standing just behind wife Rayna Jaymes as her lead guitarist, but no one who has heard him sing in the round at The Bluebird would ever refer to him as backup.

His soulful songs are mostly a product of the years he was separated from Jaymes after succumbing to the perils that plague many musicians. Though he fought to get sober and won, the alcohol has had the last laugh. Claybourne and Jaymes' daughter Maddie tells me that he was diagnosed with Cirrhosis of the liver back in December, and the disease has ravaged the once brawny singer's body. "He's been trying real hard to stay positive, but we've just watched him get sicker and sicker. It's so hard to know that we might lose him."

Claybourne hadn't wanted anyone to know he was sick. If you've met him, he's not the type to feel sorry for himself. He'll drive halfway across the country to help out a friend who needs a guitarist for a gig, and has offered up his $10,000 Gibson on more than one occasion when a struggling musician just can't afford the sound he wants to reach, but he'll never ask for anything in return. His daughter said it was a battle with Claybourne to test family members to see if they were a match for a donor liver. "He didn't want anyone else to risk their lives when he feels he got himself in this predicament. He'd rather die than ask someone to save him, but we wanted to do it, we love him and we'd be lost without him."

Eventually the whole family did end up getting tested, but no one was a match. "Now the doctor says he has a couple of weeks to live. I just don't know what I'll do if he dies. I need my father." Maddie asked me if she could record a video message to go with the article and I agreed. Her message is below.

Rayna pressed play on the video. There was Maddie crying asking anyone who knew her father and didn't want to let him die to please go right away to Vanderbilt Medical Center and get tested to see if they were a match. When the video was finished Rayna looked up into her daughter's big brown eyes. "Oh Maddie, you're father is going to hate this, but I love you for trying to save him."

"It is going to save him. Sixty people came down today to get tested. It's just a matter of getting the doctors to test all of them until they find the right one."

"We're doing our best Maddie," Dr. Rand replied. If we find someone who's a match we'll let you know right away."

"Really? Sixty people?" Rayna asked. "Who are they?"

They were a hodgepodge group made up of everyone from people Deacon wrote hit songs for to fans who had warn the grooves out on his records. Eventually the one person who matched Deacon's somewhat rare blood type was a thirty-five year old guitar player who Deacon had helped with some riffs at a show in Memphis fifteen years ago. "He changed my life," the guy said to Rayna when she asked why he'd do this. "Without him I would have quit music, gone back to Milwaukee, I'd be working at the Starbucks. Today I'm in a band travelling the country. We have a record deal."

The next few days were a blur. The man, Steve Adams, went through a series of tests, then Deacon had to go through another set before it was deemed acceptable to move forward with the surgery. After all that and nearly 8 months of him being sick, six hours later it was all over with, and Deacon was sleeping in recovery.

"How did it go?" Rayna asked when the doctor came out of the operating room to talk to them. She was so nervous she could barely speak.

"It went very well, but he's not out of the woods yet. We'll put him on anti-rejection medications to aid with the healing process. He'll be in intensive care for the next two days while we make sure that his body has accepted the new organ."

"If everything goes alright how long will he have to be here?"

"Eight to ten days, then he can head home. He'll need lots of rest, and he probably won't be feeling normal for about two to three months, but after that he can go back to his regular activities."

"That's it?" Rayna asked. "Two weeks here, then a couple of months at home and he's fine?"

"Well, we'll have to continue to monitor him, but yes, he should be fine."

Rayna couldn't believe her ears, after all this time worrying and waiting and watching Deacon get sicker and sicker she could hardly believe it would all be over with in a couple of months. Tears started to stream down her face.

"This is a good thing Mrs. Claybourne. You should be happy."

Rayna smiled through the tears. "I am, it's just, I never thought this day would come. I mean, I hoped for it, dreamed of it, but it always seemed so out of reach."

"Well, it's not anymore. He's out of surgery, he has a new liver, and hopefully in a couple of days we'll know for sure that his body hasn't rejected it and he'll be fine."

"Thank you doctor."

##

A few days later Deacon was out of intensive care and had been moved to a private room. Rayna dropped the girls off at school in the morning then returned to the hospital to be with Deacon when he woke up. When she walked in the door he was already sitting up watching TV.

"Hey, how are you feeling?"

"Not bad considering I have a gigantic scar shaped like an upside down Y on my belly, though I do wish this TV got something other than daytime talk shows. I can't take another day of The View."

Rayna laughed. "Well if that's the worst of your problems today I'll take it." Rayna sat down on the bed next to Deacon and took his hand.

"What are you smiling about?" he asked.

"Nothing, it's just…you look so good. I haven't seen your normal color in months."

"Come on now Ray, you know you thought that sickly yellow color was sexy as hell. I think we've had more sex since I've been sick than we've ever had."

"Now that's just a boldfaced lie. Remember that time we didn't leave our bed up at the cabin for 4 days straight?"

"You mean the time I learned what a UTI was?"

Rayna gently swatted at his arm.

"That was quite a marathon. Maybe we could try that again when I'm all better."

"You can count on it babe." Rayna took Deacon's hand and held it to her face as the tears started to come.

"Hey now, what are the tears for baby?"

"I'm just so relieved and happy, you know? I don't know what I would have done if I'd lost you."

Deacon pulled Rayna's hand to his mouth and kissed it softly. "Well you didn't, so now you're stuck with me till the end of time, so you better get used to it."

"I love you so much Deacon." Rayna leaned down so her face was next to Deacon's. He stroked her hair and pressed a kiss to her forehead. "I love you too Ray, and when I'm out of here, we'll finally take our honeymoon in a location where they make things out of rope."

Rayna sighed as a smile appeared on her face. "You're the worst you know that."