Thank you to all my R&R'ers, welcome to all who are new, and no worries, I swear they will actually get back to wrestling. It'll happen. Honest.

Go read Analeptic, please, if this makes no sense. You might even like Analeptic. It's pretty okay, or so I've heard.

Much love to nattiebroskette (go read her stories, please, they are both sweet and...yummy), for being amazing. And she wins the cameo appearance, TBA!

MetalMayhem, you are still my test case for all things consistency in my stories - I knew you were out there!

SG - I'm glad the muse found you again - and JON BELONGS TO NO WOMAN! ;-)

Mom2 - I'm so glad you came back! And I promise, there is a "Roman is nice and gets the girl!" story in the works.

I hope I didn't miss anyone...warblerwings, I'm looking at you...

Meg's leg had stiffened underneath her while they talked, to the point she knew she had to move, get up, the pain was unbearable. Randy crept around the corner, trying not to surprise her after talking to Dave, but started to walk to her side when he saw her struggling to leverage herself up the wall. Dave again grabbed his arm, stopping him mid-step. "No. Just let her alone. I know it looks bad, but you running to her every time isn't going to help."

With great effort, Meg made it off the floor and limped forward a few steps, looking at Randy and Dave as though she had no idea where they came from. Thinking, Randy tried a neutral approach. "Hey, kiddo. Breakfast? Toast and a fruit plate?"

Meg slowly turned to look at him, her eyes taking what felt like years to find him, and her mind taking even longer to process what he said. "Hey. Yeah. Uh...yeah. That sounds...really good, actually. Really good. Can we go sit outside for a while?"

Dave volunteered to wait for room service to arrive, and Randy opened the door to the balcony, being sure to cut Meg a wide berth and to leave the door open behind them. Surprisingly, Meg leaned over and closed it before they both sat down on the deep sectional that nearly consumed the small outdoor space. She picked at lint on the hems of the bathrobe before she turned to face Randy.

"Did we talk last night?"

It was Randy's turn to pause, confused, and stare at Meg blankly. "Meg...I'm not sure what...where are you going with this?" 'Jesus Christ, you're gonna jump over the balcony, aren't you?'

"I feel like we did. I remember parts of talking to you, but it's like it's all out of order. Like I was scared of something, but it doesn't make sense. I've never been scared of you. If I did something to make you angry, I'm sorry. After that thing with the car, I'm just not...acting right. If I was an asshole, I didn't mean it, I swear."

"No, Meg, it wasn't like that. If I explain it...I don't even know if I should explain it. You froze up so bad when we talked, and I don't want you to do that again. It scared me."

"Randy, I don't mean to...I'm doing all of this all wrong. I shouldn't ever have left. It fucked up everything."

"Meg...no. No, it didn't."

"No. I didn't have to-"

Randy leaned over, completely on impulse, and wrapped her in his arms, pulling her across the sectional until she slid down to the floor in front of him. Meg tensed, organizing herself to keep everything covered, then relaxed entirely into him while he leaned over her. "Meg, shut the fuck up. Please, just shut the fuck up. I missed you – and I'm not telling you to make you feel guilty. All the shit you did for me...every time you sobered me up, cleaned me up, got me through a screening – fuck, just got me through a day, Meg. I wouldn't have lived through that divorce if I didn't have you – please, Meg, just...stop. Just please stop hating yourself over it. You did what you felt like you had to do, just like I was doing, and now I'm here, and I'm gonna try to help. You did it for me, I'm gonna do it for you. I'm gonna fuck up a lot more than you did, because it's me. But I'm gonna try."

"Randy...you don't know what I did." Her voice, already small, now muffled by his chest, was somewhere between hateful and mournful.

"Meg, all I know is, you're here now. And please, take this back. The whole reason I have it is because I didn't want Joe to have it.." He lifted his necklace up and over his head, and gently laid it around her neck, not missing the desperate grab she made for the neckline of the bathrobe, unsure if it was to block him or hold the top of the robe together.

"But...you're not listening...I -"

"Meg, stop. That night you called and I told you Joe fell...I lied. I didn't want you to worry. He was talking shit about you, and I went off on him. I punched him – well, I spit first, then I punched him – but I didn't want him to keep your necklace. I just...it didn't mean anything to him. Please...this is always what I think of when I think of you." 'Well...I think lots of things. This is one of them. Some I don't tell you, because I...don't know' "That story about the nun who used to give you all kinds of shit about your name, and how you hated her at first, but eventually she was like a mom to you...that's my Meg. Please?" He still hadn't let go of her; he could swear he felt her cold skin through her bathrobe.

"Is this what we were talking about last night?"

"Yeah, and then you looked at me like you...like something was wrong. Like you were seeing something."

"Promise me when I do that, you'll tell me?"

"When you do what? Meg, I'm not gonna promise you shit. I fuck up. It's one of the few things I do well. If I see you do something that's weird, I'll tell you, but I'm not gonna make it a mission."

"Fair enough." She still hadn't moved from his arms. "And Randy? Thank you."

"Uh...for what?"

"For not letting him talk shit about me. I know what I did was stupid, but I didn't ever-"

"Nah, Meg, fuck him."

Meg snorted, but stayed where she was, quiet, snagging a cushion to sit on so she could stay tucked under his arms, waiting for Dave to bring breakfast out to the balcony. They watched hummingbirds, pointed at various buildings and boats, and talked about old matches. Gently, Randy rubbed his hands over her shoulders. From inside the room, Dave watched them, concerned. 'Randy didn't listen to a thing I said. It's too much, too close, too soon, and Meg is going to latch on to him because he's familiar. That is, until she explodes at him, which is going to destroy him. Because he loves her. This is going to be a giant nightmare.' He gave Randy a pointed look when he delivered breakfast to them, but said nothing. Randy met his eyes, but only shrugged in response.

After breakfast, Meg spent the rest of the morning sleeping, reading, and staring out into the city across the space of the balcony, while Dave made arrangements with his apartment complex and Randy went over chunks of the script the film company had forwarded via e-mail. Her afternoon was spent inside, watching a warm rain slide down the windows and sorting out the rest of the things Joe left her, and while she was right – she did leave much of it in the box to be thrown away – the majority of the clothing was salvageable and just in need of washing. Dave sent all of their laundry down with a maid to be laundered while Meg napped again in the early evening; Randy took the opportunity to move the box to the hallway, pausing before he left the room, tempted to dig through the letters and other detritus inside.

"You know that's a bad idea." Dave, always the voice of reason, grumbled across the room in Randy's general direction, but made no move to get up and stop him.

"How do you even know what I'm thinking? Besides, you want me to be supportive and shit. Don't I have to know what's broken before I can fix things?"

"You're not fixing anything, and you can't think of it like that. You also can't be pulling the whole 'lover's embrace' bullshit you were doing earlier, either, Cupid. It's going to confuse her."

"The fuck, Dave?"

"Out on the balcony. One, it's her and balconies and you know how that ends. Two, she's confused. You pay attention to her – any kind of attention like that – and you're not establishing boundaries. She's going to think you're here to be in love with her, not to help her. And it's helping, Randy, not fixing. Do you think she fixed you? Or do you think she was there for you in the right ways, no pressure, and let you figure it out on your own? Did she come on to you? Because I don't think she came on to you. She respected you. And three, digging through her things isn't respecting her. It's stalker-levels of intrusive. It's what Jackson would do, honestly."

Randy fixed a dark look on Dave and walked the box out to the hallway, seating himself against the wall and opening some of the letters. 'Fuck you, Dave. I think she knew what she was doing, or this all would have been tied up in a trash bag, not out in the open.' Each one sweetly sentimental, Meg wrote pages to Joe, missing him, loving him, asking him to be careful, wishing he didn't have to go out so often but saying she understood, telling him she felt so lucky – and on the back of each one, a short few lines from Joe about how yeah, sure, he felt the same way, he wanted the same things, it all was so great, he was so happy. 'I know guys suck at this shit, but Jesus, dude, put some fucking effort in. This is what she did even when you were right there with her on the road. Unless you were burying her in flowers and jewelry – and Meg hates that shit anyway, she can't wear rings under latex gloves – then what was your point, Joe? You just kinda wanted to love her? You wanted to want to want to love her, maybe?' He felt a headache building at the base of his skull, and knew Dave was right. 'I should have just left it alone. I really am going to kick Joe in the balls.' Throwing all of the letters back into the box, he stood up and went back into the room, rubbing his eyes.

"You let go of me now, or I swear to God..." Meg's voice was hysterical, and she was wrenching back and forth in Dave's grasp.

"Meg, it's Dave. Stop. You were about to fall off the bed. Sit up and I'll let go."

Meg was struggling against Dave and watching the walls spin, crawling with skulls and pens, having just woken up from yet another dream about crashing the car, watching Jackson's arms flail uselessly around its interior in a shower of glass. She could feel her bones breaking over and over, feel the burn from the IV lines and the chemicals, watched the room rolling around her the way the car did, but those fucking skulls and pens – mocking, laughing – continued to circle around her.

Feeling locked in a strange, uncomfortable deja vu, Randy tilted his head at the scene in front of him and walked casually to the bed. He tossed Dave away from Meg as though he was a small child, which allowed Meg to land flatly on the floor at his feet. She yelled when she hit the carpet, landing on her bad leg and banging her shoulder against the frame of the bed, but it was the jolt she needed to come out of whatever netherworld she was in. She looked up at Randy, then over to Dave, who was also on the ground, though several feet away from her. Meg's breathing was ragged and refused to slow; Randy shrugged and went to make sure Dave was alright.

"The next time you want to practice a hip toss, give me some warning. I'm old." Dave was rubbing his ass and it was all Randy could do not to chuckle at his irritation.

"I'm doing what you told me to do. You said I can't go running in to save her every time she loses her shit. That means you can't go running in, either. Was she having a nightmare?" He refused to give Dave the satisfaction of having an overreaction. 'I wanted to run over, but I didn't. I'm getting better at this. Kinda.'

"Yeah, but she was getting loud. I didn't want her to start screaming and have security come in here like we're trying to kill her."

"And if they do, then we deal with it. If she falls off the bed, then we deal with it. You said she's got shit to work through, so...are we letting her work through it, or not? You don't get to have a different set of rules."

From behind him, Meg whispered. "Was I...was I doing it again, Randy?"

Randy turned to face her, then crouched down on the floor. "Yeah, Meg, it looked like you were. What were you dreaming about?"

'Stabbing Jackson in the leg and then intentionally wrecking his car to try to kill him. Oh, and then hallucinating afterward, because your tattoos talk to me.' "I...don't remember. I guess. It was just...I don't know."

"Right. But we'll talk about it later. Is your leg okay?" 'Meg, you have to really, actually, really talk to me.'

Meg tried stretching it out in front of her; her knee moved easily, but when she tried to roll her ankle and stretch her calf, she immediately recoiled and yanked her leg back toward her body. The pain in her bones was agonizing, and the muscles of her calf burned. "No. I fell on it?"

"Yep. How about your arm or your shoulder or whatever is wrong up there?"

Meg slowly rotated her shoulder, waiting to see if her collarbone caught, snagged – which it did – and she flinched. "No. So I fell on that, too?"

"Bumped it, mostly. Meg, didn't the hospital give you anything when you left? Pain medication? I got pills by the bucket when I had my shoulders done; you went through way more than that."

"Yeah. I don't take it."

Randy threw his head back, rolled his eyes, bit his tongue – anything to keep his mouth shut and not scream at Meg for putting herself through hell for no reason. Once he felt he could be reasonably calm in speaking to her, he shifted to a seated position and sighed heavily. "Okay. So you at least had the script filled. Do you have them anymore, or did you throw them out?"

"I have them."

Even Dave snorted loudly at that, then hefted himself from the floor and began digging through Meg's suitcase until he came up with a small orange bottle. He tossed it to Randy, then returned with a glass of water. "Work a miracle, Randy. The bottle's even got refills on it, imagine that. I'm going to go pick up our laundry."

Meg watched him leave, waiting until the door latched shut before she turned to look at Randy, who slid closer to her across the floor. "I'm not taking that."

"Yes, you are. I'm not asking, Meg. You need it." 'Dave said we need to make some decisions for her.'

"Randy, I'm not arguing with you about it. I haven't taken that shit yet, I'm not taking it now. All they did at the hospital was dope me. I don't want it, I don't need it, it's not going to happen."

"Meg, you're hurting. You took this before. It helps. It didn't kill you-"

Reflexively, and all in the fraction of a second, Meg punched him, and solidly at that. She caught him at the corner of his mouth, and her knuckles burned. Somehow, the dead weight of her leg no longer a factor in her movement simply because she refused to let it be, she had thrown herself toward the door and would have had it open if not for Randy's preternatural speed. He crashed into the door around her, slamming it shut and trapping her between him and the thick wood. 'Meg, I'm not letting you run. Hell of a swing, but I'm keeping you here.' Meg spun to face him in the small gap he left between his chest and the door, trying to push him away, but the effort made her body scream to stop from the pain it caused her.

"Meg, stop." Randy pulled her hands into his chest, using the contact she initiated to lead her away from the door. "Stop. You asked me to tell you when you weren't acting like yourself." He continued to pull her to the bed, her legs giving out as he lowered her backwards. "Here. I don't know what I said, but I'm sorry. Please, take the pills? Just one? You're hurting." He tapped a single tablet out of the bottle and into his palm, cautiously offering it to her, leaving the bottle in his other hand, praying she would accept a second pill..

She slapped the bottle of pills out of his hand; its contents exploded across the carpet. "I said no."

Randy looked at the pills, scattered like snowflakes across the room, and then back at Meg. The faintest taste of blood was in his mouth from where his lip had scraped against his teeth when she punched him. 'And knowing Dave, he's going to take the fucking stairs, get a coffee, do a crossword, solve world hunger, and then come back with our laundry because he thinks I can talk Meg into anything.' He sat heavily on the floor in front of her. "You win, Meg. No pills. What else can I do that will help you?"

The question hung in the air; the sound of the rain filled the room and Randy was grateful for anything that padded the space of their silence. Wordlessly, Meg stood from the bed and stumbled to the kitchenette, where she took ice from the freezer and dampened a terrycloth towel. Once her small ice pack was assembled, she stumbled back to Randy and literally fell to the floor next to him. "You can put that on your face, and not hate me," Meg whispered, leaning into his side, "Because I can't explain it." 'You can explain it, Meg. You're a fucking liar. You're a dirty, whoring, fucking liar. Tell him you killed Jackson. Do it. Go on, do it. Tell him the crash was supposed to kill you, too, and you hit him because he realized you're a failure. You can't even get dying right because look at you – you're still here, fucking up his life, too.'

When Dave returned – exactly as Randy predicted, almost two needless hours later, laundry in tow – he found Randy sitting on the floor, running his fingers through Meg's hair, talking softly to her, and her asleep with her head in his lap. 'Again, an incredibly bad idea, but at least she's not laying on her bad shoulder.' He quietly placed the laundry bags by the closet, and inched toward Randy until his feet began to crunch on the pills that littered the floor.

"Do I want to know what happened?"

"She's got a wicked right cross. I let her win this round." A shadowy bruise was forming at the corner of Randy's mouth, and Dave shook his head.

"She actually hit you?"

"And tried to bolt out the door. And knocked her pills out of my hand. And apologized for it. And now we're here, so honestly? I don't give a rat's ass what she did. She's here and she's okay. It's okay." He looked down at Meg, shifted slightly, and brushed his fingers through her hair again. "Just...whatever, Dave. If you want to make me her long-distance babysitter for a month, then you've got to trust me. Otherwise, you do it."

Dave sighed and rubbed his temples. "Randy...you're...you just don't listen." He looked down at Meg, her tiny frame still perpendicular to Randy's. "Have you talked to her about the apartment? And the movie? Does she understand she's going to be on her own for a while?"

Randy smiled broadly, still stroking her hair. "Doing that right now."

"Through what, ESP? She's asleep."

"I know. But I kinda feel like she's listening, too."