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Away we go!

They packed the next morning, nobody feeling particularly enthused about driving to Kansas City. With no ID, Meg had no way to get a plane ticket, and nobody wanted to press the issue of returning to her state of residence. Louisiana was the one thing neither Dave nor Randy dared bring up directly. Randy groused about getting back to work; his real problem was with leaving the fragile bubble of safety he felt he had built for Meg. 'She can barely function in a hotel here; what the fuck is she going to do out there?'

Tampa to Kansas City was a relatively straight shot via highways, and they'd left a day early to give themselves extra time to eat, nap, stretch, and account for Randy's inability to drive anything anywhere without getting lost. Meg, not one to miss an opportunity, started to tease him about it before the suitcases were even zipped. 'I'm pretty sure he could get lost trying to park a grocery cart in a corral. Poor guy.' Randy and Dave traded turns behind the wheel once they started off, and Meg spent her time in the SUV trying to get some of her credit cards re-issued and considering whether or not either man would let her drive if she asked. 'It's not like I didn't drive to Florida on my own...and I don't need a set of chauffeurs.' Randy chose that moment to look up at her from behind the wheel, using the rearview mirror, and wink. 'Then again, this isn't so bad.'

Dave decided to stop at the staff hotel before going to the Sprint Center, in part so Meg could acclimate to the smaller, noisier, shabbier room she would be sharing with him, and in part to get there before anyone else from the company showed up. Randy made leery slits of his eyes; he didn't approve of the neighborhood or the accommodations. 'It's not the bed-sharing, it's the plywood door, the stale cigarette smell, the windows that don't open, it's just...awful. Why can't corporate just put us all in one place?'

Meg didn't flinch; compared to the room she had above the bar, this place was palatial. 'It's just fine; granted, it's not like the suites Joe...would...get...Meg, leave it alone.' Sighing heavily and looking at Randy, she sat on the foot of the bed. It sank dangerously low, giving Randy yet another thing to add to his mental list of complaints about the room. The look of concern on Randy's face wasn't lost on Meg.

"I bet I know what you're thinking, Ran."

"Oh? What's that?"

"That I'm going to either get kidnapped by a marauding band of hotel robbers, or I'm going to try to run."

Randy shuffled his feet, annoyed that Meg had caught him so easily. "Meg...please don't tell me I'm not allowed to worry about you."

"I didn't say you couldn't worry. But I'm telling you that you don't have to. I'll stay put. If I didn't, who else would do tequila shots with you after the show?" She smiled and stretched her good leg out, nudging him with the toe of her shoe.

Randy reached in to ruffle her hair, but Meg swatted his hand away playfully. He shrugged, reached in with his other hand, and continued leaning over her with his back and forth attempts at mussing her hair until she was nearly flat back on the bed, wild with giggles. Randy finally got one hand on top of her head and swiped down, brushing a huge swath of her hair down over her eyes. Meg's poorly-considered response was to grab his unoccupied hand with both of hers and yank down as hard as she could. She hadn't considered how off-balance he was, or how far forward he had leaned, and he crashed forward on top of her. Randy managed to catch most of his weight on his arms, but he still landed largely on her chest, causing him to panic.

"Fuck, Meg, are you okay? Did I hurt you?" He tried to push himself back to vertical, off of her, but Meg refused to let go of him.

"Play fair. You don't have hair I can mess up." She tried to blow some of her snarled hair out of her face, but failed, still giggling. Her ribs stung; he really hadn't landed gently. 'But...please don't get up.' She blew more hair out of her face, still refusing to let go. He managed to shift his weight off to Meg's side but stayed close, seeing something cross her face that kept him near. "I'm being honest, Randy. I'm going to stay here. It's not the company hotel, but I don't want to see anyone, anyway. Other than you, that is. So, I'm going to stay. Sometimes, I really am capable of just...listening." She reached over to his cheek, patting it. "Besides, just in case Dave gets busy, you're gonna need someone to put you back together." He smiled, enjoying the coolness of her hand.

Around 7 PM, grateful to have the distraction from the loneliness of the room, Meg turned on the TV and surfed channels til she found what she was looking for. Plot lines on RAW were headed toward 'repeat' even before she left, but in her absence had become almost intolerably circular. The Authority versus anyone Not-The-Authority, the Wyatts relegated to mid-card hell, and unbearably short Divas matches that stereotyped their characters. Meg had to grit her teeth to get through parts of the show, and rolled with laughter at the sudden onslaught of fur-suited or otherwise ridiculously costumed wrestlers. "Since when did we need a leprechaun, a mini-bull, and a guy in a bunny suit? This is...all the things." Throwing a bag of popcorn into the frightfully small microwave near the TV, she prayed a circuit wouldn't blow while it cooked. It finished just in time for her to settle back on the bed and watch Randy's handicap match, in which he, as a member of The Authority, was scripted to have the upper-hand against a group of non-Authority wrestlers with whom he was engaged in a longstanding feud. 'How decidedly original, Corporate,' Meg mused, as she flicked a kernel of popcorn at the TV, pinging it off the screen.

Her level of interest in the match went from, 'All of my guys can do this in their sleep,' to, 'All of my guys are far too large to be doing this top-rope shit,' in a heartbeat. Several of the Authority members ended up in a pile on the announcers' table, Randy included, and a camera panned over to Jon's character, Dean, preparing to hurtle himself off of the ropes and on to the table, likely with the intent to cause its collapse. Meg winced; nothing good could come of this idea. Even a perfectly prepared stunt table, rigged to collapse correctly, still meant that exceptionally heavy people would be crashing into, and onto, each other.

Meg's eyes never left Randy. 'Dean' sent himself flying, landing heels-first on top of the pile of bodies on the table, and the whole mess collapsed, as was planned. The unplanned part of the segment included Randy's head snapping up and his face contorting into an ugly grimace while he clutched desperately at his lower back. A ringside medic – 'I remember his face, why can't I remember his name?' - ran over, and Meg struggled to lip-read what he was saying, but could clearly tell from Randy's gestures that he was in pain. 'Something, something, fucking back...please tell me that disc didn't go out on him again. Please.'

He forced himself through the match, but his moves were thick and slow. He had a hard time getting up on the apron, lifting the other wrestlers, even just walking looked like a stiff and cumbersome process. 'Dave picked up the vicodin I spilled. Maybe I can get Randy to take one when he gets here. If he decides he wants to come back. Maybe Dave can get him patched up at the arena. Yeah. Actually, yeah. He's not gonna come back here, Meg. God, why are you so fucking needy? Randy just got hurt, and you expect him to show up? What's wrong with you?' Shaking her head, she decided to take a shower and get ready for bed, not expecting to see Randy at all.

Dave trudged down the hall of the hotel several hours later, Randy leaning heavily across his shoulders, both men awkwardly dragging their suitcases behind them.

"You know why your back hurts? Because you need to go on a fucking diet." Dave was sweating profusely, trying to tow his luggage, triage bags, and Randy as he went down the hallway.

"You're gonna call me heavy, Santa?" Randy poked the older man's ample stomach and rolled his eyes.

"I'm ancient, and I'm not supposed to go flying around a ring in my underwear. I can be fat. Plus, I'm not the one with the fucked-up spine. Tell me again why you didn't have that disc surgically repaired?"

"Because PT worked just fine. It'll work just fine again. I don't want to be out for months for recovery and then have years cut off my career."

"Guess what else cuts years off your career? Paralysis, Randy."

Meg tried to fight through the fog of near-sleep to get to the door, hearing Dave's voice just outside, coming up the hall. Her hair was damp from her shower, soft from the rose oil she had worked through it, and she had buried herself in one of Randy's hoodies. 'I hope he doesn't mind that I snagged it from his suitcase before we left Tampa. It's just that it's getting colder up here, and...Meg, why are you making excuses?' She didn't expect to see Randy, still damp with sweat, leaning against the wall next to the door, one hand clutching at his lower back.

"Oh my God. You need to come in here, now. I saw what happened. It's that disc again, isn't it?" Meg was immediately awake and at his side, trying her best to take some of his weight onto her shoulders and gingerly lead him into the bedroom. She brushed past Dave as though he wasn't there.

"Meg, you're gonna fuck up your leg and your shoulder, I already jacked your ribs, just let Dave -"

"Shut up, Randy. You need help right now. Your back is fucked. I'll be fine." She urged him forward, both of them fighting each other; him to keep his weight off, her to take his weight on. "And it's not my shoulder, it's my collarbone. So really, it's fine."

"Well, hello, Meg. Thanks for helping with the luggage, my evening was wonderful, I'm glad you enjoyed yours, thanks for ordering dinner, anything good on the TV?" Dave raised an eyebrow at her, amused that her focus had honed so sharply onto Randy, even though he wasn't her responsibility at all. 'Legally, I shouldn't even let her touch him...but what can I do now? He had a fit when I told him no at the arena. She'd have more of a meltdown if I tried to stop her. They both would. And this is just how that shit with Joe started.' He watched as Meg eased Randy onto the bed and knelt in front of him as much as her legs would allow, talking to him about what had happened, what he felt when he landed, what he remembered during the bout. Dave could see their spat brewing; she wanted to help, he wanted her to rest and not worry. 'Oh well. Let them have it out.' He announced he was going to take a shower and change, brought the triage phone with him into the bathroom, and left the two to their own devices.

"Randy, seriously. Please? Let me take a look."

"Meg, there's nothing to look at. It's a disc. It's internal."

Meg rolled her eyes and huffed. "I know that, dumbass, but if I palpate the area, I can get a better idea of what's going on and maybe what we can do to fix it."

"It's nothing. I just need more PT. They'll script me out; the movie is coming up anyway. It'll be okay."

"Randy, please." Meg's tone was hurt, and she rested her hands on his knees. "Or is it that you don't trust me?"

It was Randy's turn to look hurt; that wasn't what he meant when he told her it was nothing. 'No, I just...I know how bad it is, and I don't want you to worry about anything else. It's my turn to worry about you.' "Meggie...no. That's not it."

"Then lay down. And by the way, thank you for showering." She poked his leg, trying to tease him and lighten the mood somewhat. He knew full well he still smelled like sweat; his skin was sticky with body oil and whatever else he'd managed to get on himself in the ring. 'Probably spit; Glen flips his head around too much.'

Slowly, Randy took his shirt off and stretched across the bed diagonally, trying to give Meg enough room to maneuver around him. Meg sat next to him on the mattress and gently poked and prodded around his spine, trying to feel for anything beyond his immediate injury. "Problem one," she murmured, "Is that you're guarding. I know everything in your lower back hurts, but you're tensing up around the problem. I need you to relax. It's just me; I'm not going to make it worse. I used to glue you back together all the time, remember? I've seen you way worse than this. Though, not gonna lie, this would be easier if you were on a table."

Randy smiled at the unbidden memories that flooded his mind while her icy hands began to work into his thick muscles. "I remember," he mumbled through a smile, wrapping his shirt around his arms and pulling the mess up under his head as a makeshift pillow, "You put up with way too much of my shit."

"What are friends for, Ran?"

"Yeah. Friends." His tone was suddenly harsh and dry.

"What just happened?"

"Nothing. Just figure out what's going on with my back."

Meg slapped the back of Randy's head, hard, before settling her hands dangerously low, atop his waistband. "You're being an asshole right now. I didn't do or say anything to you. What gives?"

Randy swallowed hard. ''She's right. You're acting like Jackson. Like Joe. Why are you snapping on her when she doesn't even know that you...Randy, just shut up. You're not gonna tell her, so just shut the fuck up.'

"Meggie, I'm sorry. It's just...my back hurts that bad. I'm pissed about how the match went, I'm pissed it's an old injury, and I'm.." He sighed, and pressed his face down into the bed, so his voice was muffled. "I'm gonna shut up and let you do your thing, Meg. I'm sorry."

Dave chose that moment to come out from the bathroom, already mid-sentence about having to go to the main hotel and address some issues with post-match bruising. Meg was sitting stock-still next to Randy's shirtless figure, looking for all the world like a puppy that had been kicked. Dave arched an eyebrow at the duo, waiting for some sort of explanation. Receiving none, he said he expected his to be a long night, and not to wait up for him. The click the door made as it latched sounded for all the world like a gunshot going off; both Meg and Randy jumped at the sound.

Cautiously, as thought Randy might change his mind about his apology and turn his vitriol on her again, Meg began to work her hands into his back, gently at first, and as he relaxed, with more and more pressure, thinking as she went. 'Top layers. Thoracolumbar fascia. You get tighter on the left than you do on the right, so I have to work longer on that side. I can remember that, but I can't remember the name of the ringside medic. Middle layers. Erector spinae. You get mid-back spasms on the right if I don't work longitudinally, but I can't remember what we talked about in the bathroom. I remember every trigger point on your trapezius; both sides. I have to be careful the farther up I go, or you start to tic, but I can't remember what happened to me in the hospital.' Meg's hands ground to a halt on his back; her hands frozen in mid-stroke. Randy's breathing had become a series of quiet, satisfied moans; he looked like he was moments away from falling asleep. 'When did I know all that? When did all those little things about you...I didn't...even with...' She looked at her hands as though they didn't belong to her.

Realizing she had stopped her work, Randy began to slip back toward wakefulness. He turned over toward her as best he could, afraid he would undo the magic Meg had worked, and tentatively reached out toward her, his tattoos coming into full view as his arms slipped out from under his bunched-up shirt. "Thanks, Meg. For putting up with me. I should be the one taking care of you. And not saying stupid shit." The skulls on Randy's forearm, silent to this point, began to smirk at Meg, then outright laugh. 'You think he doesn't know? He pushed you away because of what you are, whore. Dirty, lying, killing whore. But we know. We know what you are.' Meg shuddered hard and backed away. "No, I'm good. Really. I don't need anything. H-how's your back?"

He followed her gaze to his arm, and a thousand possibilities went through his mind – all related to her mind. 'And you're gonna broach that one how, exactly?' He pulled his arm back slowly. "Whatever you did, it's amazing. I know I'll find a way to screw it up between now and the next show, but...right now, everything's perfect." He reached for his shirt, trying to get it over his head without having to sit up, and was grateful for Meg's help in putting it on. Meg, equally grateful that his arms would be covered, was glad to help him adjust the fabric. Randy reached for her right hand, careful to leave her left side entirely alone, and pulled her toward him. "Stay with me and talk for a bit? I don't feel like going back to my hotel."

Meg's cold fingers wrapped tightly around Randy's hand as he pulled at her, and she adjusted her position on the bed. "Fair enough. I want to keep an eye on you, anyway. Dave's got some gel we can put on your back – Voltaren – it's not narcotic, it's like a goopy liquid NSAID. It'll help keep everything relaxed like it is now. It's not really for your spine, but -" Randy couldn't suppress a shiver, causing Meg to giggle. "Sometimes I forget I have such cold hands. I'll stop touching you."

"No, Meg," Randy breathed, "Don't."

Dave had slipped Randy's room key into his pocket before he left, intent on spending the night in the comfort of the talent's hotel, rather than the budget accommodations provided to him and by proxy, Meg. He knew it was a bad idea not to go back, evict Randy, and talk to Meg, but he had no energy left for the fight. The next morning, after a brief taxi ride back to his original room, he found Meg asleep next to Randy. Her head was on his arm as a pillow, and he had pulled her in against him, his chin resting on top of her head. Dave turned away from the sleeping duo, trying to decide if he needed to step into the hallway or if he could contain his temper quietly. "Don't think you're not going to hear about this," Dave whispered, "This is your last warning, Orton. Otherwise, Meg's not staying at my place, she's staying somewhere you can't find her. You're not helping. You're confusing her."