Oops, posting again. I have a whole bunch of chapters stored up so I figured why not? Hope you guys don't mind!

Wick's POV

His schedule gets fucked again. Just when he's made some leeway not only does he get put on days, but he's sent to Newark's sister hospital twenty miles away. It's a proper trauma centre, all decked out in importance and such. So he's grateful for the opportunity to work somewhere like this for a short while. But every day when he drives to work at six in the morning he just thinks about Raven, walking home alone in the further dropping temperatures.

His Thanksgiving holiday had been spent alone. He spared a thought to his aunt and uncle a few states over, but they only call him to wish him a happy holiday. He'd considered cooking a dinner, but thinking about eating a Thanksgiving meal entirely alone just seemed far too depressing. It wasn't the first one he'd spent alone; probably wouldn't be the last either.

So he's already on his melancholy kick from being moved temporarily and then he's at home alone over Thanksgiving. Someone else had already snagged the holiday time at the hospital. Instead of being productive in other ways, like scrubbing the shower that desperately needed it, he works on plans for the rocket. He lays out large sheets of graphing paper and starts from the beginning. He metaphorically tinkers with everything that he has the slightest knowledge on, leaving the proper mechanical things to Raven.

It's frustrating, not having something to actually work with, but he theorises and then he theorises a second time through Raven's eyes. It's not quite the same when there isn't someone to call you stupid to your face, but he was making do.

Monday rolls around and he goes to his supervisor. He tells her that he's so glad to have the opportunity to work where he was. And then he asks, with heavy pleading in his voice, when he was being moved back to Newark County. "My car isn't a big fan of these extra miles. She might give out on me if I keep it up," he only half lies. That truck had been on its last leg for years now. He was convinced only divine intervention got the engine to turn over each morning.

A week or two, she tells him. He just needs to be patient until they found a proper replacement for the job. She says they had been planning on offering it to him. He says no thank you.

Perhaps it was the wrong move, but it felt right. At least it did in the moment. Now he felt a little foolish as he scrambles through the couch cushions to find something extra to start saving up for Christmas gifts.

After three days he decides he can't take it anymore. Pride be damned, he gets up early on his day off and drives to Newark County Hospital, parking illegally right outside of the main entrance and running in, more so to get away from the cold than anything else. He walks in, smile in place, and finds nothing more than an empty desk to greet him.

Of course she'd be off doing god knows what when he shows up. He takes a seat opposite of her desk, waiting for her to get back and busies himself with his phone. He was attempting nonchalance as much as possible. "I have a proposition for you!" he declares, jumping up as soon as he hears the doors open behind him. Thankfully it's Raven and not some random doctor.

"Jesus, Wick, it's too late to surprise someone like that."

"Technically it's too early," he corrects, gesturing to the rising sun outside. She shoots him an unamused glance as she walks around to her side of the desk and flops back down. "Shouldn't you be off by now?"

She grunts and cradles her head in her arms on the desk. "Jasper's late," her muffled voice explains a moment later.

"Probably stayed out too late with his girlfriend," Wick accuses, shaking his head. Damn kids.

Raven peaks her head out of her arms to raise an eyebrow at him. "Please, you know as well as I do that he stayed up too late playing video games. Don't flatter him." She sits up straight, stretching her arms up to the ceiling and rolling her neck back in an attempt to wake up.

"What the hell happened to your hand?" Wick demands as soon as he sees it. A collection of bandaids clutter her right hand, many overlaying one another. The entire palm of her hand was covered with them. He reaches forward to take it as she pulls it down to examine it out of instinct. She lets him hold it for all of two second before snatching it back and shooting him a glance.

"Nothing," she says quickly. "I broke a plate and got mad in the process of picking up the pieces." She shrugs as if to say no harm no foul. He fixes a gaze on her, questioning her story along with silently wondering if her hand needed some proper medical attention. "It's fine though. Healing nicely."

He curses under his breath but doesn't say anything else. Last thing he wanted was to piss her off. "So you had a proposition for me?"

"What?" he says, drawing his eyes away from her hand and back to her face. "Oh right, that." It takes a minute for him to collect his thoughts again, mind still in all the wrong places. "Seeing as you're a supposed mechanic who can build illegal rockets-"

"Shh!" she demands, glancing around to make sure no one else could hear.

"Sorry," he responds, glancing over his shoulder for good measure. "Anyway, I was wondering if you might consider doing some work on my truck."

For a moment she considers him. "What kind of work?"

"Oil change, filter replacement, maybe tinker in the engine and see if you get it to you know…work better. Nothing fancy."

She bites at her lip, considering his offer as the doors to outside open and Jasper walks in, hair a mess from the wind and cheeks bright red. "Sorry, Raven, I overslept."

"Yeah, I figured," she answers with a wave of her hand as he disappears behind the double doors to clock in. "Don't you have someone already?"

"Huh?" he asks, his thoughts elsewhere. "What like another mechanic? Not really, I normally just take it to the dealers."

"The dealers!" she practically screeches and then shakes her head in shame. "They totally rip you off there."

He has a cheeky comment all ready about how he's never had a competent, cute mechanic to rely on until now when Jasper walks out of the double doors, yawning loudly. Wick isn't sure if he's either been saved or ruined.

"Stay up late talking to that girl?" Wick asks, nudging him with his elbow and offering a suggestive wink.

"Nah," Jasper says, switching spots with Raven. "Monty and I got caught up in this new MMORPG. It was actually pretty cool cause-"

Wick holds up his hand to stop him before he can go any further. "You've said enough." Raven shoots him a pointed look, giggling behind her hand when he rolls his eyes. "You're a lost cause, Jasper."

"Thank you," he answers with a cordial tone and a nod of his head.

"Anyway," Wick says holding his arm out in invitation for Raven to walk outside with him. "Good old Betsy is on the verge of death and I was hoping you might be able to keep her going a little bit longer."

She pauses to fix him with a stare, all judge-y eyes and singularly raised eyebrow. He doesn't have time for dramatic looks though, not when it's this cold out. "Can you judge me from inside the truck please?" he asks, making a point not to open her door and save himself from one of her angry tirades.

He doesn't waste time turning the engine over and blasting the heat as high as it will go, which wasn't very much. "Maybe fix this damn heat too if you can."

"I don't know, Wick…" she trails off, staring out the window.

"I have more plans sketched out for the rocket and you're not getting them unless you agree."

"Tragic," she sighs, suppressing a yawn. "I really enjoy looking at trash." He shoots her a dirty look but only for just a second before fixing his eyes back on the road. "Fine, I guess I can look at it. Can I go home and change at least?"

Coming to a stop at the red light he looks over at her. "I didn't mean right now. Good god, do you ever sleep?" She doesn't answer. "Someday when we both have off I can drive to you or whatever."

"That might be hard to coordinate," she says as she chews on her lip. "Let's just do it now. I'm not even that tired."

"When was the last time you slept?" he demands. Though he knew it didn't take much for her to shut down, he didn't care right now. When she doesn't answer he feels validated. "It's not that difficult to make future plans, Raven. Just give me your phone number and we can text it out later." She mumbles something under her breath in response. "Huh?" he asks, shifting slightly closer to her.

"That would be hard to do since I don't have a phone." Her voice is louder than it needs to be now, her words clipped and angry. He knows she's embarrassed more than anything else. It's something relatively small and trivial, but he doesn't doubt it bothers her.

He pulls down the street for her house, remembering the directions she'd given him in the dark of night weekends prior. "That's no big deal," he shrugs, trying to exude nonchalance. In all actuality his every word and action was considered and calculated. With Raven there was often one thing that was so very wrong and then something else that is at least okay. He does his best to stay on the okay side of things. "We'll figure it out some other time."

"No," she argues without missing a beat. Using her arms she repositions herself, sitting up straight as if to convince him that she was awake. "Let's start today."

"Raven…" he wants to convince her otherwise but he sees the determination in her eyes. If only she knew that his proposition had originally just been orchestrated as an excuse to drive her home this morning. His pride couldn't quite take that sort of admission though.

Pulling into her trailer park he spares a brief glance in her direction, checking to make sure she was okay with him driving her here in daylight. She makes no move to protest. When he stops outside of her place she shoots him a nervous look as she moves to unbuckle her seatbelt. "Just…stay here, okay?"

"Wouldn't dream of going anywhere else," he says and she rolls her eyes but climbs from the truck to the ground. She sends him one last look as she unlocks the door and swings it open, disappearing inside.

This had been far from his intentions, but Wick was far from complaining. The time he spent with her had been so limited, so stilted in atmospheres such as work or surrounded by other people. He didn't quite know what to expect from her in a different setting, let alone his house.

She comes out almost twenty minutes later. Her work clothes exchanged for a pair of jeans and a Henley. "Sorry," she says as she pulls herself in and shuts the door behind her. She was getting much better at the process.

"No worries," he answers. He could only imagine the difficulty that was added to changing her clothes because of her leg. "Are you sure you want to do this?" he asks before driving away. "It can seriously wait."

"Waiting too long between oil changes can fry your engine for good," she says, pulling her ponytail out and shaking it out with her hands for a minute. "Your truck cannot handle any sort of strenuous effort being put on it."

At first he's ready to defend his truck, say how it's handled a lot worse than a late oil change in her many years, but then his mind is distracted watching her gather all of her hair back up, hands sweeping it off her neck and twisting the ponytail holder around it. Watching her was a bit mesmerizing. "Well are you gonna drive or what?"

"Right," he says with a shake of his head. "Sorry." He drives them to his place, only a few miles from where she lives, and pulls into the closest parking spot to his apartment building.

"You'll have to move it somewhere with some more room if you really want me to do anything," she says before he's even turned the engine off.

"I know." He gets out and waits for her to do the same. She stays where she is until he looks back and gives her an impatient look. "I thought some breakfast might be nice before you start tearing my truck apart with your bare hands."

The look she casts him is dubious but she doesn't argue. "Whatever, let's just not take too long."

He leads her toward the building that was his, quickly realising that there were three steps leading into the building and then two more flights of them to climb once inside. He freezes in his tracks at the thought but she just keeps walking, making her way to the foot of the stairs and using her good leg to step up, her other leg moving unbent to join the good one. He takes hurried foot steps to reach her, climbing the stairs and holding the door open for her to walk through. "Thanks," she mutters.

"Sorry, I'm on the third floor," he says once they're inside the vestibule.

Raven shakes her head, starting on the flight without hesitation. "It just takes me a little while."

"I've got all the time in the world," he answers, remaining one step behind her the whole way up. She was steady on her feet but she was right, only being able to take one stair with every two steps of her feet did slow her down. They reach the top after a few minutes, Raven's face a slightly paler shade than it had been before they started. He wants to ask her if the stairs hurt her but he doesn't, opening the door and inviting her in instead. "Sorry it's uh, kind of a mess."

When he'd originally left this morning he hadn't planned for her to end up back here with him. In an attempt to hide the chaos that was his apartment he hurriedly throws some dirty dishes in the sink and picks up a pile of clothes and tosses them down the hallway. Raven raises an eyebrow at him but then she laughs. "I didn't pin you as a total slob."

If he cared he might try and deny her claims. But there wasn't much point considering that there were more dishes in his sink than in his cabinets. "Who has time for cleaning up?" he asks though it's very rhetorical. The answer was him. He had plenty of time for cleaning up. "But that's not important anyway," he says opening the fridge and pulling out what he can find. "Breakfast is of the utmost importance currently."

"If I didn't know any better," Raven starts as she sits down at his table and stretches her leg out in front of her. "I'd say you were just trying to lure me back here to begin with."

"Excuse you," he taps her nose with the end of the spoon in his hand. "You were the insistent one. I don't handle hunger well. Breakfast is pertinent in my life."

"Wash that," she says in reference to the spoon that had just touched her nose. "I'm not eating my dead skin cells for breakfast."

"Gross, Raven," he murmurs as he tosses it into the sink and pulls out a new one. "Hey those plans for the rocket are in the living room if you want to check them out."

She considers it for a moment before getting up and walking into his living room. "Do I want to know what's growing in this cup?"

"That's from last night!" he says with mild confidence. "Don't worry about it."

From there she's silent. He's surprised that he doesn't immediately hear claims about how idiotic his plans and was he trying to ruin this project for the both of them? The quiet is almost eerie.

Thankfully Wick had purchased pancake mix back when he'd first gotten this place, having all sorts of grand plans of cooking for himself. More fortunately still was the fact that it hadn't yet expired. He dumps some milk and eggs in, hoping he was close to the right amount and stirs, pouring them onto the stove with more confidence than he feels. He gets through pouring one and a half when he remembers the lack of Pam on the pan. Then he starts over with a sprayed down pan. He's surprised with the ease at which he manages from there.

By the time he makes it through the batter he has enough pancakes to feed the two of them for the next four breakfasts. "You should be proud of me. I-" Wick's already to announce his surprising abilities in pancake making when he walks into the living room to discover Raven, feet propped up on his coffee table, head lolled back on the couch, and one of his sketches lying against her chest as she snores lightly.

Perhaps it's not surprising; Kyle knew that he had fallen asleep in some very weird locations after working all night. He was glad she felt okay to fall asleep here, even if she hadn't chosen to do so. Oh so carefully, somewhat because he didn't want to wake her but even more so because he didn't want her to bite his head off, he takes the blanket off the back of the couch and carefully spreads it over her as much as he can. She flinches at the contact, eyes cracking open the slightest bit. "Go back to sleep," he whispers. She mumbles something incoherent before falling to lie on her side, the couch arm as her pillow. Wick moves her legs, very gently so as to not jostle her hurt one, to the other end of the couch so she wasn't bent in such a funny angle.

Then he pulls back, leaving her to sleep and eating his share of pancakes in the kitchen. He takes special care not to let his fork and knife scrape his plate.