AN: First of all, thank you all SO much for the fantastic reviews, not only on this but on Life's Highway original as well. To know that so many of you enjoy reading these as much as I enjoy writing them is awesome and I'm so glad people enjoy my ideas and take on the Cars universe!


The lights of the waiting room were blinding as he returned to the building. Doc regarded Mater a moment as his eyes adjusted and he realized Sally's seat was vacant, there was no need to voice his obvious question.

Mater only pointed toward the large door, more shaken than any of them had realized. "I didn' hear the room number..."

Doc turned to the nurse's station and leaned against the counter with poorly veiled impatience, tapping the formica with a finger and smiling thinly when they finally answered his question.

He passed a family waiting for a patient to be discharged and ignored the look of recognition on some of their faces as he rounded the corner. He looked up and down either end of the adjoining hallway with lowered brows in search of the correct wing. He would have thought the familiarity of the sterile atmosphere would put him more at ease, but it only made him more edgy as he read over the numbers. Finally coming to the room, he could see the kid through the partial window as he knocked on the door frame. Both Lightning and Sally looked up in unison.

"Where were you?" Lightning asked, exhausted but more at ease than when he'd last seen him.

"Outside-..." Doc's explanation trailed off as he entered the room and looked him over. They'd set his arm, and had already fit him with a stabilizer, but not much else had been done. He looked up toward the monitor where Lightning's vitals were being recorded, taking note of the numbers before looking back at him. "When's the last time someone was in?"

"Umm...twenty minutes ago maybe?"

"I haven't seen anyone yet." Sally offered.

"What'd they do?" Doc moved to the side of the hospital bed, regarding the incredible bruise on the inside of Lightning's arm. It was a rhetorical question, he was fairly sure he already knew the answer.

"They blew out the IV because they tried to take my blood pressure in the same arm..."

Of course they did.

With a quick glance toward the door, he sidestepped around the monitor Lightning had seen the nurses working at, reading over the screen.

"What're you doing?"

"Getting answers."

"Doc!" Lightning hissed. "I don't think you can'-"

"This will all end up faxed to my office anyway, I'll see it regardless."

"You can't just look through their stuff."

Doc glanced at him while pulling the complimentary notepad and pen off the end table before looking back at the screen. "Did they do the MRI on your knee yet?"

"No, just X-rays."

"There's nothing on the X-ray."

"Doc!"

"Your chest is clear..."

"This can't be legal. Sally-"

She only shrugged, she wasn't getting involved with that.

"Will you relax." Doc huffed, walking back to write down the last 5 recordings the machine had taken of blood pressure, oxygen level and heart rate readings. "You act like I don't know what I'm looking at."

Sally turned in her chair to see the monitor above Lightning's head. "What does that all mean?"

Doc looked over what he'd written on the notepad before glancing back up at the screen and explaining what each number and line graph meant. The top number in green was the heart rate and fairly straight forward, the middle number in white was how fast he was breathing and the bottom in blue was blood pressure.

He narrowed his eyes and looked over the first few recorded readings from when Lightning had first been admitted. "Why was your oxygen so low?"

"I tried breathing like you'd told me to, but when they blew out my IV-...and with all the commotion I guess I nearly passed out."

Lightning took a deep breath and adjusted the oxygen tube under his nose, frowning at the look on Doc's face. "They said I'm going to need surgery on my knee."

"For?" They hadn't made a note on that yet.

"They think I've torn the ACL?"

"The MRI will determine that."

"They moved my knee around and said it's loose."

Doc regarded him in silence for a moment, wondering what pain killer they had him on. The kid was incredibly chatty for someone who had just wrecked a vehicle at 200mph. With a look toward Sally, he could tell she was thinking along the same lines. He sighed and looked about the small hospital room.

"What're you looking for?" Sally asked softly.

"A pen light- small flashlight-"

"I have one on my key chain." She fished around in her bag and pulled out her car keys, holding the tiny light up to Doc.

He thanked her and tested it once before turning his attention back to Lightning. "Look at me for a second, Kiddo."

Doc held the light in front of each of Lightning's eyes before turning it away, watching each of them dilate and retract accordingly. "Now put your hand out." He held his own out as an example. Passing the key chain back to Sally, he sighed again.

He wasn't usually relieved to see a tremor in someone's hands but it was comforting to know they didn't have Lightning completely maxed out on pain killers.

Sally was the first to start yawning, she shifted in her chair and looked up at the clock. "How long will they keep him?"

"Repairing the ACL is an outpatient surgery, but the time of the surgery will be determined by when they do the MRI." Doc replied as he looked up toward the clock as well. He'd been up nearly 24 hours. Lightning had fallen abruptly silent, mentally and physically hitting a brick wall.

"I think..." Sally started. "I'm going to go back to the hotel and get a quick nap, I'll be back for your surgery. You should get some sleep too."

Lightning nodded. "I'm gunna try, they wanted me to eat something too, but then don't I have to wait a certain amount of time before I can go to surgery?" He looked to Doc questioningly.

"At least a few hours...depending what you eat. They may just keep you on the IV."

Sally stepped forward, careful of his immobilized arm and kissed his cheek. She murmured something and Lightning smiled.

"Yeah, I'm ok..."

He was taking this exceedingly well...

"I'm gunna call a cab." She mentioned as she paused beside Doc. "Do you-?"

He shook his head before looking toward her, there was no way he was leaving the Hornet there. "I can manage."

"Oh...ok..." She hesitated and turned back to return to Lightning's bedside, kissing his cheek again. "I'll see you in a few hours."

"I'll be here." He smirked.

"Love you."

"Love you too."

She finally turned away reluctantly. "Night, Doc..."

"Goodnight, Sally."

The room was silent once she'd left, Doc could see fatigue setting in quickly and knew sleep was best right now anyway. He returned the pen to the end table and paused when Lightning spoke.

"I'm glad you're here."

Doc regarded him silently for a moment. "Where else would I be?"

Lightning only shrugged his good arm, looking much younger as he adjusted the oxygen tube again. "I'm just glad you are."

At a loss for words, Doc stepped forward and fixed the problem in the tube Lightning was dealing with.

"What was it like in '54?"

"Nothing like this."

Lighting only looked at him expectantly.

"I wasn't conscious."

"Oh-"

"The cars weren't nearly as safe and medicine wasn't where it is now, obviously." He was thankful for that, seeing Lighting awake was enough for now.

"What'd you-"

"Don't worry about me. That was a long time ago."

"Yeah, but-"

"Just worry about you right now." He dodged, not in the least bit interested in dredging up the past.

Lightning finally relented, looking back down at the IV in his hand. After a moment he finally muttered. "Will I be able to go back out there?"

Doc blinked, taking a moment to catch up to his train of thought. "Out where, the track?"

"Yeah."

He reached out and ran a finger over the shoulder joint of Lightning's good arm. "Once these ligaments tighten back up it'll be good as new. It might be more prone to accidents in the future but if you're careful you'll be fine."

"And my leg?"

"Football players have more intrusive surgeries."

Lightning finally looked up at him again, and even through the exhaustion, Doc could see the sincerity in his eyes. "Thanks."

He hummed lowly in response, stepping away from the bed. "You should get some sleep."

"You too."

"Oh I plan to."

"I don't know when my surgery is scheduled for..."

"Don't worry about that, I'll be here." Doc replied with a glance back at the monitor, looking back toward Lightning he wasn't surprised to find the kid already asleep.

He huffed, one side of his mouth rising in a fond smile before he turned to leave the room. Before he knew it he had backtracked through the hallways and through the waiting room, which was now empty. He figured everyone must have left with Sally. Doc ran a hand over the back of his neck, feeling a tension headache setting in as he crossed the parking lot and stopped beside the Hornet. He caught the flutter of a piece of paper on the windshield and his brows lowered. They didn't really have the nerve to give him a ticket did they? Stepping around to the front of the car he paused, tucked under the windshield wipers and in any space on the front of the car that could hold down paper, were get well cards, notes, and even a few flowers. One photo stood out in particular and he removed it from where it was tucked against the windshield.

It was a photo of Lightning with a few kids on Pit Row, he couldn't remember which race it was or even what year it might have been taken. Turning it over he checked the back.

Prayers and well wishes for a speedy recovery to our favorite racer. XOXO

Doc looked back toward the hospital, his jaw set as he tapped the photo against the door of the Hornet. Opening the door, he slid into the driver's seat and set the photo on the dashboard.

He didn't have the energy to get back out and remove all the notes he could see from where he sat in the car, and he wasn't about to drive and lose all of them.

Within five minutes he was asleep in the reclined driver's seat of The Hudson Hornet.