“Excuse me, miss!”

Fenny jolted awake and looked up, tipping her head to get her glasses to situate properly on her nose again.

“What do you think you’re doing?”

A livid nurse was standing over her, and Fenny looked down to find herself on Brad’s hospital bed. She vaguely remembered him asking her to lie down with him the previous night. “I can’t sleep if I don’t know you’re here with me,” he had said, but she hadn’t intended to spend the entire night with him.

“I, um, uh, sorry,” Fenny babbled as she crawled off the bed.

“Mr. Sherwood,” the nurse said harshly, still glaring at Fenny as she tried to wake him.

Fenny took a step towards him and ran her fingers along his jaw and down his neck. “Brad, darling,” she cooed, and his eyes fluttered open.

“Hey Fen,” he smiled blearily up at her. She jerked her head toward the other side of the bed. “Oh,” he grumbled as he looked over at the nurse who was rolling her eyes at them.

“I’m going to have to ask you to leave while I examine the patient,” the nurse said.

Fenny refrained from saying, “Whatever it is you’re gonna look at, I’ve seen it already,” said a quick goodbye to Brad instead, and stepped out of the room. She paused in the hallway to rub the bridge of her nose, cursing herself for falling asleep with her glasses on, and decided to find Gina.

“Knock, knock,” Fenny said when she found the curtains pulled around Gina’s bed.

“Come on in,” Gina replied, and Fenny pulled back the curtain and frowned at her.

“Where’d you get the new threads?” she demanded, looking at the refreshingly crisp plain blue t-shirt and flared blue jeans Gina was sporting.

“Greg got bored after he was discharged last night,” Gina smiled.

“Discharged, huh?”

“Yeah, he got himself a hotel room. They wouldn’t let him stay here, something about cigarettes and calling some nurse an infested little troll and the threat of a rectal exam, I’m not sure,” Gina said, the story still making her giggle.

“Somehow I’m not surprised,” Fenny mused.

“He’s got some clothes for you, too,” Gina assured her. “Couldn’t find you.”

“I was with Brad,” Fenny blushed as she sat on the bed.

“My god, the poor guy’s conscious for an hour and you’re doing it in a hospital bed,” Gina scorned.

“We did no such thing,” Fenny admonished. “All we did was sleep. What kind of a woman do you take me for?”

“A nymphomaniac,” Gina replied matter-of-factly. “How is Braddles, anyway?”

“I think he’s ok. I got kicked out of his room by an anal-retentive nurse before I could ask, really. How’s Pauly?”

“Poor guy,” Gina mused, “yesterday finally caught up with him. He can barely move, he’s so sore. He’ll be okay, though.”

“And you?” Fenny asked.

“I’m fine,” Gina assured her. “Just a little headache. The doctor said I’ll be able to leave real soon. How’re you holding up?”

“I’m ok. Amazingly enough, I seem to have gotten out of this the least injured, and I feel kinda bad,” Fenny shrugged. “It was me Ritza was after, and everyone else who got hurt. I don’t know what to say, really.”

“Aw, Fen, look, don’t beat yourself up about this,” Gina said. “None of this is your fault. You don’t think we would’ve just let you get dragged away, do you? You would’ve done the same if any of us were in trouble.”

“Yeah,” Fenny nodded, “it’s just, I just can’t stop feeling like—”

“There you are, Fen,” Greg announced as he pulled back the curtain. Fenny looked up at him and smiled. He was dressed in a pair of jeans and a black shirt, and it looked like he had finally managed to find something with which to style his hair. This was the first sign that things really were returning back to normal. “Here,” he said, thrusting a plastic bag at her, “happy birthday.”

“Or happy unbirthday, as it were,” Fenny mused as she peered in the bag to find a pair of jeans, a green t-shirt, and, joy of joys, a hairbrush. “You, Mr. Proops, are a god,” she grinned up at him. “This is a surprisingly kind gesture.”

“Oh, don’t worry about me going soft on y’all,” he said, leaning his crutches against the counter as he maneuvered himself into the chair. “I just couldn’t cope with the thought of being thrust back in that car with everyone smelling the way we did.”

“You’re a classy guy, Greg,” Gina said.

“I know,” he nodded. “Oh, and Brad’s asking for you,” he said to Fenny.

“Oh,” she smiled, “I’d best be going then. I’ll catch you guys later, maybe we can get outta here and back on our way home. Thanks again for the clothes.”

“I give it twenty minutes before Brad tears them off her with his teeth,” Gina giggled. Fenny turned and pushed her glasses up with her middle finger before clutching the bag to her chest and heading towards Brad’s room.

“So,” Greg began, “what do you plan to do when you get home?”

“Sleep,” Gina answered quickly. “Explain to my editor why I need a vacation from my vacation, and then crawl into bed with the remote for a week or two and pretend that none of this ever happened. What do you have planned?”

“I plan to get completely and entirely wasted at the first available opportunity.”

“Aah, there’s the Greg I know,” Gina nodded, “crawl into a bottle and drown your sorrows.”

“Damn right. Can you blame me?” he asked as his mood seemed to sink a bit.

“No, I guess I can’t.”

Greg moved to fill the spot Fenny had left on the bed and took Gina’s hand in both of his. Once again she noticed the absence of his wedding band, but didn’t comment. He looked up at her and opened his mouth to say something.

“Aah, Miss Coleman,” her doctor chimed as he came up to her. “You ready to leave?”

“Absolutely,” she declared as Greg released her hand and slouched over.

Paul sat up in bed, downed the aspirin he’d been given, and hoisted his legs over the side, trying to ignore the protestations of every muscle in his body. The very act of breathing hurt, and the impossibly tight bandaging across his chest wasn’t helping very much either. His right eye had swollen up overnight and his split lip still throbbed. This was the type of situation that called for a nice bottle of…tequila sounded good. Nice and numbing.

It took him a while, but he got himself dressed in the clothes Greg had dropped off earlier that morning, and wasn’t surprised that the pants were too long. “Bastard probably spent twenty minutes looking for extra long pants,” Paul grumbled to himself as he wondered if it would be better to roll them up or just let them drag. Considering the effort it took to get his shoes on, he decided to let them drag.

With a pained stretch, Paul grabbed his copies of the forms he’d been forced to deal with and shuffled out of the room, trying not to look as pathetic as he felt.

“Well, there goes my dream of being a supermodel,” Fenny jeered as she investigated the wound on her face in the mirror. Seventeen stitches in her right cheek. That was going to leave a scar that would be hard to explain to her parents. She wondered if there would ever be a time she could look in the mirror and not think of Ritza and all the pain she had caused not only her but also her friends. As Fenny pulled the brush through her hair one more time, she told herself not to think about Ritza anymore, and stepped out of the bathroom to find Brad again.

“I’m gonna startle young children if I walk around like this,” Gina grumbled as she peeled the bandage from her forehead and looked at her reflection in the screen of the heart monitor stored in her room. “Looks like something out of a Shelley novel…”

“You look fine,” Greg assured her warmly.

“ ‘Let it breathe’ my arse,” she continued as she poked tenderly at her stitches. “I liked the bandage, thank you Mr. Doctor. And I’m really not looking forward to having these things taken out back in Sydney.” She snarled in the direction the doctor had gone.

“You’re ok with them sticking a needle through your skin but not snipping off a little catgut?”

Gina shrugged and sat back on the bed to reluctantly pull on her boots.

“I was thinking,” Greg began.

“Oh no,” Gina teased. Greg gave her a stern look and she smiled kindly at him. “Ok, what have you been thinking?”

He took a breath. “How’d you like to come back to LA with me?”

She looked at him, a bit startled. “I, well, look Greg,” she began, then paused. “I really don’t want to think about going anywhere but home right now. I think all of us are going to need some time alone to deal with everything that we’ve got to deal with. With the possible exception of Fen and Brad, who will continue pressing for that world record of most consecutive orgasms.”

“I’m trying to be serious here,” Greg whined.

“So am I,” Gina snapped. “I’m too exhausted, hurt, and traumatized to think about us right now. I’d like to regain my sanity before I decide to do anything.”

Paul waited just outside the curtain, waiting for someone to say or do something, hoping that Gina would just come out tell Greg that she couldn’t be with him because her feelings were with Paul. But she didn’t.

“I’ve gotta get my head cleared and think things through,” Gina sighed.

Greg folded his arms across his chest.

“It’s the best I can do for you,” she said, leaning over and grabbing his crutches. “I know it’s not what you want to hear, but I’m sorry.”

“I understand,” Greg said softly and hoisted himself up on the crutches.

The curtain was pulled back and there stood Paul, leaning into his broken rib and looking quite miserable. “Are we ready to leave yet?” he asked.

“Think so,” Greg said, shaking off his disappointment and smiling at the prospect of getting away from the stifling hospital and its threatening nurses.

“Let’s go find Fen and Brad,” Gina said as she hopped off the bed.

“You’re up,” Fenny smiled as she found Brad sitting upright in bed, dressed in clean, pleasantly tight jeans and a pristine white button down. His arm was in a sling and he was trying to figure out the best way to sign the paperwork the nurse had left him.

“Remind me never to let Greg shop for me again,” he groused, pulling at his pants. “Damn things are a size too small…”

“I dunno, I kinda like ‘em,” Fenny smiled.

He grinned lopsidedly at her and shrugged. “Alright then.”

“Those your release forms?” she asked.

“Yeah. Come here, I need your help signing them.”

“Help?”

“Yeah. Sit here,” he said, patting the bed with his good hand, and she did as he instructed. “Now…” Brad grabbed Fenny’s right ankle and hoisted her leg across his lap as she tried to keep her balance and not fall off the bed as she let out a startled laugh. “Thanks.” He situated the forms on her thigh and was able to sign them with his writing hand, which was unfortunately attached to his destroyed shoulder.

“Never been a writing desk before. Nice to know I’m good for something,” Fenny sighed as he moved to the next form.

“You’re good for other things,” he said, looking up to grin devilishly at her as he rubbed her leg.

“See, what’d I tell ya,” Gina announced as she and Greg wandered into the room, followed a few paces behind by Paul, who was significantly more purple than Fenny remembered him being the day before.

“Nope, fifteen minutes,” Greg said with a click of his tongue as he glanced at his watch. “You owe me twenty bucks.”

“Huh?” Brad said dumbly.

“Ignore them,” Fenny said, nudging him. “Sign these things so we can leave.” She looked over at Paul. “You doing ok?”

“Fucking great,” he hissed. “Can we just get outta here, please?”