Tandy slips into the chair next to Rayna's three lawyers and smoothes her hair. "My apologies for running late, I'll be sitting in for Rayna today. Can I be informed of what's going on, please?"

She had been on the way to the Highway 65 office when she got the panicked call from Rayna that she was in fact not at the settlement hearing at all, but at the hospital with Deacon.

"Is he okay?" she asked her sister, afraid of the answer. "How bad is it?"

"It's bad, Tandy. I need you to call Teddy to get the girls from school, and call that damn attorney and do something about that meeting. I can't….I just can't deal with any of that right now until I know what's going on."

"I'll take care of it," Tandy said firmly. "Just go take care of him, okay? And I'll be there in a little while."

"Well since we've been waiting for a half hour," Luke's lead attorney says pointedly. "Can we get on with this please?"

"Wait a minute-," Luke interrupts. "Where the hell is Rayna? I ain't settling nothing unless I'm dealing with Rayna."

"I'm sure her lawyers will suffice," Tandy says without hesitation. "Rayna had a family emergency to deal with. I'm just here to report back to her the results and make sure you don't attempt to screw her over in the process."

"I bet she did," he says with a knowing smirk. "What is it, bailing Deacon out of jail? Or dealing with another one of his temper tantrums?"

Tandy never has wished she had a big old stick more than she does at that moment.

"Actually, Luke, she is with Deacon," she says, her mouth set in a straight line. "He's in the Vanderbilt Hospital ICU right now. I'm sure everyone else will find out soon enough when it makes the papers, so you might as well hear it now."

They'd tried to keep the whole ordeal pretty quiet after getting Tandy approved as the donor, but Rayna had mentioned that people were starting to ask questions, especially in the last month or so when Deacon had virtually disappeared from doing some of his regular gigs around town. Friends were starting to question, and worry, and rumors abound. They'd been trying to avoid making an official statement on anything until after the surgery was over, knowing it was going to initiate press and media hoopla all over again.

Tandy knew it wasn't the only reason Deacon didn't want anyone else to know.

I did it to myself, she'd heard him say to Rayna more than once. I don't deserve anyone feelin' sorry for me.

Luke's smirk fades quicker than one she's ever seen. "Is that a joke?"

"It most certainly is not a damn joke," Tandy responds coolly as she reaches for the contract in front of Rayna's lawyer, and shoves it across the table. "Here's your settlement. Take it or leave it, and get over it. I have much more important places to be, and family matters to deal with."

Luke face still looks stunned under his giant hat as he stares down at the contract. But he signs it, and slowly slides it back across the table to the lawyer.

"Alright then," Tandy says with completely false pleasantness. "We're done here." She gathers her briefcase and stalks out of the room. There is not a sound from the peanut gallery of bewildered men that she has left at the table behind her.

Luke catches her just as she's getting into the elevator. "Tandy, seriously. What's going on?"

She thought he might look the slightest big concerned, but probably only for some purpose of his own ego.

"That's not your concern any longer, Luke," Tandy says. "Have a nice life." And the elevator closed in his face. Jackass, she thinks silently as she impatiently watches the floor numbers drop.

###############################

As soon as the hospital personnel realize who Rayna is, she's given a private room to wait in, away from all the curious on-lookers in the waiting room and their camera phones.

But ending up as the latest country music gossip is her last concern right now.

She can't think of anything but the terror of watching the paramedics pull Deacon out of her SUV and wheel him away on that stretcher. He was limp, but mumbling, reaching for her hand, pushing them away as they tried to put an oxygen mask on his face.

"Ray, where's Ray?"

"I'm right here," she promised, gripping his hand tightly. "Let them help you. I'm not going anywhere."

"Love you," he murmured, and then he was out again as they wheeled him into the E.R.

But in the E.R. a nurse immediately pushed her out of the sterile room, telling her she couldn't be in there, shoving her instead towards an orderly who brought her to this little room with no outside windows that makes her feel like suffocating, telling her to wait.

So she waits.

Breathe. Just breathe, she tells herself as she paces the small room from one side to the other, over and over again. She needs to be strong right now. For Deacon. And for her girls. Somehow she keeps breathing, somehow she doesn't break down like she wants to, even though she is inwardly panicking. Even though she wants to scream, and cry, and throw things, and yell how damn unfair this is.

She should be making calls. She knows she should. The only one she managed so far was Tandy. She needs to call Scarlett. She should probably call her lawyer and tell him why she didn't show up for the meeting an hour ago, although in her opinion Luke Wheeler can take his damn settlement and stuff it where the sun don't shine.

She picks up her phone off the side table and stares at the contact list, but her hands are shaking too much to touch the names.

I can do this, she thinks.

She tries calm her mind with thoughts of anything else, but it doesn't work, and finally she collapses onto the uncomfortable vinyl sofa in defeat, her hands drumming against her knees, the phone tossed aside.

A nurse comes in then, and Rayna jerks her head up, anxious for news.

"No update yet," the nurse says apologetically. "But I brought you these for safekeeping."

"Thank you," Rayna takes the plastic bag from her, and after she leaves, she sucks in a harsh breath as she empties out Deacon's collection of belongings they've taken off of him. His gold ring she slips on her finger, and it fits right over the silver band, covering it completely, the way it does when he holds her hand.

Her lower lip quivers as she takes it off and slides it onto the silver chain he always wears and fastens it around her neck close to her heart.

She flips through the pictures in his wallet. There is one of the four of them from Christmas at the cabin, a 4x6 cut to size. There is one of Scarlett's school pictures from when she was not much older than Daphne, and Maddie's school picture from this past fall. She examines a picture of the two of them, ancient, goodness it is startling how young they look, she thinks. But they were young. She couldn't have been more than 19. They were on a tour bus somewhere on the road. Her arms were around Deacon's neck, and he was kissing her cheek as she laughed.

Things were so easy then, she thinks wistfully. Before everything went to hell.

Behind all of that tucked into the last fold, she pulls out a flat crumpled object yellowing around the edges, and her heart breaks all over again when she reads the mess of faded words on a Bluebird napkin, crossed out and scratched and rewritten til they were perfect.

Sometime I'm hard on me

When dreams don't come easy

I wanna look back and say

I did all that I could

Yeah at the end of the day, lord I pray

I have a life that's good

Two arms around me

Heaven to ground me

And a family that always calls me home

Four wheels to get there

Enough love to share

And a sweet sweet sweet song

"What guy carries around scribbles on a napkin for 26 years?" She says out loud, not knowing whether to laugh or cry. Only Deacon.

"A good one."

She looks up to see Tandy standing in the doorway of her little lonely room, and the last scrap of strength she's been desperately trying to hold onto for the last hour, just crumbles.

Tandy has seen her sister face a lot of things in the last 30 years, but she has never seen a look on her face like that. She's not Rayna Jaymes, calm and composed superwoman country star, label head extraordinaire. She's just Rayna, and she's scared to death.

Tandy drops next to her on the sofa, and Rayna lays her head against her sister's shoulder and lets the tears she's been holding back finally fall.

"They won't tell me anything," she says, choking on every word. "They wouldn't even let me go in with him. I don't know what the hell is going on, or what they're doing to him right now. God, I just feel so helpless."

"He'll be okay," Tandy says softly. "He's tough, right? Look, you guys survived that accident, didn't you? You survived so much, honey, I know somehow this is all going to be okay."

It wouldn't be fair if it wasn't.

Rayna seems a little better after that, a little of her determination returning. Tandy takes over the barrage of phone calls that need to be made, and watches her sister resolutely stalk out to badger the nurses working the station until she knows exactly what the hell is going on.

Tandy steps out of the room a little while later to find her arguing with the head nurse at the counter.

"I don't care if you're the Queen of England or how much money your father gave to this hospital," the nurse was saying. "If we don't know anything, we can't tell you anything. Now go and take yourself a seat ma'am, please! Or I will have someone get you one."

Despite of the direness of the situation, Tandy has to hold back a laugh.

Rayna is a Wyatt, alright. Through and through.

"Come on, sweetie," she says, taking her sister gently by the arm and leading her away. "Getting yourself thrown out of the hospital isn't going to do Deacon any good."

"I just want to know what's going on," Rayna says, insistently. "Why is that so hard? It's been two hours, Tandy. I'm about ready to go in there and see myself."

"I know. Let's find some coffee, huh?" She gestures towards the station in the corner.

"The coffee here is like motor oil," Rayna grumbles. She would know. She'd drank enough of it over the last three months.

"I talked to Teddy," Tandy says as she presses a Styrofoam cup into her sister's hand. "He'd like you to call him when you get a chance. And Scarlett is in California, she's trying to get back as soon as she can. I called Juliette, I called Bucky at the office. Anyone else you can think of for immediate notice?"

But before they got much farther, Rayna looks over her sister's shoulder and sees the doctor approaching. And it's not just the E.R. doctor. It's Dr. Abbott, and the E.R. doctor, and 4 other doctors she's pretty sure she's met at least once over the last 3 months, but she can't for the life of her remember their names or what part of this whole process they are involved in. Her heart sinks as low as she swears it can go.

"This is it," she thinks, her heart hammering. "They're going to tell me he's gone. What am I going to tell my daughters if he's gone?"

"He's stable right now," the E.R. doctor says. "I'll let Dr. Abbott give you the rest of the details. We'll be moving him to the Hepatology floor of the hospital shortly."

Rayna and Tandy both breathe a sigh of relief.

Dr. Abbott doesn't mince words at all. "We can't wait for the surgery," she says. "His liver function has dropped significantly. If it gets any lower, his other organs are in danger of shutting down. We need to do the surgery now, Ms. Jaymes, or he won't make it. We're running on borrowed time."

Rayna's face wavers, thinking of how much he wants to spend that birthday with Maddie. She vaguely hears the words they tell her, but it's as if she's underwater and they are far away. Can't wait for surgery…..liver function dropping…vital organ failure. She feels all control slipping away. She thought she had this. She thought she could handle it.

She also thought they had 25 more days.

Tandy is standing next to her, holding her up. She know what they're saying, she knows what this means. She doesn't know if she's ready either, but now she has to be.

She answers for her sister.

"Okay," she says quietly. "What do we do?"

"I want to check you in right now." The doctor says to her. "Then you'll be ready and prepped by morning. As long as he holds stable through the night, we'll start at 6 am."

Rayna hugs her sister tighter than she ever has, and over her shoulder a nurse waits impatiently with a clipboard. "I'll call Bucky and have him bring your things later."

"Now don't worry about me," Tandy says, smoothing her hair back. "Just be here with him for right now, okay? They're just gonna spend a few hours poking at me, and making sure I'm healthy, and then I'll be stuck in a hospital bed watching tv for the rest of the night. We know how this works, right? They told us everything."

Rayna knows. She know more about all of it than she ever dreamed.

It seems so ridiculous now, that 3 months ago her thoughts were only on her record label and the next big tour.

#########################################

They finally agree to let her see Deacon after he's been moved to the ICU on the Hep surgery floor. It's been hours, and her nerves are shot.

She calls Teddy as she waits in a yet another room. This time it's a room with a view looking out over the city, but it doesn't soothe her much. An afternoon rain pelts the windows hard, and she sees a strike of lightning far off in the distance. A storm is rolling in. The weather seems quite appropriate.

This is the hardest conversation, the one with Teddy. The other ones, with Juliette, with Beverly and Scarlett, she can go through the details and the motions without letting herself feel anything, but talking to Teddy all she can think of is her girls sitting at home worrying their poor little hearts out.

"How are the girls?" she asks, trying to keep her voice even.

"Upset," Teddy says with a sigh. "Crying since they got home from school. Begging me to bring them down there by you to see him. Is that possible at all? Just for a few minutes?"

She closes her eyes. "They can't," she says, trying to keep her voice from cracking. "He's unconscious. They're keeping him out until after the surgery."

"It's that bad?"

"They're doing the surgery tomorrow," Rayna says, barely able to get out the words. "The transplant. Everything…is just happening really fast. They checked Tandy in this afternoon to get ready. You just need to….take care of them for me, okay? And keep them from worrying themselves sick. The surgery is at 6 am, and it'll probably take 8 hours or more. I'll keep you updated."

Teddy is silent for a long minute. "I'm so sorry, Rayna. If there is anything you need, let me know. And when you're ready for the girls, I'll bring them."

"Thanks," she says quietly. "Tell the girls I love them. I have to go."

She turns to see a nurse waiting. The ones on this floor seem a little nicer than the ones in the E.R. department.

"Are you ready?" The nurse says sympathetically. "You can see him now."

No, Rayna thinks. I'm not ready for any of this.

"Yes," she says as she shoves her phone back into her purse and turns away from the window. "I'm ready."

#######################################

She spends all night sitting in an uncomfortable plastic chair next to his hospital bed, holding his hand.

"You should use that bed and get some sleep," the night nurse touches her shoulder softly, gesturing to the other room in the suite where a twin bed waits. "It's late. Tomorrow will be a long day."

She rubs her eyes and gazes at Deacon, motionless under all the medical equipment and the monotonous beeping of the monitors.

"I can't," she says. "I can't leave."

The nurse, Becca, it says on her name tag, takes his vitals, marks them on the chart, and leaves the room. A few minutes later she comes back with a cup of coffee and hands it to Rayna.

"We supply our own coffee on this floor," she says, shooting Rayna a wink. "It's much better than the sludge some of the other floors have."

Rayna manages a "thanks", and sips it gratefully before she sets it aside.

"He's lucky to have someone who loves him so much," Nurse Becca says, sitting down into the chair next to her.

"I'm the lucky one," Rayna says softly, gazing at his unmoving form. "He waited for me for a long time. And sometimes you just…well…you always think there will be time later to…fix things. And one day you wake up and everything is different."

"You know," Becca says. "I remember seeing the two of you play together at the Opry once. My mother took my sister and I, we were teenagers. Must have been about 20 years ago. The two of you onstage…you could silence a room when you sang together. People still talk. They're thrilled that you're back together."

"I don't deserve him."

"Oh now, I don't think that's true," Becca says, shaking her head. She stands up again. "But you know what," she says with a knowing smile. "He can still hear you. I bet he'd like it a whole lot if you sang to him." She patted Rayna on the shoulder one more time, and then left the room.

Maybe she's right.

And she knows out of all the songs they've written together, and sang onstage in the last 26 years, there's only one that they've ever kept to themselves and never shared with the world.

With a heavy-hearted sigh, Rayna leaned over and kissed Deacon's temple, and ran her finger lightly across his thick dark hair, and then she started to sing softly.

I like the feel of your name on my lips

And I like the sound of your sweet gentle kiss

The way that your fingers run through my hair

And how your scent lingers even when you're not there

And I like the way your eyes dance when you laugh

And how you enjoy your two hour nap

And how you convinced me to dance in the rain

With everyone watching like we were insane

But I love the way you love me

Strong and wild

Slow and easy

Heart and soul

So completely

I love the way you love me

When the sun comes up through the big glass window, Rayna is still awake. Watching a new day dawn, afraid to know what it will bring. Holding the hand of the man she's loved since she was 16 years old, and praying to god when the sun goes down again she will have him back.

A little while later, two doctors and a nurse come in to take him to surgery. She kisses his cheek softly. "I love you," she whispers. "That's easy. That's all there is. You better not forget it."

She's allowed to go as far as the double doors, where they're wheeling Tandy in as well. "I love you," she says, tears burning her eyes as she hugs her sister tighter than she's ever hugged anyone. "Thank you."

"Just so you know," Tandy says, trying to lighten the mood. "If I ever need a kidney, you're first on the list. And these hospital gowns are terribly unfashionable. We need to donate some money and do something about that."

Rayna laughs, so she won't cry, and watches them wheel away two of the strongest, most amazing people she loves most in the entire world.

And then she's left with nothing to do but sit alone in another tiny windowless room and wait.

Only this time, there's no one to hold her hand.

##########################

It is hours. Hours of pacing, hours of waiting for updates, watching the minutes on the clock tick by. At noon a nurse with a cheerful smile comes out to tell her "things are going well" and Tandy is in recovery and doing fine.

"Thank you," she murmurs, breathing a slight bit easier.

At 1 o clock, the girls come racing into the waiting room, and throw their arms around her waist.

She is stunned to see them, and raises her eyes to Teddy over their heads.

"I'm sorry," Teddy says apologetically. "They were so upset, and I told them they wouldn't be able to see him or Tandy, but they insisted on being here for you, and I swear Rayna, if I wouldn't have brought them, they might have been out the door and in a cab while my back was turned."

"We wanted to hold your hand, mommy." Daphne says, her face streaked with tears. "Since Deacon can't. He always holds your hand when you're worried."

Maddie's face is so broken she can't even speak. She just lays her head against her mom's shoulder and cries, and Rayna's red and tired eyes close against her daughter's hair as she holds them tight.

"You know," she whispers. "It's okay, Teddy. I think this is just what I needed."

Teddy watches them, and he thinks about what Daphne said. Deacon can't hold her hand. So just this one time, he reaches out and holds it for him.

#################################

6 Days Later

Rayna is asleep in the chair next to the bed, when she feels Deacon squeeze her hand, and her eyes flutter open.

"Hey Babe," she whispers, relief spreading across her face. "Welcome back to us."

She immediately reaches for the nurse call button.

"No," he says hoarsely, "wait."

His mouth is dry as sandpaper, and he hurts all over.

"Oh, Deacon," Rayna starts to cry, and immediately starts kissing his face. They said he'd wake up soon. They took out the ventilator yesterday, and turned down some of the medication that was keeping him out cold, and they'd all been waiting anxiously.

"What the hell happened?" he whispers. The last thing he remembered they'd been in the truck on the way to that meeting.

"You've been out for six days, honey," she says, her eyes blurring with tears. "But it's done. And you're gonna be fine."

"What?" he mumbles, his blue eyes still a little confused, trying to take in everything in. "Where am I?"

"You're at Vanderbilt. The surgery is done, babe. Tandy was released yesterday. Bucky's at my house taking real good care of her."

Well that explains why he feels like he's been sawed in half and put back together wrong.

He looks around the room. There were dozens of bunches of flowers and balloons, get well cards, but his eyes settled on the evidence of the girls in the hand drawings stuck on the bulletin board. "Girls were here?"

"Yesterday," she says softly. "They wanted to see you. I couldn't hold em back any longer. Everybody's been here. Juliette and Avery….Scarlett came back from California. She'll be in this afternoon."

"Maddie's birthday?" his face falls, disappointed.

"It's tomorrow. Don't worry about it," Rayna says softly. "All Maddie wants for her birthday is her dad back home with us. Just worry about feeling better, okay?"

She'll tell him about the rest later. The scare on the third day with infection, how for an entire night she'd sat on her knees in the hospital chapel and prayed for god to let her keep him, the worries of rejection.

It hadn't all gone exactly like it was supposed to.

But that didn't matter now.

"All that matters is getting you home with us," she says, with tears in her eyes. "And I'm gonna take care of you and hover over you as much as I want, and Babe, there isn't a thing you're gonna be able to do about it."

For once, he isn't gonna argue with her as he reaches for her hand again and squeezes it hard.

"You think so," he says, his voice hoarse, but he smiles.

"You're damn right," Rayna says firmly. She leans over and presses another kiss to his mouth. "We got you better, Deacon. Now we need to get you home."

6 months later….

August

"It was perfect, wasn't it?" Rayna says as she stands on the front porch of the cabin, shoes in her hand, bare feet, eyes closed, the fading afternoon sun warming her face and a gentle breeze ruffling the hem of her white dress and blowing her hair back.

"It sure as hell was. Perfect, Ray," Deacon says in agreement. "Just perfect. Couldn't have asked for a better day. But I can't believe you didn't want to go anywhere else for a week than this old cabin. For our honeymoon? Really?"

Rayna waves it off like it's no big deal. "We've been everywhere, Babe. This is great. Everybody thinks we're all off to Mexico or something…and here we are hiding in plain sight. Sort of. And there's no where else I'd rather be, anyway. This is us."

This is us, Deacon thinks as he watches her. He thinks back to the first time he ever met her at the Bluebird. She'd had him, from that moment, from the first time he'd looked into her eyes, he'd known. She's always been his. And now, she's his wife.

She feels his gaze on her, and opens her eyes.

"What you thinkin?" Rayna says, wearing a content little smile. But she's happy too. They'd fought and waited through so much for this day. They deserved it. The wedding was more perfect than Rayna could have ever imagined. A beautiful end of summer day, with the sun high in the sky, and not a cloud in sight. Just 100 of their closest friends, and their girls wearing beautiful yellow dresses, in a gorgeous spot next to the river and a familiar stone bridge. Not a paparazzi or news reporter in sight.

It was exactly what she'd always imagined.

"I'm thinkin… I must be the luckiest man alive," Deacon says, the biggest grin she's ever seen on his face as he leans over and gives her a kiss on the cheek before going to unlock the sliding glass door.

To say they're happy is an underestimate. The cloudy days are behind, nothing but blue skies ahead. Deacon's recovery from his surgery had gone better and faster than any of them expected, and just a few weeks ago he'd received a clean bill of health.

"I'm the lucky one," she says, wrapping her arms around his waist and leaning her head against his chest. "You wanna watch the sunset before we go in?"

"Hell, there'll be lots of sunsets," he says, his eyes teasing her. "I've been thinking about getting you home since the moment you walked down that aisle." He scoops her up in his arms, and Rayna shrieks in surprise, laughing as she protests. "Deacon, put me down. Your scar."

"Darlin" he says, his eyes crinkling into the smile she loves. "I've been waiting since the day I bought this cabin to carry you over that damn threshold, you can bet I'm gonna do it." So he did.

"Welcome home, Deacon," Rayna says with a contented sigh as he pulls her in close and kisses her again.

"As long as I got your two arms around me, Baby," he murmurs. "I'm always home."

Thanks so much for reading everyone, but sometimes you know where it should end, and this is the perfect place. I'm sure I'll be starting something new in a few weeks after the 2nd half of the season starts! Hiatus is almost over! We survived!

The two songs I borrowed were A Life That's Good from Nashville and I Love The Way You Love Me by John Michael Montgomery