While Alicia fills the kettle and gets mugs from a cabinet, Jared raids the Wentworths' refrigerator, looking for something sweet to feed Ranger.

The guy is in shock, and from the looks of it, Alicia is clearly, too. Jared had already made his friend drink most of the water in a bottle he found on Alicia's bedside table, but Ranger was complaining of nausea, and he was trembling like a leaf. Underneath all his bravado, he is still human, and the pain must be excruciating. Jared would prefer to take him to the ER, but stab wounds get reported to the police, and he needs to know what Ranger got himself into before the police get involved.

Jared is pretty sure it has something to do with Ranger's father, the one subject he steadfastly refuses to discuss. They were all relieved when Ranger's mom moved to Hornsey Bay a little over a year ago, and Ranger left his father's house in the town 30 minutes away to live here with her instead. It made a massive difference in the guy's life, but he refused to talk about what caused it. The only thing Jared knows is that Ranger's father is in jail for racketeering.

Smiling, pleased by what he found, Jared grabs a couple of chocolate puddings from the refrigerator and plops them on the counter. Opening one, he takes a spoon from the teaspoon container next to the kettle and dips it into the rich, two-toned brown, yummy goo.

"Here," he says, holding the spoon to Alicia's lips, and she reflexively opens her mouth, taking the spoon from his hand, when he places the sweet load in her mouth. She is blinking at him, too surprised to say anything, her expression making him laugh.

"It might help with the shock. It's chocolate and salted caramel."

"Oh! Uhm... thanks, but it's Ranger's; he's going to be mad," she finally speaks, pulling the spoon from her mouth.

"He's not a stingy guy," Jared laughs, and Alicia makes an incredulous face, pointing at the pudding container in his hand.

′Snubs! Don't touch my pudding!′

He frowns, puzzled, when he reads the words written in black permanent marker and then laughs even harder, wondering what his friend is up to.

He holds the small tub out to Alicia, making a scoffing sound. "He can kiss my ass. Go ahead, eat it. It's really good."

She smiles awkwardly and obediently takes the pudding, and spoons it into her mouth. Though she's in much better shape than when Jared had just arrived, he can see that her fingers are still trembling slightly, her movements a little uncoordinated.

"Hey, he's going to be alright, I promise," he says, patting her shoulder. "It must've been really scary finding him like that. Do you need another hug?"

Alicia turns her brown eyes on him, and for a second, he thinks she's going to take him up on the offer, but then she's blushing, looking at her pudding again. "I'm alright, thank you."

"Let me know if you change your mind," he grins. "My hug business is open 24/7."

She giggles softly and steps aside, allowing him to hi-jack the coffee-making process while she eats her pudding. Jared is starting to get why Ranger is being such a bastard towards the girl. She must be driving him off his rocker. She is all Bambi eyes and gentle smiles, with a cheeky little nose and when he'd hugged her before, there was a second when he almost forgot that he was just trying to comfort her.

Alicia is a little bit taller than the average girl, but she is still about half a head shorter than Jared. He is not the tallest guy on the planet; his height is pretty standard. The girl's honey-brown hair reaches just past her shoulders, and at the moment, it is still a little moist from her shower.

She is quite pretty in an unassuming, fresh way, very natural looking. If he had to use a perfectly fitting cliché term to describe her, it would be ′nice-looking girl-next-door'. She doesn't seem to be interested in things like make-up and fashion much because whenever he sees her around town, she's always dressed in simple, ankle-length floral dresses in muted colours. Pretty but understated. He'd never seen her wearing much in the line of make-up, and today was the first time he'd seen her covered in blood stains.

Jared is convinced that Ranger is wrong; she's not stuffy nor a snob - his description - she is just shy and polite. She looks like someone who might have a huge talent for filing. The kind of girl who gets top marks in class and knows how to keep a group project on track and get it finished on time, even if she has to dish out some smacks to get it done.

With a start, Jared realises that he'd wandered off track and was now seeing his cousin, Kelly, in his mind. The idea makes him smile, stifling a laugh. No, Kelly is super organised and a star student, but she is opinionated and bossy. He doesn't get the impression that Alicia is anything like her. Kelly doesn't take any of Ranger's crap, she regularly puts the guy in his place, and he might be a little afraid of her.

Kelly is the commanding officer of a small battalion; Jared is not sure yet, but he thinks Alicia might be good librarian material. He knows that she spends a lot of time there. Ranger always insists on meeting up with him there, dragging some girl or another along to keep him amused while he waits, simply to annoy Alicia.

Jared is convinced that if Alicia had to keep a group project on track and get it finished on time, she would simply do it by quietly doing all the work herself.

"Here," he says, handing her a mug filled with steaming black coffee, and she accepts it gratefully, setting it down on the counter to add milk and sugar to it. While he'd made the coffee, she'd finished the pudding and filled a bowl with biscuits, which she'd placed on a small tray with the other two mugs of coffee already there.

"Feeling better?" Jared asks, glad to see that she's not trembling quite as much anymore while sipping her coffee.

"Much, thank you," she smiles warmly, a sweet blush colouring her cheeks.

The longer he remains in Alicia's presence, the more convinced Jared becomes that Ranger's assessment of her is completely wrong. She is not a spoilt snob. She seems to be rather down-to-earth and strong, and she clearly has a lot of backbone. Most people he knows would've been in complete hysterics when he arrived. Alicia was just busy giving Ranger some kind of weird lap dance.

If Ranger stopped being such an ass for five minutes, he could potentially get along with her very well. He might even learn a thing or two about being a human from the girl. Then again, Ranger is no idiot; he probably knows that already.

"Won't it be better to take him to the hospital?" Alicia asks, placing her coffee on the tray Jared settled on her nightstand when they entered her bedroom. Crossing to the other side of the room, she wheels the ergonomic chair from her desk closer to the bed, sits on it and retrieves her mug.

"Not necessarily," Jared shrugs. "The wound is not that bad; it's stitched and not bleeding anymore, and he doesn't seem to have a full-on concussion. We should wake him every two hours, just to be sure. There's nothing they would be doing at the hospital that we haven't already done."

"How about an IV or blood transfusion?" Alicia is not as convinced as Jared seems to be.

"He doesn't need a transfusion. He needs rest and comfort and he seems to have plenty of that right now," he assures her. "They would've released him by now anyway and told us to keep an eye on him tonight. They only have so many beds to go around, and he isn't in any real danger."

He makes a convincing argument, but Alicia is not entirely sure she agrees, and then there's the matter of the blood on his clothes that didn't seem to come from him.

"Did he kill somebody?" she asks, and Ranger snorts, opening one eye to glare at her. She'd believed him to be asleep and is rather flustered to find him peering at her.

"I might," he grunts, and protests loudly when Jared tells him to hold onto him and pulls him into a more or less sitting position, stuffing a thousand pillows behind his back to keep him in place. He is grateful, though, when done abusing his battered body, his friend hands him a cup of fragrant coffee.

"No," Jared tells Alicia as if Ranger is not there to answer for himself. "He didn't. If he did, he would've told me right away. He might not want to let me in on who attacked him, but he would've told me if he'd killed someone."

"Seriously," Ranger grumbles, taking the biscuit Jared hands him. "Am I invisible?"

"Well," Jared grins. "I didn't hand that cookie to thin air."

"It's definitely also not thin air lying in my bed," Alicia mutters, hiding her blushing face by sipping her coffee, when the boys chuckle - Ranger complaining that she is making his wound hurt.

"I didn't kill anybody," he says tonelessly. "I just fought back."

When Ranger had finished his coffee and eaten his pudding and most of the biscuits, his colour started to improve dramatically and when he dozed off, Jared and Alicia left his side to clear up the water and blood disaster in the foyer.

Alicia could feel the panic from earlier returning when she saw her book bag on its side, the books tumbling from it, the watery footsteps and drag marks and blood smears on the floor. She numbly watched Jared hang his paramedic raincoat on the coat rack beside the front door. He'd left it on the floor at the back door on his arrival. When she saw the two phones lying side by side on the ground, she was unable to suppress a sob.

She would've been embarrassed, but Jared cut off the oxygen-rich blood supply to her brain by once again gathering her in a hug that chased away the panic, leaving her warm and comforted in its wake. She felt deprived when the hug ended and he picked up the phones, handing them to her.

He cleaned the floor and the landing outside the door while Alicia took care of the pile of dirty clothes she'd left in the shower. The only remaining signs of the ordeal she'd been through earlier were the sound of the washing machine and the boy sleeping in her bed.

Jared couldn't stay much longer; he had to leave for work after trying and failing to get out of it. He was clearly not happy that he could not stay with his friend, and Alicia found his devotion to Ranger extremely touching. She would give anything to have a friend who cared about her that much.

She would love just to have a friend, period.

Alicia is amazed that Jared has the strength to work in a restaurant after assisting a paramedic team all morning. Even a small one like Papa's Pasta - which is where he said he worked - would be too much for her to handle now. She walks past it on her way to and from the library, and it is always quite busy. With all this rain, he must've been knee-deep in emergencies, too. Drivers lose their minds when it's raining.

She is still not clear whether Jared is a thug or not, but she is 100% sure that she respects the boy. He is extremely hard-working, and watching him use his skills to take care of Ranger was impressive.

Against her better judgement and desire, she'd assured him that she would keep an eye on Ranger and contact him the second something seemed to be going wrong. According to Jared's parting instructions, Alicia is dedicated to waking Ranger every two hours to ensure he can still wake up.

She is overdoing it, of course, constantly checking the time, afraid of missing the deadline, even though she'd set a timer on her phone. She really doesn't need to; Ranger wakes up every few minutes anyway; he just doesn't stay awake longer than he needs to take a couple of sips of water while she holds the bottle for him.

In a moment of doubt, Alicia lifted a corner of the dressing covering Ranger's stitches to give herself peace of mind that it was indeed done well and he was no longer bleeding. What she saw was surprising. As far as she knows, paramedics don't usually stitch wounds; it baffles her how he would be so good at it. He told her that he was planning on studying medicine next year and had done some courses to prepare himself. Still...

Alicia told Jared to leave Ranger in her bed, as it would make it easier for her to take care of him when she's not surrounded by his chaos. Now, she's wondering where she is going to sleep once it is safe to do so.

The idea of sleeping in Ranger's bed gives her the heebie-jeebies and not in a good way. She also doesn't want to use one of the upstairs bedrooms for fear that he might suddenly need her help or get worse after the six hours have passed. She needs to stay close to him.

It's past seven now, and she's terrified of his condition worsening. Jared might have some surprising skills, but he's not a qualified doctor and he seemed to be truly worried about Ranger. It might have been about the cause of his injuries rather than about the injuries themselves, which makes Alicia feel rather nervous. She'd checked all the doors and windows multiple times. Downstairs and upstairs.

Imagining Aunt Bernice's pain if her son died is going to keep her wide awake. It would be better if she just stayed up all night and watched over him. Besides, she's not sleepy yet; she's just drained and exhausted.

In this weather, her hair takes ages to dry without help, and she'd used her hair drier at her vanity, watching Ranger in the mirror until her hair fell soft and silky through her fingers.

She's relieved that she'd already had her daily chat with her foster parents and Bobby today and didn't know about this horror then. Alicia hates lying, especially to her foster parents, but how is she supposed to tell them about this and add to their stress? Ranger should tell them himself. She doesn't even know what is going on!

Ranger is a little restless, possibly due to pain... or anxiety after the hell he must've been through.

If he's moving, he's alive. That's a good sign.

Unplugging the dryer from the socket behind the vanity and taking it with her, Alicia moves to the side of her bed. She plugs it into the wall socket there, and, sitting beside him, she runs her fingers through his hair. It's still damp, probably because the towel under his head is damp. She turns on the dryer and gently fluffs his hair to spread the warm air through the strands. While she's playing with his hair, Ranger's expression relaxes, and his restlessness disappears.

His hair is thick at the top, tapering down to a fade from just above his ears. It is almost black, glossy and incredibly soft. He really has great hair. As if she's awakening from a deep trance, Alicia becomes aware that it's completely dry. She could've stopped running her fingers through it a while ago already. She's ashamed to admit that she enjoyed drying his hair too much!

Clicking her tongue, disgusted by her silliness, she turns off the dryer and puts it on the nightstand. She removes the towel from under Ranger's head and exchanges the slightly damp pillow for another one lying to one side on her double bed. Earlier, when Ranger wanted to sleep, he'd unceremoniously plucked all the decorative cushions from behind his back, where Jared had placed them to prop him up. Alicia had to pick them up from all over her floor and pile them in a neat stack near her desk.

The wet spots on her carpet were drying nicely after she'd blotted them with towels. They weren't as bad as she feared they were going to be. To her pleasant surprise, whatever blood there was wiped away pretty easily. Tomorrow, when it's dry, she'll check for and treat any lingering stains.

She is startled when she starts to walk away from the bed, and Ranger's fingers suddenly wrap around her wrist tight enough to cause discomfort, holding her in place.

"Don't... go..." his voice is so faint that she's not sure she heard him correctly. His eyes, barely open, are filled with pain. The guy is obviously in hell and needs much stronger painkillers than what they have at hand.

"What?"

"Please... stay," he says, tugging her down towards him and, pulling her onto his chest, he wraps his arms around her.

Alicia tries in vain to free herself from his grasp. She doesn't think he's completely conscious and wonders who he thinks she is. His mother? His girlfriend... if he has one. She is sure that she must be hurting him, at least partially pressing on his wound. She certainly isn't in a comfortable position.

"Ranger?"

No answer. His eyes are closed again, his breathing quiet and even, but his grip is not relaxing. He seems to be fast asleep, making her wonder exactly what those pills were that Jared gave him for the pain. She thought he'd said it was over-the-counter meds he found in the bathroom upstairs. Alicia once again tries to sit up, but Ranger's arms flex in response, wrapping around her even tighter.

"This is not awkward at all!"

Afraid of aggravating his injuries, she decides just to lie still and wait it out. She would escape the minute his arms relaxed. For now, she was just going to rest her cheek on his bare chest and listen to the rhythmic beat of his heart and his gentle breathing,

Shifting her body a tiny bit so most of her is lying beside him, it is not all that uncomfortable any more. In fact, it is rather reassuring. Who knew that she could ever feel comforted being in Ranger's arms? He is much nicer when he's asleep.

Well, he certainly isn't dead. Alicia wonders if this peculiar situation counts as his symptoms worsening or improving.

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