Soft Landing

Hunter had barely dozed off when the sound of his door roused him. On his stomach, he propped himself up on his elbows and squinted in the dark. "Ryan?" he asked sleepily. Hearing her shaky voice, his heart sank a little. She was having another bad night. At least she'd managed one good one so far though, right? 

In spite of all the hesitations he'd expressed to Mick, there was just no way he could turn Ryan away. He simply couldn't do it.

Turning around and pulling himself up, he leaned back to sit against the pillows. He tugged the blankets aside and motioned to Ryan. "Come on," he prompted gently. "I'm a soft landing."

As she joined him on the bed, he pulled her sideways into his lap so she could curl up into him, and gathered the blankets. Wrapping his arms around her, he leaned his head against hers. "It's okay," he assured softly. "It's still not a dream. It's just a bump in the road."

Maybe he was trying to convince himself as much as Ryan. Surely she was getting better. Surely the smiles the last few days hadn't been a fluke. He thought of their laughter in the pool. Her smiles as she'd ridden Buttons. Her teasing and laughing during the card game. 

His hand rubbed her arm gently. "You wanna talk about it?"


It was close to noon. The morning at the Elite had gone without incident, including Aaron. He'd been quiet, even when JT had come to work with him. Word had it Reese was going to call a meeting to talk about a possible new location but nothing official had been said yet.

Coming into the security room Hal was carrying a paper sack that smelled of fried chicken. He set it on the desk and have Sam a little smile before shedding his jacket. "Haven't eaten lunch yet, have you?" His eyes looked... tired. But he'd felt well enough to come and...didn't want to risk Sam feeling badly for anything last night. If it wasn't for that, he probably would have stayed home the rest of the day but... as long as there wasn't too much excitement today, he'd be okay.