73- Family To The Rescue

Howard got to them in almost record time, speeding in Scott's car with the emergency flashers on. Even though the bakery was busy, he'd left work as soon as he got off the call, leaving the store to his capable assistant manager. He found them both safe and sound exactly where Ryan had told them they would be. His son was passed out in the back seat, while Ryan was still buckled into the front, unmolested.

"I tried to keep talking to him to make him stay awake," Ryan said almost frantically when Howard had gotten out of Scott's car and come over to assess the situation, "But he stopped responding a while ago, and I'm worried he's going to get too cold!"

Howard calmly took charge of the situation. This was much better than he was expecting.

"Don't worry, he'll be fine," Howard assured. "The suppressant drug is just doing what it's supposed to do. Once he gets a chance to sleep it off, he'll be back to normal. How about you? Are you okay?"

"I'm a little cold, but Scott gave me his jacket, and I know he took his shirt off, and if I'm dressed and have two jackets and I'm still cold, I know he must be freezing…"

The car was still running with the heat on, but with most of the doors open, it wasn't able to accumulate.

"He'll be fine." Howard assured again. "Let's get you boys back to the house.

For safe measure though, he went ahead and draped his son's shirt over him before buckling him up, and shut the doors to let the heat get a chance to start working while he went to go appropriately park Scott's car and lock it up. He may not have been used to driving a smaller car, but there was no doubt Ryan's wheelchair would have never fit in it. He had no problems swapping for as long as they needed to.

By the time he got back to his own car, the inside was finally starting to feel somewhat comfortable. On the drive back Ryan apologized to him several times for taking him away from work, to which Howard assured each time that this was definitely an emergency situation and to not feel bad about it. To try and get Ryan off the subject of apologizing, he asked him about some of the stuff he and Scott did while they were out. That story took up most of the ride home, though when Ryan got to the part about the incident in the mall lounge, it nearly made his blood boil. No wonder Scott had gone into rut.

When Howard got them all back to his house, he had to prioritize getting Scott out of the car first. He wouldn't be able to get the wheelchair out with him in the way. Ryan didn't mind waiting. In fact, he insisted Scott get seen to first.

Gail came out to help, and it took some doing, but they were able to get Scott roused enough to get out of the car. He mumbled something about needing to make sure Ryan was okay, refusing to move until Ryan assured him he was fine, that nothing happened, and that Scott needed to go lay down. Only then did he allow himself to be led inside, leaning heavily on his father.

Ryan waited patiently for his turn to get out of the car, fiddling with his ring for comfort. After a little while, Gail came out to keep him company while Howard got Scott settled. She took care of repacking the backpack's haphazardly strewn contents, and unloaded the wheelchair so everything was ready to go by the time her husband came back out. Ryan made sure to apologize to her for the inconvenience, too.

Howard had a little more trouble than Scott did getting Ryan unloaded, but was gentle with it all the same. Ryan apologized for being heavy. The wheelchair barely fit through the front door, and Ryan apologized for that too. Scott's sister, Elizabeth was there waiting in the front room, and as soon as Ryan was in the house she and her dad went to go retrieve Scott's car from where it had been left. This left Ryan and Gail all alone. Ryan had been left in the wheelchair for the time being, and he wasn't going to complain. He apologized yet again for the inconvenience.

"Oh, stop that!" Gail chastised softly. "These things happen. It wasn't your fault, you know."

Ryan didn't know what to do, so he apologized for apologizing too much.

Gail patted Ryan's shoulder sympathetically. "Can I get you anything? Are you cold? Or thirsty perhaps?"

"No, I'm okay." Ryan was trying to be as little of a burden as possible.

Gail wheeled Ryan into the living room, parking him near the couch before sitting down. "I see you got your ring back. Did you two have fun today? At least, before this mess happened, anyway?"

Ryan gave a recap about the assault that triggered Scott's heat first, admitting how scared he was and that he didn't know why he didn't call for help. Gail listened intently, nodding sympathetically. She called Ryan brave, and made sure he knew that what happened wasn't his fault. She probed deeper, trying to get Ryan to talk about what he and Scott did before that. Surely the whole day couldn't have been that bad. Maybe remembering some of it would help Ryan feel better?

Ryan tried telling the story in reverse this time, starting with the doughnuts. Given the mood, he wanted to be pessimistic about it, but he couldn't help but smile when he talked about getting his ring back. Then there were the new game systems to look forward to, but he didn't want to play them until he could play them with Scott. He talked about seeing the mall parking lot absolutely packed for the first time, and how he hadn't believed others when they told him how full it could get. He spoke fondly of the place they had lunch, and how sweet it was for Scott to think of trying something different like that, since Ryan had no idea how much better he'd feel after some nostalgic comfort food. And the cemetery… That was Scott's idea too, completely unprompted.

"I guess, I'm really lucky to have him." Ryan sighed wistfully. "I just wish I wasn't such a burden on him right now…"

"Think of it this way," Gail mused, trying to get Ryan to look at it from a different angle, "If it were my Scotty who was hurt, if he had trouble getting around or feeding himself, what would you do?"

"What do you mean 'what would I do?' I'd do everything I could for him, of course! No questions asked!"

"And would you see it as a burden?"

"Of course I wouldn't-! …oh." Ryan looked like he was thinking hard.

"So, don't think of yourself as being a burden on him." Gail gave a wink.

"I just wish I could do something to show my appreciation for how hard he's working for me… He bought me all kinds of expensive things today, calling them 'early Christmas presents' and I can't repay him at all… I know you're supposed to give gifts on Christmas, and he deserves so much… but I'm broke. I can't work to earn any money right now. I can't even go shopping on my own to get him a decent present…"

"Well, we've basically got the house to ourselves right now, do you want to make him something?"

Ryan was intrigued. How could he possibly make something for Scott in the condition he was in right now? Gail wasn't going to give him the answer outright, but instead sprung up from the couch and wheeled him into the kitchen. She got out the flour, salt, and a large mixing bowl and got to work measuring things out, mixing everything with water to form a kind of dough.

"I used to do this with my kids all the time when they were little," She explained as she tweaked the dough to get the desired consistency. "They would make ornaments or figurines, and we'd dry them in the oven and paint them."

"But what good is a present you can only use at Christmas time?" Ryan asked, genuinely confused. Having not really celebrated the holiday before, everything was kind of confusing now that he was going to be in the middle of it.

"Why not make him something he can use year-round then? Maybe like a little dish he can put his keys in when he comes home?"

Ryan nodded thoughtfully. It was an idea, he just didn't know how good of a job he was going to be able to do. Gail set a piece of parchment paper in front of him and gave him a generous chunk of the dough before going to grab a tiny box of sculpting tools and an overflowing box of cookie cutters from the cabinet.

Ryan hadn't played with playdough since he was a kid, but he was up for the distraction. By the time he'd kinda figured out a way to get things started, Howard and Elizabeth had returned from retrieving the car. Howard didn't stick around long once he saw that things were well under control, since the bakery was in the middle of its holiday rush and even though he had complete faith in his managers, things just seemed to go more smoothly when he was there to keep an eye on things. Gail tried to get her daughter to join in on their clay fun, but she claimed to have some important schoolwork to finish up, since it was almost time for finals.

That left Ryan and Gail to continue enjoying their activity by themselves. Ryan didn't mind. This was proving harder than he thought it was going to be. More eyes watching him probably wasn't going to help. Gail offered her assistance if Ryan thought he'd need it, but he was determined to do it by himself. It meant more that way. Even if it was turning out lopsided.

After completing what could pass for a small bowl, Ryan set to work trying to make some video game characters to go around it. Or at least, he was trying to. They looked more like blobs than the characters he was going for. The sad part is, he wasn't sure if he'd have been able to do a better job if he'd had use of both of his hands or not. Next to him, Gail was quietly rolling out her portion of dough and using the cookie cutters to make shapes, then using the sculpting tools to emboss patterns into them.

"Oh, I have an idea!" Gail said suddenly, taking a blank round ornament and putting it on a plate, disappearing further into the house.

Ryan wondered what she could possibly be doing, when she returned with a now thumb-printed disk.

"Okay, I've gotten Mr. Sleeping Beauty's now I need his Prince Charming's!" She said cheerfully, taking Ryan's hand and pressing his thumb into the clay next to the print she'd gotten from Scott.

"What are you going to do with that?" Ryan asked.

Gail was already busily embossing a phrase and some patterns on it. "It's a memento, of course! This is going to be your first Christmas with us, so I wanted to mark the occasion!"

She held up the ornament to show it off. She hadn't finished with the design she was working in around the edges, but she had both Scott and Ryan's fingerprints labeled already, and the ornament read, "Our First Christmas."

Ryan couldn't hide his smile. He got lucky with Scott's family, no doubt about it.