Uh oh?

Tal laughs and shakes his head. "I'd say we were terrible, if it weren't for the fact that Eli started this. I just want to see the look on his face when he thinks he's really messed something up."

Rolling his eyes, he turns, one arm slung around Ryan's shoulder to head back around the corner of the shop. "In the meantime, I need to let you get back to work and I need to get back too." He stops her right before one of the open bay doors. "I'll um... be in touch about that date."

Smiling, he runs a thumb down the side of her face before backing away and heading to his car. Getting in and going back to work, his mind bounced from one thing to another. First, Ryan wanted to go on a date? A real date? He'd honestly had no intentions to date her - he'd just wanted to be her friend. That didn't mean he wouldn't go along with it though. He certainly liked her, and if this would help her, then by all means. If going out with her would bring back her smile, then it was worth it.

And second, his mind was on Eli and how to get him back for the stunt he'd pulled...


...Parking at the body shop, Tal sits for a moment, the smile fading from his face. He glances at himself in the mirror, seeing misery in his own eyes. Embarrassment.... disappointment... a tinge of pain. More disappointment than anything though - he wouldn't want to be over dramatic.

Finally getting out and going inside, he heads for the back garage. Entering, he sees Eli working on a pickup with a scratched door. He approaches with a downcast expression, his shoulders slouching slightly. "Working on this truck already? Thought it was fifth on the lineup."

Eli looks up and quirks an eyebrow. "Got bumped up..." He studies Tal's face, even though his friend wouldn't look at him. Something didn't feel right. "You okay?"

Tal studies the pickup door for a moment, then finally turns to Eli, his brow furrowed. "Sure, if you wanna keep our hanging out to my place or the local bar."

Eli blinks. "What?"

"Look, you were right, okay? Your sister doesn't want to have anything to do with me. I didn't mean to upset her, but I'm the jerk of the year and I'm not welcome at hers and your place anymore." Tal frowns and turns back to the truck. "Can we just finish this job so I can quit feeling like an idiot?"

"I... um... sure?" Eli was totally confused. Tal had gone to Ryan to apologize? And she really had been upset with him? But... why? How? Had somehow Tal going there confused things? Had he apologized and Ryan took it the wrong way? "I'll... be right back. You can start sanding."

Exiting the room, Eli grabs his cell phone and dials quickly. What on earth had happened? Was it because of what he'd let Tal believe this morning? Hearing Ryan answer her phone, he stops walking, right near an exit. "Ryan? It's me. Was Tal just to see you? Did you say you didn't want to see him again?"


Rick sees the look on Katie's face, and he knows that probably there was a part of her who disliked coming to him about Jason. But it wasn't her fault. He reaches out to put a hand on her shoulder. "I'll go get him. I was... going home early anyway, right?" He gives her a wink then takes his lab coat off and dons his own jacket, grabbing his keys. "If you want to go back to your desk, I'll give you a holler when and if you should come back in here."

Heading out, he exits the building and aims for his car, throwing a few sidelong glances around the parking lot to find Jason's pickup. Thankfully, it was close by, so he takes his route past the pickup on his way. As he nears, he sees Jason leaned back in the driver's seat with his eyes closed. Even from here, Rick could see he looked pale and his heartbeat quickens. Stopping at the door, he taps his knuckles on the window. The only response is Trooper eying him suspiciously and growling. Even with that, Jason doesn't move.

Rick decides to risk Trooper's interference, and opens the door. Thankfully, all the big dog does is growl some more. "Jase?" Rick shakes Jason's shoulder. "Jason..."

Jason's eyes fly open, though it takes him a moment to focus on anything. Glancing to the side and seeing Rick, he's too lethargic to wonder what he was doing there. "Hmm?"

"You alright?"

"Mm-hmm. Just... heading home." Jason puts his hands back on the steering wheel drowsily.

"How about you come back inside instead?"

Jason is waking up now, and he wishes to be alone again. "What for? I'm fine."

"I noticed you limping earlier. If the pain killers aren't enough, I've got something else to give you. Come on back inside and I'll get you set up, okay?"

Jason throws him an annoyed look. "Nice try. I'm fine, Rick. Leave me be."

Rick sighs. He'd tried to do it the nice way, but it was obviously not going to work. "You're not fine," he states flatly. "Now please... just come inside and let me have a look at you."

"No."

Rick reaches around and takes Jason's keys out of the ignition, moving quickly enough to not be stopped. There was no way he'd let Jason drive in his condition. "Now you have a choice. You can stay out here for no good reason, or come with me."

Jason glares at him. "Why can't you just let it go, huh? You're as bad as Katie."

"I doubt it. But you know why? She cares the most about you than anyone, save your mother, probably. So she's the last one you should be upset with." Rick was stern, tired of the silly games. "Now I'll only say this one more time before I go and get Con to drag you - come back inside."

Jason would like to refuse. But even as irritated as he was, he simply didn't have the energy to fight, and he knew Rick wasn't kidding about Con. So minutes later, he was limping back into the building, using Rick for support. Making their way to the infirmary, Jason doesn't look over to Katie's cubicle - not this time. He had a feeling she had something to do with this - it seemed like too big of a coincidence that Rick had been leaving when he had. But he couldn't prove it, so he'd keep his mouth shut.

Getting to the infirmary, Rick points Jason to the table and he grudgingly obeys. He glances over to Misty, almost as if asking for help out of this, but he knew it was no use. So he sits lamely as Rick starts to look him over, checking this, checking that, drawing blood and taking his temperature.

"What are your symptoms?" Rick questions as he shines a light in Jason's eyes.

"I told you, I'm fine."

"You have a fever. Your eyes don't look good. And you say you're fine." Rick shuts off the light and looks at Jason sternly. "You better start leveling with me, Jase. You promised."

"I don't care!" Jason raises his voice but then regrets it, putting a hand to his head as the pain worsens. "Why can't you just leave me alone?!"

"Because I care! We all care!" Rick was beginning to grow more angry than anything - angry at Jason's insistence on not wanting help. "You're being pigheaded and stupid!"

"I'm doing the best I can!" The light above Jason starts to flicker and he immediately clenches his fist and puts a tighter lid on his emotions. He knew Katie had probably felt a nice jolt with that one. "Don't make this harder than it is," he hisses. "For once, let someone die in peace instead of trying to fix it until their last breath is gone."

Whether Rick wanted it to or not, that statement hurt... and hurt a lot. His tone lowers again, though his eyes burn. "I'm sorry that I care that much about my friends that I want to save them." Taking a deep breath, he turns around for a moment to try and regain his composure.

Jason keeps talking to him anyway. "I did this for Katie and you know it. You told me not to keep things from her, but how can I knowingly put her in pain? How can I knowingly allow her to feel the way I feel, putting her through this... this sickness? It may not be real for her, but she'd feel it and that's just as bad. She might not die from it because it's not in her body, but she'd feel like she was dying just like I do and I cannot - will not allow her to go through that." Without warning, the tears are back, stinging his eyes as he tries to hold them back. His voice wavers though, and his emotions start spurting out against his will, sending the feeling of him crying in Katie's direction. He wraps his arm around his stomach as another wave of nausea hits him.

Rick turns around, and though he's pained to suddenly see the fear and anguish in Jason, his anger for stupidity remains. "You should have come to me," he emphasizes. "How long have you been feeling like this?"

Jason looks at the floor. "It started a day or so after we stopped the antidote. But it wasn't bad, just... minor, so I ignored it. When it got worse, I -"

"Why didn't you tell me so you could go back on the antidote?!"

"Because I-"

"Do you have a death wish?!" Rick's voice is raised again. "You're killing yourself, Jason! I told you for a reason to not hold back your emotions! Did you think I was joking?! Did you think I just thought it would be a fun experiment to see what would happen if you let Katie feel everything?!"

"Of course not!" Jason clenches his fist shut tighter as his palm feels as though it were on fire. At this point, his emotions were so heightened that they were bubbling and boiling through the cracks and crevices, surely taking Katie for a ride at this point. "If it were you, you'd do the same thing! If it were Janet who felt every ache and pain and hurt and emotional trauma you did, do you think you'd let it go on like that on purpose?!" Wincing, he doubles over as his pain spreads, feeding off of his emotional fireworks.

Though Rick was still upset, he sees that this is not only not helping, but hurting Jason, and it needed to stop. No matter how much he wanted to argue and make Jason understand how stupid he was being, the fact of the matter was that riling up Jason only made things worse. Heaving a sigh, he reaches out to put a hand on Jason's shoulder. "Why didn't you just opt to get back on the antidote?" he questions more calmly.

Jason's eyes were scrunched tightly against his pain and he shakes his head. "Because... a part of Katie gets lost and... and I can't stand seeing that."

"But if you're going to refuse to share your emotions, you have to take the antidote... otherwise, we're going to lose you." Rick grits his teeth. "And whether you like it or not, I can't just stand back and watch you die without trying to help." Spinning on his heel, he goes for the phone and punches the intercom to Katie's direct phone. "Katie... please come to the infirmary."


Dylan sits in the same old corner of the dining hall, a perfect vantage point to see everyone else in the room, but back far enough that he could go unnoticed. Jade had invited him to sit with her and Dan, but he just hadn't felt like it tonight. He usually didn't... but once in a while he accepted, so that was good enough, right? Maybe tonight, his mind was just too preoccupied with everything else. He was still feeling leery about the newcomers and just wasn't quite sure yet how to handle that whole thing. He'd seen them come in earlier but hadn't made eye contact with either one of them.

Dipping a piece of soft garlic bread into his vegetable soup, he takes a bite then looks down at the side to his history book. As predicted, he hadn't gotten all of his schoolwork finished today because of his stupid hangups during math earlier in the day. History wasn't exactly interesting... he hated all the reading he had to do - it was hard for him to retain the information, but at least he didn't have to figure out any equations or enormously long division. If he could just skim through his history book and pick out the answers he'd need for his quizzes, then he should be okay.

A round of laughter at one of the tables brings his head up and he wonders what the joke had been. Part of him wishes that sometimes... just once in a while... that he could be in on some of that laughter. But choosing to sit back in his own little corner had a price.


Mick sits with his family at one of the tables in the big dining room. It might have been an evening to eat at home, but tonight was a night he'd asked everyone to be there so they could all meet Stacy and Ashlee and he could make sure she could put faces to names and they could recognize her as well. He'd made formal introductions to just about everyone, but now wanted to fill in some of the gaps.

"... So, most of the two families are almost always here." He eats slowly, speaking mainly to Stacy across the table, but including Ashlee as much as she wanted so she would be familiar with the people as well. "Myself, Rosetta and BJ here..." He reaches over to catch some runaway soup with his napkin before it dribbles off the table into BJ's lap. "Angel runs the doctor's office every day and Luke - they're the ones you first met tonight - he doesn't get around very well on his own on account of a back injury, so they're always here..." He goes on to explain more about some of the people there and what their jobs were - details that weren't included in the reports Reese had given Stacy.

"...Jeff is here most of the time - he's the one sitting over there with Trent." Mick pauses to point. "Though he does take off to visit his daughter, Katie, in Nevada - she's an Elite agent herself..." A few more explanations of the family was due and Mick doesn't mind sharing while they continue to eat. "...so I expect Trent will come and go more often too, on trips to Nevada to see his daughter as well."

There was a lot of information but Mick presents it in such a way that it wouldn't feel too overwhelming, and he makes sure Rosetta can add anything she wants as well. He had everything written up in his own report he would give Stacy later anyway, so she could go back over it and get to know people and routines quickly.

"Then there's Eric Pent - one of Rosetta's brothers. He, um..." Mick pauses, not wanting to sound too negative, but knowing he should fill Stacy in. He glances at Rosetta, then back to Stacy and looks at her for a moment, his eyes revealing that it was a fairly touchy subject. He would be careful in front of BJ and Ashlee too. "He's a truck driver, so he's on the road a lot. He keeps this as his home base though and helps support the ranch. He... recently got married though, so... his routine might change." He gives Stacy a wry grin. "We're not sure that his new wife would... well... fit in very well into ranch life." His eyes give away that there was more to the story, but perhaps it would be best to keep some of it just in the family for now.

"And I guess that's really just about everybody. The only other one not here is Cindy's husband Wes - my brother. He's the one that's overseas right now."