Shot of Vodka, Shot of Pain

"So, he was the man who attacked you?" she asked as we were in the elevator alone.

"Yeah, he was going to shoot my boyfriend and I stopped him."


I couldn't take being useless anymore. With the force I had left, I once again lunged at Jimmy. I knocked him down hard this time and the gun went skidding across the floor. I scrambled towards it, kicking my legs as he grabbed them. I finally had my hand on it, my fingers slipping on the grip. He managed to crawl up my body and flipped me over. The gun was still in my hand but he had me pinned to the floor.

"What's a matter Pagan? Don't you want us to be together?" he asked.

I spit in his face. That's when he made the fatal mistake. He reached up with his hand to wipe the spit off his face, the hand that was pinning down my hand which held the gun. With a good shove with my feet, I managed to push him off of me. He was dazed as I stood up, pointing the gun at him.

"Don't make me use it," I said in a shaky voice.

"You couldn't," he said and charged towards me. I squeezed the trigger and he dropped to the ground.

"How about we move on to something more happy?" the nurse asked as we stopped outside a room I didn't know.

"Electroshock therapy sounds more happy then what just happened," I said dully. She opened the door and wheeled me in backwards, ignoring my comment. When she spun me around, I was filled with excitement.

"Hey babe," Jesse said from his hospital bed. I jumped from the chair (and got tangled up in the foot rests which Jesse found hilarious) and went to his side. His eye was a little bruised up and swollen, the same eye that had been hurt after his fight with Joseph. I laughed silently at the irony.

"Looks like hugs are out of the question," I said. I heard the nurse leave and was thanking her in my head for the privacy. He smiled and I was rendered speechless.

We talked and kissed for a little bit longer when the nurse came to warn me that I had only five minutes left before I had to go back to my room. I was getting discharged in the morning, Jesse the following day if everything went well from his surgury on his shoulder. The bullet went clean through and luckily not much was damaged. He just wouldn't have use of both his arms for about six weeks due to a bullet wound and the other badly broken.

"There is something I wanted to ask you," he said. I stared into those beautiful blue eyes of his and saw something in his eyes. Even with an IV in his arm, he was still planning something.

"What?" I asked.

"Will you move in with me? I think if our relationship can survive a stalker, it can survive us being in the same space together," he said.

"Your place or mine?"

"Well I was thinking mine and maybe Garrett could move into yours. He saw some pictures of your place and he likes it. I suggested maybe a rent to own situation," he said.

"How long have you been planning this?" I asked.

"Oh about a month, right about the time Jimmy came around. He kinda put my plans on hold. I was talking to Garrett about it the night I was manhandled by the police," he said.

"You were lucky you weren't shot," I said.

"Uh Pagan, I kinda was," he said nodding towards his shoulder.

"Oh yeah. Well I'll make up my mind about Garrett living there as soon as I meet him. But yes I will move in with you. You're a cripple now and you'll need my help," I said.

"Good to know I'll have my own personal nurse. I demand a sponge bath," he said.

"We let the male orderlies do that," the nurse said from behind me.

"That changes things," he said.

I kissed him one last time before leaving his room, ready for some sleep. Morgan would be picking me up in the morning so she could see Jesse and then I would only have one more sleep until it was time to pick him up. With Jimmy now dead and soon to be six feet under, things were finally looking up. Who knows? Maybe in a year I would find myself becoming Mrs. Pagan Lacey.

Or I could be knocked up.

A little Pagan or Jesse running around. The world should be afraid.