About two weeks later, Harry was getting ready to leave the studio. He had gone to his writing session early in the morning so that he could meet Niall and go pick up the girls from the hospital and take them home early that afternoon. He was so excited and so relieved. Amanda was still in a cast with her broken arm. Would probably be in that for at least six weeks. Julie was lucky with bones. The only thing broken was a toe on her foot. It barely bothered her. Stitches were out for the wounds both girls had, and the bruises were starting to subside. Julie had a few memory issues, but nothing that really affected her. Sometimes she struggled to get all of her thoughts out, but things were improving. Harry had been worried for the first week after she woke up. Things would come and go, and the worst part was her frustration with it. When she knew what she wanted to say but couldn't, she would get upset. You could tell she would get lost in thought, and she wasn't her typical sassy self a lot. She forced it every now and again for their sake, but she was struggling with the accident. He hoped getting her home would do her some good.

Niall walked into the studio. He came from a writing session of his own. "Hey, Harry, you ready to go?"

"Yeah, I'm all set." He shook everyone's hands he was working with and walked out with Niall. "I have been waiting for this day."

"Yeah, me too. It's going to be so nice to see them at home and out of that hospital." Niall said as he got in the car. Paul was driving them so that they could both be with the girls when they got out. "Guess we're going to be spending a lot of time together in a small apartment since neither girl will stay where the other isn't. At least it isn't because of us this time."

"Yeah," Harry agreed getting in. "Have you gotten Amanda to open up to you about how she's feeling? About what happened before the accident or the accident itself?"

"No. Not really." Niall said. "She doesn't want to talk about the accident. We've briefly discussed the before, but she doesn't really want to do that either."

"Yeah, you know Julie. She's compartmentalized already. I'm waiting for it to all come crashing back together." Harry said leaning back against the seat. "I know it will, but I'm trying to be patient. I can't imagine what they are going through being in the middle of that crash. I'm wondering if it's a good thing her memory issues are causing her to piece it back together slowly or if it would have been better if she just realized the magnitude of it all at once. I'm just glad we get to be here."

A little bit later, they both walked into the room the girls had been staying in. Both were sitting on their beds dressed. It was the first time they'd seen them in anything other than hospital gowns for a while.

"Hey, Princess." Niall said as he walked up to Amanda. "You look like you're ready to go."

"Yeah, I am. It will be good to get home." She stood up and kissed him. "Feels good to get up when I want to."

Harry sat on the bed next to Julie. "You ready to go?" He put his arm around her. He kissed her head when she laid it on his shoulder.

"Yeah, I will be glad to be out of here. Sleep in my own bed." She said quietly.

"Yeah, I can't wait to have you back in bed with me." He said taking her hand and standing up with her.

"You don't have to stay with me all the time." She said picking up her bag.

"You will not push me away. I know you're struggling. We will do it together." He took her bag from her. "I know you, remember." He kissed her head and took her hand back.

"Yeah, I know." She said as she got into the wheelchair to take her out of the hospital. She was struggling. Struggling with the full memory of the accident. About everything that happened in it. The loss and the insanity. She was having nightmares about things other than Johnny. The total memory of the accident came back slowly, and maybe that was a good thing. Then again maybe it wasn't; because every time she remembered something new, it seemed like it was happening all over again. She was struggling with talking about it. She was pulling back from everyone. But everyone knew it. And somehow, they understood. Her parents had just returned home. She was ready to go home. Hopefully things would start to make sense to her again. Hopefully getting away from the hospital would help.

Amanda watched them roll JJ next to her and took JJ's hand. "Home, friend. I'm so glad."

"We've been with each other almost every minute." Julie said to Amanda.

"I know. I'm looking forward to being able to shut you out of my room." Amanda said as she let go of JJ's hand.

"I knew it." Julie said. She and Amanda had had many conversations over the past two weeks. The accident had been hard on both of them. Even though they were praised by everyone for what they did to help people, they both wish they could have done more. It was hard to know they couldn't save everyone. At least they had each other to get through it.

Amanda was struggling just as much as JJ with all of this. It really had an impact on her also. They wanted to help, they wanted to save everyone, and even though she knew they had done the best they could, it never made it any easier. No matter how many times they were told their actions helped save lives, they had to remember the ones they couldn't help. It was hard. Once again, they had each other, and she was glad. No one else could understand.

A few hours later, Harry walked into Julie's room. She was sitting on the edge of her bed taking the ponytail out of her hair, and he kneeled down in front of her and buried his head in her chest. He loved seeing her free. Out of the hospital. He missed her touch and her body. He wrapped his arms around her waist and held her tightly.

Julie leaned her head down on Harry's. "Hey, I'm ok."

"I know. I've just missed you." He kissed her as he stood up and pulled her back onto the bed with him. He wrapped her back in his arms as she laid her head on his chest. "Things have been hard since even before the accident. We probably need to talk about it."

"Yeah, I know we do. But honestly, it doesn't even matter. What we were fighting about isn't important. It's easy to get caught up in things like that when you don't have any perspective. I know that. I was set on the fact that you didn't care what I thought, and you were set on the fact that I didn't understand you. But I did. I understood. I would have thought the same thing as you. I just also thought of a bigger picture than that. And I know you care about my feelings. We just couldn't seem to get that across in the moment. But I love you, and when it came time to make any important decision like that, I know we could come together and do it. And I know that we could listen to each other when we really needed to." She said to him. She picked up her head and looked at him. "I know when it comes to protecting Panda I can be quite stubborn. I can become unreasonable and set in my ways."

Harry laughed. "Oh, well, stubborn is sort of your thing. I get you want to protect Amanda. I get that you have your own thoughts and the way you do things. I should have never thought I was right, and I should have listened. Seeing you in that hospital. Seeing that accident and seeing you rescue those people before worrying about yourself were eye openers. Seeing you lying in that bed and not knowing if you were going to wake up. I realized that none of it mattered. If I would have lost you then there wouldn't be anymore, anything. Even fighting with you sometimes is better than never being able to speak to you again."

"I know, Harry. I didn't do the things I did knowing that it would cause me problems. I barely felt the pain right away. Everything was so fast. People were screaming and hurting. Cars were on fire or smoking. The sound of people unable to get out of their cars and the crunching of all the metal every time another car crashed was terrifying. But I had to help. I had to help save them. I couldn't see so many people hurt." Julie said as tears started running down her cheeks.

Harry held her tighter. It was the first time she'd opened up about the accident like that. She hadn't wanted to talk about it, and he understood. He didn't know what she was going through, but he knew it had to be hard on her. He looked up when there was a knock at the door. He watched it open slowly, and Amanda and Niall were standing there.

"Hey, can we come in?" Amanda asked.

"Yes, of course." Julie said wiping her eyes.

"Sorry, just having a hard time being separated right now." Amanda said walking over to them. "I know our beds aren't all that big, and it will be hard, but..."

"Come on in." Harry said moving over to the edge of the bed with Julie. He motioned for Amanda and Niall to climb in the bed. It had been awhile since they were all cuddled together. He figured the girls needed it.

Julie wrapped her arm around Amanda and laid her head on Amanda's head. "How's your arm?"

"It's ok. I can't believe I have to be in this cast another six weeks though. How's your head?" Amanda asked JJ.

"Scrambled, but that's normal." Julie said.

"Here we go." Niall said wrapping his arm around Amanda. "I've sort of missed this. I have to admit."

"Yeah, me too. Weird as that sounds to have extra people in bed with me." Harry laughed.

"Yeah, well. Deal with it." Julie said to Harry. She held Amanda's hand and closed her eyes.

"What she said." Amanda said. "And be quiet. It's time to sleep."

"I have no idea why I'm so tired. I feel like all I've done is sleep." Julie said.

"Well, you deserve to sleep. You've gone through a lot. Both of you." Harry said. "Get some sleep. We're just going to lay here and hold you. It's all I've wanted to do for over two weeks."

"Well shut up then so we can sleep." Julie said to him.

"Oh, it's so good to have you back." Niall said. He laughed when Amanda kicked his leg. "Right, shut up. Got it."

Julie woke up and looked at the clock. She had been asleep for a couple of hours. She looked around and neither Harry nor Niall were in bed with them. She sat up to look around her room. She saw Amanda open her eyes. "Sorry to wake you, but we've been left."

Amanda laughed. "Guess we just sleep too much for our boys now."

"Guess so." Julie said laying back down. "How are you really?"

"I'm ok. I mean, it's hard to think about what happened. You saved my life you know." Amanda said to her.

"No, Panda. I just did what I needed to. You would have done the same for me. I'm sorry it broke your arm so bad." Julie said to her.

"Please, it broke my arm because I was pinned in the car, and you somehow got me out." Amanda almost started crying. "I don't know how you did it."

"I just did; there was no other choice. There was no way I was leaving you in whatever was left of the car. Panda, you would have done the same thing for me. You just happened to be driving that day. If I had been, it would have been the other way around. You would have done it too." Julie said matter-of-factly.

"But that doesn't change the fact that it wasn't." Amanda said taking a deep breath.

"Listen, it's been hard on us both. We deal with life and death everyday, but something about that just was completely different. We go to work every night knowing there's a possibility we could lose a patient or that we just can't help or save everyone. And we come home disappointed every time we can't. This was just so much bigger. There was so much destruction and so many people to help and we couldn't. You had a compound fracture in your arm, Panda, and you still helped." Julie said sitting up.

"And you were bleeding from your head and hit your head so hard that you ended up in a coma, and you still helped. Did you know that you were hurt that badly?" Amanda asked. "I mean I couldn't ignore my arm; it was obvious, but I just used my other the best I could."

"No, I didn't. I didn't even really feel the pain at first. I didn't think about any of it until the paramedics and the fire department and the police were there and took over. Then when I went towards the ambulance they were putting you in, it just hit me. My legs became like jelly, and I couldn't stand and then I saw all the blood on my hands." Julie said standing up. "Let's go find our boyfriends. I just don't want to talk about this anymore right now. A little at a time, ok?"

"Yeah, ok. I get it. It was a lot." Amanda said standing up and wrapping her arm with Julie's. They walked out together to the front room. "Niall? Harry?" She called out. "Now where could they be?"

"I have no idea." Julie said. She walked over to the table and looked through the mail piled on it. They sat and went through it while they waited. Awhile later, the door opened and Niall and Harry walked in. "Well, nice of you to come back. Where did you go?"

"Well hello to you too, love." Harry said walking over and setting a bag down on the table. "We went for dinner since the two of you were sleeping and weren't going to cook for us."

Julie rolled her eyes. "Right, sorry, I forgot. I got out of the hospital today. Cooking should have been first thing on my mind. Such a horrible girlfriend I am."

"At least you admit it." Harry said. "Now, shut up and enjoy your dinner. I got your favorite from the Chinese place across town."

"See, you can show me how to be a good partner. I have so much to learn." Julie said opening an envelope. She was waiting for this. She smiled as she pulled out the papers and pictures.

"Hey, what's making you smile like that? Only I'm supposed to make you smile like that." Harry said walking over to her.

"Well, sorry, but I've been waiting for this." She said looking up at him. "But I suppose it is partly because of you." She showed him the pictures and paperwork. "These are the pictures of the baby elephant you adopted for me. And the paperwork showing her now legal name. Meet Harrietta. The most perfect baby elephant in the world."

"Harrietta?" Harry said looking up at her. "You named her after me?"

"Of course, I did. I wouldn't have her if it wasn't for you. And look on the paperwork. She has adoptive parents. Not just parent." She pointed to the place where it had the names of the adopters.

"You added me on there also?" He pulled her to him by putting one arm around her waist. He kissed her lips. "You never cease to amaze me." He looked back at the paperwork. Maybe it was a silly thing to everyone else. But it just seemed to him something that they would always share. He'd done this for her. He'd started the adoption process for her. But she made sure it was about the both of them. "I love you so much. And I love our Harrietta too." He kissed her again.

"Ok, ok, ok." Julie said. "It's not that big of a deal." She wrapped her arms around his waist. "But I love the attention."

"Well, I'm glad you do." He looked at the papers and pictures one more time and then stored them safely back in the envelope. "Let's eat, yeah?"

"Yeah," Niall interrupted. "Enough of that sweet stuff. You're making me look bad."

"Niall, shut up." Amanda said. "Just make me a plate to eat, and I will forgive you for not adopting me a baby elephant." She laughed at the look on his face. "Come on. I've eaten mainly hospital food for weeks. Just give me food."

"Ok," Niall laughed at her. "Calm down, Princess." He grabbed her container of food and handed it to her with a fork. "It's so good to have you two home, and listen to your mouths."

"You wouldn't have it any other way, Niall." Julie said. They needed normalcy. They needed to go back to living. They needed to be together as a foursome right now. They needed their boyfriends, and they needed each other. Mostly they needed a way to get through the memory of the accident. The hospital stay and the pain. She watched everyone interacting. The jokes, the teasing, the throwing of the food. She couldn't help but smile. This is how it should be. This is what she never knew she needed. Her life had been complicated. But this seemed right. This was what she should have wanted all along.

"Hey," Harry said looking over at Julie. She was smiling and watching everyone, but she wasn't saying anything. "Are you ok?"

"Yeah, I'm good." She looked at him. "I'm just glad to have us all here. And us all together. I'm happy to have us as a team. It's so much easier to deal with all of this with everyone here."

"Well, I'm glad to hear that. I know you've had a hard time sorting through all of this. I've felt you pull away. But somehow, you managed to fight that urge." He said kissing her lips. "Sorry, I know I've been doing that a lot, but you really have no idea what I went through. Thinking I lost you."

"I know. I felt like I needed time to sort through it all. I felt I needed to do it alone, but I don't. I know you thought you lost me. And I know fighting before it happened didn't help that. But know that I love you, and I didn't mean for any of it to happen that way." She leaned over and kissed him. "And as far as the kisses. You don't have to apologize. I sort of love your lips too."

"Well, hot damn." He said smiling into her eyes. "I will be here through whatever you need. As long as you're ok, we can work through everything else. Just keep letting me be there for you."

"Just eat your dinner, Cassanova." Julie said joking with him. "We have plenty of time later to talk sweet nothings."

Harry laughed. "We do. We have plenty of time." He started eating his dinner again. Thank goodness, they had plenty of time. At one point, he had been convinced that he was going to lose her. Now, they had time. She was ok. Her tests showed normal brain activity. She was sassy and sarcastic. She was strong and determined. He loved her, and he gained a lot of perspective through all of this. It would always be work, to be in such a serious relationship. But as long as they really listened to each other, they could get through even the worst of times.

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