The Accident: A Tinker Bell Fanfiction

8. Lost Soul

The Accident

 8.

"Why don't you go and pay her a visit?" Fairy Gary asked.

"Nothing's changed in the last two weeks," Terence replied. "What's the point?"

"The point is you love her," Gary answered.

Vidia and the girls had been hard at work spreading the word that Terence was deeply in love with Tinker Bell. This news made him an object of sympathy and nonstop advice like what he was getting from Fairy Gary.

"I love her, but she's in a coma and probably will be for the rest of her life," he answered. "I've got to move on with mine."

Terence had been moping about for the past two weeks since his last visit. He still blamed himself for letting the accident happen and for not pulling her out of the water in time. Terence thought she was dead at the stream, but she somehow survived. He got his hopes up, probably too much, and now those hopes were fading quickly. There had been some talk amongst the doctors and the queen about what to do next. Keep Tinker Bell like that for who knows how long or let nature take its course and allow her die peacefully.

The young dust keeper couldn't abide by either decision. He didn't want Tinker Bell to live as a vegetable the rest of her life. However, he was still too emotionally attached to let her perish. He was stuck between a rock and a hard place. When he dwelled on it, and he often did, he somehow always came back to the same "what if's" that kept playing through his head, blaming himself for Tink's situation. Fairy Gary recognized this and tried to talk him out of the cycle of self-loathing Terence had put himself into these last several days.

"You knew what kind of personality she was," Gary would say. "She always took the kind of risks no one else ever would."

"Something like this was bound to happen," Terence would answer, taking Fairy Gary's reasoning to its logical conclusion. "I should have been better prepared for it and I wasn't."

"Why do you always have to put such a negative spin on everything, boy?" Gary asked. "It's not your fault. She would have tested that boat no matter what you said or did. Tinker Bell is Tinker Bell because she is so stubborn."

"Well someone should have stopped her!" Terence shouted back. "That someone was supposed to have been me and I did nothing!"

"He's hopeless," Bolt said quietly to Fairy Gary.

"Yeah, completely hopeless," Stone murmured in agreement.

"Aye, but I'm not going to give up on him just yet," the guild master said. "What Terence needs is a good kick in the pants to shake him out of this."

"And are you going to do the kicking?" Bolt asked.

"I most certainly am," Fairy Gary said in return.

 ~O~

Ever since Terence stopped visiting Tinker Bell, Fairy Gary had sent Blaze the firefly to the hospital to check on her progress. It took a little time to understand Blaze's pantomime talk, but eventually Fairy Gary understood the daily reports. Each time the firefly came back the news was always the same.

Then one day something changed.

~O~

Terence had just returned from his early delivery run when Bolt and Stone decided to tease him again. Today, however, they went too far.

"Hi, Terence," Bolt began.

"Yeah, hello," Stone added.

"So, how does it feel to, you know, be dating a stiff?" Bolt said with a snicker.