When a woman moves into the sleepy town, it rouses everyone's tongues to start wagging. She is strange and distant in her manner. Tia Frost is blissfully unaware of the townsfolk's discomfort with her. With Burt at her side, she wonders about the wo...
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Roland stood behind the nurse. "It's alright Mac, I'll look after Tobin while you get looked over." I turned back to Tia. "She's not going anywhere. You can step away from her to get looked at. She would tell you to and you know it."
I sighed and straightened. I followed the nurse back to the room I was in before. She checked me over fixing every wound she came across. When she was done she moved back. "You're done you can go back to your partner."
I looked out the window. Tobin stroked Tia's face carefully avoiding the tube that helped her breathe and the stitches in her hairline. "Will she live?"
The nurse's face changed to that friendly one of before. "Only time will tell. She fort hard to get this far, with you two at her bedside. I don't see how she could give up."
I slid off the bed and walked to the window. "Knowing what I know about her... I could almost wish she would slip away in peace. If she did... it would destroy me."
"What about the boy?"
I shook my head. "He's seen death. He accepts it easily."
"What kind of life must she have lived to have someone that so obviously loves her wish her away from it? For that matter what kind of life would the boy have had to have to live?"
I turned to her and smiled sadly. "The same life... they both accept death like every day could be their last. Probably because every day they lived in that place could have been. That boy watched his mum die and he decided Tia is now his mum."
Every word brought new layers of sadness to her face. "No one should live like that but it's not the worst I've heard."
"Me either. I look at her and realise I do love her. I don't know what I would do if I lost her. For that matter, I don't know what I would do if I lost Tobin. One of them deserves to be happy."
I turned back to the window. The nurse sighed. "We will see how she does."
I nodded and walked from the room. I sat in the chair next to her bed and held her hand. I followed not letting go of her as they took her to a ward a few hours later.
They tried to send me and Tobin away from her, but we wouldn't leave so they moved her to a side room.
The attack had lasted most of the night and now the first rays of the sun had come and gone, we waited. We waited for her to wake up. The day turned to night and night into the day. Roland appeared with clothes for me and Tobin. We took turns watching her as we washed and dressed.
That's how it was for a week or was it two? I couldn't tell how long I'd sat there, feeling like my world was somehow darker. The nurses came and went unseen by me. Roland came in and went on his own usually without comment. The chief would pop in with flowers and leave without speaking. Even Janna came leaving food for me that would have gone untouched if it hadn't been for Tobin.
