Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
The week dragged. It was bound to be the most difficult yet, waiting on any glimmer of news on Max's condition once Gaia managed to haul herself back to work. Her heart wasn't in it, unable to bring herself to make a cake when Max wasn't there to decorate it, and by Wednesday, she had had to duck into the kitchen when it all got too much, breaking down in silence while Zara manned the counter.
For four days straight, they had been bombarded with questions once news of the shooting had broken out and the papers had been filled with the shocking end to the dramatic trial. It had dragged on for ten years and now it was over, but it didn't feel that way to Gaia. It wouldn't be over until she knew Max was ok, until she opened her eyes and smiled again. No matter how long it took, Gaia was determined to see her smile again.
Reporters had hounded their doorstep since they had made the connection, once the first papers had discovered that Sela from the trial and Max from the café were the same person. The story had blown up instantly, the savage press waiting for Gaia once she and her family got home from Bree's flat on Monday evening, shoving microphones in her face when all she wanted to do was put her children to bed and sleep for a week. While she had ushered Zara into the house with a child on each hip, Evan had fended off the reporters with his carefully worded statement, reigning in his fury at their animalistic desperation for drama.
It had been like that for three days, until they had eventually tired of waiting outside the café each morning for Gaia to unlock it, pushing through the small crowd without so much as an acknowledgement, and she had got better at unlocking the difficult door while under pressure. On Tuesday morning, the first day back, Evan had escorted her to the café with their children in tow, the whole family together as a show of solidarity in the face of adversity.
But on Wednesday, she'd had to face the ruthless journalists alone when Evan had got a lift to the hospital with Bree to get his cast off at last. That night, he had cooked and cleaned and done everything that his cast had limited before, forcing his wife to rest while he had fed and bathed the children. In the two days since, he had been back behind the counter as though he had never been away. While Gaia had made batch after batch of cookies, he and Zara had worked in perfect synchronisation behind the till. Bree and Kit had been a near constant presence in the café with a week to go until they jetted off on their month-long honeymoon, honing their parenting skills as they looked after Alfie and Clover.
Every single evening, once the café was shut up for the night, Gaia had headed to the hospital with Zara while Evan had stayed at home, getting supper ready for their return. Every evening, they had sat by her side and talked her through the day, praying that she could hear them as she slept. Five days had passed, five days for which she had lain motionless in a coma, and it was only on the third day that Gaia had managed not to cry as she held Max's hand, hoping she would feel a squeeze of her fingers.
But she didn't. Each day, the nurse on the ward assured her that Max's vitals were good, that she had stabilised after the surgery, and she had been moved out of intensive care on Wednesday. Now, Friday was thirty minutes from coming to a close and Gaia struggled to focus on the task at hand, almost spilling am entire mug of boiling tea over herself when her mind slipped into neutral, skittering back to Max.
