A/N: So this is just a short one-shot cos I wanted to write something about Laura Marlin, just to kick-start the fandom (hopefully!) I know the books are really for younger kids but I like them, so here you go... This story is set during Kentucky Thriller btw, a bit of a 'what if' scenario :)

Tariq felt numb. His body ached with tiredness and his muscles were protesting every time he moved, but he'd refused to sleep or rest, despite the insistence of the doctors.

He'd refused to leave Laura.

She lay now in the white hospital bed, pale and unmoving and surrounded by bleeping monitors. He hated to see her like this. Her right arm was in a cast to just below her shoulder and one leg was strapped up tightly, and thick bandages and dressings covered most of the remainder of her body. Only her face was free of the surgical white that Tariq had come to hate, and even that was bruised and scraped.

He kept reliving that moment, when it had all gone wrong. When the stupid horse had bolted and he'd tried to catch up and Laura's terrified face and then her scream as she fell. Stop, he told himself, holding his head in his hands. You have to stop.

But he couldn't. The scenes flashed before his eyes - throwing himself off the bike and leaning down after Laura, Kit dragging him back away from the precipice, his best friend's broken body lying, miraculously, on a tiny shelf sticking out of the cliff. Shouting himself hoarse at her unmoving body.

And now here he was.

He heard voices in the corridor behind him, but didn't move. If it was one of the nurses again, telling him to sleep, they could get lost. But the door did not open, and he soon forgot about it, lost as he was in guilt and despair.

Tariq still had not slept when the door swung open abruptly, hitting the wall behind with a thunk. At the sudden noise, on reflex, the young Bangladeshi swung round. He relaxed slightly as Calvin Redfern strode into the room, looking as anxious and dishevelled as he must have done that night when he fled from Scotland so many years ago.

"How - " he paused, swallowing to get rid of the dryness in his throat - "How is she?"

Tariq shrugged, not taking his eyes off Laura as her uncle sat down in the plastic chair on the opposite side of the bed. "No change since I've been here."

"And how long is that?"

"Since I called you," he said quietly. He'd sat in Laura's room and called Calvin Redfern as soon as he'd escaped from the prodding and poking doctors to have a moment alone. The phone call had been short and to the point, with Tariq trying to hold back tears at having to say it out loud and Laura's uncle trying to leave the house to get on a plane as fast as he could. Tariq was sure he'd heard the wet smash of a cup on the floor just after he'd had to say what had happened.

Now, the older man sighed and rubbed a hand over his care-worn face. For a moment, Tariq thought he was going to tell him off, but what he said was nothing of the sort.

"How are you doing?" he asked, his dark eyes serious.

Tariq was momentarily stunned into silence. He trusted Calvin more than any other adult he knew, but he was still surprised when the man acted so differently from other people his age.

"I - " he started, and stopped. Laura's face, pale and unconscious and hurt, filled his vision. "This is all my fault," he whispered.

"No," Calvin said forcefully. "It's not. There is nothing either you or Kit could have done. You didn't know what was going to happen." He looked back at his niece. "If it's anyone's fault, it's mine. I should have gone with you both... I should never have let you go alone."

Tariq did not reply. He disagreed, but he could see that Laura's uncle felt exactly as he did and would not be persuaded otherwise.

"Tariq," Calvin said, his voice hollow. The boy looked up. "I can't lose her, Tariq. Not like this." His eyes were full of pain, and Tariq heard the unspoken words: not like I lost Jacqueline.

"We're not going to lose her," he answered. "Laura'll keep fighting. She's not going to give up on us, Mr Redfern."

"Calvin," he said automatically, a ghost of something that might have been humour passing over his face. "She's all I've got left," he murmured. "I don't think... I don't think I can keep going without her. I - "

"And you won't have to," Tariq said insistently. "Laura is my best friend too, and she's the only friend I've ever really had, and we can't give up hope." He paused. "I need you with me on this one, Calvin," he added, and he saw from the set of his shoulders and the look in his face that the older man had heard him.

And though a long night followed, and their fear never left them, they stood in their hope together. Because neither of them could lose the girl they loved who had changed their lives so much, and when at last Laura opened her eyes, they knew their hope had been rewarded. And they knew that no matter what happened, though the road would be long until things were back to normal again, they would all have each other, and that was what mattered.