Finally, finally, after much frantic pleading and hand-wringing, they had agreed to let him see her. Just for a few minutes. They were preparing the theatre for surgery. He tore through the doors to Nina's bedside, trying to take in the sight of her small, still, pale body, stretched out on the hospital bed, wires and tubes trailing in all directions. She was sleeping now, under sedation. He fumbled to grasp her fingers, lifeless but warm, a sign of life, like the constant beep of the heart monitor. Annie reached across the bed to place a cold hand over his and he spared her a glance to communicate his gratitude.
In a breath, he felt her arms encircle his neck, the weight of her head against his shoulders, her soft curls brushing his cheek. It was strangely soothing to feel the icy coolness of her ghostly form pressed against him, and he wrapped his arms around her, closing his raw, tired eyes and letting the heat drain from his chest. Like slipping into a cold bath.
Suddenly, the cold sensation melted away and he realised she had released him. He opened his eyes.
She offered him a watery smile, as her eyes drifted over his shoulder, towards the doors. But there was no one else waiting there. Her disappointment was painful to him.
She turned large, doleful brown eyes to his. "Mitchell?" she asked, fighting to hold back a fresh wave of tears.
George felt his own eyes re-filling as he shook his head. "Gone," he managed to croak, hoarsely. He took a step towards her, meaning to hug her again, but she put her hands up in front of her and stepped back.
"Gone?" she choked.
George nodded. "With Herrick."
"Herrick!" she gasped, clutching at her chest and reeling backwards. She grasped hold of the rails of Nina's bed to steady herself. Her eyes searched his face, desperately seeking an assurance he could not give her.
The evidence of Mitchell's betrayal of George was his critically-ill girlfriend lying in the bed beside him, but here was Mitchell's betrayal of Annie, in all its appalling, bitter desolation. His heart ached for her. He could only gather her up in his arms once more. She put up no resistance, but in his arms this time she felt rigid and unyielding, distant. He planted a kiss amidst her curls and then looked down to discover that his arms were empty.
With a shuddering sigh, he turned towards the bed once more. Nina looked so peaceful, sleeping among all these beeping and hissing machines. He leant down and placed a kiss on her warm, damp forehead, then settled in a chair beside her bed. Clasping her small, limp hand in his, he said a silent prayer of thanks. Nina was his future now, Mitchell was the past. Mitchell was gone, gone with Herrick. Herrick, their enemy, the vampire whom he had ripped into little pieces to save Mitchell's life; Herrick, who had plunged a steak knife into Nina's back in a bid to rob him of everything that made his life worth living: his girlfriend, their child … his best friend. He closed his eyes against the pain of his traitorous heart. There was no way back now. Mitchell was dead to him. Gone. Dead.
He would find Annie later, or she would come and find him when she was ready. But right now, there was Nina, and there was the baby, and they needed him more.
And then suddenly the room was full of people again and he was being pushed aside, as the team of nursing staff wheeled Nina away to theatre and George was left alone in the empty room, staring after her.
ooooooooooooooooooo
The tea was cold now.
Who had given him this cup of tea? That nurse with the red hair? She'd been kind. She knew his name, seemed to know him. Had he met her before, on his daily rounds, shunting the patients from ward to ward? Or maybe she knew Nina. Had she told him that? It rang a bell. Her eyes had looked a little red when she'd spoken to him earlier, like she'd been crying.
It all seemed a blur, the last two hours. Corridors, plastic chairs, pacing, staring at the vinyl floor tiles, pacing some more, staring at that poster about the warning signs of stroke. They'd shown him into a small waiting room about half an hour ago, and that was probably when the cup of tea had appeared. He stared at it in his hand.
Where was Annie?
She had been with Nina when Nina awoke – or was it Annie who woke Nina up? He could not be sure it had not been Annie's doing, but that had been the moment that he knew Nina would pull through: Annie's beaming smile, the tears glistening in her eyes.
It had all seemed destroyed, laid waste; everything he had built up, invested in; everything he had cherished: his best friend, Nina, the baby, his future, all gone. But in Annie's smile he had known that something good remained, that Nina would live. She would make it, and so would they. They'd survive this, together. And Annie would be there too. She'd need them, now that Mitchell had gone. They needed each other. Somehow, they'd all come unstuck. Somehow it had all fallen apart, but that couldn't happen again.
And so now he waited, staring into a cup of cold tea, for the doctor to come and give him the news about the baby. She had not miscarried. Not yet. But she had suffered a terrible trauma, the knife had only just missed her uterus, they were very concerned for the baby, there needed to be an operation to stem the blood loss, stabilise the baby's heart rate.
George drained the remains of the cold tea and crumpled the plastic cup in his hands.
A sudden loud sob shattered the silence of the waiting room.
Startled, George leapt out of his chair. Annie, hugging her arms tightly, her head hanging, dark curls shaking with her shoulders as she sobbed. He blanched.
"A – Annie!" he stammered, struggling to form her name on his lips, struggling to breathe. "Wh –what's – happened?"
She made a hollow, wailing sound that seemed to pierce his heart like jagged shards of glass, and then she threw her head back to reveal dark eyes filled with fury.
"You knew!" she cried accusingly.
"Wha-?"
"You knew!" she spat at him, her eyes flashing dangerously.
"Knew-?" he repeated, puzzled.
"You knew about what Mitchell did! You knew that he killed all those people, the Box Tunnel Twenty! You knew and you never said anything! You just let me carry on! Did you think I wouldn't work it out?"
He stared at her, aghast. Where had this come from? How had she found out?
"What, did you think I was too thick to work it out?" she snarled, rising from her chair to face him angrily, her hands balled into fists.
He winced. He had not prepared himself for this. He put out his hands to her, to placate her anger. "No! No, Annie! It wasn't like that - "
She interrupted him with what sounded like a growl, steeped in rage. The lights flickered, and she was gone.
George gave a heavy, anguished sigh and covered his face with his hands, pressing his palms against his eyes. This was all he needed.
The door opened. He turned to see a doctor in scrubs striding towards him, clutching a clipboard. Nina's chart. He knew this doctor. Dr Collins, a big, ruddy-faced, rugby-playing fellow. Dr Collins smiled at him: a warm, cheerful smile; a good-news smile, not a pitying smile or one of those pale, helpless smiles you offer grieving relatives. The feeling of relief which surged through George's chest seemed to sweep his legs from under him. He reached for the chair to steady himself and dragged himself into it to sit down. Dr Collins was talking to him now. He was trying to focus. Collins was smiling. Wasn't he? He heard the word 'baby'. And then another smile. Was he still breathing?
"So – so – the baby – is going to be - " he swallowed " – okay?"
"It certainly looks that way. We will, of course, be keeping Nina and the baby under close observation for the next forty eight hours, but we are optimistic. Things certainly look very positive, remarkably so." He paused. "Nina was very lucky, George," he added in a softer voice. "We nearly lost her. She's a fighter, and so's your baby." And offering George a final smile, Dr Collins swept out of the room.
The nurse with the red hair was standing over him again, offering him another cup of tea. She was smiling sympathetically. George took the tea and acknowledged her kindness with a pale flicker of a smile.
"George?" she said gently. "George, do you have the contact details for Nina's family? Only, we've nothing on file, she never supplied any next-of-kin."
He shook his head dumbly. Then, finally processing her words, "No, no, she hasn't seen her family in years. They didn't get on."
The nurse nodded sadly. "How about you, then? Is there someone I can call for you?"
He thought of Annie. He thought of Mitchell. "No, no one."
"What about that friend of yours, the cleaner? Mitchell, isn't it?"
He stared at her grimly, eyes narrowed. Of course she'd have noticed Mitchell, he thought bitterly. Women always did.
"He's gone," he answered coldly.
The girl registered his tone and took it as her signal to withdraw.
He heard the door close lightly behind her.
He was alone once more, staring at the vinyl floor tiles, sipping on another cup of lukewarm tea.