The hospital seemed like a maze and it would have taken a score card for any of them to keep track of any of the others. Upon being assured of Charlotte's wellbeing, Harry had taken her back in his arms, walking with her, pacing the tile floor as he had both his sons at her age. Terry was pacing as well, anxious to know about his family and friends.
Nick looked up when Tess finally opened her eyes. He wanted to hold her, but he didn't want to scare her anymore than she already was. "You're all right. You fainted. They wanted to check you out, make sure you didn't have anything more than a concussion." That, in itself, was enough.
"Claire." Tess was already starting to sit up, trying to get loose.
"No, no, sweetheart. Leave those there." He kissed her blonde curls. "The doctor will check you out and we'll get you to Claire, but she's still in surgery. You can't be with her yet."
"BOM?" Tess' voice was shaky, but she'd stopped fighting for freedom. She looked lost and scared, like the day Ruth had left Drover's Run with her in tow.
"With Dad. You know there's nothing in the world he wouldn't do for her. He's probably already added a couple more horses to her collection. Who knows what else?" Nick managed a smile, although smiling was the last thing he felt capable of doing.
"I don't remember..." She shook her head, as if trying to clear it. "Nick, I just don't...I don't remember."
"You will." He prayed though that he would be wrong. With the concussion and the shock, maybe the cold hard truth was enough. Maybe she wouldn't have to relive it as he'd done his own accident. "It'll come in time. When we got there, you were in shock. I don't know how it happened, only that it did." He was torn between feeling horrible about Claire and thanking God Tess and Charlotte had been survived.
"I want to see her." Tess was crying now and he sat on the bed next to her. She rested her head against him, making his shirt wet again, but he didn't care. "I want to see my sister."
Meg hadn't prayed since she was a little girl. To tell the truth, she hadn't seen where it had done anyone any good when she did and she never was very religious. With Jodi and Tess with doctors, Claire in surgery, she fell back to her childhood lessons in a hurry. She had lost track of Alex; her mind had simply filled with "her girls" as she thought of them. All Jack's daughters, all three of them, not that she planned on telling them. Once again, she felt like she failed, as a mom, and now as a surrogate mom.
"You had one job. One job. And you scuffed it up," she muttered under her breath.
"What was that?" Frank Da Costa joined her with a paper cup of coffee in his hands. As she spotted it, she thought of Tess, of the girls' first arguments when the "city girl" had moved to the country, back home.
"Nothing." She took the coffee, just holding it in her hand.
"I saw Nick, briefly. He wouldn't let me talk to Tess, just said she didn't remember anything." Meg nodded. "Do you know what happened?"
Meg turned her attention to him. "What?"
"What happened? At the accident site, with the girls' ute. It would be nice to have all the formalities..."
The coffee dropped, burning Meg's hand slightly, but she didn't feel it. "Get out."
He looked at her like he wasn't sure he understood what was going on. It was his turn to question, "What?"
"Jodi could have been killed today, Frank. As could Tess. Claire still...And you're worried about formalities? Get out. Out of this hospital." She started walking towards him and he started taking steps backwards quickly. They went through the lobby where both Terry and Harry stopped pacing to watch what was happening, both ready to break in if Meg showed the slightest sign of needing it. "IF we get around to putting the pieces of what happened back together, IF the girls are inclined to talk to you, THEN MAYBE you can come back. Until then, do your bloody job." She let the door close between them and was unaware of what was happening until she heard Charlotte babbling and felt Terry's arms around her. She reached up to find fresh tears in her eyes and brushed them away quickly.
"Ms. Fountain?" The nurse came out, looking for Meg's mother.
"Mrs. Dodge," Meg corrected softly, her hands on Terry's, finally starting to realize she wasn't alone in this, not anymore. "Is my daughter awake?" The nurse nodded.
Meg looked up at Terry. "Come with me?"
"Of course. Thought you'd never ask." He didn't care who Jodi's biological father was; he felt like she was his child. He'd almost gotten the pleasure of giving her away not long before, on the day that turned out to be his wedding day to Meg.
Harry watched them leave and continued pacing. He made sure no one was looking at him and softly whispered the song that he'd taught the boys at her age. Things had been so much simpler then. Without Sandra to try to keep up with, without Liz's earth-shattering news...no, he wouldn't think of that today. He was making a conscious choice, the same one as Alex had made before him. Whoever donated the sperm to create the child, he was the child's father. Only in his case, the child was all grown up.
Alex walked into the room and it was obvious that he hadn't been checked out since the explosion. He looked lost, much the same way Tess had, and Harry could remember that feeling well. He was as worried about that feeling as he was the signs of physical damage to his son's body. "Claire?" He dared whisper her name, scared to hear the answer. What would his son do if the woman he loved was dead?
"They took her away from me, Dad." Alex whispered, using not "Harry" but "Dad" as he hadn't used since before Liz's betrayal. "They wouldn't let me go with her."
"Let's get you cleaned up," Harry said, leading his son as he had when he was a lad. "Then you can hold your daughter. She needs her dad."
Alex nodded, looking at Charlotte. Even his daughter couldn't make him smile, but there was the look of love in his eyes at her, the same one that had been there from the moment she was born. He silently let the nurses clean him off and stitch him up, thinking of the time in Melbourne that he had just spent with Claire. It had been a honeymoon of sorts, their honeymoon. He thought of the ring in his brother's coat, how he had planned from the second they came home from the trip how to pop the question. Now as long as she was alive, it didn't matter to him. It wouldn't even matter if she said no or that she wanted to wait, as long as she was alive. He loved his parents, despite the circumstnaces, his brother, and Tess too as a little sister, but as far as he was concerned his world started and ended with Claire and Charlotte. He finally took his daughter into his arms again, cradling her, the two connecting as they always did. Peter had met her one time in her entire life; as far as Charlotte was concerned, her daddy had always been Alex Ryan.