A/N Thanks for all the reviews on the last chapter. Here's the next!

x

Wishing Hole

It's the one who won't be taken,
Who cannot seem to give…

"And how are you feeling this morning, Lilly?"

The nurse had a high voice which rippled through Lilly Truscott, though not uncomfortably, and she had to swallow before she could clear her throat and answer the woman. "I'm okay, thank you."

Felicity, the nurse, nodded as she moved nearer and tended to the drip which was wired to Lilly's hand. "I think we can get rid of this now." She offered Lilly a reassuring smile whilst she proceeded to unscrew the tube from the plug in the back of Lilly's hand with practiced ease. "Right, are you hungry?"

Lilly shrugged, she really hadn't given things like eating much thought since she had woken, confused and groggy, only an hour ago and called for the nurse. She had been lucky to get Felicity, whom she had met during previous visits to the hospital and knew from both a social capacity as well as through a professional one. "I think I could eat."

"Good." The nurse nodded encouragingly and offered Lilly a bright smile. "Seriously though, how are you doing?"

Lilly smiled weakly in response, "I feel as if I've had a house dropped on top of me."

"Well, that would be about right, wouldn't it?" Felicity acknowledged sympathetically. "Oh, Lilly…"

"I know, I know… Whatever made me risk my life and jump into the void of a collapsed building?" Lilly sighed, "It was an accident. Everyone seems happier to leap to the conclusion that I did it on purpose – that I've got delusions of being some sort of superhero."

"You may not have jumped in there on purpose but I'm sure you would have been thinking about it." Felicity replied quietly, "I know you, Lilly."

Lilly's eyes strayed to the window and she noticed for the first time that the sun was battling to escape the clouds in fits and starts before it was covered again. There was something wrong, yet she couldn't put her finger on it and this niggling feeling had been bothering her since before she had awoken that morning. "I remember from yesterday Joannie saying that Suzanne – the woman I had dived in after, was in the intensive care unit. Is she still there?" Lilly turned her eyes back to meet those of the nurse.

"No, she's not there anymore. She's been moved to another ward, but she's been asking after you."

"Do you think I'll be able to go and see her?" Lilly asked, propping herself up further on her pillows and Felicity moved to make them more comfortable for her.

"I think that if you didn't she'd be deeply disappointed."

Lilly nodded and watched as Felicity stepped to the foot of the bed and made some notes on the chart which detailed Lilly's progress. "Have I had any other visitors?" She enquired suddenly.

Felicity frowned, "What do you mean?"

"Apart from Joannie. Like Sarah or…"

The nurse shook her head, "Not that I'm aware of. Do you want me to check for you?"

"No, it doesn't matter." Lilly said and forced a smile. For, really, who else was to know that she was there?

"Okay. Well, I'm going to find out what's going on with your breakfast situation and then I'll be right back." Felicity chirped brightly.

Lilly waited until Felicity had left the room before she squeezed her eyes together tightly shut and wished for the cause of the ache within her breast to make itself known. She missed Miley terribly and longed to speak with her, if only to hear the sound of her voice. Yet there was something else and it was beginning to boil back into an unsettling reality. It started off as small shadows creeping about the edges of her mind, but soon she was pinning them down and drawing them in. Her hand flew from the bed sheets to her lips, caressing the curve of her mouth whilst she remembered just who had touched her there last.

"Oh."

x-x-x

She was sitting still and yet the walls of the hospital passed by her without letting her stop and get her bearings. Not that she needed her bearings since she was being driven about in a wheelchair by a porter who had always harvested a soft spot for her.

"Here we are Lilly." Sam stated when he brought her disability vehicle to a halt beside the bed of a woman Lilly had never seen before, but she knew her stories.

"Thanks Sam."

"I'll be back." He threatened in an appalling impression of the Terminator and, with an uplifting pair of thumbs-up, he left her in peace.

Lilly only rolled her eyes before she realised that the woman in the bed was watching her and she smiled apologetically, "You just can't get the staff these days."

Suzanne laughed weakly, "No, you can't." A comfortable pause settled about them then whilst the two women took a moment to gather their thoughts about each other.

Lilly had never seen Suzanne before, even though they had spent enough time buried beneath a building together, and she found it interesting to finally discover that the image she had made of Suzanne in her mind was completely different to the actual person. Suzanne's face was lined with both worry and scratches, along with a deep tiredness which Lilly understood because she felt it herself. Her entire body ached but this was nothing compared to what Suzanne must be feeling. The other woman had brown hair streaked with premature strands of grey and it almost shocked Lilly to see signs of age so callously engrained in a woman who was only in her thirties.

"It's so strange to see you in person." Suzanne said quietly, "Before you were only a voice to me on the other side of the wall, but now you're real."

"I've always been real." Lilly replied with a small smile. "Here." She reached out and took Suzanne's hand into her own.

"Ah, yes." Suzanne squeezed Lilly's hand, "I remember you now."

"My name is Lilly Truscott."

"You're twenty-four years old and you were born in Malibu, California."

"You remembered!" Lilly exclaimed gently and she felt her cheeks tug her lips into an even brighter smile.

"Of course. When you've been trapped in the dark and you might be about to die you remember the words of your rescuer."

Lilly shook her head, "I can't take the responsibility for that, for rescuing you, although I wish I could and, in hindsight, I probably made it worse."

"How?"

"It was more difficult for the team to get you out because they had better access to me first."

"I don't know about that." Suzanne chided, "All I know is that when you took my hand and started talking to me I felt that I would live. Before then I was about to give up. I was crushed beneath a house and by some miracle they didn't even have to amputate to get me out."

"I'm really glad."

"They didn't have to amputate because you told them how I was laying, and the way that the building had fallen on me when I was too weak to say anything." Tears were covering the grey irises of Suzanne's eyes, "Without you I would have been lost but, Lilly, you found me."

Lilly cast her gaze downwards since she was unable to keep Suzanne's which was more devotional than Lilly believed she deserved. The feelings within her were confusing – she knew she should allow herself to be blissfully happy and let the woman's words affect her as they were probably true, yet she also felt sad. It would be many long weeks until Suzanne was out of hospital and her family life was changed, scarred, perhaps permanently.

"I'm so glad you're safe." Lilly croaked eventually and returned to see Suzanne smiling upon her.

"Thanks to you. And, Lilly, no matter what happens I don't want you to beat yourself up about it. You fell into that mess for a reason and you saw me through."

"All I did was sit there and hope that it would stay dry."

"Then maybe that wish was enough."

A pair of footsteps approaching Lilly from behind brought the young woman out of her reverie. "I would like to see you again, properly next time."

"Then come and visit me. You know where I am." Suzanne replied and her tone was warm. "Anytime."

Lilly nodded, "You can count on it."

Sam released the brake of the chair and he was soon tugging Lilly backwards. Suzanne raised her hand to weakly wave Lilly out, and Lilly returned the gesture. There was nothing more she could do for Suzanne, save visits to keep her company, but she could live in peace with the fact that the biggest mistake of her career hadn't led to a total disaster. The blithe smile which had yet to leave the lips of her fellow victim was enough for now.