A/N: Sorry for the delay! Blame my teachers, and the ridiculous amounts of homework they've been setting me.

Warriorgirl4eva - Thank you!

Kate - Haha, exactly. You're about to find out!

Maths kid - You'll have to read on to see.

LauraElliot - Thank you very much. I hope you enjoy the latest instalment

Bookflower - He's safe for the moment, at least. I hope this chapter meets up to your expectations and you are very, very welcome.

Mizco - Thank you very much for such a lovely (and complimentary!) review. I'm glad you liked the "it's a boy" bit - it seemed a good way of showing how disconnected one can become in a crisis ;)

LittleMissSparkles - Hee, thanks!

MAR17ian - Sorry to upset you, but I'm pleased that the chapter evoked such a strong reaction! Life never goes smoothly so you can expect a few more bumps, but I can promise you something hopeful very soon

SilverStella - Thanks!

Dad came storming into the hospital not long after, looking utterly furious, and I had little choice but to follow him back out to the car. We walked along in utter silence but I could feel it building, his anger, like a volcano almost ready to erupt. I had the uneasy feeling that it was going to be explosive.

The silence held until we got to the car. Apprehensively, I opened the door and climbed into the passenger seat, thinking vaguely that I should have gotten into the back, to put more room between the two of us. Dad didn't even look at me as he buckled his seatbelt and put the key in the ignition. The engine roared into life, and then he turned his head towards me.

"I've been trying to phone you for three hours." His voice was low. Quiet. Dangerous.

"My battery died," I defended, "And I did let you know where I was."

"You hung up on me."

Oh, dear.

"I told you. I couldn't have just left him-"

"There are a great number of things you could have done, including staying away from those people like I told you to!"

I laughed bitterly. "So what, I'm not allowed to have friends now?"

"Of course you are. Just not the type that hospitalise each other! I brought you up to know better than that, Marian-"

"Do you know who it was that put Robin in hospital?" I asked. "Do you know what happened?"

"Well perhaps if you'd care to tell me, for once-" Dad began hotly.

"I'll tell you!" I snapped, interrupting him, "It was Sheriff. John Sheriff. John-mother's-a-friend-of-yours Sheriff. John-brought-up-to-know-better Sheriff. He had a knife, and he stabbed my friend."

That silenced him, if only for a moment. Perhaps for something to do, or because he didn't want to have to look at me, he pulled away and started driving home.

"He wouldn't," he said, eventually. Rather than anger, his voice now held an almost pleading quality to it, as though we were waiting for me to tell him that it was all a joke, that of course someone as well off as Sheriff couldn't have done such a thing. Dad was the sort of man who read about the teenagers getting stabbed and shot down in London or in the rougher areas of the city, but wouldn't dream of the same sort of things happening on his own doorstep. I suspected that this was a rather unpleasant wake-up call.

"I'm not lying," I told him irritably. "Just you wait until we go past his house. There'll be police outside it, I bet you. They're looking for him."

Dad didn't say anything after that, but I saw him crane his neck to peer closely at Sheriff's house as he drove past his road. Sure enough, there was a blue and fluorescent yellow Volvo parked on the grass verge outside, complete with little blue lights on top. I glanced at dad triumphantly and he said nothing though I could see his mind working furiously. It wasn't long before we pulled up outside the house and I got out almost before the car had stopped moving, striding to the door and quickly stepping inside. Before I could contemplate disappearing upstairs, Dad followed me in.

"You understand, don't you? That I'm just trying to keep you safe," he told me, walking into the lounge. He didn't sit down and I hovered in the doorway, frowning slightly.

"There's a difference between looking out for me and smothering me," I reminded him, and now it was his turn to look angry.

"Well if you didn't insist on getting yourself involved with all of this…" he trailed off.

I raised my eyebrows. "All of this what?"

"Boys. Gangs. Stupid behaviour and danger."

"The whole world is dangerous, dad!" I dismissed, with a hint of derisive laughter. "You can't keep me locked away from it my whole life. I do have one, you know."

"I do know," he answered grudgingly, "I want you to have one - a wonderful one. But you're my only daughter, and I don't want you getting hurt!"

I had a sudden flash of memory, a scene from a summer ten years in the past. A welsh mountain pony called Max that dad had bought me and then sold again the first time I'd hurt myself falling off of him, to save my from any further injuries. I'd been scared of horses ever since, and never learned to ride properly. Now the same scenario was happening all over again except this time it bigger, this time he was trying to protect me from life. I realised his perspective of me hadn't changed since I was a little girl, and it made me both sad and rather furious.

"Everyone gets hurt at some point!" I protested, "And if you keep trying to protect me I'm never going to live. I'm not a little girl anymore, so stop treating me like one!"

He regarded me silently for a moment and I thought that perhaps something had got through to him. When he met my gaze, expression unreadable, I glared defiantly back at him. Eventually he looked down and sighed.

"I met your mother when I was your age," he told me quietly, so that I almost had to step closer to hear him. "We were at school together."

I stepped into the room and perched on the edge of the armchair as he sank onto the sofa, watching him interestedly. He'd never talked about mum much before; I'd always got the impression that he still found it painful.

"She was beautiful, my Kate. You look just like her." He didn't look at me as he spoke, just stared sadly into the fireplace. And suddenly, I started to understand. I was his only link to her, a living tribute and he couldn't stand the thought of losing that connection. "I loved her. So much. And I love you. I know you don't think so, but I do."

"I know," I agreed, patiently. "And I love you. But I'm not mum. I'm my own person. I've got my life, and I've got my friends. And I love them, too."

Dad looked up at me, his expression suddenly shrewd. "And you love him."

I said nothing.

"That Robin boy," dad continued, watching me closely. "Don't think I don't recognise him. He's that little tearaway you used to go around with in primary school, isn't he? And now…" He looked at me, a little sadly, but I got the feeling that he was starting to see me as more than a child now. I hoped.

I smiled back. "Yeah, just a bit."

"Visiting hours are four until half five tomorrow," he told me at last and, before he could become embarrassed or do anything to stop me, I pulled him into a very undignified hug.

It had been awkward speaking to my dad the previous night but somehow the words just seemed to come, and it had seemed like the most natural thing in the world to admit that I… I loved Robin. I'd admitted it out loud twice now, and though the first had come out purely unintentionally, the by-product of desperation and adrenalin, I couldn't deny the truth of it. The idea was still frightening and new, but there was a strange sense of determination that came with the confession; the feeling that at least now I knew my own heart. If I was honest with myself I'd had the knowledge for weeks, perhaps even since I bumped into Robin in the corridor on the first day back after Christmas. I just hadn't wanted to know until now. It's funny how you don't appreciate something until you think you've lost it, isn't it?

That still didn't stop me from being nervous about seeing him, though. My stomach roiled nervously as I stepped through the double doors and into the hospital reception for the second time in two days. The place seemed different, less threatening in daylight. The woman at reception, thankfully not the same one as the night before, looked up from her computer screen as I approached nervously. She eyed me curiously as I gave her Robin's name, but I ignored it. She looked up his ward for me and then, when I looked at her blankly, offered me directions.

At last I set off, alone again. Dad had dropped me off with the promise that he would be back at five o'clock to pick me up, but hadn't offered to accompany me. Far from being disappointed, I just got the feeling that he knew me too well, because I would have denied any offer of support anyway. I wanted to be alone when I saw Robin.

At last I reached the ward, stepping nervously through the doorway. At once a sign demanded that I disinfect my hands and I did so, rubbing them with the odd smelling foam that a nearby dispenser provided. In front of me was a desk where presumably a member of staff would stand but there was nobody there and so I wandered down the ward, peering hesitantly at each group of beds and trying to look apologetic when the people in them shot me odd looks. I passed a young woman, barely recognisable beneath the bandages swathing her head and neck and my stomach clenched.

This is a place of death, my mind offered me treacherously, and I struggled to push away the thought. The place smelt strongly of disinfectant; that vaguely unpleasant, clinical smell, but underneath it there was a trace something else. Infection, or blood, or death. I was starting to make myself feel sick.

I made an effort to stop thinking so morbidly, my eyes skimming over the bed of injured and ill people, some obscured by curtains while their loved ones gathered close, and finally came to the last set of beds. I glanced over two battered blonde women and an older man, either unconscious or asleep, and then my eyes came to rest of the bed farthest from me. The person on it was conscious and currently seemed to be arguing good naturedly with the nurse tending to the man in the bed next to his. I would have recognised him anywhere.

"Robin!"

Both he and the nurse looked up and I walked over and she looked me over with a slight smile before moving off to tend to someone further away. Deliberately giving us a little privacy, I though, and wondered if anything had been said about me. I was grateful for it, anyway.

"Hi," I said, a little hesitantly. What were you mean to say to someone in this situation, anyway? How about 'Sorry you got stabbed in the gut. Hurt much? And oh yeah, last night I told you that I loved you.'

"Come to visit me?" Robin reached out and gestured vaguely at the chair next to his bed. Taking the hint, I sat down.

"Yeah. Thought I'd better. Pulled the short straw, didn't I?"

Robin grimaced. "You could at least pretend to be nice to me."

I blinked. "You said that last night," I told him, a little shakily. His midsection was covered by sheets, but there was a catheter in the back of his hand and I tried not to look at it. I forced myself to look back up to his face and he just seemed vaguely puzzled.

"Did I? I don't really remember," he shrugged.

"You don't? What do you remember?"

"That it bloody hurt," he pulled a face, "And I remember you. I can remember your face, just being there the whole time. Thanks for that." He made an effort to smile at me, but I barely noticed.

"You don't remember anything else?" I asked.

"No, not really. I mean, I wasn't exactly cohere-" he trailed off, looking up at me. I must have looked upset, or shocked, because then he continued, "Why, did something important happen?"

He didn't remember. The words, born of panic, that had slipped so hastily from my mouth the night before might as well have never existed, because he didn't remember them. Wide eyed, I slowly shook my head.

"It was nothing."

A part of me was begging him to argue, to insist that it obviously was something, so why didn't I tell him? But he seemed to lack the energy and my courage had deserted me. It was one thing to say the words in the middle of a crisis, another to say them in the harsh light of the morning after. Because what if he laughed at me? What if he threw the words back in my face? What if he broke my heart? He was the sort of person who was good at things like that.

"What?"

I jumped, realising that I had fallen into uneasy silence. Robin was looking up at me, frowning slightly.

"So maybe it was something," I admitted, watching as he smiled briefly.

"A mystery, was it? Or some big, dark secret?" He was teasing me, I realised. The bastard was bed-ridden and by all accounts should be in pain, and he was teasing me. I smiled.

"I said things. Um… quite, quite important things."

He struggled to sit up straighter but when it appeared that he was making no progress he gave up and slumped down again, raising his eyebrows expectantly up at me.

"What-" he began but trailed off, looking up over my shoulder. For a moment I thought that something must be wrong, something must be hurting him but then I heard voices behind me and turned around to see Much, Djaq and Will approaching. I loved them. Of course I loved them, but I had to curse their timing.

"Allan wasn't let in," Much grinned as they gathered around, Will looking around cautiously before pinching the chair from the bed opposite.

"Only because there's a four visitor at a time rule for this ward," Djaq explained, shooting Much a mildly reproving look. Then she looked to me and smiled. "When they told us that we knew it had to be you here."

"So how's our fallen leader?" Will asked, dryly. Robin had just been watching as we all crowded in, loud and colourful and effectively taking over this end of the ward. He looked slightly incredulous.

"A bit doped up, if I'm honest," Robin answered, with a mildly inane smile.

Djaq laughed. "That's not very heroic. You're meant to be struggling bravely through the pain, not up to your eyeballs with prescription painkillers."

Robin shrugged. "This way's a lot more fun, though."

Will smiled. "Sheriff got arrested last night. Apparently he's still at the station. The recording and our eyewitness reports are all they need, they're going to press charges."

As the others launched into an enthusiastic discussion about what would happen to Sheriff, which started out with him unable to ever get a decent job and grew gradually ruder and ruder until it culminated with him being regularly sodomised in prison, I sat in silence. Like Robin, who was quite obviously out of it and apparently struggling slightly to keep up with the conversation, I occasionally added my input but spent most of my time simply listening. Or, more accurately, just watching Robin. The others seemed high spirited with relief that things seemed to be going our way now, but I couldn't forget just how narrowly disaster had been averted.

If the ambulance had been just a little slower in arriving, if the wound had been just a few inches higher, if he'd lost just a little more blood… My mind couldn't stop running through the possibilities and I fidgeted, not reassured by Robin's pale face. He didn't look well, and I couldn't get over how close we came to losing him. And it didn't help that I hated hospitals. I barely noticed when the others swapped places every now and again, one going down to the café to give the person left outside a chance to come in. None of them asked me to leave.

Five o'clock came and went, and five minutes later the nurse from before walked past and told us apologetically, but in no uncertain terms, that we had to go. Reluctantly, we all got to our feet and walked out to the car park where my dad was waiting in his car.

"How is he?" Dad asked uncertainly as I got into the passenger seat.

I shrugged. "Alive."