a/n sorry for my long absense work plus school plus life managed to kick me in the rear and the past week plus some i've been working or studying. nothing else. well i did write a little. read and review. please review make my study breaks worth it!

Chapter 21

Roberto Moretti de Luca was Italian/English by heritage. It didn't show. His features strongly resembled his father's side of the family. The only hint at his English heritage showed in the lighter tone of his olive skin. He knew he was a looker and to be completely honest he was more than a bit cocky about it. He could be a ladies' man when he wanted to be and his male friends constantly berated him for it. Which is why he would put his own balls in a vice before he admitted to them that he volunteered at the hospital because he liked it, as far as his friends knew he did it because he needed the volunteer hours for his already impressive resume.

This particular night he was on a volunteer night shift in the children's ward. The hospital, currently understaffed, employed a nurse and two nurses aids per floor for the ward for the night shift. To compensate for this they also had a volunteer per floor to do things like fetch extra pillows or glasses of juice or water or even just sit with the kids if the nightmares came. He was working the terminal care ward, where the kids with cancer stayed, and if he felt like being honest with himself, the sight of the children's bald heads gleaming in the moonlight didn't break his heart he did know what would. He wasn't a completely heartless bastard, that's was good o'le dads job.

Dawn woke up for the umpteenth time that night unable to see. She carefully listen to the breathing around her. The long deep breaths coming from somewhere on her right told her that Buffy was sound asleep. Dawn was glad she hadn't woken up when Dawn herself did. Ever sense waking up and discovering she had a broken arm and was blind to boot she hadn't had much alone time. There was either doctors wanting to check her eyes or her arm or her various small cuts and bruises or a concerned member of the Scooby gang or Anne there by her side asking her if there was anything she needed and wanted.

Yeah there's something I need. I need my damn sight back, she wanted to scream at them, knowing it wouldn't do any good she forced herself to hold her tongue. Hearing her sister was soundly asleep Dawn felt around her. Her hand connected to the bed railing and she had an idea. There was no reason she couldn't get up and walk.

Sure there is Donnie girl, she thought to herself, you can't see a damn thing is one of them. Laughing cynically at herself she decided to try anyway. After all she was blind now. Couldn't really get much worse now, could it.

Dawn slowly eased her legs over the edge of the bed. She felt around for the bed controller that was always in reach and slowly lowered the bed until her feet made contact with the cold, hard hospital floor. Gripping the rail Dawn slowly rose to her feet, by feeling from the bed to the wall she managed to find the door, thankfully it was open. Easing her way out into the hall Dawn paused for a moment to adjust her arm in her sling. Turning so her good arm faced the wall she let her left hand guide her way.

After about four minutes of literally blindly feeling her way down the hall and around the corners of the hospital Dawn realized this may not have been her best idea. Her ward was fairly low key with miminal staff. Only a nurse and an aid patrolled during the night. It was late enough all the cleaning and clerical staff had long retreated to their own beds. Dawn had no idea how she planned on getting back to her own bed and if she had to be honest she didn't really care.

Dawn paused in the hall. Somewhere ahead of her she heard a small child's giggle. She smiled gently to herself. Yeah she was pissed at the world but hearing a kid laugh still made her smile. She heard a lower, male sounding voice say something she couldn't quite make out. Not wanting to spoil the moment by wandering past whatever room they were in Dawn decided to turn around and try to find her way back, or find someone to help her find her way back. Realizing she couldn't feel the wall with her right hand due to the full arm cast and sling she made her way to cross the hall.

Bobby sat on a little girl named Olivia's bed reading her a story. Olivia had been diagnosed with lukimia two years before at the age of five. She was currently undergoing intensive treatment in hopes to get rid of the cancer once and for all. This past week she had been having problems sleeping due to the stomach pains the medince gave her. Bobby usually sat up with her when it got bad and read to her. Her favorite book was a huge book of classic fairy tales her dad gave her. She loved it when Bobby read it to her and did all of the voices. He was happy to comply.

"And then smallest goat said 'please please Mr. Troll! My brother is coming next and he is much larger and meatier than I. Let me pass and you can eat him." Bobby raised his voice to a high pitch squeak for the goat and then lowered it to a deep rumble for the trolls reply, "Hurmpf, you may pass this time but I will eat your brother."

Olivia tried to stifle her giggles so she didn't wake up the other kid sleeping in the room. Bobby smiled as her head bobbed up and down with the held in giggles. Once again the sight of her caramel colored head gleaming with cemo-induced baldness broke his heart.

He started on the next line of the story when a crash from outside the room cut him off. Olivia nearly jumped out of her skin and clutched to Bobby's side.

"Shh, Shh," He whispered to her, "it's ok, I'm just going to go see what's going on."

Bobby let himself out of the room and into the hall. He saw a girl in a light purple night gown sprawled out on the floor facing away from him, her brown hair lay around her shoulders as she slowly tried to pick herself up. Bobby rushed to her side to assist her. He couldn't help but stare at where her night gown had been hiked up rather high on her extremely well shaped legs. Hey after all he was a guy.

"Are you ok Miss?" he ask because his mama had raised him right, "Do you need help back to your room?"

The girl laughed without humor, "That would be difficult" she said as she turned around to the sound of his voice ableing him to see the bandages taped over her eyes, "Sense I'm not really sure how I got here in the first place. Are you a nurse?" She asked.

Bobby silently gapped at her for a moment. It took him a bit before he placed where he had seen her before. Barely skipping a beat he replied, "No, I'm a volunteer. I help in the children's ward."

"Oh," the girl said, "Well than that would explain the laughing I heard. I guess you can't help me back to my room than, I don't even know where it is."

Bobby decided not to mention the fact that he thought they may have met before or the fact that her right arm had a wrist tag over the cast that would tell him where her room was or the fact that he could hack into one of the nurse's stations and find out that way either. Instead he decided on something that was in his mind better.

"I think your right about that than. I was just reading a story to one of the kids, wanna join us? " He saw the girls hesitation and quickly added, "Unless you have more halls to wander and med carts to knock over."

His comment managed to gain a small smile on her part. She nodded her agreement to the idea and Bobby slowly took her hand to guide her into the room.

"Hey Olivia," he said to the small girl centered in the huge bed, "I found a friend. She was wondering if she could listen to the story to. Would that be alright?"

Olivia regarded the new girl with guarded interest. She noticed the funny things the girl had over her eyes and decided that this new girl was sick like she was.

"What's her name?" She asked Bobby.

He opened his mouth to answer before he realized he had no idea what her name was. Thankfully the girl came to his rescue.

"My name's Dawn," She said in the direction of the voice, "Olivia is a very pretty name."

"Thank you." Olivia said just like her daddy taught her to say when someone gives you a compliment. "This bed is really big," she continued, "Bobby you gotta sit in the middle now so she can see the pictures to." The seven year old paused for a minute, "can you see through those things on your eyes?" she asked Dawn.

The older girl shook her head no.

"That's ok," the seven year old decided, "you can imagine the pictures."

Dawn nodded, the look of sadness that crossed her face didn't escape the notice of the smart young girl.

"Don't worry," Olivia said to Dawn, "the doctors here can make you better. My blood is sick like your eyes are sick and their making me better so they can make you all better to."

She said this with such confidence Dawn didn't have the heart to tell her the truth. Instead she just let Bobby take her hand and lead her over to the bed. The seven year old scooted over to make room for them and Bobby picked up the book.

"Now where were we?" He said.

"The medium goat." Olivia reminded him.

"Oh yeah…" Bobby began to read once again.

a/n one other quick thing. i just realized in the other chapter i had dawn with a broken leg... just go with the change. i forgot and a broken arm is what made this entire chapter work so again please go with it also i know that i may have made some hospital policy errors again it worked with the story go with it. :)