Author's Note: ok thanx for all the reviews, you guys rock! And a huge thank you to Tiffany who kindly beta'd this chapter. Just to let everyone know I've almost finished witing ther epilogue so don't worry about me finishing halfway through like I've done with other fics. well on with the storyI guess...

Chapter 1: Her Rescuer

Shock flooded the man's body.

"No," he choked out, pulling her limp body from the icy waters, cradling her body against his in a vain attempt to warm her. Dropping to his knees in the small clearing, he placed her on the ground tenderly, seeking a pulse with trembling fingers. "Please. Please, please…" he begged quietly, as he pushed up the soaked sleeve of her nightgown and placed two fingers on the inside of her wrist. The weak, slow throb of her heartbeat was hardly noticeable, but it was there. Unthinkingly, he drew the nightgown over her head, throwing it uselessly to the side, and stripped off his jumper. Turning back to her, his breath caught. Almost every inch of her once pale body was covered in bruises and cuts of varying stages of healing.

Shaking with barely suppressed rage, he tenderly drew the jumper over her head, tugging it down until it went past her knees, leaving only her shins and feet uncovered. Hesitating for only a moment, he kicked off the soft leather shoes he had finished only three days before, and home knitted maroon socks and tenderly pulled them onto her feet, marveling absently at how small they were. Sending a silent prayer to whoever may be listening, he picked her up and started running, hardly noticing as sticks and stones cut at his feet.

The forest flashed by quickly, as he ran with reckless abandon, his body acting as a shield between her and the stray branches that tore at them. Finally, strains of gospel music reached his ears. 'Sunday,' he noted vaguely. 'How ironic.' Stumbling, he started going faster, following the sounds of the villagers' voices as they rose in prayer. Turning the corner, he saw a family rushing to get to church.

"Please! Stop!" he yelled. The little girl looked back and stopped, tugging at her mother's skirts. The woman turned as the ragged man ran up.

"Can we help you?" she asked pleasantly, not seeing the limp body in his arms.

"Please, where's the nearest hospital?" he asked, clutching Ginny's body to him. The woman looked down and gasped, eyes going wide.

"Philip, get the car! Get the car now!" she ordered her husband, starting forward. The man picked the youngest, a child of only a few months, from the stroller and ran in the opposite direction. "Put her down," she said briskly, removing her white gloves and handing them to the little girl, who immediately tucked them in the sash around her waist. Placing the tiny redhead on the ground by the side of the road, he stepped back, letting the mother tend to her.

"Thank you." Looking up, the young mother smiled kindly at him, before leaning down to place her cheek near Ginny's mouth, silently counting the seconds between each labored breath.

"How long has she…?" she started to ask.

"I found her not long ago, maybe 20 minutes, in the river. I don't know how long she's been in there," he answered, paling as people flooded from the church. "Erm, I…"

Suddenly, the man called Philip pulled up in a white sedan, and jumped from the drivers' seat. Immediately, he reached out to pick the injured girl up but was stopped by a firm hand, and he watched as the stranger leant down and picked her up as tenderly as his wife picked up their son. Straightening, the man looked up into his eyes, unshed tears glistening. Silently, Philip opened the backdoor, and smiled at him weakly. The man ducked in, cradling the woman's head in his lap.

Philip drove quickly to the hospital; he pulled into the drop off bay outside of the emergency ward, allowing for the man, carrying the small red head and his wife to get out of the car. Once they were out of the car Philip pulled away once more to find a parking space.

The ragged man followed the lady who had so calmly taken over the situation. "Ma'am what is your name?"

"Georgina Harron, but please call me Georgie."

The man nodded, following Georgie, Ginny cradled tenderly in his strong arms. For a while he followed her in silence, when she stopped at the reception desk it became clear that there was more to her than he had first thought. For as she calmly gave out instructions the surrounding staff members rushed to do as they were asked. The man was undoubtedly curious but he knew that the present moment was no time to ask. Once all the directions were being completed Georgie turned to the stranger and his charge.

"Sir, you must leave her for the time being, it's ok we will take the best possible care of her. You may wait in the relatives' room, I shall come and get you when you may see her once more." Georgie then left the young man in the care of one of her nurses, as she turned to follow Ginny on her bed.

"Sir, Sir." The nurse pulled him from his trance like state. "Sir, if you will please follow me, I'll take you through to the waiting room."

"How long will she be?"

"A few hours, and that's only for the surgery, after that who knows?"

"When can I see her?"

"Once she's on the ward and stabilized then Dr. Harron will say when you are allowed in."

The man nodded in understanding, as he took a seat in the waiting room that the nurse had lead him to. He sat in one of the large armchairs, he did not even blink at the large stack of magazines before him, and he simply stared, lost deep within his thoughts. The nurse was curious as to who this ragged man was, where had he come from? Why was he here? And why did the tiny red haired woman mean so much to him? Normally the nurses minded their own business not going further than polite conversation unless they had to know some thing for the patient's well being. But some things are to weird not to ask.

"Sir, what's your name?"

"Jack Galway." The man replied without really thinking.

"Where are you from, if you don't mind my asking?"

"Um, well I live in the forest, the one down near the church."

"Alone?"

"Basically, I mean there is my owl and the other forest creatures."

"But without other humans?"

"Yes."

"How long have you lived there?"

"Hmm, that depends, what year is it?"

"Two thousand and nine."

"Really? Well in that case I've been in the forest for twelve years."

"And you've had no human contact in that time?"

"Every now-and-then a hunter would shelter in my shack during a storm, but other than that I've had no human contact."

"You- you're a hermit?"

"I guess you could say that, I never really thought of it that way."

"Of course you're the wild man of the woods, many hunters have spoken of you, some even boasting they had met you but most content to say they witnessed you only from a distance. I'd always believed you to be a myth an urban legend, but I guess I was wrong."

"Great, I disappear; go into hiding only to become an urban legend." The man mused.

"You're in hiding, from whom?"

"Um, well my past, I guess."

"That must be some past."

"I guess, but I think I may have overreacted a bit, I mean twelve years."

"You never really meant to stay away did you?"

"No, well I did for a little while, just to let the rumors and scandals die down but I always meant to return to everyone."

"So why didn't you?"

"I don't know, I guess I got used to my life and so never got around to returning."

"So who is the red head?"

"Ah, Ginny, she's the only person I've really thought about over the past twelve years, then I was walking and when I found her I thought I'd finally cracked."

"So, she's what a friend?"

"Old girlfriend, she was the hardest one to leave, I mean there was everyone I knew but if it wasn't for her I could say that I had barely missed anyone."

The nurse fell silent; the man obviously did not want to be pressed any further. Slowly she turned to leave, quietly shutting the door as she left. He fell into a trance, unmoving, he barely even blinked. He would never be able to say for sure how long he had sat there, but finally after what had seemed like an eternity Georgie returned.

"Mr. Galway?" she waited for him to look up before she continued. "We've just taken Ginny up to ICU you may sit with her as long as you do not get in the way of the nurses, come with me I'll show you." Georgie led the man to the elevator. It was empty but for Georgie and the man. The intensive care unit was on the top floor of the building, when they reached the correct floor the man followed Georgie once more. She lead him through a warren of corridors, each blurring into the next, finally she stopped before a pair of double doors, next to the doors, set in the wall, was an intercom. Georgie pressed the buzzer and waited for a reply.

"ICU how can I help you?" The voice spoke out of habit, it was clear that the speaker was used to answering the intercom and was quite bored of it by now.

"Hello, it's Dr. Harron, I need to see Ginny, the patient I just sent up."

"The comatose?"

"Yes, can you let me in?"

"Sorry, right away Dr. Harron." There was a buzz and the door clicked open, Georgie led the way into the ward beyond.

Inside the ward there were two rows, all the way down a large hall, of beds. Each bed held a patient, every patient, in a coma, unconscious or asleep, the room was silent but for the sounds of the machines keeping many of the patients alive. Georgie lead the way down the room, at the very end of the hall were two private rooms, she entered the room on the left. Inside was Ginny, she looked so defenseless, there were tubes running off her almost everywhere, she had a ventilator assisting her in breathing, an electro cardio monitor beside her giving of a steady beeping and there was a drip running into the back of her left arm.

"Is she going to make it?"

"At this moment I cannot say. She is in a coma, she may yet wake up, she may not."

"How are her injuries?"

"Not so bad, I cannot tell you everything yet, there are still tests to be run, but unfortunately we must wait until she is in a more stable condition."

"Ok, thank-you Georgie." The man took a seat beside Ginny, he settled in ready to wait. Georgie guessed that he would not leave until she woke up; she hoped for both their sakes that she woke up soon.

Georgie left silently, the man barely noticed as she left, he stared at Ginny, she was the only thought running through his head, there was no world around him, nothing mattered except for the broken woman lying before him.

Each morning Georgie would visit, she would give Ginny a check-over then talk with the man for a while; then she would leave to complete her days work. Most days Georgie would return to I.C.U, to talk with the strange man; to try to unravel some of the mystery that shrouded him, but no matter how she tried there was still something mysterious about him.

Whilst the man responded to others the only one to really reach him was the comatose before him. For two weeks he barely left her side, he sat by her day after day, hoping, praying to anyone that may be listening, that she would wake up. For two weeks nurses tried to convince him to go home, to get some sleep, to go and have a coffee or eat something, but until she awoke he refused to leave. The nurses did however succeed in convincing him to have a shower and change his clothes; he soon lost his wild forest dwelling look, and revealed features of a once handsome, somewhat haunted face.

Finally two weeks after she had been found in the river, the thing they had all been waiting for happened, well not quite but almost… The man sat there, he held Ginny's hand as she lay there, and he poured out his soul to her, he was just telling her the way he had faked his own death and disappeared without a trace, when he felt it; her finger, it twitched!

Two days of coaxing her, and encouragement and finally her eyelids fluttered, she looked around her without actually taking in her surroundings. The only thing she noticed was the man beside her, she looked at him and smiled.

"I knew you'd come back." With that she closed her eyes and went to sleep.