Chapter 6 It was 4pm before he woke up. For a few, fleeting seconds he enjoyed that "everything's okay" feeling you get when you first open your eyes in the morning. Then the events of the previous 24 hours hit him, and he sat up, searching for his phone. He dialled Stella's cellphone, only to hear her say nothing had changed, then took a shower before heading down to the hospital again, not sure what he'd find. Lindsay was still in the same position he'd left her in earlier, with Stella still seated in the chair at the end of her bed. Lindsay's eyes were shut, the wound on her cheek was still there, and the mummifying bandages which wrapped her head were still doing their job. "Come on Montana, stop pretending and open your eyes", he begged her. "Wake up. Tell me I'm not supposed to call you that any more. Sing me one of those songs. Quit being lazy and wake up. I looked everywhere for you yesterday. I don't think I tried so hard for you even before we got together. Looking for you made me realise that I'd only ever tried to find myself. Now I've found you….". His voice trailed off and he sat down on the chair beside the bed to calm himself down. He looked down at his socks. He'd managed to choose two totally different coloured socks. How could he be so stupid? Lindsay used to laugh at him all the time for not pairing his socks up when they came out of the machine. He started to smile at the memory, and was suddenly aware of a noise from the bed.

Pain. Pain in the head, a really bad pain, something worse than even Advil could treat. And really stiff joints too. Had she been drinking? How long had she been asleep? Sun streaming in through the window. Oh boy, she was going to be so late for work, Mac was going to go mad. Time to get up and make some seriously strong coffee. She forced one eye open a bit to look for her alarm clock, but it wasn't there. This definitely wasn't her bedroom, the bed was far too soft. It didn't look like Danny's bedroom either, but she was pretty sure she'd heard his voice a minute ago. Why was Stella standing over the edge of her bed? Why were Stella's eyes red? "What happened?", Lindsay croaked. Stella smiled reassuringly. "You're in hospital, Lindsay. There was a car accident. You were in a coma, and a guy gave you a fake identity so we couldn't find you. We were all looking, all over the city. Some of us more than others". She winked across to Danny. Lindsay took a minute to take all this in. "We thought you were going to leave us", Stella whispered. Lindsay shifted and turned to face Danny. "I'm not leaving for a while", she said. "I've got things to do. I've got to find a way to stop him looking at other women". Stella laughed, walked to the door and clicked it open. "I'm going to tell the doctor you're awake", she said. "Don't move". Danny looked at Lindsay. "Think you can stop me looking at other women?", he teased. A sly smile spread across Lindsay's face. "You've not looked at another woman for months", she said. "I think you've finally met your match, and it's about time you did something about that". She watched the look on his face change to one of surprise. "Well", he admitted. "I did have one thing in mind that we could talk about…."