A/N-

This is my first ever fanfic so I hope y'all like it! if you have any ideas or any tips or pointers let me know! Also I would love to have a beta reader for this as I am pretty good at editing myself but another set of eyes is always good!

Disclaimer: I own nothing except any original characters.

Maggie sat by the window watching the road as they drove away to aid their brother and probably she thought, to get themselves killed. She just sat upstairs listening for the gunfire she knew was coming. When she heard the first shots she decided she could no longer sit and wait to hear that Forrest and his brothers have been hurt or worse...

NO!

She couldn't, wouldn't think of that. So she went downstairs and began doing her daily tasks to open the station. She tried to block out the sounds of gunfire just down the road but she couldn't block it out entirely. She was in despair, all she wanted was to spend the rest of her days with Forrest. However, that seems like it would never happen because danger was always finding him, trying to take him from her.

She was just about to turn on the grill and open the station when Sheriff Hodges drove up like a bat out of hell and ran to the door screaming,

"Ms Beauford! Ms Beauford!"

He was also pounding his fist on the door. She walked to the door and unlocked it allowing the Sheriff to step inside.

"What is it I can do for you Sheriff?" Maggie asked trying to keep herself calm; knowing full well why the sheriff was here.

"Forrest... Forrest and Jack and Danny are headed to the hospital. Howard... He... He asked me to come tell you..." The sheriff managed to sputter out.

Maggie felt her heart drop Forrest was headed to the hospital and death was most likely knocking at his door yet again. Everything in her body yearned to run out the door and rush to the hospital to be with him and see him again. But there was another part of her that was angry that he had yet again put himself in harms way. Yes, she knew he had gone to protect his brother, his family, but still she was angry.

"How bad are they? " She asked quietly.

"Jack took one shot to the belly; Danny well I ain't sure he'll make it halfway to the hospital, and Forrest, well, Forrest took four shots total... But hell he's Forrest ain't he. He'll make it... " The sheriff said all this while looking at his hat that he had been fiddling with since he arrived.

Maggie felt as if she could no longer move. Forest's legend was still there but, she knew that it was mostly a lie and hearing that he had been shot to hell she knew she could no longer stay there.

She had to get him. She had to be by his side. She had to let him know that what she had said earlier was a lie; she would forever be there with him, no matter what. Because she loves him and wherever he is that's where she should be.

She politely nodded to the sheriff and then told him lightly,

"Thank you Sheriff. I need to go now if you don't mind. "

He looked at her intently and nodded as he walked out the door and got in his car. Maggie ran around as quickly as possible to shut down everything in the station. She ran out the door and locked it; making sure the closed sign was up.

As she got into her car her eyes were drawn to the bloodstains that she had never quite been able to get out from that night when she had driven Forrest, with his throat cut open, to the hospital praying the whole way that he would make it. She started the car and drove straight to the hospital as quickly as she could.

Howard was sitting in the waiting area as anxious as he had ever been. He had yet again failed to protect his brothers and now they were both in the hospital undergoing surgery and he was fine, not a scratch on him, nothing. He was ashamed. He wanted to find a jar of whiskey and drown his shame but he couldn't leave. He couldn't leave his brothers there with no one. He fidgeted in his seat and shook his knee which held his hat. He looked up anxiously as a nurse walked by, but said nothing. He sighed. He really was in need of some mule to calm his nerves. Just then he heard the pitter-patter of heels on the tile floor. He looked up and saw Maggie walking swiftly towards him. She looked as though she might break. When she reached him, he stood to greet her. She pulled him into a hug which surprised him. He stood awkwardly as she held him,not knowing quite what to do. She released him and looked up at him.

"Howard what do you know? How are they? Where's Forrest?"

she asked as quickly as a whippoorwill call. He took a deep breath and looked at his hat while he said,

"Danny's gone... Forrest an' Jack are in surgery; they ain't tellin me nothin so I don't know nothin more."

She took a deep breath and nodded.

"You stay here, Howard. I'm gonna go see if I can't get these folks to tell us somethin more."

With that she walked towards a nurse sitting at a desk.

"Excuse me",

Maggie said politely to the nurse bent over what looked to be charts. The woman looked up and saw Maggie standing there and smiled.

"Yes ma'am. What can I do for ya?" She said her accent thick.

"I was wondering if you couldn't let us..." gesturing back to Howard on the chair he was now slumped in. "... know what is going on with the Bondurant boys?" The nurse stared back at her confused.

"I'm sorry ma'am I can only discuss things like that with members of their family."

Maggie looked at her incredulously and then shot her eyes dramatically to Howard's slumped form.

"That would be Howard their older brother so would you please discuss it with him!

Maggie was irritated now, all she wanted was to know if he was alive; if she would be able to see and touch him again. The nurse looked to Howard and then back to Maggie and nodded,
"Yes ma'am I can; let me just go get an update for y'all."

Maggie smiled and walked back to Howard.

They waited there for a few agonizing minutes until the nurse appeared again. Howard stood up as she made her way to them. He held his hat in his hands and twisted it around. Maggie wondered fondly wether Forrest had picked up that behavior from Howard or the other way around. The nurse offered a small sympathetic smile and then began speaking,

"Sir your brothers are both stable for the moment. Jack is out of surgery and it looks as though he will heal just fine."

She paused and Maggie could literally feel her heart pounding all through out her body. The nurse took a deep breath and continued,

"Forrest is still in surgery they're trying to remove as many of the bullet fragments as possible and then he will go to a room to recover. It will be a waiting game however as he has lost a lot of blood and we don't know for sure if he will make it through; but he is strong and we are hopeful"

Howard nodded at this news and all Maggie could hope for was that he could make it through yet another life threatening event.

"If you wanna go see your brother he's in room seven just down that a way"
she said while pointing down the hall she had just come from

"I'll keep you posted on Forrest condition and let you know as soon as you can see him"

she said this looking more towards Maggie then Howard. Howard nodded and the nurse scurried away to resume her work. Howard looked down at Maggie as if asking if she would like to join him in going to see Jack. Maggie waved him off and said quietly,

"I'm gonna try to get ahold of Bertha and let her know what happened. She'll want to be here when he wakes and he'll want to see her; it may be the only way to keep him in that damn bed."

She smirked at the last part as it was entirely true Jack would want nothing but to see Bertha the moment he woke and he would most likely cause himself more damage to try and go see her. Howard nodded and stalked off towards the room the nurse had indicated. Maggie got the attention of another nurse who was at the counter now and asked kindly,

"May I use your telephone there's someone we need to try and get here?"

The nurse smiled and handed Maggie the phone. Maggie tried the feed store first knowing that they had a phone and probably knew if there was any way of reaching the Minnix's out at their farm. When the shopkeeper answered she explained her problem; he informed her that there were no phones on the property but that if it was an emergency he could always send his son to deliver a message. Maggie was suddenly grateful for small town kindness and hospitality.

"Yes that would be lovely if you could just have him tell Bertha and no one else that she is needed at the Rocky Mount Hospital as soon as possible and that it's related to Jack?"

She waited for the answer on the other line.

"Yes Ma'am I'll send him right away." She thanked the man for his kindness and hung up.

She then decided to go to see Jack herself and also to check in on Howard. The Bondurant boys had become like family to her and she already thought of the two of them as her brothers and she was worried sick for Jack. She walked through the doorway to the room and found Howard leaning against one of the corners, she looked at him and gave him a look of sympathy that she knew would do him no good. She sat down in the chair next to Jack's bed and let her mind drift. She thought of her life before Franklin County, before Forrest. She had been but a shadow of a person back then not truly alive but not dead either. Then she had found Forrest and it was as if her world had suddenly gone from black-and-white to technicolor in one foul swoop of his brooding glare and quiet grunts. She then began to think on her time with Forrest. She thought back to that first night when she had come to him in the night and they had given themselves to one another and tied themselves together forever. She also thought about a couple of nights ago, before everything happened with Cricket, when Jack and Howard had been out and Maggie had finally gotten Forrest to dance with her. She only hoped she would get that chance again. She was pulled from her thoughts by the sound of a woman clearing her throat in the doorway, she looked up, at the same time Howard moved out of the corner.

"Pardon me, but Forrest has made it out of surgery and has been moved into the room next door. Y'all are welcome to go in and sit with him if you like but should he wake make sure he don't sit up or he could pull out his stitches." She smiled softly as she said this and then continued, "Also there's a Bertha Minnix out front insists that she be let in to see Jack here, wanted to make sure you knew before we let her come back."

Maggie smiled softly as she rose from her seat and took Jack's hand in hers and gave it a quick squeeze.

"Thank you... I'm sorry but i never caught your name...?"
"Ella" the nurse replied
"Thank you Ella. Please send Bertha back she'll be the only one other than Forrest to keep this one in line" she smiled and walked past the young nurse and went into the room next door where the man who held her heart lay fighting for his life in a hospital bed.

As she walks into the room she sees Forrest laying in the same position he had been in all those months ago. He was still with his hands folded over his chest gently, he was extremely pale and his breathing was labored but something in Maggie told her that he was strong enough to get through this. She walks straight over to the chair next to the bed and pulls it up closer to the bedside. Before she sat she brushed her hand over Forrest's check gently and placed a soft kiss to his forehead.

"I'm here Forrest. I a'int never leaving you, not never" she said sweetly.

Maggie took one of Forrest's hands in hers and sat down in the chair next to the bed.

A/N

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thanks for reading