Amy woke with a start, making an attempt to quickly sit up but stopping abruptly when her body resisted. It was daybreak, a pale light dousing the world in blue hue. Lobo sat beside the bench, tongue lolling out of his mouth from rousing his companion with a few face licks. Wincing, Amy pushed herself up more slowly, gradually working out her stiff limbs from having slept on the hard bench. For a while she sat in a daze, staring at the floor while her brain re-calibrated at a sluggish rate. In gradual snippets, the night before came back to her and she looked around to once again remind herself just how far away she really was from everything familiar to her. The weight hit her as heavily as it did each morning while she absently stroked her burgeoning belly, making a snap decision that seemed to have blossomed while she slept.
Unaware of the actual time, Amy got up to make her way quietly into the house in hopes of sleeping a couple more hours before being inevitably woken by Jack starting his day. It was the weekend, so she was betting on a later start.
Sadly, upon entering the kitchen she found Jack just placing a filter in his archaic coffee pot. He turned to watch her come in, brows raising into his disheveled hair. "You sleep out there all night?" It seemed a rhetorical question; why else would she be trying to sneak in at the crack of dawn? But Amy wasn't in the mood for her trademark snark.
"It wasn't intentional," she half grumbled, sliding into a chair at the table. "It's Saturday," she observed stupidly, watching Jack mill about his morning routine.
"Yeah," he answered, going to the fridge to take out a carton of milk and set it on the table.
"You don't sleep in on the weekends?"
"Well, I could," Jack answered her as if her questioning wasn't ridiculous. "But then there'd be a ranch full of upset critters."
"I thought there were ranch hands." She seemed to recall some mention of a Caleb, but then remembered he had quit or something. But it seemed odd to her that he would be the only help on a ranch that size. The inmates were only a weekday occurrence. Even they got the weekend off.
"There are." Jack poured himself coffee then inquired with the pot at Amy who shook her head. "Oh, I could heat some water for tea if that's better." He'd forgotten coffee wasn't a recommended beverage for pregnant women.
"No, that's okay." Amy slid from the chair. "I'm going to try and sleep a little longer." She paused in the door way. "Unless you have some chore or something you need me to do at the ass crack of dawn."
"Actually, since you mentioned it," Jack started, stirring sugar into his coffee, but stopping when he saw Amy's expression that dared him to continue. "Set your alarm for seven," he redirected, taking a sip out of the mug.
Amy nodded, "Fine," then made a B-line for her bed.

Exhausted from her rough night on the bench, and just in general, Amy passed out almost as soon as she laid down but it felt like just as quickly the alarm on her nightstand was screeching at her. Groaning and feeling worse than when she woke up before, she slammed down on the machine to shut it off and tried to fall back asleep. As it turned out she was then awake and reminded of Jack's request for her to get back up at seven to help with something. Remembering her word to herself, Amy made a great effort to get up and dressed. She made a quick stop in the kitchen to eat something light, still battling stomach discomfort, and headed outside into the rising sun.

She paused outside the barn, looking for Jack but not wanting to run into Ty again if he was still up in the loft. Unfortunately, she never seemed to have luck in that department and almost as soon as she poked her head in, Ty rounded the corner and collided with her.
Amy yelped and leaped back like a dog that was just stepped on. Ty reached out to steady her by latching onto her upper arms. "Oh, sorry!"
In a blind panic, Amy flung herself backward out of Ty's grasp, tearing his hands away from her when he instinctively gripped her tighter.
"Let go." She tripped over her own feet in her fight to get away from him and fell ungracefully to the ground.
"Jesus," he murmured, not entirely sure what just happened but reached down to help Amy off the ground, hoping she hadn't hurt herself.
"Don't touch me!" She shouted at him angrily, a mix of anxiety and embarrassment in her eyes as she recoiled from his offer to help.
Ty's hands retracted quickly at her severe reaction, finding it odd how she always went out of the way to avoid being touched. From the first moment they met, she wouldn't even shake his hand – an innocent and common human formality. At first he just thought she was being rude, but now he was noticing that it was almost like she was afraid.
"Sorry," he said again a little harsher, standing back and watching her pick herself up. "I was just trying to help you."
"Well, don't. I don't want your help." She brushed herself off, swallowing hard. Her eyes burned with a threat of tears that she tried to keep out of her voice. Her fingers trembled as she took extra time to brush the dirt from her legs, not wanting Ty to notice how badly shaken she was.
"Yeah, you make that pretty clear." Not in the mood to continue going rounds, Ty just left her standing there and went back to his business and she was glad for it.

As soon as he was in his truck, Amy ducked into the barn, taking refuge on the steps leading to the loft. They were out of the way of any frequent traffic and gave Amy a place to pull herself back together. She closed her eyes, trying to get the images Ty conjured from their encounter to stop. She rocked slowly, rubbing her temples and trying to breathe deeply and slowly to calm herself down, but all she wanted to do was cry. She was still shaking and feeling sick all over again as a chill seeped through her, cold as concrete in February, a cold she knew in her bones.

Opening her eyes, Amy hoped that looking at the barn would soothe her subconscious and remind her that she wasn't there. She was here. But when she looked down the steps saw Ty staring back at her and froze.
He was looking at her oddly, an expression she couldn't understand. Ashamed and embarrassed she got up quickly and pushed by him, Ty giving her wide berth and letting her go. He felt guilty, knowing he just witnessed something he probably wasn't ever meant to see and it bothered him a great deal. He saw her in that moment – really saw what inner demons she was fighting and so unwilling to confess.

After a beat of inner debate, he backtracked to follow after her. "Wait. Amy." Ty called out to her when he caught her striding quickly back across the driveway, arms wrapped tightly around herself, head bowed low. From the beginning Ty knew there was something not at all right with the situation and Amy was definitely hiding something. Now, having caught her in such a distressing moment of vulnerability, he wondered if her secrets weren't warranted. Something terrible seemed to haunt her; Ty saw it in her eyes the night before in the barn office and again just then. As much as he couldn't stand the girl, he wasn't without a soul, or even a heart at times.

"Amy." Ty caught up to her despite her intent to ignore him, making a move to reach out and grasp her arm to get her to stop, quickly taking his hand back before he made contact, having learned that hard lesson. Instead he moved to step in front of her, which didn't seem much better but did result in her stopping, if only long enough for her to step around him and redirect her path.
"Please don't," she pleaded with him, knowing full well what he wanted from her. She didn't want to be confronted now. She wasn't ready for it.
Ty persisted, perhaps stupidly stepping in front of her again. "Come on, Amy. I'm sorry for running into you. It wasn't on purpose. I didn't hurt you, did I?" That wasn't exactly what was concerning him, but having found her the way he did just moments after the incident he felt the need to ask.
"I'm fine," she answered generically, knowing full well she wasn't. But it wasn't Ty's fault. He wasn't the one to hurt her.
Ty studied her face despite every effort she made to avoid looking at him. "But someone did, though. Didn't they?"

Amy's jaw clenched and her eyes burned as she tried to fight an immediate threat of tears. If she didn't like Ty before, she hated him now. Her eyes glassed over as she glared at the ground, heat rising to her face as her heart pounded in her ears. Don't say it, please don't. She couldn't bear to hear it out loud.
"Let me by," she said in a very low voice, the only tone she could manage without it wavering.

Ty studied her closely. She wouldn't look at him and with her head ducked as low as it was he couldn't see much more than the tip of her nose that flared as she struggled to maintain steady breath. He waited several long moments before giving up and stepping aside, feeling like that despite receiving no verbal confirmation, he'd just discovered Amy's dark secret and why she found herself at Heartland's door.