Hey folks! Be proud - my first Friday night off work in more than a month and I spent it writing. Only 10 percent loser, 90 percent Moonlight fiend.
Thanks for the reviews -- the rocking continues in among you awesome people.

Part Six

It hurt. Beth would have screamed if she could.

She just gagged and tried to cough the thing inside of her out, but it wouldn't move. She thrashed and that hurt more. The new pain temporarily distracted her from the thing snaking down her throat. Blinding pain in her chest, her legs, her head.

It washed away and then her mother, looking tired, older, was hovering above her. A woman she didn't know came into her line of sight.

"Sweetie, calm down," the strange woman said. Beth hated being called sweetie. Or honey. Or darling. "On three, breathe out and we'll take the tube out. One, two, three."

Beth exhaled with all the force she could muster. It felt like sandpaper on her throat and a coughing fit seized her. Wheezing and more pain. She wanted to throw up but decided that would hurt too much.

"Bethie," her mother's arms wrapped around the girl, pressing on fading bruises and barely sealed wounds.

"Mom," the scratchy whisper came from Beth. She closed her eyes. Things looked different. People looked … brighter, like they glowed a little.

Her mother burst into tears with a shudder.

"Too loud, Mom," Beth whispered. "Too much."

With that, her heavy eyes closed again.

The next thing she heard was the beeping. That incessant pattern that wouldn't go away. Without opening her eyes, she felt her mother nearby. Warm, but spring-loaded. The moment Beth moved or an eyelid trembled, she'd be back.

Her head felt ... different. Parts of it felt crystal clear, cutting through reality to what was there beneath. The rough patches of hospital sheets worked against her, the needle throbbed, the individual specks of dust floating through the air. All of it found a place in her psyche. The rhythm of her lungs and the beat of her heart were at the same time strangely new and the only constant. Beth found herself listening to them, caught up in the patterns of her own body.

But other parts were muted and bundled away from her waking self. Something had happened. Something very bad. But the only thing her addled mind could produce was pain, spiced with brief moments of relief.

The sharp pains that came with every breath finally forced her to groan.

"Baby," her mother was on her in an instant, hand on her daughter's.

"Hurt, Mom," she didn't recognize her own voice and that scared her. Her mother leaned over and pushed a button at the side of the bed. A warm rush came over her. It was better, but Beth wished for something cool to take away the pain.

Once she wasn't being sucked under the tide of her own body's pain, Beth stiffly tilted toward her mother.

"Where's Daddy? Matty?" she held her breath and urged her mother to give her the answer she wanted, not the one she feared. When she saw tears, she knew.

"Matty will be here soon. Your father..."

Beth gently squeezed her mother's hand, the one that still wore the wedding ring, the heirloom engagement ring, ones Beth begged to try on and that had only recently begun to fit her ring finger. Ones that Beth hoped her mother would never take off again.

The girl in her wanted to sob. Shudders already began in her, the white hot pain cracking at her lungs, clutching at her heart. So the grown-up part of her compromised, sending her back into oblivion.

Each time Beth woke, she lasted longer. As the physical pain ebbed, the emotional fallout crashed against her, slowly carving out a hole where her father had been, where her life had been. Nothing would be the same. She wouldn't be the same.

She didn't let anyone visit except her mother and Matt. Her brother, his face a puzzle of bruises and cuts, could barely look at his sister. They came after the funeral that Beth had to miss. They talked about daddy. They worked their way up and down the cable channels. They went through the motions of being together until Matt finally kissed Beth on the head and left for school in Colorado again.

Every day flowers appeared in the room. No nurse brought them, no one knew where they were from, but inevitably, when Beth woke from one nap or another, there they were. The first day, a huge bouquet of white roses appeared. Then tulips, followed by daisies, then sunflowers. Never signed. The mystery drove her crazy, until Beth decided to pretend they were from her father.

Her doctors ordered her to bed, forbade her to leave it for the first week, but Beth pushed and pushed. Finally, an overworked nurse lifted her into a wheelchair one night and, with an intricate dance of moving wires and machines, moved her to the window.

"I'll be back after my rounds and you're back in bed. No arguments."

She stared out into the night, which wasn't as dark as she remembered. There seemed to be more stars. For a second, a flash of a different skyline. Less smog, fewer buildings.

Beth wanted to open the window to see how that city smelled, but the glass was sealed tight. For a second, she thought of throwing one of the machines at it and shattering the damn thing.

Instead, she pressed her face against the cool surface and stared, examining block after block, not knowing what she was looking for.

The dreams came at night, but the most vivid ones were during the day. She saw eyes, flickering in color from brown to green to ice blue, watching her. Her hand felt for the person, but never closed on him. It was a him. And he was always near but never within reach.

One morning, as the sun rose high and Beth slept, she saw him. A dark ink stain of shadow clung to his face, rippling across his body. Beth moved as though she would wipe it away. He dodged her hand.

"Who are you?" Beth said plainly.

He shook his head. A hand rose to her face.

"Why can't I see you?"

"This is me."

And she woke.

Bones healed, organs pumping as they should, the hospital finally released Beth. As the wheelchair creaked down the hall, the baker's dozen of dried bouquets on her lap, fear overtook her.

Here she could hide from the truth. She could pretend her father was on a trip, that he'd be back soon. But home was where he was supposed to be and wasn't. It would be the sum of his absence -- the rich smell of his occasional cigar, mixed with after shave and soap wouldn't be there. She couldn't dial his office to ask a question about her history homework. His wallet and watch wouldn't be flung amid piles of change on coffee table.

Her mother, carrying the huge suitcase of clothes, toiletries and books Beth had accumulated while at the hospital, hurried to the car, plopped the box in and opened the door for the orderly to maneuver her broken leg into the sedan. The crutches peeked from the back seat and Beth gasped.

A boy, not much younger than her, with a fall of curly hair and dimpled grin, carrying a teddy bear to a little girl. She clutched an old-fashioned wooden set of crutches with dark leather wrapping the arms. Her face bunched up in exertion as she swung her withered legs from the bed.

"I brought you something," he plopped the bear on the bed and sat. "Where are you going?".

Beth caught her breath as she snapped back to reality.

"Are you okay?" her mother asked.

"Yeah, Mom. I'm ... fine," Beth shook the strange memory from her. It was already fading, though the boy's half-grin stayed with her.

That night in her bedroom, as Bogart took his regular place on her bed and Beth let herself cry a little, it happened again.

The window was closed. Locked. Like Wendy had shut Peter Pan out. He had a copy, an old copy. Not his original, the one his mother had turned the pages of with him at her side. But old enough to smell the way books ought to smell. He should have brought her that book.

Disturbing the unhappy cat, Beth hobbled from her bed to the window. She lifted the latch and went back to bed, letting that memory from nowhere take her into sleep.