June 29th

The sun sends beams of light into the room when Greg opens his eyes. He blinks, slowly comes awake. Sarah isn't there, but the pillow under his head is still placed where she put it, and he has the sense she hasn't been gone for long. His guess is confirmed when there's a knock at the door and her soft voice says "It's me." She comes in with two mugs of coffee and some buttered toast, puts them on the nightstand by his bed, takes a mug for herself and sits down on the easy chair. "Good morning. I brought you something so you can take your meds." She looks a little tired.

"You were here all night?" He sits up slowly and holds his ruined thigh out of reflex.

"Most of it," Sarah says. There is no resentment in her quiet words, just simple statement of fact. "I went out on the couch for a couple of hours and came back in around sunrise. When it looked like you were starting to wake up I thought it would be a good idea to get you something to eat." She sips her coffee. "How's the pain?"

"Two," he says, a little surprised to find it that low—practically nonexistent by his standards. "Your hip's bothering you." He's noticed she favors it a bit.

"It's fine, just a little morning stiffness. I had Diane check it out last week. There are some arthritic changes on both sides, slightly worse on the side I bruised, but nothing out of the ordinary for a woman my age." She lowers the mug. "We need to talk about how you burned your leg."

Damn. He'd hoped she wouldn't go after him for that. "Nothing to talk about," he says in a pathetic attempt at nonchalance.

"We both know the TENS unit is a prescribed method of treatment, even if it isn't an actual drug. You didn't come to Gene or Roz or me about your pain, you decided to self-medicate. That's an addict's reaction." She says it without condemnation, but the truth is still there.

"Stands to reason, then."

"Yes and no," she says, still without judgment. "You're an addict. But reason had nothing to do with this. This was fear, plain and simple. Still is." She reaches out, takes his hand in hers. "Isn't it?"

He looks away. After some time he gives one slow nod. Her hand tightens on his gently.

"Do you trust me?"

"It's not that simple—"

"Yes it is." Her hold stays steady. "What do you think would happen if you came to me and said 'I'm scared'?"

"You'd hold me tight so I could feel your boobs?"

"Only if your name is Gene Goldman." At the sound of her soft laugh the tension in the room lightens somewhat. Greg faces her. She watches him with that warm, steady regard he always finds so inexplicable, and yet it's as precious to him as gold to a miser. "What do you think would happen?" she asks again.

"I don't know," he says finally.

"Yes you do. You're afraid I'll get mad or push you away, or ridicule you because you're scared." She shakes her head. "I haven't done that, and I won't. No one else here has done that either, and they won't."

"You can't guarantee someone else's behavior."

"In this one instance I can." He doesn't answer. "I'm not saying the world at large won't give you grief. But those closest to you, the ones who know and love you, they won't." Sarah says it slow and quiet, gives him time to think about her words. "You keep pushing us away. When we try again you push harder. Eventually we're so distant you can't see us anymore, and then you decide we've abandoned you and you were right all along."

"Might as well get it over with," he says. "It'll happen sooner or later. It—it always does."

"Hasn't happened here." Sarah's soft words remind him that she took him back after he hurt her deeply, whether she deserved it or not. "How about it doesn't happen at all? Give us a chance. We love you, we care about you and we want to help."

"Why?" It's the question he's asked from the beginning, when he sat in Sarah's office in Mayfield, and watched her watch him. "Why do you—" He stops because he can't bring himself to say the words.

"Why do I care about you?" She tilts her head. "I think at the moment it's more important to refute the statement you've been shouting at us since day one."

"Which is?" he snaps when she doesn't go on.

"You're not worth loving, so we might as well walk away."

That's a direct hit. He pulls his hand away.

"There's plenty to love about you." Sarah's soft voice is like a surgeon's scalpel; with one clean, deep stroke she cuts away the scar tissue and opens the old wound, though her intent is to heal, not harm—he knows that much even as he steels himself against the pain to come. "But you've decided it's better to be unloved, to lock away everything that makes you human, than to risk getting hurt again. Now I'll give you this, you've gone through a hell of a lot of misery, son. The people around you who should have loved you right, they didn't. They abused, rejected and abandoned you because they're flawed and weak and all too human. So it's understandable that you'd think everyone is the same way." She actually dares to reach out and reclaim his hand. He's too astonished by her boldness to push her away. "The people closest to you here, Roz, me, Gene—we won't do that. We might get mad, hurt, upset, but we won't stop loving you."

"Unconditional love," he sneers. "That's a crock and you know it."

"Do I?" She smiles at him. "Then how do you explain my actions with you?" He's silent, as his gaze drops away from hers. "Sometimes the only way to do something is to just do it. In this case, it's giving us a chance to show you we can be trusted." Her thumb strokes the back of his hand. "You've made a good start with me, I'll give you that and well done, but I'm not the important one. I'd suggest you concentrate on Roz."

"She can't stand the sight of me," he mutters. He knows he's being childish, and yet he's unable to help himself.

"She loves you deeply and is scared to death she'll do something so wrong you'll walk away for good." When he lifts his head to deny this Sarah smiles just a little, her sea-green eyes bright. "Gotcha."

He stares at her. "That's so not fair."

"Nope," she agrees cheerfully. "You and Roz are alike in some ways. You both had terrible childhood experiences with your parents, you're convinced you're not worth a plugged nickel, and you value action above words." She sips her coffee. "Eat your toast so you can take your meds."

"Power-tripping control freak," he throws at her, but he does as she suggests.

"Never said I wasn't," she laughs. "Back to the issue at hand. Roz is trying hard to show you she cares by working herself into the ground on the clinic. When she goes out there and spends another two or three hours working on top of a ten or twelve hour day, that's her way of saying 'I love you'."

"It's her way of being a martyr," he says around a mouthful of toast.

"Roz has never done this for anyone else," Sarah says. Greg pauses with the last corner of toast halfway to his mouth. "Never," she adds for emphasis. "Rick Hutch asked her once to rewire his ovens—oh shut up," she says when he raises his brows. "The man does own a bakery. He wanted it done for free because they were dating on and off back then. She laughed in his face and told him he'd pay union rates or get someone else. He was so pissed off he gave her a dozen burnt doughnuts and told her to get the hell out of his establishment. She told him to shove his ovens and that was that."

Greg chews his toast as he absorbs this tasty tidbit of information, and the new conclusions it offers.

"When she offers to help, let her." Sarah gives his hand a little squeeze and lets go. "Start with that and see what happens." She finishes her coffee and stands up, stretches. "Come out when you're ready, I'm making blueberry pancakes and sausage for breakfast."

He has cause to remember her words a short time later when Roz shows up just as he's ready to change the dressing on his thigh. The burns are already nearly healed, just a few blisters still to deal with.

"Could I . . . do you need some help?" She stands just inside the doorway, looks uncertain and concerned and really cute with her hair ruffled from sleep and her tank top tucked half in, half out of her sleep pants. Greg pats the spot next to him.

"Sit."

It turns out she does most of the work while he watches; he'd forgotten she took care of her own dressings at home after her accident. As a consequence she's thorough, neat and fast. While she tapes the pad in place he stares at her burned arm. The scars lost their raw pinkness long ago and are pale silver now, fading to her natural color, but they'll always be noticeable. Slender muscles move under the damaged skin and he thinks she understands what it's like to hurt before he leans in and kisses her cheek. Startled, she turns her face to his. Her green eyes are soft, a little sleepy. He kisses her again, this time his lips against hers, and feels her arms steal around him, to hold him close.

It's some time later when they stroll into the kitchen together, sated and comfortable enough to hold hands. They find everything kept warm in the oven, while the kitchen radio plays and Sarah labors in the garden to pull weeds and water the tomato and pumpkin hills, her bright curls tugged by a soft breeze.