Chapter 5

Tim jolted awake on the floor of the hospital, Carson's head was against his chest, her arms wrapped securely around his waist, and he had his arms around her shoulders. Instead of waking up she simply snuggled closer. Damn this felt good, Tim thought. Even against the wall of hospital, with her so close, he'd gotten a good night's sleep. In the soft early morning light he got his first chance to just stare at her, without having to look away.

Her long lashes kissed the tops of her cheekbones and her skin was perfectly clear. He ran his fingers through her hair, it was as soft as silk, and so was she; while her body didn't have an ounce of fat to speak of there wasn't a hard edge to any part of her, perfect female softness. He liked that she wore simple blue jeans and navy converse and loved the way her legs looked in those jeans, vivid images of those slender thighs wrapped around him invaded his mind and he shook his head to clear his thoughts. The motion caused Carson to shift, unhooking her arms from around him and placing a hand on his chest, then to his surprise she whispered, "Tim."

No it couldn't be… could it? Was the beauty lying in his arms, who was smart (her class schedule he got a look at that first day intimidated the hell out of him) and funny actually dreaming about him? His suspicions were confirmed when she didn't wake her breathing going back to a steady pace.

Dreaming about him or not there was something Tim needed to see. He needed to get his hands on the game tapes.

He had stayed up long after she and Lyla had fallen asleep, after Buddy had come to get Lyla and they'd left. Nobody much cared where Tim was all night, strangely no one even called Carson he'd watched her phone but it had stayed silent in her back pocket. He realized then how frighteningly little he knew about her. Not her parents or anything about them, not why she'd come to Dillon, not a thing. How could he care so much about a person he knew so little about? It was a very dangerous position to be in.

'Well that's easy enough,' Tim thought, 'all I have to do is watch her laugh, talk football stats, or the way she reaches for my hand like it's a prize not an embarrassment.' But Tim knew himself, unfortunately he knew himself very well, and he knew that she should have been embarrassed to be seen with him. Girls like Carson King didn't love boys like Tim Riggins, especially not after last night.

Would she hate him when she woke up and found out? Would they say it on Panther Radio? Would his team blame him as much as he blamed himself? What about Coach – what would he possibly say? He didn't know if the Riggins' brothers even had a step down to take on the social ladder. What would happen today when the world found out it was his fault Jason would probably never walk again.

But besides what Carson thought, which he had admittingly spent a good amount of time thinking about last night, he could really give a shit about everyone else's opinions. He'd bourn his name, and all the shit that came with it, all his life and he'd survived – mostly. No there was only one another person he couldn't bear to face, and that was Jason.

Since they were two little kids on the playground the first day of kindergarten – Jason in shiny new shoes and never been wore kakis for the occasion, and Tim having to dress himself because hell if there was anyone around to help, wore Billy's old jeans and shirt both two sizes too big (well at least they covered the bruises – his dad was a mean drunk) – Jason had taken one look at Tim and had tossed him a miniature blue foam football. Tim had caught it, and right then and there Jason had declared Tim his new best bud, forever.

There was no one, no one he loved more in this world.

Tim's life was so different because of Jason. All the dark nights he'd run to Jason's house to get away from the yelling, the screaming. Every time Tim had rapped his knuckles against J's window he'd let him in. Together they would go on silent stealth missions to retrieve milk and cookies form the kitchen and they'd spend the night counting the glow-in-he-dark stars on Jason's ceiling from the fort they'd built on the floor. Never once did Jason bring up the times Tim was sure he'd heard him cry himself to sleep. His mom never got mad when she would find them in the morning she'd just make them breakfast and drive them to school. Tim loved those mornings, he'd pretend Mrs. Street was his mom and she loved them both.

The summer Tim turned eight was the same summer his mom didn't come back after she supposedly went grocery shopping one day. The beatings got worse that summer when his father drank more and didn't have other targets except him and Billy. Strangely that was Tim's favorite summer in memory.

He'd pretty much lived at the Streets house after Jason had told seen the bruises on him one night. Tim had been in awe when 8-year-old half pint, Jason went straight up to a barely sober Bud Riggins and told him Tim wouldn't be living at their house anymore. No Tim was coming home with him. And he did, it was two of the best months in his life, living with the Streets.

They had cut their fingers with Billy's pocketknife and pledged themselves blood brothers, and they had stated playing football. Which would hold them together through anything, even when they'd met a little girl with brown pigtails the next summer and they became the Three Musketeers.

So how the hell was he supposed to survive when Jason looked at him with nothing but hate for putting him in a goddamn wheel chair? He'd never been more consumed with self-loathing in his entire life. He needed a drink.

Then Carson woke up, he had to admit even in the fog of the pain she was beautiful. She looked at him and smiled, a slow lazy smile, one he imagined her having after a night in bed with him. She sat up and stretched then leaved forward to kiss him and just as her lips were about to meet his, he pulled back.

"I need to get going, I'll drop you off at home." He turned away, Carson had an amazing ability to see what he was thinking, and he couldn't let her see what going through his mind right now. Couldn't live with it later when she regretting kissing the man responsible for what happened last night.

Carson mentally went through a checklist, no bad breath, she didn't feel like she had bed-head, and she knew damn well she smelled good. So admittingly after spending the night curled up peacefully in Tim's arms she was a little confused when he pulled away from her.

But something about his mood, about how he wouldn't look her in the eye made her keep her mouth shut, "I need to get going, I'll drop you off at home."

She just nodded, what the hell was going on with him? He was being … formal. Tim was many things, formal was not among them. She followed him silently out to his truck, it was the first time since she met him, and they had gone anywhere, that he didn't take her hand. What had changed since last night on the way to the hospital? She had never felt so connected to another person in her entire life than she had with Tim last night.

He must be going through hell, worrying about Jason, Carson thought. You just need to give him his space, she told herself. But her instincts were screaming at her not to, space seemed the opposite of what he needed.

They drove in utter silence to her house on the other side of town. It was too quiet, Carson thought; as if all of Dillon was holding it's breathe. She snuck a glance at Tim; he was staring straight ahead, white-knuckling the wheel. Something was wrong, really, really wrong. This was more than just anger or sadness over Jason's accident. Something darker had a hold of Tim and wasn't letting go. But Carson was damned if she knew what it was, what changed?

He stopped in front of her house and jumped out and grabbed her door. Everything in her was telling her to stay in that car, to get him to tell her what was wrong. Yet something held her back, if she pushed him to far now, he'd cut her off at the knees, and she'd loose him. And that she couldn't bear so she let him walk her to her porch, while she looked at the ground. Her mind furiously working on what to say, just as she looked up and started with, "Tim…" his lips were on hers.

The kiss was hard and hot, his tongue probed for admittance and she opened her mouth gladly. He consumed her then, ravaging her lips. He held her tightly to him one arm around her waist, the other hand fisted in her hair. But she held her own she pressed back against him and moaned into his mouth, and just as she did he was gone. As suddenly as the kiss began it ended even more abruptly. Tim tore across the lawn and jumped into his truck slamming on the gas and skidding away.

It was only a few minutes after as she numbly searched for her keys in her black-hole of a bag, that she realized what that kiss was… it was good-bye.

Carson gasped and as if someone poured ice water through her veins she started shaking, she couldn't breathe, couldn't get enough oxygen into her lungs. She crashed to her knees on her porch holding onto the edge of the screen for support as she did something she hadn't done in a very long time – she cried. She cried for herself, for Lyla, for Jason's parents, Coach Taylor, she cried for Jason Street and all the dreams that were lost last night, but most of all she cried for Tim.

In that kiss he had shown her so much of his heart, and now she knew what she didn't before, his heart had been broken, and not by her. His heart broke for his brother, his best friend, the boy who had never let him down.

Tim only had two things on his mind as he raced away from Carson's house, those game tapes, and drinking himself into oblivion.