Flame

***

The house was still and quiet in the morning light and I wondered what had woken me up. I should have been up already, but I was putting off going to the hospital til the last possible moment. That was the part of me that couldn't bear seeing Alex lying there like a corpse anymore. But the other side of that was that I couldn't bear leaving him alone either.

Then a heard a soft footstep in the corridor, and I sat up, catching sight of Dorsey watching me from the corridor, Blackheath lurking behind.

"Dorsey!"

She ran over and squeezed me hard.

"You poor bub," she hissed, pressing her cheek against my head.

"I'm alright," I said, hoping to conjure a smile from my unaccustomed cheeks, "hang on a sec, I have to call Bhask."

"I'm going to see Alex before I leave," Dorsey said, glancing at me, and then Blackheath. There was no argument with that tone of voice. I nodded as the phone rang.

"I'm going to be a bit late today, I'm bringing Dorsey-"

"Dorsey!"

"Yeah I'll tell you about it later. Do you want me to call work?"

"No, I'll tell them, they won't mind, they know about…"

We both struggled to talk around these things to painful to mention.

"Ok. I'll call you as soon as we get to the carpark."

***

It wasn't til we were in the sanctity of the hospital lift that Dorsey began to talk.

"Thank so much for everything," she started, "If he hadn't found you…" she struggled to convey what she couldn't say. I smiled at her, knowing the feeling.

"So don't take this the wrong way," she said, looking away for a moment then holding me firm in her gaze.

"I don't want you to be alone with him. Blackheath. Ever."

The intensity of her feeling surprised me, but not her words.

"He said you'd say something like that."

"Oh he did, did he? What did he say, exactly?"

"That… that you didn't trust him."

Her gaze shifted through me and became furious.

"Well he's right, there," she hissed.

"He said he would never hurt me, Dorsey."

"And you believe him?"

It wasn't like Dorsey to be like this. Not about Blackheath. My words faltered in my throat.

"The reason I left him… it was about you."

"Dorsey, you were half a world away, how was he ever going to be a danger to me?"

"Please just shut up."

She kicked lightly and repetitively at the side of the lift where it met the floor.

"I had a kid with him. A little girl. And I came home one day, and I find… I find he's teaching her how to swim."

A little girl, I thought, stunned, Dorsey had had a little girl…

"How to swim?" Was that bad? Bhask had taught Ayasha how to swim…

"He swims like a fish, Flame," she said, her words attacking the lift wall too, "So don't go telling me he didn't pull the trigger or any crap that like. He watched you drown and he was just going to sit there and let you die."

I couldn't say a thing, and the lift carried us higher in silence.

***

"Mum?" the lift doors had opened and Bhask was waiting for me, looking worried, "You ok?"

I realized I was standing there alone.

I heard a hard slap come from Alex's room and Dorsey bursting into tears. Bhask and I hurried past the horrified Healing staff.

"She hit him!" they told me, disturbed.

"Yeah, sorry, she's been a bit stressed lately. She'll be ok," I tried to smile convincingly, sidling into the room and shutting the door, while Bhask sat next to Dorsey, putting his arm around her. Yashie was glaring at her furiously, perched as usual by Alex's side. I went and joined them, sitting on Alex's other side, rubbing Yashie's back gently.

"Sorry. Shouldn't have done that," Dorsey mumbled, "I just didn't think he'd look so… gone."

I took a quiet breath, forcefully pushed everything to the back of my mind and selected one problem at a time.

"Ok, Dorsey. I'm kind of reeling here. I don't, um… You have a daughter…?"

She nodded.

"And…and you left her?"

"I left Blackheath. She stayed with him."

"But she's… a baby? Right?"

"It's where she belonged. You know how we always used to joke about Alex training Yashie up to be some kind of mindless, obedient soldier? Well, that's what she's like with him. She does anything he says, doesn't even think about it… Jesus, Flame, how can you just talk like he's not here?

I let my eyes slide to Alex's face and my fingers touched his forehead gently.

"Ok sorry," Dorsey said more softly, "You're doing the whole run away so you can cope thing. Right." She sighed, running her hands through her hair and holding her head.

"I knew he'd look after her," she murmured, "At least, I thought he would…"