I do not own any of the characters and am just taking them out to play.

Chapter 19

Hawke slowly woke up the next morning to sounds and smells coming from the kitchen area. He smiled as he thought about Cait being out there fixing him something to eat. It was typical of her—wanting to take care of him. It was going to break his heart to drive her away like he had driven everyone else away, but he needed to do it.

'Might as well get on with it,' he thought.

Slowly he maneuvered himself to sit up on the bed and then to get into the wheelchair. Moving slowly to the bathroom so that he could get himself going. About half an hour later, he wheeled the chair into the kitchen area and was surprised when there was no one there.

Instead he found a note propped up by the coffee pot telling him that Cait and Nicky had already eaten pancakes and had gone for a walk, and he could fix himself eggs if he wanted anything.

Darn, pancakes sounded good, but he'd have to settle for eggs, so he set about fixing them.

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An hour later, Cait and Nicky came back to the cabin. From the looks of it, they had enjoyed their walk immensely as they came back in laughing.

Hawke hated to do this, but he had to, "Where have you two been?"

"Oh, Nicky and I went out for a walk around the lake. It was beautiful! Saw a couple of deer while we were out. Got a great picture of Nicky trying to catch them," Cait said as she handed Nicky over to Hawke so she could take out her camera and show him the shot.

"I was supposed to start therapy half an hour ago," he groused on trying to ignore her, but secretly wanting to see the picture.

"Oh, I just figured I'd start that as soon as I got back. I really did need to take Nicky out and get him tired before I started therapy with you otherwise he would be interrupting us every two seconds," Cait continued.

Finally, finding the picture on her camera, she brought it over to show Hawke. He pretended like he didn't want to see it.

"Well, I'm going to have it made into a picture so I can put it up somewhere," Cait finished. "You ready to start therapy?"

"I've been ready for an hour and a half."

"All right, let's get started."

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Two hours later, Hawke was exhausted. She had really put him through the workouts. It had helped that Nicky had insisted on being a part of the therapy and had given Hawke some extra work and weight.

Cait smiled as she picked everything up and put it away. "You ready for some lunch?"

"Yeah, those eggs weren't enough to fill me up this morning especially after the way you worked me out."

"Next time get up at a reasonable hour and Nicky might share some pancakes with you. Though I wouldn't count on it as that's his favorite breakfast," Cait said as she turned to Nicky. "Nicky, what would you like for lunch?"

"Hamburgler."

"You want a hamburger?" Cait asked him back.

Nicky nodded vigorously indicating it was a favorite meal of his.

"How about that and a salad?"

Again Nicky nodded.

"Okay, Hawke, we're having hamburgers and a salad. Which of those will you eat?" Cait asked knowing full well that Hawke was a vegetarian.

"Salad and fish," he growled out.

"You'll get the salad, but not the fish. Nicky hasn't been taught to fish yet so we don't have any on hand. Sorry," Cait said as she turned away so Hawke wouldn't see her smile.

"Fix me the same thing you're fixing for him," he said as he rolled the wheelchair back towards his room. "Damn woman, getting me to eat what she's feeding him," he said under his breath.

"Oh, Hawke," Cait yelled from the kitchen, "after Nicky has his nap, you can take him out and teach him how to fish. No one's ever shown him how."

Hawke went back to his room and slammed his door shut.

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After lunch, Hawke went back to his room to lie down to recover from his vigorous therapy session. Closing his eyes, he got about two minutes of peace before Cait came into his room and deposited Nicky on the bed beside him.

"Since you're going to nap, I'll let you watch Nicky while he takes his nap so I can get some things done," she said as she went out of the room shutting the door behind her.

Hawke looked down at Nicky who didn't really look like he was going to take a nap anytime soon. "Yeah, all of the sudden, I'm not too interested in taking a nap either."

"Story."

"You want a story? I'll tell you one that will get your mother all upset with me!" Hawke said as he started a story. Part way into it, he realized that he couldn't tell Nicky the story the way he had planned to so he changed the story so that it was more appropriate for a young child.

When Nicky fell asleep, he couldn't help snuggling up to him. It wasn't his fault that Cait was being such a stick in the mud.

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An hour later, Cait peeked into the room and found the two of them asleep. Hawke had his arms protectively around Nicky snuggling with him.

Cait smiled knowing that she had won a round with Hawke. She didn't know how many more she would have to win before she won him over, though.

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Later that day, he went to fish, but refused to take Nicky with him. When he came back with three trout, Cait fixed them for supper.

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The first week went by quickly with Hawke trying hard to push Cait away. Unfortunately for him, she wouldn't go.

Every opportunity he had to aggravate her, he did, but she just stayed. Cait kept trying to get him to help out more with Nicky, but he held out with him too. Not wanting to get too involved.

After supper one night, Cait was out trying to teach Nicky to fish. She kept trying to bait the hook without touching the worm. After watching her from the porch for about 15 minutes, Hawke finally maneuvered his wheelchair down to the dock and took over. Explaining patiently to Nicky how you baited the hook.

Cait watched for a few minutes and then went back up to the cabin. Another mission accomplished as she really did know how to bait a hook and could very well teach Nicky how to do it. 'Things are progressing nicely,' she thought with a smile.