"George, please stop tapping your foot, it's driving me crazy.''

"Sorry Holly, I'm just anxious.''

There was a brief pause, and then-

"George!''

"Sorry, sorry! I don't realise I'm doing it.''

Lucy opened her eyes, blinking rapidly as her vision adjusted to the light.

She immediately heard the scraping of cheers and suddenly she was surrounded.

"Luce!"

"Oh my God, Lucy, thank goodness!''

"You look like crap, Luce.''

That last voice belonged to Kipps, Lucy discovered as she struggled into an upright position, wincing at the sharp pain in her side.

She was sitting in what appeared to be a hospital bed in the centre of a small, grey room, mostly taken up by her friends and shelves of medical supplies.

Recalling her last memories she reached down to her side, where she could feel a line of stitches through the thin material of the hospital gown she was wearing.

"Owww,'' she groaned. "I feel like I've been hit by a truck.''

Kipps, Holly and George, clustered around her bed, were grinning in apparent relief.

The only person not standing at her bedside was the one person she wanted to see most. Lockwood was nowhere in sight.

"What happened?'' Lucy asked to hide her disappointment. "Not the getting shot bit, I'm well aware of that. I mean after.''

Kipps cleared his throat uncertainly.

"Well we got you in the ambulance, but you were out cold. Honestly Luce, it was scary. You'd lost a lot of blood, and you were so pale and not moving….'' He exhaled sharply as he trailed off, before gathering himself again.

"Anyway, they brought you to this place, it's some kind of local hospital. Lockwood was a mess, covered in your blood, arguing with the nurses when they wouldn't let him go with you into the room where the doctors were working on you. After awhile he just went all quiet and cold and wouldn't say anything. I couldn't take it any more, so I went out to find George and Holly.''

"We'd just finished up at the church when we saw Kipps running up the road looking like a madman,'' George picked up the story. "He told us what happened and we raced back here. He's right about Lockwood, he was scary quiet. I've never seen him like that.''

"It was awful,'' Holly said with a shudder. "We sat in the waiting room with him for hours. Eventually a nurse came out and said you'd lost a lot of blood and gone into shock, but they managed to stabilise you and sew you back up. Apparently the bullet went through your side but didn't hit anything. She said you were really lucky.''

Lucy winced again. "Yeah, I'm feeling really lucky right now.''

"You should, it could've been way worse,'' Holly replied. "They believe you might even be able to get out of here tomorrow, as long as you rest loads and be careful.''

Well, that was some good news at least. Lucy hated hospitals, with all their weird smells and beeping equipment. They were too…cold and sterile for her liking.

"Kipps, I don't suppose you managed to get a good look at the bastard who shot me?''

Kipps scowled. "Sorry, no. He was big, tall and broad, that much I can say. But he was wearing some kind of balaclava so I couldn't see his face.''

"Now that you're back in the land of the living, we might head out and start chasing up some leads, see if anyone living near the school has seen anyone strange hanging around lately,'' George said.

"You think the man who shot me is the same person who dug up the source at the school?''

"It would make sense,'' he replied. "Kipps said he was carrying a big rucksack, and he was creeping around in the middle of the night.''

Sighing, Lucy scanned the room again. She couldn't avoid the question any longer.

'Okay, that sounds like a good start. You should get some rest first though, you guys must be exhausted. Er….I don't suppose anyone knows where Lockwood is?''

Her three friends exchanged glances.

"He left about an hour ago,'' Holly said carefully. "I think he just needed a break from the hospital. We can go and find him, if you'd like?''

Lucy nodded, and after a couple of careful hugs, the three of them filed out of the room and left her alone.

Over the next hour, two nurses came in and checked Lucy's blood pressure and heart rate, changed her bandages, gave her some more pain medication (which she accepted gratefully), and pronounced her to be doing about as we as could be expected.

She was allowed to get up and go to the bathroom, which she did on wobbly, weak legs. A bag of basic toiletries had been left by one of the nurses, and she felt much more like herself after a quick wash and brush of her teeth. The Lucy staring back at her from the small bathroom mirror looked even more pale than usual, but at least she was alive.

And, it transpired, feeling more outraged by the minute.

How dare someone shoot her! It was ridiculously unfair. You trained for so many hours with a blade, carried every weapon conceivable to protect against the undead, and then some prick blasts a hole in your side with the pull of a trigger. How the hell was she supposed to have fighting chance against that?

As she was mulling over the injustice of it all, the door to her room swung open again. Her irritation turned to concern as Lockwood entered. He was walking slowly, like he was half in a daze.

Lucy was so shocked by his appearance that she almost called the nurses back in.

Lockwood looked like he'd aged a decade in the past 24 hours. His hair was sticking up at odd ends, a dark contrast to his pale skin and the deep circles under his eyes.

He had managed to get a change of clothes at least, she was relieved to see.

He dropped his rapier on one of the empty chairs as he moved to her bedside. His eyes bore into her face like he was trying to memorise it.

"Hey,'' she said with a small smile, trying to reassure him.

He reached out and stroked her face once, gently, before taking her hand with slightly shaking fingers.

"How….how are you feeling?'' He asked.

Lucy shrugged, and was pleased to note there was no pain attached to the movement. The painkillers were clearly doing their job.

"I've been better, I've been worse. The nurses seem happy, and whatever is in those little white pills they've been giving me is working. All things considered, I'm okay. Where have you been?''

She tried to stop the question from sounding like an accusation, but he must have sensed something in her voice because he flinched. Lucy couldn't help it, though. She had to admit, she was a little hurt he had not been there when she woke up. It was now early afternoon, and their friends had gone to find him hours ago.

"I'm sorry, Luce. I really am. I just couldn't bear it any longer,'' he said, his voice breaking. "I couldn't sit and watch you lying there, not knowing if you were going to wake up. I had to get out, or I was going to go mad.''

Lucy squeezed his hand gently, her heart hurting.

"Where did you go?'' She asked gently.

"I don't know, really,'' he shook his head. "I just walked in loops around the village, for hours. I ended up back near the Bluebell at some point, so I went to clean up and get changed. I think I gave Agnes a heart attack when she saw me, I was still covered in….I was a mess.

"George, Holly and Kipps must've called in there at one point looking for me, and they'd left a message with Agnes in case I turned up. Once she told me that you were awake, I came back here as soon as I could.''

"I'm glad,'' Lucy have his hand another squeeze. "I missed you. Are you okay?''

Lockwood took a deep shuddering breath and then grinned, although there wasn't a lot of humour in.

"Am I okay? Lucy, you're the one who got shot. You could have died, do you get that?''

Suddenly he was half shouting, his eyes wild.

"I was holding you, and I thought you were dying! You lost so much blood, and I couldn't get you to open your eyes, Lucy! I begged you! And then they brought you here and whisked you away and I thought the last time I saw you alive was going to be on that footpath. They had to stitch you back together and pump you full of drugs, all because I told us to split up!''

Yanking his hand away, he turned around and kicked out angrily at one of the chairs, knocking it against the wall. Lucy was stunned. She had seen him angry, seen him furious, really. But this was different. This was….fear. And Lockwood showing fear was something very alien to her.

"Lockwood, please, calm down,'' she said evenly. "I'm okay, honestly. And what happened wasn't your fault! It made sense to split up to search the property. It could just as easily have been you or Kipps, I was just unlucky.''

He was leaning against the wall, breathing heavily, and she could tell he was unconvinced. Her heart sank as she saw the despair in his eyes. He was torturing himself, as she had suspected he would.

"Please don't make me get up and come over to you, the nurses will tell me off and one of them looks a bit too close to death for me to risk upsetting her,'' she said quietly.

After a long moment, Lockwood's shoulders sagged. Lucy shifted across in the bed to make room for him. She knew they both needed to be close to each other at that moment.

After a brief hesitation, he slid carefully onto the bed and wrapped his arms around her gently from behind. Lucy could feel his body shaking.

"I can't lose you, Luce,'' he whispered in her ear. "I couldn't bear it. You're like oxygen to me.''

"That's how I feel about you. Every time you take a crazy risk or throw yourself headfirst into danger, I worry that I'm going to lose you.''

"I know. I'm sorry.''

Lucy sighed and pulled his arms more tightly around her, ignoring the stiffness in her side from the tight bandages.

"I know you can't help it. It's one of the many reasons I fell in love with you.''

She felt his lips brush against her hair.

"I've lost count of the reasons why I love you.''

And that was how their friends found them when they returned to the hospital that evening, two pale sleeping figures curled up together under the thin hospital sheets.