It was 2011, and Gale had been married to Dewey Riley for just at ten years. Life with him in Woodsboro had been quiet for the past decade, so much so that she sometimes dared to think that the last of the Ghostface deaths had finally been over with back in Hollywood. If she was being honest, it was a little too quiet for her liking, but Dewey had made sheriff at last after all his hard work, and it would be selfish to begrudge him that.
Then again, Gale had always been at least a little selfish. She was proud of Dewey, though, and she truly wanted his happiness, even if it meant that sometimes, she was bored out of her mind.
But now with Sidney's return to Woodsboro to promote her book, the murders had started again after all these years- and her husband the sheriff actually refused to let her help with the investigation.
One thing Gale Weathers-Riley could not stand was being sidelined, especially in something she happened to be an expert at, such as tracking down, identifying, and eliminating murderers. Even more especially by her own damn husband.
She might be a civilian, but as she had pointed out- as she should not have to point out- she had literally written the book on the previous three cycles of Ghostface murders. She had researched the five previous killers and their life history, analyzed them enough to theorize psychological profiles of each, and helped solve the murders themselves, in addition to managing to survive being murdered herself. She might not be Sidney Prescott, the ultimate Final Girl in every sense of the word, but she was no unimportant side piece, and no offense intended to her husband, but she was no Dewey Riley either.
Dewey had been stabbed nine times. Gale had been shot once. There were clearly some major factors that went into that in her opinion, one of them being that she was far less trusting of everyone around her from day one and far less likely to get distracted from her goals. And her goal right now, every bit as much as Dewey's, was to identify and stop the killer or killers before they got to anyone else. She didn't have to be the fucking sheriff to be on the same page with that- probably about ten pages ahead of him.
With Sidney staying with her cousin Jill, who seemed to be the main focus of this round of deaths, in order to better protect her and her aunt Kate, Gale had no intention of sitting around waiting for Dewey and his rookies to get their act together and track the bastards down. Even if he had more or less told her that was what she had to do. They had been married ten years now- surely by now he should know that one way to make her far more determined to do something was to tell her not to.
But she was proactive, not stupid. She wasn't about to walk alone into a barn full of crazy horror movie fans, pumped up on blood, booze, and bad movies, with every single one of them a potential killer. So she brought with her the one person who nearly always joined her in getting pissed off and defiant when Dewey told her to stay out of the way- his sister, Tatum.
It had been fifteen years since Gale first met Tatum Riley, attached at the hip to a teenaged Sidney Prescott. She had dismissed the girl as a typical snarky teenager, as much of an asshole as all the rest of Sidney's friends and just as useless to spend extended time around. The dislike had been mutual on Tatum's part; she had made it clear as soon as she cottoned on to her older brother's crush on Gale that she judged him heavily for it, considering him an idiot for thinking he actually could stand a chance of being more to the woman than a buy in for a story.
She had not thought of the girl again, other than noting her as one of the survivors of the first round of Ghostface killings, until the second series of murders started at Windsor College, where Sidney, Tatum, and Randy Meeks all attended together. Gale's coverage of the murders and personal investigation had lead her to cross paths with both Tatum and Dewey more times than she had actually intended, and within a week after Dewey's second serious injury in two years, she and he were dating. Her relationship with Tatum hadn't particularly improved, especially after Dewey and Gale broke up, until the murders in Hollywood a couple of years later, based off the Stab movies which were in turn based off Gale's books. At time, both Riley siblings had been present on the set of Stab 3- Dewey as a consultant, and Tatum as a cameo part in the movie.
After surviving yet another round of murders with both Dewey and Tatum close by, some of the very few people she could trust not to be a secret murderer, the relationship with Tatum had started to inch towards banter that was more playful and sarcastic than biting, and once she and Dewey were engaged, and especially after Sidney and Tatum had started to date three years ago, things between the two women only improved. Tatum could be a difficult person at times, dramatic, overly expressive, and petulant, but she was fiercely loyal to the people she cared for.
Somehow, without Gale quite knowing how, she had eased up enough in her view of her that it appeared Gale had become one of those people, even if they did still butt heads almost every time they interacted.
Within the first couple of years after their marriage, Dewey and Gale had bought their house in Woodsboro, Dewey had been promoted to sheriff, and Gale had managed to form her own production company, Riley Radio Room. Strangely enough, Tatum had ended up going to work with the woman she had once despised.
Gale was proud of her work, and she knew Tatum was too. She wasn't doing sleazy tabloid rumors or salacious headlines, but rather real journalism, researched and opinion pieces about real issues affecting real populations. Tatum, who had a strong interest in women's studies, minority rights and protections, and general activistic causes, was a co researcher, mostly responsible for backstage work, creative control, and advertisements, as well as recruiting guest stars who were experts in specific fields they were discussing on air and celebrities who could provide personal stories and advocation for specific populations of interest. Gale was the face and speaking voice of the work as well as head research, and Tatum particularly enjoyed finding and providing resources for the topic of the week, everything from support groups and mental health hotlines to social media groups, playlists, and movies that addressed the issue at hand.
They worked strangely well together, in a way that Gale would never have thought possible back when the other woman was 17 or even 19. But with Tatum now in her thirties and Gale some fifteen years older, and their equal care and love for Dewey and Sidney uniting them, they managed most of the time to get along. Tatum, living with Sidney in Monterey, did her work remotely, communicating mainly via Skype or other virtual platforms with Gale for job related tasks, but if that counted, Gale actually spent more time with Tatum than either Dewey or Sidney, and she couldn't say she was opposed.
Tatum was still not much of a fighter, even after fifteen years of experience, but she was fast at getting the hell out of the way and had sharp eyes to watch for anything or anyone suspicious. She might not take down a killer, but she was a good person to have watch your back, and Gale trusted her to back her up at the stupid Stabathon almost as much as she would have Sidney or Dewey.
They both showed up prepared to blend in, wearing the Ghostface masks that they both hated the touch and sight of, but found necessary to keep with them for occasions such as this one. They spoke minimally to each other, not wanting to alert anyone to their actions as they climbed the barn loft. Tatum watched Gale's back as she positioned the cameras strategically, hoping to catch on film something to give them a better idea of when the killer would strike next and who they would go for, hopefully in time to save them.
Of course, Gale had let Sidney know the plan, with an exact time that Sidney should expect them to call with a code word to prove that it was her and Tatum checking in rather than someone who could possibly be impersonating them. Sidney had tried to talk them out of going, but she knew her girlfriend and Gale well enough to know by now that they weren't easily deterred by concerns for their safety.
Letting Dewey in on the plan was the last thing Gale chose to go through with, mostly because by the time she told him where she was going and what she was trying to do, she hoped it was too late for him to show up and try to pull her off the scene.
Of course, that was exactly what he tried to do anyway. And as it turned out, this one time, his instinct that Gale and Tatum shouldn't be lingering at the Stabathon party proved to be correct.
Up in the loft, Gale's attention was fully focused on her slowly darkening screens, their power sources being cut one at a time, until she could not see anything at all that she had worked to set up. Nothing except the gaping white face of the masked killer, staring back at the final camera screen as though he could see through it to her looking back at him.
"He's here, Tatum, stay alert," she called out sharply, her head swiveling towards the other woman, whose attention had been drawn with equal alarm to the blackened screens. "He's up here, we need to get down-"
Her words were cut off with a scream caused Gale's heart to skip a beat, wrenching in its fear and obvious anguish. Gale froze, momentarily paralyzed with horror as the Ghostface jumped out from behind one of the loft's hay bales, long blade of its knife descending and burying to the hilt in Tatum's back. She was horribly cognizant of the terrible noise of Tatum choking, eyes huge and rolling with anguish and terror, as blood poured from her mouth and stained her back rapidly.. The killer ripped the knife out with some effort, plunging it twice more into her chest.
For several seconds Gale's horrified gaze locked on Tatum's, and she knew saw their light dim out, close to unconsciousness- perhaps close to death. Tatum could not speak, but her lips moved, blood trickling out the corner of her mouth even as she mouthed what Gale understood to be a pleaded command.
"Run."
And Gale tried, even as the killer yanked its knife back from Tatum's body, allowing it to fall limply to the loft floor. Chasing and managing to catch hold of Gale, the two fought for dominance, with Gale resisting, writhing to escape its grasp and to hit or elbow her way into release. But in the end the knife came down, burying itself deep in her right shoulder, just as the killer knocked her down to the very edge of the loft floor.
Her shoulder felt like someone had lit it on fire and then scraped several layers off its bone, leaving her raw, shaky, and suddenly lightheaded and nauseous enough that she was genuinely afraid she would pass out. It was a relief when the shot was fired up towards them in their prone position at the loft, because it was enough to distract the killer into fleeing- but not before knocking Gale off the loft, at least ten feet down to the ground so she landed on her injured shoulder with the weight of her body crushing it further.
As she heard her husband's voice calling her name, she struggled to breathe through the intensity of the pain coursing not just through her shoulder, but through the suddenly intense cramps low down in her stomach, becoming harsher and more urgent with each passing second.
When she realized that she was bleeding, not just from the stab wound on her right shoulder, but also from blood beginning to stain her legs and thighs, Gale began to panic, anxiety kicking into high gear. Had he stabbed her legs or lower abdomen without her noticing somehow? Had she hurt herself internally when she fell? Had she broken something badly enough to bleed? She could move her legs, but it hurt, god, it fucking hurt. What was happening?
"Dewey!" she called, her voice carrying more fear than she wanted it to. "The killer was here, where did they go? Are they still with Tatum? Someone has to go help Tatum!"
Then, with this initial focus expressed, her anxiety turned back to her own situation. "Dewey, I don't know what's happening to me. Something's wrong. I don't know what's wrong."
What the hell did meta mean? Whatever, that didn't matter, Gale's out there with a potential killer right under her nose! Dewey hit his lights and bypassed every road law in the county. He passed the Roberts' neighborhood and could only hope that Sidney heeded his warning - Jill was already a target of the murders, and now the next door neighbor of hers was murdered, which meant Sidney was already too close to the danger for his liking.
He damn well knew the girls were capable, but now that he held a position of high authority he felt officers trained by him, a fellow Ghostface survivor, that the three wouldn't be needed, and that meant they'd be safe. Above all else, Dewey only ever wants to keep people safe, especially the ones closest to him, and one of those people is Gale. He knows that she knows his intentions, but he just couldn't get hers through his skull.
He followed Gale's rushed instructions to the barn, clicking off his lights miles before he arrived to not alert the possible killer of his arrival. He, as quietly as possible, turned into the lot and exited his cruiser. He spotted Gale's car and approached hurriedly, but there was no sign of his wife or sister in the seats. He was happy to see the car that pulled in wasn't an unknown vehicle to him, but he was unhappy to see that the third woman in his life refused to listen to him.
He wanted to tell her to get back in her car, but she was here now, and his backup wasn't going to arrive anytime soon, even if they were flying down the road. The two peered into the car and watched the live feed of the single working camera, only to see Gale and Tatum approach the lens. Gale attempted to fiddle with the device while Tatum kept watch, but they lost sight of the woman when Gale hung the camera to her side. The farther Gale walked from Tatum, the more of the space he saw, and he could see that Tatum failed to notice that there was a figure clad in black hiding in the shadows of the hay bales.
"Tate! Gale! Behind you!" he wrenched out as his legs took him to the barn - he hadn't bothered to check if Sidney was following, but he was certain he could hear her footsteps behind him. He pulled at the barn doors and only worked faster when he heard a scream; he knew it wasn't from the movie they were playing, it sounded so guttural and clear.
Once inside, he heard a scuffle above and looked to the loft, where he saw a recognizable blade hovering over his wife. He pulled his gun out so fast that he fumbled the first shot and missed, giving the killer ample time to plunge the knife down into Gale's shoulder. Her cries of pain set a fire deep in his chest, spurring him to push past fleeing teens and up the loft's ladder after the ghost-masked freak. When he got up the ladder just enough to where he had a clear view and shot, he saw the hayloft door swing shut. *Fuck*
It was then that he caught the sight of a crumpled body out of the corner of his eye, and so he turned to see the bloodied heep of…"Tate?" he called out breathlessly. With his focus stuck on Tatum's lightly breathing form, his hearing went muffled and he could hear a faint ring. Sidney's voice, although hard to hear, broke through and called out to him as she tugged on his pant leg.
"Dewey, I'll help Tatum, go get Gale!"
When he heard his wife's name, adrenaline shot through his veins as his mind recollected the shiny blade slicing into her shoulder. He scrambled down the ladder, trusting Sidney that she'd take care of his sister, as much as it hurt him to leave her, and practically fell to his knees beside Gale. He pressed his hands to her wound, blood seeping through the gaps in between his fingers, and tried to steady his hyperventilating breath. "I'm here, hon, I'm here," he breathed out. In his rush to catch up with the killer, he hadn't noticed Gale getting kicked down from the loft - all he thought about was how he wanted to kill the bastard when he saw the knife swing down towards his wife.
No. He wanted to do more than kill him. He wanted to fill the fucker's stomach with lead, tackle him to the dirt, and pull off the mask and lay every punch he could muster into that psycho's face. He wanted to snap their legs and arms and stomp his boot into their throat until they coughed up blood. He wanted to -
The intrusive thoughts halted upon hearing Gale's voice, quivering with a fear he never thought she would, or could, feel. "They're gone. Hopefully your cameras caught something," he reassured his ailing wife. "Sidney's helping Tatum. She'll be okay," he said, more to sooth his own mind than anything else.
He was confused when she couldn't figure out what was wrong; he would've thought she knew that she got stabbed. He checked over her to see if she had gotten hurt anywhere else, and that the confusion she was experiencing was her body numbing a pain she got from another injury. It was hard to see at first, but he caught the sight of blood soaking into her jeans; but there were no rips or open wounds in the area, so what was bleeding?
He realized that it must've been something internal that burst and was ejecting blood through any orifice it could find. He didn't know what organ was busted, but the amount of blood meant that it wasn't something meant to be broken. He removed a bloodied hand from her wound and brought it to his shoulder mounted radio. "This is Sheriff Riley. I need EMTs on Fort Dillon Road, urgently! I've got two injured and bleeding out," he called in.
He placed his hand back on Gale's wound and felt tears prick his eyes. "You're gonna be okay, hon. You're gonna be okay."
Sidney Prescott had never intended to return to Woodsboro, at least not for more than a weekend of staying with Dewey and Gale in their home every so often. But with the success of her book, Out of the Shadows, her publicist had urged her to make a public appearance in the local Woodsboro book store, where copies of her book were guaranteed to sell out even without her autographs adorning them. Sidney hadn't cared about the talk of dollar signs, and Rebecca had quickly figured that out and shifted her strategy to emphasizing how much more Sidney could reach and help people in situations of trauma by talking to them personally, especially in Woodsboro, where years later, people were still grieving murders committed there.
"It will be healing not just for you, but for others, to see in person that you face the darkness of your past and return to the town where it all happened," Rebecca had urged. And although Sidney should have seen through it, she had believed it just enough to agree.
Of course, Tatum wasn't about to let her go with only Rebecca for company, and so she had accompanied her too. Three years into their relationship, the closeness and loyalty of their long time friendship had grown into an intimacy that was unmatched by anything Sidney had ever felt for anyone else, and she could not imagine living her daily life without Tatum beside her, leaving her shoes scattered through the house, stealing food off her plate, and providing fierce, unwavering support for everything Sidney did or felt. There was no one in the world that Sidney loved more, and now that she was 32 years old, she only wondered why it had taken her so long to understand in just what way that she did love Tatum.
Tatum had been her biggest cheerleader through her period of depression, and her biggest encouragement when Sidney decided to try to write her way through it. Once her book was accepted for publishing, and then became a success, Tatum had nearly burst with pride in her. But Sidney was insanely proud of Tatum too. Tatum had drifted through college, not really sure of what she wanted to do or be, and she had struggled with anxiety for years after the last two rounds of murders in 1997 and 2000. Although she had survived the 1996 murders, her left arm and shoulder had been caught and badly broken in the garage door, and it had taken almost a year of slings, casts, and physical therapy before she regained some use of it. Even 15 years later, her left shoulder still was slightly lower than her right, and she had near continuous pain or numbness in her left arm. But Tatum rarely complained, and in fact, she had arisen from her experiences to not just make a life for herself, but a critically and financially successful one- with Gale, of all people.
To this day, Sidney found it absolutely wild that Tatum and Gale could have civil conversations and coexist in the same room together for longer than ten minutes, let alone that they actually spoke daily and had a professional relationship in a co-run production. She was enormously proud of Tatum for all she had accomplished through this, though, and so when Tatum insisted on accompanying her to her book tour in Woodsboro, she offered no argument.
She should have known that having the four of them- herself, Tatum, Gale, and Dewey- all in the same cursed town for longer than a couple of days was a recipe for bloodbath. What she didn't expect was that her teenaged cousin and her friends would feel the impact of the trauma as a result.
Although she and Tatum both were staying with Jill and Sidney's aunt Kate, in an effort to better protect them, as soon as Gale messaged them with her plan to try to catch the killer at the local Stabathon- an asinine and gruesome party if Sidney had ever heard of one- there had been a decision to be made. They couldn't let her go to such a thing alone, and yet leaving Jill and Kate alone with a killer after Jill and her friends was not acceptable either. They had decided that with Sidney being the more experienced with using guns between them and with Jill and Kate far less experienced in fending off killers, it would be best for Sidney to stay back with them and for Tatum to be the one to go with Gale and watch her back.
It was a decision that Sidney would live to regret.
Once she received the message from Dewey of Gale and Tatum's intentions and that he was going to reel them back in, Sidney had made the decision that Kate and Jill were just going to have to rely on the police protection, weak as she knew it probably was, for at least a short amount of time. If Dewey was going to be in the same place as the other two women, it was almost certain that the killer would have to be there too. She knew that Dewey had a gun, but Tatum didn't, and it wasn't clear to her whether Gale had a weapon either. Ignoring his instructions to stay with the Roberts, Sidney had got in her car and followed the directions Tatum had texted her, quickly finding herself right behind a police vehicle she knew must be Dewey's as they continued to go in the same direction. As they both pulled into the parking area and Sidney exited the car, noting but not caring about Dewey's frustrated expression at the sight of her, she came alongside him, watching the video footage inside Gale's car with him. As soon as she saw the figure in black appearing behind her girlfriend on the screen, she didn't wait for any say so from Dewey.
Handgun at the ready, finger poised to take off the safety, she hurried into the barn, heart pounding hard in her chest as she scanned the crowd of drunken teenagers for any sight of a dark robed figure, a gaping white face.
She heard the scream above the noise of the crowd, louder than the movie, carrying the unique note of pain mingled with fear that she recognized all too well as real versus movie outcry. Even from below she recognized the scream as Tatum's, and Sidney ran to the loft's ladder, a few seconds behind Dewey as he started to climb. She heard Dewey's shot, and then there was a body tumbling from the loft, too fast to have time to scream, the slam of a door in the loft. The killer was escaping, and there was Gale at their feet, bleeding from the shoulder and somewhere around her lower body, blood already starting to pool around the barn floor. Sidney could see her dark hair snarled around her face, the terror and pain shining in the older woman's eyes, and she knew that Gale needed help fast. But Tatum had screamed, Tatum was almost certainly hurt too, the extent unknown. Gale was her friend, but Dewey was her husband, and Sidney needed to be with Tatum.
"Gale, you're going to be okay, it's going to be okay," she called to her hurriedly, trying to keep her tone calm and reassuring, before yelling up to Dewey, pulling at his pant leg to get his attention. "Dewey, I'll help Tatum, go get to Gale!"
She was relieved when he complied, climbing down the ladder and dropping down beside Gale. Hauling herself up as quickly as possible while still holding the gun, she saw Tatum's crumpled form slumped against a hay bale and sucked in her breath, heart wrenching with fear. But despite the blood soaked over her chest, she could see Tatum's chest rise and fall, though shallowly, and that was enough encouragement for Sidney to focus her attention on the loft door. Other than the ladder, it was the only other exit that the killer could have escaped from, and she had heard it slam shut.
Springing across the loft towards it, she yanked it open, just in time to see the killer running across a second, smaller loft overtop old horse stables. Taking off the safety, Sidney fired two shots, one hitting him in the back, the other in the back of the head. As his body collapsed, jerking, she came up behind him quickly, stepping on his back, and fired another shot into his skull. Leaning down, she jerked the mask off his head, revealing a long, tangled mass of light brown hair she didn't recognize. Rolling him over, it was difficult to see particular features through the gore, but Sidney could see enough to recognize that the masked figure was- had been- a teenaged boy with long hair- one of Jill's friends?
It didn't matter anymore. He was dead, and Tatum and Gale needed their help immediately.
Leaving him behind in the adjoining loft, Sidney hurried back to Tatum, seeing that she had gone unconscious. Checking her pulse at her neck, she was relieved to feel a faint beat. She didn't want to move her or press against her wounds, unsure of where exactly she had been stabbed and which organs or arteries had been affected, but she thought she saw blood on her back too as she grasped her hand, her other coming up to gently stroke Tatum's face and hair.
"Tatum, sweetie," she said urgently, unconsciously using the pet name that Tatum more often used for her. Sidney put her face close to hers, hoping desperately that the other woman could hear her. "Tate, it's Sid. I'm here, sweetie. I'm here. Help is coming, just hang on."
She could hear the loud sirens in the distance and hoped they were there in time, that in the loft below, Gale was also hanging on for their assistance.
Below them with Tatum, Gale looked up at Dewey with blurring vision, relieved for his presence, for the comforting sound of his voice. She heard him reassure her that Sidney was with Tatum and tried to nod an acknowledgement, but her head felt heavy, unable to move at her will. She could hear the anxiety and fear in his voice, more so than ever when she drew his attention to the blood gathering beneath her hips and legs, and her own anxiety rocketed higher. Her heart beat erratically, speeding up further when she heard Dewey calling for backup and EMTs, because she knew what this meant- he had said she and Tatum both were bleeding out. Whatever was happening to her, whatever was happening to Tatum, both of them could die.
Her body felt shaky and strange with the surge of adrenaline, pain, and fear, and she heard Dewey's voice almost from a distance, muffled and abnormal sounding even as she saw him hovered over her, his hand pressed against the wound of her shoulder to the point of even further pain. Her stomach's cramping was becoming urgently sharp, the pain more intense as the blood came thicker. She could feel it seeping out from between her legs, and although she felt hot and lightheaded, she could feel her body starting to shake.
"Dewey," she managed, unable to find any other words, before losing consciousness.
The piercing noise of the ambulance sirens was not enough to rouse neither Gale nor Tatum out of their unconsciousness. As the paramedics hurried over to Gale and Dewey, several more rushed up the barn loft where Judy, after an exchange with Dewey, directed them to get to Tatum. Both in the loft and on the barn floor they set to work on the women, first checking their pulses and that their breathing was continuing unobstructed. Fitting both into a neck brace, Gale was lifted her onto a backboard before they took her into the ambulance, with Dewey accompanying her, hovering as close as was possible while still allowing them to tend to her freely. As they set her up with oxygen and IVs providing fluids, painkillers, and anxiety medication, two of them started to cut through her clothes, packing her shoulder and between her legs with gauze bandaging. Covering her with a blanket, they sped to the hospital, leaving Dewey to have to wait for news in the waiting room of the ER. Tatum's wounds were quickly given applied pressure before she too was given the same treatment as Gale, with Sidney accompanying her into her ambulance.
By the time Gale became continuously conscious again, she had already had X-rays and a CAT scan, and it was determined that although her collar bone had been fractured by the stab wound, no major arteries had been cut, and she was not bleeding internally. Her shoulder wound had been cleansed and repacked, she had been redressed in a hospital gown, and she was attached once more to IVs, a beeping noise indicating the continued monitoring of her vitals. She had been stabilized enough that Dewey was allowed into the hospital room with her, and she came to with a gasp, eyes huge as she immediately reached out for him, needing the tangible feel of him in her hands. Flinching at the pain the sudden movement brought shooting through her, especially her shoulder, she sucked in a breath, dark blue eyes pleading with his for answers.
"Dewey- Tatum? She….is she…?"
She didn't want to say the words out loud. Somehow, speaking them out loud felt like they would cause them to come true. Shifting her eyes briefly down to herself, covered by the thin hospital blanket, she looked back up at him, wordlessly asking for answers that could not truthfully be given.
It was already noted in her chart and had already been shared with Dewey around ten minutes ago that she was not, in fact, bleeding internally, nor had she been stabbed anywhere beyond her right shoulder. She was in the midst of a miscarriage; it had already been determined that it could not be medically stopped, and she had been made as comfortable as possible while they continued to monitor her injuries.
"I'm still bleeding," she managed to say, her mouth dry as she became aware of this, the continued trickling feeling between her legs. "Why am I still bleeding?"
Tatum had likewise received a CAT scan and X-rays, as well as external and internal stitching to the stabbing on her back and chest, bandaging, and continued IV support of pain medication, fluids, and anxiety medication. She had been cleared of any severed arteries, and thankfully, no major organs had been punctured. However the bones of her chest cavity had been splintered by the knife, and although her lungs and heart had been spared, one of her back's vertebrae had been hit. She had not yet regained consciousness, and as Sidney sat beside her, holding her hand, she pressed her lips to Tatum's knuckles.
He followed paramedics that wheeled Gale into the back of an ambulance, Sidney going with Tatum - he'd have to check in on her when he could. He stayed as close to his wife as possible without getting in the way of the EMTs, keeping a tight grip on her hand. He had felt fear for Gale's life many times before, but this time felt worse.
It was usually him getting stabbed, not her, and he would exchange places in a heartbeat if he could. Even when his back was being eviscerated at Windsor College, he called out to Gale not for her help but so she could get away while the killer was busy with him. He guessed now he knew what Gale felt every time he had been beaten and stabbed, and his heart hurt knowing she had felt this way, worrying about him.
The rush into the hospital was a blur, Dewey couldn't even remember getting out of the ambulance and walking in. Before he was forced to stay back in the waiting room, he looked at Gale and told her, "No more on your own.
"It's you and me, forever," he added. He begrudgingly let go of her hand as she rushed to an emergency room, and he stood staring through the glass of the swinging doors they pushed her through until he could no longer see her. He had spent this whole investigation trying to keep her away, and now his selfishness to hold a reputable position as Sheriff left his wife with a stab wound to the shoulder and some sort of internal injury and his sister with deep stab wounds to the back and chest.
All he could do was wait. He had nowhere to be now that Sidney finished off the bastard, as she had told him while she sat with him. Of course it was most likely that there was another killer, but now they have to work alone, which meant changes to their plan was in order. Plus, he had his deputies continue their 24 hour watch in the event something did happen. He sat for hours in his own head, refusing to leave the spot even as Sidney attempted to persuade him into going to the cafeteria to eat something; he was afraid the moment he left was the moment he could see Gale and Tatum, and he didn't want to keep either of them waiting when they woke up.
They were able to see Tatum before Gale, and Dewey assumed it must have something to do with her internal injuries. She wasn't awake, but he got the chance to see her. The surgeon filled the Sheriff and his sister's partner in on Tatum's injuries, and although she didn't suffer any life threatening damage, Dewey still feared the worst. Her vertebrae had been realigned, but what if she suffered complications? What is she suffered the same pain he felt daily since '96? He had already blamed himself for causing Tatum's injuries in that garage door, and now he blamed himself for this.
Screw whatever the public wanted, Sidney, Gale, and Tatum were the most capable of taking a serial killer over his own trained deputies, and if he wanted them on the case, he'd have them a part of it. It was too late now for the change, evident in Gale and Tatum's injuries, but at the very least he'd have Sidney to back him up, the one and true Final Girl. He wiped at the tears that flooded his eyes as a different surgeon poked their head into the room. They wanted to see him, and it was about Gale.
He placed a kiss on Tatum's forehead and placed a hand to Sidney's shoulder momentarily before going into the hall with Gale's surgeon. As they walked to her room, the surgeon informed him of her injuries. The obvious was the stab wound, but she suffered no internal bleeding, no severed arteries, and a fracture to her collar bone; he wasn't exactly happy to hear how his wife had been injured, but it was better than the alternative.
They made it to her door before the surgeon stopped him from entering - right, her internal injury, he was in such a rush that he forgot. "There's...something else I need to inform you of," the surgeon hesitantly spoke. The way he spoke sent shivers down Dewey's spine - nobody would say something like that in this context if it was something good.
"Is she going to be alright?" he had to ask. If it was something bad, he had to know that she would be alive and well in the end. "Yes, Sheriff," the surgeon answered. "She'll heal from this, however her injury is...wasn't a burst like we initially thought."
The surgeon was speaking too slowly for his liking. He wouldn't be talking this gently if it wasn't some form of comfort. "Then what *was* it?" he asked, mildly irritated, but out of concern for his wife. The surgeon looked at Gale's chart and shut his eyes, shaking his head lightly before looking back up to him. "I regret to inform you, Sheriff, that your wife has suffered a miscarriage."
Time stopped at that very moment. Miscarriage? How? Gale was well beyond her years to healthily bear a child, how did she get pregnant? Wait...*pregnant*. They were going to have -
His legs wobbled and his back hit the wall. The chances of having a child in their forties was a rarity, but somehow they did it. But now that chance is gone. Gale was never keen on having children, but he hoped one day she'd change her mind when they were younger and more likely to be able to try again if things failed. He didn't know what spurred him to want a child, but all he cared about was that he could have a family with the woman he loved. He stayed patient for a little under a decade until he gave up on trying - she never changed her mind, and he came to respect it, even if it hurt like hell.
He was brought back from his mind as the surgeon placed a hand to his shoulder. He was sitting on the tile floor, breathing heavily and his hand clutching his chest. The pain in his sternum was tight and hot. *Am I dying?* he thought as he remembered when he was eight that his grandfather died from a heart attack, and that he was crying about the pain in his chest.
He followed the surgeon's instruction to breathe through his nose and out his mouth, and although it helped slightly, he could still feel his heart beating. He needed to see Gale. He *needed* Gale.
With his heart still pounding and weighing down his chest, he pulled himself off the floor and entered the room. She looked dazed with her half lidded eyes, but they immediately shot open when she saw him. Even though it pained her, she reached for him, and he hurried to her bedside to grab her hand. He took hold of her hand and used his other to clasp over hers.
"She's okay," he said, voice wavering and eyes pricking with tears; he swallowed the lump in his throat. "Her ribs are fractured and her back had to be realigned, but she's going to live. She had no major injuries."
Then she asked him the question he hoped he wouldn't have to answer. He had only learned of this information minutes before he came in, and now he had to deliver the news to his wife. His hold on her hand tightened and he squeezed his eyes shut as tears poured, his Adam's apple rising and falling across his throat.
"G-Gale," he stuttered. "You...I...I can't," he couldn't find the right words to say. He didn't want to say it, and not so bluntly either, but it was all he really could say as an answer. "Gale, you had a miscarriage."