A/N

Song this chapter is Ruelle – Carry You

/

It felt like an eternity of waiting, kneeling on cold hard rock while she clutched onto Uncas' body. Her knuckles numb and glowing bone white through her chilled skin in the ever growing dark. Waiting for each breath to pass his lips, hoping, endlessly hoping it wouldn't be his last.

Erin replied to requests from the dispatch caller who crackled from her speaker every few seconds, asking Erin questions, trying to keep her focused and calm. Then the phone let out a little bleep of defeat and Erin saw one of the things she'd dreaded become reality, the screen flickered and turned black. Through lack of battery, or the simple fact that it had been too broken to hold on to functions for any more length of time, she didn't know, she didn't care. All that mattered was it had lasted long enough for her to make that call.

Erin mumbled the same comforting words over and over as she gently soothed Uncas' unconscious form, unknowing if he continued to not respond due to the strong medicine he'd been dosed with before their journey through the falls, or the very real possibility that he was dying minute by minute. The dry amused comparison her brain made between phone and man did not pass her by, both only able to hold out so long before they failed, maybe later she'd even find it somehow morbidly funny, when they were safe, when he was safe. But right now all she could do was hold him, mumble words of gentle coaxing, and cling onto hope.

Minutes or hours may have passed, to Erin it felt like the latter, and slowly she became aware that the woods around them had become unnervingly quiet, the waking call of owls and scurrying of small animals all falling silent, and suddenly the near spent twilight of the triple falls was pierced by harsh bright lights. She winced and recoiled away, her hand darting out to clutch onto Uncas' shoulder, in need of his comfort, and at the same time instinctively wanting to protect him from any danger, even though neither of those things felt possible in that moment.

Then came the noise, so much noise, and people, and voices, and questions.

A rushed, half remembered scrabble back to the road with Uncas upon a stretcher, sweat running off him as if it were raining, while Erin tried her very best to keep pace in her ill fitting shoes.

Through solar lit paths and on to the darkened meadow they moved, swift as darting birds. The landscape bore no signs of any cabin at all, just long grasses that rippled in the breeze. Then onwards past the empty camp site that had been the location of the re-enactment. But no fires burned, no ghostly sentinel white tents in the heavy dusk, no people making merry, no Ada to welcome her back with warm loving arms, just frantic voices in the darkness.

The journey by ambulance had been one of bumpy roads, bright lights and sharp unpleasant beeps of various machines. Erin's ears unused to all these strange modern sounds after so much around her had been quiet and subdued, tangible wood and earth and whispers. Everything felt like an assault on all her senses, even the way the paramedics smelt of strong eye-stinging deodorant and floral shampoo made her nose itch and run.

She sat in the seat she'd been assigned, buckled in place with hard plastic and cold metal, and watched them work with agitated and fraught eyes. Each new movement drew all her attention, her mind trying its very best to keep up with how fast-paced everything felt here. They had carefully cleaned the wound, cutting open twisted stitches, and flushing out the angry gaping gash with a bottle of saline water, washing away corruption and foul yellow pus. Expertly given injections of various kinds were delivered straight to the injury and via an IV plumbed into Uncas' very veins, giving him a potent mix of drugs and much needed fluid. His lower face was covered with a transparent plastic mask that fed air into his struggling lungs.

By the medics' design or by the frail state Uncas was in, he did not stir, he did not wake, his face remaining slack as if in a terrible endless sleep. The people around her fired fast constant questions at Erin, trying to attain vital information, making her unable to fall fully into despair. She answered all as best she could, half grateful for the constant distraction.

They kept asking her how long he'd been like this? What had happened? She found only sparse replies, half-hearted denials and bare bones explanations that never seemed good enough for the paramedics, and so they would sometimes ask again, as if this time, Erin would have a magical answer. Erin could only go over the information that felt safe to give; he'd been stabbed in a fight and had tended to it himself, he'd got sick a few days ago, he'd tried to hide it... No, she didn't know why. She clung to those answers, unmoving from her chosen path of just how much to disclose, keeping the full truth shielded.

As Uncas' condition stabilized the questions became less frantic, more focused on details, wanting to know why he had been stabbed, who had done it, why hadn't they sought help?

In response Erin settled upon the same three words over and over; she didn't know. The medics had looked at her with frustration and gave exasperated sighs as Erin's whole being began to feel impassive to their questions. She watched, somehow a little detached, as they continued to do what they could to save the man she cared about, grim looks upon their faces as they asked her again, why had this wound been left?

"I don't know." The only answer that she could give that would make any sense and hopefully keep Uncas safe.

As they arrived at the hospital they'd been rushed through the emergency room with more grim faces becoming a fixture. Erin had feared then, she'd been too late, that nothing could be done, as the minutes and then hours passed by with no change. He'd seemed so ill and the reality came trickling like icy water into her consciousness that he was, he was dying. In those first few hours, she had nearly lost him.

Time crawled by with an endless procession of harsh lights and the unpleasant smell of disinfectant that seemed imprinted into every surface of the place. After waiting in the emergency room alone for hours, the people slowly ebbed away to scattered figures around her as early morning came, the clock showing 12am. Erin only caught snippets from passing nurses about Uncas' condition and always got the same hurried answer to her questions, 'he was stable but very ill, the doctors needed more time, wait a little longer, news would come soon'.

As the place calmed and the nurses became less occupied with patients, one of them had finally noticed the state Erin herself was in. She'd been taken away to a cubicle and then a tired young doctor came, seeing to her wounds.

Erin didn't have the focus to tell face from face and she did as she was bidden, sitting here or there, holding out her arm for inspection when asked. The doctor and nurse had puzzled over the crudeness of the stitches woven into the skin of her forearm and she'd given some half cohesive story of being very into her wilderness training, it was part of her re-enactment, which she hoped explained her strange clothing too. They'd decided the wound was healed enough to have the stitches removed, and the sharp snipping of scissors cutting through taut catgut filled the air. The sensation of the thread being pulled back through skin, although painless, made Erin feel slightly nauseous all over again.

The doctor said it was all looking good, apart from the scar she'd have, seemingly hinting that if she had gotten proper attention she wouldn't have been left with such a reminder.

As they then focused upon tending to her hand, cleaning it and deciding it did need some stitches, she had told them with a dull, monotone cadence, that how all this had happened was a blur, that she thought, maybe, she'd slipped too. Erin hadn't had enough time to click together the pieces of what would hopefully be a solid story.

The doctor and nurse had no choice but to accept her words at this time, although she was sure the nurse gave her a few too many looks of concerned sympathy, and Erin got the distinct feeling that she wasn't fully believed. Her palm was given a painful injection and then she only felt a distant unpleasant sensation of pressure as her hand was given four tiny stitches and wrapped in startlingly clean white dressing.

The nasty gash on her upper back which she had received at some point in her impact at the falls was cleaned and dressed, it wasn't deep enough to need more attention.

They'd asked her a few more questions of who she was and where she'd been and just how she had been injured again? But by that point Erin had lost her ability to feel any stress and worry, only true exhaustion and she shrugged off each request for information with a nonchalant confidence. Thankfully, Erin didn't think either the doctor or nurse were fully aware of Uncas' condition, perhaps thinking that she and the unknown man currently being treated had been in a similar, or even the same, accident. She felt sure the gossip would soon do the rounds and once it did, Erin knew she'd have no choice but to face a visit from the police. A stabbing was not something that would just be glanced over.

The nurse had asked for a contact number, a next of kin that they could call, and Erin felt she had to give them something. But, her phone lay as useless as a rock within her pocket. She couldn't remember her parents' cell numbers, she'd never had to, only Ada's she knew off by heart, so she'd handed that over to placate them, it seemed enough for the moment.

When she'd been given the chance to clean up in the bathroom, after they had finished their attentions of cleansing and re-wrapping, she could finally understand why the nurse had given her a few second glances. She didn't look like a reenactor, she looked like she'd been through hell. A bedraggled, dirt and blood-stained woman, with dark bags under her red sore eyes, and a rather ugly large yellowing bruise around her lip and cheek, stared back from the reflective surface, looking just as shocked as Erin herself felt.

The crown braid Cora had given her was barely clinging to its taped place, a mass of wispy hair giving Erin a very unkempt, manic look. She'd lost weight, the contours of her cheeks so much gaunter than she remembered. She looked battered, like she had been literally beaten up, and the realisation that this was exactly what the nurse had been thinking too pushed its way into her mind. She suddenly had the rather ridiculous urge to fly out of the bathroom and grab hold of that nurse and somehow make her understand that the man she had brought here had nothing to do with any of her injuries, but Erin quelled the reckless thought down.

She took a small moment to close her eyes and breathe deeply. Erin allowed her mind to slip through barely remembered memories as everything that had happened this night at the triple falls rushed into her mind. How desperately afraid she had been, knelt by Uncas' side, how reluctant to leave him even for a second, but she had forced herself, keeping her promise, her feet shuffling frantically across rock, searching with an urgency to finish her task and return to him. Her toe brushed against something that gave and moved, the sound of a metallic object grazing against rock and she bent, scooped up the amulet with only a small flutter in her chest, and looked about for a suitable place to deposit it. She'd placed it carefully back into the little indent of pooled water she had recently found it, back in 1757. This is where it would remain safe and secreted away until it had need to them again.

Erin came back to the present of the dingy little hospital bathroom and opened her eyes, looking away from the mirror, not wanting to see the expression upon her own features. Because in that remembered moment by the rushing falls, she had also been so very tempted to throw that damn thing into the river, let it be swept away downstream and never bother her or Uncas ever again. But, she hadn't, for that lack of action, she could only give herself the reward of bittersweet reprieve that she had done the 'right thing,' instead of the selfish one.

Focusing upon the tasks at hand Erin had carefully washed her face and tidied herself as best she could, smoothing down her hair with dampened palms. She focused back upon her reflection in the bathroom mirror, looking at her cleaner and more presentable face and raised her chin in acceptance that there was only so much she could do about any of this, including her own complex feelings. The least of her worries was what any stranger thought were the cause of her injuries, right now what she had to do was be there for Uncas.

The one good thing was she'd been allowed to charge her phone nearby for a little while and it wasn't dead, merely drained. One encouraging bit of news felt like a ray of light in the deep dark of that little cubicle. But, Erin couldn't force herself to press those buttons, bring up her parents' number and call. She didn't know what she'd say and how she would explain any of this, and she had bigger problems to deal with in that moment. She had to find Uncas.

Erin had roamed the shiny, shockingly bright hallways that buzzed with flickering, humming lights, looking for the place they had taken him and finally she had been directed to a dark windowless space with chairs and purring vending machines. Her stomach rumbled at the sight, feeling like a sour fizzing within her gut and an unpleasant tart taste of acid upon her tongue, the sharp pang of grumbling hunger physically hurt. But, she had no money and so she had settled herself into a seat, ignoring the odd looks other passers by gave her over her strange clothing.

Erin disregarded it all, her gaze only ever straying to the vending machines and the bright packets of chips and candy within, the vibrancy tantalizing her. Her fingers played with the little bag in her pocket, smoothing finger pads across soft leather and the ridge of seams that had been carefully stitched by Uncas' own hand. She knew she could eat the dried meat, berry and animal fat concoction within, she had seen Uncas snacking upon something similar often when they had no time to stop and make a full meal. But she had also seen him adding it to stews when meat and other ingredients were sparse, and knew that was probably the preferred way to consume it. Even though her hunger gnawed at her, Erin didn't want to eat it anyway, not because she presumed it would taste a little hard and unpleasant, which it probably would, but because it had been something Uncas had given her. She felt like she wanted to guard anything that was still his in this time, somehow it felt if she did, he would make it through the danger. It was a foolish thought but one Erin allowed, because she felt she couldn't do anything else for him.

Instead of dwelling on her ache of hunger, she tried to fill her stomach up with free water but it ended up just making her constantly need to use the bathroom and feeling slightly sick.

Her eyes were glued to the machines, a particularly plump looking Musketeer bar taunting her through the glass, making her mouth fill with saliva and her stomach ache. She could almost palpably taste the sweet chocolate as it cracked, revealing a fluffy sugary centre that melted upon her tongue...

"You okay?"

The voice stirred her and she looked quickly to its source, feeling, somehow, ridiculously guilty.

A pair of deep hazel eyes met her own and for a moment Erin could have sworn she was looking at the face of Alice Munro. The dark blond hair, the little inquisitive quirk of one side of her lips in kind amusement. Erin's eyes widened and focused and the illusion was broken, the young nurse before her did bear a fleeting resemblance to her friend, but it was certainly not her.

"Yes," Erin said, her voice sounding too high pitched.

"Well, I've been watching you this past hour, and if you could have lasered your way through that glass with your eyes, I believe you would have." She gave a soft friendly smile and pressed something cold into Erin's hand.

Erin looked down, uncurling her fingers and revealing several shining metal coins.

"Maybe get yourself a hot drink too, coffee here sucks, but it'll keep you going, and you look like you need to keep going."

Erin felt lost for words but tears quickly pooled and ran down her cheeks before she could check herself, making the nurse look just a little uncomfortable. "Thank you," Erin said in a whisper. "Sorry," she wiped at her face impatiently, "been a hard night."

The nurse laid a comforting palm upon Erin's shoulder and patted. "I can see that." Her eyes were full of empathy, then she smiled again, nodded in encouragement towards the machines and turned, to go about her business.

"Wait!" Erin began, not quite daring to catch the nurse by the arm, but her hand hung in mid-air as if respectfully requesting her to pause and listen.

"Yes?" the nurse said, turning to look at Erin again with a concerned frown.

"Is there a newspaper from today I could read? I feel I've been out of the loop for weeks."

'Centuries,' her mind corrected with a little huff of amusement.

"Sure." The nurse went to a nearby reception desk, searched a moment and then returned, a newspaper in hand. "Here."

Erin took the paper with a smile of thanks, the nurse nodded again and turned on her heel, making her way down a nearby corridor. Erin waited until she was alone again before she allowed her gaze to travel to the paper. If she was honest with herself, she'd been avoiding looking for any hints of a date and time.

What if she was five years in the past?! Okay, that felt like a stretch, but what if only a day had passed by in this time from when she had left? How would she explain the state she was in to anyone then? She knew this scenario to be highly unlikely because the camp site had been emptied of the Big Circle Re-enactment but, anything else was a wild card. She could have been gone days, weeks... even years...

She took a breath in and held it, letting her eyes glance over the date, her body releasing a tension she hadn't known had been there for hours. The year was the same year she'd gone through the falls, the date mid-August, the same amount of time had passed here as it had in 1757, just under two weeks. Erin wanted to cry all over again with relief but then her stomach let out a rather loud grumble, demanding she pay it attention.

Erin placed the paper down, intending to return back to it and read the latest news later. She stared down at the coins in her palm for several more seconds before she finally pushed her aching sore body up, and with heavy steps, made her way over to the machine. She put the coins in with a satisfying scrape of metal clinking against metal and pressed in the numbers with the accompaniment of little beeps. The machine whirled, the bar was pushed forward and fell into the collection drawer. Erin's change clattered out, sounding like winnings being released from a slot machine.

It was the best chocolate bar she'd ever tasted.

/

A/N

Hello, a good Friday to you. A candy bar cliff hanger!

I can't say if and when I will be uploading over the next few weeks, I will try to be consistent but, life, it has it's own plans. I will keep trying for every Friday as always, I just can't promise it.

So, Uncas' fate still hangs in the balance and if he does survive, then what? Will he want to return to the past (yes, I am resisting saying back to the future lol) or will he have other plans?

Erin has a lot of explaining to do, she's been missing for nearly two weeks and she just turned up with some stabbed guy, her parents and the police will be wanting answers. All great points brought up my Mohawkwoman and Flowangelic ;)

I laughed a lot at Flowangelic's comment that Erin's phone is kinda supernatural, I agree! I think my phone lasted a whole week once on flight mode but nearly two weeks is pushing it! (I think teh really old brick ones lasted a month on one charge!) I suppose if I ever decide to re-write this story and tighten up the plot points I should really show Erin turning her phone off to reserve battery, but until then let's say it's time waverum time travel logic :))))

My thanks again to Flowangelic and Mohawkwoman, your views and comments always make me smile.