A Fire That Burns (22 page)

Chapter Thirty-Nine

THE
news came later that
day that Natasha was very much free to roam Point Arena until her trial, much
to the Pearson’s, and apparently the Armstrong’s, dismay. Both families had
rallied around in the wake of the news and Austin’s room had been a buzz of activity
ever since. After having the morning with just her brother, she was now
overwhelmed with how everyone was trying to distract her. The only thing it did
was have the opposite effect as Austin’s energy slowly dwindled away.

Apparently everyone noticed and most of them said their goodbyes. Now
Austin was left with her brother, directly beside her, while her mother and
Tyler’s sat together, waiting for the stronger dose of painkillers to finally
numb Austin’s pain enough for her to relax and sleep.

“So, nearly a million dollars, eh?”
Tom asked out of the blue, his sister holding onto
his hands as a way of comfort.

Austin scrunched her face up at her brother, “Yeah? What about it?”

“No, nothing!” he replied with a smirk, “Just never thought little Miss
Aussie
Mozzie
would be able to make that much money.
I’ve been thinking about it since you got back, but right now I think you’re
more pliable to answer my questions.” He shot her a wicked glance combined with
a soft grin and wasn’t satisfied until she gave him a little smirk.

“If I had the energy I’d so hit you right now,” Austin mumbled back
quietly. “But hey, guess what?” she asked him, “The money’s still rolling in,
so clearly I don’t need to do much.” She winked at him as she packed a punch of
her own kind.

“Ooh, touché,” Tom retorted impressed and leaned in, “Now tell me your
secret.”

Austin just grinned and she shook her head, prompting him to push her
for the golden answers.

“She really is still your daughter,” Tanya commented with a laugh as her
and Jane exchanged a look. They stuck to the sides, watching the siblings,
allowing the pair some space.

Jane shrugged with a smirk, “What can I say? You try to raise them right
and set them free and this is the outcome.” She teased as she watched her
daughter diligently, “And boy, is it scary how much she mimics me.”

“Yeah, she definitely got that stubborn gene,” Tom joked and finally
Austin managed to whack him. It might have been weak, but it shocked him
nonetheless. “Hey!”

“You’re supposed to be nice to me,” Austin told him back and coughed
against the dryness in her throat. If there was one thing she hated about being
caught in a house fire - apart from the burns of course - it was the fact that
her throat had been killing her ever since, all due to the smoke inhalation and
internal burns that had occurred.

“I can be,” he said as he reached up for the drink and put the straw to
her lips.

Jane smiled as she watched her two children. She was proud of how each
and every one of her children had rallied around to make sure Austin was cared
for. She loved them for how supportive they had been at home as well. How, when
she was beginning to start doubting herself over her previous treatment of
Austin they would squish every woe and make her see that it was about the here
and now.

“You’ve got a good beside manner,” Austin commented teasingly, as she
finished the drink and sunk into the softness of the pillows.

“That’s why I’m the doctor and not you,” Tom mocked lovingly as he put
the cup on the table and fell back into his seat. “We all know you don’t do
squeamish and the only patient you could tolerate was Tyler.” He laughed as
Austin shook her head at him and scrunched her nose up in horror.

“It’s just a job not for me,” she said with shake of the head to aid her
distain, “Really, really,
really
not for me.”

As she finished that, Austin looked out of the glass panels to her room
and slowly pushed
herself
up with alertness. She
didn’t care that the pains had just erupted tenfold, she was on edge at the
sight coming towards her room and her heart rate didn’t slow as it got closer.

“
Wha
-” Austin started as she looked at Tyler
as he came and stood in the doorway to her hospital room. “What the hell is
this?” For a moment her heart bottomed. Had he had a change of heart and was
actually going to marry Natasha since she was released on bail? Her heart rate
accelerated with fear. She had just felt like she was getting her heart back
and now it was falling to the floor, ready to smash into millions of little
pieces all over again.

 
“I knew the yearbook wouldn’t
fully work, so I thought I’d go back to what I was left with,” Tyler started
and pulled at the collar to his tux. He smiled at her brightly as he pulled the
wedding bouquet out from behind his back. “Or, well, go with my original Plan
A.
Me
.”

“I think that’s our cue to go find food,” Jane said as she stood and
ushered Tyler’s mom and Tom from the room. “Be good, kids!” She called from
behind her and slid the door closed.

“But this I
gotta
stay for!” Tom protested
looking back, not allowing his mother to pull him away.

Jane scolded her son immediately, “Just walk, Thomas Jay Pearson, or I
will drag you out by your ear!”

Sitting in a state of shock, Austin watched as Tanya and Jane laughed as
Tom listened to orders and marched onwards with sheer reluctance. She then
looked to Tyler and relaxed a little as she tried to understand this new show
that Tyler had put on.

Tyler had to smirk; this was working out faster than he had anticipated
it to. He looked at Austin and felt a chuckle building in his chest as he
watched her trying to make sense of what was going on. “How
ya
feeling?” he asked her, trying to get the ball rolling as he closed the gap.

“Partying hard,” she said as she pointed up to the IV pole. “Nice hardcore
drugs are my friends.” She then looked at him and eyed him over once, “Care to
explain?” she asked him as she inspected the bouquet in his hand and realized
its familiarity to her and she began to feel her eyes watering.

“I know we have so far to go with this, Aust. I know this isn’t a simple
‘let’s fall back into our routine and walk into the sunset’ type of situation
but, I want to show you how much of my life from six years ago I am still
living with.”

“By wearing a tux and getting a bouquet?”
Austin asked him
with a small smile.

Tyler huffed, “I was just trying anything and this happened to be one of
the things that
was
glaringly obvious. My tux, your
flowers from our wedding,” he looked down at himself and back at her, “Too
much?” he asked her with a sudden confusion. After going into the attic at his
parents where he kept a lot of Austin’s things, he had found Austin’s book of
wedding plans, her
color
scheme, her choice of
flowers, her bouquet, her dress,
his
tux. He had used
that to show her that he still had stuff from the past that kept him grounded,
that kept his love alive for Austin.

 
“Not at all,” Austin replied
quite choked, “Although, I did think you were going to marry Natasha after
everything.” Her eyes dropped in shame; she was terrified that he would go AWOL
at her admittance.

Covering the rest of the distance, Tyler quickly caught Austin’s chin
and lifted her head, forcing her to look at him, “It’s not her I want. I’m done
with her, entirely. She took so much away from me and lied to me, she made me
doubt so much and she played me. I was tempted to make her believe I wanted
her, and then when she got to me at the altar I was
gonna
jilt her, but hey, I had other things to do. I didn’t want to waste anymore of
my time on her. I had more important matters to deal with.”

 
“Like?”
Austin asked as a tear fell down her face.

 
“Getting here to you,” he replied
to her with a genuine smile. “Everyone knew I loved you, even when I tried to
make it look like I didn’t after you left, it didn’t work. I will always be the
man that is head over heels, insanely in love with Austin Pearson, and that is
how I want it to be forever. I lost you once; I’m scared that if I don’t make
this right I will lose you all over again. I need you to know that I am deadly serious
about winning you back, and I will make it a lifelong mission to make it
happen. I will, Austin, believe I will, because what the heart wants the heart
ge
-”

 
“Tyler, I might be entirely out
of my mind and high on whatever the hell they’re pumping into me, but for God
sake’s kiss me like you used to,” Austin said all of a sudden midway through
his speech. She decided to fall and quickly realized she was going to be
caught. Exactly like her brother tried to make her see that morning.

Tyler listened to her wish and made it come true.

     
He kissed
her greedily and attentively. He kissed her like he had never kissed Natasha –
with a passion that only came from the depth of a hard beating heart and
electrified every waking sense in a body. For once, this kiss wasn’t a dream
for either of them. Both had fallen unwillingly to one another’s peril and they
caught each other perfectly.

Chapter Forty

I
just want to leave
here!” Austin groaned as she listened to the doctor. She was losing it and to
be told she had developed an infection – which was common, the doctor had told
her gently – now meant that Austin was agitated and miserable. Even the good
doctor’s bedside manner did nothing to inspire a good mood.

“I know it feels like prison in here, but infections in burns are so
rife and dangerous we can’t risk it,” he told Austin softly. “This is just a
minor hiccup and we’ll run the tests and administer some antibiotics. We will
get this infection under control as soon as possible.” The doctor said as he
instructed the nurse to take blood and applied his attention to soothing
Austin’s fraying nerves. “You’ll feel worse for a couple of days or so, but
once the antibiotics set in you’ll feel better, guaranteed.”

Austin closed her eyes as the nurse drew more vials of blood from
Austin’s vein. She was frustrated and desperate to just get out of here and
take her life back. She knew, deep down, that doing so could very well
compromise her health, but Tyler and her had turned a corner and she wanted to
explore it. She wanted to finally move on from the past and build that future
she dreamt of.

Sitting down, Jane took her daughter’s hand and was glad when Austin
opened her eyes and looked at her. She smiled reassuringly, “Tyler’s going to
want to be here more than ever.” She started as a way to make a distraction.

“He has a job,” Austin mumbled as she felt the needle of the
cannula
slide out of her vein and she just ignored it the
best she could. “He can’t be chief from a hospital room.”

“Maybe not, but, for you, I think he’d move heaven and earth to make it
so,” Jane responded candidly to her daughter.

Finally looking, Austin watched as the blood in her arm was drawn into
the empty vials and then looked back to her mom, “Dad’s not going to be happy
either.”

“No one’s to blame for this injection, Aus. They happen so quickly and
they’re so common,” Jane said as she leaned in and scooped back Austin’s fringe
out of her face. She hated the heat that was radiating from Austin, especially
when the day before she was up and about, messing around with Tyler, finally
getting a bit of life back as they reconnected. “These things happen, Austin.”

Nodding, Austin huffed uncomfortably, “Everything happens for a reason
right?” she asked her mom rhetorically. That one saying had kept her going all
along, and she refused to lose faith in it. Even if right now she was barely
holding onto clarity. She couldn’t see a reason for this happening. She
couldn’t find a reason for getting an infection so close to being released.

The doctor was making notes in Austin’s chart as her mother spoke to
her, but need to interrupt to get some more information on her condition.
  
“How are you feeling? I mean, beside from
the obvious?”

“I feel sick,” Austin whimpered pathetically, and could feel herself
losing her cool as cabin fever was setting in strongly alongside her actual
fever. She hated the entrapment and after being on a high in the days before,
she now felt miserable and lifeless. Her body was slow on reactions and felt
lethargic, not forgetting that every muscle in her ached like hell. It was
definitely one step forward, fifty steps back.

“She has since she woke up,” Jane jumped in as Austin curled up in the
bed. “She was sick twice earlier, but not recently.”

Austin listened to her mom, and she was glad she was here. When all
Austin wanted to do was curl up and ignore the world around her, her mother was
there to be her voice and do her motherly duty. Austin felt
a
comforting
warmth at that thought. This is all she had ever wanted – a
family to support and love her when she really needed them.

“Okay, we’ll keep an eye on that, but I’d say it’s just the infection.
We’ll get started on some basic antibiotics and fast track your blood cultures
to find out what we’re dealing with here.” Adding onto the chart, the doctor
promptly closed it and gave a small smile, “Get some rest, Austin. Everything
else is in order and once we’ve got this infection under control we’ll be back
on the road to recovery.”

Jane gave the doctor an appreciative smile and watched him leave before
turning back to face her daughter. Jane watched the emotions amalgamate across
her daughter’s face

Austin began to break down as she lay there alone with her mother
holding her hand. She knew what this meant. If there was infection it meant
that the skin graft could well be rejected and she would have to go through the
pain all over again. It was bad enough that this was far from over, but to go
back to square one would be a killer. She felt like her body was conspiring against
her, she was never going to get free of these four walls.

“Hey Baby, what’s wrong?” Jane asked worriedly, she watched Austin
trying not to let out full blown sobs. “
Shh
, Aussie,
you’re okay.”

“I didn’t want any of this to happen,” Austin told her mom honestly.
“Maybe I shouldn’t have come back. Then we wouldn’t be here like this.
Everything that’s happened is due to me.
Everyone worrying
about me, about getting time off work, about giving up their life. It’s all
because of me. I’m ruining everyone’s lives again”

“Don’t you dare say that,” Jane scolded her daughter. “We don’t ask for
the bad things in life, but life isn’t a smooth ride, it’s not meant to be. I
know you’re not thinking clearly and everything seems to be daunting all over
again, but Aussie, you are here now, and we aren’t letting you do this alone.
We love you,
that’s
why we’re here.” Jane smiled
gently as she reached over with a tissue to rid the tears. “I know you’re
worrying over this and that isn’t going to help you. So, how about, you let me
worry and you just rest?”

Glancing to her mom, she knew she had no other options, so Austin just
nodded, “Okay.”

“Good girl,” Jane praised lightly and dropped a kiss to Austin’s head as
she stood up and pulled the sheets over Austin.

Jane knew this was a massive drawback, but she knew that Austin had
enough support around that she wouldn’t have a chance to sink. Not only did
Austin have her parents, her brothers and sister, and the Armstrong’s, but
Austin had Tyler who was not, for love or money, going to leave her side
unattended for any extensive amount of time.

However, for the time being, she had to wait on the medication to kick
in and for their family to return. She watched as Austin got sicker by the
minute and allowed the depression to really win her over.
 

***

“You’re looking a little rough around the edges,”
Austin woke up to hear her father declare. When she looked, she saw Tyler near
enough flop into a seat and sigh heavily. “Have you thought about taking some
time off, Tyler?”

“I think that would be wise,” Austin whispered, not willing to move
much. However, it seemed everyone sprung into action. She grinned tiredly,
“Happy I’m awake or something?”

Tyler smirked, “Oh yeah, Baby. Only took you four hours to do so,” he
teased her with a warm tone. He came to sit beside her on the bed, her body
curled up on her good side. Her hair was strewn everywhere and her eyes hooded
as she watched him. He pushed some back some of her hair to clear her face and
felt the heat that raced across his fingertips. He hated getting the call from
Jane who told him about Austin’s sudden and rapid decline in health, “How you
feeling?”

“Ill,” she pouted unhappily feeling her eyes water again
..
She was fine all the time no one asked if she was okay. Then
the walls she enforced around her just came crashing down. If she had to be
honest, she felt miserable being entrapped in this room. It wasn’t like the
pain got any better with every passing day. The pain exacerbated and so did her
need to be outside, living life, loving life, rebuilding life.

No one would understand, as much as they tried, how much life was a
struggle for Austin.

However, Tyler was swift to respond to her breakdown. He soothed her
with just the mere gentle hold he had quickly perfected in the days following
them caving to their enduring love for one another. In his embrace, Austin felt
like life wasn’t a
struggle, that
it was something she
could face head on. In the arms of the man she loved, Austin found the strength
that she seemed to be searching her soul for.

Feeling her calming, Tyler glanced over to her brothers as they sat
looking at Austin worried and a little unsettled that they couldn’t provide the
comfort she needed. He felt her go heavy against him and he kissed the top of her
head. “Let’s get you lying down properly, Aussie,” he whispered to her and
adjusted his position to lay her down, thankful for Nicolas bringing the sheets
up to cover her tender body.

Tiring quickly from the infection, the narcotics, and the good cry she
had just released, Austin looked to him, “I hate feeling like this. I want some
energy.”

“Well the best medicine you can get, Sunny, is sleep,” Tyler told her
tentatively. As much as he wanted her to stay up and talk to him, he wanted to
make her better. Logically, he knew that resting would aid her through this
more.

Going back to his seat, Tyler pulled it up closer than ever and took her
hand as it hung limply over the side of the bed waiting for him to grab it
again. He felt Austin lace her fingers with his and settle calmly back down. It
still amazed him that after six years, her hands still were the perfect fit.

“Are you okay?” Austin’s rough voice suddenly caught him off guard. She
had been watching him in the moments after taking his hand and she had to ask
if he was okay when his life was so up in the air and cast into upheaval.

Rubbing the back of his neck, Tyler didn’t look up, “I think six years
has caught up to me today, that’s all.” He felt Austin’s hand tighten its
little grip around his hand, “I’m fine though.”

“You can stop running now, Ty,” she told him and he could see she was
fighting the oncoming slumber that was dragging her down. “We all can.”

Leaning in, he pressed her knuckles to his lips and kissed them, “Good,
because it’s finally tired me out.”

“You and me both,” Austin yawned, feeling dragged down more and more by
the infections running ravenously in her body. “It’s time to just do what makes
you happiest, Baby.”

    
Tyler
didn’t look at anyone but Austin as she caved to her exhaustion. It was time he
took a break from the life that had torn his world apart and just focused on
the only thing that felt right to him –
Austin Pearson
.