A low growling sound brings me back to the present, and I gradually become aware of vibrations stirring through my entire body. I can hear voices muttering around me, and when a sudden jolt shudders through me, I try to drag my eyelids from each other to see what is going on now. Are we under attack from prehistoric beasts?

Perhaps the bleachers are collapsing! I've caused an avalanche... or an earthquake because there are a lot of clattering sounds going on around me. If a butterfly flapping its wings in the Amazonian rainforest can change the weather half a world away (according to Chaos Theory), a girl rolling down bleachers could probably cause some stuff too.

There are warm fingers wrapped around my hand, it's comforting, and when I finally get my eyes open, I see Ethan seated next to me, talking to a man, his brow furrowed with what seems a lot like worry.

The faint roaring sound and the tremors suddenly take shape, and I'm relieved to realise that we are probably not being stalked by a T Rex, shaking the earth at its approach. I watched one of the Jurassic Park movies on my laptop before bed last night and can therefore be forgiven for jumping to conclusions. 

The roaring sounds are definitely not organic; they belong to an engine. I'm in a vehicle, and judging by the clothing of the man assuring Ethan that I'm going to be just fine and that they're driving as fast as they can, and also by the other puzzling sound, which I'd ascribed to screaming people, but is actually a siren I am definitely in...

"An ambulance? Why?"

Ethan's head whips around at the sound of my whisper, and now he is holding my hand with both of his while he re-enacts the tragic scene from Bambi when his mother dies... Well, just minus the dying part, but based on Ethan's reaction, I feel like I probably did die at some point.

Am I dead now too?

"We shouldn't play in the ambulance; it's for injured people," I tell him wisely, and when I try to raise my other hand, to do something comforting like pat his hand or stroke his cheek, I wince at a sharp needle prick in my arm. "What? Why do I have an IV?"

Now I'm really getting nervous. I now recognise the man in the EMT uniform. It's Robert Lancaster, an actual EMT. Why am I in an ambulance, apparently on my way to the hospital?

"Ethan?"

"It's okay, Kicks," he soothes, running a gentle hand over my forehead.

"Just lie still and relax, Kira; it's all good," Robert assures me. "You got knocked out for a bit, and we're just taking you to the hospital for a check-up."

"With the sirens blaring?" I might be concussed and on the brink of death, but I don't think sirens are required for a simple check-up.

"Yeah, it's boring if the sirens don't blare," Robert grins at me. "Ethan insisted, and he's got more muscles than I do, so..." He chuckles, checking my eyes with a medical flashlight, blinding me. "Everything looks pretty good as far as I can tell, but better safe than sorry, right?"

I'm already more than just a little bit sorry. My head hurts, my body aches, and this needle in my arm is just freaky and horrible. Every time I move, it pricks me. I don't like this.

I turn my eyes to look at Ethan again, and there is something very off about him. He is not grinning; he is not making siren sounds with the ambulance or enjoying this high-speed chase to the hospital. He seems tense, and his eyes are a little red as though he got sand in them again. He is always getting sand in them when he's playing on the beach.

When the ambulance stops at Silverview General Hospital, I suddenly feel like a guest star in an episode of one of my favourite Japanese dramas, Code Blue, with the ambulance doors opening and the gurney I'm lying on being wheeled to the doors.

Except, there are no Japanese involved, as far as I can see (I would've loved to be treated by Dr Aizawa!), I didn't arrive by helicopter, and the EMTs are in no hurry. They are joking around with each other, casually wheeling me along.

Okay, fine, this is nothing like Code Blue, and I'm a little bit disappointed, though I should probably be relieved, as this clearly means that I'm not all that hurt. In fact, Ethan looks worse than I feel. The backs of his forearms are all scraped up, he's pale, and his hands are shaking.

What on Earth happened to him? Did I fall on him?

"Ethan?"

He grabs my hand and smiles at me, keeping pace with the gurney. "It's all good, Kicks; you're going to be fine." I don't like that he sounds as if he's trying to convince himself of that.

"You're in luck," Nurse Adelaide Chambers, the head ER nurse, tells me after she joined the EMTs at the gurney and Robert explained the situation to her. "You're our first customer for the festival."

What an honour!

Silverview General Hospital is always fully staffed when there is any kind of festival in the district. During festivals, there are always people drinking too much, getting sunstroke... rolling off bleachers... but they usually wait until the festival has actually begun before they start with fun activities like that. I was clever to get it over and done with before the ER got busy for the weekend.

There is barely any waiting time right now, just long enough to see Delia and her parents burst through the ER doors to rush over to me, inspect my condition and cry with relief when they're assured that I'm not dying. Well, Dell and Aunt Gemma are happily sobbing away, with Uncle Ian looking as tense and upset as Ethan.

I get wheeled from station to station, having every inch of me dissected, probed and fine-combed... at least, that is what it feels like. Many scans and scrape and cut cleansings later, I am finally wheeled into an observation room, a fresh bag attached to my IV, and instructed to rest.

Delia and Ethan are already waiting in this room, and they eagerly help to get my bed steered into place.

"It's for the pain," a nurse I've never met before tells me, injecting a liquid into the IV. "You're going to be sleepy soon. Just go with it."

"She hit her head, isn't she supposed to stay awake?" Delia wants to know in alarm.

"Doctor prescribed it," the nurse explains patiently. "That means that he is happy for her to sleep off her headache." To her credit, she is not taking offence or snapping at Dell, even though the question did sound bossy and accusing. When she's upset, Dell can come across as a lot more aggressive than she means to be.

"Mind if I come in?"

We all turn our heads to look at the man entering the room; he has that effect on people. He is a presence wherever he goes, always drawing attention with his dark, husky voice, his thick black hair and his well-proportioned muscled body. Officer Paul Armstrong. The object of desire of virtually every female above 15 years of age. His are the kind of smouldering good looks most raunchy romance fiction novels feature shirtless on their covers.

I am confused about why I would have the honour of this man among men standing by the side of my bed. I should roll off the bleachers more often.

He greets all of us by name, and Delia bursts into very uncool giggles like an infatuated schoolgirl. It is so unlike her that I whip my head around to see if she is having a fit of some kind. She is a schoolgirl, but that is all that she has in common with the sounds she's making. The movement causes bursts of bright pain to explode in my head, and a wave of nausea suddenly hits me. I close my eyes, and when I open them again, both Ethan and Officer Armstrong are leaning over me, asking me if I'm alright.

"Yes," I whisper, not feeling all that great but rather touched by their concern. Looking from Officer Armstrong to Ethan and back, I realise that in a couple of years, Ethan might dethrone this man from his place on the covers of steamy novels.

"I won't drag this out," the police officer says gently, and I almost giggle too, when he smiles at me. I would have if my head wasn't pounding and my brain wasn't going off to a strange dreamy place. "I'll soon let you get some rest. Could you just tell me very shortly what happened to you?"

Golly! I'm a clutz that rolled off the bleachers. Is that a criminal offence now?

"I was looking at how pretty Ethan's smile was and how sparkling his hair looked in the sunshine," I tell Officer Armstrong, convinced I'm using the words "not paying attention to my feet" and "moving around distractedly", but I hear what I'm saying, and I wish someone would be so kind as to stop me from talking. "I lost track of the bag with the ribbons and stuff, and I tripped."

"I caused you to fall?" Ethan exclaims, looking horrified. I don't think he understood what I just said. He is not laughing at me at all.

"No," I assure him. "I was listening to Amber's garbage instead of watching my feet."

"Amber?" Officer Armstrong prompts, his interest now fully piqued; he is no longer looking at me with an amused grin.

"Yes, she was being a bitch as usual." Oh, my! Why can't I shut up?

"So, she..."

"I really thought her nails would be sharper," I inform everybody about the phenomenon that's been baffling me and raise my arms to look at the angry red lines scratched on them. "Didn't even break the skin except for a couple of small places. If they were as sharp as is expected from a harpy, they would've dug in deeper when she grabbed me."

Is my speech starting to slur? My tongue feels vaguely sluggish now, and I'm having a hard time focusing.

"She grabbed you?" Officer Armstrong seems as surprised as I had been at the time.

"Yes, when she saw that I was falling, she grabbed me."

"She didn't push you?" I cannot tell whether Ethan is relieved or baffled, or both.

"No, she just said mean things," I assure him. "She's the emotional injury kind, not the physical injury kind."

"So, she tried to save you?" Delia asks, clearly thinking she'd heard wrong. People really have a low opinion of that girl. I'm starting to feel a little bit bad for her. Just a little bit.

"Yes," I acknowledge sulkily. "Isn't that depressing? She gets to be the hero. Well, I'm grateful, I guess."

"She might've contributed, but the real hero is the one with the pretty smile and the sparkling hair," Officer Armstrong assures me with a grin.

My eyes search for and find Ethan. He might be in the process of being cloned because, from this distance, I see about one and a half of him. He'd let go of my hand and is drinking water from the water cooler in the corner of the room as if he'd been wrestling through a desert. I'm vaguely aware of the policeman speaking into his radio, telling Officer Briggs to let Amber go.

"You arrested her?" I ask, feeling a little hopeful, but just a tiny little bit. I wouldn't mind if Amber got slightly arrested for a few minutes. How long have I been here? Am I still here? I'm sure everything disappeared for a second. It's all back now.

"No," Officer Armstrong chuckles. "We didn't want to cause a massive scene without having all the facts, so we just kept her in the first aid tent until now. Thank you for clearing it up, Kira. I'll get out of your way now. Rest up. I hope you're back to normal soon."

He says his goodbyes causing Delia to look positively depressed, but she still giggles in that creepy new way she'd suddenly developed when he says her name.

"You have a boyfriend," I remind her, laughing when she sticks her tongue out at me. I'm having a hard time keeping my eyes open now; everybody is developing blurry outlines.

"What did she say to you?" Ethan is back by my side, sitting on the bench, and if he'd heard about his pretty smile and sparkling hair, he is not showing any joy over it. He takes my hand, clenching his jaw in the way he always does when he's feeling tense, making the muscles pop out and disappear, causing him to look more mature and a little scary.

"Who?"

"Amber."

"Doesn't matter," I try to smile, but my brain is swimming, and my lips feel a little numb. "She was talking garbage. You're not dating me because you're afraid of next year and clinging to what you know and feel safe with. You're dating me because we have a deal. The joke's on her..."

"Kicks-."

"Why are you injured?" I ask him, tracing one of his abrasions with my fingertip.

"He tackled you," Delia says, making absolutely no sense to me. "Some of your bruises might be his fault... just think of them as love bruises."

"Shush," Ethan snorts, rubbing his knuckles on her head.

"Seriously, it was spectacular," she says, giving him an admiring look. "When you fell, you landed somewhere between the step you were on and the one below and just bounced and fell to the next one, and the next one. I was still trying to get to my feet and run to you when this guy came charging up the benches, diving for the next one on your path. He half caught you and half trapped you with his body. It was stunning!" she exclaims. Her eyes growing misty, she swallows convulsively. "I never want to see that again. Not ever!"

Delia's voice breaks, and she falls silent, running her fingers over my forehead. Surprised to hear this story, I look at Ethan, and he is watching me with hooded eyes, his jaw still clenching and unclenching, showing how agitated he is.

"I'm sorry you got hurt, Ethy..."

"What?" he croaks.

"Well, Kira, good news," Doctor Grant is walking into the room, followed by Uncle Ian, Aunt Gemma and someone that looks a suspicious lot like Daddy. This doctor is no Aizawa Sensei with brooding dark eyes that always make me swoon. He is rather old and wears unflattering glasses, but his smile is warm, and he is a lot better at dealing with other humans than the genius doctor from Code Blue. "You have no broken bones, no skull fractures of any kind, no internal bleeding or fluid build-ups anywhere, and you do not seem to have a full-blown concussion either, despite hitting your head pretty hard. You're a tough young lady."

"I'm a dung beetle," I assure him proudly, happy to hear him say these wonderful things about me.

Ethan sags, his forehead lowering to my hand he is still holding onto. 

"I am, however, going to keep you here at least until this evening, just to observe you and let you sleep off that lovely cocktail Nurse Hilton injected earlier. You should be able to go home once you wake up. I would suggest that you take it easy for the rest of the weekend, but it's festival time; I'm pretty sure you're going to ignore that advice. I'll check in on you often today, and we'll see how you feel once the drugs wear off."

"It's okay, Pumpkin; I'm going to stay right here with you." The other man who entered the room speaks when Doctor Grant excuses himself and leaves. The speaker is a little blurry right now, but the voice is definitely Daddy's. He is the only person on Earth who calls me Pumpkin, even though I'm 17 years old. He says I'll always be his little girl. I don't mind; I'll be his Pumpkin for as long as he wants me to be.

"No!" I moan in despair. "Daddy, why are you here? I'm fine. Your project..."

"Kiki, the day my work becomes more important to me than you, is the day I resign," he tells me. Daddy loves his work. "I have my laptop. I'm going to pull that table over to the bed and sit right here next to you and keep one eye on you and one on the readings. The office is close by if I really need to go in. I can work like this today, no problem."

"We'll be back too, Honey, whenever we can get away," Aunt Gemma tells me, kissing the top of my head. I don't remember Ethan and Delia rising from the bench next to the bed, but they're not there any more; their parents are, but they're not making themselves comfortable on it; they are saying goodbye. They are working at the festival this weekend, and I know how busy they are going to get. I hate adding to their load.

"Thank you," I smile, knowing that there's no point in arguing; they are going to fuss and stress no matter what I say. After another kiss, Aunt Gemma rises from the bench, and Uncle Ian leans in to kiss my forehead and off they go.

"What are you doing?" I ask Dell and Ethan when they once more make themselves comfortable on the bench after helping Daddy get a chair and the small table settled on the other side of my bed.

"Nothing; go to sleep," Ethan says, frowning at me.

"Please don't do this to me," I tell them, trying to frown, but my eyes keep on shutting. I want to glare at them, but I've been injected with an anti-glare serum.

"What? We'll behave," Ethan wasn't injected with an anti-glare agent; he is glaring at me pretty well right now.

"I don't think that's what she means."

"Don't make me be the thing that spoils the festival for you," I beg. "You love Founders' Day stuff. The stupid games and all that garbage. Who knows, this might be the last one you get to have with all your friends. Some of them are leaving town after graduation."

"How the hell will it be fun without you?" Ethan asks me rather aggressively.

"The same way, it was fun without me every year." Why is he being so grumpy?

"You were always right there!"

"To mock you and frustrate you," I remind him.

"Yeah, I need that!"

"Please, Ethan," I beg, feeling tears welling up in my eyes. I hate this. If they stay here and miss the first day's fun, I'll never be able to forgive myself. "Please, I'm just going to sleep. Go win me some stuffed animals. Boyfriends are supposed to win stuff for their women."

"You're so sexist," he grins. Good, if he's grinning, I might get through to him.

"It is what it is," I shrug with shoulders that are not where they're supposed to be anymore. It felt like I was shrugging with my lungs. "And you too, Dell; it's Sy's first festival; don't let me spoil it for him."

"I'm fine, Kira," I didn't even know that Simon was here too. Maybe he wasn't. He is carrying one of those cardboard cupholders filled with take-out coffee from the coffee shop downstairs.

"Thank you, Simon," Daddy says, taking a cup. He has set up his laptop, and I can make out a variety of screen views on it. This cannot be comfortable! Daddy needs to watch those readings on separate large screens; how can he see what is going on when they're all jammed together on one small screen?

"Please," I say, looking beseechingly at Delia and after gazing into my eyes for a few minutes, she finally smiles and nods her head. Dell gets me; she always has.

"Sure, we'll just have our coffee and wait for you to fall asleep, then we'll go. This is great; you've spared us all the boring speeches. When we go back, the fun will just be starting."

"Thank you," I heave a sigh of relief, avoiding the anguished look in Ethan's eyes. I don't understand the way he is looking at me. I am fine. Why is he still so upset? Is he in pain? A nurse took care of his scrapes and cuts, covering them with iodine, staining his skin. He looks like his arms had been to war.

I take his hand, stopping his fingers from picking at my bedcovers, and his eyes flash to meet mine.

"Yeah," he mutters, lying forward to press his forehead against my hand. "I'll go win you some shit. Go to sleep."

"How am I supposed to fall asleep with people watching me," I mumble.

"Pumpkin, you've drifted off at least three times during this entire conversation."

"I'm drinking your coffee too," Ethan tells me defiantly, lifting his head to look at me again. I don't like seeing him like this, not even in a blurry version. It's as though his batteries have run down, and his systems are going offline. His fingers are stroking mine, restlessly weaving in and out between them. I want to raise my hand and soothe his frown away, but I don't think I have muscles in my arms anymore.

A reassuring smile will have to do; if only I can find my face.

♂♀