“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 ju
st 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 sh
e 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.”
A Fire That Burns Page 21