"No I didn't," she said. "You did. I just got my house burned down."

"And got Davies off with a warning."

"He didn't mean it."

Murphy could tell from her eyes how much he hadn't meant it. Not something to argue about, though. He closed his eyes and leaned back against his pillow. "You been checking up on everybody today?"

He could hear her unsuccessfully try to scratch one hand with the other. "Uh-huh."

"How's your buddy?"

Timmie sighed. "Alex? They moved him out of ICU right before they moved you."

"He'll be okay?"

"Yeah, I guess." Timmie's laugh sounded as sore as Murphy's chest. "Isn't it funny how you don't realize who the stronger person is until something like this happens?"

Murphy opened his eyes. "What do you mean?"

She shrugged, her eyes looking bruised and introspective. "I always thought Alex would save me from my dad's weaknesses. And here it's my dad who was the survivor, not Alex."

"Alex will be okay as long as he has his cause."

"And an entire town to protect him from reality."

"Aren't there days when you'd like a little protection?"

"There are days when I'd like somebody to wipe my nose and schedule my naps. And when that happens, I usually end up homeless, hospitalized, and trying to figure out what happened."

"Nobody's gonna figure that out any better than they'll figure out Cindy."

Leary waved him off. "Oh, hell, Cindy's easy. She wanted to be someone. She wanted to mean something to someone. It's what we all do."

Murphy could do no more than shake his head. "You decided all this while she was chasing you around with a lighter, did you?"

"No. When she told me she'd just been trying to help. I feel sorry for her."

Murphy found himself gaping. "She's dead because she tried to kill us all, Leary. I'm afraid that doesn't inspire compassion here."

"She tried to get us to love her, Murphy. She just didn't know how."

He was back to shaking his head. "I guess that's why I'm a reporter and you're a nurse."

"Not just a nurse," she said with a secret smile. "Traumawoman."

"Uh-huh. How's your dad?"

That cost her the smile. "I don't know yet. He's hanging in there."

Murphy sat up straighter. Barb had at least filled him in on that department. "They haven't put him on life support?"

Timmie shook her head. "I won't let them. If he lives, he has to decide to do it on his own. I'm not stacking the deck just so he has a heartbeat."

"You're sure about that?"

Timmie spent a moment considering the mitts on her hands. Murphy could see the memories taking her back to moments he knew nothing about. He'd heard about them from the police, of course, and the fire crews who had stopped by to visit their two miracles. She'd done the impossible, and then crawled back in to do it again, even as the house had fallen in around her. And then, with her six-foot four-inch father draped across her back like a winter coat, she'd made it all the way to the window before the floor had given way. Only quick hands and strong firemen had saved either of them.

Murphy knew that the hospital was putting her up for a lifesaving award. He knew that damn near every person in Puckett was praying that Joe Leary didn't die after his daughter had fought so hard to save him. He suspected that Timmie didn't agree.

"I'm not going to make Daddy live just because I feel guilty," she finally said, lifting clear blue eyes his way. "I'm not going to let him die for the same reason. It's time for nature to take over. If he lives, we'll do the best we can. If he doesn't, we'll toast him like the rare character he was, and then we'll go on. It's not my decision to make."

"And after that?"

"Right now I'm just trying to find a place to live." Then she smiled, her expression suddenly clear. "At least I don't have to worry about cleaning all those newspapers out of the living room."

"My apartment's going to be available soon."

A little of that light died. "How soon?"

"I have a tentative offer from the Philadelphia Inquirer I thought I'd check out. In a couple of weeks, maybe."

She nodded. "And the rest?"

Murphy thought of that sparkling grape juice he'd resented so much. "I guess we'll see."

Timmie nodded, smiled, went back to staring at her hands. "Well, then, how about that meaningless sex?"

Murphy laughed so hard he started coughing again. "Now?"

She laughed back, and the two of them sounded like a tuberculosis ward. "You name the time, I'll name the place."

"When those things are off your hands."

She nodded. "Deal."

They smiled, content with the deal. Anticipating the rewards. Regretting the loss.

"Not a deal," Murphy said. "A date."

When he fell asleep a few hours later, he found himself smiling.

* * *

"You should be asleep."

Timmie looked up from where her father was resting to see the night nurse hovering at the edge of the door.

"I couldn't," she admitted. "Hospitals are as restful as hockey rinks."

The nurse smiled. "He's been sleeping pretty well tonight."

Timmie nodded and went back to watching her father's face. It looked tired, yellow. He was finally beginning to look small. There was a re-breather over his nose and mouth, and a couple of IVs in his arm. His chest rattled, and his urine was scant and dark. Not enough to kill him unless he decided it was time to go. He evidently hadn't come to that crossroads yet.

"He been singing at all?"

"Actually, yes," the nurse said, stepping in. "He's been humming. And whispering about women."

Timmie turned her head. "Women?"

"Yeah. I don't know who it is, but he keeps talking about 'she this and she that,' you know?"

Timmie smiled. "Not she, like ladies. Sidhe, like leprechauns. He's talking to the fairy folk."

The unit was hushed at this hour of the morning, shadowy and unfamiliar. The sun was setting up to breach the horizon, and birds chattered in the bare trees outside the window.

Daybreak. The most superstitious time of the day, when light returned, when shadows and nightmares fell away, when reality reasserted its hold on a primal mind.

When the veil grew stronger, the fairies slipped into the darkness, and humans were given permission to hope.

Timmie clasped her father's hand between hers and thought how huge it was. How all-encompassing. He was a hell of a man. Lousy husband, uncertain father, titanic drunk. Dear, whimsical, infuriating friend.

She wanted so badly to recite Dylan Thomas to him. To beg him to stay. But it wasn't her place anymore. He'd choose to stay or go as he wanted. As he needed. And she'd just wait here by his side until he decided.

"Timmie..."

She straightened at the sound of his voice. "Well, good morning, Da, how are you?"

He struggled to get his eyes open even halfway. They were still red and swollen and tender, his face raw. "Timmie..."

Timmie was pulling the re-breather free so she could hear him better when the nurse walked back in. "Mr. Leary!" she yelled in a patented old-persons-and-foreign-tourists voice. "HOW... ARE... YOU?"

Timmie's dad flinched and closed his eyes. "Hush, woman."