I nod once more, letting him know I’ve heard him—twice—and an previous weight shifts in my very own chest, lifting, and he’s proper. It’s simpler to breathe when my lungs aren’t filled with the worry for him that I’ve clung to.

“Right here you go.” Lukas swings open a door. “We’ll be together with Noah simply as quickly because the crew’s prepared to maneuver him.”

This facet room is quiet, blessedly freed from alarms and beeping. It additionally has a recliner that, after seventy-two hours of snatched naps, seems to be as luxurious as a five-star lodge fourposter. It’s additionally the place I get to see what worrying for a brother seems to be like, or quite, what its absence exhibits me on Marc—his stress fades as quickly as I shut the door and he sits again.

Sleep takes him between blinks, and each tight line on his face loosens, every deep groove in his forehead smoothing, and I need it to final. All I can do is stand guard for him as he catnaps, and for Noah, when he’s lastly wheeled in later.

Marc shoots to his ft, disoriented, and I regular him because the crew get Noah settled. His eyes are nonetheless closed, He’s nonetheless hooked to a frightening tools array. Frankly, his drains scare the shit out of me, lifeblood nonetheless seeping from him.

Lukas does his greatest to set my thoughts at relaxation about them, and right here’s extra proof that he’s proper the place he needs to be, not again on the farm wrapped in cottonwool or resting—he turns my worry into one thing productive. I’m reminded of Mum fishing that egg timer out of the dresser drawer at house the second Lukas murmurs, “See right here?” He factors on the clear tubes beaded with fluid and retains his voice low. “See how this effusion is a a lot lighter pink right now, sure? Type of like a pinot noir as an alternative of the deep burgundy it was at first? There’s quite a bit much less of it too. You watch, Stef. It’ll hold altering color.”

I whisper, “Again to a darker pink once more?”

“No, even lighter, like a rosé.” He meets my eyes, his gaze holding. “As a result of meaning he’s on the mend, Stef, therapeutic on the within, and that is how one can see it. Drop by drop. Shade by shade. So are you able to do this for me? Watch him getting higher till you imagine it?”

I nod. I can watch over Noah, and having one thing concrete to do feels higher. So does my brother’s promise.

“He’s making progress, Stef.”

Lukas could be proper, and Noah could be on the mend, however apparently my unconscious takes my brother’s order the identical method that Jess does every time I inform her to protect our lambs—nobody will get previous me for the remainder of the day. Not the police once more on the hunt for drug-running data, or Social Companies wanting updates on the placement of fogeys who’re conspicuous by their absence.

They nonetheless haven’t proven their faces—Noah’s dad and mom, I imply—and I’m unsure if I’m relieved or heartbroken for a child who jogs my memory a lot of Marc after I first knew him—a seedling attempting to thrive with not sufficient gentle and apparently too little water. It means the following time I take a flip within the recliner, I pull Marc down with me and maintain him. I can’t let go, however after days and days of terror, Marc stops holding himself collectively, and might’t appear to let go of me both.

He clings, and I hope he feels greater than my good arm round him. My entire coronary heart and soul additionally wrap him up, and I’d make a tent if I may. For all three of us. I don’t know why I say that final half aloud, however Marc melts in opposition to me, his lips brushing what’s a full beard, not scruff now. His head drops to my shoulder, his voice a low rumble. “Yeah, Stef?”

“Yeah.” I rumble too in a room that smells antiseptic quite than of the place I need us. There’s no tang of sea salt right here. No scent of first-cut pasture. “Up on the headland. The recent air could be so good for Noah.”

“No,” Marc murmurs to a unending backing monitor of beeps, footsteps, and voices. “Within the woods. Beneath our tree the place it’s actually sheltered.”

I shelter Marc then as his rest shifts nearer to sleep. I additionally shift so I can see him higher. He’s so like his brother—the identical tilt to his nostril, the identical cinnamon freckles. Marc’s eyelids droop earlier than rising, though that appears a battle. We have a look at one another in silence, and I’ve by no means felt so linked to him, or so weighted by him, however not in a foul method. He’s heavy on my lap, heavier nonetheless in opposition to my chest, however that’s as a result of he’s relaxed, and I have to rumble once more.

Marc wets his lips and I kiss them. It seems like a primary after who is aware of what number of days right here which have merged from horror to hope, from continuous stress to this second the place I get to take his weight, and he lets me.

Nurses come and go exterior and so does my brother, solely he doesn’t move Noah’s room, and this needed to occur.

I don’t know when he stopped within the doorway, however he’s there after I kiss Marc for a final time—his lips, his cheek, his brow—earlier than I pull again and see who watches.

I already informed him that I really like Marc, however that was throughout a high-stakes telephone name. That is the primary time he’s seen it. My maintain should tighten on intuition—Marc lets out a soul-deep sigh that Lukas nods at.

“About time, you huge muppet.”

He desires to say extra, I can inform, however he’s skilled, checking Noah’s progress. He’s additionally a twat who flicks my ear onerous on the best way out and whispers, “Do it proper this time,” which suggests none of this can be a shock to him. It’s additionally a reminder that he’s on each of our sides, not in opposition to us, similar to the following day is a reminder that working a enterprise long-distance is less complicated the extra I share it.

I do not know what day it’s after I stand exterior a hospital, bone-tired and rumpled after an evening of watching and ready, and I make myself beg for but extra Cornish favours, not all of them tied to the farm. Lukas joins me, wolfing a sandwich in large bites, again to his normal nosiness whereas talking round his mouthfuls.

“You’ll by no means hold a boyfriend when you make a behavior of frowning like that. Very ageing. Who have been you calling whereas trying so critical?”

“Carl Lawson.”

Lukas rapidly swallows. “From Porthperrin? You pondering of ditching farming for fishing with him?” He pokes my stomach. “He’ll want a a lot larger boat.”

As if I’d ever depart my land.

However that’s what I’ve accomplished, haven’t I? And right here I’m, a whole lot of miles away from Kara-Tir, asking different folks to assist John run it in my absence, which I additionally know can’t go on without end.

For now I hold sending texts and making telephone calls on behalf of somebody I can’t face leaving. “No,” I admit. “I known as him as a result of Carl is aware of every little thing about fostering. And he is aware of Marc’s previous state of affairs.” I rush whereas Lukas is mid-bite and might’t interrupt me. “Thought he would possibly put a phrase in with the social employees right here. Inform them how he’d be a protected base for Noah.”

“Who? Carl?”

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