Summer and Forever

I woke up with his hand curled around mine. I knew it instinctively, even though I had not opened my eyes yet. My head was hurting and my arm was tingling but all i could focus on was that Kevin's hand was in mine.

It felt large, warm and familiar,as if it had always belonged there. The heat emanting from our clasped palms was enough to make me forget the pain in my body.

"Kev?" I whispered fearfully. I didn't want Ingrid to hear me talking and kill me before I could say to Kevin that I loved him one last time.

"Yeah baby?" He whispered back. I felt him shift next to me and the searing heat of his arm was engulfing my body as he rolled and pulled me into him.

"Argh." I groaned weakly. He stopped pulling me in and murmured an apology in my ear.

"What happened? Where's Ingrid?"

"It's okay love. Everything is alright." His breath was hot on my ear and his lips were tickling me slightly.

"But-"

"Sshh." He insisted. He kissed my temple gently and only then did i realize that I was lying on a bed of some kind. I was in a bed. Ingrid would never have put us in a bed, especially not together.

"Ingrid...and Melina..." I tried again. I had to let him know how important it was that he not make a noise. She could come back and kill him. I couldn't let her kill him.

"Sari...it's okay." I opened my eyes and saw his concerned face right next to mine, just watching me and grimacing slightly. HIs face was unmarked and he looked unharmed.

"Close your eyes and I'll tell you what happened."

"Mmkay." I mumbled,unable to really fight with him anyway.

"You hit your head on the floor and blacked out. I thought you were..."

He swallowed and I slitted my eyes open to see that he looked away from me for a second, trying to get a hold of his emotions for my sake.

"Anyway, Ingrid thought you were gone too. She was happy and raving and Melina went...went nuts. She thought she'd let you die and that she was a bad person. She really believed neither of us was going to get hurt."

I made a grumbling skeptical noise in the back o fmy throat but didn't do anything more then that. He chuckled and pressed a butterfly kiss to the tip of my nose before continuing.

"Ingrid brought out a...a knife. She was going to finish me off, you see. Be together in heaven forever or some messed up idea like that."

I tightened my hold on kevin's hand at those words and felt a stab of anguish rolling through me at the thought of him lying on the floor, tied to a chair with a knife in his heart.

"It's okay. She didn't get to do it. Melina fought her, they fell to the floor and the knife ended up in...in Ingrid."

He swallowed and I felt guilty that my poor baby had been through this scene all the while thinking i'm dead. I opened my eyes and tried to get up so I could hug him properly but he gently held me down and made me close my eyes again.

"I'm not finished yet. Then Melina left and I thought she had left us here to die. I got free and went over to you. You were breathing and...i can't describe to you how I felt when I realized that."

I felt a wet substance on my shoulder and realized he was crying. I moved one hand up to touch his face and let him know that it was okay.

His hand caught my raised wrist before it got to his face. He pressed a kiss to the inside of my palm for a brief second before moving down to kiss the inside of my wrist. We stayed like that for a few minutes, me lying down with him pressing his lips against my pulse point.

Then he pushed my hand down back to my side and continued with his story. "I picked you up after freeing you and Melina came back. She had two policemen with her."

"She went to get the police." I said quietly.

"Yeah. She confessed to stalking me with Ingrid just to get back at you. They planned the whole kidnap thing and even had a friend pretend to be a nurse so he could get you out of the hospital and back to them."

"How did they do all this?"

"Ingrid's father is a very influential man and Ingrid is rich, powerful and a slut." The word sounded harsh on Kevin's lips.

"But how did they get the information on how to contact you, where to find you?"

"They used Bertranna."

I fell silent for a second and then "...what?"

"They held one of her younger brother's hostage until she got them inside with Nick. Made her convince Nick to let them in...stuff like that."

"Is she okay?"

"Nick's with her. He's spent six days convincing her she's not a horrible person."

"Five days?"

"You've been unconscious for a week and a half. They said you'd come out of it when you were ready. I thought you'd never..." Kevin's voice finally broke so he lay down next to me, buried his face in my shoulder and sobbed.

Great heaving sobs wracked his body as his hands wound around my body and secured me against him. I didn't complain about the pain. He needed to hold me, convince himself I wasn't going away any time soon.

So great was the pain of his sobs that I began to slowy cry too and eventually we were crying together.

After a time we quietened down. We became content to lie there in each other's presence, a calming serenity hitting the both of us like a drug.

Soon the heat of his palm had intertwined with mine and it felt like my whole arm was glowing.

"Kevin?"

He didn't answer me at first, probably trying to gather his voice before he spoke again. "Yeah?"

"I forgot to tell you something..."

"What?"

"I love you." Then I drifted off into a contented sleep. I didn't dream, which was a mercy. I just slept well knowing that everything I needed was holding my hand the entire time.