St. Elsewhere

The world had gone black.

There was nothing now. Just a vast emptiness that could not be filled with anything, not with the endless cups of tea that her father made or the supportive words of Sean, nor his grip on her hand could build that bridge to her.

She cut herself off from them, working on autopilot for the rest of the day.

If she couldn't dance then she had nothing.

Her father had told her mother and despite the furious wrath of Mrs Ferguson there was nothing she could do.

She needed Mia. Mia had to stay at home. She could have been sacrificed for three days to claim her place in school back, but parting with her for three weeks now was impossible.

Sean spent that night with Mia, not returning to his crummy hotel on the other side of town. Mia hadn't cried yet and that was what scared him most, the fact that she now seemed so hallow because she knew all the reasons why she could not go down to London and dance again.

When Mia's father had dropped the bombshell Sean made a notion to get up and leave, thinking it best that Mia and her father were left alone, but Mia held him back the grip on his hand so strong that her fingernails made marks on the inside of his palm.

Mia's father told Mia that the school understood the situation that she was in, but they couldn't hold her place indefinitely and said maybe it would be better if Mia came back for the next school year and then picked up where she left.

But to go for a whole year without dancing was a taboo for Mia.

Absolutely exhausted Mia had fallen onto her bed later that evening when the sun had stopped shining, hardly having said a word since the bad news.

Sean gently sank down on the bed next to Mia who had curled up, her legs pressed close to her chest, her eyes staring out blankly.

"Mia I'll go if you want me to…" Sean said softly and was about to get up when Mia stopped him by laying her hand on his arm.

"Don't." Was all she said; excess words would cause excess thoughts and the last thing that Mia wanted to be was think. At present she just wanted to be. She just wanted to be miserable and allow herself to be weak, but just this once.

Sean just nodded and then lay down next to Mia, wrapping his hands around her waist and holding her close. The human contact made her feel less alone and it provided a strong comfort that was never to be underestimated.

She turned over on her side so she could look at him.

"It's not fair…" Mia began, and with those three words the tears, that she was so sick of crying, began again.

A strange sense of relief swept through Sean as he gently wiped the tears away, after all; tears were better than the numb and accepting silence that Mia had been in only minutes before. Tears were a sign of rebellion: a sign of the injustice of the whole situation and because they also provided a sense drive to make the tears worth crying.

Whilst Mia felt her world was crashing around her, Sean was planning to save her from that empty and hallow world that would be all that Mia was left with if they didn't fight this.

And he already knew what to do.