Beth's phone pinged.

Her eyes shot open and quickly adjusted to the light. Images from the day before flashed through her mind and disorientation was replaced by the crashing reality of the events that had unfolded less than twenty-four hours before.

Beth rubbed her eyes and pulled the duvet off, still wrapped in the towel from after her bath. She briefly recalled padding over the landing and falling into her bed, burying her head between the two sets of pillows. Had the sheets not been changed days before, she may have been able to smell Miles' deodorant on them from the last time he had been lying there next to her.

She blinked back the tears and grabbed her phone.

6.07am

Jess, "U awake? Xx"

Beth texted back, "Just. Did it all happen? Tell me not a dream."

Moments later another ping, "Sorry honey. U goin to hospital later? Will give u lift if u like? I sorry bout ystrday, couldn't go in. Will try today."

Beth smiled and texted back, "thanx, will let u know once I know more."

Beth hurriedly pulled on clothes and threw her matted hair into a long ponytail and quickly examined herself in the mirror. Her eyes were small and her face blotchy, reminders from the night before when the dam finally broke and the day's fury and despair collapsed down on her and she cried until her tears dried up.

Beth padded downstairs and into the kitchen. The house, empty and imposing provided no comfort or solace for her. She quietly made a sweet cup of tea, because that's what people did in these situations. After draining her cup she made another, tapping impatiently at the side of the mug waiting for the kettle to re-boil. The toaster popped and she blankly stood at the kitchen sink chewing on the buttered toast, putting something into her painfully empty stomach.

Her phone pinged and Beth checked the time on the clock on the wall. Just past 7am.

"Click on this link."

She didn't recognize the number and was about to dismiss it as a junk message when another message appeared from the same number.

"A friend."

Beth checked the wifi signal to make sure the link would load and dutifully clicked on it.

Nothing happened and she finished the rest of her toast while it uploaded slowly.

"Fucking broadband" she muttered to herself and swigged another sip of the tea, wondering if it was too early to start walking to the hospital and whether she should wait to hear from his family first.

A sound came from her mobile on the kitchen table where she'd mindlessly placed it as the link uploaded.

Her heart fell as she watched and her legs became weak.

Her hands became weak and she dropped the mug into the sink, cracking its handle and spilling the contents over the back of the sink and tiles.

She needed to run.

Fuck, where are the shoes? The boots from last night needed socks and Beth hadn't put any on yet.

Fuuuuuuuck!

"Ah, my canvas shoes, no socks needed!" she thought as she spotted them under the stairs. Yanking them on and tying the laces furiously, swearing at her cumbersome fingers not working quickly enough, she grabbed her now quiet phone off the kitchen table, found her keys discarded on the hall table from the night before and, still pulling on her jacket, she bolted through the front door, hearing it slam behind her.

The freshness of the morning hit the skin on her face and Beth charged up the road. Should she run? She would pass out with exhaustion by the time she reached the end of her road if she tried running.

"Fuck my fat, slow, fucking body!" she cursed herself as she pounded the pavement, walking as quickly as her body and lungs would let her.

"Aah - morning bus!" she yelled and spotted it at the bus stop about to pull off in front of her.

"Nooooo!" Beth yelled, waving her arms and it waited for her.

She clambered onto the bus and fumbled in her jacket pocket and nearly dropped her purse in her hurry.

"Calm down, love!" the driver laughed but Beth's sense of humour was left with that link currently stored on her mobile. She needed to get to the hospital.

Thrusting change from her purse at the driver and collecting her ticket Beth remained standing near the front of the bus with rows of empty seats behind her.

"You CAN sit down, love!" he laughed, indicating to the empty seats behind her, "It's only 7.30 darling, hardly rush hour!"

Beth smiled as politely as she could, heart still racing from pounding up the street moments earlier, "Got to get to the hospital, in a hurry!" she panted.

"Righteo, love!" he chirped and the noisy bus lurched forward.

Beth watched as familiar streets whizzed by and before she knew it, the bus stopped at the end of the road by the hospital main building.

"Thanks!" she yelled as she jumped off it and dashed up the road.

Beth reached the steps in front of the hospital and dodged her way past patients and staff who stood outside the main building, some with cigarettes in their hands, breathing in their first cigarette of the day.

Beth reached the lift and stabbed at the button, willing it to call her lift faster. The doors opened and Beth stepped inside. Just before the doors closed, she heard someone yell, "Hold the lift!" and a hand caught the doors before they closed.

The young policewoman who had briefly interviewed Beth the day before dashed into the lift and smiled at Beth.

"Thanks for stopping it for me," she breathed, obviously rushing much the same as Beth had been, "Oh, it's you. Bethany Evans? Inspector Edwards asked me in this morning for an update, I wish we had more to tell him, actually."

Beth smiled solemnly and quietly replied, "I - I - I saw Michael in town when I walked home from here last night. He was bragging about what he did. He thinks he's got away with it. I think I put the shits up him when I told him how bad Miles was though."

The policewoman listened to Beth attentively and nodded, "Turning into his dad, that one. I just ... I just wish I had better news for my boss. God, he loves that boy of his ... well, of course you know. You're his girlfriend. I wondered why I saw Michael and his father here this morning. They're sniffing around for more information, I bet after what you'd told him last night. Best keep out of their way, Poppet? No point making a scene for yourself here, no?"

Beth nodded appreciatively and reached in her pocket. She only had one thing on her mind now and that was seeing Miles, she needed to know how he was. She needed to know if her begging and pleading in the bath to whatever powers resided beyond her own, pleading for them to bring him back to her had been successful. Whether her howling and desperate sobs were powerful enough for the cosmos to shift in her favour.

"You might find this useful," she said flatly to the policewoman, "Last message. Click the link. You'll find me with them when you've finished with that."

She left her phone with the policewoman and walked briskly down the corridor.

She walked slowly towards the family room and saw the doctor through the small window to the side of the door talking to Abigail and Andrew. Beth stopped for a moment and watched them in silence. The doctor was explaining something to them, gesticulating with his hands and Abigail held her hands over her mouth so Beth couldn't read her expression.

Fear tugged at Beth's stomach. Something's happened.

Beth turned and walked around the corner and quietly slipped into Miles' room.

He lay still, no change from last night. Monitors muted around him and his breathing still long and deep. She crossed over to the bed and sat quietly on the chair next to a monitor and held his hand.

No reaction.

Beth laid her head on the bed still holding tightly onto his hand and screwed her eyes tightly shut as a child would making evening prayers.

"God ..." she began, "I know we don't speak much. Well, at all. But ... Oh shit, what's the point?" and she relaxed her shoulders, directing her thoughts and words to the boy lying in the bed in front of her.

"Miles ..." she whispered, "It's Beth. ... I've heard that when people are in comas they can still hear things around them. I - I don't know if it's true. But ... I can't sit here and not speak to you. It's what we do isn't it? You ... you ... you think I didn't notice all those things you did for me before we ... you know before we got together. You'd collect my papers from the front, I told you that, but ... you used to make me laugh in class. You'd pick things up I'd dropped on the floor because I'm such a klutz ... you'd ... you'd ... you were the only person, in all that time who looked at me. Really looked at me like I mattered. So ... so when you ... you know, told me I was sexy when I sang that time. It's like something came alive in me and, and, and I've been struggling against it for so long. I was so used to protecting myself that I became self obsessed, selfish. Then you came to me with all these feelings ... and I couldn't cope. I couldn't understand how you could love me so completely, so quickly. But I can see now, babe. I can see it."

Tears streaked down Beth's face and her voice broke with emotion. She swallowed and the lump in her throat constricted as she continued talking to an unconscious Miles, stroking the back of his hand with her thumb.

"I can see now, you COULD love because you allowed your life to be filled with it so loving someone was easier for you, letting me in was easier for you because your heart was already open. I'd closed off. I'd closed myself down and I didn't even realize. Oh God Miles ... Please, please come back to me. Pleeeeeeaasee. I - I- I ... I love you. Oh God, I love you so, so much."

"Bethany," a voice startled her and she turned around. It was Andrew.

She leapt to her feet and wiped away her tears, she didn't want to let his parents see how upset she was. She needed to be strong for them. Andrew looked confused as he glanced at Miles and then at her.

"We didn't know you were here," he began and Beth quickly walked back to the door.

"I'm sorry, I should have waited to see if it was OK for me to come in here, and I'm sorry .., you were with the doctor and ... and ... and I needed to see him ... I'm sorry. I'll go if you want."

Andrew put his hand on her shoulder and calmed her down. Beth realized her heart was pounding and her hands trembling.

"Bethany, Bethany, ssshhh, it's OK" he whispered and Beth wiped her remaining tears away.

From behind Andrew, Beth spotted the young policewoman waiting by one of the notice boards, impassively watching them but then nervously looking behind her to the corridor and lifts beyond.

Beth looked quizzically at Andrew who held something out to her. It was her mobile.

"PC Blakelock passed me this, she said you gave it to her?" Andrew asked, his voice steady and guarded.

Beth nodded, "Yes, why?"

"Who sent it to you?" he asked, "Did you recognize the number?"

Beth shook her head, "No, it just says 'a friend' but the number isn't stored on my mobile and I don't recognize it. Whoever it was, they didn't want to be known."

"If it's not a pay as you go phone, we may be able to trace it." He said, his voice official and presumably for the benefit of the police officer behind him.

Abigail emerged from the family room and looked confused at Andrew. Beth thought her eyes looked resigned, less fearful than they had done the night before and wondered what the doctor had told them. She desperately wanted to ask them but sensed that there were more pressing matters at hand.

Andrew looked behind Beth and commented, officially "Ah good, PC Thomas and PC Jenkins, you both remain there please" and he turned around to the woman police officer Beth had spoken to, "PC Blakelock, are they downstairs?"

"Yes sir," she responded and Beth detected a cool hardness to her voice, "They were in the coffee shop and they have been asked up here. A community police officer is escorting them up here now."

Beth looked nervously back at Andrew, searching in his sapphire eyes for answers.

Miles' dad smiled reassuringly, "I need you to respond to my questions Beth quickly and clearly, you understand? And when I tell you to stand back, you do so? No hesitation Bethany Evans, you are to remain out of the way. Wife! That goes for you too!"

Abigail stared wide-eyed at her husband and demanded, "Andrew Edwards, don't you use your bloody police officer voice on me! That won't work. What the hell is going on?"

Andrew put his hands up to Abigail to calm her down, "Shush love, it's just I don't want anything to go wrong, that's all!"

Beth looked behind her and the two police officers, Thomas and Jenkins were talking to hospital staff and it looked like they were asking them to clear the corridor.

A familiar voice suddenly resonated down the corridor from the lifts and Beth immediately recognized Paul's voice.

"Aah, Andrew!" he brayed, "One of your flunkies asked me and my boy up here to see you! I DO hope Miles is doing well? Bethany here told Michael that he was at death's door last night and naturally, Michael wanted to drop by to offer his sincere condolences. Rugby is a terribly dangerous game, isn't it?"

His monologue fell on unforgiving ears and the hostility towards him and his towering son, a few paces behind him was tangible. Beth sneered at them.

"Bethany," Andrew began, "Tell me, can you quickly watch this for me and tell me if this is exactly how you recall yesterday's attack on Miles Edwards?"

Beth looked down at the mobile phone now placed under her nose and with the volume turned up, the sound of the recording from yesterday's match echoed down the hospital corridor walls.

Michael's face froze.

Paul's face remained motionless, still in the conceited sneer it had been when he concluded his empty monologue to them on his approach.

Beth watched as the steady mobile phone video clearly showed Michael running towards Miles. Beth looked away, unable to re-live the deadly blow. Andrew quickly slid the video viewer to the scenes that followed the attack and again voices and yells from the audio recording echoed around the walls.

"I said down, DOG! Fucking pigs!" Paul's attack on Charlie clearly reverberating around them from the player on Beth's phone.

"And that?" Andrew asked Beth.

Beth nodded and looked up at Michael and Paul, smiling very slightly "The YouTube video link sent to me this morning, currently having received over two hundred views shows the attack I witnessed on Miles and Paul's attack on Charlie."

"That's enough for me," Andrew said loudly and he placed his hand on her shoulder firmly, pushing her aside, "Thank you, Bethany, that is all."

Andrew nodded to the police officers who were on either side of them and this was all the direction they needed.

They swooped on Michael and the female police officer stepped in front of Paul as they read Michael his rights,

"Michael John, I am arresting you on suspicion of inflicting actual bodily harm on Miles Edwards yesterday at the County Cup Rugby ground. You do not have to say anything ..." and the words were drowned out by Paul's primal roar.

"You can't do this to my fucking son! Miles attacked him! You watch that video back. Videos can be tampered with you know, I'll get my fucking lawyer on this. He'll be out by this afternoon. How fucking dare you!" and he shoved the police officer in front of him, spittle flying onto his chin as his eyes bulged in rage.

"Paul John," the female police officer began and in one swift movement she had swept his feet from beneath him and she had his hands behind his back already applying the cuffs.

Beth gasped and laughed at the absurdity of this small police officer felling a giant of a man who writhed on the floor below her. She held her knee firmly on the small of his back, rendering him completely unable to move as she continued to read him his rights, "I am arresting you for assaulting a police officer, for resisting arrest, for assault on Charles Edwards and on Bethany Evans. I am also arresting you on suspicion of theft and damaging property."

"Ah, the SD card?" Beth asked Andrew and he smiled at her winking, "And him pushing me over too?"

Andrew nodded and said, "Assault."

Beth watched wide eyed as they marched a writhing Michael away and how two more police officers came to pick up an incandescent Paul, who raged and bellowed all the way to the lifts and Beth could hear him still spitting his vile hatred at them as the lift carried them downstairs.

Suddenly the corridor was silent and Beth looked at Abigail who had remained like a statue in the doorway of the family room watching events unfold before her.

Andrew stood next to Beth, hands shaking and breathing heavily. Beth suddenly became aware of her own heart hammering away in her chest.

"That police woman?" Beth managed to blurt out.

Andrew threw his head back and laughed, "They don't call her the Terrier down the station for nothing. Hard as fucking nails, she is. One of my best."

"Language, Andrew" Abigail half-heartedly censored.

"So, is that it? Have we got them? Does that video prove it?" Beth asked, daring to let a smile reach her lips.

"That coupled with all of the witness statements, yes." He added and then seeing the confused look on Beth's face he added, "Did you see all of the comments under the video? Identifiable usernames freely admitting that they saw it and some even commenting about previous attacks. We can identify them and interview them. Remember what I said about safety in numbers and smelling weakness?" and Beth nodded.

"His stocks are falling," she managed to say, "After treating Charlie like that, no one will do business with him, will they?"

Andrew smiled, "No one reputable, anyway."

Beth allowed herself another smile and then glanced back to Miles' room and sighed.

Her face fell and she looked up to Andrew who had walked over to hug Abigail who had come into the corridor to join them.

Miles.

Suddenly she heard another, more friendly familiar voice from the corridor behind them.

"Beth, Beth!" it was Jessica, with her parent's trailing behind her.

"Beth, oh my god, why haven't you got my messages? The video! The video! It's all over the web and chat sites. Another video is doing the rounds!"

Beth smiled and briefly explained what had happened moments earlier and then laughed at Jessica's less than subtle "Oh Fuck and I missed it!" outburst.

Beth's heart sank as she plucked up the courage to ask the question that she had been dreading since her arrival that morning.

"Mr. and Mrs. Edwards?" she began and they looked over to where Beth was now sitting with Jess and her parents, "You were with the doctor earlier. What's the news? Oh God, please tell me. He didn't move when I went into see him and ... and ... and ... oh, God is there damage?" and tears started to fall down her flushed cheeks.

Abigail beckoned Beth over to join them and she tentatively walked towards them. The expressions on their faces confused her and she asked again, "What did the doctor tell you? Will Miles ever wake up?"

Andrew put his hand on the small of her back and pushed her towards the door of Miles' hospital room and he quietly whispered, "Go to him.'

Beth's heart thumped wildly in her chest as she quietly walked into the hospital room. She didn't dare look over to the bed. Light now streamed into the room as the sun had started to shine through the window making the scene before her so much more vivid and harsh.

She swallowed hard and looked up, her eyes travelling up the bed and stopping briefly to watch his chest move with his breathing.

Her eyes travelled upwards and stopped.

Sapphire eyes. Bruised around the edges, but sapphire. Glistening in the sunlight and gleaming at her.

Beth gasped as she stared at his smiling face, that sapphire smile framed in bandages.

"Hey beautiful," he rasped, "So it takes me nearly dying for you to tell me FINALLY that you love me?" his weak voice teased, "A man will go to extraordinary measures to hear his girl say those words!"

Beth laughed through her tears, hands trembling and knees weak, "But ... how, when ... did you hear me ... tell you I loved you? How?" she blurted out.

"He woke up about two hours ago," his father said as he entered the room with Abigail, startling Beth a little, "The doctor was just telling us about concussion and how we need to keep an eye on him for a bit."

Beth stared back at Miles and shook her head, "So ... so ... so when I came in before... you were awake?"

Miles grinned cheekily and then winced a little with the pain in the side of his head, "I'd drifted off again," he said groggily, "but woke up to this mad girl praying by the side of my bed. I thought I was going mad until I heard it was you ... daft thing. Your prayer was shit, I'm glad you abandoned it. I much preferred what you said afterwards."

Beth blushed and walked over to him, clutching his hand and laughing through her tears, "You're an utter bastard Miles Edwards for putting me through that. But I do love you. I love you so, very, very much."