This Side of the Grave

"Is it his cancer worsening, or did something else happen?" Something else better have happened, I added silently. I'd called Don every few days to check in on him, plus got regular updates on his health from Tate. No one had even hinted to me that he was going downhill. If Don had been steadily growing worse over the past few weeks and everyone lied to me about it, I'd stop speaking to every last f**king one of them, my mother included.

"He had a heart attack a few hours ago."

I closed my eyes, absorbing the swell of pain as it came. Heart attacks were lethal enough all on their own. Add one to Don's already-ravaged health, and I knew what that meant.

Cool fingers squeezed around mine. "He's still hanging in," she said. "He knows you're coming, too."

"He's awake?" I was surprised, but how else could he know I was on my way?

She glanced at the ground, shifting uncomfortably. "He was when I last saw him." Even amidst my fear, worry, and grief, I caught an edge in her voice that I well recognized. Defensiveness. The elevator doors opened on the second sub-level where Medical was, but I didn't budge.

"What aren't you telling me, Mom?"

She let go of my hand to gesture to the pet carrier. "It's not sterile for an animal to be in the same room with Don. All that hair. I can take your cat to your old office while you - "

"What aren't you telling me?" I repeated, slapping a hand on the elevator door when it started to close.

"Crawfield."

Both our heads whipped up, but Tate's indigo glare was only for my mother as he approached the elevator.

"Get off this floor, Crawfield. I told you not to come within a hundred yards of Don again. Cat." Tate's voice softened. "Come with me."

"Not until someone tells me what's going on, and as we all know, I'm in a hurry," I growled. My mother was forbidden to come within a hundred yards of Don? What the hell had happened?

"She directly violated Don's medical orders," Tate said, his gaze now flashing emerald at her.

"And he'd be dead now if I hadn't!" My mother stopped glaring at Tate to give me a pleading look. "That's the only reason I gave him the blood - "

"Which you had no right to do. You knew he had a DNR," Tate snapped.

Fresh tears filled my eyes as I put together what happened from the fragments of their argument. "Don had a 'do not resuscitate' on his medical orders, but you gave him some of your blood when he had the heart attack to bring him back?" I rasped, looking at my mother through a haze of pink.

She dropped her gaze. "I knew you'd want to see him one last time." I let go of the cat carrier to wrap her in a fierce embrace, hearing her surprised "oof" even as Tate let out a disgusted noise.

"You can hug her all you want, but she's suspended indefinitely, so get off this floor, Crawfield, before I throw you off."

I let her go to round on Tate. "You can't even stop being a dick under these circumstances? What is wrong with you, Tate!"

My voice was loud. The medical staff paused in their activities to glance our way before quickly going back to what they'd been doing.

"I'll take your cat to your office, like I said," my mother muttered, stepping back into the elevator and hitting the close button.

Tate took my arm, leading me down the hall, and it was only because I didn't know if Don was awake and could hear us that I didn't send him flying along the polished sterile floors.

"Regardless of the circumstances, she defied orders," Tate stated, keeping his voice low.

"If she wants to be on the team, then she needs to learn to obey orders even if she disagrees with them."

"Some things are more important than orders," I hissed back, stopping before we got too close to my uncle's room. "Don might be nothing more than a boss to you, but he means a little more than that to me. At least my mother recognized that, even if you refuse to!"

"Don't you dare," Tate breathed, coming closer until we were nose to nose. "Don't you dare stand there and pretend you're the only one losing a family member here. I grew up passed from foster home to foster home until I turned eighteen and joined the army. Spent the next five years trying to forget everything that happened before enlisting. Then Don took me under his wing when I was twenty-three. First f**king person to ever truly give a shit about me, to look up my birthday and send me a card. To remember that on the holidays, I'd be alone unless he stopped by pretending to talk about work. All this was before you ever met him." Tate's voice thickened with emotion. "I'd kill or die for that man, don't you ever think I wouldn't."

"Then why are you letting him just die?" I demanded, the last word cracking with the grief frothing inside me.

"Oh, Cat." Tate sighed, his entire body drooping as though something inside him had magically deflated. "Because it's not my choice. It's Don's, and he made it. I don't like it, I don't agree with it, but I sure as hell have to respect it."

And so do you hung heavy in the air, even if he didn't say it. I glanced down the hall toward my uncle's room, hearing the beeps from the EKG machine that weren't the steady rhythm they should be.

"I'm going to ride your mother until she learns that she can't ignore orders again, but, Cat

. . ." Tate raised his hand as if he were going to touch me, then dropped it. "Despite the fact that she shouldn't have done it, I'm glad you got here in time," he finished, looking away with a shine in his own gaze.

My anger deflated with the same abruptness with which his posture had slumped. It would be easier to hold on to it, I knew. Easier to whip myself into a rage over this and every other thing Tate had ever done to piss me off, but that would only be trying to camouflage my grief over losing someone I loved. Tate loved Don, too, I knew that. Knew it even as I flung the

"boss" comment at him before. Aside from me, Tate was probably hurting the most right now, but he was handling his pain the way he always had - by being a good soldier.

And I was handling my pain the way I always had - running from it with denial and anger. Of the two of us, I had the least amount of room to throw stones over coping mechanisms.

Slowly, I reached up, brushing my hand across Tate's cheek and feeling the light stubble that said he hadn't shaved today; very unlike his military regimented, impeccable grooming habits.

"Don loves you, too," I whispered.

Then I walked away, leaving Tate to go into my uncle's room.

Chapter Thirty-one

I knew how critical Don's conditionwas. Understood that, if not for my mother's intervention earlier, he'd already be dead now. But somehow, I hadn't truly accepted that he was dying until I walked into his room and the final shreds of my denial were ripped away from me.

It wasn't the bluish paleness of Don's features as he lay, eyes closed, on the bed. Not the hospital gown he'd previously refused to wear, the EKG machine that showed his shockingly low blood pressure, or the heavy scent of what I now knew was cancer. It wasn't even his erratic heartbeats that drove home the reality that this would be the last time I would ever see my uncle.

No, it was the rolling tray pushed into the corner of the room - na**d of a phone, laptop, or any files - that tore through my heart with all the pain of a thousand silver blades.

You just talked to him a few days ago! a voice screamed inside me. How could it come to this so fast?

I shoved back the sob that threatened to break free and went over to his bedside, very softly running my hand over his arm. I was afraid to disturb him by letting him know I was here, and afraid not to. He was hooked up to an EKG, but aside from the tubes in his nose, he breathed on his own in small, shallow puffs that didn't give him enough oxygen, judging from his pallor.

I sat there in silence for half an hour, watching him, thinking back to the first time I met Don, all the way to the last time I saw him before now. We had both good and bad history between us, but the mistakes of the past faded underneath my belief that Don had always tried to do what he thought was right. That hadn't always made him a good uncle, but it made him what we all were - flawed people who tried to do their best under rough circumstances. I had no grudges over our past. Only gratitude that he'd been in my life at all, and a wish that he didn't have to leave it now.

"Cat." The faintest smile ghosted across Don's mouth as he woke up and saw me next to his bed. "Didn't think I'd get to see you again."

I took in a deep breath. It was that or I'd lose the fragile hold over my emotions that kept me from breaking into uncontrollable tears.

"Yeah, well, you wouldn't, except I hear you're having obedience problems with your new recruit," I said, managing a smile even though it felt like my face would splinter.

Don let out a small, pained laugh. "Turns out your mother obeys orders just as well as you did."

His wry comment served to underscore our history, intensifying my grief at the thought of losing him. The only emotion my father and I shared for each other was mutual loathing, but Don had found his way into my heart even before I knew I was related to him.

"You know what they say about the acorn and the tree," I replied. Then my composure cracked and a few tears slipped out despite my best effort to hold them back.

Oh, Cat, don't cry.

Don didn't say it out loud, but I heard in from his thoughts as clearly as if the words were shouted. His hand drifted over, patting mine before his eyes closed.

"It'll be okay," he whispered.

And I heard the other thing he didn't say, but it echoed across my mind with more clarity than I thought I could stand.

So glad the pain will be over soon . . .

"Don." I leaned forward, stroking his hand pleadingly. "You said no before, but it's not too late if you've changed your mind. I can still - "

"No," he interrupted, opening his eyes. "I've lived longer than I should have as it is.

Promise me you'll let me go, and that you won't bring me back." I'm tired, so very tired, his thoughts sighed.

A piece of my heart broke, but I held his gaze and nodded as I forced the words out, whisking away another tear that slipped down my cheek.

"I promise."

Good girl. Proud of you. So proud.

I got up and began to pace so he couldn't see that more tears rushed out at hearing that from him. I'd been in countless battles before, but letting him go would take the kind of strength I didn't know if I had.

"You don't know how much I'm going to miss you," I whispered, keeping my back to him, trying to wipe away the tears that wouldn't stop flowing no matter how hard I tried to stuff them back.

He grunted softly. "I'll miss you, too." Love you, niece. Wish I would have gotten to know you sooner. Shouldn't have waited so long . . .

A choked noise escaped me hearing that. I stabbed my fingernails into my palms, hoping the slight physical pain would distract me enough to control my raging emotional anguish. It didn't. My heart constricted, aching from an injury that no amount of supernatural healing abilities could soothe.

Moments later, I heard a familiar booted stride and felt power in the air that I'd recognize anywhere. God, Bones had gotten here fast. That only further hammered away at my fragile control. He'd come quickly because he knew how devastated I'd be, and I loved him more for it even as it reminded me of how much I'd hurt when Don was gone.

Then Bones was beside me, his dark gaze raking the room to take in everything in an instant, hard arms reaching out to pull me to him. I allowed myself a few precious seconds to sag in his embrace, not needing to pretend I was strong with him, before turning around to give Don a forced cheerful smile.

"Look who else made it."

"I see that." Then a pained cough came over my uncle. Bones took my hand as his heart had several ominous pauses in between beats. "You turned out to be a better man than I expected," Don rasped once he'd regained control.

Bones stared at my uncle, his gaze steady and serious. "So did you, old chap."

"Bones and I talked," I said, trying to smile so I wouldn't burst into tears at the knowledge that this was their way of saying goodbye. "Remember your offer to give me away as a bride? Well, we'd like to take you up on it."

Don's mouth twitched in a wistful smile before his features tightened, his thoughts revealing that more pain flared in his chest. I glanced at the EKG machine even though I knew what it would say. My mother's blood had brought him back, but it wouldn't be for long. His heart was failing right in front of my eyes.

" 'Fraid I won't be around for your wedding, Cat," he murmured, eyes fluttering closed.

"Yes you will," I said, so strongly that Don's eyes reopened and stayed open. "Because we're going to renew our vows here and now."

"Cat." His face pinched with sadness. "You were planning a big wedding once things were . . . settled down. You don't have to ruin those plans . . ." He paused to close his eyes, his breathing and heart rate dipping for a moment. I bit my lip, squeezing Bones's hand until a cracking noise let me know to loosen my grip.

"These are hardly the right circumstances," my uncle finished a few moments later, waving vaguely at the machines by his bed.

I thought back to when I was a little girl and how I'd imagined what my wedding day would be like. I'd pictured wearing a white dress, of course. Imagined my grandfather fussing over his tie like he always did when he was forced to wear one, and my grandmother replying that yes, it was straight, with that little roll of her eyes. My mother would be there, smiling because she was so happy for me, and I'd have friends who would be helping me get ready to walk down the aisle. My bouquet would be roses and wildflowers, my hair would be up, and I would look at my husband-to-be through a filmy white veil that would only be lifted once we were pronounced man and wife.