Triallaire

Shadow of Grief

"No... Maybe... I dunno. I'll have to explain more later, right now I just... I have to go," Tom explained to her, climbing out of bed to get dressed.

↞~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~↠

3 October, 2146

Uist and Barra Hospital, Benbecula, Scotland

The flight took longer than Tom would have liked, as did the official helicopter ride from Skye to Benbecula. Alexa MacLeod and Maidie Mackenzie met Tom at the helicopter, Tom having called them as soon as he had gotten on his way to Heathrow Airport in London. "Tom! Is it really her?" asked Maidie, her long blonde curls braided down her back.

"I don't know, I haven't seen her yet," said Tom a bit neutrally. "A nurse at Uist and Barra hospital called and said they had her, I don't know anything else."

"Suppose we'll just have te see then, willnae we?" asked Alexa as the three of them climbed into the helicopter. It landed some twenty minutes later outside of the hospital, and a nurse was the first to greet them.

"Glad ye've come! Ye must be Mr. Randall. I'm Nurse MacDonald, we spoke over the phone," said the brown-haired nurse as Tom approached her, following her into the hospital with Alexa and Maidie trailing behind. "Who's this, then?"

"I'm Maidie Mackenzie, I'm also a nurse, but in Inverness," said Maidie.

"Commander Alexa MacLeod of the Scots Army," Alexa said to Nurse MacDonald.

"Are ye friends of the patient?" Nurse MacDonald asked her.

"They are," Tom told her, not even looking back.

"Well, Miss Fowlis is verra disoriented and confused, Dr. McDermott willnae think it best fer all three of ye te be in there at once," Nurse MacDonald told them as they entered a lift.

"What exactly happened? How did she end up here in Benbecula?" Tom asked once they were inside the lift.

"A man found her - he's waitin' upstairs. She was wanderin' aboot in North Uist dressed in... well, in verra strange claithes... She didnae utter a word, not until she came te us," Nurse MacDonald explained.

"What did she say?" Maidie asked her.

"That she wanted te be left alone," Nurse MacDonald replied.

"That sounds like our Captain Fowlis," said Alexa. The lift stopped on the appropriate floor and the three of them followed Nurse MacDonald out, stopping at the waiting area. "Mr. Randall, this is Mr. Angus MacNeil, he was the one that found Miss Fowlis." The man in question, Angus MacNeil, stood up, pulling his cap off of his head and offering a hand to shake Tom's.

"Pleasure te meet ye," said Angus MacNeil. "Aye, I was drivin' my truck along the A867 when I saw the wee lassie jus' walkin' along the middle of the road. I stopped and honked my horn and she seemed te startle, then she turned as I got out of my truck and I asked her what a lass like her was doin', then I recognised her, I did. Ye see, I fought under her at Berwick in '36, so I knew it was Captain Fowlis. She didnae speak te me, but I brought her here as quickly as I could."

"Thank you very much," said Tom, looking now to Nurse MacDonald. "Where is she?"

"Room 314," said Nurse MacDonald, leading Tom, Maidie and Alexa to the room in question. It was an isolation room, and Tom froze as he peered through the glass window at the figure on the bed. She was sitting up, her red hair spilling down her shoulders. It was much longer than she used to keep it, and quite a bit unkempt. She didn't seem malnourished, but her eyes were rather sunken in and her face was frozen up in a blank expression. It was evident that whatever happened to her made a shell of the woman she used to be, but it was her .