When Brea hadn't come home by ten pm, Miranda had told Cindy that she should go and get some rest, and that Miranda would be fine waiting up to make sure that Brea got back ok.
After having unloaded everything that night onto Cindy's listening ears, she felt a little better. After all the older woman had given her some advice about the situation and had said that it was important she said alll that was in her heart to Brea, because if she didn't she may live to regret it for the rest of her life. Cindy had even talked about her own proposal to her late husband when they where young and how she had taken a chance to propose earlier than most would when she knew that she had found the one, and she hadn't regretted it at all, since she had been lucky enough to live out a great deal of her life with her one true love.
Miranda knew that she was right. She knew that she would regret it if she didn't tell Brea everything before she left Skye, and she knew that if she didn't she would be left wondering for the rest of her life what might have been. Besides, even if she didn't feel the same way, at least if she told her, Miranda would know her feelings and could hopefully start moving forward if they where not the same as her own.
Either way, she simply had to know for sure.
The only issue was, that the only way she would be able to find out exactly how Brea really felt, was by talking to her and what with her having still not come back to the bnd yet, Miranda hadn't exactly been able to do that.
She was beginning to think about resigning herself to having that conversation with her in the morning instead, when she realised the time.
It was at that point 11 Pm and as far as Miranda could tell, Brea wasn't exactly the late night party type. Was she in trouble?
Miranda began to worry as she hastily got up, and as quietly as possible, slipped out of the home to find that since she had been in there it had begun to rain.
She began to walk back towards the docks first as she attempted to call Brea, hoping that maybe she would either answer or be at the docks looking for her, though she doubted it, it was the first place that she could really think of. But when she wasn't there either, and there was no answer to her phones the three times Miranda had tried to call on the short slack, she rattled her brain trying to think of where else she may have gone too.
Before she could decide on her next course of action however, she was interrupted by a familiar sound.
"The swell of the sea is calling me, a calling my boat to Moore. But I can't leave the sea behind, behind, for it's all that I do adorreeee."
Miranda couldn't help but to be frustrated at the intrusion of her thoughts. After all she didn't have time for this, she had to focus! Brea could be in real trouble right now, or worse for that matter. But the closer the voice got, the madder Miranda became until she burst!
"Alright yer we bawbag now listen here."
She said crossly as she grabbed at the tipsy man's sleeve and looked him in the eye.
"Ayesshh what is it?" He mumbled drunkenly.
"Yer disturbing the peace, not to mention my thoughts. I'm here tryna concentrate on figuring out something important, while your there belting away."
The man nodded with a look that said 'fair enough, I'll shut it.' To which Miranda curtly nodded and let go of the man.
"Do yer mind if I ask what yer trying ter think about?" He asked, still half drunk.
"None of yer business." The man shrugged.
"Oh go on, give me a go, maybe I can help." He replied to which Miranda laughed. If a drunken man could help her find Brea, than Miranda was a codfish. But, than again, she felt that she needed all the help that she could get at this moment, so she figured she would tell him.
After all, it was bordering on 12 am now, and the later it got the more Miranda grew concerned about the woman she now knew she loved.
"Well, if you must know, I've lost someone. She didn't come back to where she was staying and she's not the late night party type so I'm very concerned about her well-being. But I can't seam to think of where she might have gone too, and Im worried that she might have found herself in trouble."
The man nodded seriously.
"Have yer tried calling the cops?" He asked but Miranda sighed and shook her head.
"No use in that, they wouldn't do anything until it's been 24 hours, besides by the time they did do anything, what if it was too late? What if she's in some kind of real trouble and needs help now?"
The man nodded as he began to feel himself sobering up at the seriousness of the situation.
"Well, it sounds like you know her pretty well, where do you reckon she'd go?" Miranda sighed.
"That's just it, I do know her well, but she doesn't know Skye well at all, so I have honestly no idea. Brea might be in trouble and it could be all my fault. After all, I'm the one that left her this afternoon."
The man beside Miranda stiffened at that.
"Wait, did yer say her name was Brea?" He asked her, Miranda looking at him quizzically with a nod.
"Short, blonde hair and a writer?" He asked, his face becoming pale as she nodded again.
"And how long did yer say shes been gone?" He probed, causing Miranda to stiffen at the question.
"Hours." She croaked out. her voice sounding even more panicked than it had before.
The man nodded.
"Ok, where did you say you saw her last?" He asked, causing Miranda's eyes to light up in recognition. She must have been extremely panicked not to have thought of it before.
"At the Claredon Castle Grounds!" She said, and at that she turned away from the dock, and began to walk in the direction of one of her mates houses, the now quite sober older man following right behind her.
Miranda had banged on her mates door loudly, earning a bewildered look when he'd opened up the door.
"Miranda what are yer doing here at this time er night?" He grumbled.
"Sorry Matt but it's an emergency, I need to borrow yer car. I promise I'll owe yer one." But the young man waved her off.
"Nah yerve already helped me enough getting me ter confess to the bonniest lass I know. Here take it, just be careful ok? I hope everything's alright."
He said as he chucked her the keys, and with a grateful nod, Miranda jumped in the vehicle, only waiting a moment for the older man she still didn't know the name of to join her, before hurrying off towards the last place she had seen Brea that day.
"So... how do yer know Brea?" The man broke the silence, trying to lighten the mood.
"We're... lovers." She replied causing the man to nod in understanding.
"What about you?" She asked distractedly as she hurried as fast as she could to get to her destination.
"We've Ah, met a few times by chance. She was kind to me, inspired me to actually think about starting up me writing again."
Miranda nodded.
"She does have that kind of affect on people."
She agreed as she thought about all the times she had witnessed Brea being polite and kind towards others. In fact, thinking back on it now, Miranda probably should have given her more time to speak at the castle before she had walked away. It did seam like she had more to say that afternoon but had just been struggling to actually say it. Maybe the two of them where actually in the same boat so to speak the entire time and both of them had just been too scared to let the other know?
Miranda couldn't help but to hope that might be true, but right now the only thing she could truly focus on, was finding her. The rest would have to wait.
When they had pulled up at the castle, the breaks of the care shrieking from the fast paced park, Miranda immediately got out and begun to search the grounds, the older man going in the opposite direction so that they would be able to cover more ground. But when they had met each other back at the entrance of the castle, looking even more concerned than they had before, they both knew their answer before they had even asked the question.
Neither of them had been able to find her.
Miranda did at that point, the only thing that she could think of doing. She knocked loudly on one of the doors to the castle, hoping that someone might still be there, though at this time of night she knew that her chances were slim.
When the door however, did actually open, revealing an old looking man who appeared to be in his late seventies, he looked at the two of them seriously.
"Now why is it that I'm receiving a knock on my door, at this time of night? Do I need to call the authorities?"
Miranda looked at him pleadingly.
"I'm very sorry to disturb you at this time of night sir. But someone I love very dearly has gone missing and hasn't come home yet, the last time I saw her was when we visited the castle grounds and I was just wondering if you might have seen where she went?."
The man furrowed his brows as he nodded.m seriously.
"One moment." He said as he shut the door and Miranda was left waiting with her breath caught in her throat. When she stole a quick glance down at her phone, she realised that it was now getting close to 1 am. She hoped that the man would know where Brea was, because at this point she was getting seriously worried that they might be running out of time.
When the door finally opened up again, the man looked at Miranda seriously once more, holding a landline phone to his chest.
"I just spoke with one of the staff members that work here. She said that she did have to send a young girl with blonde hair and a brown handbag home when we closed up this afternoon, but when she noticed her walking towards elkhan woods, she warned her not to stray too far from the path, but noticed that she went along that way anyway."
Miranda took the lead gratefully and thanked the man for his assistance, before jumping straight back in the car and heading straight towards the entrance of the forest from her ghost tour, hoping against her better judgement that she wasn't about to become a part of the story she had told so often about the place.
When she had driven as far as the old path allowed her too, Miranda jumped out of the car and began to walk deeper into the woods, the older man still following in her wake.
Miranda was honestly hoping that her heart would lead her towards Brea, as cheesy as that sounded. But the elkhan woods where large, big enough for someone to get lost in and not be able to find their way back...
Just as Miranda was about to scream out of frustration and punch a nearby tree, the older man she hadn't even thought of asking the name off called her over to where he stood, pointing at the ground.
With the ground having been made soft from the misty conditions the forest often held, they were just able to make out small footprints leading in a certain direction.
At once they began to follow the prints, Miranda walking faster than she ever had before, and turning that fast paced walk into a sprint as she began to feel hopeful of finally finding her.
When she rounded a corner that had been created by a few of the tall trees in the woods and noticed out of the corner of her eye a bit of what she thought might be blonde hair on the forests floor, Miranda quickly ran towards it. Immediately kneeling down beside the girl when she found her and attempting to wake her up.
"Brea? Brea?!" She called out to her frantically, waiting for a response. She was soaking wet from the rain, and Miranda didn't even want to think about just how long she had been out here in the thick of it.
"Mm... Miranda?" Brea slurred as she began to stir.
"Yes it's me love, I'm here." Miranda said with a sigh of relief that at least she was somewhat conscious.
"Let's get you home." She said as she picked her up bridal style and began to carry her back the way she'd come.
When she was walking back as fast as she could whilst holding onto Brea, she met up with the old man who seamed puffed and relieved when he saw her carrying Brea back towards the car.
"You found her, thank god! Is she ok?" He asked as Miranda shook her head grimly.
When they made it to the car, the man said that he'd drive as Miranda agreed and tossed him the keys. She didn't want to let go of Brea, feeling more protective of her than ever in that moment as they sped towards the local hospital.
When they got there, Miranda rushed into the emergency department, still holding Brea tightly in her arms as she walked up to the nurses front desk.
"What's the nature of your emergency."
She asked as she looked at them tiredly.
"She got lost in the forest in the rain. She was there for hours with no protection from the elements, I'm worried she might be sick or worse. Please can you help us?" The nurse looked alarmed at that and nodded as she went to the back of the department, likely going to fetch a doctor.
It was only a moment before a female doctor walked out of the er, took one look at the three of them and quickly told them to follow her to a room.
"Alright what exaclty happened?" She asked as Miranda lay Brea down on the hospital bed as gently as she could.
"She got lost in the forest." The old man spoke up.
"Been there for hours in the rain by herself. We're worried she may have hyperthermia." The doctor nodded grimly.
"Ok, I'll need you both to wait outside while we do some checks please." She said as she gestured towards the door.
The man nodded as he pulled Miranda away, having to use quite some force to do so since she had seamed rather pinned to the spot.
"Cmon, we'll just have ter wait and let them do their thing. She's in good hands." He tried to calm the woman down, but if he was being honest, he felt just as scared as she did in that moment.
Miranda looked at him in anger.
"I don't want her to be alone right now. Besides, you've no right to speak on her behalf, yer nothing to her anyway!"
The man looked a little taken aback at that, but he didn't snap back at her, knowing full well that it was the panic talking rather than anything else.
"I think that I might just be more to her than I previously thought. Actually, I think that she might be my daughter."
At that Miranda turned to look at him, her eyes as wide as saucers.
"I'm sorry I-I didn't mean that. God, I havn't my even asked yer name through all of this, have I?"
The man gave a tired smile as he shrugged.
"It's Hamish." He said, both of them jumping when the door to Brea's hospital room opened.
When the doctor walked out and looked at the two of them, surprised that they hadn't gone back to the waiting room to wait, she tried to give a reassuring smile, though she wasn't so good at the whole... bed-side manner of part of her job. What with her being a bit of an introvert and all.
"The young lady is fine." She said as both Miranda and Hamish let out the breaths they had been holding.
"We've done our tests and can safely conclude that while she was just shy of hypothermia, she's out of the woods for now. Though, I would recommend a little less amount of... adventures whilst she recovers."
Miranda all but collapsed on the seat of Brea's room once the doctor had said that it was fine for them to wait for her to wake up.
Her mind was full of racing thoughts despite her tired body. No matter what, she didn't want to give in to a single ounce of sleep. She wanted to make sure that Brea knew she wasn't alone when she woke up.
But when Hamish noticed just how tied Mirnada was, he insisted that she get some rest and that he would be sure to watch over Brea whilst she did.
Miranda begrudgingly accepted the offer, only due to the fact that she couldn't quite seem to keep her eyes open. And as she feel asleep the last thing she thought of, is how she would make sure to say everything she had meant to say to Brea before, as soon as she awoke.