She met Franky's eyes again, silently thanking God for this woman and her patience. "In five years I've lost two of the people I loved most in this world," Bridget began.

"You see the scar on my lip?" Bridget asked. Franky's eyes went straight to it, a telling move that meant the detail hadn't escaped her attention. Franky's eyes slowly rose to meet Bridget's.

"When I was ten, my father was drunk or high or both and he shoved me," the blonde recounted. "We were in the kitchen and I lost my balance and my face hit the edge of the stove. It knocked out my two front teeth and split my lip."

Bridget felt Franky's breathing slow as she took this in, her grip on Bridget's hand tightening ever so slightly. "Before that his physical abuse had all been for my mum," she continued. "I'd been after her to leave him but this finally did the trick." Bridget smiled to reassure the younger woman but she knew in her heart that was futile.

"He was a classic bully and had isolated mum from her family and friends, moved her from Perth to Melbourne," Bridget explained. "We had no one, really, so we lived in a Catholic shelter for women and kids for the first couple of months while we got our feet under us. I loved it. Played cards with the sisters after school, had lots of other kids around. Most of all, we were free from my father. That summer we moved into a flat in this rather rough section of town but it was ours."

"My new teeth were in," Bridget continued. "And my lip was well on its way to healing. But I had no way of expressing my anger and pain about the situation, about my father, about my inability to affect change in the situation. Mum is… She was a primary school teacher and she's just one of those young souls. I was generally the more adult of the two of us. I did a lot of the worrying. She didn't really have the skills to help me cope."

Franky was listening, rapt, right there with her and Bridget marveled at how much easier it was to talk about this in the close proximity of this woman. Bridget adjusted the position of her leg and felt Franky's compensate, closing the newly-created space and pressing gently against her. She had forgotten what it was to take comfort in the feel of another person's body and energy.

"I spent that summer pretty pissed off and started doing all sorts of self-harming," Bridget said, eyes studying the seam between her fingers and Franky's.

"Like what?" Franky asked gently.

"Shoplifting, drinking, cutting," Bridget admitted. She drew in a breath and exhaled the residual shame that always pooled around her solar plexus when she spoke or thought about that time. She finally raised her gaze to meet Franky's again. She found such compassion on the other woman's face, Bridget couldn't help but reach up and stroke the brunette's cheek.

Bridget leaned and pushed the oxygen mask up once again, stealing a brief, sweet, soft kiss, before she continued. "I started a new school that fall. I was small and a stranger so I was an easy target. I was cornered this one time by this fucking Amazon of a girl, Christine. She was a tyrant, a full head taller than the rest of us, picked on me and other kids incessantly. She sat behind me in class and she wanted to copy off my paper. I told her no. She said if I didn't she'd beat me up. So one afternoon she cornered me. I told her I wasn't a cheat and asked what the real problem was."

"It took a while – and a few missed blows - but it finally came out that she couldn't see the chalk board. She needed glasses," Bridget smiled, shaking her head lightly at the memory. Franky was still rapt, listening attentively to every word, watching Bridget with keen eyes that missed nothing. "She was always seated at the back of the class because of her height and so she had no idea what was going on. I took her to the teacher and explained the problem. She was wearing glasses in short time and suddenly we were… mates I guess. I had slayed the school dragon using my own problem-solving and words so I was golden, the most popular girl inside of days."

"But, as you well know, you can help others even when you cannot help yourself," Bridget said, entwining the fingers of one hand in Frankie's free one, grazing her fingernails up and down the back of Franky's hand with her other. "So I was popular, top grades, all was well. Then I'd come home and feel isolated and angry, ashamed – all corked up and leftover feelings about my father, swallowed resentment at my mum - and I would drink or cut or steal and that would bury the pain for a bit. I hid it well – mum never noticed a thing. I was great at not letting anyone see me, playing the role of the good girl. I went on that way and then in grade seven I got an academic scholarship to Emmaus College."

Franky's eyebrow arched, impressed. "They had this program – a camp, of sorts - before you start school so you can meet the other students and teachers. You're assigned to houses for the school term, with specific mentors and the like," Bridget continued. "I met this boy, James Westfall, who was also starting school. He had just lost his mum to cancer some months before and he was all torn up about it. Most of the other kids had friends there and neither of us did. Anyhow, we hit it off – instant friends."

Franky's mind reeled. "You mean there was another Westfall at your school? That's a pretty big coincidence, eh?"

Bridget smiled, raising Franky's hand to her lips for a kiss. "No – there was only one. My last name was still Brady." She placed another soft kiss on Franky's cheek, jaw and neck and the brunette exhaled, a moan of pleasure audible on her breath. It was astonishing how such a thing could set fire to Bridget in turn. If they'd not been under the imminent threat of random hospital staff or the guard posted outside the room walking in at any moment, it would have been impossible to not simply have her way with the delicious woman she lay entangled with.

Franky slid her mask up and pulled Bridget to her lips. After a heated moment, the blonde pulled back from the deepening kiss, sighing. "I so look forward to your freedom…"

"Fuck, Gidge. Me too," Franky exhaled, clearly as worked up as she. "I want…" Her words fell away as she gazed into Bridget's open, amorous eyes. The brunette swallowed hard against her own desire.

"I want that too," the blonde whispered, breathlessly, caressing Franky's face. "We can have that. We will have that. Soon, baby."

With that, Bridget kissed her again, sweetly and pulled her own face a few inches further to lessen the temptation. As Franky nestled back into the pillow, Bridget tried to recall where she'd left off. "Yeah, so James," she resumed. "We hung out and talked a lot. We just clicked, you know. When the weather got warm, he mentioned that his dad and he would go surfing on weekends and did I want to go. I was a good swimmer but hadn't ever surfed. I loved the beach, though I'd not been too often, so I said yeah."

"I didn't really want them to see where I lived so I told him to pick me up at school," Bridget said. "I knew his dad was a big-shot lawyer. So when he pulled up in this beat up old van, half a dozen surfboards on top, I was thrown for six. His dad had this mop of graying black hair pulled back into a ponytail. I don't know what I was expecting but that wasn't it."

Bridget couldn't help but smile at the memory. "He looked me over, sizing me up – not in a creepy way, but just kind of figuring me out. He smiled and told me to hop in. He was blasting a pop radio station – Journey, Foreigner, Chicago. As soon as we hit M-1, he turned the volume down and introduced himself. His name was Ray and he asked me a bit about myself. He and I chatted the whole drive. An hour and a half later we were in Torquay."

"He asked if I wanted to learn to surf," Bridget continued. "I said yeah and he pulled an 8-foot board for me. I could barely carry the thing," she remembered and Franky grinned at the image of little Bridget and her board. "We were out for hours. James was quite good, though I knew his heart wasn't in it. He did it to spend time with his dad. Which I could understand. Ray had this huge presence, this energy and also this profound calm. He was a handsome thing too, for an old guy, back in his day." Franky was watching her closely and Bridget had no idea that the brunette was feeling a rising sense of jealousy, wondering whether Bridget had been married to James or Ray.

"Anyway, I tried and tried and couldn't get up so I basically gave up and just lay there on my board watching James and Ray catch rides. After a while, Ray paddled over to me and asked what I was afraid of," Bridget said, lost in the memory. "I sort of blew it off and said I just didn't get the hang of it yet. I knew, from what James had told me, that Ray wasn't easily fooled but I had no idea how he could just… see people. You know, see beyond the façade? Anyhow, he gave me a few technique pointers and pushed me to try again. Still, no good. He eventually came back over to me and said fear is something that holds us back from all sorts of things we're meant to do. And if I could even just name my fears to myself then I would free myself to do so much more. I asked what he was afraid of, you know. Classic deflection. He said since losing his wife he had been afraid of a lot of things that he'd never feared before. That he talked to God when he was out there waiting for waves, that he gave thanks for what he had and admitted what he feared and just doing that somehow lessened the burden. Then he caught this fucking beast of a wave and rode it in, leaving me there on my board in the middle of the sea."

"I stretched out and thought about what he'd said," Bridget said, quietly, remembering. "I would eventually learn that's how he dispensed wisdom. He'd drop a bit and leave you to chew on it. As for God, I was at loose ends. Catholicism held my curiosity – the rituals and rites, the ceremony of it. Mum was devout so I had that but I didn't actually talk to God. So I lay there and just thought about my fears. I knew I had them but I'd never named them."

"At some point, James paddled over to check on me, to be sure his dad hadn't said anything too off base," Bridget recalled. "James and Ray were so different. I know now that Ray's directness felt a bit invasive to James, but no one had ever talked to me like that, with genuine interest and acknowledgment of my thoughts and feelings, so it was new and very welcomed for me."

"The drive home was as quiet and calm as the ride there was not," Bridget said. "All the drives home would be. We were all blissed out and exhausted from the day, in our own thoughts. Occasionally someone would puncture the music from the radio with a remembrance of a wave they caught, a fish they encountered, an observation, but for the most part we were in our own worlds."

"We got back to the city and Ray drove me back to the school. No one was there, of course, and the sun was setting. He asked where my mum was," Bridget said, shifting slightly, enjoying the warmth of Franky's body beside her. "I tried to play it off, said she'd be there soon, but he insisted on waiting. After a few minutes, I said I'd just catch the bus. He wasn't keen on that so he told me about this client he was representing. A man who got caught up in a robbery that turned into a murder. The man had kids and his wife was working two jobs so Ray offered to meet him at home. The man made excuses, suggested alternatives, but it boiled down to the fact that he was ashamed of where he lived and didn't want Ray to see it. Thought he would think less of the guy if he did. He told the man, he knew terrible men who lived in mansions and veritable saints who lived with no possessions to their name, and everything in between. It's not about where you live your life but how you live it, he said. And I sort of knew at that point – literally after one day of being around him – that Ray would be a significant figure in my life so I swallowed my pride and told him my address."

Franky's head was reeling with a thousand questions and Bridget felt the energy it was taking for the brunette to stay patient and listen. "I am telling the long version of the story," Bridget smiled.

"I'm a captive audience, if you haven't noticed," Franky smiled beneath the mask. "And I'm loving this, so go on."

"Ray's words stuck with me. What was I afraid of? The answer was a lot so the following Saturday they picked me up again and I spent the day on my surfboard looking up at the sky and talking to God or the universe about my fears," she said. "I couldn't believe how much better I felt and so eventually I got up and tried surfing again. After some tries I got the knack and it was so fast and thrilling. You have to be totally present and unafraid – sort of visualizing yourself doing this physics-defying thing and it was incredible. That's the day I started to really heal."

"The next Saturday came and the next," Bridget said. "Ray kept coaching me on my surfing until I really started to get the hang of it. After a few weeks, my mum was curious about who I was disappearing with each weekend so when I was heading out the door one morning, mum showed up dressed for a day at the beach. I was horrified, of course, but Ray was unfazed. He told her to hop in and we were off."

"Ray and mum talked the whole ride down while James and I sat on the back bench seat watching it all unfold," Bridget continued. "What we were really doing that whole day long was watching the two of them fall in love."

"What?" Franky asked disbelieving. "It was the first and last time mum ever went with us on a surfing jaunt but yeah, it all began that day. Within a year they were married and we were all under one roof. James was my brother, which was brilliant, and Ray, this wonderful man who actually saw me and loved me for who I was, was the dad I'd never had. I took his name immediately. I wanted to be a Westfall."

"Anyhow, two years ago he was diagnosed with cancer and six months later he was gone," Bridget said. "His last two months were largely in hospital so I do, indeed, know my way around a hospital room."

"Aw, shit, Gidge," Franky said, again pushing her oxygen mask onto her forehead. "I'm so sorry for ya." She squeezed Bridget's hand, tears of empathy in her eyes.

"Thanks," Bridget smiled warmly. "Me too. He'd have fucking loved you."

Frankie's eyebrows arched, "An ex-con who's hot for his little girl? You sure about that."

"Like I said, Ray saw people," Bridget reminded her, kissing her lightly. "He'd have seen you, the real you. He'd have seen how amazing you are. It's all right there for anyone who bothers to actually see you."

"Ya think?" Franky asked, eyes ducking.

"I know, baby," Bridget said, raising the brunette's eyes to her own. "You will get out. We will give this a go. If you want to."

"I think you know I do," Franky grinned. "I hope you know."

Bridget's kiss was her answer.

"I'll take that as a yes," Franky smiled when they parted. "And I'm glad you think Ray would've approved of me. I want to hear more about him but I also want to hear – you said you lost two people."

"I did," Bridget smiled, fingertips raking through Franky's hair. Bridget drew in a breath and exhaled, settling Franky's oxygen mask back on her face. "Jyoti was the first love of my life." Franky's heart stopped, as did her breathing, and it was several moments before either resumed. Bridget had felt the pause and waited for the brunette's reaction to ease before she continued.

"We were together for nine years," Bridget eventually began and then words failed – where to go next? To who she was? To the loss? To the way she moved, smelled, made Bridget's heart race? That in the past five years, since losing Jyoti, Bridget's heart hadn't raced – until she met Franky? That first time Franky burst into group session, that Bridget's long-hibernating heart had leapt back to life – before she even knew the woman she was now laying beside?

Her eyes met Franky's and the concern she found there broke something within Bridget, cracked open her heart and she knew that against the odds she and Franky would be together.

Sliding Franky's oxygen mask up again, and sealed this new knowledge with a kiss. She pulled back a few inches so their eyes met again.

"Five years ago she was in an accident," Bridget said, tears streaming down her face. "She was just… gone. And I…" She swallowed hard. "I died a little too. And then Ray was gone and I.. I let fear creep back in. I've been alone… so alone… And…" A sob escaped Bridget's throat and Franky used her one free arm to pull the blonde closer. After a few moments Bridget felt like she could speak again.

"I'm not afraid anymore," she said, smiling at the brunette.

"You're not alone anymore, either," Franky said, tears welling in her own eyes.

"Neither are you, baby," Bridget smiled, cupping the brunette's jaw with soft fingertips. "Neither are you."

Fin.

Note: Thanks to you, dear readers, for hanging on for this series which took far longer to write than I anticipated. Thanks for loving Fridget as much as I do. And many, many thanks to sticks_and_stones for her brilliant writing on this pair and for her friendship and support of my work.