There was a reason why Viola had always been more of a sprinter than a marathon runner, although she had completed two Great Bristol's and one Bath. Pacing out her energy had never been her forte, which was currently extra hard considering she was exhausted, worried, and cold.

She finally climbed out into the Forest Road and stopped for a second to catch her breath. The snow was just as deep on it as under the trees, but at least Viola was no longer in danger of losing her direction. Her left ankle was in agonising pain, she'd twisted it about ten minutes ago. She patted the pocket of Niklas' jacket but then remembered where her mobile was. She took a slow deliberate breath, closing her eyes, and telling herself she was doing great, and she needed to be proud of herself - and she started walking, promising her body all the TLC it deserved as soon as this horrible day was over and everyone was safe.

To her right as she walked along the Forest Road, there lay a deep ravine, colloquially known as Whitlaw Fall. Yet another local legend claimed that James Whitlaw's great granddad had once jumped over it on a horse rushing to be present at his first born's birth. Since then, every Whitlaw in Fleckney had tried to repeat the feat, of course. These days the place was mostly known as the location of James Whitlaw's fall off a bike that resulted in him breaking both his arms, one leg, and three ribs at the age of thirteen. It had a gentle slope away from the road, and a steep, almost vertical opposite side.

She'd been walking for about fifteen minutes, when she heard a noise of a running engine. It sounded odd - echoey and subdued. There was another, bigger road, called the Upper Path, parallel to the Forest Road, on the other side of Whitlaw Fall, the two of them eventually merging on an intersection about half a mile ahead of Viola. Admittedly, she had a better chance to run into someone driving by on the other road, but she wouldn't be able to climb onto it out of the ravine.

Viola listened to the noise and then walked to the edge of the road and looked down and ahead. It took her a second to realise that the car on the bottom of the ravine was keeling on one side, and that's why the red rear lights weren't level. Viola's heart sank, and she rushed down and towards the Range Rover. She'd lost her footing a couple of times, and had to grab at the dry grasses sticking out of the snow. Eventually, she reached the driver's door and looked inside.

The Rover had crashed its front into a large stump, many of which were scattered on the bottom of the Whitlaw Fall, as James's extremities and ribs could attest. The airbags had opened on the impact. Viola jerked the door open and pressed her hand to the neck of the young woman inside. Amira Atieno - blood on her face, hopefully just from the cut of her forehead - was alive but half-conscious.

"Amira! Amira! Can you hear me?" Viola called. "Amira!"

The woman groaned, and her long lashes fluttered.

"Amira, you were in a car accident," Viola said. "Can you hear me? Tell me what hurts."

It's like being in A&E all over again, she thought in disbelief. So much for a peaceful village practice.

"Amira!"

"Yeah, yeah..." the woman muttered, and slowly opened her eyes. "I couldn't see... There were no lights above the road, and my phone– The call cut off–" She lifted her visibly shaking hand and touched her forehead.

"Amira, tell me what you feel," Viola said, quickly examining the woman.

There was blood on the seat under Amira, it seemed to be coming from a laceration on her right thigh. Viola started pulling off the scarf she'd borrowed from Niklas to apply pressure.

"I don't– My head hurts–" Amira closed her eyes, and her head rolled on one side. She was now muttering in a language Viola didn't know.

"Amira!" Viola called, but received no answer. "Sodding hell," she barked and breathed out sharply with an open mouth.

Panic washed over her. She was finding this day a little bit difficult, she thought sarcastically, and then took another deliberate breath. Alright, alright, pull yourself together. You can do this, Viola. She rushed to the back of the car, looking for the first aid kit. All she could do right now was to treat the cut on Amira's leg and any other open wound she found. She was worried about pulling Amira out of the car, she couldn't know if there were any internal injuries. And what would she do next? She'd left her Burberry in her car with Varya, she jokes unfunnily to herself. The Rover was still working, keeping the woman warm. Viola brushed hot sticky tears off her cheeks and exhaled noisily again, her hands working quickly and confidently on the laceration. It's not your first rodeo, as Americans call it, she told herself. It's all about risk assessment here. The problem was, there would be no ambulance coming in eight minutes max, no stretchers, no helicopters, no IVs. No one was coming. And no one was coming to Niklas' cottage - because the woman slowly bleeding out in front of Viola was the person who could raise the concern about Klaus stuck in a cold cabin in the woods.

"Amira! C'mon, stay with me!" she called again.

And that was when she heard another car. It was large and loud, another Rover perhaps - and it was driving on the Upper Path! Viola backed out of the car and rushed up the slope.

There was absolutely no sane reason - zero, nada, zilch, naught, nil, none whatsoever - why she thought it was him.

"Rhys!" she screamed. "Rhys!"

C'mon, give me this one thing.

"Rhys!" she screamed even louder, scampering and scratching up the slope.

No matter how good of a shape she was in, there was no way she'd reach the top before the car passed. It was moving quickly, snarling, and ploughing through the snow.

"Rhys!" Her throat hurt, and her lungs as if tore to shreds in her chest. "Stop! I'm here! Rhys!"

Please, please, please!

Of course there was no physical possibility for a person - in a loud car, a few metres above her, with her stuck mid-climb a wall of a deep ravine - like a bloody mountain sheep - to hear her, or to notice Amira's Rover, for that matter, but Viola screamed again and again, choking on her tears.

Rhys!

And then the Upper Path grew silent, and she sagged on the ground.

Get up, Viola. You need to go back to Amira. You need to make a decision whether to leave her in the car in the warmth, or to start building another improvised travois. Either way, it is time to–

She froze, when she realised that a loud growl of an engine revving above cut through the silence again, and Viola lunged up ahead, grabbing to a thin tree another metre higher on the slope. And then she saw the red glow above the road. The truck on the Upper Path was backing up.

It stopped, right where she was; she heard the door bang above her - and a large dark shape appeared on the edge of the slope.

Rhys.

He threw his massive body down, skidding, and grabbing onto the trees and grasses, just as she had a few minutes ago - and then he slammed into her, wrapping around her.

"Vi!" he shouted, and she sobbed and grasped at him, clawing at him desperately, and repeating his name again and again. "Bloody hell!" he roared, squeezing her so hard she couldn't breathe, mixing more swears and hot hard kisses peppered on her face. "I don't know what happened– I just stopped, and– I don't know why– But I knew– "

"God, you're here! I screamed, and– I screamed– I knew you'd hear me!"

He was here! Warm, large, so physical, always so tangible, hers! Her Rhys.

She would give herself three seconds, she decided. Just three seconds of being safe, of being with him, near him, of finally coming home.

And then she tore herself off him and pointed at the Rover behind them.

"It's Amira Atieno, from the Hall. She'd crashed," she said, and suddenly his face was so close he pressed the tip of his nose to hers.

For a second she thought he was going to kiss her, but then she realised he was intently studying her eyes.

"Were you in the crash? What hurts, Vi?"

It feels bloody wonderful not to be the person asking this question today!

"No, I walked here. I just found her– I walked from the cabin in the woods," she explained quickly, pushing away from him, and trying to get up. "Rhys, we need to drive Amira to the hospital. She has a concussion and a laceration. I've dressed the cut, but she needs to be examined. But someone also needs to go to the Ekollon! Klaus is in my car with that Russian girl Varya, we'd found her injured in the woods. She'd broken her arm and has a dislocated shoulder. I treated her for hypothermia, but she needs fluids and an X-ray. Her cat led us to her, can you imagine?!"

For a second he looked doubtful.

"I'm not delirious or concussed, Rhys." Viola raised her voice. "C'mon, I need you to help me with Amira."

He nodded and rose as well.

"I'll move my truck around," he said pointing towards the intersection. "I have a radio, Whitlaw can go to the cabin," he said, back to his calm, efficient self. "We've been looking for the girl for hours now. We'd evacuated the Ferguson farm, there was a fire there. The storm had felled a pole. Fenton thought her Mum had gone bloody mental, she kept screaming she needed to go to the woods, so he sedated her." He shook his head with a chuckle. "I reckon he was wrong. And you found her girl! Blimey!"

He started climbing up the slope.

"Is everyone alright? Rhys! Is everyone–" Viola's voice broke, and he looked at her over his shoulder.

"Yes, everyone's alright. The town and the villages have no power, people are panicking and whinging." She saw his face crack into a shockingly untimely, white-toothed grin. "But I think you've already treated all the injured ones."

Viola exhaled in relief.

"Bloody hell, Vi," he said from above, and she lifted her face to him. His voice rang with pride. "You are fucking magnificent, do you know that?"

Viola gave out a small shy laugh.

"Well, you're going to help a bit," she said. "You're the one with a truck."