How long she sat there with the rest of them, Betty Timid didn't know nor cared.
Not that the Jenkins were bad people, but all she wanted was to make sure that Henry "Huck" Jenkins, Junior was okay.
She was quiet. At times literally living up to her surname. Never speaking unless she was spoken to.
Within her mind, Betty was constantly reliving every moment she had ever spent with Huck.
The good times and the bad, with the events of earlier today being the absolute worse.
All this time, she thought silently, sitting in the corner staring at the floor, having gone through countless tissues and napkins at every point her memories either crossed today or finally acknowledged the inaction of their relationship.
There were no tears left now.
Just the waiting.
The very unpleasant, endless waiting.
The rest of the Jenkins family and Harry's fiance Jenny Harper could all tell that Betty was worried about Huck at least as much, if not more so, than they were.
How long had Betty and Huck known each other? Since at least high school, if not earlier.
Always around. Always a friend. Longing to be more, but none of them ever knew it.
Not even Huck.
Until today.
They tried to comfort her and each other whenever possible.
Huck's prognosis was good.
Healing would take time, even for a weredog, but their son/brother/friend would live.
But what lied ahead in the future?
They had already discussed the possibility, but in the end even if the others were agreeable to Jenny's suggestion, there was no way they could postpone her wedding to Harry this weekend.
Too much was already at stake on her getting hitched, let alone her parents and that bastard Dieter Wilhelm passing through Moon Lake without discovering were society existed, let alone the role their little town played in it.
Besides, although the Jenkins men would never say anything aloud, both knew that if they had their way, Dieter Wilhelm wouldn't be leaving Moon Lake alive after what he had put their family through.
How long it had been, no one could say for sure.
The only thing anyone in the waiting room ever noticed about the time was how long it dragged on.
Then their solitude was broken by the opening of the waiting room door.
"Betty Timid?" asked Doctor Hiram Robblestein, entering the room.
"Th-that's me," she said, meekly raising her arm in the corner, where she wouldn't be noticed except by those already in the room.
"Huck Jenkins is awake and asking for you," announced the doctor.
The others breathed a collective sigh of relief as Betty nervously got up and followed the doctor.
"I'll leave the door open so you can physically see him for yourselves, but the rest of you will have to wait outside for now. Despite Huck's insistence on seeing Miss Timid, he does need his rest," explained Doctor Robblestein, before ushering Betty into the hospital room.
Betty was not totally surprised to see Huck Jenkins' weredog fursona lying in a bed.
Having seen it before, Betty always thought he made a rather cute Pomeranian, despite his size and otherwise humanoid appearance.
It was the matted fur and the shaven chest bordering the bandages, along with all the tubes and monitors connected to and surrounding him that made Betty's heart sink lower than it already had today.
"Mister Jenkins? I brought Miss Timid like you asked," announced the doctor in a loud voice, to make sure his patient was still awake.
"B-Betty?" said Huck, a bit weakly, while holding out his right paw.
"I'm here Huck," said Betty, while stepping forward to take his paw in both her human hands.
"I'm sorry," he said, looking directly at her.
"Sorry? For what?" she asked, genuinely confused.
"For scaring you. Wasting all this time, and whatever else is my fault," began Huck, starting to find his voice again. "I had a mighty long time to think today, starting from the moment you held me in your arms and was crying that you might lose me. Yet, how can you lose something or someone you never had?"
"Huck, I—" Betty started to say, only to have him politely ask her to be quiet for a moment.
"It won't be this weekend. That's Harry and Jenny's. But my eyes are finally wide open to what's truly around and important to me and I have to ask. Will you marry me?"
Their audience couldn't help but smile as Betty started crying for joy as she said "Yes."