White lies

Stop it! she scoffed at herself as she rode the elevator up to the ICU. Her imagination was running away with her, fueled by her own characteristic tendency to totally immerse herself in her interests. She had never been one of those cool, aloof people who could dole out their emotions in careful measure, though she had nearly wrecked her health by trying to be that way. Because she so badly wanted Steve to recover, she was imagining responses where there were none.

His room was bright with lights, despite the hour, since light or darkness hardly mattered to him in his condition. She supposed the nurses left the lights on for convenience. She closed the door, enclosing them in a private cocoon, then walked to his bed. She touched his arm. "I’m here," she said softly.

He drew a deep breath, his chest shuddering slightly.

It hit her hard, jerking at her like a rope that had suddenly been pulled taut. That deep sense of mutual awareness stretching between them, a communication that went beyond logic, beyond speech, was there again, stronger this time. He knew she was there. Somehow he recognized her. And he was fighting to reach her.

"Can you hear me?" she whispered shakily, her eyes locked on him. "Or do you somehow sense my touch? Is that what it is? Can you feel it when I touch your arm? You must be scared and confused, because you don’t know what happened and you’re trying to reach out, but you can’t seem to make anything work. You’re going to be all right, I promise you, but it’s going to take time."

The voice. Something in it drew him, despite the pain that waited to claw him whenever he left the darkness. He feared the pain, but he wanted the warmth of the voice more. He wanted to be closer to it… to her. At some point too dim for him to remember or even comprehend, he had realized it was a woman’s voice. It held tenderness and the only hint of security in the black swirling emptiness of his mind and world. He knew very little, but he knew that voice; some primal instinct in him recognized it and yearned for it, giving him the strength to fight the pain and the darkness. He wanted her to know he was there. His arm twitched, the movement somehow too slow to be an involuntary spasm of cramped muscles. This time Jay didn’t jerk her hand away. Instead she rubbed her fingertips over his skin, while her eyes fastened on his face.

"Steve? Did you mean to jerk your arm? Can you do it again?"

Odd. Some of the words made sense. Others made no sense at all. But she was there, closer, the voice clearer. He could see only darkness, as if the world had never been, but she was much nearer now. Pain racked his body, great waves of it that made sweat bead on his skin, but he didn’t want to let go after getting this far, didn’t want to fall back down into the black void.

His arm? Yes. She wanted him to move his arm. He didn ‘t know if he could. It hurt so damned bad he didn ‘t know if he could hold on, if he could try anymore. Would she go away if he didn’t move his arm? He couldn’t bear being left alone again, where everything was so cold and dark and empty, not after getting this close to her warmth.

He tried to scream, and couldn’t. The pain was incredible, tearing him apart like a wild animal with fangs and claws, ripping at him.

He moved his arm.

***

The movement was barely there, a twitch so light she would have missed it if her hand hadn’t been on his arm. He had broken out in a sweat, his chest and shoulders glistening under the bright fluorescent lights. Her heart was pounding as she leaned closer to him, her gaze riveted on his lips.

"Steve, can you hear me? It’s Jay. You can’t talk because you have a tube in your throat. But I’m right here. I won’t leave you."

Slowly his bruised lips parted, as if he were trying to form words that refused to take shape. Jay hung over him, breathing suspended, her chest aching, as he struggled to force his lips and tongue through the motions of speech. She felt the force of both his desperation and dogged determination as, against all logic, he fought pain and drugs to be able to say one word. It was as if he couldn’t give up, no matter what it cost him. Something in him wouldn’t let him give up.

Again he tried, his swollen, discolored lips moving in agonized deliberation. His tongue moved, doing its part to shape the word that would remain soundless:

"Hurt."

The pain in her chest became acute, and abruptly she gulped in deep breaths of air. She didn’t feel the tears sliding down her cheeks. Gently she patted his arm. "I’ll be right back. They’ll give you something so you won’t hurt any longer. I’m only leaving you for a minute, and I promise I’ll be back."

She flew to the door and jerked it open, stumbling into the hall. She must have been there a lot longer than it seemed, because the third shift had gone home and the first shift was back on duty. Frank and Major Lun-ning were standing at the nurses’ station, talking in low, urgent voices that didn’t carry; both men looked up as she ran toward them, and a sort of disbelieving horror filled Frank’s eyes.

"He’s awake!" she choked. "He said that he hurts. Please, you have to give him something–"

They bolted past her, practically shoving her to the side. Frank said, "This wasn’t supposed to happen," in a voice so hard she wasn’t certain it was his.

But it had to be, even though the words didn’t make any sense. What wasn’t supposed to happen? Steve wasn’t supposed to wake up? Had they lied to her? Had they expected him to die after all? No, that couldn’t be it, or Frank wouldn’t have gone to so much trouble to get her to stay.

Nurses were scurrying into Steve’s room, but when Jay tried to enter she was firmly escorted back into the hallway. She stood outside, listening to the muted furor of voices inside, chewing on her bottom lip and wiping the slow- welling tears from her cheeks. She should be in there. Steve needed her.