White lies

Jay gave him a very sweet smile, and this time he was the one who laughed.

It wasn’t until later that she realized the request meant they were certain Steve would live. She was back in Steve’s room, standing by his bed, and she gently squeezed his arm as relief filled her. "You’re going to make it," she whispered. It was almost sundown, and she had spent most of the day standing beside his bed. Several times a nurse or an orderly had requested that she step outside, but except for that and the time she had spent with Frank at lunch, she had been with Steve. She had talked until her throat was dry, talked until she couldn’t think of anything else to say and silence had fallen again, but even then she had kept her hand on his arm. Maybe he knew she was there.

A nurse came in and gave Jay a curious look but didn’t ask her to leave the room. Instead she checked the monitors and made notes on a pad. "It’s odd," she murmured. "But maybe not. Somehow I think our boy knows when you’re here. His heartbeat is stronger and his respiration rate settles down if you’re here with him. When you left for lunch his vital signs deteriorated, then picked back up when you returned. I’ve noticed the same thing happen every time we’ve asked you to leave the room. Major Lunning is going to be interested in these charts."

Jay stared at the nurse, then at Steve. "He knows I’m here?"

"Not consciously," the nurse said hastily. "He isn’t going to wake up and talk to you, not with the barbiturate dose he’s getting. But who knows what he senses? You’ve been talking to him all day, haven’t you? Part of it must be getting through, on some level. You must be really important to him, for him to respond to you like this."

The nurse left the room. Stunned, Jay looked back at Steve. Even if he somehow sensed her presence, why would it affect him like that? Yet she couldn’t ignore the nurse’s theory, because she had noticed herself that the rhythm of his breathing had changed. It was almost impossible for her to believe, because Steve had never needed her in any way. He had enjoyed her for a time, but something in him had kept her at a small but significant distance. Because he couldn’t return love of any depth, he hadn’t allowed himself to accept a deep love. All Steve had ever wanted was a superficial sort of relationship, a light, playful love that could end with no regrets. Theirs had ended in just that way, and she had seldom thought of him after they had parted. Why should she be important to him now?

Then she gave a low laugh as understanding came to her. Steve wasn’t responding to her, he was responding to a touch and a voice meant for him personally, rather than the impartial, automatic touches and words of the healers surrounding him. Anyone else would have done just as well. Frank Payne could have stood there and talked to him with the same result.

She said as much an hour later, when Major Lunning studied the charts and stroked his jaw, occasionally glancing at her with a thoughtful expression. Frank stood to one side, careful to keep his face blank, but his sharp gaze didn’t miss anything.

Major Limning was one of the top military doctors, a man devoted to both healing and the military. He wasn’t stationed at Bethesda, but he hadn’t questioned the orders that had gotten him up in the middle of the night and brought him there. He and several other doctors had been given the task of saving this man’s life. At the time they hadn’t even known his name. Now there was a name on his chart, but they still had no inkling why he was so important to the powers that be. It didn’t make any difference; Major Lunning would use whatever weapon or procedure he could find to help his patient. Right now, one of those weapons was this too-thin young woman with dark blue eyes and a full, passionate-looking mouth.

"I don’t think we can ignore the pattern, Ms. Granger," the Major said frankly. "It’s your voice he responds to, not mine, not Mr. Payne’s, not any of the nurses’. Mr. Crossfield isn’t in a deep coma. He’s breathing on his own and still has reflexes. It isn’t unreasonable to think that he can hear you. He may not understand and he certainly can’t respond, but it’s entirely possible that he hears."

"But I understood that his coma is drug-induced," Jay protested. "When people are drugged, aren’t they totally unconscious?"

"There are different levels of consciousness. Let me explain his injuries more completely. He has simple fractures of both legs, nothing that will prevent him from walking normally. He has second-degree burns on his hands and arms, but the worst of the bums are on his palms and fingers, as if he grabbed a hot pipe, or perhaps put his hands up to shield his face. His spleen was ruptured, and we removed it. One lung was punctured and collapsed. But the worst of his injuries were to his head and face. His skull was fractured, and his facial bones were simply shattered.

"We performed surgery immediately to repair the damage, but to control the swelling of the brain and prevent further damage, we have to administer large doses of barbiturates. That keeps him in a coma. Now, the deeper the coma, the less the brain functions. In a deep coma the patient may not even be able to breathe for himself. The level of the coma depends in part on the patient’s tolerance for the drugs, which varies from person to person. Mr. Crossfield’s tolerance seems to be a bit higher than usual, so his coma isn’t as deep as it could be. We haven’t increased the dosage, because it hasn’t been necessary. In time we’ll gradually decrease the dosage and bring him out of the coma. He’s going to make it on his own, but I’ll tell you frankly, he definitely does better when you’re with him. There’s still a lot we don’t know about the mind and how it affects the body, but we know it does."

"Are you saying he’ll get well faster if I’m here?"

The Major grinned. "That’s it in a nutshell."