Ch. 11
Piece by piece, the story continues.
I woke up in a hospital room, an IV drip tethered to my right arm. My left arm and leg both immobilized in casts. The television hanging from the opposite wall played silently, the news, it seemed.
Everything hurt. I could feel every bruise, every scrape. My pulse a keen reminder of all the close calls.
I tried to talk, but I couldn't move my head. My hand reached up slowly, and found that I'd been wrapped in bandages. I could feel the fabric tugging on a tender wound. It was exhausting. Even as little as it was to move my arm, it was exhausting. Keeping my eyes open was exhausting. Breathing was exhausting.
I must have drifted off again, the news was no longer playing. Some inane looking infomercial selling some kind of radio tool, an excitable looking man in a bright green suit frantically waving his arms at a map and gesturing to the device in front of a studio audience collectively failing to fake enthusiasm.
The girls were there, Tempest in a bed beside me. Her eyes weren't those vivid sapphire blues anymore. Tinged with red, they took on an almost haunting quality in the dimmed light of the room as she stared up at the ceiling.
Claire was sitting beside me, slouched over the bed, asleep with my bound hand in her delicate grip. She looked worried, even as she slept.
Mira was curled up at my side, and stirred as I looked around, her tail gently wagging as she nuzzled against my hip.
It was with a pained, wry laugh that I stirred them. A moment of personal amusement, despite all the pain.
It felt like it took all my strength, just to free my head from being bound so tight.
“You know, this isn't the worst way I've ever woken up. But it's surely a close second." I couldn't help but laugh, as feeble as it was. It was either laugh, or cry.
Claire stared up at me, and with a gentleness I had never felt before, brushed her consciousness against mine. There were no words. No images. Just a sensation like water, a hint of gold and white at the edges of my vision. Warmth. Peace. Calm.
Her hand squeezed mine, and she cried. I could feel the stress leaving her as my hand came to rest on her shoulders. Mira nuzzled against her, and Tempest, bandaged and slow, all but hobbled across the room to hug her.
Finally, Claire found words, soft, gentle, just for me.
“I missed you."
Tempest murmured her agreement, and something else, directed at Claire. She stared down at our hands, hers in mine, then, with a sigh, and a soft smile, reached out, guiding Tempest's surprisingly heavy, clawed hand into mine.
Her voice had changed. Deepened. Calmed. Claire had grown, too. Her touch on my mind a tangible caress, soothing away my own disquiet. Dulling my pains, and drawing me out of my grogginess, like the dawning sun dispelling fog.
“Master," Tempest hesitated, visibly. It was unlike her. Her luminous eyes looked away. She swallowed hard, and tried again, but faltered a second time. Finally, with a gentle squeeze of her hand, she met my gaze and found her words
“You deserved better. Deserve better." She glanced down at Claire, then to Mira, glimpses of her feelings, shamed dark hues, fear, doubt, and a sense of resignation lingered behind the edges of my perception of her.
“Please don't give up on me. Master. I would do anything, just to be by your side again!" Her words were coming in waves now, broken against her sobs as though striking a rocky shore.
“You made your choice." I said, staring into her eyes.
Her ears fell, her next sob choked her, and she shut her eyes against the pain.
--Claire--
We had days to ourselves. Probably the worst part of all of it, in the end. Days of watching him, a machine keeping track of the battered life he still held. The rhythmic sound in time with his heart. Wires and tubes and constant reassurances that just felt hollow. He would be okay, they kept saying. Who were they trying to convince? There was nothing but dark, and pain in the faltering light of his mind. There was nothing to reach. Nothing to hear. Just a noiseless dark empty where the vivid hues of his laughter used to be.
Tempest didn't leave the room at all. Not for food, not for a stretch. She'd have new scars, but the real wounds were much deeper. It didn't take a genius to figure out her feelings. I could almost feel sorry for her. Almost.
I still wanted to beat her to death in her sleep. Every time I looked at him, felt the dark, dead weight of where his connection to me should have been. Even as he began to come back. I felt the occasional pangs of a fear he hadn't quite escaped yet. Had to soothe away a kind of claustrophobia he couldn't open his eyes and be free of.
I loved her. I hated her.
We had spent a lot of time talking, she and I. We had a lot to work out. I was still angry at her, but Tempest… she took it all. All my anger, all my frustration. She took the nights when I was so angry I hurt her. She took everything, and it only made me angrier that she didn't fight back, didn't act like she resented it at all.
I just wanted to fight her. I wanted to put her in her place, because I knew he wouldn't. But there wasn't enough left of her to fight. The Tempest that sat by his bedside wasn't the same Tempest that hurt him. She was a very different woman now. In truth, this infuriated me.
--Mira--
I hated watching them like that. All the bitterness. All the resentment. It reminded me of my first trainer. It reminded me of all of the times he, or one of his would blame everyone else, or make excuses. It was pointless, and pathetic. Master wasn't like that. Part of what I liked about him. There was never blame. Only a solution. If there was a problem, he fixed it. He worked on it. Even if the problem was him. Perhaps especially then.
So it bothered me. No. It sickened me, to see Claire treating Tempest like that. I owed it to him to set her straight.
“And what about you?" I'd asked one night while she was browbeating Tempest once again. She was taken aback, stunned that I'd said anything, I think. “When Tempest was struggling, did you ask her how she felt? Did you care enough to listen? It must be nice, never having to try for anything. Never falling short."
I could feel it, the static in the air. She wanted to snap at me. To go on the offensive. I wasn't going to give her the chance. “You think you're the only one who's worried to death about him? The only one who cares? The only one with regrets? You could read our minds, any time you wanted, but you don't even have the decency to ask us how we feel. You don't even care, do you?"
It hurt her. I knew it did. It was a barb in her ego, deflating her. Leveling the field. I looked to Tempest, and asked her how she felt. It took time, but she began to speak. Not to Claire, but to me. We talked, and for once Claire just listened. It was a nice change of pace. Frankly, it was about time that bitch shut her mouth.
--Tempest--
I don't know what came over her. Of all of us, she was the level headed one. She never snapped. Never got angry. To see her shout Claire down like that? To see Claire listen? She really was fearless, I think. She asked me, for the first time since that whole awful ordeal started, someone asked me what I felt. For the longest time, I just cried.
She was patient with me, in a way that even master wasn't. Not like a teacher waiting on a slow student. Not even like a mother expecting an explanation from an errant child. No. She was a friend who was worried. That was all. She was worried about me, and she cared. That was all.
So I told her everything.
--Claire--
In the end, I'd like to think I understood. She didn't just feel trapped in the cabin. She felt trapped in her body. She was frustrated at how easily he brushed off her best attacks. More so at knowing he was pulling all his punches.
She knew she could be stronger, if he would just stop treating her like a child. She was his mate. She just wanted to be worthy of it. Strong enough to be an acceptable partner, in her own eyes.
She needed master to push her. To challenge her. She was frustrated at how soft he was, because she knew she could be his match, if only he cared to make it happen.
The closer she got, the more she made him push, the more frustrating it was. To be so close, to be so damn close and be denied, because his gentleness, his love and kindness kept him from giving her what she needed? It was agonizing. But worse than that… it was lonely. He didn't understand. He didn't understand at all, and it hurt.
I had thought the failing hers. But, Mira disabused me of that idea with little more than a glare. It hurt me to realize it. Tempest, she was my best friend, my lover, and I didn't even ask her about her feelings. Her problems. If she had failed him, I had failed her. Taken her for granted. Master couldn't understand, and desperately wanted to. I could understand and simply chose not to. It was a humbling knowledge.
We made a pact, while he was unconscious. To do better by him, and for that aim, each other as well. We weren't… might never be what we were before. But we were family. We would figure it out. We both wanted to figure it out. So when he stared at her, and spoke those words, I felt fear, panic. In the shape he was in, I couldn't tell what he was thinking. It was all chaos, noise, just a churning sea of everything struggling against all the things the hospital had done to him. I wanted to believe differently, that he didn't mean, couldn't mean…
At the same time, I knew. With a kind of sick, sinking feeling, I acknowledged how many things it would resolve. In some spiteful way, I knew I'd feel better about it all. We might have promised to do better by him, and each other… but that didn't take anything away. I knew that.
--Tempest--
I had failed him. In every conceivable way. I knew it. I felt the shame, the doubt, the fear. I felt it every time I looked at him. Every time they had to come in and poke and prod. Every time they had to clean up after him. Every time they gave me their hollow reassurances.
I had failed him. Worse than that, I had hurt him. His wounds were my fault. The pain and the sorrow and the doubt and the fear were all things I gave him. He loved me more than he loved his own life, and I hurt him in exchange.
So to hear him say that… I knew it was true. How could I argue it? How could I refute it? I had made my own choice. Every awful step of the way. Everything I had done to him. I couldn't blame him. I couldn't be angry at him.
I couldn't stop the tears, either.
I would have done anything to stay with him, except to hurt him again. If my staying wasn't something he wanted… it would be my pain to bear. I knew that. I knew. But to hear him say so, to see him look me dead in the eyes and tell me I had already made my choice, it was more than I could bear.
I wished I hadn't made it out of that cave. I could have at least believed he understood, in the end.
--Mira--
I couldn't say anything. A few days ago, I thought he was probably dead. The thought of it hurt me in ways I couldn't begin to understand or explain. I couldn't imagine how he felt. I wasn't there when it happened, but what I heard was bad enough.
So I couldn't say anything. If that was his choice, it was one he had to make. I hated it. I did. With all my heart. But I understood. Better than he'd ever know. I understood that some wounds, and all the doubt and guilt and uncertainty that come with them, don't go away just because we wished they would.
Unlike me, he didn't have the benefit of those wounds being self-inflicted, either. I could understand him wanting to just cut that painful thing out of his life. How often I'd wished I could do the same.
As much as it hurt to watch it unfold, as much as I wished for anything else, it was his choice, and I understood. I hoped the two would find some kind of happiness, but I couldn't change this. It wasn't mine to change.
--Trainer--
“You made your choice." I had repeated, before reaching out to touch her trembling shoulder. I realized the cold ambiguity of it too late. I realized she didn't understand. It wasn't what I'd intended. I felt horrible for it, but as muddled as all my thoughts were at the moment, I knew there wasn't any point in being hung up over it. Better to just explain myself.
“You're here, aren't you? You came for me, protected me. Did your best for me. Even though we both knew it was a losing prospect. You had every opportunity to go, and you didn't." I sighed at that, squeezing her, or rather, feebly trying to. She hesitated, her eyes meeting mine for the briefest moment before she clutched me through the flimsy hospital blankets, and sobbed.
I watched, hell, I felt the tension leave Mira and Claire as Tempest found her way into my arms in a bed rather too small for it. She trembled like a scolded child, her ears pinned flat to her head. Her silent tears soaked the flimsy blanket between us, and for the longest time, she just shook in my arms.
I waited, long minutes passing in the silence. It seemed like nobody was going to speak, but there were things I needed to say. “I need to know where I stand with you. What I am to you. What you said to me before… if that's how you really feel, then from now on we're just -" Tempest interrupted me, her tearful eyes locked to mine, an expression so pained, so profoundly hurt that I couldn't look away.
“I should never have said it! You are my mate. My love. I would sooner die than betray that! Master… I love you, and I live for you. Nobody else could be to me as you are!" Her voice was choked with emotion. She'd never sounded more hurt, more upset in her life.
It wouldn't have taken Claire's second sight to see how thoroughly Tempest was berating herself. How much turmoil and pain was in her own heart. Desperately clutching at me as though I were the only thing in the world that made any sense to her. All of this, the whole awful ordeal had shaken her to her core. I couldn't blame her. Sadly, I couldn't do much to comfort her, either. Instead, I just nodded weakly, taking her hand again. It was heavy. So firm, yet in that moment, it held mine with gentleness bordering on being timid. “Then, it's going to take some time, I think." I said, shaking my head. “You hurt me, more than you know. More than I know how to explain."
“I know." She replied, closing her eyes against the falling tears. “I know." She repeated, squeezing my hand in hers. “I won't leave your side, master. If it takes a lifetime to show you, it won't change a thing. I love you, and I live for you."
“You keep saying that. You live for me, huh? So I could tell you to do anything, and you would?" I asked, with a teasing look. It was stupid, maybe. I just wanted to lighten the mood. I'd already struggled with it enough for one day. It wasn't a conversation I was ready for.
“Are you kidding? I'd be afraid of hurting you right now. Or getting caught. Or…" She trailed off, my finger across her open mouth stilling her mid-sentence. Her jaw closed with an audible click, and she just stared mutely at me.
“Help me to the bathroom. Please? I really have to go." I asked, gesturing feebly to the small side-room. It ached, just the act of moving my arm. There was no way I'd have been able to cross that distance alone. It might as well have been to the moon. Mira laughed first, as Tempest swatted my right thigh gently, scolding me for the teasing. Claire just shook her head and squeezed herself in to hug me.
For the moment, at least, things were okay. Tempest hadn't left. Claire and Mira were right there with me. It might have been an awful way to wake up, and that brief moment of being awake hadn't really improved. But at least it hadn't turned any worse. I could take that, for now.
It didn't change the fact that I did, in fact, actually need to get to the bathroom. But at least things weren't any worse than that.
Sadly, I was in no state to get up. And would not be for several humiliating days. But if the machoke orderlies thought anything of it, they left no particular impression of it.
I had spoken just a little too soon about things not being worse.