Luka began handing off to Kerry - he preferred working with her...
for other than the obvious reason that they'd been lovers
for the last month and a half, and roommates for the last month. They
had, after all, worked well together even before they'd
become intimate.
He was feeling pretty wiped out after his shift, but he still had to
go upstairs for an appointment - up to Psych. Thirty minutes
early, because he was a new patient and had to fill out forms... ugh.
He really wasn't looking forward to spending nearly an
hour with Dr Legaspi, but he'd promised Kerry that he'd at least give
the woman a chance; according to Kerry, the woman had
experience with working with survivors of war... particularly their
civil war. ("Civil war"... that was such an strange term -
what, did soldiers say "Excuse me" before shooting people? Personally,
with little exception, he hadn't seen much civility from
the other side - for the most part, they had tended either to bark
orders, and act as though they were doing the doctors a favor by
being sick and injured, or they had cried, and called out for their
mothers.)
He had time to burn before he had to be up there, so he stopped in
to see Carter, see how he was doing... although that was probably
a stupid question to ask a man who'd been stabbed twice in the back
with a carving knife: he'd heard there'd been damage to Carter's
kidney (though that had apparently been fixed in surgery), and the man
had needed a temporary colostomy. Hell, there wasn't even
any guarantee that Carter would want to see him - if Luka'd been more
on-the-ball, and not let the party get so loud and out of
hand... if he'd rounded, and observed Sobriki's condition for
himself... if, if, if. SBB-KBB - he hadn't been, he had, and he hadn't,
and as a result Lucy was dead and Carter had been badly injured. In the
end, it was useless to speculate, except in terms of trying
to prevent something like this from ever happening again.
To his surprise, though, Carter seemed glad to see him - "Gamma"
Carter had just left, and Jing-Mei had been by a little earlier to
review charts. He couldn't understand why Carter was so uncomfortable
having any of his family visiting, but he'd only met
Carter's
grandmother very briefly a couple of times. Not every family was as
close as his had been, he knew, so he shouldn't jump to
conclusions there.
Carter once again brushed off his attempt at an apology. "You have
nothing to be sorry about, Dr Kovac," he insisted. "I screwed up.
I'll be fine, though: I'll be back to work before you know it." Kerry
had told Luka, once, that Carter had a tendency to say one thing
and then deny it with his body... and right now, Carter was shaking his
head. That couldn't be good.
"Just don't be in too much of a rush, huh? Enjoy the pretty nurses and take it easy on your recovery."
"'Pretty nurses'?" Carter laughed, though it sounded a little
strained to his own ears. "You wouldn't have one in particular in mind,
would you, Dr Kovac?"
"Hm? Oh, no, not for myself - the nurses are much prettier in
Croatia." Not that he'd ever been in any position to judge objectively -
first he'd been with Danijela, and then... afterwards he'd had no
interest in women for a long time, not until Nadira. But it was a useful
diversion to Carter's mood. "Have you ever been there?" He was vaguely
aware that Carter's family had money, enough for the man to
have done plenty of travelling, but he neither knew nor cared how much
there was - if it led to the family being so terribly splintered, it
wasn't worth having, as far as he was concerned.
"We went by there once in the summer of '88, while we were sailing
in the Mediterranean... just before I started college. My dad didn't
want to dock, though - maybe he felt self-conscious because he didn't
speak the language, or maybe he was just afraid that Communists
would seize the yacht, I don't know - so we just sailed down the coast
and went back to Italy after sunset. It looked like a very
beautiful
country, though, from what I could see of it."
"Very beautiful," Luka agreed. Especially beautiful without the
nearly-constant gunfire and shelling that had been the "normal"
background noise for so long that later he'd had trouble concentrating
once he was away from it; he ignored Carter's comment about
Communists and the Carter yacht, since Papa Carter might very well have
been right.
"So have you been back since, uh, since you left?" Well, he should have expected that question.
"No, I haven't. The war's long over, but..." he shrugged,
unwilling... and not quite able... to explain his reluctance to return
- Carter
probably wouldn't understand. Neither man knew it yet, though, but
Carter would understand well enough, in a few weeks, what
it
was like to have an aversion to a place. "But I will be late for an
appointment, if I don't get going. I just wanted to stop by, and see
how you're doing." He smiled politely, and waited for a response... he
was honestly surprised that their conversation had been so
pleasant, considering the circumstances.
"No, I'm fine, Dr Kovac. Thank you. I think I'm just going to try to
get some sleep." Carter forced a smile and a yawn, hoping his
colleague would be convinced, and go away - the effort of concealing
his pain from Gamma had been considerable, and then Deb
had stopped by with an armload of his charts that she just had
to review with him right at that moment... but fooling the Croatian had
taken the most out of him - the man was really perceptive sometimes,
and once or twice during their conversation Carter had expected
Kovac to flat-out denounce him as a liar, and worse.
He wasn't fine - he was in pain most of the time, in
fact, despite what the nurses gave him - but it was no less than he
deserved, after
the way he'd let Lucy down so badly. And Kovac, who'd become almost
like a father to Lucy in the short time that he'd been at County,
Kovac should hate him the most of all. To see him smile like that, that
was far worse than the constant pain in his back and his leg. Carter
held on to his determined smile until he was sure that Dr Kovac had
left - then he sagged down into his bed, relaxing the iron control
he'd had on himself since shortly after awakening from the anesthesia,
his nerves singing with overload.
* * *
Luka greeted the receptionist, and told her he had an appointment
with Dr Legaspi at three... and watched, a little confused, as the
woman's voice promptly changed... rising about an octave in pitch and
taking on an irritating, breathy tone.
She handed him a clipboard and, in the same breathless voice, told
him to go sit down "over there" - as she vaguely indicated an area
near some windows without taking her eyes off him - and fill out both
sides. "And then bring it back to me," she added. He
shook his
head as he took the clipboard - what else was he going to do with the
stupid thing, instead of give it to the receptionist? No, that was a
dumb question... he'd called for too many psych consults not to have an
idea of what a really determined person could do with something
like a piece of paper - and found a seat that wasn't too
near the windows.
He didn't like being too close to an unshaded window, but he didn't
mind it as much as he had right after a sniper's lucky shot through
the glass had taken out - had killed - a nurse who had
been standing exactly where Luka had been a moment before. He'd stared
for a
moment, horrified, at the red and grey stuff splattered against the far
wall, and at the three neat droplets of blood (her blood!)
that had
splashed onto the chart in his hands. She hadn't been
very prett-- he pushed his hair out of his eyes, in a nervous reflex,
and forced his
attention back to the form on the clipboard in his hands..
It covered all the basic stuff - very similar to what he'd filled
out after Nik had driven him to the hospital (except that this was in
English,
of course). There was no form for commitment - voluntary or otherwise -
this time, though, and no stone bird cradled in his lap. Just
spaces asking for his name, address, contact numbers, insurance
information, if he had any allergies (no), was he currently on any
medications (no), any psychiatric history (he noted his brief stay in
the hospital in Zagreb), what goals he had with regard to treatment
(after a moment of thought, he wrote "NIGHTMARES", and underlined the
word three times) and several other questions. He filled
everything out, and returned the clipboard to the receptionist, who now
seemed to have developed some kind of facial tic, in addition to
what he had finally decided was an asthmatic wheeze in her voice. "Just
go ahead and wait over there," she told him, her voice
miraculously back to the pitch it had been when he first arrived... strange.
He fidgeted as he waited - the magazine selection was less than
impressive, and he finally settled for an article on "101 Kitchen Tips"
in
an issue of Family Circle that was well over a year and a half old; it
was either that, or read a particularly fascinating paean
to laundry
that a reader had submitted (he made a mental note to bring along a
book next time... if there was a next time). He'd reached
the thoroughly
useless (to him) "#57: Ketchup flows out of a new bottle more easily if
you push a soda straw to the bottom of it. This allows air to get
in
and break the vacuum." when he finally heard his name called, and he
tossed the magazine back onto the pile without a second thought.
* * *
The office was... comfortable - that was the word that
came immediately to his mind. The walls were painted a soothing color,
the desk
had just enough on it that it was obviously used, but was still tidy.
There were shelves against the wall where he'd come through the
door, that had various books and knick-knacks on it, and he turned
briefly to look at what she had on there before he went for one of
the chairs facing the desk... and the blonde seated behind the desk,
who'd been watching him.
"Good afternoon, Dr Kovac."
"Dr Legaspi." She didn't stand, or offer to shake hands, which was
fine with Luka - he was a very tactile person, but preferred the
touching to be on his own terms. The continued silence, though, that
was getting on his nerves. "So?" he finally asked, throwing up
his hands in an exasperated gesture. "What now? Do you want me to-- to
talk about my mother, or whatever it is that I'm supposed
to talk about in these things?"
"Whatever you want to talk about, Dr Kovac, whatever you feel
comfortable saying. That's your decision. Though I notice that you
listed a three-month hospital stay in October of 1992 - would you like
to talk about that, at all?"
"I... needed help getting through a period of time," he told her,
unsure of how much he wanted to tell her about how he'd felt lost in
despair with the first anniversary coming up (and November had never
been a good time of year for him anyway, even before
Vukovar). He felt as though he should have shared some of it with Kerry
first, before running to a stranger, but he was never sure
how to bring it up with her - "hi, you're living with a nut"?
"Ah. I see. Uh, so Kerry Weaver referred you?"
"That's right," he said cautiously. "She's my boss." There. That was safe.
"Hm." She made a note. "And your work, downstairs in the ER, that's going well?"
He wasn't really aware of standing up, or walking over to the
shelves against the wall, just that he was staring at a model airplane
on one of the shelves when he answered, "It's fine. There's something
new every day, you know?" He glanced over his shoulder
at her, a little surprised that he'd just got up like that, but saw
that she was smiling indulgently at him.
"It's okay if you want to stand over there during our session. So you're from Yugoslavia?"
"I'm Croatian," he answered flatly. "Never
Yugoslavian." Legaspi had put a lot of deliberate thought into the items
that were on
the shelf, and she was noting the objects Luka examined and touched -
he certainly was a toucher! - as much as she was noting
his verbal responses. Curious, that he had seemed to be so ill at ease
seated and facing her. Kerry hadn't told her anything about
him, just that he needed to get in to see her as soon as possible. But
she could make a pretty good guess, judging from his nationality
(or rather, his self-described nationality) and his age - she knew
several Bosanke, both in a professional and personal capacity, and
knew what they had - as Muslims - been through in the war. Obviously
Bosnians and Croatians were two different things, but there
were a lot of people from both populations who'd suffered in the war.
"Croatian," she corrected herself. "I'm sorry." He shrugged - or at
least, his back shrugged. "I'm... curious - when you filled out the
preliminary form, you wrote in 'nightmares', in the space asking about
your goals. I assume you mean you're having nightmares and
would like to stop having them, rather than that you'd
like to come away from therapy having nightmares?" She
experimentally tried
on a teasing little smile, but he didn't turn around to see it.
"I want to remember them. I wake up sweating and
shaking, I've... been told that I cry out in my sleep, in Croatian. The
last one, a...
friend had to slap me to wake me up from what was apparently a very bad
one, but I-- it's all a blank to me." Legaspi noticed that he
tensed up, and appeared to lean in and huddle against the shelves as he
said that. Interesting.
"We can work on that. It might be faster with hypnosis, but that's not really my specialty."
"Oh. Well, I'm not sure I like the idea of hypnosis, anyway - the loss of control, you know?"
"I'm sure you'd be all right, with a qualified hypnotherapist, but I don't know any who also have a background in PTSD."
"And you think that's what my problem is?" She shrugged.
"Kerry seemed to think so. She didn't actually tell me anything about you or your... situation, though - she's a very discreet woman."
"Yes," he agreed quietly. "She is."
* * *
Their session passed with an apparent quickness that surprised Luka
- their conversation was low-key, and really very pleasant; he
told her a little about his family, and touched a little on what he'd
seen with an abruptness that was difficult not to note.
She stood, to accompany him to the door of her office, and put her
hand on his arm as he was about to turn the knob. "Ah, hang on.
This is kind of a personal question... on behalf of, uh, a friend, but
you wouldn't happen to know if Kerry's, uh, seeing anybody?
Involved?" Luka decided that if Kerry had wanted this woman to
know about them, then she would have brought up the subject
herself. Still, he didn't want Dr Legaspi's friend to have the wrong
idea.
"I believe I've heard that she is seeing somebody."
"Okay, I'll... let my friend know. Well... never mind, Dr Kovac."
"Please, call me Luka." She grinned up at him.
"Only if you call me Kim." She noticed him eyeing the jacket of her
suit, a dark grey wool that, she thought, perfectly
complemented her new scarlet silk blouse. "Is something wrong?" He
gestured quickly; Kim had always been a little bemused -
though fascinated - by the tendency of Mediterraneans to "speak" with
their hands.
"No... Kim. I-- never mind. So I'll make another appointment with your receptionist?"
* * *
On his way back downstairs after his appointment, the elevator stopped long enough for Kerry to get on. "Hi."
"Hi yourself. You left without saying goodbye this morning."
"Yeah, but you get grouchy when I wake you up." She supposed she
ought to be annoyed by the smug note in his voice,
but she also supposed he had a right to feel smug, where
any aspect of their love life was concerned: she had absolutely
no complaints in that department!
"Because you usually want to make love when you wake me." He nudged
her affectionately with his hip, being careful
not to knock her off-balance, then reached over her shoulder to trace
her collar-line with one long finger... pausing for a
moment, to circle the hollow of her neck suggestively.
"And that's a bad thing, huh?" He chuckled softly.
"Well... no," she admitted, smiling in spite of herself.
"Hey, we have the same two days off coming up next week, right? I
was thinking, perhaps we could pack some lunch
and a blanket, and drive out someplace that's very far away, and...
well... " She didn't have to turn around to know that
he'd begun to blush.
"You're so cute when you're trying to be sleazy, Luka." He laughed.
"Oh, thank you. I think." He leaned down and kissed the top of her
head, but she turned around, grabbed his tie, and pulled
him down a little further for a proper kiss. Not a very long one,
though - the elevator chimed and stopped, and Romano got on.
He noticed Kovac and Weaver at opposite sides of the car, studiously
pretending to ignore each other, and hid a little smirk.
Verrrry interesting. It was a real shame that the board had vetoed his
idea of putting cameras in all the elevators (it was a valid
security concern, but most of the board members had assumed -
correctly, as it happened - that his special interest in this issue
was mainly voyeuristic) - with the dirt he could have on
the people who worked here, he'd have everybody under his thumb
once and for all! Shoot... here was his floor already.
The elevator chimed again, and Romano got out. "God, I thought he'd
never go away," Kerry muttered, glaring at the elevator
door for a moment before turning her attention to Luka. "What's with you?"
He was leaning against the wall, snickering quietly.
"Later, okay?"
* * *
He made a quick stop in the lounge, to change his shirt and grab his
coat, and decided to cut through the ambulance bay
on his way out to his car, and enjoy a little of the first warm weather
of the year.
On his way to the door, though, he encountered a minor commotion -
Dave had a man with a half-sutured head lac backed
up against the admit desk, yelling at him. Malik was trying to pull
Dave away, but was only succeeding in keeping him off
the man's throat: the nurse was bigger and stronger, but Dave had the
advantage of sheer determination. Luka sighed, and
provided the tie-breaker by reaching in and pulling Dave away... dammit,
this was getting to be an annoying habit, of seizing
Dave by the scruff of the neck! Luka supposed it was too much to hope
that Dave would get the idea if he were ever to pick
Dave up and just shake him, the way a mama cat did a
naughty kitten.
"What the hell's going on here?" he demanded.
"This jerk hit a kid, and then just left her lying in the road! He
wouldn't even be here, except he cracked his head and
needed
stitches. Son of a--" Dave tried to lunge around Luka, who blocked him
again.
"Dave, settle down!" He turned to glare down at the driver, who
looked a little nervous... good. "Now, you know that
difficult
matters need to be referred to an attending. So if it's going to be at
all difficult for you to... deal with this
man, I'll be happy to
step in." He narrowed his eyes at the man, who began to whimper.
"Please... please don't hurt me! I made a mistake, I gotta coupla
DUIs on my record and I guess I just panicked! Oh, oh, god...."
The man continued to babble, as Dave and Luka, and the rest of the
people in the area looked on. Reggie shouldered his way
through the crowd.
"About damned time he got here," Dave muttered, and
made a little ow!ing noise when Luka irritably smacked his shoulder
(though nowhere nearly as hard as he could have).
* * *
"You know, I actually enjoyed that," Luka told Malik a little later,
as Reggie hauled the guy away in cuffs. Then he looked
up, and realized that the situation was maybe not as enjoyable as he'd
first thought: Kerry was approaching at a rapid pace.
Probably she'd been alerted by somebody, and now he'd have to fill out
some kind of incident report - he would have been
just as happy to let Dave off the hook, since his sympathies were with
the girl who'd been hit, but he doubted that Kerry would
agree with his assessment.
He was right: she didn't. Not only did she not agree, but she was
absolutely furious with the way the situation had been
handled. She made him stay long enough to document what he'd observed,
what his part in the incident had been, and
questioned him and Malik, as well as Dave, even though he was, by now,
nearly in tears from fatigue; by the time she
finally told him to go home, he would have taken the El... except that
he was sure that he'd fall asleep on the train and find
himself in a really bad neighborhood. Paradoxically, it
really was safer for him to drive... though there was no
guarantee he
wouldn't fall asleep at the wheel once he'd made it home.
* * *
She unlocked the front door, and was startled to find resistance
when she pushed it open. Oh... that was why: Luka's
coat was lying in a heap right in front of it. And his shoes - he'd
kicked them off, judging from the way that one was in
the corner at a crazy angle and the other was upside down. Kerry sighed
and pushed the coat away from the door with
her crutch so she could open it the rest of the way. The scene when she
got inside and closed the door was just as chaotic:
he'd removed and dropped his still-knotted tie at the foot of the
stairs, his shirt was about halfway up (with his undershirt at
the top). Oh, and there were his trousers, marking the entrance to
their bedroom. A short trail of socks and underpants... and
finally Luka, wearing only his watch, looking almost ghostly in the
glow of the night-light, and passed out on top of the
covers, face-down... diagonally, of course, so he was hogging most of
the bed. He moaned softly in his sleep once or twice,
twitched a little, then lay still again.
She watched him sleep for several minutes, admiring his cute little
butt - wincing at the sight of the scratch-marks on his
back, which were still healing - and feeling very tempted to join
him... maybe even wake him. "No, you need your sleep,
sweetie," she told him quietly. Besides, there was something else
she wanted to do for him, and she couldn't do it unless
he was asleep... like he was right now.
She picked up his trousers and went straight for the hip pocket; the
photograph was exactly where she remembered seeing
him take it out, that morning in his old apartment. She quickly
refolded the wallet and put it back, then went out, his
photograph tucked safely into her purse.
She drove even more carefully than usual; Larry wasn't pleased to
see her at this hour, and told her so, but Kerry stared him
down. "I covered for you last time, remember? Besides, I think I have
an interesting challenge for you." Larry shrugged,
and stepped back so she could enter his house.
"Fine, fine. You always were too stubborn for your own good. So what
kind of photo do you have? Or I assume you have
a picture... somehow I don't think you've succumbed to my charms at
last?" Kerry laughed at him, and nudged his shoulder
playfully.
"I'd have to get through Greg first, remember? No, it belongs to
a... a friend. He's paranoid about it, so I don't want to let it
out of my sight." Larry sighed and began massaging his temples.
"Let me guess, he has no idea you're doing this. And considering
what time it is, you're probably wanting to get this done
so you can sneak it back from where you took it. Right?" Kerry grinned,
and Larry chuckled naughtily. "O-hoho... that's
how it is between you and this guy! Okay, lay it on me, African Queen."
"I thought you were the African queen."
"Just lay off that, Kerry," Larry scolded, though he was snickering
- it was old repartee between them. "Let's see this picture -
this 'interesting challenge' - of yours. Hm..." he muttered, when Kerry
took out the little black and white photograph. "Seems
like a straightforward scan to me, Kerry. Where's that
interesting challenge?"
"The interesting challenge, Larry, is what - who - I
want you to add to the picture. This," she explained patiently, "is his
wife
and daughter. They were killed eight years ago, and this is his only
picture of them. What I want you to do is add him into the
picture, for a family portrait - I have some photos that would be about
right - and--"
"That's not a problem, Kerry."
"You didn't let me finish. He also had a son. There are no surviving pictures."
"Wow." He mused on that, wide-eyed, for a moment. "I think your
challenge just crossed over from 'interesting' to 'impossible'.
How the hell am I supposed to put in a picture that I don't even have,
that doesn't exist? How 'bout I just do something simple,
like invent a time machine with a flash attachment?"
"Well, you've said you know a police sketch artist, right?" Larry
nodded slowly. "If I can get a thorough enough description
of his son, what do you think the artist can do with it?"
"The lady's spookily good. The result won't look exactly like a
photograph, of course, but I can make the computer give the
entire finished product a portrait appearance, kinda like it was
painted. That should make everything look like it goes together."
"Okay. Go ahead and just scan the original photograph, for now. I'll
get you the rest of it as soon as I can." For the next few
minutes, the only sound in the room was Larry's flatbed scanner,
humming away. Kerry turned her attention to Larry's monitor,
where the scanned picture was appearing, and watched Danijela Kovac's
face appear, line by line. She almost wished she hadn't
asked Luka to show her the picture; somehow it was worse, knowing what
the woman had looked like... knowing how beautiful
she'd been. Now little Jasna was appearing on the screen. Luka hadn't
said how long ago the picture was taken, but she reckoned
that Jasna would be at least in her early teens now, if she'd survived.
"Pretty lady," Larry observed casually as the photo finished
scanning. "Nothing compared to you, of course," he added
hastily,
"but--"
"Larry, you are a wonderful man. You're a liar, but you're
wonderful." She hugged him as he handed the original back to her.
"I'll try to get everything to you as soon as I can; his birthday isn't
until September, but I'd like to have it in my hot little hands
as soon as possible."
"Well, then get your skinny white ass on out of here so that you can
go and 'get everything' to me. Good to see you again,
Kerry - maybe next time it could be at a better time of day?" Her only
response to that was a rude noise.
"You know me, Larry, I always show up at the wrong time. Just ask the people I work with."
* * *
She was just as careful driving home as she'd been driving to
Larry's house, if not more so, and made sure to park under
the streetlight - it would be ironic if she were mugged, and her purse
stolen, when she was this close to home! This time,
on her way in, she picked up after his trail. She knew he hated for her
to spend time cleaning up his messes; if he were
awake, he'd tell her to let him clean up "my own damned mess!", but the
clutter bothered her. Although, she thought idly
as she plucked his tie off the step and examined the pattern, it was
kinda nice to have physical evidence that someone else
lived here. She'd always scolded John for leaving his stuff lying
around the living room, for example, but secretly she'd
liked coming home and finding that, say, he'd left his sweater on the
couch and his books all over the coffee table.
She could've, she supposed, just gone to the pound and adopted a
pair of cats (two, to keep each other company while
she was at work), but she suspected that if she did so, she'd find
herself with a house full of cats by the end of the year:
all the ugly, rejected cats that nobody else wanted to love.
Luka had barely changed position while she was gone, although he was
starting to talk. In Croatian, of course, although
whatever he was dreaming, it wasn't the same dream that had had him
calling out the same desperate plea over and over.
She'd only heard him have that particular nightmare once
since he'd moved in, and she had been able to break him out of
it without pinching him again (she'd been horrified by the purple
bruise that had sprung up on his chest afterward). The
other nightmare he'd had, though, after Lucy and Carter were
stabbed... that one had really scared her.
At least this didn't seem to be a nightmare: he seemed to be
carrying on a conversation in his sleep... and laughing.
She
stood and watched him for a few minutes, listened to his nearly-giddy
tone of voice and smiled at the sound of his
laughter - it was so like the way he'd been their first night together,
laughing with happiness and joy. But he wasn't
dreaming about her, she knew. They'd become close, and they were in
love, but he was laughing for another woman
right now... she stared at the little photo of the woman who had him
right now, her happiness suddenly muted.
She shook her head, and quickly got the photo safely back into his
wallet, taking care to put it exactly where she'd
found it: right behind his MasterCard, and in front of a video rental
card from a place in Tucson and a slip of paper with
a phone number for someone named "Arthur Willett". An 828 area code...
interesting. She put the wallet on top of the
dresser, along with his keys and the handful of change that had been in
his pocket, where he'd easily find it in the
morning, and tossed the emptied trousers in the hamper, with his other
clothes.
Then she stripped quickly, tossing her own clothes into the hamper -
she was going to have to do some laundry, first
thing in the morning, since this was her week for it and they were both
starting to run low on underwear.
Now for the fun part: trying to find a spot on the bed for herself.
Well, there was no way around it... she was going to
have to wake him up, at least long enough to get him to move. At least
the best part of his dream seemed to have
passed - despite her jealousy, she hadn't wanted to rob him of a good
dream: he didn't seem to have too many of
those, after all.
"Sweetie," she whispered, "you need to get under the covers." He
raised his head just enough to give her a bleary,
unfocused stare, and mumbled something that was completely incoherent,
before putting his head back down.
"C'mon." She nudged his shoulder, which got a soft, protesting grunt
from him.
"Mmrmm, lemme sleep."
"Move over, and I'll let you sleep." Kerry decided that she was just
as happy that she couldn't understand his muffled
reply to that. "Okay, how about this - move over, or
I'll put my flannel nightgown on and snuggle right up to you."
That got his attention, and he moved.
"Wretched woman," he pretended to grumble, but smiled as she got
into bed and then lifted the covers in mute invitation.
"Okay, okay. If you insist." He moved around until he'd levered his
body under the covers, and hugged her.
"Wretched man," she replied cheekily, gently stroking his face with
her hands and then snuggling into him. "Now tell me
what was so funny, when we were on the elevator earlier today?"
"Ah, it wasn't really that funny. I was standing there thinking
about how wonderful it would have been, for something
creatively nasty to happen to Romano... that weaselly little jerk.
D'fucker just has bad timing." Kerry couldn't help
giggling when he said that - she put her head against his shoulder, and
whooped helplessly in his arms. "What?"
"I'm-- I'm sorry. It's just the way you said that - you sounded,
just now, like... like a preacher trying to tell a dirty joke,
or something." He shrugged, and smiled reminiscently.
"My mother wanted me to be a priest - for a while,
even I wanted to be a priest - I think she held on to that
dream until
my wedding day, even though the evidence had been piling up against
that as a career choice for a number of years."
"Why, what happened?" He laughed, and hugged her tightly for a moment.
"Puberty! What else?" There was a moment of startled silence, then
she began to laugh again... and gradually coasted
to a stop as she began to respond to him idly caressing her hair.
"Speaking of puberty, just how tired are you?"
"Not very."
"Good."
POST-OPERATIVE NOTES: