by Feral

Disclaimers: See Part 1.

Feedback is always welcome: This is an original piece based on things I’ve done and experienced. I own these characters and these words. The world I live in isn’t shiny, but it is interesting. I don’t flinch from gross. Don’t steal. Do comment. Please...feral@e-scribblers.com.

Copyright © 2008 by C. R. Johnson. All Rights Reserved.

---

Rae took a deep breath, and rose from sleep reluctantly. Christ, if she kept dozing off like this, she was going to wonder if she had narcolepsy or something. Even though her eyes were covered, she still opened them, the darkness as unsettling as the weariness that stole over her so easily.

The rustle of pages sounded from Rae’s left, and she turned toward the sound.

“Hey sexy, want some ice chips?” Elsa asked, and Rae could feel was drawing near before soft lips touched her forehead.

Rae lifted her brows, the dressings scratching over them and her skin tight from what she’d finally learned were stitches where she’d split open her face in a few places, one being her nose, another her brow, and apparently there were deep gashes along her jaw and ear. Elsa said it added character to her face. Rae had always figured she’d started out with enough character at birth, and counted herself lucky El loved her anyway. The small voice in her head began worrying at that particular bone and she cut it off ruthlessly.

“Ice?”

“Yup, while you snoozed, you graduated from lemon swabs to solid water on your tongue. Reckless, but true.” El had her caretaker voice going, the same one she used on the cat and the house plants. The garden she usually swore at.

Feeling fellowship with the ferns in the stairway, Rae grinned and opened her mouth.

“Just what I’ve always wanted -- my very own baby bird.” El deadpanned, but Rae heard the rattle and slosh of ice and when the small pieces slipped between her lips she hummed with pleasure. “You’re so damned cute.” The ice chips were melting and El followed them with her mouth for a quick kiss. “More?”

“Mmm”

Three spoons of ice were consumed before El determined she’d had enough. Rae frowned, but didn’t argue. Her head still hurt, but seemed more capable of function. Her sense of humor seemed to be asserting itself on occasion, though her temper still flared out of nowhere. She got El’s joke about baby birds and felt as though she might be able to make a foray into actual discourse. Three days since her big awakening, and she actually “knew” it was her third day…

Her body awareness was growing more acute as well. In retrospect, Dr Jensen had been gentle in his laundry list of challenges she was facing. She was well and truly fucked up. She rolled her tongue back and swallowed, noting the slight tug and deciding, yes, she did still have a feeding tube… yip-fucking-ee! Between that and the catheter, she felt like a she’d been strung on a wire; a distinctly unattractive thought.

“Leave the tubes alone, Rae,” El scolded gently, “they have fits over you and tubes around here.”

Rae frowned. “Don’t like.”

“I know.” A quick kiss to Rae’s chin took away any sting El’s next words might carry. “You need them, so be good and leave them be.” She took Rae’s hand and played for a moment with her fingers, tracing her knuckles and all the small nicks and scars that marred her skin. She traced the tan line where Rae normally wore her ring, the one Elsa had worn beneath her own since the night Rae was hurt. She’d been fascinated by Rae’s hands from the beginning: moving with confidence, deft, strong, and yet infinitely gentle, they had drawn the most amazing feelings from her, both physically and emotionally.

“Wanna home.” Rae pouted.

“As soon as you’re better.” Elsa clenched her jaw in frustration.

“’kay.” Today, Rae actually accepted the reasoning, or she may have simply lost interest.

It was like having a conversation with a bad tempered five year old. “Would you like me to read some of the paper to you?” “Nuh uh.” Rae was back to worrying at her tubing with the back of her tongue.

Elsa studied the set of Rae’s jaw, noted the tension along the lines of her throat, and recognized the root of the petulance. They’d told her to expect irrational outbursts, and that Rae would likely be irritable and even hurtful at times, her personality malleable as the damage healed. There was even the possibility that Rae would no longer be the Rae she knew, though El refused to consider that… She knew this woman, knew her well, and she could recognize Rae’s fear as surely as she could find her own nose.

“You had a nightmare,” she pointed out softly.

Rae swallowed, her throat still sore. She seemed to think for a moment, then nodded her head.

“Rae, tell me about your nightmare.”

Lips thin with irritation Rae took her time speaking, trying to get the words right. “Went gone.” Damn it! There was more to that sentence, words and thoughts and…

“What went gone, Rae?” Elsa prompted.

Again she worked at the wording, meticulously putting the sentences together before entering them into the hopper for her tongue and lips. “me left… lost…” she gritted her teeth. “Nnot!”

Okay, today was going to be a ‘bad communications day’. Yesterday had been, too. Rae’s frustration rose with the increase in her understanding and awareness. Where the staff wasn’t sure, Elsa was. She knew Rae well enough to read the signs, and as surely as she could feel Rae’s personality reasserting itself, so too did she note the beginnings of a pulling back.

They had told Elsa to watch for signs of depression, of frustration and rage. What she was seeing felt damning. Rae was a verbal woman, expressive and witty, able to enchant, to entertain. The very real chance that her blindness might be officially pronounced permanent was bad enough to hit her identity hard, but then to be cut off from communication with the rest of the world… Taking a leap of faith, El attacked her own fears directly. “I’m not going to leave you, Rae. You aren’t alone, and you won’t be, even if I have to become a mind reader. Get that through your busted brain Irons, and set it in bone! Understand?”

It was exactly the right thing to say. Disturbing, but insightful. Rae swallowed again, her throat barely open, and nodded.

“You’re getting your dressings wet again,” Elsa whispered just before she kissed her. “I’ll be glad when those things are gone so I can see your eyes. You’re easier to read when I can.”

“Love,” Rae whispered back.

“Love,” Elsa agreed.

---

The breath was stolen from her chest as she landed on her back, the solid weight of her patient and the cot landing on her to press her into a space too thin for her to occupy.

---

“Perhaps I should take this up with your ‘friend’.”

Sweating, feeling heat blaze through her body like a wildfire, Rae gripped the handrail with her left hand so hard it began to creak. This pinhead needed to move just a fraction of an inch closer and she could save the fucking world! All she had to do was kill him.

“I me not,” she growled.

“She’s being unreasonable.” He spoke through his nose, which was of interest to Rae, since he was insisting on wandering up hers with a sharp hook to play around with her optic nerves.

Dr Jensen was moving around in the room now, she could feel his presence beside that of the surgeon. “Dr Jones, I may need to speak with both Ms Irons and her partner a bit more about this. Rae has a tendency to be somewhat intractable and I can’t see wasting your time until they make their choices. Let’s go get some coffee I need to ask you a few questions on another case.”

“Of course.”

There was more movement and the bustle of a nurse - a pissed off nurse - striding into the room to resettle her nest and the chick within. “Come on now, let’s get you to relax. I want that blood pressure down missy, and I want it down now.” Rae recognized that tone. Someone’s ass was on a cracker. She didn’t care if it was hers.

“That’s it, lie back and take a few measured breaths, and if you keep squeezing that bedrail you’re going to split your knuckles.”

---

The splintering of glass, the shriek of metal…

Another swing of the bat and the hood popped free, the once-loved car grinning, mocking her rage. Tightening her grip on the bat, she repositioned, then let fly, the impact of willow on steel knocking the hood off its hinges, making it look wounded and slightly insane, a mighty crack letting her know the wood had finally given way.

Tossing aside the bat, she went after the car with her hands, oblivious to the wrench of metal or muscle as well as the tears that flowed freely down her face.

“Jesus…” Tim’s voice, coming up from behind as she climbed in to stand on the engine and put her back into the sideways press she was so intent on completing.

“Rae, stop!”

He touched her leg and she ignored him. “Stop!”

She straightened her back, the hinges groaning as they twisted, a rivet popped. And then she was being lifted off her feet and thrown to the ground, too stunned to think, but not too stunned to regain her feet and face off against the fool who stood in her way.

“Stop this!” Tim bellowed.

All Rae saw was red. She drove into him with all the power her legs could gather, intent on driving right through him and back to the car before she met his brick wall of resistance and her feet flew up over her head…

---

Sharp metal passed along her back, cloth tearing until her belt caught and her attitude shifted, twirling her ass-over-teakettle into cold, icy air. Snow pelted at her, flaying her face and hands, filling her ear.

There seemed to be only space and cold, snow and spinning.

When she hit the ground, she landed back first, her breath leaving her as her head whipped back on her neck. She heard a vast silence and she stopped being…

---

Freshly bathed, hair washed and brushed out, and sitting in the chair with her right arm still strapped tight and trying not to bash her right leg into the metal rack of the erector set that was apparently keeping her left leg together, Rae managed a grin when she heard Elsa enter the room, humming.

“There’s my girl!” There was no hesitation in Elsa’s approach; her lips were soft as they found Rae’s mouth. She smelled of cold north winds and snow, and her nose was running.

Rae smiled as that cold nose buried in her neck.

“I ran into Dr Jensen in the hallway. The man keeps grinning. Apparently, his favorite patient told a very pushy surgeon to go away.”

Rae sat back and huffed. “Not nose-creep.” A sigh followed. The nurses kept telling her her speech would improve. But it was sure taking its time.

“Pierce!”

Rae’s brows climbed toward her widows peak on that one. Pierce?? She’d meant to say ‘fuck’! How was she going to live if she couldn’t even swear properly?! What would come out if she tried to say ‘shit’ or ‘goddamn!’?

The rustling sound of El removing her coat had paused, then restarted, and a soft chuckle could be heard. “Okay, let me puzzle that one out for a minute.” A chair was dragged over and El parked herself facing Rae. “I’m assuming you’re thinking of the surgeon who insisted on offering to operate on your optic nerves. He wanted to go up your nose and do something…”

Rae interrupted, “Hole-ass!”

Jesus Rae blinked. What the fuck? She sounded like a badly written Arab caricature in some stupid terrorist movie. Just once she’d like to see them show the terrorist as the president of the US… just once! Pinheaded, mean-spirited, small minded jackanapes!

“Okay then.” Elsa was smiling, it was clear as crystal in her voice. “I’d say that pretty much sums it up. And no, no one is going up your nose with anything unless you give consent. Besides, the studies I read didn’t look very good as far as outcome. So, the exam didn’t go so well, then?” The smile was gone now, though not far removed. Elsa was clearly more concerned with Rae’s reaction to the news than with any future impact Rae’s blindness might have on their lives, and without a single word, she’d managed to make things right.

“No see.”

“Do they think it’s permanent?”

Rae shrugged with her left shoulder. “Nose man numbers.”

“Forget about the ‘nose man’. He’s history.” Elsa took Rae’s hand in her own and caressed the knuckles. “Do they think it’s permanent?”

Rae nodded. There had been less certainty to the conversation than a simple nod could convey, but there had been an insincerity to the encouragement Rae had honed in on. What they’d left unsaid was that she was blind. It was time to deal.

“Do you think so too?”

Again Rae nodded, strangely pleased that El would defer to her opinion rather than the doctor’s.

“Okay, you’re blind.” El said softly. Then, without missing a beat, the grin burst forth in her tone as she said, “but don’t think that makes you special Irons. You’re still gonna take out the trash when it’s your turn, and in no way will this get you the leeway to wear that damned ‘Big Johnson EMS’ t-shirt!”

---

“We need to think about what we’re going to do about the roof.” El shook off her tooth brush and hung it in the rack, reaching for the tongue scraper.

“Ah ah out a oo?”

“We lost a big sheet of something in the storm this morning. I’m pretty sure it’s off the flat part on top.” El rinsed off the scraper and uncapped the mouthwash, the look on her face significant, assigning the task of roofing repairs where it clearly belonged.

Rae finished her back teeth and sucked at them as she tossed the string of floss and stood to take her place at the sink. “What kind of big sheet thing?” She reached for her brush and applied toothpaste, waiting for El to spit.

Grabbing a towel, El dried her face and kissed Rae’s ear before heading into the hall toward their bedroom. “Just a giant shingle thing with black goop and white little stone things on it.”

Yup, that sounded like the flat part at the peak of their roof. Rae took her time with her brush, then with her tongue and the rinse. By the time she sauntered into the bedroom, she wore a thoughtful look. “Why is it we never seem to contact repairmen? You do know what the yellow pages are, right?” Moving her boots back under the edge of the dresser, she turned off the overhead light, wandering over to the bed in her boxers and t-shirt.

“You’re just very handy, and much more reliable.” El settled down beneath the covers, letting out a sigh.

“Well, I’m glad I have my uses.” Scooting between the sheets, Rae wriggled around until she had edged her way up against El’s side and buried her face in her neck, her legs coiling with El’s as her arms wrapped around El’s waist. Elsa chuckled and reached to turn off the bedside light before she actively joined the braid and sighed as they touched foreheads. “You’re practically a multi-tool,” she whispered.

“Babe, you just called me a tool.”

Elsa ignored the comment and sought out Rae’s mouth with her own, turning them so she was on top. One hand ran through Rae’s hair while the other molded itself along Rae’s body.

“You’re not gonna read, then?” Rae asked, arching her neck to increase the area El had access to, a small sound escaping her throat as those lips and their wet heat painted their way lower.

Elsa’s only answer was to make their shirts disappear, leaving them breast to breast, belly to belly. “I missed you today,” El whispered, close behind Rae’s ear.

Running her hands along El’s back, Rae relaxed into the mattress, moving one hand up to take El’s, fingers forming a palm to palm clasp that said everything they needed to say.

“Mmm, you would’ve been bored - all that screeching metal and sweaty bodies” Rae said, “and that was just the traffic.” She’d spent three days traveling to and from the cities. It had left Rae feeling weary and shaken. 9/11 had turned into a great way to alter reality and play politics. Those attitudes get people killed.

El sensed the shift in Rae’s attention. She lifted her head and looked at Rae as though she’d found a crack in her favorite table. “What’s wrong?”

Rae shrugged. “Bad couple of days.” She kissed El’s chin, but the mood had shifted and El was bird dogging whatever it was she was sensing.

“Bad how?” Blue eyes bored into Rae’s, and the blonde waited.

On a sigh, Rae tried to convert a jumble of feelings into words, sure she was going to get it wrong. “Some of the stuff they were saying is just lies. On other things it was obvious they were playing politics, downplaying some stuff. None of us left today feeling good.”

“What kind of lies?”

“Like how much exposure is required to contract anthrax if it’s aerosolized. Secondary and tertiary effects of a nuke on comms and equipment, not to mention command. And then there was the whole logistics-and-supply thing. Nothing ever runs that smoothly and the projections are like reading a fantasy novel where the government is big brother and can do no wrong so don’t ask questions…” Rae shrugged her shoulders and closed her eyes. “This kind of whitewash is scary.”

“And everyone felt this way?”

“Seemed to be the consensus in the group I was with. We kinda made a fool out of the jerks doing the presentation. The guy on nukes we got to turn almost purple just by asking questions,” Rae admitted unapologetically. “Babe, these guys were nothing but mouthpieces for the administration. They didn’t have a clue what they were talking about.” The idea scared the shit out of her.

For a long moment El watched the expression on Rae’s face, waiting for it eventually to calm, and then, almost immediately to open up in surrender.

“I’m sorry,” Rae said softly.

“That explains the tension that’s been running through you the last few days. I’ve been worried.” El laid her head against Rae’s chest, listening to her heart.

“Me too…” Then a light seemed to pop on in Rae’s head. There’d been just the slightest of sighs attached to El’s words, and something in her posture as she rested atop Rae’s body whispered of fears gratefully released. “Worried about what?”

“Nothing.” El sighed again. “Nothing at all.” She kissed the side of Rae’s left breast and settled in as though to sleep. “I love you, you know that, right?”

Still confused, but reading the energy of the moment unerringly, Rae returned the kiss, but to the top of El’s blond head, and wrapped her arm more tightly, her legs twining as she let a deep breath flow out in a measured, easy exhalation. “I’ve become somewhat aware in the last few years of a certain fondness…”

When El nipped her breast and started to tickle her, Rae began to giggle…

---

Her eyes were frozen. She could barely see anything through the thin layer of ice. They were frozen and they’d never really work again because she was blind and she was going to have to live with it.

Something was humming above her head, behind her, and she could smell diesel and burnt plastics. She didn’t have a body, which she knew had to be wrong. Everybody had a body. That’s where the term everybody came from. So, logically, she had a body too.

She didn’t like this place. It hurt and it was scary. She wanted to go home and curl up in El’s arms were she was always safe and the world smelled like Elsa; not like diesel.

But she couldn’t go home yet. She had to find her body first. If she went home without her body, Elsa would be really pissed.

It had to be around here somewhere, didn’t it? She wasn’t exactly in the habit of misplacing the thing. It had attachments, like hands and feet and it fit really nicely against El’s. El liked her body and her body liked Elsa. They really needed to go home now.

Rae blinked a few times, trying to get the ice off her eyes, and when she turned her head to the right, she saw the slope that led up to the highway, and the chassis for the rig, crimped up like it had been folded in half. It looked naked without the module, and the rear axles were missing.

She blinked again. Why was the module not with the cab?

Something was swinging from the open throughway at the back. The truck looked funny, without the module, but she recognized it as the hatch they used to step through. What was that?

She looked again and spotted Tim’s watch. It was a titanium affair, with that little cross on it that came with Swiss army knives. Donna had given it to him, and the floppy braid of leather above it was just like the one Rae herself wore, made by Donna’s boys in Scouts. The bracelets were to keep them safe. The guys all thought it was very cute.

Tim would help her find her body. If she called to him, he’d help and she could go home then. She opened her mouth to shout his name, then got a closer look. His body was hanging loosely, almost boneless, and parts were missing. One of his legs had walked off, and the other stopped below the knee.

Maybe they were with her body.

Maybe that’s where he’d put his head too…

Continued in Part 5

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