LJ Idol Season 7 Week 20 - Let Me Be Empty
o/` "In the arms of an angel
Fly away from here
From this dark cold hotel room
And the endlessness that you fear
You are pulled from the wreckage
Of your silent reverie
You’re in the arms of the angel
May you find some comfort there" o/`
-- "Angel" performed by Sarah McLachlan
While no one ever wants to be admitted to a hospital, if one must be admitted, there are good and bad facilities. As hospitals went, Baptist South wasn't too bad, I supposed. I had a private room --- all rooms, incidentally, were private --- and they had an open visitation policy instead of set visiting hours. Had I felt a bit better and not been so close to dying, I might have better appreciated the decor. The room, with its hardwood floors and walnut cabinetry, more closely resembled a hotel room than a critical care suite. It even had a couch in one corner which folded out into a bed on which exhausted relatives could crash. Only the patient bed itself retained its familiar form; I'd been too tall and too heavy for the standard beds, with the kick plate which could be pulled out to make more room, so they'd brought in a heavy stainless steel affair with a traction bar and an inflatable mattress designed to prevent pressure sores. Not that it would have mattered, as far as I as concerned. What was one more hole in my fragile skin when I already had a stinking abscess of undetermined origin merrily eating its way through the muscle tissue in my back.
Most people seem to think you get MRSA or staph infections because the patient lacks hygiene, but the reality couldn't be farther from the truth. I'd contracted the infection because I'd been scrubbing the dreaded silvery-grey scales caused by severe psoriasis off my skin and doing so three or four times a day. The constant abrasions made by such activities, combined with the compromised immune system caused by the chemotherapy I'd been taking, had caused a normally harmless bacteria which already exists in the human skin flora and fauna to find its way into my blood stream. I'd seen not one but two doctors inside a week who had given me a light oral antibiotic, told me to wash more often, and then sent me home. It had been my family physician, finally back from vacation, who had recognized the problem and sent me straight to the emergency room of the hospital where he had privileges.
I recalled little about the admission except for complaints about the stench and being ousted into the hallway in favor of more 'important' cases. Those memories came in shimmering fragments, like an old television with the station improperly tuned. Mr. Shapeshifter, holding a bottle of flavored liquid and begging me to drink. Whispered conversations, followed by a young looking doctor in scrubs cursing. A pager beep, something jarring my wheelchair, and an older man with a kind voice trying to get me to look at him or talk to him. More shouted orders and being put back into a room, hooked to all sorts of monitors and an IV. At some point, I began crying. It began as a whimper and rose in pitch to a pained wail. Someone put something in the IV and I went blissfully away, floating in a detached cocoon several feet above my pain wracked body.
That first night, when they finally took me up to my room, the nurse and her aide bathed me. Since Mr. Shapeshifter had to report to work at least long enough to explain what had happened so that he could take leave, I would have been alone. I never did learn the names of the nurse or her aide, but they didn't leave me alone. Someone checked on me every two hours and took the time to wash my face or speak soothing words in a low, calm voice. In the morning, a parade of doctors went in and out of the room. They spoke to one another in hushed tones and isolation procedures were implemented for my room. That meant anyone coming or going had to don bright yellow disposable robes, slippers, caps, and masks and use gloves. These were stripped off in the 'neutral' entryway and disposed of in a special container. Deprived of basic human contact, I grew despondent. The surgeon, who looked like Ghandi but unfortunately did not have his bedside manner, put the final spark to the keg of pent up suicidal emotions. "You'll likely die," he said in clipped accented English. "Even if I cut this out, it will spread. More surgeries. Most die. Seen it many times." While somewhat more tactful, the infectious disease specialist wasn't particularly reassuring either. "We aren't able to precisely identify the bacteria," he told my husband. "Until we can, we're just guessing what antibiotics will kill the infection, if any." In an undertone, which I could hear because the pain medications had rendered my hearing sharper than usual, he told Mr. Shapeshifter, "If she's got relatives and they want to see her before she goes, get them here."
Easier on everyone to simply slip away, a small voice kept enticing me. "Not quite yet," I muttered irritably, batting feebly at the increasingly irresistible urge to follow the voice into its pain free black hole. "Need to call Dorie and Dee first. Then we go. Phone, Mr. Shapeshifter. Want the phone."
Mr. Shapeshifter had to dial the number for me; I couldn't make my eyes focus enough to see the number pad. Finally, after what seemed like an eternity, someone on the other end picked up. "Hello?"
Shit. It's Pierre, not Dorie. What's he doing with her phone anyhow? I vaguely remembered Diagenou telling me during our IM chat last week that her husband was dragging her to some sort of social occasion in New Orleans and that she hadn't wanted to go but couldn't avoid it without putting herself in the line of fire. "Dorie, can I talk to Dorie," I pleaded. "It's important."
A nasty laugh greeted me. "Not now, maybe later." He didn't hang the phone up right away; I heard glasses clinking, muted conversations, and Dorie's voice raised in anxious inquiry. "I dunno, she mebbe die in hospital. Not you problem now, cherie. You problem ME!" A sob, and then *click* dead air.
I've always had a stubborn and sometimes unreasonable prejudice against narcotics. Even though I have a prescription for them, I tend to take less than the prescribed dosage if I can at all manage to do so. After the first injection, I'd asked the nurse not to give me any more of the Dilaudid. In the first place, it didn't play well with my brain chemistry. Some people might have found it mildly entertaining to watch random body parts materializing and absorbing at random intervals into the suddenly psychedelically colored walls but it scared the living crap out of me. In the second place, it put you in a world of hurt before it actually took away any of the pain. The stuff coursed like liquid fire through your veins before solidifying in a virtual punch somewhere low in your abdomen and then completely decimating any sense of reality. This time, I welcomed it with open arms and disappeared down the rabbit hole.
From an agreeable distance, in my state of pleasant dissociation, I heard my cell phone playing Secret Agent Man. I tried remembering why the ring tone was significant and giggled because I couldn't and didn't really care whether I could or not. Mr. Shapeshifter, roused from napping, snatched the device before it went to voice mail and thrust it at me. "It's Dee," he hissed. "Talk to him."
"No," I said in a voice which didn't sound like mine. I wondered briefly who had taken over my body and then stared in fascinated abstraction at my toes for a few seconds before Mr. Shapeshifter nudged me to bring my attention back to the task at hand. "Oh, all right then. 'lo, boy."
"Hey." Something about his own voice sounded different, strained. Wait, what? Dee doesn't show emotion, not publicly. I puzzled over that for a moment, unable to connect his emotional state to the fact that I was probably dying, and then let it go. Diagenou cleared his throat and his voice broke. "Kitty, how are you?"
"Is Dorie coming?" I probably shouldn't have asked that, ought to have appreciated that it was just after noon and he was calling from work, but the narcotics still held me in their embrace. I wanted her, wanted them both, but I somehow knew it wasn't going to happen.
"She can't, Kitty."
"What did he do to her?"
"He locked her in the apartment. She goes to work and she comes home. He won't allow her to do anything else." I could hear him shuffling paperwork, addressing someone just beyond the cell phone's pick-up range. "I'm working on it. If he doesn't let her go soon, we'll do something about it. Right now it's you I need to worry about."
"I'm dying." I hadn't meant to say that, had meant to give him some assurance so he could concentrate on freeing his sister from her abusive husband without concerning himself with me.
"No! Kitty, look" Diagenou had covered the mouthpiece of the cell phone but I could hear him urgently talking to someone evidently standing beside him. "Yes, sir, I appreciate it, sir. How soon can you have it out to the tarmac? All right, let me finish here." I thought at first some urgent case would be calling my beloved away but he quickly clarified, his voice low and urgent, "I'm coming just as soon as I can get out to the airport and on the plane. Hang on, Kitty, and I'll be there soon. I promise. Just" he sounded as though he were about to cry, which was completely and utterly wrong because Diagenou --- my tough profiler, my stealthy agent, my hard bitten law enforcement officer --- never gave in to the softer emotions such as frustration or despair "you hang in there and I'll be with you. Promise me!"
The phone slipped through my numbed fingers and something overhead began to beep. I closed my eyes, too exhausted to be interested in what might happen next, and heard Mr. Shapeshifter say, "No, she can't talk any more. They're going to try stabilizing her and then take her to surgery."
I suppose they finally did get me stabilized enough for the surgeon to remove the abscess which was poisoning my blood. I have a single vivid memory of having an animated conversation with the mirror, which so unnerved the anaesthesiologist that he covered it and turned my bed away so that I could no longer see it. I remember the operating room, though cold, had been painted cheery Tuscan colors and someone far off explaining they wouldn't need to intubate me at this time. Whatever they used to finally put me under smelled like lilacs and tasted like bubble gum. I thought I felt his lips against my ear, caught a glimpse of flame red hair, and heard a whispered, "See you on the other side" before I lost consciousness.
Mr. Shapeshifter had gone home to feed the dogs when Diagenou arrived. I heard him before I saw him.
He walked in --- staggered, really, holding himself carefully as though he couldn't quite predict where next he ought to step --- with his flame red hair spangled in raindrops. The dark green turtleneck, which I was certain had gotten him some stares as it was now mid-May in Florida and quite humid, picked up the intensity of his eyes and hugged his frame like a glove. Even tired and emaciated, he looked good to me. I smiled a welcome and the return smile lit his face, transforming its sharp planes and angles into the translucence of an angel. "Good morning, my heart." I held out the hand not encumbered by IV lines and gestured to the bedside. "Sit, you're about to fall."
"I'm fine, let's worry about you," Diagenou said as he kissed me on the cheek and then curled up beside me on the bed. Even I could see that wasn't true, however; deep blue shadows bruised his eyes and he had that harried, pinched look about him which I associated with pain. Both redheads, neither of us had ever had much color but his skin had gone an unhealthy shade of slick grey. His cheek, when I touched it, was hot with more than exertion.
I stroked a few errant strands away from his forehead and he nuzzled into me like a little boy. "It's all right," I assured him, speaking softly as one would to a wounded animal. "I'm right here and I'm not going anywhere."
"You almost did!" Petulant, accusatory, the tone of voice wasn't one I heard from him often. Diagenou rarely let his guard down and seldom did so in a public place. Considering someone came in every two hours to take my vitals, poke me, and ask me about things I didn't even discuss with my regular doctor a hospital was about as public as you could get. There wasn't much I could say to reassure him either because he was right; I'd nearly died even though we'd been smart enough to get treatment for the infection early this time.
I ran my hands through his rain scented hair and soothed him. "Baby boy, I"m doing my best to hang on and get out of here. I can't promise when that will be, but I do promise I'm all right and I'll be here." I pulled him closer. "C'mon, my angel, rest with me."
Diagenou settled himself against me, head on my breasts, and twined his hands into my hair. That was how we slept when together and he apparently didn't see any reason to change it now. I saw him grimace and a hand, absently rubbing, dug into his side. "Stomach ache?" I asked, stilling the destructive gesture with my own hand. Gently I traced his long strong fingers, persuading them out of a clenched fist, and then rubbed. He sighed in relief as the muscle relaxed and went limp.
"Yeah."
"You're doing too much," I chided. "You ought not to have come."
"I was the only one who could."
"I didn't want you here at the expense of your health! I'd have been all right, I have Mr. Shapeshifter here too."
He ground his teeth, something I hadn't heard him do in months. "I like Mr. Shapeshifter, he's a good man, but he's also an idiot. You needed me."
Damned if he wasn't right about that too. We'd been together almost thirty years. Diagenou had seen me through every major illness, one previous operation, and this would be the third hospitalization. Even when I'd doubted his commitment, he'd still been there and made certain I came back to the world whole and sane.
"Do you want anything?" I asked, not knowing when he'd last eaten. I was fairly certain, however, that he hadn't given much thought to his medications since getting here. I made a mental note to prod Dorie about it later...assuming Pierre would let me talk to her.
"No. Just you."
I kept stroking his hair, watching his face as his eyes closed and the cinnamon lashes brushed the pale cheek just a little longer each time. "You've got me. Now sleep, my misguided angel, for a while. No one will bother us." That seemed to be the benediction he needed, for Diagenou's hands stilled and he completely relaxed. The eyes stayed closed and a slight smile played about his lips.
In some crowning touch of irony, the skies had decided to open up and pour forth their tears. I held him sleeping against me and watched the fat raindrops whirl about in the mini-vortex created between the buildings. A six inch by two foot slash of sky was all I had access to, but it felt like a bit of stolen freedom. I watched the storm clouds gather, thicken, turn to thunder and lightning.
At some point he roused a bit, and asked in a sleepy far away voice, "We don't feel very good, do we?"
I'd done my best to shield him from the nastier parts of the hospitalization, namely the fact that the antibiotics were tearing my guts apart and that the painkiller caused more nausea than it did help with the pain. It bothered me that he'd picked up on that and added it to his own burdens.
"No, Dee, we don't," I responded reasonably, "which is why we're going back to sleep, hmm?" The soft caress --- my simple presence really --- sent him off into an exhausted slumber again.
That was how the nurse found us when she came in to check on me. She looked him over with the unabashed curiosity of a single female and I could tell she liked what she saw. Most people did. This one, however, seemed smarter because she just as quickly assessed that, ring or no, he had a deep and profound attachment to me. "Who have we here? He doesn't look like he needs to be watching you, he needs watching over himself."
Astute nurse! "Try telling him that," I said, grinning fondly. "Diagenou Marouche is family. They're Cajuns," I added, as if that explained everything.
"What happened to him?"
That I hadn't wanted to answer. The information wasn't mine to give and Diagenou hated strangers prying into his business. "He works in law enforcement," I edged. "Took a bullet in the wrong place at the wrong time."
"Ah," she said as if that made perfect sense. I notice my vitals weren't the only ones being assessed. Well, one couldn't blame professional curiosity. It did surprise me that Diagenou allowed her touch, though. "His vitals are poor. Does he need anything?"
"No," I said, grateful nonetheless that she'd asked. "I'll let him sleep --- he's exhausted --- and he'll be better presently."
"Let us know if either of you need anything."
I curled my hand against his cheek and he nuzzled me. No, I didn't need anything. I had everything I needed right there.
Fly away from here
From this dark cold hotel room
And the endlessness that you fear
You are pulled from the wreckage
Of your silent reverie
You’re in the arms of the angel
May you find some comfort there" o/`
-- "Angel" performed by Sarah McLachlan
While no one ever wants to be admitted to a hospital, if one must be admitted, there are good and bad facilities. As hospitals went, Baptist South wasn't too bad, I supposed. I had a private room --- all rooms, incidentally, were private --- and they had an open visitation policy instead of set visiting hours. Had I felt a bit better and not been so close to dying, I might have better appreciated the decor. The room, with its hardwood floors and walnut cabinetry, more closely resembled a hotel room than a critical care suite. It even had a couch in one corner which folded out into a bed on which exhausted relatives could crash. Only the patient bed itself retained its familiar form; I'd been too tall and too heavy for the standard beds, with the kick plate which could be pulled out to make more room, so they'd brought in a heavy stainless steel affair with a traction bar and an inflatable mattress designed to prevent pressure sores. Not that it would have mattered, as far as I as concerned. What was one more hole in my fragile skin when I already had a stinking abscess of undetermined origin merrily eating its way through the muscle tissue in my back.
Most people seem to think you get MRSA or staph infections because the patient lacks hygiene, but the reality couldn't be farther from the truth. I'd contracted the infection because I'd been scrubbing the dreaded silvery-grey scales caused by severe psoriasis off my skin and doing so three or four times a day. The constant abrasions made by such activities, combined with the compromised immune system caused by the chemotherapy I'd been taking, had caused a normally harmless bacteria which already exists in the human skin flora and fauna to find its way into my blood stream. I'd seen not one but two doctors inside a week who had given me a light oral antibiotic, told me to wash more often, and then sent me home. It had been my family physician, finally back from vacation, who had recognized the problem and sent me straight to the emergency room of the hospital where he had privileges.
I recalled little about the admission except for complaints about the stench and being ousted into the hallway in favor of more 'important' cases. Those memories came in shimmering fragments, like an old television with the station improperly tuned. Mr. Shapeshifter, holding a bottle of flavored liquid and begging me to drink. Whispered conversations, followed by a young looking doctor in scrubs cursing. A pager beep, something jarring my wheelchair, and an older man with a kind voice trying to get me to look at him or talk to him. More shouted orders and being put back into a room, hooked to all sorts of monitors and an IV. At some point, I began crying. It began as a whimper and rose in pitch to a pained wail. Someone put something in the IV and I went blissfully away, floating in a detached cocoon several feet above my pain wracked body.
That first night, when they finally took me up to my room, the nurse and her aide bathed me. Since Mr. Shapeshifter had to report to work at least long enough to explain what had happened so that he could take leave, I would have been alone. I never did learn the names of the nurse or her aide, but they didn't leave me alone. Someone checked on me every two hours and took the time to wash my face or speak soothing words in a low, calm voice. In the morning, a parade of doctors went in and out of the room. They spoke to one another in hushed tones and isolation procedures were implemented for my room. That meant anyone coming or going had to don bright yellow disposable robes, slippers, caps, and masks and use gloves. These were stripped off in the 'neutral' entryway and disposed of in a special container. Deprived of basic human contact, I grew despondent. The surgeon, who looked like Ghandi but unfortunately did not have his bedside manner, put the final spark to the keg of pent up suicidal emotions. "You'll likely die," he said in clipped accented English. "Even if I cut this out, it will spread. More surgeries. Most die. Seen it many times." While somewhat more tactful, the infectious disease specialist wasn't particularly reassuring either. "We aren't able to precisely identify the bacteria," he told my husband. "Until we can, we're just guessing what antibiotics will kill the infection, if any." In an undertone, which I could hear because the pain medications had rendered my hearing sharper than usual, he told Mr. Shapeshifter, "If she's got relatives and they want to see her before she goes, get them here."
Easier on everyone to simply slip away, a small voice kept enticing me. "Not quite yet," I muttered irritably, batting feebly at the increasingly irresistible urge to follow the voice into its pain free black hole. "Need to call Dorie and Dee first. Then we go. Phone, Mr. Shapeshifter. Want the phone."
Mr. Shapeshifter had to dial the number for me; I couldn't make my eyes focus enough to see the number pad. Finally, after what seemed like an eternity, someone on the other end picked up. "Hello?"
Shit. It's Pierre, not Dorie. What's he doing with her phone anyhow? I vaguely remembered Diagenou telling me during our IM chat last week that her husband was dragging her to some sort of social occasion in New Orleans and that she hadn't wanted to go but couldn't avoid it without putting herself in the line of fire. "Dorie, can I talk to Dorie," I pleaded. "It's important."
A nasty laugh greeted me. "Not now, maybe later." He didn't hang the phone up right away; I heard glasses clinking, muted conversations, and Dorie's voice raised in anxious inquiry. "I dunno, she mebbe die in hospital. Not you problem now, cherie. You problem ME!" A sob, and then *click* dead air.
I've always had a stubborn and sometimes unreasonable prejudice against narcotics. Even though I have a prescription for them, I tend to take less than the prescribed dosage if I can at all manage to do so. After the first injection, I'd asked the nurse not to give me any more of the Dilaudid. In the first place, it didn't play well with my brain chemistry. Some people might have found it mildly entertaining to watch random body parts materializing and absorbing at random intervals into the suddenly psychedelically colored walls but it scared the living crap out of me. In the second place, it put you in a world of hurt before it actually took away any of the pain. The stuff coursed like liquid fire through your veins before solidifying in a virtual punch somewhere low in your abdomen and then completely decimating any sense of reality. This time, I welcomed it with open arms and disappeared down the rabbit hole.
From an agreeable distance, in my state of pleasant dissociation, I heard my cell phone playing Secret Agent Man. I tried remembering why the ring tone was significant and giggled because I couldn't and didn't really care whether I could or not. Mr. Shapeshifter, roused from napping, snatched the device before it went to voice mail and thrust it at me. "It's Dee," he hissed. "Talk to him."
"No," I said in a voice which didn't sound like mine. I wondered briefly who had taken over my body and then stared in fascinated abstraction at my toes for a few seconds before Mr. Shapeshifter nudged me to bring my attention back to the task at hand. "Oh, all right then. 'lo, boy."
"Hey." Something about his own voice sounded different, strained. Wait, what? Dee doesn't show emotion, not publicly. I puzzled over that for a moment, unable to connect his emotional state to the fact that I was probably dying, and then let it go. Diagenou cleared his throat and his voice broke. "Kitty, how are you?"
"Is Dorie coming?" I probably shouldn't have asked that, ought to have appreciated that it was just after noon and he was calling from work, but the narcotics still held me in their embrace. I wanted her, wanted them both, but I somehow knew it wasn't going to happen.
"She can't, Kitty."
"What did he do to her?"
"He locked her in the apartment. She goes to work and she comes home. He won't allow her to do anything else." I could hear him shuffling paperwork, addressing someone just beyond the cell phone's pick-up range. "I'm working on it. If he doesn't let her go soon, we'll do something about it. Right now it's you I need to worry about."
"I'm dying." I hadn't meant to say that, had meant to give him some assurance so he could concentrate on freeing his sister from her abusive husband without concerning himself with me.
"No! Kitty, look" Diagenou had covered the mouthpiece of the cell phone but I could hear him urgently talking to someone evidently standing beside him. "Yes, sir, I appreciate it, sir. How soon can you have it out to the tarmac? All right, let me finish here." I thought at first some urgent case would be calling my beloved away but he quickly clarified, his voice low and urgent, "I'm coming just as soon as I can get out to the airport and on the plane. Hang on, Kitty, and I'll be there soon. I promise. Just" he sounded as though he were about to cry, which was completely and utterly wrong because Diagenou --- my tough profiler, my stealthy agent, my hard bitten law enforcement officer --- never gave in to the softer emotions such as frustration or despair "you hang in there and I'll be with you. Promise me!"
The phone slipped through my numbed fingers and something overhead began to beep. I closed my eyes, too exhausted to be interested in what might happen next, and heard Mr. Shapeshifter say, "No, she can't talk any more. They're going to try stabilizing her and then take her to surgery."
I suppose they finally did get me stabilized enough for the surgeon to remove the abscess which was poisoning my blood. I have a single vivid memory of having an animated conversation with the mirror, which so unnerved the anaesthesiologist that he covered it and turned my bed away so that I could no longer see it. I remember the operating room, though cold, had been painted cheery Tuscan colors and someone far off explaining they wouldn't need to intubate me at this time. Whatever they used to finally put me under smelled like lilacs and tasted like bubble gum. I thought I felt his lips against my ear, caught a glimpse of flame red hair, and heard a whispered, "See you on the other side" before I lost consciousness.
Mr. Shapeshifter had gone home to feed the dogs when Diagenou arrived. I heard him before I saw him.
He walked in --- staggered, really, holding himself carefully as though he couldn't quite predict where next he ought to step --- with his flame red hair spangled in raindrops. The dark green turtleneck, which I was certain had gotten him some stares as it was now mid-May in Florida and quite humid, picked up the intensity of his eyes and hugged his frame like a glove. Even tired and emaciated, he looked good to me. I smiled a welcome and the return smile lit his face, transforming its sharp planes and angles into the translucence of an angel. "Good morning, my heart." I held out the hand not encumbered by IV lines and gestured to the bedside. "Sit, you're about to fall."
"I'm fine, let's worry about you," Diagenou said as he kissed me on the cheek and then curled up beside me on the bed. Even I could see that wasn't true, however; deep blue shadows bruised his eyes and he had that harried, pinched look about him which I associated with pain. Both redheads, neither of us had ever had much color but his skin had gone an unhealthy shade of slick grey. His cheek, when I touched it, was hot with more than exertion.
I stroked a few errant strands away from his forehead and he nuzzled into me like a little boy. "It's all right," I assured him, speaking softly as one would to a wounded animal. "I'm right here and I'm not going anywhere."
"You almost did!" Petulant, accusatory, the tone of voice wasn't one I heard from him often. Diagenou rarely let his guard down and seldom did so in a public place. Considering someone came in every two hours to take my vitals, poke me, and ask me about things I didn't even discuss with my regular doctor a hospital was about as public as you could get. There wasn't much I could say to reassure him either because he was right; I'd nearly died even though we'd been smart enough to get treatment for the infection early this time.
I ran my hands through his rain scented hair and soothed him. "Baby boy, I"m doing my best to hang on and get out of here. I can't promise when that will be, but I do promise I'm all right and I'll be here." I pulled him closer. "C'mon, my angel, rest with me."
Diagenou settled himself against me, head on my breasts, and twined his hands into my hair. That was how we slept when together and he apparently didn't see any reason to change it now. I saw him grimace and a hand, absently rubbing, dug into his side. "Stomach ache?" I asked, stilling the destructive gesture with my own hand. Gently I traced his long strong fingers, persuading them out of a clenched fist, and then rubbed. He sighed in relief as the muscle relaxed and went limp.
"Yeah."
"You're doing too much," I chided. "You ought not to have come."
"I was the only one who could."
"I didn't want you here at the expense of your health! I'd have been all right, I have Mr. Shapeshifter here too."
He ground his teeth, something I hadn't heard him do in months. "I like Mr. Shapeshifter, he's a good man, but he's also an idiot. You needed me."
Damned if he wasn't right about that too. We'd been together almost thirty years. Diagenou had seen me through every major illness, one previous operation, and this would be the third hospitalization. Even when I'd doubted his commitment, he'd still been there and made certain I came back to the world whole and sane.
"Do you want anything?" I asked, not knowing when he'd last eaten. I was fairly certain, however, that he hadn't given much thought to his medications since getting here. I made a mental note to prod Dorie about it later...assuming Pierre would let me talk to her.
"No. Just you."
I kept stroking his hair, watching his face as his eyes closed and the cinnamon lashes brushed the pale cheek just a little longer each time. "You've got me. Now sleep, my misguided angel, for a while. No one will bother us." That seemed to be the benediction he needed, for Diagenou's hands stilled and he completely relaxed. The eyes stayed closed and a slight smile played about his lips.
In some crowning touch of irony, the skies had decided to open up and pour forth their tears. I held him sleeping against me and watched the fat raindrops whirl about in the mini-vortex created between the buildings. A six inch by two foot slash of sky was all I had access to, but it felt like a bit of stolen freedom. I watched the storm clouds gather, thicken, turn to thunder and lightning.
At some point he roused a bit, and asked in a sleepy far away voice, "We don't feel very good, do we?"
I'd done my best to shield him from the nastier parts of the hospitalization, namely the fact that the antibiotics were tearing my guts apart and that the painkiller caused more nausea than it did help with the pain. It bothered me that he'd picked up on that and added it to his own burdens.
"No, Dee, we don't," I responded reasonably, "which is why we're going back to sleep, hmm?" The soft caress --- my simple presence really --- sent him off into an exhausted slumber again.
That was how the nurse found us when she came in to check on me. She looked him over with the unabashed curiosity of a single female and I could tell she liked what she saw. Most people did. This one, however, seemed smarter because she just as quickly assessed that, ring or no, he had a deep and profound attachment to me. "Who have we here? He doesn't look like he needs to be watching you, he needs watching over himself."
Astute nurse! "Try telling him that," I said, grinning fondly. "Diagenou Marouche is family. They're Cajuns," I added, as if that explained everything.
"What happened to him?"
That I hadn't wanted to answer. The information wasn't mine to give and Diagenou hated strangers prying into his business. "He works in law enforcement," I edged. "Took a bullet in the wrong place at the wrong time."
"Ah," she said as if that made perfect sense. I notice my vitals weren't the only ones being assessed. Well, one couldn't blame professional curiosity. It did surprise me that Diagenou allowed her touch, though. "His vitals are poor. Does he need anything?"
"No," I said, grateful nonetheless that she'd asked. "I'll let him sleep --- he's exhausted --- and he'll be better presently."
"Let us know if either of you need anything."
I curled my hand against his cheek and he nuzzled me. No, I didn't need anything. I had everything I needed right there.