Chapter 4~Restorations

In Becker's dreams, the world was a weird dark blue. A weird dark blue with some splodges of purple showing through. Pretty much everything was this colour and, even in his dreams, Becker found it slightly odd. What also struck him as odd was the fact that nothing looked the same as it did in real life, but that was normal, he presumed. He also presumed that the fact that his dreams followed no real pattern, just random images of things he didn't understand, was normal too. He realised he was slipping away from these dreams when things started turning their normal colours, and then blanking out all together, before he finally opened his eyes.

The first thing that came to his attention was that he couldn't move his upper body. His legs were fine, if a bit sore, but at least he could move those. Looking around a bit and trying to ignore the splitting headache, he saw figures moving around in front of him. He then realised that he couldn't see properly, everything was a hazy blur. He heard voices next.

"Well, when I was a kid, I thought anyone driving without the window down on a hot day was mentally retarded," there was a laugh.

"Why?"

"My mum's car didn't have air-conditioning so I didn't know what it was." Another laugh.

Becker blinked rapidly, trying to get his vision working properly again. He faintly heard Robbie Williams playing in the background, and then the sound of running footsteps on the wood floor. The next thing he knew was that someone was standing over him holding a clipboard, he thought. Becker tried to sit up, but hands pushed him down gently.

"You are in no fit state to do much at the moment, so I suggest you don't try," the voice belonged to Maria Holland, so Becker assumed that it was her standing next to him. He tried to find his voice, failed, coughed for a while, and tried again.

"Can't see anything, is that normal?"

"Lou, can you put that light on please?" there was a bright flash and suddenly Becker could see properly again. He took in his surroundings. Maria was writing something on the clipboard in her hand, with bloodshot eyes, as if she hadn't slept for days. Lou was talking to Williams, both of whom looked like they hadn't slept recently either. He also saw, lying on the beds around him, the rest of his contingent, and painfully began to remember what had happened.

He remembered Williams leaving his tent, laughing, and he remembered frowning at a couple of maps for a while, trying to think up a strategy and failing miserably, simply because he couldn't stop thinking about Maria Holland. He then remembered, although he didn't really want to, the huge explosion, the blackness engulfing him pretty much immediately, and the brief moment of consciousness he experienced when Maria had found him. The memories added to his pounding headache, so he tried to block them out. He failed.

"What happened?" he asked. He heard Maria breathe in sharply, before saying

"We think that the Taliban launched a frag grenade bomb at your camp, and missed by a fair margin. No one else was seriously injured, a few cuts and scrapes, maybe, but nothing major," she went back to writing on the clipboard.

"When you say 'no one else,' you mean..." she sighed, preparing how to tell Becker what had happened to him.

"You got hit pretty hard, and something probably flew into you, because you have, well, had, anyway, a gaping hole in your back. you can't move, in case you were wondering, because if you twist the wrong way you'll open the whole thing up again, which will be messy, not to mention painful, so I've put you in a cast for now so that you don't. Basically, Becker, you're very lucky to be alive right now,"

Becker wondered how many people she had said that to.

"Ok," Becker paused, letting the information sink in. "So... How long am I going to be lying here?"

"Until I can take the stitches out, which won't be for at least another two weeks, so I suggest you get used to not moving," She made it sound so simple. Becker sighed and tried to sit up again. Maria rolled her eyes and pretty much lifted him into a sitting position, which wasn't as easy as it looked, considering how heavy Becker's muscular body made him.

"Right, well, now that you're going to be here enduring my company for the next, oh, I don't know, two months, I'm taking you off the duty line," Becker's shoulders dropped, this was the thing he had really not wanted to hear. He liked being this far out. It kept him away from his mother.

"How long for?"

"Permanently," Maria stated, and walked away.

Life in the field hospital had become pretty easy-going for Becker. He lay in bed all day, chatting to Lou, Maria or Williams and basically got whatever he wanted. The rest of his contingent had been sent back home and Williams was due to leave the next day. Becker had been there for a week already, and had argued constantly with Maria not to take him of the duty line permanently. She had simply said that with a scar traversing the length of his back, he couldn't do anything anyway, and besides, he could easily get another job in the military back home. Becker had grumbled when she said that. Jobs back in London were uneventful and usually involved patrolling the streets with an unloaded pistol, pretending that he would shoot anyone who caused trouble. Compared to being on the front line for six months, he hated the thought of anything else.

Becker awoke one night from a particularly disturbing dream about a couple of very large, pointy-eared dogs threatening to claw off his left ear, to see Maria sitting on the bed opposite him, reading a magazine and drinking from one of Lou's beer bottles. This shocked Becker more than seeing her up, because Maria never drank alcohol. Ever. She looked up, saw him and winked.

"Don't tell Lou," she whispered. He grinned and she stretched, yawning.

"Any reason why you're still up?"

"Not really, just a few bad dreams lately and a rather awkward sense of impending doom,"

"Right..." Becker was used to Maria using strange words and phrases, but her use of words still puzzled him. He sighed and wriggled up in his bed, a technique he had perfected whilst being confined to his cast and unable to move the upper part of his arms. Maria sighed too and lay backwards over the bed, touching her hands to the floor and immerging a minute or so later with eyes spinning.

"Sensible, that," Becker said.

"Hey, I'm the sarcastic git here. Don't steal my thunder," she lay down on the bed and closed her eyes, seeming to go to sleep for a few minutes. During those minutes, Becker studied Maria in a way that he hadn't been able to without making himself look really silly. He noticed how the light played around with her fire-red hair, making it come alive and dance like real fire did. He noticed the millions of brown dots that covered her nose and exploded over onto her cheeks. He noticed how thin she was, which, for some reason, he hadn't noticed before, and understood why she never seemed to eat any more than an apple a day. He noticed her almost pencil-thin legs poking out of her Converses, and the natural beauty of her features.

Then her emerald green eyes snapped open and their gazes locked. Becker imagined two sparkling gems and seemed to get lost in them. He sat, gazing into Maria Holland's eyes for what seemed like hours but was actually mere minutes, losing himself in the emerald maze of beauty and seemingly glass-like perfection. And she gazed back into his, swimming in the dark brown depths that she didn't want to climb out of, not for a while, anyway. The hypnotising effects of his near-black eyes terrified her, yet she didn't want to let go.

There was a loud bang, and they both blinked, the moment over as Lou stumbled in. He had a hand over his nose and was dressed only in his boxers. Maria raised an eyebrow as he shuffled his way over to the bandage cupboard.

"Rolled outta bed an' knocked the table," he mumbled, fishing out a plaster. His nose was a rather ghastly shade of blue as he taped the plaster over it.

"Just go back to bed, Lou, it'll go pink again by tomorrow," Maria said, rolling her eyes and turning over, away from Becker. Lou mumbled something else about running over a cat with a shopping trolley, and shuffled back along the corridor.

"I don't think," Maria said slowly, "that he was actually awake,"

"How can you smack your nose into a table and sleep through it?" Becker found the idea very unrealistic.

"Don't actually know but he's done it before, that's how he got that scar going down his face," they lapsed into silence, while Becker attempted to wrestle with the strong and very dangerous feelings creeping into him. Maria sighed again, and sat up.

"Becker..."

"Ryan,"

"Youwhat?"

"My first name, it's Ryan,"

"Huh," 'What the heck did I tell her that for?' Becker asked himself. He never told people his first name, mainly because he didn't think anyone needed to know it.

"Ryan..." Maria rolled the name over in her mind a few times, testing it out. "Suits you," she finally said.

"Thanks, I think,"

"You think?"

"Yeah, I don't really like it much," He thought he heard her laugh at that, but was probably imagining things. "What were you going to say?"

"Hmm? Oh, it doesn't matter," She was about to get up and go to bed, embarrassed and furious with herself at the same time, when she remembered something her brother had once said;

"If you want to save yourself from embarrassment, Rio, don't let the opportunity arise," He had said that after attempting to beat his classmate in a game of M&Ms Poker, and, if Maria remembered correctly, had failed, quickly redeeming himself with some witty and sarcastic remark about the size of his opponent's "Small Head." She decided she was going to hate herself for what she was about to do. She got up off her bed and walked over to Becker, heart pounding furiously in her chest. "Goodnight," she said softly, and kissed him very lightly, withdrawing from it after a fraction of a second. She had planned to walk straight through her office and into her room, but Becker was too quick for her. Before she even had time to straighten up, he pulled the collar of her t-shirt, forcing her down. Quick as lightning, he pressed his mouth to hers and kissed her, feeling himself go dizzy and light-headed. He also realised, with that one passionate kiss that he had wanted to do that for a very long time.