Author's Note:
First of all I want to say that I'm rather embarrassed; I have been labouring under the delusion that I had in fact updated this, and some time ago at that. JoJo's review landed in my in box and on checking I discovered that, sure enough, there was no part 6. So, I either imagined updating or something untoward happened in the process. Personally I think I was hallucinating, but, whatever the case, my apologies to anyone who might have been waiting for this. I'm getting on in years.
CLEAN SHEETS – Part VII was all bustle and business when I left him, got lost twice, had to ask my way, found myself wondering whether he's familiar with these particular corridors and stairwells, had the sudden, overwhelming desire to locate his locker. I was 14 all over again and blushed with the guilty knowledge. By the time I found my way to the ER I was grinning at myself too, my sense of well-being back in place. He was home, he was safe, and for the time being he was my prisoner.
She was there, of course she was, pointed out to me by another nurse when I asked for her. I'd asked about the letter on the plane and all Luka said was that she was John's girlfriend.
"Maybe his ex?"
"I don't know."
"You know her well?" I thought I did a pretty good job of not sounding too curious.
"We . . . we've worked together for . . . a while", but he hadn't looked at me as he spoke.
Ah. Worked together – and what else, my dear I wondered, but I hadn't asked, something else I didn't really want to know. After all, it wasn't him writing to her, was it?
I was surprised by how unremarkable she looked and then surprised at myself because I had no idea what I was expecting and then again because she shouldn't matter to me and I didn't know why she did. She was John's girlfriend, right? John's girlfriend, and I shook myself. Everything was all right.
She was small and pretty in an ordinary sort of way, older than I expected. The hair on the back of my neck stood up when I heard her speak his name, checking on how he was doing and my scalp prickled some more when I stepped up, able to tell her, and my smile was real because the news was good and the nearness of losing him was still so fresh that I still got a rush of happiness at the realisation that he was OK. And I knew more about Luka than she did, knew that he was till spiking on quinine but was lucid between fevers, knew he was hungry. If it came to that I probably knew more about John at that moment than she did. I let myself feel just a little sorry for her.
Her look was wary, confused, wondering who it was who knew all about Luka, maybe trying to place me, wondering if I worked there.
"Oh, you don't know! I'm Gillian, I was working with Luka and John in Congo."
"John? John . . . Carter?" What? How many Johns did she know in the Congo?
"And," I fished around in my bag, "he gave this to Luka to give to you." She took the letter and looked at it with a mixture of confusion and what looked like amusement. I got the feeling she wore that expression a lot and that it didn't mean she was amused
"He wrote me a letter?" Incredulous.
"Now there's a lost art."
I was glad to see Frank, the grouch who had visited Luka, glad to see a familiar face and I asked him where Doc Magoo's was.
"Burnt down" was the answer and the place suddenly seemed very noisy. Burnt down. Luka might say it didn't look like anything had changed but he was wrong. In the real world things had changed, as they must, moved on, raced ahead for all I – or he - knew. I realised that Abby had gone, headed off with her letter – so she was eager to hear from him after all which was sweet. I wasn't sure she'd feel the same after she'd read the letter. Just a feeling and probably wrong, but he'd said he'd been lost and now he was found but he wasn't here. Here must be where he'd gotten lost.
oOo
Frank walked me to the nearest diner, asked me about John, why he didn't come back with us. I hedged, told him there was so much work to do there.He snorted and said that was no shortage of work in Chicago either and at least the air conditioning worked two days out of three and you could drink the water without going blind or having your leg bitten off by a crocodile and there were maybe only half the number of machete attacks although the GSWs were probably right up there with the Congo and don't get him started on the crackheads and drunk drivers and cross dressers with stiletto related injuries. Still, under it all I thought there was a kind of respect for John's decision especially after he'd seen Luka stretchered in, a kind of grudging admiration for brothers in arms. Frank wore grudgingness like armour but it seemed pretty thin to me and easily dented.
oOo
He couldn't eat it all, so I helped him out and he smiled and reached to wipe sauce from my chin. It was such a little thing that, but I wanted suddenly to cry and said I needed some air and a cigarette and he should get some sleep.
I paced and paced, smoked two cigarettes down to the filter, but I didn't cry. Even better, I didn't think, didn't think for a minute about what would happen when he didn't need me any more because I'd cross that bridge when I came to it and it would be a couple of weeks at least. A lot can happen in a couple of weeks, right?
When I got back he wasn't in his bed, damn him. His jeans were gone from the back of the chair but his other clothes were still there and his meds were still on the bedside cabinet. If he'd absconded he'd done it in a hurry and half naked. I scooped up the meds and only then glanced through the window into the hallway. There he was - and so was she. I watched, fascinated, barely breathing as she shifted from foot to foot and he did the same and they smiled at one another. She moved toward him and I held my breath but she reached for the IV and did something unnecessary to it. I watched for a moment longer, their fidgeting and awkwardness and I saw it like it was written on the page of a book, saw that, oh yes, there'd been something there, felt my eyes actually get wider as I saw that she'd chosen John over him and nearly laughed at the memory of John's stricken look and the understanding that dawned with it, understanding of his compulsion to find what was left of a man he knew he'd misjudged and maybe thought he'd wronged.
Well fuck this.
I put a smile on my face, pulled back my shoulders and moved in, scolding him, smiling sweetly at her, laying hands on him, brushing the hair from his eyes and registering the rise in temperature, gave her another smile which said as clearly as I could without speaking "Thank you so much for coming, it was most kind, but, as you can see, he has all the help he needs so you can go and please don't feel you have to hurry back; in short, and not to put too fine a point on it – back off."
I settled him back in bed, got his meds down him and then asked "She OK?"
"Sure."
"John's letter . . . "
"Was personal."
Wow. I'd heard him use something like a command voice as we worked on Chance in Matenda, but this was different, this was final and for a moment I wanted to say I knew all about personal, son of a bitch, I'd cleaned him up and kept him clean when he was too sick to even know I was doing it, and don't think I can't see exactly what kind of personal there had been between him and Abby, and don't talk to me about personal. I didn't because he'd reached for my hand and was looking at me apologetically. "Not for me to tell" he said, softly.
"It's OK" I lied brightly.
"Tired?"
"A little". Another lie; I was more exhausted than I'd ever been in my life. I didn't know how long I could survive veering between dead tiredness and euphoric relief.
He shifted on the bed and held out his arm, gathering me against him as I lay down. He was asleep almost at once but I was awake because the silence which had surrounded us was being invaded, overwhelmed by the hum of reality, and even the sound of his heart beneath my ear couldn't drown it all out.