I hope you all had a great Easter and that the last Chapter was good. Oh, and just to let you know, I had to go back to my revision books to write this chapter. Science – the joys of writing a genius! Forgive me if I'm medically inaccurate at all, too, as I have no experience with hospital equipment or injuries.

Well, enjoy!

Disclaimer: I don't own any of the characters from The Sarah Jane Adventures.

PS: This is an updated version.


Chapter Nine

Saturday

The weekend mainly consisted of things related to my fractured leg. Today was the day Mrs Wormwood would check it and then hopefully take the cast off with the saw. Her confidence in herself had grown since the beginning of the week and we were both ready to get this cast off my leg as soon as possible.

Until then, though, I kept learning. Now that I knew most of the little words that built up sentences, I was able to speak more fluently. It was a wonder, really, at how easy I could start to pick up a language once I knew the little words. It made me wonder how well at other languages I could be if I put my mind to it.

Writing my next sentence, Mrs Wormwood walked in the room. Well, I say walked in the room; she was more struggling into the room. Her cheeks were red from holding her breath too long as she pushed in something huge and heavy. It looked like some kind of machine, wires dragging across the floor as Mrs Wormwood continued to pull the contraption across. It had a bed at the base of the machine, with something large and looming growing out of the side like a tree. At the top, a secondary box hung from it. Thrown on top of the bed was an apron, dull with age. It looked more like a lead apron than something made out of plastic or fabric: it was an x-ray machine.

"Need any help?" I offered whilst she moved to the other side of the bed to turn a corner.

"No, I can manage. I'm nearly there," she told me, although I guessed she was telling herself more than me.

I pursed my lips in waiting, giving a small grin once she'd finally moved the machine next to my bed. "How long did it take you to drag this through the warehouse?" I said as she began to plug the numerous wires into the wall.

"I don't know. I wasn't really checking the time, just that I had to get it here," she answered breathlessly. Once all the cables were plugged in, she quickly stood up and fumbled back to the door again. Turning, she said: "make sure you sit yourself so that the leg is in the middle of the bed. Put the apron on, too."

Following her instructions, I slowly moved myself onto the bed, making sure my fractured leg was sat in the middle of the firm mattress. It felt more like a table than a bed.

Next, I fumbled for the apron, sliding the metal on top of my body to cover any bare skin. I knew what x-rays could do; if you were exposed for too long, they could ionise the cells in the body (to put it simply, the energy from the x-rays could split a cell in your body until it divides over and over again), leading to cancer. In high doses, the radiation from the x-rays could kill the cells, and the longer you're exposed to radiation, the more damage it causes. This was why I followed the instructions to letter, making sure anything that wasn't being scanned wouldn't be exposed.

You see, the lead would protect me because they would absorb the energy produced from the machine, thus leaving my body unharmed. Assuming that Mrs Wormwood hadn't gotten another lead apron, I guessed she would be standing outside the room – concrete also absorbed x-rays.

The machine was silent while I waited for Mrs Wormwood to return. Nervously, I picked at my cast. Where could she have gotten this machine from? I wordlessly said to myself. Hospital security couldn't have possibly been so loose as to let an expensive, huge piece of equipment to go wandering, as well as the machines Mrs Wormwood had first gotten to keep me alive in the first place.

As I took in my own thoughts, Mrs Wormwood clambered back into the room, hands full with a large crate piled with medical items. Sticking out of the top was a large stand with a control panel. It looked similar to the x-ray machine, so I guessed it was a remote control to start the procedure.

"Unfortunately, I only have one of the more basic machines with me. I didn't want to impose on hospitals by taking the better machines that could help others, so I took this one," she explained as she laid a large sheet of black film underneath my leg. "Don't worry, I'll return it once we're done."

"How exactly did you get it out of a hospital in the first place?"

She tapped her nose, looking quizzically at me as if to say 'did I use this right?'

"That's okay. You used it correctly," I told her.

She nodded and smiled. "Sorry Luke, you may find out one day."

Carefully, she set my leg directly underneath the box overhead. I instinctively moved my right leg out of the way so it wouldn't be exposed, moving my left leg slightly. Mrs Wormwood looked at me.

"Try not to move your left leg; keep your body as still as possible," she said, moving my left leg in place again.

"Okay," I mumbled, positioning my hands sternly into the bed-table as if they grew from it.

Mrs Wormwood breathed, pressed something on the control panel, and then moved outside of the room, leaving me on my own with a dangerous-but-helpful machine next to me, primed to go off.

I tried to keep as still as possible, even when the machine suddenly hummed into life. My palms mindlessly tried to dig further into the table to get me more stabilized. A few seconds passed and I waited nervously for the hum of the machine to suddenly switch off.

Then, a thought occurred to me: she didn't tell me how long the process would take. I thought it would take a few seconds for it to happen, not really having intimate knowledge on x-rays. After five minutes of sitting stock still on the table, panic struck me. I desperately wanted to call out and ask her, but worried for both the stillness of my leg and that Mrs Wormwood could walk in and be exposed.

I sat quietly, feeling my arms shaking from holding me up so long. In through the nose, out through the mouth. Deep breathes. In through the nose, out through the mouth. My arms shook, nearly keeling from the strain of my body. I desperately tried to stop the shaking that was growing from slight to violent, hoping my leg wasn't being affected.

Keep holding yourself, Luke. Just carry on, you'll be fine.

My muscles were getting weaker and weaker with every second of use. My bones felt like jelly from holding myself up for nearly ten minutes now, and I could feel throbbing in my hands. Blood was pumping loudly in my ears and I hoped, with every fibre of my being, that the waiting would end soon. This heavy lead apron was not helping either.

After just over eleven minutes, the hum of the machine stopped.

I closed my eyes tightly and carried on lifting myself up. I needed to be sure that it was safe to move, but only once Mrs Wormwood walked back in through the door.

Then, the door burst open and I could let go. I sighed heavily and let my back rest against the cool metal of the bed-table. My arms felt like they were on fire after being relaxed, the palms of my hands numb. My muscles were still trembling from the abuse, and Mrs Wormwood voiced her concern once she'd returned.

"Luke, are you alright? Were there any problems with the machine?"

"No, I'm fine," I groaned. "Just didn't realize how long it would take for the machine to be finished."

"That's my fault, I truly am sorry Luke," she said, already becoming distracted from the picture hiding below my leg and making a fuss of me. "If I told you-"

"Can we just see the picture please? I'm fine. Nothing else is broken and I was shielded from the x-ray."

"Are you sure?"

"I'm fine," I repeated. "Let's just check if my leg is fine, please?"

She stopped hovering by my side and returned to the middle of the table, pulling out the black film carefully from underneath my casted leg. I helped by gingerly lifting my leg up, not feeling any consequential pain. Mrs Wormwood left the picture by the end of the table as she returned to the crate near my bed. There, she pulled out a large white board from the bottom of the pile and swiftly returned back to the machine.

A switch flicked at the back of the board and the white background lit up, giving the room an ethereal glow that I hadn't really seen in this room before. In one swift movement, she clipped the black film into the top border, revealing white shapes against the glow of the machine. She eyed it carefully, analyzing and making sure that she had grasped everything on the image of my leg bone. From where I was sitting, the bright picture of leg bone shone out, looking clean and smooth, no breaks at all. Mrs Wormwood's careful contemplation of my leg got me wondering if she'd done this before.

"It looks healed to me," she observed. "I think we can take that cast off now."

Excitement bubbled in my chest. "Wait, you really mean that?"

"Of course, I would have said so otherwise," she replied, honesty in her eyes. As always; honesty had never left her eyes, deceit never once flashing in her changed face.

The box grasped her interest again as she rummaged through what little remained. Out of it, she picked a saw. The saw was strange, not the kind I'd seen builders handle on the daytime TV shows I'd seen before all this happened, no large sheet of metal with ragged spikes held haphazardly by a plastic handle. This saw was strangely small, with only a tiny, spike-edged circular blade screwed on to a large body, a tail of wire sticking from the back leading to a plug.

"Are you ready for this Luke?"

"As ready as I'll ever be."

The saw – if you could call it a saw – was plugged into the socket nearest my bed, primed and ready to take this thing off my leg. "Just relax yourself, okay? Tell me if you feel anything," she instructed softly, holding the saw over my leg with precision.

"I will, I promise."

She began after that, gently turning the blade on till it spun, its blades blurring into oblivion. The metal sunk slowly through the shell of the cast, sending small sprays of dust from the schism it created. She dragged the blade down the side of the cast, widening the gap with each centimetre she moved. Vibrations ricocheted in the cast, shaking the base of my leg until it felt almost numb. There was no pain, only a small tickling sensation that was, essentially, what made the saw harmless.

Mrs Wormwood was careful when she cut, allowing the vibrations from the saw to crack the cast so that she didn't need to plunge it any further. The skin of my leg had almost forgotten how to breathe properly as more of the cast undone itself. Pure air reacted with my skin, hairs rising and tingling at the breath of life it was granted. The smoothness of the cast was disappearing with every shaking second of the cast cracking and splitting, opening my leg up to the freedom of light and life. I swear even in that moment that I could even feel my bone full and strong and healthy again, strong to the core even with these ongoing vibrations threatening to tear it open again. No, everything was perfect.

The saw was off, the cast broken.

The temptation to rip the main body of my cast off was too great to pass up as Mrs Wormwood began to snap the bottom half of the cast underneath my leg as I reached forward, tugging my fingers over the tough material that had been shielding my leg.

Wait... what was the smell?

"That, Luke, is the result of seven weeks of not washing this leg," Mrs Wormwood said as I almost shot back from where I'd leant forward, not realising I'd actually said that thought aloud.

"Will it go?" I said, almost cringing at how embarrassing my voice sounded from trying to not breathe through my nose at all. That made Mrs Wormwood laugh.

"I think a wash and a lot of human soap will clean that smell away from your leg," she chuckled to herself.

Laughing, we continued to peel back the cast, breaking off the two halves without trying to irritate my leg, which was now revealed to be thinner than I remembered it, paler than usual and dry flakes of skin threatening to tear off with every touch. Delicately, I grazed my thumb over the limb, sensitive skin reacting badly with the touch.

"We've got to build your limb up back to strength, Luke," she informed, noticing its thinness compared to my healthy leg. "We'll take regular walks, starting with short walks and building up to longer ones. The internet urged me to be careful when repairing your leg."

"I'm guessing that means regularly soaking my leg, then," I said, remembering the dry, dusty feeling on my skin that I knew wouldn't go away with just a click of my fingers.

"Yes, and you must be gentle when drying them," she said, gathering her equipment and returning it back to the box she had brought it in.

Taking it as my cue to move, I swivelled my body to face the bed adjacent to the x-ray machine, taking care when bending my left leg to prepare it for the push to the bed. The sensations were weird, tingles and pricks of pain escaping my leg, but the freedom and bliss to move it was overpowering. A smile graced my lips, happiness filling me up like water to a glass. I was brimming with relief and ecstasy, pushing my body off the machine and onto the bed where I was able to stretch my newly freed leg with hardly any pain at all. It was pure, simple freedom, and I loved it.

It was strange how the littlest things could change your outlook on life. With my cast, I could still move, and I was sure that I would still be on crutches until my leg was strong enough to walk on its own, but the cast was the symbol of weakness, a signal that I had been injured and couldn't use my own body right. The removal of it meant I was recovering, that I was getting better. I was getting stronger and soon there would be no weakness, no signal of pain.

Mrs Wormwood returned from the box armed with bandages and clothe, sitting down next to me on the bed. The bed dipped where she sat, and I knew that it was time to change the bandages along my ribs again. I raised my shirt which opened the bandages to Mrs Wormwood's view.

"You're learning the routine well," she said, reaching out to unwind the bandages that were coming loose after how much I'd worn them.

"I've been doing this for so long now; I know exactly what's coming."

"You've only been awake for about three weeks Luke. That amount isn't long in the human measurement of time," she told me, eyebrows raised quizzically.

I shrugged. "I don't know... it feels like I've been here forever."

The bandages grew looser with every revolution she turned, the hold they had on my ribs fading. I snuck a glance down at my body, watching as the bandages unravelled to reveal my bruised skin, fading from a light purple shade to a sickly yellow, the swelling much further down than it had been the last time she'd undid the bandages.

"You really are recovering well," she stated as the last of the coils were taken away.

"Yeah, I'm almost healthy again."

She pressed her fingers against my ribs, pushing down hard to check for any more cracks or breaks. It was weird letting her do that... all my thoughts screamed 'this is Mrs Wormwood you're letting do this to you, the woman who almost destroyed the universe', but all it took was a memory of how she'd been the one who'd fixed my world after it destroyed itself to calm me down. Mrs Wormwood picked up on my panic, however.

"Do you not trust me?"

"Of course I do, you know I do," I said. "It was just, um, old instinct taking over, nothing for you to worry about," I continued, her silent staring pinning my thoughts into anxiousness.

She moved her hand away from my ribs. "It's okay, I understand. I was your enemy for a very long time, after all."

"Look, I know what you did. I remember it very well, with me not being able to forget anything, but I do trust you. These past three weeks – no, seven weeks – have proven to me that you have changed. I admit, I doubted your motivation the first few weeks, but I... I forgive you, okay? I forgive you."

And I did. I really did forgive her.

"I tried to manipulate the universe to my will, I took you from your family and friends at gunpoint, and I tried to use you to turn the human race to food. I do not deserve your forgiveness," she mumbled hoarsely.

"And it's for that reason that I do forgive you. You regret it, a thing so rare for the kind of people who did what you did." My hand reached out to hers, holding it steady. "I really do forgive you."

Silence, comfortable silence, passed between us.

"Let's continue this, shall we?" I offered, watching as tears began to build in her eyes.

"Yes, lets."


This one week is going to take up three chapters, oops. Well, anyway, I hope you enjoyed this chapter; another one should be coming soon-ish. Summer exams start soon, so I can't promise anything.

Reviews are welcomed and appreciated so much!