The Tegan Chronicles
Thicker than Blood 9
It was a little after ten and Janet was sitting on the couch sulking when Tegan stood up. "I'm going to bed."
"Our bed?" Janet peered over the book she was reading.
Tegan shook her head.
She'd known better than to ask and watched as Tegan walked to the stairs.
When Tegan turned on the light in the bedroom she saw a piece of yellow paper that had been torn from a mini legal pad and folded in half. She picked it up and flipped it open to find Cassie's writing.
"And you, my (friend), there on the sad height,
Curse, bless, me now with your fierce tears, I pray.
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light."
She wondered if the note was brought on by her refusal to eat dinner that night. She walked back through the adjoining room and down the dark hall. When she stuck her head in Cassie's partially open bedroom door, she could hear the teen's soft breathing. She was sleeping deeply.
When she returned down the corridor Janet was standing in the doorway to their bedroom with her arms folded across her chest. "Everything alright?"
"Yeah." Tegan shook her head. "I was just checking on Cassie."
It was a little after two and Tegan couldn't sleep. Her arm hurt, not the stump but her arm, the phantom one. The limb she no longer had. It was on fire, white hot heat radiating from the outside deep to the center. But that wasn't all, she knew the pain kept her awake like it did almost every night, but tonight there was more. There was an ache inside her chest. She knew it wasn't physical, unlike the phantom pain caused by inflamed nerves. It was a longing, a need.
She rolled on her side mentally reciting the lines of the Thomas Dylan poem Cassie had written out for her. "Rage, rage against the dying of the light."
In any given context that poem had so many meanings. Did Cassie really think she was giving up, that she was going to die? Certainly not, she'd improved so much over the past month alone. Of course Cassie did see her not eating from time to time, and her and Janet arguing.
In the adjoining room she could hear Janet mouth breathing, her allergies must be acting up again despite her medications.
"Do not go gentle into that good night." Tegan whispered as she threw the covers back. She slipped out of bed in nothing but a t-shirt and low rise bikini panties and stepped across the threshold. The moonlight filtered in through the open blinds illuminating Janet's face. She was sleeping on her side with a pillow supporting one breast and her arm. Tegan used to be that pillow, but that had been months ago.
Tegan stood there for several minutes just watching the rise and fall of Janet's chest. Eventually she sat carefully on the foot of the bed observing the movement of Janet's eyes behind closed lids. She was dreaming, but of what? Tegan hoped it was of happier times. Her eyes traveled to Janet's lips, lips she hadn't kissed in weeks, over a month, had it been that long since she'd discovered the lie. And why couldn't she just move on from it? Was it only the lie holding her back?
Her eyes moved to Janet's hand, she could stare at Janet's hands forever. Not just the way they looked, the close manicured nails, long slender fingers, but the way she used them. They were soft, graceful, caring. They were the hands of a mother, a lover, a doctor, all rolled into one.
"Tegan?" Janet was still half asleep and not even sure Tegan was really in the room. Although she was certain she felt her presence as well as seeing her shadow perched on the end of the bed.
She watched her lips move, she hadn't planned on her waking. She really didn't plan any of it.
Concerned she sat up pushing the sleep from her brain. "Are you ok?"
"I was just..."
"Watching me sleep?" Janet asked when Tegan didn't finish the statement. She couldn't count the times she'd done the same.
When Janet said it, it made her feel like a stalker. Like she didn't belong. What had changed?
"Couldn't sleep?"
Tegan shook her head.
"Bad dreams? Pain?" Janet took her right hand in hers and intertwined their fingers. She needed to feel connected some how. The stolen contact during exams wasn't enough, and lately she'd even given that up.
For a second they shared a single thought, something was missing. Tegan pulled her hand free leaving Janet to contemplate what she feared most, that Tegan's personality was forever changed because of the tumor and consequent surgery.
"You didn't answer my question."
"Both." She whispered into the darkness.
"How bad is the pain?"
"It's bearable." It had to be.
"Scale of one to ten?"
"Eight."
"Better or worse than when you woke up?"
"I haven't slept." She looked away.
"I've got – "
"It won't help." Tegan cut her off.
"What about the dreams?"
Tegan shook her head again.
"It might help to talk about them."
She didn't want to tell her she had already talked to Tilly about them. It wasn't that she didn't trust Janet with her demons, but she didn't want her to have to see them.
"Maybe later." She stood up and stepped to the head of the bed. "Go back to sleep." Tegan leaned down and pressed her lips to Janet's forehead before disappearing into the adjoining room.
Tegan looked up as she saw the curtain move. "I thought Dr. Scully was doing my exam?"
"She was." Janet walked over and laid her chart on the edge of the gurney. "Did you get any sleep last night?"
Tegan nodded.
"I can't hear you."
"Yes."
Janet eyed her carefully before nodding. "Fine, you're free to go."
"Just like that?"
"Yup, your last post mission physical stands."
"Alright." She wasn't going to argue.
