Disclaimer: I don't really think I still need to say this…but oh well here goes… I never own GS/D, I only dreamt I did.
AN: Special thanks to those who still continue to like this story…even though it's been taking me a long time to upload the chapters. To all, thank you. ^-^
Athrun's Fall
Chapter Nine
OOOOoo
When Meer noticed Cagalli standing in the doorway, she leaned over and kissed Athrun's cheek softly. "I'll see you later, darling."
Cagalli's hostile gaze followed her as she left the room. When Cagalli turned back toward Athrun, he, too, was staring at the empty doorway Meer had just glided through, only his expression was wistful.
"What'd you do, send out distress signals?" Cagalli asked him peevishly.
"What do you mean?"
"Didn't you send for her to come and rescue you form my mean clutches?"
With no assistance from her he made it from his bed to his wheelchair. "I don't rely on other people, especially women, to bail me out of bad situations. Meer's arrival was a complete surprise to me."
"Does she do that often, just show up uninvited and unexpected?"
"She's an independent woman. She does what she likes." He looked up at her and added pointedly, "And she knows she has an open invitation."
"Better be careful about those open invitations, Zala. You Meer might put in an appearance sometime and create an awkward scene for you."
"Like what?"
"Like finding another woman in bed with you, dimwit."
"Well," he grunted as he levered himself onto that mat table, "that wasn't even a possibility this time, was it?"
Cagalli swung his legs up onto the paddle table. "No, it wasn't."
"So what's your gripe?"
"Was I griping?"
"It sounded like griping."
"I don't care if you keep a harem in here to coddle and cuddle you. Just clear out all the broads when it's time for your therapy."
"One broad hardly constitutes a harem."
"One or fifty, during the sessions you're going to work like hell so we can get this over with and I can go home. You start walking, and I'm outta here. In the meantime, as long as Snow White doesn't stand in my way again, we'll get along fine."
"Snow White?"
"Never mind."
"Who am I, the prince?"
"You're Dopey."
"Well, it's easy to see who you are. You're Grumpy."
In character she said, "Your muscles and joints are stiff."
"Ouch! Stop that."
"Not a word about the pain, Zala. It's your own fault. You brought it on yourself by lying around doing nothing for two days. Now we have to regain the range of motion you'd reached before you decided to become a sluggard."
They had little to say to one another after that. Cagalli didn't reduce that amount of his exercises, even though he had lost ground after two days of virtual inactivity.
"You can push harder than that, Athrun." They were nearing the end of the session when she broke the silence with that sharp rebuke. Usually they joked their way through the most painful exercises, swapping insults and sexual innuendos. The silence was getting on her nerves. She felt it was necessary to reestablish a little of the camaraderie they had enjoyed before The Kiss, Meer's untimely arrival, and her realization that what she felt for Athrun was more than professional concern. "I said push."
"I am, dammit." His teeth were already bared and his face was beaded with sweat.
"Harder."
"I can't."
"Yes, you can. Come on." He made a second effort. "Better. Good. A little harder, Athrun. Higher."
"When a woman tells me to push harder and higher, I'm usually doing something much more fun."
Their eyes come together like magnets. Beneath the impact of his stare Cagalli became as out of breath as he. She relaxed her resisting arms and lowered his foot to the table. "Compared to that, this isn't much fun, is it? Sorry that I can't give you a better time."
He held her stare, then gave a dismissive shrug. "It's not your fault I fell into that chasm."
Whenever he spoke of the accident, his expression becomes bleak and self-flagellating. Cagalli was always moved to pity, knowing that he still grieved over the loss over his friend. "You've worked hard this afternoon and are due a reward."
"A massage?" he asked hopefully.
"With lotion."
"Great."
"Slip off your shorts and roll over."
He had trained himself to do that and did it very well. She complimented him as she draped him with a sheet. Feeling proud of himself, he stacked his hands beneath his cheek and watched her as she went into the bathroom. "You shocked Meer, you know."
"How?" she brought a damp cloth from the bathroom and began sponging his arms, legs, and back with it. After she'd blotted his skin dry, she coated her hands with unscented body lotion and began massaging it into the backs of his calves. He groaned with pleasure. His eyes closed. "Concentrating on relaxing the muscled now," she told him in a hypnotic voice. "Think about the muscled relaxing. What did Meer say about me?" she slipped that into the conversation casually, hoping he wouldn't pick up on her avid curiosity.
"She expected my physical therapist to have a beefy figure, blunt fingers, cropped hair. Starchy white uniform. Rubber-soled shoes. She didn't expect long legs in gym shorts, a mop of blond hair, and barefooted."
"If I'm allowed a vote, I definitely prefer the latter description over the former." She was working on the backs of his thighs and buttocks now. His sighs became deeper, more frequent, more sexual.
"Cagalli, do you believe in reincarnation?"
"I'm not sure. Why?"
"Because I think I just figured out what you were in your for mer life."
"Oh, what?"
"I'm not sure you want to know."
She leaned down and poked his shoulder. His eyes opened. "Does my former occupation have anything to do with sins of the flesh?"
His eyes moved over her hair. "Strictly with sins of the flesh."
"Then I'm glad I was there."'
"You're shameless," he mumbled, laughing and closing his eyes again.
Cagalli liked the way his eyelashes curled against his cheeks. In fact, she liked everything about his face. She secretly admired it as her hands smoothed lotion over his back. She applied just the right amount of pressure to each muscles, alternating flexing and relaxing her fingers. To touch his skin was thrilling. His vitality could be felt in each sculptd mucle.
She got so lost in her task that she didn't hear Meer until the door closed behind her. Cagalli hastily pulled the sheet up over Athrun's naked back. "You'll have to come back later," she said testily. "We're not quite finished. I'm relaxing him."
"So I see." Despite what Cagalli had just told her, Meer moved towards the mat table. "I have something that will relax him better than a massage. Martini, darling? Just the way you like it."
Athrun propped himself up on his elbows and extended his hand to take the drink. "Thanks." He sipped. "Hmm. Perfect."
They smile at each other, then looked at Cagalli expectantly. Defensively she stood her ground. To Athrun she said, "You'll need help getting back into your chair."
"Surely I can help him with that," Meer said smoothly.
Cagalli silently consulted Athrun. He was sipping his martini with a connoisseur's appreciation. She wanted to knock the glass out of his hand and wipe the silly grin off his face.
"All right." She headed for the door. "I'll see you before bedtime, Athrun."
"That won't be necessary either," Meer told her in that modulated, Swiss-girl's-school voice Cagalli had come to loathe. "I'll be sleeping in here with Athrun. I'll be at his beck and call through the night. We'll alert you if you're needed. Otherwise Athrun will see you tomorrow morning for his therapy session. Good evening, Miss Attha."
Cagalli gave her patient a fulminating look, then slammed the door.
OOOOoo
"What's that?"
"What does it look like?"
"It looks like a parallel bars."
"Congratulations," Cagalli told Athrun. "You just answered the question correctly. As your prize, do you want the zirconium ring, the set of scratchproof cookwear, or the weekend getaway in the Ozarks?"
"You're a regular comedian."
"It was my sense of comic timing that earned me F's in citizenship," Cagalli assembled the bars where she wanted them, then stood back and surveyed her handiwork. "There."
"What are they for?"
"Well, not for me to perform tricks on for your entertrainment."
"Then, what?"
"They're for you to perform tricks on for my entertainment."
He looked shocked and frightened. "Isn't this premature? Why are you bringing them in here now?"
"Because it's time you started practicing walking on them."
"As I said, you're a regular comedian."
"I wasn't joking."
"Neither was I," he snapped. He was eyeing the contraption as though it were possessed of evil powers. "I can't do it."
"You can try."
"I'll make a damn fool of myself even trying."
She released a deep groan. "Save it, will ya, Zala? You say the same thing every time I introduce something new. The pulleys, the wheelchair, the mat table. I've heard it all before, and it's getting real old. Come on. Haul ass. Out of the bed and into the chair."
"Into the chair, fine. Even into the mat table, fine. But don't expect me to stand on my own two feet. I can't."
"Dare you."
"What?'
She leaned down until her face was level with his. "I dare you, The Gutless Wonder, to even try."
She watched the irises of his eyes contract around the pupils. He gave her a long, measuring stare, then treated the parallel bars to another suspicious appraisal. He wet his lower lip with his tongue. "Okay, I'll try," he agreed with uncertainty. "But if I fail—"
"You'll try again."
He wheeled his chair to the end of the bars, looking dubious as to what to do next. Cagalli stepped between the bars. She placed as belt around his waist and using that, hoisted him out of the chair. At the same time he pulled himself into an upright position with his arms. He supported himself between the bars while Cagalli knelt down and splinted his knees with knee cages.
As she stood up, she asked, "How hard are you?"
"Pardon?"
"Your belly, Zala, your belly. Do you need an abdominal binder?"
His eyes glinted with naughty thoughts. "Touch it and see how hard it is."
"Bet you say that to all the girls," she said, responding with a naughty smile of her own.
Accepting his unspoken dare, Cagalli splayed her hand over his tummy. The muscles beneath his warm, hair-dusted skin jumped reflexively. Standing close, they each felt te jolt of the contact. She pressed the pads of her fingers against him. His stomach muscles drew up taut and tight, telling her what she needed to know. The therapist in her was satisfied. But the woman in her was craving more. Cagalli regretfully withdrew her hand. "You're hard all right," she said gruffly.
"Yeah. The last thing I need is something to make me harder."
They held a stare for several heartbeats. Then Cagalli dragged her gaze away. "Let's begin."
"Show me what to do."
She bullied and coached and cajoled him. He shouted at her. She yelled at him. They cursed each other. But before the session was over, he had managed to shuffle his feet in a semblance of taking steps between the bars.
"Great work, Athrun. You're getting the hang—"
"Oh, my God!"
Meer's shriek startled Athrun and cause the muscled in his arms to give away. He would have collapse to the floor had Cagalli not been there to break his fall. Taking al his weight upon herself, she backed him up and gradually lowered him into the wheelchair. Then she whirled around to confront Meer. "Get out of here! How dare you interrupt us during a session."
"You can't order me around, Miss Attha."
"I damn sure can. Mr. Zala is my responsibility. While we're in this room, his attention has to be solely on me and what we're doing."
"The fact that he's your responsibility can be remedied," Meer threatened in a voice that could have chilled the martinis she was so fond of mixing for Athrun.
"I intend to take up that very subject with his physician. Indeed, another physician is a distinct possibility. It seems to me that what you are doing for Athrun at Dr. La Flagga's recommendation is causing more harm than good. He is obviously in pain."
Cagalli whirled around to see that her patient was wearing an expression of sheer agony. "Athrun?" she dropped to her knees in front of his wheelchair and began massaging his calf muscles. It was contracted into a knot as round and hard as a baseball.
Meer moved alongside his chair and blotted his sweating forehead with a monogrammed handkerchief. "Leave him alone now, Miss Attha. Haven't you done enough for one morning?"
"Me? I wasn't the one who came barging in where I wasn't needed or wanted and caused him to break concentration."
It took several minutes, but eventually Athrun's muscle returned to its normal state. His contorted facial features relaxed. But Cagalli could tell the fall had cause him as much embarrassment as pain. It had hurt his pride and bruised his ego. She could easily throttle Meer for undoing in a matter of seconds what it had taken her an hour to work up to. Athrun's confidence was shattered. The next time she suggested using the bars, she would have to start from the scratch, convincing him of his ability. Damn the woman!
"Kindly leave us," she said stiffly.
"Your time us up."
Cagalli consulted the clock on the nightstand. "Can't you tell time? We've got fifteen more minutes."
"Surely you're not going to make him stand up again."
"No, we'll go through a series of exercises to relax the muscles."
"Then, I'll stay and watch."
"You'll do no such thing. This is between my patient and me. Athrun, you don't want her here, do you?"
Meer laid her hand on his shoulder. "We're not talking about pouring tea, Snow White. You don't learn 'to do this' in an afternoon. It takes years of study ad hands-on practice to get certification."
"It can't be that difficult," Meer said with a soft, derisive laugh. "I should know how to do it, so that I'll be able to give Athrun a therapy once we're married."
Cagalli's heart hit the floor. She gaped at Meer, then at Athrun. "Married?" she wheezed.
OOOOoo
AN: To those who hate Meer, I'm on your side sharing your same sentiment of abhorrence, detestation, loathing, odium, revulsion, disgust, animosity, dislike, aversion, resentment, ill feeling, distaste, repulsion, you know I could go on forever but some people—really. I was force to write this due to 'some people' whose been showing up at my place pressuring me with their noisy demands. Thank you guys for making my day unforgettable . . . I'll remember this! R&R, it might lift my head from being stuck in the oven. And also, if you want you could comment about those 'some people' who keeps depriving me of my precious sleeps and dreams of AsuCaga. It would be one heck of a good read. ^-^ . . .
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