Promise Ch 10- Establishing Communication
As she swept up the glass from the lamp, she heard something smash up against the bathroom wall.
"Damn it," she heard Eliot grunt. She decided to investigate. She knocked softly on the door before entering the bathroom. "You still haven't left?" he sighed, looking up from his wrists. He was trying to clean his wounds and wrap them before they got infected. Aimee looked between him and the bottle of hydrogen peroxide, now pouring out onto the floor. "I couldn't get it open," he admitted softly. That's when Aimee noticed his hands shaking. He was still on an adrenaline high and she was sure the spike in his blood pressure the day had caused wasn't helping him any.
"El, sit down," she instructed. Eliot eased himself on to the toilet. Aimee leaned over and grabbed the hydrogen peroxide. Unfortunately, the bottle was now empty. She held it upside down to show Eliot.
"There's more in the hall closet," he mentioned. With the amount of injuries he accrued, he kept plenty of back up first aid supplies. Aimee nodded and left the room. Eliot dropped his head in his hands. He still hadn't regained control, but at the moment he wasn't too off put by leaving it in Aimee's hands. He sat back and wished he could rake his hands through his hair, but with the amount of blood and his injuries covering his hands, he held off. Instead, he undid the buttons on his shirt and removed it carefully, leaving him in his black wife beater.
Aimee fished around in the closet until she found everything she would need to patch up, not only Eliot, but herself as well. She carried all of the stuff back to the bathroom. Eliot was no more than two feet in front of her on the toilet, but he looked a million miles away. She knelt in front of him. Wordlessly, she put some peroxide on a cotton ball and touched it to the laceration on his right wrist. Eliot hissed in pain as the liquid bubbled and fizzed against the dirt in his wounds.
"Do you want to take a shower before I wrap these?" she offered.
"Uh yeah," Eliot pulled himself back to the current conversation.
"Do you mind if I shower when you're done?" Aimee asked meekly. Eliot looked at her. He noticed the bruise creeping across her cheek and other small cuts and bumps.
"Sure," he allowed.
"I'll uh, let you shower," Aimee excused herself from the bathroom.
Eliot emerged just over ten minutes later, in nothing more than a pair of sweats and a towel around his shoulders. He looked like the shower had done him some good. He looked more tentative and less anxious.
"Wrap my wrists?" he asked softly, trying not to startle Aimee, where she was curled into the corner of the couch, one of the only pieces of furniture that was spared. She nodded and followed him back to the bathroom. The tension from their open ended discussion of their relationship both present and past hung between them. Aimee rolled the clean white gauze around the ligature marks. She winced just looking at them. The memory recall was somewhat overwhelming. She had planned to stop at his wrists, but decided it wouldn't hurt him if she went up around his hands as well, covering his busted knuckles.
"I look like I'm getting ready to put boxing gloves on," Eliot tried to joke. Aimee afforded him a soft smile.
"Too tight, too loose?' she checked. Eliot wiggled his fingers and alternated grabbing each wrist with the opposite hand.
"They're fine," he decided. "Do you need some clothes before you shower?" he offered, desperately trying to remember if he'd ever seen her with a suitcase since she'd arrived at his doorstep the previous morning. She nodded and he tossed her his favored blue t-shirt and a pair of sweat pants.
While Aimee was in the shower, she tried to muster up a response to everything he had said earlier. The world had shifted in the last twenty four hours, opening old wounds and dredging up feelings she thought she had put to rest some time ago. After what they'd just been through, she was having a hard time even fathoming the idea of walking away from him.
Eliot was on the phone when she returned to the living room. She assumed it was with Nate. It sounded as if he was getting the background information on who was following her, and what had become of the goons after they left the warehouse. Eliot murmured a thank you and set his cell phone back on the kitchen counter. It appeared he had finished what reassembly of the apartment he could with the exception of the furniture that couldn't be saved and the holes in the wall.
"You still love me," it wasn't a question. Eliot's head snapped in her direction.
"W-what?" his eyebrows about hit the roof.
"I saw it, in your eyes," she explained.
"I, I care about you, yes, but love, Aimee…" Eliot tried to piece together something coherent.
"Eliot, you were always good enough and damn it, I went to the mailbox every day and carried the phone around religiously, just hoping I'd hear from you. I just wanted to know that the man I loved was ok. The only thing the ever disappointed me was that you felt you couldn't tell me what you were up to. I would have supported you, El," she rambled, trying to fight off tears.
"I'm a thief and a hit man Aimee; you really would have been ok with that?" Eliot raised his voice just a little.
"But El, you do good, you help those who can't help themselves, you have nothing to be ashamed of," Aimee responded. She knew she had said the wrong thing when Eliot's whole body stiffened.
"I am not ashamed, I am proud of what I do," his growl had made a reappearance.
"Eliot," she started.
"No Aimee, I am very good at what I do, despite what happened today," he defended himself.
"I never said you weren't," Aimee was backpedaling as fast as she could. He stormed out of the room.