Part 25

"Oh, yes, that's it."

"Harder?"

"No, oohh, that feels good. Bloody hell, woman, keep doing that and I'll be your slave forever."

"Promises, promises."

"I mean it. Just a little lower. Aaahhhh. There! Bloody flaming…"

"What is going on in here?"

Gillian peeked around Cal's shoulder to find Annette in the doorway of Cal's new room. His regular, non-ICU room. She started to withdraw her hands from under Cal's newly acquired t-shirt. The nurse had tried to made him wear a hospital gown but he'd flat out refused. Gillian had been forced to make a run to his house or he might have made good on his threat to wear nothing but skin. Now sweat pants and t-shirt hung baggily on his diminished frame.

"Just a little bit more, luv? Please?" He sighed as she softly raked her nails up and down, across his shoulders and down his spine. His eyes closed in bliss, he tilted his head toward the PA. "Can't a man even get his back scratched around here without someone butting in?"

"Sounded pretty orgasmic to me." Annette shook her head with a grin.

"Almost as good as," Cal agreed, opening his eyes to give Gillian a impish look, his grin broadening at her blush.

"Get a room, you two."

Leaning back against the bed, Cal trapped Gillian's arm, still under his shirt, beneath him. "Well, I just checked into this room and I've got a few complaints for the management."

Annette raised her eyebrows. "Oh, yeah?"

"The service isn't too bad," Cal set his features into a disapproving look. "But the bed is too hard, the décor stinks, I'm not too fond of the midnight and four a.m. wake-up calls. And the food is really, really crappy."

Annette burst out laughing. "Is this what he's always like when he can talk?" She directed her question to Gillian. "We can always put the tube back in."

"Oh, no," Gillian gave her head a violent shake. "Don't even think about it!"

"She likes me better when I can talk," Cal gloated.

"Okay, buddy, since you don't like the luxury accommodations, why don't we talk about what we need to do to get you out of here?"

"You mean, send him home?" Gillian would have bolted upright if her arm were securely caught beneath Cal. She'd been practically living at the hospital for so long, the concept of home had almost disappeared from her mind.

"That's exactly what I mean."

"What do I have to do?" Every ounce of Cal's fierce concentration was now focus on the PA.

"First, we're working on changing all your meds to oral. Once we get that done, we'll have to wait to make sure you're tolerating them well."

"How long a wait?"

"Couple of days. Second, you have to start eating regular food and have a bowel movement."

"What?"

"Bowel movement. You know, poop."

Cal just barely stopped himself from rolling his eyes. "I know what it means. That's it? That's all I gotta do?"

"Yup. It may not be as easy as it sounds. Your digestive system been on hiatus for a month. All the parts have to start functioning again. We're not going to let you out of here until we're sure that what goes in, comes back out. The last thing we want is to send you home only to have you back in a week with an obstructed intestine."

"What are we waiting for? Where's the food?"

"You already eating a full liquid diet. The next step is to start on some more solid food. You'll have to be careful, not too much at one time, and nothing too fatty. Without your gallbladder, you won't digest fatty food like you could before."

Cal pushed himself upright. "Gallbladder? What happened to my gall bladder?"

"We took it out. Did anyone tell you? Well, you've been pretty sedated, even if you were told you wouldn't remember. The surgery, the first night you were here, we took out your gallbladder."

He turned to scowl at Gillian. "Took out my gallbladder? What else am I missing?"

"They took out your spleen, too," Gillian ran her hand soothingly across his back. "They were both ruptured and bleeding. They had to come out or you might have bled to death."

Cal chewed it over, clearly confused and disturbed. Gillian could think of nothing to soften the blow. What else haven't you told me, she could see in his expression. She realized Cal didn't yet have a full comprehension of all that had happened to him. He'd only been totally unsedated for less than a week. She dreaded the conversation to come.

"Okay," he dismissed the subject for the moment, but she knew it was only for the moment. "All I have to do is eat and poop? Then I'm outta here? I can go back to work?"

Annette shook her head, "I doubt you'll be back to work right away. I see rehab in your future. But if your job isn't very active, you could probably go back part-time in two weeks to a month. Depending on how you do in rehab, of course."

"All I do is sit around and watch videos, yeah. And interview people. Right, Foster?"

"Well, lets see. In the past year, you've had a 19 year old girl beat you up," Gillian reminded him with a poke in the side.

"Oi, she only got one punch in. A wicked right, but only one punch." He protested, then explaining to the PA. "She was a multiple personality who'd witnessed a murder. I had to talk to the Protector personality."

"Took a beating in a prison."

"Guards broke it up before he did more than kick me a couple of times. Hardly constitute a beating."

"And what were you doing in a prison?" The PA questioned in astonishment.

"Trying to get a serial rapist to tell me what he knew about a copycat."

"Andrew Jenkins? I heard about that on the news. You were involved with that?"

"Yeah, Cal's the one that got the truth out of him." Gillian's pride shone in her voice.

"But you're the one who ended up in the hospital that time. I'm still sorry about that, luv."

"Not your fault," Gillian assured him. "But if you ever try the long con again, I'd appreciate if you'd let me know ahead of time. Now where was I? You were held hostage and pistol whipped."

"Wasn't my fault that plonker got in the building."

"But you offered yourself as hostage instead of Ria."

"Well, she'd never have been able to handle him. I almost had him talked into putting down the gun and walking out when the bloody cops showed up."

"Ben smashed you up against the wall."

"He told you about that, yeah? He was on the edge of quitting, I just wanted to get him fired up."

"You succeeded. You got shot by an undercover FBI agent."

"It was a blank and I had a vest on. You've got pretty good sources, Foster, to find out some of this."

"You were forty-five seconds from being blow to bits in Afghanistan."

He opened his mouth but could find no rebuttal. "You're right about that one. But I did get back in time for the Christmas party, though."

"And then you walk out to a tractor that may very well have been towing a trailer of explosives."

"That's not fair. We both knew that poor wanker didn't have any bomb."

"We didn't think so, but we weren't 100 percent sure."

"What was I supposed to do? Let the FBI atomize him?"

"My god!" They both turned to find Annette staring at them, mouth gaping. "What kind of people are you two?"

Heads swiveled back, with identical wide-eyed innocent looks. "Scientists?" Cal offered to Gillian.

"That's hardly all that you are," she said with equal parts exasperation and tolerant amusement.

His face turned sorrowful. "I don't think she's gonna want me to go back to work soon."