There was a pause. He was probably realizing that he had not dreamed whatever happened last night.

When he did speak his voice was not even, it sounded choked. "So you've come for your car?"

I had yet to see his face, or any other distinguishing feature. It was like talking to a blanket.

"Yes, Detective Vecchio drove me up from Shelbyville."

"In Indiana?" he asked.

I nodded and then remembered he couldn't see me. "Yes," I said aloud, perhaps a little too loud. My stomach growled fiercely, forcing me to apologize for it.

"Can I call one of the nurses to get you something?" he asked.

After assuring him I was fine, he called anyway, using an intercom system he had.

"Would you mind--that is, could you possibly--" he broke off.

"What?" I asked, inching still closer to the head of the bed. I assumed he was about to ask why I was standing outside his room, and then send me away.

"Could I, could you, just--could I see you?"

Surprised, I smiled. "Well, I guess," I said, "but I'm not going to win any prizes today."

"Fair enough," he answered, his voice gaining steadiness as he spoke. "Although my hygiene is regularly scheduled, and I have no complaints, I haven't been able to perform it myself, and therefore am not at my best either."

Still smiling, and feeling a bit like a seven-year-old crawling into a tent they had made with sheets under the dining room table, I eased myself onto the floor at the head of the bed and slid on my back the few feet to be nearly centered with his face.

It made for a strange encounter--unlike any introduction I had yet to experience. It was most closely related to Vecchio's waking me up that morning, his face so near to mine, my lying down making the moment seem to be more intimate than it really was.

Vecchio's partner's face was no doubt somewhat misshapen by the padding holding it above the metal frame. His eyes were clear, the color of tears, and his mouth came down at the corners, but not in a bad way. He had short dark hair--what I could see of it, and his skin was the color I imagine writers mean when they write the word porcelain. I think his looks surprised me. They were not exactly what I would have expected as a complement to his brash, strong-featured partner. He was--well, he was pretty. It sounds silly to say, looks silly on paper, even as I look at it now, but it's the truth.

In the book Enchanted April, one of the characters is described as looking like a disappointed Madonna. He had that look about him as well. That he had, as it says of Mary in The Gospel of Luke, "taken all of these things and pondered them in his heart." Although I had no idea what, for him, all these things could mean. Being shot for one, I guessed.

I've always had trouble around men that looked that way, like they had a heavy burden, which still could not manage to dim their physical presence. A loss of brain function, blank staring, and general flusteredness that would overcome me faster than the flu--and probably would have, had he not been flat on his stomach and immobile at the time, and had my head not been screaming for aspirin.