(Chapter 11. October 27. CGH. While Olivia's arrangements with the
company, Wishing Wells, are entirely fictitious, the company actually does
exist. Information is available at: www.dawn-wells.com)
Olivia woke Steve early the next day.
"Boxers or briefs?"
"Wha...? Huh?"
"Boxers or briefs, Steve?"
"For breakfast?"
Olivia started to giggle, "No, Steve," she laughed. "Not to eat, to wear. I'm going to help you get dressed for physical therapy."
Steve was finally fully awake. "Liv, I can't get anything on over this gadget you have on my leg."
"You just let me worry about that. Now answer my question, boxers or briefs?"
Steve threw his hands in the air in frustration and said, "Boxers."
"Hah! I knew it!" She indicated a large basin of warm water, a razor, shaving foam, a washcloth, and a bar of soap on the bedside table. "I'll be back in about fifteen minutes. Can you wash up while I'm gone?"
"Yeah, but, Liv, what are you up to?"
"You'll see," she said mysteriously, and slipped out the door.
Steve turned to the bedside table, and started to shave. He was still feeling apprehensive about physical therapy. He'd never hurt that bad in his life, and he wasn't sure he could face it again. As he finished shaving, he decided he would try. Olivia believed he could do what was necessary to get back on his feet. He would trust her.
As he slipped out of his hospital gown, he noticed the scars that marked his body. He'd been hurt so many times. Why did he keep coming back for more?
The stitches and scrapes he'd received in his biking days were nothing. There was his wound from Viet Nam. It had won him a medal. He used to think it was a badge of honor. Fat lot he knew. His hands were scarred from burns he'd received years ago fighting a forest fire that had threatened his and all of his neighbors' homes in the canyons.
There was a bullet crease on his bicep from his first date with Lily Wilson. Her own brother had killed her because he thought she was blackmailing him for posing as a doctor.
There was a scar on his hand from a knife wound. Eddie Gault had threatened him and his dad and his friends for days and finally kidnapped Amanda. Gault had put the knife down but refused to release Amanda e in an attempt to make Steve go to jail for shooting him. Steve hadn't shot the creep, but when they fought, the man had grabbed the knife again and sliced him open.
The scars on his chest from the bullets that had nearly killed him brought back memories he had to shy away from.
Now his body was riddled with new scars. Six bullets, the stoma from his colostomy and the incision in his abdomen where Dr. Evans had created and later reversed it, and the several holes in his leg where the fixator was still screwed into his flesh. Six bullets. Why hadn't they killed him? He wasn't wishing they had, just wondering why they hadn't. He'd been given yet another chance. What was he supposed to do with it? He felt so lost.
He worked the soap into a lather with the washcloth, and rubbed himself down with it. He was still a little tender in some places. As he washed carefully around some of his still-healing wounds, it occurred to him for the first time in his life that he was ugly. He'd always worn a shirt to cover the worst of his scars in deference to his father and friends who would find it painful to be reminded of so many close calls, but he'd never thought of himself as ugly before. He didn't like the way it felt. He finished washing quickly and self-consciously put the hospital gown back on.
He had just finished when Olivia came back in. She tossed a gym bag onto the bed beside him, and said, "I think you'll like this." Her face rumpled into a frown. "What's the matter?"
Sometimes Steve hated the way she did that.
"Just thinking." He didn't like the funk he was in and he needed to get out of it. He'd been letting things bounce him around for weeks now. He needed to make things happen, set some goals, find a direction, and get going.
"Some unpleasant thoughts, I'd say. Want to talk?" She could read him almost as well as his dad. It gave him the creeps.
"Not this time."
"Ok. Maybe later." At least she wasn't as insistent as his dad. "Look what I brought you!"
She unzipped the gym bag and pulled out a pair of black silk boxers printed with Jack-o-lanterns and ghosts. Steve gave her a pained look. "Oh, no."
"Well, I thought they were cute."
"You would. I guess I've lost track of time. Is it Halloween already?"
"Almost. It's the 27th."
Steve sighed. "It's been over two months."
Olivia raked her fingers gently through his hair and then rubbed his back in wide circles. Steve took a deep breath, closed his eyes, and bowed his head. Olivia didn't know whether to say something or be silent. She thought he might be praying. Then he said softly, "I'm going to make it, Liv. Home by Thanksgiving, my medical release by Christmas, and back to work by New Years." He looked up at her then, his eyes searching hers. "Can I do it?"
She draped the boxers over the bedrail and stood up. She was silent for so long Steve was afraid to hear the answer when it finally came. She walked around to the other side of the bed and sat down again, looked him in the eye, and said, "I'm not going to lie to you, Steve. I don't know."
Steve fought the urge to look away, to object, to mourn. He continued looking at Olivia. "I know you will recover," she said. "You will get back to work, but I am not sure what you will be able to do. New Years might be pushing it."
Steve bit the inside of his lip until he tasted blood. He would not fall apart this time. He was tired of letting things get him down. He would take what life gave him and do what he could with it.
Olivia continued. "This really will be the fight of your life, Steve. You have survived worse injuries before, but this will be a nagging one. It's going to be harder to shake."
His eyebrows pulled together in puzzlement.
"I read your charts, and talked to Jesse and Amanda. I know what you went through before. This is going to be harder. You aren't just trying to hold on to your life this time, you have to put the pieces back together. You have to take your life back."
Steve waited silently. Olivia seemed to have more to say.
After a moment, she continued. "Ten years ago, you would have been crippled for life. Five years ago, you might have had a fifty-fifty chance. This study I have you in is the start of something brand new, and you are its very beginning."
Steve realized now that she was not trying to answer his question really, she was just thinking aloud.
Olivia stared out the window. "Some things have gone better than I ever imagined. I can't believe your shattered pelvis healed so quickly and so beautifully. On the other hand, I had hoped to remove that fixator long ago, and there is a lot of scarring in your muscle tissue."
She looked him in the eye, and asked, "Do you realize that what you are willing do in therapy will determine what you can do for the rest of your life? It will make the difference between going back on the streets and taking a desk job." She tapped chest lightly with her forefinger and said, "But I'm not just talking about physical recovery, Steve."
He nodded. "I know. I'll do what I have to. Name it."
"There will be set backs. There will be days when you wonder why you bother to try. When you want to give up the most you will have to work the hardest. You can never give up; never slack off. Whether it's two weeks or two years, until it's over, recovery will be your full time job. It will have to be your life. Can you accept that?"
Steve said the only thing he could think of, "I want to be what I was before. I will do whatever it takes, for as long as it takes."
Olivia seemed to reach a decision. "With a lot of luck and everything you've got inside you, you can make it by New Years."
"I'm going to do it, Liv. Just watch me."
"I will." In that uncanny way of hers, she lightened the mood so fast it made Steve's head spin. With a smile, she said, "Now, let's get you dressed."
Steve grinned, sighed, and said, "How are you going to get them over the fixator?"
"I'm not. Yesterday I realized that we had to do better for you than a gown and robe. You must have been freezing in the PT room." She picked up the boxers, took hold of one of the legs, and pulled. With a terrible ripping sound, the seam came apart. "I just love Velcro!" There was the smile that lit up her eyes with a mixture of mischief, affection, and childlike delight. God, how he loved to see it! "Here you go!" She handed him the shorts.
"What do you want me to do with them?"
"Duh! Put them on."
"You're going to watch?!?!"
"Steve, I've seen it all a thousand times before," she said. "You've got nothing to be ashamed of."
Steve felt himself blushing and closed his eyes. Any other time he would have thought nothing of the comment. He knew it was just a teasing compliment, but it cut him to the quick. He was too well aware of just how bad he looked under his hospital gown.
He shook his head and said, "Liv, I'm not comfortable doing this."
She became serious again. "What's eating you, Steve?"
Carefully studying the boxers in his lap, he said, "I'd just rather get dressed in private, that's all."
After a long moment in which Steve refused to say anything more, Olivia said, "I know you're lying because you won't look me in the eye. It's the same way when we play poker, and it's why you always lose."
Steve opened his mouth to protest, but she ignored him and continued, "It's ok. Sooner or later, you'll want to talk about it. I'll bet it has something to do with what was on your mind when I walked in." She put the gym bag in his lap and said kindly, "For now, there's a t-shirt and a pair of sweats in here. I want to know whether you think it would be easier to get the sweats on if the zipper went from bottom to top. I'll be at the nurses' station. Buzz when you're dressed."
As she turned to go, he said weakly, "Liv, I..."
She cut him off. "Steve, it's all right." She squeezed his shoulder gently. "You're allowed to keep some thoughts to yourself. You know I'm here if you need me, but you don't have to tell me everything." She slipped out the door, and left him to change.
Steve started with the shirt she had brought him. It was a good quality cotton shirt and it fit well. It said LAPD across the back. He guessed it was her way of providing encouragement. Her thoughtfulness made him smile.
Next, he slid the unaltered leg of the boxers over his left leg. When he got to his hip, he realized he had to figure out a way to get the shorts all the way on. He was still too weak to stand up and do it. He considered buzzing Olivia for help, but then he thought of all his scars and decided against it. Besides, the sooner he could do this for himself, the sooner he could go home.
After some thought, he grabbed the bedrail to his right, pulled himself onto that side and slid the shorts the rest of the way on. Then he turned himself to the left, and with a little squirming and straining, he situated the right leg of the shorts around his hip and thigh and closed the Velcro at the seam.
It was hard work getting dressed by himself! The sweats were going to be even harder than the shorts. He suddenly realized it was the first time in two months that he had put his own clothes on. He got into the sweats in much the same way he had the shorts, but the zipper was a problem. Olivia had inserted an extra bit of fabric at the knee to accommodate the fixator, but above the knee, they were a little snug. He ended up stretching the waistband as far as he could to get it in front of him. Once he got the zipper started, he could only close it a few inches. The tab was too small for him to get a decent grip on it, and as he went farther down his leg, it was harder and harder to pull the pant leg around where he could handle it.
He gave up when his back started to spasm. As he struggled to catch his breath from the pain, he buzzed for Olivia. He was moaning in pain when she walked in.
"Steve! What's the matter?"
"Just a back spasm, but, jeeze, it hurts."
She stood beside him and massaged the strained muscles. "What do you think of the alterations I made?"
"Very clever," he said, "At least as good as the call button, the remote, and the drinking straw. But the sweats are too small, and I think the zipper would be easier to deal with if it went down the front of the leg instead of the side."
Olivia agreed, "I thought that might be the case, but I also thought this way, you could take out the zipper when you don't need it any more, sew up the seam and continue using the sweats."
Steve nodded. "Yeah, you could, but sweats are cheap, and I can tell you from experience, it's a small price to pay for your independence. The reason my back started to spasm was that I had to twist and turn so much to get the zipper around to where I could work with it. Oh, and the zipper pull is too small to grip easily. I couldn't finish zipping up."
Olivia straightened out the leg of the sweatpants, pulled the zipper closed, and helped Steve into a sitting position.
"With a bigger zipper running down the front, I think I could have finished it myself."
Olivia nodded. "Ok. I'll keep that in mind. By tomorrow I'll have something more manageable for you to try on."
"Liv, you don't have to do this."
"I know. But I want to."
"Where did you get the idea anyway?"
"From Mary Ann."
"Mary Ann who?" Steve hated it when she was cryptic.
"The Mary Ann, Steve. Dawn Wells, from Gilligan's Island."
"Liv, back track, rewind, or do whatever it is you do when you confuse people, and start again, please."
"Ok," Olivia sat on the bed and started over as if she was speaking to a slow child. "Do you remember Gilligan's Island?"
Steve nodded, "Yeah, who doesn't?"
"Remember Mary Ann?"
Steve closed his eye and grinned, "Ohhhhh yeahhhh."
"Yet another fifteen-year-old boy with a crush?"
"Mmmmmm-hmmmm," he sighed dreamily, then caught himself, "What? No!" It was no use. He could feel the blush rise in his cheeks.
"Whatever, Steve," Olivia said, making it plain with a roll of her eyes that she didn't believe him. "Any way, you know her real name is Dawn Wells, right?"
"Yeah. That's pretty common knowledge."
"She has a company called Wishing Wells that makes clothing for disabled people. She got the idea while caring for her grandmother. The clothes are designed to be comfortable to wear and easy to get on and off. Some of it's pretty nice stuff. I've submitted a few patterns to the company over the years specifically for my patients who have to wear some kind of special apparatus like a fixator or a halo or something of that nature."
"Really?" Steve was impressed. "So, you're a fashion designer, too? Is there anything you don't do?"
"Oh, I just do what interests me."
"So have they bought any of your designs?"
"I'm not selling them. I don't need the money, but I do want to see these things made available to my patients. Since I don't have the time or the business sense to run a clothing company, I have a lawyer working out the details so that a percentage of her profits from my patterns over the next several years goes into a free clinic back home."
"So, are you going to give this pattern to her?"
"When I get the bugs worked out, sure."
Steve looked at her and said in a voice that spoke volumes, "You're amazing."
It was finally Olivia's turn to blush. "I wouldn't go that far."
"I would." Steve said softly. "Amazing, incredible, wonderful," he let his words settle a moment, then continued, "Liv, what we started that evening, before I was shot..."
"Can wait until you're better," she interrupted him briskly. "Steve, I like you a lot, but we can't do this. You're my patient and I'm your doctor. That's the limit of our relationship. Everything else is in a box. Maybe later we can open that box together, but for now, it has to wait."
"Why?"
"Well, hospital rules, for one thing."
"Ok, and everything I've heard about you says you make your own rules when it suits." Steve was unconvinced. "Besides, you've been pretty chummy with me sometimes, and I can't believe you're as..." he searched for a word, "solicitous with all your patients."
"I...get the lines blurred, sometimes, but I still need to keep a distance so that I can properly manage your care, Steve."
He decided it was time to make something happen on the romance front as well as in his recovery. "Bull," he said. Grabbing her wrist, he pulled her to him and placed a passionate kiss on her lips. Wrapping his arms around her, he held her close and kissed her again.
Olivia froze for a moment. Then she pulled back and slapped him hard. She jumped from the bed and moved several steps away. She had a terrified look in her eyes as she shouted, "Don't you ever, ever do that again!" To Steve it was as if she had suddenly turned into a wild creature, all fear and instinct. He knew she had issues, but he hadn't imagined one kiss would upset her so much. She backpedaled to the door, cast one more glance around the room, and said, "I'll tell Davis to come and get you as soon as breakfast is over."
"Liv, I..."
She turned and ran out, pulling the door shut behind her.
"I'm sorry," Steve said to the empty room.
Olivia woke Steve early the next day.
"Boxers or briefs?"
"Wha...? Huh?"
"Boxers or briefs, Steve?"
"For breakfast?"
Olivia started to giggle, "No, Steve," she laughed. "Not to eat, to wear. I'm going to help you get dressed for physical therapy."
Steve was finally fully awake. "Liv, I can't get anything on over this gadget you have on my leg."
"You just let me worry about that. Now answer my question, boxers or briefs?"
Steve threw his hands in the air in frustration and said, "Boxers."
"Hah! I knew it!" She indicated a large basin of warm water, a razor, shaving foam, a washcloth, and a bar of soap on the bedside table. "I'll be back in about fifteen minutes. Can you wash up while I'm gone?"
"Yeah, but, Liv, what are you up to?"
"You'll see," she said mysteriously, and slipped out the door.
Steve turned to the bedside table, and started to shave. He was still feeling apprehensive about physical therapy. He'd never hurt that bad in his life, and he wasn't sure he could face it again. As he finished shaving, he decided he would try. Olivia believed he could do what was necessary to get back on his feet. He would trust her.
As he slipped out of his hospital gown, he noticed the scars that marked his body. He'd been hurt so many times. Why did he keep coming back for more?
The stitches and scrapes he'd received in his biking days were nothing. There was his wound from Viet Nam. It had won him a medal. He used to think it was a badge of honor. Fat lot he knew. His hands were scarred from burns he'd received years ago fighting a forest fire that had threatened his and all of his neighbors' homes in the canyons.
There was a bullet crease on his bicep from his first date with Lily Wilson. Her own brother had killed her because he thought she was blackmailing him for posing as a doctor.
There was a scar on his hand from a knife wound. Eddie Gault had threatened him and his dad and his friends for days and finally kidnapped Amanda. Gault had put the knife down but refused to release Amanda e in an attempt to make Steve go to jail for shooting him. Steve hadn't shot the creep, but when they fought, the man had grabbed the knife again and sliced him open.
The scars on his chest from the bullets that had nearly killed him brought back memories he had to shy away from.
Now his body was riddled with new scars. Six bullets, the stoma from his colostomy and the incision in his abdomen where Dr. Evans had created and later reversed it, and the several holes in his leg where the fixator was still screwed into his flesh. Six bullets. Why hadn't they killed him? He wasn't wishing they had, just wondering why they hadn't. He'd been given yet another chance. What was he supposed to do with it? He felt so lost.
He worked the soap into a lather with the washcloth, and rubbed himself down with it. He was still a little tender in some places. As he washed carefully around some of his still-healing wounds, it occurred to him for the first time in his life that he was ugly. He'd always worn a shirt to cover the worst of his scars in deference to his father and friends who would find it painful to be reminded of so many close calls, but he'd never thought of himself as ugly before. He didn't like the way it felt. He finished washing quickly and self-consciously put the hospital gown back on.
He had just finished when Olivia came back in. She tossed a gym bag onto the bed beside him, and said, "I think you'll like this." Her face rumpled into a frown. "What's the matter?"
Sometimes Steve hated the way she did that.
"Just thinking." He didn't like the funk he was in and he needed to get out of it. He'd been letting things bounce him around for weeks now. He needed to make things happen, set some goals, find a direction, and get going.
"Some unpleasant thoughts, I'd say. Want to talk?" She could read him almost as well as his dad. It gave him the creeps.
"Not this time."
"Ok. Maybe later." At least she wasn't as insistent as his dad. "Look what I brought you!"
She unzipped the gym bag and pulled out a pair of black silk boxers printed with Jack-o-lanterns and ghosts. Steve gave her a pained look. "Oh, no."
"Well, I thought they were cute."
"You would. I guess I've lost track of time. Is it Halloween already?"
"Almost. It's the 27th."
Steve sighed. "It's been over two months."
Olivia raked her fingers gently through his hair and then rubbed his back in wide circles. Steve took a deep breath, closed his eyes, and bowed his head. Olivia didn't know whether to say something or be silent. She thought he might be praying. Then he said softly, "I'm going to make it, Liv. Home by Thanksgiving, my medical release by Christmas, and back to work by New Years." He looked up at her then, his eyes searching hers. "Can I do it?"
She draped the boxers over the bedrail and stood up. She was silent for so long Steve was afraid to hear the answer when it finally came. She walked around to the other side of the bed and sat down again, looked him in the eye, and said, "I'm not going to lie to you, Steve. I don't know."
Steve fought the urge to look away, to object, to mourn. He continued looking at Olivia. "I know you will recover," she said. "You will get back to work, but I am not sure what you will be able to do. New Years might be pushing it."
Steve bit the inside of his lip until he tasted blood. He would not fall apart this time. He was tired of letting things get him down. He would take what life gave him and do what he could with it.
Olivia continued. "This really will be the fight of your life, Steve. You have survived worse injuries before, but this will be a nagging one. It's going to be harder to shake."
His eyebrows pulled together in puzzlement.
"I read your charts, and talked to Jesse and Amanda. I know what you went through before. This is going to be harder. You aren't just trying to hold on to your life this time, you have to put the pieces back together. You have to take your life back."
Steve waited silently. Olivia seemed to have more to say.
After a moment, she continued. "Ten years ago, you would have been crippled for life. Five years ago, you might have had a fifty-fifty chance. This study I have you in is the start of something brand new, and you are its very beginning."
Steve realized now that she was not trying to answer his question really, she was just thinking aloud.
Olivia stared out the window. "Some things have gone better than I ever imagined. I can't believe your shattered pelvis healed so quickly and so beautifully. On the other hand, I had hoped to remove that fixator long ago, and there is a lot of scarring in your muscle tissue."
She looked him in the eye, and asked, "Do you realize that what you are willing do in therapy will determine what you can do for the rest of your life? It will make the difference between going back on the streets and taking a desk job." She tapped chest lightly with her forefinger and said, "But I'm not just talking about physical recovery, Steve."
He nodded. "I know. I'll do what I have to. Name it."
"There will be set backs. There will be days when you wonder why you bother to try. When you want to give up the most you will have to work the hardest. You can never give up; never slack off. Whether it's two weeks or two years, until it's over, recovery will be your full time job. It will have to be your life. Can you accept that?"
Steve said the only thing he could think of, "I want to be what I was before. I will do whatever it takes, for as long as it takes."
Olivia seemed to reach a decision. "With a lot of luck and everything you've got inside you, you can make it by New Years."
"I'm going to do it, Liv. Just watch me."
"I will." In that uncanny way of hers, she lightened the mood so fast it made Steve's head spin. With a smile, she said, "Now, let's get you dressed."
Steve grinned, sighed, and said, "How are you going to get them over the fixator?"
"I'm not. Yesterday I realized that we had to do better for you than a gown and robe. You must have been freezing in the PT room." She picked up the boxers, took hold of one of the legs, and pulled. With a terrible ripping sound, the seam came apart. "I just love Velcro!" There was the smile that lit up her eyes with a mixture of mischief, affection, and childlike delight. God, how he loved to see it! "Here you go!" She handed him the shorts.
"What do you want me to do with them?"
"Duh! Put them on."
"You're going to watch?!?!"
"Steve, I've seen it all a thousand times before," she said. "You've got nothing to be ashamed of."
Steve felt himself blushing and closed his eyes. Any other time he would have thought nothing of the comment. He knew it was just a teasing compliment, but it cut him to the quick. He was too well aware of just how bad he looked under his hospital gown.
He shook his head and said, "Liv, I'm not comfortable doing this."
She became serious again. "What's eating you, Steve?"
Carefully studying the boxers in his lap, he said, "I'd just rather get dressed in private, that's all."
After a long moment in which Steve refused to say anything more, Olivia said, "I know you're lying because you won't look me in the eye. It's the same way when we play poker, and it's why you always lose."
Steve opened his mouth to protest, but she ignored him and continued, "It's ok. Sooner or later, you'll want to talk about it. I'll bet it has something to do with what was on your mind when I walked in." She put the gym bag in his lap and said kindly, "For now, there's a t-shirt and a pair of sweats in here. I want to know whether you think it would be easier to get the sweats on if the zipper went from bottom to top. I'll be at the nurses' station. Buzz when you're dressed."
As she turned to go, he said weakly, "Liv, I..."
She cut him off. "Steve, it's all right." She squeezed his shoulder gently. "You're allowed to keep some thoughts to yourself. You know I'm here if you need me, but you don't have to tell me everything." She slipped out the door, and left him to change.
Steve started with the shirt she had brought him. It was a good quality cotton shirt and it fit well. It said LAPD across the back. He guessed it was her way of providing encouragement. Her thoughtfulness made him smile.
Next, he slid the unaltered leg of the boxers over his left leg. When he got to his hip, he realized he had to figure out a way to get the shorts all the way on. He was still too weak to stand up and do it. He considered buzzing Olivia for help, but then he thought of all his scars and decided against it. Besides, the sooner he could do this for himself, the sooner he could go home.
After some thought, he grabbed the bedrail to his right, pulled himself onto that side and slid the shorts the rest of the way on. Then he turned himself to the left, and with a little squirming and straining, he situated the right leg of the shorts around his hip and thigh and closed the Velcro at the seam.
It was hard work getting dressed by himself! The sweats were going to be even harder than the shorts. He suddenly realized it was the first time in two months that he had put his own clothes on. He got into the sweats in much the same way he had the shorts, but the zipper was a problem. Olivia had inserted an extra bit of fabric at the knee to accommodate the fixator, but above the knee, they were a little snug. He ended up stretching the waistband as far as he could to get it in front of him. Once he got the zipper started, he could only close it a few inches. The tab was too small for him to get a decent grip on it, and as he went farther down his leg, it was harder and harder to pull the pant leg around where he could handle it.
He gave up when his back started to spasm. As he struggled to catch his breath from the pain, he buzzed for Olivia. He was moaning in pain when she walked in.
"Steve! What's the matter?"
"Just a back spasm, but, jeeze, it hurts."
She stood beside him and massaged the strained muscles. "What do you think of the alterations I made?"
"Very clever," he said, "At least as good as the call button, the remote, and the drinking straw. But the sweats are too small, and I think the zipper would be easier to deal with if it went down the front of the leg instead of the side."
Olivia agreed, "I thought that might be the case, but I also thought this way, you could take out the zipper when you don't need it any more, sew up the seam and continue using the sweats."
Steve nodded. "Yeah, you could, but sweats are cheap, and I can tell you from experience, it's a small price to pay for your independence. The reason my back started to spasm was that I had to twist and turn so much to get the zipper around to where I could work with it. Oh, and the zipper pull is too small to grip easily. I couldn't finish zipping up."
Olivia straightened out the leg of the sweatpants, pulled the zipper closed, and helped Steve into a sitting position.
"With a bigger zipper running down the front, I think I could have finished it myself."
Olivia nodded. "Ok. I'll keep that in mind. By tomorrow I'll have something more manageable for you to try on."
"Liv, you don't have to do this."
"I know. But I want to."
"Where did you get the idea anyway?"
"From Mary Ann."
"Mary Ann who?" Steve hated it when she was cryptic.
"The Mary Ann, Steve. Dawn Wells, from Gilligan's Island."
"Liv, back track, rewind, or do whatever it is you do when you confuse people, and start again, please."
"Ok," Olivia sat on the bed and started over as if she was speaking to a slow child. "Do you remember Gilligan's Island?"
Steve nodded, "Yeah, who doesn't?"
"Remember Mary Ann?"
Steve closed his eye and grinned, "Ohhhhh yeahhhh."
"Yet another fifteen-year-old boy with a crush?"
"Mmmmmm-hmmmm," he sighed dreamily, then caught himself, "What? No!" It was no use. He could feel the blush rise in his cheeks.
"Whatever, Steve," Olivia said, making it plain with a roll of her eyes that she didn't believe him. "Any way, you know her real name is Dawn Wells, right?"
"Yeah. That's pretty common knowledge."
"She has a company called Wishing Wells that makes clothing for disabled people. She got the idea while caring for her grandmother. The clothes are designed to be comfortable to wear and easy to get on and off. Some of it's pretty nice stuff. I've submitted a few patterns to the company over the years specifically for my patients who have to wear some kind of special apparatus like a fixator or a halo or something of that nature."
"Really?" Steve was impressed. "So, you're a fashion designer, too? Is there anything you don't do?"
"Oh, I just do what interests me."
"So have they bought any of your designs?"
"I'm not selling them. I don't need the money, but I do want to see these things made available to my patients. Since I don't have the time or the business sense to run a clothing company, I have a lawyer working out the details so that a percentage of her profits from my patterns over the next several years goes into a free clinic back home."
"So, are you going to give this pattern to her?"
"When I get the bugs worked out, sure."
Steve looked at her and said in a voice that spoke volumes, "You're amazing."
It was finally Olivia's turn to blush. "I wouldn't go that far."
"I would." Steve said softly. "Amazing, incredible, wonderful," he let his words settle a moment, then continued, "Liv, what we started that evening, before I was shot..."
"Can wait until you're better," she interrupted him briskly. "Steve, I like you a lot, but we can't do this. You're my patient and I'm your doctor. That's the limit of our relationship. Everything else is in a box. Maybe later we can open that box together, but for now, it has to wait."
"Why?"
"Well, hospital rules, for one thing."
"Ok, and everything I've heard about you says you make your own rules when it suits." Steve was unconvinced. "Besides, you've been pretty chummy with me sometimes, and I can't believe you're as..." he searched for a word, "solicitous with all your patients."
"I...get the lines blurred, sometimes, but I still need to keep a distance so that I can properly manage your care, Steve."
He decided it was time to make something happen on the romance front as well as in his recovery. "Bull," he said. Grabbing her wrist, he pulled her to him and placed a passionate kiss on her lips. Wrapping his arms around her, he held her close and kissed her again.
Olivia froze for a moment. Then she pulled back and slapped him hard. She jumped from the bed and moved several steps away. She had a terrified look in her eyes as she shouted, "Don't you ever, ever do that again!" To Steve it was as if she had suddenly turned into a wild creature, all fear and instinct. He knew she had issues, but he hadn't imagined one kiss would upset her so much. She backpedaled to the door, cast one more glance around the room, and said, "I'll tell Davis to come and get you as soon as breakfast is over."
"Liv, I..."
She turned and ran out, pulling the door shut behind her.
"I'm sorry," Steve said to the empty room.