Part 3
It was another twenty minutes of waiting before he stationed himself beside the door again. "Are you all right?" he called.
"Uh-huh."
And...? "Are you dressed?"
"Uh...huh."
He peeked his head in first to be sure. She was sitting sideways at the head of the bed, with her knees drawn up and the t-shirt stretched around her legs. Her chin rested on her knees and her eyes stayed at half-mast, even when she looked up as he entered.
"Feeling better?" he asked.
"Better," she agreed with a slight nod.
He scooped up the pants still lying on the bed and looked a question at her.
"Didn't fit," she said with a shrug. "Too big." Her words were slightly slurred.
"Are you all right?" he asked again.
She nodded her head without lifting her chin from her knees, causing her head to wobble like one of those dogs you still saw in the back window of older cars. "I don't drink," she announced.
"The whiskey." He nodded. He'd noticed the blood liberally smeared on the white towels, so it was probably just as well. "Let's get to work on those hands," he said. He pulled the first aid case down off the shelf and checked the contents to be sure it held all the items he'd need. It did. He gathered a bowl from the shelf beside the bed with a jug of sterile water to fill it, and a washcloth from the head and he was ready. He set it all on the end of the bed and sat down next to her.
"Ready?" he said, holding out his hand for hers.
"No," she replied mournfully, but gave him her hand, palm up, anyway.
Whiskey was wonderful stuff. But she didn't drink. Not really. Not anymore. And not whiskey straight, at all. Still, the slight buzz she had from the whiskey he'd given her almost took the pain away.
"Ow!"
"Sorry."
Almost.
"Say," she said, "do you have any more of that whiskey?"
"Yes, I do." He continued plucking glass out of her skin.
A very literal man, her hero. "Do you think I could--" No, better to be specific. "Pour me some more, please."
He looked at her then. "I thought you didn't drink."
She turned the baby blues on him. "It hurts," she whined piteously.
He nodded, setting aside the bowl of bloody water and torture implements he'd been using. He pulled out a bottle of what she recognized as "the good stuff" from the cabinet built next to the bed. A mug came out of the same cabinet and poured her a generous measure. After handing it to her, careful to help her lower it to the bed beside her, he stowed the bottle and took up his former position, gesturing for the hand he'd been working on.
She sighed. "Back to the gruesome task already." She presented her palm while the other hand saluted him with her mug, and took a healthy swallow. This stuff really was great.
"Ow!" She tried to pull her hand away and found out that her hero also had a grip like steel. Which did not let up until she relaxed her arm and let him go back to work.
She took another drink. "So," she breathed. "Does my hero have a name?"
Tossed her a puzzled glance. Then understanding dawned. "Burt Gummer." He went back to the task at hand.
"Burt Gummer..." She rolled the name around on her tongue for a moment and decided she liked it. It suited him, somehow. She liked him, too. It could be just the fact that he'd saved her from certain death in the jaws of a giant underground monster that made her feel that way, but... That was a good enough start for her. She studied him while he concentrated on his work and made up her mind at last that he was... interesting. She thought fuzzily of all the men she'd known and decided that she'd never met anyone quite like him. He was... unique.
"I'm Kylie." He only glanced at her in acknowledgement. "Callahan." He ignored that.
She sighed. Literal minded and sooo talkative. She took another sip of the whiskey and searched for a place to put it down. The floor was too far away and the bed was starting to move...
He reached across her and pulled a shelf out of the wall.
"Ahhhh," she said with a smile. "In-geen-ee-us!"
He nodded and went back to pulling slivers.
He'd cleaned up while she was in the shower; taken off the guns, knives, and whatever other weapons he'd had hanging off his clothes earlier. Bombs, maybe. Not that she was complaining. Nope, no complaints from her. He was her hero, her knight on a white charger.
He didn't look quite like a knight. Not that she wasn't willing to revise her conception of "knight" just for him. He still wore the combat boots and cammies, but just a t-shirt now, and she honestly couldn't decide if he was less intimidating that way or not. Somehow, he looked even taller in just the t-shirt, which put him at about... maybe a mile over her little head. About her father's age, though, she thought. Maybe a bit younger, but not by much. The hair was thinning on top, but at least he didn't do one of those awful comb-over things. Tall, that was sure. And strong. Definitely strong.
He probably thought she was in idiot. She couldn't imagine what made her go into shaking fits. And she'd never had a panic attack in her life. "I don't usually panic like that," she blurted out.
He glanced up from his work and made an effort to smile and nod. It wasn't much of one. It only made it clear that he didn't believe her at all.
"Really."
He barely nodded at that.
"I just... have been under a lot of stress lately." That sounded defensive and whiney, even to her ears. He obviously didn't believe her anyway. Maybe she'd better just... shut up for now.
She wondered why he "lived underground." And like this. She bet this was a secret military base and he was the lone soldier sent here to guard... some super secret government device. Something that spies the world over searched relentlessly for. His job was to defend the bunker from all comers. Maybe giving up his life for truth, justice, and The American Way.
And rescue damsels in distress, of course.
"All set," he announced, rousing her from her dream of knights and damsels. Whiskey sure did make you sleepy.
That, and being attacked by a... a whatever that thing was.
He pressed on her palms in various places. "Let me know if it hurts anywhere," he said.
"Pretty much hurts everywhere."
He rolled his eyes toward her. "I meant," he explained a little too patiently, "if it hurts more in any one spot. As if there was still glass there."
Ah. "Nope, nope and nope," she said with a smile. "All better!"
He slathered on a generous amount of some clear ointment and wrapped her hands loosely with gauze. "Anything else scraped or cut?"
"Oh. Just these." She slid her legs across his until her knees were in his lap. "I'll never have pretty legs again," she mourned.
I beg to differ, he thought, then then let out the breath he'd been holding, trying not to feel the heat of her legs across his. "Just cuts," he announced about the wounds on her knees. "Some bruises. Not even as bad as your hands."
"Oh goodie," she said in a breathy, little-girl voice, and leaned back into the corner.
"I'll just... fix these right up," he said and, reaching for the water, he went to work.
When he'd finished smoothing the ointment on her knees, he expected her to tuck her legs back under her t-shirt. Or somewhere. But she was nestled in the corner, sound asleep.
He started to slide away, out from under her legs, but she stopped him with a hand on his arm. "Don't go." The corners of her mouth curved up in a slight smile, but her eyes didn't open. "Stay with me. Keep the monsters away. Just a minute more." Her voice was soft, sleepy, and altogether too seductive for his peace of mind.
"Just a minute," he agreed, reluctantly, and leaned back against the wall.
He studied her surreptitiously. She really was a little bit of a thing. Dainty and soft and creamy-colored from head to toes - which were painted with blue nail polish, he noted with some astonishment. The fingernails, he remembered, were also blue, though a different shade. And two of them - fakes, he'd realized as he was cleaning her hands - were missing from her battle with the blue jeans earlier. She didn't reach his chin, at least a foot smaller than his six-foot-four, even in the high heels on those boots she'd had on earlier. Strong, though, in good shape. Her legs felt like...
"Don't go there, Gummer," he muttered under his breath.
She fidgeted in her sleep, rubbing her leg where it touched the wool army blanket on top of the bed. Automatically, he reached to the shelf above his head and pulled down a lighter, cotton blanket. She needed something softer. She had such soft skin. He'd tried not to notice, but she was soft, all over. She'd felt good in his arms before, he realized, nestled against his chest. And she smelled good. Not flowery and overpowering, but subtle and delicate and...
He found himself fondling the blanket and shook it out ruthlessly. He tucked it around her, careful to avoid touching her at all. "Pull yourself together, man." He took a deep breath and looked away.
But she was tough, too, he decided. Hardly a whimper out of her while he'd examined her, and look at the way she'd handled that graboid. Stabbing the thing with a dull knife - and making the beast think, by God! Give her a gun and he'd've put his money on her! He was impressed with the way she'd handled herself. Just doing what she could with what she had! No tears and hysterics for this one. Not while she was in the thick of it, anyway. He remembered the aftermath too. She was just a girl, after all. He found himself grinning and swiftly wiped that expression off his face, replacing it with something more like his usual wary concern.
She was asleep, though, and didn't care what he was thinking, even if it did show. Her nose twitched when a lock of hair spilled into her face and he reached over to brush it aside. He smiled. Even her hair was silky. She was a fine looking girl. Beautiful, even, the way her honey blond hair framed her face, and her lashes rested on her cheeks...
He reached across her and grabbed the mug, finishing off the whiskey inside. No use wasting it, he told himself, and he could use a drink.
He shook his head, slowly. How did these things happen to him? He couldn't believe he was sitting on his bed with a beautiful, young, nearly-naked - and quite unconscious - girl. He should go.
"Just one more minute," he promised himself. "Just one more..."