LOST - PART I
THE FINAL HURDLE
Chapter 12
Adam didn't stop running until he reached the dim coolness of the square brick building that stood beyond the barn. He bent over with his hands braced on his knees and tried to catch his breath. When he finally did he started laughing at himself. Although he couldn't be absolutely sure, he was pretty certain he had never run from a female before. But then he was also sure Thea was unlike any other woman he had ever known.
Straightening up he realized he was standing in an unused smithy - a blacksmith shop. His eyes narrowed as they swept the interior and he was only vaguely aware of the names of most of the tools rising up in his mind. He stepped up to the anvil that was fastened to a large elm block by bands of iron around the four "feet." Running his hand across the steel face, the terms "pricking hole" and "hardie hole" floated up and he found a small memory of punching holes in horseshoes over the "pricking hole" and he could plainly see the hot punch that was used.
Moving around the rest of the brick interior he found that every tool was familiar. He softly spoke some of the names to himself and found another small memory of setting an "anvil flatter" in the "hardie hole" and the corresponding "flatter" that was used to place over the "anvil flatter" to work the hot metal in between. Ball peen hammers of many different weights hung from the elm block that held the anvil, and tongs for holding the hot metal were scattered all over the shop.
A cat's head hammer, hoof parer, shoeing hammer, and a hoof cleaning knife were a few of the tools he found for shoeing, as well as rasps used for the final stage of shaping. He smiled when he saw a tripod to support a horse's hoof, as well as vices, including one that still held an ox shoe to his surprise.
He even saw a collection of tools used for fine, decorative work - scroll wrenches, a leaf hammer, crimping tools, and many others. Whoever set up and worked this shop before was definitely a fine craftsman and he wondered what happened to make him abandon this place. And why hadn't Thea done anything with it either.
Shaking his head, he left the shop and slowly began walking back, being careful to let his mind have free rein to dig up any other memories. He was seeing the process of making a link in an iron chain when he was almost at the house. In his mind's eye he watched the two ends of the wrought iron being brought to white-hot heat, then the forceful hammering needed to bring the ends together quickly enough to make the weld.
He was still standing there with his head down, his hands stacked together behind his back when he sensed someone watching him and he looked up. Thea was standing on the back porch, right in front of the steps and watching him with a worried expression. Carefully keeping his own expression neutral, Adam quickly decided to keep these memories to himself, tucking away that regained knowledge as a possible means of making a living eventually.
The two continued to stare at each other for a while until Adam smiled a smile Thea had never seen before. Her heart instantly skipped a beat and she found herself smiling shyly back, even though that was the last thing she had intended to do.
He slowly walked down the brick path and climbed the steps until they were eye to eye. To his amazed satisfaction she actually broke the eye contact first, looked down, and blushed. She turned around when he stepped up onto the porch and as he walked past her he deliberately made sure to pass as close as possible without touching. Then he opened the door and stood there holding it for her.
Without looking up or saying a word, she hurried through the doorway and he paused to wipe the grin off his face before slowly following her inside.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Two days later Thea gave Adam his morning injection of the minimal dose of morphine and the two were discussing moving him to one of the upstairs bedrooms when he suddenly gave her an odd, unfocused look.
"Adam, what's wrong?" she said as she quickly reached out to steady him when he swayed slightly.
He broke out into a cold sweat. "I don't know."
"Oh God," Thea breathed and yelled for Abner who came running. The man just made it into the room when Adam's knees buckled and he slid to the floor with Thea under him.
"What happened?" Abner asked as he bent down, picked Adam up and carried him over to the bed.
Getting to her feet, Thea answered, "I'm not sure," and hurried over to grasp his wrist. "Dear Lord, his pulse is racing," she said and pushed one of his eyelids up. Alarmed to see his pupils were constricting, she frantically tried to come up with an explanation for the symptoms she was seeing. The next thing she knew she was on the floor again, knocked down by Adam's arm when his back arced and he began to violently seize.
"Damn it!" she said as she jumped up and threw herself on top of Adam to keep him from falling off the bed. Abner ran across the room for a set of leather straps to hold him down. Once the straps were in place, he carefully helped Thea to slide off. When she was standing he could see she had taken a heavy blow to her right eye and it was already starting to swell. Before he could say anything she was already turning away, hurrying to retrieve the bottle of morphine and the syringe from the last injection.
Opening the bottle she waved it under her nose, and then shook her head when she didn't detect any smell that would mean the batch was "off." Then she took the syringe apart, looking for any signs of a foreign substance that might explain his reaction.
Abner stayed next to Adam, keeping a close eye on him to be sure he didn't manage to injure himself as his body continued to shake violently. Thea hurried back with another metal syringe and handed it to Abner.
Automatically taking it, he gave her a blank look when she held out her arm with the leather thong already in place to get a vein to rise. "There's only one way to tell if the batch is bad," she said and he shook his head when he understood what she wanted him to do.
"Do it, Abner. We need to know what we're dealing with here," she ordered so he carefully gave her the injection. Then they waited for a few minutes, but she showed no other reaction than what would be expected.
Thea made an exasperated sound in the back of her throat. "Dear Lord, this means he's having some kind of allergic reaction to morphine now," she said and clenched her hands into fists as she watched the man strapped to the bed convulse.
"Isn't there anything you can do?" Abner asked "Maybe laudanum?"
"No, laudanum is another opiate and it could make things worse. And he's not having a normal allergic reaction. There's no edema or labored breathing..." she shook her head, furious at feeling so helpless. "I've never seen this kind before."
She was still frantically searching her memory when she thought she could see a slight lessening of Adam's frantic movements. Staring intently, she moved closer to the bed and in a few moments was sure he was coming out of it, but slowly.
When Adam finally lay still, the two breathed a sigh of relief as they removed the straps, and then they worked together silently to make him comfortable. Abner left the room to get some ice for Thea's black eye, and she dragged a chair over next to the bed.
Thea spent the next two hours in that chair holding pieces of ice wrapped in a thin towel to her eye. Every time he moved she jumped nervously, afraid he was starting to seize again, and then sat back in relief when he didn't.
The pain from being knocked down was blooming into a white-hot headache when he finally opened his eyes. He stared at the ceiling in confusion at first, almost expecting to feel the full casts on his limbs again. Then he blinked and his recent memories came back. Turning his head carefully he saw Thea standing next to the bed, her right eye swollen almost shut.
"What happened?" he said and frowned when he thought the words didn't sound quite right.
Thea bent down to get a closer look at his eyes and was not happy to see that some of the small vessels were broken, bleeding red patches into the white sclera. "What is your name?" she asked apprehensively and couldn't help but smile at his answer.
"Adam, and no I don't remember my last name." This time he was sure he wasn't speaking clearly. He tried again, "What happened?"
Putting a hand on his shoulder, she cleared her throat before speaking. "You developed some sort of allergic reaction to the morphine. I'm not sure exactly what happened, but I AM sure the batch of morphine was all right."
His eyes narrowed and his tongue felt thick when he spoke. "How do you know?"
"I had Abner inject me with some of it..." she was saying when he abruptly tried to sit up.
"What?" he said in a furious voice that was much stronger and clearer. "Have you lost your mind?" He tried to sit up again and this time made it. His arms felt incredibly heavy, but he reached out to grab her anyway.
"Don't you EVER do something that stupid again!"
Surprised, she hurried to explain. "Adam, it was necessary to know. There are things I could have done if the batch was off."
"I don't care!" he persisted, his mental acuity and control of his speech increasing along with his anger. "Promise me you won't do that again." He gave her a small shake. "Promise me!"
"Alright, I promise!" she blurted out and mentally shook her head at herself for giving in so quickly.
"Good," he said and as his anger ebbed so did his energy. He let go of her upper arms and lay back down. "What happened to your eye?"
"Just an accident."
"I did that, didn't I?"
"Yes, but you couldn't help it. You started to seize so quickly I couldn't get out of the way in time."
Shaking his head, he sighed deeply. "When is this ever going to end?"
Thea reached to take one of his hands in both of hers and clenched her teeth. "Not for a while," she answered and he looked up at her questioningly.
"Oh Adam," she said, "this means that I can't wean you off the morphine. And I don't dare use any other opiate either." He went cold, instantly understanding what she was saying.
"What will happen?" he asked quietly but firmly, demanding an honest answer.
Thea took a deep breath. "Sweats, chills, fevers, nausea, and pain. All these symptoms I can help alleviate somewhat, but it's going to be very hard for you. In the most severe cases hallucinations and delirium are also possible."
He tightened his grip on her hand. "You're leaving something out, aren't you?"
She looked down at their joined hands. "More seizures are also a possibility," she answered reluctantly.
"Are you keeping anything else back?"
"No."
They fell silent for a while until Adam felt something drop on his hand. Thea was crying her furious tears again and he suddenly remembered her doing that in the morgue. He tugged on her hand.
"Thea look at me," he said quietly and when she raised her head to meet his gaze he smiled. "You've pulled me through too much so far to let this defeat us. I know I'm in for another long stretch of hell, but I WILL make it as long as you never let go. I'm depending on you for that."
Her expression instantly changed and became hard, her eyes snapping with the force of her will even as her furious tears dried on her face. "Never," she said with a sharp edge to her voice. "Nothing and no one will EVER force me to let go."
THE FINAL HURDLE
Chapter 12
Adam didn't stop running until he reached the dim coolness of the square brick building that stood beyond the barn. He bent over with his hands braced on his knees and tried to catch his breath. When he finally did he started laughing at himself. Although he couldn't be absolutely sure, he was pretty certain he had never run from a female before. But then he was also sure Thea was unlike any other woman he had ever known.
Straightening up he realized he was standing in an unused smithy - a blacksmith shop. His eyes narrowed as they swept the interior and he was only vaguely aware of the names of most of the tools rising up in his mind. He stepped up to the anvil that was fastened to a large elm block by bands of iron around the four "feet." Running his hand across the steel face, the terms "pricking hole" and "hardie hole" floated up and he found a small memory of punching holes in horseshoes over the "pricking hole" and he could plainly see the hot punch that was used.
Moving around the rest of the brick interior he found that every tool was familiar. He softly spoke some of the names to himself and found another small memory of setting an "anvil flatter" in the "hardie hole" and the corresponding "flatter" that was used to place over the "anvil flatter" to work the hot metal in between. Ball peen hammers of many different weights hung from the elm block that held the anvil, and tongs for holding the hot metal were scattered all over the shop.
A cat's head hammer, hoof parer, shoeing hammer, and a hoof cleaning knife were a few of the tools he found for shoeing, as well as rasps used for the final stage of shaping. He smiled when he saw a tripod to support a horse's hoof, as well as vices, including one that still held an ox shoe to his surprise.
He even saw a collection of tools used for fine, decorative work - scroll wrenches, a leaf hammer, crimping tools, and many others. Whoever set up and worked this shop before was definitely a fine craftsman and he wondered what happened to make him abandon this place. And why hadn't Thea done anything with it either.
Shaking his head, he left the shop and slowly began walking back, being careful to let his mind have free rein to dig up any other memories. He was seeing the process of making a link in an iron chain when he was almost at the house. In his mind's eye he watched the two ends of the wrought iron being brought to white-hot heat, then the forceful hammering needed to bring the ends together quickly enough to make the weld.
He was still standing there with his head down, his hands stacked together behind his back when he sensed someone watching him and he looked up. Thea was standing on the back porch, right in front of the steps and watching him with a worried expression. Carefully keeping his own expression neutral, Adam quickly decided to keep these memories to himself, tucking away that regained knowledge as a possible means of making a living eventually.
The two continued to stare at each other for a while until Adam smiled a smile Thea had never seen before. Her heart instantly skipped a beat and she found herself smiling shyly back, even though that was the last thing she had intended to do.
He slowly walked down the brick path and climbed the steps until they were eye to eye. To his amazed satisfaction she actually broke the eye contact first, looked down, and blushed. She turned around when he stepped up onto the porch and as he walked past her he deliberately made sure to pass as close as possible without touching. Then he opened the door and stood there holding it for her.
Without looking up or saying a word, she hurried through the doorway and he paused to wipe the grin off his face before slowly following her inside.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Two days later Thea gave Adam his morning injection of the minimal dose of morphine and the two were discussing moving him to one of the upstairs bedrooms when he suddenly gave her an odd, unfocused look.
"Adam, what's wrong?" she said as she quickly reached out to steady him when he swayed slightly.
He broke out into a cold sweat. "I don't know."
"Oh God," Thea breathed and yelled for Abner who came running. The man just made it into the room when Adam's knees buckled and he slid to the floor with Thea under him.
"What happened?" Abner asked as he bent down, picked Adam up and carried him over to the bed.
Getting to her feet, Thea answered, "I'm not sure," and hurried over to grasp his wrist. "Dear Lord, his pulse is racing," she said and pushed one of his eyelids up. Alarmed to see his pupils were constricting, she frantically tried to come up with an explanation for the symptoms she was seeing. The next thing she knew she was on the floor again, knocked down by Adam's arm when his back arced and he began to violently seize.
"Damn it!" she said as she jumped up and threw herself on top of Adam to keep him from falling off the bed. Abner ran across the room for a set of leather straps to hold him down. Once the straps were in place, he carefully helped Thea to slide off. When she was standing he could see she had taken a heavy blow to her right eye and it was already starting to swell. Before he could say anything she was already turning away, hurrying to retrieve the bottle of morphine and the syringe from the last injection.
Opening the bottle she waved it under her nose, and then shook her head when she didn't detect any smell that would mean the batch was "off." Then she took the syringe apart, looking for any signs of a foreign substance that might explain his reaction.
Abner stayed next to Adam, keeping a close eye on him to be sure he didn't manage to injure himself as his body continued to shake violently. Thea hurried back with another metal syringe and handed it to Abner.
Automatically taking it, he gave her a blank look when she held out her arm with the leather thong already in place to get a vein to rise. "There's only one way to tell if the batch is bad," she said and he shook his head when he understood what she wanted him to do.
"Do it, Abner. We need to know what we're dealing with here," she ordered so he carefully gave her the injection. Then they waited for a few minutes, but she showed no other reaction than what would be expected.
Thea made an exasperated sound in the back of her throat. "Dear Lord, this means he's having some kind of allergic reaction to morphine now," she said and clenched her hands into fists as she watched the man strapped to the bed convulse.
"Isn't there anything you can do?" Abner asked "Maybe laudanum?"
"No, laudanum is another opiate and it could make things worse. And he's not having a normal allergic reaction. There's no edema or labored breathing..." she shook her head, furious at feeling so helpless. "I've never seen this kind before."
She was still frantically searching her memory when she thought she could see a slight lessening of Adam's frantic movements. Staring intently, she moved closer to the bed and in a few moments was sure he was coming out of it, but slowly.
When Adam finally lay still, the two breathed a sigh of relief as they removed the straps, and then they worked together silently to make him comfortable. Abner left the room to get some ice for Thea's black eye, and she dragged a chair over next to the bed.
Thea spent the next two hours in that chair holding pieces of ice wrapped in a thin towel to her eye. Every time he moved she jumped nervously, afraid he was starting to seize again, and then sat back in relief when he didn't.
The pain from being knocked down was blooming into a white-hot headache when he finally opened his eyes. He stared at the ceiling in confusion at first, almost expecting to feel the full casts on his limbs again. Then he blinked and his recent memories came back. Turning his head carefully he saw Thea standing next to the bed, her right eye swollen almost shut.
"What happened?" he said and frowned when he thought the words didn't sound quite right.
Thea bent down to get a closer look at his eyes and was not happy to see that some of the small vessels were broken, bleeding red patches into the white sclera. "What is your name?" she asked apprehensively and couldn't help but smile at his answer.
"Adam, and no I don't remember my last name." This time he was sure he wasn't speaking clearly. He tried again, "What happened?"
Putting a hand on his shoulder, she cleared her throat before speaking. "You developed some sort of allergic reaction to the morphine. I'm not sure exactly what happened, but I AM sure the batch of morphine was all right."
His eyes narrowed and his tongue felt thick when he spoke. "How do you know?"
"I had Abner inject me with some of it..." she was saying when he abruptly tried to sit up.
"What?" he said in a furious voice that was much stronger and clearer. "Have you lost your mind?" He tried to sit up again and this time made it. His arms felt incredibly heavy, but he reached out to grab her anyway.
"Don't you EVER do something that stupid again!"
Surprised, she hurried to explain. "Adam, it was necessary to know. There are things I could have done if the batch was off."
"I don't care!" he persisted, his mental acuity and control of his speech increasing along with his anger. "Promise me you won't do that again." He gave her a small shake. "Promise me!"
"Alright, I promise!" she blurted out and mentally shook her head at herself for giving in so quickly.
"Good," he said and as his anger ebbed so did his energy. He let go of her upper arms and lay back down. "What happened to your eye?"
"Just an accident."
"I did that, didn't I?"
"Yes, but you couldn't help it. You started to seize so quickly I couldn't get out of the way in time."
Shaking his head, he sighed deeply. "When is this ever going to end?"
Thea reached to take one of his hands in both of hers and clenched her teeth. "Not for a while," she answered and he looked up at her questioningly.
"Oh Adam," she said, "this means that I can't wean you off the morphine. And I don't dare use any other opiate either." He went cold, instantly understanding what she was saying.
"What will happen?" he asked quietly but firmly, demanding an honest answer.
Thea took a deep breath. "Sweats, chills, fevers, nausea, and pain. All these symptoms I can help alleviate somewhat, but it's going to be very hard for you. In the most severe cases hallucinations and delirium are also possible."
He tightened his grip on her hand. "You're leaving something out, aren't you?"
She looked down at their joined hands. "More seizures are also a possibility," she answered reluctantly.
"Are you keeping anything else back?"
"No."
They fell silent for a while until Adam felt something drop on his hand. Thea was crying her furious tears again and he suddenly remembered her doing that in the morgue. He tugged on her hand.
"Thea look at me," he said quietly and when she raised her head to meet his gaze he smiled. "You've pulled me through too much so far to let this defeat us. I know I'm in for another long stretch of hell, but I WILL make it as long as you never let go. I'm depending on you for that."
Her expression instantly changed and became hard, her eyes snapping with the force of her will even as her furious tears dried on her face. "Never," she said with a sharp edge to her voice. "Nothing and no one will EVER force me to let go."