DISCLAIMER: Please see earlier chapters giving Cameron, Eglee & Fox their due. Still borrowed for a while.
THANKS TO YOU ALL who have read; THANKS AND SMOOCHES to those who reviewed...and those you who did BOTH...well, heck, what can I say?? (Seriously, folks–thanks for reading. Double thanks to those reviewing, too.)
METRO MEDICAL: THREE EAST: Rehab Unit, Day 57 Post-Injury
For the fifth day, Logan transferred shakily into the new chair, hating the feeling that at every moment, he was on the verge of tipping over: the chair was so light and fast compared to his other one, the center of gravity different and still a mystery to Logan, he always felt as if he'd fall. He moved faster than he expected and crashed into things, with even more near misses; not yet sensing the chair as an extension of himself, he feared it was too shallow and he'd slide out, not feeling his hips and legs as they slipped down...and hated the dawning realization of just how desperately he'd been injured...
His movement out of his room and down the hall, like his transfers, was cautious and slow, like that of a man decades older than himself--like one far less adventuresome and reckless than the man who had been Eyes Only. And Bling watched, considering...
He'd hoped that Logan would have acclimated more quickly. When he first tried the chair, he immediately disliked it and asked Bling to order a different one. Logan hadn't been the first to be thrown by the switch to an ultra-light, and Bling was confident that once he got used to it, he'd never want to go back to the bulkier, harder-to-maneuver chairs. Bling had convinced Logan to try it for ten days before sending it back, and Logan doggedly stuck with the new chair since. But it had been nearly a week now, and Logan wasn't letting himself relax into its advantages. Weighing his options, and deciding that extraordinary men and their extraordinary circumstances allowed for the use of extraordinary means, Bling followed Logan into the training room.
"You're still driving like an old man," the therapist pronounced, bluntly.
Logan turned to look over his shoulder at him–without moving the chair to ease the awkward angle, Bling noted. "I told you–I'm not comfortable in this one..."
"Why–really?" Bling pressed. "You've never really said." He paused. "Is it just because it doesn't look like it's only temporary?" It was the first time he'd brought up the realization that had so nearly devastated the man, but knew it had to be faced–and overcome.
Logan looked away, feeling exposed--trapped. When Bling's insistent silence became more awkward, he muttered, "It doesn't help..."
"But...?"
Logan sighed, letting his hands drop to the rims of the chair, rocking it a little, as if to remind himself of how unsteady it made him feel. "It's..." He paused, then tried, "I can't feel it, Bling. Or what I do feel, it's like I'm going pitch out of it, any minute, unless I'm careful..."
"You won't, you know" Bling tried to reason with him. "You saw the seat angle, the wheels' angle... it's just because it's lightweight..."
"Look, what's wrong with the other one?" In his growing exasperation, Logan was starting to move away from the depressed withdrawal, actually showing some irritation. He was too wrapped up in his own frustration to notice the sudden gleam in Bling's eye, at his change of mood. "I'm not going to deal with this on top of everything else..."
"Capsizing is a fact of life in the chair." Bling said calmly. "You're gonna have to be ready for it."
"How about if I just don't use a chair that tips every two minutes?"
"You've been in that one five days–how often you tip so far?" At Logan's rolled eyes and silent glare, Bling felt a growing hope that Logan was indeed on his way to fighting his way back. "What's so bad about taking a dive once in a while, anyway? It's not that far a drop..."
Logan's face burned. "Yeah, that's what I want the world to see–me dragging my dead half off the cement, cos I can't keep myself in the damn chair..."
"So you practice staying in it here, at more than two miles an hour. Or, better yet, take a few practice falls and get used to getting back up without it being a melodrama."
"Practice falls?" he repeated in disbelief... Bling nodded. "Just...dump myself out on the floor?" Bling's eyebrows raised, before another nod. Logan shook his head, adamant. "Forget it..."
In one fluid movement Logan could barely follow, Bling stepped in from of him, hooked his foot under the bar on which Logan's feet rested, and in a fast shift, lifted the chair half way back, grabbing the bar in his hand and holding Logan mid-air, teetering fearfully. "Can't do it yourself, man, let me help–it's what I'm here for." Gently, before Logan could gather the wits lost in the shock of what he'd done, Bling tipped the chair and its passenger back and over...and stepped back... "Okay, let's go. Back in the chair."
Logan stared up, incredulous, still too stunned to be angry yet. Halfway under the overturned chair, on his back like an upended turtle, he didn't move. Bling didn't, either.
"Well?" Bling had taken it in, noting that Logan was tangled a little in the chair, enough to make this a bit of a challenge, but his unfeeling limbs safe and easily extricated, once he'd try. He walked away a few paces to sit in a nearby chair. "Better to do this here for the first time than out on the street, isn't it?"
Logan let his head drop back, shame filling the gaps as his surprise waned–he knew what Bling was doing but it didn't make it easier. He lay, unmoving...
"C'mon, man--" Bling prodded. "Can't be that much tougher than getting up off the mat after a session, can it?"
Face burning with embarrassment, even here, in front of only Bling, Logan finally glanced to see the child's step stool kept in the training room to allow patients a way to ease back onto their chairs in stages, and muttered, "Let me use the steps..."
"Don't think you're gonna find any step stools out in the street in front of your house, do you?" Blink made no move to get up. "Or anywhere out there, after you leave the unit?' His voice softened a tiny bit, to insist, "You're strong enough now, man. And you can get used to the chair–hell, you can make it a part of you and move even more quickly on wheels than you did on foot, if you try. Right now the only thing in your way is your pigheaded brain, trying to convince you that you can't be a man without legs. Well, that's bullshit. I'm not going to let you give up, Logan, and if it has to be that I just piss you off so badly that you want to come after me, then let's do it." He glared at the man now moving up onto an elbow, the chair shifting off slightly as he did so. "I don't have all day..."
FOGLE TOWERS: Day 61 Post-Injury
Bling pulled the car up to the parking garage, smoothly working the garage entry codes like an old hand. Logan couldn't help but wonder how many trips here the man had made, between overseeing the adaptation of his home, and checking on...things. He rubbed his temples, already exhausted.
"Look, Bling, I trust your judgment–whatever you think needs adapting, adapt it; whatever you want to move or change, do it. You don't need me to do this..."
"Maybe not, but you're coming up anyway." Bling's tone was pleasant, unruffled. Cale had been fighting any trip off hospital grounds, any public appearance in the chair, and he was less than ten days from his scheduled release date. "You don't get this done, you don't get released." When that received no comment, Bling added, "and staying isn't an option–your room's taken. You'd just go back on the floor."
That got a physical reaction, if not a verbal one: Cale hated the hospital, at least the part away from the rehab unit, and judiciously scattered threats to return him there in-patient had been moderately successful along the way. Bling steered over to Logan's new parking spot, near the entry and elevator, and cut the engine. He looked over at the again-sullen man who sat staring at his lap, looking as if he were trying to find a way to sink into the seat cushions...
"C'mon, man...everything's nearly done, but we need to see if it all fits, if we need anything else for you to move back in..." Better now, while the workmen are still on your contract and you have a few days left."
Logan drew a deep breath and lifted his head, his breath expelled in a long sigh...he was well aware by now that his therapist usually got his way, and that any resistance was pointless. He opened his door, not speaking, and started to reach for his chair. Waiting for assistance or, heaven forbid, asking for any, was wasted effort. He eased the chair out from the back seat of Bling's car and began the process of reassembling it, hoping all the while he could avoid any of his neighbors' prying eyes...
Upstairs
It was surreal...
Logan came into the elevator with Bling, noting immediately that the button to his floor was all but out of reach if he wasn't snug up against the call button panel, even then a literal stretch...the familiar but now different surroundings reminded him at every moment that he was now facing his existence from the chair...
Inside, it was worse...his rooms were stuffy with disuse and acrid with the products of the workmen tearing up his place so he could manage things–wood scent from drilling, powdery stone smells from marble and enamel and whatever materials made up his bathroom...
His home. Foreign–barely accessible. It hit him harder than he would have thought...
Bling had simplified, removing some of the living room furniture to make it easier to negotiate in his chair. One of the work tables in the kitchen had been lowered, the handles on the sink lengthened and the tap, arching high and over the surface plane...Logan shivered. Accessibility...
His eyes rose involuntarily to the high cabinets, expecting that Bling had moved the basic necessities to the lower cupboards. What would Bling have moved, since he'd never responded to the man's questions about what he wanted down there? Wine glasses? Candles? He wouldn't need that stuff again, anyway, would he? His eyes closed for the moment, involuntarily...
"Hey Logan? Back here, man..."
He pushed silently through the penthouse, seeing more familiarity than change in much of the place. Coming into his bedroom, he barely heard as Bling pointed out a few things he'd brought in to "help make things a little easier;" he declined the invitation to try out a transfer from chair to bed, just to test the height difference...and he let himself be drawn in to the bathroom where the most glaring changes met his eyes: grab bars everywhere, a shower bench in his beautiful, black marble, three-head shower suite...
...grab bars on the jacuzzi...
He felt a wave of nausea and at once was light headed. He leaned down, eyes shut, fighting the scene before him. Suddenly he felt a strong hand on his shoulder as a soothing voice bounced around the tiled room. "It's gonna be okay, man...I know this is a lot to take..."
Somewhere in his swirling head he felt some surprise at the sudden show of comfort from this taskmaster–he remembered it from many weeks earlier, but lately...he forced his eyes open to see Bling's face drawn in empathetic lines. At the eye contact, Bling's expression softened a bit.
"Almost hurts to see that hot tub get torn up as much as it did to get shot, doesn't it?"
And because he could do nothing else, Logan started to laugh...hopelessly, achingly, his eyes swimming with moisture for what was lost...his laughter releasing so many of his most frightening demons...
Passing through
Logan followed Bling out toward the door, slowing involuntarily as he came along side the room where his computers lay quiet...his message machine was full, blinking a hapless red "99" repeatedly, not so patiently waiting for his return...
Bling stopped. "Want to check on things?" he offered softly.
Logan wavered, but then shook his head. "What good would it do?" he asked, emotionless. "I'm not in any position to get anything accomplished, and if I heard what was there..." he trailed...
"You might just want to get yourself back at it."
Logan sat numbly for the moment, staring at the floor before casting a look back to Bling, who stood, unabashedly watching him. "I can't" he whispered, finally.
"Where've you been for the past two months, Logan?" Bling whispered intently, eyes piercing Cale's. "Haven't you gotten it yet? What do you think we've been doing all this time?" He looked levelly at the man in the wheelchair, his eyes lit with the same passion he'd himself seen before in Peter's eyes–in the videos of Eyes Only... "There is nothing of this that you can't do, one way or another..."
...TBC...