Chapter 8
SEE PROLOGUE FOR DISCLAIMERS, ETC.
Mattie's Angel Flight was just landing as Sam and Harm arrived at the helo pad on the grounds of Bethesda Naval Medical Center. The first words out of Mattie's mouth when the orderlies had wheeled her gurney away from the whirling blades made Harm laugh uproariously.
"That was wicked cool!"
"You're not thinking of bagging jets for choppers, are you?" Harm bent over and hugged his ward, placing a kiss on her forehead around the metal frames of her traction halo.
Mattie shot a deep frown toward Sam. He thought perhaps the young woman was starting to come to grips with the possibility that she might be paralyzed in some way for life.
Her words, however, were upbeat. "Hey, I'm good enough to do both, hotshot."
"You sure are, kiddo. Let's get you inside and settled, shall we?"
"Not until I get a hug from my mother-to-be."
Sam wondered if the warm flush he felt was his own or a vestige of Mac in the body. Either way, the pleasant sensation left him lightheaded as he switched places with Harm and leaned down to put his arms around the girl who had, in a way, been responsible for bringing back the friendship between Harm and Mac.
"Thank you," Sam whispered in Mattie's ear.
"You're welcome. And thank you for wanting Harm's baggage."
Now would be an appropriate time to use her full name, if it would come to him . . . He straightened up and shoved his finger under her nose, trying to be stern. "Mathilda Grace Johnson, you take that back."
Mattie grinned. "Yes, ma'am. Gotcha."
Harm sighed. "Mattie . . ."
"Sorry, Mac."
Five minutes and seven seconds later by the cell phone, they arrived on the proper floor and were met by the nurse manager. "I'm Captain Aramo. Welcome to my rehab unit, Miss Grace."
"Thank you, ma'am." Mattie gave the woman a big smile.
"Captain Rabb, you're Miss Grace's legal guardian?"
Harm straightened beside Sam. "Yes, ma'am."
"And I understand we have a unique circumstance here with transfers."
"Yes, ma'am." Harm looked overwhelmed. His mouth barely moved as he gave his two word answers and the lines around his eyes deepened in the harsh fluorescent lighting around the nurses' station.
Aramo smiled. "Relax, Captain. We deal with unique circumstances all the time. Not necessarily with minors, but unique circumstances nonetheless."
Harm relaxed a fraction but shot Sam a wary glance.
"It will be fine, Harm," he said, laying a hand on Harm's arm.
Aramo looked down at Mattie's chart. "You must be Lt. Colonel Mackenzie."
Sam willed himself not to snap to attention, knowing that Harm would detect a lack of crispness to the movement that Mac would neither show nor tolerate in others. Mac was a Marine, even if Sam was about as far from one as he could be. "Yes, ma'am."
"I see you're going to start the process of adopting Miss Grace together as soon as you get married. Do we have a target date to have her in a wheelchair for most of a day?" Sam thought he saw the woman's lips twitch in what might have become a smile in another moment if Mattie hadn't tried to answer her question.
"Harm's flight leaves at 6 tonight."
The twitch became a roaring laugh that caught all of them up in its charm. When Aramo could talk again, she gave Mattie the grin Sam had expected a moment ago. "You've got the right attitude, Miss Grace. Hold on to it. Captain, Colonel, if you'll give us a few minutes, we'll get Miss Grace settled in her room and then get the supervising therapist and her neurologist here for the evaluation." She pointed toward a colorful waiting area. "The coffee over there is most likely Marine strength right now because of who's on the ward visiting, but help yourself."
Harm put his hand in the small of Sam's back and with a nod of thanks to Aramo and a wink at Mattie that made her giggle, led Sam to a chair in the waiting area. "Coffee, hon?"
"Please." Mac took her coffee so strong the spoon would stand up in it, or so AJ had commented at breakfast when he said that the only good coffee ever made in the office came at Mac's hands. Sam personally would have killed for a cup of coffee with cream and real sugar, but that rarely happened in leaps anymore.
He steeled his taste buds for the bitter, acrid brew when Harm handed him the Styrofoam cup. He took a swig. "Ew-ha," he said to Harm's raised eyebrow.
Harm added five sugars and a five-count of powdered creamer to his cup and stirred it well before he took an experimental sip.
Sam laughed at the expression on Harm's face as he turned back to the counter and added two more sugars and an additional four count of creamer to his cup.
Harm's second sip pleased him more. "We'll be keeping both coffee makers."
"One for the Marines and one for the Navy," Sam said, thinking it sounded like a very Mac-like thing to say.
"Exactly." He sat down beside Sam and put his arm around his shoulder. "I feel like a heel leaving her here."
"I know." Sam sighed. "She's not strong enough to travel far enough east or west right now, though, and you know she'll be so busy with therapy that we wouldn't get much time with her."
"I hate it when you play me back to myself." Harm tucked Sam's head under his chin. "But I love you for it, too."
Sam chuckled. It sounded more like a giggle when he heard it, but he refused to admit to giggling, even as a woman. "I love me for it, too."
"I'd make you pay for that if we weren't in public."
"Put it on my tab, sailor."
They sat in comfortable silence for 7 minutes or so before Captain Aramo came out to escort them to Mattie's room.
Mattie introduced them to her roommate, who had been injured in a suicide bombing in Iraq.
Valerie Hotchkiss pulled her upper body to attention in her wheelchair and saluted as best she could with limited arm mobility. "Good morning, Captain, Colonel." Her soft drawl placed her as a native of the deep South, probably Mississippi.
"At ease, Sergeant. Heroes need never work quite so hard to impress officers." Harm extended his hand to the young woman.
"Maybe not Navy heroes, sir, but I'm a Marine."
Mattie flashed a grin at Sam. "Good practice for living with you, Mac."
Sam nodded, catching the hero worship budding in Mattie's expression. "I can see Sgt. Hotchkiss will be an invaluable influence on you in more than a few ways." Sam certainly couldn't teach the teenager what it was like to live with a Marine; he was having enough trouble trying to be a Marine.
An aide came in with Mattie's therapist and neurologist and left with Sgt. Hotchkiss, who waved her arms over her head like an athlete crossing the finish line in a race.
The therapist spoke first. "Good morning, Miss Grace. I'm Dr. Faust. Don't let the name fool you, I'm really very nice."
Mattie's face screwed up in confusion.
"Oh, right. You probably haven't read Goethe yet. I promise I'll tell you the story as we work." Dr. Faust's blue eyes sparkled as she looked first at Sam, then at Harm, and finally back at Mattie. "I specialize in spinal cord injury rehabilitation. I won't be working with you every session, but I will supervise your rehab very carefully and meet with you at least three times a week, probably five as you're getting started."
The other woman – a blonde with small green eyes and a smile Sam thought charming, though Mac would likely disagree, given the way the woman continued to eye Harm – cleared her throat. "I'm Dr. Johann."
Sam giggled. There was no way to call the noise he emitted anything else, despite his earlier resolve.
Faust looked at him with pursed lips that jerked up as she tried not to smile. "Yeah, we've heard it before, Colonel."
Even more impressed that the woman had figured out who he had to be, Sam nodded. "Sorry."
"May I?" Dr. Johann didn't seem to have a sense of humor. She did have eyes for Harm, though, and now Sam was starting to be bothered by it. He reached out to take Harm's hand and was surprised at how hard he pulled Sam into his side. If Mac was watching from 2015, she had to be pleased with that.
Dr. Johann's face went red for a moment before she took a deep breath and began to talk. "As I was saying, I'm Dr. Johann. I specialize in spinal cord injuries. I supervise Dr. Faust," Faust started at that but kept silent, "and her team as they devise your therapy and I will also be responsible for your medical care, things like pain medication, nutrition, and catheter management. We'll be changing your bowel management program to something called pulsed irrigation elimination, which we've found to be safer and healthier."
Harm blanched and Mattie's face squirmed at that news. Sam had once leaped into the body of a quadriplegic man with a 1950's era colostomy and had vivid memories of that particular indignity. To him, anything that didn't involve a bag sounded like a better alternative.
Dr. Johann waited a beat before she continued. "Miss Grace, you'll be working with a tutor from the DC school district to finish up your class work for the year in between your therapy sessions. From the x-rays, CT scans, and MRI films, I'm optimistic that we can get your upper body fully mobile within a couple of months."
"Upper body?" Mattie's voice broke.
"Upper body. We'll have to wait and see about your lower body, Miss Grace. There's still a lot of swelling around the spinal cord and it's very hard to tell if there's damage under the swelling. I think that there is, but I'd like to be wrong."
"Oh." Mattie's eyes flicked to Harm, then to Sam and Dr. Faust before they settled again on Dr. Johann. "So does that mean there's no permanent damage in the upper part of my spinal cord?"
Dr. Johann tipped her head toward Mattie. "We're pretty sure there's not. It's badly bruised from C-4 to T-9, which as you know is a long stretch, and there's still some significant swelling in places. But even if there is permanent damage, we think it's most likely at T-8 or T-9, so regardless, you should get some movement back in your arms."
Harm looked at the doctor. Sam knew Harm didn't realize how hard he was squeezing Sam's ribs as he asked, "Will she ever walk again?"
Dr. Faust answered. "It's not impossible. There are still too many unknowns, Captain. We'll know more once we've completed the full evaluation, but even then, we might be surprised"
Harm's face fell when the two doctors asked him to step outside, but Sam immediately volunteered to go with him if Mattie was okay with being alone with the doctors.
She looked first at Dr. Johann, then at Dr. Faust, before she sighed and said, "Go ahead, Mac. At least I can't fight back."
"Hey! I wouldn't fight-"
"Harm, the door is this way. We'll be right outside." Sam pulled Harm out of the room. "Dignity and modesty, remember?" He was sure that at some point, one of Harm's female friends had explained those all-important teenage concepts to him, even if it hadn't been Mac.
"Yeah."
An hour and 20 minutes later, they were ready to leave Mattie to her first therapy session.
"See you soon, kiddo," Harm said, his voice rough with tears as he held Mattie's hands between his.
Without the halo, Sam was sure Mattie would have nodded. "Memorial Day weekend, right?"
"Right."
"And hopefully I'll be able to go dress shopping by then, even if it isn't for long."
"If you can't, I'll bet we can arrange something." Harriet would know, Sam was sure. He glanced down at the phone on his hip when Harm wasn't looking. "We need to get moving, Harm. It's 1119."
"Okay." He kissed Mattie on both cheeks. "I love you."
"I love you, too. Go, so you don't stress Mac more than she needs to be."
"Yes, ma'am." He backed away, turned, and motioned toward the door. "I'll be . . ."
Sam nodded at him, then moved to sit on the edge of Mattie's bed. "Thanks, Mattie."
"I saw you wince. Do you think Harm is really okay with retiring?"
Sam pondered this for a moment. "No, Mattie, I don't. But I think he's decided that you and I are more important than his career, so he's going to work very hard to convince himself he's okay with it."
"Wouldn't it be easier for you to transfer out of JAG so both of you could stay in?"
Sam stared at her.
"What?"
"You're the second person who's made that suggestion this morning."
"Admiral Chegwidden?"
Sam wondered at the distaste he heard in Mattie's tone, but chose not to comment. Instead, he nodded. "I'm supposed to talk to him once I get out to San Diego. Actually, I have to talk to General Cresswell tomorrow, come to think of it."
"You should ask him about it."
"Not until I talk to AJ. I'd better go before Harm throws a tantrum out there."
Mattie laughed as best she could. "Yeah. Mac?"
"Yeah?"
"Would you buy me some of those tampons you recommended?"
Sam controlled a groan as he answered, "Absolutely. I'll bring them back tonight."
"Thanks. I love you, Mac."
Sam leaned down to kiss her cheek. "I love you, too, Mattie."