Recap: Stephanie and Lester find out Ranger might lose his leg. Stephanie is worried he won't want to be with her anymore if he can't protect her.
Ranger
Beep.
Beep.
Beep.
Voices. I can't quite make them out. I try to open my eyes, but they are just too heavy.
"I brought you some coffee."
"Thanks."
"Please drink it. You need to eat something, and that thing has as many calories as a donut."
"Sure."
I breathe a sigh of relief. Or I would if had control of my breathing. There's a tube in my throat. But the voices are Stephanie and Lester. She's OK, though she sounds exhausted. Then the sounds get distant as I fade back asleep.
Beep.
Beep.
Beep.
This time I manage to get my eyes open for half a second. I'm in a hospital room, that much is obvious. Steph is in an uncomfortable looking hospital chair by the bed, head in her hands. Lester is pacing by the window. Through the corner of my eye I can see Tank standing guard outside the room. I feel like I'm floating. Painkillers. Morphine. Not enough. Sleep.
Beep.
Beep.
Beep.
"He'll wake up when he's ready. His body needs to heal, so sleep is the best thing for him right now."
"When will we know about his leg?"
"Susan said In another 12 hours or so."
My leg? What was wrong with my leg?
I managed to get my left eye open. For all the time I spent lifting weights, it sure was hard to me up a single eyelid. I've strained less to lift a Jeep out of the mud.
Stephanie was there in the same chair, looking even worse than she had a minute ago. A minute? An hour? Can't tell time. Want to talk to her.
"Babe, what happened? Are you OK? How's the president? Did we catch the guy? How did he get a gun into the rally?" I ask. Well, I think of asking. I can't. Tube in my throat. What I manage to get out is "aaaaaaaa".
Stephanie jumps up like a bullet fired from a gun. Bad analogy, considering my current state. She knocks over the coffee. Full. She didn't drink it. I brace for the burn. None. It's cold. How long have I been here?
"Ranger?" she asks, putting a hand to my cheek. It's soft. So soft. Why can't I think straight? Oh right, morphine.
I can't talk with the tube, so I just stare into her eyes. She looks haunted. Tired. Fuzzy.
"I'll get the Doctor." Lester says as he heads for the door. "Glad to see you awake Cuz, gave us a fright."
I wiggle my fingers, the most I can do right now. Look up at her. Even frazzled she looks beautiful. Love her, love her so much.
Stephanie
The groan he made telling me he was awake was the most beautiful sound I had ever heard. His eyes were pointed at me, but were unfocused. Lester ran to get the doctor, but wild horses couldn't drag me out of this room even if they were headed to a pineapple upside down cake factory.
He moves his hand slightly. I gently put my own over it, not wanting to squeeze it and hurt him. The idea of a hand squeeze from me, the woman who once had to open a jar of olives with a screwdriver and a hammer, hurting him would have been absurd a month ago. But he looked so fragile in the bed. And his heart was fragile too. As was mine.
I felt his hand moving under mine. It was closing into a fist, opening flat, sometimes just jerking a little. His eyes were blurrily pointed in my direction, but I could see he was having trouble focusing.
"Ranger?" I asked, not sure what to do. I wanted to hug him tight to my chest, but there were tubes and wires everywhere. I didn't want to hurt him. So I brushed his hair back off his forehead, missing it gently. He eyes stayed distant and unfocused, but his hand was still moving on the bed.
Lester and Susan walked back into the room. I'd wanted a few more moments alone with him, but it was more important that Susan check him out.
"Ranger, it's good to see you awake. You gave us quite a fright." Susan said as she pulled out a penlight and inspected his pupils. "Are you in any pain? Blink once for Yes and twice for No."
He blinked twice, a no. At least, it was a no. I think he was communicating with us. Maybe he just didn't like having the light in his eyes.
"When can we take the tube out of his throat? When can he talk to us?" I asked, desperate to have a conversation with him. To have him say he was OK. Because if he said it, then he would be. Ranger didn't break promises. Not to me. So if he told me he was OK then he absolutely would be.
"I don't want to take it out yet. If we want to put him back under because of swelling it will be easier with the tube in, and taking it out is going to be hard on him. It's much better if we only do it once."
"Can he write? On TV they always write?"
I looked at Ranger's hands. Normally they were so strong. Hands that had pulled me out of a river, taught me to shoot, caressed my body. Now they were twitching on the bed, barely managing to open and close.
"Writing takes a fair amount of fine motor control, even sitting at a desk. He's lying flat. I doubt anything he wrote would be legible. " Susan replied. "Blinking is generally the best we can get from patients until they are more awake."
I looked at his hand again, still moving on the bed. Balled up, then flat with three taps. A fist, then flat. "Is something wrong with his hands? Is he having a seizure or something?" I asked, worried something else had gone wrong.
Ranger shook his head, glared at Lester, then moved his hand with more deliberateness. Lester came over to my side of the bed and watched for a moment. Fist, fist, pause, fist, flat, flat, flat. Fist flat.
After a moment Lester burst out laughing. It felt like I hadn't heard that sound in forever, though I'm sure it was only yesterday. "Oh Cuz, you brilliant asshole. She's fine, aside from worried sick about you." He turned to me. "Old Special Forces trick. He's using his hand to spell in Morse code. He's saying 'Is Babe OK'."
I looked down at him. Even as hurt as he was, he was thinking of me. And I started to cry. Again. I didn't know I had any tears left in me. Ranger looked alarmed, and his hand started moving again.
"He wants to know what's wrong." Lester said, looking at Susan. She put on a compassionate doctor face and looked him in the eyes.
"Ranger, we need to talk about your leg."
My original plan had been to finish this story by Halloween 2016. Missed that deadline by a bit. Push me to get it done by Halloween 2019. Seriously, bug me about this.