THIS IS A DISCLAIMER. INSERT NECESSARY LEGALESE HERE.
A/N: Whee, Chapter five! R and R as usual, and don't be shy about criticism! Of course, you shouldn't be overly hostile, either.
Incendiary Device
Chapter 5: Hide it From Yourself
Soaking his head had done wonders for Roy's sobriety, though his headache was worse than ever. Thankfully, his nose seemed to have finally stopped bleeding for good. He took a seat on the edge of the bed, Her bed, the little voice in his mind told him. He quickly shooed that thought away as Hawkeye came in carrying an assortment of tubes, bottles, and boxes, as well as a pair of tweezers, a glass of water, and a pie pan. She arranged the stuff on the bedside table and crossed the room to the bureau. As she rummaged through drawers, Roy noticed that the front and sleeves of her shirt were spotted with red. Blood, his mind registered, still sluggish, my blood.
Hawkeye left the room again, and Roy heard the sound of water running. When she came back, she was barefoot and dressed in loose plaid flannel pants and a white tank top. Pajamas. She yawned as she sat beside him on the bed, and he noticed that her hair was down. For a split second, his brain dared to hope, but he squashed the thought and chalked it up to the residual effects of drinking half a bottle of scotch and being hit over the head with the rest.
"Sit on the floor in front of me, sir," said Hawkeye. Roy did as he was told. He heard the sound of paper ripping, then the familiar "plop, plop, fizz, fizz" of Alka Seltzer. A moment later the glass of water, now bubbling merrily away, was held in front of him. "Drink this, sir," he heard Hawkeye say from behind and above him, "or you'll have a wicked hangover in the morning." He noted dispiritedly that she'd gone back to formal military language, but barely had time to remind himself that his feelings for Liza were against the rules before he felt a sharp sting from somewhere above his eyebrow.
"Ow!" he complained, "What the hell was that?"
Hawkeye grinned, relieved that he was finally starting to show signs of his normal behavior. She dropped the tiny glass shard into the pie pan, "That was me picking glass out of your head, sir. Unless you'd rather I leave it in…?" She left the ending of the statement open, like she was really considering doing so.
Roy winced at the thought of what stray glass slivers could do to his head, "No, no, carry on. I'll stop complaining," he said. Truth to tell, Hawkeye's skill as a marksman gave her a sensitive touch, so it really didn't hurt that much. He sipped at the water. It was icy cold, and felt good after having to spend so long crouched over the hot bathwater.
Liza tried to be as gentle as possible in finding the souvenirs of Roy's encounter with "hard alcohol," combing her fingers through his thick black hair with as much delicacy as she would have used on a hair trigger. Roy appreciated the effort. Having her hands run over his scalp felt pretty nice, actually, at least when she wasn't pulling bits of glass out of it. When she finally finished, she had deposited no less than thirty-one tiny glass slivers in the pie pan. "And I hate to tell you this, sir," she said as she took them into the kitchen to throw away, "but I suspect you'll be finding more in weeks to come. Don't try to pull them out yourself, though. You could just end up working them in deeper. I'll carry some tweezers around with me for a while, so just remember where they are and I'll get them when no one's looking."
Roy almost asked why somebody else couldn't do it when he remembered, "The need for secrecy is because you and I are the only two military personnel who know about this, right?" He asked when she came back in.
She nodded, taking her place on the bed again, "Havoc knows too, at least, he knows you left and I went to find you. You left the window open, which woke him up, and he woke me up when he noticed you were gone." She handed him four pills, two red and two white. "Acetaminophen and iron supplements," she informed him, "For the headache and the blood loss."
He took the pills and submitted to her next round of ministrations, which consisted of a cotton swab and rubbing alcohol. She cleaned out the cuts on his scalp and neck, and swiped over the red mark across his shoulders too, just to be safe. Who knew what kind of germs lurked on a pool cue? Roy suffered the stinging in silence, though. Something was bothering him.
"Back at the bar," he finally ventured, "when you were telling those guys to expect recompense from the military…I mean, you aren't planning to tell anybody, are you?"
Liza paused her inspection of the bruise on his collarbone to process this, "Huh? Oh, no sir. You see, from all the years I've been patching you, Havoc, Falman, Fury, and everybody else up with field dressings, I've become a fair judge of the severity of injuries. The total hospital bill from everybody you took out, while a study in pain, should be no more than one to two hundred dollars. Added to that would be the stuff you burned or broke, which appeared to be little more than pool sticks and bar stools. All told, it shouldn't come to more than three hundred or three-fifty. If I give up buying books and dessert for a month, I can cover that cost easily."
This took a while to sink in, but when Roy finally understood what Liza was offering to do, it took all of his self-control not to turn around and stare at her. "Are you crazy?" He asked, "You're going to pay for something I did? I refuse to accept that. I'll pay."
Liza sighed. She could tell he wouldn't take no for an answer, "Alright. But at least let me pay the bill for the guy I shot in the hand, sir."
Roy shook his head, "The whole thing was my fault, beginning to end. You've done more than enough already, L-Lieutenant." Roy's mouth went dry and he finished off the glass of fizzy water. He'd nearly called her Liza.
If Liza noticed the stutter, she didn't let on. "There's still more to do, sir. Even if mollifying the bartender and the patrons will be relatively easy, there's still the matter of the hospital." Finished disinfecting, Liza began the last stage of her work. She applied antibacterial cream and a strip of waterproof medical tape to each cut, as well as antihistamines to keep them from itching.
Roy's trademark smirk crept back onto his face, "I suppose you have a plan for that too, Lieutenant?"
"Actually sir, I do. If you're feeling up to it, we could go back to the hospital in the morning and you could go back in the way you left, through the window. Then I could come in and sign you and Havoc out."
"That sounds good…did you say me and Havoc?"
"Yes, sir. He was deemed ready for release yesterday. He'd also like you to know that he'll keep the secret about where you were tonight, and you're invited to his retirement party, and he'd like some help remodeling his house. Finished," Liza said, gathering the medical supplies from her bedside table and heading out the door to put them away.
When she reached the bathroom, Liza leaned against the counter and stared at herself in the mirror. "Lieutenant," she said quietly, "fraternization among fellow officers in the military is strictly forbidden. It doesn't matter how cute he looks when he's off-guard, there's no way in hell you'd get away with it and that's that. Besides, he probably doesn't even think of you in the same way." She gave herself one last hard stare to make sure the lesson would stick, then walked back into the hallway. She stopped before she got to her door, though. Clothes, he'd need clean clothes. Where would she get…oh, right. She had some in her car from doing his laundry the other day. If there was one thing that hospital needed, it was a laundromat within a reasonable distance.
Roy stayed seated on the floor, unsure whether he should follow Hawkeye or stay put. He figured staying was the safer option. While he waited for Liza's return, he pondered Havoc's situation. He could understand being depressed about such a life-changing event, certainly, but to retire from the military at such a young age, and with so much talent…and it's all your fault, coward came that pernicious little voice again, but before it could really start in on him Liza returned carrying a rolled-up bundle of clothes. Her hair and the tops of her shoulders were wet, and the little voice in Roy's head switched from blaming him to wanting her. God, I wish that stupid rule didn't exist! But it does. It doesn't matter how beautiful she looks when she's off-guard, you'd never get away with it. Besides, she probably doesn't even think of me like that.