She woke up once in the night, confused and disoriented, feeling the haze of anesthesia and painkillers. It took some flailing in the dim light of the hospital room to find a call button and summon a nurse, who reassured her of the time and day, the safety of civilians and subject, and that her team had come by to pester them all, and all been sent away. Then the man checks his watch and puts more painkillers in her IV, and the world ebbs away again.
Wordy's there when she wakes up in the morning. Today Detective Wordsworth has turned his wardrobe all the way up to a polo; he must be doing something spiffy. When she turns her head she can see sunlight glitter off his shield. Her mouth is so dry separating her tongue from her palate hurts.
Wordy glances back from the window and instantly sits up, seeing she's awake. "Hey," he says, that same old delighted warm Wordy way. "Good to see you."
She smiles back, and lifts her hand to sign for a drink. He scrabbles for a minute to get a water bottle out of the bag under his chair and crack it open, then to find the switch that will lift her bed so she can sit up. She knows how to work it herself, but it's on the side that hurts like fire whenever she moves, out of pain from the gunshot and the bandages themselves; when she shifts her arm the tiniest bit the dried blood pulls, and the bandages are so tight she knows that if she unwound them now the skin on her upper arm would be wrinkled and bloodless and ugly, like a golden raisin.
The trickle of water frees up her tongue, but her mouth still feels gummy; she takes another mouthful to swill around, which helps marginally, and then has an honest, good drink of water. When she gives the bottle back and leans back against her bed, she's glad it's Wordy, because she can close her eyes and gather herself for a minute and he'll be patient and wait.
"So I hear your new job's so easy you don't even have to show up," she says with a grin.
"I could spare a little time this morning," he tells her with a smile. "The team's at the barn this morning, going over the case, and they wanted somebody to be here with you."
"Thanks." She swallows again, wishing with all her might for a shower. "How's Shel?"
Wordy pauses for a minute, grave, and for a minute his eyes dance away over the room before he looks back at her, that makes her think for a moment, shit, something's wrong with Shel. "Dr. Toth recommended to the Chief that you and Sam be permitted to stay on the same team," he says.
That stuns her, hits her solar plexus, reminds her what it's like not being able to breathe. What's that got to do with anything? Did they find out? Sam, did Sam do something? "Toth?" she rasps. "Where'd he come from?"
"He caught something in the old transcripts about you and Sam," Wordy says. "He went to the Boss with it, Boss came clean. Greg's suspended, but Toth's not doing reign of fire on this one."
"He says we should stay."
"Yeah. Surprised the hell out of everybody. But I think he was pretty impressed by what Sam did in the cleanroom."
"What'd he do?" Is there something she's not remembering? There was so much she couldn't see; by the end she was fighting to pay attention but she could feel it slipping from her.
"He went for the wounded tech before he got you, I think."
Frowning, she says, "Well, yeah." Is that so impressive? At least they could give Sam credit for something hard. Even when Tomasic shot her—when Sam tore up inside as bad as she did—he still finished the job, still made the solution with steady hands. It's what Sam does.
Wordy chuckles, takes Jules's hand and gives it a squeeze. "Law enforcement professional of the year, ladies and gentlemen."
"I do my job." She squirms for a more comfortable position in the bed. "Can I get more of that water?"
He passes it to her and casually asks, "You and Sam, huh?"
She drinks, then wipes her lips, left-handed. "Every team's got its secrets. Team One's as good as two teams, so it got two." She looks him up and down. "Did you know?"
He shrugs at her. "It was kinda hard not to think there was something, but half of that's just you two being so good in the field together, and I told myself... I just thought about when Rollie's wife thought you two had something going on, and how much it bugged you. So I gave you the benefit of the doubt."
"Thanks," she whispers.
He sets the water bottle on the window ledge and looks at her sidelong. "So you gonna tell me about it?"
"What's there to tell?"
"Julianna." He drapes his arms onto the bed, leaning on his elbows, grinning, and he's joshing her. "Been seeing anyone lately? Dating someone? Defying established authority for somebody special?"
Oh god, she's missed him, as she smiles and says, "Sam. Now that you mention it."
"Yeah?" He props his head on one hand. "How long's that been going on for?"
They'd celebrated that anniversary secretly with the end of suspension. "More'n a year."
"Sounds serious," he says, and her heart clenches another way, because when this was just a secret between Sam and her and maybe Natalie, she didn't have to name it. She didn't have to say what it meant and what it was leading to. There were all these hopes buried in her that she'd let Sam say first so she could shoot them down in the name of impossible.
"Yeah," she says, and her voice comes out hoarse again. "Yeah. I think it is."