Thanks for the reviews! I've been enjoying your stories so much and can't believe how many gifted writers are on this site. Dixie Cross, I know the intro was more appetizer than main dish but I hope that changes.
Disclaimer: Own nothing. Just using MM's characters as toys. Will return undamaged.
The first thing she noticed is that he was sitting up.
The second thing was that he had taken off the bandage from his left eye. It had turned an interesting shade of purple and was swollen almost completely shut but the seemed otherwise undamaged. The gash on his temple was caked with dark blood, covering the stitches Dr Meade had made.
"Would you kindly inform me what happened"?
It was strange to hear him speak. He hadn't spoken for three days. Or five years, come to think of it. But Dr Meade had said that if he woke up at all he would probably recover completely from his head injury. She felt relief flood her body, and that relief made her contrarily speak harsher than she had intended.
"You fell of that …..horse. By the Merriwether bakery. In broad daylight. Rene saw you fall and called for help and he and the other men brought you home. They told me that insane beast you call a horse suddenly reared and threw you." She shook her head to drive the image of him, twisted, bleeding, out of her mind. "I can't imagine what you were doing there in the first place."
He ran a hand through his hair and flinched. "Your imagination has thankfully always been quite limited".
Scarlett blinked and her eyes turned into astonished emerald orbs. That was almost an insult. And a woefully inadequate insult at that. From Rhett, who hadn't bothered to insult her in almost half a decade, and had wielded a much more sophisticated rapier at his height. He was clearly out of practice. But still, that it happened at all was nothing short of astonishing. Enough to make a woman nostalgic. If he did it again she might swoon.
She grinned to herself and refused to take the bait. He looked at her narrowly out of his good eye as if he for once couldn't quite make her out. "They brought you in covered in blood and completely knocked out. " She didn't tell him she had been terrified. If there was once thing she had experience with it was head injuries, and it didn't bear thinking about. Dr Meade had told her head wounds always bleed terribly even if they are superficial, that the gash meant nothing and that the real danger would be invisible, internal hemorrhage in the scull, but she had initially been unable to hear him in her complete and utter panic at seeing him like this. All she could think of was Bonnie, and Pa. And now Rhett.
"How long was I …?" Rhett's voice jolted her back to reality.
"Three days".
"Good God". He ran his hand through his hair again, his fingertips tracing the contours of the wound and then ran over his right eyelid. She anticipated the question before he asked.
"Dr Meade said your eye is just swollen but he believes your sight wasn't damaged. We were all much more worried about your head. Dr Meade said the fall could have easily killed you.
"Sorry to disappoint you."
"Don't apologize. It wasn't your fault". She grinned again, giddy with having him back and giddy even with trading barbs. Almost like the old times. Strange how the old days, even at their worst, seemed gilded after five years in the desert. She should have knocked him over the head years ago, preferably with a frying pan. Not that she expected this newly-found odd humour to last; once he recovered he would remember the blandness and slide back behind it, she was fairly certain. But he was alive.
She remembered the tray.
"You should eat something. We've been feeding you soup for the past three days but maybe you want something different."
"Soup is fine".
She decided to take advantage of his apparent docility and brought the tray next to his bed. Relief made her daring and she pushed lightly against his chest to make him lie back against the pillows and he complied, as if his body and she had formed a conspiracy while he was sleeping that his cold mind was not privy to. Especially after last night. She blushed at the thought and again caught a fleeting expression of surprise in his eyes, if at himself or her she couldn't make out.
"Let me help you."
"I can manage." He took the tray and placed it on his knees, trying to feed himself from the bowl but succeeding only in spilling the content of the spoon on the tray. Scarlett shook her head.
"You're making a mess. You just woke up. I said let me help you".
Not taking no for an answer, she held the spoon to his lips, green eyes flashing and daring him to defy her. The whole situation reminded her of the soldiers they had nursed at Tara during the war, and unconsciously she adopted the same haughty tone and mannerism she had used with those poor boys. Rhett's lips twitched. It was a nothing but a bare, faint echo of his old sardonic amusement and she knew she was reading entirely too much into it but hoped she wouldn't faint, or make a complete fool out of herself, or get any redder than she already felt herself to be. She managed to feed him about half a bowl but she could tell he was getting tired.
"You seem slightly flushed, Mrs Butler", he drawled. "I hope taking care of me wasn't too draining for your constitution." Of course, he had noticed.
Scarlett looked down, and then, raising her head, gave him a strange, unguarded look. "I am tired. I was sick with worry and I couldn't sleep. I think I slept about four hours in the last three days. " The weariness showed in her face and the shadows under her eyes but the complete absence of guile or pretence gave her face the almost inhuman clarity of an Italian Madonna. The adrenaline pumping through her body and keeping her upright while she feared for his life now deserted her, leaving her feeling more exhausted than she ever had in her life. She needed to leave.
She gathered the rest of the soup and the spoon on her tray, smiled absently at Rhett and turned to go. "We should probably both get some rest".
"Scarlett".
She turned back but didn't look at him. She had reached the limit of her endurance and just wanted to get away.
"Thank you."