Ch. 19 Decisions

"This can't be normal. I can't do this. There has to be something to make this stop," Savannah groaned, jamming the heels of her hands into her temples. It was another one of the "migraines" Dani talked about. But Savannah was in so much pain, she couldn't focus or walk straight. Eliot tried to overlook it with the "not a normal case" argument, but it was getting hard to watch.

Finally, he dialed the phone. Skipping the pleasantries, when Dani answered, he said, "Is there anything that will work as a painkiller for this?"

"The migraines?"

He shook his head even though she couldn't see him. "These are not what I'd call migraines."

Dani cussed and he heard the clicking of a keyboard. "Okay, try a quarter dose of the sedative and a half dose of stabilizer. It shouldn't put her to sleep, just, you know, relax her muscles enough to numb the pain."

"Okay, thanks."

Eliot hung up and tried to remember where he put the case. Next to the dresser. He brought it downstairs and had Savannah lean back in the recliner so he could administer the injections. "It might take a few minutes," he told her. She nodded with pain still twisting her face. It took almost fifteen minutes for her breathing to steady. "How do you feel?"

"Heavy, better."

"You're nowhere near heavy," he joked.

"I'll get there." She reached for him, and he gave her his hand.

"Good."

Savannah opened the front door aglow with a sheen sweat. Eliot heard the door and went to greet her. He tried not to stare at her in her sports bra and tights, not too covered with an open denim jacket he thought she may have stolen from him, her body leaning with the weight of her duffel bag. "How'd the stress test go?"

She bounced with glee. "Great! I'm fully recovered! Look!" She shifted the jacket to bare her side. "You can barely see the scar anymore."

She was right. The gnarled starburst that once covered her side from her ribs to her hip was now so faint and shrunken that you had to look for it to see it. "That's some cocktail," he murmured.

"Now, grab whatever you need to go to the spring...for the weekend. Right now."

"What? The weekend? Now?"

She nodded vigorously. "You said when I was recovered from being blown up, we'd go to the spring. I recovered from that. I recovered from finishing. We're going to the spring."

"The whole weekend?" It wasn't a complaint. He just wanted to make sure.

"Hopefully. Eliot, please. Hurry." She put her hand on his bicep and gave him a push.

She didn't sit down the entire time she and Eliot packed the truck. Even the brief moments when she was standing still, she was bouncing on her toes. They stopped by the store to grab snacks for the weekend, and she purchased a questionable amount of alcohol.

"Can you sit still?!" he demanded as she squirmed restlessly in the passenger's seat on the way to the precious spring.

"No!" she giggled.

He'd barely parked when she jumped out of the truck to find cover and change. She returned in a full body wet suit. "I didn't think the cold water would bother you that much," he mused.

"I'm not much for showing a lot of skin." He shot her a look. "Don't bring up the night club. It was night and there was a lot of tequila involved."

"You showed up to the door in a sports bra and tights."

"I had a jacket. And it was for the monitors during the stress test."

He smirked and cocked an eyebrow. "You know, it'll be dark in a few hours. And you bought a lot of tequila-like drinks." Her eyes narrowed. She began a running start. He put his hands up and braced himself. "I was kidding! I was kidding!" And even underweight, she hit him like an elephant on steroids, and the two of them went hurling towards the water. They pulled each other to waist-deep water to lessen the chance of drowning as the wrestling commenced. She was definitely stronger than before. They'd always held back on each other, but it looked like that would stop in the near future. Well, she'd probably always hold back on him. If her strength was anything like he experienced with the few times he crossed a line with Dani, she could snap his neck with little effort. But he avoided thinking those thoughts. And he could never stop holding back on her. He'd seen what happened when he lost control, and even if he couldn't hurt her, he couldn't let her see that.

She took the advantage when she tackled him and kept it as they wrestled. Eventually, she had him pinned against a rock, with his chest and head above water.

"I was kidding," he repeated.

"I know," she said gently with a calm smile. There was a tense pause. Her lips pressed against his with heat. For once, a woman was kissing and he hesitated before kissing her back. Just as he started to pull her closer, her lips pulled away. He stared at her with the question in his eyes.

"I want this," she said.

"What?"

"I want this. You. Me. When we share a bed, it'll mean more than security. That I care about you, and you care about me. Differently than how you care about Hardison and Parker. More."

"You mean a relationship? You wanna date? Me?" Even as he said the words, he couldn't believe them.

"Yeah. I decided. I'm ready." Her eyes were glassy, like she was waiting for rejection.

"Would you have decided this even if I had you pinned?"

She rolled her eyes and dropped him. He got his feet underneath him before his head went under water. "Yeah. I decided long before I pinned your ass." She splashed him.