AN: Taking the time to clean up most of the errors I see, so this is a revision of chapter seven. Also cleaning up some of the sentence structure. Still isn't perfect, but hopefully better than before. And maybe even added things, and even subtracted some things… Please enjoy.
The metal was cold, and the fitting was ill. It was rubbing against his already too tender skin. As soon as it was on, he wanted it off. He still had the ghost feeling of having the leg. When he looked down and wanted to wiggle his toes there were no toes to wiggle. He could still feel them, though they were gone. It was something he still had not grown accustomed to.
As he stared down at his prosthetic leg, he felt very little other than the overwhelming sense of disapproval. He was sure that this wouldn't be so hard to accept, but it was. His brows furrowed together and he looked up at the doctor. He bit back the demand to remove the prosthesis when he realized there was more to this leg than an ill fitting metal contraption that strapped to his thigh. There was a leather strap that would have to be worn around his waist at all times to keep it held in place. They hadn't even strapped the leather straps up his thigh, however he knew that is was going to pull at his skin and rub him raw. He sighed and looked over to the door to see if Liez had entered the room yet. She still had not made it this morning to see him. She was packing her things to move into a hotel near the base since she was no longer permitted to stay in her old room.
His hands trembled against his will, bring his mind back to the sharp agony he was feeling. Pain was something he was accustomed to, however it did not mean that he did not experience it all the same. It would be time for his next round of pain medication soon. He wished they would have waited to do the fitting after he received the next dose. Sweat trickled down his back as he tried to self soothe.
He looked to the door again. She still hadn't made it. He did not worry about whether she were coming or not. He was worried about if she would approve of the metal death trap now fitted to him, or if she would tell him to take the older wooden leg that sat on the table near him. The doctor said the metal one was more stable, and would more than likely provide more overall comfort. What they seemed to fail to understand that his skin was always so tender and that just may never go away. Though he wished it would because sometimes just the weight of his sheet was too much for him to bare. So for him to become used to the feeling of the cold unforgiving metal could take years. He might have been healing and doing very well according to the doctor, but he still had so far to go. He hadn't tried on the wooden one yet, but he feared for the same results as the metal one.
Donny wanted Liez there so he could speak to her, ask her opinion. He already knew her answer though: Take which one feels better. He wouldn't know which one really felt better until he walked in both of them. He looked up at the doctor and told him just that. He felt good knowing that he thought of that all by himself.
The doctor concurred with that idea and scribbled into Donny's chart that he needed to start physical therapy with both prosthetic legs. The doctor then looked over Donny's scars. Some skin still needed the debridement treatment, and would need it for weeks into the future to promote the growth of healthier tissue. He was happy to see some pink skin among the waxen pale scarring. It meant that blood flow was getting into the flesh and healing it. It looked a lot better since he had first arrived in the hospital, but he was nowhere near being fully healed yet. And fully healed would still be a hard life for him, a realization he made a while ago.
He wondered if it would have just been better to die in the fire, the explosion, or anything that he had gotten himself into while in Europe. It wasn't like when he wrapped the dynamite around his leg he had been reserved to live. He knew what he had been doing and he knew death would make him a martyr for the cause. He had felt peace with his decision to die for the good fight. He had lived though. Living was tougher than it had ever been before. Nothing was easy though, and he wasn't a quitter. It also helped that he felt that he had to now not only live for himself, but also for Liez. He had to start thinking of the both of them from now on because he was not in this life alone anymore.
A smile graced his lips as they took the leg off, they said it would be another week before they would actually try to get him up on the legs. He was not sure exactly why that was, except for maybe because they wanted his skin to be a week's less sensitive. He thought it was a good plan for he wasn't entirely sure he was ready. He had to prepare himself mentally for having to wear a false leg the rest of his life. It was better than being bound to a wheelchair he supposed, but it was a lot of work in the future that he wasn't sure he was strong enough to endure. He knew if he shared this with Liez she would berate him. He had been strong enough to endure until now. He agreed and buried his fears. He could do this for the both of them.
His mind then drifted to what others say about him. Would little children run in fear of him? Well yes, but only if he were walking around in his underwear so they could see the dreaded one legged Donny monster. He couldn't help but laugh at himself at that thought. He got a look from both the doctor and the nurse. He waved away their curiosity.
He laid back and allowed the nurse to start scrapping away the dead flesh after the doctor had exited the room. He found himself lost in his thoughts about him chasing neighborhood children around in his underwear. A crime he was sure they would put him away for the rest of his life. He started to doze as he tried to turn his mind to how his life with Liez would be. His lids growing heavier by the second.
Liez had told him that she was born and raised in the countryside of Germany. She had never been to a city bigger than Paris. Which she hadn't had the time to see the city because she had been working at the base. The base was located on the outskirts of the city anyways. How would Liez, his German country woman, fair in Boston? He hadn't even thought about such a thing until then.
It would be a huge difference for her. He and his family lived in a sizeable townhouse, and it was right next to his neighbors. He wasn't sure how close she had lived next to people before living on the base. He assumed it wasn't as close as it was in the city. He wondered what it would be like to live in the countryside. What if they got to Boston and she hated it? Could he move to somewhere she would feel more comfortable?
He sighed and laid his hands on his chest before he shivered slightly. It was colder in the room than it normally was. He was sure that since it was early September that France was starting to turn chill. It always got so cold in Boston, he wondered if Germany got as temperate as Boston. Hopefully she would be used to such conditions. She was going to have a lot to adjust to, being his wife, living with his family, and getting used to the city life in general. He hoped she was already adjusted to the cold, because he didn't want to add to the list of life changing events she was going to have to face.
Where was Liez? She was later than usual as was. He was beginning to worry about her. He closed his eyes, trying to push his worries away by trying to picture them after the wedding. It was the only coping mechanism he had, for he couldn't do anything from the hospital. So how would married life be? He could only think that it would be awkward at first. He would want to consummate the marriage. He imagined that she wouldn't be ready for such a thing. He gulped down some saliva as he thought of her creamy skin against his scarred skin. No, she wouldn't want that yet. No woman would, no matter how gentle, and great Liez was, she wouldn't want him yet.
He reached down and fingered his upper thigh on his good leg. That is where the scarring started on the least effected side. It was rough and dry. What woman would want to feel this against their heavenly soft skin? Liez was in for a hard life with him. It was no sudden realization. After she had left the hospital the day she said yes and he had stayed up all night, he had thought about it then. He would keep thinking about it too. It caused him a lot of internal conflict. He fought with himself for days on if he should just rescind his proposal because the life he had asked her to commit herself to was a bad life to live.
Yesterday he wanted to say something to her so badly about it, it had been the closest he had been to speaking his mind. He wanted to tell her to just walk away, no matter how happy he was with her, he wanted her to be happy. Yet when he opened his mouth to say something she had reached out and played with his hair, and looked down at him so tenderly. He knew then that she was truly happy with their arrangement. So even if it was going to be a hard life, which was sure to be filled with temper tantrums, tears, and pain, she was happy by his side. It warmed him down to his toes at such a thought, even the toes that didn't exist anymore.
"You have been smiling a lot more Mr. Donowitz," stated the nurse in perfect English. There were only a few nurses he had encountered here with perfect English. He nodded at her.
"I am getting married that is why," he said with a huge smile upon his face. Conflicted or not, he was happy regardless.
"Let me guess, to Ms. Hartwin," she said with a soft smile upon her hard face. She was an older nurse, and she was as gentle with that scalpel as she could be. For that fact alone he appreciated her. Liez had requested her to be his nurse from now on and he was nothing short of thankful for that.
"Yes," he said as he ran a hand nervously though his hair.
This was the first person he had spoken to about getting married to Liez. It made him giddy and terrified all at the same time. He hadn't even written his parents about it, which he was supposed to do today when Liez got there. He had spoken about Liez to his parents in his letters. 'The beautiful nurse that puts up with my shit' is what he had called her. Then she turned into 'the beautiful nurse that actually knows how to straighten me up with one glance'. His father had called her a keeper in one letter for having such abilities. It was about time that he called her 'the beautiful nurse who is soon to be my wife'. His father should be proud about it. His mother and sister would be wary because they haven't had the pleasure of meeting her yet.
"You are a lucky man, she is a good girl. Strong, patient, and loving. She has been nothing short of a great nurse here, no matter the way the other staff have treated her." Explained the nurse to him. That peaked his interest, how did they treat his future wife here? He figured it couldn't be the best due to the fact they had asked her to leave.
"What have they done to her?" he asked as he sat up in bed so he could listen more intently to her. It also helped him from falling asleep while she spoke. Which he was on the verge of doing.
"Terrible things to be honest Mr. Donowitz. At first they refused to serve her meals here so she had to make time to go off base and be back on times for her shifts. Eventually they eased up on this, but she still had the problem of people skipping her in line at the mess. Sad really that she allowed it. I had to hand it to her though, she was only late one time, and she took the punishment with her head held high. A straight sixteen hour shift with only one break. For her first week here I was actually assigned to double check on all her patients behind her to make sure she wasn't trying to kill any of them. Has she told you not one patient has died in her care? She had a lot to prove to these people and it was not until you became a patient here that she let her guard down. Oh, and one of the younger nurses actually put Nazi flag in her locker one day while she was getting off her first shift with you. I think you would have been proud of her, she just tossed it in the trash as if it weren't offensive that they could be so cruel to her.
"Though, I heard her crying in her room that night; my room is next to hers, poor thing was so miserable. She cried all night, which kept me up all night, but I understood. However, her worst day was when they fired her. The doctor, roughly if I may add, pulled her aside and told her he wanted her off base. He said that she was failing at her job, and he was sure that you were going to die for her insolence. It didn't matter that she had kept you alive that long, and your healing process was going wonderfully. She just started liking you too much I guess, and it interfered with her work with you. The doctor told her that she was going to kill you from her stupidity, but really you were getting better, until you fell out of the bed. I am sure that was your own fault though Mr. Donowitz, not waiting for assistance when you had to go relieve yourself."
She never looking up from her work as she spoke. She just kept dutifully scraping the flesh.
The nurse was wrong about the day he fell out of bed, but that didn't matter. What mattered was Liez had endured a lot with her head held high. He wondered if she would ever tell him these things. She tried to stay so tough around him, she was a lot like him he guessed. Or maybe she didn't want to burden him with her problems when he had so many of his own. He made a plan to ask her about them though. He wanted her to know it was okay to burden him, to cry on his shoulder. She needn't always be the tough one, sometimes he needed and wanted to pick up the slack for her.
"Thank you for telling me. I don't think she would have." Donny said sadly as he glanced towards the window.
"You are right Mr. Donowitz, she probably wouldn't have. She is a good girl, just closed off. If I were her I would have tracked down the woman who put that flag in my locker and let her have it. I would have also told that doctor where he could shove it too. But Liez is the bigger person for not doing those things. She has a good heart, so don't you break it." She finally looked up into his dark eyes to emphasize her point to him.
"I won't," he said as he nodded his head to her to emphasize his point. He didn't plan on breaking Liez's heart.
The nurse returned to her work, and the room returned to silence. He felt like he had just spoken to Liez's mother. He knew he would never get to know the pleasure of what her family was like. She had told him once that her brother had been a good person before the war. He wondered if the war hadn't happened, would he have befriended her brother as easily as he had befriended her. He liked to think he would have. He wanted to let her brother's memory be a fond one. Not the one she would have to bear everyday knowing he had been killed because of her. Donny wanted her not to think of the bad times from the war. He only wanted her to think of the good times with her brother before the war such as playing outside with their dog Merlin before they both tired of chasing the dog around the yard. She had such a big smile on her face when she had relayed that memory with him. He always wanted that for her.
He started to busy himself with watching the nurse as he waited. It must be a hard job to be sitting hunched over like that for long periods of time, and scraping away dead flesh with that much intense concentration. She had a steadier hand than Liez. He wondered if it was because she was more experienced because of her age. He then wondered if it was hard to be a nurse. Much harder than having to beat people to death with a bat, he thought. Much harder than cutting hair as well he guessed.
She took her time, she was in no hurry with her scalpel. She worked at snail's pace, but he knew that there was no other proper way to do such a thing. He watched intently as he wondered if he would have been able to do such a thing. Not at all, he came to that conclusion quickly. He only had a steady enough hand to cut hair, and that was it, which he wasn't really even that good at hair cutting to be honest. He had only gotten into it because he wanted to please his father. Nothing had pleased Donny more before the explosion than the day he got his draft papers though.
He had wanted to join the military, he just didn't want to do so and let his father down with the barber shop. So when he was drafted, nothing had made him happier. Well the day Liez had said yes to him made him happier, he thought fondly. He felt like such a sap, but it was the truth.
Then finally she walked into his room, holding a bag that smelled a lot like ribs. He had a keen nose for ribs, and the way his mouth watered made him sure that was what waited inside that bag for him.
"I thought you would like some different food other than, and I quote "the garbage they serve here". So I brought you ribs and your favorite green beans." She wore a snide smile.
"But I hate green beans," he teased, he really didn't mind them, though he didn't prefer them.
"I know you don't like them, but you will eat them. In your mother's last letter she said you better be eating your green beans, so I am going to make sure you eat them." She said with a laugh as she fixed his plate up for him after setting the containers out of the bag. All this time he had been worried about what might have happened to her, and she had been off getting him a better meal than disgusting hospital food. She really was an angel in his eyes.
He ate and with a full mouth he asked, "Did you also bring paper so I can write my parents?"
"I sure did," she said as she looked over and finally spotted the prosthetic legs laid out. She gasped happily at seeing both the newer model leg, and the older wooden one.
"I was not entirely sure which one I should pick, so I figured that I should try both out and see which one was more comfortable," he clarified as to why there were two legs.
She nodded happily and fingered the rough metal of the newer model. She made a face. She was only used to working with patients with the wooden one so the new metal one was a new technology to her. She was not sure if she liked the crude craft of the leg. Yet, the wooden one was crude as well, but she knew the wooden one. She had seen how people grew accustomed to it.
He ate every bite that she had put on his plate, and he ate it with such vigor that he was sure that he disgusted her. It only made her laugh though and wipe the corner of his lips that she was falling in love with after she had turned back to him. In a matter of minutes, he was finished with the delightful meal she had brought him. She looked over her shoulder and saw the nurse about to start massaging the lotion into his scarred skin, and Liez stopped her.
"I will do it, take a break, you have been a huge help. I can rewrap him as well." Liez gave her smile to make sure the woman knew she really wanted to do this for Donny.
"You don't need to use gloves if you do not wish, he isn't at risk of infection until you get to the skin I just peeled, there you need gloves," said the nurse as she turned her job over to Liez after pointing to the freshly scrapped skin. Liez thanked her and sat down at the end of the bed, and took up the lotion. Normally this wouldn't happen, but the nurse knew that Liez was capable of doing this work.
He stared at her almost astounded. This would be her fist time touching his scarred skin with no gloves. This touch from her would be personal, and that scared him senseless. He almost told her he didn't want her to do this, but she looked so serene as she pumped lotion into her hands. She rubbed her hands together so the lotion would get into her skin. She pumped more lotion into her hands for his skin. She didn't want her hands soaking up all the moisture that he needed.
She started massaging his upper thigh of his leg that had been amputated. His newly growing nerves which were always on fire, screamed at him. He flinched under touch, wishing that he could actually enjoy this. After a few minutes his nerves shut down and he became numb to her touch. He pretended then what it would feel like, her soft fingertips massaging blood flow to his thigh. He snorted as he tried not to think of her hands further up….
She glanced up at him and caught that look on his face. Her heart immediately fluttered and her stomach did a big flip. Her breath caught in her throat as well. She had never seen that look on his face. It utterly made her desire him. She wondered what he would think if he knew that the look on his face made her want him to love her. This was the first moment she had ever wanted him to love her so entirely. She had grown used to the weak kneed feeling she got when she was around him. She was not used to this new this. She wanted him to consume her soul.
She felt a warmth that started in the center of her stomach spread throughout her stomach, then down into hips, then to her nether region, and to her legs. She wanted so desperately then to kiss him with such abandonment. She wanted him to know that she wanted him to be hers. Yet she didn't say anything, she broke eye contact and continued to massage his leg. His health was priority over her desire at the moment. One day…. She made herself stop thinking then. She focused on how the waxen flesh beneath her fingers needed to heal. The skin was grotesque and felt rough. That didn't bother her in the least. They, the scars, were apart of him.
"So tell me Liez, I mean since we never spoke about it, are you upset that they asked you to leave the hospital?" He asked right before he flinched when she moved down to skin that was not numb from her touch yet. She shrugged and was quite a few moments.
She was not sure how to answer him. She had mixed feelings over the entire ordeal. She sighed and glanced up at him, to judge what her answer should be. She saw in his face he wanted her real answer, he wanted to know how she really felt. It touched her to know he really wanted to know about such a thing.
"It hurts. I was nothing but attentive to my patients, and I cared for everyone as if my life depended on it. Then I became close to you and it cost me my job. While it hurts, it was for the best. I was unhappy. But now I am happy, and I don't have to worry about how they undermined the care I provided to my patients, or… Or having to worry about someone putting a Nazi flag in my locker." Tears came to her eyes as she spoke. Hearing it from her mouth angered him more than it did from when the nurse had told him.
"Honey, come here," he demanded. She stopped what she was doing so he could comfort her. She didn't even protest. She needed him to soothe her. She wiped her hands off and then came to sit closer to him on the bed. He cleaned up her tears away with his thumbs. He then leaned forward and kissed her sweetly. It only made her cry all the more, but because it had been a long time since she had felt this safe. She leaned forward and rested her forehead on his chest and cried.
As she cried he rubbed circles on her back. It made him feel so strong that he was able to do this for her. He kissed the top of her head and allowed her to finish crying into him.