(Thanks to everyone who has been patient! This part of the story that follows has been in my files for awhile...just too damned lazy to get it set up for publishing. You might want to go back and review from the beginning. I've added some info on the disclaimer and changed a few things around in some of the previous chapters. More corrections of the timelines and so forth. Nothing too major. Enjoy! Keep the reviews and words of encouragment coming)

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The next time she woke, she wasn't as violent. She was alone in the room and the darkness of the night sky dulled the colors in the room. A clock on the wall claimed that it was four in the morning. She took a slow assessment of her situation. The first thing she wanted was a drink of water. She actually wanted quite a bit of water. Her mouth was still terribly dry and felt like it'd been rubbed with a scouring pad. She looked around for some way to call the nurse but found none right away.

She saw someone pass by the door and she called out, but it came out more of a hoarse whisper. She groaned a little as she felt her body suddenly register to her brain and she felt every injury she had received. She let out another groan of pain, her good hand gripping the railing on the bed. Finally, a nurse came in to investigate after hearing the groans and the heart monitor speed up.

She blinked at seeing the woman in the bed awake and then moved over to her quickly. "Miss Atheron, relax. The more you tense, the more your muscles tighten and the more it'll hurt. I'll get you a bit of pain killer."

Crane managed to touch her before she turned to leave, "Only a little, not a full dose. Need to avoid ...the painkillers. Don't want them. Need water…" she said, half in a croaked whisper, half in a groan.

The nurse blinked at her. She was an older nurse and she knew this kind. "All right. Let me get you a small dose of painkiller to get you over the hump here and I'll get you some water. Until then, try to relax." She was quickly out of the room and gone.

Crane took slow deep breaths, trying to remember all the techniques she'd learned when she was recovering almost six years ago. She worked to slowly get her body to relax and adjust to the pain. The nurse came in a few minutes later with a large mug of water with a lid and a flex straw out of the top. She gave it immediately to Crane and then pulled a syringe with a small dose of pain killers in it and injected it into the IV bag. Instead of giving her the full dose right into her blood stream, she let the saline solution dilute it and give it to her in small amounts.

Crane was already sucking down the water that was just slightly cold. Nothing in her life had felt so good in her mouth as the water did at the moment. She let out a little groan of relief. The nurse looked at her and chuckled. "Dry like a desert aren't you…they didn't even give you water when they took that tube out." While Crane slowed her drinking down, the nurse busied herself with finding and relocating the call button and the remote for the TV.

Finally Crane put the empty mug of water on the table. She watched the nurse as she recorded down some numbers off the monitors. Finally the nurse turned and looked at her. "You doing ok hon?"

Crane shrugged then winced due to disturbing her left shoulder. "What was the extent of my injuries?" she asked.

The nurse looked her over then gave a slight nod as if making a decision about something. "Normally you'd have to wait for the doctor to tell you but I'll let you know if you promise not to let on that I told you, ok?"

Crane nodded and the nurse smiled. "First I want to tell you that you are the luckiest person I've ever met. Now, the reason I say that is the shot you took to your left shoulder missed a major artery by millimeters. I heard them theorize he didn't want to kill you so he didn't go for a heart shot. The tumble down the hill that broke your leg left you pretty bruised up from top to bottom but nothing worse than the leg. But the bone was broke in three places and when that man shot you in the knee, he actually shot the bone that was already broken and missed the socket of the lower leg bone. They replaced the whole thing with a surgical steel bone from your hip to your knee. It was the easiest and the main thing that would get you on your feet sooner."

The nurse watched her carefully, noting she was slowly going over these things in her head. When Crane nodded, she continued, "You took a shot to the hand that passed through to lodge in your leg…the same leg that was already injured. The bullet was lodged in the muscle and they removed it when it they did surgery on your leg. It took them one surgery to take care of things that could have caused multiple surgeries if they had been in different areas or the bullet in the knee just an inch farther down. Your hand though is going to take some work. Worst case is that you'll loose partial movement of two of your fingers." She stated with a gentle smile.

Crane thought this all over then asked, "How long have I been here?" She had no sense of time right now.

The nurse looked down at her chart, "Says here you were admitted just over four weeks ago. You've been kept in an induced coma until two days ago when they took you off the meds. They were hoping you'd come up out of it sooner than you did. Had them a little worried."

Crane looked at her for a moment. "Any idea of how long I'll be in here before I'm let out?" she asked.

The nurse shook her head, "No. You'll have to ask the doctor that. Just be sure to ask how bad the injuries were and get it all repeated to you. I'd prefer to keep working here." She said.

Crane nodded and held out her good hand, "I promise. Please call me Crane or what the Rangers call me, Gunny."

The nurse took the offered hand carefully but gave it a gentle squeeze. "All right Gunny. Now, I can get you a pudding cup or put in an 'order' for breakfast. They won't start delivering yet till 6am."

Crane raised an eyebrow, "How about both? Maybe help me sit up and get me something to read? I'm not much into TV unless it's to get the weather." She said with a grin.

The nurse chuckled and patted her hand, "Not a problem." The nurse turned and headed out of the room. She came back a few minutes later with a pudding cup and a refill on the water mug. Within a few minutes, she had Cranes bed raised just enough to make her comfortable but not put any strain on her injuries. She handed Crane that days newspaper that must have been delivered already with a wink and then left Crane to her own wiles as she did her rounds.