End of Innocence
Chapter 17
Cabin, Cimarron, late the same evening
Shaw sent Reese back to the couch once the first antibiotic had run in through the new IV. He'd leaned back on the arm, and Shaw grabbed his pantleg down by his foot to lift his leg up onto the couch – still too painful for him to lift that far on his own. She swung the leg to the middle and lowered it down to the cushion, then dragged a chair over next to him.
The new IV bag hung from the coat tree next to his head. And Shaw had taped loops of the tubing down on his arm, and then wound his whole forearm in roller bandage to keep him from pulling the IV out again.
They were starting to run low on certain supplies she'd stolen from that surgical center. And she wasn't planning a repeat visit there. They'd have to make do with what they had until they could get Reese over to oral meds. She'd be checking his temps through the next day, and if he hadn't spiked a fever, she'd switch him over. That'd make both their lives so much easier.
Shaw had him watch how she set up her sterile field on the kitchen table. Now, she was ready to work on the wound.
"Last chance, Reese. You can still pop that pill in your pocket," she said. He turned his head and looked at her.
"Has anyone ever told you that you need to work on your bedside manner, Doc?"
"Not and lived," she smirked.
"Just go ahead," he said, and turned back to stare at the ceiling.
"I'll take down the dressing first." She slipped her gloves on and then slid a finger under an edge of the gauze. Paper tape made it easier to lift than if she'd used silk tape to hold it in place. Shaw rolled it back and was careful not to yank the part around the wound itself, in case the dressing had stuck to it.
Once that was done, she used one of the forceps to lift an edge of the pad lying over the top of the packing. It, too, came up without any fuss. Reese still looked the same – alert, but not in any pain.
Now for the packing. This was a very narrow, long, long strip of medicated gauze, one layer thick. She saw the end of it sitting on top and lifted the end with the forceps. As it came up, she gathered the strip in her other hand. The wound had been slowly closing and was about a third smaller than when it'd started. So, each time the packing went in, the amount was less. Taking it out didn't hurt much until the last foot or so at the far end of the strip, where it tended to stick itself down to the inside of the wound.
Reese grimaced and squeezed a handful of the quilt underneath him. She held up for a moment to let him catch his breath.
"You okay?" she asked. He took a deeper breath and gave her a quick nod.
The rest of the strip had to get peeled off the sides and bottom of the crater in his side, half-a-golf-ball in size. Reese exhaled a long, shaky breath, and then it was over.
Shaw leaned in and inspected the whole inside. She pressed down gently around the edges. They were pink now, instead of the flaming red that first night. Definitely better. And no new goo showing up when she pressed. Also, better. It was healing.
"I'll give you a minute. I've gotta get rid of this stuff and get some new gloves."
Shaw stood up and walked the old packing to the trash and dumped it in. Her gloves were next, and then she went to the sink and washed up twice with soap and plenty of water. Dried her hands, and then returned to Reese.
"How's it going so far?" she asked. She didn't want to push him too hard. Counter-productive.
"I can handle it," he said.
"OK, class is starting again," she said. He turned his head to watch her. She grabbed the bottle with the packing strip inside and showed him the little tail of the strip that hung down outside the cover of the jar. Then she carefully backed the cover off and he saw the little tail bent over the lip of the jar, still sitting there.
"Dirty," she said, pointing to the bent end of the strip. "Clean," pointing to the part inside the jar.
"Use your pick-ups from the sterile kit to grab the strip way back here. Don't touch the jar on the way in or out." He watched her fish out the strip with a small plastic forceps, back an inch or two from the lip of the jar and lift it up. She cut the strip right next to the forceps with sterile scissors from the same kit and let the dirty end drop on the table. Then she slipped on a pair of sterile gloves for the rest.
"I'm feeding the strip out of my left hand, into my right, and into the wound. Watch how I do this, so I keep things as clean as I can." She reached into the jar with the plastic forceps again and lifted the end of the strip to her thumb and index fingers on the left, careful not to touch the sides of the jar with it. She gripped the jar with her palm and the other fingers of her left hand, and moved it close to the wound, on his side below his ribs.
With the plastic forceps she pulled the strip a little at a time through her fingers, tipping the jar so it fed the strip through the middle of the open top, without touching the sides. She aimed the forceps into the wound and let the end drop in. Each length of the strip that she pulled through her fingers, she layered in folds down inside the wound, filling up the entire space with packing.
Reese grimaced when she needed to press. The medicine on the strip burned some, too, when it touched against the raw parts inside. He exhaled in long hard breaths when he needed it. She held up for him to get through it.
Shaw noticed his hand gripping a handful of the quilt and his knuckles had gone white from squeezing. Tried to imagine Reese doing this by himself. Wasn't sure he'd get through it on his own.
"OK, last step," she said to bring his attention back to her. "I've still got the strip between my fingers over here. See?" He glanced over and nodded.
"I'm cutting the strip and laying the end down onto the top of the packing with this hand." She layered the end of the strip back and forth across the top of the wound, and then tapped the cut end down.
"Now, drape the other loose end over the lip of the jar and screw the lid down over the top of it, so you can find the end every time," she said. He watched her do it.
Seemed simple enough to her. Second nature after all this time. Maybe not so easy for Reese, though.
"Hope there's not gonna be a test. I didn't study," he said, half-smiling her way.
"Oh, there'll be a test all right – you're demonstrating the whole thing to me, tomorrow." He groaned.
"Let's get this buttoned up," she said, and reached back for the parts to the dressing. "Non-stick pad – but they stick anyway, so you'll put some of this ointment on it before you cover the top." She showed him how she dropped a bead of antibiotic ointment in the center of the pad and then closed the pad in her fingers like a folded piece of bread and rubbed the ointment around inside it. Then she opened it again and lowered it over the top of the packing.
"On top of that, a couple of layers of this sterile gauze. Dry. And paper tape, so it doesn't rip your skin off when you take the dressing off." Reese groaned, and Shaw looked up, shrugging.
"Bedside manner, I know." She dropped the gauze on and taped the edges down with the paper tape.
"Think ya got all that?" She backed away, and started gathering the debris she could put in the trash.
"Might need some coaching tomorrow," he said.
"How's it feel?"
"Sore. Think it's worse now than when it first happened." He shook his head like he didn't get why.
"You were running on adrenaline then. Good stuff when you need it," she said. "Now, it's just angry. All messed up inside, but it's coming around from what I see. That hole is getting smaller and smaller. You'll have a nasty scar there when it finally heals."
"To go with all the other ones," he said, glancing at her eyes. She nodded.
"You can take the pain pill before you go to sleep. Help you get through the night," she said, meeting his eyes.
"Maybe. I'll see if I need it."
"Tomorrow, I'll show you how to sterilize the instruments." She'd gathered up the few re-usable ones off the table and brought them over to the sink for a soak before she scrubbed them.
When she came back to sit down, Reese had her drink ready for her. The whiskey he'd poured into the heavy-bottomed glass was sitting on the arm of her chair. She nodded at it, then at him, and dropped down into the chair, lifting her feet onto an ottoman.
Shaw tipped the glass in his direction and took a sip. "I could get used to this."
"Doubt it," Reese said, and leaned back on the couch.
Library Office, Manhattan, past midnight
Root and Finch were still conversing at his desk as midnight passed. The eye over his laptop screen monitored the two of them. She reached out occasionally to Root, with a brief question and Root passed it along to Finch. They could tell how unsettled it made him.
"So, Harry, anything new about the gray-haired man who ended up with Arthur's code?"
"Not much, so far. Ex-MI-6, British national. He has some footprint with the Chinese, and seems to have a contact in our government here, too. I've warned Miss Shaw about the possibility of a test run of the software. We all need to be cautious for now. As you know, something like this would be highly sought-after by a number of serious players, Miss Groves. We need as much intel on this agent as we can get. What are his intentions with the code?"
"Sameen - have you spoken with her?"
"I did."
"Haven't seen her around lately."
"Seems to have been away. She's coming back, probably two or three more days."
"You don't know where she is, Harry?"
"I don't track our people, Miss Groves. Everyone deserves some privacy, don't you agree?"
"I'm just surprised, that's all. Kinda – nice. That's what I think." She turned her eyes onto Finch, and he felt her scanning over him. It made him shudder inside for a moment. As normal as Miss Groves might seem at times, he had to keep reminding himself that she was a sociopath, and capable of frightening levels of violence.
"So, Sameen is coming in, in a couple of days. What about the other one – have you heard from your Guard Dog?"
"Miss Groves," he warned.
Finch dropped his eyes down. He hadn't wanted her to see his real reaction. Instead, he withdrew into his own thoughts.
After some time, Finch realized he was still holding out hope that Mr. Reese would walk back through his door. Perhaps his friend just needed a little time on his own. They'd all been through so much, but especially Mr. Reese. Only natural that he'd need time to come to terms with things.
Difficult, though, that he hadn't heard from him in all this time since he'd left. Finch could only hope that he was safe somewhere, and his wounds were healing.
Unwanted, his thoughts turned to the scene at the house in New Rochelle.
Speaking of frightening levels of violence – what they'd witnessed there must have been unleashed from a place inside Mr. Reese that he hoped he'd never see, himself. Sometimes he wondered how he thought he could ever maintain control with these particular members on his Team.
Before Mr. Reese there'd been others he'd found unsuitable for various reasons.
But once Mr. Reese had arrived, his match of skills and attitude had seemed ideal for this kind of work. Finch found it painful that he'd been so unaware of the struggle inside Mr. Reese. He felt he'd let him down in all the most important ways.
"A penny for your thoughts?" she said, with that mischievous smile on her face.
Finch shook his head. He'd glanced first to Miss Groves, and then, curiously, to the eye above his laptop screen. A tête-à-tête with the Machine was definitely in order after this. He was beginning to feel like the two of them were ganging up on him, exchanging secret messages between them.
Finch had never felt this way before - even with Nathan, sharing so much of the design and the programming work at the outset. That felt more like a brotherly collaboration. Now, a flare of something akin to jealousy had reared inside.
Ridiculous, he thought.
Had he sensed, instead, a meddling – where Miss Groves had no business to be, perhaps?
These were complicated times.
More thought, and less accusation, seemed the better path for now.