Author's Note: All the usual disclaimers apply -- not my universe, characters or canon story line, but I am ever so grateful for them. I'm just borrowing Peter and Assumpta, Michael and the other pub-rats to give them a taste of happiness not allowed them on the telly.
Sending a special thank you and nod to MONTY PYTHON and THE HOLY GRAIL in this chapter -- see if you can find the Easter Egg, which of course belongs to that universe.
Special note: I am not a doctor, nor do I play one on TV. Please suspend your disbelief and read the first aid parts with a grain of salt. They were written to move the story along, not as advice to any of y'all on how to care for cuts or scraps. LOL
Chapter 2 Need A Little Help
Father Peter set the black phone's receiver back onto its cradle and swore an oath more fitting for a footballer than a Catholic priest. Pressing the dirty work cloth to the gash, his mind raced over his options for fixing up the open wound on his right palm. The knuckles on his left hand were scraped and oozing blood, too, but he wasn't worried about them. Standing, he found his knees were a little weak as he started toward St. Joseph's door and down the hill to Fitzgerald's.
Torrential rain pelted Peter who was a right mess by the time Assumpta opened the door he had been pounding on with the flat of his left forearm. "We're closed, I told y—" the publican stopped mid-sentence when she saw Peter cradling his blood soaked hand. "Jesus, Mary and Joseph, what happened to you?!" Assumpta grabbed the priest and pulled him into the pub.
Closed between the lunch and dinner shifts, the dimly lit bar was empty but Assumpta pulled Peter past the vacant barstools and tables so she could push him onto the settee in front of the fireplace's glowing embers. Noticing Peter was shaking from either shock or cold, Assumpta pulled a small blanket over his shoulders and threw two logs on the fire.
"Peter, what happened? Let me see!"
Peter held his hands out to her, moving aside his own left hand so she could unwrap the bloody gash on his right palm. "I asked Liam and Donal to fix the broken window at the beginning of the week but they only got as far as setting up the ladder. It's been there for days and I needed the window fixed before Sunday morning mass tomorrow."
"Ah, so you thought you'd do the job yourself, did ya?" Shaking her head and clicking her tongue, Assumpta looked at his injury and then quickly covered it again. "Oh, Peter, this probably needs stitches! Let's give Michael a call."
"I already have. He's up with one of the mountainy men's wives doing a home delivery. Can you plaster it up for me enough so it can wait until Michael is back in BallyK?"
"Yeah, or I can take you to the hospital in Cildargen …"
"Please, no. Let's just see if we can get the bleeding to stop and clean it up here. The last time I was at the hospital, two of the elderly nuns serving as nurses there made everyone genuflect every time they entered a room I was in as if I was the pope incarnate! I don't think I am up to dealing with that today."
Assumpta let out a loud snort of laughter before she could stop herself as she pictured Peter and the nuns. "OK, but we'll leave a message for Michael to head straight here on his way back into to town and you can stay here until he arrives. I'll make that call then grab my first aid kit. I can fix you up while you tell me how you managed to injure yourself doing a job you originally assigned to the town's two least competent handymen."
Chuckling at Assumpta's dig, the curate explained, "I didn't realize one leg of the ladder was on the carpet and when I started using the putty knife to chip away the caulk holding the broken glass into the frame, the ladder rocked. My left hand's knuckles holding the knife scraped along the window frame, and without thinking, I dropped my mallet and grabbed for purchase with my right hand. I guess I grabbed the broken glass and not the wood. Luckily, the ladder stopped rocking or I'd be in even worse shape."
Assumpta had gathered together a small basin of warm water, antiseptic wash and the first aid kit with its assortment of plasters, tapes and ointments. She lifted the dirty rag from his hand and immediately pressed it back as blood oozed from the cut. She grabbed a thick square of padded gauze to replace the rag and then pulled his fingers around it in a fist. "Hold your fist tight to keep the pressure on the cut, Peter. It will be okay." She tried to soothe him with her gentle tone. She then dipped his left hand into to water bath to cleanse the abrasions on his knuckles. After a final rinse with antiseptic, she patted his knuckles dry and sprayed them with a liquid bandage solution. "When that dries, your knuckles will heal up just fine in a day or two."
Peter's grip on the gauze in his right hand had assuaged the flow of blood from the wound so when Assumpta removed the gauze she could see the extent of his injury. It was a jagged cut, deep enough to cause her stomach to roll, and, without thinking, she sucked in her breath in sympathetic pain. "Oh, Dear God, please let me do this right and not make it worse." Peter mumbled an "Amen" causing Assumpta to roll her eyes and smirk. At the same time, she appreciated his simple faith in even her agnostic prayer.
The landlady brought a clean basin of warm water to the small table which she had placed close to Peter. She squirted some of the antiseptic directly into the water. "The rinse has something in it that dulls the pain but it still might sting."
Holding his large, trembling hand in both of hers, Assumpta placed his hand, palm up, in the basin. Using her thumbs, she massaged gentle circles around the cut. When the blood that had already dried was removed, and the edges of the cut were clean, Assumpta took a fresh gauze and dried his hand. Peter pulled air in across his teeth as blood began to flow again from the cut.
Again, Assumpta put pressure on the cut with a fresh padded gauze. She sat holding Peter's hand tightly until she was sure the bleeding had stopped. Then she removed the gauze and felt tears pricking the backs of her eyelids. When she lifted her gaze to Peter, his green eyes glistened but he smiled at her. "It's just a flesh wound!" He quipped.
Laughing in spite of herself, Assumpta began laying out first aid supplies. She splashed a little antiseptic on the cut, as Peter groaned and smacked the table with his good hand, just once but with enough English on it to make the water slosh onto the table and the rug below it. "Hey, there, you big baby. Mind the rug!" Assumpta reprimanded him.
Getting Peter to relax his hand enough so she could treat it was difficult. Assumpta held his hand palm up in her left hand and gently stroked his fingers and wrist until she felt him give in to her touch, releasing the taut muscles to her care. She found some antibiotic ointment and measured a small dollop onto the cut. Peter had been prepared for it to hurt but it soothed the injury instead. "This has a little topical lidocaine in it to numb the pain." Assumpta explained.
With a small square gauze dampened with rubbing alcohol, Assumpta cleaned and dried outside the cut. She had Peter flex his palm halfway so she could apply steri-strips to the wound. Then rolling gauze into a one inch cylinder shape, she placed it across his palm. "Hmm." She hummed to herself as she smiled and looked up into the only thing about Peter that was Irish — his green, green eyes.
Assumpta removed the cylinder of gauze from his hand and slowly lifted his palm to her lips. Starting on the center of his palm below the cut, Assumpta began to ever so lightly kiss his palm until her lips were directly on his injury. Placing a kiss there, she felt his other hand cup her cheek so she stayed as still as she could, not wanting to break contact. After a moment or two, Peter felt Assumpta turn ger face to look at him and he removed his hand from her cheek, only for her to catch it and cover the scraped knuckles with another series of small, gentle kisses. Without meaning to, Peter released a quiet moan; he smiled to himself when he looked up and saw her flushed face and the grin with a hint of mischief that had taken over her sweet, laughing mouth.
"Kisses to make it better." Assumpta whispered in a voice low and filled with … what? Peter wasn't sure what her husky declaration was filled with, but he forgot his injuries straight away.
Assumpta looked at the clock on the wall, and tskked at the time. Gently, but quickly, she replaced the cylinder of gauze across his palm, taping it in place. She pulled his fingers loosely across the cylinder of gauze, then used an ace bandage to hold his hand in a loose fist position. "You just sit here and I'll bring you a pint to replenish your blood loss."
For the remainder of the hour, Peter sat by the fire and watched Assumpta go about the business of readying the pub for the evening crowd. Every now and then, he may have absentmindedly placed the knuckles of his less injured hand against his lips, but if he did so, he was only vaguely aware of what he was doing. It was enough to just sit and watch the publican in her element, and remember her healing touch.
By the time Michael walked into the pub later that evening, Peter was holding court at the bar between Paidrag and Siobhan. The wounded priest was fairly well anesthetized through his parishioners' generosity and concern. In fact, between the bandaged hand and the tiny bit of blood splatter on his old grey jumper, Peter hadn't had to pay for a drink all night. Even Brian had bought him a shot of the good whiskey after sending Liam and Donal up to St. Joes to finally fix the broken window pane.
Michael insisted Peter eat a bowl of stew and drink a large glass of water before walking him home. On the way to the exit, Peter stopped abruptly to look back at Assumpta, " Assumpta, thank you for fixing my ouchies! You made them all better!" He slurred his gratitude in her general direction. Laughing uncontrollably, he told Michael he probably didn't even need him to look at his scrapes and cut. "Really, Michael, Assumpta fixed me right up just as good as my mum would have, better even, cause she's not my mum!" He laughed his way out the door and up the street. Assumpta slipped into the kitchen hoping no one noticed the blush in her cheeks or the grin she couldn't quite subdue.
Realizing Peter was in the "happy" stage of inebriation and in no danger of an alcohol-induced coma, Michael suggested to Peter that he get ready and into bed; the doc would examine and rebandage the injury and Peter could go right to sleep afterwards. He would leave a glass of water and two paracetamol tablets on his bedside table for the inevitable headache Peter would have in the morning.
Michael had to admit that Assumpta had done a decent job cleaning the cut and applying the steri-strips. "Stitches would be better but it looks like these steri-strips will hold it together as long as you keep the hand still. Let's straighten it out and clean it a bit. I'm giving you an antibiotic shot because of how deep the cut is. Any pain beyond a level four, come right to see me. We don't want you lose your hand due to an infection."
With that happy thought, Michael turned to head out of Peter's bedroom door and down the stairs. Peter called out to him before he could leave, "Quit worrying, Michael! Assumpta took good care of me. I am going to be just find, just finnuh. Imma be o.k.!" Peter giggled uncontrollably and gave a thumbs up with his relatively good hand.
"Really, Peter, just between the two of us, why are you so sure that horrible cut is going to heal 'just fine!' because of Assumpta's care — she didn't put any herbs or oils on it did she?" Michael decided he had better investigate further before leaving.
"Ahhh worried she'll take business from you, Doc?" Peter giggled. "Don't worry, I don't think she will. I don't think she kisses just anyone's ouchies, but she kissed mine. You know, a kiss to make it better!" He winked.
Michael grinned and headed out of the Peter's house and onto the street. "A kiss to make it better!" He chuckled to himself. "As sound a remedy as chicken soup, and twice the comfort. Probably just what the curate and the landlady needed after the shock of that cut!"
Both Peter and Assumpta slept well and deeply that night, dreaming not of their mums, but of each other and well-placed kisses that seem to always make it better.