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Chapter 26

AN: Thanks to my “medical consultant” Carrie for her advice. ;)

Claire awoke to the sound of someone saying her name. “Claire… Claire?” A masculine voice, soft and gentle… a finger on her cheek, equally soft and gentle… now a poke in the shoulder, not so soft and gentle. Then the voice again. “Claire?”

Her eyes flew open, and her head turned in the direction of the voice. There she found Nick, lying on his side, facing her, his mouthed curved into a sexy little smile as he watched her. She didn’t remember falling asleep in his bed, but she found that she enjoyed waking up there, even if she did have a slight headache. Seeing him first thing, bare-chested and tousle-headed, the sheet pulled up just to his waist, somehow made up for the hangover.

“Morning,” she whispered, her voice cracking.

“Morning,” he said back, his voice a low rumble. “How ya feelin’?”

“Little hungover,” she smiled, “but otherwise okay. Was I pretty drunk last night?” She supposed the alcohol had eventually caught up to her; she remembered punching Jamie’s friend in the bar and riding in the car with Laureen… but beyond that… eh. It was sort of a blur.

“Just a little,” he replied with a wink. He must have just woken up too; there was still sleep in the corners of his blue eyes, and his cheeks looked flushed and rosy. “Do you still feel up to taking me back to the hospital today?”

Oh yeah, it was Thursday, wasn’t it? She had the day off – good thing, because she was pretty sure she would have been late to work otherwise – and she had promised to bring him back to the ER for his follow-up appointment that morning.

She nodded. “Mm, yeah… what time do you wanna go?”

“Whenever you’re ready. I’d rather get it over with early,” he replied.

“Understandable. Okay, that sounds good. Just gotta… get… up…” She struggled to a sitting position, her head pounding as soon as it left the pillow. Ugh. “You got any Advil or Aleve or something around here?”

He smirked. “Sure. You sit tight; I’ll bring you some.” Sitting up himself, he patted her bare leg and swung his own over the side of the bed, stretching his arms above his head before he stood up.

When she saw him reach for his crutches, she said quickly, “No, wait, Nick, I’ll get it” and forced herself out of his bed. She wasn’t going to make him hobble all over the house to do something she was fully capable of doing herself. “Bathroom?” she asked, pointing.

“Yeah,” he smiled. “Middle shelf of the cabinet. Would you mind getting one of my pills too while you’re in there? They’re in the bottle on the counter.”

“Sure thing.” She found a bottle of Aleve and swallowed two of the tablets dry. Then she picked up the orange prescription bottle sitting on his counter. It was for the antibiotic he had been prescribed by the resident in the ER, and she checked the label, then shook one pill out into her hand. She brought it back into the bedroom for him and watched as he washed it down with a sip of water from the glass on his bedside table. “Is that stuff helping?” she asked.

He shrugged. Leaning forward, he pulled off his prosthetic sock and then peeled back the gauze bandage that covered the ulcer. He frowned, and so did Claire, when she got a good look at it.

“It doesn’t look much better, does it?” she observed, noticing how red it still was.

“Not really,” he mumbled and sighed, raking a hand through his hair.

“Well, it’s only been two days… maybe it just takes longer to show any improvement,” Claire said hopefully, not wanting him to get discouraged. “I guess we’ll find out more at your appointment.” He nodded wordlessly. She studied him for a moment, then perched on the edge of the bed beside him. “I know this sucks, Nick,” she murmured, sliding her arm around his waist. “No use pretending it doesn’t. But it’ll go away eventually, and then everything will get back to normal.”

He snorted. “Depends on your definition of ‘normal’.”

She chose to say nothing back to that. Instead, she just ran her hand up and down his bare back, wishing she knew how to cheer him up. She hated to see him be so down on himself. It happened less and less now, but there were still days when he got depressed, and there was not much she could say or do to change that. She told herself that just being there for him was a start, but sometimes she worried it was not enough. He had been scarred by what had happened to him in the past year or so, and she knew the scars went much deeper than his skin.

But scars on the outside faded with time, she thought, as her fingers brushed over the end of the long scar that wrapped around his left side. The ones on the inside would fade too. They already had, to an extent.

“You’re warm,” Claire commented, breaking the silence. Her hand had reached the back of his neck, and she could feel heat radiating from his skin there.

“I think maybe I’m running a fever again,” he muttered, and her hand immediately went around to his face, lightly touching his cheek, then pressing against his forehead. Feeling the warmth against her palm, she nodded.

“I think so too,” she said, pursing her lips as she studied him. “Maybe we should get ready and head to the hospital, huh?”

He nodded reluctantly, but made no move to get up. “You wanna shower first?” he asked.

“Why, do I smell?” she teased, elbowing him lightly. Heck, she probably did, like beer and stale cigarette smoke from being in the bars. The clothes she’d had on last night had to smell just lovely as well.

“Nah, I was just thinking it would save time if we showered together,” he replied, turning to her and waggling his eyebrows a little.

She grinned. Now there was her Nick. “Hey, good point,” she said. “We wouldn’t want to waste time, now would we?”

“Course not. You know how eager I am to get back to the ER.”

She just laughed.

They showered together and got dressed, him in a t-shirt and shorts, her in the t-shirt of his she’d worn to bed and a baggy pair of his sweatpants. They ate a quick breakfast, then left. On the way to the hospital (he let her drive the Jag), they stopped by Claire’s apartment so that she could change clothes and brush her teeth.

By ten-thirty, Claire was sitting in an exam room at the hospital, nearly identical to the one they’d been in on Monday, watching as Dr. Yoder examined Nick.

“You’re right,” the young physician was saying, “the antibiotic isn’t working as well as it should. You should have noticed a decrease in the redness and swelling, and instead, the red area seems to be even higher on your leg. That’s a sign that the infection is starting to spread.”

Claire drew in a breath and looked at Nick, who appeared more annoyed than anything else. She felt bad for him. He seemed to have horrible luck when it came to stuff like this. He’d done everything the doctor had instructed, and still the infection hadn’t gone away. Now it was spreading. That didn’t sound good, and she wondered if there was worry beneath his mask of annoyance. She was concerned and wanted to know what this resident planned to do for him now.

“I’d like to put you on a more powerful antibiotic,” Dr. Yoder went on, without either of them having to ask, “but it can only be given intravenously – through an IV – which means you will have to be admitted to the hospital.”

“What?!” Nick cried, his expression contorting to one of pure outrage. “You want me to stay in the hospital? For how long??”

“Just a few days, and then you can switch back to an oral antibiotic and continue the treatment on an outpatient basis.”

Nick sighed and looked down, covering his hand with his face briefly before looking over at Claire. She bit her lip and looked into his eyes, not saying anything. He shifted his gaze back to the doctor. “Can this wait till after the weekend?” he asked.

Dr. Yoder shook her head. “No,” she said, “that’s not a good idea.”

“But…” Nick sighed again, his frustration evident. “I can’t be in the hospital for the next few days; I have plans on Saturday, and-“

“Nick,” Claire cut in, hoping to calm him down, “don’t worry about Saturday, okay? We can talk later; we’ll figure something out.” Moving was the least of her concerns right now; if his infection was serious enough to land him in the hospital, that was what they needed to worry about.

Nick only glanced at her briefly and didn’t reply, focusing back on the doctor instead. “What happens if I don’t do the hospital/IV crap?” he asked, an ounce of hostility in his voice.

“The infection will continue to spread,” Dr. Yoder answered him forwardly. “Cellulitis can spread very rapidly, and once it gets below all the layers of skin, it can get into your bloodstream or lymph nodes and spread throughout your body. If it isn’t treated, it could become life-threatening.”

Her heart skipping a beat, Claire’s eyes immediately flew back to Nick as she waited anxiously to hear his reply. If he was going to be a fool and refuse- No, take that back – she wouldn’t let him be a fool and refuse. She was fully prepared to use whatever tactics she could think of to make sure he did what the doctor said. This was nothing to mess around with.

Luckily, Nick knew that. Apparently the word “life-threatening” had done the trick because, subdued, he nodded. “Fine,” he mumbled, hardly audible. “When do I have to check in?”

Claire practically sighed in relief, and when he looked over at her, she gave him a tiny smile and touched his arm. Thank you.

“The sooner, the better,” Dr. Yoder answered Nick’s question. “I can call upstairs and find a room for you now, and we’ll get you admitted and upstairs in the next hour or so.” Nick nodded again, silently agreeing. “Okay,” said the doctor. “Stay here, and I’ll make the arrangements. Someone will be back to check on you soon.”

As soon as she was gone, Nick turned to Claire. “I’m sorry,” he whispered, and the look in his eyes nearly broke her heart. He looked so sad, so guilty, as if he was purposely messing up their plans.

She shook her head. “There’s nothing to be sorry for,” she said soothingly, taking his hand and giving it a squeeze. “You can’t help this. If you have to stay in the hospital for a few days, then you just do. It’s not something either of us can change.”

He sighed. “But what about Saturday?” he asked.

“Well…” She paused, thinking. “My dad and Kyle are already planning to drive down, and so is Howie… they’ve already rented the moving van for the weekend… and my landlord’s counting on my apartment being vacant after Saturday, so… unless you want to be there to supervise, I say we go ahead with the move. Howie’ll be there, and he knows your house even better than I do, so he can help me decide where to put stuff and everything. What do you think?”

Nick nodded. “Okay. That works. I just wish I could help…”

“Don’t worry about it. Like I said before, I’ll have plenty of men helping me; it’ll go fine.” She offered him a reassuring smile. He didn’t smile back. Oh well. Had she been in his position, she supposed she wouldn’t have felt like smiling either.

Nick closed his eyes momentarily, looking weary and feverish. When he opened them, he did not look at her, but instead bowed his head, casting his eyes down. He stayed like that for a few moments, appearing deep in thought. Finally, after a spell, he spoke, his voice so low she had to lean closer to make out his words.

“Why does shit like this constantly happen to me? It’s like no matter what I do, I can’t get away from it. Maybe I never will. Maybe it’ll be this way for the rest of my life, one shitty thing after another, until I finally just die.”

His last words hit her like blows to the chest. She’d asked herself the same kind of questions, thought the same thoughts… Why? Why is this happening? Why me? When will it end? Will it ever end? But hearing him say them out loud now frightened her, and she squeezed his hand tightly, her fingernails digging into his skin. “Nick, don’t talk like that,” she pleaded, the words coming out more shrilly than she’d expected.

“I’m sorry,” he said hollowly, without looking at her.

“This isn’t the end of the world, you know,” she added, almost angry with him now. How dare he complain about this, when he’d made it through things that were so much worse? He should be counting his blessings, not his curses. He was lucky to be alive.

And yet, she was sure he didn’t feel too lucky sometimes. Neither did she. They’d both beaten the odds… but how could they call themselves lucky, with all that they’d had to face?

Just as quickly as it had come, her anger faded. How could she be mad at him for feeling like that, when she herself had felt the same way from time to time? It was only natural.

She tried again to talk to him. “Nick, I’m sorry. I know how you feel. This sucks; it really does. It’s a setback for sure… and there might be more setbacks later down the road. But you can’t dwell on them. You gotta just keep going and concentrating on the good stuff. Like the fact that when you get out of here in a few days, I’ll be all moved in, and we’ll be together.” She paused, then added, “Of course, after about a week, you’ll probably be ready to kick me out, but…”

She looked over, happy to see a smile tugging at the corner of his mouth. Finally, he looked back at her. “I’d never kick you out. You’re like the one thing in my life that doesn’t suck.”

“I’m not the only thing in your life that doesn’t suck, Nick. But even so, I guess I’ll take that as a compliment,” she said with a wry smile. But beyond the smile, she was worried. He usually kept so much inside… she wondered if he felt this way more often than he let on.

Maybe the scars hadn’t faded so much after all.

***