Very, Very Carefully
Part 5
John approached the door to the hospital room just down the corridor from his own, and knocked before he could convince himself to wait for the next day. From inside, he heard a female voice call out for him to come in, so he swallowed down his nervousness and opened the door. He'd expected Steve to be alone, but there were two women in the room, both looking quizzically at him.
"Sorry, I didn't know you already had visitors, I'll come back another time," he said, starting to back away.
Steve's polite face transformed into one of sheer delight. "Andy! I'm so sorry – I didn't recognize you with your clothes on!"
"Oh ho ho!" the other girl exclaimed, and Steve blushed as she protested, "Sorry, I didn't mean that the way it sounded. Come in! Lucy, this is Andy, the man who rescued me. Andy, this is Lucy, my best friend here in Nigeria."
"Hello, Andy," Lucy said with a bright smile. John became aware that she was checking him out, her eyes taking in his hospital robe and pyjamas in a way that he would have found flattering before. Now, however, her gaze was making him acutely uncomfortable. Obviously, she didn't know what the rescue had involved, or she wouldn't be looking at him like that. Swallowing, he managed to croak, "Hi."
"Well, that's my cue to go, I think," Lucy said. "If you need anything else, Alex, just give me a call." Then she leaned down to whisper in Steve's ear, but John still heard her say, "He can rescue me anytime!"
Steve grimaced, but Lucy didn't see it, and went out grinning. Taking the opportunity to get a better look at Steve, John thought she looked almost normal, certainly much less frightened than the last time he'd seen her. She wasn't hunched over protectively, or hiding her face, and the only clue he had to what had happened was in the way her eyes kept flicking to the door. When it had shut, she looked directly at John.
"Come in and sit down – do you want a pillow to sit on?" She reached behind her to give him the one from the bed, but John refused and sat down on the nearby chair, calling on all his SAS training to keep from wincing. Too late, he remembered that Steve already knew how badly he'd been hurt, and that he didn't have to hide anything from her.
"I asked Lieutenant Thompson – oh, blast," Steve said, and John glanced up sharply. "What?"
"She told me your real name was John something, and now I've gone and introduced you as Andy," Steve admitted. "I'm so sorry – I keep thinking of you as Andy."
"I keep thinking of you as Steve," John said, and Steve smiled briefly. "I like it, especially when you say it. It makes me feel stronger and braver somehow."
There was a silence in which John contemplated whether being called Andy made him feel any different, but he couldn't really tell. He'd had lots of fake names on his various undercover missions, and one was pretty much the same as the other. After a moment, he gave up, shifted his weight from one buttock to the other, and said, "So, what were you talking to Layla about?"
"Oh – just if I could visit you," Steve said. "She thought maybe to-morrow – she wanted to check with you first."
"I didn't ask before I came, maybe I should have," John offered, but Steve shook her head. John noticed that she'd washed her hair and plaited it behind her back; it was lighter and thicker than he remembered.
"No, it's fine," she said. At the sound of footsteps outside, Steve stiffened visibly and watched the door warily, but when nobody came in, she relaxed and continued. "I just wanted to thank you for what you did – and don't you dare say you were just doing your job, because being gang-raped is not in anybody's job description."
John looked away, wondering how she could refer to it so casually, when it was still hard for him to say the actual word, let alone admit that it had happened to him. Fortunately, he hadn't had to; everybody had already known by the time he woke up from the sedative, and Layla was already making arrangements for him to see "a very good therapist" once he was back in England. Trying to shrug off the entire thing, he said, "Oh, I knew there was a good chance I'd be tortured before I went in."
"You knew you might get raped and you went in anyway?" Steve asked, and the note of astonished admiration in her voice made John feel suddenly sick. He didn't want to admit that he would have been tempted to go AWOL if he'd known what would happen, what it would be like.
"No, I never thought that," he protested. "But I've been tortured before, and I survived it. And I've been shot before, too, and that's practically in the job description."
Steve sighed a little. "I wish it weren't, but I have to admit, I'm glad you came for me. And even more glad that you didn't let them shoot my kneecap off. Words … they're just not enough, are they? All I can do is say thank you, I don't know how else I can prove how much I appreciate everything you did."
She looked down, plucking a little at the bedsheet. "To tell the truth, I feel guilty that you had to go through so much because of me …"
John didn't know what to say to that. Thankfully, Steve didn't give him the chance to even try to respond, simply went on. "But if you're ever in England and you ever need a nurse, or a friend, or just someone to talk to, you can call me. Anytime, night or day, I mean it."
"You're going back to England?" John asked, seizing the chance to change the subject.
"Yeah." Steve tried a little smile that soon faded. "Lieutenant Thompson's told me of a really good therapist, but she's located in London, and I really should stop in and visit my father for a week or two before I go off somewhere else."
Hearing a note of "onerous duty" in her voice, John asked, "Do you two get on?"
"He can be difficult, but I won't have any other place to stay, really, and then there's that nagging feeling of obligation that's been there ever since my mother died."
"How long ago?" John asked.
"Eleven years. Cancer." She shrugged. "Dad lives in Margate. I can go for long walks on the beach. Will you see your family?"
"My daughter, yeah," he said. He was just about to explain that his ex-wife had also died when they were interrupted by two quick footsteps and a sudden knock on the door. Steve gasped, startled, and John saw a flash of panic in her eyes before she forced herself to respond, "Come in!"
It was Layla. "Hi, I'm sorry to interrupt, I was looking for John, and the nurse said she saw him come in here. John, Sergeant Cobb is here, you said you wanted to see him?"
"Oh, right," John said, and stood up. "Look, Steve, I'm glad you're all right. I'll see you later?"
"I'll get some grapes and come visit you," Steve replied, and this time, her smile did not fade.
Layla waited until they were in the corridor before asking, "Steve?"
"It's complicated," John replied, and went up to where Sergeant Cobb was waiting. The soldier had a splint down his nose, and two spectacularly black eyes. No doubt other sensitive parts of his anatomy were also more black than blue, John thought, remembering the rage he'd put behind his blows.
"You wanted to see me, Porter?" Cobb asked, and John nodded. "Yeah, I wanted to apologize for attacking you. I … have no excuse."
"You don't need to apologize, Porter," Cobb said, looking at him with a mixture of pity and scorn. "I'd be attacking the next thing that moved, too, if I'd had to take it up the *rse."
He paused, and John was sure he could hear him thinking, But I'd never let that happen to me.
Then, after giving John a condescending slap on the upper arm, Cobb walked away. As an obvious afterthought, over his shoulder, he said, "You get better, mate, and we'll see you around sometime."
When John saw that Layla was also giving him a look full of pity, he turned abruptly and stalked to his room. He didn't want to sit down, not even on the bed, so he stood by the window, staring out over the bit of the city that he could see from there. It was raining. He'd been surprised to find out that it rained almost as much in Port Harcourt as it did in England. He guessed he'd been lucky that it hadn't been raining the night before, when he'd gone in to rescue Steve, or the men might have taken him inside before they – before they assaulted him, and if they'd done that, the satellite might not have picked up his signal. Or maybe he'd been extremely unlucky, maybe if the rain had forced them to try to take him inside, he would have found a way to get loose again, keep them from hurting Steve, and avoid the assault completely.
Well, there was no point in dwelling on if's. It had happened, but the best thing to do was to put it all behind him and just get on with things. He'd give himself some time to recover, but then he'd start training again, get back out in the field, and show everybody that nothing had affected him.
Nothing at all.
That night, however, John found it hard to sleep. As he lay there in the dark, it seemed that all he could do was go over it again and again in his mind, remember how he'd frozen up so that he was unable to resist, remember the overwhelming feeling of helplessness, remember the disbelief that this was happening to him, and worst of all, remember the way his body had reacted – John jumped out of bed. No. He was not going to remember that.
Clenching his teeth in resolution, John pulled on his bathrobe and opened the door to his room. He wanted to run – or better yet, shoot something – but he had to settle for pacing up and down the corridor, and he couldn't even do that as fast as he would have liked.
The night nurse approached with a friendly smile. "Do you want something to help you sleep, Mister Porter?"
"No!" he said, more sharply than he'd intended. The nurse gave him a long look, assessing the situation, then decided not to press the issue and went away instead.
John didn't know how long he'd been walking back and forth, trying to force good memories into his mind, when he heard the scream. Piercingly loud and absolutely desperate, it came from Steve's end of the corridor, and John ran over immediately to see who dared threaten her here in hospital.
A nightlight showed that Steve was sitting bolt upright in bed, and when John came in, she screamed again. John had already scanned the room and found no intruders or anything else that could have frightened her; now he took a step forward and said softly, "Steve, it's all right, you're safe."
"Andy!" she gasped, then reached out. "I'm so sorry …"
He came over to the bed and took her hand. "Steve, it's okay."
"Mister Porter!" The nurse's voice was not loud, but as intense as any army instructor's. "Step away from that bed immediately or I will call security."
When John relinquished his grip on Steve's hand, she made a little sound of protest that went right to his heart. The nurse, however, didn't seem to notice. "What do you think you're doing, coming in here and frightening her like that!"
Realizing that she believed he was the cause of Steve's screams, John started to explain, "I didn't –"
"Out," the nurse said, and John saw no choice but to obey. His injuries throbbing after his hasty run, he went out slowly and shut the door behind him. He moved away until he could no longer hear Steve's protests, or the soothing sounds that the nurse was making, but a few moments later, the door opened again and the nurse came out to where he was standing.
"Mister Porter, I jumped to conclusions, and I am sorry," she said. "Miss Kehoe is asking for you, if you'd like to go back in."
John hesitated, and she added, "Go on, it's best if she has someone there that she knows and trusts. And it might be good for you, too."
He pushed past her and went back in. With a shaky smile, Steve extended her hand, and he took it.
"I'm sorry if I woke you up," she said. "I just had an awful dream, that's all."
John shook his head. "I wasn't asleep."
"I don't want to go to sleep again, either," she said. John didn't ask what she had dreamed about, and she didn't tell him. Instead, she asked, "Will you sit with me for a while?"
"Sure," he said. Somebody had put the chair in the corner of the room; he pulled it closer to the bed, but before he could sit down, Steve plunked her pillow onto it. He glanced up in surprise and she said, "You probably need it more than I do."
A wave of anger washed over him because it was true. Not wanting to take it out on Steve, however, he said nothing as he sat down.
"I didn't dream at all while I was there," Steve said. "Not sleeping dreams, I mean. Maybe it was because of the pills. But I daydreamed a lot, though, when I was awake."
"What about?" John asked. One topic of conversation was as good as another when it came to keeping his mind occupied and away from a certain topic.
"Oh, silly things, really. Being inside my favourite television shows. Meeting my favourite actor."
"That's not silly," John said. He didn't watch much tv, but he had seen one or two actresses that he wouldn't have minded meeting. He could even remember the times when he'd wanted to cuddle up with one or two of them, during the lonely years when he'd been away from his daughter and his wife.
As though hearing him think, Steve asked, "Do you ever daydream?"
"Yeah, sometimes," John admitted. "Mostly about my family. My wife and I separated eight or nine years ago, and then we got divorced. I dream sometimes that things were different. I wish I'd spent more time with my daughter, that I'd been there while she was growing up."
"But you'll see her when you go back?" Steve prodded.
"Yeah. Just a quick visit. I'll make sure she's all right, she'll be able to see that I'm all right, and that'll be that." He sighed a little. "She has trouble letting me in because we've been apart for so long. She doesn't think we have all that much in common anymore."
"How old is she now?"
"Eighteen – no, nineteen now."
"Does she still live with her mother?"
"No, Diane died last year. Lexi – Alex stayed with friends for a while, then she got her own flat. She's studying environmental science at university." John was secretly proud of her for going on to higher education, something neither he nor Diane had done.
"I wish I had kids. That was one of my daydreams," Steve said, admitting it with a little smile. "But I never met the right man, not in real life, anyway. And now, if I ever feel like having sex again, I'll be too old."
John squirmed mentally at the mention of sex, and instead of pointing out that Steve was only thirty two and hardly geriatric, he steered the conversation away from that treacherous subject. "Tell me about your father."
"Must I?" Steve asked, but didn't wait for an answer. "We're not really close. I love him, but when I was growing up, I always felt alienated by the things he said and did. I've often wondered if he has some personality disorder that only shows itself at the worst possible moment. But anyway, I guess I'm like your daughter; I have trouble letting him in because I've kept him at a distance for so long. That reminds me, I wanted to give you his address, in case you need to contact me for any reason. I've already written it down for you."
She leaned over to the bedside table and took a piece of paper out of the drawer, then handed it to John.
"Thanks," he said, automatically memorizing it before putting it into the pocket of his bathrobe. "If you've got a pen, I can give you my address, too."
"Sorry, I don't, I had to borrow one from the nurses' station," Steve said. John made to get up, but she said, "No, it's all right, you can wait until the morning."
John sank down again, wincing a little at the movement. Steve must have seen it, because she asked suddenly, "Does it bother you, what you had to go through to rescue me?"
He looked at her, but instead of answering, he asked, "Why should it?"
"Because it bothers me," she replied. "It's hard enough being raped yourself, I didn't want anybody else to have to go through it, especially the way you did."
"I've been tortured before," John said. His voice came out sharper than he'd intended, and though he tried to curb it, he still sounded impatient and short-tempered as he added, "It's just pain, Steve, it goes away eventually."
Steve turned her face away. After a moment, John heard her sniff, and realized she was crying. Guilt rushed through him, and he reached out to pat her leg. "Steve, it's all right."
Steve flinched at first, but then she grabbed his hand and held on tightly. "I'm sorry," she sobbed. "I feel like my whole life has been turned upside down, and you're able to act like it's a – a paper cut! I'm just not as strong as you are!"
It was John's turn to flinch; her outburst reminded him too much of how his daughter had reacted when she'd told him how her mother had died unexpectedly. Alex had burst into tears and then, perhaps fearing that he wouldn't understand what she was feeling, she'd exclaimed, "I'm just not as used to death as you are."
He was used to death, that was true. But he wasn't used to being r—assaulted like that. Finding that the contact with her skin was comforting, John gently placed his other hand on top of hers and said, "Steve, it's not a paper cut … it's not."
Steve turned her head back and stared at him for a long, searching moment. She must have seen something in his face, because she spoke suddenly through her tears and said, "John, can we … hug?"
Surprised at the request, John wasn't sure what effect hugging would have, especially not on him. But if she thought she needed one, he could at least try. "Yeah, sure."
"Do you want to stand up?" she asked. Her voice was approaching normal again, and she wiped the tears from her cheeks with one hand, then started to scoot over to the side of the bed. "I once saw something – a children's book, I think it might have been, or maybe it was a greeting card, with funny drawings. Anyway, the question was, how do hedgehogs hug? And the answer was, very, very carefully. So I'll try to be a very, very careful hedgehog for you."
She got up and, true to her word, put her arms around his lower back very, very carefully. He flinched at first, and she stopped immediately to ask, "Is this all right?"
"It's fine," he said, once his body had had time to realize the fact that her touch was gentle and not part of an assault. After a moment, he curled his own arms around her neck and shoulders, where he was fairly sure that she didn't have any welts from the whip. "All right with you?"
"Yeah," she replied, and laid her head against his chest. Again, he needed a moment to adjust to her proximity, but after that, it felt good. He started to stroke her hair, but his fingers found her plait, and he remembered how the soldiers had run their hands through her hair. He put his hand back around her neck and whispered, "Sorry."
"Just hold me," she said. "And I'll just hold you."
Part 6
"Sorry, I didn't know you already had visitors, I'll come back another time," he said, starting to back away.
Steve's polite face transformed into one of sheer delight. "Andy! I'm so sorry – I didn't recognize you with your clothes on!"
"Oh ho ho!" the other girl exclaimed, and Steve blushed as she protested, "Sorry, I didn't mean that the way it sounded. Come in! Lucy, this is Andy, the man who rescued me. Andy, this is Lucy, my best friend here in Nigeria."
"Hello, Andy," Lucy said with a bright smile. John became aware that she was checking him out, her eyes taking in his hospital robe and pyjamas in a way that he would have found flattering before. Now, however, her gaze was making him acutely uncomfortable. Obviously, she didn't know what the rescue had involved, or she wouldn't be looking at him like that. Swallowing, he managed to croak, "Hi."
"Well, that's my cue to go, I think," Lucy said. "If you need anything else, Alex, just give me a call." Then she leaned down to whisper in Steve's ear, but John still heard her say, "He can rescue me anytime!"
Steve grimaced, but Lucy didn't see it, and went out grinning. Taking the opportunity to get a better look at Steve, John thought she looked almost normal, certainly much less frightened than the last time he'd seen her. She wasn't hunched over protectively, or hiding her face, and the only clue he had to what had happened was in the way her eyes kept flicking to the door. When it had shut, she looked directly at John.
"Come in and sit down – do you want a pillow to sit on?" She reached behind her to give him the one from the bed, but John refused and sat down on the nearby chair, calling on all his SAS training to keep from wincing. Too late, he remembered that Steve already knew how badly he'd been hurt, and that he didn't have to hide anything from her.
"I asked Lieutenant Thompson – oh, blast," Steve said, and John glanced up sharply. "What?"
"She told me your real name was John something, and now I've gone and introduced you as Andy," Steve admitted. "I'm so sorry – I keep thinking of you as Andy."
"I keep thinking of you as Steve," John said, and Steve smiled briefly. "I like it, especially when you say it. It makes me feel stronger and braver somehow."
There was a silence in which John contemplated whether being called Andy made him feel any different, but he couldn't really tell. He'd had lots of fake names on his various undercover missions, and one was pretty much the same as the other. After a moment, he gave up, shifted his weight from one buttock to the other, and said, "So, what were you talking to Layla about?"
"Oh – just if I could visit you," Steve said. "She thought maybe to-morrow – she wanted to check with you first."
"I didn't ask before I came, maybe I should have," John offered, but Steve shook her head. John noticed that she'd washed her hair and plaited it behind her back; it was lighter and thicker than he remembered.
"No, it's fine," she said. At the sound of footsteps outside, Steve stiffened visibly and watched the door warily, but when nobody came in, she relaxed and continued. "I just wanted to thank you for what you did – and don't you dare say you were just doing your job, because being gang-raped is not in anybody's job description."
John looked away, wondering how she could refer to it so casually, when it was still hard for him to say the actual word, let alone admit that it had happened to him. Fortunately, he hadn't had to; everybody had already known by the time he woke up from the sedative, and Layla was already making arrangements for him to see "a very good therapist" once he was back in England. Trying to shrug off the entire thing, he said, "Oh, I knew there was a good chance I'd be tortured before I went in."
"You knew you might get raped and you went in anyway?" Steve asked, and the note of astonished admiration in her voice made John feel suddenly sick. He didn't want to admit that he would have been tempted to go AWOL if he'd known what would happen, what it would be like.
"No, I never thought that," he protested. "But I've been tortured before, and I survived it. And I've been shot before, too, and that's practically in the job description."
Steve sighed a little. "I wish it weren't, but I have to admit, I'm glad you came for me. And even more glad that you didn't let them shoot my kneecap off. Words … they're just not enough, are they? All I can do is say thank you, I don't know how else I can prove how much I appreciate everything you did."
She looked down, plucking a little at the bedsheet. "To tell the truth, I feel guilty that you had to go through so much because of me …"
John didn't know what to say to that. Thankfully, Steve didn't give him the chance to even try to respond, simply went on. "But if you're ever in England and you ever need a nurse, or a friend, or just someone to talk to, you can call me. Anytime, night or day, I mean it."
"You're going back to England?" John asked, seizing the chance to change the subject.
"Yeah." Steve tried a little smile that soon faded. "Lieutenant Thompson's told me of a really good therapist, but she's located in London, and I really should stop in and visit my father for a week or two before I go off somewhere else."
Hearing a note of "onerous duty" in her voice, John asked, "Do you two get on?"
"He can be difficult, but I won't have any other place to stay, really, and then there's that nagging feeling of obligation that's been there ever since my mother died."
"How long ago?" John asked.
"Eleven years. Cancer." She shrugged. "Dad lives in Margate. I can go for long walks on the beach. Will you see your family?"
"My daughter, yeah," he said. He was just about to explain that his ex-wife had also died when they were interrupted by two quick footsteps and a sudden knock on the door. Steve gasped, startled, and John saw a flash of panic in her eyes before she forced herself to respond, "Come in!"
It was Layla. "Hi, I'm sorry to interrupt, I was looking for John, and the nurse said she saw him come in here. John, Sergeant Cobb is here, you said you wanted to see him?"
"Oh, right," John said, and stood up. "Look, Steve, I'm glad you're all right. I'll see you later?"
"I'll get some grapes and come visit you," Steve replied, and this time, her smile did not fade.
Layla waited until they were in the corridor before asking, "Steve?"
"It's complicated," John replied, and went up to where Sergeant Cobb was waiting. The soldier had a splint down his nose, and two spectacularly black eyes. No doubt other sensitive parts of his anatomy were also more black than blue, John thought, remembering the rage he'd put behind his blows.
"You wanted to see me, Porter?" Cobb asked, and John nodded. "Yeah, I wanted to apologize for attacking you. I … have no excuse."
"You don't need to apologize, Porter," Cobb said, looking at him with a mixture of pity and scorn. "I'd be attacking the next thing that moved, too, if I'd had to take it up the *rse."
He paused, and John was sure he could hear him thinking, But I'd never let that happen to me.
Then, after giving John a condescending slap on the upper arm, Cobb walked away. As an obvious afterthought, over his shoulder, he said, "You get better, mate, and we'll see you around sometime."
When John saw that Layla was also giving him a look full of pity, he turned abruptly and stalked to his room. He didn't want to sit down, not even on the bed, so he stood by the window, staring out over the bit of the city that he could see from there. It was raining. He'd been surprised to find out that it rained almost as much in Port Harcourt as it did in England. He guessed he'd been lucky that it hadn't been raining the night before, when he'd gone in to rescue Steve, or the men might have taken him inside before they – before they assaulted him, and if they'd done that, the satellite might not have picked up his signal. Or maybe he'd been extremely unlucky, maybe if the rain had forced them to try to take him inside, he would have found a way to get loose again, keep them from hurting Steve, and avoid the assault completely.
Well, there was no point in dwelling on if's. It had happened, but the best thing to do was to put it all behind him and just get on with things. He'd give himself some time to recover, but then he'd start training again, get back out in the field, and show everybody that nothing had affected him.
Nothing at all.
That night, however, John found it hard to sleep. As he lay there in the dark, it seemed that all he could do was go over it again and again in his mind, remember how he'd frozen up so that he was unable to resist, remember the overwhelming feeling of helplessness, remember the disbelief that this was happening to him, and worst of all, remember the way his body had reacted – John jumped out of bed. No. He was not going to remember that.
Clenching his teeth in resolution, John pulled on his bathrobe and opened the door to his room. He wanted to run – or better yet, shoot something – but he had to settle for pacing up and down the corridor, and he couldn't even do that as fast as he would have liked.
The night nurse approached with a friendly smile. "Do you want something to help you sleep, Mister Porter?"
"No!" he said, more sharply than he'd intended. The nurse gave him a long look, assessing the situation, then decided not to press the issue and went away instead.
John didn't know how long he'd been walking back and forth, trying to force good memories into his mind, when he heard the scream. Piercingly loud and absolutely desperate, it came from Steve's end of the corridor, and John ran over immediately to see who dared threaten her here in hospital.
A nightlight showed that Steve was sitting bolt upright in bed, and when John came in, she screamed again. John had already scanned the room and found no intruders or anything else that could have frightened her; now he took a step forward and said softly, "Steve, it's all right, you're safe."
"Andy!" she gasped, then reached out. "I'm so sorry …"
He came over to the bed and took her hand. "Steve, it's okay."
"Mister Porter!" The nurse's voice was not loud, but as intense as any army instructor's. "Step away from that bed immediately or I will call security."
When John relinquished his grip on Steve's hand, she made a little sound of protest that went right to his heart. The nurse, however, didn't seem to notice. "What do you think you're doing, coming in here and frightening her like that!"
Realizing that she believed he was the cause of Steve's screams, John started to explain, "I didn't –"
"Out," the nurse said, and John saw no choice but to obey. His injuries throbbing after his hasty run, he went out slowly and shut the door behind him. He moved away until he could no longer hear Steve's protests, or the soothing sounds that the nurse was making, but a few moments later, the door opened again and the nurse came out to where he was standing.
"Mister Porter, I jumped to conclusions, and I am sorry," she said. "Miss Kehoe is asking for you, if you'd like to go back in."
John hesitated, and she added, "Go on, it's best if she has someone there that she knows and trusts. And it might be good for you, too."
He pushed past her and went back in. With a shaky smile, Steve extended her hand, and he took it.
"I'm sorry if I woke you up," she said. "I just had an awful dream, that's all."
John shook his head. "I wasn't asleep."
"I don't want to go to sleep again, either," she said. John didn't ask what she had dreamed about, and she didn't tell him. Instead, she asked, "Will you sit with me for a while?"
"Sure," he said. Somebody had put the chair in the corner of the room; he pulled it closer to the bed, but before he could sit down, Steve plunked her pillow onto it. He glanced up in surprise and she said, "You probably need it more than I do."
A wave of anger washed over him because it was true. Not wanting to take it out on Steve, however, he said nothing as he sat down.
"I didn't dream at all while I was there," Steve said. "Not sleeping dreams, I mean. Maybe it was because of the pills. But I daydreamed a lot, though, when I was awake."
"What about?" John asked. One topic of conversation was as good as another when it came to keeping his mind occupied and away from a certain topic.
"Oh, silly things, really. Being inside my favourite television shows. Meeting my favourite actor."
"That's not silly," John said. He didn't watch much tv, but he had seen one or two actresses that he wouldn't have minded meeting. He could even remember the times when he'd wanted to cuddle up with one or two of them, during the lonely years when he'd been away from his daughter and his wife.
As though hearing him think, Steve asked, "Do you ever daydream?"
"Yeah, sometimes," John admitted. "Mostly about my family. My wife and I separated eight or nine years ago, and then we got divorced. I dream sometimes that things were different. I wish I'd spent more time with my daughter, that I'd been there while she was growing up."
"But you'll see her when you go back?" Steve prodded.
"Yeah. Just a quick visit. I'll make sure she's all right, she'll be able to see that I'm all right, and that'll be that." He sighed a little. "She has trouble letting me in because we've been apart for so long. She doesn't think we have all that much in common anymore."
"How old is she now?"
"Eighteen – no, nineteen now."
"Does she still live with her mother?"
"No, Diane died last year. Lexi – Alex stayed with friends for a while, then she got her own flat. She's studying environmental science at university." John was secretly proud of her for going on to higher education, something neither he nor Diane had done.
"I wish I had kids. That was one of my daydreams," Steve said, admitting it with a little smile. "But I never met the right man, not in real life, anyway. And now, if I ever feel like having sex again, I'll be too old."
John squirmed mentally at the mention of sex, and instead of pointing out that Steve was only thirty two and hardly geriatric, he steered the conversation away from that treacherous subject. "Tell me about your father."
"Must I?" Steve asked, but didn't wait for an answer. "We're not really close. I love him, but when I was growing up, I always felt alienated by the things he said and did. I've often wondered if he has some personality disorder that only shows itself at the worst possible moment. But anyway, I guess I'm like your daughter; I have trouble letting him in because I've kept him at a distance for so long. That reminds me, I wanted to give you his address, in case you need to contact me for any reason. I've already written it down for you."
She leaned over to the bedside table and took a piece of paper out of the drawer, then handed it to John.
"Thanks," he said, automatically memorizing it before putting it into the pocket of his bathrobe. "If you've got a pen, I can give you my address, too."
"Sorry, I don't, I had to borrow one from the nurses' station," Steve said. John made to get up, but she said, "No, it's all right, you can wait until the morning."
John sank down again, wincing a little at the movement. Steve must have seen it, because she asked suddenly, "Does it bother you, what you had to go through to rescue me?"
He looked at her, but instead of answering, he asked, "Why should it?"
"Because it bothers me," she replied. "It's hard enough being raped yourself, I didn't want anybody else to have to go through it, especially the way you did."
"I've been tortured before," John said. His voice came out sharper than he'd intended, and though he tried to curb it, he still sounded impatient and short-tempered as he added, "It's just pain, Steve, it goes away eventually."
Steve turned her face away. After a moment, John heard her sniff, and realized she was crying. Guilt rushed through him, and he reached out to pat her leg. "Steve, it's all right."
Steve flinched at first, but then she grabbed his hand and held on tightly. "I'm sorry," she sobbed. "I feel like my whole life has been turned upside down, and you're able to act like it's a – a paper cut! I'm just not as strong as you are!"
It was John's turn to flinch; her outburst reminded him too much of how his daughter had reacted when she'd told him how her mother had died unexpectedly. Alex had burst into tears and then, perhaps fearing that he wouldn't understand what she was feeling, she'd exclaimed, "I'm just not as used to death as you are."
He was used to death, that was true. But he wasn't used to being r—assaulted like that. Finding that the contact with her skin was comforting, John gently placed his other hand on top of hers and said, "Steve, it's not a paper cut … it's not."
Steve turned her head back and stared at him for a long, searching moment. She must have seen something in his face, because she spoke suddenly through her tears and said, "John, can we … hug?"
Surprised at the request, John wasn't sure what effect hugging would have, especially not on him. But if she thought she needed one, he could at least try. "Yeah, sure."
"Do you want to stand up?" she asked. Her voice was approaching normal again, and she wiped the tears from her cheeks with one hand, then started to scoot over to the side of the bed. "I once saw something – a children's book, I think it might have been, or maybe it was a greeting card, with funny drawings. Anyway, the question was, how do hedgehogs hug? And the answer was, very, very carefully. So I'll try to be a very, very careful hedgehog for you."
She got up and, true to her word, put her arms around his lower back very, very carefully. He flinched at first, and she stopped immediately to ask, "Is this all right?"
"It's fine," he said, once his body had had time to realize the fact that her touch was gentle and not part of an assault. After a moment, he curled his own arms around her neck and shoulders, where he was fairly sure that she didn't have any welts from the whip. "All right with you?"
"Yeah," she replied, and laid her head against his chest. Again, he needed a moment to adjust to her proximity, but after that, it felt good. He started to stroke her hair, but his fingers found her plait, and he remembered how the soldiers had run their hands through her hair. He put his hand back around her neck and whispered, "Sorry."
"Just hold me," she said. "And I'll just hold you."
Part 6