Fic: Spin Recovery, Part Twenty Eight

[jeriendhal]

Rufus made his way back to his room, calmed down the ward’s charge nurse who was frantically organizing a search party for him after he disappeared from the recovery ward and pulled a set of comfortable ship knits from his overnight bag to wear. A very short argument then ensued with the charge nurse, who thought he should go back to his room, which ended when Rufus informed her that his room should now be considered the one which Ms. Haz Elin Swiftfoot also occupied, and if the hospital had a problem with that he’d be sure to bring it up at the next budget meeting.

He searched for Artie, eventually finding him not eating a dry looking sandwich in the hospital’s dining hall. In his hand he still clutched Hazel’s Mother’s Amulet, the chain wrapped around his closed fist.

“Hello, milord,” Artie said. He looked tired, as if he was about use the sandwich in front of him as a pillow.

“How long have you been up, Artie?” Rufus asked.

“Um, ever since I took Hazel to hospital. That was…” he checked his chrono, “about fifty hours ago.”

“Holy Den Mother bless, you must have been running on raw adrenaline the past two days. Let’s get you back to Hazel’s room and you can sit back for a while in a chair.”

“No, not until I know she’s all right. She’s my little girl.” He rubbed his eyes. “I hate seeing her like this. I hate it. It’s not fair to her. Not after everything she’s been through.”

“I understand.” Rufus paused a moment, then went on, “I’ve been meaning to ask, if you wouldn’t consider it too intrusive, may I know how her mother died?”

Artie nodded. “It was a skimmer accident. Her mum was driving. I was in the front beside her and Hazel was in the back sleeping, coming home from a Harvest Day party. We were both a bit drunk, but we had the autodrive on, so we thought it didn’t matter. Got ploughed into by a driver who didn’t think he needed his. The damned thing hit us in the driver’s side quarter. It crushed her legs. The damned safety harness wouldn’t release and I couldn’t reach her. Hazel and I watched her bleed to death in less than a minute.” His narrative came out in the flat monotone, devoid, or drained, of all emotion.

How many times have you lived that moment over in your head, and wondered what you could have done differently, as I have with my grief? “How old was Hazel?” he asked.

“Six.”

Old enough to understand what was happening in those terrible moments, not old enough to understand there was nothing she could have done to stop it, Rufus thought grimly.

“I wanted to die too that day, but I had Hazel to raise. She kept me alive.”

“She’ll be all right, sir.”

Artie looked at him, his eyes filled with not so much anger as resignation. “How much more are we going to lose, milord? How much is enough?”

“I’m sorry, Artie.” He rubbed the back of his head in frustration. “Damnation. The whole point behind the system of the Farmer Nobles is to prevent the sort of situation that is happening with your home. We’re supposed to be able to cut through the red tape with a sword, so what is needed for our people gets where it is needed to go. If we don’t do that we’re nothing more than overreaching bureaucrats and landlords.”

“Not your fault, milord. You’re doing what you can. For what you did for Hazel just now I’ll be forever grateful.”

“It’s not enough. I know it isn’t enough but I don’t how to fix it for you. For that I’m sorry.”

“Thank you, milord.”

Artie took a few pro-forma bites out of his sandwich before dumping it in the garbage, then Rufus escorted him back to Hazel’s room to await her arrival. Not wanting her waking up in a lonely recovery ward, Rufus had leaned on the orderlies again to arrange for her to be brought straight from surgery to her room.

He let the older male take the padded lounge chair that had been set up beside Hazel's bed for visitors. Perhaps fortunately, Artie's exhaustion beat out his concern for his daughter, for in a matter of moments he was asleep in the lounge chair and snoring softly. Rufus rubbed his face and kept his eyes on the door, feeling the bones around his newly installed base plate throb as the pain medication gradually wore off.

It was some three hours after he had seen Hazel disappear into surgery when she was wheeled back into her room and placed gently on her bed by the orderlies. Whoever the anesthesiologist had been, they'd been more liberal about the idea of knocking her senseless than Alyn had been with Rufus, or more likely Dr. Blackpaw had thought the risk of her panicking again on the operating table was more of a worry than any unexpected side-effects from the anesthesia.

Rufus caught a glimpse of her right leg before it was covered by a sheet. Everything from a point just above the right knee had been taken, leaving a raw, hairless stump covering in a hardened liquid bandage that would keep out infections but allow the skin flap underneath to breathe. A tube ran from her right arm to a saline drip hanging from a pole. Another ran from her nose to an oxygen feed port in the wall. She looked wan and tired and helpless, so far from the combative vixen he knew.

After a half-hour the slow, steady pace of her breathing changed and Rufus leaned forward to take her hand as her eyes fluttered open. Silently, she looked at him, then down the length of the bed where blanket dipped down over her stump. She let her head fall back, closing her eyes in despair.

“Where’s my da?” she whispered.

“To your left,” Rufus said softly. He watched as she turned her head to look where her father slept, then back to match eyes with him.

“Help me to get him to go home.”

“You’re sure?” he asked, though he had a fair guess at her reasons.

“Yes.”

He nodded silently, then let go of her hand to stand up and shake Artie gently on the shoulder. “Artie sir, look who’s awake.”

“Eh?” Artie scratched his ears sleepily, sparing one glance at Hazel’s leg before returning his attention to her face. He smiled at her. “Hey, how’s my little girl?”

She gave him a false smile in return. “I’m fine, Da. It’s all over now.”

He took hold of her hand and squeezed it gently, then kissed her forehead. “It’ll be all right, Hazel dear. You’ll see.” He took her Mother’s Amulet from his pocket and placed in on the bed table beside her. “There. I know they won’t let you wear it while you’re here, but it’s right beside you, see?”

“Thank you, Da,” she said, keeping the reassuring smile on her face by an act of frightening willpower, if Rufus was reading it right.

“Artie, go home and get some sleep,” he said. “I’ll watch over her until you come back.”

“Oh, I can’t. I’ve got to stay here with Hazel.”

“Honestly, Da, I’m really tired right now,” she said. “Besides, you need to feed the fish. They’re probably starving.”

“You’re sure, luv?” he asked, looking torn.

“Yes, Da. Go home. For me, please?”

“I’ll be right here with her until you return, sir,” Rufus told him. “Get some sleep, before I make it a Request and Require order, eh?”

“Oh, all right.” He took his coat from where it had been hanging off the back of the chair and put it on, then leaned over to kiss Hazel again on the cheek. “It’ll be all right, luv. I’ll make it all right for you, I promise.”

“I know.” She watched him go, holding the smile in place until enough time passed for him to reach the lifts. Then she turned towards Rufus and said, “Close the door, please, milord.”

Rufus shut the door. The false smile left Hazel’s face, her mouth turning down in anguish as she let out a racking, shuddering sob. Helpless, not knowing what words to say, he could only sit beside her bed and watch over as she wept.

“Hazel,” he said, when her sobbing slowed and she gasped for breath. “Hazel, it will be all right. I know it doesn’t seem like it right now, but it will be all right. They’re going to give you a new leg, you know.”

“I don’t want a damned piece of tin to walk on! I want my old leg,” she cried out bitterly. “Nothing is all right! I’ve lost my leg, I’ve lost my commission, I’m going to lose my home. Nothing is ever going to be all right!” She let out a low, keening wail of despair. “I’m never going to fly again!”

He took hold of her hand and held it tightly, watching over her as her sobbing slowed. Finally she fell back asleep, exhausted, her face blank, drained and empty as her soul seemed to be.

This is wrong, he thought. To have lost so much and not have a hope of gaining it back was wrong. I can’t help myself, I can’t help the other people in the hills where she lives, but I can at least help her. There must be something I can do for her.

He reached into his overnight bag and pulled out his pocket comp. Well, if she had to be torn from her old home, he could at least make sure her new one was an improvement. He’d set her and her father up in a new house, rent free for as long as he could comfortably pay it. Maybe even pay for some flight training. If she couldn’t fly for the military anymore, surely a commercial space carrier would want her, as soon as she had control over her addiction.

Upon his homecoming, Rufus had been granted limited access to the House’s accounts once more. While he couldn’t draw out any money, he could at least see what the balance was on the lands that his mother had granted to him upon coming of age to provide cash for his personal accounts. The accounts had been sitting there untouched, gathering rent profits for at least two years, ever since he’d been cut off from them. The money was there, all he had to do was ask Mother to release some of it to him. She damned well better release it. It’s mine, and if she objects to my spending it on a House Brushtail subject who desperately needs help, I’ll give her an earful.

The amounts were substantial, he was heartened to see. Enough even to begin paying down the debt he had accrued to the House in his spendthrift years. More than enough to set up Hazel and her father in style. Curious now, he entered the coordinates for the properties under his aegis into the pocket comp’s world map. Until now, the rental profits he had always received had been an abstract. He’d never known, or been particularly curious, as to where they had been coming from, leaving such concerns as managing them to House Brushtail’s efficient staff of accountants. He’d always had other concerns in his youth, usually involving flying machines of one form or another. It’s past time I started paying attention. The need a proper lord to watch over them, not a feckless youth.

The comp projected a Tri-D holographic map of the first parcel. Boundaries of the parcel as a whole were marked in green lines, black for the individual pieces within that were held by different families. He then added another layer showing the local commercial properties, with different blocks of color separating those businesses that were owned by House Brushtail outright, and those owned by others who rented office or commercial space from the House. Then, morbidly curious, he tapped a command to bring up the projected local mineral resources in the area, separated by type and projected profit.

Oh.

Rufus began to laugh, so long and hard that it made him gasp for breath, rocking back and forth in his chair as his stomach began to ache from mirth. Beside him in her bed, Hazel opened her eyes, looking at him as if he’d gone insane. Perhaps he had. But by the Goddess it felt good.

“What’s so funny?” she demanded.

He told her.

Then, the Holy Mother of the Den be praised, she began to laugh too.

TBC

Comments

hmm...

[mjkj.livejournal.com]

Well, you did again a great job here...

And at least he got her laughing...

But you left us with a cliff hanger - not nice, no, not nice at all. *grins*

Well, I hope you soon will post the next part of it =S


mjkj

[lennan.livejournal.com]

I think that somebody named Rufus is the rightful owner of those projected mining lands. XD

Wonderful manipulation of emotions here, for the reader. I wanted to cry feeling sorry for Hazel and then felt ridiculalously happy and relieved at the thought of Rufus laughing.