Fic: Spin Recovery, Part Thirty

[jeriendhal]

The next day Rufus visited the hospital, where he found out that Hazel had been moved from the critical care ward to a normal room. When he entered she was sitting up in bed, looking tired but alert. On a shelf by the window were several bouquets of flowers, including a truly enormous one made up of light pink Terran roses and blue Galen skyflowers.

“Hello, milord,” Hazel greeted, smiling at him. Her eyes looked weary, but there was a light there that had been absent during her terrible grief after the amputation.

“Just Rufus, please, Hazel,” he said. “You’re looking much better.”

“Eh, I feel like wrung out rag. That sadist who claimed to be a physical therapist had me doing leg lifts with my stump.”

“Good. How are you feeling?”

She shrugged. “Better. They’ve got me on enough anti-depressants to send me floating up to the ceiling. I think I’ll be all right though. They let me say goodbye to my leg at least.”

“Say goodbye? I thought that they would have incinerated it.”

“Well they did, but they let me get a good look at it beforehand.” She made disgusted noise. “The medtech peeled back the skin to show me where the gangrene had rotted it out. It looked a right horror.”

“I’ll take your word for it.” He gestured towards the rose and skyflower bouquet. “Who gave you that?”

“Your sister, actually. It came this morning.”

Rufus looked closer and found a card placed among the flowers with her sister’s seal embossed upon it and My household’s best wishes on your recovery written and signed in Bethany’s neat hand. “Nice touch,” he noted.

“What is?”

“The ‘my household’. That means it came directly from my sister, rather than her representing the Brushtail domain. It also means, a bit indirectly, that she’s rebuking my mother for not sending one on behalf of the whole House.”

“I don’t think your mother would be sending me flowers anyway. What happened between you and her, Rufus?”

He smiled. “Well, for one thing, she chose not to challenge me on my asserting control over my land parcels. Your rents are not going to change, and everyone who lives there are welcome to stay as long as they wish.”

Hazel’s jaw dropped open in a surprise and then she let out a loud whoop for joy. She reached over and grabbed Rufus’ arm, dragging him halfway onto the bed and giving him a hug. “You did it! Thank you!” Then she realized what she was doing and hastily let go of him. “Sorry!”

He laughed and grinned at her. “Quite all right!”

“You're lucky I took my pills this morning or I'd be bawling too right now!” She grinned back at him. Even if it was the drugs, she looked much prettier to Rufus now, with the sullen look she'd always worn before gone from her face. “What's the other thing you wanted to tell me?”

“Nothing important,” he said, wanting to preserve her happiness. That wasn't to be though, for she sobered up quickly.

“Give, Rufus. What else happened?”

He shrugged. “Mother ordered me to remove my things from the manor.”

“She did what?” Hazel said, shocked. Her face grew dark. “That rotten, flea-ridden, over stuffed... er...” Her voice trailed off, probably remembering that she happened to be talking about her liege lady in front that vixen's son.

“It's not as if she's disowning me. Technically speaking that would require a vote of the Farmer Lord's Council, which she isn't willing to do. I'm just not welcome in the house at the moment.” He ran his hand through his brush of headfur. “Which was damned inconvenient though, given the short notice. Do you know how hard it is to find a public stable for a grass chaser?”

Her angry on his behalf was momentarily diverted. “You own a grass chaser?”

“Yes, a nasty black thing named Bloodyjaw.”

She shook her head. “What is it with you and archaic, dangerous modes of transportation anyway? Next thing you'll me you used to race steam carts.” Rufus looked up at some fascinating dust motes near the ceiling as Hazel stared at him in disbelief. “You didn't actually...” she began to ask.

“Well, not for very long,” he admitted. “Having to get a carbon emissions waiver every time I wanted to fire up the boiler was far too much of a hassle.”

She flopped back down on the bed. “You’re a hopeless romantic, at least when it comes to machinery.”

“Guilty as charged.”

“How are you doing otherwise? I saw that newsbyte about your arrest before I went into hospital. Thought it was pretty funny, given my opinion of you at the time.”

“I’m getting by.” He touched his stomach and then his forehead. “It’s there, deep in my gut and my head, the need for the Juno, or anything else that might bring me a few minutes of oblivion. I can ignore it most of the time, because I can remember what I was like when I was on it and I swear I will not return to that state of degradation again.”

“It’s the ‘most of the time’ that’s the tricky bit,” Hazel said grimly.

“Yes. I think you’re the only person I know besides my therapist who might understand that. Every one else…” He closed his fist in frustration. “It’s as if they expect it to be something that will end. As if they wait long enough, you’ll turn back into the person you were before and they can pretend that it never happened.”

“Except you can’t, because you destroyed that person when you got hooked on the drugs.” She was silent a long moment, then got a distracted look on her face. “Speaking of irrational needs, could you scratch my foot? It itches.”

“Oh, certainly.” Rufus reached over to lift the sheet covering her left foot.

“No, the other one.” At his disbelieving look she added. “I know it’s not there, but it still itches! Scratch it anyway, would you?”

Baffled, he reached over to where her right foot would have been and made a scratching motion with his claws. “How’s that?”

She let out a relieved sigh. “Better. I’ve heard of phantom limb pain, but phantom irritated footpads are just ridiculous.”

He switched back to her other, more substantial, foot and began rubbing her pads. “Being a bit forward, aren't you?” she asked, not looking entirely displeased.

“Privileges of rank,” he told her.

“Ah, like in those awful romantic novels, where the noblevixen drags a handsome young male off to her manor to woo him?”

“Not quite,” he grinned. “I think if tried that with you, you'd hit me.”

“I was thinking the other way around, actually.” She sighed happily. “It's nice to daydream at least.”

“Doesn't have to be a daydream,” he said, still rubbing her foot. “Plenty of ex-military have married up into the noble ranks.”

“Yes, but were any of them gimpy, ill-tempered, drug addicts?”

“You are not ill-tempered.”

She snorted. “You are such a liar.”

He stopped rubbing. “I don't lie, Hazel. Perhaps you were angry about everything that had happened to you, but that was not due to any inherent flaw in your personality. Anyway, if you want to compare bad traits, I'm well ahead of you. I've been addicted to Juno for about five years and I managed to put a substantial dent in my Houses' finances because of it.”

“All right, I won't make it a contest.” She sighed again. “I just wish I hadn't flushed away my commission. I want to fly again.”

'Who says you can't? I flew for seven years as an independent mercenary. Even if you don't want to want fly fighters, you could always try for a commercial trade ship license.”

“They don't hand out shipmaster certificates to ex-addicts. Anyway, even if they did, I don't know if I could. That crash...”

“...was not your fault, it was the fault of the idiots who programmed the docking bot's software.” An idea suddenly popped into his head. “What if you got the chance though?”

“What, to fly? No one is going to let me fly a star fighter.”

Rufus smiled slyly. “I was thinking of something a bit more... historical.”

TBC

Comments

*Blink*

[mjkj.livejournal.com]

Again, you put up a great piece of art...

I could not stop reading it...

well, until the end stopped me. =S *me wanna read on...*

Hehehe, I love that: a bit more ... historical =)

I guess it will be an aircraft as he told his aunt - [quote]"without gravitic stabilizers"[/quote] *grins*

I am looking forward to this.

It really is nice from Bethany to send the flowers. *grins about the [quote]"rebuking my mother for not sending one..."[/quote]*

Thank you for it, Royce


mjkj



PS: you missed a "tell" there: [quote]"Next thing you'll [tell missing here] me you used to race steam carts."[/quote]

[tamhavik.livejournal.com]

It could be an old flight simulator he's thinking about. No chance of crashing and little difficulty of getting permission to use... at least less difficult then trying to let her fly in a real aircraft ^^

Love this part. He's finally getting some laughs out of Hazel, doesn't matter much it's from anti-depressants. I hope they'll be able to be eachothers support, would be nice!

I really wish I could write like this :(

[lennan.livejournal.com]

I'm with mjkj about that last line. XD

No Hazel, you are not ill-tempered, your mind was just toxic. =) But Bethany sure is a sweetie, isn't she?