Story #74 - Back To Back

Back To Back

He twisted to avoid it, but the falling rock was simply too large, and Brendan distinctly felt the snapping of his back as he was crushed under the boulder's jagged edge. She'd been right, of course, to warn him against going, but he could match her stubbornness with a will that was not only unbending, but in many cases, completely ridiculous.

Death wasn't his concern; the others would find him or they wouldn't, and his broken body couldn't do any more than cling to the few shards of life the heavy stone had left behind – it was the thought of her, kneeling down beside him, and telling him she was right.

Again.

***

“I was right.”

Brendan's eyes snapped open and his body would have bolted upright had it not been restrained by a large metal harness. Overly white lighting assaulted his eyes and as they adjusted a familiar smell came to his nose. As a climber, he'd taken a number of nasty falls in twenty years, with twelve of them landing him in the one place that smelled like this.

A hospital.

Not just any hospital, either, judging by the white sheen on the attending's coat. Inner-city variants and those in the 'sticks featured doctors in grungy smocks and nurses in scrubs that would be better used as dishrags, but this was obviously one of the finer human butcheries. Great. Just great. How much was this going to cost?

“I was right.” The voice came again, sweet and serene, from beside him. His neck wasn't mobile but he could see her at the periphery of his vision; just sliding his eyes that way would be enough to see her, if he wanted to.

“Thanks for your concern, darling,” he deadpanned, voice croaking. He really did love her, and she him, but there was a competitiveness to their relationship that others were baffled by and in many ways envied. For one thing, it made for great sex as each of them tried to outdo the other in the bedroom, and it also meant they were never standing still – both he and Jill always had a new project on the go or a new idea in the works. Of course, it also meant fights that had the neighbors calling the cops and some of Jill's friends concerned that he was beating the crap out of her when their backs were turned. The truth of it was that while he had never hit her, she'd slugged him once or twice; something he was secretly proud of. No one wanted to put their spouse in that position, but damned if she didn't hit like a champ.

The man at the foot of the bed cleared his throat and Brendan met his eyes. He couldn't quite make out the doctor's name tag, but it was obvious there were a whole bunch of letters after it, and for a guy so young looking it meant he had to be good.

“I'm Doctor Lacombe, Brendan,” the man said in a low voice, “welcome back, and welcome to Reinsville.”

Reinsville. Brendan did a quick search in his mind. He was fairly certain the town had been on the map when they came in, near the northern end of the mountain range. Still, it didn't stick out in his mind so he was surprised they had a facility like this, let alone a doctor like Lacombe.

“The hell are you doing here, Doctor? From what I remember, Reinsville isn't exactly a metro.”

Lacombe grinned but he could hear Jill suck in a sharp breath. One more thing they had never agreed on; familiarity with strangers.

“We're a new, Brendan. Reinsville is a mountain town and accidents happen here. The council's been saving for years to build this facility. But I don't think local politics are your biggest concern right now. Don't you want to know what's happened to you?” Lacbome's face was full of doctorly concern, but Brendan couldn't resist.

“A rock fell on me?”

“Brendan!” Came the sharp word from Jill – it wasn't that he liked being rude, or that his line was even all that funny – it was that he didn't really care what had happened, just what he needed to do to fix it. Almost every bone in his body had been broken at some point and every one had a different treatment pattern, a different set of rules he had to memorize to get well.

“You lost two vertebrae, Brendan, two of the really important ones – the ones that let you walk.”

An icy chill ran down his neck but dissipated before it got to his hips. This is it, he thought, the big one. I knew this was coming and here it is. Me. Bed-bound. Shit.

“You're a lucky man, Brendan,” Lacombe said, and he opened his mouth to interrupt. Lucky like hell! Living in some hospital bed wasn't lucky at all – but Jill “shhh'd” him hard.

“We were able to repair the damage,” Lacombe went on, and Brendan went slack-jawed, starting at the clever man in the white coat as if he'd never seen one before.

“What? How?”

There was a movement from his side, and he could see Lacombe glance in Jill's direction. “As I told you, Brendan, we're a very new facility, with the latest instruments,” he buffed his nails on his coat, “and I'm very skilled.”

Brendan shot the other man a grin; he liked cocky bastards – they came close to home.

“Rest, Brendan,” Lacombe said, “you need all the strength you can get right now.”

***

Opening his eyes showed him Jill's face, pretty and smiling in the buzzing hospital light.

“Hi, gorgeous,” he said, smiling up at her.

“Hi!” Her voice was cheery, but an octave higher than it should have been. He knew that tone.

“What's going on, Jilly? I saw that look Lacombe gave you.”

“I...,” she started, then paused to look away, “you always were the better climber, Brendan.”

“What? What the hell does that -”

He saw it then, the metal arms of her chair, the attached wheels and propped-up footrests. He saw it all and she smiled – a grin of love, a smirk of triumph.

“I win,” she said.

- D