Seventy-eight: Rockslime

Reaching for that dress was one of the most painful and frustrating things I had ever done in my life. Pulling myself up into sitting hadn't been too bad when the pain settled down, but the moment I tried to put any weight on my feet, lightning -

There was a flap and slight thump of knees on the ground beside me and broad hands touched me gently.

"Jean, Jean, are you all right?"

I managed to open my eyes long enough to groan at Kiran.

"Stupid Jean," I whispered. "Stupid girl."

"No, no. Did you hurt yourself again? What were you doing?" Kiran hugged me to him and my ribs cried. He loosened his grip a bit, picking me up as gently as he could, his face averted, and putting me back in bed. He covered me up. I pointed at the dress and he looked between it and me. The door, the dress and me. "Doc really hates us being together," he observed.

"You think?" I tried not to laugh, it made all my broken ribs highlight themselves with stabbing pains.

Kiran brought the dress over and slowly eased me up into sitting, carefully helping me put it on.

"At least he won't be doing anything more to you, now that you can't walk or escape."

A wave of homesickness washed over me and I leaned on the only Bosky man that could be trusted.

"Jean? Jean, you okay?"

"I want to go home," I told him through my tear spangled vision. "I'm so tired of this all. I just want to go home."

Kiran kissed my forehead.

"I'll see what I can do for you. Once we've secured this section of the city and it's safe to travel, I'll see what I can do to send you back. You'll be safer there. At some stage, before that, we need to have a really good, long talk about everything. I'll be out for the rest of the day. We're trying to move the front further out and away from here, so we can rebuild the Compound and use it as our forward base. It has pretty good defences. Did you know," he pulled out a well worn, little origami dinosaur from his breast pocket. There was a bear as well. "these are my little good luck charms. All the boys that have got one, not a single one has been injured so far. You're our lucky angel."

"That's good," I breathed. "I'm glad."

And I was. I didn't want anyone else to die. On either side. If only the war would just end.

"None of my boys will let any harm come to you, all right? They don't want to break the magic," Kiran made sure the blanket covered me up properly. "You did give your people the message, right? When they got you back?"

"Did you do that on purpose? Let them capture your base?"

"Not exactly, but it was within expectation in case they did manage it. I suppose their answer was 'no'." I nodded in reply and Kiran kicked the wall in frustration. "They're the ones who asked if there was any way we could end this war. What else can we do? We can only continue with our original plans. By the way, Alistair might try and get in contact with you. If you prefer to go with them, I want you to know, I don't blame you. But you need to know that there are more and more people on your side that are starting to advocate for your death too. You won't be safe among them either." Kiran heaved a frustrated sigh. "Why's it so hard to keep the one you love alive? I'll see you either late this evening or tomorrow."

I waved goodbye. Why was I so worried about him?

His promise that he'd try to get me home when the fighting started kindled a little fire of hope within me. I'd see Mum and Dad and Henry again. I'd have my own bed and books and clothes. I wouldn't have to worry about anyone trying to kill or drug me. I'd be home again and that's all that mattered. It looked pretty certain that the Boskies were going to win this war. From the Compound to the other end of the city, there was still quite some distance and I doubted my government would give it up easily. From hereon, it was likely the fighting would get worse, unless the Boskies maintained their momentum.

Dr Eisor sniffed at me, when he returned and saw that I'd managed to reach the dress. He didn't deign to say anything more to me.

In the afternoon, some corpsmen came to stretcher me away to my new home and the doctor didn't bother seeing me off. He hadn't fed me all day and I hadn't been inclined to ask. I did ask one of the corpsmen though and he brought a tin of that awful powdered supplement drink with us.

"Not much food at the moment," he told me apologetically. "Although, we should thank your previous CO for the harvest of fresh vegetables she took before the fighting started. Thank God most of it is still good and didn't get destroyed during the fighting. We'll have soup when the other boys get back. Our first taste of fresh food for nearly a year. We have plenty of packaged food, but we have to wait for Supply to catch up with us for fresh food. I'll help you make up a drink when we get to the apartment, but after that, I'm sorry. You're on your own. There's too much work to do."

"That's all right. Thanks, anyway."

In the apartment, there was little to do, but doze, sit up, scoot around on the bed on my arms and backside and then lay down again. Getting to the toilet took some ingenious thinking. Possibly I'd get very buff arms by the end of the few weeks or months it would take for my bones to heal. The only problem being that the more I used my arms, the more my ribs hurt. I hadn't realised how connected those two parts of my body were. I also had a feeling that if I didn't regain some use of my legs soon, I'd wear an embarrassing hole in the backside of my dress. Dragging myself around along my front was not a pleasant option either and really, getting around without your legs or putting weight through your pelvis is a real pain.

After my first trip to and from the toilet, I was so exhausted that I couldn't get back onto the bed for another three hours. I had a long sleep after that and my head felt a little clearer when I woke up. The problem was that then, I had to go to the toilet again. It was a little easier this time, now that I knew what to do, but no less painful or exhausting.

I tested my legs, trying to get to the taps and discovered that they could take a little weight. Not much. But the little bit enabled me to just reach the taps long enough to wash my hands in between rest breaks.

The night passed, as did the morning. Pushing myself around on a kitchen chair was very tiring and painful. I was trying to make myself a supplement drink or failing that, just get a drink of water, but ended up toppling the chair and myself over when the chair legs got caught on a crack in the flooring lino.

I cried for a long time. The pain was horrendous and there was no one around. So I lay there, shivering and cold. Somehow managed to find a comfortable position and fell asleep.

The door opened and boots clomped in. I heard showering noises and grunts from the bathroom. Then I heard the sound of someone flopping on a bed. Before long, there were Kiran's soft snores. He hadn't thought to check on me, but then he was probably exhausted. I hadn't had the energy or breath to cry out. The pain was too much.

Somehow, sometime later, I managed to drag myself away from the kitchen table, toward the door, but pain made me dizzy. The dizziness sucked me down into a whirlpool and pulled me into the cold, dark.

"Jean! Oh, rockslime, how long have you been lying here? Wake up, Jean. Goodness, you're so cold. And pale."

I blinked slowly at Kiran when he lifted me up and then descended back into the depths.

"A little internal bleeding from the fracture site. Lost a fair bit of blood again, but she'll be right."

The voices came from a distance and I was floating in a sea of softness.

"We'd better keep an eye on her, but the soldiers are a priority. Keep her in the apartment and have a corpsman can check on her every now and then. We don't have any blood to spare for a transfusion. What we have is for the soldiers. She'll have to do things the natural way and make her own blood. She's a tough girl. She'll be fine, now please, get her out. I've got to save more lives."

Every time they lifted my head, the world spun and made me feel sick. I couldn't keep track of time for an age. Looked like the doctor's wish had come true. I wasn't going anywhere for a long, long time.