Four hours later, Gary was still sitting in his van, staring at the front door of McGinty’s.  He knew he should go inside, but he couldn’t bring himself to do so.  It was still too soon.  Even from here, he could sense the malevolent presence of the creature who had tried to murder him, of the man whose dead body had kept him trapped for hours.  Part of him knew he was being paranoid.  Part of him wasn’t so sure.  But, he had promised to let his mom know he had arrived safely.  To do that, he had to at least get as far as the barroom.  Gathering his courage, Gary exited the van and let himself into the tavern.

Thirty minutes later, having assured Lois that he was, indeed safe, (Yes it had been a long, lonely drive, and he loved her, too.) Gary tried to figure out where he was going to sleep.  He was much too tired to go looking for a hotel.  Besides, all the respectable ones were probably booked up with holiday travelers.  Everyone he knew would be in bed by this time, or getting ready for bed, at any rate.  With a sigh of defeat, Gary made his way upstairs and, without even bothering to undress, hauled his tired body into bed.  As late as it was, and as tired as he felt, even the ghost of Savalas would not be enough to keep him awake.  He hoped.

**************************

With a strangled cry, Gary sat bolt upright in the bed.  His heart pounding as if it would burst, he waited for whatever noise had awakened him to repeat itself.  Or had he only imagined it?  Had it been nothing more than a leftover sensory ‘ghost’ from his latest nightmare?  Taking slow, deep breaths, he tried to slow the frantic pace of his heartbeat.  Gary was afraid to close his eyes.  Afraid that he would once more find himself flat on his back, unable to move, helpless to do anything to save the man who was here to kill him.  Forced to lie there as the heart that beat against his chest sped up, stuttered, and stopped.  Powerless to staunch the steady flow of blood that spread across his own body, pooling to either side of him.  He hadn’t even been able to block his ears against the horrible finality of that last, rattling breath!

It was no use.  There was no way he could sleep in the loft.  Not yet.  It had been a bad idea from the start.  Throwing back the covers and grasping the trapeze bar, Gary swung himself around until he was sitting on the side of the bed.  It was only 1:15 AM.  Where could he possibly go at this hour?

***************************

“That’ll be thirty bucks a night,” the seedy looking night manager grumbled.  “In advance.  We got cable TV, but no premium channels.  You want to ‘entertain’, that’s your business.  Just keep the noise down.”

Gary fished three twenties out of his wallet, handing them to the scruffy, weasel-faced man in exchange for a key.  This wasn’t exactly what he’d had in mind, but it had taken almost two hours to find this dump!  And he had to get some rest!  He was so tired!  Every part of his body that he could still feel throbbed like a sore tooth.  He had considered getting himself a stiff shot of bourbon before he left the bar, but had been afraid that it would further impair his judgment.

Returning to the parking lot, Gary was accosted by an old wino, begging for ‘jus’ a little change.’  Taking pity on the old man, Gary gave him a couple of dollars.  In exchange, he got a sloppy kiss on the cheek, and a generous helping of whatever was hidden in that paper bag . . . all over his shirt front.  Wrinkling his nose in distaste, Gary tried to wipe off as much as he could of the fruity smelling liquor as the old man staggered on his way.

Gary was still several yards from where he had parked the van when another figure loomed out of the darkness right in front of him.

“Gotta match, pal?”

“N-no,” Gary mumbled, backing up nervously.  “I don’t smoke.”

“Then I guess we’ll just have to settle for your wallet,” a voice behind him chuckled.

Before Gary could turn to face this new threat, there was a blinding flash of pain, then . . . darkness.

***************

The first thing he was aware of was the severe, throbbing pain in his head.  Next, that he was lying on some type of hard, padded surface.  Then came the smell.  The musty-sour odors of stale sweat and vomit.  As well as the stench of human waste.

Gary tried to raise up, only to fall back with a strangled cry as pain lanced from the back of his head, threatening to force its way out the front!  Forcing himself to take slow, deep breaths, he finally managed to push the pain far enough aside that he was able to open his eyes.  The first thing he saw was the bottom of a bunk bed.  Mainly just bare springs covered by a thin mattress.  Presumably, he was lying on its mate.  Moving nothing but his eyes, he looked around as best he could.  He appeared to be in a cell of some kind.  Was he in jail . . . again?   What had he done this time?

“H-hello?” he called hesitantly.  “Hello?”

Suddenly, the needs of his body made themselves known.  Looking around desperately, he spotted the toilet over in the corner.  So far away!  And no rails!  Where was his chair?  Couldn’t they at least have left him that?

“I could use a little help.  Please?” he called out hopefully.  No answer.  He was on his own.

Carefully, Gary eased himself to the cold, concrete floor of the cell.  An effort that left him sweating and shaking as he tried again to suppress the pain shooting through his head.  He lay where he was for a moment, one side of his face pressed against the cool surface.  It helped.  A little.  But the need of his body for relief became an urgent summons.   Raising up and pulling himself along on his elbows, Gary managed to get to within arms reach of his goal before the pain in his head triggered a violent bout of nausea!

Unable to quell his rising gorge, Gary could only wrap his arms around the agony in his head as everything let go at once!  Hot tears of shame coursed down his face as wave after wave of agony tore through his head and body!  ‘Make it stop!’ he silently pleaded.  ’Dear God, please make it stop!’  Dimly, through his torment, he could hear the sound of approaching footsteps and muffled voices.  ‘No!’ he prayed fervently. ‘Don’t let anyone find me like this!  Please!’

************************

Tony Brigatti was furious.  Who did Armstrong think he was, sending her on an errand like this?  When these backwater cops had phoned him, saying that they had pulled in a man on a public drunkenness charge, only to find that he matched an old flyer they had of an escaped fugitive, the big detective had been intrigued, at first.  When they told him who they had, he’d sat back with a sigh.  Hobson.  Wasn’t he supposed to be out of town, visiting his folks?  That was when Paul had told her and Winslow to go get him and escort him home.  Like they were some personal taxi service!  The blonde detective was in a more jovial mood, saying Hobson was just getting into the ‘spirits’ of things.

When they rounded the corner and heard the horrible retching noises coming from his cell, her first unkind thought was ‘Serves him right!’  What they saw, however, quickly turned both anger and amusement to alarm.  Hobson, white-faced and still shaking from his most recent episode, was curled up on the floor in a pool of his own filth.  His outstretched hand was only inches from his porcelain goal.

Her anger quickly found a new target as the beefy jailer took his time about opening the cell, muttering something about having to clean up after ‘lousy drunks. Can’t even make it to the damned toilet.’ The second the door was flung open she was by his side, feeling for a pulse.  It was there, to her relief, but weak and thready.  Kneeling carefully, to avoid as much of the mess around and under him as she could, she tried to lift his head out of the filth of his own vomit. Startled, she pulled her hand away, finding it covered with fresh blood.  Holding her hand up so that everyone else could see, she rounded on the jailor.

“I want to talk with the officer in charge,” she growled.  “And the arresting officers.  Now!  And I want an ambulance here in five minutes or less!”  She looked hurriedly around.  “And where‘s his chair?”

“What chair?” the big cop asked nervously.  “What you see here and his stuff out front is all he had.  No wallet.  No ID.  Nothin’.  He was so out of it, he couldn‘t walk.  We had to carry him in here.”

Fighting to control her blossoming rage, Toni backed the jailor against the bars.  “The man is a paraplegic,” she hissed.  “He can’t walk.  You find a man unconscious, and you don’t even try to find out why?”

“W-we just thought . . .”

“I know what you ‘just thought’!” she growled, inches from his face.  “Just one more ‘lousy drunk.’  Well, this man needs medical attention. He needs it now!  Why are you still standing here?”

As the beefy cop ran faster than he had in years, Winslow knelt down to help her turn the weakly moaning man onto his back.  “Didn’t they even bother to check him for injuries?” the blonde detective asked grimly.  “I mean, Christ!  Hasn’t this guy died enough times, already?”

“I think he’s only on number four,” Brigatti grumbled.  “Public drunkenness my fanny!  These creeps don’t even recognize a mugging when they see one!  Lock up the victim and let the perps run free!”  She glanced at her watch.  “Three hours they let a head injury go without treatment!  Just left him to sleep it off like some drunk!  If he dies . . .”

“He won’t,” Winslow assured her.  “Hobson’s the most stubborn man I’ve ever met.  If anyone can survive this kind of treatment, he can.”

Toni looked down at the pale, unshaven features, and prayed that her partner was right.  Her world would be a sorry place, indeed, without a certain sad-eyed barkeep to liven it up once in a while.

****************

Armstrong found Brigatti and Winslow pacing outside the door to the treatment room where the doctors were still trying to determine the extent of Hobson’s injuries.  Toni held the black Navy peacoat that he had been wearing at the time of his ‘arrest.’  In her pocket was the watch that the thieves either had not had time to grab, or had overlooked.  They had also found two sets of keys, but neither his wallet, nor his chair had yet to turn up.

“What kind of lowlife scum would steal a wheelchair?” Winslow was grumbling.  The whole episode had angered the usually jovial cop more than anything he had ever witnessed in his entire career.  Even when they had been chasing Hobson throughout the Greater Chicago area, he had held a grudging admiration for the way the hapless barkeep was always able to stay one step ahead of them.   And then, for Hobson to end up saving the life of the detective who was leading the manhunt . . .!  Not to mention saving Winslow’s own partner!  The fugitive had put aside any animosity he might have been feeling, along with all thought of his own safety and freedom . . . that was a hell of a risk to take!  And it took one hell of a man to take it.  Winslow had actually been glad to get that call from Brigatti, saying Hobson was one of the good guys after all.

“Any word yet?” Armstrong asked as he joined them.

“He came to a couple of times in the ambulance,” Brigatti told him.  “But only for a second or two each time.  He’s also had convulsions.  Which isn’t good.  They’ve already done a CT scan, but the results aren’t back yet.  On the plus side, he doesn’t have any clear fluids coming out of his nose or ears, and he does seem to know who he is.”  She suddenly turned and slammed her hand against the wall behind her.  “I want heads, Paul!  They just saw him lying in that parking lot, smelled alcohol, and assumed he was just another ‘lousy drunk!’  Didn’t even bother to check for injuries!  Said they’d been picking up a lot of guys just like him over the holidays.  That’s no excuse for sloppy procedure!  No . . . no excuse for . . . for letting a good man . . . die!”

“He’s not going to die,” Armstrong said, with more conviction than he felt. “If anyone can beat the odds, it’s Hobson.  I don’t think the man knows how to die.”

“He should by now,” Brigatti sighed.  “He’s had enough practice lately.”

******************

Gary opened his eyes to a familiar sight.  A narrow, youthful face topped by a shock of dark blonde hair.

“Hi, Doc,” he murmured drowsily.  “You got a ‘flag’ on my file, or sump’n?”

“As a matter of fact,” Carter replied with a grin, “yes.  You’ve presented us with a lot of interesting anomalies the last few times you’ve been in.  How’s the head?”

“Lousy,” Gary admitted with a faint grimace.  “Hurts.”  He turned his head slightly, looking around.  “H-how’d I get here?”

Carter put a finger to the side of Gary’s chin and tilted it so that he could shine a light into his eyes.  “Both pupils equal and reactive,” he told the nurse, who was taking notes behind him.  “And very photosensitive,” he added as Gary closed his eyes in a painful grimace.  “What do you remember?”

“A cell,” the patient mumbled.  “Getting sick.  I had to . . . to go, but I couldn’t get . . . get to the . . .” Gary glanced at the nurse, then quickly looked away, his pale face taking on a pinkish hue.  He ran his hands shakily over the clean hospital gown.  “You had to . . . to clean . . .?”

“We’ve seen a lot worse,” the nurse commented with a kind smile.  “You’ll need clean clothes, though.”

While her comment may have been meant to offer comfort, it only served to increase Gary’s embarrassment.  He ducked his head to avoid her gaze, running both hands over his chest.  “You . . . you never . . . H-how’d I get here?”

“Two friends of yours,” Carter told him, “were called in because of an old ‘wanted’ flyer from last year.”  He glanced down at Gary’s chart, face unreadable.  “Seems like Savalas had to get in a few more good licks,” he mumbled, almost to himself.  “Anyway, they found you passed out in that cell, and called an ambulance.”

‘Two friends,’ Gary mused fuzzily.  ‘Wonder who . . .?’  “How’d I get in that cell, anyway?” he asked.  “What’d I do?”

“We were hoping you could remember,” Carter replied.

“All I can remember is not being able to sleep,” he sighed.  “I just got in the van and drove.  I don’t remember planning on anything in particular, just . . . driving.  The next thing I recall is finding myself in that cell.  The rest you know.”

Carter nodded absently as another nurse handed him a note.  “Well, your CT scan doesn’t show any obvious brain damage, skull fractures, or bleeds,” he reported cheerfully.  “We’ll keep you for twenty-four hour observation . . .”

“N-no!” Gary stammered.  “Please?  I’ve been in here more than I’ve been out, if you . . . if you get my meaning.  Couldn’t I just get a room . . . somewhere?”  Gary’s face took on a puzzled, thoughtful look.  “I . . . I think I’ve already got one,” he murmured.  “Somewhere.  I just . . . please?  Do I have to stay?”

“You were unconscious for at least three hours.  And you’ve suffered some memory loss.  We can’t just send you home by yourself, Gary,” Carter told him. “Someone needs to wake you up every once in a while to make sure you can be woken up.  They also need to keep fluids in you, help you to the bathroom, things like that.”  He chewed thoughtfully on the end of his pen.  “Perhaps Detective Brigatti might help you out.”

Gary stiffened at the mention of the tiny detective’s name.  Was she the one who . . .?  No!  Please, God!  Not her!  After the last time they’d spoken, he was probably the last person in the world that she wanted to see, either.  And, if she had been the one to find him in that cell, after he’d . . . How could he face her after she’d seen him . . . like that?

“You don’t have a lot of choices, Gary,” Carter reminded him gently.  “You’re in no shape to drive.  Hell, you can barely stay awake!  Now, if you don’t know anyone who can stay with you, I can see about hiring a nurse for a few days.”

“That won’t be necessary,” a voice spoke up from the door.  Brigatti, Winslow, and Armstrong eased into the treatment room.  “I’ll take him home and stay with him,” Brigatti elaborated.  “If that’s okay with you, Hobson.”  She tried to make it sound nonchalant, but . . .

“Th-that’d be okay, I guess,” Gary murmured, wincing as a new stab of pain went shooting through his head.  “I-if you don’t . . . don’t have anything better to do.”  He was finding it hard to look her in the eye.  Just the thought of her seeing him like that . . . !

“Let me check my calendar,” she replied sarcastically.  “Let me see, oh yes!  I have plenty of time to play nursemaid to a hardheaded trouble magnet!”  She softened her tone when she saw him cringe.  “Seriously, Hobson, it’s no trouble.  Gets me an extra day off.”

***************************

Brigatti was having second thoughts about the wisdom of her decision by the time they arrived at her Brownstone.  Gary was still having difficulty focusing and staying awake.  Winslow had to help her get him into the wheelchair the hospital had loaned them and into the apartment.  Her ‘patient’ roused long enough to make it to her bathroom, where they had to help him onto the toilet.  Afterwards they helped him into her spare bed.  During all of this, Hobson would not look at either of them, speaking only in mumbled monosyllables.  Judging by how red his ears turned, however, he was not oblivious to what was going on.

“I’ll stop by when I get off-duty,” the blonde detective told her as he headed out the door.  “Spell you for a little while and help him get cleaned up.”

“Thanks,” Toni sighed, running a hand through her hair in a nervous gesture.  “I’d forgotten how . . . how shy he was about . . . things.  This has got to be hell on earth for him, right now.”

“It’s going to get worse,” Winslow reminded her.  “Dr. Carter said he’s liable to get sick again.  And he’s not going to be able to get in and out of that chair on his own.  So there’s probably going to be . . . accidents.  That’s why they insisted on those pads for the bed and dressing him in the hospital gowns.  This is going to be totally humiliating for him.  He’ll thank us someday.  Just don’t bet on it being any time soon.”

The truth of Winslow’s predictions became painfully evident as the day wore on.  Gary spent most of the morning slipping in and out of consciousness, fitfully tossing and turning his head, at times mumbling incoherently.  Toni kept trying to force fluids into him, only to have everything come spewing out in violent episodes of nausea.  The only way to administer the medication for the nausea was in a manner even she found distasteful, as there was no other way he could keep it inside long enough for it to take effect.  One of the side effects of the medication was to make him drowsy, which often led to the accidents she had been warned of.

Unfortunately, Gary was only too aware of what was happening to him and around him.  She would often come in to find him with his head turned toward the wall, unable to meet her questioning looks.  She began to wonder if they had really done him any favors by springing him from the hospital, after all.

Winslow came that afternoon, as promised.  He took over, giving Toni a couple of hours to just get out of the house and clear her head.  She felt tense, frustrated that they had this perfect chance to settle their differences, only to have him as talkative as a stone.  ‘Perhaps,’ she mused, ‘I need to show him how I feel.’  She came back to find Winslow in the parlor, reading a magazine.

“How’s he doing?” she asked quietly.

“Sleeping,” her partner replied.  “Made it to the bathroom, this time, but it wore him out.” He set the magazine aside as he rose to go.  “I’ll go by his place and get his shaving gear and some clean clothes in the morning.  He’s getting a pretty heavy five o’clock shadow.  Can I bring you anything tomorrow?”

Toni just shook her head.  “I’m fine,” she assured him.  “He’s really not that much trouble.  It’s just . . . the way he looks at you!  Like he wants to curl up and die!  Seriously, I think this is harder on him than it is on us.”

“You could be right,” Winslow sighed as he slipped on his coat.  “God knows, I’d hate to be in his shoes.  Well, catch you later, partner.”

As soon as he was gone, Toni slipped quietly into the spare room to check on her patient.  Gary was stirring fitfully, mumbling something too low for her to make out.  Slowly, she eased down on the side of the bed, careful not to disturb him.  He must have felt her presence, however, because he immediately lay still, his eyelids fluttering as he struggled toward wakefulness.  A struggle he lost as he settled into a deeper sleep.  Toni reached down and stroked his unshaven cheek softly, marveling at the contrast between the rough stubble and the smooth, unblemished skin.  Her index finger traced the outline of his lower lip, bringing a low, soft moan, almost a whimper, from somewhere deep in his throat.  She noticed how dry his lips were, and how full.  Impulsively, she bent down, gently brushing her own lips against his.  He mumbled something, too soft and low for her to make out, then his eyes fluttered open once more, his half-focused gaze meeting hers with a silent question.

“Shh.  It’s okay,” she whispered softly, her mouth still so close to his that she could feel the soft exhalations of his breath, the dry heat radiating from his lips.  Her eyes closed as she pressed her mouth to his, meaning only to give him a gentle, chaste kiss.  Only to find herself wanting more as the scent, the taste, the sheer maleness of him pushed past all her defenses.  A warm flush crept through her body as she deepened the gentle kiss into a probing, heated joining.

Still only half-aware of his surroundings, Gary resisted at first, unsure of where this was going.  Unsure if it was real; if he should respond.  His body, however, had no such doubts.  His lips parted to welcome her in, encouraging the union.  His hand reached up, as if of it’s own accord, to cup the back of her head, holding her close.  His other hand reached up to stroke her shoulder, finding smooth, bare skin.  ‘This isn’t real,’ he told himself.  ‘Just another dream.  It’ll change any second.  Become a nightmare.’  It felt real enough, though.  Toni was no longer sitting on the edge of the bed.  Somehow, without taking her lips from his, she had slid under the covers with him, her hands gently exploring the length and breadth of his firm, lean body.  At that point, any resistance that Gary could still manage vanished.

*************************

The next morning found Toni Brigatti luxuriating in a hot, steamy shower, wishing that there were some way he could join her.  The memory of last night filled her with a warmth and wonder that she had never felt before.  She could count the number of men who had shared her bed on one hand, with a few fingers left over. Yet, it was as if she had never truly made love with anyone until that moment.  Rinsing off the last of the lather, she wrapped a towel around her wet hair, and slipped into a large terrycloth robe.  She needed to check on Gary.  He was still sleeping when she woke up, although he did seem more peaceful.

Gary was still sleeping when she entered the spare room, although he seemed more restive, fitful.  The look of peace he had worn before was gone.  He stirred slightly, murmuring softly as a puzzled frown creased his forehead.  “Why, Marcia” he groaned, just loud enough for her to make out.  “At least tell me that.”  A single tear slid from the corner of his eye as he mumbled something that sounded suspiciously like ‘loser.’

Toni was appalled.  Was that why his ex-wife had left him?  Because she saw him as a loser?  She had heard that Gary’s ex was an up-and-coming corporate attorney.  A real shark, to hear some tell it.  Could she have been so ruthless as to toss him out for not being just as ambitious as she was?  This had to be the humblest, most compassionate man she had ever met!  Was that any reason to dump him?  Moved almost to tears, she sat on the edge of the bed, gently stroking his stubble covered cheek as her own biting comments came back to haunt her.

Muddy green eyes fluttered open once more, a little more alert this time.  Still, more than a little disoriented, he looked up at her, then at the rumpled covers on the other side of the bed.  A slow flush colored his cheeks as he turned his troubled gaze back to meet her pleased expression.

“Did we . . .?”

“We sure did,” she almost purred.  “And you weren’t half bad, Hobson.”

“I thought . . .”  He looked hurriedly away, his face a study in confusion.  “I thought I was dreaming,” he murmured.  “Kept waiting for . . . for you to shoot me, or something.”  ‘She still might,’ he thought to himself.  Suddenly he turned back to meet the puzzled gaze of her deep brown eyes with a questioning look of his own.  “Why?”

Toni sat back in amazement.  “Why?” she repeated.  “Why what?  Why did we make love?  If you need to ask that then I’m really out of practice!”

“Why now?” he elaborated.  He closed his eyes for a moment, trying not to react to the pain that still throbbed in the back of his head.  “W-we’ve known each other . . . almost three years now.  For at least half th-that time, I’ve tried to . . . to get to know you better.  Tried to ask you out.  The closest you’ve let me come . . . is buying you a c-cup of coffee.  You treated me l-like a nuisance, most of the time.  Wh-what’s changed?”

“What are you talking about?” she responded, stung by his implications.  “Nothings changed!  I just got tired of all the games and decided to up the ante!”

A tired, wan smile curled the corner of his mouth as he slowly shook his head.  “Everything’s changed,” he told her softly.  “I can’t walk, Toni.  M-Marcia left me because I couldn’t climb the ladder of success as fast as she could.  Right now, I’m so far down, I‘d need a grappling hook to even reach the bottom rung.  You had to bring me to your home, because I can’t sleep in mine.  I’m right back to square one, having to depend on someone else just to wipe . . . to do the most basic, demeaning things.” He turned his face away, unable to meet the hurt and anger he could see growing in her eyes.  “S-so I have to know, Toni,” he asked.  “I have to know if it’s real.  I mean, the details are . . . fuzzy at best, but you were . . .  A-and I have to know . . . why now?  Why not when . . . when I was . . . whole?”

Speechless, Toni sprang from her seat on the bed.  How dare he imply that she . . . that what they did . . . that she would ever . . .!

“At least tell me what you were . . . what you were thinking when . . . when you kissed me last night,” he pleaded.  “Give me some idea of where . . . where I s-stand.  I can’t go down this road again if it’s not going to lead to . . . something.”

“I don’t know what I was thinking!” Brigatti snapped.  “I must not have been thinking at all!  All I remember is coming in to check on you, and seeing you lying there.  You looked so . . . so . . .”

“Helpless?” he suggested neutrally.

“Yes!  Helpless and vulnerable and . . .”  As soon as the words were out of her mouth, Toni knew that she had just said the wrong thing.  The look on Gary’s face at that moment was the most devastated she had ever seen; on anyone.  A look that said, if he could simply stop his heart on command, he would already be dead.  And nothing on God’s green earth would bring him back.

Gary very deliberately turned on his side, facing away from her.  “I think . . . I think I’d better go,” he mumbled, “as soon as Winslow gets here w-with my clothes.”

“You can’t,” Toni argued.  “You’re in no shape to drive, and besides, they still haven’t found your wallet or your van.”

“I can get a cab,” Gary told her in a flat, lifeless monotone.  “Go back to McGinty’s.  I don’t think I’ll have to worry about nightmares tonight.”

Troubled by his tone as much as his words, Toni lowered herself to a seat on the bed once more.  She tentatively reached out a hand, placing it on his bare shoulder, only to have him shrug it off.  Stung by the rebuff, she tried a different tack.

“I told you what I was feeling last night,” she murmured softly.  “Tell me what you’re feeling, now.”

“You don’t want to know,” Gary mumbled. “Trust me.”

“We’ll never get past this if we don’t talk it out, Hobson,” she sighed.  “I’m not leaving until you tell me.”

At first, she thought he wasn’t going to answer at all.  That he was going to ignore her until she gave up and left.  Then . . .

“I f-feel used,” he whispered huskily.  “And cheap, l-like a charity case.  The only reason I’m even here is because you and Winslow found me in . . . in that cell covered in my own . . . my own filth!  I’m here out of pity!  Then you make . . . make love to me at the lowest point in my life . . . out of com . . . compassion!  How am I supposed to feel?”

“You didn’t have any complaints last night,” Brigatti commented dryly.

“I barely remember last night!” Gary moaned.  “God, I thought . . . hoped that maybe . . .”  He wrapped his arms around his head as an especially excruciating lance of pain threatened to tear his head apart!  Biting his lip to keep from crying out, he was still unable to completely stifle a low groan of agony.

Concerned, Toni grasped his shoulder, only to have him shake her off once more.  “Gary, don’t be an idiot!” she snapped.  “Let me help you!”

“You’ve done enough!” he gasped.  “Go away!”

“And just what, exactly, have I done?” Brigatti asked angrily.  “I made love to you!  You certainly didn’t put up much resistance!”

“As I said, I don’t remember,” he grated out between clenched teeth.  “You made love to . . . to a drone.  An empty husk that was . . . was flying on . . . on auto . . . God!”  He curled into a close approximation of a fetal position as the top of his head tried to come off!  “Please go away!” he groaned.

“No!” Toni growled.  “I’m going to help you whether you like it or not!”  She opened up a case and pulled out a pre-loaded syringe Dr. Carter had prepared for this eventuality.  With quick, precise movements, Toni swabbed a spot on his shoulder and jabbed the needle home.  For several seconds it appeared as if it wasn’t going to work.  Finally, however, some of the tension eased from Gary’s shoulders and he rolled halfway onto his back.

“You did it . . . again,” he murmured, as the shot worked its magic.

“Did what again?” Brigatti sighed.

“T-took away . . . choice.  C-couldn’t say ‘no’ . . . las’ night,” he told her, struggling to stay awake, “or n-now.”

“Are you saying you wouldn’t have?” she asked warily.

“N-not like that,” he almost whispered.  “Mu-mutual . . . consent.  You, um, you t-took away my p-power to . . . to choose.”

“God, Hobson!” she snorted derisively.  “You make it sound like . . . like . . .”  Toni was suddenly very unsure of herself.  If their roles had been reversed . . . If a man had seduced a semiconscious woman, he would’ve been guilty of . . . of . . . Oh, dear God!

“C-can’t . . . trus’ you . . .anymore,” Gary mumbled, barely conscious now.  “Can’t trus’ . . . trus’ me, either.  All gone. N-nothin’. . . nothin’ left.  Nothin’.”  His last words were barely audible as Gary succumbed to the effects of the painkiller.

Oh, God!  What had she done?  She would have been one of the first on the bandwagon to crucify any man who had taken advantage of a woman in that kind of condition.  Why should the loss of dignity, the loss of control, be any less humiliating, or devastating for a man?   Ever since the accident that had landed him in that damned chair, one of the things that had bothered him most had been having to let other people do things for him, and to him.  Now, in the heat of a misguided passion, she had stripped him of the last facet of his life that he’d thought he still had any control over.

*******************

Gary stirred sluggishly as he fought his way back to consciousness.  Blinking rapidly, he tried to focus on his surroundings.  He was still in Brigatti’s spare bed, but he had been bathed and he was wearing a clean gown.  Slowly, the memory of his argument with Brigatti began to surface.  So much of it was overlaid by the drugs and the pain, but he recalled saying things that were harsher than he had intended.  Still, to know that he had allowed Toni to use him in that way . . . The deep sense of shame and guilt only added to his already dark mood.

“How’re ya feeling?”

Slowly, Gary turned his head to see Winslow sitting in the only armchair in the room, reading a magazine.

“Like I need to get out of here,” he murmured huskily.  “Did . . . did you bring my clothes?”

Forehead creasing into a frown, the blonde detective laid aside his reading material.  “Did you and Toni have another argument?”

“You could say that,” Gary sighed, rubbing at his temples.  The persistent pain was never far away.  “We . . . we had some words.  Where is she?”

“She had to run a few errands,” Winslow told the injured man.  “What did you argue about?  Anything I can help with?”

“I don’t think so,” Gary chuckled dryly.  “I don’t think there’s any help for this.  Could you help me get dressed, please?  I’d like to be gone before she gets back.”

“Answer me this first.  How’s the head?”  When Gary turned his head away without answering, the young cop shook his head with a sigh.  “That’s what I thought.  You’re still in no shape to be left alone, Hobson.”

“I’m in no shape to stay here, either,” the patient replied grimly.  “Just show me where you put my things and I’ll manage on my own.”  He struggled to sit up, only to flop back when the motion sent a fresh shaft of agony through his skull.  “G-give me a minute.  I’ll be . . . okay.”

“Tell me the one about Rapunzel,” Winslow snorted.  He picked up his magazine and idly rifled the pages.  “Your parents called the bar several times, looking for you.  They got worried when they hadn’t heard from you.”

“What did you tell ‘em?”

“Nothing, yet,” the detective replied.  “They weren’t home when I returned their call.  And no one at the bar knew where you were or what’d happened.  I just left my cell phone number for them to call.”

“They’re probably on their way back to Chicago,” Gary sighed.  “I kinda left under . . . well, things got a little ugly back home.”

“How ugly?”

“I didn’t leave many friends behind,” he replied grimly, still massaging his temples.  His face was twisted in a grimace of pain.

Laying aside his magazine once more, Winslow grabbed a bottle and shook out a couple of pills, holding them out to Gary.

Gary just looked at them and slowly shook his head .  “No more drugs,” he murmured.  “I . . . I can’t lose control again.”

“Don’t be stupid, Hobson,” Winslow told him.  “It’s just a mild pain killer.”

“I said ‘no’!” Gary snapped, slapping the detective’s hand away.  With a choked cry, he clutched both sides of his head as the sudden motion sent a blinding shaft of pain behind his eyes.  For several minutes, all he could do was lie there and concentrate on taking one breath at a time.  When he could, at last, get his lungs to work without wanting to throw-up, he gave Winslow a scathing look.  “Wh-what is it . . . with you two a-and the drugs?” he stammered.  “I can’t . . . can’t think with that stuff fogging up my mind.”

“Then don’t think!” Winslow snapped.  “Co-operate!  Just what is your problem, Hobson?  Does this have to do with the fight you and Brigatti had?”

“Sorta,” Gary mumbled.  “Just . . . no more drugs.  Please.”

With a sigh, the blonde cop returned the pills to their container and placed it back on the table.  “They’re here if you need ‘em,” he grumbled, sitting back in the chair.  He picked up the periodical once more and started leafing through the pages.  “I think I liked you better when you were out of it.”

“That’s the problem,” Gary mumbled inaudibly.  “So did she.”

******************

Toni finally returned from her errands a little before noon.  Before going in to relieve her partner, she fixed up a light brunch of clear broth for her patient.  She needed the extra time to get her thoughts in order.

The feelings of guilt and anger she had experienced earlier were still strong enough to make her hesitant about facing the man she had so horribly wronged.  But, it had felt so right at the time!  What they had done had been one of the most pleasurable, and memorable, nights of her life.  What had made it so wrong was that Gary had not exactly been a willing participant.  She vividly recalled the glazed look in his eyes, the muted protests of ‘No.  N-not like this’ as he tried to push her away.  Of herself assuring him that it was ‘alright’, and pushing her advance.  But, it hadn’t been right!  She had robbed him of any choice in the matter!  Then, to compound her error, her crime, she had forced the medication on him.  Medication he had needed, but still had the right to refuse.  She had virtually treated him as a prisoner.  No, worse, a slave.  Forced him to comply with her wishes, not his own!

Shaking off her grim thoughts, Toni finished setting up the tray and headed for Hobson’s room.  She got there just in time to hear her patient refusing his medication and her partner’s cutting remark.  Marshalling her courage, she pasted on what she hoped was a convincing smile and went in.

“Well, hello,” she greeted them both brightly.  “Everyone getting along alright?  How’s our hardheaded patient?”

“A surprisingly apt description,” Winslow muttered.  “Awake, in pain, and totally out of his mind.”  He stood up and took the tray from her, setting it on the top of the dresser.  “Could you come with me for a minute?  We need to talk.”

Toni glanced over at Hobson, who shot her a pleading look.  He gave his head just the tiniest shake, begging her with his eyes not to say anything.  “We’ll be right back,” she assured him.

Winslow waited until they were back in the parlor before rounding on his partner and demanding an explanation.

“When I got here this morning, you were almost in tears,” he told her.  “At first, I thought he’d tried something on you.  Then I realized how ridiculous that was, under the present circumstances.  Now, you come in trying to look like ‘Mary Sunshine’ and he’s ready to drag himself down the street half-naked just to get out of here!”  He stepped in close to his partner, placing both hands on her shoulders and gently forcing her to meet his troubled gaze.  “I’m your partner, Toni,” he reminded her in a softer tone.  “And I know that you’ve had . . . feelings . . . for this guy ever since that undercover job you two pulled off.  From what I’ve seen, I think he shares those feelings.  So tell me, what happened last night to change that.”  When she dropped her eyes, his heart sank.  “Oh, Christ, Toni!  You didn’t!”

“Oh, yes,” she replied, pushing his hands away, turning so that she wouldn’t have to face his accusing stare.  “I did.”  She buried her face in her hands and laughed bitterly.  “I sure did.  Got him right where I wanted him and took full advantage of it!  How’s that for a ‘protector of the people’?”

Winslow came up behind her and softly grasped her shoulders again.  “It sounds like you’re human after all,” he told her.  “Look how badly your timing sucks,” he teased her.  “Any other time, and under better circumstances, he’d be singing your praises.  He’s just feeling put out that he wasn’t in any shape to enjoy it.”

“No,” Toni moaned.  “It goes deeper than that.  While we were arguing about it, he was trying to tell me why it bothered him so much.  But his head was hurting so bad he could hardly breathe.  He was angry, telling me to leave him alone.  I was only . . . God, I don’t know what I was thinking!  Anyway, I gave him one of those syringes Carter fixed up.  Wh-while it was taking effect, he told me . . . I’d done . . . I ‘d left him with nothing!” she hissed.  “Nothing!  That’s why he wants to leave, Ken.  And that’s . . . that’s why I have to let him.”

Brigatti dried her tears on a tissue before turning for the door.

“I need a few minutes with him.  Alone,” she sighed.  “Then, if you don’t mind helping him get dressed, I’ll call a cab.  I don’t . . . I don’t think he wants anyone to know where he’s going.”

She found Gary sitting up on the side of the bed, holding his head as if to keep it from falling off.  Having found the clothes Winslow had brought from his apartment, her patient had managed to get as far as t-shirt and boxers before succumbing to the pain.  He turned his head slightly at the sound of her footsteps.  A look of alarm flashed across his face and he snatched the sheet over the lower half of his body, for concealment or . . . protection?  Then, as if ashamed of his actions, a slow flush crept up his neck and on into his hairline.  Swallowing nervously, Gary pushed the cover aside and began struggling into his jeans.  He had to pull up one leg at a time, pull the pants over his feet, then lie back on the bed to get them over his hips and fasten them.  That was as far as his limited strength would take him.

“What do you want,” he panted.

“To apologize,” she told him.  “You were right.  Last night shouldn’t have happened.  I’m . . .”

“If you say your ‘sorry’,” he grumbled as he struggled to sit up, “I’m going to ask for your gun,”

“What?”  Where had that come from?  “Why?”

“So I can shoot myself!” he snapped.  “I’m sick to death of that word!  Everywhere I turn, someone is ‘sorry’!  And all they’re doing is rubbing in what a sorry piece of . . . of work I’ve become.  L-last night, that should’ve been something . . . a decision we’d both arrived at together.  Something both of us were ready for.  Instead something . . . beautiful became a . . . a power play.”  He picked up a blue, plaid shirt and began pulling it on.  “It stopped being about ‘us’ before there even was an ‘us’.  It makes me wonder if . . . if you’d been planning something like this for a while.  Not consciously,” he hurriedly amended.  “Maybe . . . maybe just daydreaming or . . . or something.  Like I used to.”  This last was said in a barely audible murmur.

“What can I say to make this better?” Toni pleaded.  “How can I convince you that this wasn’t a premeditated act of . . . of domination?  I’ll admit to . . . to wondering what it would be like.  Occasionally.  Was your being in that chair a deciding factor?  I honestly don’t know.”

Gary pulled the borrowed chair up and levered his body into it.  “T-tell me this, then.  Wh-what if . . . what if something comes of . . . this?  How w-would you want to . . . to handle . . .?”

“By ‘something’, you mean a baby?” Brigatti asked bitterly.  “You think I’m totally blinded by hormones?  I’ve been on the pill since I was eighteen!  And what if there had been a baby?  What would you have me do with it?  Abortion?  Over my dead body!”

“No!” Gary protested vehemently.  “It’d be my child, too!  We’d be married, if . . . if you’d . . .”

Toni didn’t give him a chance to finish before she jumped down his throat with both feet.  “You’d make an ‘honest woman’ of me?” she snapped.  “Now who’s being treated like a charity case?  Give me a break, Hobson.  You’re not that big of a catch!”  With that, she stormed out of the room, slamming the door.

Gary was left alone, in the silence of the empty room to finally finish what he had wanted to say.  “If you’d have me,” he whispered dismally.

*******************

When the taxi finally arrived, Gary sought Toni out, finding her in her room.  She sat on the other side of the bed, with her back to the door, much as the way he had earlier.  He had found an old White Sox baseball cap among the things Winslow had brought, and was turning it over and over in his hands as he tried to talk.

“I just wanted you to know,” he told her quietly, without preamble, “why I brought that up . . . about a baby.  Mom let it slip last year, j-just a few weeks before . . . before, um, she told me that I was the result of her and Dad . . .They had to get married.  Not that they didn’t love each other at the time.  Mom said she always knew they’d get married someday.  I just . . . pushed up the schedule by a year or so.  I know that, in this day and age, single parents are as common as married couples.  But . . . I’d want my child to at least know both its parents.  To have some input on how he or she was raised, what kind of morality they were exposed to.”  Not getting any response from the rigid back, Gary turned to go.  “Just one more thing,” he added in a voice husky with pent up emotion, one hand on the doorknob.  “I wasn’t offering to marry you just for the sake of the child.  I was asking if you’d be willing, for my own sake, because I, um, I had this misguided . . . impression . . . that I loved you.  You made your answer pretty clear.  Thank you for that, at least.”  He opened the door and pushed his way through before Toni could react to his revelation.

It took her more than a moment to sort through what he had just told her.  Damn!  Trust him to be the first one to work up the courage to say it, and her to trample all over it before the words were even out of his mouth!  She caught up with him as the taxi driver was helping him out the front door.  He had been helped into his pea coat, with that same baseball cap pulled low on his forehead, as it had on that night so long ago.  An eternity ago.  When he had still trusted her.

“Wait!” she said. “Don’t go!  We can talk this out!”

“Everything’s been said,” he told her in that flat monotone that said he was hurting too badly to dare let it show.  “Maybe it’s for the best.  At least we both know where we stand, now.”

“Damn you, Hobson!  Don’t you dare leave like this, or I’ll . . .”   Whoa!  Major déjà vu!

Apparently, he felt it, too.  He looked up at her, just as he had that horrible night, his eyes wearing that same haunted expression.

“Or what, Toni?” he asked in that same husky murmur, as the driver slowly backed him out the door.  “Or what?”

***************

Gary directed the cabbie to take him to McGinty’s first.  There, he waited in the cab as the driver went in to ask for Robin.  The pretty, dark-haired waitress hurried out a moment later.

“Where have you been?” she asked anxiously.  “Your mom is frantic!  She and your dad got here early this morning and they are absolutely convinced that something terrible had happened to you!  From the look of you, she was right!”

“Tell her I’m fine,” Gary lied.  “I just couldn’t sleep the other night and went out for a drive.  Tell her I had a little trouble with the van, and I’ll see her at the concert tomorrow night.  Look, I . . . I’ve lost my wallet and need you to get me some money out of petty cash.  About a hundred will do.  And quick.  The meter’s running.”

Robin hurried to comply, bringing him about double what he had requested.  Gary just took it and thanked her, asking her to give his parents and Marissa his love.  “Tell her I’ll be there to cheer her on,” he added as the cab pulled away.  Robin quickly pulled out her order book and began scribbling.  She had a feeling that Lois and Bernie would be very interested in the name and number of the cab company.  Maybe they could talk some sense into her hardheaded boss.

Thirty minutes later, the cabbie was wheeling him into the office at the Casa Diablo Motel.  He had finally remembered everything that had happened that night, and where to find his van.  To his relief, the day manager had his wallet in the safe; minus his money and credit cards, of course.  The money hadn’t been that much, and the card companies had been notified before the stores had opened the day before.  The thieves wouldn’t get very far using those.  Of course, Gary had to pay for an extra night, even though this was the first time he had even entered the room..

He finally managed to get his chair over the sill and closed the door against the growing cold.  Looking around, he wondered at the wisdom of his little rebellion, or the timing of it, at least.  The room was small and the bed was too high for him to be able to get in and out of it without more trouble than it was worth.  Still, it was warm and dry.  And private.  For the first time since he had left McGinty‘s the other night, Gary found himself truly alone.

Gary was finding it hard to sort out his emotions.  He should be happy to finally have the space he had been craving.  Instead, all he felt was incredibly lonely and despondent.  The scene with Toni had been . . . bad.  He knew she hadn’t meant to demean or degrade him, that she had . . . what?  Wanted to comfort him?  To console him?  Why now, when she was usually more than ready to cut him off at the knees?  It kept coming back to that damned chair.  That was the only real difference that he could see.  She felt . . . sorry for him!  She had even admitted as much that first day when he’d come home from the hospital.  When she told him how shaken she’d been that he had almost died.  If she truly felt anything for him, it shouldn’t take something that drastic for her to realize it.  He’d felt . . . something the first time they had kissed.

For just a moment, he thought she had, too.

Something crawled down his cheek.  Wiping at the tickling trail, Gary was not surprised to feel moisture.  Great.  He was getting sappy again.  Doc Zimmerman had warned him that this was going to happen for a while, but he had thought he’d be past that by now.  And, to top it off, his head was throbbing again.  Now that he was alone, maybe it was safe to take something.  He headed for the bathroom, intending to get some water, only to find the door too narrow for his chair to fit through.  Oh, that was just dandy!  And no hand rails.  Wonderful.  With a sigh, he returned to the bed and picked up the TV remote.  Maybe there was something on the tube to distract him.  When he hit the switch, however, he got nothing but a shower of sparks as the set shorted out!  Startled, angry, and on edge from the pain, he tore the remote off its base and shattered it against the far wall!  Suddenly, Gary felt very tired and alone.  Nothing was right.  Nothing would ever be right again!

“God,” he sighed, face buried in his hands.  “What am I doing here?  Why can’t I just die and get it over with?  Why do I have to drag everyone else down with me?”

The sound of children’s laughter drew Gary’s attention to the window.  Outside, he could see a group of children playing as snow fell around them in a thick curtain of white.  Some of them were dancing in little circles, while others were throwing snowballs.  Some even had the bottom half of a snowman in place.  A tiny smile tugged at his lips as the joyful scene brought back vivid memories of his own happy childhood.  A sense of nostalgia eased some of the tension lines around his eyes and mouth.  His mind drifted back to those idyllic days when he was just a small child in a world full of infinite possibilities.  Long before he had moved to Chicago.  Before the Paper had ever entered his life.  Leaning back, he let his eyes drift closed as the sound of distant laughter lulled his exhausted mind to sleep.

***********

Gary awoke with a painful start, unsure just what it was that had aroused him.  Then something nudged him in the chin.  Looking down, he almost got a mouth full of fur as the cat rubbed its head against his face once more.

“Hey, fella,” he murmured softly, stroking the orange fur.  “What are you . . . Never mind,” he sighed, picking up the Paper on the bed and shaking it at the cat.  “Haven’t you heard?  I’m on sick leave.”  He tossed the Paper back on the bed without looking at it.

A glance out the window told him that quite some time had passed since he had drifted off to sleep.  The sun had already moved well past the noon position.  Stretching to loosen up stiffened muscles, he wondered if he might be able drag himself into that bed after all. Maybe a good night’s rest would help his head to stop hurting.

What was that?  Gary leaned forward in his chair to peer intently out the window, the pain in his head forgotten.  That had sounded like a small child!  The parking lot that had been full of kids at play earlier was now empty of everything but huge drifts of snow.  Even the completed snowman was becoming just another shapeless mound as the frozen precipitation continued to fall.

Alarmed, Gary snatched the Paper off the bed and opened it to the front page.  “Child Missing After Record Snowfall.”  Dear God!  Where . . .?  The article gave the child’s home address as just a few blocks from the motel.  Could that be what he had heard?

There it was again!  A muffled cry that sounded like ‘Mommy!  Daddy!  Help me!’  Alarmed now, Gary strained to see through the thickening curtain of white.  If some kid had gotten caught in one of those drifts . . .!  There!  A tiny dark spot was moving on the top of that drift to his right.  Wow!  The kid was in it pretty deep if only one hand was showing!

Not bothering to read the rest of the article, Gary tossed the Paper aside and quickly made his way over the doorsill, not bothering to close the door.  He tried calling out, at first, hoping to attract the attention of the child’s friends, but no one answered.  Why had they run off and left him alone?  He couldn’t recall what the Paper had said about that.

The snow was falling much heavier than it had been just a few minutes ago.  The drifts that he had seen so clearly from his room were now little more than indistinct shapes in a swirling white haze.  Gary kept shouting as he fought to propel his chair through the ever-deepening drifts, but there was no one to hear!  Everyone had gone in to escape the storm, leaving only himself to rescue one frightened child!

Gary put every ounce of strength he had into the effort, but the chair was soon bogged down in snow halfway to his knees.  As he struggled and cursed, the tiny spot that was the child’s mitten-clad hand grew still.  Desperate, Gary launched himself into the snow and clawed his way forward.

“I’m coming!” he panted.  “Just hang on, kid!  Help is . . . on its . . . way!”

In a frantic journey that lasted only a few minutes, but felt like an eternity, Gary finally reached that tiny, silent plea.  He scrabbled anxiously at the child’s icy tomb, praying that he was not too late!  Gary almost sobbed with relief when the small shape shifted under his questing hands!

Trembling with exhaustion, Gary gathered a small boy into his arms.  He couldn’t have been more than five or six years old.  Again, he wondered why the child had been left alone and why no one had come looking for him.

“You okay, kid?” Gary asked the shivering child as he brushed the snow from his tiny face.

“Cold,” the little boy whimpered miserably.  He snuggled into Gary’s embrace with a sleepy little sigh.  “Home?”

“Yeah,” Gary sighed.  “Sure, kid.  No problem.”  He wrapped his arms tighter around the tiny, half-frozen form.  Unless the child roused enough to cling to his back, there was no way he could carry him out of the drift and find help.  “Wh-what’s your name?  I can’t keep calling you ‘kid’.  Mine’s G-Gary.”

“Elliot,” the little boy murmured drowsily.

“Elliot,” Gary chuckled.  “Th-that’s a nice name.  Now, li-listen up, Elliot.  I can’t walk, so I can’t c-carry you in my arms.  Can you lay on . . . on my back and h-hang on?  That way . . . that way I can crawl us . . . crawl us to the street.  Find h-help.”

The little boy made no answer as he snuggled deeper into Gary’s chest.  The poor little guy was already asleep, Gary realized.  There was no way he could cling to Gary’s back on his own.  Plus, such a move would leave the child more exposed than he was in Gary’s arms.  Helplessly, Gary looked around for a solution.  He was already covered in another six inches of fresh snow, just since he had uncovered Elliot.  If he tried rolling to the bottom of the drift, how long before they were buried even deeper?

No, Elliot’s only chance was to share the heat from Gary’s larger body, and for help to arrive quickly!  Keeping this in mind, Gary opened up the front of his pea coat and wrapped the tiny form in close to his chest.  God!  The kid was like a chunk of ice!  Once he had the boy secure against the cold, Gary began yelling at the top of his lungs!  Where were the boy’s parents?   Why hadn’t they come looking for their son before now?  Come to think of it, where was the hotel manager?  Couldn’t he hear?  Or did he just not care?  Was there no one else in the entire place that could, or would, come to their aid?  Apparently not.

Gary screamed until he was hoarse, all the while trying to keep the snow knocked down so he could be seen.  When he could no longer scream, he kept calling in a harsh croak, until even that was impossible.  How much time had passed?  Why wasn’t anyone looking for this child?  Didn’t they care?

Finally, exhausted, his voice gone, Gary could only hug the tiny shape in a little closer and pray.  ‘Please, God! Please, don’t let this little one die!’

***************

The snow was falling in gentle drifts.  Big, fat fluffy puffs of white that clung to his face and hands.  He was six again, enjoying the first snow of winter. Laughing, he scooped up handfuls of the icy crystals and flung them skyward in a fine, frozen spray.  The whole world had taken on a fairytale splendor.

“Gary!”

The child turned towards the distant voice.  ‘Momma?’  Slowly, as if plowing through molasses, he started back the way he had come.  It was a lot harder going back, for some reason, than it had been going forward.  The gentle shower of flakes grew thicker, harder . . . and heavier with each step!  In his mind, he called out to his momma for help.  He couldn’t see her!  Soon, the snow had piled up around him so high that he was barely able to move!  ‘Momma, Daddy!’ he called out into the whiteness.  ‘Help me!’

***************

Lois and Bernie pulled into the snow-blanketed parking lot almost on the bumper of the unmarked car driven by Paul Armstrong.  It had taken them hours to find the cabbie and convince him to tell where he had taken Gary.  Then the storm had closed off most of the streets, forcing them to take a roundabout route to their destination.

Armstrong had finally gotten the report on Hobson’s arrest and was hoping to find the missing man somewhere in the vicinity of where he’d originally been found.  When Winslow had told him about the injured man’s hurried departure, Paul had checked, first of all, to see if he’d returned home.  No one there had seen him since he had left for Hickory.  Furious with the two detectives for letting him go off alone, he had promised to get the full story once Hobson was found.

The night manager was more than eager to cooperate when Armstrong waved his badge under the man’s nose.  Although the anguished look on Lois’s face may have had something to do with it.  Mother and cop spotted the open door at almost the same moment.  Snow had spilled over three feet into the room.

“Oh, God!  Where could he be?” she asked in a choked voice.  “Why would he have gone out in . . . in this?”   She waved a hand at the snow that continued to fall in a thick curtain of white.

“You’re asking the wrong man,” Armstrong sighed.  “That son of yours makes a career out of doing the unexpected!”

“Over here!”

Lois and Paul were out the door before the echo faded.  They saw Bernie flinging snow aside in huge clumps and sprays.  When Lois saw what he was uncovering, she could have sworn she’d felt her heart skip a beat!  It was the handle to an empty wheelchair!

“Gary!” she screamed.  “Dear God, please let him answer!  Gary!”

“He couldn’t have gotten far,” Paul reasoned.  He started clawing at the base of the nearest drift.  “Hobson!  Answer me, man!  Hobson!”

In the distance, Bernie thought he heard other voices calling for someone.  It sounded like ‘Elliot’.  Was someone else lost in the snow?   A young couple came plowing through the drifts, calling at the top of their lungs.

“Have you seen a little boy?” the woman asked the moment she saw them.  “His name is Elliot and he’s only five,” she sobbed.  “He was . . . was playing ‘hide and seek’ with the . . . the other children and they j-just left him out here!  That was hours ago!  They just told us when we went to pick him up, and he‘s only five!” she wailed.

“We’ve got someone missing, too,” Bernie told them, indicating the empty chair.  “Knowing my son, when we find him, we’ll probably find yours.  Now, he had to crawl through this stuff, so they can’t be far.  Just pick a spot and dig.”

The young couple set to work with frantic enthusiasm.  Using the chair as a starting point, the five of them fanned out and began their desperate search.  Another hour passed with more cops joining in the search in answer to Armstrong’s hurried call.  Bright lights illuminated the grim scene as everyone alternated calling for Gary or Elliot, praying that one or the other would be in good enough shape to answer.  They had soon leveled every drift that they figured could be within crawling distance of the already injured man.

Lois was the first to see it.  An orange smudge moving halfway up a ten-foot drift.  It looked . . . it was!  The cat was digging furiously at the thick covering of snow!

“Gary!” she cried hopefully.  All eyes turned to her as she scrambled up the icy slope and began flinging snow from the spot where the cat had been excavating.  It was so far from where they had found the chair!  Could Gary have possibly crawled such a distance?  When she uncovered a sleeve-clad arm, a cheer went up!  “Thank you, God!  Thank you!” she sobbed as the others joined her in her efforts.

Minutes later, they were prying the unconscious child from Gary’s near-frozen grasp.  Elliot stirred sleepily as he was passed into his mother’s arms.  She hugged him close, marveling that he was still so warm, when the man who had held him so protectively for so long was blue and shivering from the cold.  It was as if he had given all the heat from his own body to save her child.

“Thank you,” she said in a breathless, joyful sob.  “God bless you all for saving my baby.”

“It wasn’t us,” Armstrong remarked dryly.  He was kneeling next to the shivering, blanket wrapped form of the man they had found with Elliot.  “If he hadn’t kept Elliot warm, we would’ve been too late.  Where’s that ambulance?” he called out to his men.

“Still stuck in the snow,” a uniformed officer told him.  “They’re about three blocks away, now.”

“We need to get these two warm,” the big detective mumbled.  “Let’s get the snow cleared out of that doorway and get them inside,” he ordered.  He turned to the suddenly still figure of Gary Hobson.  “Man, you’ve got to stop doing this!” he exclaimed softly, feeling for a pulse.   Not finding one, he began CPR.  “Get that room clear!” he shouted.  “Someone go dig that ambulance out!  Tell them we need that equipment now!”  Bernie came running up with extra blankets and Paul put him to work breathing air into Gary’s motionless chest.  To his relief, they got a pulse back on the unconscious man within minutes.

It was the work of only moments to clear the doorway and bundle the half-frozen man into his bed.  Lois quickly cranked the heat up as high as it would go, while Bernie and Elliot’s father went in search of more blankets.  The child protested weakly that he was too warm, bringing a tearful smile to his mother’s face.

“M-momma?”

Lois Hobson leaned in close, the better to hear her son’s barely audible words.  “I’m here, Gary,” she murmured softly.

“H-heard . . . heard you c-calling,” he gasped in a raspy whisper, too weak to open his eyes.  “T-time to c-come in?”

“Yes, sweetie,” Lois sniffed.  “It’s time to come in.  How do you feel?”

“C-cold,” he murmured.  “Throat hurts.  We . . . we got a-any cocoa?”

“Cocoa?”

“Y-yeah,” Gary nodded with a wistful smile.  “B-been thinkin’ ‘bout it . . . all th-the way home.”

Lois smiled tearfully as she recalled how much he used to love hot cocoa after a hard day playing in the snow.  “Soon,” she told him in a soothing tone.  She smoothed the hair back from his forehead, telling him, “You go to sleep now, hon.  When you wake up, I’ll get you a big, steaming cup.  Okay?”

“ ‘Kay,” Gary rasped drowsily.  “Marshmallows?”

“Yes, dear,” she chuckled.  “With marshmallows.  Now, go to sleep.”  As Gary drifted off once more, she turned a tear-streaked face to the others.  “He’s delirious,” she sighed.  “He . . . he hasn‘t called me ‘Momma‘ since he was eight.  Where’s that ambulance?”

*****************

A sharp pain in his left arm, followed by a warm sensation crawling through his flesh, caused Gary to open his eyes once more.  He looked up to see a strange man in an EMT’s uniform bending over him.  Dazed and disoriented, he peered around, quickly spotting his parents and Armstrong.  His coat and shirt were gone, and a thick layer of blankets had taken their place.  Raising his head a little, he saw a strange woman cradling a blanket wrapped form in her arms.  She was rocking back and forth in the room’s only chair.

“He . . . ‘kay?” he rasped hoarsely.

“The little boy?  He’s fine,” the paramedic replied, glancing over his shoulder at the child.  “In fact, his folks will probably take him home tonight.  How about you, sport?  How are you feeling?”

“C-cold,” Gary replied in a voice that was little more than a whispered croak.  “Heavy.  Wh-what . . .?”  He tried to push at the thick layer of blankets that weighed him down, only to find he lacked the strength to even raise his arms.  “Wha’s wrong . . . this time?”

“Nothing much,” the young man replied with a grim smile.  “Just a touch of hypothermia and cardiac arrest.  Nothing new for you from what Detective Armstrong tells me.  We’ve heated up the IV a little to warm you up a little faster.   And there’s a nice warm ambulance waiting to take you to the hospital.”

“N-no,” Gary insisted, shaking his head for emphasis.  “No hospital.”  With a huge effort he reached his right hand over to grasp the IV, letting it drop when he was unable to summon the strength to pull it out.  “No h-hospital,” he repeated.  “H-home.  Want . . . want to go . . . home.”

“Mr. Hobson,” the EMT sighed, “your body temperature was below . . .”

“D-don’t c-care,” the shivering man protested.  “W-want to go h-home.”

“If you’d done that in the first place,” Armstrong reminded him, “you wouldn’t be in this mess and I wouldn’t have had to jump start your heart.  Again.  Now, I’m not listening to any of your arguments this time, Hobson.  You are going with these men, even if I have to load you on the stretcher myself!”

“H-home,” Gary murmured huskily.  His last reserves of strength spent, his eyes slid shut once more and he fell silent.

The young paramedic lifted Gary’s eyelids one at a time, then checked his vital signs once more before turning to the detective with a relieved sigh.  “He’s just out of it,” he reported.  “Which is good, at this point.  If he’s conscious, we have to abide by his wishes, not yours.”

“Then load him up and get him out,” Armstrong insisted, “before he wakes up.  Let the ER docs argue with him.”

******************

When Gary once more awakened, it was to the all too familiar sound of monitors beeping.  He was in the ER.  Again.  This was really getting old.  At least he didn’t feel cold anymore.  Slowly, he opened his eyes, turning his head to look around.  Yep, he’d definitely been here before.  He tried to call out to the nurse he could see standing by the med cart, but all that came out was a raspy croak.   It was enough, however, to get her attention.

“Good,” she greeted him with a smile.  “You’re awake, finally.  I’ll get Dr. Carter.  He’s been waiting to speak with you.”

“Nice,” Gary rasped.  God, his throat hurt!  “Go . . . home . . . now?” he asked painfully.

She just smiled and said, “I’ll get the doctor.”  She hurried out the door before Gary could muster up enough voice for a protest.  With a sigh, he lay back and closed his eyes.  “This sucks,” he whispered to himself.

A few minutes later, Dr. Carter and Gary’s parents rushed into the room, followed closely by Paul Armstrong.  He gave them a half-hearted wave.

“Thank God, you’re awake,” Lois cried joyfully. “We’ve been . . . You’ve got to stop scaring us like this, Gary!”

“Yeah, Kiddo,” Bernie joined in.  “Don’t you know heart failure is contagious?  Your mother and I both liked to’ve had one!”

“Sorry,” he croaked.  “G’home . . . now?”

“We need to keep you overnight, Gary,” Carter replied with a shake of his head.  “Do you have any idea how long you were in that drift?”

Closing his eyes, Gary tried to think back.  It had been past noon when he heard Elliot’s cries.  How long had it taken him to fight his way through the drifts?
“It was . . . after two,” he rasped out.  “I . . . I think.”

“It was after eight when we found you,” Armstrong reported.  “You were under that mess for six hours, Hobson.  Why aren’t you dead?”

“He’s too tough to die,” Bernie spoke up with a rueful grin.  “I don’t think he knows how to give up.”

“Regardless of the reason,” the young doctor commented, “you survived . . . again.  As a result, however, you have a bad case of laryngitis, and you’re running a low-grade fever.  We really need to keep you for a few days, pump you full of antibiotics.”

“No!” Gary cried hoarsely.  “Con . . . concert . . . M-Marissa . . . to-tomorrow . . .!”

“I’m sure she’ll understand,” Lois tried to reassure him.  “With everything you’ve just been through . . .”

Gary shook his head in vehement protest.  “Promised!” he wheezed past the burning in his throat.  “W-won’t let her d-down!”  He lay back, closing his eyes in a grimace of pain.  ‘God!  That hurt!’  “S-stay . . . un-until . . . time.  No . . . no more.”

Carter finally nodded.   Perhaps, if his stubborn patient wasn’t feeling any better by then, they could reason with him in the morning.

*********************

When Gary awoke the next morning, it was to a throbbing pain in the back of his skull.  At least it no longer filled his entire head.  The room felt way too cold, and his throat burned.  It was as if someone had taken sandpaper and stripped off the top two layers of the lining of his throat.  Just trying to swallow past the fire and swelling in his throat was agony.  ‘Great,’ he thought to himself.  ‘I’ve swapped a headache for tonsillitis.  Wonderful trade-off.’  He tried to turn his head and look around.  A move that proved ill advised, as it touched off a bout of dizziness.  He quickly squeezed his eyes shut, desperately clutching the sides of the mattress as the room whirled around him.  ‘Whoa!  Stop this ride!  I want off!’ he silently pleaded.

Finally, everything settled into its proper place.  Gary opened one eye experimentally.  When the walls and ceiling stayed where they belonged, he allowed the other one to join the party.  The room remained stationary.  ‘So far, so good,’ he mused.  Cautiously, he tried turning his eyes to the left, letting his head follow more slowly.  ‘Easy does it,’ he cautioned himself.  ‘We don’t want to ride that roller-coaster again!’

The first thing he saw was his mother, sound asleep in a recliner.  She looked tired, faint lines of tension etched around her eyes.  Gary decided not to wake her up, if he could avoid it.  Slowly turning his head to the right, he spotted his father in an armchair near the foot of the bed, feet propped up on the windowsill.  He had his chin resting on his chest, snoring softly.  ‘Have they both been there all night?’ Gary wondered.

The burning in his throat was a persistent torment.  Just breathing was slow torture!  Gary carefully looked around for some kind of relief.  A cup and pitcher sat on a tray table near the middle of the bed on the right.  ‘God, please don’t let it be empty,’ he prayed.  ‘I only need a sip.  Just a sip.’  He slowly stretched his hand out, intending to grasp the cup.  A sudden, involuntary, jerk of his hand sent ice and water cascading onto the floor.  For the first time, he noticed the bandages that covered both of his hands.

His dad jerked awake when a few drops of water landed on his dangling hand.  Quickly assessing the situation, Bernie grabbed a towel off the foot of the bed and began drying off the table, then lay the towel on the floor to soak up the rest.

“Hey, Gar,” he greeted his son with a lopsided grin.  “Good to see you awake, kiddo.  Thirsty?”

Gary just nodded, slowly.  Even that much movement sent slivers of fire throughout his neck and head.  God!  Even the insides of his ears were burning!

Bernie grabbed the pitcher, saying he would be “right back.”  As good as his word, he was back in just a few minutes, spooning crushed ice into a cup.

“They said you should just let these melt in the back of your throat,” Bernie cautioned, as he fed Gary a small spoonful of the chilly crystals.

Gary did as instructed, letting the coolness trickle down the inside of his throat.  The first one did little to ease the fire that still raged there, but the second was a definite, if slight, improvement.  By the third, his mother was awake and he was able to rasp out a weak “Hi, Mom.”

“I don’t know what we’re gonna do with you,” Lois sighed.  Her hand automatically started brushing the hair back from his feverish brow.  The heat she felt radiating off of her son belied the shivers that still, occasionally, shook his slender frame.  “Here we finally let you out of our sight, and you’re right back where you started from.  I think your father and I should have a little talk with your guardian angel.  He’s falling down on the job.  Big time.”

Gary was too tired to argue with her.  Besides, it still hurt so bad to try to speak.  A frown creased his brow as he tried to think.  He needed something to write on.  Through gestures, he quickly got his parents to understand his needs.  Lois fished a pen and a pad out of her purse, as Bernie raised the head of the bed up so that Gary could be more comfortable.  Holding the pen and pad clumsily in his bandaged hands, he began to write.

‘I still want to go to Marissa’s concert tonight.’

“Gary,” Lois sighed, “be reasonable.  You’re in no shape to be going all that way tonight!  You have a fever, can’t talk, and you barely have the strength to hold that pen.  Marissa would be the first to tell you not to go.”

‘Promised!’  Gary underscored the single word several times for emphasis.  ‘I’m going!’

“And how do you propose to get there?” his mother asked, equally as stubborn.  “I will not drive you!  Neither will your father.”

The look Gary gave her was one of such hurt and . . . betrayal, Lois almost gave in.  His next message almost broke her heart.

‘Am I a prisoner, then?  Don’t I have any say in this?’

“No!” Bernie protested vehemently.  “Of course not!  I mean, yes!  You know what I mean!  But we can’t let you out in this weather in the shape you’re in!  Think how Marissa would feel if you got worse, or died because of a promise you made her!  It would break her heart!”

Gary took the note pad back and flipped to the next page.  Scribbling furiously, he finally handed it back to his mother.

‘I need to go,’ he’d written.  ‘I’ve let her down too often in the past.  I need to be there for her, the way she’s always been there for me.  Please!’

Bernie read the message over Lois’s shoulder and shook his head.  “Sorry, kiddo,” he sighed.  “I have to side with your mother on this one.  You’re just too sick.  You came within a whisker of dying last night.  You have frostbite on both hands, the tip of your nose and both cheeks, too.  You don’t have the strength to get into your chair on your own.  You’re definitely in no shape to drive.  Hell, I doubt you could sit up in the chair even if we put you in it!”

Gary held his hand out for the pad once more.  His message this time was short.

‘Please!’

He gave both his parents a desperate, pleading look.  When Lois and Bernie both shook their heads, Gary just let his drop back on the pillow and closed his eyes.  Lois tried to press the note pad back into his hands, but he pushed it away.  He made it obvious that he had nothing more to say to them.

Lois and Bernie tried to reason with him, but he refused to even look at them.  He would not even open his mouth for the ice chips his mother offered to soothe his sore throat.  After a while, she gave up, leaving him to his stony silence.  She and Bernie sat there patiently, conversing quietly in the hopes that Gary would finally see that they had only his best interests in mind.

The nurses came and went, giving Gary medication through his IV or checking his vital signs.  He made no move of either greeting or protest.  Despondent, he simply let them do whatever they came to do and leave.  It was as if nothing mattered anymore.  Once again, matters had been taken out of his hands and he was no longer in control.  So be it. If they wanted to treat him like a thing instead of a person, there wasn’t much he could do to stop them.  This time, he couldn’t even speak!  How could he even hope to convince them how important this was to him?

The nurse brought Gary a breakfast of juices, jell-o and some type of clear broth.  He pushed it away without even looking at it.  When Lois tried to persuade him to eat, he turned his head away, shutting her out.

“I just don’t understand what’s gotten into him,” Lois sighed.  She and Bernie were sitting in the cafeteria, trying to eat their own breakfast.   “He’s never been that much into gospel music before.  Why the urgency to go to this thing?”

“Because of Marissa?” Bernie mused.  “They’ve become pretty close friends.”

“But she wouldn’t want him risking his health for a concert!” Lois insisted.  “No.  It’s more than that.  I’m just too tired to think what it could be.”

“Same here,” Gary’s father sighed.  “I mean, it’s not like he really has a . . . choice.   Oh my . . . That’s it!”

“What’s it?” Lois mumbled wearily.

“Remember way back when all this first started?” he asked her.  “That doctor . . . Zimmerman, I think it was.  He said that Gary needed to feel in control, to make his own decisions.  So now, all of a sudden we’re telling him he can’t do something he obviously has his heart set on doing.  We’re treating him like our child instead of like the man he’s become.  We’ve grounded ‘im, for Christ’s sake!”

Lois sat back in her seat, her mouth falling open in astonishment.  He was right!  The answer was so simple!  Why hadn’t she seen it herself?

“We have to find some way to get him to that concert,” she told her husband.  “We just have to.  Maybe that nice Dr. Carter has some ideas.”

*****************

Gary was still staring miserably out the window when his parents burst into the room an hour later.  Startled he turned to look at them, squeezing his eyes shut when the walls began to dance once more.

“Good news, sweetie,” Lois was saying when he was finally able to open his eyes.  “We called Marissa and, because of the weather, they had to postpone the concert until tomorrow night.  Dr. Carter thinks that, if you respond well to the treatment, we should be able to take you.”

“Better yet,” Bernie added, “it’s been moved to just a few blocks from here.  Part of the roof caved in at the auditorium where they’d planned on holding it.  So Union Center volunteered their auditorium free of charge.  It’s like . . . like someone wants you at that concert.”

Giving them a puzzled look, Gary made writing motions with his hands.  Lois quickly found her pad and pen.

‘What changed your minds?’ he scribbled hurriedly.

“We got to thinking,” Lois replied, giving Bernie a sidelong glance.  “You were right to be angry with us.  We were right, too,” she was quick to add.  “You’re way too sick to go tonight.  But, it really wasn’t our decision and we handled it so badly.”  She placed one hand on top of Gary’s bandaged ones.  “All we could see was our little boy, sick, injured and in pain.  We completely forgot that . . . that you’re all grown up with a mind of your own.  You’re perfectly capable of making your own decisions and we had no business trampling all over your choices in the manner we did.  We never should have made you beg us to see your side of it.  I’m so sorry we put you through that!”

“We both are,” Bernie told him, covering his wife’s hand with his own calloused one.  “Can you forgive us, Gar?”

The corner of Gary’s mouth twitched as he took back the pad and pen.  He handed it back with a suspicious gleam of moisture in his eyes.

‘I love you both so much!’ he’d written.

He reached out and pulled both of them into a fierce hug.  When they finally turned loose of each other, Lois wiped at his stubble-covered cheek with a tissue.

“We really need to get you a razor,” she commented with a little sniffle.  “You look like a lumberjack.  Does this mean you’ll eat, now?  And get plenty of rest?”

‘Yes, Mommy.’  Gary handed her the note with a tiny grin.  Lois read it, giving him an exasperated look.

“I guess I deserved that,” she grinned.  “I’m going to see if I can round up something to get rid of that beard.  And, if you’re a good little boy, I might even get you that hot cocoa you asked for last night.”

Gary scrawled another note.  He handed it to her with a mischievous gleam in his eyes.  It read: ‘With marshmallows?’

“So, you do remember!” Bernie laughed.  “We were wondering if you would.  Hey, that reminds me.  You won me ten bucks from one of the EMTs.”  At Gary’s questioning look, he continued.  “He was saying something to his partner about every patient’s first words, when they ‘came to,’ were either ‘where am I?’ or ‘what happened?’  I bet him that your’s would be asking about the kid.  Gave me two to one odds.”

With a tiny smile playing across his frostbitten face, Gary wrote another note.

‘And you only bet five?  Oh, ye of little faith!’

****************

Gary flinched as Lois tried to apply shaving cream to his frostbitten cheek.  Just the slightest touch sent a burning sensation through his cold-ravaged skin.  Even as gentle as she tried to be, Gary had to sign for her to stop.  The skin was just too sensitive.

“Maybe we can just trim it up a little,” Lois sighed, carefully wiping away the tiny bit of lather with a tissue.  “I really wish you’d have shaved at least once before getting frozen half to death.  You’re going to look like a pirate.”

‘Yo-ho-ho!’ Gary wrote.  ‘Just call me ‘Blackbeard.’

“Not yet,” Lois mumbled on reading the note. “It’s not heavy enough to call it a beard, yet, and ‘Thick Black Stubble’ just hasn‘t got that piratey ‘ring’ to it.  What I am going to call you is ‘Stubborn’ and ‘Mule-headed’.”  She brushed the hair back from his forehead in a gesture she had repeated a thousand times before.  “You’re still running a fever and having difficulty breathing, although you hide it well.  Now, I’m not saying this to argue with you, but are you sure you need to be going out tonight?”

‘Yes,’ he wrote.  ‘I am.  I really need to do this, Mom.  I can’t explain why, because I don’t exactly know myself, but please have enough faith in me to know my own mind on this.  It’s important.’

“Don’t worry, hon,” she smiled.  “I’ve learned my lesson on that issue.  Just don’t expect me to stop worrying.  That will never happen.”

Gary gave her a wan smile that pulled painfully at his damaged skin, as he wrote her another note.

‘Can’t expect you to lay aside 35 years experience,’ he wrote.

“So long as you understand that,” she told him, “we’ll get through this just fine.  How‘s your throat feeling?  Have you tried to talk anymore today?”

“Still . . . hurts,” Gary croaked painfully.

“Then hang on to that notebook,” his mother sighed.  “Your father and I can be your voice for tonight.”  She laid the shaving cream aside and wiped her hands on a towel.  “I’m going to go talk to Dr. Carter.  Maybe he has an idea of how to neaten up that hairy face of yours.”

Gary quickly scribbled another note and handed it to her.

“Ice cream?”  Lois looked at him incredulously.  “You almost froze to death and you want ice cream?”  Gary rubbed at his throat in answer.  “Oh!  Yes, I see.  Any particular flavor?  Or just whatever I can find.”

‘Pineapple sherbet or vanilla?’

“I’ll see what I can do,” she promised.

***********************

“Trust me, Mrs. Hobson,” Dr. Carter told her, “Gary will not want you to shave him for a few more days, at least!”

“Now you tell me,” Lois grumbled.  “Even the lather hurts him.  Do you know anyone who can at least trim it up for him?  Make him look a little less shaggy?  Going to this concert tonight is very important to him, for some reason, and I’m sure he’d like to look his best.”  Dr. Carter gave her an amused, raised eyebrow, look.  “His best under the circumstances,” she quickly amended.  “I know he looks like ‘death warmed over,’ which technically he is, but there must be something we can do to neaten him up just a little.”

“I’ll ask Mr. Mott to give him a trim,” Carter promised.  “He’s the guy who preps our surgery patients.  The man has an incredibly delicate touch.”

“Good,” Lois sighed.  “Right now, I think he’ll flinch if you look at him too hard.”

******************

Marissa found herself pacing nervously backstage.  This was not the first time she had ever performed in front of an audience, just never one this large.  Then, to add to her apprehension, she had only now been told it was going to be televised!  She found herself wishing that she could talk to Gary before she went on.  Ever since that day when they had cemented their friendship over dinner, she had come to rely on him for the same kind of moral and spiritual support that he had needed from her.  Now, when she needed him desperately, he was stuck in the hospital.  Again.  Marissa wished she had known, earlier, what a terrible time he had been going through.  Perhaps she could have helped him somehow.

“Ms. Clark?”  It was one of the parishioners acting as a stagehand.  “There’s a Mr. Hobson asking to see you.”

“Gary?”  Incredible!  She’d just been thinking about him!

“I believe he said his name was Bernie.”

“Oh,” Marissa sighed in disappointment.  “I guess Gary was too sick to make it.  Could you take me to him?  I’d like to know how Gary’s doing.”

“Right this way.”

The stagehand quickly guided her to an alcove just outside the entrance to the auditorium.  Lois and Bernie were waiting for her there.  They quickly embraced their sightless friend.

“I’m so glad you’re here!” Marissa exclaimed.  “How’s Gary?  Have you been to see him today?  Is he doing okay?  I never did hear exactly what happened, this time.  Please, tell me he’s going to be alright!”

“If you’ll let us get a word in edgewise,” Bernie chuckled, “we’ll tell you everything we know.  But, first, there’s someone here who wants to see you.”

“Please don’t touch his face,” Lois cautioned her.  “His skin is very sensitive right now.  Over here, sweetie.”

“Who . . .?”

“Hi . . . ‘Rissa.”

Oh!  She’d know that voice anywhere!  Even in that rusty, painful rasp.  As she rushed toward the sound of his voice, the first thing she encountered was a short metal rail.  She then felt a cloth-wrapped hand enclose hers. Marissa found that Gary was strapped to a hospital gurney, his head raised until he was halfway sitting erect.

“Gary!  You made it!  Oh, thank God!  You’re okay?  Oh, I’m so happy you’re here.  How are you feeling?  You sound awful!”  Marissa gently touched his forehead, causing him to flinch away.   She apologized quickly, belatedly mindful of Lois’s warning, but not before she’d felt the heat radiating from his feverish brow.  “You’re burning up!  Should you be out in your condition?  And you can barely talk!  Oh, Gary!  What are you doing here?  I would’ve understood . . .!”

All this time, Gary was scribbling furiously.  He handed the note to his mother.

“Slow down, Marissa,” Lois told the babbling woman.  “Gary wants me to tell you that he wouldn’t have missed hearing you sing for anything.  He says that he’s feeling much better, which is a lie, and that he wanted you to know that he was here for you.  He knows how nervous you get just before one of these things.”

The stagehand reappeared at that moment to announce that it was time for everyone to take their positions.   He waited as Marissa gave Lois and Bernie a quick hug.

She then turned to her friend.  “Don’t get me wrong, Gary,” she said.  “I’m so glad you’re here.  But, if you get worse because you felt you had to keep a promise to me, I will put you out of your misery myself!”  She gave him a quick hug, then turned to go.  A gentle tug on her sleeve stopped her.

“Gary says he may hold you to that,” Bernie told her.

******************
 

Go on to Installment 6                           Return to Installment 4
Installment 7
Installment 8
Installment 9

Email the authors: Polgana54@cs.com
 

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