At that moment the door to the OR was thrust open, and a grave-eyed doctor surveyed them from behind her mask.
“He’s not out of the woods yet,” she warned them. “The wound on his side actually nicked his small intestine. That had to be flushed extensively, multiple times, and we haven’t stitched it together yet to give the flesh a chance to granulate. The wound on his leg needed to be scraped to the bone—it’s going to be a long time healing. We’ve pumped him so full of antibiotics and painkillers his eyeballs are floating.” There was a pause. “The next couple of days are going to be crucial. He’s going to be sleeping for a good twelve hours after this—we’re keeping him sedated so his own body has a chance to heal. I suggest you go sleep and then send maybe two of you at a time in to visit.” She looked around at all of them. “Is any one of you named Theo?”
Theo nodded and stood. “Yes?”
She nodded. “Good. You’re here. Before he went under he kept calling for Theo and Elsie?”
Elsie stood too. “Yes.”
“If you two could be here in the morning, it might help to ease his mind.”
“When can we take him home?” Glen asked, standing. “We’ve got a Cadillac medivac transporter, and he’ll heal better at home.”
“It depends on him,” she said. “We may need to do more procedures, depending on how he heals. His infection is going to be hard to kill and an ongoing concern. But if he’s a good boy and we only have a couple of glitches, I’d say two weeks. He’ll need someone to stay with him and a nurse to check in once a day. Does he have that?”
Glen gave a tight smile. “We can find the nurse before we move him. And his housemate is right here. Isn’t that right, Theo?”
Theo looked at him in naked gratitude, his eyes burning and exhaustion and relief practically taking him out at the knees. “Yeah,” he whispered hoarsely. “That’s right.”
A whole new life. Well, if Spencer Helmsley could survive his own goddamned heroics, Theo could certainly do a whole new life.
And with that thought, his knees did give, and Preston and Damien had to help him into his seat, and he buried his face against Colonel’s neck again and shook until exhaustion took him.
He didn’t even really wake up when he was hauled to the hotel room, where he slept for ten hours, and every time he surfaced, he thought, “Spencer’s okay,” before he was pulled under the even, dark current of sleep.
Surprises and Shockers
SPENCER opened his eyes blearily to find his best friend, the sister of his heart, actively engaged in a game of rummy with the guy he’d spent twelve hours trapped on a raft with, while his dog looked on.
“Am I dead?” he asked, not displeased exactly. Not that he wanted Theo and Elsie to be dead too, but if he could have laid out an ideal way to spend eternity that wasn’t naked and engaged, this wasn’t bad.
“Yeah, Spence, you’re dead,” Elsie said, rolling her eyes. “That’s why everything smells like antiseptic and your body’s on fire.”
Spencer had to take stock for a minute, and as he did, it settled in. “You bitch,” he said without heat. “I hadn’t figured that out until you said something.”
Because yes, everything hurt and some things were in agony and some things were on fire. His side—which had been aching pretty persistently the day before—now felt like someone had been rooting around in there with a red-hot iron ice-cream scoop, but that was nothing compared to the fits his leg was giving him.
The look of sympathy on her face told him that he had probably almost died. He and Elsie didn’t do looks like that unless the other person had seen their absolute darkest moment, and he swallowed against a dry throat.
Before he could say anything, Theo was there with a little cup of ice chips. “Here, Spence,” he said, slipping one between Spencer’s lips efficiently. Spencer hadn’t even seen him move, and suddenly he was close and clean and dry and bundled in plain navy fleece, with short brown hair combed neatly over his brow.
“Thanks,” Spencer said, and he gave a little smile. “Do you realize that your hair was in your face all day yesterday? I seriously had not even seen the color of your eyes.”
Theo gave him a lopsided grin. “Disappointed they’re not glowing purple? Clown-car red? Sunset orange?”
“Naw—they’re fine. You look….” Spencer caught himself raising his hand to stroke Theo’s cheek. He paused but couldn’t make the hand drop to the bed. “Real good, is all,” he rasped.
Theo met his eyes, his own alight with a dry spark of recognition. He captured Spencer’s hand and kissed the back of it, and Spencer stared at him in shock.
“You look alive, which is also ‘real good,’” Theo said softly. “Now let’s see if we can’t get you all the way up to healthy.”
Spencer gaped at him for a moment, and then Colonel started to whine at the other side of his bed.
“Oh geez,” Elsie muttered. “Here, Spence, I’m going to drop the rail. Can you reach down and pet his head? He thinks he’s done something wrong because we won’t let him up on the bed.”
“Dumbass,” Spencer muttered, and he looked down to where Colonel waited patiently, then closed his eyes and lolled his tongue as Spence fondled his ears. “Sorry about that, old son. Didn’t mean to worry you. Did you calm those kids down? I bet you did. I think Preston’s full of shit. You were never supposed to find drugs. You were supposed to calm down freaked-out kids. You’re not stupid—you’re a multitasker!”
Colonel melted into his hand, obviously thrilled to have his human there where he could keep an eye on him.
“He did,” Elsie told him. “Which was good because we got sent out three times after that until I could finally hook up with Glen and he put his foot down.”
“What’s he doing now?” Spencer didn’t expect coddling—he knew that everyone there took the search-and-rescue part of their business seriously, whether or not it was a paid gig. Most of the time they could get fuel and supplies from whichever agency they were working with so they could assist with the job. And most of their work was cargo or private passenger flights, which they used to help fund search-and-rescue work. They’d made a name for themselves on the West Coast, which was how Glen and Damien had ended up getting paid to deliver water and blankets to Splinter right before the dam had gone.
“Well, he and Damien are moving planes around,” she said. “And Glen has a delivery that absolutely must be done from Sacramento later today. Preston and Damien are going to take a shift with you tomorrow, then Cash and Glen the day after, and then it’s me and Theo until we can transport you back home.”
Spencer scowled. “You all can leave me here to rot. You know that, right?”
“Fuck off,” she said amiably. “The only reason we’re not all in here is, well, yeah, small business to run, but also they told us two at a time.” She looked at Theo. “Theo might be the exception, and we’ve been telling them Colonel is your antianxiety service dog.”