Courage (37 page)

For a fraction of a second, Roxie thought she’d regained freedom, but Aerigo had let her go just long enough so he could twist her body around. He pulled her into a bear hug with one arm wrapped around her upper arms and his other hand pressing the side of Roxie’s face to his chest. She could feel his heart pounding against his ribcage.

Roxie tried to slip free, but had to settle on putting Aerigo’s forearm in a death grip. Powerless and in more pain than the morning Daio in giant form had pancaked her, she began crying in earnest, saying “no” and “please no” over and over, and weakly begging to be let go. Aerigo sat up and scooted backwards so he could lean against the wall. Roxie tried to resist, but the bulk of her fight had left her.

Jenna came over and kneeled by Roxie’s aching arm. “Just hold still.”

Aerigo pushed Roxie’s legs together with his and crossed his ankles over hers, pinning her legs together. God, his leg muscles were so much bigger than hers. What had she been thinking, trying to fight him? Fresh hot tears rolled down her checks and dripped onto Aerigo’s arm. He whispered another apology and kissed the top of her head, then pressed his scruffy cheek to her hair. Roxie could only cry in response.

She cringed when Jenna passed her hands over her arm without touching it, then relaxed a little when the doctor moved to her bare feet. She placed her hands--thankfully warm hands--on Roxie’s ankles, closed her eyes, and began humming a low aria. Within seconds, relaxation began to wash up Roxie’s legs. She let go of the tension in them, then became of aware of the tension in the rest of her body. She relaxed her torso and let her weight settle against Aerigo, then relaxed her death grip on his forearm. He uncrossed his ankles, but kept his legs close.

The release of tension felt like it had sapped Roxie of all her energy and adrenaline. She relaxed her arms, letting them rest on Aerigo’s thighs, and he began slowly stroking her hair. She stopped sobbing and wiped her tears, then heaved a deep sigh and closed her eyes. The pain was finally ebbing.

Roxie heard the swish of clothing as Jenna removed her hands from her ankles.

“Feel better?” Jenna asked.

Roxie nodded. “And I am in dire need of a shower.” The doctors laughed.

Dr. Vernidelli said, “We’ll cart you over to the patient dorms as soon as you’re ready.”

“Great. Just give me a minute.” As much as she was once again enjoying cuddling with Aerigo, she quite honestly needed to catch her breath.

Chapter 26

It took Roxie a good five minutes to gather the strength to get up. Just because the pain had been ebbing, it didn’t mean that it had stopped feeling excruciating. Whatever Jenna did had released her from feeling the need to writhe and pace, and instead just let the pain run its course.

The doctors carted them around the hospital in hover wheelchairs, which were the neatest thing in the world--well, universe--well, maybe just this world. Anyway, the doctors kept her and Aerigo close as she gawked at all the high-tech stuff she’d never seen before. Aerigo wore a soft smile through it all, keeping his handsome blue eyes more on her than anything else. Roxie would have gladly returned his warm gaze, but she couldn’t bring herself to ignore a whole new world full of new, amazing things. Their stay here had to be rapidly drawing to a close.

The patient dorms looked much like something Roxie’d find back on Earth. It had cream-colored walls, scuffed up white tile floors, broad windows, a pair of gurneys to each room, curtains that wrapped around each gurney, dresser drawers with a big mirror over it, and a small bathroom with a stand-in shower.

Jenna carted Roxie into one room. The other three brought Aerigo into the next doorway. They looked at each other until the walls blocked their vision. Panic seized Roxie and she felt her eyes warm with a yellow glow.

“What’s wrong?” Jenna asked.

Roxie sent her mind vision through the wall and flinched when her awareness bonked into Aerigo doing the same to her. She saw him smile in shades of blue and smiled back, but briefly. She cut off her mind vision. “Almost every time we get separated something bad seems to happen. I think I’m overreacting this time though. There’s only a wall separating us.” And no Daio dogging their every step.

“True,” Jenna said. “May I ask what happened the other times?”

Roxie hopped off the hovering piece of technology and retrieved her backpack from the back of it. The medical staff had taken the liberty to launder every last article of clothing she’d packed, which was really nice of them, so now she had a choice between a whole three Versaton outfits, and apparently one less bra to don. Oh well. If they ever got the chance, Roxie needed to take Aerigo clothes shopping in New York City so she could seriously expand his wardrobe.

“Things just seem to go wrong.” Roxie entered the bathroom and dropped her pack on the tiled floor. Everything was a shade of peach or sunset. Soothing. “It’s... bah!” She didn’t really feel like dwelling on the dangers surrounding them. She had other more important matters to sort out, and Jenna seemed like a solid, trustworthy person to discuss such things with. “Would it be okay if I talked to you about Aerigo instead? Girl talk stuff?”

Jenna swung the bathroom door to within a hand’s width of being close. “Of course. I was actually hoping to.”

Roxie peered into the shower stall. Soap, shampoo, conditioner and a washcloth awaited use below a stainless steel shower head as wide as her face. Below the cleaning paraphernalia was a display of buttons that controlled the shower. She untied her smock, then stepped in and closed the translucent glass door. The stall smelled heavily of sterile cleaners. “How come you want to talk to me about Aerigo?”

“He’s got a lot going on internally. I’m a Sensor. I read people’s energies and help heal them through what I see. I need your help healing him.”

“Ah.” Roxie pressed a button with a pictogram of a shower head pouring water, then hopped out of the stream and tested it with a hand. It was quite cold. She twisted a dial that was color-coded like the ones back home, and set the water to nice and hot so she could scald off the grime and stink. “You can come in the bathroom if you want,” Roxie yelled over the rushing water, her voice echoing. She stood with her back to the spout.

The wood door to the bathroom creaked open, and then back to a hand’s with from closed.

Roxie began to shampoo her hair with a sweet melon scented gel. “So how can I help him? I do know he’s carrying around way too much guilt, but I don’t know how to help him let go of it.”

“How long have you two been together?”

Roxie stopped with her fingers tangled in her hair. “We’re not actually together. I’d... well--”

“What we walked in on with you two and the towels says otherwise.”

“That was the first time we’d ever done anything like that.” Gosh, that had been so enjoyable. It already felt like it’d happened ages ago. “We’ve only hugged and... I guess you could call it cuddling. Ever since the ship, we just always happened to be--” Ever since the cruise ship, they’d subconsciously--or maybe even consciously--made a point of sticking real close to each other, usually brushing up against each other’s arms. They’d started hugging on Sconda and that just kind of happened. On Druconica, they’d taken turns being each other’s pillow. And now this morning... “Close,” she said, completing her spoken sentence. “I don’t know what it is, but I just feel drawn to him. We’ve known each other for less than three weeks. That’s it.” She finished lathering the shampoo, then leaned her head into the running water. “Is it possible to fall in love with someone that fast?” She thought of the moment Aerigo had fed her cake and how his fingers had brushed her chin. The memory sent fresh shivers up and down her spine.

“Of course. Do you have the phrase ‘love at first sight’ on your world?”

“Yeah, but it’s just a bunch of sappy nonsense that happens only in movies and bad books.”

“Oh, it’s very real. It happened to my parents. They’ve been married over forty years now.”

“Well, then. I stand corrected.” Roxie finished rinsing out the shampoo, then reached for the conditioner and began working that into her hair, which finally felt nice and grime-free.

“I saw a lot of love in both your auras when we walked in on you in Aerigo’s arms. Your auras intertwine like those of two people in intimate love. Last night, the connection between you two was moderately strong. Today it’s exponentially stronger, but it ebbs and returns, like the both of you are trying to resist or hold back. I’m amazed at the change in Aerigo though. I just hope it’s permanent.”

Roxie stopped working in the conditioner. Aerigo was very much changed from the last time they’d both been conscious. Heck, he was different from when he’d found his way into her nightmare. But before she addressed Aerigo, she wanted to address her own hesitation. “Well I hesitate because we honestly can’t put ourselves before the things that landed us in this hospital. That, and I’m intimidated by our age gap. He’s so much older than me. I have to look like such a child in his eyes.” She resumed working in the conditioner.

“I asked him about that. He said it doesn’t matter. If you were a thousand years old, you’d still be less than a third his age. Apparently you Aigis have quite the lifespan.”

Roxie put two-and-two together and realized that Jenna and Aerigo must have talked about some personal things last night. Maybe that’s why he’d started kissing her and whatnot. No complaints there. She finished working the conditioner into her hair. “We do,” she said humbly as she tried to picture herself being a thousand years old. What Jenna said he’d said made sense. She’d be a legal adult in just a few days anyway, but that was just a number. What really made someone a proper adult? Aerigo was treating her like one. “But still, how does my age not bother him?”

“He told me someone named Sandra had been barely twice your age when he’d married her. The few years between you and her are irrelevant. I wouldn’t let the age gap bother you.”

“I think I just need a mental adjustment period before I’d be fine with it.” Letting the conditioner sit in her hair, Roxie grabbed the washcloth and poured a generous amount of liquid soap in it, just to make sure she’d feel clean.

“There’s nothing wrong with that. There’s no rush.”

“True. Do you know what’s making Aerigo hesitate?” She lathered up the white washcloth until it was all tropical-smelling foam, then began scrubbing down.

Jenna was silent a moment, then said, “I listened to him talk for a little bit last night. He ended up working through his biggest barrier almost entirely on his own. I simply did some energy work to help reinforce letting go of what’s been holding him down for such a long time.”

“The death of his wife?” Roxie remembered him talking about it in her nightmare. All she could recall is that her death had been an absolutely awful experience. Losing a loved one was always hard, but thought of Aerigo’s violent reaction made even her wince.

“That too. But the root of it was whether he was falling in love with you, or if he was projecting his dead wife on you and falling in love with her all over again.”

“Oh.” Roxie paused in her scrubbing. A twinge of jealousy cropped up, but her gut told her it was unnecessary, especially considering how he’d been treating her all morning.

“Last night, he was finally able to let go of his wife and open himself up to you. He loves you very much.”

Roxie pressed her soapy washcloth to her chest as she let the hot water cascade down her back. She felt a need to run to Aerigo and confess her love for him, then make a point of kissing him on the lips. However, she held back her impulse. “I love him too.” The words escaped her lips before she realized she’d said them. This time she didn’t cringe or wish no one had heard. “So why else is he hesitating?”

“I don’t know. Maybe, like you, the dangers surrounding your lives are censoring his emotions. Maybe it’s more guilt. His aura shied away from yours while you underwent nerve regeneration therapy.”

Roxie began a second round of scrubbing herself down. “He feels bad for all the crap I’ve been through after I met him, but I stamped that out during breakfast. He too readily blames himself for anything that goes wrong. None of it is his fault.”

“Keep reminding him of that. And just be patient.”

“I can do both. He’s worth it.” Saying that made Roxie think back to her high school days. The memories were both sweet and stung. “When I was fourteen, I fell in love with this handsome, charming, and funny hockey player who was a grade ahead of me. We met at a pep rally and we just took to each other. We could always find something to talk about, and had so many similar interests. We clicked. All our friends were convinced we were gonna get married one day. Even my grandmother thought we might. He and I bickered like an old married couple, did everything together, I watched all his hockey games, and we spent tons of time over each other’s houses. And that’s how things went for the first two years.

“On the second anniversary of our relationship, we finally satisfied our curiosity and craving for each other on the more physical and intimate level. My grandmother was understandably furious when she found out we’d slept together. Josh and I had been together for such a long time, so we figured his parents and my guardian wouldn’t think it was a big deal, but obviously we were wrong. My grandmother stormed over to Planned Parenthood with me to make sure he and I would at least be responsible, since she couldn’t control our hormones. I’m not making you uncomfortable with this kind of information, am I?”

“No, not at all.”

“Okay, good. It’s helping me sort some things out.” Josh was the only comparison she had to what a healthy relationship was supposed to look like. She’d never really paid attention to how Josh’s parents behaved, and since her grandmother was widowed, and her parents long gone, it was all guesswork. “We stayed together for three years, and broke up shortly after he graduated from high school because he couldn’t do the whole long-distance relationship thing. It pissed me off, throwing away three years just like that. He offered to remain friends, but I couldn’t do it. I just let his existence slowly blur itself in my memory. I didn’t stop thinking about him until a few months ago, though. And now that I look at the whole relationship in retrospect, the feelings I had for him were different than what I feel for Aerigo. Way different. With Josh, it was like I’d found my best friend in the whole wide world. With Aerigo I feel... complete. I think that’s the best word for it. I feel safe with him, and at ease--at least when I’m not trying to fight how I feel. I don’t want to fight it, but I just don’t know what our situation allows. Maybe, if we survive all this craziness and things turn out alright, he and I can afford to prioritize ourselves.”

* * *

Aerigo cut off the spell that allowed him to eavesdrop on the conversation between Rox and Jenna, then began the delicate task of shaving his face with a razor that was strong enough to cut his stubble without slicing up his skin. He shaved in the shower stall with the water still flowing down his front, and conjured a disc-shaped mirror out of water. Donai, Skitt, and Arryk were waiting for him inside the dorm, all wanting to talk to him about Kismet. They’d explain after he was done showering and getting dressed.

Eavesdropping wasn’t something Aerigo normally did. He’d spied and eavesdropped in the midst of wars and whatnot, but never like this. He couldn’t get Rox out of his mind. He was just going to listen for a few seconds, then give them privacy, but when Rox asked Jenna to talk to her about him, he’d pressed his hands to the shower wall and listened intently. And when Rox had admitted her love for him, he almost broke the wall so he could march right up to her and pull her into a naked, passionate embrace. Jenna would’ve gotten the heavy hint to give them privacy. Aerigo had gone so far as to place his hands on the wall at chest height, like he was going to push it down, but he controlled himself. He stopped eavesdropping after that.