Chapter Seventeen #2
"Any reaction to any medication, ever? Anything that's given you a rash, made you itch, made you feel unwell?"
"Not that I can remember."
"Have you ever had iron by IV before?"
"No."
"Any chance you could be pregnant?"
"No." She sensed Reaves shift in his chair and didn't look around.
"And you've eaten this morning?"
Alara nodded at the basket. "You've seen the evidence."
"Good." Caroline wrote something, then said, without looking up, "And no allergies at all? Nothing that’s ever given you any trouble?"
"No. Nothing."
"I'll ask you three more times before we're done. Don't take it personally." She set the clipboard down and reached for the blood pressure cuff. "It's the only question that matters."
It hadn't occurred to Alara until that moment that anything about this could go wrong.
Caroline took her blood pressure and her pulse, then slipped a fresh plastic cover onto a little handheld thermometer and touched it inside Alara's ear. It beeped almost at once.
"All good. Vitals done." She made a note, then snapped on a pair of gloves and picked up a syringe.
At first Alara thought it was a joke. The liquid inside it was a startling, bright pinkish red.
"The color, right?" Caroline said. "People expect anything in a syringe to be clear. At least this one's pretty." She turned Alara's left arm gently and swabbed her skin. "It shouldn't feel too bad going in—just a sting. But it'll probably ache afterward. Small price."
Alara turned her head away and looked at the wall until it was done. It didn't feel too bad at all.
"There. Now for the cannula, and I'll let you choose. Back of your hand, or the crook of your arm?"
"Crook of my arm, I think. Please."
"That's what I'd have said. But I don't like to influence you before you decide for yourself." Caroline rolled her stool round to the other side. "Other arm, so we're not making a pincushion of you."
Alara kept her head turned. She felt Caroline's fingers close around her arm above the elbow, then the band pulling, and the cold of the swab.
"Okay. Small scratch."
She looked at the wall. There was a poster on it about hand washing, and she read all of it.
"We're in." The tourniquet released. "I'm going to flush it with saline first, to make sure it's running properly."
Alara nodded and didn't turn back. Then, after a few seconds, she had to ask. "Is that going through my system already? Or am I imagining it? I'd swear I can taste the saline."
"Yep. Surprises most people. Not everyone gets it, so you must have a good sense of taste."
She heard the crackle of a bag being opened, and Caroline reading something quietly to herself. Then, "Can you give me your full name and date of birth?"
She gave it.
"Perfect. Right—if the B12 was pretty, this one might surprise you the other way."
Alara turned her head at last.
The bag Caroline was holding up was almost black. She stared at it for a moment before letting out a short laugh. "That's iron? If I saw someone hooked up to that, I'd assume you were giving them strong tea. Or molasses."
"There are days I wouldn't mind coffee through an IV.
" Caroline reached up and hooked the bag onto the pole beside the chair.
"This will take thirty minutes or so. If you're going to react to it at all, it'll happen in the first few, so I'll be staying right here until we're going properly.
" She sat down on the stool where Alara could see her. "How are you feeling?"
Alara hadn't looked at her arm once. "You've started it already, haven't you?"
"I have. How do you know?"
"The taste changed. It's metallic now." Her smile faded. Warmth was spreading up through her chest and into her face, and she could feel her cheeks flushing with it.
Caroline was watching her face closely. "Are you doing okay?"
"Yeah. Just a bit warm."
"A bit warm, or hot?"
She glanced over at Reaves, who had come forward to the edge of his seat, his elbows on his knees, hands clasped together between them. "I'm just warm. I'm okay. Honestly."
"That's normal. Tell me if it changes." Caroline stayed where she was, and Alara understood that the conversation, the easy chat about the cupcakes, and Faye, and the picnic basket had all stopped, and that this was the part where she was being watched.
Nothing changed. The warmth settled and then faded. "I feel back to normal now."
"Good," Caroline said eventually, and stood.
"That's the bit I care about. Now it's just sitting.
" She pointed to a button on a cord looped over the arm of the chair.
"I'll be in and out, but if you need me before I get back, that's what this is for.
Press it for anything—if you feel sick, if you get any tightness in your chest or your throat, if you start itching, if your arm hurts where the line is.
Anything at all, even if you think you're being silly. "
"Okay."
"Especially if you think you're being silly." Caroline turned to Reaves. "And you. Any of that, or anything you don't like the look of, you come and get me. Don't wait to be sure."
"Got it," said Reaves.
Alara didn't have to look at him to know how pleased he was.
Caroline picked up her clipboard and paused at the door. "And no allergies, right?"
"No allergies."
"Just checking." She went out and pulled the door most of the way closed behind her.
Alara let her head fall back against the chair. "You can stop looking like that now," she said.
Reaves didn't move. "Looking like what?"
"Like you're going to catch me."
He glanced down at himself—elbows on his knees, hands clasped, right on the edge of the seat—and sat back with a rueful smile. "Sorry."
"Don't be." She turned her head so she could see him properly. "I don't hate it. I'm just not used to being watched like that."
"Well. You're going to have to get used to it." He got up and started to drag his chair around, then looked at the pole, and her arm with the line in it, and put it back. He sat on Caroline's stool instead, and wheeled himself around to her free side. "Is this allowed?" He picked up her other hand.
"I think so. She only said you had to do as you're told."
"That's what I'm doing. Nobody told me not to."
She laughed, and then had to stop, because laughing moved her arm. The line lay along the inside of her elbow, taped down, and she was aware of it in a way she couldn't stop being aware of. She looked at the ceiling instead.
"How long do you think it’s been?"
He checked his watch. "Four minutes."
"Four."
"Twenty-six to go."
"Don't do that."
"Do what?"
"Count it down for me. It makes it worse."
"Okay." He rubbed his thumb across her knuckles. "You want the basket?"
"I want to know what else is in it."
He reached over and lifted the cover, and she heard him laugh under his breath.
"What?"
"There's a book in here."
"There's what?"
"There's a book." He held it up so she could see it. It was one of Charles's, from the shelves in the study—she recognized the cracked spine. "And a bottle of water. And a second blanket."
"A second blanket?"
"In case the first blanket wasn't enough, I guess." He set it back down and shook his head. "She packed you for a weekend."
Alara looked at the basket for a long moment.
"She couldn't come," she said.
Reaves stopped smiling. "No. She couldn't."
"So she sent all of it instead." Her throat tightened, and she was furious with herself, because there was nothing to cry about. She was sitting in a chair. Someone was putting iron into her arm. A woman she'd known for a few weeks had packed her a basket with two blankets in it.
"Hey." Reaves squeezed her hand. "You okay?"
"Yeah." She breathed out. "Yeah. It's just—nobody's ever—" She stopped, because she'd said some version of that sentence too many times now, and she was tired of the sound of it.
He didn't make her finish it. He never did.
They sat. Somewhere down the hall a phone rang twice and stopped. The bag above her head made no sound at all, which she found strange—it seemed like something that important ought to tick.
"Can I ask you something?" she said.
"Anything."
"Why did you want to be in here?"
He took long enough answering that she turned her head to look at him.
"Because you'd have come on your own," he said.
"And you'd have sat in that chair for half an hour with nobody to talk to, and then you'd have driven yourself home and told everyone it was fine.
" He shrugged. "I didn't want you to have to be brave about it.
That's all. You've been brave about everything else. "
Alara looked back at the ceiling, because she couldn't look at him and hold her face together at the same time.
"It's not even that bad," she said, after a moment.
"I know."
"It's a chair. And a bag."
"I know." She heard the smile come back into his voice. "It's a really ugly chair."
"It is." She looked at the vinyl arm under her elbow, cracked at the seam and mended with tape the wrong shade of beige. "It's a terrible chair. Whoever chose this chair should—"
There was a knock, and the door opened a few inches.
"May I intrude?"
Dr. Ambrose put his head around it and, without waiting for an answer, came in far enough to see the pole, and the bag, and the tape on her arm. He looked at all three and gave a small nod of approval as though they’d performed exactly as instructed, and Caroline had done him proud.
"How are we doing?"
"Fine," said Alara, and then caught herself. "Warm, at the start. It's stopped."
"That's the usual. Nothing else? No itching, no tightness anywhere?"
"No."
"Good." He looked genuinely pleased about it. "Then that's the worst of my worrying done for the day." He glanced at the basket, and then at the box of cupcakes on Caroline's desk, and his eyebrows went up. "Ah. I see Faye has been at work."
"She sent those for Caroline," Reaves said.
"Then I shall have to be quick."
"They're for Caroline," Reaves said again.