Chapter 19
Chapter Nineteen
Zadie bit down on her thumbnail and tore it to the quick. She didn't feel it. She'd already chewed through three others, and her ring finger was bleeding where she'd ripped the nail too far down.
The medical wing door, where Darwin and Wynn were working on Gideon, hadn't opened in forty-seven minutes. She'd checked her watch eleven times, and her dread compounded with each look.
He hadn't flinched. He'd held the door open and helped Darwin with supplies. Then he sat down in that chair and hadn't moved since. He looked like he could sit there for another forty-seven minutes without blinking.
Shepherd stood at the end of the corridor. He’d prepared a tray of sandwiches and a pot of coffee. Nobody had asked him to. Nobody needed to.
"Stop biting your nails." Neve leaned against the wall opposite the medical wing with her arms folded across her chest and her rifle propped beside her. She still had dirt on her face and pine needles in her hair. "You're making Kane nervous."
"Not nervous, just concerned for her cuticles," Kane said. He stood three feet from the medical wing door, shifting his weight from one foot to the other, his hands opening and closing at his sides.
"What’s taking so long?"
"I’d saying cleaning a wound and stitching him up." Coulter sat on the floor with his back against the wall and his legs stretched across the corridor. Fresh stitches ran along his forearm, and of course, he was the one scarfing down a sandwich.
His second one, actually.
Scout sat beside him. Cross-legged and silent. She hadn't said more than six words since the extraction. It probably had something to do with the fact that they’d seen a cop car on the ride home.
Zadie would let that one go.
"He's going to be fine," Coulter said.
"You don't know that." Zadie rubbed her hands at her side, tired of tasting dirty nails.
"Darwin's in there. Wynn's in there. If those two can't fix him, nobody can," Neve added.
"That's not as comforting as you think it is." Zadie let out a long breath.
"It’s accurate." Coulter jumped to his feet and reached for another sandwich. "Gideon’s tough. He took a knife through the side and stayed conscious long enough to kill the guy who did it. That's not a man who gives up easy."
Zadie's throat tightened. She didn’t need a reminder of what had happened, much less the visual replaying in her brain.
The minutes crawled. Shepherd refilled Gus's coffee. Kane hobbled from the door to the wall and back to the door. Neve didn't move at all.
"How long has it been?" Scout broke her silence.
"Fifty-two minutes." Zadie stood there and stared at her digital watch.
Another minute ticked by before she dropped her hand to the side.
"When I used to hang out with Gideon as MacGyver, I was in awe of his skills in the video game.
" She folded her arms and stared at the ceiling light.
"I once asked him if he had any combat training. "
"What did he say?" Coulter asked.
"He told me he’d answer all my questions when I agreed to meet him in person." She lowered her head and rubbed her temple. "I always suspected he had some military training. I suspected a lot of things. But I never suspected I’d—"
The medical wing door opened, and Darwin walked out.
"Is he okay?" Zadie asked.
Darwin had taken off his glasses, and they hung from the collar of his shirt. His sleeves reached his elbows, and blood stained his forearms. "He's stable."
"Thank God," Neve said.
"The blade missed the kidney," Darwin said.
"It did damage to the external oblique and caught the edge of the serratus.
There's significant tissue trauma, and he lost more blood than I'd like, but nothing that won't heal.
" He put his glasses back on. "He's going to be sore, limited, and miserable for the next couple of weeks. But he's going to be fine."
"Can I see him?" Zadie asked.
"I'd recommend it before he tries to get up and find you himself, which he's already threatened to do twice." Darwin waved his hand. "He’s in the recovery room."
She raced past Darwin and through the door. Her legs couldn't move her fast enough down the hallway and into the room.
Gideon lay in the bed. An IV line ran from his left arm to a bag of fluid hanging on the stand. The blanket covered him up to his waist, and the thick white dressing taped down on his left side, showed Wynn’s precision under pressure.
He looked terrible.
"Hey." He smiled.
"Hey, yourself." She crossed the room in three steps, sat on the edge of the bed, and took his hand. His fingers were cold. She wrapped both of her hands around them and squeezed.
The relief hit her like a wall and tears filled her eyes before she could stop it.
"Don't cry," he said.
"I'm not crying. My eyes are leaking. There's a difference."
"There's really not."
"Shut up. You got stabbed. I'm allowed to leak."
He traced a circle on her palm. "How bad do I look?"
"Like you got in a knife fight in the woods with an enhanced psychopath."
"So, about as good as I feel." He winced when he shifted. "Darwin says I'm going to live."
"Darwin says you're going to be miserable."
"That's only if people keep me in bed."
"You’re staying in that bed if I have to strap you to it."
"That's an interesting offer."
"You're disgusting." But she laughed. A wet, broken, ugly laugh that shook her shoulders and made her ribs scream. She didn't even care about the pain because he was alive and making jokes.
He reached up and curled his fingers behind her neck. "I could use a kiss."
"Me too." She leaned in, careful not to hit his side, and pressed her lips to his, but it was short-lived.
The door opened.
"These two," Neve said. "Always making out."
"You’re one to talk." Zadie wiped her lips.
Neve positioned herself against the wall near the foot of the bed and crossed her arms.
Coulter held up his arm as he stood next to Neve. "Matching set."
"Mine's bigger," Gideon said.
"Yours required surgery. Mine required Wynn sewing me up in a moving vehicle with one hand. I think mine wins on style points." Coulter smiled.
"He's not wrong," Wynn said as she entered the room. "That was some of my best work."
Scout walked in and stood near the door. She looked at Gideon for a long moment. For Scout, that was essentially a standing ovation.
Kane shuffled in and immediately started examining the IV line. "Is this the right drip rate? Because it looks—"
"Kane." Darwin appeared behind him. "Please don't touch my equipment."
"I'm just looking."
"You're playing doctor again because you’re bored," Darwin said. "I can see your fingers moving toward the valve."
Kane pulled his hand back. "You’re no fun."
"I tried to keep everyone out. I really did." Shepherd materialized in the doorway with the tray. He scanned the room, counted heads, and frowned. "I need to make more sandwiches. Coulter isn’t allowed to eat anymore."
"But I’m hungry," Coulter said.
"You’re always hungry." Neve poked his good arm.
Shepherd set the tray on the empty stand "Gideon, turkey or ham?"
"I'll take either."
"Wrong answer. Turkey has better protein for tissue repair. You're having turkey." Shepherd placed a sandwich on a napkin and handed it to Gideon. "And you." He pointed at Zadie. "Ham. And you're going to eat the whole thing because you've had nothing but a soda since five this morning."
"How do you know that?" Zadie asked.
"Because I know everything that happens in this bunker."
"Hell of a day." Gus appeared at the threshold.
"General." Gideon tried to sit up straighter and winced.
"Stay down, son. You've earned horizontal." Gus stepped inside and rested his hand on the bed rail. "Darwin tells me you cracked ORACLE."
"Zadie did. I held her chair."
"Actually, he moved it,” Zadie said. "That was when the roof nearly came down on us."
"And then I got stabbed," Gideon added. "But the other guy got stabbed worse."
"The other guy is dead," Neve said flatly.
"That’s worse." Gideon smiled.
Gus waved a hand at Darwin. "He always like this?"
"Since the day I met him." Darwin stood next to Wynn "He once wrote a Post-it note in my office that said, 'your comments on my review were emotionally damaging' and left it on my monitor."
"They were," Gideon said. "You used red ink."
"I used red because you ignored blue ink."
"Only when my original notes were blue."
"This is the most absurd conversation I’ve ever heard," Gus said.
"Most conversations in the bunker border on bonkers." Wynn checked Gideon's dressing. Her fingers traced the edges of the tape. "You're not bleeding through. That's good. I'll check again in two hours."
"Can I leave this bed before then?" Gideon asked.
"No," Both Darwin and Wynn said at the same time.
"What if I need to—"
"No," Darwin repeated.
"You don't even know what I was going to say."
"You were going to ask if you could go to the comms room. The answer is no. You were stabbed four hours ago. You are staying in this bed tonight, tomorrow, and the day after that, and if you argue with me, I'll sedate you." Darwin lowered his chin.
"He will," Zadie said. "I've seen him do it."
"To whom?" Gideon asked.
Kane raised his hand.
Everyone in the room burst out laughing. Even Gideon, only he stifled it, clutching his side.
Zadie held Gideon's hand and glanced around the room. This was her family, and Gideon was the man she loved.
One of these days, she’d have to tell him that.
Gideon opened his eyes to a dark room and a cramp in his side that felt like someone had parked a truck on his ribs.
Blinking, he tried to get his eyes to focus. He shifted his gaze to his left. A monitor with his vitals glowed green. He turned his head to the right and smiled.
Zadie was asleep in the chair beside his bed.
She had her legs pulled up beneath her, her head draped over her arm, and that same arm rested on his mattress, her fingers a few inches from his hand.
Her hair was loose and tangled across her face.
At some point, she'd changed out of her tactical gear and was now in sweats and one of his shirts, the gray one with the hole near the collar that he'd been meaning to throw away for a year.
The blanket draped over her legs was the one Shepherd kept on the back of the sofa in the family room, which meant someone had brought it to her and she still hadn't left.
He reached over and brushed a strand of hair off her cheek. His side punished him for the movement and he sucked air through his teeth.
Her eyes popped open. The instant alertness of someone who'd trained themselves to wake up ready.
"Didn’t mean to startle you," he said.
"You didn’t." She sat up and rubbed her eyes with the heels of her hands. "What time is it?"
"No idea. The lights are off so I'm guessing late. Or early. One can never tell in this place."
"It was two-thirty when I last checked." She dropped her hands and looked at him. Her gaze moved across his face, down to the bandage, back up. "How's the pain?"
"Five. Maybe six when I breathe." He’d learned not to be funny with her with this, so he was honest.
"Could be worse." She pulled the chair closer and rested her forearms on the edge of the mattress. Her chin settled on top of them. In the green glow of the monitor, her eyes were dark, steady, and he could get lost in them if he let himself.
"You stayed," he said.
"Where else would I go?"
"Your bed. Which has a mattress that doesn't smell like antiseptic and a pillow that isn't a rolled-up towel."
"Darwin agreed that if all goes well, tonight you can sleep in your own bed."
"Does that mean you’ll sleep in my bed too?"
"I’m not leaving you."
"Zadie—"
"Don't." She held up one finger. "If you're about to tell me I should go get some rest, or that you're fine, or that I'm being dramatic—"
"I was going to tell you that I love you."
Her finger remained in the air. Her lips parted. Her eyes narrowed for a moment and then grew wide.
"I’ve said it in my head a hundred times," he continued.
"At the hub. In the woods. When Isaac held a gun on you.
When I was on the ground and you were pressing your hands into my side.
" His voice scraped his throat. "I kept thinking—if I die in these woods, she's never going to know.
And that was worse than the knife. That was worse than anything. "
She reached for his hand and threaded her fingers through his. "When you told me to walk through that code, when you stood over me while the ceiling came down, when you fought that soldier with your bare hands so I could finish, I knew right then. Hell, I knew long before that.
"Knew what?"
"That I loved you." She palmed his cheek. "Not the legend. Not MacGyver. Not Flatline. You. The man who rebuilds broken clocks, can't cook, and left me standing in a hallway because he was too scared to knock on my door."
"I did come back."
"You did." Her thumb moved over his lower lip. "And you're going to keep coming back. No matter what happens next. Because that's who you are. You don't leave. You just take a really long time to walk through the door."
He laughed, and the pain was immediate and enormous and completely worth it. "God, it hurts to laugh."
"Don't be funny."
"I'm not trying to be funny. I'm lying in a hospital bed with a hole in my side telling the woman I love that I'm not going anywhere. That's not comedy. That's a commitment."
"With us, it’s a little of both." She smiled.
He tugged her hand. She leaned forward, one hand bracing on the mattress beside his shoulder. Her lips pressed against his in a tender kiss.
Pulling back, she stared into his eyes.
"I'm not leaving this bunker," he said. "Not until this is over. These people are my family. You’re my future. Whatever comes next—Finch, the next phase, all of it — I'm here. Not a foot out the door."
She kissed his forehead. "You think we can both fit in this bed without moving your pain level to a nine?"
"Won’t know until we try." He inched closer to the side rail, and she curled in next to him, head resting on his shoulder, knee tucked up between his legs."
"Be honest? Do I need to go back to the chair?"
"No," he said. "That would be hell." He lay in the dark and listened to the sound of the woman he loved falling asleep in his arms.
He closed his eyes. The pain was a seven. Maybe an eight. But he was exactly where he was supposed to be.