Braided Lives

by A. R. Moler

  Jennifer turned around and headed in the opposite direction. Barely able to open her eyes, she finally made it to the infirmary. Peter was standing beside an exam table talking to a man with crutches in his hand. The patient had some sort of maze of hardware bolted around his lower leg. She couldn't really focus her vision enough to tell what it was.

  "You can put a little weight on it, Cam. This does not translate to walking around without the crutches," Peter said to the man.

  "I think you have another customer. I'll check back tomorrow."

  Peter turned. "Jennifer? You don't look so good." He crossed the room and carefully guided her to the smaller room she had been in before. He eased her down to lie on the bed, then sat on a stool beside her.

  "How long ago did it start?" he asked.

  She felt the warm tingle of his energy damping down the pain, as his hands cupped against her skull.

  "Maybe a couple hours."

  "You should have come to find me sooner."

  "I was too busy worshipping the porcelain god."

  "Mmm, I noticed there seemed to be a nausea component to this one. You should have asked someone else then to come find me," he said gently. The pain had faded to a fluttering surge of discomfort with each beat of her pulse.

  Peter's thumb stroked the edge of her eye socket, soothing the pressure there. "What were you doing when it began?" he asked.

  "Focus stuff with Christine Daniels."

  "Why am I not surprised? She and I butt heads on a regular basis. She may be really good at her job, but she's also got a sadistic streak. She pushes people too hard." He switched the way his hands lay against Jennifer's head and the pain made a sharp resurgence that drew a little whimper from her. "Sorry, this one's not backing down very easily." His fingers threaded through her hair slightly and traced a slow circling pattern on her scalp. The pain eased off again.

  "Can't say I'm too fond of her," whispered Jennifer.

  One of Peter's hands ran down the side of her neck and across her shoulder. "You've got some serious muscle tension going along with everything else. Roll over on your side."

  She did so and his hands began working at the back of her neck and shoulders.

  "Unh, that feels good. If you ever quit Division P, I bet you could make a mint doing massage stuff," she said.

  "You're not the first person after my magic hands," he replied with a laugh.

  It took a while. For the first twenty minutes, every time he took his hands off her, the migraine surged forward again, and Peter would try a different tactic.

  "This thing is being insidiously difficult. I know this probably sounds like a cop-out but I just dumped a massive quantity of energy into Cam Bradshaw, the guy on crutches who was here when you came in, and I'm running toward empty. It might be more effective for me to dose you with something narcotic and give you a little push toward sleep. Is that okay with you?" he said.

  "Whatever you think, I've had ones that lasted for days. I'd rather not go through that again."

  "Okay. Try to hang in there while I go get some Dilaudid for you."

  The knife of pain started creeping back the moment he left. Jennifer curled up a little more and spent a moment holding her breath and telling herself she could deal with it.

  Peter returned shortly and she barely felt the injection in her hip. "This is going to wreck your shields for a while. That's not something I can prevent, but it's just me here. No one else will touch you, so it shouldn't bother you too badly." He took her hand in his and gently rubbed her temple with the opposite hand.

  Jennifer could tell the drug was starting to blur her thoughts and her shields were sliding down into mush. She could feel Peter's hands and the steady presence of his mind grazing against hers. It was gentle and comforting and she could sense a thread of concern. The soft thrum of his energy was sweet and…

  ***

  Waking was a bit like swimming up out of wet concrete. There was that sluggish lack of coordination combined with half a thought to just give up and let sleep suck her under again. Jennifer had experienced the whole "med-head" hangover thing before. This time was no different. She climbed slowly out of the hospital bed. The door to the room was ajar a few inches and she started to pull it open the rest of the way, then stopped. The main infirmary room was half office, half ER. Peter sat at a desk on the far side, chair pushed back a little. Danny was sitting on the edge of the desk, with Peter's head lying across his thigh. Danny was rubbing the back of Peter's neck. It was innocent and intimate and gentle. The expression on Danny's face was hopeless adoration. Her fingers twitched and she realized she was unconsciously reaching for a pencil.

  Chapter 4

  Mid-June

  As Jennifer passed the open door of the infirmary, there was a lot of banging going on. She glanced in the doorway to see Peter Vithoulkas restocking the trauma bay section of the room. He seemed to be in a thoroughly foul mood as he slammed the door of a cupboard and stuffed packages of gauze into a plastic caddy. She was about to tiptoe away when she caught visions of mayhem. A dark haired man curled in a ball, hysterically upset and a woman's body sprawled in death beside an airplane and Danny Valentine's body bleeding on a floor all swirled through Peter's thoughts. Jennifer had enough experience dealing with crime victims to know some of what she saw was real and some was imagination. The problem was that a glimpse didn't really allow her to sort out which was which.

  Peter was close to distraught, taking his distress out on the tasks he was doing. This late in the evening there were very few people left in the main building. He looked like he could really use someone to vent to, and Jennifer would really like to find out, if possible, whether the image of Danny was real or imagined. She liked Danny and hated to consider the fact he could be dead.

  "Trying to kill your supplies?" she asked, standing in the doorway.

  "Huh? No. I'm just trying to get some stuff organized. It's been a shitty day." He was sorting things that she thought look like IV components into a tray, smacking them into place. She saw that visual of Danny again. This one was worse than before. His bloody body lay sprawled nearly lifeless in some unknown place. Jennifer crossed the room and put a hand on Peter's arm.

  "Is Danny okay?" she asked, suddenly not sure if she really wanted the answer.

  "He got shot." Peter spat out.

  "Is he… Is he going to be okay?" she asked.

  "Probably! Fuck! I can only guess. He called me and told me the op in Mississippi went to hell in a hand basket and the Navy Intel guy's in critical condition. And Danny was shot, too. When Cam Bradshaw and Mason Flynn were sent home, Danny stayed behind to make sure Rymal made it through surgery. God damn him! He should have come back with them." Peter was on a rant, pacing and yelling. Jennifer let him rage. He finally stopped and leaned against the wall, both hands braced there, acting like he wanted to put his fist through it.

  Jennifer put her arms around him from behind, hugging his torso, nestling her face between his shoulder blades. He was breathing hard. She could feel his emotional turmoil just washing off of him.

  "Hit the wall," she said. He stilled somewhat and she felt the some of the rage replaced by confusion. "Hit the wall," she repeated. He thumped his fist against the wall without much force behind it. "Again." He was motionless for a second then he hauled off and smashed his fist into the wall hard enough to dent to drywall.

  "Ow. Ow." He muttered grimacing and flexing his fingers. She turned him to face her. "God, that was stupid," he said, still shaking his hand.

  "Yuh-huh. And it made you feel a little better too, didn't it?" She gave him a smile. He looked embarrassed.

  "Yeah." His answer was slow. He still looked stressed, but the emotion leaned in the direction of grief. She hugged him to her body and pulled his head down to her shoulder. His arms slid around her slowly, and he swallowed hard.

  "Okay, now with a little more objectivity. Just the facts. How bad is he hurt?" she said.

  Peter heaved
a shaky breath and raised his head to look at her. "According to him, the bullet passed through his upper arm, through the muscle. He said he lost some blood and it hurts like hell. How much of that is down-played for my benefit? I don't know."

  "Did he go to the hospital?"

  "Yeah. He went there after they took Rymal. He's a hard-headed fool, but he's not a complete moron."

  "So somebody looked after him and he's probably not in serious danger."

  "Probably." It was a flat, resigned, and dubious answer. Jennifer cupped her hands around his face. She could see some of the allure Peter held for Danny. The man was passionate and caring and had a real temper. That made him just a little like her. "I'm worried about his psi shock risk, too,” Peter griped.

  "What's that?"

  "People who are psi are wired different than the rest of the population. We tend to hyper-react to trauma more often than not. It can wreak havoc with your nervous system, give you cardiac arrhythmias, and tank your blood pressure, just all sorts of potentially life threatening problems."

  "Is it going to happen to Danny?" she asked.

  "If he was with it and coherent enough to call me, probably not. Asshole," Peter muttered.

  "When's he coming back?" she asked.

  "Tomorrow."

  "And then you'll be able to check him out and make sure he's okay," she said. Peter nodded. She could tell he was still deeply worried. "I saw an entire bookcase full of DVDs in the common area. I bet we could find something mindless to watch, and maybe take your mind off fretting about him for a little while."

  He agreed, reluctantly.

  ***

  The common area backed up to the cafeteria. It resided in a complex of buildings where personnel came and went on erratic schedules. Sometimes people stayed only for a few days. Some stayed for a number of weeks, like Jennifer, during training. There was a need for social space. Only slightly more than a dozen people lived at Division P on a permanent basis. Peter and Danny were some of those few.

  Jennifer and Peter settled on one of the big sofas with the plasma screen turned on. Buckaroo Banzai was in the DVD player. There was no one else around and they sat in near darkness, only the light from the hallway shining into the big room.

  Peter was pathetically grateful for Jennifer's presence. Being alone and worrying would be worse. He'd probably still be back in the infirmary slamming drawers and trying to take out his angst on restocking tasks. He was sort of retrospectively amused by her telling him to hit the wall. And he was still tied in ten knots, imagining Danny curled up in some bed in Mississippi in pain and by himself.

  Jennifer's arm crept around his shoulders. "So who takes care of the healer?" she asked.

  Peter didn't know how to answer that. He just shook his head. Jennifer pulled him into a soft kiss. It was all tenderness, and Peter found himself clinging to her. Holding her helped to ease the misery of worrying about Danny just a little.

  "You make a good teddy bear," he whispered, burying his face against her shoulder.

  The movie played on in the background as they stretched out on the sofa. Her hands wandered in little circles on his scalp and down his back as he lay with his arms wound around her. Exhaustion settled on him like a ten-ton elephant and he fell asleep.

  ***

  The body pressed up against his was all soft curves and long hair and very female. That definitely ruled out Danny Valentine. Peter woke disoriented. He wasn't in his quarters or even the infirmary. It took a couple more seconds to process the memory of falling asleep with Jennifer on the wide sectional sofa of the common area. It was not quite dawn. The sky outside the window had only lightened by a few shades.

  Jennifer was snuggled between him and the sofa back, one leg tangled with his and one arm around his body. His slight movement must've woken her.

  "Wha' time is it?" she mumbled.

  "Uh… 5:15," he answered, squinting at his watch. Having her breasts gently squashed against his chest and her thigh wedged between his legs was distracting, in an embarrassingly arousing sort of way. Peter could feel his cock responding to the delicious feminine presence. This was one of those times when he wished he gave a shit about baseball. Jennifer snickered. Oh hell, he wasn't shielding worth a damn either apparently. And neither was she.

  He kissed her. It seemed like a good thing to do, especially since half the blood in his body was heading away from his brain. Her mouth opened to his and her response was damn near as close to uncontrolled lust as his own. For a good minute or so he gave up any pretense of not wanting her, badly, before reality crept back in.

  "We oughta get up," he mumbled against her lips.

  "Mmm yeah…" Her tone was a sigh.

  "I didn't mean to fall asleep on you," he apologized, untangling himself enough to sit up.

  "It's okay. I think you needed some unwinding."

  "I ought to go see if I can find out if they're sending Danny home on a Navy flight or a commercial one."

  "Let me know too, okay?"

  "Sure." Peter ran his fingers back through his hair. A shower and some fresh clothes would be a good idea, too. Jennifer kissed him lightly on the temple and left.

  ***

  You moron, you need to make up your mind, Jennifer berated herself. First she was practically ready to hop in bed with Danny. A week later, she was making out on the sofa with Peter. You don't get to have them both. In all probability, you don't get to have either one. Jennifer had just gotten out of the shower and she was combing her wet hair so she could braid the three foot length of it.

  There was obvious attraction between the two men, and only half of it was sexual. You didn't get that bent out of shape when the guy you were screwing got hurt if that's all there was to it. And nobody got that puppy eyes look of absolute adoration that Danny had unless there was some pretty strong emotion behind it. God in heaven, leave it to two guys to fuck up their lives because they were too blind to see the love they had for each other. Okay then, maybe that was her karmic destiny in all this. Bang their heads together and get them to realize what they had.

  ***

  The first available seat on a flight back to Norfolk was economy class. When you were six foot four, it didn't really even come close to comfortable. Add to that the heavy throbbing agony of the bullet wound in his arm and Danny was in pure misery. The sole saving grace of the whole thing was the flight was only a couple hours long. Somebody from P was picking him up from the airport. He wasn't sure who.

  Walking down the long carpeted corridor from the gate, backpack dangling from one hand, other arm in the sling, it was a trudge that felt like a mile. Coming out through security he saw Peter heading straight for him. Peter grabbed the backpack from his hand and guided him toward one of the metal and plastic chairs bolted to the floor in the center atrium.

  "You idiot! Why didn't you ask for a wheelchair!?" Peter demanded, easing Danny down into a seat.

  "My feet work just fine," Danny complained.

  "Yeah, and that's why you look like you can barely put one foot in front of the other!" Peter was down on one knee in front of Danny, one hand on Danny's wrist. The wash of energy from the healer was heaven, wiping out the pain in Danny's arm. Unfortunately all the fatigue surged into the void and Danny felt like he wanted to curl up on the airport floor and sleep.

  "You want me to go hunt for a wheelchair?" a female voice asked. Danny realized that Jennifer Sebastiano was standing about three feet away.

  "I brought her with me because I wasn't sure if I could drive and take care of you at the same time," said Peter. "I think it's probably a good thing I did."