A Price Above Rubies

Chapter Twenty Nine

He feels as if his entire body is on fire. It's hard to breathe with the weight on his chest. Everything hurts. He can't open his eyes, can't muster up the miniscule amount of effort it would take to lift his eyelids. 

He catches a few words here and there before darkness pulls him under again. It feels like minutes between the darkness and the moments when he's aware. Her voice...or he thinks its her voice, hopes its her voice but it's all so muffled by the waves of darkness that pull him under again, no matter how hard he tries to fight against it. 

There's a beeping noise underneath the voices every time he wakes and painful tubes up his nose and plastic in his mouth. 

He's on a bed. His fingers touch the softness beneath him. Not his bed, not their bed. He doesn't smell her pillow beside him. 

The warehouse… What happened to the warehouse? He's not their anymore and something else is there...just on the fringes of his clouded mind, something he needs to know but every time he gets close to knowing what the question is the darkness pulls him under again. 

His brother… His brother… That's his first thought when he is aware again. He opens his eyes briefly but the brightness of the room is agony and he groans and shuts them again. 

"Leon!" 

He turns towards Hilal's voice and the movement tugs on the plastic tubes, making him groan again.

"Don't move. Stay still, my love."

Leon feels her fingers in his hair and he wants to sigh at the pleasure of it. 

Her hand brushes across his forehead. "Doctor, he's waking up. I think his fever is down. Please God, let the worst be over." 

Leon feels her face pressed against his and he wants to inhale her beautiful scent and the feel of her skin against his. 

"Yes, his fever's finally broken. Thank God," the doctor says with a long exhale. 

It still hurts too much to open his eyes so he keeps them closed and listens to them talk over him.

"Can we move him yet?" Is that Yakup? 

"He's still not able to breathe on his own. He'd recover more quickly in a hospital but-"

"But that's not an option. This clinic will have to do until we can get out of Greece or the police stop looking for us which we all know is not going to happen," Yakup says. 

He struggles to speak through the agony in his throat. "Leave...me…"

"Leon? Sweetheart can you open your eyes for me?" Hilal pleads, her soft fingers stroking his face and he wants to fall into that softness forever but he forces himself to be strong.

"Go...the baby...think of...baby…"

"What? No! I'm not going to leave you here. I am never going to leave you!" Hilal insists, desperation and determination firm in her voice.

Yes...that's the problem, Leon thinks cursing his wife's stubbornness but he doesn't have the strength to fight her and he so he gives up to the darkness and lets it claim him again. 

When he comes to again, he can breathe better. He can move without pulling on tubes though his limbs and muscles are still too week to muster up much movement. Leon tests opening his eyes and finds it doesn't hurt as much since the room is not too bright. It's not a hospital but doesn't look like the clinic Hilal and Yakup were talking about. It's a cabin. There's some light filtering through the window but it's a reddish purple light signaling late afternoon, near evening. He tries to speak but all that comes out is a croak because his throat is still sore and weak from disuse. Leon turns and sees Hilal asleep in the chair by his bed. Her hair is spilling around her shoulders and partly across her cheek. She looks so vulnerable and tired that his heart catches in his chest even as he wants to shake her. What are you doing, woman? Think of the child. The swell of her stomach is a bit bigger now and he wonders how much time has passed. He wants to reach out and touch her stomach, touch their child but he doesn't want to wake her. She needs her rest. He also doesn't know what he'll say to her when she's awake and they'll actually have to talk to each other. He wants to rage at her for putting herself and their baby at risk but he doesn't have the energy for how his tiny but temperamental wife will fight back. He can manage decently to argue with her when he's up to it and even wins the occasional fight but in the state he was in now? No way. 

He tightness grips his chest and rises in his throat and he tries to stifle it before it wakes her but the cough bursts from him. He tries to control it before she wakes but the fit goes on and on, sending agony through his throat. Inevitably, Hilal stirs and her eyes open. Instantly she's at his side, her sleepy gaze clearing and replaced with worry. 

"Here, drink. Drink some water," she urges, pulling him upward and cradling the upper half of his body in her arms as she brings the glass to his lips. 

It takes a few tries but he manages to gulp down some cool water. The pain in his throat is worth it and he sags against Hilal's chest with a sigh as she kisses and strokes his head. 

"Where...are we?" he manages to croak out.

"A cabin a few hours outside the city. It belongs to Colonel Dario. He's letting us hide out here until you're well enough for us to make the trip back to Paris," Hilal explains. "You have pneumonia." 

"Colonel Stavros," Leon says bitterly. "I interfered when he was ordering Ali Kemal be beaten. To punish me he tied me up and left me outside. It rained all night." 

At the mention of his brother, he feels Hilal stiffen behind him and his heart freezes in his chest. 

"Tell me," Leon insists. 

"We don't have to talk about that now. We can wait until you're strong enough-" she protests but the emotion in her voice tells him what he's feared has come to pass.

"I'm strong enough now. Tell me," he demands, but he's trembling. 

"Leon," Hilal says but he nudges her.

"Hilal, Tell me what happened to my brother." He holds his breath knowing what she's going to say. Dreading it, but needing to hear the words all the same. 

"Ali Kemal sacrificed himself to save us. He died in the explosion," she says so softly she's practically whispering but the effect is as powerful as if she'd screamed it at him. 

Leon moans and turns, moving away from her body. The grief chokes him and he coughs, not minding the pain it causes. He deserves this agony and more. 

"Leon," Hilal says, her voice thick with tears because Ali Kemal was her brother too, of the heart if not by blood.

"Please, Hilal. Just leave me alone because I can't bear to look at you right now." He'd come to Greece to save his brother and he'd failed. He can't stand to look at her and see that failure in her eyes, that he'd let the brother of her heart die.