✅ The Last New Start [NaNoWriMo2021]

127. Intermission

Tess didn't go home that night, and to her surprise Ffrances didn't seem to have a problem with that. Neither did the nurses on the ward. Spike's room was a little spartan, but there was a fairly comfortable chair beside him, and Tess sat there so that she would know immediately if something went wrong. Not that there was anything she could have done in the case of a medical emergency, but she knew that she needed to be there.

She quickly got used to moving out of the way when the nurses came in to change his dressings, or to do blood tests. She guessed that they were checking to make sure that he wasn't going to cause any problems with the painkillers, but she never saw him press the button for more pain relief unless he couldn't cope any more. Once or twice she could see that he was almost unaware of his surroundings because of the pain, and she still had to order him to press the button. And when she did, he would thank her for taking control.

Even after all the time she'd known Spike, she didn't quite know the full story around his family. But she knew that he was extremely reluctant to take any kind of drugs, maybe scared that he would end up like Shawna. When he really needed something, she didn't think that he would have coped without someone else he trusted to make that decision for him.

Spike enjoyed the books. Tess read some of them as well. A couple of times she left the hospital to visit the nearest shops, but she wouldn't leave Pine Ridge as long as Spike was there. Thankfully there was a shower there, but getting herself clean was the longest she would allow herself to leave his side for. It did occur to her that some people might have found this strange, but that was just a passing thought, and neither of them seemed to question it. She was worried about him, and she needed to be with him.

On the first day, Spike had been connected to a whole bunch of tubes and wires. The nurses explained that sometimes, the body can respond in odd ways to significant tissue damage, and there was a chance that the chemicals involved in forming scar tissue could trigger problems with his liver, kidneys, or even nervous system in some cases. A rare condition, but one that the doctors wanted to guard against. So Spike was sitting there with a drip to keep his fluid balance steady, a selection of drugs that were supposed to help the injuries to heal with less visible scarring, and all kinds of sensors that would alert someone if something started to go wrong.

On the little table beside his bed, there was a plastic box containing a half dozen tiny glass shards. The doctor had asked if he wanted to keep them, and Spike didn't know. The police had been given a picture; and confirmed that the pieces were treated soda-lime glass from a broken bottle. Apparently they could even tell the brand, although Tess had no idea what could be distinctive about glass pieces barely larger than typical fingernail clippings.

After a couple of days the doctors could change the bandages on Spike's face, and Tess could see him again. There was still a lot of bruising, but it looked a little better than it had that day in the school cafeteria. It was hard to believe it was still the same week; it seemed like an eternity now. Another lifetime.

On the first day, there had been an XV message from Gabby, asking what had happened and where she was. Presumably she already knew, because that message had come before she would even have reached home on a normal school day. Tess had given a brief response; that she was in PRMCT, and everything was taken care of, but she would be here for a few days.

After that, Tess had barely checked the messages on her phone. She didn't know what her friends were posting on Clatter, and the few times she'd checked XV, she had found already-expired messages from Gabby. Whatever those messages had been about, Gabby clearly didn't think they were important enough to read later if she wasn't online at the time; so Tess tried not to wonder about them. She had more than enough worries on her mind right now.