Leaving Sherwood - A Fickle Universe Time Travel Companion

Chapter Three

It was some time later when Will woke to the sensation of someone lifting a sleeping Paul out of his arms. He tightened his grip and his eyes snapped open to see Ella looking at him with surprise.

"I just thought you'd be more comfortable if he slept in his own bed," she whispered. Will shook his head, and she released Paul.

"Very well. But we need to check your bandages soon, and the doctor will want to talk with you about your injuries . . . and about what happened."

Will nodded, but he wasn't ready to relinquish his hold on his son. Just having him near shook loose vague memories of playing together, running and wrestling, and the feelings he recovered with those memories were a life-line, anchoring him and preventing him from drifting away in the blackness where he knew the rest of his memories should be.

He watched as Ella fiddled with some of the boxes around the room and wrote things on the papers attached to her board, and questions in his mind clamored to be answered. When she passed close enough to his bed, he reached out and tugged a sleeve of her tunic. She turned to him with a smile. "I think I'd like to see the doctor, now," he said. "But I'd like to keep Paul close. Can we make that work?"

She paused long enough to think things through, then said, "Let me move him to the other side of the bed, so the doctor can check your bandages. After you have a talk with him, we can look into getting you both into a shared room."

With a little maneuvering, during which Paul hardly stirred, Will settled with an arm around his son and tried to prepare himself for what the healer would say. When the man came back, drying his hands on what looked like a piece of paper, Will looked at him with a sense of anticipation, and more than a little dread.

"Doctor Baldwin," he said, as much to set the tone as to vent some of his nervous energy.

"Mr. Wilson," the doctor acknowledged with a smile as he pulled on thin, translucent gloves. "It's good that you remember my name. That's a good sign that you don't have a brain injury, as well. Let me check your wounds, then we'll have a chat, all right?"

Will nodded, and the healer immediately moved forward and reached to touch the side of his face, pressing light fingers against the cut on Will's brow. "The stitched skin is holding up, no sign of infection. That's good. The scar should be minimal, too, though it's too large to disguise completely. I'm afraid you'll bear it for the rest of your life."

Will shrugged. It was only to be expected . . . . Wasn't it?

The healer did the same test to a cut on Will's left arm, and gave a reassuring smile. "This one looks good, too."

Next, the healer grasped the corner of the sheets and tried to pull them down, but Will stopped him. "What are you doing?"

"Checking your wounds." There was a definite note of surprise in the man's voice. Then he took a breath and a half-step back. "You have more wounds, ones I can only see if we move the blanket."

Wounds. Plural. Hesitantly, Will let go of the healer's hand and let him continue. Beneath the blanket, the doctor lifted the thin shirt Will wore, exposing a wide swathe of bandage wrapped tight around his middle.

"I have to remove the wrap," the doctor said, "and then the compresses. You may feel some discomfort."

Will watched with a kind of morbid fascination as the healer cut the wrap with a small object Will could name as scissors, then pulled back the white squares of bandages to expose a two-inch long cut that appeared to have been very deep but had been stitched closed. Above that, a long slash looked new, with signs of having been stitched closed, but it seemed to be in a different stage of healing than the other, smaller wound. A third wound, a puncture smaller than the other, appeared to be mostly healed. Incredibly, the healer asked him to sit up so he could check another wound on his back. It was several moments of stunned wonder while the healer worked to check and then re-cover the back wound with fresh bandages, during which time Will tried again to remember what happened. When the doctor came back to work on the front again, he re-covered the larger puncture wound with a fresh bandage.