Dogs of War

Chapter 27

Ghost stared down at us, clearly unamused as Soap and I leaned against each other heaving for breath. 

"Idiots," Ghost muttered as he stood there with his arms crossed as we tried to collect each other. Moments later we were joined by Archiel who seemed just as impressed as Ghost was.

"What are you two taking? Do I need to confine the pair of you to the med bay?"

"Surprised you're not entangled with 'em," Ghost responds as I put on finger up, wheezing.

"Just..." I gasp, tears streaming down my face. "Un momento, por favor."

"Practicin' yer Spanish, I see. Doesn't explain why you and Soap are pissin' yerselves laughin' though."

I roll my eyes up at Ghost as Soap finally manages to upright himself, face red from laughing. "It's the-" I slap my hand across Soap's mouth, turning the rest of his words to a mumbled mess.

"No," I declare shaking my head. 

"It's what?" Ghost growls, getting more and more annoyed. 

"It's nothing, nothing at all. Just Soap and I being idiots."

"Wolf."

"Ghost," I respond smiling sweetly up at him like butter wouldn't melt on my tongue. His only response is to stare me down. Unfortunately for him that tactic hadn't worked on me before and it wasn't about to start working on me now. Soap however seemed to fidget nervously next to me.

It was Archiel who broke the stare down in the end. "Ceri, as much as it amuses me that you are trying to hide your ring tone choice from Ghost, you and I have a rehab appointment."

I glare at the fox medic with a scowl as Ghost speaks. "What are you hiding, whelp?"

"From what I gathered from the mumbling under Ceri's hand, she has chosen your ring tone as Pretty Girls Walk."

"Archiel," I groan. "The betrayal. Right to my heart. I'm bleeding out..." I say dramatically as I pretend to swoon.

"You're late to our rehab appointment."

"Sorry, sorry.." I mumble. "Can I have some food first?"

"Eat a protein bar on the way." 

I scrunch my nose up in disgust. "But Arch-" before I can even continue my protest, she's shoved a protein bar in my hand, and dragging me along behind by my collar. Once again proving that she had strength she had no problems using against the rest of us, and the attitude to back it up. I finished the protein bar, disgruntled but quite to avoid furthering her wrath. We enter into an area that I can clearly see she's been working on, her own touches in the room. Nice cool toned colours, medical charts and equipment. She pushes me towards the examination table and I lay down  on it. 

"Alright, I'm going to be testing your range of movements, checking how easy everything moves."

She picks up my non-injured leg and begins at my toes, working my way to rolling my ankle, twisting and turning before moving up to my knee and then my hip. She wrote some notes down, retesting some movements, or applying new ones to check the weakness of my muscles.

Seemingly satisfied, she took the brace from my injured leg and began applying the same movements, if somewhat more careful, avoiding any additional injury. She wrote up even more notes for my injured leg and I grimaced knowing the rehab program was going to be painful. She moved through my back and my arms, landing on my neck. 

"Your glutes, hip flexors, abductors are all wound so tight I'm surprised you can walk at all. We'll begin on those."

"Do we have to?" I ask, the memory of my last physical therapy session running through my mind.

"Yes. Roll over."

"Yes, ma'am," I say, my voice sullen knowing I'm about to spend the next forty-five minutes to an hour in pain, and I'm right. She starts on my injured side first. She's got a stick and she sticks it into the thickest tightest parts of my muscles and leans her entire body weight into the stick, and into the knots she's aiming to release. The pain has me recoiling away from her, but being pinned between her and the bed, there's no where for me to go. Tears well up in my eyes as I gasp and whine, my fist slamming against the bed as I try and find an outlet for the pain radiating up some muscle that the Medic had seemed important enough to try and release some tension from.  When she finally lifted the stick, I took in a deep breath of relief, knowing I had only a moment before-

"HOLY FUCKING HELL!" I scream as she picks her new target without warning and I feel my non-existent ovaries climbing up into my throat as the pain radiates up my entire spine, a sheen of sweat coating my forehead.

"Stop being dramatic," Archiel said calmly, if somewhat mildly amused. 

"You stop being dramatic!" I snap back, not exactly proud of the come back, but in too much pain to think clearer. I take in shallow gasping breaths of air this time when she releases the stick, my body firmly in flight mode wanting to roll off the bed and go running for somewhere that's not going to hurt so much. She puts the stick aside using her thumbs and fingers to soothe the areas that I just know are going to bruise from the pressure she'd been applying. Her fingers soothing across my fur and skin helps bring my heart rate back down so I'm breathing normally again. 

When she picks up the stick and jams it firmly into my back just above my arse, I grit my teeth as she puts all of her weight directly on top of that one spot. 

She releases and finds a new spot, and I begin wondering how many more times before she shifts sides. My hands are gripping at the examination table so hard my claws have pierced the fabric, and I have the metallic taste of blood in my mouth where I've bitten through my cheek. My eyes are scrunched shut as I try and focus on anything except the burning pain sensation radiating from the point she is trying to release. My body relaxes as she releases the pressure slightly, only for her to drop the bed down and she reapplies the pressure what seems ten-fold. I screech out at the unexpected wave of pain, my leg twitching as nerves deal with the pain in the only way they know how. 

"Hush," Medic says soothingly. "Five... four... three... two.... and... one." She releases the pressure on that side and my body relaxes instinctively. "Good girl," Medic muses before moving to the other side and beginning the same process over again. Being my non-injured side did not seem to reduce the pain levels in the slightest. In fact, I think she was applying even more pressure. Not matter how much I wriggled and writhed under her trying to get away from the pain, she stayed in the same spot, determined to loosen the tightly wound muscles. 

When at last she'd finally finished inflicting that particular brand of torture upon me, she changed up her methods, back to stretching everything out, causing me to groan and wince as the soreness made itself known. 

"Better, but you'll have to come back tomorrow. We begin your strength exercises. You've been neglecting them."

"I just got out of a coma!"

"Two months ago."

"Two months isn't enough time to really say I've been neglecting things."

She just raised an eyebrow at me. "Tomorrow. Make sure you're not late this time."

"Yes Archiel," I respond back, monotone and defeated knowing I wouldn't be winning this particular battle no matter how hard I tried to fight it. I slip from the bed, my knees almost giving out from under me at the unexpected weight after the torture I'd endured from the Medic in the last hour. 

I wobble my way out of her office space and decide Ghosts office is much too far for me to be walking back to and go to my room instead. The instant smell of the lilies as I open the door to my room makes me smile, appreciating how much they brighten up the small room. I lay down, and gently stretch out knowing if I curl up, my newly loosened muscles with contract, stiffening me back up again and causing more issues later. I pull out my laptop and continue with the Spanish lessons I'd just decided to pick up, knowing Ale and Rudy would be disappointed I'd forgotten so much. I suspected they wouldn't be accepting the excuse that I'd been comatose.