Boundaries

Conor: forever?

{Conor}

The heart monitor would sometimes wake me up, and I would glance at Ralph to make sure that he was still asleep before curling back up again at his feet. Staying as a wolf at night meant that I slept lightly just in case something happened. The hunters were as assuring as they could be that they meant Ralph no harm, but I didn't trust them. Everyone was less likely to come in with a wolf sleeping on the hospital bed.

In the morning, Grant would usually come by to say hello and I would shift and dress before the doctors came in to wake Ralph for breakfast. The first day they had tentatively brought him a steak; Ralph and I still were laughing about that. We needed something to lighten the mood.

After the morning's examination, a nurse would measure Ralph's decreasing progress and then the therapist would come in and work on exercises. She was a regular human from a local hospital and we were under strict orders not to tell her anything. Not that she had reason to believe us.

After lunch, someone would come by to take my blood, and we'd call Mel. Add doctors, nurses and other therapists, and each day was starting to blur together. I wasn't sure how long we had been here. Only a week or so.

I hadn't seen Tish. Grant said she was getting debriefed, whatever that meant. She would be back soon. He had already been on two assignments since we had been here, and when he wasn't, he was down the hall letting someone test his endurance or strength, or whatever else they wanted. That would have been me, I realized, had I stayed with the hunters. They would have never let me out into the world on my own.

"Hey Conor."

I hopped off the bed and shifted back to human. Grant waved from the door and stepped in when I had dressed.

"You're here early," I remarked.

He held up a paper bag.

"I brought you some breakfast not on the doctor's diet; it's this local café around the corner and they make a delicious smelling sandwich. Come on."

"I'm not leaving him," I told Grant.

"Just to the hall, so we don't wake him up," Grant explained, pointing to two folding chairs he must have dragged with him. "And I got two sandwiches, just in case Ralph wanted one."

"They're very insistent on measuring his calories," I replied.

I left the room for the first time in two weeks to sit on the chair across the hall. Grant had showed me exercises I could do while stuck in that room and so I had learned pushups, lunges and others. I liked running better, but I had to burn energy someway. Grant handed me the bag and I pulled out a wax paper wrapped croissant sandwich with egg, bacon, tomato and cheese. I savored it, knowing I would have a less appetizing breakfast coming soon that I could wolf down if I so chose.

"Yeah, because they've never had a resting werewolf before. They're frantically trying to run tests and blood panels, trying to compare the two of you, trying to find the link. There is none, but you know, they keep trying."

Grant pushed the glasses back against his nose with annoyed flick. I had gotten used to the frames, odd as they were. I didn't like that Sasha could see everything he was seeing, but the glasses reminded me to watch what I said and did.

"Tish is back," he remarked.

"Oh? Is she all right?"

Grant nodded. "As all right as she can be. They gave her a pair of these stupid glasses too. She is not happy about it."

"I can't imagine," I laughed and wiped a little of the sauce that had dripped down my chin. "I guess that means that the two of you will be gone more?"