Stoking The Fire

Chapter Eighteen

It has been a while since I've been in invalid mode, and I fucking hate it, but I manage to do pretty well getting myself from the car all the way to the elevator to take us up to our floor. He's got the bag and the door key out and ready, and I can feel him just watching me like a hawk. I'm quite proud of myself, really, as we stump into the elevator. He presses the floor button then walks around behind me, and I turn and look at him like 'dude what?'. He just shrugs and grins a little. I shake my head, and sigh with an eye roll.

Once the elevator starts heading up, the motion makes me sway a bit, and I can feel his hand on my shoulder. I just shake my head. He doesn't move yet, but the elevator shudders a bit and I sway again. With a muttered curse I hear the bag rustling, then all the sudden I'm swept off of my feet with a startled squeal. I wrap my left arm around his neck instinctively, and he shifts my weight in his arms even as I glare him down.

"Oh for fuck's sake Nick, put me the fuck down!" I exclaim angrily. He just shakes his head, and I hook the cane around my arm so I can reach up and snatch the room key out of his mouth. "I said, Put. Me. Down. Stokes."

He just shakes his head. "No." he states, firmly. I'm about to ream him a new one, but the elevator stops and a mom with a young girl steps on. The mom eyes us sheepishly, and the little girl is too busy playing with her doll to pay much attention to us. I do my utmost best to tell him I'm going to do unspeakably horrible things to him later for this injustice with just my eyes, and he just gives me this enigmatic, pleasantly neutral smirk. Suddenly, the little girl speaks up.

"Wow, are you a princess?" she exclaims, excitedly. Her mom looks horrified, but Nick just laughs. "Yes, she is a princess, how did you know?"

The little girl bounces excited. "Well, she's really pretty and she's wearing a dress and you're carrying her like you're her Prince Charming!" He laughs, and I can't help but laugh with him.

"Maddie!" her mom exclaims. Nick shakes his head. "It's fine, ma'am." He turns and looks at Maddie. "You know Maddie, that's very observant of you. That's really good that you can pay attention to your surroundings like that, that's a really useful skill to have!"

"Thanks! What's your names?" she bubbles, bouncing her doll around. "Well, I'm Nick, and this here is Kari." he says with that adorable grin he has when he's dealing with children. I wave, but don't say anything. "You'll have to forgive her though, she's really tired. See, even though Kari's a princess, she has a really important job working with me to stop bad guys from hurting other people."

Maddie looks up at us, frowning. "Like mommy?" Nick nods. Maddie looks at my leg. "Did she get hurt stopping a bad guy?" Nick nods again.

"Yeah, she did. She stopped a very bad guy, who was going to hurt me, and other people. I was busy stopping other bad guys at the time, so I couldn't help her like I wanted to, but she's really good at her job, and sometimes we have to do things we don't like in order to do what's right."

Maddie thinks about that for a bit, then looks up at us seriously. "Can I fight bad guys too?" I nod and smile, and this time I speak. "You sure can Maddie, you can do anything you set your mind to. You just have to make sure that you're very careful and you learn absolutely everything you can, so that you can do it right and no one else gets hurt in the process. It takes a lot of time and practice to learn how to fight bad guys, Maddie. I'm really good at my job and even I got hurt. Your mommy would be very sad if you got hurt because you weren't careful."

Maddie looks up at her mom, who nods. She then turns and looks at Nick. "Are you very sad that Kari got hurt?" she asks him. He nods, slowly. "I'm very, very sad Maddie. That's why I'm going to do everything I can to help her get better faster, so she can get back to doing what she loves."