Finding Miranda

Chapter 24: The Awakening

Shepard Krausse recognized the smells first. Disinfectant, strong laundry detergent, stale institutional food, flowers, and the unmistakable, ineradicable underpinning aroma of urine. Oh, yeah, he thought. Hospital.

He felt the firm mattress, the institutional linens, the metal side rails of the bed. He felt the adhesive tape around the intravenous needle in his left arm, the tubing snaking across his left hand and taped again.

He heard nurses and visitors speaking softly in the hallway, shoes padding along the tile floor, metal carts with wheels rattling across the grout lines. He heard the hospital intercom paging doctors and calling codes.

He felt a dull ache in his head. Below his knees, the seared tissue on the backs of his legs demanded his attention. He forced that pain aside and concentrated instead on the sensation that intrigued him more than all the others. Something warm and heavy rested against his rib cage, and something soft enfolded his right arm and hand.

Carefully and slowly, he slid his arm and hand free of the surrounding warmth. He explored with his fingers a long, thick braid. He discovered a pair of eyeglasses pushed askew because the wearer's face was half buried in Shepard's torso. He smiled when he heard a delicate, ladylike snore.

Shepard had no idea how long he had been there. He remembered the Little Cypress, the helicopter, doctors and nurses waking him, poking him, talking at him through a fog. He thought his mother had been there, maybe more than once. Probably he had been out of things for a day or two.

He was sure of only a few things. His best friend, Pietro, was dead. His partner, friend, helper, and navigator, Dave, had died as well. And since the explosion that had plunged him into hell (or at least purgatory), the one constant in his life had been the woman by his side.

No matter how groggy and unfocused he had been, he had never awakened without knowing she was there. He could not see her, of course. She didn't always speak, so he didn't always hear her. But he always smelled her or felt her or --  and this was the crazy part --  sometimes he just sensed her. It was as if some gravitational pull caused his heart to turn in her direction. When she was there, he knew it. He simply knew it.

He stroked her hair back from her temple, again and again, soothing himself with the warmth and texture of her. Soon he craved more. He wanted to hear her, talk to her, be conscious of her being conscious of him. He couldn't help himself. He had to wake her.

"Bean," he whispered.

No response. He stroked her hair once more, then gently tugged on the long braid.

"Bean," he said, a little louder. "Rise and shine, sweet Bean."

"They're not called sweet beans, they're called sweet peas," she answered without opening her eyes.

"Once a librarian, always a librarian," he said with a chuckle.

When he laughed, the movement of his diaphragm succeeded where his voice had failed: her head popped up and she blinked at him. She smiled and straightened her glasses on her face.

"You're awake!" she said.

"And finally that makes two of us," he said. "Where does it say I sleep on the bed and you sleep on me? Not that there's anything wrong with that. We can explore the concept in greater depth when I get out of here, if you like."

She laughed, took his hand from the end of her braid, and planted a kiss in his palm. "You really are awake; you're talking dirty."

"Sweet Bean, if you think that's 'talking dirty,' you need to get out more," he teased.