He wanted the IV gone, to be as right as he could be, before she got back, and he didn’t need it now. On the opposite wall to his bed sat a cabinet where he found those supplies, then returned to the bed.
When he’d left London, it had hurt both of them, but it had felt surgical. Curative. Better for her in the long run.
This time, he’d hated himself before he’d even set foot on the transport bus. Known too well what he was putting her through—the torment of yet another abandonment, because that’s what it was. That’s what it had been both times. And he knew more about that particular pain than he’d wish for anyone.
But he’d still done it.
She came back with a tray of food and a tall glass of lemonade, placed both on a rolling bedside table and scooted to him. “Eat and then walk?”
He nodded, leaning back, unable to keep himself from looking at her—watching her look at his arm, the supplies where he’d removed the line and the cotton ball he’d already taped it down with.
“Or did you already get up?”
One more pointed look at the cabinet and back.
“Two steps is barely walking,” he said, still holding her gaze and the unspoken questions he saw there.
“Wobbly?”
“Not too bad. I’m not a falls risk.”
“No bed alarm needed?” She half smiled, trying to joke, set things on a more even keel with them, but he couldn’t go along with it. Not now.
“Too many other kinds of alarms.”
His words made her freeze, just a few seconds, and then she resumed gathering up the remains of the medical supplies he’d used to remove the uncomfortable implements, and looked at him. “Did you return to make me leave, or to fill Tony’s position? Why are you back, West?”
“Always,” he answered, paying no attention to the food she’d placed before him. Finding out what she’d said was more important than hunger. “That’s the only word you said outside the bus that I understood. Sempre. Always.”
Her breathing picked up. She looked away, removing the trash, then maintaining the distance from him, like she needed some air between them to take whatever he was going to say. Or to give her the courage to answer. “They were the only words that came.”
“What were they?”
She licked her lips, obviously wary of answering. Then slowly, with pauses between each word, lacking her customary rapid manner of speaking her native tongue, said, “Eu...sempre...terei...saudades...de ti.”
Despite the slowness, there was no nervous quality to the admission, just a heavy-eyed sense of vulnerability that said she knew she was exposing a lot. That he had asked a lot of her repeating it.
“Terry...sawdadesh...” He repeated the sounds back, trying on the feel of them and no doubt bungling them up. Making her answer his as-yet-unasked question.
“There is no direct translation. The closest is...‘I’ll miss you.’”
“Always?”
She flushed then, but nodded. “That word has a direct translation.”
“Where does the other fall short?”
“Saudades.” She said the word again. “It’s like homesickness. In the soul. Usually for a place.”
She waited to see if that explanation was enough.
It wasn’t. If there was more, he needed to hear it. He waited.
“Terei saudades.” She said the word again, shaking her head, voice falling back to her usual softness. “I have...missing feelings...that...can never be healed...by anything else. And I am broken by it.”
Her voice rasped over the end, and when she leaned off the wall to make her exit, he saw tears in her eyes again.
His own eyes burned, his chest on fire.
“Lia...”
She stopped in the doorway, her gaze falling to the floor, not to him again. Waiting...
“I’m not worthy of those feelings.”
“You don’t get to decide that,” she cut in, shaking her head, a little sniff preceding her swiping her cheeks. “You practically killed yourself getting back here when there was time for you to rest. Did they refuse to let you have a day of rest before getting onto another plane?”
“No. But you were the only doctor here. You saw how many people have gotten hurt this week while they’ve been shuttering parts of the station for the first time.”
She didn’t exactly roll her eyes at him, but the exaggerated slow blink had the same damned effect, and she folded her arms. Didn’t believe him. “Are we done?”
Done with this conversation, or done?
He didn’t ask, just felt the wave of nausea as his empty stomach churned, and he lifted one hand on instinct to touch his throat, searching and not finding the necklace and her ring.
In the silence, she came back to the bedside, hand dipping into one pocket. When she pulled it free, the chain and ring dangled from her fingers.
“Didn’t want you choking yourself in your sleep, the way you usually move around. But then you didn’t move at all.”
“Twenty-one hours?” he repeated, the number still shocking, but took the offered ring.
“Twenty-one hours,” she confirmed, then walked away again. “Welcome back, Dr. MacIntyre. Eat. You need to get your strength back.”
Always, she’d said, and he’d still bungled it up.
At no other time in his life had anyone cared...had anyone loved him enough to track him down once he’d gone. Even his brother. But she’d gone halfway around the world for him, and even if she was rightfully wary of him now, she still loved him.
He had to say something now. It was one of those times he couldn’t play it cool and wait, plan what to say.
“I’m not worthy of your feelings,” he repeated, and she stopped again in the doorway, her back to him, “but I want them. You. And I’m selfish enough to admit it.”
“Why?” she asked, not turning back.
“Charlie overdosed. I wasn’t there,” he said softly. It was easier to talk to her back. He could say words he’d never had the heart to utter aloud before, without having to look in her eyes and see her opinion of him sink. Just enough to try to explain.
“In the States?” she asked, half turning back toward him, her face a perfect combination of horror and compassion.
“I lied to you about where he was. I couldn’t get him clean, and I was ashamed of my addict little brother. So. Not the States. Near Glasgow.”
If she took him back, he’d probably have to tell her the whole story someday. Before they got to the rings and vows again. Somehow. But giving details meant picturing it, and he did everything he could not to picture it.
“Were you angry with me for not being there? I would’ve come back. I would’ve gone with you...”
“I know you would’ve. It’s not that. Not your fault,” he said, his accent thicker when he spoke while searching for the words than when he was fully in control of himself. “I’m still tryin’ to work out how to deal with it. So, just to be fair to you, I’m goin’ to say that I don’ know if I can be what you need. I know I lied to you, I failed you, and that you probably shouldn’ trust me. I’m far too good at breaking things.”
CHAPTER TEN
HE WANTED HER BACK.
Before West had revealed how he felt and didn’t feel about her, Lia had harbored quiet fantasies of getting back together. But since then, even knowing that she’d only days ago questioned why he hadn’t wanted to keep seeing her and see if love developed, standing on the other side of it felt different. Scary.
Saying yes would mean entering an unequal relationship, where she loved him, but he didn’t, and may never love her back. How long was she supposed to even give that kind of a trial?
She didn’t want to be that stupid again, and had already proven she couldn’t even correctly identify love. She confused it with general happiness, and probab
ly lust. Would she ever be able to believe him if he said the words to her again?
“I don’t want to sound cruel, and I don’t want to have a fight in the clinic, but I won’t lead you on, either. I don’t know why you want me back when you’ve been very clear that you never loved me. I didn’t realize it before, I didn’t think anyone would propose without love, so I believed it. But the truth is I don’t have any idea what that feels like.”
“What what feels like?”
“Being loved. You say you want me, and I believe you do because want doesn’t require more than physical connection—something we’re very good at.” Or had been before. They’d been too wounded and cagey since she’d returned to do more than feel things, and then stuff them away. “But you don’t love me, so I don’t know. I need to think about it, about whether we can have something healthy and happy.” She licked her lips and shook her head. “I’m glad you’re here. I don’t really believe that you came back for me, but I am glad you’re here.”
“When I said—”
“No,” she cut him off. “I don’t want to talk about this more right now. You need to eat and get a walk in before I’m willing to discharge you.” She opened her mouth to say more, but a loud, frantic cry for help from the lobby took precedence, and sent her sluggish heart back into instant overdrive.
Without another word, she turned and ran toward the voice.
* * *
“What happened?” West heard Lia say through the opened door.
“He’s not breathing. I found him like this...” a man said.
West took two big bites of the noodles she’d brought him, then shoved the table aside and got up to fetch a second gown from the cabinet to use as a robe and conceal his backside. He hadn’t gotten around to asking where his clothes were, and he was going to go help, with or without them.
“Air was really thin in there,” the man said as West made it out, breathing labored, and had obviously carried the patient in. He stood to the side, hands gripped together, worriedly watching.
“Where was it?” West asked. They’d gotten the man on the table and Lia was climbing up to straddle him, fingers linked to begin chest compressions.
“Mechanical room.”
Another injury from Mechanical?
“Thin air,” she puffed between compressions, but he heard her flinging open drawers to get a mouth guard out to breathe for him when she stopped.
He took and delivered two quick breaths before she resumed. “I know.”
Suffocation could do that, if the room was pressure sealed, but why would Mechanical be pressure sealed?
“Oxygen?” he prompted, and she nodded, but didn’t speak again, focused on applying the proper amount of pressure, and keeping count. Chest compressions were a workout and carried on for a long time. It was common to need to switch out with someone fresh, so the cadence wouldn’t be affected. Exhaustion could set in quickly when someone was fully rested, let alone whatever state Lia was in.
He kept an eye on her, and breathed for the man when he was supposed to, mentally ticking through what else it could be. Carbon monoxide was a silent killer, odorless, and breathing didn’t feel affected up until it was too late. So it was unlikely to be noticed as thin air, but did sound like something that could actually happen in Mechanical with the machines and exhaust.
Regardless, the treatment was the same. Pure oxygen would help, if anything was going to.
He dug out a laryngoscope, bag valve ventilator, and connected it straight into the oxygen in seconds, readying himself to dive in and intubate the man the next time she stopped.
“He’s still warm,” she said, which was something at least. And as soon as she counted her last compression, she helped tilt his head back to lengthen the throat, and West slid in the blade and tubing, then began pumping straight oxygen into the man’s lungs.
Three puffs, an extra to help, and she resumed.
After the fourth set of full oxygen breaths, the mechanical aeration of the man’s blood worked. His head jerked once, and she stopped to feel the pulse in his throat, her hands shaking, and following up, he could see her arms shaking, too. Not nerves, but weakness that came from overexertion, because if anyone was going to have one of those TV doctor moments of having to be dragged away from a patient who was too far gone, it would be Lia. She’d keep going until he made her stop. Or until they got lucky.
She didn’t climb down yet, instead grabbing the man’s wrists to pin beneath her knees, in case he should wake and do what most people did when they woke up intubated—try to pull it out. He needed the oxygen. If this was carbon monoxide poisoning, he’d need hours of pure, undiluted oxygen.
They waited and watched for a full minute, but when he didn’t fully rouse, she climbed down and they got his manual pump respirator switched to the machine and began attaching leads to monitor his heart.
“Thinking someone needs to get a detector down there.” She breathed hard. “And we need to get him stable and out of here. His sternum cracked, and he’ll need a lot of care for a while.”
“If he wakes,” West said softly. They both knew his chances weren’t great.
“While the weather allows travel, we need to relocate him. Is there anywhere in South America with a hyperbaric chamber? Or maybe a navy boat?”
“I don’t know.” He didn’t, but he would find out. “I’ve read that they help filter the blood, but there’s no evidence that it helps.”
“There’s no evidence that it doesn’t,” she grumbled, breathing starting to even out, but she still shook as if by an internal earthquake.
The man they’d been ignoring made himself known again. “Does it always make you die? If you’ve got carbon monoxide poisoning?”
West glanced sideways at Lia, and despite still being in a hospital gown, he said to the man, “You went in after him?”
A nod was his answer, and he shared a look with Lia to let her know he was handling it.
“Let’s check you out. You might benefit from some oxygen, too.”
Still focused on their main patient, she didn’t interfere, but did call after him, “Get blood.”
“Get my clothes when you’re done,” he called back, ushering the man into an exam room. “How are you feeling? Anything off? And what’s your name? I can’t pull up your file—I don’t have a device—but I can check this right now.”
“Mario Correa,” he answered first. “I haven’t been feeling right since the day I moved into Pod A.”
“Not about Mechanical?” West asked, and when the man shrugged, he continued. “Symptoms?”
“I don’t know. Tired and off,” Mario said, then looked at West seriously. “Doctor, are you sure you’re well enough for this? Maybe the lady doctor should see me.”
“I’m okay,” West assured him. “I’ve been discharged, just haven’t gotten changed yet. So, after sleeping in Pod A you felt poorly?”
“It was before bed,” he said. “I worked in the shop all day that day. Actually, it was the day after we’d shut down Pod B, where I had been, and some other parts of the station. I went to Mechanical to make a part for the ventilation system so we could change it.”
“Repair?”
“Not broken, but the engineers came up with some way to save energy, and that meant closing down different parts than they’d originally planned. So we’re reworking ventilation and electrical, those kinds of things.”
Right. None of that meant much to him.
“We’ll get some blood. That’ll tell us if you’ve got a carbon monoxide concentration. But I’m going to get you on oxygen now, just in case.”
“How does that help?”
“Pushes the carbon monoxide out of the blood. It takes a few hours to clean it out, but we can do that. You just have to wear a mask and breathe only the oxygen that comes through it,” he explained, getti
ng the man set up and turning the oxygen flow on. “It smells kind of weird, but it’ll help. If you can, lie down on the table and nap after I get your blood. If it’s clear, I’ll let you go. If it’s not, you stay until it is.”
“I need to call my boss...”
“I’ll get it,” West said, getting that information from the man to make the call. It sounded to him like something weird was going on with ventilation, but it was a new station and this was the first time being overwintered. It was bound to have kinks that needed working out as things were used and bugs discovered.
He’d find Lia after. Get some clothes. Finish their conversation before sending her to bed. He’d slept twenty-one hours; he could stay awake for another eight so she could sleep.
It was fine. They had time. They weren’t done. Even if he’d made this exponentially harder with his lie about having never loved her. A lie he still couldn’t believe she’d bought, no more than he could believe her assertion that she’d never been loved, that she didn’t know what it felt like.
Jordan loved her. Her friends. Certainly her family and the people in her village. Unless that was the big mess she’d wanted to keep him away from.
* * *
It was funny the things that occurred to Lia in the middle of an emergency. How it was possible to save a life with CPR eleven percent of the time if you performed the right steps, the right way, in the right amount of time after the last natural respiration.
Maybe in eleven percent of alternate universes, he said those words to her and it saved their relationship. And maybe the reason she’d been gritting her teeth all afternoon was how badly she wanted to take him back, and how bad an idea she knew that to be. But it would feel good in the moment.
All is forgiven.
Pretend nothing happened.
Pretend she didn’t remember the other words he’d said.
What she couldn’t work out was why he’d said them. And why hadn’t she?
She could’ve lied, or just told him she didn’t want to translate the words she’d said outside the bus, when she hadn’t expected to ever have to own up to them. And couldn’t bring herself to lie about them. Which could be something she did need to learn.
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