Right now, Anya had another chance to show Kromin that she could help him in ways that no one else could. If she could make these stitches work, if she could save Toryx, then it would only solidify Kromin’s positive view of her. And Anya was finding that Kromin’s opinion of her mattered more than anything else ever could. He completed her, and she wanted to prove to him that she completed him too.
With renewed vigor, she continued her work on Toryx. She could not fail in this. She would not fail. For her sake, for Kromin’s, and for Toryx’s, Anya would make these stitches work.
Her skills as a human doctor might be different from anything anyone in this community had ever seen, but when all was said and done, she was going to prove that she was valuable here.
And then, she was going to go home and celebrate with Kromin. She had a feeling he would be on board with that plan.
Chapter Twelve
Kromin wasn’t sure how much time had passed, but he felt like it had been an eternity. Stitching was slow work, and even though Anya worked methodically and efficiently, the minutes dragged on and felt like hours.
It had not been hours. Not yet. Kromin knew that for a fact, because if it had been hours then Toryx probably would have been dead. His friend was not doing well, and honestly Kromin wasn’t sure that even stitching him up was going to save him. But Kromin would hold on to hope as long as the smallest bit of life remained.
It wasn’t easy to see Toryx like this. Kromin had seen his fair share of death as a doctor, but when he had to face the mortality of his own friends, it always hit him hard. When Maisie had given birth to Ayaan and things had been complicated, Kromin had felt like the world was caving in on him. And he hadn’t even known Maisie that long! Toryx, on the other hand, had been a part of Kromin’s life for as long as Kromin could remember.
You can’t die, buddy. You just can’t.
Kromin forced himself to stop letting his thoughts go down that track. He needed to stay focused and helpful for Anya’s sake. She was the one who really held Toryx’s life in her hands right now. Kromin watched as she continued her work, threading the sutures in and out of Toryx’s blue-gray skin. Her brow was furrowed as she concentrated, but she looked calm. Kromin wondered how he had ever doubted her ability as a doctor. She had proven herself over and over in the course of the last several weeks. She had shown that although her training might have been different than his, she could help patients just as well as he could. And his fears of her trying to take over his authority in the hospital had been completely unfounded. She wasn’t interested in taking over. She was only interested in helping the community, and in saving lives.
And the life she was saving right now was the life of one of Kromin’s most favorite people in the world. Her work was far from done, but it looked like Toryx’s vital signs were slowly starting to improve. There was hope, and Kromin’s heart clung to that hope.
As the minutes passed by, that hope continued to grow. It was a very slow growth, but Kromin gradually felt the fear that had been gripping his heart starting to give way. Toryx was going to make it. Zocronians were strong, and now that Toryx wasn’t rapidly bleeding his life away, his body was able to start the healing process. By the time Anya sewed up the final stitch on the final wound, Toryx’s skin had even started to return to an almost normal shade of blue. The gray tinge was fading completely away.
“Finished,” Anya said softly when that last stitch was complete. But Anya didn’t look up at Kromin right away, instead she kept staring down at Toryx, as though she expected the man to die at any moment.
“Hey,” Kromin said, reaching over to give her arm a soft squeeze. “Look. Look at his vitals. They’re improving.”
Anya finally looked up, and Kromin pointed at the console screen that had a readout of Toryx’s vital signs. The emergency warning lights had stopped flashing, and Toryx was almost to the point where you could list his condition as stable instead of critical. Anya stared at the screen in wonder for a few moments, then looked over at Kromin with tears in her eyes.
“He’s going to make it,” she said.
“Yes. He’s going to make it. And all because of you.”
“I just did what any doctor would have done,” she said with a dismissive shrug. But Kromin wasn’t letting her get away with things that easily.
“Sure, any doctor would have done their best to save a patient’s life. But there aren’t many doctors in the Seven Galaxies who would have known how to do stitches. It’s a lost art, and one that we like to laugh at in our ‘advanced’ medical schools. But you’ve proven today that just because we have skinsealer, that doesn’t mean we should forget about all the old ways of doing things. Any technique that might save a life is worth knowing, in my opinion.”
Anya blushed, her cheeks turning bright pink. Kromin wished he could go over and pull her into his arms, kissing her deeply and showing her just how proud he was of her. But they still had work to do. This operating room needed to be cleaned up, as did Toryx himself. Kromin needed to make a medicine dosage plan to make sure that Toryx was staying pain free and that all infections were warded off. And then, either Anya or Kromin himself would need to stay at the hospital tonight to keep an eye on Toryx and make sure that no complications suddenly arose.
There would be time later for kissing. But sludge it all if Kromin didn’t want more than anything right now to find an empty hospital bed and claim Anya for himself again and again. He wanted to make her scream out with pleasure. He wanted to show her just how much she meant to him. He wanted to make her feel like there was no one in the Seven Galaxies more deserving of love than her, because there wasn’t. She was truly special.
Later, Kromin chided himself, willing the stiffening in his cock to subside. Anya was already cleaning Toryx up, and it was time for Kromin to pitch in and help. He began cleaning up the surgical tools Anya had been using, and then moved to cleaning up the floors, wall, and equipment that had all become covered with Toryx’s blood when Daxar and Nova had first brought the wounded man into the room.
Kromin worked in silence, as did Anya. Both of them were lost in their work and in their own thoughts, until finally everything was done that needed to be done. Kromin looked over at Anya to see that she looked exhausted.
“You should go home and rest,” he told her. “I’ll take care of everything here.”
She started to protest, but he covered her mouth with his, cutting off her words. When he finally pulled back, her cheeks were even more flushed than they had been before the sudden kiss.
“Don’t argue,” he ordered. “You’ve done enough already. You deserve a break. Go out in the hallway and find Daxar and Nova. Tell them that Toryx looks like he’s going to make it, and that they can come in and see him if they want. Then you go home and sleep. You can take over for me in the morning.”
Anya looked like she might protest once again, but when Kromin raised an eyebrow at her she sighed and nodded.
“Okay. But I’ll be back first thing in the morning.”
“Take your time,” Kromin said. “Seriously. I’ll be fine here.”
“I know you will. But I don’t want to be apart from you. We’ve only just decided to spend the rest of our lives together.”
Kromin’s whole body warmed at her words, and he reached out for her hand, holding it tightly in his. “I know how you feel. And I can’t wait for all that’s to come. But for now, you need to rest. We’ll have time together soon enough.”
Reluctantly she nodded again and turned to leave. But before she could get to the door, Kromin reached for her arm and pulled her back. She turned to look at him, confused, and he pulled her closer, then put his lips on hers for another kiss. A real, deep kiss, where his tongue slipped past her lips and into her mouth, dancing with her tongue. His cock began to stiffen again, and he knew by her soft moan that she felt it through the fabric of their clothes.
“Are you sure I have to go?” she murmured.
Kromin pulled ba
ck and smiled at her. “Yes. Now go. I just wanted to give you a little something to think about until we’re together again.”
With that, he pushed her out the door, giving her a soft slap on the ass as she left. Waiting until they could be alone would be torture, but he knew that once he saw her again, it would have been worth the wait.
She had always been worth it, and he had been a fool not to see it earlier. But he was going to spend the rest of his life showing her that he’d had a change of heart. Anya was his now, and despite the hard times Zocrone was going through, that meant that life could not have been better.
Chapter Thirteen
The hospital felt lonely at night, especially without Anya there. Kromin kept Toryx sedated for his own comfort, so the man wasn’t much company. For a while, Kromin wandered the halls somewhat aimlessly, trying to sort through the million thoughts about a million different things that were constantly flooding through his head. He couldn’t stop thinking about the things he needed to do to make this hospital better, and he had a hard time not beating himself up not for changing things sooner. He knew in his heart that there was no point in beating himself up like this. He’d made mistakes, and now he was fixing them. There was nothing he could do to change the past. But still, he couldn’t quite keep the regrets from filtering through his mind during the long night.
One thing he definitely did not regret, though, was asking Anya to marry him. He could hardly believe she’d said yes. Obviously he’d thought there was a small chance of it, or he wouldn’t have asked. But he’d thought the odds of a “no” or at least a “not yet” were much higher than a “yes.” He didn’t think he’d ever been as happy or as incredulous in his life as when she told him she would be his wife. Now, there were all sorts of plans to be made. He needed to buy her a ring, but not just any ring. It needed to be the absolute best that the Seven Galaxies offered. And there would be quite a few wedding plans to make, although he figured Anya would probably want the final say in that. Kromin knew that Zocronian woman usually had very specific ideas about what they wanted their wedding days to be like, and something told him that human women would be the same.
And then there were the logistics of her moving in with him. Kromin definitely wanted that to happen sooner rather than later. The idea of Anya waking up in his home—no, their home—every day sent a thrill through him. Life was about to get very, very good.
After hours of wandering, Kromin finally went back to sit in Toryx’s room. He had set up the computers in the room to send an alert to his e-assistant if the system detected any problem with Toryx’s vitals, and nothing had been detected. But Kromin still thought it was a good idea to check. Thankfully, the computers had not misled him. When he arrived at the room, he found Toryx sleeping peacefully and appearing to be in good health, relatively speaking. Toryx was lucky. There would be some scarring from the monkey’s attack, but that would be the only long term damage Toryx would suffer, as far as Kromin could tell. Things could have been much, much worse. In fact, they would have been much worse if Anya hadn’t saved the day.
After checking on Toryx, Kromin decided to see if he could catch a quick nap in one of the oversized guest chairs. Toryx was still in the emergency room where Anya had done the stitches, and that room didn’t have any soft guest chairs in it. Kromin solved the issue by dragging one over from another room, figuring that was much easier than trying to move Toryx himself.
No sooner had Kromin sat down in the chair and closed his eyes than he fell asleep. This was how Anya found him the next morning. When she shook him awake and he opened his eyes, he couldn’t remember at first why he was hanging out in the hospital. He did remember the events at the bar the night before, though, and he remembered asking Anya to marry him.
“Hello, fiancée,” he greeted her.
She smiled, and the sight of it sent waves of pleasure through Kromin’s body. “Hello, fiancé. Enjoy your beauty rest?”
Kromin sat up straighter and looked around then, remembering all of a sudden that he was in Toryx’s room and that Toryx had nearly died the night before. “Oh, shit! How long have I been sleeping? I need to check on Toryx!”
“Shh, relax. Don’t worry, I’ve already checked on him, and administered a fresh dose of pain meds. He’s still sedated, which I think is the best choice for at least a few more hours. But he’s doing well. Improving quite rapidly, I would say.”
Kromin groaned. “I shouldn’t have slept half the night without checking on him!”
Anya shrugged. “He was fine. If anything had been off with his vitals the computer would have sounded an alarm and woken you up. And you needed your rest.”
“So did you. Did you sleep?” But Kromin could tell without even waiting for her answer that she had slept. The dark circles of exhaustion that had appeared under her eyes last night were gone now. She looked fresh and awake, with glowing skin and her crazy red hair pulled back into as neat of a bun as she could with such thick curls. She smelled slightly fruity, a smell Kromin now recognized as the tropical shampoo she used. That meant she had showered too. He was both jealous of her and glad that she had taken time to take care of herself. She deserved a few moments to recuperate after last night.
“I slept,” she confirmed. “So if you want to take a turn to go home and get some real sleep, feel free. Before you do, though, Daxar is here and he wants to talk to you. I think it has something to do with the riots outside the hospital.”
Kromin flopped back in his chair in frustration. “Those are still going on?”
“Yup. Going stronger than ever. People are just as angry about the rations today as they were yesterday, if not more.”
“I should have expected that. I guess my brain just tricked me into thinking that because everything in here worked out so well, that somehow the riots magically went away as well.”
“Nope. No such luck.”
Kromin picked up his e-assistant. “I’ll send an e-memo and tell Daxar to come over here. He’d probably like to see Toryx, too, I’d imagine.”
Anya nodded as she busied herself with adjusting something on Toryx’s IV. Daxar must have been close by, because less than two minutes after Kromin sent him a message, a knock sounded on the door and Daxar let himself in.
“How’s the patient this morning?” Daxar asked as he peered over at the bed. Unlike Anya, Daxar didn’t look like he’d slept at all. He had dark circles under his eyes as well, which were dark enough that they showed up quite well even through Daxar’s dark blue skin. His hair was also a mess, and Kromin thought he probably hadn’t brushed it in the last twenty-four hours. Nova was nowhere around, which Kromin hoped meant that she was sleeping. Daxar would have done well to go do the same, but Kromin knew how stubborn the Chief was. As long as there was an unsolved problem, he would stay awake for days at a time until it was fixed. Now, the Chief’s long tail swished impatiently behind him, a telltale sign for Kromin that the man wasn’t in a great mood.
“Toryx is good. He’ll probably be waking up a little later today. The stitches did the trick, and now his body is working on making a full recovery. I’d like to keep him here a couple days, just to be on the safe side. But I have a feeling once he wakes up he’s going to be raring to go home.”
Daxar chuckled. “Probably. That, or raring to go find the monkey that did this to him.”
“True enough.” Kromin sat up straighter. “And what about you, Chief? How are you doing? You look like you’ve been run over by a rover.”
Daxar gave Kromin an annoyed sidelong glance. “Thanks. It’s great to see you, too.”
Kromin shrugged. “I’m just saying. You don’t look like you’ve slept at all, and Anya here tells me that the riots are still going on outside.”
“Yeah,” Daxar said with a resigned sigh, sitting down hard on the only other chair in the room, a stiff metal chair that looked like it would serve better as a footstool than as a place to sit. “They slowed down for a while during the night, but by morn
ing the protests were going stronger than ever.”
“And they’re still outside the hospital?”
“Yeah. When I left last night I slipped out the back and I don’t think anyone saw me, so as far as they knew I was here all night. I was thinking of making a show of moving over to City Headquarters so that they’d all move over there and leave you alone, but then I had an idea…”
Kromin raised an eyebrow at Daxar. “Something in your tone of voice tells me that I’m probably not going to like this idea very much.”
“No, probably not. But I’m hoping you’ll help me out anyway. I’m hoping you’ll go out there and talk some sense into them.”
Kromin snorted with laughter. “Oh, come on. You want me to go talk sense into them? Why would they listen to me?”
“You’re close enough to me. They know that you have the inside scoop and know what’s going on. But I think they’re also going to trust you more than me to give it to them straight right now. You’re a respected member of the community, and they know you won’t lie to them about whether these rations are necessary or not, or about whether a spaceship can actually fly out of here or not.”
Kromin was surprised. “You think people trust me?” He didn’t feel very trustworthy at the moment. He felt like someone who had screwed up the whole hospital here, and who had very nearly cost his friend Toryx his own life. Anya must have read his mind, because she chose that moment to butt into the conversation.
“Look, Kromin. Everyone in this room sees that you could have made some better choices as far as how the hospital was run. But none of the regular old Zocronians know that. They don’t see whether the hospital was run perfectly or not. They only see that you’ve been taking care of them and their families this whole time. You may have done some things wrong, and Jupiter knows we all have, but you’ve also done a lot of things right.”
Chosen by the Alien Doctor Page 11