TWENTY - NINE

As Payne's feet hung off the side of her bed, she flexed one and then the other over and over again, marveling at the miracle of thinking something and having her limbs follow the command.

"Here, put this on."

Glancing up, she was momentarily distracted by the sight of her healer's mouth. She couldn't believe that they had ... that he had ... until she ...

Yes, a robe would be good, she thought.

"I won't let you fall," he said as he helped her into the thing. "You can bet your life on it."

She believed him. "Thank you."

"No problem." He jogged his arm. "Come on ... let's do this."

Except the gratitude she felt was so complex she could not leave it unexpressed. "For all of it, healer. Everything."

He smiled at her briefly. "I'm here to make you better."

"You are."

With that, she carefully pushed herself onto her feet.

The first thing she noticed was that the floor was cold on her soles ... and then her weight was transferred and things went haywire: Her muscles spasmed under the load and her legs bowed like feathers flexed asunder. Her healer was there when she needed him, however, scooping his arm around her waist and supporting her.

"I stand," she breathed. "I ... am standing."

"You sure the hell are."

Her lower body was nothing like it had been, her thighs and calves trembling so badly her knees knocked together. But she stood.

"We shall walk now," she said, gritting her teeth as shafts of hot and cold rocketed up and down her bones.

"Maybe taking it slow is - "

"To the lavatory," she demanded. "Whereupon I shall relieve myself unattended."

The independence was absolutely vital. To be allowed the simple, profound dignity of taking care of her body's needs seemed like manna from above, proof positive that blessings, like time, were relative.

Except as she tried to step forward, she could not pick her foot up.

"Shift your weight," her healer said as he pivoted her and moved in behind her, "and I'll take care of the rest."

When he clasped her about the waist, she did as he'd told her and felt one of his hands grasp the back of her thigh and lift her leg. Without cueing, she knew to lean forward and place her weight gently as he put her knee in the correct position, restricting the bend in the joint as she straightened her leg.

The miracle was mechanical in its expression, but no less heartwarming for its one-step-two-step: She walked to the loo.

When the goal was obtained, her healer gave her privacy at the toilet, and she used the handlebar bolted into the wall to aid herself.

She was smiling the whole time. Which was utterly ridiculous.

After she had finished, she stood herself up using the bar and opened the door. Her healer was right outside, and she reached for him at the same moment he put his arms out for her.

"Back to the bed," he said, and it was a command. "I'm going to examine you and then get you some crutches."

She nodded and they slowly made their way across to the mattress. She was panting by the time she stretched out, but she was more than satisfied. This she could work with. Numb and cold and going nowhere? That was a death sentence.

Shutting her lids, she swallowed through deep breaths as he checked her vitals with efficiency.

"Your blood pressure's up," he said as he put aside the cufflike object she knew all too well. "But that could be because of what we ... ah, did." He cleared his throat. Something he seemed to be doing rather a lot. "Let's check your legs. I want you to relax and close your eyes. No looking, please."

After she did as he requested, he said, "Can you feel this?"

Frowning, she sorted through the various sensations in her body, from the softness of the mattress, to the cool breeze on her face, to the sheet her hand was resting upon.

Nothing. She felt -

Sitting up in a panic, she stared at her legs - only to find that his touch was not on her: His hands were down by his sides. "You tricked me."

"No. I'm not assuming anything - that's what I'm doing."

As she resumed her position and shut her eyes once more, she wanted to curse, but she could see his point.

"How about now?"

Down below her knee, there was a subtle weight. She could feel it clear as day.

"Your hand ... is on my leg...." She cracked one of her eyelids and saw that she was right. "Yes, you are touching me there."

"Any difference from before?"

She frowned. "It's slightly ... easier to feel."

"Improvement is good."

He palpated the other side. Then went up to nearly her hip. Then down to the bottom of her foot. Then inside her thigh ... outside her knee.

"And now?" he asked one last time.

Against the darkness, she strained for sensation. "I feel ... nothing now."

"Good. We're finished."

As she opened her eyes, she looked up at him and felt an odd chill go through her. What was the future for them? she wondered. Beyond this sequestered period of her convalescence? Her incapacity simplified things in a grand way. But that would end if she were well.

Would he have her then?

Payne reached out and clasped his hand. "You are a blessing unto me."

"Because of this?" He shook his head. "This is you, bambina. Your body is healing itself. It's the only explanation." Bending down to her, he smoothed her loose hair back and pressed a chaste kiss to her forehead. "You need to sleep now. You're exhausted."

"You are not leaving, are you?"

"Nope." He glanced at the chair he'd used to get up to the ceiling fixture. "I'll be right over there."

"This bed ... 'tis large enough for both of us."

When he hesitated, she got the impression something had changed for him. And yet he had just treated her with such erotic perfection - and his scent had flared, so she'd known he'd been aroused. Still ... there was a subtle distance now.

"Join me?" she asked. "Please?"

He sat down on the bed beside her and stroked her arm slowly, rhythmically - and the kindness he showed her made her nervous.

"I don't think that's a wise idea," he murmured.

"Why ever not?"

"I think it's going to be easier on everyone if the way we're treating you stays between you and me."

"Oh."

"That brother of yours brought me here because he'll do anything to make you better. But there's a difference between theory and practice. He comes in here and finds us in bed together? We're just adding another problem to the pile."

"And if I tell you I do not care what he thinks?"

"I'd ask you to go easy on the guy." Her healer shrugged. "I'll be honest with you. I'm not a fan of his - but on the other hand, your brother's had to watch you here suffering."

Payne took a deep breath, and thought, Oh, if only that were the half of it. "It is my fault."

"You didn't ask to get hurt."

"Not the injury - my brother's consternation. Prior to your arrival, I requested of him something I should not have, and then compounded that with ..." She slashed her hand through the air. "I am a curse upon him and his mate. For truth, I am a curse."

That she had lacked any faith in the benevolence of destiny was perhaps understandable, but what she had done in asking Jane to help her was unforgivable. The interlude with her healer had been a revelation and a blessing beyond measure, but now all she could think of was her brother and his shellan ... and the repercussions of her selfish cowardice.

On a curse, she shuddered. "I must needs speak to my brother."

"Okay. I'll get him for you."

"Please."

Her healer rose to his feet and went to the exit. With his hand on the knob, he paused. "I need to know something."

"Inquire and I shall tell you anything."

"What happened right before I was brought back to you. Why did your brother come and get me."

Neither was phrased as a question. Which made her suspect he could well guess. "That is between him and me."

Her healer's eyes narrowed. "What did you do."

She sighed and fiddled with the blanket. "Tell me, healer, if you had no hope of getting up out of bed again, and you couldn't get a weapon, what would you do."

His lids squeezed shut for a brief moment. Then he opened the door. "I'll go find your brother right now."

As Payne was left alone with her regrets, she resisted the urge to curse. Throw things. Yell at the walls. On this night of her resurrection, she should have been ecstatic, but her healer was distant, her brother was incensed, and she very much feared for the future.

The state did not last long, however.

Even as her mind churned, her physical exhaustion soon overrode her cognition, and she was sucked down into a dreamless black hole that consumed her, body and soul.

Her last thought, before all went dark and sounds ceased to register, was that she hoped she could make amends.

And somehow stay with her healer forever.

Outside in the corridor, Manny collapsed back against the cinderblock wall and rubbed his face.

He was not an idiot, so deep down, he'd had a feeling what had happened: Only some flavor of true desperation would have gotten that hard-ass vampire to come into the human world and get him. But Christ ... what if he hadn't been found in time? What if her brother had waited or - "

Fucking hell."

Pushing himself free of the wall, he went into the supply room and grabbed new scrubs, putting his used ones into the laundry bin after he changed. The exam room was the first stop, but Jane wasn't there, so he went down farther, all the way to that office with the glass door.

No one.

Back out in the hall, he heard the same pounding coming from the weight room as before, and he glanced inside, getting an eyeful of a guy with a brush cut who was running his balls off on a treadmill. Sweat was literally pouring out of the SOB, his body so lean it was almost painful to look at.

Manny ducked back out. No reason to ask that motherfucker.

"Are you looking for me?"

Manny turned to Jane. "Nice timing - Payne needs to see her brother. You know where he is?"

"Out fighting, but he'll be back just before dawn. Is there something wrong?"

There was the temptation to reply, You tell me, but he resisted. "That's between the two of them. I don't know much more than she wants him."

Jane's eyes drifted away. "Okay. Well, I'll get word to him. How's she doing?"

"She walked."

Jane's head flipped around. "By herself ?"

"With only a little assistance. You got any braces? Crutches? That kind of thing?"

"Come with me."

She led him into the professional-size gym and across to an equipment room. No basketballs or volleyballs or ropes in there, though. Hundreds of weapons hung on racks: knives, throwing stars, swords, nunchakus.

"Hell of a gym class you guys got going on here."

"It's for the training program."

"Bringing along the next generation, huh."

"They were - at least until the raids."

Walking past all the Bruce Willis and Ahnold, she pushed through a door marked PT and showed him into a well-appointed rehab suite with everything a pro athlete would need to keep himself loose, limber, and lightning-fast.

"Raids?"

"The Lessening Society slaughtered dozens of families," she said, "and what was left of the population fled Caldwell. They're coming back slowly, but it's been a bad time lately."

Manny frowned. "What the hell is the Lessening Society?"

"Humans are not the real threat." She opened a closet door and swept her hand over every kind of crutch, cane, and cast support. "What are you looking for?"

"Is that what your man is fighting every night?"

"Yes. It is. Now, what do you think you want?"

Manny stared at her profile and added up the math. "She asked you to help her kill herself. Didn't she."

Jane's eyes shut. "Manny ... no offense, but I don't have the strength for this conversation."

"That's what it was."

"Part of it. A lot of it."

"She's better now," he said roughly. "She's going to be fine."

"So it is working." Jane smiled a little. "Magic touch and all that."

He cleared his throat and resisted footing the floor like a fourteenyear-old who'd been caught necking. "Yeah. Guess so. Ah, I think I'll take a pair of leg braces, as well as a set of arm crutches - I think that should work for her."

As he took out the equipment, Jane's eyes stayed on him. To the point where he had to mutter, "Before you ask, no."

She laughed softly. "I wasn't aware I had a question."

"I'm not staying. I'll get her up and walking, and then I'm going back."

"That wasn't on my mind, actually." She frowned. "But you could hang around, you know. It's happened before. Me. Butch. Beth. And I thought you liked her."

"'Like' doesn't begin to cover it" he said under his breath.

"So don't make any plans until this is over."

He shook his head. "I have a career that's going into the shitter - the cause of which, incidentally, is all the in-and-outing you guys have done to my brain. I have a mother who isn't all that fond of me, but who will nonetheless wonder why she's not hearing from me on major holidays. And I have a horse that is in bad shape. You mean to tell me that your boy and his ilk are going to be down with my having one foot in each world? I don't think so. Besides, what the fuck would I do with myself ? Servicing her is a pleasure, I assure you - but I wouldn't want to make a profession out of it or have her end up with the likes of me."

"What's so wrong with you?" Jane crossed her arms over her chest. "Not for nothing, but you're a great guy."

"Nice dodge on the particulars."

"Things could be worked out."

"Okay, say they were. Then answer me this - how long do they live for."

"Excuse me?"

"Life expectancy of vampires. How long."

"It varies."

"By decade or century?" When she didn't reply, he nodded. "Just what I thought - I'm probably good for another, what, forty years? And the shriveling is going to start in about ten. I've already got aches and pains every morning and the beginnings of arthritis in both hips. She needs one of her own to fall in love with, not a human who's going to be a geriatric patient in the blink of an eye." He shook his head again. "Love can conquer everything but reality. Which will win every stinking time."

Now her laugh was hard-edged. "Somehow I can't argue with that one."

He glanced down at the braces. "Thanks for these."

"You're welcome," she said slowly. "And I'll get word to V."

"Good."

Back at Payne's room, he entered silently and stopped just inside the door. She was dead asleep in the dimness, the glow gone from her skin. Would she wake up paralyzed again? Or would the progress stay with her?

He guessed they would have to find out.

Leaning the crutches and braces against the wall, he went over to the hard chair by the bed and sat down, crossing his legs and trying to get comfortable. No way he was going to sleep. He just wanted to watch her - "

Join me," she said into all the quiet. "Please. I need your warmth right now."

As he remained where he was, he realized the stay-sitting routine wasn't really about her brother. It was a coping mechanism to keep him separate from her whenever he could. They were absolutely going to be hooking up again - likely soon. And he would go down on her for hours if that was what it took. But he couldn't afford to lose himself in some fantasy that this was going anywhere permanent for them.

Two different worlds.

He just didn't belong with her.

Manny leaned forward, put his hand on hers and stroked her arm. "Shh ... I'm right here."

As she turned her head toward him, her eyes were shut, and he had a feeling she was talking in her sleep. "Do not leave me, healer."

"My name is Manny," he whispered. "Manuel Manello ... M.D."