“More like a cat,” she says, feeling the first wave of relief start to tickle her bloodstream. “Ohhh…”
The drug blunts the corners of the day with a gradual onset. There is no grand blankness or euphoria, only a dimming of the agony that clawed at her lungs. Relief arrives like a tide, slow at first, then washing over the jagged edges until they wear away. Tears slip from her eyes, not because of the medicine but because someone she trusts is here with her this time.
“Need something?” he murmurs, having noticed how wet her cheeks have gotten.
“No. No. I’m good. I’m about to be really good.” Sleep begins to tease in her periphery as the drugs relax her muscles. She is heavy against his chest, the sound of his heart a drumbeat pulling her toward oblivion as easily as the stroke of his hand over her arm. “I couldn’t do this if you weren’t with me. I wouldn’t trust myself, but I trust you.”
He presses a kiss to the top of her head. “Close your eyes. Rest. I’m not going anywhere.”
He may not be, but she is going somewhere beautiful behind her closed lids. Somewhere full of laughter and stardust-filled northern lights. Somewhere that feels like home. For the first time, she isn’t whisked into blank darkness or overcome bynightmarish ghosts. Instead, she dreams of living a lifetime in Alaska with him.
Chapter 22
Theo watches Nora breathe for a week. Every moment he’s not tending to the animals, he spends with her, watching each rise and fall of her chest as if it might be the last one. He tries not to let on how worried he is. If anyone is strong enough to make it to the other side of this, it’s her, but stress gets the best of him until he’s popping pain pills himself to keep his headaches at bay. He doesn’t need the strong stuff yet. If he can stop it early, then it’ll often fade before it grows into an uncontrollable mess. They can’t both spiral at the same damn time. She needs him, and so he carefully rations his own drugs to take the edge off so he can care for her.
He fishes for their dinner every few days and keeps the fire going in the wood stove, brings her meals, and helps her shower, all the while looking for the first signs of improvement, though it’s slow going at best. At the end of the first week, she finally takes a turn for the better in a tangible way, no longer wheezing with every inhale that rattled her lungs. The pain medication has done its job in offering her relief, and after the first time, she’s taken them regularly without complaint, though he can still see the wariness in her eyes as she swallows those coveted little pills.
If it keeps her alive, then it’s worth the risk. She is all that matters to him now. He’ll fight all her demons and then some if it means that he gets to keep her.
When the second week rolls around, it feels like they’ve finally breached the treeline into brighter territory. He no longer worries that he might wake up to find her gone, and so he’s able to sleep a full night for the first time since it happened, passing out on the makeshift bed he cobbled together in the kennel room to lie beside her on the floor. He wakes up with the penguin tucked in the bend of his knees and a cup of coffee waiting for him on the side table. Coffee he didn’t make himself. That has him sitting up straight in a near panic, his brain failing to catch up to the reality of the situation, letting worry overwhelm him instead.
“Relax.” Nora sits at the edge of the cot with a mug in her hands. “Everything’s fine. I feel so good this morning, and I didn’t want to wake you.”
“You can always wake me.” He picks up his own cup to inhale the steam. “Thanks for the coffee, except lemme do it next time. You shouldn’t be straining yourself.”
She presses the back of her hand to her forehead dramatically. “It was touch and go for a minute there while I watched the water boil.”
“Alright, alright. You’re feeling good? Really?”
“Really. It’s the first day that I can breathe without thinking about it.” She pauses, her voice overly casual as if trying to force calmness into a statement that stresses her. “I think it’s a good time to start lowering my dosage.”
He nods. “We’ll go half today and see how you feel?”
“If I start climbing the walls or offering to blow you for another hit, please ignore me.”
“Blocking your airway like that when you’ve just regained your ability to breathe normally would only set you back.”
She tilts her head, pointing to her nostrils. “You um…you know I have these, right? I could still inhale just fine even with your entire cock in my mou—”
“Keep talking like this, and I’ll have to go shower again. Alone.”
She is gonna kill him, he’s certain of it. Theo hasn’t conjured up a single sexual thought since her injury. He’s been far too worried about losing her that even stepping into the shower together naked to wash her hair hasn’t gotten him hard. How could he think about that when he kept fearing she might collapse? Now, all those desires are rapidly making their way back down to his dick.
“Gimme another week or two and we’ll be making better use of that shower.”
He holds out a hand, waiting for her to slip her palm into his and squeezing it when she does. “There isn’t any rush, okay?”
“I miss you, that’s all. And you’ve done so much for me. One might say too much, and I…”
“You stayed. You chose me. That’s more than anyone has ever done for me in my entire life. So let’s not start keeping score on who’s doing what for who, because you’ll win every time.”
His brother leaving him to suffer in the woods all those years ago has shaped who he became, for better or worse. Convinced him that there must be something so terribly wrong with him that not even his own blood would care if he lived or died. There was every chance that he might succumb to the elements that night on the riverbank, and yet his brother ran to the helicopter to stay in their father’s good graces. That left Theo broken in ways that refused to heal even after his injuries mended.
Until Nora showed him that he’s worth staying for. Worth risking everything for. She chose him in every way she could, and that healed a wound he assumed would always fester under the surface.
“Who’s getting sentimental now?” she says softly, her eyes gentle.
“Me. Always me.” He grins, his attention shifting toward the back of the kennels. “Almost forgot to tell you. I found something when I was fishing yesterday. Wanna see?”
