Page 49 of Dozer

"You're staring," she says without looking up.

"I'm watching what you're doing."

"That's a very professional answer, even if it’s not true.”

"It is."

"Sure..."

She wraps the gauze tight enough to hold without cutting circulation, fingers moving with practiced precision. I watch her hands because watching her face feels too obvious… and there’s a good chance that if I watch her face I’m going to do something that can’t be done in the middle of a mission. I’m going to grab my asset and kiss the hell out of her. That’s a complication we don’t need amid all these other complications. The thought affects me in ways it shouldn’t and I jerk away from her right as she applies more pressure.

"You know," she says, "for a man who spends most of his time keeping other people alive, you're a genuinely terrible patient when it comes to yourself."

"I'm not being difficult."

"You're sitting there like agreeing to be treated is admitting a personal defeat."

"It's not."

"Could've fooled me."

She smooths the edge of the tape down, then leaves her fingers there for one second longer than necessary. Neither of us moves. Her eyes lift to mine, and the rail yard seems suddenly much quieter than it was a minute ago. There's gunfire residue in the air, along with the scent of diesel. The wind rustles around us and the scent of her shampoo, faint and completely out of place in all of it, reaches me.

"You okay?" she asks. The question isn't about the wound. I know it.

"Are you?" I ask.

Her mouth curves slightly. "Deflection."

"Some call it care.” She looks away first. I let her.

"There," she says, taping off the last of the gauze. "You'll live. Probably scar. Add it to the collection, I'm sure."

"Thanks."

"Don't thank me yet. I'm going to need you to actually rest for more than four minutes, which I already know is not a thing you do."

"I rest."

"You sit while you clean and reload weapons. That's not resting. That's a different kind of working."

I don't have an argument for that, mostly because it's true. She starts packing the kit, but I catch her wrist before she can pull her hand away. The movement is instinctive. Her skin is warm beneath my fingers. She looks down at my hand, then back at me. For a second, neither of us says anything. I should let go. I don't.

"You're not fragile," I say. Her expression changes. "I've been treating you like you needed protecting from everything. You don't. You needed someone to actually let you prove it."

Her breath catches, almost too quiet to hear. "Yeah," she says. "I did."

I release her wrist slowly. The absence of her skin against my palm is more noticeable than it should be. She zips the kit closed but doesn't move away immediately. Neither do I.

There are things sitting between us now that neither of us has named. The attraction isn't new. I'd been aware of it for longer than I wanted to admit. What is new is the trust wrapped in it. The certainty that if I hand her something important, she won't drop it. The knowledge that if I get hurt, she'll put her hands on me and make damn sure I stay standing. Attraction can be ignored. Trust and whatever this is… this realness between us… can’t.

"You scared me," she says quietly.

I look at her. "Sorry."

Her eyebrows rise. "That was almost an apology."

"That was an apology. Don't get used to it."