Chapter Text
"I am bringing her down."
Dawes' light Quebecois accent came through the speaker calmly, its clarity undimmed by the accompanying static and background rhythm of the chopper's rotors.
"Damn," Chris muttered, and looked up at the ceiling to avoid meeting the others' eyes. Instinctively, she concentrated on the one emotion she could trust, simple and easily handled: anger.
That emotion grew in direct proportion to the increasing danger Dawes invited as she lowered the chopper to the roof of the flaming building.
"Doc, it's on TV!" Jared shouldered his way into the radio room, skidded the miniature television onto the desk next to the microphone, and turned down the sound.
"Perfect, asshole, now she can get really pissed off," Bailey whispered hoarsely to him, but Chris could hear. "She just ordered Dawes not to put down!"
"But there's a body on the roof..." the orderly sputtered.
"Right. And Dawes will have to set the chopper down on that roof, get out, pull what may be a corpse into the chopper, and get out of there before the whole thing self-destructs. Sound like a good idea to you?"
Chris watched the tiny screen. The picture, probably transmitted from a remote camera in the street below, was frustratingly poor. Dawes chopper, reduced to the size of a fruit fly, lowered slowly, swayed drunkenly, then dropped behind the building's outline. Chris' heart dropped with it.
"I am landed," Dawes' voice crackled on the radio, and Chris breathed. She felt an arm come around her back, fingers press into her shoulders. Bailey's soft scent yanked Chris off the helicopter, back to the Trauma Unit. She reached for the mike, and pressed the button.
"Report, Chopper 3, over." Chris released the button and waited. She glanced at the clock. How long does it take to haul a limp body across a frying pan the size of a basketball court, inhaling fumes all the way, stuff the body into a chopper, climb in after, and take off?
Too long, echoed in her brain as the seconds soundlessly, inexorably, moved from now to then. The clock's sweep hand jerked from one second to the next with violent finality.
"Oh, Jesus," Bailey whispered. "Where the hell is she?"
The camera operator may have been wondering the same thing; the image moved slightly, as though tempted to look elsewhere. Then the helicopter appeared over the roof, fought to gain lift, slowly angled out, and swung away.
As the camera panned to follow the chopper, Chris caught activity in the corner of the picture. Flames were engulfing the roof.
"Chopper Three, calling Trauma One. Come in One," Dawes called.
"Trauma One, what've you got Three?" Chris replied. Returning anger constricted her throat, grated her voice to a growl.
"One middle-aged male, very unconscious or very dead. Sorry I cannot be more specific, Trauma One."
"We'll be ready, Chopper Three. Out." Chris shoved the mike toward the radio. "Jared, turn that off and get it out of here," she barked, pointing at the toy of a television. Jared scooted out of the radio room, followed by the rest of the staff, except Bailey.
"Let's go," Chris muttered, but Bailey stayed her, hands on Chris' shoulders.
"I'm pissed at her too for taking that chance, Chris. But we both need to calm down before we meet that chopper."
Chris took a deep breath and let more than Bailey's words sink in. She looked into the nurse's eyes and recognized the strength of emotion she too was feeling.
"If you can restrain yourself from making it two dead-on-arrivals at the helipad, Bailey, so can I."
But there were no DOAs coming in on that flight. The man from the roof still had a ragged pulse and faint respiration. They loaded him on a gurney, Bailey started oxygen, and they wheeled off the helipad toward the treatment room.
Chris turned before following them, to scan Dawes who stood leaning against the helicopter. She was staring at her feet, two blobs of tar congealing to the cement.
"Are your feet burned?" Chris walked over to her, and lifted Dawes' hands to check for burns.
"No," Dawes tried to answer, but her voice was a croak. Chris looked up, still holding Dawes' hands, and was caught by her dark, almond eyes. Her soft, black curls were matted with sweat, one light walnut cheekbone smudged with tar.
Chris remembered, vaguely, she was angry with this woman, and it was freezing out on the helipad.
"You're sure you're alright?" she snapped.
Dawes took in a slow breath, pulled her hands back and stuffed them into her pockets. She smiled slightly and nodded, looking down and away.
"Lose the boots," Chris instructed, "and get yourself cleaned up. I'll send a nurse into the locker room to check your feet."
Dawes nodded again, and Chris turned as abruptly and finally as she could to run toward the activity of the Trauma Unit.
The patient still had not regained consciousness, but appeared stable. While a resident and another nurse removed the patient's clothing, Chris drew Bailey aside and instructed her to go check on Dawes in the locker room.
"Want me to give her any messages?" Bailey asked in a low voice, as she pulled off her gloves.
"Tell her the patient is stable," Chris replied, watching the staff work over him.
"Yes, Doctor," Bailey muttered with a smirk, "I'd intended to tell her that."
Chris looked over to the older woman who waited impatiently for an answer.
"Tell her," Chris sorted through her brain for a thought she would be willing to share. "I'll see her in my office later. Unless she needs treatment, in which case, bring her in here."
"Yes, Doctor." Bailey shook head as she left.
Chris turned back to the patient, concentrating on the burns discovered on one side of his body as they cut and peeled away his tar-caked clothing. When they were done, Chris left her staff to handle the patient's transfer to the hospital's burn unit. She stepped into the hallway toward her office just as Dawes emerged from the locker room with Bailey. A gauntlet of hospital employees had gathered outside the locker room.
Dawes smiled in recognition of their applause, but stiffly, one eye on the Chief Resident waiting solemnly at the end of the line. Chris tilted her head toward her office, turned and walked in that direction, and Dawes followed her. Chris had hoped her emotions would have settled by this time. She kept her back to Dawes until she heard the door shut, then turned to face the pilot across her desk.
She'd concentrated on her own emotions and was surprised to see Dawes' expression: compassion came softly, sweetly from the combination of large, dark eyes and gentle mouth. Chris looked away, as much to prevent Dawes from reading her as to quell this surge of new feeling. When she looked up again to those eyes, she wondered why they hadn't disturbed her this way all those other times -- especially over coffee, late at night, talking shop.
"Just get it over with," Dawes whispered, with the same soothing, disturbing compassion in her voice as was in her face.
"Damn you, Dawes," Chris whispered, not trusting to give her voice more volume. "What will you do?" She realized it was a stupid question before she finished it. Good chopper pilots have no trouble finding employment, even in a city the size of Madison.
Dawes smiled, glanced down at the objects she held in her hand, and said, "Keys. And badge."
Chris extended her arm, palm up. She and Dawes watched each other across the space as Dawes laid the key set and Trauma Unit staff badge in her hand. Her expression remained the same. Chris could only guess at her own.
"Do you want your check mailed?"
"That would be fine." Dawes waited a moment, but Chris couldn't sort through her thoughts for anything she wanted to say aloud. Dawes angled her head toward a hunching shoulder, murmured, "I could not resist trying. That's a bad sign, you know?" She turned, opened the door, and left.
Chris sat down, and stared for a long while at the keys and badge. Then she took an envelope from her desk, slipped the keys inside, reached for the badge, and stopped. Dawes' picture on the badge made Chris smile. Everybody else looked like hell in these things, she mused. But Dawes grinned back, seeming to be in the middle of a joke shared with the photographer, and the light reflecting from her brown, smooth face reminded Chris of bronze. Wasn't that how the ancient Greeks memorialized their athletes?
A knock at the door made Chris drop the badge into the envelope. Paula Freeman's head poked into the office.
"Reporters are here wanting to interview our hero. Where is she?" Paula was grinning ear to ear, a publicity and information officer in heaven. Chris could hear Dawes' gentle advice: get it over with.
"I just fired her."
"What?" Her cheshire face sagged. She squeezed in, as though trying to keep something else from coming in, or getting out. "Tell me."
"I ordered her not to land on that roof. The thermals from the fire alone could have caused her to crash. And the fire had weakened the structure by that time--it was ready to collapse. She disobeyed my order, Paula. I had to fire her."
"But it didn't collapse! She saved a man's life!"
"The roof was all flames seconds after she took off. She wasn't equipped for a rescue, happened on the scene with no one else in the chopper to assist. We have rules about situations like this. Dawes risked her own life in the process of retrieving a man who may have been dead for all she knew when she decided to land. I don't want our chopper pilots to be daredevils, Paula. What they do day in and day out is risky enough. Dawes, the other pilots and I have discussed this before, and Dawes knew all the consequences of what she was doing."
"The press is gonna dump on us."
"Just tell it like it was, Paula," Chris smiled. "And be sure they get my name right."
She shook her head sadly, and left.
It didn't take long to hit the central air ducts. Chris had confrontations with the hospital administrator, the chief of staff, and, the one hardest to take, her lover.
"I just saw it on the news. Is it true? Did you fire that woman? How many other women pilots of color do you have on staff?" Ellen's voice over the phone had the sound of last straws snapping.
"El, I'd rather talk about this at home." That's not true, Chris thought. I'd rather not talk about this at all with Ellen. But she had to go home, and Ellen would be there--probably with a group of women forming a coalition to form committees to march on the hospital, raise a legal fund for Dawes to sue the hospital to get her job back, to publicize the march and the fund, and--what else? Ellen always organized a core of sixteen women for these things, four women to each of four committees.
But El wasn't there, only a note that she had a meeting. She checked the calendar and saw it was one of the few evenings left blank. Apparently the meeting was only just called.
"Wonder what the topic is..." Chris whispered to the refrigerator as she pulled out a beer.
She knew she shouldn't turn on the news, but was feeling a little swollen and numb. She wasn't sure another smack would hurt and, if it did, maybe that would feel better than numbness. She hadn't counted on the blow she took when the screen focused and Dawes stood looking back at her from the hospital parking lot. She was holding her bicycle as though reporters had caught her just getting ready to leave, her biking helmet in one hand.
"Some people are saying you should sue the hospital to get your job back. Will you do that?"
Dawes' dark eyes flashed over her high cheek bones, and the strong jaw became rigid. Only her lips, full and wide, didn't tighten with the other features of her face. It was the closest Chris had seen Dawes come to anger.
"I disobeyed an order and Dr. McCaleb did what she had to do. Don't make it more than it is. Or less."
Then Dawes was replaced on the screen by the news anchor back in the studio, and Chris snapped off the set.
She lifted her beer toward the TV with, "You're a better dyke than I, Dawes, my dear." She took a long swallow of the stuff. Then, as she let the emotion of the day well up and out in tears, "And the best pilot I had, damn you."
But she refused to articulate a knowledge that had been growing since she realized she had to fire Dawes. She finished her beer, hoping the slight buzz and sleepiness it produced would anesthetize her against the pain of any gnawing thoughts as she went to bed.
She slept fitfully, her night full of dreams she couldn't quite remember in the morning. As she showered, pieces would try to come to her with a familiar color or sensation, then nothing.
Ellen arrived as Chris was making coffee. "We need to talk. Do you have time, Chris?"
"About a half hour," Chris looked at Ellen and saw a woman who had not slept badly away from home. "Is that enough time to tell me you're leaving?"
Ellen sighed, and sat in her usual place at the table. Chris brought over two mugs of coffee, and sat in her place next to Ellen.
"Please tell me it's because you've fallen madly in love with a gorgeous, young, radical feminist who might someday be President."
"You'd like that?"
"I'd prefer that to being told I was impossible to live with, or that you've given up trying to educate me, or," Chris looked directly into her eyes, "your conscience won't allow you to live with a woman you perceive as anti-feminist."
Ellen looked down at her coffee. Chris watched her soft hair; black, shiny strands dipping in concert with the weight of themselves to curve sweetly against her face.
"You're not anti-feminist," Ellen whispered.
Chris suspected Ellen had been defending that viewpoint to her coalition throughout the previous evening.
"But not feminist enough." Chris placed her hand against that head of soft, dark hair. Ellen looked up, tears now released with Chris' touch.
"I am in love with someone else," Ellen admitted, "but I still love you. It's just..."
"Life and loving are easier with her." Chris said, wanting to soothe the pain for her. "Is she in love with you?"
"Yes." Ellen looked up again at Chris. The tears had stopped; talking about this new love had strengthened her. Chris envied that feeling.
"I want to be with her, but I have to leave you to do that."
"Then go pack," Chris rose, kissed Ellen for what she knew would be the last time she'd feel those perfect, delicate lips against hers, and that soft, full hair woven through her fingers. She pulled back a little, smiled with her eyes until she saw a reassuring smile in Ellen's eyes, nodded to her, and left for the hospital.
* * *
"Alvin, I hate this political shit and you know it!" The Chief of Staff stared back at her as though she'd popped a flashbulb in his eyes. His mugshot expression forced a quick, one syllable laugh to erupt from her, but that only seemed to move him from shock to consternation. "Look, Alvin, I'm sorry to let this mess make me blow up at you, but I feel as though I'm trying to explain my position to people who don't even speak my language."
A gleam in his eyes made Chris set her feet. Whenever Alvin got an idea or saw a connection, he poked the air in front of him as though he were tapping for soundness. "Exactly," he said, his index finger curved and dipping rhythmically. "And, when people who speak different languages try to work out a problem, they use diplomacy. That's what I want you to do, Chris. Use diplomacy with these people."
"I'm not working for the State Department, Alvin. I jump start people's hearts, force their lungs to accept air again, patch their gaping, squirting holes, and, when all else fails, sign their death certificates. Maybe that's Fred Grindell's problem, Alvin. He has never signed a death certificate."
"What do you mean?"
"He doesn't understand that people die. All the time. I'm not going to waste a moving, breathing, healthy person for one that's spread out like a piece of meat on a grille."
Her voice had gained volume again, and the ring left in the room as she took a breath made her stop. Alvin stared down at his folded hands on the desk before him.
"Fred will be here any minute, Chris. Please try to avoid the more graphic explanations of your position."
"I'm sorry, Alvin. You're right."
Try to think of it as a learning experience, Chris reminded herself. She had never mastered the finer points of political gamesmanship--"diplomacy" as Alvin Wachter delicately termed it. She appreciated the way he was obviously siding with her in this, but it irked her that he, a physician like herself, seemed to understand little more than Fred Grindell did. Perhaps, Chris thought as she watched the Chief of Staff frown over the ever present heap of forms on his desk, she should appreciate Alvin even more for that. She'd had enough experience with hospital and university administrators to know that his kind of loyalty to staff was rare, especially in the face of negative public opinion.
"I'm sorry I'm late," Fred boomed, his white coat flapping in his own wind. Chris wished Alvin would thank him for not having wasted more of their time by knocking before crashing, but he merely smiled and waved Fred to a chair.
"I'll sit if you will," Fred sang, grinning merrily at her as though they were about to play musical chairs.
Alvin shot to his feet, leaned over his desk and, with an outstretched, imploring palm, indicated the empty chair opposite Fred's. "Yes, Chris, sit down, please," Alvin said quickly, his eyes never leaving hers.
Chris shut her mouth, and Alvin seemed to relax. She'd been on the verge of lipping off to Grindell, but had no idea what she would have said. Probably something about Grindell's habit of wearing white doctors' coats although the closest he got to the practice of medicine was to sign some of the big ticket purchase orders. 'Oh, Alvin,' she thought, 'thank you.'
"Well, Fred," Alvin started once all three were sitting, "it's your meeting."
It's your office, Chris wanted to say, wishing Alvin wouldn't give up territory so easily. Which made her wonder, as Fred began to intone some meaningless prologue about professionals coming together to solve complex issues of the practice of modern medicine, how the meeting had been located in Alvin's office if Fred Grindell had requested it in the first place. Wouldn't it have been to Fred's advantage to have them come to him in his office?
"I was glad to come here," Fred droned, not seeming to notice the eye contact between Chris and Alvin, "to accommodate your hectic schedule, Chris, as Alvin asked. I want you to know that this hospital respects your dedication and hard work."
Chris wished she had the stomach for this kind of thing. She had a feeling she was missing a wealth of learning by not studying Alvin Wachter more closely.
"That's what I want you to keep foremost in your mind," Fred continued, and Chris tensed for something nasty. She noticed Alvin was also stiffening. "We respect your decision-making abilities and your dedication, but we have to overrule you on this one. We are going to offer the young lady her job back. We just feel it's the right thing to do."
Chris looked down at her hands, so they wouldn't see the hint of smile she knew was sitting there.
"Don't do this, Fred," Alvin said, very quietly.
"Now, Alvin, I understand. You're famous for standing by your people, and we respect you to the hilt for that. But this young lady did a very brave thing, and to seem to punish her for saving a man's life..." he spread out his hands for them to see the clarity of his logic.
"Dr. McCaleb has established sound policies for the operation of that air rescue unit, policies this hospital has up to now claimed to be its own." Alvin's face was calm, and his voice was even.
"And we still stand by them. That hasn't changed a bit," Fred smiled and nodded at Chris.
"This is not standing by them. This is breaking policy." Alvin's voice still traveled the room at a rational, even decibel level. Chris studied his face; his eyes seemed glued in their sockets. He was furious.
"I have a feeling, Alvin, that this is a done thing," Chris smiled, and shook her head.
Fred nodded, compressing his facial muscles in a vain effort to appear regretful. "You're right, Chris. Alvin, we've already announced to the press that the hospital is reversing its position on this. Personnel has been instructed to contact Miss Dawes and give her an offer she can't refuse."
Chris swallowed hard to stifle a laugh like the one that had escaped earlier.
"You've announced publicly that you're rehiring her, before you've spoken with her about this?"
Fred pulled a heavy brow down for the stern approach. "Alvin, there was no point in speaking with Chris any further. I understand her position on this, but it is not the hospital's position."
"I'm not talking about speaking to Chris," Alvin was close to grinding his teeth now, in his effort to maintain control of his voice. "That would have required a level of courtesy you and the Board are incapable of reaching. Why in hell would you publicly announce that you're rehiring the pilot when you don't even know if she'll accept your offer?"
"Of course she'll accept. Nobody wants to be fired."
Alvin looked up at the ceiling, so Fred looked at Chris for confirmation. Whatever he saw in her face caused him worry. "Why wouldn't she want to be vindicated?"
"Because, Fred," Chris said as she rose to leave, "she agreed with me that it was a stupid thing to do."
"But she'll still want her job back, won't she?" Fred's voice was losing its professional bass, Chris noticed, as she left Alvin's office.
* * *
"Jared says the hospital went over your head and is going to hire Dawes back," Bailey said, her voice low as she carefully wiped blood away from Chris' eye. They had just finished replumbing a stabbed artery, and Chris as well as two interns had been in the path of the gusher in the process. Chris watched the two inspect each other while Bailey shined a light in her ears. "Can you believe she'd go along with that?"
"Do you?"
"Have you always been so open with your opinions, Doctor, or is this something you developed as part of your healing art?"
Chris shrugged. "They said they'd make her an offer she can't refuse."
"Dawes responding positively to the godfather approach? I don't think so," Bailey shook her head, glanced once more at each of the openings around Chris' face, and nodded. "Besides, Dawes told me in the locker room that she needed to do less tempting work for awhile."
"Tempting?"
"This socially-approved russian roulette we all play here. C'mon, Chris, don't stonewall me. I might have just scrubbed three million HIV virus particles off your face because you yanked off your shield in front of a geyser."
"I couldn't see through the shield to clamp properly, Bailey," Chris felt irritated at her insinuation that it was a macho move.
"His life or yours?" Bailey whispered, her hand pressed soothingly against Chris' side. She'd made her point and left it there with a gentle pat. Chris did know exactly what she meant, but stuffed it away without scrutinizing it. She was no Evel Knievel, madly leaping rows of cars on a Harley. There was a difference between that and taking risks to save human lives, but Dawes had crossed the line. Chris had thought through all that long ago in her career, and didn't need to re-examine the argument in detail. "The odds he has anything contagious are really slim," Chris grumbled, using an alcohol wipe on her gloved hands. "I'll worry when his blood work comes back."
But she left another side of it blurred as she and Bailey turned away to finish cleaning up. As Chris stuffed her gloves and the alcohol-and-blood soaked towelette into a burn bag, she barely acknowledged that the comatose patient they'd just patched and sent to Intensive Care might now be brain-damaged due to extended oxygen deprivation while he bled in an alley.
Bailey walked back over, frowning, and said in a low voice, "Jared said it was on this morning's news. So, they'd already made the deal with Dawes, right?" To Chris' silent smile, Bailey tossed her head impatiently. "Isn't modern technology wonderful? If that camera hadn't been out there watching a building burn, Dawes wouldn't be a hero, and we wouldn't look like we have our heads up our collective butt."
"Dawes would still be a hero, but fewer people would know about it, and those that did wouldn't think it was for that stunt on the roof," Chris countered wryly. It had seemed so serious a few days ago, even as late as that morning, but since the meeting in Alvin's office she'd been trying to restrain the urge to laugh.
She left the treatment room and crossed the hall to her office, not really seeing the doors as she opened them and walked through. In her mind repeated the giddy scene through a Volkswagon bug's windshield, as she spun in circles down an ice-coated Boston street ten years before. She'd hit the brakes at the top of the hill when a squirrel darted in front of the car. No cars were parked at the curbsides and, in that hushed blue-gray frozen dawn, she had the whole street to herself as the VW pirouetted dizzily toward the bottom of the hill. When she was midway down, she saw a car at the bottom approaching from the opposite direction. Its driver must have hit the brakes when he saw the VW, because he suddenly slid sideways and bounced against the curb.
She could see the driver's face staring up at her as the VW continued its uncontrolled spinout. She lifted both hands from the steering wheel, palms upward, and smiled. He didn't smile back. Her car came to rest against the opposite curb, having missed his by a good two feet before veering off.
Chris sat at her desk and wondered what had brought that old memory forward. The phone rang, and she yanked herself back.
"Chris, Alvin. Dawes turned them down. Fred's headed for your office to ask you to convince her to change her mind."
She let it out this time, a good, solid belly laugh.
Alvin didn't join her. "Chris, I have surgery in ten minutes, otherwise I'd be on the stairs to beat his elevator. Please cover your feelings. It won't do you a bit of good to let him know what you really think of him."
Chris felt the hilarity calming to humor. Poor Alvin. "It's okay, Alvin. I'm a lot better at stonewalling than you think. I will be diplomatic and in control."
She hung up as her door opened. At least he's knocking now, she thought, as Grinnell stood with one hand on the knob of the open door, the other raised and lightly tapping his knuckles on the wood.
"May I come in?"
You're in, idiot. "Have a seat, Fred."
"Well, my dear, you were right," he expelled the sentence in a huff of air as he plopped into a chair.
"About what, Fred?"
"Miss Dawes," he fairly hissed her name. "After all the fuss that bunch of feminists from the university raised, after all this media attention, she doesn't want her job back. Didn't those women ask her before they started making all this racket?"
Oh, Fred, are you baiting me or what? "Apparently not."
"Well, it's left us in a mess, trying to be open-minded, trying to show we care about minorities and women. We can't call another press conference and say she turned us down, we've already told them we're hiring her back! It could ruin our credibility with the community," Fred said somberly, leaning forward for emphasis.
Here it comes, Chris.
"Chris, you can solve this for the hospital and for Miss Dawes. She's probably too young to recognize the error of burning her bridges behind her, but Alvin tells me, and I'm sure it's true because I've observed myself the leadership you've shown here, that Miss Dawes admires you."
He paused either for confirmation or to let the oil sink in, then continued with, "I'm convinced that Miss Dawes would come back to work here if you personally appealed to her--let her know how much she's needed here. We offered her a generous salary, but she turned it down!" His disbelief rode high on his eyebrows. "Obviously, something else was holding her back and, knowing how women are such strong team workers, I'm sure she needs more than anything to hear you say she'd be welcome."
Chris held his gaze steadily. She controlled the urge to laugh by breathing gently. "Fred, Dawes is the best pilot I had. The fact that she recognized she's crossed a line is just proof of what it takes to be a good pilot."
Fred nodded earnestly, obviously not understanding a word. Chris continued, hoping he would eventually get it, "The risk she took was giving in to a temptation pilots in her situation often face. Firefighters, police," Chris waved her hands to emphasize how widespread the phenomenon is, "anyone who faces danger day in and day out. You get addicted to the adrenaline surge. You keep pushing the envelope. Eventually, you go too far."
Fred nodded, but this time Chris saw a spark of understanding. "Right. She disobeyed your orders."
Shit. Chris took a deep breath, and started again, "No, Fred, that's not the point I'm making. I'm saying she risked her life when she shouldn't have." Fred opened his mouth and began to harrumph a retort, but Chris raised her voice several decibels higher to finish her point. "She knows that, Fred. She knows she might well do it again if she comes back here. Dawes may be addicted to adrenaline, but she's not suicidal. You can't pay her enough to come back to crash and burn."
Fred sat, speechless, and stared at the window behind Chris. She had the eerie impression the guy was thinking.
"You're not going to help us with this, are you?"
"I respect her decision. I agree with her."
"I thought you were a team player, Doctor. It's a great disappointment to me," he rose, using his mass to emphasize his words.
What a guy, Chris thought. What a predictable, obvious guy.
"I'm sure it is, Fred," Chris responded flatly; humor and anything else resembling energy of feeling gone from her soul. Like talking to a creature without ears, Alvin.
As Fred left, Chris realized she felt worse for Alvin than she did for herself, even though it would be her life that Fred would make holy hell for many bureaucratic maneuverings to come.
* * *
As the days wore into weeks, she realized that El's leaving actually helped. With no reason to go home and plenty of reason to stay away while El transferred more and more of her belongings to her new home, Chris found it easier to spend all her time at the hospital and ride it out. The Trauma Unit's constant, dynamic action forced her to focus, and pumped energy into what otherwise might have been empty, exhausting hours of meaningless conflict.
Ultimately, it was Dawes who defused the situation. She gave a statement to the press, almost as brief as the one Chris had viewed that first evening, explaining that her method had not been conducive to the safe operation of rescue helicopters. She thanked the coalition for their dedication, then assured them this was not a case of discrimination on any grounds: gender, race or ethnicity.
"I never thought of that until this thing," Bailey said to Chris as they watched Dawes' statement on the late news. Bailey stretched as she rose from the armchair in Chris' office and switched off the set. "I guess I just thought of what a magnificent hunka woman she is."
Chris laughed and shook her head. She believed Bailey, though. Somehow the woman had escaped her generation's intense pressure to think in stereotypes, racial or otherwise, except perhaps where dykes were concerned. Bailey blatantly like dykes, though Chris was never sure about Bailey's own lifestyle.
After that evening, the conflict abated rapidly, Dawes having removed herself as focal point. Chris continued to spend as much time at work, however, still needing to fill a void. It was late spring, months later, before she stepped out to the parking lot of the hospital and consciously breathed a deep, appreciative lungful of fresh air.
She drove, not really caring where, just to let the mechanics of driving occupy her mind. The evening air moving across her face from the open window was warm and heavy, full of the smell of rain. It would storm tonight, she thought. Good. Traffic was a little hectic downtown, so she turned off from the main street, then back onto a parallel street. She read the theater marquees and watched the couples moving through the Saturday night traffic.
"Straight love stories, straight horror stories, straight war stories," she murmured, quoting a comment El had made once as they drove this street trying to decide whether to take in a movie or go to the bar early. They went to the bar. On this street. Chris realized that's where she had been driving all along, but didn't let herself know that because she didn't intend to go in. She just wanted to see if a particular vehicle would be parked nearby.
The realization daunted her. It had been many, many years since she'd cruised past a location just to see if someone's car were there, or to catch a glimpse of her.
"This is not mature," Chris whispered, letting her car decelerate as she scanned the vehicles in the small lot and at the curb in front of the bar. It wasn't there. What made her think it would be?
She turned off, angry at herself for needing to find her tonight, for feeling so disappointed at not finding her. This was hurting worse than the loneliness of the last few months without El--to finally open up and hope a little, let herself feel even this little bit, only to have circumstances deny the feeling.
But what if she had been there? What would you have done, Chris asked herself. She let herself imagine, as she drove out of the business district and toward the lakes, going in the bar and seeing her. Sit at her table, order a beer, talk? She saw her face across the table, smiling, laughing, glad to see Chris.
"Reality," Chris whispered to herself, surprised at the emotion choking her as she tried to voice her thought. The reality would be that, had she been there, she'd have been at a table with friends, no empty chairs, no way to hear what anyone had to say without yelling over the incessantly loud music. Chris would have walked in, seen her, and stood stupidly, vulnerably, at the bar to get a beer, just to have something to do. This new image of their meeting amplified her shame and her sense of loneliness.
Something splatted hard against her windshield and she jumped, then more splats, a bright flash, and a horrendous crash. The rain continued heavily--big, fat, summer-like rainstorm drops, punctuated by bright lightning and fierce thunder. Chris pulled over at the corner, letting the other cars on the street go by, and began to cry as rain washed across the windshield. She let the feeling come now, sobbing freely and hidden by sheets of water streaming down the windows. She was in love with her, had been all along, and had missed her every day since.
A knock on the glass by her head shattered her thoughts. Someone was standing in the rain next to her car, motioning for her to roll down her window. Lightening flashed, illuminating a woman in running clothes, hunched as much from the downpour as to be on eye level with Chris. Dawes.
She was already speaking as Chris rolled down her window, "...give shelter to a drowning woman?" Her smile was wide in greeting, just as Chris had imagined her face would look across the table. Then Dawes' expression changed.
"Are you okay?" She lowered herself, disregarding the rain pouring down on her, her face all concern and on a level with Chris'. That face, Chris thought, the same expression of compassion as the day she handed in her keys and badge. Dawes reached in, put her hand gently against Chris' face, and wiped with her thumb lightly at the wet streaks on her cheek.
"This is not rain," Dawes murmured. Chris' tears started up anew at the touch, the voice, the caring in Dawes' eyes. "Unlock the passenger side," Dawes instructed, and was at the other door by the time Chris realized what she had said.
Dawes got in, shut the door, looked past Chris and smiled, "Raise your window. You're getting as wet as I am."
Chris obeyed automatically. When she turned back to Dawes, her tears had stopped, but she knew she couldn't speak.
"What's wrong?"
"I need a kleenex," Chris whispered.
Dawes pulled a wad of fresh kleenex from her jacket pocket, and leaned close to her with the offering. "That's nothing to cry about, Doctor."
Chris blew her nose and dried her eyes, wondering how to begin to tell Dawes. She looked at the woman sitting next to her, patiently waiting despite her drenched condition. "What's wrong is, you're soaked. We'd better get you home."
"Okay," Dawes ran a hand through her short, limp curls, "probably we can talk better there anyway."
She directed Chris to drive down one of the tree-lined streets off the park for several blocks. They stopped before a huge, old house. It was one of several on the block that had been made over to apartments, with open, wooden stairways added to the sides.
"I'm on the second floor," Dawes warned, "are you ready to get wet?"
The squall had not let up, but Chris was anxious now to get out of the car. She felt a definite need for physical activity. As Chris jumped out, the rain hit her whole body at once. She could feel it soaking her jeans and shirt and, as she ran around the front of the car, found a minor flood forming in the street by the curb. Water poured into her shoes before she could jump to the sidewalk.
Waves of rain, driven by strong gusts, rocked the tops of trees and whipped their dense limbs heavily toward the street and the wide lawns. Dawes led her in a sprint through a wrought iron gate, and along a flagstone walkway to the front porch. At the porch steps the walkway forked. Dawes veered to the right, taking the path to the driveway, which led to a side stairway. They took the steps two at a time, and were both breathless when they reached the inside landing on the second floor.
As they peeled off their shoes and socks, Chris realized she would be taking off more than that when she got into Dawes' apartment. She straightened, shoes and socks in hand, to find Dawes looking back at her with a faint smile. Chris wondered if the same thought had occurred to Dawes. They stood, dripping and staring at each other. Chris became sure, as she watched Dawes' eyes watching hers, that Dawes needed Chris to decide.
"We'd better get on with it, then," Chris said softly, feeling an increasing pull toward the woman whose eyes watched her so intently. Dawes' head tilted ever so slightly, and the smile grew just a bit. It wasn't enough, Dawes was saying. Tell me.
Chris dropped the footgear from her hands, stepped toward Dawes who opened her arms and closed them behind Chris as she reached up and over Dawes' shoulders. As their lips met, Chris felt a little shudder run through the muscles of Dawes' back. She moved her hand up the back of Dawes' neck to gently press against the back of her head, increasing the pressure of their lips, and Dawes pulled back against her hand. Their lips separated, Dawes opened her eyes slowly and smiled.
"You're in love with me, too," Chris said.
"For so long." Dawes then kissed her neck, pulling Chris closer, pressing their bodies together. "Let's get inside," she laughed, "we are starting to dry off with all this heat."
Dawes opened the door and let Chris go in first. As she stepped through, Chris knew her first inclination, to drop her clothes there and get on with it, would have to be revised. Dawes's apartment was not what Chris had expected--the functional living quarters of a pilot with a reputation for a very active social life. Instead, as Chris stood in the oak panelled entryway, she faced a Victorian room of overstuffed chairs, oriental rugs, and polished wood. It was a room for conversation and reading, built-in shelves of books on either side of a large fireplace, the chairs and sofa arranged in a half-circle to face each other and the fireplace.
Dawes drew Chris back to the subject, pulling her close and continuing the kiss they had interrupted in the hall.
She drew back and looked at Chris, "What?"
"I'm dripping on your rug."
"It has suffered worse, I'm sure. But, if you feel more comfortable not dripping, I better show you the bathroom, some towels, and dry clothes."
Chris made a face at the "...dry clothes," and Dawes laughed, took her hand, and led her through the room to a bathroom complete with clawfoot tub and a brass oval halo from which draped a white shower curtain.
She was amused to see Dawes busying herself with arranging towels for her on a washstand.
"I'll make us some coffee and get you some light sweats." Dawes said, and turned to leave.
"Where are you going?" Chris grabbed Dawes' face between the palms of her hands. "You just told me you were in love with me. I've been miserable, wasting months of loneliness thinking about you. Now I find out you were in love with me all along. You're not going anywhere!"
"Chris, I need to take a shower--I did do a few miles before the rain started and I spotted your car. I will get you into something dry," Dawes unbuttoned Chris' shirt as she spoke, "then you have a cup of coffee and I will shower."
She pulled Chris closer, sliding her shirt over her shoulders and down. She stopped with the shirt at the middle of Chris' back and stared at her breasts. She bent and kissed first one, then the other, and Chris felt pleasure begin to warm her, pressing her hips closer against Dawes.
"Forget the coffee," Chris murmured, and slipped her arms out of the shirt Dawes still held across her back. She unzipped Dawes' running jacket. Dawes shed it quickly, then her running bra and shorts. She stood before Chris naked, tall, muscular, her dark skin glistening.
"My god, you're a beautiful woman!" Chris whispered.
"Chris, I want you in my bed. That's where I imagined..." Dawes seemed embarrassed to admit her romanticism, but it pleased Chris. She had allowed herself similar fantasies, though one of them did involve a shower.
"We'll wash fast," Chris said, peeling off her jeans.
Dawes reached into the shower and started the water. They stepped in when the temperature was right, and stood, kissing. Chris found the soap and began moving it over Dawes' body, enjoying again her muscular beauty, her firm breasts, and Dawes' obvious pleasure.
"My turn," Dawes whispered, took the soap from Chris and began the same process to Chris' body. As Dawes soaped Chris' back, she pulled her close, their now soapy fronts gliding together smoothly. Their breasts slid against and over each other, back and forth as they moved.
"Oh, Chris," Dawes breathed, and kissed her hard, pressing her tight against her body, stopping their motion. "Let's get to bed!"
They parted a little, letting the water rinse the soap from their skin, their hands again exploring each other's body. As Chris stroked between Dawes' legs, she felt more there than soap rinsing away, and she was sure Dawes was feeling the same between Chris' legs.
Dawes turned off the water, reached for a towel, and began drying Chris, pressing the towel against her body in regular, slow rhythms. She worked the towel from Chris' head, neck, and shoulders downward, and Chris began kissing her still wet neck, sucking here and there at the droplets clinging to her ear, her neck, her jaw.
Dawes pulled back and knelt, slipping out of Chris' embrace to move the towel down her legs. Chris had to reach for the wall to steady herself, the sudden lack of contact leaving her achingly unattached.
"Please, Dawes, get back up here," she called. As she slowly rose, Dawes moved her lips along Chris' legs, but stopped to press her face into the soft juncture, her hands pressing Chris closer from the back. The ache growing now, Chris pulled away, knelt quickly, and pulled Dawes' face to her own, kissing her deeply. Dawes tongue pressed softly at first, then with greater urgency as their lips parted and met again.
Dawes rose, pulling Chris up with her, moved the shower curtain aside, and led her out of the tub, out of the bathroom, and across the hall to the bedroom. She laid Chris on the large bed, then lay on top of her, warming her, kissing her lips, her neck, shoulders, breasts.
As she sucked gently at Chris' breast, Dawes reached down between Chris' legs and began to massage the lips, which parted easily with their full moisture. Dawes' long, strong fingers slid gently, firmly into Chris' body, and began to flutter, sending waves of pleasure upward. Chris could only hold on, feeling it wash over her, wave after wave as Dawes whispered in her ear.
Dawes loved her; the knowledge of that, the understanding that came to her in the way this woman was carressing her, reveling in her, surged up through her center.
Dawes continued to whisper, kiss, whisper more, and brought her knee between Chris' legs to increase the pressure of her hand moving more firmly now. Chris moved her hips back and forth, unable to remain still, and heard her own voice in short cries growing ever stronger with the heightening ecstasy. Then Chris screamed and held on as one after another wave stirred up and over her.
As the intensity subsided, Chris rubbed her head against Dawes' neck, in rhythm with the abating, delightful spasms. Dawes relaxed the pressure of her leg and hand, and began gently stroking, eliciting more small spasms. Chris chuckled softly into Dawes' neck, and ran her tongue along its curve, kissed her jaw lightly.
"Oh, Chris," Dawes smiled her name, her eyes closed, moving her head to present more places on her chin for Chris to kiss. Chris could feel, as she moved her hands over Dawes' body, that Dawes was still ready, still needing.
"Your turn," Chris whispered, eliciting a pleased little hum from Dawes, who slowly, gently removed her fingers from inside Chris.
She lay back then, while Chris moved over her with kisses. Kneeling over Dawes, Chris could feel her excitement renewing itself. She let her breasts brush lightly against her as she made a pattern of kisses, starting at her neck and working downward slowly. As Chris kissed her stomach, she positioned herself between Dawes' legs, spreading them wide. Chris rubbed her face against the soft, lovely hair.
"Chris, I don't know if I can stand..." but Chris was already massaging with her thumbs, working them deeper as Dawes' words wandered into a long sigh. When she flicked her tongue back and forth across the smaller tongue, Dawes moaned loudly and pressed Chris' head in closer. Chris pulled Dawes' thighs in to give her more pressure and began using only her tongue.
"No, Chris, please get up here," Dawes called. Chris laughed and released her, but as she moved up to eye level with Dawes, Chris pulled herself straight up the middle, her body dragging against the spot she'd just concentrated on. Dawes cried out and flipped Chris over, straddling Chris' leg.
Dawes began to move, slowly at first, then hard and fast. Chris could feel her repeated spasms, and Dawes, trying to muffle her voice, pressed her face into the pillow. Dawes' passion renewed Chris', and she began to tremble against Dawes' muscular leg, just as Dawes was shuddering against hers. Their voices blended, and the song carried their passion higher.
For a brief moment, at the top, Chris felt her mind float. Then, it passed, and she let herself begin to relax. She felt Dawes loosening too, their movement subsided, shifted, changed to a sleepy, playful rubbing. They lay together, finally, holding to each other, and slept.
* * *
It was morning when she woke, a dim pre-dawn light shyly entering the room to find them lying close. Chris had slept well, despite waking now and then to Dawes kissing her neck, or one of her breasts, or her shoulder. But Dawes hadn't wakened her this time. She'd heard a sound--a far-off, muted, hollow tapping--just briefly, which she couldn't identify. She lay listening for it again, but it didn't recur.
"Sue, from downstairs," Dawes murmured, "filling the bird feeders." She reached across Chris with one arm and one leg, and began to kiss her neck.
"You are a very tactile person," Chris smiled.
"Umm. Does it bother you?" Dawes worried look made her laugh.
"Bother me? C'mere, you!"
Their wrestling lasted long enough to position their legs together, then they worked into a rhythm that now seemed familiar. It was, Chris found herself thinking as she moved with Dawes, as though they'd been lovers a long time, knew each other's body from long practice.
This lovemaking, Dawes was playful, joyfully biting and kissing, laughing as Chris played back. Chris was taken by surprise, therefore, when Dawes reached into her and touched a level of passion Chris didn't know she'd attained. Dawes chuckled at Chris' astonishment, and began to lick the nipple of her breast as she continued to move her fingers inside.
Chris reacted immediately, intensity welling up and out. She felt herself pouring over Dawes, and felt Dawes coming over her, Dawes' voice in her ear, a whisper, almost a sob, "Chris, I love you." Then they were rocking together, their movement slowing.
Dawes hummed a sigh in her ear, chuckled, and rolled over onto her back, taking Chris with her. Chris lay on top of her, nuzzled into her neck, and fell back to sleep.