Dynamics of a Human Heart Ch. 06

Miranda shot Sam a hooded glare, "There was nothing 'pure' or 'simple' about it. It was something...else."

Sam threw up her hands, "You know what, I don't even want to hear it; you, him, your little obsession, I'm sick of it all!"

"I said I was sorry."

"I don't want your sorry! I want you to know when to stop! To accept that there are some things beyond the grasp of the great Doctor Miranda Inoue," Sam grabbed the thin girl in her arms and shook her, "Life is not a problem for you to solve. It's not an equation, there's no formula for it. You might understand that if you took steps to actually leave academia."

"Why, so I can turn out as insecure and miserable as you?" Miranda snarled back.

Sam went white under her tan and her mouth fell open.

"Don't bother denying it; Grey knew exactly what he was saying about 'measuring up' and you just snatched up the bait and let him get under your skin, like I told you, begged you not to! But no, because deep down; you think I'm not going to be with you because you're in a wheelchair. Instead of dealing with that, Grey turned it around and tortured us with it. So why don't you just admit it, Sam, admit that you don't think you're good enough to be with me because you're a cripple! Grey understood and I came that close to understanding hi-!"

Sam's hand flew out and caught Miranda across the cheek hard enough to send the other girl's head rocking.

"You understand nothing," Sam hissed. She began to make her way to her chair. Miranda moved to help her out of habit; the left side of her face burned.

"Don't!" Sam snarled, shoving Miranda away bodily. Miranda fell back into a tangled heap on the couch as Sam muscled her way into her chair.

"You know, between the two of you, I think I like Grey more. He knows he's a son-of-a-bitch, he makes no pretenses about who or what he is," she wheeled herself away from the couch, across the room to the threshold of their bedroom.

"You? You let him dissect us like a fucking science experiment and even when he laid us both open and pissed all over what we considered the most important things in our lives, you still don't have the guts to take some goddamned responsibility..."

She spun around in her chair to face the other girl, who was slowly making her way off the couch,

"...you stupid, fucking kawado!"

The door slammed hard enough to make the windows shake. If Miranda tried, she could almost pretend that she couldn't hear Sam crying on the other side of the door.

Instead, she wiped some blood away from her lip and looked at it: it'd been the first time she'd suffered an injury that drew blood in some time and the sight was sobering. It looked like rose petal on snow.

She stared ahead at the closed door that could not block out the sound of Samantha's sobbing.

Kawado, she thought to herself as she began to make up the couch.

Coward.

It was 2 AM, October 1^st. The rain outside was a steady patter and Miranda lay in the dark awake as she attempted to 'figure out her mistake' as she thought of it. She was coming up empty. Logic and reason, the tools she had depended on all her life, crumbled like wet sand between her fingers as she tried to discern at what point had she made a mistake? It had to be a mistake; there could be no other explanation she thought to herself.

Was it a mistake to ask him to help rescue Sam at the party? No, that was a matter of life and death; that decision had been necessary. Had it been a mistake to let him bring them home? Maybe. At the time, she didn't believe she'd had the resources to get them home herself, but perhaps if she'd found a way to get the money for a taxi somehow. Was it a mistake to rescue him from the alley, as he claimed it was? She mentally shook her head, no, no one with a soul could have abandoned him, it may have been a mistake, but there'd been no choice. Maybe she and Sam should have just patched him up and left. They had lingered at his home so that she could satisfy her "intellectual vanity" as Grey had put it. Instead, she had exposed herself and Sam to his toxic presence far longer than necessary and they had paid dearly for it.

The more she attempted to analyze what she perceived to be her mistake, her failure; the more it made her head hurt. However, when she actually recalled the event, the words that were said, the needful look in Grey's eyes when she'd lay herself bare before him and the hateful look that had replaced it, made her chest hurt. The only comparison she had was when she had been learning Aikido from her father: she had missteped and took a kick dead center in the chest. The impact of the blow, coupled with the force with which she landed on her back had her seeing stars and gasping for air. The pain faded within a day, but for weeks there was a deep...ache inside her; it radiated from within her ribcage and had scraped up her spine, across her neck and shoulders and finally into the back of her head. Even her back teeth had throbbed and stung.

For Miranda, the pain of the event itself was fading, but as she wrapped her arms around herself, she felt that same, penetrating and pervasive ache filling her veins with agony. She squeezed her eyes shut and gasped at the intensity, tears of pain leaking from the corners of her eyes. She took the blanket she was under and gripped it tightly, trying to wrap itself around her so tightly as if the blanket itself could serve as armor to protect her from the hurt.

Then the doorknob rattled.

Miranda's eyes shot open and she rolled over to face the door: something was being inserted into the deadbolt. She opened her mouth to scream, to warn Sam, but pain had slithered its way around her lungs and heart and had constricted, crushing those parts of her within its coils, she could only whisper,

"...help."

The deadbolt went and the doorknob followed. Miranda took a moment and then simply rolled over to face the couch again, resigned to her fate as long as it brought an end to this torture.

The door was left open, as the intruder entered. She could hear the rainfall outside and she heard water dripping onto the carpet as the figure approached her.

Sam, I'm so sorry.

The figure was standing over her now; she could feel eyes upon her as water dripped down onto her.

Miranda closed her eyes and waited.

The figure was moving again; soft, practiced steps, but too heavy to belong to a woman. He moved like someone who knew the layout of the living room and could navigate it in the dark. She felt something placed upon her: a second blanket. It was draped over her with the greatest of care. Miranda wove her fingers through its threads as she began to tremble.

She heard several items placed on the coffee table: something light, something heavy, and then finally something small and metallic. Miranda opened her mouth, but could not force air out of it; this moment only fueled the serpent within as it continued to squeeze her tighter and tighter inside.

A breath of hot air on her ear; the scent of tobacco, pine, and old leather.

"February fourteenth, nineteen ninety eight."

She had a moment to consider the meaning of the statement when she felt him put his hand on the top of her head and everything inside her shut down: the pain, the regret, the will to live: everything was just laid to waste at this one instant of contact.

From the crown of her head, he ran his fingers down the back of her head. The locks of her hair were caressed, with an emotional intensity that bordered on reverence. She felt his fingertips on her scalp; every point of contact felt as if served to draw the air out of her oxygen-starved body. His thumb lightly touched the back of her ear and she could not repress a shudder. As he approached the nape of her neck, she could feel his fingernails; they were sharp and felt as if they left the faintest lines of white against her flesh. Finally, he reached the back of her neck. She felt his fingers: cold and damp from the rain upon her skin and it caused gooseflesh to rise. For a moment, his touch lingered, he rubbed a thumb gently against skin and Miranda made a very soft sound in her throat, an expression of something, some feeling that could not even be defined, let alone denied but had come to dominate every last bit of her being.

He removed his hand then, hastily; as if he had been stung. It had seemed that, for a split second, he had perhaps lost himself. Whatever limits he had placed, had fallen in the time it took for that single caress.

He took a few steps back.

"Grey?"

There was a pause. Miranda swallowed.

"Get the fuck out of my flat."

She heard a slight exhalation that could only have been an expression of something spiteful. She heard one, last object placed on the table. Then Grey retreated the way he came and softly closed the door behind him.

Miranda began to shake, violently, and she rushed to the bathroom and stripped out of as much of her clothes as she could manage as she threw herself into a scalding hot shower and began to scrub at herself as if she had the plague. She hadn't bothered with the wraparound shower curtain and soon water began to splatter all over the floor. It took a solid ten minutes for the goose bumps to fade and she clawed at her head and neck as if she could scrape herself clean from his touch. She stopped when she noticed that she'd begun to bleed and just collapsed into the tub and cried.

Sam found her there a few hours later, the water still running and long since run cold. The bathroom was a swimming pool as Sam managed to coax the half-dressed girl out of the tub.

Miranda's eyes shot open and Sam recoiled at the look they held: torment. She knew the look because she'd had it when her doctor had told her she would never walk again.

"Jesus Miri," Sam whispered stroking back her wet hair from her pale face, "I didn't mean—"

"I'm sorry Sammy," she choked out, "I'm so, so sorry. I swear, I swear I'll never let anything like that happen to you again, I swear."

Sam pulled the girl into her arms and held her tight as the other girl sobbed in hard, painful sobs that caused them both the rattle with the force of it.

"It's okay," Sam whispered, trying to get a handle on the situation; they'd had the occasional fight and yes, this one had been a bad one, but Miranda seemed just completely...

...broken.

When Miranda cried herself into exhaustion, they made the trip to their bedroom together. Miranda curled into a ball tight against her lover and Sam wrapped both arms around her and rocked her gently.

"Shhh, it's going to be okay Miri."

Miranda was unconscious in under a minute and Sam spent the next several hours watching over her to ensure that, whatever had happened to her in this waking life did not haunt her in her dreams.

And in time, they both found peace.

*********

"What the fuck?!"

Miranda jerked her head up and tried to get her bearings. That had definitely been Sammy and she was definitely pissed off.

"Miranda, get your skinny ass in here, now!"

Then, the other girl's sleep-fogged mind recalled the events of earlier this morning.

"Che," Miranda muttered, damn, as pulled on an oversized t-shirt that doubled as a nightie and staggered out into the living room to confront her enraged lover.

"In the house?!" Sam shrieked, "You let him into the house?!"

"I didn't Sammy, I swear," Miranda said in her best 'please don't kill me' tone, "He picked the lock I think."

"He didn't need to!" Sam held up something small and metallic, "He cut himself a spare!"

A key.

Miranda sighed and rubbed her head, "Sam, did you give him our spare?"

"Not in this fucking lifetime, I thought you did."

"I didn't Sam, I promise you."

Sam scoffed, "Yeah, okay 'you promise'."

Miranda took a deep breath to avoid saying something that would result in today being just like yesterday, "Sam, I know I've been an idiot—"

"Understatement."

"But when have you known me to be a liar?"

The moment dragged on and then Sam exhaled hard and slouched back against her chair, "Never. You can be a fool but you're an honest fool."

"Thank you, Gandalf."

Sam sighed and looked at the key, "You know, most cut keys carry with them some kind of manufacturers mark or logo, but not this one," she handed it to Miranda.

"So where the hell did it come from?"

"I have no idea, but so long as he doesn't have it any longer, I could give a shit," she gestured at the coffee table, "Satan Claus left us a few more presents."

Miranda's lips curved upwards at that, the visual and pun were too good not to appreciate, and she examined the table: the carton of cigarettes they had given him; open, but only missing one or two packs.

"Wow, he returned our gift of gratitude," Miranda scoffed, "Huh, well isn't that a perfectly proper, English way of saying 'screw you'?"

"You caught that too? Good, I was worried it would be lost in translation," despite the joke, Sam did not look amused at Grey's latest gesture.

Miranda gestured at a large, sealed envelope on the table, "What's that?"

Sam shrugged, "No idea, I didn't make it past the cigarettes before a deep and abiding need to chew your ass out took hold."

"Fair enough," Miranda opened and pulled out a folder.

"What is it?" Sam asked as Miranda was flipping through the papers the folder contained.

"His way of being 'a man of his word', I suppose," she laid out the documents.

"What do you mean?" Sam spoke in a vexed tone.

"'Patient is one Samantha Adler—"

"What the fuck!?" Sam sputtered, "How the fuck does he know my last name?"

"Oh, it gets better," Miranda resumed reading, "Patient is approximately five feet, eleven inches; (one point eight meters) and weighs between one hundred and sixty and one hundred and seventy one pounds (seventy to seventy two kilograms)'."

"Okay, seriously, how does he know that?"

Without looking up, "Because he spent a night carrying you all over town."

Sam flushed crimson, "Well, when you put it that way, okay, but how does he know how tall I am, he hasn't seen me, you know, standing."

"Either he deduced him from your weight and general build or he has a keen eye for spatial relations, either way..."

"Yeah, yeah, either way, it means he's not as stupid as he acts," Samantha folded her arms under her breasts, "Showing off by getting all 'metric system' on us."

Miranda smiled slightly as she continued to read, "'Subject is in good health and maintains an active lifestyle as defined by her age and interests within the confines of her physical limitations'. Subject is at this time unable to walk or support her own weight due to extensive damage to her legs from an auto accident: her tibia, femur, and fibula exhibit signs of extensive, crushing damage, rendering them inoperable. (See appendix A, for additional findings) Further complications due to failure on attending physician's part to perform a differential diagnosis which in turn failed to identify pre-existing condition as well. Limited to no post-operation support given (please see attached report for said physician's place of work, and contact information and other personal information. Recommend inquiry by state medical board and subsequent revocation of license).

"Couldn't say 'crippled' or 'handicapped', huh?"

"Sounds like Grey is seriously gunning for this doctor of yours. Wouldn't want to be him right now," Miranda continued reading, "Initial findings after preliminary physical examination suggests—"

"Whoa, whoa, when the hell did I get a 'preliminary physical examination?'"

"When he hit you with the stick."

"Oh."

Miranda began to read again.

"'Upon further examination, patient exhibited several symptoms of Osteogenesis Imperfecta, also known as 'Brittle-Bone Disease'. Further diagnosis needed to confirm. (Recommend biopsy and DNA testing, cross-check with parents DNA to identify original defective gene [See Appendix A, section 2})'".

"How did he--?"

"Sweetie, if you keep asking how he knows something, this is going to take forever," Miranda studied the remaining papers, her expression sliding between shock, frustration, and even a little respect.

"Well?" Sam demanded.

Miranda put the folder down.

"The rest of the report is just basically what you told him about breaking bones when you were kid. Plus an in-depth tutorial on how to identify, treat, and follow up with a Brittle-Bones patient," she said as placed her fingers upon the cover of the folder thoughtfully, "Apparently, he wanted to leave nothing to chance: any doctor in the world could make it work using Grey's instructions here."

"We already knew he had a knack for tearing apart information and turning it into easily digested bits," Sam ran a hand through her blonde hair, "Looks like that applies to medicine as well as physics and math."

"Technically, this is more anatomy and a smattering of genetics than a true understanding of medicine. He's not a miracle worker; someone would need the necessary, and I imagine extensive, training and experience to make this work."

"But...?"

"But yeah, with the proper equipment and support staff, anyone that had an MD could do this."

"Wow."

"Seriously," Miranda handed over some papers, "He uh, included pictures."

"Pictures?" Sam was too puzzled to be outraged, "I don't remember seeing him with a cell phone let alone a camera."

"They're not photographs."

Sam took the pictures and could not repress a gasp: they were pictures of her, hand drawn with what appeared to be a fine-tipped pen in a style that reminded her of Da Vinci."

"Holy shit..." she whispered as she went through them. There were pictures of her standing with measurements, much in the style of 'Vitruvian Man'. Like that drawing, she was nude, but in a gesture of modesty, Grey had apparently refrained from making the more intimate portions of her anatomy well defined.

Slowly, Sam went through the sketches: there were frontal views, views from each side, from the back. A particular sketch caught her eye; an extensive diagram of her spinal cord with various points indicated. Lines radiated outwards from the indicated sections towards either side of the paper and connected to smaller, more detailed portraits of a particular portion of bone or nerves.

"This is weird; I thought he said this wasn't a spinal injury."

Miranda took the picture from her and smiled ruefully, shaking her head.

"What?"

"It's his idea of humility."

"Beg pardon?"

Miranda handed it back, "By including this, he's admitting that he could be wrong."

"Wow!" Sam whistled low as she looked at the drawing in its new light, "Grey admitting he might be wrong. I might just have this one framed."

Miranda laughed a little as Sam went back to the sketches. When she got to the last few sketches, Sam paused and stared at them vacantly for a moment.

"Love?" Miranda reached out to touch Sam's hand. The touch seemed to jump start Sam and the look that had been upon her face: distant and despairing slowly evaporated.

"Legs."

Miranda got up and came around to Sam, wrapping her arms around her lover's shoulders and holding her tightly.

"It's okay."

Sam nodded and began to go through the pictures: the first set was of both her legs, together and apart, from all sides. The second set was the same, except that the legs were now clearly in a sitting position. The blonde girl swallowed a lump in her throat as the progression to healthy and athletic to crippled was depicted in Grey's work.

Miranda just squeezed her tighter, "It's okay, Sammy."

"Don't call me Sammy," the other girl choked out, wiping at her eyes a little. They were both relieved when the drawings became of bone and muscle.