Chapter 23: The Fix

Zena helped him to his bed, gently laid him down, and propped his knee up on some extra pillows.  She went to the kitchen, and grabbed a chair, then walked to the bathroom to douse a wash cloth in cool water and antiseptic.  She brought both items to the living room and laid them down by the couch.

                “If you cannot roll your jeans up, you will have to remove them.” Zena said quietly.

                Wolf looked up at her, surprised.  He tried rolling up his pants leg, but they would not roll up past his upper calf.  He sighed and looked up at Zena again, and she looked away and went to get a small bowl filled with cool water for rinsing the wash cloth.  When she returned, Wolf had changed out of his jeans and instead wore only a blanket over is boxers.  Zena set the bowl down on the chair, and then knelt down next to him, facing towards the chair and his head.  She placed the cool wash cloth on his injured knee, and then, remembering something, she got up and went to the closet in her room to grab out two bandages.  While she was gone, she thought about the situation.  There was Wolf, the only man that she had come to trust besides Jaenes, laying in her house half-naked, and injured.  Strangely, her heart ached for him, it felt injured as well.  As she stood in the doorway to the living room, she shook herself, closed her eyes for a moment, and then sighed heavily as she walked back into the room.  She lowered herself back down by Wolf’s knee, and rewet the wash cloth, wrung it out over his knee, and then wiped his knee dry with a blanket.  She ran her hands over his knee, feeling for any internal fractures and abnormalities.  Wolf closed his eyes, ignoring the heat shooting up his nerve endings as she touched him.  He knew it wasn’t from pain, and once again worried that he had made the wrong decision in staying.  He knew that his feelings for her could easily get in the way of the job they were meant to do.  Zena knit her brow as she felt the knee cap out of place.  Without a word, she put a hand around his leg on either side of the kneecap, leaned her weight on it, and popped it back in place.  Wolf yelped suddenly as searing pain shot through the heat of her touch on his knee. 

                “Ouch! What did you just do? Did you break my knee or something?” Wolf demanded

                Zena ignored him and started wrapping his knee.  She wrapped it with care, but wrapped it tightly, so as not to allow it to pop back out of place. 

                “Would you rather it stay out of place and potentially make you lame for the rest of your life?” she asked, as she looked pointedly up at him, as she climbed onto the couch next to him and propped his knee up on her own.  Her hands worked methodically, like machines of their own, as if she had done this a million times before.  Wolf wondered if she had.  “Does it feel better though?” Zena asked, without allowing him to answer the first question. 

                “Yeah… after the initial pain, I guess it does feel better…” Wolf replied, leaving out what was really on his mind. There was no way that he was going to tell her that her touch alone made him feel like he was on cloud nine with no chance of landing back on solid ground.  Zena lifted his wrist gently and felt his bones to make sure there was nothing wrong.  She compared her wrist to his to double check, then nodded.  She wrapped his wrist gently, and then placed his hand back on his stomach. 

                “ I think your wrist is just sprained, but I’m afraid you’ve dislocated your knee.  You’ll have to take it easy for a few days,” Zena said, then moved his knee back onto the pillows and cleaned up the supplies.  She pulled the blankets over Wolf to keep him warm, and then sat next to him.

                After a moment, she spoke. “When I was seven, at a gymnastics meet, I dislocated my knee, and I was out for the rest of the meet.  Luckily, it was the last meet of the season, so I didn’t have to worry about missing too many meets.  I did, however, get upset, because I couldn’t finish the last meet of the season.”  Zena chuckled softly before continuing. “ Silly me, I was only seven, I didn’t realize that there really were more important things in life…” She paused before continuing again.  “ like spending time with family…” A small tear crested her eyelashes, and she wiped it away violently. 

                “My mother was the team’s nurse.  She said that I was lucky I hadn’t done more than dislocated it with the way that I fell.  I could have easily shattered my kneecap.  You can imagine how hard it was for my mother to re-locate the knee of a whining, squirming seven year old.” Zena smiled and looked away. “What I’m trying to say is that she taught me a few things before….. well, while she had the chance to.” She tucked her hair behind her ear and faked a smile through the tears.

                Wolf nodded. “I can tell. You did a really nice job with the knee… it feels better already.”

 Zena sighed and watched him silently for a few minutes, fingering the pendant around her neck.  A pained expression crossed her face, and she shook her head slowly.

                “We’ll see how your knee is tomorrow, but for now I want you to rest.  My guess is that it will take a couple of days for it to fully heal, and I don’t want you walking on it before then. “ Zena said, and then continued after a pause.  “I’ll be back later.  I need to run a few… errands.”

                Zena handed him a small blade for protection just in case, and gave Maurly the command to stay and watch over Wolf.  Then she headed out the door and left Wolf to rest himself.

Reviews

[Coyote Poetry]

A very good chapter. I like how they took care of Wolf. I enjoyed the story of mother and being a gymnast. A excellent chapter.
Coyote

[Brad]

interesting tale, will be interested to see how this all pans out