A Very Special Proposal

There was a silence that went on just a beat or two too long as the woman left the room, clearly crestfallen that Zach hadn’t responded to her invitation with something more personal, but as soon as the door closed behind her there was a definite response from the rest of the males in the room.

‘Hey! You’re in there, Zach!’ called one.

‘Way to go!’ hooted another. ‘That’s quick work.’

‘You haven’t even been here for a day and they’re already panting after you. You’ll have to tell us your secret,’ said a third.

‘It’s probably just that I’m new,’ Zach said dismissively, and when Amy saw the darker colour seeping over the lean planes of his face she suddenly realised that he was genuinely uncomfortable with the attention.

‘It always happens with fresh meat, male or female, or can’t you remember that far back, John?’ she teased one of the older consultants who’d joined in the catcalls. ‘Give it a day or two for her to see him haggard and unshaven at the end of a long shift and she’ll soon turn her sights on someone else.’

‘Now I don’t know whether to thank you for taking the heat off me or feel insulted that you were so dismissive of my charms,’ Zach said so softly that his voice probably didn’t reach even as far as Ben’s ears.

He’d leaned closer to her, close enough for her to see every one of those absurdly long eyelashes and the start of creases at the corners of his eyes put there, in all probability, by six months of squinting into fierce African sunlight. He was also close enough for her to be able to feel the warmth emanating from his body and smell the hint of soap or shampoo that still lingered on his skin in spite of several hours of hard and often messy work.

It wasn’t anything with a strong perfume—she couldn’t ever remember him smelling of anything other than plain clean soap and water—and when it was underscored by the individual musky scent of his skin, it made her body react more strongly than Edward’s expensive colognes ever had.

His raised eyebrow reminded her that she hadn’t replied to his last comment but her brain was so overloaded with his proximity that she couldn’t even remember what he’d said.

Luckily, her blushes were spared by a head appearing around the door to announce the imminent arrival of several ambulances and she was left with the choice of scalding her mouth, trying to finish her coffee too fast, or abandoning the mug. She abandoned it with one last longing look and a mental note to try again soon. Her brain would soon slow down if she became dehydrated.

The brain is a perverse thing, she mused an hour later as she ducked a flailing fist as she tried to position an IV.

The patient on the table was suffering from multiple injuries from a car crash, yet, in spite of the fact he desperately needed their help, insisted in trying to fight them off.

Her own brain was no more logical.

Her first response to having to leave Zach to get to work on the unending influx of patients was relief. But, at the same time, her brain seemed to be silently counting the seconds until she could see him again, desperate to know whether her initial reaction to his presence had just been the result of shock.

It must be, she told herself reassuringly. It couldn’t be anything more than a knee-jerk reaction to meeting the man she’d been thinking about just last night. She’d got over that silly crush years ago.

Really? taunted the voice inside her head. Then why are your eyes searching him out every time you walk to your next patient and why are you straining your ears for the sound of his voice?

‘That’s just because…because I want a chance to find out what happened to turn his life around,’ she justified defiantly under her breath as she pulled on a second pair of gloves to treat one of the department’s ‘regulars’—a young drug addict whose HIV had already developed into full-blown AIDS.

‘What happened this time, Tommy?’ she asked gently as she took in the battered face. The way he was hunched over with his arms wrapped protectively around his ribs told her that they were probably in the same state.

‘Some people don’t seem to like beggars,’ he mumbled painfully through split lips.

‘I think you just can’t stay away from me,’ she teased as she slowly helped him to take off the clothing hanging on his skeletal frame, hoping she wouldn’t find anything more than bruises. She didn’t know whether he had enough reserves in his system to cope with broken ribs or, even worse, a punctured lung.

‘Sorry, Doc. You aren’t my type,’ he retorted with an attempt at a smile that ended in a wince as he opened up the cut on his lip again. ‘On the other hand, that is someone I could really go for…’ There was an unexpected gleam of appreciation in his least swollen eye as he nodded at something he could see beyond her shoulder.

Amy turned to find out who had caught his eye, and there, through a gap in the curtains, was Zach, a quizzical expression on his face as he watched…what? Tommy? Her?

Their eyes met and when her heart felt as if it turned a complete somersault in her chest she realised that this was something more than the lingering memory of a teenage crush.

‘You and me both,’ she muttered with feeling, and her hands tingled with more than a remembered longing to explore the clean lines of his face and the strength of his powerful body.

Tommy laughed aloud. ‘Down, girl!’ he teased as Zach responded to the sudden burst of sound, his dark eyes seeming to find hers unerringly. ‘It wouldn’t be a fair contest…I’m in no condition to fight you for him.’

The reminder that the young man was her patient and had potentially serious injuries snapped her back to what she should be doing with a guilty start, but she still had to force herself to drag her eyes away from the man outside the curtain.

‘So, let’s see what we can do to get you back in fighting form,’ she suggested, and began to palpate the darkly bruised ribs.

‘I dunno about fighting form,’ he said around a groan of pain. ‘I’d be grateful just to have a good summer. I’d rather not be around when winter comes.’

‘What do you mean?’ she asked, concerned. There had been such resignation in his tone…far too much for someone who hadn’t even reached his twenties yet.

‘I won’t make it through another winter on the street,’ he said bluntly. ‘And to tell the truth, I don’t really want to.’

‘Oh, Tommy…If you had a place in a hostel…’ Amy began, but he was shaking his head before she could complete the sentence.

‘They’ll only take you in if you’re clean—off drugs,’ he clarified, in case she didn’t understand.

‘But I’m sure we could find you a place on a programme to—’

‘Not a lot of point, is there, Doc, with me in this state? Anyway, I’m not too keen on going back into the system, seeing as how it was the system that did this to me.’

‘I don’t understand,’ she said quietly while she systematically cleaned up his wounds one by one, taping steristrips over the cuts that would heal without stitches and leaving the worst until last for suturing. This was the most she’d ever heard Tommy say about his life but she’d known that there were dark shadows in his background—she could tell by the expression in his eyes. They held the same fathomless, wary depths that she’d first seen in…Zach?

‘I was put into care when I was about four, when my mum dumped me at the social services office, and the system was so glad they’d found somewhere to put me that they forgot about me.’

He fixed her with eyes that were uncannily like Zach’s for the amount they kept hidden, but suddenly she realised that there was also a banked inferno of emotions raging underneath his apparent apathy.

‘By the time someone thought to check up on why I kept trying to run away, the bastard who was supposed to be looking after me like a father had been abusing me for years and I was HIV positive.’

‘Oh, Tommy…’ Amy breathed, her heart breaking for all the misery he’d suffered in his life…was still suffering, she realised, confronted with the evidence of his latest assault.

‘Hey, I’m cool,’ he said with an awkward shrug, even though the slight flush of colour in his pale cheeks told her he’d been touched by her sympathy. ‘If I’m lucky, it’ll be a good summer. I’ve got no job to go to so I’ll be outside in the sunshine with plenty of time to listen to the birds and smell the flowers while I stick my hand out for money for my next fix. By the time winter comes…who knows?’ he finished with another shrug and a corresponding grunt of pain when the manoeuvre jarred his ribs.

‘Have you been taking any anti-retroviral medications?’ Even as she asked, Amy realised that Tommy’s drug abuse would probably preclude his adherence to any regular preventative treatment.

‘Nah,’ he said dismissively, obeying her silent gesture to turn his head for the next set of stitches to close the wound in his scalp. ‘They made me feel worse than coming off dope, and it was already too late to have any real effect. Anyway, if I was given a supply of drugs…any drugs…I’d more than likely be mugged for them.’

Amy couldn’t argue with that. Tommy was the expert when it came to conditions on the streets.

‘Well, you probably already know that one of the dangers now is developing an infection that your body can’t fight.’

‘So they tell me, but I’ve been lucky so far—apart from having the crap kicked out of me. Haven’t had anything more than a cold.’

The conversation died for a few minutes while Amy concentrated on making a neat job of his scalp, grateful that he’d chosen such a brutally short hairstyle as it made the task so much easier.

Finally, as she handed over to the nurse to tape a protective dressing in place, she positioned herself so that she met his gaze head on, her pen poised over the clipboard that held his notes.

‘So, Tommy, if I give you a course of antibiotics, will you promise me that you’ll take the whole course?’

‘How long is a course?’ he parried warily.