It was easier during the day when the job kept his mind busy, pushed him to think of something other than himself. And that tick-tock. Until he went to reach for something, or stand up or just scratch his own damn ass.
It flooded back then, boy. Like a goddamn tidal wave.
Tick-tock.
If he closed his eyes he could see it all happening again. The shout, the movement, the blur of Halloway's hand lifting the weapon, drawing a bead. And he could feel it again, that icy hot blast kicking him up and back and down. That one instant, just the one, of feeling nothing.
If he'd moved just a little faster, if he'd jumped the other way. If Halloway hadn't fired so close and so clean.
If, if, if.
He knew what his chances of coming back were now. Down to thirty-percent and falling.
He was fucked, and everyone knew it. They didn't have to say it. He could hear them thinking it.
Especially Peabody.
He could practically hear her thinking it in her sleep.
He turned his head, and could see the outline of her in the dark, in the bed beside him.
He thought of the way she'd chattered away-about the job, the case, the kid Jamie, about a thousand things to avoid any gaps of silence while she'd helped him get undressed for the night.
Christ, he couldn't even unbutton his own pants.
Note to self, he thought sourly. Zippers, Velcro, and tipcot fasteners only in the future.
He'd deal with it. You ran with the data you got. But he'd be damned if she was going to be stuck with him.
He gripped the bedpost with his good hand, tried to lever himself up.
She stirred, shifted, and her voice came out of the dark, too clear for her to have been sleeping.
"What's the matter?"
"Nothing. Just want to get up. I've got it."
"I'll give you a hand. Lights on, ten percent."
"I said I've got it, Peabody."
But she was already out of bed, coming around to his side. "Bet you gotta pee. You and Jamie must've sucked down a gallon of milk each with that cake. I could've told you-"
"Go back to bed."
"Can't sleep anyway. I keep thinking about the case." Her movements were as brisk and practical as her tone as she scooted him up, lifted, shifted, and maneuvered him into his chair. "You have to figure Dallas and Roarke are working on something or they'd have-"
"Sit down."
"I'm going to get some water."
"Sit down, Peabody."
"Sure, okay." She kept the half-smile on her face as she sat on the side of the bed facing him. Was it too much? she wondered. Not enough? Her muscles were so knotted it felt like a troop of Youth Scouts had been practicing for a merit badge with them.
He looked so tired, she thought. So horribly, horribly frail somehow.
"This isn't going to work. We're not going to work."
"That's a stupid thing to be talking about at three in the morning." She started to get up, but he laid his good hand on her knee.
She was wearing a bright red nightshirt, and her toes were painted the same shade. Her hair was messy, her mouth grim.
And McNab realized Roarke had been right in something he'd said once. He was in love with her. That meant he had to do this right.
"Look what I was going to do was pick a fight, piss you off enough so you'd storm out. Not that hard to do. You get bent pretty easy. We'd break it off and go our separate ways. But that doesn't seem right. Besides, you'd have copped to it anyway. So I'm going to play it straight with you, Peabody."
"It's too late to have this kind of argument. I'm tired."
"You weren't sleeping. Neither was I. Come on, She-Body, hear me out." He saw her eyes start to shine and shut his own. "Don't turn on the tap, okay? This already sucks out loud."
"I know what you're going to say. You're messed up, you're impaired and you want to break things off because you don't want to screw up my life. Blah, blah."
She sniffed, swiped a hand under her nose. "You want me to walk away because you can't, so I can have a full, meaningful life without the burden of being stuck with you. Well, get fucked, McNab, because I'm not walking. And you managed to piss me off just fine by thinking I would."
"That covers part of it." He sighed, kept his hand on her knee. "You wouldn't walk, Peabody. You're solid, and you wouldn't walk when I'm… when I'm like this. You'd stick, and you'd keep sticking even if your feelings changed about everything. You're solid, and that's what a solid does. After a while, neither of us would know, not for sure, if you were with me because you wanted to be or because you felt obligated."
She got a stubborn line between her brows and turned her head so that she stared at the wall instead of those sober, serious green eyes. "I'm not listening to this."
"Yeah, you are." He eased back, gripped the arm of the chair with his good hand. "I don't want a medical, and you don't want to be one. For Christ's sake, I wouldn't be able to take a piss on my own if Roarke and Dallas hadn't given me this fucking chair. She's keeping me on the job, and she doesn't have to. I'm not going to forget that."
"You're just feeling sorry for yourself."
"Fucking A." He nearly smiled. "You try going twenty-five percent dead and see how quick you haul out the violins. I'm pissed and I'm scared, and I don't know what the hell I'm going to do tomorrow. If I've got to live like this, then that's the breaks."
He wasn't going to be a whiner, he reminded himself. He wasnot going to be a whiner. "But I've got a right to set up the rules, and I don't want you around."
"You don't know you're going to have to live like this." She threw up her hands, trying for exasperated while tears burned the back of her throat. "If it doesn't come back in a few days, you'll go to that clinic."
"I'll go. I'll owe Dallas and Roarke big for that, too, but I'll go. And maybe I'll get lucky."
"They've got a seventy-percent success rate."
"They got a thirty-percent fail rate. Don't talk numbers to an e-man, baby. I've got to focus on myself for a while. I can't think about how things may or may not work out with us."
"So we just box that up so you don't have to worry about it? Now you're a coward, too."
"Goddamn it! Goddamn it, can't you get that I need to do this, for you? Can't you give me a lousy break here?"
"Guess not." Her chin jutted out. "You already had your lousy break. And I'll tell you, I don't know how things are going to work out with us either. Half the time I don't know what the hell I see in you. You're irritating, you're sloppy, you're skinny, and you sure don't match my childhood image of Delia's dream man. But I'm in it now and I make my own calls. When I want out, I'll get out. Until then, you can shut up because I'm going back to bed."
"Guess Roarke's more the image of Delia's dream man," he grumbled.
"Damn right." She swung her legs back into bed, punched her pillows. "Smooth, sexy, gorgeous, rich, and dangerous. None of which you are now, or were before you got zapped. None of which you can hope to be once you're up and dancing again either. Get your own pitiful self back in bed. I'm not your nursemaid."
He studied her as she laid back, folded her arms across her chest and glared at the ceiling.
And he began to smile. "You're good. I didn't see that coming. Piss me off, insult me-the not sexy remark is the one that stung, by the way-and shove the argument out of its orbit."
"Kiss my ass."
"It's one of my favorite recreational activities. I don't want to fight with you, She-Body. I just think we could both use a little time, a little space. I care about you, Dee. I really care about you."
It made her eyes sting again. He never called her Dee. She kept her lips pressed tightly together, afraid she might start sobbing. Certain the killing expression she worked onto her face would have made her lieutenant proud, she turned her head.