more ice cream for everyone :)
Mango Ice Cream
Part 3
By JewWitch
Note: if anyone actually does speak Punjabi, I apologize if my translations are sloppy.
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“I don’t care if Mon-day’s bluuue, Tuesday’s grey and Wednesday, too; Thuuursday, I don’t care about you, it’s Friday, I’m in love…” Neela sang quietly to herself as she sutured the foot of the teen who’d somehow managed to drop a butcher knife on it.
“You like the Cure?” He asked conversationally, craning his neck to watch her work.
“Sorry?” Neela looked up distractedly, after snipping off the end of the neat row of stitches.
“The Cure,” the boy repeated, grinning eagerly at her as if they were sitting side by side in a bar somewhere rather than on a hospital gurney. “You were singing.”
“Oh…yeah, I suppose I do,” Neela grinned easily back as she dressed the wound with a clean bandage. “Now you’ve got to change this dressing twice a day, Ryan, and make sure you keep the stitches dry. Your mum can make a follow-up appointment with your primacy care physician to take them out in two weeks, all right?”
“Whatever you say, Dr. Neela,” the blond-haired boy replied with far too much enthusiasm for someone who’d come in with a kitchen knife sticking out of his foot. “But, uh, maybe I’d better come back here to get my stitches out,” he added quickly.
“Why’s that?” Neela cocked her head expectantly.
“Well, I was kinda hoping my mom wouldn’t have to know about this…see, she’s always telling me I don’t have any common sense, and I don‘t pay enough attention to what I‘m doing. If she finds out I cut my foot open making a ham and cheese, she’ll *never* let me get my learner’s permit.”
“Well based on today, Ryan, I’m inclined to agree with her.” The boy continued to hold her gaze with anxious, puppy-dog eyes. “All right, you can come back here in two weeks,” Neela agreed with a slight roll of her eyes. “But do be careful with that permit, please. I don’t want to see you back here with a steering wheel wrapped around your neck.”
“Thanks,” the boy said effusively as he hopped to the floor on his good foot, and began gingerly walking toward the exit. Neela gave him a small wave, and as she watched him go, her eyes traveled across the room to where Abby was bent over a chart behind the admitting desk. She stood motionless for a few moments, just watching the brunette making notes with a wide smile on her face. She loved the way Abby quirked her lips when she was deep in thought; it was almost a pout, but a completely unselfconscious one…and it made the cutest little wrinkle on her chin. Apparently satisfied with her notations, Abby looked up from her clipboard, and caught Neela’s eyes across the room, instantly doubling the size of the young intern’s silly smile. She knew she ought to take it down a notch; standing motionless and grinning like an idiot in the midst of the open hallway was fairly conspicuous behavior. She took a step backward, and bumped into the suture tray, stumbling with a small gasp of surprise before she righted herself. From the corner of her eye, she could see Abby laughing and shaking her head, giving her a small wink before she walked away.
Time sped up then, as Neela was pulled into trauma one for a case of cooper-mini versus SUV, and her mind quickly returned to the pursuit of medicine. When she was sent from the room to call up to the ICU for a bed, though, her eyes naturally canvassed the room, stopping when they found their mark, leading a very large man with a bloody cut on his head to sutures. He was moaning and bellowing, casting his arms about, while Abby led him calmly towards a gurney, not looking agitated in the least. Neela’s mind wandered back to the night before, when Abby had led her to a gurney in a similar state of agitation. She’d known she loved Abby for a long time before now; but last night, with Abby’s stethoscope on her back and her warm hands searching Neela’s skin for cuts or burns, it had hit her like a bolt of lightning. She’d realized what every patient to pass through Abby’s care already knew; that having Abby’s attention focused completely on you, even just for a few moments, was something…something incredible. It made you feel special and safe and strong all at once, and Neela had known right then that she couldn’t live with that feeling in small doses anymore; she wanted to breathe it, bathe in it. She wanted to know that she had it even when Abby was off in a trauma, or stitching a head lac across the room.
Grinning, Neela hung up the phone and turned back to the trauma room, when a thunderous bellow turned her attention, along with everyone else’s, back to where Abby was approaching the head-bleeder with a needle of Novocain. The large man was waving his arms again, howling and beet-red in the face, backing away from Abby as if it were she that towered over him, and not the other way around. Abby quickly put the needle down, approaching the disoriented man with her palms flat, the universal gesture of easy does it. Pratt was also approaching from the man’s other side, telling him to be calm in a tense voice that was obviously not having the intended effect. While the agitated man’s eyes darted over to Pratt, Abby laid a reassuring hand on his arm, and with a roar he grabbed a paddle from the adjacent crash cart, which thankfully wasn’t charged, and whipped around with the metal block brandished, cracking Abby across the temple.
“Security!” Pratt hollered. By the time he turned back around, Neela was already there, leaping onto the 6’3” man’s back and locking her arms around his shoulder joints, clasping her hands behind his neck, so that his arms were effectively immobilized. He flailed and bellowed, but it was only a matter of seconds before three beefy security guards were upon them. Neela’s feet had barely touched the floor before she was down on her knees beside Abby, Pratt on her other side with Kovac, Sam and Chuni all rushing toward them.
“Abby?” Neela gently probed the gash, relieved to see it wasn’t deep, but anxious for her to open her eyes. “Abby, can you hear me? Say something, please,” Neela begged, as many hands swooped down, taking the unconscious woman’s vitals and assessing the head wound. Slowly, Abby’s hazel-brown eyes blinked open, looking straight up at Neela as if she were the only person in the room.
“Kuri darshani,” she murmured, a hazy grin on her face as she reached up and touched Neela‘s cheek. Neela smiled as relief flooded through her, and she quickly wiped away the tears that sprang to her eyes. No one else seemed comforted, however, and Kovac leaned across Neela to shine a light in Abby’s eyes.
“She’s altered,” he said grimly.
“No she’s not,” Neela said quickly. “That was Punjabi.” At this statement, everyone turned and looked at Neela blankly.
“She gets clocked over the head, and now she speaks Punjabi?” Pratt asked skeptically.
“No, of course not,” Neela frowned. “We just, I mean-- I was teaching her a few words earlier, that’s all.”
“Oh,” Kovac nodded, glancing back and forth between Abby, whose eyes had closed again, and Neela, who knelt beside her with one hand still stroking her forehead. “What did she say?” Neela opened and closed her mouth once, her eyes moving almost imperceptibly across the crowd gathered around them.
“Just…just hello,” she said lamely.
“All right,” Kovac nodded, putting the room at ease with one of his reassuring smiles. “Pupils are equal and reactive…she’s all right. Just needs a few stitches, and a little rest. Everyone back to work, please.” As the huddled group dispersed, Pratt and Kovac gently lifted Abby onto the gurney, and Sam glanced sideways at Neela appraisingly. “Neela,” Kovac said kindly, “do you want to do her sutures?”
“Please,” Neela nodded, missing the significant look he and Sam were sharing over her head, her eyes focused completely on Abby. The rest of the ER was a complete blur to her; she just kept her hands on the metal railing of the gurney, allowing Sam to steer them down the hall and into an unoccupied room. The usual whir of activity inside her brain had all been wiped away; for once, it took no effort at all to keep 100% of her conscious thought right there in the room with her, no footnotes of other cases, research studies, or news from her brother and sister at Uni crowding in around the edges. “I don’t care if Monday’s blue…” she hummed unconsciously to herself as she worked, determined to make the stitches as small and even as humanly possible. When she was done, she reached out and ran her hand gently through Abby’s hair, smiling at her peaceful expression, knowing she wouldn’t be feeling so tranquil once she woke up.
“She wasn’t really saying hello, was she?” Neela had completely forgotten that Sam was still in the room with them. She looked at the blond nurse appraisingly for a moment; all she saw was understanding, and the same easy camaraderie that Sam had always shared with Abby since they had been nurses together. Neela shook her head. “Well?” Sam prodded, a half-grin forming on her face.
“She said…beautiful girl,” Neela admitted, smiling sheepishly at the grinning nurse. “Don’t tell anyone, all right?”
“Neela, I don’t have to tell anyone,” Sam chuckled. “It was pretty obvious after the way you tackled that guy…you’re lucky you didn’t get hurt, you know, he was three times your size!”
“Oh, I took a few self-defense courses at Yale,” Neela shrugged, dropping all pretense and returning her adoring gaze to Abby, trailing her fingers up and down the soft skin of her inner arm. “I just had to keep him occupied a few moments till security turned up, didn’t I?”
“It’s good to know that even someone as smart as you gets stupid from love,” Sam teased. Neela grinned bashfully.
“Ohhhh…fuck me…” Abby groaned as she began to wake up, her hand going up to the stitches on her forehead before she’d even opened her eyes.
“Sssh, don’t touch,” Neela crooned, capturing Abby’s hand in both of hers and kissing it. “It’s just five stitches, pet…you’re all right.” Slowly opening her eyes, Abby took in the sight of Neela’s smiling face, wincing at the throbbing in her head.
“What the hell happened?” Abby asked sleepily, rubbing her eyes with her free hand.
“Well…you took a good knock on the head from a shock paddle,” Neela explained softly, returning to her previous activity of trailing her fingers lightly up Abby’s inner arm.
“And Neela earned her first pro-wrestling title,” Sam added. “But I think she might be disqualified for going outside her weight class.”
“What?” Abby exclaimed, sitting up quickly. “Ahhh…” she groaned, pressing her hand to her head. “Son of a bitch!”
“Sssh, relax,” Neela urged her again, pushing her forcibly back down. “You want something for the pain?”
“No…no drugs.”
“Are you sure? Because I can--”
“No, Neela. I can handle the pain better than the drugs, believe me.”
“Isn’t there anything I can do, pet?” Neela asked anxiously, her large eyes even wider than usual.
“Hmm…how about some sugar? I’ll have some of that.” Abby grinned saucily.
“Abby, don’t be fresh,” Neela admonished, with a glance to Sam.
“Oh, don’t mind me, I’m just leaving,” Sam said in a rush, gathering a few supplies and hurrying from the room with a wink. Once she had gone, Neela looked back down at Abby, who was still smirking up at her suggestively. With slow, deliberate movements, Neela put down the metal railing, and leaned over Abby on one elbow, her long hair trailing over Abby’s shoulders.
“You're a piece of work,” she murmured with a shake of her head.
“All part of my charm,” Abby drawled innocently.
“Mmhmm…” Neela’s reply was lost as their lips met, warm and wet and sweet.
“So what was that about pro-wrestling?”