Blue Diamond

Chapter Ten: Flowers And Formations

Grace sniffed at this, and wiped an unshed tear from her eye. "Can't gather why you like your tea like

that. Putting lemon it makes it taste like Windex."

"Just get me a cup of tea."

"Cures all ills don't it?" Grace roughly sniffed again, and then leaned over to give Mona a gentle kiss that left her body longing and her head reeling in thumping pain. "Back in a few. I'll get one for you, too, John."

John gave a nod of acknowledgement and Grace slipped out of the room, leaving John and Mona alone together. She propped herself up on her pillows with effort, the headache and residual aches from the fall down the cellar stairs poking her in odd places. She felt bruised all over, like a mishandled fruit, soft and swollen with ugly dark marks flush across her arms, legs and abdomen.

John's furrowed professional concern followed every move she made. "I'm not broken china, so don't fret. I can think of many places far more conducive to rest and relaxation than a hospital bed, true, and with all these flowers the ambience here is a tad funereal for my liking.

Believe me, John, I'd much rather be at home making you and Perrin your daily breakfast. Have you been eating properly since I've been out?"

John didn't answer her. He picked up her chart, the deep wrinkles in his brow furrowing deeper as he went over it, and he didn't bother to hide his agitation with what he found there. With chart still in hand, he went over her vitals and checked the machines monitoring her pulse, along with the drip that was steadily giving her some much needed pain killers to keep her aches at bay. He took her arm and gently bent it at the elbow, watching her wincing expression as he manipulated the joint and she fought the urge to pull her arm away. It felt like needles were poking through her skin from the inside and leaving her funny bone aching. He released his grip and let her battered arm fall softly onto her stomach.

St. Mary's wasn't a terrible hospital, though many of the nurses and doctors were familiar with Grace and her

usual basement meetings with their coroner. Manny was currently working in the morgue and had offered up promises that she would be up for a visit. John was poor company at present, he was restless as he inspected the annoying equipment she was hooked up to with a routine ease, his baby finger tapping along the side of her chart in thoughtful reflection as he went over the numbers. 'He must be having memories of his glory days,' Mona thought, and she felt a pang of empathy for John. She'd had a light tap on her cranium in comparison to what had happened to him. She'd recover fully, she didn't have bits of shrapnel floating around in her grey chunks, there was nothing cutting off the ebb and flow of information and if there were gaps that was the responsibility of her subconscious, and who knew where that was hiding.

A harried, rushed young nurse entered her room, her pink face a mask of professional courtesy, though Mona understood her bruised face coupled with how she had ended up here was all the nurses at their station could talk about. No one needed The Daily Mail when one had Nurse O'Connor on the grapevine. Nurse O'Connor smoothed down her pink elephant scrubs before taking the chart from John, who forced her to take a look at something on the chart, a silent understanding being exchanged between them.

"I agree, that would be a problem," a paled Nurse O'Connor said to him. She inspected Mona's arm and gave her a pinched smile, which did nothing to alleviate Mona's growing concern that something was seriously wrong.

John rolled back and forth on his heels, his hands clasped behind his back in professional observation. "I'll be sure to let Dr. Fraiser know."

It was an odd exchange, and John, in his little brown corduroys and his worn grey jumper, did not seem, in this moment, quite so simple. He gave her a warm smile and pressed her hand in his in a reassuring squeeze, his