Aftermath

Ch 8: Floating

Kota

I was startled awake by a pressure on my upper arm. It was the automatic blood pressure cuff, yet again. Slowly, the cuff deflated, leaving my bicep tingling. 

Tentatively, I evaluated the rest of my body. Surprisingly, I felt no pain. I reached a little deeper, finding that it was still there, but it was like a force field had been enacted, keeping it at bay where it couldn't reach me.

Instead, I felt warm. Secure. Safe, almost like I was floating, weightless. 

Half-asleep, I stayed still, not wanting the weightless feeling to leave. Maybe this is what astronauts experience in space. Or Mars. Though Mars is in space, so it's all the same. I would probably prefer Mars to space in general. It depended on if the starship Enterprise was involved. No, that's a TV show, dummy. Or a movie. So the Enterprise was out.

Perhaps once Earth colonized Mars, I could take a short trip and check it out.  Just for a few days; based on satellite feeds, there wasn't much to see. I definitely didn't want to live there; the Academy probably wouldn't be active there for a while, and I loved what I did too much. Maybe Sang would want to go with me for a few days; she enjoyed learning about new things. And Max. I wouldn't want to leave Max for very long either, not if I didn't have to. But that wouldn't work; dogs probably didn't do well in zero-gravity, even a dog as talented as Max.

What am I thinking? Floating, Mars, zero-gravity? My thoughts weren't connecting as fast as usual, and my mind kept veering off onto tangents.

I might be high.

But there wasn't anything I could do about it, not right now, so I went back to daydreaming.

So Mars is out. Maybe Sang and I can find somewhere else to go, somewhere on Earth. We could bring the whole team. And Max too, of course.

I was partly asleep again, trying to put together dog-friendly vacation options when I heard Gabriel arrive. "Where the f*ck did everybody go? I hurried all the way back."

"Shh! My patient is asleep," Sean said quietly from where he sat beside me.

That's what you think, I snickered to myself. I thought about admitting I was awake, but honestly, I felt like I was wrapped in a cocoon of contentment. I wasn't ready to emerge yet.

Cocoon? Emerge? As what? A butterfly? Yikes. I liked the space analogy better.

Sean's volume diminished as he stood and walked away. "As it happens, the nursing staff wasn't too thrilled about Kota having seven visitors at a time, family or not. We're working on it, but not everyone will get to stay. For his sake, not everyone needs to. That's too much for him to handle."

I couldn't quite make out Gabriel's answer.

"Yeah, I know you called it, although Sang was first. We'll take shifts over the next few days. We had a shadow, so North and Silas are handling that," Sean exposited. "Charlie's calling Silas in to work tomorrow since school is out, so he's headed home. Some of others left to eat; they were a little late for the cafeteria, and Pookie hadn't had dinner—"

"Fuck! We can't let her do that."

"No harm done; she's eating now. She needed to see that Kota was okay before she would eat," Sean said. "Besides, if she did faint, she'd be in the right place."

Silly, but I couldn't help but smile, more widely than I should. The smile pulled at my swollen lip, but I didn't care—about anything.

Gabriel let out a quiet snicker. "I guess so. But she doesn't need to faint, no matter where she is. I made sure her vitamins were in her bag."