My Life. My Only One.

The Morning After

The light shinning through the window fell softly on her as she slept in the chair next to the bed. Can had managed to sleep the through the night and it was just as well. Emre and their crew of two had been battered in some way or another. She had tended to their wounds once Can had fallen asleep and then, dead on her feet; she came back to the cabin and checked on Can one last time before all but collapsing on the chair next to his bed. Neither one of them heard Emre tap on the door a few times before coming in. He had steaming tea and toast for Sanem and another tea for Can and a broth that the cook had made. He looked at them both and they looked quite poorly at the moment. Sanem never changed out of her clothes and she was covered in dirt and blood as well as the dried blood on her knees that he could barely see as her legs were tucked up under her. He decided to come back with bandages and boiled water and prepare to tend to their "doctor" for she had been more than a nurse to all of them.
Sanem woke to the smell of cay. She opened her eyes but she couldn't see out of one of them. She tried again but this time it hurt enough that she gave up. Feeling her face she was shocked to feel a lump on her cheek and another on her chin. Then as she stretched her legs out the pain in her shins and knees caused her to yelp a little before covering her mouth so she wouldn't wake Can. She looked at her tattered dress, dirty and covered in blood and then at her legs that were as bad or worse. Before she could rise, Emre had returned and asked Sanem to sit back so that he could look at her legs and face. She declined at first saying she was fine but he wouldn't hear of it. Not only did he want to do it but his brother would have his hide if he learned that he hadn't taken care of Sanem. After doing his best to clean up her wounds he left her to her breakfast saying he would come back later. What Sanem really needed was a bath and she knew that she had but to ask the crewman and the tub would be made ready. Instantly she had the strangest feeling that she had been in the tub before. In fact it was not a feeling but more like a memory. She walked toward the tub and again she felt the edges of her brain give way to an image of herself in the tub.....naked....with Can. She clapped her hands over her face covering her mouth and eyes lest she scream. How in the world could she had dreamt something so vivid. She looked back at Can's still body on the bed and then back to the tub and instinctively she knew it was no dream or fancy it was real. As real as she was. She had been in that tub with Can and she had been naked as a new born babe and he nearly as well. She remembered now that he had said he had taken measures in order to reduce her high fever and that finally something had worked. He had told her not to be ashamed he only did what had to be done and nothing more. She felt a pull to the man who had rescued her time and again. She walked over to him and moved a strand of hair away from his face while he slept.
Sanem ate her breakfast quickly. She wasn't aware how hungry she was until she bit into the toast. It took her no time at all to devour it and then drink her tea. Their were some dates and cheese on a platter and she ate those as well delighting in the sweetness of the dates against the tang of the cheese. She could have been in the palace itself and not tasted anything as delicious as that breakfast that morning. She stood and walked over to Can. His breathing was even and measured. She was grateful that he was not experiencing any type of fever for the moment. He had drank nearly the entire bottle of whiskey so she knew that he would be out for hours yet. She pulled back the blanket and sheet to look at his wound. As she did so she marveled at his muscled chest and arms. She had never seen a man half naked before. Her brother Osman didn't count, and he wasn't yet a man full grown. Can was beautiful and masculine all at once. How someone could be this gorgeous was beyond her understanding. She blinked a few times and gathered her wits. After all she was there to tend to him, not ogle him. Gently pulling away the bandage from his wound she noted that it was not covered in blood or puss which was a very good sign. The wound shown angry and red but the skin was not very puckered where she had sewn it. He would have a scar, and she was sorry for that; but he was alive and that was more than good enough. She coated a cloth in alcohol and wiped around the edges of the wound and then applied one of her creams to the area. Can made no sound nor did he move. She was glad for it. She was not prepared to face him yet. She owed him an apology and she didn't have the words to begin to say how sorry she was. She covered the wound back up and then decided that she needed to bath his upper body as he too was crusted in blood and dirt from the previous nights harrowing ordeal. There were areas on his body that had minor injuries that she hadn't noticed last night and she would see to those as well. She inspected his face next. She caught her breath once again as she looked at him with careful and concentrated eyes. He was cut in several places above his left eye. They looked superficial but needed to be cleaned so as not to get infected or to scar. His worst injury was to his jaw and cheekbone that extended back to his eye. Like her own, his eye was swollen shut and had already turned purplish green. She felt around to see if there were any signs of broken facial bones and was relieved to find that all seemed in place if not sore from injury. Next she looked at his lips and although the bottom one was split, and covered in caked and dried blood she couldn't help but smile at how beautiful and full his lips were. She imagined what it might feel like to kiss him. Almost instantly she admonished herself for the thought and looked elsewhere on his face for other injuries that she had missed the night before. Feeling good about her assessment she rolled up her sleeves and left the room in search of the crew.
Can felt as thought his head was buried in a barrel. He heard sounds but had no idea which direction they were coming from or what they were. What he did know was that they sounded as if the earth were splitting in two. He made to sit up in the bed and growled and gripped the bedding with both his hands as pain shot through him all the way up to his head. He immediately broke out in a sweat at the intensity of the pain. Grasping for the chance to take a deep breath he willed himself to breath slowly and evenly until he was able to breath fully without wincing in pain. He lifted his left hand that was resting above the cover and moved it under and down his body until he touched what felt like bandages on his left side. Almost at once, he remembered the searing pain he had felt when he had been slammed into the wine barrels during the storm. In the next moment he remembered Sanem. Sanem. Where was Sanem? He tried opening his eyes but found that it was more difficult a task than it should have been. He wondered if there was a cloth covering his eyes and moved both of his hands up slowly to feel for it. There was no cloth, but what he felt made him groan in pain and misery. His face felt like it had been beaten to a pulp. Almost everywhere he touched it hurt or stung or felt like it was three sizes larger than it should have been. Again he tried to open his eyes and this time managed to open one. He looked around and saw that he was in his room and that it was daylight. No storm, but no Sanem. He moved his head to the right and then to the left and saw no trace of her. No shoes, no dress, nothing that would have signaled that she too had been in the room since the night before. He felt sick as nausea came over him and fear took over his body. He needed to get out of his bed and look for her. He needed to know where she was or what had happened to her. He remembered that when he had moved the first time it had rendered him helpless so he decided to move slowly. He pulled the covers away from his body. Easing them off of him. He was holding on to his sanity by a thread. "Sanem"....."Sanem".....Allah be merciful and let her be alright. Let her be here. He gripped the edge of the bed as he shifted on to his side in order to swing his legs off the bed. "Sanem......Sannnneemm"! Instantly he felt a hot poker invade his brain. It was attacking his eyes, his ears, his mouth and his gut. A white searing light filled his single vision and sweat poured off his brow. He let our a guttural sound and suddenly before everything went black he looked up to see a young girl running to his side with arms outstretched and saying something he couldn't understand and then blessed silence filled his mind.
Sanem made her way back to the cabin with towels and bandages,while the crewman followed with buckets of steaming water for the bath and Emre carrying another tray of food for Can who would be waking up soon. No sooner had she turned the corner to the room did she here her name being called out in a horse and guttural tone. Her hair stood on end and she ran the last few steps opening the door and lunging forward as she saw Can begin to fall forward off of the bed. "Caaannn......Caaaannnn".. "help me" she yelled over her shoulder to the men as they all scrambled to help her catch Can's large frame before it hit the planked floor. Sanem managed to get to him and with strength she didn't even know she had managed to push his upper body enough to gain her time as the men came in right behind her and easily moved him back onto the bed. She had looked into his face through her swollen eye and her good eye at him as he too looked at her through his only good eye. He had seen her and then blacked out. Emre, right behind her; helped to relocate him further up and over in the bed so that if he needed to get up, which he surely would soon enough he could do it with help and not cause himself to fall. She moved around him not even caring that she was looking at him in his underwear as she assessed wether or not he had done any damage to his injury. For the moment everything looked fine. She looked at Emre and said "when will we make for land? It would be good for him to see a doctor. I only have some supplies and they are not completely adequate for the challenge". Emre looked worried and paced for a few seconds. Stopping he turned to Sanem and quietly and with directness said "I'm not entirely sure where we are".