Way of the Warrior (Troubleshooters #17.5)(87)
They’d released her from the WTU yesterday. Thank goodness Joint Base Lewis-McChord had one of the Warrior Transition Units right on the base. That meant she’d been able to go through much of her recovery in her own apartment. Well, if the WTU had decided to declare her healthy, then she’d start acting healthy.
She was still awkward without the crutches. Once dressed, she walked back and forth across the apartment several times. With a curse, she assessed herself as not stable enough to go out without at least a cane. She’d long since discovered just how badly it hurt when she took an unexpected tumble, and this wasn’t a good day for that.
They’d promised that this foot with its aluminum core and titanium fittings was solid and durable enough for her to run on, but she still found that hard to credit. The nerve sensations she received from her missing foot had nothing to do with what her new one was doing. She actually did better if she didn’t keep looking down to see when it was on the ground and when it was in the air, but it was hard to break the habit when she couldn’t actually feel the ground. Every step was a surprise when ground contact actually occurred—especially because she felt it in her calf and knee, not her foot.
At the door, she really, really wished she didn’t have to hold onto the knob for a good ten minutes before she could force herself to go through, but she did. That, too, was part of her new reality.
Head finally high, she made it out the door and through the small lobby. Thankfully, she had a ground floor unit, as the complex had no elevators. Refusing the ADA-compliant access ramp, between her cane and the railing she did manage the three steps out front. The Medical Evaluation Board offices were only a half mile away. She could have called for a car, but for a woman used to twenty-mile runs, it was too demeaning. NSDQ. NSDQ.
Summer had given way to fall in the Pacific Northwest while she’d recovered. The blazing arid heat of the high passes of the Hindu Kush would be switching to freezing temperatures and impassible snow. She’d always been a Northwest gal and could smell that fresh snap left by an overnight rain, which would have been snow atop the nearby fourteen-thousand-foot peak of Mount Rainier. The thick smell of evergreen and undertone of moss. She could practically taste the apple cider season on the air. The hint of the ocean from the waters of Puget Sound. The sunlight cool as it shone off the wet paving of the walkway. This was home. At least until the Army medically retired her and said it wasn’t anymore.
“Hey, Lois. How’s life on the Daily Planet today?”
“Hey, Clark. Doing just super!” And she was doing a little better for Kendall Clark’s presence. She’d allowed herself an hour to cross the half mile to the MEB building, so she could afford to stop and rest a moment after the first hundred yards. “How about you?”
“Super, now that I’ve run into you.” And he really did look super. Always a little standoffish but a pleasure to look at.
“Haven’t seen you in a bit.” Not since before her accident.
“Was at the Sikorsky home office in Connecticut for some upgrade training the last couple months. Didn’t know you were back until just yesterday.”
“Back.” Nice way to put it. Nicest she’d heard yet.
Clark was the Black Hawk specialist embedded at Fort Lewis by Sikorsky—the Hawk’s manufacturer. Part engineer, part instructor, and all around good egg. It was inevitable that they’d been thrown together, aside from the training he provided. With him being almost the Clark Kent mild-mannered alias of the superhero, it had been inevitable.
Others had picked up on it even before they met. Crazy Tim had started it, of course, going way out of his way to introduce them. Then he’d set off on a quest to find a Jimmy and a Perry to form the “ultimate team against evil.” He hadn’t reported any results yet. Of course, Crazy Tim was still aloft in Afghanistan, and she was permanently grounded in Washington State, a bitter pill she did her best to spit out rather than swallow.
? ? ?
Kendall’s eyes kept tracking down to Lois’s uncovered prosthetic foot. He’d pull them away and look back up at her eyes, but it was clearly giving him trouble.
“It’s okay, Clark. I’m going to just have to get used to it.” She wasn’t happy about it but tried not to sound too upset either; she was the one who’d chosen the skirt after all. “Go ahead, give it the good once-over.” She leaned on her cane and turned it sideways for him to see.
He squatted down to look, then had the decency to glance back up at her to make sure it was okay. He was such a geek, one of his more charming features. Actually, one of his many charming features. She’d always liked him once Tim had bumped them together.
“The Soleus Tactical,” she filled him in. “They designed it specifically for a double amputee named Dale Beatty. National Guard guy who hit an IED over in the Dustbowl.” Iraq and Afghanistan lacked many things, but they had plenty of dust. Six months out and she could still feel it clogging her pores.
“Slick. The springs are adjustable?”
It was the first time anyone other than a doctor or physical therapist had even been allowed to see it. If there was anyone to be her “first time,” she liked that it was Kendall. For reasons she didn’t care to contemplate, she was ridiculously tempted to run her hand through his black hair not so different from Clark Kent’s. Was she that desperate for company?