“Take a deep breath, Mr. Barber,” Dr. Fletcher told me as the surgical crew working on my head finished up with the last of their tweaks. “We’re almost done.”
My instinct was to nod “okay”, but my head was clamped in a vise that had held it perfectly still through the entire procedure. I wasn’t happy about being awake through each of the treatments I’d undergone in the last six months, but once the Bangers & Mash Labs team had completed the first few treatments with me put under, they’d needed me awake to guide them as they poked around my brainstem.
At least I had Jack there, holding my hand, or rather, my foot, since he couldn’t get in the way of the surgeons, through the whole thing.
“You’re doing great, sweetheart,” he said, giving my foot a squeeze.
It was impossible for him to be anywhere other than as far away from my head, where the surgical team was working. It felta little silly to have my husband threading his fingers through my toes while two doctors and an assistant worked with lasers in my brain, but I could already feel Jack as much as I could see him whenever I opened my eyes, so I wasn’t going to complain.
“And that should be it,” Dr. Fletcher said, leaning back carefully and pulling the amazing laser tools he’d been working with away from the tiny holes in the back of my skull that had been drilled during those first procedures. “As far as I can tell, we have all the physiological damage repaired.”
“Thanks, Doc,” I murmured as much as I could with my head trapped the way it was. I wasn’t a hundred percent sure the words actually came out of my mouth.
“We can seal up those holes now, and with a few weeks of rest and recovery, you’ll never know anyone was ever inside your skull,” Dr. Fletcher went on.
“That’s a relief,” Jack spoke from the end of the bed. “He’s already seen so much progress since the treatment began.”
“Well, Quincy here was an ideal candidate for the trial,” Dr. Fletcher said, stepping into my line of vision as his team patched up the back of my head. “He was young when his sever happened, he’s still young, and he’s deeply in love with his husband. It’s been clear to us from the start that he desperately wants to bond with you.”
“Just like I want to bond with him,” Jack said, holding my foot tightly.
“That’s what really counts with ReBond and recovery,” Dr. Fletcher said, touching his hand over mine as it rested on the arm of the unique surgical chair that had been specifically designed for the procedure. “The brain physiology involved in bonding is only a tiny fraction of what causes alpha and omega pairs to bond. That’s one thing that the creators of the original severing procedure didn’t understand. That procedure, which should be outlawed, if you ask me, is tantamount tobrain damage, but that’s all it is. The essence of bonding isn’t something physical. It's not something we understand scientifically, at least not completely. Which is why the will to bond with a new alpha is proving to be the single most important determining factor in reversing the effects of severing.”
I thought I understood what Dr. Fletcher was saying. Then again, I was mostly out of it from anesthesia.
Jack understood that. In fact, I was pretty sure he could feel how I felt, even though we hadn’t fully bonded yet. The initial tendrils of the bond I knew we would eventually complete had already started reaching out between the two of us, and we already had an innate sense of each other. To celebrate that, I’d had the tattoos on my side and chest redone. Instead of harsh thorns, they were now verdant, blossoming rose bushes. I’d added a new rose after each procedure I’d undergone, and soon my entire body would be a garden.
“Is it safe to let him sleep now?” Jack asked. “I think he could use it.”
“It’s absolutely safe now,” Dr. Fletcher said, stepping away from me. My eyes were closed now, but before I drifted off entirely, thanks to whatever the nurse had just plunged into my IV, I heard him say, “You’re a very lucky omega, Mr. Barber.”
I was the luckiest omega in the entire world.
I wasn’tsure how long I slept. There was no telling what time it was in the operating room, and each of the surgical procedures I’d undergone in the last few months had taken hours. When I drifted groggily awake, I was in my hospital room at the Bangers & Mash facility, and sunshine streamed in through the large picture window that looked out over the mountains.
I only kept my eyes open, looking at it, for a second before closing them again. I didn’t feel like waking up all the way yet. Ididn’t really need to. I knew I was safe. Even if Jack hadn’t been pacing the foot of my bed, talking on the phone, I was able to feel his presence, his confidence, and his happiness.
“Right, Imogen, exactly,” he said as he walked back and forth, nodding and rubbing his chin. “All we need to do is file a petition with the courts to open Horton and Claude’s records and we should be able to take the lawsuit to court.” He paused a bit, then continued with, “Yep. And justice will be served at last.”
I smiled, though I wasn’t sure if the expression made it all the way to my lips. Horton and Claude were the company that currently performed severing procedures. One of the first things Jack had done when he’d broken away from his dad’s law firm, which had been about to go under anyhow, after the allegations of fraud proved to be fact, was to start his own law firm. The new firm was dedicated to fighting for the little guy against large corporations and the billionaires who tried to control them.
It had taken him a while to put things together without showing a huge conflict of interest or bias, but within a few months, he’d started building the case to sue Horton and Claude and to have the severing procedure deemed illegal and shut down. People had argued that there were cases where omegas wanted to be severed from their alphas, and I didn’t doubt that, but since Bangers & Mash Labs was also working on a safer, more equitable, less torturous procedure to accomplish the same thing, everyone thought Jack’s law firm stood a good chance of getting the older severing procedure banned.
I must have drifted off, because the next thing I knew, Jack’s phone was ringing. He was sitting on the ledge of the window, and he answered with a hopeful, “Hello?” There was a pause before he went on with, “Hi, Nancy, yeah. Quincy came through the procedure with flying colors. I’m just waiting for him to wake up.”
I should really have opened my eyes and let him know that I was awake. Sort of.
“Yes,” Jack continued. “I’m still on forFiddler on the Roof. I might miss a few rehearsals when Quincy’s heat hits, but we should be in the clear well before performances. Yeah, I’m really looking forward to it, too.”
I smiled again, and this time I felt my mouth do what my brain wanted it to. I’d been so proud of Jack when he’d auditioned for the Norwalk Family Theater again, and even more proud when he’d scored the lead inFiddler. The audition had been about proving something at first, proving that Jack was the master of his own life and could do what he dreamed of doing. It had turned into more than that as soon as Nancy had phoned him to beg him to join the troupe that year.
We’d moved out of Barrington and bought a house in Norwalk within days of that phone call. Salisbury’s trial had still been going on at that point, and just like Jack had predicted, his mom had taken a huge chunk of change and run, but neither of those things needed Jack to be in Barrington. He’d already severed ties with anything Salisbury, going so far as to take the radical and unheard-of step of legally changing his name to mine when we were married instead of the other way around. The lawyers sorting out Salisbury’s, well, everything, had told Jack he was entitled to a large chunk of the family money. At least, the money that would be left once the courts had their share.
Jack had said thanks but no thanks. Okay, he’d had the money he was entitled to put into a trust for our future children. But he’d refused to take any of it himself, saying we would make our own way from now on.
And so far, that’s exactly what we were doing. The house in Norwalk was modest but comfortable and good enough for now. Participating in the ReBond trial was free. I hadn’t been well enough to work since Jack and I had finally gotten together, butDr. Fletcher assured me I would be hale and hearty in a few months. I planned to get a job then. Amelia had already hooked me up with her counterpart in Norwalk’s Grand Hotel.
Everything was turning out exactly the way it should.
