I walked over to the side of the bed that was mussed about and I laid her down. It didn’t take me long to shimmy her shoes and socks off. She flopped onto the pillow, her eyes already growing heavy as she yawned.
“You should rest, Miss Elizabeth,” I said as I pulled the blanket up over her body.
“I’m not a child,” she muttered.
“I know you’re not,” I said as I tucked the blanket all around her body. “But you’re incredibly injured and still healing. You shouldn’t be walking as much as you are with Marla.”
She scoffed. “You said I needed to take daily walks.”
“Walks,” I said as I perched on the edge of the bed, “not marathons. You still need to be in this bed more than you need to be on your feet.”
“Whatever.”
She turned onto her side, and hearing her grunt and groan made that same place in my heart ache. If I was bedridden due to some shit I had no control over, I’d be pissed off, too. I hated being still. I hated not having something to do. My mindconstantly needed occupying, whether it was with a book, or someone’s medical file, or even just some video?—
An idea slammed into my head. “Miss Elizabeth?”
Her voice was low and mocking. “Yes, Mister Doctor?”
I had to suppress a chuckle as I reached out and smoothed a random stray hair off her forehead. “Want me to bring up a gaming system to hook up to your television?”
And that was when I saw her slowly turn to me.
“What kind of gaming system?”
“Got a team,”she said.
“Coming,” I said as I started a dead sprint. “You need a large shield.”
“Oh shit,” she hissed. “Fuck, fuck, fuck, that asshole’s got a rocket launcher.”
“Mounting over the fence now. You’re up the hill?”
“Yep, in the shadow of the water tower.”
“How many in the team?” I asked.
“Got two that are together, and a straggler who’s creeping around trying to find me. Don’t know if they’ve hired an NPC, or if it’s another team trying to third party whoever finds each other first.”
My character I controlled busted through the doors of the building. “Just gotta get through this—fuck!”
“Coming!” she exclaimed.
Hooking up an Xbox to her television and getting Fortnite going did wonders for her spirits. She went from grumbling at me like an old fogey to working in tandem with me to get to the finish line. Granted, Fortnite wasn’t some grand adventure or something. We couldn’t use our personal accounts because ofeverything going on. But with how Ranger had my place locked down, guest accounts were something we could at least indulge whenever we needed a moment away from reality.
“One down!” Miss Elizabeth exclaimed.
“Did they go straight down?” I asked as I jumped out of a hiding spot and shotgunned someone in the face.
“Whoa! Where the hell were you hiding?” she asked.
“This little porta-pott?—”
“No!” she exclaimed.
I watched one of the players pop up and give me a shotgun straight to the back of the head.
“I’m down,” I said.
