nurse easily, and she shrugged. There had been no further response from her all evening. Maybe it had been a reflex, or maybe she was just so beaten up, she wanted no part of the world anymore. She had withdrawn into a place where no one could touch her. Sometimes that happened.
He sat down in the chair next to her, and the nurse left, and he put his finger in her hand again, but nothing happened. And she looked more than ever as though she were in a deep coma. He was just about to give up on her when he saw her move her arm in his direction, and stretch out two fingers toward him. Her eyes were closed, but he knew that she had heard him.
“Are you talking to me?” he asked gently. “How about saying something to me?” They needed to know if she could speak, and eventually if she could reason. But right now a word, a look, a sound would have been enough for him. “How about singing me a little song or something?” He had a funny, easy way with patients in the most devastating circumstances, which made both his patients and his nurses love him. And his remarkable skill in bringing people back from the dead, or damn close to it, had won him the respect of his colleagues.
“Come on, Gabriella, how about it? The ‘Star-Spangled Banner’ maybe? Or what about Twinkle, Twinkle’?” He sang it to her, softly, and very off-key, and a nurse wandering by grinned at him. He was a little crazy, but they loved him. “What about ‘ABC? It's the same tune, you know. I'll do ‘ABC,’ you do Twinkle, Twinkle?” And as he chattered on to her, suddenly there was a soft moan and a sound that was anything but human.
“Which one was that?” he asked, sensing victory beckoning him, and wanting to snatch it quickly. “Was that ‘ABC’ or Twinkle, Twinkle’? I recognized the tune, but I didn't quite catch the lyrics.” She groaned again, louder this time, and he knew she was coming back to them. This was no reflex. And this time, her eyelids fluttered, and he could see that she was trying to open them, but her eyes were still very swollen. And very gently, he reached down and tried to help her. And just as he touched her, her eyes opened slowly. All she saw was a blur, but she could see the outline of someone standing there. She couldn't see the tears in his eyes as he watched her. He wanted to shout, “Gotcha!” By sheer will, if nothing else, they had snatched her back from the dark recesses of death. And maybe, just maybe, she was going to make it.
“Hello, Gabriella. Welcome back, we missed you.” She groaned again. Her lips were still too swollen to speak clearly but he could see she was trying. There were a lot of questions they wanted to ask her, about what had happened and who had done this to her, but it was much too soon now. “How do you feel, or is that a really stupid question?” This time she nodded, and then closed her eyes. Moving her head was excruciatingly painful. She moaned at him again, and opened her eyes a minute later. “I bet you do.” He could give her something for the pain eventually, but having just come out of the coma, he didn't want to get her all doped up yet. She was going to have to live with it for a while longer. “Do you think you can say anything to me yet?… I mean other than sing Twinkle, Twinkle.’ “ He could see she was trying to smile at him, but the grimace she made instead was much too painful.
“Hurts,” was the one word she finally came up with. It was a cross between a groan and a whisper.
“I'll bet it does.” He couldn't begin to imagine where, there were so many possibilities to choose from. “Your head?”
“Yes…” she whispered, and sounded a little less croaky. “Arm… face…” There weren't too many places on her body that hadn't been battered. But she was also coherent enough now that he knew there were other questions he had to ask her. The police were due back in the morning. They had been keeping close tabs on her. It was the worst assault they'd seen in years, and they wanted to catch the guy who did it.