a new dawn || bear & frelance

Strength, she had come to learn, came in many more forms than just being able to lift heavy objects. It came in surprising ways and from people that were so fragile they couldn't lift a flower from the ground. She had seen people at their weakest point showing more strength than she had ever had in her entire life and had watched the srongest of men be struck low.

Jake Young was the strongest man she'd ever met.

He'd arrived at her hospital weeks ago as one of the worst that she'd seen, his body a bloodied and mangled mess and out of his head with the pain. Like most that came through her doors, he was a thrashing and bloody beast that had to be subdued physically and with medications before he lost more than what the surgeons had already surmised they would have to remove.

His surgery had been lenghty and she'd watched his chest rise and fall under the harsh glow of the operating lights. She watched as a piece of him that was so vital to everything he was had been cut away, flesh folded carefully over what remained to make his recovery easier. And though she had tried to stay away, she'd found herself lingering at his bedside while he slept, her fingers lingering on his wrist as she took his pulse.

He had been through hell and come back out the other side like no one else. He was... Stronger than she'd ever be. He really was incredible.

And even now that he was awake she found herself watching him, though this time was quite literally. The chair had been left in his room by an orderly hours ago and she'd seen him staring at it. Her eyes moved over his face as the thoughts started to pass over his face.

No... She tried to convince herself that he wasn't going to attempt it, but she could see determination as clear in the set of his lips and the way he stared.

And she couldn't. She couldn't just watch anymore. She cast one more glance at the other nurses before straying away, walking slowly into his room before giving a light rap on the open door with her knuckles. Her eyes moved to the empty lunch tray that had been abandoned and back to him, a smile coming slow to her lips as she worked on the fabricated story behind why she was here.

"Hey, Jake... Did you enjoy your lunch?" She moved towards the tray, trying to avoid looking at the abandoned wheelchair, "Is there anything else I can get you?"

Jake woke in a cold sweat from another nightmare where he relived what little he could remember of the night that had led him to this moment. He hadn't had not been able to sleep for more than a few hours at a time since his Humvee had been hit by an IED. He still couldn't remember much of what had happened. Jake had heard the explosion and the fire rip through the bottom of the vehicle as he and the rest of his squad did what they could to get out. The next thing he remembered was the being dragged across the ground as he looked down at what was left of his legs which were missing both feet around half his lower leg. He had attempted to raise his weapon when he saw that enemy combatants were following them but he blacked out before he could pull the trigger.

The next time he woke up was when he was being transferred onto a gurney and rolled through a hospital. He couldn't remember if he had just been panicking or if the drugs had worn off and he was able to feel the pain but he had quickly been strapped down and he had felt the sharp prick of a needle in his arm just seconds before his eyes closed and he fell unconscious again. The next time he woke he was in bed and a nurse was standing over him. It had taken him an embarrassingly long time to remember that she looked familiar because she had been there when he had been brought in. It wasn't long after that the doctor was called in and he started to explain to Jake that most of his calf had been do damaged to save but his knees had not taken to much damage so they had been able to save them and a small portion of the calf. When Jake had pulled back the blanket on his bed he had wanted to scream at the man. There was barely more than two inches of his calf left and it had been the discipline drilled into him by the military that kept him from lashing out at the man but it must have been clear on his face because the doctor had quickly tried to reassure him that he was a great candidate for a pair of prosthetic.

As the weeks went by he had wallowed in self-pity and guilt for surviving after he had found out that he had been the only one to survive from his Humvee. In that time his sister had visited and they had both put on brave faces that only lasted until she had left. He had told her that he didn't want to see anyone else and because of that he was not to surprised when she came with a letter and a copy of Starship Troopers that his high school English teacher had wanted her to pass to him on her next visit. He had left the both sitting by his bed for a few weeks but eventually the boredom of spending hours along in the room was to much and he had opened the letter and read it.

Dear Jake,
While I have not experienced the dangers you faced or the pain you are going through first had I have studied the subject extensively over the years. It is clear to me that to much time has been spent recording the events of battle but not enough is spent speaking about what the brave men and women like yourself have to go through to re-integreate into society when you return home from your tours of duty. Know you for the amount of time I did I have no doubt that you are not pushing forward with this new part of your duty but I am here to tell you that you are one of the rare nuggets that make my job worth it. So do not let that go to waste.

“We necessarily sift a great many pebbles, much sand, for each nugget—but the nuggets”
― Robert A. Heinlein, Starship Troopers
Ps. Once your read the book I would enjoy hearing your thoughts so I can use it as a teaching device for younger students.

Sincirly,
Mr. Davis


Jake had read the letter a few times over the past couple days as he read through the book. When had woke up he had felt ready to try and prove to his teacher that he had been worth the praise in the letter and so when he had been served breakfast he had cleared the tray off in record time before he had been taken to see his counsellor but once back in his room he had got back to sleep only to be awoken by the smell of hot food.

As he ate he kept glancing over at the wheelchair that had been left beside the bed and by the time he had finished his meal and pushed the table away he almost convinced himself to try and get into the chair. It was as he was sitting on the edge of the bed that Ms. Thorne came into the room. "It was better than military rations so it was fine." He had pulled his attention away from the chair as he spoke and he couldn't help but notice how she seemed to be avoiding looking at the chair. "I don't need anything but please stick around for a few minutes." He turned away from her without another word almost positive that someone had left the chair as a test for him which annoyed him but at the same time he couldn't bring himself to ignore it. So as he reached out to grabbed the armrests he spoke again. "Someone here is a sadist you know that? I don't know the first thing about these fucking things." Even as he spoke though he kept shifting his weight as he tried to figure out the best way to get into the chair.

Finally he tried to just reach to the far side and move his body over to the chair before lowering himself. It almost worked but just as he was lowering himself his left arm gave way and he fell hard into the chair with his weight to far to one side. I caused the chair to tilt and before he could reach out to the bed to pull it back the chair passed the point of no return. He curled into a ball just before it slammed into a floor tossing Jake from the chair. He let out a cry of pain as he rolled onto his back and reached down to the stump of one left. "Mother fucker, that fucking chair can't be that complicated." He slowly released his leg and lay on the floor for a few moments before he got to his hands and knees ignoring the pain that shot up his legs so he could try and put the wheelchair back onto all its wheels.

The scene before her was a train wreck that was just waiting to happen and she felt helpless standing there to stop it. Everything seemed to move in slow motion and every muscle in her body tensed up as his rump moved from bed to chair. A small butterfly of hope managed to flutter in her chest for half a second before she saw his elbow wobble and finally give, tossing him quite unceremoniously into the chair, which promptly tipped and dumped him into the floor.

Maggie's breat caught in her throat and for a moment she was still frozen in place before she broke the stillness of her own horror at his attempt and aching failure. She took one step forward, then another reluctant one as she watched him push himself onto his knees and start to struggle with the chair to attempt to get it topside again. Her heart crumbled in her chest and she fought against tears, kneeling down next to him.

"Jake," He voice was just a soft breath, her hand reaching out to place very gently over his and stop his desperate attempts. "You subborn mule. You're going to hurt yourself." It was a jab, but her tone was anything but angry, the worry obvious on her porcelain face. Her lips were turned down just slightly at the corners and her eyes still seeming to nearly brim with tears. He was going to do worse than hurt himself. He was going to bust open his wounds and make her have to wrap him up fresh again.

She was gentle as she moved his hands off the chair, propping it up herself. His pride was injured more than he was, and she knew that it was important. "You know what, I think they forgot to lock the stupid wheels. This chair has always been the worst." She assured him, leaning down to lock all of the wheels for him before she moved to hold it steady. "Why don't you try again?"

He refused to look at her as Maggie knelt down beside him. When he had got onto his knees he had known there would be pain but he had not seen been prepared for the memory of being blown out of the Humvee that was going to accompany it. Jake flinched when he felt her hand over his but that same touch pulled him out of his flashback. It was only then that he realized how frantically he had been trying to right the wheel chair. "Sorry to disappoint you but it's too late to prevent that." He gave her a weak smile trying to hide the pain not wanting her to worry for him more than she already was.

Jake thought he saw tears in her eyes but he said nothing not wanting to put her in an awkward position. He crooked an eyebrow at her as she said that the wheels hadn't been locked before but nodded deciding to at least try and believe her. With only a slight grimace he reached up and grabbed a hold of the back of the chair before pulling himself up. Once he was seated he tried to get comfortable but he still felt uncomfortable. He wouldn't admit it but some part of him knew that he didn't like sitting in anything that felt like the seat of a vehicle.

"Thank you for your help." He twisted so he could see her as he reached up and put his hand on hers. "For everything. I know I have not been the best of company since I arrived." He let his hand linger a little longer than he really needed to before he pulled it away and tried to relax. "Would you mind bringing be me outside before you take me to physiotherapy? I want to get a bit of fresh air." He had not made any requests before, just went through whatever they had planned for his day and ate enough food to keep the doctors on his case but he would normally make some excuse to avoid eating more than he felt like.

There was a moment in her chest where she feared that a man so strong would let this small failure drag him down to the point of despair, but there was something in him that was stronger than the blow he'd taken. She had seen it when she'd watched him stare at the chair from his position on the bed and she'd seen the fire burn in him even while he'd been unconscious. The doctor had even remarked that he'd been one of the quickest to recover from such a traumatic injury. He wasn't without his horrors, though, and she could see it plain on his face.

His skin had paled by several shades in just that short time of moving from the ground to the wheelchair and she could see his face grow distant. Maggie couldn't bear to look. Instead, she turned her attention to her own slim hands wrapped around the handlebars and how tightly she held on, as if her own tenacity could help him with this. She was mildly surprised to feel his hand on her own, a touch that was more intimate than what she'd normally permit with her patients. The feeling of his hand leaving hers left her feeling strangely empty and she almost reached out to take it back, but the moment had passed and she let him go.

Instead, she changed her grip on the handlebars and focused instead on his request. "You know, I think both of us could use with some fresh air." She commented, kicking up the breaks gently before starting him out of the room. This was one of the first times he would be outside, and frankly he needed to see the sun. His skin looked pale from a mix of the sickness that still kept him weaker than he should be and the fact he'd been trapped in these four walls for... God, she couldn't even remember how long he'd been her charge.

"You know, I love the spring." She commented, though it was fall outside and she knew they would be walking outside into a crisp and beautiful landscape, "Spring is when everything comes to life. The flowers bloom, and everything wakes up." She smiled softly as she backed them both into the elevator. "You're a lot like spring."

The trip in the elevator was quick and he had not expected her to say anything so when she started talking about spring he looked back at her as he thought about her words. "That's a new one. I have been called a lot of things in a few different languages but new been called spring before." He drummed his fingers lightly over the armrests of the wheel chair as they moved through the hall and he thought about what she had said.

"If I am spring that would make you Persephone. Working you magic to thaw the world and ushering in spring again." He grinned a little as he spoke not really thinking that she might be able to see his reflection in the doors for a moment before they slid open to let them pass.

A shiver ran over him as the brisk fall air hit him for the first time. At least the first time since he had been conscious enough to really feel it. " I never thought a cool day like this would make me feel safe but I guess it helps to assure some part of my mind that I am about to wake up back in that oven."

He fell silent for a few minutes and just enjoyed the fresh air and the warmth of the sun whenever they would move through a patch of uncovered path. "Why did you choose this work? If you don't mind me asking." While Jake was curious to know the answer he needed some conversation to distract before he started to dwell on the fact that he could not do a simple thing like walk on his own now.

The reflection of a smile was possibly the most beautiful thing she'd seen in her life. There was something about the way his lips curved that made her heart feel like it wanted to leap out of its bone cage. She was caught for a moment in a paused breathless moment where she could have lingered. Instead, she pushed him out towards the fresh air of freedom and her now pink cheeks. She was trying not to put too much thought into it, but it was impossible to resist the way that his voice sounded when he talked about her.

"I think I can let you call me Persephone." She teased lightly, trying not to let her blush seep into her voice. It was easy on the outside for her to keep the mask of indifference, though she kept her attention mostly focused on him.

His question caught her off guard enough that she didn't answer immediately, her hands twisting on the handles of his chair. After a soft sigh, she finally shrugged. "I didn't have a great childhood. It was... Pretty bad, actually. My father had this disease... Munchausen by proxy. He made me sick. It was a nurse that saved my life from my father..." She hesitated, her voice catching on her words as she fought against her own emotions, "I guess I just wanted to pay it forward. If she saved me... That means there are other people that need to be saved, too." She said, hesitating, "Does that... Does that make sense?"

For a moment he thought he might have heard something in her voice as she teased him a bit about calling her Persephone, maybe just maybe it was defection that her heard. He tried to push it out of his mind not wanting to start thinking there was something between them. She was just doing her job and the being nice was just bedside manner for a nurse right?

Not wanting to believe his line of thinking he was just getting ready to make a joke about getting her a new name tag when she started to tell him why she had decided to become a nurse. His joke died in his throat as he listened to her story silently. He made a mental note to look up Munchausen by proxy next time he had access to the internet. He could hear the emotions in her voice and wanted so badly to do something to comfort her besides just speaking, but there wasn't much he could do so he took his time answering her as he tried to find the right words. "Making it your life's work to help others is a noble cause in all its forms, but your position must be one of the hardest. You must have seen many men and women come back broken mentally and physically. Then you are there at their side during the hardest part of their life."

Taking a breath to keep his own emotions in check he continued. "It makes perfect sense to me, and it shows an inner strength far beyond most of then men and women I have served with including myself." He twisted in on the seat so he could look her in the eye. "They may not say it but trust me you are the light seen in a storm showing us that there is land close." He gave her a weak smile, but it was full of warmth as he looked into her eyes. "I don't remember much from the night I arrived here, but I remember seeing you before I was put under and later when I wasn't quite awake yet. It gave me something to look forward to, and that meant more than I can explain in those first couple days." He held her gaze for a few more seconds not sure of what else to say before he looked away and started to turn away.

The outside air was cool and even still she felt like she was burning up as they talked. It wasn't a wholly unpleasant heat, but it was something she hadn't felt in a long time. It was a slow crackle that started deep within oneself and worked into a blaze slowly.She remembered this feeling from when she was young and in love the first time. It was the feeling of falling, inexorably emotionally tying oneself to another.

And it was all wrong for her to be feeling it for him.

He was still her patient, as he reminded her with his touching story, but his kind words did nothing to sway her from the fact that it was extremely inappropriate for her to want anything with him. But stll. She chewed on that thought for a bit and turned it over in her mind as she struggled with the way she wanted to word things. If he wasn't flirting with her, she could be slapped with a sexual harassment lawsuit and that played in her mind all too well with all of the possibilities that it could turn out great.

"Jake," They had left the main walking area and entered one of the gardens that was typically used for the dementia patients in the long term care wing that was on the opposite side of the hospital. Humor would do well, she thought, to help her decipher his intentions with his comments.

"Jake, keep talking like that and I might think you're flirting with me." She playfully teased as she parked him next to a bench and sat down at his side. "I'm sure you tell all the nurses this."

As Maggie stopped the wheelchair beside the bench Jake tensed his body readying himself to stand up. He just started to lift his body when he realized what he was about to do and frozen letting out the breath he had not realized he had been holding as he forced himself to relax back into the wheelchair.

He looked over at Maggie as she took a seat on the bench next to him. Jake's lips curled up into a small smile as she teased him playfully. He watched her for a few moments until she joked about him telling all the nurses what he had told her which caused him to laugh before he even thought about how to answer her. "Really? I tell all the nurses that?" Chuckling he shifted in his seat until he was a little more comfortable before he started to speak again. "Your the only person I have spoken to out of choice." He chewed the corner of the lip and interlaced his fingers letting his hands hang in above his lap. "Would it be such a bad thing if I were flirting with you?" While he had been flirting mildly with Maggie it had not really been his direct intention. He had wanted to tell her how important her choice to him and anyone who had passed through her hands.

Jake knew he would not mind exploring a relationship with the Maggie not that he could see why she would be interested in him. He was a broken mess and he doubted that would change anytime soon. How could he when he had lost the ability to walk not the mention the nightmares he kept having.

She saw him move out of the corner of her eye and her heart clenched in her chest. Her hand balled swiftly into a fist and she almost jumped up to keep him in his chair, but he remembered he wasn't able to stand. These were the moments that broke her heart and made her wish dearly there was more she could do. It hurt to see someone as strong as him kicked so low. He had been doing something that was so good and yet here he was, a good man damaged by doing a good deed.

He was still a good man.

And this good and wonderful man seemed to be so interested in her. She felt her cheeks flush as he admitted she was the only person he'd spoken to voluntarily and it made her... Think. In all of their interactions she had never thought that she was the one he'd spoken to most. She'd felt his eyes on her as she'd moved through the room while the doctor had been examining him or working with him. She'd been the person caring for him when he was at his weakest. She'd cleaned his dressings and washed his body as he lay sleeping and now.. Now she was left with questions.

She was silent for a moment as she chewed over the answer to his question, her eyes on the sky and fixated as she tried to put things in a way he wouldn't take offense ot it.

"Jake," She didn't look at him at first, her eyes reluctant to cross that distance.When they finally did land on him, she felt the intensity of his gaze, "I don't want you to think you like me because of... Of our position. I understand that you have been through so much and I have been here every step of the way with you... But I don't want you to mix gratitude and romance. You aren't obligated to like me because I've been your nurse."

Forcing himself to look away from Maggie as she looked up at the sky not wanting her to feel pressured to give him an answer. He took the time to look around the gardens they were in before he started to examine the chair in more detail then he had done previously. Jake wouldn't admit it but he knew that he would be spending a lot of time in this wheelchair or something similar at least so it only made sense to familiarize himself with it. It also helped that it kept him from trying to guess how Maggie would respond.

While she was reluctant to meet his gaze Jake didn't bother to try and keep his gaze off her when she spoke his name so he met her eyes as soon as she looked back at him. He kept his face devoid of almost all emotion forcing his face to fall into a calm and collected look that all decent soldiers mastered in their careers. It only took him a few moments before his lips parted with a denial on the tip of his tongue as his mask fell. He caught himself right before he had been about to speak. Averting his gaze he reached up with one hand and ran his fingers the side of his head as he gave her words some thought.

He didn't speak for a good minute but when he did he looked back at her. His eyes searching hers out before he spoke. "I want to say that it's not gratitude or at least not only gratitude. I want to say that but I feel like that would do us both a disservice." Pausing he laced his fingers together again. "I probably feel more comfortable around you because you were there the day I was brought in and so you're the one I notice. That being said I think there is more here and I, I would like to get to know you more if you are open to that. If not I understand and I will not bring it up again." He would be surprised if she flat out refused him just going off of what she had said but he was expecting her to not get involved with him in his current state. He had to pause for a second and wonder if that was just because he saw himself as broken but as much as he tried he could not see past what he was missing.

Maggie was terrified that everything she thought of the budding romance would come to be true and he would finally admit he only seemed to like her because of the inherent trust in the nurse and patient roles they had been assigned by fate. Her heart fell when she started to hear that acknowledgement from his lips, but it was a short fall. She let herself think of it kind of like planting. A seed had to fall in order for something new to bloom, and hope bloomed in her chest like a May flower, her cheeks pink as she thought carefully over her next words.

"I think that us getting to know one another would be a great idea." She said finally, because even still it was very young in their relationship for her to say anything more. Jake was a great man from what she'd seen, strong in ways that she wasn't and confident in himself above all else. She had come to admire the passion he'd shown in getting better and had seen also that there were tender pieces to his heart as well. She couldn't help but wonder what else would show under the layers of military training and the struggle of adjusting to a new life.

"Let's start with the basics, hm? Where are you from originally?"