Chapter Twelve

 

Kromin wasn’t sure how much time had passed, but he felt like it had been an eternity. Stitching was slow work, and even though Anya worked methodically and efficiently, the minutes dragged on and felt like hours.

It had not been hours. Not yet. Kromin knew that for a fact, because if it had been hours then Toryx probably would have been dead. His friend was not doing well, and honestly Kromin wasn’t sure that even stitching him up was going to save him. But Kromin would hold on to hope as long as the smallest bit of life remained.

It wasn’t easy to see Toryx like this. Kromin had seen his fair share of death as a doctor, but when he had to face the mortality of his own friends, it always hit him hard. When Maisie had given birth to Ayaan and things had been complicated, Kromin had felt like the world was caving in on him. And he hadn’t even known Maisie that long! Toryx, on the other hand, had been a part of Kromin’s life for as long as Kromin could remember.

You can’t die, buddy. You just can’t.

Kromin forced himself to stop letting his thoughts go down that track. He needed to stay focused and helpful for Anya’s sake. She was the one who really held Toryx’s life in her hands right now. Kromin watched as she continued her work, threading the sutures in and out of Toryx’s blue-gray skin. Her brow was furrowed as she concentrated, but she looked calm. Kromin wondered how he had ever doubted her ability as a doctor. She had proven herself over and over in the course of the last several weeks. She had shown that although her training might have been different than his, she could help patients just as well as he could. And his fears of her trying to take over his authority in the hospital had been completely unfounded. She wasn’t interested in taking over. She was only interested in helping the community, and in saving lives.

And the life she was saving right now was the life of one of Kromin’s most favorite people in the world. Her work was far from done, but it looked like Toryx’s vital signs were slowly starting to improve. There was hope, and Kromin’s heart clung to that hope.

As the minutes passed by, that hope continued to grow. It was a very slow growth, but Kromin gradually felt the fear that had been gripping his heart starting to give way. Toryx was going to make it. Zocronians were strong, and now that Toryx wasn’t rapidly bleeding his life away, his body was able to start the healing process. By the time Anya sewed up the final stitch on the final wound, Toryx’s skin had even started to return to an almost normal shade of blue. The gray tinge was fading completely away.

“Finished,” Anya said softly when that last stitch was complete. But Anya didn’t look up at Kromin right away, instead she kept staring down at Toryx, as though she expected the man to die at any moment.

“Hey,” Kromin said, reaching over to give her arm a soft squeeze. “Look. Look at his vitals. They’re improving.”

Anya finally looked up, and Kromin pointed at the console screen that had a readout of Toryx’s vital signs. The emergency warning lights had stopped flashing, and Toryx was almost to the point where you could list his condition as stable instead of critical. Anya stared at the screen in wonder for a few moments, then looked over at Kromin with tears in her eyes.

“He’s going to make it,” she said.

“Yes. He’s going to make it. And all because of you.”

“I just did what any doctor would have done,” she said with a dismissive shrug. But Kromin wasn’t letting her get away with things that easily.

“Sure, any doctor would have done their best to save a patient’s life. But there aren’t many doctors in the Seven Galaxies who would have known how to do stitches. It’s a lost art, and one that we like to laugh at in our ‘advanced’ medical schools. But you’ve proven today that just because we have skinsealer, that doesn’t mean we should forget about all the old ways of doing things. Any technique that might save a life is worth knowing, in my opinion.”

Anya blushed, her cheeks turning bright pink. Kromin wished he could go over and pull her into his arms, kissing her deeply and showing her just how proud he was of her. But they still had work to do. This operating room needed to be cleaned up, as did Toryx himself. Kromin needed to make a medicine dosage plan to make sure that Toryx was staying pain free and that all infections were warded off. And then, either Anya or Kromin himself would need to stay at the hospital tonight to keep an eye on Toryx and make sure that no complications suddenly arose.

There would be time later for kissing. But sludge it all if Kromin didn’t want more than anything right now to find an empty hospital bed and claim Anya for himself again and again. He wanted to make her scream out with pleasure. He wanted to show her just how much she meant to him. He wanted to make her feel like there was no one in the Seven Galaxies more deserving of love than her, because there wasn’t. She was truly special.

Later, Kromin chided himself, willing the stiffening in his cock to subside. Anya was already cleaning Toryx up, and it was time for Kromin to pitch in and help. He began cleaning up the surgical tools Anya had been using, and then moved to cleaning up the floors, wall, and equipment that had all become covered with Toryx’s blood when Daxar and Nova had first brought the wounded man into the room.

Kromin worked in silence, as did Anya. Both of them were lost in their work and in their own thoughts, until finally everything was done that needed to be done. Kromin looked over at Anya to see that she looked exhausted.

“You should go home and rest,” he told her. “I’ll take care of everything here.”

She started to protest, but he covered her mouth with his, cutting off her words. When he finally pulled back, her cheeks were even more flushed than they had been before the sudden kiss.

“Don’t argue,” he ordered. “You’ve done enough already. You deserve a break. Go out in the hallway and find Daxar and Nova. Tell them that Toryx looks like he’s going to make it, and that they can come in and see him if they want. Then you go home and sleep. You can take over for me in the morning.”

Anya looked like she might protest once again, but when Kromin raised an eyebrow at her she sighed and nodded.

“Okay. But I’ll be back first thing in the morning.”

“Take your time,” Kromin said. “Seriously. I’ll be fine here.”

“I know you will. But I don’t want to be apart from you. We’ve only just decided to spend the rest of our lives together.”

Kromin’s whole body warmed at her words, and he reached out for her hand, holding it tightly in his. “I know how you feel. And I can’t wait for all that’s to come. But for now, you need to rest. We’ll have time together soon enough.”

Reluctantly she nodded again and turned to leave. But before she could get to the door, Kromin reached for her arm and pulled her back. She turned to look at him, confused, and he pulled her closer, then put his lips on hers for another kiss. A real, deep kiss, where his tongue slipped past her lips and into her mouth, dancing with her tongue. His cock began to stiffen again, and he knew by her soft moan that she felt it through the fabric of their clothes.

“Are you sure I have to go?” she murmured.

Kromin pulled back and smiled at her. “Yes. Now go. I just wanted to give you a little something to think about until we’re together again.”

With that, he pushed her out the door, giving her a soft slap on the ass as she left. Waiting until they could be alone would be torture, but he knew that once he saw her again, it would have been worth the wait.

She had always been worth it, and he had been a fool not to see it earlier. But he was going to spend the rest of his life showing her that he’d had a change of heart. Anya was his now, and despite the hard times Zocrone was going through, that meant that life could not have been better.