To his credit, Craig had tried to bar the gawking girl from her current position as she hovered over Brady wincing in sympathy at every revealed contusion, laceration, or inadvertent groan of pain during patch-up duty constantly interrupting the exam with either another order of ‘be careful’ or a myriad of solicitations towards the highly amused and uncooperative patient such as ‘do you need your pillow higher?’, ‘are you thirsty, should I get you a glass of water, tea?’, ‘I can get Craig to give you a painkiller, Craig give him something already, he’s in pain dammit.’, and the like.

Dryly, the badgered physician compared the experience to taking a car ride with Nancy, thinking of his stepdaughter’s behavior as little better than her mother’s ‘backseat’ driving and equally as annoying.  Yet, each time he looked at Chloe, taking in the thin angry scratches marring her arms and neck, or the slight swelling along her jawbone, he felt his emotions confuse, the proof of the danger she was in causing his stomach to lurch in anxiety while simultaneously he felt weak with an intense relief that his girl was safe, relatively unharmed, and alive to irritate him.

Still, he also thanked God that he was almost done and nearly jumped for joy when Chloe whisked away on some unknown errand, her promise of ‘be right back’ urging him to wrap Brady’s ribs in record time. 

Donning the cool, authoritative persona of chief of staff he studied his patient critically.

“You should be in the hospital.  It’s quite possible that you could have a concussion, along with several broken bones, and I don’t even want to think about internal bleeding.  You need x-rays along with the type of care and facilities that I cannot provide here.”

“I am well, thanks to you Doctor Wesely.”  Serenely, the boy smiled as indifferent and placid as an underground lake.

It made Craig want to break each and every single tenant of the Hippocratic oath.

It simply wasn’t right that anyone, especially the man who had endangered his family and thrown his home into chaos, should be that blasé about these types of circumstances and injuries.  Nor was there any justice in the fact that his stepchild had suddenly fallen into some sort of sick hostage/kidnapper infatuation.  Thus, his good will snapped along with the adhesive tape around Brady’s abdomen being pulled too tightly, his satisfaction over the resulting grimace remaining unscathed even as Chloe returned, a wash rag slung over her shoulder, a pan in her hands, and a shocked scowl plastered firmly on her face.

“Hey!  Stop it! You’re hurting him!”  She screeched rushing to the bedside abandoning the pan on the nightstand, hovering once more.

At the black stare she shot him, Craig almost felt guilty, but all his anger reasserted when she timidly grasped her battered protector’s hand.

“No I’m not.  According to him, he’s hunky dory…isn’t that right son?” 

At Brady’s bewildered expression, Chloe gently explained.  “He means that you say you are healthy and well.”

“He is angry.”

“Yes, I think so.”

“My apologies.  I am sorry, Mr. Wesely, Chloe, for …trouble I have caused.  I would leave, go to the hospital, give you privacy Chloe, but I cannot protect you from the hospital.  When you saved my life, you…are my family, not to me only--to Ling also.  Mr. Wesely please understand Ling will try to hurt Chloe now more than before.  I would die to prevent it…I beg humbly for this honor.” 

At the earnest solemnity behind the boy’s gaze, Craig simply nodded accepting, before gently murmuring to his daughter to ‘take care of him’ and exiting the guestroom wondering how in the hell he was going to explain this mess to Nancy.

********-----------

“Take care of him.”

With a click of the door, he was alone with his little sun.

She shone, all grace, all light following her as she tenderly smiled, her eyes bright with unshed tears, wringing out a cloth as linen white as a paper lantern as smooth and soft as her milky skin to place its warmth upon his forehead, his pain dissipating the second her finger tips lightly soothed through his hair and then along his cheek.  Without warning, he captured her errant hand and brought it to his lips, engulfed in the blue storm of her gaze, enraptured in the airy touch of the kiss.

She didn’t pull away.

Instead his heart hammered as she removed the cloth, leaned over, her dark hair spilling tendrils around him, slipping her hand from his easy grasp to cup his chin while placing feather light kissing lips to favor first the upper then the lower half of his slightly parted mouth, ending it with a gentle kiss to the forehead.

And in the following silence as she wrung out the cloth, he contented himself in watching the rapid rise and fall of her chest and the glowing hue of her blush.